We Are Legend

A barefooted, dark-skinned man is sitting in a room, a green chair and two phonographs his only company. Papers are strewn around and wet dishes are waiting to be dried off. Chequered pieces of cloth are hung over wooden poles under the low ceiling. Photographs, clippings and notes pinned to the cork insulation of the wall, to coarse blankets shutting close the fireplace that seems too big and elegant for the cave-like quarters. And light bulbs, hundreds of them, attached to the ceiling like crammed bushels of glistening grapes, like the shining, multifaceted eyes of an insect, strings of them or single naked bulbs descending on cords from the ceiling. Only some of them are lit, around the sink and above one of the phonographs, but their cold white light outshines the muted sunlight trickling in through the small window high under the ceiling.

When Harry had woken earlier, Malfoy had been gone. There'd been no trace of the Blue Phoenix, either. Harry had put on his clothes that he found Spelled clean and folded on a chest beside the desk, then he had ventured down the stairs in search of tea. It was here, in the low, wood-panelled room, that he stumbled upon the Muggle artwork.

It was a photograph, mounted on a light box almost as high as Harry and at least two and a half metres wide. Hung on the wall just opposite the stairs, it was the only source of light in the windowless room. Harry didn't know much about Muggle art, but he had seen this work before. Long ago when he'd still done things like take the kids to the St. John's Day festival or on a trip to a Muggle museum. The light bulbs glowed like real Muggle lighting.

And why, Draco Malfoy, would you own such a thing?

The room was as large as the one above, but its low ceiling gave it a basement feel. Once it must have been the ringing room. Lined up against the walls Harry could make out the shapes of the enormous bells. A smaller one stood just to the side of the stairs, perhaps thirty inches in width. Harry sensed its magicked sound, a low-pitched melodious tone. A coat of arms – scales and cauldron below an ornamental strip of belladonna leaves – was embossed into the metal with the dedication The Gift of the High Order of Potions Makers, H. B. Prince Esq. Master, MDCCCLXXVI inscribed underneath. Malfoy had been a Potions Maker back when Harry had headed the Auror Office. He had been among the group of Death Eaters that had been sent to Azkaban for poisoning London's water supplies. Thousands of Muggles had died before the Unspeakables had come up with the antidote.

Harry took a sip from his tea as he stared at the Muggle art. It should feel alien but didn't – beside the iron stove and the ancient cupboard where Harry had discovered a silver tea caddy, half filled with Darjeeling, and expensive porcelain dishes, all adorned with the Malfoy crest. There were no pots, no pans, no food but a tin can of rusk, a brand that had gone out of business decades ago. Everything was spotlessly clean. Harry wondered whether Malfoy was down here much. He wondered, too, when Malfoy had moved into the tower and Transformed parts of this room into a kitchen. Clearly he hadn't used the adjoining bathroom in years. The water from the tap had run a rusty brown for several minutes before it cleared. And still – the dim room felt so much more like home than the lofty space above. The dark-skinned man on the photograph never turned his head, but Harry was sure he'd agree.

He put the cup down on the counter of the cupboard to examine how Malfoy had created the lighting effect. There was so much magic in the tower that anything electric was bound to malfunction. When Harry bent down before the picture, he heard the soft flapping of wings on the floor above. Seconds later Malfoy came down the stairs. He was wearing shoes and trousers under dark blue robes. The corner of his mouth twitched when he saw Harry staring at him.

With a nod towards the picture he said, "All that is left from the Tate's contemporary art collection, I'm afraid."

Harry rose. "Is that why you have it hanging here?"

Malfoy shrugged. "I like the light," he said simply as he stepped closer to the picture. Which really was the oddest thing to say for a wizard as proud of all things pure-blood as Malfoy was. As the old Malfoy had been, rather. The one Harry had thought to have died in Azkaban more than half a century ago.

He watched him, so much his former self with the expensive robes and the haughty posture, which signalled the pride of ownership as much as appreciation. His voice was still scratchy, but it sounded smoother than the days before. Also, Malfoy no longer spoke in one-syllable words. Something had happened last night, something that had made him remember his humanity.

As if he'd read Harry's thoughts, Malfoy turned to him. "I want to apologise, Potter. For not wearing any clothes around you." He dropped his gaze and if Harry was not mistaken, there was a blush rising to his cheeks. The words came out in a whisper. "Feeding you phoenix's food."

"I quite enjoyed the sight of your bare arse." Harry put a hand on Malfoy's shoulder. At once Malfoy leaned against him, as if he had been waiting for Harry's touch. When Harry tentatively put his other arm around his neck, Malfoy pulled him close.

"You certainly did," he murmured, seeking Harry's mouth.

They kissed almost shyly, and Harry shivered. Malfoy's lips were freezing cold. But his body underneath the robes was warm and solid in a way that made Harry want to touch his skin. "You went out?" he whispered.

Malfoy nodded and stepped out of the embrace. He lightly shook the right sleeve, then raised his arm, strangely illuminated by the Muggle picture, wand in hand. Harry would have been alarmed, but Malfoy stood perfectly relaxed, a smug smile on his face, as he held out the wand for Harry to take.

"You're giving me your wand?" Harry uncertainly reached for it. "But why? I mean, I've seen you do wandless magic, it's certainly not that y-"

The beating of a tiny heart. Rapidly, like a bird's. But with a mind behind it so vicious, no animal was capable of such malevolence. And was that really a smug smile on Malfoy's face? Or not rather a devious, scheming one? A smile that said as much as Soon I'll haul you in, Potter, and then it's the Dementors' Kiss for you? Harry could practically hear the snicker in that scratchy voice. Flash Man stinks! Malfoy had betrayed him to the Death Eaters, likely had cast the Killing Curse himself, brought him up here to play his sick games, used Harry's loneliness to get into bed with him, made him come like a horny school-boy without losing control once, without –

Harry flung the wand away from him. He stood with his back pressed against the cupboard, with no idea how he'd got there, his own wand drawn and at the ready. "It's a bloody Horcrux!" he screamed and was about to cast a spell, any spell – Protego, Finite, whatever, but certainly not Accio wand, because he couldn't bear to touch this … this thing again.

"Harry." Malfoy's voice. And again, softer, "Harry."

It brought him to his senses, calmed him somewhat. Broad daylight streamed down the staircase and he could see Malfoy clearly. He had gone pale, a distraught expression on his face. Their eyes met, then they both stepped towards the Horcrux. When Harry bent down before it, Malfoy reached for his wrist, held it firmly until Harry's hand stopped shaking. "You don't need your wand," he said quietly.

"This … on the floor …" Harry swallowed, pushed his wand back up his sleeve. It wouldn't protect him against anything the Horcrux could do to him.

He looked at the stick of darkly stained wood. It was much longer than both Malfoy's and his own wand. And definitely not hawthorn; he saw that now. Sensed, too, the Thestral hair vibrating within the core. He couldn't imagine what it would do to a wand to have a Horcrux forced into it, meld with it to some degree.

"It's the Elder Wand." His voice sounded incredulous even to himself. Never, since that first moment when Hermione had suggested that another Horcrux existed, had he imagined that Voldemort had chosen the Elder Wand to house this last sliver of his fractured soul. The Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny. It made so much sense.

Malfoy nodded silently, his eyes intent on Harry.

"Damn it, why didn't you tell me?" Harry snapped, unable to hold back the words. "Do you enjoy fucking with my mind, Malfoy?" His anger was always close to the surface these days, and he regretted the words the moment they had left his lips. The insinuations of the Horcrux were still vivid in his thoughts, but of course they were his own nagging doubts, not anything Malfoy had done.

And if he'd expected Malfoy to leave or revert to the taciturn bird-man creature, he was mistaken. Without losing as much as a beat, Malfoy shot back, "You're the bloody Master of the Wand, Potter. How should I know you'd freak out just touching it?" He sounded pissed off, but there was none of the younger Malfoy's venom.

Harry reached for him, an apology on his lips, when pain slashed through his scar like a barbed whip – danger, Horcrux, Potter –, Legilimency so forceful that Harry's mind was flooded by images against his will, thin broken bones, greenish-brown feathers strewn everywhere, the dragon figurine with the black stone eye, oddly twisted bodies lined up in a shadowed hall. The jumbled images were so familiar that Harry reacted by instinct, used his Occlumency and slammed up a wall against Voldemort's panicked, furious intrusion into his mind. He found himself on his hands and knees, groping blindly for the Elder Wand.

"So the Dark Lord found out that we have his soul." Malfoy's smile was positively devious now. He knelt in front of Harry, watching him curiously but touching neither him nor the wand. "That was fast. I underestimated your link into the Dark Lord's mind."

Harry tried to catch his breath. "The Dark Lord's link into my mind, rather." He sat up, and stabs of pain shot through his scar. "Shit," he sighed, rubbing knuckles firmly across his forehead. He was in for a major headache. Forced Legilimency always did that to him. "I don't even know why there still is a link. My body is no longer a Horcrux. I should have got rid of that monster back in the Forbidden Forest."

"When Mother saved your life."

Harry nodded. Malfoy knew all of that. This was old history, told and retold in every one of Skeeter's biographies. It had saved Narcissa from Azkaban. And perhaps Lucius Malfoy's life would have been spared, too, if he had publicly renounced his anti-Muggle-born agenda. But Lucius had been a pure-blood politician to the end, even funnelled the Malfoy money into the re-emerging Death Eater movement once it became evident that Voldemort was alive and kicking back. And as far as Harry knew, Draco Malfoy had shared all of his father's prejudiced beliefs.

"The Elder Wand may be the link," Malfoy said.

Harry stared at him. The … wand? "But how … I mean, it … I couldn't even keep the thing around."

He remembered all of a sudden that time long ago, when he'd been obsessed with the Elder Wand. When he had felt compelled to check on it, often four times a day. He had performed magic with it back then, against better judgement and against Hermione's advice. Never Unforgivables, but also never quite harmless Spells. One time, back in his Auror days, he had used it during the interrogation of a prisoner. Even today Harry wasn't sure what really had happened to make the woman, a high-rank Death Eater, spill names and the location of Voldemort's headquarters. It had been her confession which had led to the execution of Lucius Malfoy. In the end Ginny had persuaded Harry to store the wand at Gringotts. All that weirdness - Harry had thought it was the Elder Wand itself, when all along it had been the Horcrux's evil influence. "But … but I didn't even know the wand still existed until just now. I thought it was destroyed with the Gringotts vaults. It could not –"

But of course it could. The Horcruxed Elder Wand was lying in front of him, right there on the floor. Malfoy had brought it from somewhere. And nothing, absolutely nothing had survived the devastation of the vaults. Griphook had assured Harry of that. Which could only mean that Voldemort … that Malfoy –

Malfoy was watching him, waiting for him to figure it out for himself. Slowly Harry picked up the Elder Wand, the mental blockade firmly in place by Occlumency, so neither Voldemort nor this last piece of his soul could affect his mind. Malfoy rose, too, a smile on his lips. So the Dark Lord found out that we have his soul. We. A strong ally, Hermione had called him.

"Are you all right?" Malfoy came closer, still smiling. He put a warm hand on Harry's hip.

Harry stepped back quickly. "Where did you get the Horcrux from, Malfoy?"

Malfoy stiffened visibly. He turned towards the illuminated picture, seemed to study for a moment the Muggle at the centre of it. Then he shook his head. "I can't tell you." His voice was soft, but Harry could hear the steel in it.

"You took it from Voldemort, didn't you? You know where he is hiding."

Malfoy stared at him, hurt and disbelief flashed across his face. Then, from one moment to the next, all expression drained from it, as if Malfoy had put on a mask, shutting off his emotions by force of will. It was a skill Snape had perfected, one that the old Malfoy had never quite managed in school. He was good at it now, at least for the few seconds it took him to turn and start for the stairs. One foot on the bottom stair, he stopped. The daylight from above sharply outlined Malfoy's slender shape. From below, the glow from the Muggle picture caught in the silk trimmings of his robes, the polished leather of his belt. The thought came to Harry, unbidden and strangely familiar, that the line between phoenix and human dividing the tower room above was but one of many lines cutting through Malfoy's life. Last night Malfoy had trusted him completely. Why was it so hard for Harry to trust him now? Last night you were with the phoenix Animagus. This is Malfoy. Who has chosen his side long before the phoenix came into his life. Use him, Harry. Don't fall for him. Damn Hermione and her bloody impeccable logic. Harry couldn't argue with it, but logic brought you only so far. He was holding the Horcrux in his hand. And there was nothing logical about Malfoy giving it to him.

He stepped forward, when Malfoy started to speak, his back still turned to Harry. "We were … informed that the Dark Lord was about to set … Fiendfyre to Gringotts. When I … cleared the Malfoy vault, I cleared yours, too. I … I've always taken a special … interest in you." A short laugh, but it didn't sound happy. Malfoy's hand was curled in a death grip around the banister. His voice would break, go husky, he was clearly searching for words. But he was speaking quickly, eager to make Harry understand. "I found the Elder Wand and took it. I had been its Master once. I … I felt a certain … entitlement to it. The Dark Lord wanted it, but he came too late searching your vault. I … Phoenix thought it wise not to give … give him the Elder Wand. Back then he was still trying to get the Deathly Hallows … reunited." Malfoy stopped, he was breathing hard.

"The Invisibility Cloak is at Hogwarts," Harry said quietly. "He will never lay his hands on it." Give and take, one secret for another. It was what trust meant in this new world.

Malfoy turned to him, his eyes shining bright. His smile was uncertain, and clearly talking that much had exhausted him. His hand slid along on the banister, and he simply sat down on the stairs. With a few steps Harry was at his side and before he knew what he was doing, he put the Elder Wand to the side and gently stroked Malfoy's hair. Malfoy looked up to him in astonishment, turned his head into Harry's touch.

"It wouldn't work for me," he said with a nod towards the wand. "You… you said you couldn't keep it around, I couldn't either. Phoenix hates it. When you told me … about the missing Horcrux, I knew it had to be lodged in the wand."

"So you had it hidden somewhere away from the tower?" Harry sat beside Malfoy on the wooden floor, his back against the banister.

Malfoy nodded. "I can't tell you where," he repeated.

There was such stubbornness in his tired voice that Harry had to smile. "I got that, Malfoy."

"And I have no idea where the Dark Lord is hiding."

Harry looked at the wand, smooth elder on the aged pinewood of the stair. He had the Horcrux. Suddenly he felt so happy, he could have laughed out loud. He took the Elder Wand, threw it up into the air, made it spin just before it reached the ceiling, had it twirl above their heads like he had once seen a juggler do with silver batons in Diagon Alley, then caught it in his outstretched hand. He could be mistaken, but there seemed to be a light snap in the wood, a lessening of the tension in the Thestral hair.

Malfoy watched him, shaking his head. "You certainly have changed since Hogwarts, Potter."

"You just never knew me." Harry pushed the wand up his sleeve to lie beside his holly wand. "I've searched for this blasted thing forever."

"I figured as much." Malfoy got up, held out his hand towards Harry.

Harry let himself be drawn into Malfoy's embrace. Sunlight warmed his back, a sensation like an old, half-forgotten memory. The sun never shone in the Dark City. Malfoy's arms tightened around his waist, he said softly, "Breakfast, Potter? There are dates left. And raspberries. They are Phoenix's favourite."

Harry pulled Malfoy closer, kissed him softly. "There's one more thing," he whispered.

Malfoy stood very still, waited for him to continue.

"I need to know what happened to you. About Phoenix." Harry was trembling for no good reason, certain that Hermione would not have understood at all. This was not about anything logic could explain. "Will you tell me?"

Malfoy relaxed in his arms. "You really do want to know?" He sounded surprised, but then Harry felt Malfoy's light laughter against his hair. "I don't think I can tell you. Not like this, talking …" He took a deep breath. "But if you let me, I will show you."

*

Draco lies on a pile of rotten straw in the corner of the cell. He is naked but for a pair of soiled pants. His stomach is a hollow cave below his sharp ribs, his skin the colour of cheap parchment. There is no way of telling that his straggled hair was once blond. A blood-stained cloth is wrapped around his shoulder. Down the inside of his arm runs an angry red line that speaks of poisoned blood as clearly as the fever which burns him up. Flies feast on the bowl of food at the door. A constant trickle of water runs down the broken toilet.

The stormy rush of wings wakes Draco. He knows he is dying and mistakes the scarlet vision of Fawkes the phoenix for a fever dream. When he hears Dumbledore's voice, he thinks the old headmaster is Death. I've come to show you my mercy, Dumbledore tells him. The magical bird stares at him with hungry eyes, but when he comes close, he spills warm tears into Draco's wounds, makes him drink the tears, too. They taste sweet and fresh, like the purest water. As his wounds close and his blood is cleansed, Draco starts to think that he may survive after all. It is a miracle to him, nothing that he could have possibly imagined.

He feels no pain as Fawkes slashes open the skin at his side, just below his ribs. Fawkes spits a purple worm into the gash that closes at once. The worm feeds on Draco's juices, blood, lymph, gall, urine, the acids from his stomach. Well nourished, it brings forth feathers of a brilliant dark blue. Draco finds himself on a bare rock in the middle of a stream. Fawkes sits beside him in the bright light of the sun. Shine, bennu, he says in Draco's mind. Then the phoenix sings for the very last time in this world. His song is so beautiful that Draco, who has not shed a tear in years, cries like a child.

*

It was one of those rare mornings when the ever-present fog had burned off over the city. Leaning up on his elbow, Harry could see as far as Hyde Park and even the collapsed roof of Paddington Station. Malfoy was lying on the bed beside him, the mother-of-pearl buttons of his white shirt closed all the way up. They were both fully clothed, only their shoulders touching. He could still feel the soft pressure at his temples, where Malfoy had put his fingertips to facilitate Legilimency.

He had not shown Harry everything, had tried to hold back one memory that Harry guessed was not Malfoy's own. It had felt ancient, like something from another time, and certainly not human. Fawkes's memory, then, but even Fawkes had seemed too young for it. A city of white clouds, a fiery horizon, a ruby at the core of a blinding light – the images felt like they did not belong to the memory of one bird alone, but were rather passed down through the ages, from one phoenix to the next. Harry was sure Malfoy had not meant for him to see them, but they were so interwoven with the memory he'd shared with Harry that he couldn't help projecting them. And while Harry had felt Malfoy's despair, confusion and then his exhilarated joy, the one emotion that had gripped him whenever he caught a glimpse of the alien memory, was fear. Bottomless, gut-wrenching fear. Harry was certain that this was the reason why Malfoy did not want him to see this particular memory, but there was more. Malfoy was an accomplished Legilimens. Harry had seen what at least some part of Malfoy had wanted to show him.

He moved closer and put his hand on Malfoy's shoulder. Malfoy smiled with closed eyes. The sun was shining on his face, and Harry just had to kiss those pink lips. They tasted like raspberries and tea, and underneath, always, the sharpness of cinnamon.

"Malfoy," Harry whispered, "your phoenix – does it have a name? Like Fawkes, I mean?"

Their faces were so close that Harry felt the hitch in Malfoy's breathing, the sudden tightness around his eyes, before he opened them, features perfectly relaxed again.

"Draco," he said. He must have seen the puzzlement on Harry's face, for he repeated his own name. "Draco."

It took Harry another full second before he understood. Draco. The Blue Phoenix's name.

Voldemort's mighty bird was known to appear only at the height of battle, swooping into the enemy's fire, without a moment's hesitation, without consideration for life or limb – wing, he should say. Harry had heard tales if its daring attacks, flying into the bullet sprays from the resistance movement's ancient assault rifles, into the most forceful Stunning Spells that would have brought any other creature down. He had always thought there was some suicidal madness to the bird, as if Voldemort had Imperiused the Blue Phoenix.

Torwell had fought the Blue Phoenix once. She had told Harry how the bird had been saved from her Curse by a random Shield Charm, cast accidentally by a Death Eater nearby. She had never told Harry what Curse she had used, but Torwell had killed before, cast the Killing Curse when she felt there was no other way. It was everyone's choice, just as everyone in the movement knew the price there was to pay. A piece of your soul. Harry had seen the shadows in Torwell's eyes. He never doubted that she had used the Killing Curse against the Blue Phoenix, when the bird attacked the people under her command. But Torwell had been brave like that, reckless, trained by a life of war. Whereas Malfoy – Malfoy had always been a coward at heart.

Not the Imperius then, but a force perhaps even stronger. Malfoy wanted to move on, die finally, just as Harry wanted to. But Malfoy was not bound by an age-old prophecy; his life was ever extended by the reviving powers of his phoenix Animagus. Draco. And there was a way out, even, the way Fawkes must have taken.

The Room of Requirements, turned into a sea of flames, heat solid as a wall, Malfoy's thin scream, his sweaty, slippery hand, his panicked screams, What are you doing?, arms painfully tight around Harry's waist …

Harry suddenly wondered whether their meeting in the warehouse hadn't been all coincidence. Certainly Malfoy had not known that he would meet Harry Potter there. But maybe the Blue Phoenix had heard that Flash Man was leading the refugees. The world's most powerful wizard, as rumour went, more powerful than Voldemort even, some said. An enemy stronger perhaps even than the Blue Phoenix, an enemy who would finish what whoever injured its wing so badly had not fully accomplished. A coward at heart, but seeking death with desperate abandon. Anything but that all-consuming heat which had taken Crabbe, that frightful, merciless fire …

One thing about electric light, it was safe, controlled by a switch (or the swish of a wand, as the case might be), dependent on a tiny metal thread within a fragile bulb of glass. It was beautiful, too, in a detached, moonlight-on-snow way, the light bulbs glowing brighter than the sunlight even, in that hidden, jumbled, home-like place in the Muggle work of art. This light was nothing like the roaring chimaeras of Fiendfyre, nothing like that deadly heat, six thousand degrees on the surface of a dazzling sun.

But fire was the phoenix's destiny. And fire was the one place Malfoy dared not go.

*