Knives Out

Harry looked around the church at all of the pale-faced Muggles hunched over the pews in front of them, their lips moving in silent prayer over strings of plastic prayer beads. The carpet was blood red and led up to a square oak altar. Above them hung electric lanterns meant to appear old-fashioned and candle-lit. Each arched window was filled with another saint or a picture of Jesus looking benevolently down at followers, their faces the picture of calm piety. All around the church hung gruesome depictions of Jesus on the cross-- each one gorier than the previous. Jesus in agony, Jesus suffering for sins, Jesus with thorns in his head and a gash on his side, pinned to the cross with nothing but a rag to cover his shameful nudity. Harry wondered if this was all to be believed, how everyone thought the son of god had managed to keep his rags so artfully over his cock.

The priest, flanked by two altar boys, rushed up the aisle as the parishioners sat back in the pews. Draco nodded to Harry to move from his knees to do the same. One altar boy brandished a long pole with a cross, which he set into the altar. The other boy held a book and a small lantern-like object that a fragrant grey smoke burned from, he opened the book over the altar and both boys found their spots at the back of the stage. So far, nothing seemed out of sorts. \"I don\'t understand. It just looks like a regular Catholic service to me. What are you showing me, Malfoy?\"

Instead of explaining, Draco pulled a missalette from the oak cubby in front of him that also held a Bible and looked over the order of the service. He pressed his finger against the notation for Holy Communion and tapped it. The service carried on at a brisk pace. The monotone responses from the congregation sent chills up his spine. He kept his eyes on the page, following along as best he could through the rites. \"And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.\" Harry watched Draco\'s motions as he genuflected. He wasn\'t quite as fast or precise as the rest of the parishioners, but he appeared more than passing familiar with the rituals. Before Harry knew it, he was back on the pillowed kneeler.

The congregation rose and started to move in an ordered, well-practiced progression to the front to receive their bread and blood of the Christ. Harry had that same unsettling feeling that he\'d had in the diner, that there was something just a little... off... about these people. He figured that churches just made him uncomfortable since he wasn\'t religious. \"Did you convert?\" Harry whispered, noting that they weren\'t getting up to receive.

\"No. I wouldn\'t convert to what they are, Potter.\" Draco looked solemnly at the people passing and then to Harry. He raised his brows in a prompt for Harry to look at them.

A woman stumbled forward, bumping into a parishioner in front of her, but no one said a word. It was then that Harry noticed the vacant expressions on the passing faces. \"They don\'t look very happy.\"

Draco appeared to try to conceal a smirk at this. \"Well, they are at church. But aside from their obvious lack of joy in the lord, don\'t they seem a bit... stiff?\"

Harry shook his head, not in disagreement but in his lack of comprehension. Draco picked up Harry\'s hand and set it on the hand of a passing congregation member. It was cold and the man he\'d touched didn\'t even look at him in question. Harry jerked his hand back and looked at Draco in alarm. \"That\'s not poor circulation, is it?\" Draco shook his head. \"Inferi?\"

Though his face was grim, Draco couldn\'t help but get in a barb. \"Most of them. Yes, mostly Inferi, and they go to Muggle church. I always thought you had to be a bit brain dead to believe in a virgin birth, evidently they\'re completely dead. Close enough.\"

Harry slumped against the pew in front of him, shocked by this weird revelation. \"You would.\"

Draco leaned closer to Harry; his whisper tickled his ear. On another day, at another time, it would\'ve been arousing. Right this moment, it was little more than annoying as he was trying to suss out the situation. \"Oh come on, Potter. Don\'t tell me you believe that bilge about a one true god with his son and the holy specter that really, really loves you, but will throw you into hell for having a good toss? Hell, given what we are by nature, we\'d be burned at the stake.\"

\"For being gay?\"

Pulling back so he could poke his wand out of his pocket, Draco said, \"That, too.\"

Giving a dismal nod, Harry looked down at the gilded lettering of \"Holy Bible\" and realized that it was true. In spite of the good messages of \'love thy neighbor\' and \'thou shall not steal\' came a great deal of violence. Granted, there were far fewer stake burnings in recent years, but the eager piousness and hatred was still there. \"All right, but these aren\'t really people anymore, they\'re Inferi. Are you saying that all of Christian atrocity has been committed by witches and wizards using dead Muggle bodies?\"

\"That\'s a bit ambitious, don\'t you think? No. Alas, Muggles are perfectly capable of cocking up their own belief systems and killing one another sans Wizard intervention,\" he said as he cast his eyes over the congregation who were being blessed by the priest at the altar, each taking their body and blood of Christ and retreating to their pews noiselessly.

Harry looked around, but as far as he could see, the church looked as bland as the one that his surrogate family on Privet Drive had reluctantly taken him to for holiday services. Just as dead and morose as any church service he\'d ever attended. He wondered if they were all secretly filled with Inferi. But no, he\'d seen lively people, people he\'d known to be alive in those churches. When he came to from his reverie, he noticed that a few of the cow-eyed Inferi were staring at them. \"I don\'t think it\'s going over well that we didn\'t take part in their ceremony.\"

Draco grabbed Harry\'s hand and dragged him out of the pew and down the aisle. Harry looked back at the Inferi who were slowly turning to follow them. His heart pumping erratically at the threat of being caught, he chased Draco out of the vestibule and into the early morning light.

They whipped around the corner after a half block run and Apparated back to the spot next to Harry\'s flat. Harry looked wildly around them, they could\'ve been seen using magic, they could\'ve been followed, but it appeared that nothing of the sort had happened. Draco was already racing up the stairs and stood at the top, beckoning Harry to disable the wards to get them to safety.

After following up the stairs, Harry excitedly recited a series of incantations that let them inside. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it. Staring at the ceiling, he thought about what he\'d seen. This wasn\'t the first time that Inferi had been used as an army and there were certainly enough of them to be concerned. Hearing the fridge open and close, he figured Draco was getting some water. He kicked off of the door and then flopped onto his dark brown couch, followed by Draco. Harry pushed his glasses back up his nose and carded his hand through his damp hair.

Draco returned from the kitchen and leaned against the couch. Deathly pale and still panting, he held the open water bottle against his forehead to cool himself. Harry found it curious that Draco spent all his time at dance clubs but somehow was winded from a run up the stairs. There were more pressing matters than Draco\'s stamina, however. \"All right, so it\'s a church full of Inferi. So the questions now are why and how?\" Harry asked.

Taking a long swig from the bottle, Draco looked pensive. \"The \'why\' isn\'t something I can answer. Nor is the \'how.\' But they\'re very good questions to ask. I\'d like to know myself. That said, I think that the \'how\' might have to do with the Eucharist.\" Draco drained the bottle and set it down. \"The ritual itself is common enough. I\'ve been to surrounding churches, there\'s nothing magical or binding about it. So I figure it must be a potion of some sort. But I don\'t know. It\'s happening pretty fast, whatever it is.\"

Harry picked up the empty and trotted to the kitchen to grab another. He came back and handed the fresh one to Draco. It gave him time to think, plus Draco had gone even paler. Harry hoped the water would help. He petted down Draco\'s hair as he watched him gulping down the water. \"How can there be so many of them in that church, though? There had to be, what, 150 people. They\'re all just missing? Why isn\'t anyone alarmed?\"

Draco looked up at Harry and patted the spot next to him for him to take a seat, which he did. He finished the bottle of water and Harry set it on the side table. \"You noticed the area we were in, right? The clubs around there? That church is in the heart of a gay community, isn\'t it?\"

Harry nodded his assent.

\"That mass was practically standing room only. Kind of unusual considering the church is sitting in the middle of what they would call sin central. Curious place for a thriving congregation.\"

\"You said they\'re Inferi, right? So they wouldn\'t have much choice.\" Harry watched Draco\'s expression, trying to suss out what he was trying to say since he wasn\'t answering his question directly. \"I guess the strangest part of it would be why someone would fill a church with Inferi. What difference would ministering to the soulless make?\"

\"Exactly. It wouldn\'t make a difference.\" Draco nodded at Harry slowly to encourage him, but appeared too tired to do much more.

\"Well, all right, so these are all \'former people\' still moving, carrying on in their former duties. But don\'t their families notice that they\'re zombies? They can\'t really be themselves, right?\" Harry continued to slide his fingers through Draco\'s hair, splaying it out over the back of the couch as Draco\'s breathing began to slow.

Draco turned his head, opening his good eye to look at Harry. He did nothing to hide the bitterness in his tone. \"When do families ever want you to be yourself? Say you have someone in your family that you consider odd in some way, someone unlike you. Then one day they\'ve started going to church and react in all the ways that everyone else in the world does. Why don\'t you tell me why is it that the families of those people haven\'t noticed a change in their loved ones?\"

\"Unlike you? What? Family doesn\'t want you to be happy?\" It puzzled him what Draco was getting at. Didn\'t family love and accept you for who you were? Then he thought of the Dursleys. After the realization dawned on him, Harry swallowed and then looked dejectedly into his lap. \"Because those people were... gay.\"

Draco exhaled and closed his eyes again and pressed his lips together.

Harry stilled his hand in Draco\'s hair. \"Their families aren\'t questioning it, because... because... they\'re happy that their loved ones are going to church and otherwise... not being homosexuals. But Malfoy, there\'s so many! How could so many people... wouldn\'t they be upset that someone they loved just suddenly changed... well... everything in their lives to become everything they weren\'t?\" Harry brought his hand back and then slouched against the couch, mimicking Draco\'s posture.

\"Given all you\'ve seen and done, the fact that you still want to believe in people is admirable.\" Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. \"But it will be a hindrance here. This is about as depraved behavior as I\'ve ever seen. And I\'ve seen a lot. Religion seems to do that to people. The wizards and witches running this... they know what they\'re doing. Appealing to zealots will... well... it can get you pretty far.\"

Keeping his eyes closed, Harry thought of the ceremony. All of those people, all of those families who turned a blind eye to the changes in their relatives, probably rationalizing that they\'d somehow seen the light. He wondered what those conversations were like. Did they testify that God helped them see the error of their ways? The thought made him feel ill.

On needy impulse, Harry pulled Draco to him and rested his head in his lap. \"I suppose so.\" He traced Draco\'s features tenderly, and congratulated himself at how soothed Draco appeared. Then he heard the light snore.

At times like these, he forgot that Draco was terribly sick. It must\'ve been a big exertion for him. But at least Harry knew what Draco knew so far and that would have to be enough for now. He grabbed the throw blanket from the back of his sofa and unfolded it over Draco. He picked up the remote and flipped the telly on and lowered the volume so as not to wake Draco. [

--

Harry held Draco\'s platinum hair from his face as he got sick into the toilet again. Draco\'s body was clammy and sweat-covered, and his skin was so pale that it was nearly translucent.

\"Fuck,\" Draco announced between gut-wrenching seizures.

Harry wished there was more he could do beyond just sitting there holding his hair back and dampening the back of his neck with a cold, wet washcloth.

\"Can I get you anything?\" Leaving the towel on the back of Draco\'s neck, he caressed his fingers up and down Draco\'s spine.

\"I need my potions.\" He turned his head to eye Harry warily.

\"Tell me where they are.\" Harry\'s expression was determined. He\'d move heaven and earth to get Draco what he needed.

\"In my flat.\"

\"Where is that?\"

Draco shook his head. \"Fidelius protected. You\'d never find it. The secret keeper would have to tell you where it is, and if you\'re going to see Snape, you may as well get fresh potions.\"

Harry set his jaw. I don\'t know where Draco is, indeed. \"Snape\'s your secret keeper?\"

His response was to give Harry an irritated look as if that were the obvious conclusion to what he said and then he became ill again.

As much as Harry didn\'t want to see Snape again, he\'d do it if he had to. He didn\'t fancy leaving Draco alone like this, however. Dabbing the enchanted cold cloth over Draco\'s forehead, he sighed as Draco flushed the toilet again. They watched it whisk away the lemon-yellow bile.

\"Will you be all right while I go for a few?\"

\"No.\"

\"I can\'t get you your potions if I don\'t leave...\" Harry squeezed some of the water from the towel onto Draco\'s hair and used it to slick his hair back. After a moment\'s thought, he remembered a rubber band at his desk and returned with it.

\"That\'s going to yank all of my hair out by the root. Don\'t make me kill you.\" He lurched threateningly over the porcelain bowl but didn\'t end up retching. He rested his head on his folded arms and let out a shuddering sigh.

\"So you need your potion, but you don\'t want me to leave. You don\'t want your hair covered in vomit, but I can\'t tie it back. Draco...\"

\"Are you a wizard or not?\" Draco fished his wand out of his pocket and cast a charm that kept his hair back from his face.

Harry watched the hair all at once gather into a ponytail and tossed the band into the bin. \"Well, my hair isn\'t that long. I never had a need to know that grooming charm.\"

\"I\'d be surprised if you know any grooming charms. Or cleaning charms. Your flat is a mess. You\'re a mess.\" This time Draco heaved again, but nothing came out.

Harry counted to ten, reminding himself that Draco was just irritable. \"I\'m going to go visit Snape.\"

\"No,\" grumbled Draco. He gagged again and then inhaled to strengthen himself. \"I have a...\" he looked Harry over again, somewhere between wary and weary, \"Portkey.\" His hand slid into his pocket again and he fished around for a small vial of an evil-looking gritty green potion.

\"Why didn\'t it,\" Harry gestured with his hand to indicate vanishing.

\"It\'s charmed not to activate until I say a certain word. You can\'t very well be running about with a loose Portkey in your pocket, or every time you put your hand in your pocket you\'d disappear home, wouldn\'t you? Grab on my waist.\" He glanced over Harry again a little nervously. Harry wondered if Draco was worried about him seeing his flat.

Wrapping his arms around Draco, he closed his eyes, preparing for the disorienting travel. \"All right.\"

\"Scarhead.\"

Harry looked up. \"What?\" He was cut short by the spinning sensation of travel and then found himself in a rather sparse, modern fashionable flat.

Draco squirmed out of his arms and was getting ill into an emptied vase, unable to make it to the bathroom in time. Harry took the opportunity to look around Draco\'s flat. It wasn\'t what he would\'ve expected given the traditional style of the Malfoy Manor. Instead, it appeared to be a largish, hardwood floored two-bedroom which allowed Draco a separate room for an office. It was minimally furnished with a quaint, squared couch made of leather and interesting v-shaped chairs that looked like a designer\'s space-aged vision of thrones. The fixtures were brushed steel and appeared handmade and therefore slightly imperfect. There were a few tastefully bold pieces of art on the walls, one of which was signed D. Malfoy. Harry raised his brows and watched the pathetic scene of Draco hanging over the vase.

It appeared that Draco was done for the moment and Harry helped him up. \"Bathroom.\" Draco directed them to his bedroom that was no less the picture of contemporary living, as if out of a glossy idealized furniture design catalog. They staggered into the large bathroom. Draco made for the cabinet and pulled out a series of potions and downed them one-by-one after Harry pulled the stoppers out. He then sat on the closed-lid toilet seat and let his head fall back against the back of it. Immediately the color started to come back into his cheeks.

\"Your flat is really nice.\" Harry took a seat on the side of the tub. It was made to resemble the traditional claw-foot tub, but appeared to stand on stick-like stilts that seemed unlikely to bear much weight.

\"Not everyone wants to live in a pigsty, Potty.\" He smirked, eyes still closed, as he appeared to be thoroughly enjoying not feeling ill anymore.

\"The way you were looking at me, I thought maybe your whole protest about my place was projection. I figured your flat would be a wreck.\" He looked around the lush bathroom. It was full of tropical plants that would enjoy the humidity.

\"If that\'s the measure of your investigative skills, I\'m going to have to find someone else to embark on this venture with. Alas, no, Potty.\" Draco opened one eye to look at Harry. \"Your home is disgusting all on its own merits, above and beyond the average. I just wasn\'t sure I wanted you smelling up my home.\"

It was time to drop that subject before Draco\'s snark insulted him. \"Why don\'t you carry spare potions with you?\"

\"I do. I ran out. I actually didn\'t anticipate running into you last night, nor staying the day with you.\" Feeling well enough, Draco sat up again and leaned forward.

\"It had been ten days. I never saw you taking any potions.\"

\"Ten days? Really?\" Draco looked very tired again. He exhaled and then reached out to touch the glossy leaf of one of his tropical plants. \"I lose track sometimes.\" The admission was sad, lost sounding, but Draco pulled himself together again quickly. \"I\'ll alert you next time I\'m taking potions, make a big performance of it. Maybe we could sell tickets for extra income.\"

\"That\'s not what I mean.\" Harry was bothered that Draco would lose days like that. He wanted to ask so many questions now, but he wasn\'t sure if it was fair or appropriate. Not that things like that mattered to him usually. \"How sick are you, Draco?\"

Pulling on the leaf, Draco yanked it off and then started to slowly tear it into strips, discarding each perfect one as he went. \"Sometimes I can\'t get out of bed. I just summon the potions to me or call Severus to... help.\"

The name rankled Harry, but it wasn\'t as if he was around. \"You can call me now. What... what\'s in the vial you use as a Portkey? Shouldn\'t that be the last reserve of potion for you to feel well enough to come home?\" He understood the logic of a Portkey to get home. Obviously Draco was too sick to have Apparated home on his own.

\"That is not a medicinal potion. It\'s a... \" he frowned and looked around the room, his eyes seeming in total synch for a moment before they again split focus. \"A very extreme sedative. In case I\'m really... very stuck and... well, it\'s just something I\'ve had since my Death Eater days.\"

\"A suicide potion? For... like what they give to spies in case they\'re caught?\"

Draco nodded gravely.

\"Oh.\"

It was a relief when Draco stood and stretched, rubbing his stomach as if nothing had happened. \"Well, now that I\'ve purged, it\'s time to binge again. How about something for dinner?\"

Again, Harry felt like little other than a dirty cliché of a bachelor compared to Draco. His kitchen was surprisingly stocked with food, not just condiments and paper plates. After finishing their omelets, which Draco prepared with a series of charms so as not to actually get his hands dirty, Harry noted, they sat back at the chrome and lacquer table. Harry had to ask the question that had been in the back of his mind all this time. He didn\'t care if it was rude; he had to know. \"How did you end up... how were you infected?\"

\"It wasn\'t from transfusions, if that\'s what you\'re getting at.\" Draco dabbed his mouth off with the napkin again and then set it to the left of his plate as a crowning gesture to the end of his meal. His cutlery was set in diagonally over the remnants of the food, as signal to a servant that he was finished. Half of the omelet still remained.

\"No, you know what I\'m getting at.\" Harry covered his food with the linen napkin completely, as if it were a corpse that needed to hide its shameful deadness from public view.

Draco gave Harry a disapproving look, but said nothing about it. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, speaking from behind his palms. \"Well, you might just say that my lack of knowledge about Muggles bit me on the arse. Father always said that Muggles were filthy, diseased creatures. I just didn\'t realize how literal that was. Or maybe I did and I just didn\'t care.\" His hands moved from his face to make a flippant motion. It didn\'t matter now what he thought of Muggles. He would die either way.

After a long silence, where Harry expected Draco to go on, he sat up, rearranging his plate with the cutlery like Draco\'s and the linen folded properly. \"All right, so you just didn\'t know. That doesn\'t explain why you were... with Muggles.\"

Touching his lips, Draco watched Harry rearranging his plate, but didn\'t appear to be particularly impressed with the gesture. \"I suppose I could set out some reasons why I think I did it. I can\'t say that I spent a lot of time plotting my actions after witnessing father getting the Kiss. Maybe it was rebellion from the life I\'d been in. Maybe it was just easier to bed people who didn\'t know me, after all, who would want to shag a nefarious traitor? No, that\'s not it. Plenty of people wanted to shag me or talk to me or get my story to write for the paper or a novel or... whatever. I just wanted to escape. Millicent had just had Ursius and he was screaming all of the time. It was... an escape.\"

\"Not such a great escape if you end up dead from it.\"

\"Ironic, no? Trapped by my own escape. Such is life.\" Draco pulled his wand to move the dishes to the sink where they washed themselves and found their places in the shelves. Harry wasn\'t sure he\'d seen anyone use magic as much as Draco Malfoy did. It was either brilliance or gluttony. That seemed to sum up Draco.

Harry leaned in on the table, resting his chin on his hand as he watched every expression on Draco\'s face. They seemed to flit between pain and moments of amusement. \"Do you know who infected you?\"

Draco nodded. \"I do.\"

\"Even after so many bathroom trysts?\"

The sharp look that comment received made Harry blush. \"You don\'t know how many there were, or how much time I\'ve ever spent in that bathroom, do you? You\'re making a lot of assumptions. But you always did jump to conclusions based on what little you\'ve seen.\"

Harry\'s hand dropped from under his chin to the table. His tone was stern. \"I could say the same about you. You don\'t know what I\'m thinking. I\'m asking. Besides, it\'s not as if you\'ve worked to give me loads of information.\"

\"You\'re assuming that I just slept with whomever I met.\"

\"Just last night I pulled you off of... what was that guy\'s name?\"

\"I\'ve no idea.\"

\"That\'s the point, Draco. You didn\'t even know that guy\'s name! You pulled me into the bathroom immediately...\"

Draco\'s expression was annoyed, but beyond that, unreadable. \"Well, draw whatever conclusions you want. I\'m not going to argue with you about it. You can accept that I know who infected me or don\'t. It\'s immaterial what you think.\"

Those words struck Harry hard, and his chest felt tight. Draco didn\'t care what he thought? He swallowed hard and resisted the urge to dump the table on him. He bit his bottom lip to restrain himself. Tightly, he asked, \"So what happened to that bloke? Did you top him off?\"

Sitting back against the hard chair, Draco shook his head. \"He was already topped off when I found him. I\'ll admit the idea had its appeal at the time. But no, he was dead when I found him. Well, mostly dead.\"

Harry\'s brows rose. \"Mostly dead?\"

\"Let\'s just say he found god.\"