Redeem Me

DISCLAIMER: Warning! I make no claim to any property of J.K. Rowling's, and am in no way profiting by this. I do offer her my sincerest thanks for allowing us this garden of the mind in which we play. Further Warning! This story...and likely any I ever write…are dominated by gay themes and characters. That's how it is, if this in any way makes you uncomfortable...do not read further.

Redeem Me…by Samayel

Chapter 58: Panic In London


Draco stepped out of the Floo and flicked his wand to activate the lights. The offices were dark and empty, and the others likely wouldn’t be here until an hour or so had gone by. For now, it was just himself and a pile of paperwork for company, and that was to his liking.

Harry’s sudden reaction to sex, and Draco, had been a cruel slap to Draco’s fledgling sense of self-confidence. He’d been feeling so good and so alive until this morning’s disaster, and truth be told, it hurt all the more precisely because he was so capable of feeling good. He was still biting his lip to keep from tearing up on the way to his office. A few days ago he’d have probably fallen apart on the spot, but now he at least had the strength to maintain a shred of his composure.

The note he’d left had been enough. Just a quick acknowledgement that he was fine and went to work early, would pick up lunch in Diagon Alley, and a plea for Harry to not worry about him, since he’d be home just after five like usual. He hadn’t dared to sign it with more than an impersonal ‘D’, although part of him had wanted to include the word love somewhere in the mix. If he’d done that, though, he’d likely have never made it out of the house.

His paperwork and files were just as he’d left them on Thursday, and true to form, without his insistence, the latest paperwork hadn’t been brought in for review. Draco huffed irritably and headed for Fred and George’s office. It was like pulling teeth to get anything done on time here, but at least they’d started getting a sense of what was required of them to make his job run smoothly. Since he was actually early, and had missed Friday, he supposed he couldn’t really blame them for not having it ready yet, but his mood was just foul enough to make him want to blame someone…for something. Anything really. Anger seemed better than the tears that were threatening to emerge at any moment.

Fred and George had left their office fairly clean, and Draco’s much needed reports were nowhere to be found. A Muggle-style filing cabinet was the repository of all their records, and a simple Locking Charm was all that protected it. With his natural talent, Slytherin heritage, and exceptionally powerful wand, the spell didn’t stand a chance against him. A few seconds later, Draco was flicking through the folders hastily, searching for the most current income and expense tallies. The last folder in the file made his blood run cold when he opened it.

Clippings from wizarding papers. Lists of names. Columns regarding the spectacular deaths of Death Eaters. One list was populated by names that Draco knew by heart. They were all Death Eaters, and certain names had been crossed off. Less than a dozen remained clear, and the sight of his uncle’s name, as well as MacNair’s and Hyde-Pratt‘s, sent a shiver down his spine.

There were other notes. These were records of movement. Informants all over England had been sending discreet notes to the twins for more than a year. This was how Harry found them…it had to be. George and Fred weren’t just privy to Harry’s activities, they were the source of his ability to track down Death Eaters anywhere in England. The operation of an informant network must have cost a fortune in bribes, but the twins certainly had that kind of money to spare. It all made sense. Draco closed the file and made ready to put everything back as it was. This was too serious to risk…

“Care to explain what the hell you think you’re doing?”

Draco started at the voice that came from behind him and whirled around. It was George, and his magical eye was already hovering in front of Draco’s face, even though George himself had just entered the room.

“I…I came in early. I didn’t have this week’s new paperwork. I didn’t…mean to…”

“Didn’t mean to what? Unlock a spelled cabinet without invitation? Open up files that have nothing to do with your job?”

George had never looked so dangerous. There was an ice cold gleam in the eye that was still natural, and the set of his shoulders suggested a willingness to do whatever was necessary to protect his secrets. The Weasley twins were famous pranksters, and devils on the Quidditch pitch, but this was the first time he’d ever seen one of them as a veteran wizard and former member of the Order of the Phoenix, the clandestine organization that had spearheaded the war against Voldemort.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think it would hurt anything. I was just going to put it back where it was and forget I ever saw it. I swear it. George…you have to believe me. I never meant to see that. I just wanted my files.”

George took a few steps forward casually, wand held at his side, ready for action in a heartbeat. The eye that hovered in front of Draco zipped back and inserted itself into the stylish metal track that was attached to George’s head. He looked at Draco speculatively.

“This eye has a few improvements over Moody’s. I can see through walls when I want to. I can also see the heat people give off when I choose. I can see in the dark like a cat. I can also see when people are lying or telling the truth. Handy thing, having an eye like that. I know you mean it, but there is a price for what you know. Silence. Absolute fucking silence. I’ll be taking an oath on that…on your wand. Swear it. Now!”

George had his wand up, and there was no doubt in Draco’s mind that an Obliviation was coming his way if he didn’t swear the oath in a matter of seconds. He held his wand up sideways in the ancient gesture of peace.

“I swear that I won’t reveal what I learned today. Not to anyone. On my word as a wizard. I swear so on my wand.”

His wand flashed for a second, and the oath was binding. George lowered his wand and moved to his chair.

“Why were you here so early? And remember, I’ll always know if you’re lying to me.”

Draco shuddered. The tension in the room could have been cut with a dull knife, and even relaxed, the image of George Weasley ready for extreme measures hadn’t dissipated in the slightest.

“It was kind of personal. Harry…wasn’t feeling well, and I was upset, so I came here to get away. I only got here a few minutes ago. I just wanted to forget about home for a little while and get some work done.”

George nodded distractedly, pulling papers from his desk and getting a quill ready.

“I’ll be informing Fred about this after he gets here. We take turns coming in early and getting the place lit up and ready for the day. Your paperwork was on Ella’s desk, ready for you when you wanted it. I hope you know that the fact that you’re still alive right now is entirely owed to Harry and Mum. We trust you not to rock the boat, or you’d be dead or Obliviated nine ways from Sunday by now. You aren’t the ferret from school that we all remember, but don’t think you can just poke your nose into anything you want, Harry’s boyfriend or no.”

Draco sat down on the guest chair in front of the twin’s giant desk, sighing heavily. This was an overdue conversation, and he wasn’t in the mood for it, and his headache was quickly going from faint to heavy, but he’d have to just wing it and see if he could get something useful out of this mess.

“George. I’m really sorry. I didn’t think I’d see anything like that, but there’s something you should know. I know a lot more than you think about what Harry’s been up to the last year or so, and I’ve kept his secrets too. I didn’t know how much you two knew, or I might have talked about this before…about Harry.”

“What about Harry? We’ve been with him since the Order days. Tricks, Charms and devices were our contribution. Information services took most of a year to get working worth a damn, but that’s our end of it now. Harry does the wetwork, and no one does it quite like him. Try to remember that you’re the newbie here, and if I take your opinion with a grain of salt, it’s because we’re all very damn good at what we do. Complaints can be forwarded to the Complaint Department.”

George pointed at the trash bin beside the desk. Obviously he was fairly hostile to being lectured about what was right or wrong. Draco needed to frame this in a way that wouldn’t immediately offend George, and he thought carefully about how to approach his subject.

“Harry isn’t well. I’m worried about him. Once I noticed that something was wrong, I did my homework, and I know that Harry isn’t entirely healthy. I want him to be well. I think what he’s been doing has taken a toll on him. He has nightmares…and headaches. He gets…angry easier when he hasn’t killed for awhile. He’s so powerful that the atmosphere around him changes when he’s really mad. Don’t you think he should stop doing this? Not because of laws or right or wrong, but for his own health.”

George looked up, scanning Draco for any sign of lies. Draco was relieved that he was being taken seriously and not dismissed out of hand. George looked slightly disgruntled, then looked back to his paperwork and grabbed a quill.

“We all have nightmares. We all get angry sometimes. Harry is powerful. That’s why he can do what he does. Without him, we wouldn’t be looking at a few renegades, we’d be looking at an army of killers and rapists running loose while the Ministry fumbled around with blinders on. I’m sure you mean well. I know you’re keen on Harry, but he’s a tough nut to crack. He’s not as fragile as you might imagine. Poof or no, Harry is probably the most dangerous wizard alive, and I doubt he’s falling apart over a few dead murderers.”

Draco bit his lip. He hadn’t told George the most compelling evidence, in part because he wasn’t sure it would be believed. Some of it involved his oath to Dumbledore, which prohibited letting knowledge of Horcruxes fall into other people’s hands. He was fairly sure that, even without that critical knowledge, he could get the twins to see reason.

“There are so few of them left. The Ministry caught one a few weeks ago. I’m sure Tonks is working her hardest at it. I wouldn’t tell you that I’m worried about Harry if I hadn’t seen things with my own eyes that made me worry. I’m distant enough from all of this that I can look at it and care about just one thing…Harry. Kingsley is onto Harry’s activities and he knows what’s happening, and even the press has a clue for once. Harry is in danger of taking the fall for all of this. If you don’t believe anything else I say, then believe this one thing. I need him. Harry is the one person I care the most about, and I don’t want him to get hurt, or wind up in Azkaban. You can see that that’s true, can’t you?”

George sighed heavily, his jaw clenched shut tightly. He stared at Draco with both eyes for a moment, then put down his quill. He pushed the slim metal track that held his magic eye up and over his head, displaying the scarred socket that had once held his original eye. His voice was a tense whisper.

“This is what I can see. Get it? When I can look at my sister’s face, with the eyes I was born with, then I will consider seeing things a little differently. I respect your feelings for Harry, and Fred and I always wondered if he’d find someone for himself someday. You weren’t expected, but you turned out alright. It’s quite a compliment for me to say that, really. Because our personal goal is to see everyone else who wears that Mark buried six feet underground or locked in Azkaban. This world doesn’t need them, and Harry has the strength to take them out of it. That’s what I can see. This conversation is finished, Draco. Your paperwork is on Ella’s desk.”

Draco bowed his head and stood to leave. George was a lost cause. He’d lost too much in the war to forgive and forget, or let the Ministry handle things while he had the means to do more than they could. There would be no help coming from this corner. He plucked his paperwork from Ella’s desk on his way down the hall and made his way to his office. At least he had Dula and Snape in his camp. It was clear that helping Harry would take more than just his lone efforts, and this was all he thought of while he whittled away the hours until lunch. Better that than to think of what Harry felt about him.

The joyful memory of Harry’s naked body so close to his own, and the warmth and heft of his swollen member in Draco’s hand, hadn’t vanished, but it was tinged by the fear that Harry would always see him as the oft-used and pathetic whore that he had been. It was easier not to think of it, and Draco poured himself into his work, letting headaches and sorrow drift into the background of numbers and columns and tallies.

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Harry found Ron in the kitchen, soaking up tea, even though Molly was nowhere to be seen. He was still shaky from the visions that had terrified him, but he was glad to see Ron’s smile when he entered the kitchen. He had expected to see Draco, and that immediately concerned him.

“Hey, Ron. Have you seen Draco? He was upstairs not five minutes ago. I thought he’d come down here, but…”

“Nah. Haven’t seen him, mate. But have I got news for you. Grab a cuppa and take a seat.”

Harry cast a quick tracing spell at the Floo, and it registered Ron’s arrival, and then Draco’s departure to work just a few minutes earlier than that. Harry sighed relief, but still felt a flicker of despair that Draco had taken off without a word. He was obviously upset by Harry’s reaction, and who could blame him? Harry didn’t dare voice the things that had crossed his mind just after their…encounter. For the first time, he had a glimpse of what Draco must have felt like. Some things were just too horrible to speak aloud, and the idea of others knowing the foulness that had bubbled out of his subconscious was almost more frightening than the actual memory itself. Harry took a chair at the table and sat with a sigh, running his hands through his hair. Ron got up and poured a cup of tea for Harry, then took the chair beside him.

“Rough morning, mate? You look like hell. I’ve been up since six. Figured I might as well treat every day like I’ve still got to train. Wouldn’t do to fall out of shape with job offers on the hook as we speak. That’s what I dropped in to talk about. I think I’ve made up my mind, but I thought I’d run it by someone I trust first. Naturally, that means you, mate. Wanna hear?”

Harry looked up at Ron’s cheerful expression and winced. His morning had obviously started off better than Harry’s had. Still, maybe he had something in the way of happy news, and that was worth something. Harry had felt guilty for well over a week, worrying over whether Ron would backslide into booze because of his sudden unemployment, which was at least partly Harry’s fault.

“Sure. Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

Ron slurped his tea and started in. “I had a pretty thin list of choices, but I think I’ve got a good one pinned down. I was one of the top rookies in the league until last week, and the war record didn’t hurt, but this last little fuck-up put my name in the rubbish bin. Still, I’ve got a name everyone knows, and that’s worth something.

I didn’t want to take anything dodgy, so that ruled out a few offers from people who wanted me to help with adverts and such. That left a couple offers from bottom ranked teams and the like. Then me agent scraped the bottom of the barrel and came up with this little jewel. Brighton has a youth Quidditch league that needs a coach with some visibility to bring in more Galleons. The pay is lousy, and I’ll have to leave the flat and move home to make ends meet on this kind of pay, but it’s working with kids who don’t get the chance to go to Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, and get this…the director for the program fancies me. Her name is Eileen, and she’s bold as brass and sharp on the uptake. I like her, and she wouldn’t be my immediate supervisor, so we could probably manage to nip off for a dinner sometime without getting into trouble. I figure Quidditch, working with kids, and a date with a fine looking lady makes this the right one. So? What do you think?”

“Take it. You know your Mum and Dad would be proud of something like this. You’re off the bottle, and there might be a bit of bad press at the start, but I’d bet anything that you’ll take to it like a duck to water. You really like this Eileen, huh?”

“Well, we only met the once, but I can tell she fancies me. She smiled an awful lot while we were going over my application. She knew I had offers for higher pay, but I think she liked that I’d favor something like this over making more money. We’ll see how it goes, mate. What I really wondered was…am I doing the right thing? What would Hermione want me to do? I’ve still got the rest of me life in front of me…so what now? I wouldn’t want to foul it up worse than I have. Am I headed in the right direction?”

Ron looked nervous about the last part, and no wonder he’d asked Harry. He never spoke of Hermione with anyone else. Harry rubbed his eyes and nipped at his tea.

“Ron, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’d have wanted you to do something like this. Maybe it’ll work, maybe not, but it sounds like it’s more than worth trying. Shite. I mean, how bad can it turn out if you do it for all the right reasons?”

Ron nodded. “That’s what I hoped you’d say. Something just feels right about this one. I’m gonna go for it. How’s the wee ferret, then? Doing better?”

Harry favored Ron with a droll look of disapproval. “It’s Draco. Not ferret. Snape did alright. He’s back to work today if that tells you anything. And he is…better. I mean he’s very…uh…forward. And more spirited than I kind of thought he’d be. Like he was back in school, but nicer.”

“You two finally stop pining over each other like lovebirds and just shag the ever-loving fuck-all out of each other yet?”

Harry choked on his tea. “You are a complete ass. You know that, right? The answer is no, kind of. Not that it’s anyone’s business but ours. We’re…um…doing things…together. A little at a time. I mean…he’s only been well for one day…and that’s today. Give it some time. We’ll figure things out as we go. Same way anyone else does, right?”

The conversation drifted and rambled from there. Ron didn’t want explicit details about Harry’s sex life, but was content to know that he finally had one…sort of. The topics shifted and ebbed, until finally Ron brought up the recent articles in The Prophet.

“See that bit in the paper? They found another one just like Draco. Just outside of London. Poor wee thing was cut to ribbons before he passed on. Looks like the same crew that did the last one is still out there, but they’re moving back through the London area. You got any leads on ‘em?”

Harry dropped the teacup, frozen in panic, and Ron snaked out a hand and caught it before it fell.

“Bloody hell, mate. You’re losing your touch. What’s wrong?”

Harry turned to him with an odd look. Serious and yet curious.

“No. I hadn’t heard about it. Odd that. I guess I’ve been busy. Back in London you say? Maybe I’ll look into that.”

There was something distracted in Harry’s tone, but they were interrupted when Molly came down the stairs in her robe and delivered a prompt hug to her son, then thanked them for having the tea on so early.

“Wasn’t us, Mum. I think Draco made it and went off to work early. Harry an’ I just had a sit down to talk about me new job. Coaching youth Quidditch up Brighton way. Pay’s crap, but it’s a good cause. I’ll be moving home after the Solstice. I’ll be starting next week if they take me. I’ll be seeing them again today to seal the deal if they’re interested, and they sound like they want me for the job, so that’s that.”

Molly was overjoyed, and started a breakfast that would have left trolls bloated and sluggish before they were done. Arthur wandered down a few minutes later and joined the crowd for tea, happy to hear his son’s news. Through all the cheery chatter, Harry was oddly silent, wheels turning in his mind at a feverish pace.

The day rolled on, and Harry was in a pensive mood, quiet and thoughtful, yet tense and uncertain. He knew one thing for sure, and that was that he’d see Draco at lunchtime soon. The prat had left without taking along anything to eat, but he’d set tea for the rest of them. It was sweet, but he’d only just started eating properly yesterday, and Harry knew full well that Draco would work his way through the day without thinking of food if he was left to his own devices. At half to noon, Harry threw together some sandwiches, a good wedge of English cheddar, some fruit and a small thermos of tea, packed the lot of it in a small sack, and headed to the living room.

Before he made it to the Floo, Harry saw a slip of white beneath the corner of a chair. Upon picking it up, he saw his name in Draco’s bold and hasty script. He flipped it open. Just the thought that Draco had left him a letter soothed the ache that had been in his heart all day. Then Harry read the words within.

Draco was fine. Don’t worry. Going to work early. He meant to have lunch in Diagon Alley.

Diagon Alley. Linked to London.

LeStrange and his crew of psychopaths were back near London.

Harry Apparated out, passing through wards like a hot knife through butter, the bag of food still clenched in his hand, panic threading its way through his heart


TBC!!!