Shades of Truth

Shades of Truth

Chapter 9

*****

“I’m home,” Harry was flushed with pleasure when he came home, and had completely forgotten the recent bickering between himself and his houseguest. “What did you want for dinner?” he popped into the study, which was empty, and shrugged.

“Hello?” he called out, “Are you home?” he knew that was a stupid question. He was the only one who ever went out. His guest knew better than to even attempt a stroll down the street, but seemed to take their self-imposed imprisonment with little complaint or care. It suited them to stay in all day reading, in any case.

“In the kitchen.”

He turned on his heel and swept toward the other room, his smile back in place. As if he could stop smiling. It was horrible, he was sure, to feel so good when Draco was still in Azkaban, but he had a feeling the other man was probably finding it impossible to look like a somber, hopeless prisoner as well. They hadn’t done much besides hold each other, kiss a few times, and talk. It had been what they both needed, though. It felt like all his concerns would clear themselves up, as long as they had each other to rely on.

“Hey, I was thinking for dinner we could—“ Harry was cut off mid-suggestion by the scene that met his eyes and swept the smile off his face. His guest was sporting a bright bruise down the side of their face, their hands were bound by magical rope, and Hermione was holding a wand trained on them from a few feet away. “Hermione.” He said the first thing the sprung to his lips, feeling rather stupid. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

“Yes, I finished my research on the eye, you see.” She grinned in a bitter fashion. “I didn’t think you’d be in, as you rarely are, so I just decided to let myself in. I thought it was weird that you had all those protection charms on the front door, but I figured you were worried about assassins or dark wizards deciding to make a name for themselves or something of that sort. I didn’t know you had this in your house.”

“You didn’t put up much of a fight.” Harry observed his guest, who muttered darkly under their breath before sighing heavily. “After telling me I couldn’t say anything to her, and you don’t bother to hide when she comes over.”

“How was I supposed to know your protection charms were so easily bypassed?”

“They wouldn’t have been, but recall that I’ve been doing magic alongside Harry since I knew I was a witch. I know how he constructs things like this. Always with a back door for Ron and I, should we need to reach him in an emergency. Or should there be dead people living in his house.”

“Please, Hermione,” Harry sighed heavily. “There’s a perfectly good explanation for this.”

“One you have sworn not to share with others.”

“Oh come on,” Harry entreated the other, “it’s not like she’s going to take you in to the Ministry tomorrow and turn you over.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“Harry, let me say that while I always trust you to have the best intentions, your judgment is sometimes…lacking. And I believe this is one of those cases.” Hermione told him.

“Hermione, look at me.” Harry decided to do what he could without sharing the secret knowledge he was still not allowed to share, it seemed. “Am I under the Imperius curse?” he spread his hands wide, showing her they contained nothing as she looked him over, her piercing gaze resting on his green eyes before she answered.

“No, I suppose you aren’t.” she replied with some hesitation. “But I still can’t believe you’ve been living together…I mean, Harry, think of all the things…”

“I know, I know.” Harry nodded emphatically. “Do you think I could forget? But if we’re living together, and there’s no restriction on either of us forcing us either to behave or to obey, you know I must know something that changes all of that. I can’t tell you what it is, but Hermione; believe me when I say there is no danger here. This is not who you recall.”

“I want to believe you,” she lowered her wand a bit, “but…it’s so hard to see how this could be all right.”

“It is.” He moved forward then, slowly enclosing her free hand in his. “Remember all the times Ron and I trusted you were leading us the right way without knowing half of what you did?”

“But I would always tell you why…” Hermione looked from her prisoner to Harry, to their joined hands. “I gave you a reason to believe.”

“Hermione, you’re the most logical between the three of us.” Harry told her slowly, “if I doubted, would they be here?” and then he leaned in, whispering something in her ear which caused her face to clear immediately.

“You’re right.” She lowered her wand and released the bonds. “I’m sorry about your face.”

“I was in no position to enter a beauty contest in any case.” The freed prisoner bent their wrists to loosen them up.

“I feel a fool.” Hermione blushed deeply, casting a quick healing charm on the bruised area. “Let me make it up to you. I could prepare dinner, and then maybe the three of us could have a chat.”

“That sounds fine.” Harry smiled at her, his breath going back to normal now that Hermione knew the truth.

----------

“You’re back.” Draco sighed in relief as Harry swept into the room. “I thought you’d change your mind.”

“Of course not.” Harry snorted, “I have good news,”

“The eye?” Draco guessed, looking at the briefcase Harry was opening and shuffling through.

“Yeah,” he grinned and held up a roll of parchment. “She was able to extract it. I’ve already watched it once with her last night, and it isn’t the best quality, but it would be pretty difficult to believe you were the one behind it.”

“No trip through the Pensieve this time?” Draco asked, crossing to Harry’s side of the table and standing over him in curiosity.

“She extracted the images into this parchment.” Harry explained, “there’s no sound, because as magic as it is, it was still an eye. It’s something like a Wizarding photograph taken in low lighting.”

“Okay, sure.” Draco shrugged in agreement as Harry unrolled the parchment, revealing a neatly cropped picture in which Mad Eye Moody was not visible, though he could see about three shadowy figures. “We’re watching from his point of view.”

“Exactly,” Harry confirmed. “Obviously, those are Death Eaters, and there, keep your eye on that one.” He pointed to one figure that moved closer and came into slightly better focus, his pale skin luminescent in the dark, his head bald and reminiscent of a snake.

“The Dark Lord.” Draco couldn’t help the shiver that passed through him as they watched the pale figure pull out a wand and shoot a stream of green in the direction they were looking from. After that, the image went black and then cycled back to the beginning. “Well, I guess he was sick of having Moody defeat his best Death Eaters.” Draco shrugged after they had watched it through one more time and Harry had hurriedly rolled it back up, not eager to watch Voldemort kill someone over and over again.

“I don’t doubt it.” Harry put the parchment back in his briefcase. “Well, that’s that.”

“Which one will we do next?” Draco wanted to know. Harry stood up so that they were facing each other, and cupped his cheek gently, kissing his brow line.

“That’s something of a problem.” Harry admitted. “I haven’t been able to find anyone who knows about the others. We may have to use Legilimency to extract them, but I don’t want to do it unless you’re sure you want to take the risk. You might not be able to handle more memory tampering, to tell you the truth. It could be that if I’d uncovered ten of them, if you’d even witnessed that many, you’d be fine still. However, even trying to dig up one might be too much for you. It depends on how thoroughly your father or whoever else was tampering with you buried the memories.”

“It’s only four, I think I can manage.” Draco shrugged after a short moment of consideration. “Is there something you need me to do to make it easier?”

“When the time comes, you’ll just need to concentrate on your memory of what happened, because that will get me as close as possible to the truth.” Harry explained, brushing his hand down over the column of Draco’s neck. “But we won’t do that today. I have to tell you…I’ve tried every avenue I could think of to find more witnesses. I don’t want to lose you when we’re so close…”

“You won’t lose me.” Draco answered confidently. “If my father’s rough handling didn’t permanently damage me, nothing you can do will make me fall into myself.”

“Draco,” Harry’s chest hurt to think of what he’d do if anything went wrong, if Draco was no longer Draco, but a broken shell of the man in front of him. Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around the emaciated form, holding him close and wishing there was some way he could help Draco without risking him. When he’d started this, he’d known where it most likely would lead, and yet…things were different now. Draco had become irreplaceable to him, he’d become much more than a symbol of justice, an object of sympathy, a former schoolmate fallen from grace. “I’m afraid.” He admitted in the barest of whispers.

“That makes me feel better, since you’ll be doing all the wand work.” Draco teased lightly, his own arms wrapping around Harry as he nuzzled the other man’s throat. “Maybe you should bring in Granger to do it so you don’t crack my head in half.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea.” Harry smiled slightly, but his hands were only stopped from shaking by pressing them deep into Draco’s prison robes. “She’s better at that sort of thing than me, though I have been practicing since before I started this.”

“Are you comfortable letting someone else help me?” Draco asked, a teasing half-grin on his face, “You always need to be the hero.”

“I learned a long time ago that there’s a line between idiocy and heroism.” Harry answered, kissing his jaw line.

“Really? I thought they were simply synonymous with you.”

*****

To be continued…