FIC: The Lazarus Curse Part IIIc

[gaiaanarchy]

PART IIIb

“Ron, you can’t go wearing that!” Hermione exclaimed, looking him over from where she sat on his bed.

“Why not? It’s my favorite t-shirt.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. That Ron was sometimes so naively unashamed was something she both loved and hated about him. “Because we’re meeting Harry’s father.”

“We already met him, Hermione. He’s all right. And a bloody brilliant seeker, too. Did you see him and Harry going head to head?”

Hermione sighed. “Yes, he might be fun, but he’s still Harry’s father and you should at least try to make a good impression.” Though with Ron, impressions of any kind could be an uphill battle.

“Trust me, Herm. John’s a man’s man. He won’t care. You’re a girl; you couldn’t possibly understand.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, finally giving in and standing, yanking Ron’s shirt off for him.

“Hey, don’t you think he’ll notice if we come in smelling like . . .”

Hermione handed him a wrinkled oxford, glaring. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Ronald.” Not that she wouldn’t have considered it, if they weren’t meeting Harry’s father and his boyfriend for brunch. She was nervous. Harry had been so down recently and the past week had been the first time she’d seen him smile in ages. He needed this and she wasn’t going to be the one that ruined it for him. There was just the small matter of . . . “Ron?”

“Yeah?” Ron murmured, tangled up in his oxford as though getting seven buttons in the holes were a triwizard task.

“Have you . . . is there . . . I’ve never really known any homosexuals. Is there anything I should do . . . you know, to avoid upsetting them?” Hermione asked in a timid voice.

Ron turned to her, bewildered, even as she moved to help him do up his shirtfront. “They’re just like ordinary blokes, Hermione. Just don’t say you think that taking it up the arse is an abomination and I think you’ll be fine. I’m more worried about the muggle.”

Hermione pursed her lips, remembering how it was when she’d taken Ron home to meet her parents. He’d been trying to engage her dad about oral hygiene and muggle medicine in general. Hermione was lucky she’d been able to stomach any of the meal at all.

“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being a muggle. Honestly. It’s just that I’m not sure what to talk about. Normally us guys talk about girls or Quidditch, but they’re gay so girls are out, and muggle sports are so confusing. Dean explained football to me once, but then he said that the Yanks have a completely different kind, where they all pile on top of each other. How am I supposed to talk about that?”

Hermione finished the last button and sighed, grabbing Ron by the hand and dragging him down the stairs towards the common room. Harry was waiting for them there, wearing jeans and a worn t-shirt.

“See! He’s not dressed up!” Ron protested, but Hermione ignored him, moving instead to kiss Harry on the cheek and wish him a good morning.

“So, Harry, how’ve you been, mate?” Ron asked. “How you like having your dad here?” Ron wasn’t one for subtle.

Harry shrugged, though his smile betrayed his excitement. “He’s told me a lot of things - about him and my mom. We’ve gone swimming in the lake and flying, but mostly just talked. He’s in the muggle military, but stationed far away in this city . . . you wouldn’t believe it, Ron. He’s the commander of more than a hundred men and he spends his time exploring other planets. Can’t tell any muggles about it though - they’re not supposed to know it’s possible.”

“I don’t think it is possible, Harry,” Hermione replied. “You’re sure he’s not pulling your leg?”

“But it is possible! There’s this device - like an interplanetary floo network and everything. And you know, I thought that magic was the best kept secret from the muggle world, and that the only real threat was Voldemort, but did you know that the Earth has almost been destroyed, like fifteen times? And there are aliens like some muggle television show?”

“I just think that we would’ve known about it is all . . .” Hermione replied. After all, there couldn’t possibly be this whole branch of knowledge about the world that nobody had bothered to write down in a book. And would there be some sign, if the world almost ended? With Voldemort’s rise to power, even the muggles had known something was the matter.

“Well, I’ll have to get him to tell you about it. I think I’m probably explaining it wrong. Actually Rodney can explain it better, if you can understand him.”

“So you’re on a first name basis with his . . .”

“His boyfriend? Yeah. It was a little weird at first, but he makes dad happy.”

“So it doesn’t bother you? That he . . .”

Harry shrugged. “I think they really love each other, in their own way. Dad said that it’s not the same as my mom though. He’s told me all about her. She was brilliant, you know? Actually from some of things he said, she reminds me a little of you.”

Hermione felt herself blush. She knew that Harry loved her, but they’d all grown apart since the end of the war. It was nice to hear that he still felt that way.

It wasn’t long before Harry launched into a story about Draco Malfoy and a unicorn, something with Ron seemed to find a riot, no matter how many times Hermione assured them that the thing about only virgins being able to touch them was a misnomer. Harry seemed positively fascinated by it, though. So much so that Hermione pulled him aside to talk while they lingered by the castle steps and Ron caught Dean Thomas for a last minute quiz about muggle football.

“You’re bothered that Draco managed to touch the unicorn?” she whispered. In her opinion, Harry had always been a little too keen on the subject of Draco Malfoy. At first it was a competition and then an obsession. And though Hermione read in the Prophet about how Harry had interceded at Draco’s trial, he’d never told them exactly what happened to him that last fateful night.

But then again, in a sense, she understood. Draco had been the first kid Harry met in the wizarding world, and on their first night at Hogwarts, he’d offered Harry his friendship at the cost of Ron’s. Harry’d said that the hat had almost sorted him into Slytherin, and it was meeting Draco and begging the hat not to be sorted into the same house that had been the only thing that prevented it. If Harry hadn’t done that, oh, how things might have been different.

Though she doubted he was aware of it, throughout their years at Hogwarts, Harry had used Draco as a sort of meter, or maybe a mirror, against which he measured himself. Draco was cowardly when Harry was brave, deceitful and manipulative when Harry was honest and true. Draco stooped to do things Harry would never do. He was the embodiment of Slytherin and all the things that Harry fought against, and in fighting him all those years, Harry was just reinforcing that first rejection of darker side that lived in him - pride, ambition, skill, the coveted ability to speak to snakes.

But, as much of a royal arsehole as Draco Malfoy almost invariably was (Hermione never for a moment regretted punching him in the face), he was still a human being and Harry wouldn’t have vouched for him if he hadn’t done something truly spectacular to reform. And she wondered what it was doing to Harry, no longer being able to play the hero to Malfoy’s villain.

And sure enough . . . “He’s Malfoy!” Harry protested. “He’s the complete opposite of the things a unicorn represents - innocence, purity, goodness.”

Hermione bit her lip. “But though wild and intractable, unicorns are also supposed to represent a feminine lunar energy. They’re compassionate. And creatures of healing. Maybe the unicorn knew that Draco needed to be healed.”

“But why him? Of all the people who deserve . . .”

Hermione sighed. “Did you even try to approach it, Harry?” She knew the answer, of course, just as she knew the answer to her real question - did Harry ever dare ask for forgiveness?

The answer was clear in his eyes, but before she could press him further, Draco himself came strolling out to the main courtyard, making his way over to them and looking uncertain . . . well, as uncertain as he ever looked. “Good morning, Potter, Weasel, Granger.” It was rather pathetic that Hermione counted any salutation as a friendly gesture.

“Morning,” Harry seemed embarrassed, having been caught speaking of the devil.

“Rodney asked me to join you for brunch, though he neglected to mention we’d be dining with the whole jolly Gryffindor gang.”

Hermione forced a smile. “Well, Mr. Potter neglected to mention that we’d be in mixed company as well.”

Draco grinned at that. “Yes, well, apparently John . . . Mr. Potter, I mean, borrowed the sorting hat from McGonagall’s office. Turns out he’s dating a Ravenclaw.” As expected, Draco used every scrap of information to his advantage. Hermione could tell by the way that Harry was gritting his teeth that his father hadn’t shared that information with Harry himself.

“Oh, there they come now,” Draco waved and Harry’s father nodded back, continuing some argument he seemed to be having with his boyfriend.

“Well, if it isn’t the Scooby Doo gang,” Mr. Potter’s boyfriend remarked.

Though it was a rude comment, Hermione couldn’t help but smile. If they were Mystery Inc., then Ron was most definitely Shaggy.

Mr. Potter rolled his eyes, but proceeded to make introductions anyway, though he struggled a bit with the word, ‘boyfriend.’

As they were walking down the road towards Hogsmeade and the Three Broomsticks, where they intended to brunch, an owl swooped down, depositing Hermione’s subscription of the Prophet at her feet. She was startled of course, and Dr. McKay had jumped nearly out of his socks at the occurrence, shouting imprecations at the owl and ranting about the possibility of heart attack and the bird flu, before turning to Draco and beginning a lecture on the finer points of email, as though Draco himself were the focal point for all things wrong with the wizarding world. Hermione actually found herself surprised that he put up with it.

She grabbed the paper, intending to just stick it into her bag for when they returned, but the picture on the front page caught her eye. It was like nothing she had ever seen before - a corpse, but so old and twisted that it almost resembled an Egyptian mummy, only far from Egypt. The title of the article was, ‘Mysterious Killing of Ministry Official in the Marshland: Marsh People Uprising or Darker Forces at Work?’

She was about to fold the paper back up when Mr. Potter snatched it from her, barking, “Rodney, come look at this.”

“Well, that’s certainly an improvement on paper,” Dr. McKay conceded, only to go pale and nervous at the sight of the photo. “Does that look like . . .” he began, trailing off.

Mr. Potter squeezed his shoulder for a brief second before turning to Harry. “We need to get to this location immediately. Do you know anybody at the Ministry?”

Hermione looked to Ron sympathetically. Arthur Weasley would have helped them, once, she knew. Ron was still recovering from his death. In fact, Hermione was surprised that he wasn’t disturbed by the fact that Harry’d jut gotten his father back after Ron had lost his. “Kingsley will help us,” she offered. “We can use the floo in the Three Broomsticks.”

Mr. Potter nodded seriously, launching into an explanation (directed mostly at Harry) about a race of creatures in a foreign galaxy that killed people in the exact same manner and the concern that they’d made landfall on Earth. As soon as they were outside of Hogwarts, Dr. McKay said something into his radio and disappeared in a flash.

“He didn’t tell me he could apparate,” Draco remarked.

“He didn’t,” Mr. Potter replied, and his explanation sounded to Hermione a little too much like Star Trek.

Madame Rosmerta was glad to oblige them with the use of her fireplace, though Hermione was becoming increasingly nervous, watching Mr. Potter and the worry etched deep into his handsome features. He looked so much like an older Harry that Hermione found it difficult not to stare.

After Harry’s explanation, Kingsley seemed anxious enough to jump through the fire to them. When he arrived, Hermione could see the haunted bloodshot look to his eyes that she hadn’t seen since the war. Whatever this was, it had obviously been troubling him, and most likely the entire group of Aurors at the Ministry.

He took a moment to hug and shake their hands in turn, but was quick to explain. “This isn’t the first killing, as it turns out. Once we combed the area and another official had finished the survey Reginald Hornbeam set out to perform, we determined that there are at least five victims unaccounted for, with disappearances staring months ago.”

“At about one every two months . . . subsistence level for a Wraith, even assuming it was injured and took several to get on its feet, that still means that if there’s only one of them it’s been here for at least six months. That’s too long . . . they wouldn’t have waited without attacking.”

“On one hand, I’m glad to know that someone at least has an idea of what we’re dealing with here,” Kingsley replied. “On the other, I think this might be a good time to inform you that Ministry won’t appreciate your involvement, James. They’ve already received word of your return, and well . . . let me put it this way - it’s not a good time, politically, to acknowledge that it’s possible to return from the dead. Your motives would be held highly suspect, even if the Ministry did feel inclined to admit involvement with you.”

“It’s okay,” Mr. Potter replied. “We’ve got people trained to fight this kind of stuff. We’ll get the Daedalus to beam over a couple of SG teams and we’ll get it for you.”

“Are these people muggles?” Hermione asked. “Because large portions of the marshes have been subject to anti-muggle charms.”

“And most of our personnel with the gene are stationed in another galaxy. I guess that means we go to plan B.”

“Plan B?” Kingsley asked.

“Normally it takes anywhere from five to forty round to bring one of these guys down. No different than a few reducto curses, I guess.”

Kingsley nodded. “Moody is on site now, but once we get there, I can summon him with some of the old Order communication spells.”

“And McKay’s up there using the Daedalus to scan for Wraith lifesigns. So we just have to find it and kill it. Come over next to me, Kingsley, and I’ll have them beam us up.”

“Wait!” Harry protested. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, Harry, this is going to be dangerous and . . .”

“And you’re my father. I just got you back. I’m not going to let you fight this thing alone.”

They stared at each other with matching looks of intensity, before Mr. Potter nodded. “I guess if you can defeat you-know-who, a single Wraith won’t be too much of a problem.”

“We’re going too,” Hermione added.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea . . .” Mr. Potter began.

“No,” Kingsley interrupted him. “Don’t mistake them for kids, James. They’ve seen more war and fought harder than most wizards do in a lifetime. There’s safety in numbers and if the Ministry won’t cooperate, then we need their help.”

Mr. Potter nodded, looking slightly miserable as they all crowded around him (Draco even) and then Hermione felt a brief almost pleasant tingle and a flash of light, so different from the sick jerking sensation of apparition.

When Hermione opened her eyes, Rodney was standing there, framed by the most amazing view Hermione had ever seen - the Earth floating serene and blue in the isolated void of space, stars sparkling around it. And then she turned around and let out a completely undignified squeak. Standing there was a slender grey creature with empty black eyes and a tiny mouth, like something out of an alien abduction movie. It was wearing one of her S.P.E.W hats.

“What the bloody hell is that?!” Ron exclaimed. “And how’d it get a hat?”

“It was a gift from Dr. Lupin,” the creature (it talked!) replied in a dull almost metallic sounding voice.

“Don’t worry, the Asgard creep me out too,” Mr. Potter whispered, stepping forward to discuss something with Dr. McKay, Harry trailing after him.

Ron was busy eyeing the alien warily when Hermione stepped up beside Draco, staring out the window at the Earth below. “And to think, muggles did all this,” he breathed.

“A famous muggle said, ‘There are more things in heaven and Earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ I used that quote to convince my parents about magic,” Hermione told him, though she did not expect Draco to appreciate her quotation of Shakespeare at such a young age.

Draco turned to her then, looking almost ethereally pale in the starlight. “I didn’t tell you everything about the Dark Mark. To receive it, you have to have killed someone.”

“That means Harry . . .”

Draco nodded. “He used the killing curse on the Dark Lord. They were grappling at each other like a physical fight. I just saw a flash of green and I was positive Harry was the one to die, until he stood up and walked away. He didn’t even look back.” Draco sounded as surprised by that fact as Harry had been about Draco touching a unicorn.

“Why did you change sides, Draco?” Before, Draco’s lack of empathy had seemed as alien to her as the short grey being blinking at Ron resentfully, but she’d grown so accustomed to it that his sudden change of heart seemed even more mysterious.

“It wasn’t a sudden sympathy for Potter and your lot, that’s for certain,” he spat, but then seemed to honestly consider it. “All my life, my father taught me about how the ministry oppressed us by not allowing us the freedom to chose whether or not to learn so-called Dark Magic, which they defined. But the Dark Lord never made things more free - he made them less.”

Hermione nodded. After seeing the danger of dark magic, she couldn’t see herself using it. But, she understood the argument.

Draco turned away then, focusing his attention on where Mad-eye had just appeared, going so far as to draw his wand when he spotted the alien. In the eight years they’d known each other, it was by far the most intimate conversation she and Draco ever had, and the thought amused her as much as it chilled her.

After a good (almost practiced-seeming) lecture on Wraith tactics, there was another bright flash and they were standing in a circle on the edge of a marsh island, the reeds that the Marsh people wove together to form floating islands were spongy beneath their feet. It was as difficult to walk as traversing a sand dune. Hermione kept her wand raised high, feeling almost preternaturally aware of Harry and Ron moving beside her. Mr. Potter had his wand, but Dr. McKay held a muggle handgun. Mr. Potter also wore one strapped around his thigh.

“50 meters, directly ahead,” Dr. McKay remarked, staring down at device that looked much like a palm pilot, but seemed to function much more like the Marauder’s Map.

Mr. Potter nodded. Gone was the laid back, jovial father she and Ron had seen flying playfully with his son. His jaw was tight and his eyes hard, wearing the exact same look of fierce intensity that she’d seen on Harry’s face so many times. And yet, Harry always seemed to throw his soul into each battle, as it was as much a struggle with his own fear and anger as it was with the enemy. Mr. Potter’s gaze, on the other hand, was professional and ice cold. He naturally moved to the front of the group, followed by McKay, Harry, Ron, and herself. Draco stood in the middle, with the two aurors trailing.

There was a cottage in the center of this small marsh island - the only place that the creature could be, and Mr. Potter motioned for them to surround it, settling into an odd stillness - even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.

Mr. Potter was making a vague motion, counting down on his fingers instead of a flick of his wand, as Hermione was used to. But if Hermione felt scared, it was quelled by the knowledge of her friends around her. It was just one of these creature, after all.

But then maybe she spoke too soon, because no sooner had she thought it, than she was thrown down, hands sinking into the spongy material of the reeds when something burst forth from the heart of the island, curling around her ankle like a vise.

There was the familiar cacophony of spells being uttered and light flying as they were cast, but the spells seemed ineffective. The grip tightened, dragging her downwards, even as Hermione caught the head of what was clearly a giant snake, lashing out so hard at Ron, beside her, that he went flying back into McKay, sending them both tumbling back and over the edge of the reed island and into the thick murk of the marsh.

Kingsley and Mad-eye were sending their most powerful curses at it now, but though the snake’s grip on her leg did loosen slightly, it was continuing to inch its way up her body, the strange mouth-like patterns on its back almost clamping around her ankle.

Harry was shouting something now, only it came out a hissing keen, sending a shiver down her spine, just the same as any time she heard Harry speak in Parseltongue.

The snake stopped its progress at that, raising its head to stare at Harry with deep almost catlike yellow eyes, hissing its response.

“It’s Nagini!” Harry shouted, before hissing something else - something that clearly offended the snake because the next moment Hermione felt a searing pain in her ankle. For a second she thought the snake had crushed the bones, but she soon realized it was something else entirely, her heart was racing and she was in more pain than she could ever remember being in - even more than the Basilisk.

“Our spells aren’t strong enough!” she heard Kingsley shout.

“A killing curse?” Mad-eye shouted, as Aurors were permitted to use the unforgivables in life-or-death circumstances.

“No!” Mr. Potter shouted. Not while it’s attached to her!”

The pain was screaming through her now, like someone was hollowing her out, dragging barbed wire down every nerve. And then, Draco Malfoy was somehow there, wandless hand stroking down along the snake’s jaw line. Hermione felt the sweat flood of its release like falling down into a cloud-soft bed at the end of a long day.

“Accio nine-millimeter!” Harry’s father shouted in the background and then Hermione opened her eyes to find herself splattered in blood and snake guts, leaning into the rotting surface of the island and emptying the contents of her stomach.

“Is it dead?” Draco squeaked, seeming to remember himself and taking a giant leap back from the snake’s head.

“How’d you know to do that?” Harry asked.

“I saw Wormtail do it once, when the Dark Lord had ordered the snake to punish him.”

“We’ll, we’re lucky that you and he were so close,” Harry replied, and in the wake of so much pain and confusion, Hermione couldn’t tell if he meant to be gratefully ironic or simply to condemn Draco again.

Kingsley was kneeling beside her now, wrapping her up in his robe and demanding to know if she felt all right. Hermione nodded, only to remember what Mr. Potter had said about the Wraith. “How many years . . .” she gasped out. She was too young.

“None,” Kingsley replied, cupping her cheek.

“It must be more like an Iratus Bug than a full-blown Wraith - slower feeding,” Mr. Potter offered, from where he was pulling out his wet and already complaining boyfriend out of the marsh. “Not that it’s an anymore pleasant an experience.”

“You would know,” Dr. McKay retorted, significantly.

Hermione had no time to ponder the comment, however, because Mad-eye had pulled Ron from the water and he was now dripping all over her, hugging her tight against him and demanding to know if she was okay, and vowing to kill the horrible snake, despite the fact that it was already dead.

She grabbed his hand. “It’s okay, Ron. Really.” There was a more pressing problem, than even the lingering pain lancing up her leg, however. “If Nagini’s still alive, than does that mean that Voldemort is . . .”

“No,” Harry replied, leaning down behind her to support her, while they waited for the Aurors and Rodney to finish checking for more similar creatures. “She said that he was dead, and that the hunger was killing her. She thought that ‘taking a young soul’ might sustain her.” He shuddered. “I just don’t know how it’s possible. I stabbed her with the basilisk tooth, just as I did the diary.”

Even though the pain and the exhaustion of the attack lingered, Hermione found her mind turning to the mystery before her. It at least kept her mind off the wound on her ankle that she now realized was bleeding freely. “Well, I don’t think that anyone on record has ever used a living thing as a horcrux before. The other horcruxes didn’t just cease to exist when the horcruxes were released from them. The diary wasn’t as it once was, but you could still use it. What was killed was the part of Voldemort’s soul kept inside it, not the diary itself. So, when you thought you killed Nagini, you were killing Voldemort’s soul, not the snake’s. But as a living, breathing thing, the soul had become a part of her, and she needed some form of soul in order to survive. Because having Voldemort’s soul had conferred a sort of immortality to her. As long as she was a horcrux, she had Voldemort’s soul to sustain her. But absent that, she’s been consuming souls ever since, leaching them from the body. But the process is imperfect - it’s not the same as the creation of a horcrux, so she’s draining people of their entire souls and without the spellwork of a horcrux, she’s burning through them.”

“Because she needs the zero point energy,” Draco pointed out, looking to Dr. McKay for approval. “And only a spell performed with a wand or a deeply magical creature has the power to tap into it. Souls can only contain so much.”

“And the Wraith are the same?” Mr. Potter asked.

“Yes. Some idiot back in the day of Ascension research and the Ancients trying to live forever must have put his soul in an Iratus bug.”

Mr. Potter shuddered. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because . . .” McKay snapped his fingers. “Because the Iratus Bugs reproduce purely through cloning . . . almost as though they all came from the same source. The Ancients probably created them specifically so they could be made into horcruxes, because as they cloned . . . they thought the so-called soul would be cloned and protected too! But it doesn’t work like that, because like Draco said, the ‘soul’ is a finite amount of energy . . . its the spell that sustains, and that was only done once. So there must have been a ton of bugs out there, cloning themselves and feeding, but the Ancients probably let them run rampant, believing they were extending their lives, until some genetic fluke allowed them to absorb the DNA of their hosts and evolve into the Wraith, at which point, the Ancients couldn’t stop them.”

“So . . . you’re saying that there’s no danger here. We’ve killed Nagini and that’s the end of the line?”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt to do more scans, but ironically, I think it’s sex that’s protecting us . . . I mean, like the Goa’uld, the Iratus bugs take a current sample of their DNA to form an egg, including any mutations caused by radiation, while human beings are born with all of the reproductive cells they’ll ever have.”

Mr. Potter nodded. “We’ll stay here and do your scans, then. I’ll have you all beamed up to the Daedalus’ infirmary.

Mad-eye looked as though he was ready to protest the decision and Draco looked pale, undoubtedly rethinking his strange act of heroism, but none of it mattered, because she was leaning back into the comforting circle of Harry’s arms and Ron was gripping her hand tight in his, and as long as they were together, they could do anything.

<<<>>>

Draco Malfoy looked strange in the blue trousers and grey Air Force t-shirt he’d been given to wear in place of his robes (which were a fire hazard, according to Rodney). The grey walls of the base were similar to the harsh dungeon surroundings of the Slytherins, but the florescent lighting made Draco look wan and pale, too thin for the military clothing he’d been given.

Draco was sitting on the stairs leading from the conference room down to the Stargate, looking suddenly exactly like the innocent young kid everyone assumed him to be. Sitting on the stairs seemed almost too casual for Draco, but Harry had to admit that since the end of the war, he’d seen Draco do a lot of out-of-character things.

Harry plopped down next to him, feeling a strange kinship. Even though they had been nemeses for years, as two British kids alone on a top secret American muggle-military base, they had a lot more in common with each other than with everyone around them. Ironically, if they’d told any of the perturbed young airmen charged with babysitting duty that they were a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, he would have just blinked and asked what exactly that was supposed to mean. Then again, Harry could say the same if he were sitting next to Voldemort at the moment. They had far more in common than just both being wizards.

After a long moment, during which he could feel Draco scrutinizing him, Harry remarked, “So I here you filled up one of those ZPM things.”

“It wasn’t hard - more an endurance test than anything. Rodney thinks that he can get one of those muggle machines to do it now that he knows how. He’s ordered about twenty wands from Olivander’s to experiment with. That crazy old coot couldn’t understand what they were for, of course - demanding Rodney come in and let the wands choose him.”

“Dad says this means that they’ll be able to run Atlantis at full power.”

“That’s a good thing, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

The silence was once again awkward. They’d always had so many words for each other, but once insults were removed from the picture, very little remained. “Thanks what you did . . . last week, with Hermione. I mean, at least you’re starting to make up for all of the times you’ve been such a spineless bastard.”

“Yes, well, hopefully that means you’ll start making inroads on being less of an arrogant arse.”

Instead of shouting angrily back, Harry found himself laughing. “Hey, I’ll try if you do.”

“Rodney asked me to come back with him as a lab assistant, and see all the ways our ancestors first started using magic.”

“Are you going to go?” Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted Draco there or not. On one hand, this was his father’s base and a silly juvenile part of him wanted to be the only one there for his father to joke with and dote on and protect, but on the other, he wasn’t sure how he’d survive as one of a kind alone out there. Since he’d stepped into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time, Harry had been the one and only ‘boy who lived,’ and after the war it had only gotten worse. It would be nice to be ‘just one of those British kids,’ or the commander’s son, or the genetic lightswitch (as his father had put it).

“Yes, I think I am,” Draco answered decisively. “There’s nothing left for me on Earth.”

“What about your fortune and your huge house and your noble family tradition?” Harry sniped, because he knew that it would be hard for him to leave Earth (Ron and Hermione, especially) and he couldn’t believe that it could ever be easy.

“You mean being an orphan in a big empty house, reviled as a Death Eater, despite having aided Harry Potter in his heroic last battle?”

Harry snorted. Draco hadn’t been more than a distraction to get Harry face to face with Voldemort, but he was beginning to understand how monumental and life changing a step that was for Draco, essentially turning his back on everything he’d been taught to believe and making his own choices for the first time in his life, while at the same time Harry was for the first time really coming to terms with the fact that his fate had been sealed for him since he was barely one year, and that any ‘choices’ had been an illusion.

Harry looked down at the dark burn of the skull and the snake against the pale innocence of Draco’s skin. He wore the mark so unselfconsciously, smiling when Marines complimented him on his ‘Tat’ and wearing all of the short-sleeved garments given to him. Harry himself wore one of the (exclusively long-sleeved) shirts his dad had insisted on buying for him after he’d seen all of Dudley’s hand-me-downs.

Draco noticed Harry staring and stuck his arm out, practically into Harry’s lap. “It’s the same as yours.”

“What’d you do to get it?” Harry asked, tentatively.

Draco turned to him then, remorse clear in his baleful grey eyes. “I killed a muggle. She was young and pretty and completely helpless. I don’t know why I chose her . . . she was wearing a bright red belt and I think my eyes were drawn to it. Voldemort noticed and complimented me on my choice. After seeing the muggle method, I think that the one solace I can take in it was that it was quick.”

“But you always hated muggles. I heard you saying you couldn’t wait to kill ‘remove those scum.’ Why the sudden remorse?” Even after everything, there was still lingering doubt about Draco’s reform.

“I hated the idea that there were people without magic. And I thought I was better and more deserving then them, yes. I would’ve kicked them around or played pranks, or even made a few into servants. But I never wanted anyone to die.”

“And now?”

Draco shrugged. “Rodney’s not so bad.” And for Draco Malfoy, that was the equivalent of calling for the communist revolution.

“You really have changed,” Harry said, laying a hand on Draco’s forearm where it rested on his thigh.

And somehow, to Harry’s astonishment, the Dark Mark began to fade.

“Potter, what the bloody hell did you do?” Draco exclaimed, but Harry was too busy forcing his own shirt up, to reveal a clean stretch of forearm.

“What happened?” Harry asked, astonished.

“The thing that the Dark Lord could never figure out (though he dismissed it as irrelevant), was how to put a soul back together after it’d been split into pieces and put in horcruxes.”

“I think we just found out how,” Harry grinned. Forgiveness was a start, at least.

“Yeah,” Draco agreed, standing and helping Harry to his feet so they could walk side by side down towards the Stargate and their future.

FIN

***Inspired by:
Two other HP xovers: Clark's Law and Bagglevarger's Theory of Inversive Magic.