He walked briskly along a path lined with rose bushes, listening to the crunch of the gravel under his feet and the pounding of heavy droplets against his back. The manor rose up slowly out of the mist and rain, a grey blur lost in a sea of grey rain. Almost all the windows were dark, with just a few flickers of light here and there. It wasn't a particularly welcoming sight, but at least it meant getting out of the cold rain.
The massive entrance doors swung open as soon as Harry rang the bell, and a harried house-elf peered at him.
"Hello," said Harry with a tired smile. "I'm here from the Ministry."
"Emmy knows, sir," the house-elf piped up, bowing at the waist. "Master was waiting for you. Come, sir, let Emmy show you to the sitting room."
Another couple of elves were waiting inside to take Harry's soaked cloak, which he relinquished gratefully. He was glad he had decided to go with plain but warm Muggle clothes that day instead of the more formal Ministry robes: the house was not as chilly as the outside, but it was still cold and drafty.
He also cleaned up most of the mud on his shoes with a quick spell before following Emmy. Not that he cared about tracking mud on the manor's polished wood floors, but it would be the house-elves who had to clean up the mess. They were all free elves, as shown by the odd garments and accessories that they wore, but Harry didn't kid himself that their working conditions had improved all that much in the past few years.
The house-elf led Harry along a gloomy high-vaulted corridor lined with portraits of centuries-old Malfoys. Harry could hear them muttering behind his back about "snoops from the Ministry" and "filthy scoundrels" and decided he didn't like the dead Malfoys any more than the live ones.
Emmy opened a door at the end of a corridor and bowed again, so low that the tip of her nose touched the orange pom-poms on her slippers. "The sir from the Ministry is come, Master," she announced as Harry walked in, and then she withdrew closing the door behind her. A large fireplace warmed the room and shed some light along with half a dozen candles, revealing a tall figure sitting primly on a high-backed chair.
Draco Malfoy tossed aside the book that he'd been reading and got to his feet. "You," he said, the corners of his mouth turned down in a grimace. "I would have thought that the Ministry's darling was too busy to bother with this kind of grunt work."
Harry just shrugged. "Where's your father? It's him I expected to meet." He was glad for the lack of pleasantries on Malfoy's part, at least he wouldn't have to pretend to act nice.
"He's busy," Malfoy replied. He crossed his arms, glaring at Harry. "And I am too, so hurry up with your inspection."
"This is not a social call, Malfoy," Harry snapped. "The terms of your family's acquittal included restrictions on the kinds of magical items you could own and yearly inspections from the Auror's office for the following twenty years to check that..."
"...that we aren't casting the Killing Curse in our basement, I know," Malfoy said, talking over Harry. "I know the fucking terms."
"Then summon your father. Now."
Lightning flashed outside the window. "My father is in St Mungo's long-term residents' wards," Malfoy said, flatly. "I'm sure the Healers will be overjoyed to find out that you want them to release a patient who's been bedridden for the past month."
That explained the lack of recent articles in the Prophet. "Sorry," Harry said, even though he couldn't care less about Lucius Malfoy's health. "I didn't know that."
"Why would you? It's none of the Ministry's business." Malfoy tapped his fingers on his arm irritably. "Mother's with him. But I could call her if you like, so you can ask her stupid questions and make her watch as you snoop around the house."
"It's fine," Harry snapped. "Let's get this over with."
He was pissed at Malfoy for making it seem as if Harry would have insisted on seeing his father even if he'd known he was ill. In his head, he was already composing a lengthy letter to Witty to complain about his day. Maybe he could meet with Ron and Hermione for a drunk tonight. He had a feeling that he'd need more than one before he was done with Malfoy.
Harry chased off those thoughts as he got his wand from his jeans' pocket. The spell he had to do was a tricky one he'd mastered only recently, and the last thing he wanted was to look like a fool in front of Malfoy.
Waving the wand in an intricate pattern he turned on himself slowly, muttering the incantation under his breath. The tip of the wand left a trail of silver sparks. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he could see Malfoy look almost curious instead of annoyed.
"What's that?" Malfoy asked, as the sparks dissolved into a pink mist that started to fill the room. He stepped back when the mist concentrated around the armchair where he'd been sitting.
"New detector spell," Harry said, smugly, as if it hadn't spent the previous night practicing it in his living room. "Perfectly harmless. It reveals places where magic was used recently."
The mist slowly coalesced into pink ribbons, some paler and some brighter. Harry gave them a quick look and then walked out of the room. Malfoy followed, taking care not to step through any of the strands that were now floating in mid-air.
"Pink means that all magic used in that room was on the approved Ministry list," Harry explained as he walked down the corridor. There was a network of pink around the portraits, who seemed none too pleased by the disturbance. "Orange means unknown magic, and black means forbidden spells or dark magic artefacts, so you'll want to hope I don't see any black traces during my visit."
Malfoy turned around to ignore a particularly nagging ancestor with a plumed hat and a large blonde moustache. "As if," he said, rolling his eyes. "This is a waste of time, Potter."
Harry was inclined to agree, but at least he had the consolation that Malfoy found this inspection just as annoying as he did, if not more. "Just be grateful that the Auror department discovered this spell, this way it's going to take only a couple of hours as opposed to several." Malfoy didn't seem impressed.
Not counting that time during the War that Harry wasn't going to think about, Harry had been in the Malfoy's manor a few times already, always on Ministry business or Ministry-related fundraisers. He remembered the last visit very well. It had taken place when he was still with the Aurors and the Malfoy trial was recent enough to warrant the dispatch of a team with no less than five inspectors.
Lucius Malfoy had been glaring all the time as Harry and his four colleagues cast the revealing spell in each one of the manor's rooms, a gruelling task that had taken them the best part of a day. Everything had been spotless clean, as expected in a house that still had several house-elves in service, but there had been books left around in the library, fresh potion ingredients cut up and ready for use in the lab, a pile of half-written letters in the office, decorations for an upcoming dinner party in the hall. Now the rooms were almost devoid of traces of magic, or indeed any sign that showed that they had been used recently.
The largest amount of pink traces that Harry found on the ground floor was clustered around the kitchen, where half a dozen house-elves had stopped in the middle of making dinner and were staring at the ribbons floating around their workstations. Malfoy harangued them and made them go back to work, while Harry made a mental note to talk to Hermione. MagiParchment was a huge sponsor of house-elf welfare groups, and she was always looking for an excuse to hand out more pamphlets about decent workplace conditions.
By the time Harry and Malfoy made their way up the huge marble staircase, it was completely dark outside and the thunderstorm had turned into heavy rain. The rooms on the first floor looked more lived in, judging by the number of pink ribbons floating around. Several times Harry had to pause and investigate an orange ribbon, but all the magical artefacts he found were fairly normal, such as self-folding robes and a tea set that automatically poured and added milk and sugar.
All the time Malfoy hovered behind Harry and faked yawns. "Have you checked there's no runespoors in the fireplace?" he said occasionally, or, "Careful, that nightgown might try to strangle the unwary," or, most often, "I'm glad to see our tax galleons are put to good use." For the most part Harry tried to ignore him, but privately he had to admit that even the most paranoid Auror would have been hard pressed to find anything suspicious.
The last room Harry checked was Malfoy's bedroom. It was larger than the room Harry had shared with another four boys at Hogwarts, and all the furniture was old blackened oak. There was a bed, a wardrobe, a writing desk piled with books, and a couple of chests pushed against the wall. Aside from those, the room was empty: there were no ornaments or knick-knacks that could tell anything about its occupant's personality, even though the numerous pink and orange ribbons indicated that Malfoy spent quite a lot of time in there.
On the bedroom's mantelpiece there was a single framed photograph, showing a younger Draco holding his parents' hands. Harry thought it must have been taken around the time when he started Hogwarts, but before he could get a closer look Malfoy snatched it away. "Stop wasting time," he said, tossing the photo in a large iron-and-wood chest and shutting the lid. "Hurry up so we can both be done with this farce for another few months."
Maybe Malfoy thought that by this point Harry would have been so tired and bored that he would have given the room no more than a cursory glance, but if so he was going to be disappointed. Harry took his time, checking every single item that the spell marked, while Malfoy fussed and complained that he was putting everything back in the wrong place.
The thing that took him the longest to inspect was Malfoy's pile of dusty books on sub-molecular dissociating charms: only deadly if one attempted to read them. Malfoy had scribbled in the margins with magical ink, so Harry felt a kind of childish glee in picking them up one by one and putting them back on their pile slightly out of place.
Harry was nearly done when he noticed something else hidden behind the books. He pushed the pile aside, much to Malfoy's annoyance, and saw that the strange items were a rolled-up parchment, completely blank, and a ball of silvery yarn. "Strange place to store your writing and knitting supplies, Malfoy," he commented.
Malfoy just shrugged. "So what?" he said, but there was an edge to his voice, and nobody went through the Auror program without becoming naturally suspicious of everything.
The parchment didn't have any elaborate border and it was rectangular rather than square, but together with the yarn it looked very familiar. Harry had a sudden realization. "It's MagiParchment!" he exclaimed.
"Last time I checked," Malfoy said without meeting Harry's eyes, "the Ministry was rather adamant that it was not the product of dark magic."
"Yeah, it's just fucking hypocritical to have one after all the crap your father gave us," Harry replied, tossing everything back into the cabinet and slamming the door shut.
"Mind your own business!" Malfoy's hand went to his wand, but then he stopped and he just clenched and unclenched his fist nervously.
Harry wouldn't have minded an excuse to hex him, but he forced himself to go back to work. According to the revealing spell the room was clear, but there was a smaller door at the back of the room. "What's that?" he said, pointing with his wand.
"My bathroom," Malfoy snapped. "Where I cast Unforgivable Curses on a daily basis and brew potions made with the tears and blood of Muggles. Don't you have anything better to do tonight?"
"No, I really don't," Harry said, stomping over to the bathroom door and opening it. Inside there were plenty more orange and pink traces, mostly hovering in front of a huge mirror or above a row of coloured glass bottles. "Why do you even need to use this much magic in here?"
Malfoy bristled. "It's skin and hair care potions," he snapped. "Also perfectly legal."
Harry picked one at random and wrinkled its nose at the intense smell of rosewood that it let off. "I'd still like to check everything, just in case," he said.
"Stop jerking me around," Malfoy said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the sink. "We both know you're not going to find anything, you're just wasting my time."
"Like your father wasted my time with the interwebs scare?" Harry opened a random cupboard and started sorting through a pile of what looked like scented soap bars. "You might think Ministry workers do nothing all day but..."
His finger closed around something rubbery, and Harry paused. Malfoy was muttering something indistinct but Harry's brain failed to register the actual words. When he squeezed the yellow thing in his hands, it squeaked feebly. There even was a sticker on the bottom, almost completely ruined by now, but Harry could still make out the printed '99'. It reminded him of something, or rather someone, but that was impossible.
He ran through the list in his head. There was the parch, and now the rubber duck. Both Malfoy and Witty were from a magical family, both lived with their parents, both had a sick father. They both liked roses (though a lot of people did) and highly-specialized charms (and very few people did). But that all counted for nothing, because it was impossible for Witty and Malfoy to be the same person.
Witty had a sharp tongue but also a sense of humour, and he was always friendly in his own strange way, and he listened to all of Harry's rants, and he made up silly games to pass the time when he felt lonely in the middle of the night. He couldn't be Malfoy, because Malfoy was a git.
Harry realized that Malfoy had stopped talking and was staring at the rubber duck. He had no idea how to phrase the question. "Are you...?" he started, but trailed off. What could he ask? Are you my interwebs friend?
He didn't need to say anything, though, because the expression on his own face was answer enough for Malfoy. "It was you," he said, stepping away. "Fuck you, Potter, you're Cupboardkid. Is this why the Ministry sent you? To spy on me in person instead of on the interwebs?"
Harry snorted a laughter and tossed the rubber duck away. It bounced off the mirror and landed on the floor with a sad squeak. "You're out of your mind if you think the Ministry had anything to with this."
"Fuck you," Malfoy said again. He aimed his wand at Harry's chest and pointed towards the door with the other hand. His fingers were shaking. "Get out of my house. I don't want to see your lying face ever again."
"Fuck you too," said Harry, pushing past him. He stormed out of the bathroom and the bedroom, not even bothering to close the door, and almost ran down the corridor. All he wanted was to get home, have a butterbeer and complain about his day. But he couldn't, could he? Ron and Hermione wouldn't understand. He'd told them about Witty, but he wouldn't be able to explain how close the two of them they'd grown over the past few weeks. He wouldn't be able to explain to anyone. And the only person who could understand had just cut him off for good.
The corridor was dimly-lit, but Harry didn't even bother to cast Lumos. He felt as if there was a weight over his chest that made it hard to breathe. Half-way down the staircase, the realization hit him that he wasn't going to talk to Witty ever again.
Last night Witty hadn't been on chitchat because he needed to tidy up for his guests. Harry hadn't even said goodbye. He had been looking forward to linking Witty to some Muggle cooking websites that explained how to cook the perfect breakfast. Harry swore under his breath, turned around and ran up the stairs.
The door was still half-open, but Harry wouldn't have cared if it had been locked. Malfoy was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands and didn't even look up when Harry entered. "I'm not hungry, Emmy," he said in a dull voice. "Put out the candles, I'll go to sleep."
"It wasn't a lie," Harry said. Malfoy's head jerked up and his eyes went wide when he saw him. "It wasn't a lie for me, so fuck you, I'm not going to leave and let you think that I was just spying on you for the Ministry."
"Is this your pet stalking project, then?" Malfoy snapped. His voice was shaking with rage and there were two red blotches on the tip of his cheekbones. "Hoping for yet another quick promotion?"
"I told you I didn't want to leave the Aurors to start with!" Harry replied. "And I wouldn't have told you anything at all if I'd known it was you!"
Malfoy snorted. "You'd have me think that Saint Potter spends his time befriending random strangers off the interwebs?"
"It's not harder to believe than Draco Malfoy attempting to cook breakfast on a Muggle stove."
Judging from his face, Malfoy was thinking along the same lines. "What about that... what about that... drunken love letter?
Harry froze. He vaguely remembered writing a letter that, one night when he'd gone out with some friends and had had one too many, and Ginny had mentioned something about setting him up with one of his teammates, and to get out of it Harry had told her that there was someone else that he'd been meaning to ask out for some time.
Then, while fending off Ron and Hermione's inquiries, he'd realized that it was Witty he'd been thinking of when he talked about his imaginary crush. He had written him a letter in the middle of the night, had sobered up just enough to realize that it was a terrible idea, and he'd deleted the thing without sending it.
Except, from what Malfoy was saying, he had sent the letter after all. "You weren't supposed to read that!" Harry yelled. His brain was racing to try and remember what he'd written.
"I should have known it was too good to be true!" Malfoy yelled back. "I bet you had a good laugh about it with Granger and Weasel!"
Harry's fingers clenched around his wand. "You're the one who started it, not me," he said.
Malfoy lounged towards the dresser where he'd put his wand, but Harry's reflexes were quicker. He knocked the wand away with a backhand slap and pushed Malfoy backwards, pinning him against the wall, as if he could make Malfoy disappear inside the wall and then he'd have Witty back. "I meant everything I said."
"Why?" Malfoy asked, almost in a gasp. "Why should I believe you?"
Harry leaned forward and suddenly they were kissing, Harry's fingers tangled in the front of Malfoy's robes, Malfoy panting into Harry's mouth. It was one of the messiest and most uncoordinated kisses that Harry remembered, and he couldn't get enough of it.
They were both short of breath when they pulled apart, and Malfoy's shoulders were shaking in Harry's grip. Or maybe it was Harry who was shaking.
"Because I thought we were friends," he replied, staring into Malfoy's eyes. "Because I don't lie to my friends, okay? I care about my friends. About you!"
"Merlin," Malfoy said, as if something inside him had given out, and then they were kissing again.
In the low light cast by a couple of candles, Malfoy's half-closed eyes were almost black. One of Malfoy's arms wrapped around Harry's waist and pulled them flush together, dispelling any remaining doubts that this was what Malfoy wanted. Harry made a little noise in the back of his throat and pushed one leg between Malfoy's, and Malfoy threw back his head and moaned.
The bed was just a couple of feet away, but Harry didn't want to move, not with Malfoy rutting against his leg and saying the filthiest things against his lips. It sent shivers down his body. Malfoy broke the kiss and Harry made a noise of loss, but Malfoy was only trying to push him towards the bed. They fell in a tangle of limbs, Malfoy bracketing Harry's head with his arms and pulling him closer for another open-mouthed kiss.
Malfoy grabbed the back of Harry tightly and squeezed so hard that Harry was sure he'd have bruises on the next day. He couldn't bring himself to care. "Stay," Malfoy said, so quickly that Harry almost didn't get his words. "I know you've got nothing better to do tonight."
Harry bit his lips and grabbed Malfoy's waist, rolling them over with a quick move so that their positions were reversed, pressing Malfoy to the mattress. "That was the idea," he said, and kissed Malfoy again to wipe the smirk off his face.
