Chapter Text
“You’re sure she’s not here?” Draco said for the third time that minute.
“Yes,” Harry said, warding the front entrance, concentrating intently on drawing the correct pattern so that their presence wouldn’t be detected. “Robards had a team put together to find whoever was sending Rowle information about Lynch’s whereabouts. Or supposed whereabouts,” he added, thinking of the London apartment. “Remember Dominic Fawley, the wizard in Case Management who gave us the devices for this case? Turns out his loyalties were a little more flexible than we thought.”
Draco grinded his teeth. “So the moral is to never trust anyone with a trap door beneath their office desk, I suppose. I had a bad feeling about him from the start, you know.”
Harry hummed. “I’m sure you did.”
Draco made an affronted sound but pressed on nonetheless. “So what about him?”
Harry sighed, completing the set of complex unlocking spells and hearing the familiar click of the door as Rowle’s office door swung open. “Robards had him arrested last night and made sure the news made headlines so Rowle was sure to see it. She’s on alert; tightening security, interviewing some of the potioneers she thinks might be involved in the leak. Trust me, she’ll be busy all day today. Or, at least until I call for reinforcement and she’s arrested.”
Draco made a satisfied sound. “And then we can finally get out of this Merlin-awful place.”
“I thought you were starting to like our cottage,” Harry said, shutting the door behind Draco. He cast a basic Locking Charm; they wouldn’t need long to find evidence that Rowle was acting alone in building Concordia, or at least that she had severed ties with Lynch.
“Since last night, I suppose,” Draco said vaguely before winking at Harry and sauntering over to Rowle’s desk and rummaging through the files strewn across it.
Harry made his way to a shelf above her drinks cabinet, where a few trinkets were stored; a postcard from Santa Monica from her brother, spare change—Muggle and wizarding—in an ornate bowl and a couple of spare quills.
“Nothing but accounts and information about some of the people in Concordia who are residents but haven’t received the full blood bond. We’re listed.”
“Just personal possessions here too,” Harry muttered.
He was about to turn to start on the place where a filing cabinet had emerged from the wall the last time they had been in Rowle’s office, when the drinks cabinet caught his attention. The bottle of Scotch was the exact same as the one Lynch had been so fond of. Except this one wasn’t filled with Scotch, but with what appeared to be rolled-up parchment.
“Draco,” he breathed. “Come here. I think I’ve found something.”
Draco was by his side in an instant, lifting the Scotch bottle from out of the cabinet and shaking it until every piece of folded or rolled parchment had fallen onto her desk. Each of the twenty or so letters began with, To my darling Malachy and ended with, Forgive me. Come back to me. Yours, Damoclina.
It appeared that every letter was either unsent or returned unanswered. What was clear judging from the dates of the letters, however, was that Rowle had begun writing them weeks before anyone suspected Concordia to be a thriving, cult-like environment open to anyone moving in social circles where blood bonds were the ultimate sacrifice and the most desired one.
“So, if she was writing him letters begging him to ‘come back’, then that must mean she made all of this by herself. And got Higglebound involved along the way.”
Draco made a noise of affirmation but it was distant.
Harry turned on his heel to find Draco sitting at Rowle’s desk, one of the letters clutched in his hand.
“Draco,” he said gently.
“She loves him, Harry,” Draco said. “It makes so much sense! Lynch was supposed to take the blood bond with her. It was only supposed to be something between them, but she wanted to expand it. So he left and she created this organisation. This entire space was supposed to be for them alone, to practice their magic away from the rest of the world. Alone.”
“But he took the blood bond with Wimmer.”
“Exactly. He took this life-altering bond with someone and left her. He put his political agenda above her, and she forgave him. His terrorist agenda. His violence.” There was a strange tone to Draco’s voice that Harry couldn’t help but notice.
“Draco,” he began slowly. “I know what you’re thinking, but you have to understand that there is no similarity. None.”
“Isn’t there?” Draco said, folding the letter and returning it inside the bottle of Scotch. “Blind forgiveness in the hope of finding something that isn’t really there.”
Harry frowned and, with fierce determination, knew that he needed to quell the voice of doubt Draco carried with him about their very new, tentative relationship. He kneeled beside the chair and held Draco’s hand between his own, caressing the skin there but looking directly into Draco’s watchful eyes.
“Listen to me,” he said firmly. “We met Lynch. He hasn’t repented. He killed and seriously injured so many people at that conference. And he’s interfering with the lives of everyone in Concordia. He’s hiding in London, enjoying a lavish lifestyle with Wimmer, drinking Scotch, manipulating Rowle and Concordia from the safety of his flat and being entertained by the thought that Aurors are out there, thinking that they’re tracking him. He doesn’t regret what he did. He hasn’t faced Azkaban, hasn’t tried to change his life, hasn’t recognised his actions. Rowle is a fool for still loving him.”
Harry gave Draco a small smile. “But you and me, we’re different. You did terrible things and were involved with terrible crimes. But you know that’s what they were. You regret it every day and you’re doing everything in your power to change the person you were, to bring about some kind of positive change in the world, even if it put your reputation in jeopardy and your safety at risk.”
Draco looked at him for a very long moment. “You’re a fool too, you know, just for different reasons,” he said, before he pressed a soft, closed-mouthed kiss to Harry’s forehead.
*
After that, time seemed to pass very quietly and discreetly. Over the next week, everything seemed to unravel, as though the entire Felix operation had been one tightly-bound knot that needed one twist to untie it.
Rowle was caught instantly. After managing to separate them to weaken their combined powers, Harry and a group of five other Aurors managed to bind Lynch and Wimmer and bring them to the Ministry of Magic for a court hearing. All three were sentenced to terms in prison, with Lynch and Wimmer maintained in prisons on opposite corners of the planet and their magical powers monitored constantly.
The next couple of months saw Draco leading a research team to discover the nature of the only true blood bond between Wimmer and Lynch. He was also invested in visiting the residents at St. Mungo's to reverse the effects of the blood bond potion that had been tampered with by Unwin and the rest of Lynch’s Concordia spies. They, along with Higglebound, were all sentenced to shorter periods of imprisonment. Draco was curiously private about his dedication to ensuring complete reversal of the tampered potion in the Concordia members and only when probed by Harry did he admit that he saw his own mistakes in their folly; blind trust even despite the warning signs and pain justified in the name of glory or the greater good.
Harry took the following month off, partly to recover from a deep gash he had sustained to the thigh during his duel with Lynch in the bid to capture him, and partly due to Draco’s insistence that he take time to evaluate his career and set aside time for himself. The first week left Harry agitated and restless, but after some time, further visits to the Mind Healer, afternoons spent and weekends spent with Teddy, and evenings (and nights) spent in Draco’s company, Harry began to appreciate the freedom the time off allowed him. And the fulfilment—as well as a heavy dose of snide comments and sarcasm—that Draco provided Harry was the precise thing Harry never knew he had been missing.