Chapter Text
Draco was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. The register of his burial, or at least the burial of what there was left of him after Greyback had finished, was signed by the Elders, the Court Scribe, the Interrogator, and the Chief Warlock. Yes… Draco was as dead as a door-nail.
As one might expect, there was precious little mourning in the Wizarding world as a result of this news. What was left of the boy’s family was imprisoned or in hiding and his former friends and allies, such as they were, agreed that he had brought his misfortune upon himself via the sad mishandling of the Dumbledore business. “Who,” they said, “would have thought that the Malfoy blood had become so thin?”
In Ottery St Catchpole, home of the Weasley family amongst others, there was positive celebration amongst the younger scions of that clan - although it had to be noted that Harry Potter, Hero Elect of the Wizarding world and current houseguest, was uncharacteristically sombre. Not even Ginny Weasley’s much admired mime of “Malfoy being torn to pieces by a werewolf and partially eaten” could raise a smile, though she performed it five times sequentially each to more uproarious laughter from the other spectators. It was not so much that Harry was sad that his schoolboy nemesis was dead or that he was shocked by the brutal circumstances of Malfoy’s demise, it was just that the offstage nature of the death made Harry feel somehow cheated and it had left behind a small, pointy hole in his sense of self-worth.
“Malfoy’s fall,” thought Harry, “should have been different. It should have come about because of me.”
Nevertheless, Harry had little leisure to brood upon this apparent injustice. Not that what took up his time was particularly productive - the Order being submerged in endless meetings to determine who should lead them in Dumbledore’s place and what it was that that individual should be leading them towards. Whilst excluded from the bulk of the meetings themselves, the younger members were periodically called upon to cast their votes as part of a labyrinthine process that Hermione likened to the election of a new Pontiff except with more smoke. Trapped as they were in the Burrow, there was not even the opportunity for carrying out research into the location of the missing Horcruxes, even if they had been sure that the necessary material had existed. No, Harry’s time was largely spent in refereeing the internecine warfare within the Weasley clan regarding who was going to have to do what at Bill and Fleur’s forthcoming nuptials. Eventually peace was only restored by virtue of voting Percy into all of the most tedious and potentially embarrassing jobs in his absence which, as the Twins observed, was fine because he would have been more than happy to have volunteered had he been there and it would be his fault if everything went horribly wrong - especially should he choose not to attend, as seemed entirely possible at this juncture.
Harry also spent a considerable amount of time trying, as tactfully as he knew how, to avoid Ginny. This was something that turned out to be more than a little challenging being as how they were bivouacked together in such close quarters. It wasn’t that he didn’t still fancy her, he told himself - though admittedly the chest monster had become suspiciously quiet since she had made it clear that she intended to catch Fleur’s bouquet even if it meant hexing all of the other female guests - it was just that he had finally managed to make A Noble Decision all on his own and he was going to stand by it come hell or high water. However, given the number of times he’d been on the receiving end of her patented hard blazing look, it seemed that Ginny was coming to view The Decision as something more in the line of a gesture and, as a result, Harry had had to resort to sleeping with the magical version of the chair wedged under the doorknob to avoid becoming the groom at a shotgun wedding, and was relying on the temporary sanctuary of his invisibility cloak more often than was strictly polite in a house guest and de-facto member of the family.
This strange holding pattern was abruptly broken one afternoon when a more than usually harassed-looking Remus Lupin paid an unscheduled visit to the household and promptly closeted himself away with Arthur behind a set of shields so powerful that not even the Twins’ extendable ears were of any help. The household waited with bated breath and, in due course, the door opened and Arthur stormed out into the hall.
“I’ll not do it,” he said to the pursuing Remus. “I don’t care if it was Albus’s wish, I’ll not put my wife and children through that.”
“Don’t you think you should ask your wife what she thinks first?” said Molly, as she emerged from the kitchen drying her hands on her apron. “She might have an opinion.”
“No,” said Arthur, “I do not.”
With that he headed out of the Burrow and into his shed, slamming the door behind him and leaving Remus to the mercy of the gathered audience. “Ah,” said Remus, “must be going. Things to do, people to see. Arthur will brief you all later.”
“Remus Lupin,” said Molly, hands on her hips, “you’re not too big that I can’t box your ears. Now tell me what’s going on.”
”Very well,” said Remus, “but not here.” The pair of them disappeared back into the room that he and Arthur had recently vacated, leaving everyone else to cool their heels in the hall once more. Eventually Molly emerged and, with Remus, headed out to the shed and Arthur. Watching them go past, Harry felt as though he was a member of the crowd at a very slow-motion tennis match.
Said crowd had diminished in numbers by the time there was any hint of action and even those tenacious enough to stay the course had begun to flag, with just Harry, Hermione, and Ron being draped around the hall in various states of recumbence when the adults finally left the shed. None of them looked particularly happy, but there was now an air of resignation about Arthur that had not been present beforehand. “We are going to have a guest,” he said. “Remus will be bringing him in the morning. You are not to mention this to anyone outside of the household for the present. Now, I think it’s long past time for tea.”
Harry and Co. exchanged glances and, as soon as they could, they extricated themselves and headed for Ron’s bedroom. Ron was the first to voice the question that was at the front of everyone’s mind. “Who the heck can it be?” he said.
“Well,” said Hermione, “we know it’s a he, we know that it’s a secret and we know that your dad isn’t at all happy about it so that has to narrow the field.” She looked expectantly at the others but any hope she had of intelligent suggestions was dashed by the blank looks they gave in return.
“Dad doesn’t like Percy very much at the moment,” offered Ron, after the silence had become too strained for him to remain quiet any longer.
“If your father was that upset about Percy coming to visit he’d hardly have invited him to the wedding,” observed Hermione, with a roll of her eyes.
“Well, you come up with a suggestion then.”
“Aside from a few of the high-ups at the Ministry, there’s very few people on our side your dad doesn’t like, Ron,” interjected Harry, before the pair of them had a chance to resume the bickering that had been going on almost non-stop for the last year. “That means it’s got to be someone on the other side.”
“Exactly!” said Hermione.
“Like a turncloak, you mean?” said Ron with a frown.
“Yes, but who is it and why would they bring them here?” said Hermione. “Surely somewhere unplottable like Grimmauld Place would be safer?”
“Maybe they’re planning on hiding whoever it is in plain sight?” suggested Harry.
“But that makes no sense,” said Hermione. “We’re wizards; we don’t need to hide someone in plain sight.”
“Since when has any of this made sense?” said Ron, gloomily. Had Trelawney been present she should have rewarded Ron for the perspicacity of this remark, but as it was it only earned him a glare from Hermione.
As it turned out, some (but certainly far from all) of their questions were answered the next morning when Remus Lupin Apparated in with an undoubtedly less than sartorially correct, but not even remotely dead, Draco Malfoy in tow.