A/N: This fic was written for HP Horror Fest 2014 at hp_darkarts. Betaed by gusx217 and mab.

I had some problems with posting this story here, because for some reason a lot of words appeared to be stuck together. I've corrected as many as I've found, but if there are still some words written together left, please let me know. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

THE NIGHTMARE IN MALFOY MANOR

Harry approached Malfoy Manor with trepidation. The Manor was as repulsive as it had ever been for Harry after the torturous time he had spent there during the war. However, he had no choice but to go in there now, by himself no less; he had a fugitive to catch.

He settled for working his way through the tightly locked gate, and finally managed to open it with a powerful unlocking charm. Dread sinking into his bones, he began to approach the Manor, which loomed ominously at the other end of the driveway.

He had worked as Draco's parole officer for eight months now, and today was supposed to be their last meeting, but Malfoy never showed up. Harry had given the benefit of the doubt, as Malfoy had never been late before, but after an hour of waiting, Harry had decided he had a possible fugitive situation on his hands, and had proceeded as such.

He cautiously approached Malfoy Manor, expecting the worst, even though the day was fine and he saw no evidence of foul play. That didn't mean, though, that there wouldn't be a heavily armed and hostile parolee waiting for him inside the Manor, although Harry doubted that to be the case here. In fact, he knew that Malfoy was at home; the compulsory tracking spell cast on every parolee had revealed that much about his whereabouts.

For the entire time Harry had been working as Malfoy's parole officer, Malfoy had never shown any signs of being uncooperative regarding his parole or about having to deal with Harry. Of course, Malfoy had been his usual prickly, sarcastic self most of the time, but it hadn't been anything new, nothing Harry hadn't been expecting already. In fact, knowing that Malfoy had enraged and driven several parole officers to exhaustion before Harry, he had been relieved to find out that they actually got along quite well. Also, Harry had been surprised to find out that he quite liked Malfoy and his company. Malfoy had seemed to like Harry as well and showed some interest in his former rival, even boldly flirting with him for the past few weeks, so Harry had decided to ask him out after Malfoy's parole was over.

Now it seemed that it was never going to happen. Malfoy was going back to Azkaban for breaking his parole, and Harry would continue his work with his other parolees. Harry sighed; he had really been looking forward to getting to know Malfoy better and enjoying his company without the restraints of their professional relationship.

Harry reached the Manor and was surprised to see it obviously abandoned. The building looked as if no one had been living there for decades; the walls were covered in moss and lichen, and the windows were blurry - Harry couldn't see through them at all. Harry knew for sure that the Manor hadn't been abandoned last week, when he had made the regular house search with a senior Auror - that was the rule of the parole, and Malfoy had allowed it without a fight as always. Anyway, last week the Manor had been inhabited with Malfoy, his mother, and a handful of house-elves on duty.

Confused, Harry tried to open the front door, but of course it didn't so much as budge. However, he felt odd magic tingling through his hand as he tried the door handle, and immediately he felt there was something very wrong with the house.

He cast a strong revealing spell he had learned in Auror training, and noticed the whole house was covered in a manipulation spell, making it look as if it was nothing but an abandoned old manor well on its way to ruins. He cast other spells to analyse what sort of magic had been used to cover the Manor with, and similar to Dark Magic, it had a powerful shielding attribute in it.

Harry tried every spell he knew of to get past the spell, but nothing worked. Frustrated, he began to walk around the Manor, trying to find a crack in the unbreakable surface of the shield. He cast spell after spell to keep the protecting magic visible to his searching eyes, to see if there would be an unnoticed window or a side door unaffected by the magic. His instincts told him he needed to get inside the house to see if Draco needed help, and, with or without backup, Harry had learned to trust his instincts.

He had almost finished his search, when he noticed a weaker shimmer in the magical shield just above the ground. He crouched down and inspected the spot more closely. It looked like a trapdoor, one like Muggles used to have for their cats and dogs in their doors, but as far as Harry knew, the Malfoys didn't have any such pets. However, the house-elves might use something like that if they were not Apparating around, Harry thought. The trapdoor looked barely big enough for Harry to crawl through it, but he decided give it a go. As far as he could see, it might be the only way to get inside the Manor.

It was a close call, Harry almost got himself stuck in the middle, but he managed to wiggle through the trapdoor, and with a relieved sigh, he dropped to his feet in the dark house. He cast a Lumos and looked around; he obviously was somewhere in the cellar, but it definitely wasn't the same cellarhe had been thrown into when he had been caught and brought to the Manor during the war.

Harry moved forward, cautiously feeling around with his hand, encountering nothing but an uncomfortable, creepy silence. He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up, his eyes meeting only darkness. Then something flickered to his right, and Harry jumped into a defensive position, his wand ready, but there was nothing to be seen.

Heart pounding in his chest and adrenaline coursing through his veins, Harry started to climb the stairs he recognized as the same he had walked all those years ago. He knew that they led to the drawing room, where Voldemort had held his meetings during the War.

He was half-way up the stairs, when he felt something brush against his neck and heard heavy breathing right next to his left ear. Harry whipped around, but saw nothing behind him.

"Malfoy?" he called warily, but there was no answer. When he turned back to the stairs, the heavy breathing continued beside his ear.

Shivering from the creepy feeling, Harry rushed up the stairs and arrived at the door to the drawing room. He cracked it open. The room was empty, and Harry stepped inside, looking around cautiously. Once fully inside, he cast the tracking spell for Draco, to see if he could detect his exact location in the house, but the spell bounced around the room uncontrollably, until it stopped, pointing faintly to the next floor to the left from the drawing room. Harry wasn't sure if he could trust the result of the tracking spell, it had acted so weird, but he decided to follow it nevertheless.

He made it through the drawing room to the door he presumed would lead to the entrance hall. He peered around the slightly opened door and was relieved to see he had been right, for once. He stepped into the entrance hall, eyeing the staircase. He let go of the door handle and the door abruptly slammed shut. Harry reached back to the door, but couldn't open it anymore. He frowned at the door, tugging it in vain; it stayed closed.

When he tried an unlocking charm on the door, he noticed a faint smudge slowly appearing on the surface of the door. It began spreading out, one letter at a time, until it formed the word "Crucio", painted in blood red. It didn't smell like paint, though, but something entirely different, like fresh blood.

Harry reached out and brushed his finger through the fresh paint to analyze what it really was… and the second his finger touched the paint, a fierce agony rushed through his whole body, so intense and overwhelming that he screamed. His body convulsed in pain, jerking so violently as if electrocuted, but his finger was like glued to the paint.

With an enormous struggle he managed to snatch his finger from the door and slumped to the floor. Panting harshly and still twitching from the shock, he stared at the door, trying to decipher what the hell was happening in this blasted house. Confused, he struggled to his feet, his whole body aching from the Cruciatus curse. With a last glance at the door, he cautiously made his way to the stairs, climbing them slowly, as if waiting for something horrible to happen every step of the way.

Nothing horrible happened, but for Harry, it felt more ominous than comforting after the incident downstairs. When he reached the second floor, he cast another tracking spell to see where it would point him this time. It pointed to the right of the stairs, and Harry didn't see any reason to do otherwise. He moved forward along the long hallway, passing closed doors on his left and right, but not feeling up to try opening any of them without a good reason. Finally, the tracking spell stopped in front of an imposing oak door at the end of the hallway.

"Malfoy?" Harry called again, and this time there was a response, a heavy pounding on the door.

"Potter, is that you? Let me out of here, right fucking now!" Malfoy's unmistakable voice demanded from the other side of the door.

"Did you lock yourself in, Malfoy? Well, let me open the door for you," Harry grinned, relieved, and made to open the door. The door remained closed despite Harry's best efforts to open it.

"How did you manage to get yourself locked in there in the first place?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, I don't have a fucking clue what happened! I was reading a book when all of a sudden the door slammed closed and I couldn't get out of here," Malfoy snarled from the other side of the door.

"Are you alright? How long have you been there?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I've been here since this morning. Why? Oh, my last appointment, I missed it, didn't I? Are you here to take me to Azkaban then?" Malfoy's voice sounded distressed.

"Not to Azkaban yet, but yeah, you missed your appointment and that's why I came here to look for you. What's happening here? The whole Manor is under some sort of a magical shield, and some very strange things are happening here inside the house as well," Harry asked through the door.

"I seriously don't know what's happening. I found a book that contained some handwritten spells I'd never heard of before, and the next thing I knew was that I was locked inside this blasted library, and none of my spells could open the door."

"Could it be that the spell from the book had something to do with it? Did you try the spell out loud?"

"Sure, I tried… oh fucking hell, that caused all this! I'm an idiot!" Malfoy grumbled.

"Right. Now step back, I'll blow the door open, because none of the unlocking spells seem to work here," Harry suggested and took a step back himself. He cast the spell, but nothing happened. The door remained closed.

He tried another, stronger spell, but that didn't work either. Harry frowned.

"Have you tried every unlocking spell that might possibly have been used in this house? I mean, also the spells that have been only in your family's use?"

"Of course I have, what do you think I am, a moron?" came a scathing reply. "Oh fuck, I'm never getting out of here."

Harry grinned at hearing Malfoy's sulky voice. "Might do you some good. By the way, what book was it you were reading? Is it something you have read before?"

"No, I haven't seen it before. It definitely isn't one of our collections. I guess it appeared here during the war."

"Along with Voldemort?"

"Yeah, possibly. Why?"

"That might give us a clue. Was the Manor in its normal state before you tried that spell?" Harry asked, inspecting the door with interest.

"How the fuck would I know? Everything is absolutely normal even now, except that I can't get out of this room!" Malfoy was exasperated.

Harry cast a few spells on the door, trying to reveal any used magic on it, but they all came back clear. There was no trace of any unfamiliar locking charms on it.

Harry felt the surface of the door with his fingers, but all he felt was an absolutely normal, smooth wooden door. He couldn't find anything out of order in it, not even a crack.

He brushed the door knob and felt a pattern on it, and crouched to have a better look at it. On the knob he found a small, intricate pattern of a snake. He rubbed the snake with his fingertip, casting every unlocking spell at the same time, but nothing happened. He hissed in frustration, and felt something happening under his fingertip; the snake was stirring to life.

Harry grinned. He knew what to try next. He hissed a simple command for opening the door in Parseltongue, and to his delight, the lock clicked open. Harry yanked the door open, but at the same time, a ferocious whirlwind took over the library, tossing all the countless books from their shelves and spinning them around the large room. Harry had time to see Malfoy standing a few feet from the door, clutching a book against his chest, until the whirlwind took a hold of him too, and slammed him forcefully against the doorframe.

Malfoy slumped to the floor, unconscious, and the book fell from his grasp. Just when the whirlwind was about to snatch it away, Harry lunged for it and managed to get a hold of it, as well as Malfoy, dragging them all out of the room, before the door slammed closed behind them.

Harry took a quick look at Malfoy. Other than the injury to his head, which hit the door frame, he didn't seem to be seriously was a large lump on Malfoy's head, and an open wound on his temple, where a small trickle of blood was dripping into his hair. Harry cast a Rennervate at Malfoy, and was relieved to see him stirring.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked warily.

"Fucking hell, Potter! Not that I'm not happy to see you, but do you always have to barge in with such a bang?" Malfoy complained. He growled and tried to sit up, but only managed to lift his head until he slumped back to the floor.

"Look, Malfoy, I'm sorry, but we need to get out of here as soon as possible. I think this house is closing around us, and if we don't get out of here soon, we'll both be trapped inside."

Harry cast a healing spell, then another on Malfoy's wound, but it didn't seem to do any good, because the blood kept trickling down no matter what he did. He helped the grumbling Malfoy to his feet and dragged him down the hallway towards the stairs where he had come from.

All of a sudden, a worrying thought occurred to him, "Malfoy, is there anyone else here in the Manor right now?"

Malfoy glanced up at him and slowly shook his head, "No, at least not that I know of. My mother is currently in France."

"What about your house-elves?"

"She took them with her, as I requested. I wanted to be alone for a while. We're on our own here, Potter."

"That's not what I was worried about. For me, I'm just relieved that there are no more people to save in here."

"The house-elves are not people, Potter," Malfoy snorted, but then he grew visibly suspicious. "By the way, Potter, how did you get into the Manor, if it's sealed with magic?"

"I came through a crack in the shield. There was a trapdoor leading to the cellar."

"Are you planning on getting us out of here the same way you came in?"

"If I can," Harry said. "Damn it, does this hallway ever end?"

As if on cue, they both looked over their shoulders and noticed that they hadn't moved at all from the library door. Harry could swear that they had already walked twice the length of the hallway.

"What the hell is happening here?" Malfoy groaned. "We should have walked through the house already! And this blood dripping in my eye is really starting to wind me up!"

They continued walking, concentrating every step of the way towards the staircase, but despite how many steps they took, they weren't getting any closer to the stairs. If anything, the hallway seemed to stretch even further ahead of them.

"Oh fuck, this isn't working," Malfoy groaned after looking back and seeing the door to the library still behind them as if they hadn't left at all. "The hallway is obviously spelled to be never-ending."

"Or never even beginning," Harry mused. "No matter how much we try, we will never reach the other end of it."

"Listen, there are eight doors on each side of this hallway before the staircase. If this is only a distraction spell, we might be able to get around it by proceeding from door to door. Like this," Malfoy explained, pressing his back against the first door on his right and inching his way towards the next room. Harry stared at him dumbfounded; this was definitely not a good time for secret agent role play. "This is working. Get off the carpet, Potter, I think it's the one that has aspell on it, because from here I can see that the hallway is back to normal," Malfoy announced.

Harry did as he was told, and indeed, when he stepped out of the carpet and flattened himself against the wall, the neverending hallway returned back to the way it had been when he had arrived. They edged slowly along the wall towards the stairway, because the carpet covered almost all of the floor, leaving not much of the bare floor on either side of it. Every time Harry stepped even partly on the carpet, the view changed and it looked as if he hadn't made any progress at all.

Finally they reached the staircase, and Malfoy sighed in relief. "What now? Downstairs, I presume?"

Harry nodded and beckoned Malfoy to go first.

"Erm… are they safe? I mean, everything is twisted in here, so…" Malfoy trailed off, hesitating at the stairs.

"They were safe when I arrived, but if you want to be sure, I can go first," Harry offered, and Malfoy looked relieved, nodding his approval.

They went down the stairs in silence, wary of every step they took, and somewhere in the middle Harry released the breath he hadn't noticed he was holding, and relaxed a fraction. He probably shouldn't have, because just then the stairs under their feet vanished, and they tumbled down, landing roughly on the floor of the entrance hall. Harry had quick reflexes, thanks to his Auror training, and he managed to roll around and land without any damages, but Malfoy wasn't so lucky. He landed straight on his shoulder, and an ugly sound of a breaking bone echoed in the otherwise silent entrance hall.

"Aaarrrrrgh," Malfoy yelled in agony, sprawling on the marble floor and cradling his arm and collarbone, "I hate this bloody house! Get me out of here, Potter, now!"

"I'm trying, alright! It's your fucking house anyway, so you should tell me which way to go!" Harry yelled back at him, anxious and worried that Malfoy might have been injured too badly to move without having to carry him.

"Try to open the door to the drawing room. What have you been writing on it? Crucio? Really?"

"Not me, and you better not try it." Harry yanked the door, but it remained locked. He cast an unlocking charm on it, but that only made the red writing pulse threateningly, so Harry left the door alone.

Next he tried the front door, but with no more success than the first time, when he had tried to open it on his way into the Manor.

"There's no way out of this house. Any other ideas?" Harry growled, getting extremely frustrated.

"There's one option, although I've never tried it myself, but there's a secret passageway from my father's study. It's spelled to reject any other magic but Malfoy family magic. I know where it is and how to use it, but I've never actually tried it before. It may still be unaffected by the shield magic." Malfoy groaned in pain and tried to get up, struggling with his injured hand and shoulder. Harry went to help him, and when Malfoy was on his feet, swaying, Harry supported him wrapping his arm around Malfoy's waist.

"Which way?" Harry asked gruffly.

"To the right. There's a hallway behind the staircase. The study is the third door on the left," Malfoy grunted and leaned heavily on Harry. "Get the book, will you? It's our only clue about what's happening in here."

Harry secured the book under his jacket and led the way to the hallway, trying to ignore the growing uneasiness inside him. They were stuck in this bloody Manor, no way out, with a half-unconscious Malfoy dependent on him. Harry cursed under his breath and forced himself to move on.

They had barely entered the hallway, when a high-pitched shriek filled the air, piercing their eardrums. Without any free hands to cover his ears, Harry tried to hurry towards the study, but Malfoy's weight slowed him down; the man was almost dead weight against him. Harry felt his hand around Malfoy's waist getting wet, and when he glanced at it, he realized that Malfoy was bleeding badly. Where was all that blood coming from? At this rate Malfoy would bleed to death before they managed to get out of here.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Harry cursed, and dragged Malfoy along towards the study.

All of a sudden the shrieking stopped in a gurgle, and the air around them was sucked away. Harry tried to take a breath, but there wasn't enough oxygen for that, and with a slight panic he realized that they were being suffocated to death. Malfoy was already gasping for air and clawing at his throat in futility, and Harry wasn't coping much better. His eyes were already growing blurry, his vision blackening rapidly. Gathering the rest of his strength and determination, he forced their way to the third door on the left, and the few remaining yards to their destination felt longer than the hallway upstairs ever had.

Finally Harry got a grasp of the door handle, pushed it open and hustled both of them inside. The door slammed shut behind them and they leaned against the wall gasping for air.

Malfoy stiffened next to him, staring in shock at the other side of the room and whimpering, "Will this nightmare ever end?"

Harry looked up and saw a huge snake lifting its head as if to attack, a menacing look in its beady eyes.

"Bloody hell, is that Nagini?" Malfoy whispered incredulously. "I thought Longbottom beheaded it?"

"He did. It must be some sort of a ghost or a reflection of her. It's not real," Harry whispered back.

"It certainly looks real to me," Malfoy grunted, staring at the snake horrified.

"You are not to enter my master's domain," the snake hissed in Parseltongue, and swayed its head threateningly.

Harry braced himself and scowled at the snake. "Your master is dead, and so are you. You have no business being here. Move out of our way!"

"You are nothing but a half-blood scum at my master's feet," the snake hissed scathingly.

"And yet I'm the only one who can speak your language. I'm the one who defeated your master, so now you belong to me and are to obey me. Move out of our way; I'm not asking you again!" Harry demanded, hoping that the bloody snake would take the hint. The snake swayed again, but now it looked a bit hesitant.

"What the hell are you doing?" Malfoy hissed at him impatiently.

"I'm trying to get that snake out of our way. Where's the passageway exactly, anyway?"

"It's behind the large bookcase. I can't open it from here, I need to get closer," Malfoy whispered. He stared at the snake, looking seriously annoyed, and then he gritted his teeth and stamped his foot like a petulant five year old.

"Now you listen to me, you overgrown sleazy worm! This is my house and you'd better slither back to the lousy hole you came from! I will not put up with any uninvited guests or creatures or whatever the fuck intruders you might be; this is my house and I demand you leave this instant!"

Awkwardly, Malfoy cradled his injured arm with the other one and held his wand steady in his better hand, casting hex after hex at the poor snake, snarling viciously at it as he did so. The snake drew back and dashed towards Harry at lightning speed, striking Harry's torso. His whole body seized up with shock and he dropped to his knees, gasping for air. His insides felt like they were paralyzed and were so cold, he could barely breathe.

"Was it supposed to do that?" Malfoy asked innocently as the snake disappeared. Harry could only stare at Malfoy, who stood there with his chest heaving, eyes blazing and his trademark smirk firmly on his lips.

After a moment's recuperation, Harry scrambled to his feet, still pale as a ghost.

"You idiot! You… you crazy, stupid, careless, wonderful idiot! You didn't know what it might do!" Harry crowed, and before he knew it, he had grabbed Malfoy by the back of his neck and kissed him soundly on the lips. Malfoy yelped in surprise, and Harry let him go. He stepped back, embarrassed.

"So, um.. how do we get out of here?" Harry finally asked, not meeting Malfoy's eyes.

"Well, who's supposed to be the saviour here, I wonder," Malfoy said under his breath, and then, with a stronger voice, "Here, take these books out."

Malfoy nodded towards the books on the shelf in front of him. Harry did as he was asked, revealing only a smooth wooden shelf and back wall, and glanced at Malfoy in confusion.

"Is there supposed to be an opening mechanism or something?" Harry asked.

"I'd be surprised if there was, especially before I cast the spell," Malfoy drawled.

Malfoy pointed his wand and whispered a complex spell in a language Harry didn't recognize, and the back wall of the bookcase slid aside, revealing a piece of stone wall. There was a dent in the stone.

"At least I don't have to cut my finger for blood," Malfoy said dryly and touched his bloody temple with his finger. At the same time, the shrieking sound started again outside the study, and the door to the hallway slammed open. From a distance they heard a thunderous noise approaching and the wind escalating, sending all the loose papers on the desk flying around.

"No! Not again!" Malfoy groaned in despair, slumping against Harry as if all the previous excitement had sucked every drop of his remaining strength out of him.

"Hurry up, help me! I need to touch the dent in the wall with my finger. It should open the passageway," Malfoy cried out, the rising wind already lifting their feet from the ground. With the wind came a terrible smell of burning flesh and something so rotten that it didn't encourage any further analysis. The smell was so terrible that it made their eyes water and Harry had to use all his self-control not to retch.

Harry wrapped his arm tightly around Malfoy's waist and used his other hand to guide Malfoy's finger to the spot. Then he took a firm grip of the bookcase, trying to keep them from flying with the wind. Only seconds later, but what felt like ages, the bookcase started to move, revealing an opening to a dark archway leading away from the house, and Harry didn't wait any longer. He pulled Malfoy inside with him, struggling against the stormy wind that threatened to suck them back into the study, and yelled over the storm, "How do you close the damned wall?"

Groaning with pain, Malfoy reached for the wall near the opening and slammed his palm against a rounded stone. The door to the house slid closed, leaving them in deafening silence. Harry cast a Lumos and saw Malfoy leaning heavily on the wall, his eyes closed and sweat glistening on his forehead.

"Where does this corridor lead?" Harry asked, worried and curious at the same time. The corridor looked like it went under the ground, and it obviously hadn't been used in very long time.

"I've never used this corridor, but my father told me once that it leads outside the gates. From there we'll be able to Apparate away," Malfoy explained, pushing himself from the wall with visible effort, also casting a Lumos and leading the way, even if he wasn't very steady on his feet. The corridor wasn't wide enough for them to go side by side, so there wasn't any other way.

The trip to the other end of the corridor seemed to last forever. Malfoy seemed to go slower and slower as they went, he had probably lost too much blood during their escape from the Manor, and the head injury wasn't helping, either. Harry tried to estimate how long Malfoy would be able to walk at all, and made plans in his head how to get him through the corridor if he collapsed before they reached the other end. He walked right behind Malfoy to support him if that happened. All of a sudden they arrived at a sturdy oak door - that was locked, of course.

Malfoy leaned on the wall in exhaustion, and let Harry try to hopefully unlock the last barrier between them and freedom. It didn't surprise Harry to discover that the door remained closed no matter how many different and powerful unlocking charms he tried on it. Finally he decided to look for similar opening mechanisms as at the other end of the corridor. Indeed, there was a rounded stone to the right of the door and Harry tried to push it. It didn't work.

Malfoy groaned and tried to lift his hand, but didn't quite manage. "If it requires my hand and blood again, you have to help me."

Harry took his hand and pressed it on the stone, and the door finally opened. They stepped outside to the edge of the forest, near the gates, the driveway about a fifty yards away.

"Splendid," Malfoy breathed, and slumped to the ground, his legs giving out under him.

"Right, let's get you to St Mungo's, okay?" Harry hoisted Malfoy from the ground and into his arms, before Apparating them away.

Two days later Malfoy was dismissed from St Mungo's, and Harry was there to help him. Actually, Harry had hardly left Malfoy's side during these days anyway. Now Harry had been asked to escort Malfoy to the Ministry to attend a hearing regarding the incident.

Malfoy was understandably nervous no matter how much Harry assured him that he wasn't charged with anything. The Aurors only wanted to hear his side of the story. They also wanted him to consult with the Curse-Breakers to figure out how to release the Manor from the spell or whatever curse was holding it.

As soon as they arrived at the Ministry, they were escorted to the meeting room at the Auror office. There were already two Aurors and two Curse-Breakers waiting for them. The book Malfoy had rescued from the Manor and given to Harry to keep it safe, was on the table. Harry had handed it over to the Aurors with the explanation about what had happened, right after he had taken Malfoy to St Mungo's.

Now it was Malfoy's turn to tell his side of the story to the Aurors, and after he had finished, they all sat in silence around the table. Then one of the Aurors cleared his throat.

"Mr Malfoy, you said that you found the book the same day that the spell was activated?"

"Yes," Malfoy confirmed. "I found an unfamiliar book in our library and started to read it. I found the hand-written spell in the book and tried it out loud. That must have activated the spell. Have you discovered the meaning of the spell, what was it supposed to do?"

"The hand-writing in the book is verified to have been Voldemort's. We are certain that the spell was intended to be used as a defence shield in case there was an attack onthe Manor while he was there. The defence spell would have kept the attackers from getting inside the building. In case someone had already managed to get inside, the spell would distract or take out the intruders before they could cause any damage," one of the Curse-Breakers explained.

"I can understand that it attacked Potter, because he entered the Manor after the spell had been activated, but why did it attack me, the lord of the house?" Malfoy asked curiously.

"Well, according to your story, you didn't get harmed until you started co-operating with Mr Potter. That's why you must have been considered as an enemy by the spell. That's also why you can't return to the Manor until we have managed to find a counter-spell to deactivate the shield and remove all the Dark Magic remaining inside the Manor," the other Curse-Breaker said, and the Aurors nodded in unison.

"I'll have to inform my mother about this, she will be returning home in a couple of days," Malfoy said, looking worried.

"We'll let you know when it's safe to return to your home, Mr Malfoy. Thank you for your assistance," the Auror said and stood up, offering his hand to shake first Malfoy's and then Harry's hand. Then they were accompanied to the Atrium and left to their own devices.

"Do you have a place to stay until you can return home?" Harry asked.

Malfoy shrugged, "I'll think of something. First I need to send an owl to my mother."

"You know, now that our official relationship as parolee and an officer is finished, you are welcome to stay with me at 12 Grimmauld Place if you like, there's plenty of room there," Harry offered blushing slightly.

"Well, that's an interesting offer. Definitely abetter option than being whisked to Azkaban for breaking my parole," Malfoy drawled.

"Come on, there was never a chance of you being sent back to Azkaban because you were breaking your parole. The Dark Magic inside the Manor had trapped you there. Besides, you would never be that stupid to break your parole so close to being released," Harry reproached.

"Oh, that's a relief. I see that you might be a sensible wizard after all. So thank you, Potter, I might take you up on your offer, at least for now." Malfoy grinned and gestured for Harry to show the way.

Harry couldn't help the warm feeling spreading in his chest as he guided the man he loved to the fireplace and towards his home. Without the cursed Manor, he would have possibly managed to ask Malfoy out eventually, but now, after all that happened at the Manor, he'd have Malfoy all to himself for a while, and that was even a better outcome than he'd ever even dared dream of.

The End