A/N: Dying of the Light is also updated. Enjoy.

Draco peers out the window through the tiny hole he made in the paper covers.

He can't even muster the surprise anymore when he sees who exactly it is lurking outside their haven, skulking around, probably thinking that he's doing a good job of being sneaky while lumbering about like the giant oaf that he is.

He had hoped that the sound is indeed just from a car backfiring — the first time he'd heard that, he'd jump so high it had been a barrel of laughs for Hermione — but the universe has a habit of turning his hopes and dreams into ash lately. So really, why should this turn out to be any different?

Straightening, Draco deftly smoothens the paper back over the hole and twists around to look at the man on their sofa.

There, he supposes, is the explanation as to why this muggle knows so much.

Draco can't decide if it's fate or irony that brought them all to this point. Whichever it is, he certainly did himself no favours by helping it along with his own less than stellar decision making process.

A sharp inhalation followed by a muttered groan coming from direction of the sofa only serves to reinforce that unwelcomed thought.

Somewhere above him, the pipes rattle — the house is not new and has been known to make the odd noise once every often — and as he tears his eyes away from the ceiling, he is reminded that he's no longer in this alone. He'll be damned if he allowed Hermione to be dragged into the mess he's created.

Draco strides over to the sofa and before the man's eyes can even fully open, Draco hauls him up into a sitting position. Gathering the man's wrists together, Draco pulls the man's hands behind his back and secures it with a piece of rope he's scrounged up earlier.

"Your partner's outside," Draco says conversationally as the man blinks groggily back at him. "Of course, if I had known your work partner is a wizard, I would have killed you right there and then."

"It's a bit too late for that now," Draco says, yanking on the rope a little too hard, prompting a grunt from the man. "But let's hope the sight of you is enough to curb his foolhardy Gryffindor tendencies, shall we?"

The man gurgles, as if he is trying to clear his throat but failing, his eyes still glazed over and Draco sighs.

"Believe me," he mutters as he drags the man up to his feet. "This isn't how I want it to be."

Draco loops an arm around the man as he sways dangerously, steadying him, and with the other hand, pulls out his wand to keep it trained on the man.

Useless it may be, but nobody else need know that.

He awkwardly manoeuvres the both of them to the door, giving the other man a jab with the wand now and then so he'd move in the proper direction. As he reaches out around the man to wrap one large hand around the cold doorknob, his traitorous thoughts turn to Hermione and he wishes he had just a little bit more time with her.

To say that Harry had no game plan rushing in is an understatement. The truth is he hasn't been thinking at all. Soon as the scry confirmed Basil's location, Harry had blindly apparated straight to the spot on the map, the image of Ron's glassy eyes and his unnaturally angled head still fresh in his mind.

It is completely reckless and ill-advised and if Basil had known, there is no doubt that the man would not hesitate to chew him out about it. The odds are stacked against him. He has no information about the situation, no clue about what had happened and not even the slightest idea as to who or what he's dealing against.

Which is why it seemed a perfectly reasonable and even great idea to dive for the bushes the moment he hears the door creaking open.

"Potter, you can stop skulking around the bushes and come out," comes an all too familiar drawl that raises all of Harry's warning bells. "I know you're here."

"Bollocks!" Harry curses perhaps a tad too loudly as his foot snags one of the roots on the damn vegetation and he half stumbles his way out from amidst the plants. "Bloody shrubbery..."

"Malfoy," he says, narrowing his eyes at the way said cowardly prat is holding Basil out like a human shield. If his wand wasn't made of such sturdy material, it would have snapped in half with the way he is gripping it.

"Of course this one would belong to you," Malfoy says, gesturing irritably at Basil with his wand and Harry has to clench his fist to stop himself from casting Malfoy into oblivion. "It's just my luck."

"Basil," Harry says, ignoring the craven bastard and looking straight at Basil, searching for any signs of injury. "Are you alright?"

"Ye- Yeah," Basil croaks, nodding feebly. Harry breathes a sigh of relief, one that is cut short by the rude snort from the git behind Basil.

"Yes, yes, what a touching reunion," Malfoy sneers. "But as they say, the ball is still in my court, Potter."

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry says between gritted teeth.

"What everybody wants," Malfoy says, gesturing vaguely to the side. "Life and liberty."

"You mean let you go?" Harry says, incredulous, as Malfoy claps, the very picture of delighted mockery. "Do you take me for a fool?"

"I know what you are, Malfoy," Harry says before Malfoy can get in whatever snide remark he has in store. "You were a coward before but now you're a monster as well."

"You presume too much, Potter," Malfoy says, voice tight and features drawn. "You don't know anything."

"I know you killed Ron!" Harry yells, anger rising as, try to suppress it as he might, Ron's face — white, pale, dead — keeps surfacing, pushing itself to the forefront of his mind and superimposing itself to the ground besides Malfoy's feet. He blinks and blinks again but still the image will not leave.

"That was... unfortunate," Malfoy says, looking to the ground while his knuckles grow white. "Believe it or not, it was an accident."

"Lies!" Harry hisses. He cocks his head and grins a terrible grin at Malfoy. "Don't make this hard on yourself. Let Basil go and surrender and I might go easy on you."

"You can't have your cake and eat it too, you know, Potter," Malfoy drawls lazily.

"Watch me," Harry says, wand raising and moving before Malfoy can react.

"Relashio!" Harry yells and a jet of fiery purple sparks comes erupting from his wand at the pair.

A look of surprise registers on both Basil and Malfoy's faces before they are forcefully thrown from each other. Basil goes soaring through the air, sailing towards the bushes where he lands face first into the middle of the plants with a strangled cry mixed in with a muffled curse.

Malfoy, on the other hand, is thrown backwards against the front door, his back cracking against the frame as a grimace of pain flashes across his face. Malfoy slides to the ground and Harry advances forward, wand brandished in front of him like a sword.

In a split second, barely the blink of an eye, Malfoy disappears from where he has landed.

Harry whirls around furiously, howling impotently, searching for a tell-tale flash of platinum.

"Come out, Malfoy!" Harry roars. "Stop hiding and face me like a man!"

"Don't you dare ru-" And suddenly all the breath is knocked out of Harry as a figure — a creature, an animal — with that trademark white hair barrels towards him and wraps spindly limbs around his legs. A scream tears halfway out of Harry's throat and cold, stark, fear rises in him as he lands, pain shooting up his spine, on his back, all air forcibly vacated out of his lungs.

He wheezes but no oxygen would enter and his chest burns as he claws the soft soil. The figure, wild and snarling, looms above him, pinning him to the ground and Harry catches a glint of grey, the moonlight seeming to reflect off the irises.

The creature — Malfoy — gnashes its teeth and Harry is almost oddly disappointed in how normal they look.

Harry balls his hands into fists and throws his all into a right hook that catches the man across his jaw but it is like throwing a rubber ball against a solid brick wall — completely and utterly useless.

Malfoy snarls again and horror seizes Harry as Malfoy slams down and sinks those normal, human teeth into the meat of his shoulder. Harry trashes wildly, flailing and bucking, trying to throw Malfoy off and dislodge his teeth, but Malfoy's bite is like a vice and each desperate movement only serves to tear the flesh further.

Harry's eyes dart frantically, mind racing as he struggles to think through the panicked haze - think, think, thin-

"Accio," Harry gasps and his wand, flung out of his hand when Malfoy tackled him earlier, darts into his open palm and he swiftly turns it to Malfoy, the spell squeezing out through ragged breaths, "Diffindo."

Malfoy rears back, tearing a chunk out of Harry's shoulder, as the skin on his pale neck splits open and blood pours forth freely. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Harry is aware that Malfoy does not spit out the flesh, that if it's not on the ground then it's down his gullet. But the thought of that is too massive, too chaotic to be contained in the confines of his head. All he can focus on in the moment is to regain the upper hand on Malfoy.

"Filipendo," Harry incants and Malfoy is propelled up and off him as Harry scrambles up. Taking advantage of the confusion, Harry casts, "Incarcerous!"

Thick ropes shoot out towards Malfoy, wrapping themselves around his torso and binding his arms and legs as panic creeps up his face. He struggles against the ropes once, twice, and then seems to deflate, sagging to the ground while his breaths exit in short puffs.

"Harry fucking Potter," Malfoy rasps then bursts out into mad, hysterical laughter.

"Shut up!" Harry yells, his wand arm straight and taut, the end pointing right at Malfoy's face, who in turn only laughs louder and harder, so much so that Harry can hear him straining to gulp in enough air between each guffaw. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Malfoy stops abruptly and if the outburst chilled Harry before, the sudden silence is downright eerie.

"Kill me."

Harry's eyes widen involuntarily and his wand wavers for a fraction.

"Get your revenge," Malfoy says, looking Harry straight in the eye. "It'll be the one good thing to come out of this entire affair."

"Well, Potter?" Malfoy taunts when Harry fails to reply. "You have me at your mercy now. Do it!"

Harry blinks. And for a moment there, he doesn't recognise Malfoy at all — not with the blood — his blood — running down the side of his mouth or the gushing open hole in his neck or the feigned defiance, tainted with defeat, carved into his posture.

"Or do you want me to describe to you how Weasley died?"

Harry's mind instantly blanks and it's like he's detached from his self, like he is floating outside of his body, viewing a pantomime as a member of the audience instead of the actor on stage holding the weapon in his hand. He watches as he raises the wand, lifting it high above his head, ready to rain down fire and death like an avenging angel of the lord.

"Draco!" a voice screams and for the second time that night, all the air leaves Harry's body.

He turns mechanically to the door where the voice came from and an acute pain spikes through him as his vision blurs from the tears that springs, unbidden, to his eyes.

She looks a little paler than usual but seems otherwise unchanged. A longing, sudden and intense, to reach out and touch those soft brown curls spreads through Harry but he can no more move than he can breathe.

"Hermione..." he whispers but she doesn't seem to have heard or even seen him.

Harry realises with a start — and the knowledge hurts beyond belief — that all her attention is focused on the man bound and subdued on the ground.

"She has nothing to do with this," Malfoy says, kicking at whatever parts of Harry that he can reach, constricted as he is. He ignores the woman standing there at the doorway, watching him keenly, the words falling out of him in a rush. "I'm the monster. Kill me. Arrest me. Do whatever you want — to me, just me."

"Silencio." It takes Harry a while to realise that the spell had not in fact come from him.

There is no missing the look on her face even as she has her wand directed at Malfoy. Harry had seen it before on her face, a long time ago, as she looked at Ron lying on a bed in the Hospital Wing as he recovers from a bout of poisoning.

"Harry," she says and Harry tears himself away from Malfoy who's trying, without a voice, to communicate with him.

"Hermione..." Harry whispers again like her name is the only thing that he knows.

"Let him go," she says but Harry is shaking his head, unable - refusing - to believe the sounds that are coming out of her month.

"No, Hermione," Harry chokes out. Confusion, anger and hurt a potent mix swirling in his heart and mind. "No. For months, you've been missing. Now you've reappeared out of nowhere, and this is the first thing you ask of me?"

"No. If you knew the things he did, Hermione," Harry says, more firmly this time. She must have been bewitched or placed under a spell; there can be no other explanation. He'll just have to make her see reason, then his Hermione will return. "He's not... human."

"Wha- What?" Hermione falters, eyes wide, and Harry grows more confident that his previous assessment is right.

"Whatever he told you, he's lying!" Harry says, jabbing a finger in Malfoy's direction, blithely ignoring the baleful glare the latter directs at him.

"How do you-" Hermione starts to say.

"There is a book, in the Manor. It doesn't matter. He's not human and worse, he's a murderer, Hermione," Harry interrupts. "He's killed so many people. Fed on them. You didn't see the pictures, Hermione. All those bloodless corpses, drained until they're just withered husks."

"And Basil!" Harry says, a little too loudly, as he realises he's nearly forgotten about his partner, still stuck headfirst in the bushes. He rights the man with a careful spell and an apologetic look, severing the ropes while he's at it, but daren't move away from Malfoy to check on him. Basil grunts thanks but doesn't move from where Harry placed him, a grimace of pain etched into his expression. "He would have done the same to Basil, Hermione."

"Basil?" Hermione asks almost absent-mindedly like it's an act of courtesy than any real curiosity. When she turns to look at Basil, it's as if he's not really there and she's looking through him.

"He's my partner from the London Met," Harry soldiers on, willing her to see the absurdity of defending Malfoy. "We were assigned the vampire — Malfoy's — case. The victims were all muggles — he's always hated them, hated you."

She raises a hand like she's heard enough and Harry quietens, hopeful that he's finally gotten through to her.

"Draco's not the one responsible, Harry," she says so quietly Harry has to strain to hear. "I am."

"No, no. What has he done to you?" Harry moans. Wrong, it's all wrong. It's even more serious than he thought. "We need to get you to St Mungo's — they'll know what to do. Clearly, this isn't a simple spell he has you under."

"I killed them, Harry. Those people. All of them," she says and just as Harry is about to protest, she continues, "And Ron-"

Harry freezes.

"I was there, when he died," she says but the words — he can hear them, but they're not making any sense. "It was an accident. He- fell off the stairs and broke his neck. I... By the time I reached him, he was gone."

"No..."

"Harry," she says with a tired sigh and he recoils from the sad look that she gives him, the insistent denial that has just been pounding in his head now begins to slip away from between his fingers.

She opens her mouth and he thinks she's about to smile but then his vision is filled with sharp teeth and he shakes his head, like doing that will shake away the sight in front of him and banish it far away.

"It's me, Harry."

"No."

"It's always been me."

"NO!" Harry screams. Pain jolts up his knees and he realises his legs have given way and he has crashed to the dirt. But the gravel digging into his knees is the least of his worries, especially when Hermione is telling him impossible things and Malfoy is staring at him with something akin to pity in his gaze.

"How...?" Harry asks before he can stop himself because asking that is acknowledging this is real. "When...?"

"Slava. It's... a long story," she says, hugging herself and looking away. Harry screws his eyes shut. Of course, he recognises the name. He's only poured over it along with the other names a hundred, a thousand times, with Basil. Berenice's personal note, tacked on later, highlighting that name — Slava — is still tucked into the pocket of one of his many pants, balled up and crumpled, forgotten in all the excitement.

"The two weeks I was gone," Hermione adds, glancing blankly at Harry. The all too familiar taste of bile coats the back of his tongue and he near gags on it.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Harry asks wretchedly.

"I didn't know then. It didn't seem important," Hermione shrugs. "And you didn't ask. Neither did Ron."

"You could have just- You should have told us," Harry says but Hermione shrugs again and Harry sags, all the fight draining off him.

"Now you know the truth," Hermione says quietly. "Let Draco go. It's me that you want."

"You- " Harry starts to say but stops to turn and swat Malfoy's leg. He doesn't need the other man's futile attempt at kicking to remind him of what he needs to do. "Don't ask this of me."

"Don't condemn an innocent man on my behalf, Harry," Hermione says and Harry swears he can hear Malfoy cursing and yelling in protest loudly despite the silencing spell.

"Take... Take Malfoy and go, Hermione," Harry says.

"Your case?"

"Let it remain unsolved," Harry says, defeat lacing his tone. "It's not the first, it won't be the last." He looks at Basil then, holding his gaze. The man stares back, long and hard, before he slowly nods once then swiftly turns away after. It is, Harry thinks, more than he deserves. He quietly thanks the other man and turns back to Hermione.

"And... Ron?" she asks, hesitant.

"I've already lost him," Harry replies. "Don't make me lose you as well."

Hermione nods.

Harry picks himself off the ground and walks towards Basil, giving Hermione a wide berth as she approaches the blond prat on the ground.

"Draco," Harry hears her whisper as she casts a non-verbal finite over him and the bindings recede. She immediately straddles him and Harry hurriedly looks away, focusing on healing Basil's injuries and quietly asking if the other man is okay. Ever the stoic type, Basil nods tersely and gingerly tries the wrist that Harry just healed.

Hermione is latched onto Malfoy's neck where Harry had cut him open when Harry next looks over at them. Malfoy's arms are encircled around her waist protectively and he seems to be whispering into her ear. A flush rising from his neck to his cheeks has Harry resolutely facing his back to them as he helps Basil up with one arm.

"Harry," Harry hears and he turns to see Hermione standing right behind him while Malfoy stands a ways away, keeping watch over them. She buries herself into his arms and Harry can almost believe that it is just them again, back at that camping trip from hell, seeking solace from each other.

"Thank you," she says, muffled against his shirt. Briefly, Harry allows himself to rest his chin on her hair but she isn't as warm as he remembered and she smells different. Tears spring to his eyes but he blinks them away before they can fall.

"Go far away and never come back," Harry murmurs. "I don't want to have to hunt you down next time."

Hermione pulls back slightly and looks up at him. Harry traces his gaze all over her features, committing each and every freckle to memory.

"Goodbye, Harry," she says, smiling, and that — that feels right.

"Goodbye, 'Mione," Harry replies.

The sun has just risen over the skyline when Harry steps foot back at Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

He has just returned Basil to Diane and he'd been ready to leave, to never be able to step foot into their home again when Basil stopped him and asked him if he was going to bring Luna around the next time for dinner.

He had left them with promises and hugs and though his own shaky smiles feel forced, Basil's warm handshake is reassuring and accepting.

Now he paces the house, looking for Luna, wanting nothing more than to be wrapped in her warmth, feeling her fingers run through his hair while she untangles the knotted ends.

He finds her, affixing a carved stone on top of a disturbed plot of soil in the garden. He reads the word on it and nearly chokes on the way the air rushed out of his lungs. The memory of her, burying something in the garden months ago, comes barrelling to the forefront of his mind and he doubles over, wheezing and sobbing noisily.

He should have asked her, all those months ago, what she was doing. If he had asked her, she would have told him. She would never out rightly lie to him but Luna has a way of evading telling the truth by avoiding getting into a situation that would prompt it to come up in the first place. She'd known he wouldn't ask and like a fool, he had let it be.

Maybe knowing then would have saved them all the pain. Maybe it would have made things worse. He will never know.

"Have you always known?" Harry asks — now he does, too little, too late.

"No," she says, patting the soil into place. "I pieced it together, eventually."

"Berenice's note helped," Luna says, squinting up at him at the strangled noise that he let out.

"He deserves this at least, don't you think?" Luna asks, patting the stone as she stands up and joins Harry at his side. The name 'Crookshanks' stares back at him from the stone.

Luna leans her head against his shoulder and nuzzles his cheek with her nose. "Come in when you're ready," she says, giving him a light squeeze of the hand before going back into the house.

Harry can't be sure how long he stood there but the sun has turned hot and he can feel the heat rising from the ground. His throat is dry and he's awfully thirsty but still he can't go in yet.

He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the book he got from Ron — the one with the strange script and pages of tear-stained notes.

Really, he ought to burn it. Something like this shouldn't have even existed in the first place.

And yet.

Malfoy's not the abomination. Hermione-

Harry stops himself there. He shifts his gaze down to the makeshift tombstone for Crookshanks and tucks the book back into his pocket.

He'll deal with it later. For now, what he needs is Luna and a glass of ice cold water.

He turns and heads towards the garden entrance of his home, the book weighing heavily against his chest, never once looking back.

Fin

A/N: And there you have it. This and Dying of the Light are finally at an end. Between the two (and I do officially count them both as one fic), I've put in around 85k words. It's the first multi-chaptered fic I've finished. This is me proving a point to myself that I can write something that is novel length and that I can finish a project. Thank you to everyone who has followed me on this absurdity of mine - every single one of you has made the process worth it.

There will be no further continuation to this story. I've always planned to have it end this way and anything after is up to you to interpret and imagine.

So, I do have several multi-chaptered fics (the point may have been proven but the work is not yet ended, besides it really has been quite fun) planned.

Just to name a few:

1. Dark!Harry AU - this will be long and terrible and it'll probably be the death of me, but hey, a challenge.

2. Changeling AU - Discworld inspired

3. Muggle AU

And some possible one-shots. If you're interested in reading any of them, then follow me as an author. I haven't figured out the update schedule for any of them and it'll likely be a few of weeks before there's anything concrete, but I will try my best. In the meantime, why not read some of my other one-shots?

Thank you again for reading and lastly, as always, review. Even a simple "I like it!" makes my day.