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Part Two

"This has to be the murderer's magical signature."

Harry straightened up from the bed that held the imprint, nodding slowly. The soft blue-silver glow highlighted the bed, footprints that made their way through the dust, and doorknobs throughout the house. Malfoy had led him through room after room that showed the signature of the murderer, to the point that Harry thought it was incredible the Aurors hadn't found any evidence.

But he needed to say something else.

"Malfoy."

"Yes?" Malfoy, who had been staring at the far wall with vacant eyes as if imagining his mother still alive, started and turned to Harry.

Harry spoke as carefully as he could. The last thing he wanted was to alienate the one person who could tell him the truth. "I noticed the blue-silver glow from behind that locked door as well."

Malfoy immediately straightened and focused on him in a way that was frankly creepy. Harry would have backed off on discussing this if he could, but he didn't have much choice. "I told you not to concern yourself with that, Potter."

"And I'm telling you that I have to, or I'm not doing my job properly." Harry folded his arms, incidentally putting his hand closer to his wand.

"No one could have gone in there. There's nothing in there."

"Earlier you said there was something important to you. Make up your mind."

Malfoy said nothing, didn't aim his wand, but Harry gasped as a cold curse swept through him. He actually felt his heart stutter in pain, as if he was outside and standing naked in front of an approaching blizzard. He fell over with his hands on his chest. Malfoy came and loomed next to him, in absolute silence.

Harry focused on him as much as he could over the frantic booming of his heart trying to get back to normal.

"…don't go in there…nothing in there…"

"Secret passages," Harry finally gasped, with an effort he was surprised he could make. He finally let go of his chest and flipped over on hands and knees, regarding Malfoy warily.

"There are none that lead into that room."

"Are you sure? Sometimes in these old houses, passages have been built that even the owners don't know about—"

"I am absolutely and completely sure." Malfoy bent until he was staring into Harry's eyes, and Harry felt as though someone was trying to use Legilimency on him. He turned his head away, refusing eye contact, and thought Malfoy eased back a little. "There is nothing you can do and nothing you can say that will make me change my mind."

"Even if looking in that room would help us catch your mother's murderer?"

Malfoy didn't respond. Harry opened his eyes and found that he'd disappeared from the room, the way he sometimes did without warning. Harry stood and leaned on the wall until the shaking disappeared from his legs. "Malfoy?"

The bastard was not only out of sight, he was now using some spell that made his voice sound as if it was coming from several different places at once. "I don't want you touching my room, Potter. The secrets in there need to rest undisturbed. Promise me."

The echo ran up and down Harry's spine as if it had feet. He wrapped his arms around his stomach, still shuddering. "It's your room? Your bedroom?"

"…Yes. My place to sleep."

Harry thought it was in an odd place compared to the bedrooms in the rest of the Manor, but he ground his teeth and carried through. "Okay. I promise."

Silence.

"Malfoy? You never did show me something with your magical signature, so that we could compare it to the murderer's and your mother's."

Silence.

"Malfoy?"

Harry sat, in silence, on the dusty steps that led down to the front doors of Malfoy Manor, his hands over his face.

Malfoy had vanished utterly. Harry had cast all the tracking spells he knew that ought to find him or lure him out of hiding, including some that he had invented himself. Nothing had worked. Then Harry had tried to leave Malfoy Manor.

The doors were barred to him with curses that made his flesh turn green with poison when he rested a hand on the doors, and others sprang up and surrounded him in a cocoon of flames when he tried to Apparate. Harry knew death well, and he knew that he would have burned to death if he'd persisted.

There'd been a time, a few months ago, when he honestly might have welcomed that. He'd been reeling under the realization of how many deaths he'd been responsible for, and he'd pushed away Ron and Hermione because they kept trying to tell him it wasn't his fault when Harry knew it was. And the Auror Department had reassigned him, and he hadn't wanted to quit, as he once would have, and engage in inventing new spells, his true passion, because what if he accidentally made another one like the Retrocognition Curse?

But now, he wanted to live. If only because he missed his friends and wanted to speak to them one more time.

Harry lifted his head, and glanced around the manor, and shivered. He never would have thought that Mrs. Malfoy had only been dead three months. The darkness, the silence, the dust, the cold, made it seem much longer than that.

"How do I leave?" he asked aloud. He was sure that Malfoy was nearby and listening to him, for all that he refused to show himself.

"Solve my mother's murder."

Those were the first words he'd heard from that bastard in hours. Harry nodded and shifted his balance on the steps, hissing a little as pain stabbed up into him from the edge of the step he'd been sitting on. "And how do I do that, when you won't let me look into that locked room?"

"You know how."

"I can't use the fucking curse, Malfoy!" Harry snapped, standing up and glaring into the latest corner the voice had come from. Not that it would matter, since it would have moved into another one by now. "You have no idea what it will do to you!"

Malfoy laughed coldly, the voice booming and echoing and reminding Harry too much of Voldemort's laugh. "Potter, the worst thing that could happen to me happened the day my mother died. I could vanish out of existence now, I could wake up being tortured in that Muggle hell Tracey told me about once, and it would be better."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do." Malfoy's voice softened abruptly, strangely. "Use the Retrocognition Spell, Potter. See what happened. It's the only way that will free you, the only way that will free me. I still have no idea if my mother—I think she was murdered, but I have to admit I don't know. The other Aurors couldn't find anything. You can't tell me for sure without prying into secrets I refuse to expose to you. Use the spell."

Malfoy's voice faded. When Harry asked, "Or else you won't let me out?", he didn't really expect an answer, and he received none.

Harry sat with his head between his hands for a few seconds, concentrating on his breathing. This was his greatest fear. He had to use the spell, had to choose between imprisonment, maybe death, for himself…

And some unknown fate for someone else.

On the other hand, if Malfoy was willing to risk that fate, then what did Harry have to lose?

My conscience, Harry thought, as he stood up and trekked heavily towards the balcony where Narcissa Malfoy had met her own fate. Just that.

Harry stood on the balcony and stared at the green glow on the bamboo fence. It hadn't faded. Neither had the silvery-blue magical signature that clung to the balcony railing and the thing that might or might not be a handprint.

He closed his eyes and reached out with his magic in the dreaded direction that he hadn't stretched it in years.

The throb of something that felt like a reawakened muscle cut through him. Harry swallowed and lifted his wand. His hand almost seemed to move of its own accord, and the syllables of the Retrocognition Curse tumbled from his lips.

"Retro videre peto."

The magic tore itself out of him in the long, slow spiral that it always felt as if it was turning into, and Harry opened his eyes.

There was a pinpoint of brilliant silver light hanging in the air in front of him. As he watched, it widened, and opened like a door, and the vision of the past that had happened here one hundred and two days ago began to play out in front of him.

Narcissa Malfoy stood on the balcony, clipping vines of roses that grew around the railing with a pair of shears. Harry blinked. The house looked well-cared for. Did she have the allegiance of the house-elves after all, then? Then how had it got so neglected in the few months since she died?

"Mother!"

Narcissa turned her head and raised a hand, waving. The vision widened to encompass the balcony where the murderer's magical signature had blazed. Malfoy stood there, a happy smile on his face as he watched his mother.

Harry's throat was pounding hard enough to choke him. He did kill her. He wanted—he wanted what? He wanted to be caught? He wanted someone else to see? Why in the world would he find someone who could arrest him, the one person who might be able to discover that he'd lied?

Narcissa turned back to clipping the roses. Malfoy, with a mischievous smile on his face, took a step back and turned as if he was going into the house. Then he spun around and launched a prank spell at her.

A prank spell. Harry recognized it by the shape of its flight, like an arrow; he couldn't see the color in the silvery mist that the curse made of the memory. It was meant to explode above someone's head and scatter lights and noise and color, like a firework, that would confuse and startle them.

How could he have murdered her with a prank spell?

Narcissa started and flung herself sideways. The shears she held jabbed into her hand, and she slipped. She had already been leaning over the railing to cut one of the stubborn rose vines; now she pinwheeled over after them. Harry heard a shrill scream and ran to the edge of the balcony. The vision moved with him, and showed Narcissa impaled on the bamboo fence. It was over so quickly that Harry was left, shaking, with the vision not finished yet. He wondered if it would linger past the end of the moment, longer than it usually did, because of his own shock.

Then a terrible scream rang from the balcony overhead. Harry jumped and turned. Malfoy's face was a mask of horror. He turned and ran from the balcony, pounding down steps from the sound. Harry wondered for a confused moment why he didn't just use the same secret passages that he had to startle Harry.

Then he was on the balcony next to Harry, a trembling figure, leaning over the edge of the railing. His hand caught on one of the rose vines left whipping back and forth by his mother's fall. Blood poured from his palm to stain the railing. Malfoy reached out, yearning, with magic. Harry glanced down in the vision to see the wandless power lift Narcissa's motionless body slightly, but do nothing else.

The vision winked out, and left Harry standing there, panting and dazed. The mark on the balcony railing was explained, at least, he thought. It was blood, preserved by the magic that Malfoy had been channeling through his body, burning under the skin.

But that didn't make any more sense out of the vision than just watching it did. Malfoy knew his mother's death had been an accident. Why call it a murder? Why summon Harry to investigate it and insist that he wanted to watch the scene again through the Retrocognition Curse? He had been there.

"I didn't remember it well enough."

"Bastard," Harry was already spitting as he turned around. Malfoy stood behind him, shining almost the way he had in the vision, his eyes fixed on the bamboo fence.

Malfoy stirred a little and glanced at him. "I meant it when I said a murderer had stayed in the house. I didn't—I didn't remember what had happened. I thought the prank spell I used actually hit her, not just startled her. I would have killed her even if I didn't mean to. It made sense to refer to myself as a murderer."

"But you lied about so much else," Harry said flatly. His heart was still pounding with a combination of shock over what the curse had shown him and the shock of Malfoy reappearing like that. "You said that someone had stayed in a room. You didn't show me your own magical signature. You didn't tell me what you knew. What the hell, Malfoy? How could you not remember what happened? Why didn't you just put the memory in a Pensieve and view it again, if you weren't sure?"

"A Pensieve was beyond my reach."

"Did you just bring me here to waste my time?"

"No." Malfoy turned and looked at him. "I meant what I said about my memory letting me down, and me not being able to use a Pensieve. Go and open that locked room, Potter. You have my full permission now. You'll understand when you do."

"Why don't you just open it yourself? I'm bloody sick of your riddles, Malfoy!"

"Thank you for what you did. I had to know."

Malfoy Apparated away. Harry stared at the silent balcony—Malfoy had even learned to Apparate without a telltale noise, the flashy bastard—and whirled away with a curse.

Fine. He would open that door. And fuck Malfoy if he cared about the damage to Malfoy property.

Harry stormed down the stairs and straight towards the door that still glowed, weakly, with the blue-silver light of Malfoy's magical signature. He aimed his wand and allowed all the pent-up anger of the last twelve hours to surge through him.

The Blasting Curse tore the door off its hinges. Harry charged into the room, which was a tiny one, only really big enough to hold a chair and a mirror—

And stopped.

Slumped in the chair was a dead, partially skeletonized body with a knife in its heart and telltale blond hair.

"I'm afraid so, Auror Potter. There's every sign that Mr. Malfoy killed himself the same day that the Aurors ended up finding Mrs. Malfoy dead."

Harry stared at his hands and said nothing. Robards sighed a little and nudged the steaming cup of tea on the desk towards him. He, as Head Auror, had agreed that Harry shouldn't take any more ordinary cases, but now he watched him with open worry.

"Then I—I saw and spoke with—"

"A ghost, yes. None of the other Aurors saw him." They ignored me. It was like they couldn't hear me, couldn't see me, said Malfoy's voice in Harry's head. Harry closed his eyes. "It may be that he finally became strong enough to contact you because he became so consumed with guilt and grief over the way his mother had died. He thought he murdered her."

Harry nodded slowly. He remembered the lack of new footprints in the dust, the overgrown gardens of the Manor, Malfoy insisting that Harry open doors, how he had "Apparated" or "used secret passages" to get around. And the way he had seemed to dim, as if he was about to fade out of sight, when Harry made some suggestions.

I meant what I said about my memory letting me down, and me not being able to use a Pensieve.

Ghosts could fade over time, Harry knew that. That was the reason Malfoy's memory had become tattered—that or he couldn't stand to face up to what he might have thought happened. He'd brought Harry in because of the Retrocognition Curse, all right. He wanted to see a true vision of the past from something other than his original angle. And—it had worked.

It has a curse attached. It always caused pain and death for whoever asked me to use it. I didn't know that when I invented the spell.

You think I'm afraid of pain or death, Potter? I'm not afraid of anything next to my fear of not bringing my mother's killer to justice.

There are excellent reasons he wasn't afraid of pain or death, Harry thought, and swallowed. And he really did want to know if he had killed his mother. That was the thing he needed help to face.

"Auror Potter."

Harry looked up. Robards was still bending towards him, his eyes clear and—well, concerned. Harry blinked. He had been sure all his colleagues despised him for using a spell that turned out to be a curse without researching it more thoroughly. "Yes, sir?"

"Listen to me," Robards said, quietly. "You helped put Mr. Malfoy's ghost to rest. He and his mother had both died long before you became involved with this case. You did a good thing. Stop flagellating yourself for something that I suspect most people wouldn't have thought of."

Harry flushed, but said, "If I put his spirit to rest, why didn't he come back and tell me so? Most ghosts would."

"This is Malfoy. What was he like in life?"

Harry sighed a little. "I was cursing him for being a bastard a minute before he faded."

"Exactly." Robards reached out and placed a heavy, anchoring hand on Harry's wrist. "And this is something that I just realized you might not have known. I didn't know why you were punishing yourself so hard, and then I thought that perhaps no one told you that we found Brown alive."

Harry stared at him. "What?"

"Lavender Brown? The woman you thought your curse murdered? Alive and happy, Auror Potter." Robards tilted his head. "She did get attacked the night that she disappeared, but she survived and hid until she was strong enough to take on her enemies. Your Retrocognition Curse helped her, Potter. And honestly, the other deaths that resulted from it? I don't think the 'curse' influenced them, either."

Harry could hear his breathing getting hoarse. "But—one committed suicide and the other attacked Death Eaters—"

"Natural consequences of their grief." Robards tightened his hand. "Not your spell. Why would you think it was?"

Harry swallowed. "I—it was a new spell, untried, and some of the other Aurors suggested—"

"I wish I had known." Robards's voice grew cool. "I would have disciplined them." He shook his head. "Listen to me, Auror Potter. I was willing to give you time to work through your feelings about the spell and stay out of the field for a little while. You wouldn't have been very effective on most cases anyway, as messed-up as you were. But this grief and guilt over something that was not your fault have gone on long enough. I will deal with other Aurors' comments as they happen. But you? You isolated yourself. This is enough. You dealt well with the Malfoy case, and gave peace to someone who desperately needed it, and ensured that his body will be buried. Now it is time to get over this grief and start seeing a Mind-Healer. You require one."

Harry closed his eyes. He felt the way Malfoy must have felt, when he was doing his best to cope with the idea that he might have murdered his mother. Harry could hardly face up either to the revelation that he might have driven himself away from others or that he might be able to come back to his Auror career.

"One more thing." Robards leaned back and pulled out a bound scroll. "Draco Malfoy sent this to his solicitor the day that he committed suicide."

Harry opened the scroll, wondering if it was some kind of generic letter to whoever helped the ghost find peace. But no, it had his name near the top. Malfoy must have been planning even then to seek Harry out and have him help Malfoy view the past.

And then Harry hit the rest of the document and sat up. "No—I, I can't have inherited Malfoy Manor."

"All the Malfoys are dead." Robards looked ruthless. "None of their family is left. Even then Draco Malfoy thought you would be able to help solve this case and bring about peace, and he wanted you to have some kind of reward. Deal with it, Auror Potter." He paused near the door of Harry's office, and added over his shoulder, "As I shall be expecting you to deal with a great number of other things from now on."

Harry just kept on staring at the will. Near the bottom, beneath Malfoy's signature, was a single line in a softer, more blurred handwriting: I pay my debts.

Harry swallowed, and closed his eyes, and if he wept a little, he wasn't about to tell anyone. Then he stood slowly.

He hadn't spoken to Ron or Hermione in months. He hadn't socialized with his fellow Aurors in longer. Long before that, he'd given up work on new spells and on doing anything but deeply diving into cases and feeling responsible for—things that he might not have needed to feel responsible for.

I pay my debts.

Maybe it was time, finally, for Harry to do the same.

The End.