Title: Ingenium Est Fas

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Warnings: Character death (not Harry or Draco), language, some violence, preslash.

Summary: To say that Harry is bewildered to find himself attending the reading of Lucius Malfoy's will is an understatement. Then an unknown curse is cast on him. To make matters worse, the organization of the Malfoy library, the only likely source of information on the curse, is rubbish. And then there's the bit about being trapped in Malfoy Manor with a Malfoy…

Author's Notes: Happy belated birthday, megyal! Somehow your prompt of a set of encyclopedias turned into this plotty, preslashy thing. I hope you had a good birthday (er, three weeks ago) and that this fic makes you happy!

Ingenium Est Fas

It was a strange feeling, to know without doubt that one was dying.

Lucius leaned his head against the wall, savoring the chill of Azkaban, now that the fever that inhabited his body had cursed him with such heat. He was staring out the small, barred window that some careless oversight had placed in his cell. He drank in the sight of the moon setting across the ocean, wrinkling the waves with a trail of silver light. When he blinked, small dancing spots swarmed in front of his eyes; he had no idea if they were actually specks of moonlight or simply signs of delirium.

But he had called for Greyson long ago, when he was in his right mind, and it was the solicitor's soft step he heard behind him, as well as his throat being hesitantly cleared. Lucius hauled himself up with an elbow braced against the wall and turned around, pulling dignity around him like a clean garment—the only one he would have, here. He had carefully saved his breath today; having practiced yesterday, he knew exactly how much he could speak before the liquid bubbling in his lungs would make audible noise.

Greyson was staring at him with clear pain in his dark brown eyes. Lucius glared at him, and he tried hastily to smooth his face. He didn't succeed, completely, but Lucius could ignore that. He was striving to believe in his own dignity, not his solicitor's composure. One believed in the things that one wanted other people to believe—only for as long as they were useful, of course. And his dignity was taking more effort than usual, right now.

The bubbling in his lungs did not come out in his voice when Lucius said, "You have done as I asked." Neither did he let the words become a question. He was pleased with both things.

Greyson nodded and pulled out a sheaf of parchment, which he held helplessly, the way Lucius imagined he would act around a baby. "I've done it," he muttered. "But I wish you'd reconsider, Lucius. You know that—"

"I am confident that everyone involved will do the right thing," said Lucius. "I wish to examine the will."

In silence, Greyson handed the parchments over. Lucius took them, and hid his trembling fingers both by moving the top sheet over them and by turning his back so that he could walk to the window and read the words by moonlight.

He smiled when he saw the newly inked phrases on the paper. Only one thing had had to be changed, but that one thing had two parts. Leaving either one out would have ruined Lucius's purpose.

"I can't persuade you to reconsider," Greyson said. He used the resigned tone that had concluded most of their battles over the years—battles Lucius always won. Lucius hid a smile and turned around again, shaking his head.

"You cannot," he said. "But you have done as I asked, and that is the utmost anyone can do in these circumstances. You've pleased me, old friend." There was no higher praise he could give, and from the way Greyson ducked his head, he understood that. Lucius handed the papers back, then folded his arms and leaned casually against the wall, as if he were doing it by choice and not to support himself against a sudden wave of dizziness in his head. "The reading of the will is to be held two days after my funeral."

Greyson nodded; that was only confirmation of earlier instructions Lucius had given him, and not a new one. He hesitated, then cleared his throat again and hurried on. "Lucius—I spoke to Narcissa the other day. She has no idea you're dying."

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "Perceptive of you, Greyson."

"Neither does Draco." Greyson started to say something else, something immediate and probably angry, and then checked himself. Lucius smiled. Greyson was likely naming the Hogwarts Founders in his head, a trick Lucius had taught him for delaying outbursts that would do no one any good. "Lucius, what are you doing? Why haven't you told them?"

"Because neither one of them deals well with grief," Lucius said quietly. "It is better nor to force them to confront it before my death as well as after. And because, in the immediate aftermath of my death and how it will change their lives, they will need the strength of hating me for a little while."

"I've never known any man so cold," said Greyson, but even that was a compliment.

"Nor will you again, I think," Lucius said. "My breed is dying, in more ways than one." He turned and looked up at the moon through the window. "Leave me, Greyson, or they'll begin to wonder what's taking us so long." It had been only by continued bribery, using all the Galleons Narcissa had managed to smuggle in to him in the lining of her robes, that Lucius had managed to persuade the Aurors they should allow his solicitor to visit him.

Greyson nodded. Lucius knew he would have closed his eyes before he did it; the way he turned towards the door of the cell, his hand faltering out and grasping at the stones blindly for a moment, confirmed it.

His wife had spoken so often, during her visits, of what would happen when he was free and they were together again. Lucius had listened, but had not participated in the spinning of her fantasies. He was a little selfish. Though he would be dead and it could not matter to him, he wanted her to forgive him at some point, and that would be harder if she thought he had deliberately misled her than if he had simply lied by omission.

Greyson's footsteps faded. Lucius coughed only then, his whole body shuddering as it bent. He opened his eyes and studied the liquid on the floor by the moonlight as he had studied the writing on the will. Yes, it was black, where last night it had shimmered sickly green, and that meant blood.

His end was coming, but it would not be from a Dementor's Kiss—the Dementors had all abandoned Azkaban before the war and had not returned—or from the Dark Lord's wand. That was enough of a triumph for Lucius.

He coughed again and again, more irritated about than fearful of the bubbling liquid in the back of his throat that made it impossible to catch a full breath. Then he sank slowly down the wall. He would not fall, even now.

He lifted his head and lodged it under an overhanging stone in a position that would not allow it to move easily. When they came in the morning, they would find him staring out the window, at something grander and higher than those who had imprisoned him. It was the moon now; it would be the sun then. His eyes could escape the prison if the rest of him could not.

Finding some satisfaction in imagining his death and the curses the Aurors would give when they found he had slipped away from his justified punishment, Lucius closed his eyes.

"I have to go where and do what?"

Ron backed cautiously away from Harry. Harry reckoned he did look rather alarming with his face so red and his arms waving about. But how was he supposed to react, after the letter Ron had just read aloud to him because Harry had a mouth full of porridge and hands sticky with his latest attempt to get a potion right?

"Don't blame me, mate." Ron held out the letter to him. Harry snatched it, not caring at all about the purple fingerprints that he left on the expensive creamy parchment, and stared at the words for himself.

Dear Mr. Potter:

I am writing on behalf of the late Lucius Malfoy, who requested your presence at the reading of his will. The reading is to be held in Malfoy Manor, at two-o'clock this afternoon, in accordance with his last instructions. If you cannot attend, please owl by ten with the name of the time at which convenience permits you to come and the reading will be postponed until then.

Sincerely,

Julius Greyson

Solicitor

Greyson, Wetworth, & Welkin.

"This is a joke," Harry announced, flinging the letter into the middle of the table. "A childish one. Who thought I would be enough of an idiot to fall for that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ron muttered. "After your latest stunt…"

"Who chose the route through the obstacle course?" Harry said loudly. "Remember that when you accuse me of making us fall into the bath of Quick-Stick Mud." Ron had the good grace to look embarrassed. Harry scowled at the letter again and shook his head. "Have you heard of this Greyson before?"

Ron snorted. "Once. When Malfoy was threatening to bring a lawsuit against Dad for brushing against him in the middle of Diagon Alley."

Harry gave a shudder. He hadn't wished Lucius Malfoy dead for years now, but all the same, he thought the world would be a better place now that he was out of it. If anything, Malfoy's survival after the final battle was an anomaly; they could have spared him better than Fred, and Remus, and Tonks—

Effortlessly, Harry cut the thoughts off and shuffled them into the part of his brain that dealt with such things, usually by making him get drunk and maudlin or restless with nightmares. "Well," he said, "it seems I have an engagement for this afternoon."

"You're actually going to go?" Ron stared at him and then took a step back, as if whatever madness Harry had was catching. "But it could be a trap. And even if it isn't a joke, it could be a trap that Malfoy—the younger one, I mean—decided to set up."

"I think he's probably too busy grieving to try something like that," Harry said. He was inclined to give Draco Malfoy a little more credit for humanity after the way he'd seen him hug his parents when reunited with them after the final battle, and the look he'd given Harry, long and steady, when Harry returned the hawthorn wand. "I'll go, but if I'm not back in four hours, then come after me, all right?"

"With curses flying," said Ron, eyes bright. He, like Harry, was impatient with the slow pace of their Auror training. Their instructors seemed to have decided that the best thing they could learn was how to file paperwork and question suspects; other than during their disastrous pass through the obstacle course, they hadn't cast a spell in months.

Harry clapped Ron's shoulder and ducked into his bedroom to find that pair of formal robes he'd bought when he thought he was going to be engaged to Ginny. Unlike Ron, his room was actually fairly organized; he'd never lost the habit of living as though only a small portion of space were his. The dark green robes were crumpled on the bottom of the wardrobe, though, and Harry tried to straighten them several times, muttering imprecations.

His first instinct in such a situation, he realized after a long moment of staring glumly at the robes, was still to call for Dobby.

Harry shut his eyes and swallowed. Generally the pain of all the deaths blended together into one overwhelming pressure, but when he thought of them individually, he had discovered that each was really different. The pain of Dobby's death was tied up with memories of all the selfless things the house-elf had done, and the guilt came from Harry's knowledge that he hadn't properly appreciated those things when Dobby was alive.

He allowed himself to wallow for exactly two minutes. It wasn't night-time, and Ron had taken to keeping Firewhiskey out of the flat ever since that time he'd thrown up on Hermione. He opened his eyes and Summoned the book of common household charms Ginny had got him as a new bachelor's gift. He would find the charm for straightening wrinkles out of robes in time if it killed him.

"Darling," said Narcissa to the door of Draco's bedroom, her voice muffled by the charms Draco had cast the moment he'd locked himself inside, "it's only for the reading. He'll have no reason to stay. And I'm sure he won't taunt you. Not even Potter could have that little sense of the solemnity of the occasion." Her voice sounded doubtful, however.

Draco cast another Throwing Jinx. The crystal vase that sat on the table beside his bed—a birthday gift from one of his father's distant relatives—hurled itself through the air and crashed against the far wall. Its splinters, and a fine shower of dust, joined the remains of the other things he'd already thrown. The house-elves would find his room a graveyard for "treasures" he had never liked, Draco thought spitefully.

"Draco, that had better not have been Aunt Aminta's vase." Narcissa's voice had taken on an edge.

"If I wasn't destroying the things in my room, it would be the house!" Draco screamed back at her.

He could almost hear her raising one well-bred eyebrow at the door. He didn't care. At least whilst she was doing that, she wasn't saying anything. He pressed his hands against his face and breathed deeply, unevenly. He hated the sound of his own breath at the moment, and the pain it caused in his chest.

Did Father feel that pain before he died?

Draco opened his eyes and cast a curse that imitated the effects of a thousand busy termites. The delicate table beside his bed crumbled. The pain in his chest didn't vanish, however, but tied itself into a harder knot.

He could destroy everything he wanted to. He could make all the demands of his mother he liked—and in the mood she was experiencing at the moment, she would probably do what she could to gratify them. But none of it would make his father come back. None of it would tell him why Lucius had chosen to keep the illness he was dying of a secret.

Did he not care enough to survive for us? Had he already decided that death was better than life because he would never have what he had before the war?

The thought tied the knot harder and harder. Draco slid down the wall, gasping for breath. He put a hand over his laboring heart and closed his eyes. His mother thought he was objecting most of all to the fact that Potter apparently needed to come for the reading of the will. Let her think that. She had her own pain, yes, but it was different from Draco's. She could stand on her own, away from Lucius, if she needed to.

Draco had thought it would be years before he would need to.

Harry eyed the gates of Malfoy Manor with loathing and wished he'd left himself enough time before the reading of the will that he could dawdle on his way to the front doors. But he hadn't, and so he strode briskly up the gravel path, wincing as the white peacocks strutting along the sides of the path assaulted his ears with their harsh screeching. The grass and flowers he passed were immaculate—the work of house-elves, no doubt. For the first time, Harry thought he could see Hermione's point about house-elves. They shouldn't be employed to create perfection like this for a family of gits, thus ensuring that said gits need never do a moment's work.

Dobby had been kept here and used like this.

Harry threw a cloak over the memory and knocked on the door with the brass knocker provided. It was a serpent's head, or perhaps a dragon's, holding a wand-like lever in its mouth. Of course it was.

The elf who opened the door appeared just as ill-treated and cowering as Dobby had eight years ago. Harry gritted his teeth to keep from saying something ill-advised and furious, and hoped he wouldn't be required to say anything. As the elf simply invited him to the dining room, however, and Harry could follow it through any amount of gleaming corridors, past flashing mirrors and polished floors and walls and ceilings, all was well.

He gave the dining room a cursory look as he stepped into it, more interested in the people gathered there than yet another ostentatious display of Malfoy wealth. The walls were a deep blue, nearly the color of an evening sky. The table in the center was a polished cherry monstrosity with carved legs and low chairs around it that Ginny would have hated; she was always shifting restlessly when they ate, banging her knees on the bottom of the table.

Or perhaps she only did that because she was eating with you that year.

That memory went away, too, when Harry commanded it to. He saw Narcissa Malfoy sitting along the right side of the table, her hands clasped in front of her and her spine very straight. Beside her sat a witch with graying hair Harry didn't recognize, and beside her an old wizard in mauve robes who he couldn't believe Lucius Malfoy would admit to knowing. Facing them was a single empty chair, presumably for Harry himself. At the foot of the table, nearest Harry, was an anxious-looking wizard in black robes and with a ream of parchments in his hands who was presumably Greyson, the solicitor. He scuttled forwards to shake Harry's hand, babbling welcomes Harry didn't bother to pay attention to.

His eyes were locked on the man at the head of the table, who had looked up and sat staring at him now, his gaze so hard Harry thought he could feel it boring holes in his skull.

Draco Malfoy looked far different from the man Harry had met when he came to return his wand to him, more than two years ago now. He'd grown at least three inches since then; his features had become sharper and thinner, but also paler, which made them look chiseled instead of a pointy accident of nature. His hair hung to his shoulders and had paled, too, so he actually looked like an albino instead of merely blond.

But the expression of dislike on his face hadn't changed at all. Harry felt a peculiar warmth creep up the middle of his chest. At least he would have one anchor to cling to in the middle of this strange adventure, beyond the memories of how much Dobby, and Hermione, had been tortured here.

"—just have a seat in that chair there," Greyson finished, and Harry flashed him the smile he had practiced for dealing with the press, Ministry officials, and young witches who wanted to marry him. Greyson seemed suitably impressed. Harry stepped around him and sat in the chair.

"Malfoy," he whispered, because Greyson was busy rattling papers and clearing his throat in an impressive manner, and Harry doubted he would listen. "Do you have any idea why I'm here?"

"Not in the slightest, Potter." Malfoy spoke whilst barely parting his lips, all his attention apparently on Greyson. "I thought you had done Father some unknown favor in the last few days of his life, truth be told." For just a moment, his eyes cut sideways, and Harry was both startled and shaken by the contempt in his gaze. "Eased his time in Azkaban, perhaps. He was sick, did you know? It would have been like you to try to purge the guilt for some sin you felt you'd done him, or to try and score points with the people who matter by pretending to care."

Harry didn't see any reason to hide his own furious scowl. Malfoy glared back, and then his eyes wavered and he averted them.

And suddenly Harry understood the contempt Malfoy carried for him better than he wanted to. He had been like that in the first few weeks after the war ended, when he attended funerals and always wanted everyone to leave him alone so he could grieve in peace.

He doesn't want me here. I'm an intruder, and he probably thinks I've come to mock his love for his father.

Harry wished he could catch Malfoy's eye and show that he understood and forgave him for his initial harsh reception of Harry, but Greyson started speaking then, and it would probably be for the best if Harry pretended to show some interest in the proceedings.

"The last will and testament of Lucius Malfoy. I swear on my wand and by my magic that I am of sound mind."

After a single startled moment, Harry realized Greyson only sounded as if he were speaking like Malfoy because the will was written that way, and he was reading it aloud. He shifted in his seat, and he was certain that Malfoy—Draco's—eyes darted to him in scornful amusement.

"My legal heir and the son of my body is Draco Malfoy. My wife is Narcissa Black Malfoy. My nearest living relatives are Dame Aminta Malfoy Cottington and Caracalla Malfoy-Penner. They are all present now to receive their legacies."

Harry blinked. Not a word about him. Why had Lucius wanted him here, then? Just to make sure the Ministry couldn't think he was leaving Dark artifacts to anyone? He should have chosen a better representative of the Ministry, Harry thought uncharitably. Despite their best efforts, Harry still refused to be anything more for them than a trainee Auror. He appeared at charity functions, but unpredictably, and had so far refused every invitation to a party the Ministry had tried to hold in his "honor."

"To my son, Draco Malfoy, I leave three-fifths of the Malfoy fortune. Spend it well, Draco, and do not forget the lessons learned in the last four years of your life."

Harry shot a swift glance at Draco, knowing his last four years would have been the same as Harry's last four—from the time he was sixteen to the time he was twenty. Draco was staring at his hands, a muscle in his cheek jumping.

Greyson cleared his throat impressively. "To my son as well go my books, every magical artifact found in my study, all Malfoy family heirlooms that can only be passed to an heir of the blood, my house-elves, and the portraits of the Malfoy family.

"To my wife, Narcissa Black Malfoy, I leave one-fifth of the Malfoy fortune, all magical artifacts in the bedroom we shared, all jewelry that is not an heirloom of the Malfoy family, all the furniture of Malfoy Manor excepting two pieces only, and the small summer cottage in the Lake Country. May she not grieve more than she can help; she is still alive, and she will find more than she expects in the life that is to come before she joins me."

Harry looked at Narcissa now. She sat very still, her eyes shut. Harry wondered if she was struggling against tears or outrage. No one had known Lucius was sick, the Prophet had said, and though Harry usually trusted the papers about as far as he would Pettigrew, he had to wonder if they were right. Was this as great a shock to her as it had been to Harry, as it seemed to be to her son? Would she have given up everything Lucius had left her in order to have her husband at her side once more?

Harry squirmed. He didn't like attributing human emotions to people he'd been quite happy to ignore once the war was done, but on the other hand, he was here, in a room thick with sorrow, and this woman had saved his life in the Forbidden Forest.

"To my great-aunt, Dame Aminta Malfoy Cottington, I leave half of the remaining one-fifth of the Malfoy fortune, the furniture of the smallest bedroom on the upper floor of the Manor, and several phoenix eggs I collected when I was a young man. You will find them in the smallest Malfoy vault at Gringotts."

The woman with gray hair nodded, looking satisfied. Looking at her, Harry had to picture her as someone who had come here not expecting very much. The wizard in mauve robes was leaning forwards, he saw now.

"To my cousin, Caracalla Malfoy-Penner, I leave the remaining half of the remaining one-fifth of the Malfoy fortune, my wand, and my Pensieve. This is also in the smallest vault at Gringotts. You have leave to do whatever you'd like with the memories in the Pensieve, Caracalla; you would, in any case." For a moment, Harry thought he could hear Lucius Malfoy's dry tones through the solicitor's voice.

The wizard leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "Lucius knows I wanted to write a book about him," he said in a loud whisper to Aminta, who looked disapproving. "The memories will be useful.

Harry looked around the table. It sounded as though all the artifacts Lucius had to dispose of had been disposed of. Draco had a violent frown between his brows, though, and Narcissa had looked up as though she were a deer scenting the wind. Wondering if he had missed something, and if so what it was, Harry turned back to face Greyson again.

It'll be just my luck that I've inherited some dangerous Dark magic artifact they all wanted. Harry shuddered at the thought. Since the war, he'd had a greater sensitivity to Dark magic, to the point where being around some curses could make him sick to his stomach. He hoped he wouldn't be required to touch whatever it was.

"To Harry Potter, who proved himself a hero beyond expectation," Greyson said, and paused to clear his throat. "I leave Malfoy Manor and its grounds; he will stay within them until he can research the meaning of the following words. Ingenium est fas!"

Too late, Harry saw the motion of Greyson's wand, and then he felt the magic coil around him. It hummed loudly in his ears, as if the spell were examining the suitability of his body to host it, and died away a moment later.

The next moment, the room exploded in shouting. Harry put his hands over his eyes and resisted the urge to bang his head against the table.

Draco sat still, every muscle in his body tense, his throat so choked that he doubted he would have been able to force any words past the blockage—not Aunt Aminta's outraged cries, not Cousin Caracalla's bluster about the insult to an ancient and noble family that leaving the Manor to a half-blood implied, not his mother's quiet pleas for order.

Instead, he stared at Potter, who at least had the sense not to look around the room with a smug grin on his face. He had his hand over his eyes and his head bowed as if he were praying, instead. Indeed, listening closely, Draco thought he could hear a steady litany of words falling from his lips, but they were curses if they were anything.

He waited for the moment when one of the eyes in the storm came and everyone was resting their voices in preparation for another row. Greyson was standing at the foot of the table still, his expression distressed but stubborn. He looked up when Draco rose to his feet and projected his voice.

"Is it possible that my father was not, after all, of sound mind when he authorized this change to the will?" he asked politely. He thought he had read Greyson's mood correctly. The solicitor had also thought that Lucius's leaving the Manor to Harry Potter was mad. He would seize on the chance to change the will if he could.

But Greyson had also been his father's friend, and loyal to him. Draco thought he should have remembered that when he saw the solicitor's slow, tragic shake of his head.

"I argued against the change to the will, which was the last one made, in Mr. Malfoy's dying hours," Greyson admitted, staring at his hands. "I questioned him as to his reasons. He would give me none. But he was quite specific on the wording. He said that both the bequest and the spell should be in the will—"

"What was that spell?"

Draco lifted an eyebrow in reluctant admiration as he turned to face Potter. He'd acquired the ability in the past year to make his voice sound threatening without raising it. Draco knew how to do that; so did his father, and so did Severus. But they were the only three wizards Draco had known who did. The Dark Lord had prepared to shout, and Dumbledore talked in a normal voice until you wanted to hex him simply to receive a change.

"Ingenium est fas?" Greyson coughed. "He would not tell me the exact purpose of the spell, I'm afraid, Mr. Potter. I know the translation of the incantation, or as exact as a translation into English from Latin can be. Ingenium means constitution, character. Est means is, of course. And fas is a divine law or command, but also sometimes fate or destiny. 'Character is destiny,' I think we would say. Of course, you must remember that this spell was created by an English-speaking wizard in the beginning, so what he had in mind is more important than the exact translation from the Latin. A Roman wizard would no doubt have chosen different words to achieve the same effect."

"And what is that bloody effect?" Potter's voice was beginning to soar now, and a mottled red flush had broken out all over his face. Draco sighed, oddly relieved that Potter still resembled the hothead he'd known from their schooldays. Potter scowled at him, and Draco supposed he must have heard the sigh and thought it was the beginning of a laugh. Draco grinned widely to reinforce that impression. It wouldn't do to disappoint Potter, after all.

"Ah," said Greyson.

Potter slammed a palm down in the middle of the table, making it creak. Draco thought he saw a sparking line of fire curl about Potter's fingers for a moment, and hoped irritably that the cretin remembered most of the furniture in the Manor had gone to Narcissa; he did not have the right to abuse it. "What does 'ah' mean?"

"It means that the spell's nature is unfamiliar to me, though Lucius and my own scholarship provided me with the translation," Greyson admitted. "That is the meaning behind Lucius's bequest. The Malfoy library should contain knowledge of the spell. I believe it's where Lucius discovered it in the first place. You are to search until you find knowledge of the spell and understand its workings. Only then will you be able to give up the Manor and its grounds to someone else, or—" He paused.

"Or what?" Potter's voice had dipped again. Draco considered him from the corner of one eye. He looked rather fetching with a muscle twitching convulsively near his upper lip.

"Or leave," Greyson said. "I suggested a different wording for the bequest, but Lucius was most insistent. It seems as though you can leave from the way he ordered me to write it, but you, ah. Can't. Not until you discover the meaning of the spell and understand it fully. The front doors are the furthest limit of your venturing."

Potter stared at Greyson with absolutely no expression on his face.

Then, being Potter, he tried to Apparate out.

Draco rolled his eyes as he watched Potter vanish—only to appear a moment later seated firmly in the same chair, flashes of lightning still playing around him. His hair was singed and his glasses were clinging to his face by one earpiece alone. He took off the glasses and cleaned them absently on his robes, staring at them as if the didn't understand why the lenses had cracked.

Under ordinary circumstances, of course, Potter would have been able to Apparate from the Manor if he wanted to. The wards that prevented Apparition were obedient to the will of the wizard or witch who owned the building—

(My father, Draco thought. My father, who is gone, and will never be here again. The hurt welled up again).

--And they would have transferred their loyalty to Potter when Lucius bequeathed him the Manor. But the spell was a powerful one, and Lucius had always meant what he said. Draco rolled his eyes again. Trust Potter to think he could defy the will, in more than one sense, of a wizard who used Dark magic in the middle of the Ministry.

Potter sat with his eyes shut for long moments. Then he stood up, and looked at Draco, and nodded. "Malfoy," he said. "You'll help me search for the meaning of this spell."

"I?" Draco said, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, you," Potter snapped. "You know the library better than I do. You'll be able to help me find it faster. And then I'll give the Manor and the grounds to you, and leave. The arrangement should benefit everyone."

"I never thought you one for brilliant plans, Potter," Draco said, smiling in spite of himself. This was the first thing, other than throwing Malfoy heirlooms against the wall, that had interested him since Lucius died. "But everyone is owed one idea in their lifetimes."

Harry did wonder if he should have tried a fireplace, or simply the front doors, as he and Malfoy made their way to the library. But when he paused along the way and laid his hand on one of the mantles, a spark of green energy shot out and stung his palm. He pulled it back, hissing. Simply glancing in the direction of the front doors produced a strong compulsion to stay away from them, and the smell of burning in his nostrils.

"Still so stubborn," said Malfoy, but he didn't glance at Harry when he said it, and Harry could pretend he hadn't heard.

This was nearly the most bizarre situation he had ever been in, he thought, as he trailed around a set of free-standing pillars that seemed to exist merely to be ostentatious. The ones involving Voldemort had been more perilous, but he understood what his enemy was doing when he was in them. Here, Lucius Malfoy seemed to have left the Manor to an old enemy merely to annoy him.

There's probably some more convoluted, Slytherin purpose to it, Harry thought as he ducked under a curving arched doorway. For some reason, although all the other doorways he had seen in the Manor had been large enough for a unicorn to walk through with uplifted horn, this one was barely house-elf sized. But I'm not going to waste time on trying to reason it out.

They reached the library at last, and Malfoy went in front of him to fling the door open. Harry thought about complaining that this was technically his house now and thus he should be the one making the dramatic gestures, but doing so would probably make him look like a prat. He really did try to avoid that lately. It was bad enough obsessing over the deaths of people he had loved without acting like a prat to the living.

And besides, this way any tantrum Malfoy threw about the predicament his father had placed them in would be entirely his fault.

The library, surprisingly, was a warm, golden room, with the furniture and the frames on the gilded mirrors alike worn to a comfortable faded brown. The walls were the color of melted butter, or sunlight on waves, and the sunshine coming in through the large windows seemed softened by it. Harry frowned. He had thought a cold, white room like the infirmary in Hogwarts or perhaps one done in icy blues would be more Lucius Malfoy's style. Maybe his wife had decorated this room.

There was a certain amount of intimidation, of course. The shelves crowded the entire western wall, fitted into curved alcoves so as to accommodate more books. Harry could smell the dust and leather from the doorway. In front of the shelves were three desks, evenly spaced apart from each other. Harry wondered sourly if Lucius had chosen them for different days of the week or for threatening different people.

He cleared his throat, since Malfoy was standing quite still in front of him, staring into the room and probably overwhelmed by memories of his father, and didn't seem inclined to help yet. "Where should we start looking?"

Malfoy turned to face him. He still had a pointy nose, whatever else had changed, and at the moment he was looking down it at Harry. "How have you managed to spend this amount of time with Granger and still not know the answer to that question?" he demanded. "We begin with books of general knowledge, of course. We don't know whether that spell is a curse, a hex, a jinx, medical magic—"

"A curse, of course."

"We don't know that."

"Your father wouldn't waste time healing me."

Malfoy stalked a step closer. He was trying to loom, but the effect was lost, given that they were exactly the same height. He did frown ferociously at Harry, though, and Harry frowned right back.

"You have no knowledge of what my father was capable of," said Malfoy, his voice gone soft and cold. "And I say that this spell is unlikely to be a curse. He wouldn't leave Malfoy Manor to someone he wanted to curse."

"If he wanted vengeance, he would," said Harry darkly. He did feel somewhat bad for arguing with Malfoy a week after his father's death, but on the other hand, Malfoy could have been pleasant and simply told him where the books of general knowledge were. Obviously he needed this argument. He probably hadn't got his daily dose of being a git with only his mother and the house-elves around. "Maybe the spell's one that will melt me slowly into the walls and leave me alive forever, screaming, as part of the foundation stones."

Malfoy gave him a blank stare for a moment, and then disconcerted Harry by smiling slightly. "You've quite the imagination, Potter."

"That's an idea I got from Muggle literature," Harry said, louder than he meant to. He could be nice to Malfoy if he must, he could argue with him if he needed that, but he refused to live in a world where Malfoy spoke words to him that could be imagined as compliments.

As expected, Malfoy's face darkened again and he turned away. "These are the volumes on general spells," he said, and led Harry to the bookcase nearest the door. He ran his fingers over a set of dark-bound books on the second-lowest shelf. Harry's heart sank when he realized how many books there were, looking exactly the same as far as weight and heft went, and how many thin, gold-edged pages each was crowded with. "The complete set of Resteasy's Spellwork Encyclopedias."

Harry relaxed at the last word. This might not be as hard as he'd thought. "Then we only need to look under I, don't we?" he asked. "Since the first word of the spell was Ingenium? Or maybe it's under the middle word, or the last?"

Malfoy tossed him a confused glance. "What? What do you mean about looking under I? If that's some weak sexual innuendo, Potter—"

"No!" Harry said in exasperation. Good God, Malfoy could turn the most reasonable statement into an argument. Of course, maybe it was Harry's fault because he'd forgotten to take into account how badly Malfoy failed at the simplest tasks. "Encyclopedias are ordered by letter, and so we find the I one—"

"In the Muggle world, they might be," said Malfoy. He gave a little laugh. "Alphabetized? What a strange idea."

Harry stared at Malfoy. He recalled Hermione's statement about most wizards having very little logic, but he had never seen it proven true so dramatically. "So what are these encyclopedias ordered by?"

"Effects of the spell," said Malfoy, and paused, his tone so thick that Harry could hear the imaginary "Of course, you imbecile," hanging in the air.

"But we don't know what the Igenium est fas is," said Harry, trying to keep his voice patient when it wanted to crack under the strain.

"No, we don't," said Malfoy reasonably. "Hence why we'll have to read through every encyclopedia until we find the description of the spell."

Harry felt his temper slowly overcoming his effort to stop it. Yes, he was trying, but Malfoy was too much. "That could take months," he said. "Don't you want your home back before then?" His voice was rising. "And Greyson described part of the effects of the spell, so we should be able to eliminate some books. And who uses 'hence' anymore, Malfoy, other than solicitors and Hermione? Tell me that."

Malfoy stood there regarding him with exactly the expression that Harry thought a lizard he had tried to chase off a sun-warmed rock would choose. Cold-blooded, Harry thought, glaring back at him. Maybe I was wrong about him, and he isn't feeling grief over his father after all. It would be just like him to feel bitter because he had to get up early for the reading of the will.

Even knowing that that wasn't just, he didn't think he cared. Maybe Hermione could be just, but Hermione was not cooped up in a manor for months with no one but a bunch of books and Malfoy relatives for company.

Finally, Malfoy spoke. His control only set Harry's teeth on edge all the more. "I want my home back, yes. That makes it imperative that we solve this problem calmly, without resorting to hysterics. We'll have to read the books, and we'll have to take notes, and we'll have to research in a way I suspect you never did, since you somehow got into Auror training with a substandard NEWT Potions score." Harry opened his mouth to demand angrily how Malfoy had known that, but Malfoy was going on, gazing down meditatively at the encyclopedia he'd pulled from its place. "As for the spell and its effects, I don't think we can trust Greyson's translation. Sometimes the most obvious incantation for a spell isn't the one that's actually used. Consider Alohomora for example, and the many simpler Latin words that it could have been. This spell and its description are even more vague."

He looked up and arched an eyebrow. Harry realized he was breathing fast, his hands closed into fists at his sides as if he were about to step forwards and punch Malfoy in the face. A small, contemptuous smile curled around the corners of Malfoy's mouth.

"At least you're about to use physical violence on me instead of Dark curses of unknown strength and effects," he said idly, and turned his back. "I suppose that's an improvement."

Harry closed his eyes and fought the red, whirling tension in his head. It hadn't struck him this badly in some time. In Auror training, you had to learn how to hold your tongue against the temptation to blurt out questions about all the stupidity and traditional knowledge surrounding you, and he'd got quite good at not thinking about deaths or feeling his own grief during the day. What he did in the privacy of his own bed was no one's business.

His mind flinched away from the subject of Ginny as if it had been burned, but that only brought his anger at Malfoy back full-force. Still, he suspected this wasn't the time to indulge it. Two people reading the books would go faster than one.

He opened his eyes and just caught the encyclopedia Malfoy threw at him in time. He cradled it, cracked it open, and looked down at the first page, which contained something about Transfigurations and seemed to start in the middle of a sentence. Maybe the sentence was continued in the book that had come before this one in the set, Harry thought tiredly.

"You never did explain about 'hence,'" he said to Malfoy, because he was going to burst if he didn't say something.

"I wasn't interested in commenting on the small size of your vocabulary," Malfoy murmured. He was already deep into his study, frowning at the page he had open in front of him and shaking his head. He snapped his fingers, and a house-elf appeared, laid ink and parchment on the table next to him, and vanished again without a word.

Harry swallowed and turned to the book, suspecting he would be lost in a moment without Hermione. But, of course, he would have to grit his teeth and muddle through it, because he didn't want her to come here and help him. She had her own job and her own research to keep up with, and one instance of "Mudblood" out of Malfoy's mouth would have Harry smashing his teeth in.

"Pass me some of the ink and parchment," he told Malfoy, not looking up. He would pretend that he already knew the meaning of 'transmigration of souls' if it killed him. When there was no response, he looked up and added, "Please."

Malfoy snorted and glanced at him briefly. "You own the Manor now, Potter," he said. "The house-elves were left to me, but they serve the man who owns the building as well, and they'll be much happier now that they have an official master. Just snap your fingers and concentrate on what you want."

Harry concentrated ferociously on the image of five quills—which were about as many as he tended to break in a few days of writing—a full inkwell, and ten sheets of parchment. They appeared on the table beside him, so fast he didn't even see the house-elf go.

Harry chose a quill and a sheet, then dipped the quill in the ink. No, he wouldn't ever be able to invite Hermione here.

Draco had long ago perfected the art of reading with half his brain and still understanding what the book was saying, thanks to his third year, when he had already known most of the spells his slower peers were studying before he came back to Hogwarts from the summer holidays. So he read and took notes and studied Potter out of the corner of his eye at the same time. The man—no, boy, because he still looked ridiculously young despite how much growing he might have accomplished in the last few years—chewed his lip as he stared at the book. He shifted and sighed when he didn't need to, jouncing the encyclopedia and his parchment both. His grip on the quill was too tight, and his hair was a disgrace.

Draco tried, as he had been doing for the last hour, to dive into the morass of Lucius's brain and pluck out the reason he might have chosen Potter as the new owner for the Manor. Nothing emerged, unless the prisoners were allowed to smug Firewhiskey into Azkaban.

If the spell had been different, had allowed Potter to leave the Manor and go to the newspapers, then Draco might have thought Lucius was arranging protection for Narcissa and Draco. The Wizengamot had given them back their wands, left them out of Azkaban, and not put them under house arrest, but that was very far from saying that the name of Malfoy was still approved in wizarding society. Draco hadn't been inside another wizard's house for two years. He only went to restaurants with menus transparent to spells that would test for the presence of saliva, poison, or interesting potions in the food. And there were certain shops where he had simply accepted that he wouldn't be welcome. Recovering the Malfoy reputation, as Potter could probably do, seemed a worthwhile endeavor, one that Lucius might not have told his wife and son he planned on because they would argue that they could protect themselves.

But binding Potter inside the Manor? What would that accomplish? It made him more snappish and irritable than a curse allowing him to move about would have.

Draco shook his head and returned to the encyclopedia, which was now covering incomplete Vanishing spells and curses that mimicked Splinching. Potter was sucking on his quill, and the sound disgusted him, but Draco had managed to ignore worse.

Like, for a little while, the fact that his father was dead.

He breathed lightly through his mouth and nose until the grief retreated. The last thing he wanted was to weep in front of someone else. Even the breaking of Malfoy heirlooms had happened behind a shut door. There was no way he could show that much emotion without incurring judgment.

And Draco had spent enough of his life as the object of someone else's curiosity and shame.

Potter finally made a frustrated sound next to him and slammed the encyclopedia shut. Draco glanced up at him, glad for the presence of a target that made it easier for him to focus on his anger. "I hope you marked your place, or you'll have a long and wearisome trudge back to that page," he drawled.

"I'm hungry," Potter said sullenly, avoiding Draco's gaze as he stood and stretched. "I want food."

"You can ask the house-elves to bring it to you here," Draco began, and then looked around the room and imagined what Potter would do with liquids of any kind around valuable books. He shook his head. "No, it might be better for you to eat in the dining room after all."

Potter said nothing, though Draco had anticipated that he would immediately charge out the door and seek the food he so wanted. Instead, he pivoted to face Draco. Draco immediately, and casually, laid a hand on his wand, which clung in a hidden sheath to the side of his leg. Potter had an expression on his face that had never boded well when they were about to play Quidditch or cast hexes at one another.

"I don't understand you," Potter said.

Draco found himself laughing; what he had expected to hear out of the idiot's mouth was so much worse. "Given what you are, and the size of your comprehension as well as your vocabulary, I don't think I'm very worried, Potter," he said.

The other man shook his head, staring intently at Draco the entire time. "No," he said. "I mean I don't understand you morally or intellectually or emotionally. You're like something that crawled from under a rock."

Draco winced in spite of himself. He hadn't had so many people comforting or supporting him in the last two years that the insult could go without stinging. And, well, this was Potter. Draco hadn't forgotten how intensely he had once longed for the approval of the Boy-Who-Lived, though he had hoped he had.

And now Lucius was gone. There was one less person in the world who had always believed that Draco was worth something.

None of that, of course, gave Potter an excuse for insulting him. He lifted his head and managed a credible sneer. "Of course you don't understand," he said. "You never had to make hard decisions."

"Yes, I fucking did!" bellowed Potter, and took a step towards him. Oh, excellent. His cheeks had gone red, and his eyes were twitching so spasmodically Draco doubted he could see clearly enough to cast a spell. "When Dumbledore died—"

"You were chasing someone who had to kill him even though he loved him," Draco snapped, pushing the encyclopedia out of the way as he rose to his feet. "And you were chasing me. I had to choose between murder and saving my parents. Would you have found that so easy?" He paused for a moment, then added, "Not that you'd know what having to sacrifice to save your family is like."

Potter leaped across the table between them, and Draco realized he had forgotten that Potter liked to use his fists instead of his wand sometimes. He fell over with Potter on top of him, flailing frantically and slamming punches into his ribs. He grunted breathlessly, grateful that Potter's fury seemed to make him want to strike everywhere at once, and grappled for Potter's wrists, intent on holding him off.

Potter screamed into his face, loudly enough it actually stunned Draco for a moment, and then grabbed his neck and slammed his head into the floor. Draco cried out and then bent away, breathing, or trying to, whilst Potter's fingers wormed harder and harder into the skin of his throat.

For just a moment, he felt as helpless as he had in that moment on the Tower when Dumbledore had offered him another choice, yet another decision to make after Draco had already spent a year making important choices that closed off all the other options.

Then he remembered he had legs, for God's sake, and plunged a knee into Potter's groin. Potter rolled away from him, making sounds somewhere between curses and sobs, and Draco felt a moment's grim satisfaction over the fact that he'd hurt him.

Then Potter snarled and lunged back at him, and Draco barely had time to draw his arms up so he could protect his stomach and face. The punches seemed heavier now, and Potter was using his nails and teeth and elbows. Draco would have sworn himself if he had breath left in between his frustrated, frantic dodging.

What did they teach him in Auror training?

Harry didn't know how he had descended into this sea of rage, but he had, and he didn't think he could wake up from it any time soon. If he pulled back and let Malfoy go, he would start screaming, and he would go on until his throat split open and his body tore itself apart. Probably his sanity would go with it.

So he fought, and it helped that he knew the man he was fighting had harmed other people, had stood aside when he could have made decisions, had jumped too late and into the wrong side when he'd moved at last, had used the Imperius Curse, had almost killed Ron, had let Death Eaters into the school, had changed his mind too late and not in time to do anything—

His anger focused itself, a pure pulsepoint of rage so white and hot that Harry was breathless with the force of it.

And then it was gone.

Harry paused in between one strike and the next, with his fist raised above Malfoy's chin, and blinked. Then he rolled away automatically before Malfoy could get a blow in, but that was Auror training and Death Eater-dodging instinct more than conscious decision. He raised himself on his elbows and listened to his own harsh, panting breaths with something like incredulity.

Malfoy started to crawl towards him. Harry held up a hand and shook his head. "No," he whispered. "I—I'm sorry. I don't know—what happened, but it's gone now."

The apology stopped Malfoy more than the tone of his voice had, Harry thought. He still angled himself away from Harry, and his voice crackled with disbelief and bitterness when he spoke, but he wasn't using his wand. At the moment, Harry was prepared to accept that as a very big advantage. "That's supposed to excuse what you did, is it?"

"No," said Harry. "I don't think just words can." He sat up with his hands strongly gripping his knees, his head bowed almost to meet his knuckles whilst he tried to figure out what in the world had happened to him. Malfoy watched him with fingers wrapping and unwrapping nervously, his body coiled in a tense position that could launch him in any direction.

"It happened too quickly," he said softly, more to himself than Malfoy. "I didn't have any reason to be that angry. And I was hungry, and I wanted dinner, but—" He tried to concentrate, to capture the moments when anger had welled up in him. "I think it was the spell," he whispered.

"That's stupid, Potter." Malfoy's voice was stripped free of the sophistication he'd used to mock Harry earlier. Harry concealed a smile. There was the arrogant boy he knew. "Why would my father put a spell on you that would cause you to attack me? He loved me. He never wanted me endangered." His voice fell off to the end, and he turned his head away in a gesture that made Harry swallow awkwardly. The thoughts he'd had earlier, about Malfoy not having any ability to grieve for Lucius, suddenly seemed petty and self-serving.

"Because I doubt that's the primary purpose of the spell." Harry rubbed the back of his neck. "What if the interpretation Greyson hinted at, the simplest one, is also the right one? 'Character is destiny.' The spell is bringing my character out, or allowing me to express myself."

"And your true self is a murderer," said Malfoy, rising to his feet and righting the table Harry must have overturned in a wild leap he barely remembered. His emotional sensations were clearer than the physical ones, though now he could feel the shin he must have bruised and the rawness in his throat that told him he'd been screaming after all. "Well done, Potter. I'm sure Azkaban will be interested."

"My true self is short-tempered," Harry corrected him, grimacing as he remembered his disastrous fifth year and the time he had shouted "Voldemort" that had ended up bringing him, Ron, and Hermione to Malfoy Manor. "Not always, but—I've been trying to give up my anger lately, to play the good little Auror who gets along with everyone and can listen to lectures for hours on end without talking to his friends or making some sarcastic comment."

"Sarcasm was an art I never knew you'd mastered," Malfoy remarked, apparently to the wall.

Harry hissed out between clenched teeth, but the urge to express his anger was much less strong than the one he'd first experienced when talking to Malfoy about the encyclopedias. Even then he'd been trying to pick a fight. But it had felt completely like his own natural impulses.

Is this spell only recognizable when you think about it later? Wonderful.

"I think that's it," he said more firmly. "Doesn't that mean I can leave the Manor? I realize what it does now, and it's probably for the best that I'm not near you any longer, considering how much bad history we have."

"You didn't listen to the wording of the will," Malfoy said, turning around and glaring at him. "You have to stay here until you research the answer, Potter, not simply divine it. And then there's the fact that we don't know why my father assigned Greyson to cast that spell on you at all."

"Maybe it doesn't matter," Harry said. "Why should it? He's—"

"He's dead," Malfoy said, far too quickly for the neutral tone of his voice to convince Harry, "and it matters."

Harry held his eyes, and then slowly nodded. Maybe Malfoy was right, and it did matter. At the very least, Harry thought that Malfoy was not going to let him simply leave, even if he found the answer to his question in these damn encyclopedias tomorrow.

And with his conscience stinging him so badly over attacking Malfoy and disregarding his grief, he felt that it was only right to figure out what Lucius Malfoy had done and wanted, and put the man to rest that way.