Draco pushed backwards, shoving his brother towards the Transfiguration classroom, and dashed forwards at the same time. It felt right. He didn't know what was going to turn up at the end of his wand, but he knew something was.
He slammed into a hidden body, which grunted and staggered. Draco didn't waste time catching his breath or looking over his shoulder to be sure Henry was safe. He knew his brother was, and in the meantime, he had a hidden watcher to kick in the groin.
The figure made a little dying sound and hunched over. Draco kicked again, although this time he didn't think he got him in the bollocks. At least he crumpled over and curled up, and that was good enough.
"Draco?"
Draco did turn then, since he was kneeling atop the figure's chest—he was a little unnerved that he still couldn't see it—and had his wand aimed directly at its throat. Henry was peering out from behind the shimmer of a ward that Uncle Ted had drilled them on.
Draco nodded. Calmness was settling back over him now that he had the person prisoner. He focused on what must be a complex, layered Disillusionment Charm and murmured, "Finite."
Nothing happened. Draco narrowed his eyes and tried to focus his magic on the charm the way he'd seen Henry focus on the crystals in Uncle Ted's power-draining exercises. "Finite Incantatem."
The air rang around them and shivered as though Draco was breaking through a huge drift of snow. Then it broke, and he was sitting atop Remus Lupin's chest. Lupin stared up at Draco with a golden gleam to his eyes.
Draco bared his teeth. Maybe the charm had been stronger than normal because Lupin had cast it the day before the full moon. It didn't matter, though. Werewolves couldn't turn anyone in human form, and Draco would suffer a few scars to keep his brother safe.
"Mr. Malfoy!"
McGonagall. Draco stood up and stepped away from Lupin, but he also bound the werewolf in ropes before he could run. He couldn't have any pure motivation for stalking Henry through the corridors while invisible, so Draco was going to force the truth out of him one way or the other.
"What do you think you are doing, Mr. Malfoy?" McGonagall stepped up with the scandalized expression she usually wore when a Slytherin did something rational and raised her wand as if she would untie the ropes.
"What does he think he's doing, stalking my brother under a Disillusionment Charm?"
At least McGonagall listened enough to lower her wand, although she turned to Henry for confirmation. "He was?"
"Yes, Professor." Henry's eyes were wide, and Draco gave him a searching look, but no, he seemed safe enough behind the ward. "We sensed there was a threat, but we didn't know exactly where it was. So I ran to get safe behind the ward and Draco tackled the threat."
"Mr. Lupin is not a threat," McGonagall said, but she seemed to be wavering.
"Then why was he doing it?" Draco insisted.
"I'm interested in that, too," Henry said.
McGonagall sighed and turned to Lupin, weaving Draco's ropes back enough that his mouth was free. "Well, Professor Lupin?"
He's not a professor anymore, Draco thought in annoyance, but he didn't say anything. At least McGonagall hadn't insisted that they address him that way.
Lupin coughed once, and his eyes rested for a moment on Draco, who just glared back. Then he sighed and said, "Albus asked me to get close enough to Harry to smell any trace of foreign magical residue on him. He feared Harry might be possessed."
"What the fuck," Henry said.
"Language, Mr. Malfoy!" McGonagall snapped, but Draco thought she was saying it at least partially as a way to give herself a chance to deal with what Lupin had revealed.
Draco laughed in the werewolf's face. Lupin just looked back at him with the same empty, gentle gaze that he'd had when he was a teacher. Draco made a face at him.
"Albus knew that Mr. Malfoy's scar had changed, and that he was having magical outbursts. He was afraid that You-Know-Who's spirit might have possessed him, or else that he'd been through some kind of foreign magical influence that was doing essentially the same thing." Lupin sighed. "I wanted to find out if that was true, but I can't scent any difference in him or any Dark magic."
Draco swallowed a sneer. The idea that Dark magic, which was enormously varied, might have just one smell was stupid. But he probably wouldn't get any points of any kind by saying so.
"If Dumbledore was worried about that, why not just ask me?" Henry's voice was small and hurt and exasperated.
"I don't think he believed that you would tell the truth."
....
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