The Price of Light | drarry

two | good aurors

March 2002

The next day, Harry's in the office examining evidence from the Lucius Malfoy case. Ron's with him, as he so often is, and together they sift through box after box of objects salvaged from the Manor after the fire.

The fire.

Accidental, supposedly, but Harry doesn't buy that.

It just feels convenient that the Manor should have burnt on the very night the Malfoys fled, but Harry doesn't know whether to blame them. There's got to have been piles and piles of damning evidence within those marble walls; in their situation he'd have lit the place up before he left too.

Unless it was Harry's fellow Aurors, of course. Smoking the Death Eaters out like rats. He wonders when he became so sceptical.

A dusting of marble sits soft on the tops of the boxes, and Harry blows it gently off the first object he retrieves: a weighty silver candlestick with the letter M engraved beneath it. He's seen all these items dozens of times before, but it still amuses him every time he sees the letter. Who engraves their fucking candlesticks?

He sets it down, and reaches for the next item, a small selection of Draco Malfoy's rings which have been placed into a small transparent bag.

He doesn't know what they're looking for; not really. But they're obliged to kill the time of the morning before they head out Horcrux searching after lunch. Trev doesn't like them to disappear for entire days at a time, even though Harry knows that's probably what's needed in this case if they're going to make any bloody progress.

But the rings are interesting to look at, at least. The silver is icy cool through the material of the bag as Harry weighs them up in his hands, and he likes the way the light catches on all the little jetstones and gleams off the metal curves.

It's odd to him that Malfoy wouldn't have been wearing the rings at the time of the fire, though, that he'd leave them behind. Harry's never seen him without them, not even on the Quidditch pitch at school. But things change, he supposes. It has been nearly five years since he saw the guy. He must just have taken them off to sleep, rested them on his bedside table.

This image sticks in Harry's mind for some reason.

It's delicate, humanising. The idea of Draco removing each ring carefully one by one and setting them aside before he gets into bed. Harry shakes his head to get rid of it; God, he's getting too invested in this case. He puts the rings back in the box like they're suddenly hot, and turns to Ron.

"Shall we just sneak out now?" he asks, wiping his hands off on his trousers. "This is going nowhere, we've looked over all of it fifteen times at least, and found nothing. I think we should do what we do best."

Ron nods, he rarely needs asking twice. "Let me just grab my jacket," he says.

Spring that year is bleak and frosty.

***

"Do you really believe there are Horcruxes out here?" Ron asks as they trudge over the Wiltshire farmland at the outskirts of where the Malfoy Manor used to be. The rubble has been roughly mown aside, but it's still obvious where the structures were years before.

"Not sure," Harry shrugs. He's never what he thinks on this subject, and his gaze is fixed firmly on his feet.

"Bit depressing if there are," Ron frowns. "Probably worse than depressing, actually."

"Probably," Harry allows himself a small wry smile. He's serious again seconds later though, focusing on the task at hand. Auror sensibility takes over. "This revolution will be worse though, if it's true what they're saying - about how strong Lucius Malfoy's following is."