Chapter Text
The shop is almost completely unnoticeable. Harry would have passed by it entirely if he hadn't felt drawn in by the brightly pastel magic encasing the outside.
So enter, he did.
The inside of the shop is dimly lit, smells of - oh, it's Amortentia - and the only other figure in the room, a very small person, is shrouded by a dark cloak and its shadows.
"Er, hi?" Harry clears his throat, looking around and wondering if there's a bell to ring somewhere that he's not seeing.
The figure twists slightly, setting aside the glass vials and casting a wandless Stasis over everything with a thin, pale hand.
"Potter!" He exclaims when he turns.
Harry squints in the darkness, bending slightly to see under the hood.
"Malfoy? Careful, you almost sound happy to see me."
"Oh, but I am!" Malfoy proclaims. He throws some spell that goes whizzing past Harry's ear to the door. Harry’s sure Malfoy has locked him in, but Malfoy has only changed the sign from enter to another time, perhaps.
And then Harry turns back to see Malfoy for the first time in an entire year, and stifles his gasp.
Malfoy has always had a sort of strange prettiness. He's always dressed well and he has shiny hair and if he wasn't such a git, Harry would maybe have thought him attractive.
But something’s changed since they'd last seen each other. Malfoy shrugs, raising his arms out to turn in a quick circle.
"Go on, I’m sure it’s quite shocking to see for the first time. Was for me too."
Harry is startled out of his ruminations to give a small snort.
Malfoy’s always been pointy, facially at least, but in the last year, he hasn't even begun to grow into the sharp angles. If anything, they're even sharper.
But that's not what Harry comments on.
"Did you shrink? I remember you being taller."
"I was taller." Malfoy says easily. "Really, I thought you would've known by now."
"Known what?"
"My Change? I turned 18 after I saw you last, and I've looked like this ever since."
"You had a creature inheritance?"
"Infairitance." Malfoy corrects.
"Sorry?"
Malfoy huffs, drawing his cloak off his shoulders fully and sending it to a hook across the room. Wandlessly.
He's wearing a loose, thin white shirt which laces up the front. His hip-length platinum hair flicks out from where it was pinned beneath the cloak.
"Infairitance. Fairy inheritance. If I can't laugh at it, I fear I may grow bitter, as it's ruined what was left of my life. Some days I slip and say unfairitance, but I suppose that's not quite accurate."
That makes sense.
Not the unfair or ruining life bit, the fairy stuff.
Because Malfoy’s pointy face has that quality to it. He has cheekbones and a jawline which could cut diamonds, tiny rosebud lips, and his eyes are the most different of all.
"Your eyes changed." Harry says blankly. Malfoy leans forward to rest his elbows on the counter between them. The shirt starts to slip down one waifish shoulder, exposing his collarbone and part of his chest. He bats his eyelashes at Harry. They're white-gold and double the length of everyone else's eyelashes.
"Oh yes. That's the only part I actually like. If you look into them for too long, you'll become… suggestable. But don't worry, it doesn't work if I blink and I'm not good at keeping them open long enough."
Harry looks at the new eyes. They're still grey, but much larger than before. They're oversized and unbalanced on Malfoy’s face, making him look a bit too innocent and just a tad unhuman. The irises are huge, taking up most of the space and swirling with silver, like a pot of boiling metal.
Harry blinks, snapping out of his thoughts.
"You said I'd get suggestable?"
"Yes, like a trance. Imperius-like, but it's technically not illegal. George and Fred - you know I'm friends with them, right? I thought one of them would have told you about my Change, but maybe you're not as close as I thought you were. They've been helping me find out how to avoid setting people into trances."
"George and… and Fred?" Harry asks lowly.
Malfoy frowns and nods.
"They've never mentioned me? I thought their family knew we spend time together often. You're still part of their family, aren't you?"
Harry squints at Malfoy and his weird new face.
"I knew you hang out… with George. But Fred died. He's been dead over a year. You were there, you saw him get killed." Harry says. He pushes at the pang of sadness that has lingered.
Malfoy stands up straight again, looking surprised.
"I was there, but Fred is alive, Potter. I see him often. Don't worry, I already know he's alive."
Harry shakes his head more vehemently than before.
"No! He died, I helped bury his body! He’s not alive, he can't be!"
Malfoy suddenly looks unsure of himself.
"Now I'm worried I wasn't supposed to tell you." He says.
"Does an inheritance-"
"Infairitance."
"-make you loony? You're round the bend, Malfoy, if you think he's alive still. Or is it George? Is George- is he not okay? Is he telling you-"
Malfoy moves to a blank wall, grasping something out of nowhere and pushing open a door that wasn't there a second ago.
"If you buried Fred's body, then who's this?"
Harry looks beyond the door to see a table holding a body with red hair and a look of laughter on his still face. The air around him looks foggy.
"That's not Fred." Harry says desperately. "Is that George? Do you have George paralyzed in your back room? I swear, Malfoy, I'll call the Minister himself-"
"That's not George. You can't tell the difference? It's Fred, look at his face. Or rather, it was at the time."
Harry doesn't have to. He can tell the twins apart and he remembers all too well how Fred's face looked when he died.
"Why do you have it." Harry asks, clenching his tingling fingers into fists at his sides.
"We needed a place to store it while we work things out. I'm beginning to think you don't know the first thing about George and Fred."
"Yes I do! I know loads about them!" Harry protests. "They were some of my first friends! I've been close with George ever since-"
"Sure you know a lot. Do you know the first thing?"
Harry stares at Malfoy, who suddenly looks…
Well, he looks like exactly the sort of person who runs a mysterious little shop tucked into the wall with a loosely defined set of services, an air of secrecy, and a reputation.
"What's the first thing."
"They're interchangeable."
Harry’s magic lashes out, pinning Malfoy against the back wall. Harry’s hands haven't even moved.
"Don't say that. That's not true. If you're George’s friend, you know that's not true."
Malfoy waves his hands in a strange pattern, and the magic keeping him against the wall disperses in a shower of sparks.
"No, not the- not their minds, their bodies. They've got this weird connection, mentally. They switch bodies, have since childhood, that's how their magic manifested early on, and now they know how to control it."
"Fred is dead!" Harry yells.
Malfoy sighs, running a hand through his hair.
"Have a seat, Potter."
A chair appears out of nowhere and hits the back of Harry’s knees. He falls into it mechanically.
"Tea?"
"I'm not stupid enough to drink anything from you." Harry says flatly.
"I'm not stupid enough to try poisoning you. But suit yourself."
He drinks a cup himself, looking at Harry for a moment. Harry notices Malfoy blinks a lot. He wonders if those huge, odd eyes see better, or different things maybe, like Mad-Eye’s magical eye did.
Malfoy pulls a string from around his neck, from which hangs a plain blue button. He fiddles with it for a moment, holding it absently while he starts talking.
"So, George. I think maybe George and Fred never told anyone about this. They said they would but never mentioned when. And they likely thought I'd never give it away given that most everyone they know hates me."
Harry shakes his head.
"Stop saying he's alive. I think I would know if he was."
Malfoy hops up onto the counter separating the shop from his workspace, and spins around so he’s on the same side as Harry. His feet dangle between them. He's not wearing shoes.
"Before the battle, at some point during their research for WWW, they figured out how to keep both consciousnesses in one body. The other body would just sort of… sit and wait, exactly as they'd left it. Can you tell me what the killing curse does?"
"It kills." Harry says blankly.
"How."
"No one knows. There's no discernable injury or reason for death on the victims."
"I've been researching. I believe it, like Dementors, separates soul from body. But unlike Dementors, it's fast, tearing the two apart. A Kissed person never lives long without the soul, but an AK'd body doesn't have that adjustment period to gradually slow down. So the body just stops right away."
"What's your point?" Harry asks.
"Fred's body - well, the one Fred was using at the time, we don't actually know which body started as Fred and which as George, but that's not important - so Fred's body was Kedavra'd. But he saw the spell light coming and he hopped into the other body, George’s, so the body here, the one that was hit, didn't have a soul in it when the Kedavra landed."
"I don't understand."
"The AK would usually rip out a soul, but there was no soul to be ripped, right?"
Malfoy grows increasingly animated, his feet pressed against the front of the counter to keep him balanced as he’s leaning so far forward, he’s nearly falling off it entirely.
"So then, what happened to this body? If the AK rips out the soul but there's no soul in there?" He gestures behind himself with his thumb. "That's what I'm trying to figure out - have been - but shockingly, there's not much research to be found. But at any rate, that's when we became friends. Allies, first. I'm going to revive Fred's body so he can go back to it and they can resume normal life. I don't think I have to tell you that living with two minds in one body is not ideal."
Harry absently touches the scar on his forehead, then looks up.
"How could you revive him if his body stopped working? Whether or not the spell did anything, he's been dead for a year."
"I've got preservation spells on it and I replace the fluids often enough that the insides will still work once I figure it out." Malfoy says, sitting back more solidly and sipping his tea again.
Harry grimaced.
"That sounds gross."
"It is. But I'm determined to find a way and I will not return a body that's half-rotten."
Harry is staring again.
How could you not, with such a strange face? The features are bewitching, literally. And besides, Harry’s never seen Malfoy so excited about something that wasn't a prank or some nefarious scheme.
"You're different than you used to be. I mean, looks aside."
"I am not!” He snaps. Malfoy leans forward, clutching his tea. Harry nearly startles at the fervour. “Only three things have changed. I'm no longer working for Timmy Riddle, and I'm not bullying you. Everything else is the same."
Deciding to ignore the nickname for Voldemort, Harry’s about to point out that he only listed two things, but Malfoy pushes his loose shirtsleeve up his left arm.
"The Mark burned off my arm when I Changed, I guess fairies don't swear allegiance to humans or something."
Harry squints at the faintly glimmering skin, which lacks even a scar from where the Dark Mark once sat. Malfoy shakes his arm so the sleeve falls back in place.
"What do you do?" Harry asks once the silence has gone on for a bit.
"Generally?"
"I mean, here. I assume you do provide some sort of service and this shop is not just here for your amusement and a dead body."
Malfoy’s lips twitch.
"No, I do sell things. I've created several new potions and sell them exclusively from here on demand. I also have various necromantic services, though I don't claim to have the ins and outs down pat yet. I do more just-died stuff at St. Mungo’s - the healers all hate me, but they can't say I'm not effective."
"Necromantic." Harry repeats.
"Sure. If someone's body has just stopped working, I'm able to bring a lot of them back. It’s largely muggle medicine with some magical solutions, but the healers mainly study magical medicine."
Malfoy jumps down from the counter and reaches back around it, pulling out a large grey quill and a page of parchment. He leans one elbow on the countertop, one foot on top of the other as he turns his attention to Harry.
"I assume you've come to visit me for something other than a social call?"
Harry takes a deep breath.
"Yeah. I er, I've brought your wand."
Malfoy tilts his head to the side, giant eyes watching Harry’s face doubtfully.
"My wand."
Harry pulls the Hawthorn and unicorn hair wand from his pocket and holds it out, handle first, toward Malfoy.
"Mine is fixed now, and I thought you might want yours back. Happened upon it the other day in my flat, I sort of forgot I had it."
"I did too. I don't really need one anymore."
Harry looks up.
"You don't? Where did you learn wandless? You can do everything without one?"
"Everything I've tried so far. Something about the Infairitance, I guess, haven't needed one since."
"It sounds like you really lucked out with that." Harry says absently. Malfoy gives him a questioning look. "Everything you've mentioned is a good thing. The wands, getting rid of the Mark, the hypno-eyes."
Malfoy shrugs, leaning against the counter.
"I guess."
He still hasn't taken his wand back, and Harry wiggles it. Malfoy glances down and looks away quickly.
"I actually can't take that."
"Why not?"
Malfoy shrugs again, but walks back around the counter and waves his hands around to set whatever he'd been working with back to their cupboards.
Harry looks at the wand again, then pockets it once more.
"Okay. So I guess I should go then. That's all I came for."
"Just the wand?" Malfoy asks, his back to Harry.
"Yeah. I mean. I was a little curious about the place George had mentioned, he's said he's come here a lot and I couldn't imagine why he would, but I guess-"
Malfoy turns slightly, his eyelashes a long line of white at this angle.
"It makes sense he'd frequent a friend's establishment?"
"-I was going to say of course he'd want to check on Fred's body." Harry finishes.
He couldn't have imagined the dip in Malfoy’s shoulders. The sag from hearing Harry’s thoughts.
"But sure, friend too, I guess."
Malfoy doesn't turn back around, and when Harry mumbles an awkward goodbye, he sees Malfoy Summon his cloak again and fasten it back around himself.
Time to visit George.