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From the outside, the lounge cloak room appeared to be small, no bigger than a broom closet. But inside, it housed rows and rows of racks and shelves containing not just cloaks, coats, hats, and accessories, but items of any manner of trade.
Harry ushered them to a far corner in the back, in the dark shadows of wizarding cloaks that had been left there from decades past. He pushed Malfoy against the wall and held his sides when he realized his eyes were twisted shut in pain. “Malfoy,” Harry whispered. There were droplets of sweat forming at the end of his temples. “Draco, breathe,” he said.
Something in Malfoy’s face relaxed. Harry waited minutes. Merlin, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Finally, Malfoy’s breathing was back to normal. When his grey eyes slowly opened and stared back at him, Harry didn’t know what to say.
A clamor at the entrance of the room made them break their stare and turn toward the noise. Two figures had entered the cloak room. Harry peered through a gap in the thick huddle of cloaks. It was the hotel manager, Valentine, and a shorter figure in a dark blue hooded cloak.
“I told you not to come here,” Valentine hissed. The look of outrage on his face was something so completely foreign to Harry, he almost thought he’d been mistaken in his recognition. But then, “This is my place of work,” Valentine added. “We can’t be seen together.”
“I wanted to tell you in person that I’ll be voting against you,” the woman seethed. Through her disdain, Harry knew that voice. It was the woman from the house, the one holding Bertrice.
Valentine scoffed. Harry was still in shock at his harsh tone. “And why would that be? We need more if we’re going to accomplish our goals. Zivantus controls the supply and holds our aspirations hostage in the process. This is the only way.”
The woman shook her head. “You want to risk the life of an innocent girl?”
“I want to hold the world on its knees, Carmen. Is that too much to ask?”
Harry gasped and stepped back into Malfoy. They fell into a shelf with a thud and something metal clattered to the ground. Malfoy grabbed him and crowded him into the cloaks on the other side of the aisle. Standing chest to chest, Harry leaned back as he felt Malfoy’s hand between them. “What are you—” but in the shadowy darkness he made out the shine of gold, and the next moment they were falling through time, once again pressed closer together than might otherwise have been necessary.
When the steady feeling returned, Harry didn’t move. Malfoy’s face was above his shoulder and he could feel his breath against his neck. The warm sensation of it hooked at something in his chest and made him lean closer.
“We should be safe,” Malfoy whispered and pulled away, stepping out from the cloaks and into the deserted aisle. “I’ve taken us forward a few hours.”
“Safe,” Harry shivered. “Right.”
He pushed the sudden emptiness that rose up back somewhere deep inside himself. He didn’t have the time to deal with his body’s reactions to Malfoy. And it wasn’t Malfoy, Harry told himself. It was simply a physical response to stimulus.
“Are you alright?” Malfoy asked.
Harry gulped. “I—I should ask you the same, Malfoy.” Harry’s inner turmoil was replaced with concern. Before they’d been interrupted, Malfoy had been on the verge of a panic attack. “What happened back there?”
Malfoy pursed his lips. “What indeed. Was that the hotel manager colluding with the kidnapper? Your boss is the mastermind behind this whole thing and you had no idea.” He added sarcastically, “Paint me surprised, Potter.”
Harry let out a frustrated sigh.
“It all makes sense now,” Malfoy declared. “Zivantus must have provided these malefactors with the inquollis anicorpus. They managed to figure out he had the Timepiece, and presumably used it to cultivate the plant, and now they’ve finally decided to extort it from him.”
“They switched Bertrice with the kneazle as collateral,” Harry added.
Malfoy smirked, “Leverage, Potter.” Harry’s gaze lingered on his lips. Realizing the distraction, Harry turned around and focused on a shaggy, purple fur coat.
“Wait,” he said. “When did Zivantus give you the Timepiece?”
“The night before his death,” Malfoy said, his tone possessing a leveled reverence.
“And?”
“And what, Potter?”
Harry turned around. “Did he say anything? Give you any hint about how he got it or—”
Malfoy interrupted, “All he said was he hoped I would appreciate its value more than he had.”
“How vague and unhelpful,” Harry muttered. He noticed the line of worry on Malfoy’s forehead, a tense wrinkle above an expectant stare. The look he gave Harry was almost a plea, as if Malfoy could tell Harry saw right through him but implored him to let it go anyway. But Harry couldn’t let it go. Malfoy had been hiding valuable information the entire time, and all Harry could think was What else?
“I absolutely will not respond to Mrs. Vistrel again, Grimbie,” a familiar voice said at the other end of the room. “I can’t comprehend why someone would bathe in pumpkin juice.” Harry twisted around and could make out the vague form of Archie Eversworn. Himself.
Realizing they had to get out of the hotel, Harry searched around for a disguise. The purple fur coat seemed as good as any. Grabbing it, he threw it on and cast a quick glamour on himself. When he glanced at Malfoy, the other wizard was doing the same. Malfoy had donned a sleek black leather jacket and a bowler hat.
They waited for the other Harry to leave and then rushed out into the lobby. A man in the guest check-in queue stared at the pair of them as they fumbled forward toward the main doors. Malfoy locked eyes with the hotel guest, then slinked next to Harry, draped his arm over his shoulder, pulled him close, and winked. The man flushed and turned away toward the service desk.
“You know,” Malfoy drawled as they made their way out onto the street. He pulled away and put a few inches of space between them. “I always thought Gryffindor red was your best color, but this,” he pointed to the purple shag coat. “This suits you perfectly, Potter.”
Harry bristled and ignored Malfoy for the entirety of the next two blocks.
Luna Lovegood held out a piece of her chicken alfredo for Bertie. “No one cared to offer you a well cooked meal?” Luna asked, still looking at the kneazle. Pansy sighed and filled her wine glass again.
They’d returned to the room and ordered dinner service. Pansy explained the details of the case, and Luna listened attentively while petting Bertrice in her lap. But as soon as the food arrived and Pansy started eating, Luna’s focus shifted to kneazle, and Pansy listened in mild annoyance as the Ravenclaw acted out a conversation with the animal. It wasn’t as if she talked at Bertie, it was as if Luna actually carried on a discourse back and forth.
The idea that Bertrice’s soul had been switched into the body of a kneazle was still an unsettling reality for Pansy. She wasn’t entirely sure if Luna’s dialogue was an attempt to assuage the situation or if the other woman truly believed she was in the middle of a conversation about birthday parties with the kneazle.
“I understand the inclination of teenage girls to get wild,” Luna nodded and put another piece of chicken out. “Your father shouldn’t have insisted the party’s location be at an urban home. And then get mad about the noise.”
The kneazle meowed and then attacked the offered piece of chicken.
Luna smiled. “You’re right. A lake house would’ve been perfect.”
Pansy froze, a surge of recollection hitting her. She’d completely forgotten Bertrice’s last letter. The young girl’s angry rants had covered a page and half of parchment, detailing Marwan’s refusal to allow Bertrice a party at their summer lake house.
The kneazle put its paws on Luna’s knee and stared up at her.
“I’m sure he knew you didn’t hate him,” Luna pet Bertie’s head. “We always say things we don’t mean when we’re angry,” she looked up at Pansy, “or scared.”
Luna’s words hit Pansy like a gust of painful forgiveness, and the floodgates that had been holding back all her shame and guilt since the end of the War opened. She broke down, and it was in front of Loony Lovegood and the soul of her goddaughter trapped in a kneazle, for Salazar’s sake. The thought of it made her laugh for a brief moment between the tears and the sobs. It was freeing. Pansy realized she’d been carrying too much of the past inside her. It had been weighing her down, distracting her from the things that really mattered. Clarity felt like flying.
By the time she’d collected herself, she’d figured out how they were going to get Bertrice back in her own body. Never do what they expect. It was her own advice, and she planned on following it.
“Feel better?” Luna finally asked. She’d curled up on the sofa with one of Longbottom’s books, Bertie snuggled up in her lap.
Pansy wiped her face. “Yes,” she nodded. “And I’ve had a thought. What’s the best way to catch Tinsel Gnats?”
Draco convinced Harry to apparate with him to Marwan Zivantus’ home in the outskirts of Edinburgh. He realized he’d started thinking of him as just Harry, and supposed it might be a symptom of the time travel. Or maybe a symptom of having him pressed close. Or maybe— it was “Draco.”
“Potter,” Draco distracted himself. “When are you going to take off that ridiculous coat?”
The other man furrowed his brow, “I thought you said purple was my color.”
Draco smiled, and then Potter smiled too. Good, he thought. It was back to Potter. “I didn’t want you to be embarrassed.”
