Harry nearly screamed. He wanted to. Not that he hadn't seen ghosts before. He'd certainly seen plenty of them at Hogwarts. Nearly Headless Nick was a good friend and even Moaning Myrtle had her moments. But Lucius Malfoy haunting his house? This was a bit much. Wasn't the portrait bad enough?

Lucius stomped toward Harry with his hands raised, fingers curled like claws. He reached for Harry's neck, closed over it, and passed right through. Lucius's eyes were wild and he threw back his head and howled.

Draco looked panicked and gathered his shirt back in place. "Father! Stop it!"

It was then that Harry realized that the portrait and the ghost had little in common with one another. The knowledge the portrait had was limited. Just as it could only know what happened up until the point the painting was complete, its occupants could only travel from portrait to portrait within the same house unless there was another portrait of them somewhere else. And Harry doubted anyone-if they had one-would keep a portrait of Lucius Malfoy.

But the ghost was a separate being. The actual being, not just a magical representation as in the painting. And he wouldn't have known what the portrait now knew without asking it.

Lucius tried to grab Harry again, but his transparent hands passed through once more. Harry jumped out of the way, feeling the coldness when Malfoy's ghostly hands accosted him.

"EXPLAIN WHAT YOU WERE DOING TO MY SON, YOU PERVERTED HALF-BLOOD!"

Harry made a desperate glance at Draco who put himself between Lucius and Harry and proceeded to explain-again-what he told the portrait down the corridor.

The ghost's chest heaved while he listened. Of course he didn't have to breathe any more, couldn't, but the reaction was too ingrained. His eyes blazed, darting between Draco and Harry while Draco continued his explanation, buttoning his shirt as he talked. Finally, when he finished, Lucius spun, throwing his ghostly robes behind him. He looked for all the world as if his boots were smacking the floor, but he was hovering just slightly above it and he made no sound but the huffing breaths and grunts as he paced. "So…so you are telling me that you two…you two…" He made a disgusted sound. "I can understand your being gay, Draco, but taking up with Harry Potter? Insanity!"

"I love him, Father. There's nothing for it."

"You had a duty-"

"A duty to what? The whole Pureblood thing? And what did Voldemort care about that in the end? Did you care about it when the green light of Avada Kedavra sped toward you? Do you remember that?"

Lucius looked suddenly stricken. It was obvious to Harry that he remembered it very well. He turned slowly from Draco this time. "I believed it," he said softly. "I still do."

"But he killed you for nothing. Only to please himself. What does that say to you, Father?"

"It says that I followed a madman. Perhaps."

"No 'perhaps' about it!" cried Draco breathlessly.

Lucius swiveled again and glared at Harry. Harry took an involuntary step back. "You're…married, then?"

"Er…yes, Mr. Malfoy."

"He loves me, Father. He'll never hurt me. I am safe with him. Surely…surely you'd want that."

"Of course I do!" Lucius looked embarrassed now and floated over toward a chair. He made the motions of sitting in it though Harry knew he couldn't actually make corporeal contact. "Sit. Both of you. We need to talk."

Draco sat right away but Harry hesitated. Malfoy Manor was a bad enough idea on his honeymoon, but to be haunted by his father-in-law too boot? That was taking it all a bit too far.

Draco looked at him and at his insistent glare Harry edged toward a chair and slowly eased into it.

"Now," said Lucius, "there must be some ground rules. While you are in my house there must be no congress between you two. I simply won't permit it."

"Excuse me," said Harry, moving to the edge of his chair. "This isn't your house anymore. It's ours. And we'll bloody well have…congress…if we want to."

Lucius raised a brow. "Oh really? Easy to strike the right mood, is it, with a ghost hovering over your shoulder? That's a performance, Mr. Potter, I should like to see."

Harry blanched. Oh shit.

"You wouldn't," breathed Draco.

"Wouldn't I? There'll be no romance in this house for you, Mr. Potter. No matter whose house it is."

Harry jumped to his feet. "That's just…that's just…mean!"

Lucius stared at him, his silvery hair fanned over his shoulders. "Mean? Mean?" His lip rose in a sardonic curl. "What foul daggers you hurl, Potter. I can see why Draco chose you. Surely for your erudition."

"Father." Draco threw himself forward. "It was hard enough getting him here," he pleaded out of the corner of his mouth. "Do you have to make it impossible for us to return?"

"You are always welcome, Draco. It is your home, after all. But he-" and he pointed an accusatory if not transparent finger at Harry, "is not!"

"O-kay!" said Harry, throwing up his hands. "I know when I'm beaten. I'm out of here!"

"No, Harry! Wait!"

Harry stomped from the room to the sound of Lucius's laughter. Draco ran to catch up, his hands extended in a plea. Harry was furious. "I didn't have to put up with him while he was alive and I certainly don't have to put up with now that he's dead!" He caught sight of Draco's stricken face and shut his eyes in exasperation. "Sorry! I'm sorry. It's just that…Look, why don't we just go back to Provence and you can come back some other time without me."

"But Harry. This is our house now. I won't let my father cock it up for us."

"Well he's doing a pretty good job!"

"Trouble in paradise?" drawled Lucius, his body seeping through the walls.

"Yeah," said Harry with a sneer. "And you'd be hard pressed to call it 'paradise' with the name 'Malfoy' attached to it." And as soon as it left his lips he realized what he'd said. Harry turned to Draco and saw the devastated expression on his paler-than-usual face. "Oh Draco! I didn't mean that. I meant him…not you…Oh God!" He reached for Draco but the blond stepped back, shaking his head.

"I see. I really did try to warn you," he said, his voice unnaturally low and trembling. "I tried to tell you that it would be a mistake to marry me. And now I see that it is."

"No, Draco. It isn't! It really isn't. I love you!"

Lucius snorted. "Oh spare us, Potter. Your weak platitudes fall on deaf ears. Send him away, Draco. You'll be better off, I assure you."

Draco glared at the floor, looking at neither of them. "Shut up, Father."

"What did you say to me?"

He raised his reddened face. "I said 'SHUT UP'! It was you and your stupid Pureblood ideas that got us all into trouble in the first place! Why didn't you just open your eyes! Why couldn't you see how bloody thick it was? Why did you have to drag me in there with you?"

Lucius drew himself up. "These are not mere ideals, Draco. We are Purebloods. That makes us the only true wizard line. All the rest are mere bastards compared-"

"That's insane! You're insane! You're just as mad as Voldemort was! Can't you see how asinine that whole concept is? Harry did us all a huge favor by killing Voldemort. If only he had done it before you were killed. He would have saved you, too."

"Ha! Very Gryffindor of him, no doubt."

"It's not a dirty word, Father. Doing for others because it's simply the right thing to do? You should try it some time. Especially for your own son." Draco gave Lucius one last hard look and cast a defeated glance at Harry before he pushed past him and ran down the stairs.

"Draco!" Lucius called after him. He almost pursued but Harry called him back.

"See what you and your selfishness have done? Why would you do that to your own son?"

"I…I can make him see reason-"

"He's a little beyond that now. You see, he's matured, whereas you…well. You're just dead."

His eyes blazed at Harry. "How dare you? You stand there in your flesh and blood and berate me? I at least stood up for what I believed."

"Yeah? I guess Voldemort was just having a bad day, then? Let's see. He A.K.'d Narcissa because Draco failed to kill Dumbledore, and he killed you when you got out of Azkaban because…what was it again? Oh yes. You 'displeased' him. Just how did you 'displease' him? Was his tea cold or something?"

"You don't know what you are talking about."

"I know that I'm alive and you're not. So where's the wife? Haunting the other wing? That's just lovely. Just when you thought we'd all gotten rid of the rotten Malfoys they keep turning up like a bad penny."

"This has nothing to do with you."

"IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ME!" Harry paused, breathed, tried to calm himself. "You see, unlike you, I care what happens to Draco. I care how he feels. I care if he's unhappy. I especially care if it's my fault." Tears trembled on his lashes and fell. He scrubbed his eyes under his glasses with his fingers. "So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see where he's gone off to."

In a subdued voice that slowed Harry, Lucius said, "He's in the garden in the folly."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"I'm a spirit, Potter. I am attuned to anything on these grounds. I know where everyone is at all times. It's what ghosts do."

"Okay, then." He whirled on his heel, took a few steps, and then stopped. Over his shoulder he asked, "Um…what's a folly?"

Lucius sighed wearily. "Follow me."

* * *

After Lucius explained that a folly was a fake ruin set up in a garden purely for looks, Harry wasn't any clearer on the concept. He silently followed the ghost through a maze of hedges and, after a long walk, came to a grassy clearing where the acres of the estates swept out before him. The grounds actually looked bigger than Hogwarts'.

The ground sloped upward to a hillock and atop that was the ruins of a tower and Harry realized that this is what Lucius meant by "folly". He made his way up the slope behind Lucius and then stopped. He cleared his throat so that Lucius would turn. "Hadn't I better go on alone?"

Lucius opened his mouth to protest but shut it with an almost audible click. His upturned nose served as consent and Harry didn't wait to hurry up the hill. He approached the folly and entered under the arch. The air immediately felt colder within the stone edifice and smelled of wet granite. The tower was hollow and opened to the sky and the quiet was disturbed now and again by the flapping of wings high overhead as pigeons took flight out of the tower. Draco was sitting on the stone throne placed in its center. It had obviously been a favorite haunt of his as a child.

Slowly he looked up, his eyes focusing on Harry. "How did you find me?"

"Your father. Ghost, and all."

Draco sniffed. His cheek rested on his fist. "What are we going to do?"

"First, I'm going to apologize to you. I never meant to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry. And you bloody well know that I never said or thought that it was a mistake to marry you. I'm the one who wanted you for an embarrassing number of years, remember?"

Draco nodded, face still blank and impassive. "I know. Apology accepted. So what are we going to do?"

"Well. He's your father. What do you want to do? We can't stop him from going through the walls." Harry looked down and toed the gravel floor. "It's not as if we have to shag every five minutes, but I'd still like to sleep in the same bed with you and have a pleasant time, this still being our honeymoon and all."

"I don't know what to do. The thing of it is, it's like having him back." He looked up into the round blue patch of sky. "I wonder where Mother is."

Harry did think of that aspect of it. He would have been gloriously happy to have ghost parents at Godric's Hollow, but they hadn't been there when he went to his parents' home for the first time at the end of his sixth year. And even though Lucius Malfoy was a bastard of the first order, he was still Draco's father, and blood was thicker than water.

Harry sighed. "Why don't I just slip back to Provence, you stay on here a few days and get reacquainted, and then meet me back at the hotel when you're ready? Okay?"

"You truly care for him…don't you?"

Lucius had come through the stone to stand behind Harry. Harry didn't bother turning around. "Got it in one, did you? Yes, I truly care for him. I love him. He's my husband. Our magic is joined. I don't know how else to say it and have you believe me."

"I believe you." Lucius floated forward and stopped near his son. He raised a hand to stroke his head but stopped in mid-gesture. His face contorted with strange longing and he let his had drop to his side. Of course, he couldn't actually touch him, couldn't feel him.

Draco raised his eyes to his father. "We just want a little peace, Father. A little happiness. Is that too much to ask?"

Lucius looked skyward and pressed his hands behind his back. "This has been a lonely house. I have been here ever since I…died. Not a sound. Not a squeak. Not even a house elf. The painting has only just now activated with your presence…but I do not wish to converse with it. Seeing you again…well. A mixed blessing," he said, turning his aristocratic nose toward Harry. "I only hoped that you had survived. I didn't hear anything. And then when those Ministry people began coming in. I told them at first to clear off. But after all, what could I really do to them? They would tell me nothing. Ignored me. I only surmised that Voldemort was no more by the fact of their presence. But you never came. And then I reasoned that you were somehow…deceased. I hoped it was not so. I was glad to hear your voice again. I was ecstatic. But then…" He looked at Harry, his eyes burning until the fire went out of them and he gave a small shrug. "Well. Here we are. Family." But he said the last word like a curse.

"Harry is your son-in-law."

Lucius rolled his eyes. "I suppose so," he said quietly.

"Where's Mother?"

Lucius sneering expression fell away and a despairing glaze dulled his eyes. "She's…not here."

"Not here?" Draco sat up and leaned toward his father. "Where is she?"

"Where good souls go, no doubt."

Draco had a bit of panic in his voice. "Then why are you here?"

Lucius didn't reply but Harry knew. He'd asked Nearly Headless Nick about that when Sirius died, hoping that he would at least see his godfather again as a ghost. But Sir Nicholas had explained that only those wizards who were afraid of facing death were doomed to stay on the earthly plain, either at the place of their death or some other place important to the deceased. Narcissa had obviously been at peace with her demise but Lucius, either because of cowardice or some other fault-and Harry was sure he had many-feared to die and had ended up at Malfoy Manor as a spirit, forever separated from his wife and from true interaction with the living. Harry shuddered at the idea. He knew he would rather be good and gone than hang around Hogwarts for all eternity.

He looked at the floating form of Lucius Malfoy with new eyes. He almost felt sorry for him. True, he was an evil, plotting, nasty son-of-a-bitch, but he was also a caring father and loving husband. Maybe, after all was said and done, it was what he deserved. But looking at Draco's sorrowful face, Harry couldn't quite muster that sentiment any more.

"Then what have you been doing with yourself?" Harry cut in before Lucius embarrassed himself in front of his son. Harry kept wondering why he cared.

He glanced at him with disdain. "I've been haunting, Potter."

"Haunting who? No one's here."

"It doesn't necessarily mean rattling chains and scaring little girls, Potter. It means simply…being here."

"And that's been entertaining, has it?"

"If you're trying to provoke me-"

"He's not. Are you, Harry?" Draco's face was full of meaning.

"No. No, I'm not." And then under his breath he muttered, "Not anymore." He pulled at his robes. "Look. Um. It's getting late. Will you…will you let us stay, Mr. Malfoy? Together? At least for the one night?"

Lucius Malfoy considered. He tossed his hair over his shoulder and huffed bitterly. "I suppose. Would that please you, Draco?"

"Yes, Father. More than anything."

His father seemed to warm at that. He arched a brow in a conciliatory fashion. "Very well, then. You may stay. Together. I will not disturb you. I will be in the other wing tonight."

"That's fine," said Harry. "Why don't you two catch up for now? I've got to…to talk to Dobby for a bit. See you back at the house, Draco."

But Draco was already immersed in conversation with his father, the two of them chatting as if they had never been parted.

After a few wrong paths, Harry finally made it back to the house and went directly to the library. He didn't know if this would help or if anything could be done, but he felt he owed it to Draco to at least enquire.

He knelt by the fireplace, drew his wand, and aimed it at the carefully stacked logs. "Incendio!" A small flame burst from the wood and Harry reached into a pocket of his robe and took out a small canister of floo powder. He tossed some into the flames and stuck his head in. "Professor Binns, Hogwarts!"


On to Chapter Six
"The Medium"

Back to Chapter Four
"Malfoy Monor"

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