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End of the Day	By : Chocho Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 4202 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-End of the Day
- 1
End of the Day

One-Shot

Written by: chochowilliams

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Summary: At the request of Harry, his son’s birth record was sealed, but somebody is determined to unseal it no matter the cost in an attempt to ruin The Savior, but who is behind the plot and why?

Warning: Mary Sues and Brit Picks need not apply. AU midway thru HP&TOOTP, non-epilogue compliant, hurt/comfort, drama, pre-romance, language, possible OOC, OCs, non-con, referenced M-Preg

Pairing: Harry/Snape, (mentioned) Harry/Ginny, (mentioned) Harry/OMC, (mentioned) Draco/Astoria, (mentioned) Ron/Hermione, Harry/Draco

Inserts: “End of the Day”, Somewhere in California, Night Ranger

A/N: Before we begin: This was originally going to be entitled, “Reason Reproduction”, but I decided I didn’t like it and changed it. Secondly, I tried to keep the OCs to a minimum this time with the exception of the Simmons family. Lastly, this starts as a non-con between HP/SS (nothing explicit) and ends in an HP/DM. Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

+ HARRY POTTER +

When you’re caught up in a landslide

And everything is slipping away

You gotta hold on

You gotta fight for every moment

To make it to the end of the day

One night can change a lifetime

One word and it all goes wrong

--“End of the Day”, Somewhere in California, Night Ranger

+ HARRY POTTER +

End of the Day

Evening - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

How had it come to this?

The whole point of these lessons, of which--if anybody inquired--were to be called “remedial potions” lessons, was to learn to block his mind from invasion from Voldemort. Of course, a student is only as good as his professor and the one assigned the task of teaching Harry to occlude his mind from that of the Dark Lord’s was the one person in the entire school who despised the very ground he walked on. Thus, the only accomplishment achieved by the end of each lesson was another bout of Mind-Rape, which in turn opened wider the door Dumbledore wanted closed. Harry couldn’t help but wonder if this was being done on purpose. Despite what Hermione or Dumbledore said, Harry was certain that was the case.

The reasons why Snape seemed to revere a psychotic self-proclaimed Dark Lord more than he liked to acknowledge Harry’s existence were the defining reasons why Harry plunged headfirst into the Pensieve that day. He had to know what it was about his father that his Potions professor despised so much. Why was Snape’s hatred of James Potter so intense that he would focus that hatred onto the man’s son?

What he saw shocked, angered and disgusted him. It was no wonder Snape hated his father, as well as Sirius and Remus, so much.

Then before he knew what was happening, he was facing off with an irate Potions professor who was hurling curses and hexes just as fast and furiously as he hurled profanities about the entirety of the Potter line.

Events after that were a little hazy.

The last clear memory he had was of dodging what looked suspiciously like the Cruciatus Curse. The next thing he knew, there was a hand on his back between his shoulder blades pressing him face first into the seat cushion of the chair he usually sat in while being Mind-Raped--others might call it “Occlumency”.

He found he suddenly couldn’t breathe. Whether that was because his air passage was being cut off by his face being crushed into the chair or because he was on the verge of having an anxiety attack was not clear. Either way, Harry fought to free himself only to discover that his ever increasingly fervent struggles only caused the hand holding him down to press down harder. The strength of that single hand alone was unnatural. It caused his thrashing and wiggling to be an effort in futility. Though it felt as if there was a Giant sitting on his shoulders, Harry continued to struggle.

Vaguely, he became aware of something hard pressing against the cleft between his ass cheeks.

Then the hand holding him down disappeared. A surge of relief almost brought Harry to his knees. With trembling arms, he gripped the arms of the chair and leveraged the upper half of his body up off the seat cushion, sucking in a much-needed breath of air.

His relief was short lived though as his robes were flung over his head. He cried out. As he clawed at his robes, a hand that was not his own brushed against the front of his pants. Paling, emerald eyes wide, Harry froze. He would chalk the incident up as an accident, but something was telling him it was anything but. The next moment, it was confirmed when hands began fumbling with his belt. Snapped out of his frozen stupor, he cried repeatedly over a panic driven heartbeat, “No! Stop! Stop it! What are you doing? Stop it!” Desperate, he clawed at the hands pulling and tugging at his belt.

A chill raced up his spine at the harsh voice that hissed in his ear, “Shut. Up.”

Harry gasped as first his left hand and then his right flew out and latched onto the arms of the chair without his consent. Try as he might, he could not pry his hands from their death grip.

“Please,” he pleaded as tears began to sting his eyes. “Please! Professor!”

“My pleasure,” Snape purred in his ear right before he nipped lightly on Harry’s earlobe.

Harry could only sob quietly as his pants, along with his boxers, were yanked down around his ankles. Then a hand on the back of his head pushed his face back into the seat cushion whole the other hand gripped his hip and yanked his bare ass upwards.

Hands were on his ass. Massaging. Squeezing.

The first tear slid down Harry’s face. “Please don’t,” he begged.

When the hands vanished from his person this time, Harry did not breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, dread filled his veins with ice. There was quiet rustling behind him. It only quickened Harry’s breathing into short gasps of breath and accelerated his already rapidly beating heart.

Screwing his eyes shut, Harry could do nothing but whimper as his ass cheeks were spread.

Then there was pain like which he had never experienced before and Harry was screaming and sobbing and begging and pleading and something was trickling down the inside of his thighs, but still it did not stop.

Some hours later, with silent tears coursing down flushed and tearstained cheeks, Harry lay curled up on the cold floor of Snape’s private dungeon potions room staring blankly at a bookcase that held a collection of potions tomes, new and old, along with vials and jars of all shapes and sizes that were holding various unidentifiable--things. There were deep half-moon gouges imbedded into his hips from Snape‘s fingernails and a mixture of dried semen and blood was smeared along the inside of his thighs. With each twitch or twinge that involuntarily racked his body, a jolt of pain raced up his spine. He had to bit his lip to keep his whimpers at bay.

As he started to slip into unconsciousness, an odd thought occurred to him: he could distinctly remember Snape calling out his mother’s name.

+ HARRY POTTER +

When midnight came and went and Harry still hadn’t returned to Gryffindor Tower, Hermione started becoming worried.

“This is Snape we’re talking about here,” Ron said as he attempted to play himself in Wizards’ chess.

“It’s Professor Snape,” Hermione reprimanded automatically from behind a book even Ron could tell she really wasn’t reading seeing as her eyes weren’t moving.

Behind her back, Ron rolled his eyes. “Whatever. The point is that knowing that greasy git,” he said, “he’s probably making Harry stay until he gets it right. He‘ll probably be there all night.”

Giving up the farce of pretending to read, Hermione closed her book, set it on the sofa besides her, and took to staring at the hypnotic dance of the flames in the fireplace. Her stomach was churning with unease. Though she knew Ron had a point, she couldn’t stop a voice in the back of her mind that was telling her that something was wrong. With each minute that went by, the voice only grew louder and more persistent until it reached a point where Hermione could no longer ignore it.

“If something tells you to run, you haul ass,” she remembered her mother saying on more than one occasion. Translation: Don’t ignore that little voice in the back of your mind.

With a renewed determination, Hermione was on her feet and halfway out the portrait hole before Ron realized she had even stood up.

“Where you going?” he called after her.

“To Professor McGonagall. Harry has been gone way too long.”

The painting of the Fat Lady closed behind her, cutting off Ron’s protestations.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Though the rules clearly state all students were confined to their dormitories after curfew, there were a few exceptions. Prefects, along with the Head Boy and Head Girl, patrolled the hallways for up to several hours after curfew. More often than not, Sinistra’s astrology class had a habit of running late. Other times, students were returning from detention or study sessions. Of course, that wasn’t taking into account those who freely wandered the halls just because. But for a student to be kept out of bed well passed midnight by a professor for any reason, including detention, was ludicrous. Nothing was that important that it could not wait until morning.

It was those thoughts that kept circling in the head of a fuming Minerva McGonagall as she made her way down to the dungeons. One hand was holding up the hem of her dressing gown. The other was holding her lit wand out before her. The Transfiguration professor did not slow as she approached Severus Snape’s private potions lab deep within the dank, dark bowels of the castle. Nor did she bother to knock. Instead, she burst into the lab. The heavy wooden door slammed into the shelving unit with a mighty crash, but a quick wave of her wand kept both the door from bouncing into her backside as well as the contents of the shelf from spilling to the floor.

Eyes narrowed, lips pursed in ire, McGonagall snapped out, “Severus S-”

Despite the fact that the torches were still burning along the walls and that a Pensieve that appeared to be still holding memories was sitting in the middle of a table that was taking up most of the floor space in the tiny room, the Potions professor didn’t appeared to be present. Nor did it seem was Harry. Her anger drained away only to be replaced by worry.

She started to turn away, with every intention of heading up to inform Albus Dumbledore that Harry appeared to be missing, when a low moan caught her attention.

Turning back, she called out, “Severus?”

Nothing.

Cautiously, she made a circuit of the small private potions lab. The sight that greeted her stopped her short. A figure was huddled on the cold stone floor at the foot of the room’s sole chair. Thinking it to be the Slytherin Head of House, she called out, “Severus,” and rushed to his side. “Severus!” She peeled back the robes covering the figure and staggered to her feet with a mighty gasp. Pale as any of the ghosts that roam the halls of the castle, McGonagall stared in disbelief at the naked figure of her missing student. “Dear Lord,” she uttered. “Potter!”

+ HARRY POTTER +

Sixteen Years Later - Early Morning - City Clerk’s Office - Ministry of Magic

It was so early, the only person he’d come across was the poor chap manning the security station down in the Atrium.

Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics Morag MacDougal had arrived at the Ministry earlier than usual that particular morning because he had to leave early for a Healer’s appointment. His wife suspected she was pregnant and he wanted to accompany her to her appointment. This was their fifth attempt at getting pregnant and desperation was setting in. They were desperate enough for a child that they were considering venturing out into the Muggle world to try in vitro fertilization.

There was a ping and moments later, the gilded elevator gates slid open. Expertly ignoring the disembodied voice announcing quite cheerfully which level he was at and which offices and departments were located on said level, Morag stepped off the elevator and crossed the open vestibule towards the City Clerk’s office.

Never before had he realized just how eerie the Ministry could be during off hours. The only sound being his footsteps echoing back at him was unsettling.

Morag rounded a marble pillar and came to a sudden halt. The door that led directly into the City Clerk’s office was ajar.

He proceeded forward cautiously. The night before, he had been the last to leave and he was sure he closed the door and set the wards and enchantments behind him. He knew he had. Hadn’t he? Of course he had. There were many important documents within the City Clerk’s Office, including those that were sealed. There were those who would do anything to get their hands on those particular documents.

Pushing the door open with the tip of his wand, he gulped and called out, “Hello? Somebody there? Jeanette? Twila? Lance?” Though he was quivering with nerves, he was surprised at how steady his voice was. Receiving no answer he cast, “Homenum revelio.” It revealed nothing. A little more confident, he lit the tip of his wand with a, “Lumos,” and stepped into the office.

He had not taken more than half a dozen steps when something crinkled under his foot. He came to an immediate halt and brought his wand down. Its light revealed a single sheet of parchment that had been half-waded up. Lifting his foot off the parchment, he bent down to pick it up and smoothed it out as best as he could against his stomach. He then aimed the lit tip of his wand at the parchment. He swore soundly in dismay. This was no mere sheet of parchment. It was an official document, more precisely a birth certificate.

His head snapped up. Beginning to panic, Morag raised his wand over his head--why the lights hadn‘t come on automatically when he entered, he wasn’t sure--and whispered over a thudding heart, “Lumos Maxima.” He cursed at the sight before him. The light wasn’t enough to show him the entire office, but the section he could see was enough.

The color drained from his face at the sight that greeted him. The City Clerk’s Office had been trashed. The filing cabinets lining the far wall were open; their contents were spewed everywhere. Desks had been riffled through, draws upended.

“Oh, God,” he moaned in growing horror.

Somebody had broken into the City Clerk’s Office.

Stepping forward, he picked up several sheets of parchment that had been tossed haphazardly on the floor and saw to his continued dismay that each was another birth certificate. He picked up several more. Aside from a couple marriage certificates and a death certificate there were more birth certificates.

It did not take an Auror to realize that this was caused by more than just vandals; at least your garden-variety vandals could not be responsible for this. It had to be a professional, somebody who could easily break through layers of enchantments and wards as if they were nothing. That was supposed to have been impossible. At least that was what he had been told when the security measures were installed.

Combing the fingers of his free hand through his short locks, Morag swore as he glanced around at the destruction. Then his dark eyes widened. He swore again as he spun around. Dropping the vital statistics certificates, he sprinted across the office to a large painting of Merlin sitting before a roaring fire.

Unlike every other photograph and painting in the Wizarding World, this particular painting of one of the greatest wizards to ever live was not enchanted to move about as if it were alive. It was merely an artist’s interpretation of what the great wizard may have looked like. It was given to the City Clerk’s Office a little over a century ago as a thank you gift. Nobody could remember why.

With his heart hammering in his chest, Morag waved his wand over the painting. When nothing happened, he breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever had broken into and trashed the City Clerk’s Office hadn’t been able to find the hidden vault where the important and sealed documents were kept. He hoped the vandals had not been after one of those because that meant they would be back.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Mid-morning - Auror Department - Department of Magical Law Enforcement - Ministry of Magic

“Harry.”

Harry glanced up from the report he was reading to see Draco Malfoy standing at his office door. In his hand was a file that he was waving like a hand fan. Dropping his hands, which had been massaging his throbbing temples, Harry sat back and motioned the man inside. “Hey Draco.” He was grateful for the interruption. His head was killing him. It felt as if a bunch of tiny little wizards were dueling in his head.

Draco entered the office and shut the door behind him.

Hissing, Harry winced and clutched his head.

Draco cocked an eyebrow at him. “What‘s wrong with you?”

“Headache,” Harry muttered as he returned to massaging his temples.

“Drinking on the job Potter?” With a mock stern expression on his face, Draco shook his head and tsked as he settled in the visitor’s chair as if he were a king settling upon his throne. “What would your adoring public think?”

“It’s not a hangover. It’s a headache. Now, was there a point to your visit; or are you here just to admire my handsome good looks?”

Leaning forward, Draco slapped the file he had been using as a hand fan earlier on the desk.

Harry winced as even that jarred his head. “What’s this?” he asked, eyeing the file and wishing he had a headache potion; or at least one that actually worked as it was supposed to. The last one he downed had done absolutely nothing. If anything, it’d made his headache worse. That was the way it’d felt to him anyway. Maybe it’d been past its expiration date.

“The report you asked for. I believe Muggles would call it the toxicology report?”

“Oh,” Harry exclaimed in understanding. “For the Simmons case? That was fast.” He flipped open the file. Inside was a single sheet of parchment.

What Harry was referring to was the brutal murders of Albert and Julia Simmons. Eyewitnesses place the family in Diagon Alley the day before. They were seen frequenting Eeylops Owl Emporium and Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor and appeared happy. There was no indication that within twelve hours, Mr. and Mrs. Simmons would lay dead in their beds, hacked to death by what appeared to be cutting or severing charms. The culprit responsible was said to be their own son, fourteen-year-old Timothy Simmons.

“Thank you.” Draco accepted the compliment with a half bow.

“Shit,” Harry cursed as he scanned the report.

Draco cocked an eyebrow. “Not what you were expecting?”

“I was hoping he’d be on something that would explain…” Harry’s voice trailed off with a sigh.

“Why he went ape shit?” Draco suggested.

“Yeah, but he’s clean. Goddamn it!” Harry slammed the report onto the desk then cursed when the impact intensified the bass orchestra in his head. He really needed to get a headache potion--like yesterday.

“I hate to break it to you,” Draco said as he propped his ankle on his knee and steepled his hands in his lap, “but not all criminals are mentally ill, were victims of abuse, under the influence of some spell or potion or some such nonsense.”

“Some are.”

“Granted,” Draco accepted with a nod of his head, “but not all. Some are just bad seeds and this Simmons guy is obviously one of them.”

“He was only fourteen,” Harry argued.

“So? You apparently don’t remember what it was like to be a teenager.”

Harry‘s eyes narrowed. “Actually I remember all too well what it was like to be a teenager-”

Draco waved his comment aside. “Your teenage years don’t count. I am talking about us normal teenagers. You know, the ones who weren’t the object of an insane Dark Lord’s obsession.”

Harry snorted. “So sorry some people fall for that divination crap.”

Draco snickered.

“I mean seriously! Trelawney predicted my death at least once every class!”

“Better you than me Scarhead.”

“Whatever you say Ferretface.”

They grinned at each other.

Harry’s grin fell as he dropped his gaze back to the file. With no evidence to support a self-defense theory or that proves the boy had been under the influence, what was left was cold-blooded murder. He could not wrap his mind around something like that. Timothy Simmons was only a year younger than his son was, he realized with a start. He could not picture Jamey doing what Timothy Simmons did. Jamey couldn’t kill a spider let alone hack somebody into meaty bits.

What could have caused Timothy Simmons to go “ape shit”, as Draco put it, if he hadn’t been coerced? Being the only child of a Pureblood couple, it was possible Timothy Simmons was used to getting whatever he wanted. Harry remembered all too well the temper tantrums Dudley would throw when he was denied something. Dudley had become downright dangerous, especially seeing as he had at least two-hundred pounds on Aunt Petunia. It was possible the Simmons’ refused their son something the boy really wanted. Never having been denied something, Timothy sulked, possibly lashed out. Maybe gave his mother that bruise she was sporting on what remained of her cheek. That would have earned him a smack upside the head. Shock! He’d never been hit before. Having been sent to his room as punishment and told to think about what he did,--“Don’t think about leaving this room until you apologize young man.”--Timothy Simmons’ childish resentment turned into anger and then rage. Blinded by his resentment and hatred, he took out that building ire at those responsible for its existence: his parents.

It seemed ludicrous, but people had been murdered for less and despite how hard it was to face, younger witches and wizards than Timothy Simmons had been arrested for far worse crimes than hacking their parents to death.

Harry found himself saying into the silence that had fallen, “When we’re younger, we accuse our parents of not remembering what it was like to be our age. They dictate every aspect of our lives, tell us what we should do and say and wear and who we should hang out with. What we don’t realize until we’re the adults is that our parents did in fact remember what it was like to be our age. Only then do we realize how naïve and foolish we really were as children. Sometimes becoming our parents isn’t such a bad thing.”

“Depends on the parents,” Draco muttered then considered the man before him. “Are you sure you’ve not some Ravenclaw in you somewhere?”

“Actually, I’ve had ancestors in all four houses.”

“Even Slytherin?”

“Including Slytherin,” Harry confirmed. He was thinking about more than just himself--while he had been in Gryffindor, the Sorting Hat had desperately wanted to place him into Slytherin. In fact, his paternal grandmother had been a Black and everybody knew that other than Sirius, every Black that passed through the halls of Hogwarts had been a Slytherin.

“And just how do you know that?” Draco inquired with the patented Malfoy lazy drawl.

“Genealogical research,” Harry explained. “Jamey started asking about his father and it got me thinking about my own.”

His gaze roamed to the windows that were currently charmed to look out over the backyard of Grimmauld Place. It was an explosion of color, which was a far cry from the dump it had been when Harry moved in all those years ago.

Though he‘d known the day would come when his son would ask about his father, Harry had still been unprepared. “He was four or five then.”

“That was when he entered wizarding primary school, right?”

Harry nodded. “He came home crying, saying that it wasn’t fair. When I asked what wasn’t, he said all his friends had two parents and he didn’t.”

Draco winced. “I remember that,” he said quietly.

“I had no idea what to tell him,” Harry said truthfully. “I was seeing Mind-Healer Perks at the time and she told me I had to tell Jamey the truth about his father. I told her that I had no intention of telling my five year old son that his father was a rapist.”

Once again, Draco winced, but this time it was because of the bland tone of the other man’s voice.

“But she said it’d be better if Jamey learned the truth from me rather than hearing it from someone else.”

Draco nodded. That made sense.

“I didn’t want Jamey to hear about it period, but…I-” While he had reluctantly agreed with Perks, confessing to his five year old son that his father was a disgusting, sorry excuse for a human being who got his jollies by forcing himself onto his underaged male students had not been an option. That particular story had a minimum rating of PG13--at least--and thus could wait. Instead, he‘d told his son some of his father‘s good points--not that there were many. “I told him that his father used to be the Potions professor at Hogwarts when I was a student there. That he used to be a brilliant Potions Master.”

“I remember him bragging about that,” Draco deadpanned.

Harry snorted. Bragging was what his son did best. It had gotten him into trouble over the years.

Through the lull that followed, Draco remained silent.

“Despite how smart--Snape may have been,” Harry continued softly, his voice tripping over the name of the man who changed the course of his life forever, “he did some very stupid things. He wasn’t a bad man, just--made some bad choices-”

“Like all of us,” Draco added.

Harry nodded. “And one night he did something really really bad and he…he attacked me.” Tears gathered in his eyes as flashes of that night popped into his head.

The first question Madam Pomfrey asked him when he’d woken up was if he’d wanted to take an abortifacient potion. As he’d had no idea that was, she’d explained that it took care of “unwanted consequences”. When he‘d finally understood what that meant and why she was even talking to him about such things, Harry had adamantly refused. He was not a murderer. Besides, he may not have been able to disprove completely the accusation that he and Voldemort had any commonality, but he was damned if he was going to add Snape to that list. He was nothing like the sick son of a bitch! He was not going to take out the sins of the father on the son. That was not who he was. That was something Snape had been proficient at. Not him. He had never been gladder that he had refused to take the abortifacient potion than the day his little boy was placed into his arms. With each year that passes, his joy only increased.

Of course, that was not something his five year old son had been privy too, but he had told him the very same thing he’d told him when he had sat him down to tell him the whole truth: “The one thing you have to remember is that your father died a hero. He saved my life.”

Unless the greasy git had created his own set of Horcruxes, Severus Snape had indeed died during the war. After having been MIA ever since that night in his private potions lab, the Potions Master appeared, literally, out of nowhere during the Final Battle and saved his life.

He and Voldemort had been dueling when Voldemort cast a particularly nasty severing hex. It had been so powerful that it’d blasted right though Harry’s shield. Fortunately, he’d been able to dodge out of the way. It had been a narrow escape, which he had been unable to repeat a second time. By the time he noticed a second severing hex hurtling towards him, he’d already lost both his wand as well as his hand--thankfully, Madam Pomfrey had been able to reattach his hand and his wand had eventually been located the following summer during reconstruction. With him now defenseless, Voldemort cast a third severing hex his way. Only it never hit. When he’d opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, standing before him was the man who had raped him a year and a half before. For his part, Voldemort had looked equally stymied at the sudden appearance of the Potions Master. Harry had used the distraction to summon the nearest wand and killed Voldemort. Snape died within minutes of his old master.

Of course, just because the sick son of a bitch saved his life had not and did not change Harry’s opinion of the man because it didn’t change what he’d done.

Pushing aside the melancholy that threatened to overwhelm him, Harry said with forced smirk, “Jamey started bragging to everyone after that that his father was a war hero and theirs weren’t.”

“I remember that,” Draco laughed. “Weren’t you called in to the Headmaster several times?”

Making an exasperated noise that was half-sigh half-scoff, Harry said that he had indeed.

“It is amazing how much trouble a five year old can cause,” Draco said.

“Especially considering whose blood runs through his veins.”

Draco chuckled.

“When Headmaster Sprout told me Jamey jumped first an older student who didn‘t believe him when he said his father was a war hero and then jumped another who told him to be quiet because he’d lost a parent in the war…” With a heavy sigh, Harry shook his head. “Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.”

“Considering he inherited your anger management problem? I should hope not.”

Harry knew he shouldn’t be feeling pride in the fact that his son was a true Gryffindor, but he found he did. “He is a little spitfire huh?”

“You think?”

Harry laughed.

An interdepartmental memo folded into the shape of a paper airplane sailed into his office then. Harry made to summon the missive, but before he could even raise his wand, the enchanted paper airplane made a beeline for Draco. The Potions Master reached up and grabbed the memo out of the air.

“It’s from Moon,” Draco relayed as he pushed to his feet. “A court ordered maternity test has been issued.”

Harry raised an eyebrow and stood up as well. “Maternity test?”

“That’s what it says,” Draco said.

Rounding the desk, Harry walked Draco to the door.

“How’s the head?” Draco asked as he folded the memo and stuffed it into his pocket.

“Better,” Harry admitted after a moment‘s contemplation. “Headache isn’t gone completely, but my head doesn’t feel as if it’s going to split open any second either.” Nobody was more surprised by this than Harry himself. His head had been killing him all morning. Actually, now that he thought about it, he’s had a headache ever since he walked into his office four hours ago. That was either a mighty coincidence or something to be very suspicious about.

“You’re welcome.”

Blinking, Harry looked at Draco blankly. One look at the smug smirk on the other man’s face and he was scoffing. “Prat.”

Grinning widely, Draco threw open the door and tossed over his shoulder as he stepped out into the noisy corridor, “Tell my godson I might be a little late tomorrow, but I should be over by noon.”

“You better. He’s been bugging me all week about your outing. If you stand him up, well, let‘s just say he spends a lot of time at George‘s shop.”

Draco gulped. He remembered all too well the destruction and mayhem the Weasley twins caused during their stint at Hogwarts. “I will endeavor to be on time, but I have a meeting in the morning. It shouldn’t take too long, but in case it runs long, let him know I shall be over as soon as I can.”

“What sort of meeting?”

“Just the weekly departmental staff meeting,” Draco explained with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “It usually takes about an hour, but you never know.”

“Ah!” Harry definitely knew how those went.

“So, like I said: I might be a little late--you know what? Scratch that. If it looks like the meeting is running long, I’ll floo. If worse comes to worst, we can always reschedule for Sunday or something,” he explained with a second nonchalant wave of his hand.

“Right,” Harry nodded. “I’ll let him know.”

“Thanks.” Turning with an overtly dramatic flourish, Draco started to meander his way through the crowded hall with a wave over his shoulder, but Harry’s voice calling out to him halted his progression. He turned back and regarded the other man with a cocked eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Want to come over for drinks or something afterwards?” Harry asked, rubbing the back of his neck as he fidgeted nervously. “We’ll have the house to ourselves. Jamey closes and then he plans to stay the night at George’s because they have inventory early Sunday morning.”

A smirk worked its way onto Draco’s lips. “Are you asking me out Potter?” he half-teased.

Studying his black regulation shoes against the slick tiled floor, Harry felt his face grow warm. “If I said I was?”

“I’d have to say, ‘Better late than never.’”

Harry snapped his head up and around to stare gobsmacked at the smirking blond Potions Master.

“Till then.” With a tip of an imaginary hat and a sweep of his robes, Draco strode down the hall and was quickly out of sight, leaving a stunned Harry behind.

Did he just…? A grin spread across his face. Yes. Yes, he did. Feeling as if someone had cast a levitation charm on him, Harry practically skipped back into his office.

Shutting the door behind him, Harry made his way back to his desk. The moment his butt hit the seat of his chair, all thought of Draco and their date was pushed aside as a jarring pain screamed through his head. Hissing, he clutched his head. “Okay. Definitely not coincidental,” he muttered.

At this rate, there was no way he would be able to get any work done. Gathering the case file and notes pertaining to the Simmons case, Harry shrunk everything and stuffed it all into the inner pocket of his robes. Pushing the chair away from the desk, he stood up and made his way across the office. He took one last look around to make sure he had not forgotten anything before throwing open the door and nearly collided with his boss’ assistant.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized to the woman.

“No problem Potter,” she said as she skirted around him and continued her trek down the hall.

“Hey, Brocklehurst,” he called after her. “Do you think you can you get someone to do a sweep of my office please?”

Mandy Brocklehurst halted in the middle of the corridor, forcing everybody to detour around her. “Sure. I’ll get someone on it right away.”

“Thanks.” He started to turn away, but at the last moment turned back to the woman. “Oh! And let Shacklebolt know that I‘ll be working from home if he needs me,” he added at her retreating back as he stepped into the hall. Kingsley Shacklebolt was the current Head Auror. Many were pressing him to run for Minister.

Without stopping, Mandy Brocklehurst turned around to face him so that she was walking backwards and called back, “Will do,” with a smirk and a salute.

“Thanks,” he called back.

A moment later, Mandy Brocklehurst was swallowed by the crowd.

Turning back to his office, Harry shut the door. The hall lights flashed upon the golden nameplate secured to the door. “Harry Potter. Deputy Head Auror,” it read. It was not a position he had actively or consciously sought out--or had even wanted--but according to the Head of the DMLE, Emmaline Vance, it was a position he had earned through hard work and dedication over his ten-year career with the Aurors. To say he had been flabbergasted would be an understatement. Though he’d tried to argue that there had to be more qualified Aurors for the position, Vance refused to back down.

So here he was.

Amazingly, Harry managed to make the five minute walk to the vestibule where the elevators were located in record time--ten minutes flat--as he had only been stopped twice by his fellow Aurors wanting his input into cases they were working on.

He had only just pressed the call button when there came the sound of hurried footsteps behind him. “Harry,” called a familiar voice, “wait!”

Harry glanced over his shoulder to see a sweaty, red-faced Ron. He looked on in amusement as his best friend halted before him, huffing and puffing. “What’s up?”

“Shacklebolt wants to--see you,” Ron panted.

“What about?”

Having finally caught his breath, Ron straightened and gazed at his friend with an expression that Harry did not like. “There’s been a break in at the City Clerk’s Office.”

Feeling as if he had been sucker punched in the stomach, Harry gaped at Ron in disbelief. The City Clerk’s Office issued licenses, such as marriage licenses, as well as kept all vital statistic records, such as birth, death and marriage certificates, for all of Magical Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Among those records was his son’s birth certificate, which he had sealed immediately following his birth.

With his heart pounding, Harry pushed passed Ron and raced to the Head Auror’s office.

“What’s this about a break in at the Clerk’s Office?” Harry demanded without any preamble as he burst into Shacklebolt’s office with Ron not far behind him. Harry wasn’t even breathing heavily, but his heart was pounding, though it had nothing to do with his race through the Auror Department.

Looking somber, Shacklebolt nodded to his Deputy Head in greeting. “Potter, this is the Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics Morag MacDougal,” he introduced with a sweep of his hand towards the seated man. “He was the one who discovered the break in.”

Harry hadn’t even been aware there had been anybody else in the room. That was very sloppy. What if MacDougal had been waiting in ambush? He would be dead. He turned to the man. “So it’s true?”

“Unfortunately,” replied Shacklebolt.

With a curse, Harry combed his hands through his hair, causing it to appear even more disheveled than normal.

“Thankfully, it appears as if nothing was taken,” Morag said.

“Are you sure?”

Morag nodded. “I spent all morning taking inventory. Nothing was missing and spells revealed that a duplication charm had not been used either.”

The relief that swept through Harry left him weak-kneed. He slumped into the second visitor’s chair.

“If nothing was taken,” Ron said stepping forward, “then why break in in the first place? What was the point?”

“We believe whoever broke in was looking for a specific record, but was unable to find it,” Shacklebolt explained.

“Do we know what that specific record was?”

“Not at this time.”

“It had to be one of the Sealed Records,” Morag said. “They are kept in a secure vault only I and two others have access to and when I went to check on them, they had been left untouched.”

At the mention of the Sealed Records, Ron shot Harry a glance.

Startled, Harry sent the Head Auror a panicked, wide-eyed looked. “Sir, you don’t think-?”

“We can’t be sure,” Shacklebolt answered quickly. “There is any number of Sealed Records that the culprit could have been after. Either way, we cannot take any chances. The wards and other enchantments will be strengthened and security increased.”

MacDougal inclined his head in gratitude. “Thank you sir.”

Despite what Shacklebolt said, Harry had a feeling that whoever broke into the City Clerk’s Office had been after his son’s birth certificate. There were only a few who knew who his son’s father was and even fewer who where aware of the circumstances pertaining to his son’s conception. Among those were Shacklebolt as well as Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, Sirius, Remus, Jamey’s Healer, Jamey, Draco and the bastard himself--of which only eight were currently living--and Harry had taken steps to ensure it was kept that way. But what reason could drive someone to break into the City Clerk’s Office in an effort to steal his son’s sealed birth records? It had to be more than just simple curiosity.

As Harry was heading home later after checking out the City Clerk’s Office himself, he hoped his instincts were wrong and his son’s birth records had not been the intended target.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Evening - Grimmauld Place

To keep his mind from brooding on what he’d learned earlier that morning, Harry buried himself in the case file pertaining to the Simmons’ murder. By that evening, having since lost count of the number of times he had gone over the case file, Harry was forced to come to the conclusion that Draco was correct in what he said earlier that morning. Timothy Simmons had murdered his parents of his own free will. It was a difficult decision to stomach let alone accept, but with no evidence to prove otherwise, this was the only logical conclusion.

He was tempted to go through the case file once more, maybe take a walk through the crime scene one last time, see if there was the possibility, no matter how slim, that he overlooked something. That was not the case though; he knew that, but his parental nature refused to believe this boy was responsible for such a heinous crime.

He had to remind himself that he was an Auror and not a Mind-Healer. It was his job to maintain law and order and when a crime took place, to find the culprit responsible. And that was exactly what he did in regards to the Simmons’ Case. He did not have to like it. He just had to do his job.

After putting the finishing touches on his report, he sent copies to Shacklebolt as well as to Vance before making his way upstairs to the Black Family Library.

He was hoping to find a reference to--something that would explain those mysterious headaches he’d suffered all morning long. That he felt fine now gave additional credence to his earlier theory about how they hadn’t been merely coincidence, but that did not mean something sinister was going on either. It was still early days.

Harry had just pulled a book off a shelf when he sensed the wards trip. His son was home.

Casting a tempus, Harry was surprised to discover that it was closing in on seven. He had not realized it had gotten so late.

Closing the pamphlet-thin navy blue leather bound book entitled, “10 Obscure Enchantments to Seduce The Enemy”, he slid it back onto the shelf between An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient Volume 3 and The History of Magickal Creatures Volume 1, ed. 3. Then made his way down to the kitchen where he found his son frowning into a glass of water.

“You’re home late,” Harry commented as he leaned against the counter, eying the teenager who appeared to be downtrodden.

Without raising his eyes from the glass, Jamey shrugged. “Uncle George had a sale today.”

The title of Uncle was honorary rather than familial as the only familial link Jamey had to the Weasleys was through Harry‘s brief two-year marriage to Ginny, which ended eight years ago after he’d had an affair with some chap he’d picked up in a Muggle bar one night.

“Ah.”

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was still popular even after being in business for over fifteen years. It was one of the most popular stores in Diagon Alley after Quality Quidditch Supplies. The branch in Hogsmeade is even more popular than Honeydukes. George has even talked about expanding the business again, but at this point, it was just talk.

When Jamey wasn’t at school, he spent almost every waking moment at the store learning the ins and outs of the business. He’d been ecstatic when he discovered that he’d inherit a third ownership in Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes from Harry who had stock in and was a silent partner and backer in the joke shop.

One of the suggestions Jamey had when he first started working at the joke shop was to have Blue Light Specials, as he called them, where everything in the store would be on sale, say for twenty-five percent off for example, for a short period of time. George had been intrigued and decided to try it out once just to see how it affected business and found, much to his delight, that sales shot through the roof as did profits. It also meant that the store was forced to stay open later to accommodate all the customers.

“Hope he paid you overtime.”

“He did.”

“Good. Oh, before I forget, I saw Draco this morning.”

Jamey perked up at the mention of his godfather.

“Said he might be late tomorrow.”

Jamey’s face fell.

“He didn’t say anything about canceling,” Harry hurriedly said in an effort to reassure his son. “Just said he might be late because he has a meeting in the morning.”

Jamey merely nodded.

“You know Draco would never stand you up right?”

“I know.”

Harry frowned. “Then what’s wrong?”

Fidgeting, Jamey peered through his long raven fringe at his Bearer before dropping his emerald gaze back to the dew-covered cup cupped between his hands. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That Timothy was arrested for the murder of his parents?”

Harry’s gaze narrowed in thought as he studied his son.

At fifteen years old, Mallory James Louis Potter--or Jamey for short--was his spitting image. Hair as black as oil, but tamer than a purring kitten. Eyes as green as the emerald studs the fifteen year old sported in his newly pierced ears. What set them apart was their height. At barely five-foot-five, Harry was shorter than his son who had sprouted up over a foot this past summer. Being taller than his Bearer, Jamey felt the need to tease Harry endlessly about how short he was. Those who weren’t aware they were actually Bearer and son mistook them for brothers.

“Do you know Timothy Simmons?” Harry asked his son.

Jamey inwardly rolled his eyes. Always the Auror. “Sorta,” he admitted. “He dated a friend of mine for a couple weeks last year.”

Harry nodded.

“He was a loner mostly. Kept to himself. Not so much shy as anti-social. He was nice enough when he wasn‘t being a complete prat.”

“Gee. Wonder who that reminds me of.” Harry deadpanned thinking a certain blond Potions Master.

Jamey snickered.

Satisfied that he‘d been able to wipe that frown off his son’s face, Harry asked, “Do you know of any fights he got into?”

“I saw him snap at Dobbs once, but Dobbs can’t seem to shut his trap for longer than three seconds at a time. He‘d make a Hufflepuff lose their cool.”

Thinking of the Creevy brothers, Harry chuckled lightly.

“But I don’t remember him ever getting into trouble. He mostly kept his nose clean.”

Sobering, Harry nodded. This new insight into the fourteen year old helped to clarify some of the confusion surrounding the brutal deaths of Albert and Julia Simmons. It also added credence to his earlier theory that Timothy Simmons snapped. There was a saying that it was the quiet ones you had to watch out for. It appears that was the case this time. Though, it didn’t make it any easier to accept.

“So is it true?” Jamey asked.

Sighing, Harry nodded. “Yes.”

Jamey’s face fell slightly. “Did he do it? Murder his parents I mean?”

“It‘s starting to look like it.”

“Hm.”

“You okay?” Harry asked his son who had gone back to looking gloomy.

“Yeah.”

Other than Quidditch, there was only one other thing that always managed to cheer his gloomy Gus of a son up and that was pizza. There was a pizzeria that had just opened up just down the street they had yet to try, so Harry suggested getting a pie for dinner. As expected, a wide toothy grin chased away the shadows from his son’s face.

Harry pushed away from the counter and as he made for the stairs that led up to ground level, blurted over his shoulder, “Last one there pays,” before taking off up the stairs. He laughed as he heard his son cry out indignantly behind him.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - MacDougal Residence

With the ankle of one leg resting across the knee of the other, Morag sat reclined in a deep blue velvet upholstered armchair by the open hearth in the sitting room reading the paper while his wife, the previously Orla Quirke, had her head in the green flames undulating within the fireplace. She was speaking to her mother about how the appointment with the gynecological healer went.

They were finally pregnant.

Morag felt it a moment before his wife pulled her head out of the flames and called to him over her shoulder. The wards had been tripped. They had a visitor.

“I’ll get it,” he told her.

Smiling at him gratefully, Orla stuck her head back into the flames. Her mother must have asked what was going on for he heard his wife say, “Nothing. Just someone at the door.”

Dropping his leg to the floor, Morag folded the newspaper and set it on the round side table besides his chair before levering himself up off the chair. Crossing the room, he pulled open the white double doors, stepped through the threshold and closed the doors behind him. They shut with a quiet snick.

As he made his way down the hall and through the foyer to the front door, his footsteps echoed back to him in an eerie replay of this morning’s early morning venture into the Ministry. He shook off the feeling. Still giddy as a schoolgirl over the knowledge that his wife was finally pregnant, Morag did not have to plaster a smile onto his face. It was already there. His face hurt from grinning so much, but he could not help it.

Grabbing the golden handles, Morag pulled open the front doors. The person he saw standing on his doorstep, though vaguely familiar, was a stranger as far as he knew. “May I help you?”

“Yes you can,” came the reply.

Though he’d heard the expression “scared stiff” used in the past, read it in stories and such, never had Morag realized it to be an accurate assessment of what happens to one’s body when a wand was suddenly pointed at one’s face. Another expression came to mind. He believed it was a Muggle saying. It described the scene just as accurately. He felt like a deer caught in the headlights. As if he’d been hit with Petrificus Totalus, he found he could not move. He would later swear that his heart stopping beating. He didn’t even have the breath to raise a shield charm before he was engulfed in a bright light.

+ HARRY POTTER +

It wasn’t until ten minutes later that Orla realized her husband hadn’t returned from answering the door. She gathered the long skirt of her dress so as to not trip over the hem as she got to her feet.

Figuring the visitor had been a business acquaintance of his, Orla decided to head towards her husband’s study where the man conducted all his business that followed him home; that was until she noticed that the front door was wide open.

Curious, not to mention a little annoyed that her husband could act like a common Muggle and leave the door open; she crossed the open foyer and stuck her head out the door. “Morag,” she called. “Morag!” Not receiving a reply, she stepped outside where the warm summer evening enveloped her. Lifting the hem of her skirt, she strode down the front walk, calling out for her husband. Still nothing.

Her annoyance beginning to overcome her curiosity, Orla drew her wand. “Point me Morag,” she practically snapped. Her eyebrows drew together in a frown as her wand merely spun around on the flat of her hand. Worry started creeping around the edges of her annoyance. “Morag,” she called. “Morag? This isn’t funny! Morag! If this is a joke, I swear to Merlin-! Morag!”

It was in vain. A search of the grounds as well as the house revealed nothing. Her husband was gone.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Hour Later - City Clerk’s Office - Ministry of Magic

Roger Davies had not set out to become an Auror. It had been the career path farthest from his mind actually. He’d always joked about how he was a lover, not a fighter. All that changed when the war broke out. Like many others, he’d wanted to help the war effort by doing his part. When he heard how seriously undermanned the Aurors were, he jumped at the chance to join their illustrious ranks. It may not have been a career he would have chosen had there not been a war, but he could honestly say that he hadn’t regretted the decision once.

Though his shift was nearly over, Roger had enough time for one more circuit before Ackerley arrived.

Using his master key, which was an oversized gnarled-looking brass skeleton key, Roger unlocked the door of the City Clerk’s Office. The protective wards and enchantments dropped long enough for him to swiftly enter the office and secure the door behind him before they reappeared.

When the lights did not go on, Roger was immediately on alert. This was the first time since his shift started that the lights had not automatically gone on when he entered. If the lights had been enchanted to turn off at a certain time during the night, he was sure he would have been informed. Since he hadn’t been told otherwise, he had assumed that after hours, the lights were set to go on automatically whenever someone entered. It was much like those motion sensor detectors the Muggles had. That the lights had not gone on immediately sent up red flags.

His wand was in his hand and lit with a nonverbal lumos before he‘d even thought about it. In his position with the office door at his back, he swept the lit tip of his wand about. Everything appeared to be in order, but then again appearances could be deceiving.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

Feeling as if he’d missed a step; he called out, “Auror! Show yourself,” as he swung about.

There were about a dozen different spells, curses, hexes and even a couple charms readying themselves on the tip of his tongue, but each one obliviated themselves from his mind as the light from the tip of his wand illuminated a familiar figure not more than a handful of yards from where he was standing. Stunned, the hand holding his wand drooped momentarily. “MacDougal?”

The City Clerk’s Office was not connected via Floo and there was no back door. Though the windows were enchanted to look out over various sceneries, they weren’t actually working windows. The only way in and out of the Office was the door at Roger’s back, the very door he had been standing guard at since the Office closed at four-thirty that afternoon. In fact, he’d watched as this very man locked the door of the City Clerk‘s Office; watched as he was swallowed by the crush of workers all pushing towards the elevator bank in an effort to get home. With that in mind, where had this man come from? How had he managed to sneak passed him into the Office without him knowing?

Suspicion began to grow rapidly in Roger’s mind. He steadied his wand on the Deputy Registrar Morag MacDougal. “What are you doing here?”

Morag didn’t so much as blink.

Narrowing his eyes, Roger started to open his mouth, but closed it without saying anything as he noticed that Morag, or someone who had polyjuiced or Glamoured themselves to appear as the man, was standing before a giant gapping hole in the wall. Roger knew for a fact it had not been there before. If he wasn’t mistaken, there used to be a painting of Merlin there.

Aiming his wand at the ceiling, he conjured a brilliant ball of light. What the brighter source of light revealed caught his attention. It had him unconsciously taking a step forward. He could clearly see the gapping hole was actually a vault of some sort. As he could only see a couple of feet inside, he was not sure how expansive the revealed room was, but from what he could see, there were shelves filled with scrolls.

“What exactly is going on here?” he demanded as he swung back towards the man who might or might not be the Deputy Registrar, noticing for the first time that there was something clutched in his hand. On the alert, he aimed his wand back at the other man and ordered, “Drop your weapon.” Roger hitched his wand higher and took several careful steps forward when Morag did not comply. “I said-” His barked orders died. Now that he was closer, he could clearly see the dreamy expression on the ex-Slytherin’s face. He knew that look. All Aurors are trained to recognize it. His eyes grew wide in sudden understanding.

“Catching up on paperwork,” Morag finally answered with a dreamy sigh.

Not buying that for a second, Roger quickly cast a nonverbal Incarcerous on the man then tried to summon his wand, but no wand flew to Roger’s hand. A physical body search backed up the findings. Morag MacDougal, or whoever this was, was not carrying a wand. “Where’s your wand?”

“Just catching up on paperwork,” Morag repeated in that same dreamy tone.

While Morag was still under the influence of what appeared to be the Imperius Curse, Roger knew he was not going to get any answers. Instead, he carefully pried loose whatever the man was clutching in his hand. It was a sheet of parchment he realized. Taking several steps back, Roger smoothed the crinkled parchment out as best he could and held it out. Eyes wide, he lifted his head and stared at the man before him in shock. It was a birth certificate and not any ordinary birth certificate at that. It was Potter’s son’s birth certificate.

+ HARRY POTTER +

The Next Morning - Grimmauld Place

Harry was not sure what time it was when Kreacher popped into his room, but the very distant horizon was just beginning to lighten and there was a slight chill in the air. Groggy, he flailed at the aging house-elf, who had taken to tugging rather insistently at his arm, and mumbled something or other in his half-asleep state.

What finally had Harry bolting upright in bed were the words “Shacklebolt” and “urgent business”.

His first thought was that something had happened to Jamey, so he reached out with his magic. To his immense relief, he was easily able to locate his son right down the hall in his bedroom. The fifteen year old appeared to be sound asleep. Harry’s relief left him dizzy. It was only then that he remembered that had his son managed to sneak out of the house, either the wards or Kreacher would have informed him--the decrepit house-elf was very protective of Jamey. That was when he remembered the break in at the City Clerk’s Office and how he suspected someone was after his son’s birth certificate.

Cursing, he fumbled out of bed and ended up tripping over the bed sheets in his haste, which caused him to nearly fall face first into the corner of his dresser. Shaking off the sheet that had somehow wrapped itself around his ankle like a shackle, Harry practically flew out of his bedroom and down to the kitchen.

“What happened?” he demanded as he flung himself before the fireplace where the Head Auror was watching him from the green dancing flames.

“There’s been another break in,” Shacklebolt said.

“What?” Harry cried out incredulously.

“It was MacDougal.”

Incomprehensibly, Harry blinked at the man. “Excuse me?”

Shacklebolt informed Harry about how Auror Roger Davies had stumbled upon Morag MacDougal inside the City Clerk’s Office during one of his rounds.

With the wheels in his mind spinning, Harry was nodding by the time Shacklebolt was finished. “Morag suspected whoever had broken in was after a Sealed Record, remember? Guess he was right.”

“Yes,” Shacklebolt agreed with a nod, “and as only he and two others have access to the secured vault where the Sealed Records are kept, whoever is behind these break ins could only get to the Sealed Records with the cooperation of one of those three individuals.”

“Hence Morag being under the influence of the Imperius,” Harry said. For whoever was responsible for both of the break ins, for they surely were connected, had to have known that none of the workers at the City Clerk’s Office who had access to the secured Sealed Records Vault would ever willingly cooperate. Not only would they lose their jobs, they would be granted an extended stay at Azkaban. Besides, an extensive and thorough background check was mandatory for those who were applying for the City Clerk’s Office.

“Right.”

A sudden thought occurred to Harry. “Sir, what about the others that have access to the vault? If this person, whoever he or she is, is after a Sealed Record and discovers Morag failed…”

Shacklebolt was nodding. “I have guards posted at their residence.”

“Good. Do we know yet what this person is after?” Harry was immediately on guard when Shacklebolt appeared suddenly nervous. “Sir?”

“…MacDougal was caught with--your son’s birth certificate.”

Harry’s mind was spinning. “A-are you sure?”

Solemn, Shacklebolt nodded.

His face pale, Harry gulped. “Did Davies--Did he-?”

“Yes.”

Harry cursed as tears prickled his eyes.

“He was sworn to secrecy,” Shacklebolt told the distraught young man. “He will take this knowledge to his grave.”

Harry could do nothing but nod. The assurance did little to help sooth the nattering inside his head. The only comfort he found was that even though Roger Davies now knew who Jamey’s father was, the man was unaware of the events surrounding Jamey’s conception. He just hoped Roger Davies didn’t decide one day that his curiosity could no longer be ignored because Harry would hate to ruin a perfectly good working relationship with the man. “What about Morag?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Obliviated.”

Harry swore.

“We have a specialist coming to see if she can dig out Morag’s memories,” Shacklebolt continued.

“And you-?”

“We will keep you informed,” Shacklebolt agreed.

“Thanks Kingsley.”

With a nod, the connection shut down.

Sighing heavily, Harry leaned back on his hands and tipping his head back, stared up at the ceiling high above him hidden in shadow.

Again, the question of why someone would want his son’s birth certificate circled around in his head. It made no sense. All this person would discover is the name of Jamey’s father. That was all. But maybe that was all this person believed he, or she, needed in order to ruin Harry. But how? Why? Who could be behind this? There was no doubt that he’d made many enemies over his ten years with the Aurors. That wasn’t counting those he’d unwittingly made before he joined. Could it be one of those?

Or could it be he was not the target? Was it possible someone out there suspected the truth and needed Jamey’s birth certificate only to prove his, or her, theory correct? Did the real purpose have something to do with the man who had gotten him pregnant sixteen years ago? That only raised more questions. If the purpose was to slander the greasy haired son of a bitch, then have at him. More power to him. Snape’s last act may have saved Harry’s life, but that did not change what the man did a year and a half prior and it did not change Harry’s opinion of the man.

May he rot in hell, Harry seethed.

Figuring he might as well get an early start to the day, Harry got up off the cold kitchen floor and made his upstairs to take a shower; there was no way he’d be able to go back to sleep now anyways.

He was washing his hair when a thought had him pausing.

What if this was just a distraction? What if, whomever this person was, he, or she, was not after Jamey’s birth certificate, but was using it as a way to distract everybody while he, or she, went after something else, something that was not as secure as the Sealed Records Vault?

With a curse, Harry hurriedly finished his shower. He had some calls to make.

+ HARRY POTTER +

That Afternoon - Diagon Alley

Jamey grew up knowing his conception was the result of a sexual assault.

Most would say a child is Heaven sent, but what about those like him?

His Bearer, Uncle Draco, Uncle Ron and even Aunt Hermione had assured him repeatedly that despite how he had been conceived, he was loved very, very much. They’d said that there had been those who’d told his Bearer to abort the pregnancy, including his Bearer’s own godfather, but his Bearer had put his foot down. Jamey had been loved even then.

By his Bearer at least.

He remembered coming home from school crying because all the other kids in his class had talked about nothing other than their mother and their father all day long and here he was with only a mother--though the correct term was “Bearer” as his mother was a wizard. It’d seemed so unfair. Where was his father? Did his father not love him? Had he been such a bad boy that his father wanted nothing to do with him? And then he was told the truth. He wasn’t the one who’d been bad. His father had been bad. With the knowledge that his biological father was never going to be the father figure he so longed for, Jamey was left a parent short.

The closest he has come to a father was his godfather.

As a child, he’d often fantasized about his Bearer and Godfather getting married. The first clear memory he had of this intense longing had been when he was five. It’d been at the Malfoy’s annual Yule Ball. He’d been nibbling on some munchies with his godfather’s father--whom had given Jamey permission to call him grandfather--who was supposed to be keeping on eye on him, but had been conducting business with several old colleagues instead. This had made it easy to slip away unnoticed in search of more goodies to eat. He’d been filling his plate for the third time when he’d noticed his Bearer and his godfather off in a far corner. He’d been too young at the time to recognize what they were doing, but he knew now that the two had been flirting with one another. Now that he was older, he could look back and had come to realize that that was what the two of them often did when together.

It was obvious to anyone with eyes in their head to see that Draco Malfoy made Harry Potter happy. Knowing what his Bearer’s life had been like, Jamey could not fault him that happiness; especially if it was with the one person Jamey would not mind becoming an even more permanent part of both of their lives.

Of course, back when the longing first appeared, having his godfather and his Bearer Bond would have been impossible as Uncle Draco had been married to Astoria Greengrass and his Bearer had just gotten married to Ginny. Ten years have passed since then, but the fantasy had not faded alongside his childhood.

“Hey, Uncle Draco?” he called out to the blond-haired Potions Master who was perusing a collection of antique tomes that dealt with Norse magic. The frayed brown leather hide book he was flicking through was aptly entitled, An Introduction to Norse Potion Making Volume 1.

“Yes Jamey?” Draco answered back without glancing up from the book in his hands.

Jamey opened his mouth, hesitated and then shut his mouth without saying anything. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Nothing. Never mind,” as he turned towards the section on Magic of the Orient. He grabbed a book at random. It turned out to be a rare first edition copy of An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient Volume 4: Obscure Potions and Enchantments.

He started when a hand landed on his shoulder.

“What is it Jamey? There‘s obviously something you wish to speak about.”

With the book clutched in his hand, Jamey turned around and glanced briefly up at his godfather before becoming riveted on his black mid-calf high dragon leather boots. “Why’d Dad make you my godfather instead of Uncle Ron?” he found himself asking.

Draco cocked an eyebrow at the question. It was obvious by the look on his face that he did not believe that to be what his godson had wanted to speak about, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he answered the question presented to him. “You were born at the beginning of the height of the war,” he explained. “Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, me, your dad and you were all in hiding. Your dad…He was pretty certain he wasn’t going to survive the battle with the D--with Voldemort,” he caught himself. Even after all of these years and despite having switched to the Light, Draco still found himself uttering “Dark Lord” instead of “Voldemort” or “You-Know-Who”. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the Prophecy?”

Jamey nodded with a surge of irritation. To think Wizarding Britain had placed the fate of the future on the shoulders of a child who wasn‘t even old enough to get his driver‘s license. Absolutely disgusting.

“Well,” Draco continued as the two of them strolled the aisles of the secondhand bookstore, “he knew your uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione would follow him into the fight despite any argument he might have made to the contrary; so there was no guarantee they would survive either. So he asked me to be your godfather so that if anything happened to him-” Draco cleared his throat, which had suddenly become quite constricted. “So if anything happened to him, I would raise you as if you were my own.”

Jamey nodded. Though he’d heard the same explanation from his Bearer years ago, it still left him feeling slightly disappointed. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Actually, yes he did. There was a part of him that had always hoped that Draco was named as his godfather because his Bearer secretly had a crush on him or something. He supposed it went back to his longing for a father.

“So,” Draco said, “find anything you wanted?”

“Uh? Oh, uhm. These I guess.” The fifteen year old passed over several books he’d been clutching in his hands.

“Let’s see. An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient Volume 4: Obscure Potions and Enchantments, The Annotated Unknown History of the Origins of Quidditch.” Draco raised an eyebrow at the teen.

“Dad’s birthday is coming up.”

Draco hummed. “It is, isn’t it? The True Origins of the House-elf.” He snorted as he handed the books back to the teenager. “You should buy a copy for your aunt Hermione.”

Jamey snickered. He knew all about S.P.E.W. and his aunt’s quest for house-elf rights. Her stance on the matter had not changed over the years. In fact, she was more fervent than ever about the matter, which was why she hardly ever visited Grimmauld Place; she detested the fact that Harry retained house-elves. His Bearer was just as interested in S.P.E.W. as he had been in school, Uncle Ron included. That wasn’t to say that regulating the whole house-elf system did not interest his Bearer, because it did, he just thought Aunt Hermione was a bit--psychotic about the matter.

As his godfather led them to the register, Jamey broke the peaceful lull that had fallen by asking, “Is it true that you and Dad hated each other in school?”

“Oh, yes,” Draco answered his godson with a fond smile.

Jamey found it odd that both his godfather as well as his Bearer would think back on their years together at Hogwarts so fondly, especially since, according to his uncle Ron, the two had been constantly at each other’s throats. It made him wonder if maybe his fantasy wasn’t so impractical after all.

Half an hour later, the fifteen year old found himself at Florean Fortescue’s eating what old Mr. Fortescue was calling a “blizzard”. Basically, it was vanilla soft serve ice cream with your choice of candy or cookie mixed in. There was even Muggle confections to choose from. Having chosen a Muggle candy he’d recently become obsessed with, Reese’s Pieces, he sat opposite his godfather who was sipping a tangleberry shake. He personally hated tangleberries. Though they had the appearance of a miniature purple strawberry, they smelled like piss and did not taste any better. People swore by them though. Evidently, his godfather was one of them.

“So, what’s your dad up to today?” Draco asked.

Another reason he did not care for tangleberries was because the fruit had a tendency to turn your entire mouth purple for a week, which was what was currently in the process of happening to his godfather‘s mouth. Coughing to cover a laugh, Jamey shrugged and turned to gaze out the window. The Alley was packed that day. He had a feeling the shop was going to be busier than usual. “Said something about having to run into work.”

Draco frowned. “Thought he had off.” Actually, he knew Harry had off, or at least he was supposed to as they’d made plans to get together that night.

Jamey shrugged again as his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. “He got an early floo call this morning,” he said.

Draco frowned in thought.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - Ministry of Magic

It had been a long morning.

Yawning, Harry knuckled his achy eyes as he stepped into his office and shut the door behind him. Lacing his fingers together, he stretched his arms out in front of him and arched his body into the stretch. He sighed as the kinks were worked out of his body.

He’d spent the entire morning with Shacklebolt and a team of Aurors that the Head Auror had personally chosen going over surveillance plans that consisted of stationing three Auror teams in strategic locations in order to capture the culprit responsible for both break ins at the City Clerk Office. One team would be sent to Hogwarts. A second team would go to Saint Mungo’s. The third team would be sent down to the Evidence Room within the Auror Department. They were even fooling around with the idea of sending a forth team to the City Clerk’s Office just in case.

The medical file pertaining to his medical history, which included the results of the examination he’d been forced to endure from Madam Pomfrey after the rape as well as the progression of his pregnancy, was kept at Hogwarts under the watchful eye of the Mediwitch herself. His son’s medical file was kept at Saint Mungo‘s as his son’s Healer worked out of the Wizarding hospital. Included within Jamey’s medical file was of course a summary of his own for obvious reasons.

Unlike every case that went through the Auror Department, the case file pertaining to the investigation into his rape was not kept with the others in the File Room. Nor was the evidence pertaining to his case located within the Evidence Room. Instead, it was kept under powerful wards within the Head Auror’s office with other like sensitive cases. Of course, none but the Head Auror, the Deputy Head Auror and the victims of said case were aware of this fact. They planned to use this knowledge to their advantage by planting false evidence for the culprit.

After laying out the conclusions he had drawn that very morning to Shacklebolt, who had been forced to reluctantly agree with his conclusions, the Head Auror made a few calls and discovered that fortunately, so far, Harry’s suspicions appeared to be unfounded. But if Harry was right, and he hoped he wasn’t, whomever is responsible for the break ins at the City Clerk’s Office would make their way to either of the locations they would have under surveillance.

Unfortunately, according to Shacklebolt, he was not allowed to participate as he was too close to the case. Standard procedure. Harry had no choice but to sit this one out. He just hoped his fellow Aurors did not screw this operation up. He wanted to know who was trying to steal his son’s birth certificate and why.

Crossing the office, he rounded his desk and pulling out his chair, flopped down into it. Immediately, his head was alive with activity. It pulsated and pounded and felt as if someone were using his brain in a game of cricket. Hissing, he dropped his elbows onto the desktop and dropped his head into his hands.

“Dammit,” he cursed.

Using his elbows to push his chair away from the desk, Harry stood up. Just as it had the day before, the pounding immediately decreased in intensity. He walked around the desk towards the visitors’ chairs and noticed the pounding decreased even more.

Wondering if Brocklehurst had put in a call to the Curse Breakers, Harry left his office and made his way back to the Head Auror’s office. The headache was only a dim memory when he found himself standing outside the closed door.

When a deep voice called for him to enter at his sharp rap, Harry pushed open the door and stuck his head in. “Sir?”

Shacklebolt looked surprised to see him. “Potter. Has something happened?”

“No, sir.” Harry had chosen to keep mum about his possibly cursed chair until he knew for certain one way or another if it was cursed. As an Auror, he knew it was never a safe bet to assume. That had led to many of his colleagues getting into serious trouble. “I was just wondering if Brocklehurst had come in today.”

“No, she has the weekend off. Why?”

“Well…” As his mind worked to come up with an excuse for his needing to speak to the assistant that did not involve telling his boss about his possibly cursed chair, Harry decided that the best way to lie was to tell the truth. “I asked her to schedule a sweep of my office and I was wondering if she’d scheduled an appointment or not.”

Sitting back in his chair, Shacklebolt hummed. “She didn‘t say anything to me about it.”

“Alright. Thanks anyway. Sorry to bother you.”

Shacklebolt waved the apology aside. “You’re never a bother.”

With a final nod, Harry turned to leave the Head Auror to his paperwork. He figured he could personally head down to the Curse Breakers’ office to make an appointment with them to do a sweep of his office. Hopefully they would be able to squeeze him in as he was not sure how much work he would be able to accomplish with a splitting headache.

That reminded him.

“Oh! Sir? How’s MacDougal doing?”

“Well,” Shacklebolt answered looking up from a sheaf of papers he’d been sorting through, “the Oblivitators in conjunction with the Curse Breakers are looking at him, but so far they’ve had no luck reversing the Obliviate.”

“They have reversed worse though,” Harry said.

Nodding in agreement, Shacklebolt reclined back in his chair. “Exactly, so you never know. It‘s early days yet.”

+ HARRY POTTER+

The London branch of the Curse Breaker Association that was contracted on a permanent basis with the Goblin nation was located within the Ministry itself, though there were smaller outlets located throughout London itself as well in the outlaying suburbs. So Harry did not have to go far. In fact, he did not have to even leave the floor.

As soon as Harry entered the reception area, he was greeted by a short, thin man with dark creamy skin. “Ah! Mr. Potter, sir.” The man strode forward, a wide grin on his face, and sandwiched Harry’s hand within both of his, giving it a firm pump. “Nice to meet you, sir. My name is Reuben. What can I do for you this fine afternoon?” At barely four feet tall, Reuben was even shorter than Harry’s five-foot-five-inch frame. It was obvious Reuben had creature blood not too far back in his family tree. If the black eyes, ears that had a slight point to them and long spindly fingers that looked as if they had an extra joint or two were any indication, Harry would hazard a guess that one of his grandparents was a Brownie.

“Afternoon. I was wondering if anyone scheduled a sweep of my office.”

“Ah! And when would this have been?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Ah!” The man vanished behind the high counter and reappeared moments later at a section of the countertop that was lower than the rest, frowning and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, sir, but we have no record of a sweep scheduled for you.”

Harry hummed in understanding. He distinctly remembered asking Mandy Brocklehurst yesterday after Draco left to schedule a sweep for his office. That a request had not been filed with those responsible for said sweeps was curious. But he did not dwell too long on it. He just figured she forgot. It happened.

“Ah! Would you like to schedule one, sir?”

“Yes please.”

Reuben nodded and snapped his fingers. A large fraying dark brown leather hide tome appeared on the low countertop between the two men. Reuben started to flip through it.

“How soon can it be done?”

Having found whatever page he was looking for, Reuben ran a long finger down several columns before he exclaimed softly, “Ah! It appears as if we can send someone to do it now if you wish. Would that be acceptable, sir?”

“That’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Ah, yes. Excellent.” Reuben plucked a quill fashioned from a long black feather from a gold stand. Harry figured it was self-inking as Reuben did not dip the gold tip of the quill into an ink well before he scribbled something into an empty line within the book; unless there was ink within the stand, which Harry doubted. Afterwards, Reuben returned the quill to the stand before clasping his hands together over the book and smiling up at him. “One of our Curse Breakers will arrive at your office within half an hour.”

“Thank you Reuben.”

“Ah! You’re very welcome sir. Good day to you.”

Even in the Wizarding World, it was well known that delivery and repairmen do not arrive on time, so when Harry saw Bill Weasley standing outside his office when he returned minutes later, Harry didn’t immediately link the Curse Breaker with the scheduled sweep.

“Bill? What are you doing here?”

At the sound of his voice, Bill turned around. “Harry.”

They shook hands.

“I’m here to do a sweep.”

“Oh! I didn’t realize they were going to send you.”

“I volunteered,” Bill said with a shrug.

“Excellent.”

“Well, shall we get started then?”

“Most definitely.”

Bill laughed as he followed Harry into the Deputy Head Auror office. “Do you have a specific worry?” he asked as he scanned the fairly large space.

On either side of the door were bookcases that were mirrored across the room behind the desk. All four were filled with books, knick-knacks and other assorted objects.

There were two comfortable looking straight-backed armchairs sitting before a desk that looked as if it had been pilfered from Malfoy Manor; knowing how close the Malfoy heir had become with Harry over the years, it more than likely they had come from Malfoy Manor.

On the left-hand side wall as you walked into the office was a pair of windows that was mirrored by a rather plain looking fireplace on the other side of the room. The view out of the windows was charmed to look out over the backyard of Grimmauld Place, which was alive and bursting with color thanks to one Neville Longbottom. Hanging on the wall above the fireplace mantel across the room was a painting. Whoever the artist was must love color because the painting was bright enough to be seen from the moon.

Hidden in the far corner to the left of the fireplace amidst a grouping of shadows was a door that he‘d almost overlooked. He figured it was a closet or some sort of storage space.

“I do in fact,” Harry admitted as he shut the office door behind his ex-brother-in-law. He told the man about the headaches that followed sitting in his chair.

Frowning, Bill rounded the desk and eyed the chair at the center of the controversy. “I’ll be honest with you Harry. I’ve never heard of a curse, or spell, or anything of the sort that can cause headaches.”

“Me neither, but my chair is either hexed or--I don’t know. Maybe I just need a vacation.”

“That goes without saying,” Bill deadpanned, knowing how hard the man worked. “But I’ll check it out.”

“Thanks.”

Pulling out his wand, Bill swept it over the chair in a series of complex patterns that almost resembled runes.

Harry stayed back out of the other man’s way, but remained vigilant and at the ready just in case. He noted the frown that deepened the more sweeps of his wand Bill made over the chair.

Stilling the movement of his wand, Bill dropped his wand and turned towards Harry with a look of confusion upon his face. “It’s strange. Normal scans show nothing. No curse or hex or spell or other enchantment, but I can feel it--whatever it is.”

“So there is something there.”

“Oh, yes,” Bill said with a nod of his head. “Most definitely.”

Though the first sweep had come up empty, Harry was relieved that someone else seemed to be affected by whatever had possessed his chair. He would never accept the conclusion that this whole thing was in his head. Overworked he may be, but he was not crazy and it certainly was no mere coincidence that every time he got anywhere near his desk chair, he developed a splitting headache. Someone had messed with his chair. Harry stepped forward eagerly. “You feel it then? A headache?”

Bill shook his head. “No. I think whatever this--enchantment is, is directed specifically towards you and no one else.”

Harry blinked at the man. “You mean anybody else who sits in my chair won’t be affected the same way I am.”

“Exactly,” Bill nodded.

Harry regarded his chair thoughtfully.

“What I feel is--well, it’s more of a--sound I guess. There’s this buzzing.”

“A buzzing?”

“Yeah. Like--like…In the silence--even silence isn’t silent. There’s this--hum. I don’t know if I’m explaining it-”

“No, no,” Harry interrupted. “No. I get it.” He gazed from Bill, to the chair and back again. “So, you don’t get the headache I do, but you sense a--hum?”

Bill nodded. “It’s getting louder the more time I spend near the chair.”

That was exactly what happened to Harry. The longer he was in direct contact with the chair, the worse the headache becomes.

“If I weren’t trained to sense these types of--things, I don’t think I would be able to sense even that.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “Makes sense. I’ve had any number of people, Draco included, come and go and not one of them said anything.”

Bill was nodding as he gazed down at the chair. Then he turned towards him. “What about you? Do you feel anything?”

Harry shook his head. “No. Not from over here. It doesn’t affect me until I sit down and then after I stand up, it slowly fades away. Also,” he added, “when I took something for the headache yesterday, it only seemed to make things worse.”

“The headache got worse when you took a pain potion?”

“Yeah.”

Nodding, Bill hummed as he studied the chair.

Harry wondered what the other man was thinking.

Bill clamped his wand between his teeth and pushed up the sleeves of his robe. Then with his wand back in hand, he only paused momentarily before he was swishing his wand once again over the chair. The wand’s movements were different from before, more intricate. Though his lips moved, no sound issued forth.

Harry gulped.

The minutes stretched and neither the smooth movements of the Curse Breaker’s wand nor his concentration ever wavered. Though, after awhile, Bill started to sweat.

Harry wasn’t sure how much time had passed in actuality, for it seemed as if it had been hours, when Bill’s wand paused. It wasn’t until Bill’s eyes snapped open a moment later that Harry realized that Bill had shut his eyes.

Frowning, Bill aimed his wand at the chair and with a clearly spoken, “Wingardium Leviosa,” levitated the chair up into the air and with a flick of his wand, had the chair spinning around so that it was upside down before bringing it back down to the floor.

Mirroring his ex-brother-in-law‘s expression, Harry asked, “What is it?”

His gaze never leaving the chair, Bill shook his head. “Not sure,” he admitted. “But whatever it is, is sealed and safeguarded with some serious protections. There are layers of enchantments and wards…”

Harry was biting his lip in worry. “You will be able to break through them.”

“I should, but I won’t know for sure; not until I know what type of wards and enchantments I’m up against. There are numerous wards protecting the enchantment on the chair and I have to break through them one by one.”

Sounds tedious, Harry thought with a wince.

“This is going to take awhile.”

Harry wished the man luck.

Holding his wand out over the chair, Bill repeated a series of motions over the chair.

Harry was able to quickly memorize the movements and thus count how many cycles there was. By the eighth, something started happening. At first, he was not sure what he was seeing, but he soon realized that the underside of the seat of the chair, which was facing upwards, was starting to glow. It was not something one could see head on, but from the corner of one’s eye. Looking at the chair straight on, one would see nothing but a sweating Curse Breaker waving his wand over the chair. But watching the scene from one’s peripheral vision, a dim bluish haze could be seen from the bottom of the chair that made one‘s eyes ache. Maybe it was his mind trying to make sense out of what he was seeing, but Harry swore the light was forming a circle.

Between one blink and another, the haze solidified and paled to a brilliant white light that shone up from the chair in a shaft of light as if a dozen wands each lit with a lumos maxima were grouped together on the chair’s seat. This light could be seen when looked straight upon and didn’t hurt to look upon it.

Harry blinked as a shadow appeared to travel up the shaft of light followed moments later by the sound of shattering glass. He would later describe the sound he “heard” as a sound he hadn’t heard with his ears.

This was repeated several more times before Bill stumbled backwards into the desk. The light dimmed and faded out of existence.

Harry cried out in concern.

“I’m okay,” Bill panted.

“What happened?”

“I‘ve broken through several of the protection wards.”

Harry thought back to the shadows that had moved up the shaft of light followed by the sound of breaking and wondered if that was what he’d seen. “Really?”

“Like I said it’ll take some time in order to break through the layers of protection because there are so many, which in turn uses up a lot of energy and magic. For the time being,” Bill continued around a grunt as he pushed, unwilling it seemed, to his feet and approached the chair, “I’ll have to confiscate your chair.”

“Of course.”

Frowning, Bill’s eyes narrowed as he studied the chair.

“What is it?” Harry demanded as he started towards the Curse Breaker who had a worrying expression on his face.

“Stay there,” Bill commanded him as he held out a hand to Harry like a stop sign.

Harry froze in place as if hit with a Petrificus Totalus.

Aiming his wand down at the chair, Bill muttered something Harry didn’t catch, and when he lifted his wand into the air, something was attached to the tip of the wand. It had a reddish-orange glow about it and was semi-transparent. Harry recognized what Bill had done then. He’d used some sort of copy charm.

Bill turned towards Harry and asked, “Have you ever seen this before? One of the wards I broke kept it hidden from everyone but the caster’s eyes. This is what is drawn on the underside of your chair.”

It was a Ritual Circle, but it was unlike any Harry had ever seen before. Usually, there was a single row of runes encircling either a pentagram or some other symbolic picture or pictogram. A few he’d come across had two, but this particular Circle had three rows of alternating runes and what appeared to be Kanji surrounding a pentagram with another grouping of runes in the center of the pentagram. “No. I don‘t think so.”

“Neither do I,” Bill said.

That someone of Bill’s caliber was stymied had Harry worrying.

There were many uses for Ritual, or Magic, Circles, but the main uses were either for protection or to cause harm to others. That he developed head splitting headaches that only worsened the longer he sat upon the chair no matter what he did to try to lessen the pain, it was a safe bet that the Ritual Circle had not been created on the underside of his chair as a means to protect him.

“I’m assuming you are not responsible for its creation?”

Numbly, Harry shook his head.

Did this have anything to do with the break ins at the City Clerk’s Office and the subsequent attempted theft of his son’s birth certificate? He wasn’t sure if he would rather have that be the case or not. There was one surety he was certain about, though. It was time to call Shacklebolt.

+ HARRY POTTER +

That Evening - Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes

As his Bearer’s birthday was not for another couple of weeks, Jamey had put The Annotated Unknown History of the Origins of Quidditch his godfather bought for him earlier that afternoon in Diagon Alley away; hopefully in a place where the DHA--Deputy Head Auror--would not find it. He just hoped he would be able to find it.

Jamey had given his Bearer the forth volume of An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient, though. As he’d expected, his Bearer had been intrigued by the find and was looking forward to finally being able to read the rare tome. Apparently, there were references to the scarce volume throughout the entire series. It’d made his Bearer itch to read it, but had discovered upon completion of the third volume that the Black Library did not possess the forth volume.

As for the third book he’d gotten that afternoon, he was unsure what to do with it. As he had always been curious about the origins of the house-elf himself, he might just read it and if it proved to be informative, he might give it to his aunt--praying she did not hex him into the next millennium in the process.

Now, here he was, at work, restocking the Skiving Snackboxes. Again. He had only been here at the shop for an hour and this was the third time he’d been told to restock the shelf. The Snackboxes were one of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ biggest sealers so they never could keep them on the shelf.

Jamey was just placing the final one on the shelf when something a couple of customers lollygagging around the display case for the pygmy puffs at the end of the aisle were saying caught his attention.

“-break in last night,” the first one--a tall, thin, lanky male with bleach blond hair--was saying in a hushed tone to his companion.

“No way,” his companion--an equally tall male with a black goatee--exclaimed in an equally hushed tone. “Where? Why wasn‘t it in the paper?

The blond shrugged. “Not sure why it wasn’t in the paper,” he said, “but my cousin said it was the Clerk’s Office.”

The male with the goatee seemed to deflate. “The Clerk’s Office? That‘s so lame.”

“Maybe, but they hit it twice.”

With that, the two men wondered off, leaving Jamey to wonder if the supposed break in was why his Bearer was called into the office that morning. It seemed too much of a coincidence for it not to have some correlation. He wondered, though, why out of all the Aurors, his Bearer was the one who had been called in as primary. It could be because it was the City Clerk’s Office. Or was it something more?

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - Malfoy Manor

“Oh, honey, you are looking fierce,” the enchanted gold gilded framed mirror hanging from the dressing room wall said.

Draco sniffed. “Of course I am,” he replied haughtily as he gave a half-twirl in front of the full-length mirror to take in his appearance.

For his date with Harry--or was it a non-date date?--he had chosen to go muggle. If his father could see him now. The fitted dark muggle jeans along with the heeled black ankle boots gave the illusion that he had longer legs than he really did. Always a plus. A belt to match his boots cinched his narrow waist. The silver buckle had been a birthday gift from Harry. The Malfoy family crest had been engraved onto the flat surface. A black T-shirt with a Muggle depiction of an Eastern dragon splashed on the front was tucked neatly into the jeans. To finish the look, he’d tossed on a black suit jacket. Muggle the attire may be, but it was of only the finest quality. Nothing less would suit a Malfoy.

Satisfied, Draco turned with a flourish and strode out of his dressing room and made his way through the manor to the wine cellar, which had been converted from the original dungeons centuries ago and which You-Know-Who had converted back when he’d taken over the manor. There was a series of hidden rooms deeper in the cellar. One of which was used for potion making. Surprisingly, You-Know-Who had known nothing of those rooms.

It took a good forty minutes to find just the right wine, but find it Draco did.

With wine in hand, Draco made his way back up to ground level and then to the floo room. Conjuring a mirror, he gave his appearance one last inspection before grabbing a pinch of floo powder out of the blue and white ceramic bowl sitting upon the mantle. Making sure he had a firm hold on the wine, Draco stepped within the cold hearth that was larger than normal in order to accommodate floo travel, tossed the powder down and called out in a clear voice that did not give evidence to how nervous he was about that evening, “12 Grimmauld Place.” He vanished with a swoosh of green flames.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - Grimmauld Place

Harry was lounging on the sofa in front of the fireplace, whose hearth was a glow with undulating flames, flipping through An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient Volume 4: Obscure Potions and Enchantments.

Outside of his schoolwork, the only book Harry had ever seen his son read was Quidditch Through the Ages, so it was a safe bet to assume that his fifteen-year-old son hadn’t read anything in the Black Library. Harry, on the other hand, had read a great deal of the tomes within the library, including the first three volumes of An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient.

Following the sexual assault, he‘d decided to drop out of Hogwarts in favor of private study and he was glad that he had. It’d been much more informative, not to mention interesting, than the shoddy Hogwarts’ curriculum. He’s read up on magic from around the world, which included this four volume series on magic in the Orient. He’d learned that magic wasn’t as black and white as people liked to make it out to be. Charms. Transfiguration. Runes. Arithmancy. Herbology. History. There was so much more that Hogwarts students were missing out on. Sirius had accused him of turning into Hermione at one point. Personally, he did not see anything wrong with that. It was better than walking around scratching your head because you had no idea what anyone was talking about. Ignorance was not always bliss.

Sensing Draco’s arrival just then, Harry closed the book and reached over his head to set it on the console table behind the sofa, only to curse at the muffled thud. Sitting up, he pulled his legs underneath him and standing up on his knees, turned around and leaned over the back of the sofa for the book. With the very tips of his fingers, he dragged the book towards him. He started to flip the book closed when something on the page the book had fallen open to caught his attention. First, he cocked his head to try to read the page. When that didn‘t work, he turned the book around and picked it up.

“‘Chapter 37’,” he read as he settled himself back on the sofa. “‘Ritual Spellwork to Beget the Downfall of the Enemy.’” But that wasn’t what had caught his attention. It was the first ritual under the subheading, “Lethal Spellwork”; or more accurately, the illustration of the Ritual Circle. It was the same one Bill had discovered earlier that afternoon under the seat of his chair. It had the same three rows of alternating runes and Kanji. The same pentagram with the same grouping of runes in the center of the five-pointed star was pictured in the middle of the circle. It was the same Ritual Circle; unless the two were so similar as to be mistaken as the same. “What the hell?”

The sound of approaching footsteps caught Harry’s attention. Tearing his gaze away from the page yellowed with age, he glanced quickly over his shoulder and watched as Draco appeared in the threshold of the sitting room, a cocky grin twisting his lips.

“Hey, come take a look at this,” he said as he returned his attention back to the book.

Draco cocked an eyebrow as he meandered with a little swagger across the room to perch himself on the antique Victorian sofa besides Harry. “What? No gobsmacked expression at my Muggle attire? No compliments about how dashing I look? How my skin positively glows? How you just want to whisk me away to the bedroom and tear my clothes off?”

That got the reaction Draco was looking for. Heat flooded Harry’s face.

“That is a perfect imitation of Weasley when he’s angry,” Draco commented offhandedly.

Tsking, Harry swatted Draco lightly on the arm. “Dray,” he scolded with a chuckle.

Draco snickered.

Harry took the opportunity to check out his son’s godfather. Gobsmacked Harry was about Draco’s choice of attire. Draco was certainly stylish and was always fashionable no matter what he was wearing, even in muggle casual attire apparently--which was a first; he’d never seen the blond Potions Master in anything other than formal wear or at least semi-formal. To Harry’s knowledge, Draco had never gone casual before, not even in Wizarding casual wear. But here he was and in Muggle clothing to boot. Well, Draco wearing Muggle clothing wasn’t that much of a surprise, but he’d always narrowed his foray into Muggle fashion to formal wear or business attire. Harry hadn’t even been aware Draco knew what jeans were. And those jeans! Wow. Did Draco ever fill them in all the rights places. Dashing did not do Draco justice.

Clearing his throat, Harry told the other man, “You look--good,” as he tore his gaze away and returned it to the book open in his lap.

“Good huh?” Draco chuckled deeply.

His face flushed, Harry quickly handed over the tome.

Draco cocked an eyebrow at it. “And this is…?”

Harry said, pointing to what had drawn his immediate attention. “This Circle was found on the underside of my chair this morning.”

“What,” Draco cried out in alarm.

Harry quickly explained about the headaches that Draco had teasingly called “a hangover” the day before and his subsequent suspicions. “So, I went to schedule a sweep, you know, just in case, and Bill-”

“Weasley?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah. He came in, did the sweep and discovered this circle on the underside of my seat.”

Draco hummed as he studied the illustration of the Ritual Circle. “‘Ritual Spellwork to Beget the Downfall of The Enemy,’” he read.

“This particular Ritual Circle is called the Hasala Tahsil,” Harry explained.

“I don’t recognize it. Nor have I, to my knowledge, ever heard of this particular Circle before,” Draco muttered.

“Neither did Bill.”

Keeping a finger on the page to mark the spot, Draco flipped the tome closed. “An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient Volume 4: Obscure Potions and Enchantments,” he read. He frowned in thought. “This the book I bought for Jamey this afternoon?”

“Yeah.”

Draco flipped the book back open. “’There has always been debate surrounding the origin of the Hasala Tahsil‘,” he read. “’Though there are similarities to an ancient Ritual Circle (referred to as the Katharos, which was used to purify the Aura from ‘taint’) that has been used for a millennium in Greece by so-called Light Greek Magi, most are quick to credit an eighteenth century Englishwoman for its creation. There are those who believe that the similarity between the two Circles is evidence of the existence of an even older Ritual Circle, whose existence has been hotly debated longer than it has been lost to history. All that remains of this particular Circle is its name: Tahr’Aa. Nothing more is known about it.

“’In 1922, this debate was reawakened when a diary believed to have belonged to the famed unknown Englishwoman was discovered buried in the wall of an English estate undergoing renovations. In the diary, she recounts how she developed the Hasala Tahsil in order to take revenge on her ex-father-in-law who, instead of being sentenced to death by Kiss for the ordered assassination of her husband and infant daughter, was told to pay Reparation of 100 galleons.’”

Harry nearly swallowed his tongue in his scandalized horror. “Are you kidding? Reparation? For the murder of two people?”

“’Though she gives no specifics,’” Draco continued, “’she does admit in her diary to creating the Hasala Tahsil by using a combination of Magics from around the world, including what she’d learned during her time in the Orient. It is an intricate form of magic that uses blood magic, runes, ancient Oriental Mysticism and Voodoo. It has several interwoven levels and is protected by numerous layers of enchantments and wards. After the Circle has completed its work, it vanishes, leaving no evidence of its existence.’”

Blinking in the silence that enveloped the two men, Harry turned towards Draco. “Is that it?”

“Apparently,” Draco replied, scanning the page for something he may have missed.

“That can’t be it,” Harry said. He yanked the book out of Draco’s hands, ignoring the man’s exclamation, and reread the short three paragraphs dedicated to the Hasala Tahsil. “There’s nothing about what it does, how long it lasts, how to counteract it?”

“It is possible,” Draco commented with a lazy drawl from besides him, “nothing more is known about the Ritual Circle.”

“How is that even possible?” Harry retorted with a snap. “They know who invented the damn thing and what it looks like even though it clearly states here-” He jabbed a finger at the useless book. “-that the circle vanishes afterwards!”

Draco nodded. “I think it is safe to assume that the only contact people have had with the Hasala Tahsil are similar to yours.”

With a scoff, Harry slammed the heavy eighty-year-old tome shut with a curse. “And in all that time, nobody discovered what it actually does? How long it takes for the full affects to be felt? Nothing?”

“It would not be the first,” Draco answered with a shrug.

Dragging a rough hand through his raven locks, Harry cursed again.

“It should be fine as long as you avoid contact with the Circle itself.”

“‘Should’ being the key word,” Harry mumbled, slouching down on the sofa and crossing his arms.

Though he knew where this sour attitude was coming from, Draco had had enough of it. He yanked the book off Harry’s lap and tossed it none too gently on the coffee table. The thud sounded unnaturally loud in the otherwise silence of the sitting room. “You will be fine,” he stated confidently. At the wary look cast his way, he continued, “You don’t feel any different do you?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably. “Not really, but-”

“Look,” Draco interrupted, “tonight when you go to bed, do a Scan. It‘ll notice any anomalies, but I am telling you, you have nothing to worry about. We talk every day, have lunch most days, and the only thing I‘ve noticed was the headache yesterday. You seem fine now, right? No headache? Anything?”

Harry was shaking his head.

“See? We seem to have caught it early. You will be fine.”

Maybe it was that Draco had repeated the same sentence three times--three was said to be a magical number--but whatever the reason, the ire and frustration that had been a cover for a heart stopping fear slowly began to melt away. Now, he just felt like curling up in bed and having a good cry. His arms unfurled and lay limp at his sides.

“C’mon,” Draco said whacking him lightly on the arm as he got to his feet. “Let’s go pass this information along to Weasley and then get that drink alright?”

“Several,” agreed Harry with a nod as he pushed to his feet. Remembering to grab the book off the coffee table, he followed a chuckling Draco down to the kitchen.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Midnight - City Clerk’s Office - Ministry of Magic

Unlike the other locations that were placed under surveillance that night, the group of four Aurors assigned to watch over the City Clerk‘s Office had been put together at the last minute. It would prove to be a smart move by the Head Auror as seconds after midnight, the Aurors were jerked out of their stupor quite suddenly when alarms started blaring from the Office. Years of training and in-the-field experience had all four shimmering into view from their hiding places around the open vestibule when they dropped their disillusionment and with wands in hand, they converged on the Office. One of them blasted the door open. There was an echoing cry of, “Aurors!” as they poured into the office, the alarm blaring and smoke and splinters of woods raining down around them. As the air was cleared of the smoke and debris from the now obliterated door, one of the Aurors cursed while the others were stunned speechless. What they saw was not what they had been expecting.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - Auror Department - Ministry of Magic

It was clear from the moment one opened the door to the File Room that opened up into the Evidence Room that an expansion charm had been cast upon it eons ago. An endless sea of shelves, all filled to the ceiling--that stretched out of sight high above their heads--with white cardboard boxes, stretched as far as the eye could see. Each box contained evidence pertaining to a single case.

The second group of Aurors assigned personally by the Head Auror himself for the top-secret surveillance assignment were scattered around the room. Like their brethren, they used concealment charms and disillusionment spells as well as silencing spells to hide their presence. It wouldn’t do to be discovered by the very culprit they were after.

It was seconds after midnight when a figure was spotted flitting around in the shadows. The Aurors snapped to attention. Wands in hand, they waited and watched, prepared to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Was this it? Was this the unknown culprit? Or was it just an Auror going about his duties. That has happened several times throughout the stakeout. The answer was given when the shadowy figure passed under one of the charmed ceiling lights. It wasn’t an Auror. An Auror would have no reason to spell the shadows around him to completely blackout his features like this figure apparently had.

They continued to wait and watch as the figure seemed to swim through the shadows of the Evidence Room, down row after row. It appeared as if the figure was looking for something specific. In short order, whatever the figure was searching for was discovered as the shadow cloaked figure paused before one of the shelves, mere yards from where one of the disillusioned Aurors was hidden, and reached out for one of the Sealed boxes. The Aurors made ready to spring, but before they could, a blaring alarm sounded. In the second the Aurors’ attention was diverted, the figure vanished.

While the other three spread out to search for the suspect, the remaining Auror dropped the disillusionment spell and strode forward towards the Sealed evidence box the figure dropped in his haste to flee the scene. He crouched down besides the box, flipped it around to see which case it belonged to and subsequently cursed. The name printed on the box was H. Potter.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Half an Hour Later - Grimmauld Place

The wine was exquisite; an explosion of flavor on the palate. Try as he might, Harry just could not read the name of the wine; well, he could, but it would come out as nonsensical gibberish--even after Draco repeated the name of the rare vintage what seemed like half a million times. Harry envied Draco’s ability to speak foreign languages with such ease; the words just rolled off his tongue. That was obviously the difference between a Pureblood upbringing and a Muggle one--or at least his Muggle upbringing.

Grimmauld Place was silent but for the crackling of the fire and the soft occasional murmurings from Harry and Draco themselves. Kreacher had been dismissed for the night and with Jamey spending the night at George’s, it was just the two of them.

Harry would be lying if he claimed to not be nervous. Whether his nervousness had to do with the fact that this was his first date in more years than he cared to recall or that his date was none other than Draco Malfoy himself--his best friend and longtime crush--or a combination of the two, he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that despite the flutter of butterflies in his stomach giving root to his nervousness, sitting on the sofa in the upstairs parlor before a roaring fire, sipping a glass of wine and nibbling on some fresh fruit, a variety of cheese and crackers while talking about this and that with Draco was nice; it felt right. He always felt more comfortable in Draco‘s presence than anybody else‘s.

At the time Harry asked Draco to be his son’s godfather, the two were still bitter rivals. In fact, since Harry had decided to drop out of school while on his “sabbatical” away from the entirety of Wizarding Britain after he was raped, he and Draco hadn’t spoken in quite some time. Both Ron and Hermione had thought he was insane to make Draco Malfoy of all people his son’s godparent.

“He’s a Death Eater, Harry,” had been Ron‘s argument. “A Death Eater!”

To this day, Harry still had no idea what possessed him to name the son of the Dark Lord’s right hand man as his son’s godfather. For some reason, at the time, it seemed like a good idea. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that around this same time, Draco had turned spy for the Order after being bestowed with “the honor” of killing Dumbledore.

When Draco was forced to go into hiding after aiding the Order in raiding Malfoy Manor--where the Dark Lord had been using as his headquarters after his resurrection--during the spring of Draco‘s sixth year (though many Death Eaters had been captured, Voldemort had managed to escape; it was a few months after the raid that Voldemort attacked Hogwarts), Harry and Draco slowly, but surely, put their differences to rest and became friends of a sort. After that, it did not take long for the two to become close. At first, it might have been because of Jamey, but it didn’t stay that way for long.

Harry was not sure when he went from liking Draco to liking him. He came to realize at one point that more often than not, he and Draco flirted with one another, even when they were arguing, but Harry hadn’t given it much thought. It was just the way they were and always had been. It wasn’t until the eve of his two-year wedding anniversary with Ginny that he realized his feelings for Draco were not as platonic as he’d been fooling himself into believing. In fact, it’d been Ginny who pointed it out. It’d been after Harry had ended a floo call to Draco.

“You seem happy,” was what Ginny said.

Three little words that changed his whole world.

They argued, he stormed out, got drunk and ended up sleeping with some Muggle chap who looked remarkably like Draco. When he returned home the next morning, Ginny had taken one look at him and had somehow known. Without a single word, she packed a bag and left. The day after, he was served with divorce papers.

Of course that was eight years ago. It took him that long to build up the nerve to ask Draco out because he’d been scared. What if Draco did not feel the same way? What if things between them did not work out? He didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good friendship because he could not control his libido.

But thankfully, so far so good and he planned on keeping it that way.

Setting his wine down on the coffee table, Harry slid across the sofa until his side was pressed warmly against Draco’s side. Draco cocked an eyebrow at him; his lips twitched. Harry wondered if his face was as red as it felt.

“Hey, Dray?” he whispered, staring down at his knees. Good Merlin, he felt as if he were thirteen years old.

“Yeah?”

Harry could hear the amusement in the other man’s voice. Ignoring the way his face felt as if it were on fire, Harry turned towards Draco, cupped the other man’s face and pressed their lips together. At first, Draco was still against him. Just as Harry was beginning to feel mortified that his Gryffindorish impulse to act first and think later just caused him to ruin any chances he might have had with Draco, he felt arms snake around his waist. Then Draco’s lips were moving against his. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself on his back with Draco’s comforting weight settling down atop him. Opening his mouth for Draco’s probing tongue; Harry wrapped his arms around Draco’s neck. When Draco pulled away, smiling smugly when Harry whined at the loss, and laid his hand on Harry’s knees, Harry felt as if his heart was going to burst it was beating so fast, but he didn’t fight it when Draco spread his legs, settling between them as if he belonged.

Oh, yes. It might have taken longer than either one would have liked, but Harry knew beyond any doubt that he now had the family he’d always wanted.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

There was a fireplace plugged into the floo network within Madam Pomfrey’s office, but for the purpose of the investigation that night, it had been temporarily shut down, which left a single entry point into the hospital wing. And since the Aurors--who were disillusioned and scattered about the emptied ward, waiting and watching--were expecting the culprit, if he were to show up that night, to enter through that entry point, they were momentarily thrown when the proximity alarms went off within Madam Pomfrey’s office half passed midnight.

Not sure what was going on, the Aurors sprang into action. Each shimmered into view as they raced towards the office. They were prepared for the possibility that this was it while also knowing that this very well could be a false alarm as nobody had entered the wing for the last three hours.

They burst into the office with wands blazing and shouts of, “Aurors,” but soon found themselves scratching their heads in confusion.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Same Time - Saint Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

The footsteps grew louder.

Auror Roger Davies, who was among the Aurors chosen for the surveillance team assigned to Saint Mungo’s that night, was tense with anticipation. His wand was poised and at the ready.

The footsteps were confident, sure, and sounded as if they closing in on their location. Then an Orderly appeared at the far end of the hall pushing some sort of wheeled contraption filled with what appeared to be linens. Roger did not completely lower his guard until the white clad hospital assistant continued passed and the footsteps faded away. He was not the only one who cursed.

Roger, along with his fellow Aurors who were all disillusioned, settled back down and continued to wait and watch, and watch and wait just as they had been doing all night. All remained as it should be.

After the mind-boggling discovery he’d made after catching an imperiused MacDougal breaking into the City Clerk‘s Office, Roger had been almost certain he would be shuffled off to an outpost somewhere in Siberia, or something, in an intent to silence him despite the Wizarding Oath he‘d been forced to swear. In fact, he was surprised there hadn’t been some sort of “accident” to permanently silence him.

Other than the need for privacy, Roger always assumed Harry had good reasons for sealing his son’s birth certificate. Guess he was right. Though it‘d been one of the theories floating around once word hit that Harry had sealed all of his son‘s records, he’d never totally bought into the theory that Harry sealed his son’s birth records in order to conceal the identity of the father, even though he’d admitted to the theory having merit. There were those who’d said, mostly in jest, that maybe what the Boy-Who-Lived was trying to hide was that Snape was the father. Of course, nobody had bought that especially since the whole of Hogwarts had known the history between the two. There was no love lost.

Guess that theory wasn’t so farfetched now.

As hard as it still was to wrap his mind around the stunning bit of news, Roger had to admit that it did explain why Snape “resigned” quite suddenly--or so Headmaster Dumbledore claimed at the time. Now, he had to wonder if that was truly the case or if the Potions Master had been fired for fraternizing with a student--an underaged student at that--or something--more.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about what transpired between Harry and Snape, but he knew it would be foolish to ask. It was not worth losing his job over; for he was certain he would find himself in the unemployment line faster than he could say Quidditch if he found he could no longer ignore his curiosity.

As it was, that the Head Auror entrusted him with such a vital job so soon after the overwhelming discovery, at first, had him wondering what the catch was. Was this the moment where he was silenced for knowing too much? But no; that didn’t seem to be the case. He was actually being entrusted with a top-secret mission. To say he was honored would be an understatement.

He was not sure how much time passed since the Orderly‘s brief appearance, but Roger was beginning to think that nothing more was going to happen that night. It had been quiet all night. Too quiet, he found himself thinking. Then he winced, hoping he hadn’t just jinxed things.

It seemed he had as not more than a minute later there was movement at the end of the hall. The disillusioned Aurors were immediately at alert. Moments later, a figure stepped into view. The figure was clad in the white garb of an Orderly, but this one was not accompanied by the wheeled laundry cart. Instead of walking passed like the other one had, this one turned down the corridor Roger and his fellow Aurors were concealed down.

Roger studied the approaching white clad hospital assistant. A cursory glance was all it would take to fool the average witch or wizard into believing that this Orderly was the same one from earlier, but Roger was not an average wizard. He had been trained specifically to notice even the subtlest of subtleties, so he was able to discern the differences between the two though their appearances could be that of twins. It was the way this one moved, which was drastically different from the way the other one had moved. There were those who could argue that the differences could be explained by the lack of the laundry cart the other one had; but Roger knew that was not the case.

Catching the eye of Ackerley, who was several yards in front of him, he nodded. Ackerley nodded back.

This was it.

Hidden under concealment charms and their movements silenced, the Aurors watched and waited. As much as they wanted to pounce, they had to catch the culprit in the act; otherwise, the charges would not stick and they would be in the air without a broom.

So that was what they did as the white clad hospital assistant meandered down the hall towards them with an even, confident gait: waited and watched.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Next Morning - Grimmauld Place

Draco found himself waking alone in bed the next morning. A quick tempus confirmed it was only half past seven. Knowing the man who had become one of his best friends over the past sixteen years, what had Harry up at such an ungodly hour was most likely work--even though it was the man‘s day off. Draco rolled his eyes as he sat up, tossed back the sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“All that man does is work,” he mumbled as he stood up and padded into the attached bathroom to relieve himself.

After which, he returned to the bedroom and slipped into his jeans that were folded neatly on the chest that sat at the foot of the bed. As he slipped his shirt over his head, his silvery-blue gaze landed on the bed.

Draco Malfoy would be lying if he said he was not disappointed that nothing more than a few harmless gropes had happened the night before. It would also be a lie if he said he wasn’t alright with it either because he was. He has had a crush on Harry for as long as he could remember and he was not about to ruin things between them by pushing Harry into something he was not ready for.

Slipping his socks on, Draco made his way down to the kitchen where he had a feeling Harry was. Even if the man wasn’t conducting some sort of business, the likelihood of that being the case being practically null, then he was making breakfast. Why the scarhead could not let the house-elves do that was beyond him. He couldn’t comprehend why the house-elves allowed it either. If he ever tried to cook, like that would ever happen, his house-elves would chase him out of the kitchen with a frying pan. Territorial house-elves were.

He descended the dark stairwell that led to the kitchen and paused with a hand on the swinging door as he was met with a deep, rumbly, bass voice that most certainly did not belong to Harry Potter.

“Is that--Kingsley?”

Pushing open the door, Draco cast a look about the kitchen. Unless he had imagined hearing the voice that had sounded suspiciously like the Head Auror’s, then he most likely just missed the man.

“Was that Kingsley I heard just now?”

From his position at the sink, his back to Draco, Harry started at Draco’s voice. “Morning,” Harry greeted with a wavering grin as he turned to face him.

Draco frowned at the other man’s expression. “What happened?” he demanded. “What’s wrong? Is it-?”

“Nothing,” Harry interrupted. Then at the expression of disbelief on Draco’s face, he hurriedly corrected his earlier statement by saying, “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that--Kingsley just called.” Harry swallowed, and then glanced down at the floor briefly before lifting his emerald eyes. “They caught her.”

Draco merely blinked at Harry for several long seconds while his brain, still half-asleep, tried to catch up with the rest of the conversation. His eyes widened in understanding when it did. Then he was frowning again. “Wait. ‘Her’?”

Pushing away from the sink, Harry crossed the kitchen towards Draco who was standing in front of the kitchen door. “I told you about the surveillance blitz right? How they had teams stationed all over?”

Draco was nodding.

“Well, it paid off because they caught her and Kingsley wanted to know if I wanted to observe the interrogation.”

“I’ll go with you,” was Draco’s immediate response.

A smile vanished the wavering expression on his face, Harry approached Draco. He stopped a hairsbreadth away and reaching out, cupped the pale cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered before capturing Draco’s lips in a chaste, but lingering, kiss.

“Any time,” a breathless Draco responded when he was able to.

Chuckling, his grin bright enough to sting the eyes, Harry slipped his hand into Draco’s, laced their fingers together and lead the man back upstairs to get showered and dressed.

Draco was unable to keep the smug smile off his face.

+ HARRY POTTER +

An Hour Later - Auror Department - Ministry of Magic

By the time the two arrived at the Ministry, the news that an arrest had been made in the break ins at the City Clerk’s Office had spread. Neither Draco nor Harry were surprised. The Ministry was a lot like Hogwarts. Somehow what should have been kept confidential between certain individuals was, before long, known to all. There have been many attempts at discovering the source of the leaks over the years, but nothing ever came of them. Harry was just thankful that his connection to the break ins had not been mentioned. He could very much do without the added scrutiny.

Instead of apparating to the Ministry or using the public floo, both of which would drop them into the Atrium, Harry decided to floo directly from Grimmauld Place to his office at the Ministry as his office was right down the hall from the interrogation rooms. Technically speaking, doing so was not allowed--with the exception being emergencies; for example, if a rogue wizard started taking potshots at the Minister at a news conference, the Minister’s handlers could whisk the Minister away through the usually restricted floo network of the Ministry. But since Harry did not want to deal with the press that would be all over him the second they spotted him, demanding to know details of the arrest, he was going to circumvent them all together by avoiding the Atrium where they, no doubt, lay in wait for the next unsuspecting Ministry official. Deputy Head Auror he may be, but dealing with the press was not part of his job description--most of the time. He left that distinguished honor to Kingsley and Vance. Last time he was forced to address the press, his legendary temper coupled with his just as legendary accidental magic nearly destroyed the Atrium.

A quick scourify banished the traces of their floo travel from their persons and the two men set out from the Deputy Head Auror’s office to Interrogation Room Three.

In total, there were half a dozen interrogation rooms; three on either side of the short, dead-end hall a short distance from Harry’s office.

That’s where Harry and Draco saw the Head Auror himself as well as Senior Auror Turpin, who Harry assumed would be conducting the interrogation. They were speaking in hushed tones with serious expressions on their faces.

Harry longed to be the one questioning the suspect, itched to get his hands around the bitch’s throat and squeeze. Of course, that was the very reason why he had not been allowed on the stakeout and was only being allowed to observe the interrogation. It would look very bad for the Ministry, the Auror Department especially, if someone of his stature were to murder a suspect before she could stand trial.

As he and Draco approached, both Kingsley as well as Turpin eyed Draco, probably wondering what the Potions Master was doing there, but neither said anything; probably assuming Harry brought him along as moral support. After all, it well known that Draco Malfoy was not only one of his best friends, but his son’s godfather. There’d even been rumors throughout the years that they had more than just a platonic relationship, which had had no merit until recently.

Kingsley nodded in greeting to the two of them. “Shall we get started?” he asked.

Harry gave a sharp nod.

Kingsley moved to stand before the closed door of Interrogation Room two while Turpin moved to stand before the secured door to Interrogation Room three. Kingsley opened the door to Room two and stepped inside, Harry and Draco following behind him.

Crossing towards the wall on the right hand side of the room that separated Interrogation Room two and three, Kingsley stood facing the wall and brought his hands up. A flick of his wrist had his wand in his hand. He made slashing movements at the wall and as the three watched, the white stucco wall seemed to melt away to reveal a room on the other side that was even tinier than the one they were currently crowded into.

Essentially, what Kingsley did was create a one-way mirror. They could watch and even listen in on the interrogation, but none of those in Room three would be aware of the eavesdroppers. From Interrogation Room three, the wall remained as solid as it had been.

Interrogation Room three was not much larger than the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursleys. Despite its diminutive size, a small table in the corner of the room by the door, a larger table and two simple chairs in the center of the room had been squeezed into the tight space. Sitting in one of those chairs, shackled to both the table as well as the floor with iron chains as well as with several spells such as Incarcerous was the suspect herself.

There was an audible gasp behind him and then Draco stuttered as if he were chocking on a piece of food that was lodged in his throat, “Brocklehurst?”

His gaze never leaving the woman who was sitting prim and proper despite being under arrest, Harry nodded.

When Kingsley informed him of the identity of the suspect, Harry had had the same reaction. Though, now that he was face to face--so to speak--with the bitch, it was apparent he’d move beyond the denial stage and was well into the anger stage.

How dare she?! Who the hell did this stupid cunt think she was to mess with his family?!

While Harry was not an expert at nonverbal or wandless magic, he did know quite a few spells--both offensive as well as defensive; all Aurors retained some ability to do so just in case. So he kept his lips pursed together into a thin line and his hands balled into fists at his sides to keep from using one of those spells.

“Isn’t she-?”

“Unfortunately,” Kingsley answered, his deep voice rumbling deeply in the otherwise silence of the room. “She was caught trying to steal medical files from Saint Mungo’s.”

Though Harry had still to remove his gaze from the woman not more than five feet away, he could feel both Kingsley’s as well as Draco’s eyes on him. If it weren’t for the years of experience in having people watching him, having two sets of watchful eyes upon him would be unnerving. As it was, he just ignored them both and instead concentrated on the other interrogation room.

The door opened and in strolled Turpin. The door to the interrogation room shut automatically behind her. The door was sealed with strong wards and charms and could not be opened from the inside by any magical or non-magical means.

Eying the file tucked under Turpin’s arm, Harry wondered where it came from. He didn’t remember the Senior Auror with it earlier. Then he remembered that Turpin was a witch and had most likely used magic to shrink the file or had charmed one of her robe pockets to have extendable space.

He would blame his momentarily lapse on lack of sleep, but knew better. You can’t spend your entire childhood living as a Muggle and not have it affect your adulthood. He was glad the British Ministry changed the way they dealt with Muggleborns and Muggle raised.

The moment Brocklehurst saw Turpin, she started sneering. Gone was the prim and proper young Pureblood woman.

Ignoring Brocklehurst as if she wasn’t even aware of the woman’s presence, Turpin walked the single step to the table and sat down in the chair opposite Brocklehurst. She placed the file down on the table and flipping the file open, leaned back in the chair. To look as comfortable as she was in that chair was an art form not many Aurors had as it was the most uncomfortable chair in the whole of Wizarding Britain; or so countless Aurors had complained.

Over the scratching of the self-inking steel tipped feather quill against an endless ream of parchment, Turpin stated for the Record that day’s date. “Present are Senior Auror Lisa Turpin, interviewer, and suspect Mandy Brocklehurst,” she continued. “Ms. Brocklehurst has been read her rights. Is this correct Ms. Brocklehurst?”

“Yeah,” Brocklehurst sneered.

“Did you understand those rights?”

She hissed a long drawn-out, “Yes,” that Harry very nearly mistook for Parseltongue.

“Let it also be stated for the Record that Ms. Brocklehurst had refused a solicitor at this time. Is this also correct, Ms. Brocklehurst?”

“Yeah. It is,” Brocklehurst stated mockingly.

Turpin merely nodded. “Now Ms. Brocklehurst, Mandy, you were caught a little after midnight breaking into the Records Room of Saint Mungo’s by Aurors. Is this correct?”

With a rattle of her chains, Brocklehurst leaned forwards as far as she allowed. “You can‘t break into a room that ain‘t locked now can you?” The question was obviously rhetorical. Then she said with false sweetness, “All I did was walk right in.”

“She has a point,” Draco commented.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“But you did gain access to the Records Room at Saint Mungo’s, which has restricted access to authorized personnel only,” Turpin was saying, “access you should not have had.”

“So what if I did? It’s not like I was going to steal anything,” Brocklehurst answered, giving Turpin a once over with a contempt eye. “I was merely going to borrow one of the files. I would of returned it--eventually.”

“Has she been given Veritaserum?” Harry heard Draco ask.

Kingsley’s answer of, “No,” surprised Harry as well as Draco if the Potions Master’s answer of, “Truly?” was anything to go by.

“She seems eager to talk,” Draco continued, “for someone not given Veritaserum.”

“And that--is a good thing for us,” Kingsley agreed.

Staying silent, Harry watched as Turpin pulled out a file encased in a clear evidence bag from underneath the file on the table and tossed it lightly into the middle of the table. “Is this the file you attempted to take from Saint Mungo’s?”

“I didn’t attempt ‘to take’ nothing,” Brocklehurst sneered. “Like I said before, if you were paying attention Miss Auror, I was just going to borrow it for a bit.”

Harry could see Turpin trying to hold back a sigh. “Alright. Is this the file you attempted ‘to borrow’ from Saint Mungo’s?”

Brocklehurst stretched her upper body forward to get a closer look at the file. “Yeah,” she said, leaning back. “Yeah. That’s it.”

“Let’s the Record show that Ms. Brocklehurst has identified the medical file of one Mallory James Louis Potter.”

It was true then. If he was being honest with himself, there was part of Harry that had been hoping he’d been wrong; that Brocklehurst being in the basement records room of Saint Mungo’s was nothing more than coincidence. Call it denial; call it whatever you like, but it terrified him to realize that someone he has known in one form or another for twenty years was not at all the person he thought she was. It was like discovering your spouse, the love of your life, was Jack the Ripper. It was the ultimate act of betrayal.

“Perfect Potter.” Harry was surprised by the contempt with which Brocklehurst spit out his name. She attempted to cross her arms, but the chains prevented her from completing the movement. She gazed down at the chains in disgust, giving the one wrapped around her left wrist a jerk.

“Which Potter are you talking about Mandy? Deputy Head Auror Harry Potter?”

Brocklehurst sneered at his name.

Did she really despise him that much?

“Or his son?”

Brocklehurst slammed a fist onto the table and snarled, “That boy should be mine!”

Turpin did not so much as blink at the admission. She remained outwardly calm and even appeared to be a little bored with the whole interrogation. It was an act, of course, but it was almost convincing enough to fool those watching. Almost.

Though Turpin did not appear to react to the startling declaration, Harry’s thoughts ran in confused circles, which were echoed first by Draco and then by Turpin.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he heard Draco mutter besides him. “You don’t think she’s in love with you do you? I suppose it would make sense,” Draco continued without waiting for a response; not that Harry had one to give.

Could it all be explained by Brocklehurst having an unrequited crush on him? Merlin, he wished it were as simple as that, but the churning unease in his belly belied that explanation.

“What do you mean by that Mandy?” Turpin was asking.

“What do you think?” Brocklehurst returned with a hiss. “Jamey should be my son not Potter’s! I’m the one who was in love with Severus! I’m the one who fed him that experimental love potion! It should have been me not perfect, teacher’s pet, Potter! Me!”

Everything in that moment stopped; Harry stood frozen and as pale as if he were encased in a block of ice, staring wide-eyed at the woman he had worked with for years. He stopped breathing; his heart stopped beating; his mind went blank.

As if hearing it from a distance, Harry could vaguely hear Turpin say, “Severus as in Severus Snape?”

“How many other Severuses are there?” Brocklehurst snapped back. “It’s not as if it’s a common name now is it?”

Turpin threw her hands up as if she were surrendering. “Hey, I’m just trying to help you, to understand-”

“Understand this,” Brocklehurst hissed. Again, she leaned forward as much as the restraints would allow. “Potter ruined my life! He stole Severus from me!”

“How did he do that Mandy?” Turpin asked. Still, her voice remained calm and even.

“How’d you think?” Brocklehurst snapped back. “The fact that little Jamey Potter was born forty weeks after I spiked Severus’ mead should be clue enough!”

It’s not…It can’t be…She…? But…No…Snape…He…It-no…He couldn’t…He refused…

It was too much. Feeling nauseous, his mind reeling, Harry spun away from the one-way window with its perfect view into Interrogation Room three and rushed from the room as fast as he could. Vaguely, he thought he heard someone call out to him, but he didn’t stop.

Blindly, Harry made a mad dash down the hall, knocking into scores of people he couldn’t see. He didn’t hear their furious shouts, see their dirty looks and sneers; nor did he witness the almost frightened looks that climbed onto their faces as they became aware of the panicked air around him and the underlining green tint on his pale face.

Stumbling dizzily into his office, Harry made a beeline for the closed door on the opposite side of the room. Hastily throwing open the door, he staggered inside what turned out to be a full bath and collapsed before the toilet. The travertine tile floor was cool against his knees as his stomach flipped and flopped and did cartwheels and summersaults. It hadn’t rebelled this much since he was pregnant with Jamey. As Harry had not had time to eat before he and Draco were called to the Ministry that morning, there was nothing for his stomach to expel, so instead he leaned over the toilet dry heaving for several long agonizing minutes.

Spitting the small amount of bile that had accumulated in his mouth into the toilet, and with his stomach cramping painfully, Harry dropped his head against the arm he laid across the toilet seat. Staring blankly down at the light beige tiles, ignoring the toilet as it automatically flushed, Harry felt something tickling his face. Reaching out with his free hand, he swiped at his face--his wet face.

Sitting up, he brushed at his face with his hands. It was an effort in futility; for now that he knew that he was crying, he couldn’t seem to stop.

Sniffing, he swung his legs out from underneath him then pulled his knees to his chest. Wrapping his arms around his middle, he dropped his face onto his knees and wept silently.

+ HARRY POTTER +

Harry was not the only one who was reeling.

Brocklehurst’s confession caused Draco to feel giddy; not in an elated sort of way, but in more of a severely confused way.

Now, though, he wanted to hex the bitch into oblivion.

But what he wanted to do more than anything was to go after Harry, wrap him in his arms and never let him go, but he decided to give Harry a few minutes to himself. This worked perfectly as he could hear a little more of what Brocklehurst--the sorry excuse for a Ravenclaw that she was--had to say for herself.

“So let me see if I understand this correctly,” Turpin was saying. “You were in love with Hogwarts potions professor Severus Snape so you purchased an experimental love potion from Knockturn Alley, that had long since been banned by the Ministry, and was able to bribe one of the Hogwarts house-elves into lacing Snape’s mead at dinner with it. Do I have it right so far?”

Brocklehurst rolled her eyes and expelled an exaggerated sigh. “For the millionth time: yes. I had no idea it was a banned substance, but even if I had known, it wouldn’t have stopped me from doing what I had to do.”

“And what was that?”

“To make Severus Snape mine of course. Haven’t you been listening? Honestly! And you’re supposed to be a Senior Auror?” Brocklehurst scoffed. “Listen,” she continued, leaning forward. “I was so in love with Severus that nothing--no one was going to stop me.”

Draco was shaking his head. “That’s not love. That’s an unhealthy obsession.” The fact that even after sixteen years, her ire was such that her act of revenge against the person she felt “stole” her love away from her wound her up this much was proof of that. Real love meant you knew when it was time to back away. Hanging onto someone who has made it clear he wants nothing to do with you was not love.

“That old hag who sold me the love potion said there was going to be a bit of a time delay depending on the witch or wizard I feed the potion to,” Brocklehurst was saying. “It could start instantly or take up to several hours for the full effects to set in. But curfew came and went and there was still no sign of the potion working. I figured I’d been screwed over and decided to go back to the drawing board.”

Draco scoffed as he own ire boiled very close to the surface. “Are you freaking kidding me?” Yes, he was well aware his couth Pureblood composure was gone, but it was difficult to remain composed after discovering his boyfriend’s rape had been--what; a fluke, an accident, a chance occurrence?

“And then,” Brocklehurst continued, “the next morning the Headmaster announces that Severus has resigned effective immediately and guess what? No Potter. He’s not seen at Hogwarts again until the Battle. It wasn’t too hard to put two and two together.”

“And what’s that?” Turpin asked.

Brocklehurst pressed forward against the restraints and barred her teeth at the Auror opposite her. “Potter obviously used the love potion to his advantage and took advantage of Severus, using the opportunity to claim him for himself!”

Draco’s eye began twitching.

“For that he had to pay,” Brocklehurst continued with a sickeningly sweet.

Before he did something that he’d--well, he certainly wouldn’t regret taking care of the Brocklehurst problem, but since the last thing he needed or wanted at the moment was to wind up in Azkaban for his troubles, Draco turned away from the sight of the bitch who ruined his boyfriend’s life and marched out of the interrogation room. As he had no idea where Harry was, he decided to try the man’s office first.

He could not get over the nerve of that woman. She’d planned to rape Severus and Harry was the bad guy? Someone like Brocklehurst would never believe or could ever understand that having sexual relations with someone who was under the influence of a substance such as a love potion was not considered consensual. It was, in fact, categorized as rape under the eyes of the law. Even if Severus had agreed beforehand to take the love potion, any sexual contact made between him and anyone else while he was under the influence of the love potion still wouldn’t have been considered consensual.

The law was clear: any type of sexual act performed by two or more individuals while one of said individuals was under the influence of any type of substance that disabled and or impaired his or her perceptions and or cognitive reasoning skills was rape.

What wasn’t so clear was a case such as Harry’s. A person was fed a mind-altering substance by one person and went on to have forced sexual relations with another individual; was that person considered a rapist or another rape victim? If the person was considered a victim, how were you supposed to tell the person’s rape victim that his rapist was just like him?

Would this alter Harry’s perception of that night? Draco himself was unsure what to think. Part of him was relieved. Brocklehurst’s confession added credence to the denials he‘s had all along. His godfather was not a rapist. He had not always come across as the nicest person, hadn’t always made the right choices in life, but to force himself onto someone like that? Never. It wasn’t like him. The accusation had been impossible to swallow even after he’d been shown a censored Pensieve memory. And knowing now that Severus had been drugged made the whole incident make much more sense. But while he was comforted that his godfather really wasn’t a bad guy, he was unsure if Harry would think the same way. He was certain of it. And who could blame Harry for feeling that way?

Draco seethed as he stood before the closed door to the Deputy Head Auror’s office.

That woman had no concept of the hell she’d caused.

Okay, enough, Draco ordered. He was getting all worked up. What he needed to be was calm, cool and collected for Harry’s sake.

He didn’t bother knocking. Instead, Draco reached for the doorknob and gave it a twist. It turned easily and without hindrance in his hand. He lightly pushed the door open, stepped inside and shut the door behind him, satisfied when he heard the latch catch.

The office was dark, he noticed. A quick glanced around and Draco spotted the bathroom door standing open. Harry never left the attached bathroom door open. In fact, Draco was sure he was the only one--other than Kingsley, the Head of the DMLE and the Minister who had to approve the measure--who knew Harry had his own private bathroom. Most others were of the mind that the insignificant door in the shadowy corner of the office was nothing more than a closet.

The private full bath had been added to the Deputy Head Auror’s office using wizarding space not long after Harry’s promotion to Deputy Head Auror after a paparazzo somehow managed to sneak into the DMLE undetected and snapped a photograph of Harry on the toilet.

Draco made his way across the office towards the bathroom. His heart ached as he poked his head around the door and saw Harry curled up on the floor before the toilet, his shoulders shaking in what Draco took as quiet sobbing. Pushing the bathroom door open fully, Draco stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Mentally grimacing at what he was about to do, he smoothed the back of his robe along his backside, crossed his ankles and sat down slightly behind and to the side of Harry. He could feel the coolness of the tile even through the layers of his clothing and quickly cast a warming charm.

“Hey,” Draco whispered to the other man. Reaching out, his fingers lightly brushed the raven locks. There was a sniffle and some movement that Draco assumed was Harry whipping his face on the sleeves of his robe. This time, Draco didn‘t bother to hide his grimace. “Do use a handkerchief Potter,” he could not stop himself from scolding the slightly younger male. It brought a smile to his face when he heard Harry chuckle lightly.

“Yes, Mother,” Harry replied obediently.

Rolling his eyes, Draco made a noise that was halfway between a scoff and a snort.

Glancing over his shoulder, Harry grinned widely at Draco.

Noticing that Harry’s eyes were red and slightly puffy from crying, Draco said nothing; he merely returned the smile. “Hey,” Draco echoed his earlier greeting.

“Hey,” Harry returned. Scooting backwards, Harry positioned himself between Draco’s now spread legs and grabbing the blond Potions Master’s arms, wrapped them around his waist. With a content sigh, he laid his head back against Draco’s chest and allowed his eyes to close.

“Comfy?” Draco asked with an amused smile on his face.

“Very,” Harry answered.

Draco chuckled then kissed the top of Harry’s head before laying his head against the very spot he had just kissed. They remained that way for several minutes before Harry spoke.

“What happened--after I left?”

Draco did not answer right away; he was unsure how much to tell him. Harry had finally calmed down and Draco did not want to get him worked up all over again, but he knew Harry would hear about it one way or another. So with a sigh, he told Harry what Brocklehurst had admitted after Harry left. Afterwards, Harry was silent for a time.

“Dray, I-”

Whatever it was Harry was going to say, Draco never heard as they both heard a solid triple rap on the office door before a familiar voice called out, “Harry? You here?”

“Yeah Kingsley,” Harry called back. “Be out in a sec!”

“They must be finished questioning Brocklehurst,” Draco said.

Harry hummed and nodded.

Reluctantly, Draco let go of Harry so that the man could stand up. Though he would never admit it, not even if confronted with a Pensieve memory, he pouted and even whined as his front grew cold with the absence of Harry.

He clasped the hand Harry held out to him and allowed Harry to help him to his feet. At the blush that tinted Harry’s face when the Auror realized just how close they were standing now, barely a hairsbreadth apart, Draco chuckled and thought, Cute, before kissing the tip of Harry’s nose. The blush darkened. Draco’s grin grew.

Clasping Draco’s hand, their fingers laced together, Harry led Draco out of the bathroom; probably not even aware of how it would look to Kingsley when the man saw both of them emerging from the bathroom.

“Interview over?” Harry asked the Head Auror who was standing before the unlit fireplace studying the painting.

“Not yet,” Kingsley was saying as he turned around. Draco thought the carefully blank expression on his face was very telling.

“It shouldn’t take too long to get her full confession,” Draco said, “as she seems to be willing to speak.”

Kingsley nodded. “Yes and that is why I’m here.”

Draco glanced at Harry when he felt the other’s grip on his hand tighten.

“As you know,” Kingsley continued; he paced towards Harry’s desk, “she admitted to slipping Snape a love potion and if what she says is true--and we have no reason not to believe her--that means-”

“She’s responsible for Snape raping me,” Harry finished. His voice was flat.

Turning around sharply, Kingsley nodded. He eyed his Deputy Head Auror, “Exactly. Unfortunately, the statue of limitations expired six years ago and she cannot be charged with rape.”

Draco exploded in anger. “What? Are you joking? You’re just going to let her walk?”

“I never said that,” Kingsley said. “I have no intention of allowing her to walk out of here a free woman. Even without the rape charge, the use of the Imperius on MacDougal is enough to get her a life sentence in Azkaban, so, no; she isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Good,” Draco answered with a grim look and a firm nod.

“On top of the illegal use of an Unforgivable,” Kingsley continued as he lowered himself into one of the visitor chairs, “she will be charged with three counts of breaking and entering-”

“Three?” Harry asked as he settled in his replacement chair.

“For the first break in at the City Clerk’s office, Saint Mungo’s and the Evidence Room-”

“Wait. Wait a sec,” Draco spoke up from where he was now standing behind Harry in his new desk chair, which so far, appeared hex-free. “The Evidence Room? You mean here? In the Auror Department?”

“Yes,” Kingsley nodded. “A Shadow Ghoul was spotted within the City Clerk’s office at the same time as Brocklehurst herself was spotted within the Evidence Room. Unfortunately, she managed to get away. Then half an hour later, while another Ghoul was spotted at Hogwarts, she was spotted, and captured, at Saint Mungo’s.”

“She used a Shadow Ghoul as a distraction--twice?” Impressed, Draco whistled.

Harry tipped his head back to gaze at Draco. “You’ve heard of them--these Shadows Ghouls?”

Draco nodded. “Advanced Dark Magic,” he explained. “Very advanced Dark Magic. I’ve never attempted it myself, but I’ve read about it and heard Father’s--old associates talk about it. It’s…Think of it as the Dark equivalent to the Patronus only…Remember when you were learning the Patronus?”

Harry nodded.

“Well,” Draco continued, “unless you’re as powerful as the Dark Lord, casting a Shadow Ghoul is much like that. It practically depletes one’s magical core just to summon one no matter how often you practice or how much of an expert one becomes.”

Harry’s emerald orbs widened at that.

“It’s said the incantation calls forth a wandering, lost soul,” Kingsley said.

Draco nodded. “It does,” he confirmed.

Dropping his head back down, Harry said, “So…it’s like a combination between the Patronus and the necromantic art of calling forth Inferi.”

“Exactly.” Draco had never heard of Shadow Ghouls being described as dead Patronuses before, but it worked.

“Okay, so, Brocklehurst will be charged with using an Unforgivable, using an Unforgivable in the process of a crime, two counts of breaking and entering, organizing the break in at the City Clerk’s office in which she Imperiused MacDougal, theft, attempted theft, destruction of private property…,” Harry counted off. Kingsley was right. There was never going to be a Get Out Of Jail Free card for Brocklehurst. She was done. Curious about something, he turned towards Kingsley. “What about the Shadow Ghouls?”

“It’s such an obscure, rare magic that I am not sure,” Kingsley admitted. “We’ve never had a case--that I’m aware of--where the defendant was accused of a crime while using Shadow Ghouls, but as the incantation includes Blood Magic as well as knowledge of Necromancy-”

Both of which were, of course, illegal, Draco thought with a sneer. Never mind that the only reason Harry Potter--Boy-Who-Lived, Savior, Chosen One--had survived the Killing Curse at fifteen months was because of an illegal Blood Magic ritual Lily Potter used.

“-it’s safe to assume that she’ll be charged with using them in the process of a crime.”

With a solemn expression, Harry nodded.

“I still don’t understand though,” Draco broke the silence that had settled upon the three of them. “Brocklehurst claimed Harry had to pay for ‘stealing’ Severus from her, right? How did she plan on doing that and what did Jamey‘s birth records have to do with it?”

“Actually,” Kingsley stated slowly, “that was why I came here to speak to you Harry. While it’s still not clear what she planned on doing with Jamey’s birth records had she managed to get away with them-”

“Or the case file pertaining to his rape,” Draco spoke up.

Kingsley nodded. “Neither would have ‘ruined’ you or your reputation,” he was saying to Harry. “If anything, there would have been a backlash against Snape.”

Draco laid his hands on Harry’s shoulders. “Crazy is as crazy does,” he muttered.

Bringing his left hand up across his body, Harry lightly clasped Draco’s hand, briefly giving it a squeeze.

Something like what Harry had gone through was not easily forgotten or got over. Even sixteen years later, it still haunted Harry. The Deputy Head Auror had his good days and he had his bad days. Some nights, according to Jamey, Harry had nightmares as he relived the event. Other nights, he slept peacefully. There were also times when one second Harry would be fine and the next he had fallen into a depressed funk. So while Brocklehurst’s plan to ruin Harry by releasing the case file pertaining to his rape as well as Jamey’s birth records would not have worked as she had planned, in a way, it would have ruined Harry. Forcing someone to relive what had been the worst night of his entire life over and over again was not Draco’s idea of a good time. Who knows what it would have done to Harry?

“Even though it’s still unclear how Mandy planned to ruin you by obtaining your son’s birth records and procuring the case file pertaining to the rape,” Kingsley was saying, “she did confess to a backup plan.”

Draco froze the same moment he felt Harry do so as well. He had a feeling they were both thinking the same thing at the same exact moment.

“Sir?” Harry spoke.

Kingsley nodded and locking eyes with Harry over the desk, said in a grave voice, “She confessed to being the one who cast the Magic Circle on your chair.”

In the silence that followed, Draco heard Harry whisper, “The Hasala Tahsil. I knew it. I knew she had something to do with it.”

Draco had to agree. Harry told him the night before about how Brocklehurst appeared to have forgotten to make an appointment with the Curse Breakers to have his office swept. While Harry had seemed to wave the incident off as a coincidence, Draco had not. In fact, he’d been downright suspicious and now he knew he’d been right to be.

Kingsley agreed with a nod. “Brocklehurst identified the Ritual Circle when shown a copy from the book you gave to Bill Weasley. According to her statement,” he continued, “when some old Pureblood witch passed away last year without an heir, the Executive of her Estate sold many of the family heirlooms. What he couldn’t sell, he tossed and among those he threw out was a handwritten book--a diary of sorts she said that she garbage picked. She claims that most of the handwritten diary was so faded that not even a Restoration charm could repair it, but there was one section that was not as faded as the rest. It spoke of a diary the writer had stumbled across in her journeys, but had since lost, that talked about a Ritual Circle that could apparently steal a person’s magic.”

Draco’s grip on Harry tightened. He wondered if he was as pale as he felt.

“So that’s what it does,” he heard Harry mutter.

Without magic, a magical person did not become a Muggle. No, a magical person without magic no longer was. A magical person could not exist without magic. That was a proven act.

Draco looked down at the top of his boyfriend‘s raven head. “It also explains those headaches.”

Harry tipped his head to peer up at Draco. “How?”

“I’ve heard of similar spells, hexes, enchantments, even several Circles that supposedly steal one’s magic. All Dark, of course,” Draco added, “but none actually do what they’re supposed to because it‘s impossible to steal magic.”

“Even though there have been numerous attempts throughout the centuries,” Kingsley added.

“Exactly. These spells drain a magical person’s Core continuously, preventing the Magical Core from recharging, thus-”

“Effectively killing the witch or wizard,” Harry finished, nodding.

“Right.”

“So where does these headaches come in?”

It was Kingsley who answered, “In this case, they are typically a sign of tempering to the Core.”

Draco was nodding. “Right, but they usually only appear right at the start. Since you didn’t start complaining of a headache until Friday, I‘d say the Circle wasn’t active for more than a day before that. So it’s likely it didn’t do much damage.”

“I’d still like for you to be examined by Healer Whitby,” Kingsley spoke up. “Just in case.”

“Of course,” Harry agreed with a nod.

Draco turned towards the Head Auror and asked, “This--diary, or whatever it is that Brocklehurst found, whatever became of it?” It was obvious that whatever the ex-Assistant to the Head Auror had come across, seemingly by accident, it was more informative than volume four of An Introduction to the Mystical Arts of the Orient. There might even be ways on how to counteract the Circle.

“She claims it just--‘disappeared’ one day,” Kingsley said.

Harry snorted. “Of course it did. Just grew legs and walked off.”

Kingsley chuckled.

“Actually,” Draco said, “I have heard of similar occurrences happening.”

“As have I,” Kingsley admitted, “but until I have proof one way or another, anything Brocklehurst says is just heresy.”

“I think she may be telling the truth about this diary just vanishing,” Draco spoke up. “It makes sense actually.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked the man.

“Well, think about it. Hardly any information exists about the Hasala Tahsil and a book just suddenly appears one day that has more information in it about this mysterious Circle than every other tome combined? Only for it to mysteriously vanish? Very odd.”

Silence met the end of Draco’s statement.

Harry was frowning in thought.

“You’re saying someone enchanted material sources pertaining to the Hasala Tahsil,” Kingsley summarized.

Draco shrugged. “Given what we know, it seems most likely, but I’m not going to sit here and argue it as being the only reason.”

Humming in thought, Kingsley nodded. “Well, whether that’s the case or not, until we know for certain either way, I’m not going to rule anything out. I already sent a message via Patronus to the Aurors who are searching Brocklehurst’s place to look for this--diary, but so far nothing. In the meantime, we plan to give her Veritaserum and re-question her--quite thoroughly--about this Hasala Tahsil Ritual Circle, see if she knows more than she‘s telling.”

Draco nodded.

“Given how talkative she’s being, I don’t think we’ll find out anything of significance that we don’t already know,” Harry said, “but it couldn’t hurt.”

“Precisely,” Kingsley agreed with a nod. “For the time being, I suggest the two of you go home, get some rest. I’ll keep you informed,” he added when Harry opened his mouth to argue. With a final nod, Kingsley stood and swept from the office.

With a curse, Harry dropped his head back against the top of the chair and stared up at the ceiling.

Draco dropped a chaste kiss on Harry’s forehead right on the faded lightning bolt scar. “Why don’t we get out of here?” he suggested.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he repeated more confidently. “Let’s go home.”

Stepping out from behind the chair, Draco held out his hand to Harry who clasped it as he got to his feet. Hand in hand, the two crossed towards the fireplace, deciding to floo to Grimmauld Place just as they had arrived hours earlier; both were in even less of a mood to deal with any possible paparazzi still stalking the Atrium, especially given the bombshell confession they’d heard.

Draco stepped into the hearth first followed by Harry. In order to accommodate both fully-grown male wizards, Harry was forced to stand within the circle of Draco’s arms. He giggled at the ticklish feeling Draco’s kiss to the nape of his neck inspired. Pulling an antique snuffbox from his pocket, Harry grabbed a pinch of floo powder and called out in a clear voice, “12 Grimmauld Place,” just as he tossed the floo powder at their feet. Harry hugged Draco’s arms around his waist as the green flames engulfed them. And as the office vanished in a blur of color, Harry wondered if this was what a happy ending felt like.

+ HARRY POTTER +

A Year Later - Grimmauld Place

It turned out the Oblivitators couldn’t reverse the Obliviate on MacDougal. They proclaimed the missing time, along with the accompanying memories, were well and truly gone. The news, while it hadn’t bothered Morag, was a disappointment for the Ministry. The Head of the DMLE, Emmaline Vance, had planned to call MacDougal to the witness stand to testify against Brocklehurst whose trial had begun a week prior.

If found guilty, the only way Brocklehurst would get to leave Azkaban was in a casket. Even without MacDougal’s memories of the night he was Imperiused, there was plenty of evidence against the woman to make sure that very scenario happened, including Harry’s testimony.

It would be an understatement to say Harry was terrified. It wasn’t being called to the witness stand that was the problem. As an Auror, it was something he’d done numerous times in the past. No, the problem was what he was being called to the witness stand to talk about. If it wasn’t for the fact that his testimony was key to getting Brocklehurst sent to prison for the rest of her life, Harry would have told Kingsley and Vance to fuck off. In fact, originally, he did just that. Seventeen years may have passed since then, but he refused to air the skeletons in his closet for the entire Wizarding World to see. Despite what Rita Skeeter thought, the public did not have a right to know about every single minute detail of his life. He was just thankful Vance was able to make court that day a closed session--meaning no unnecessary personnel and that included Jamey; he did not need his son to know the details of That Day. He hadn’t even wanted Draco there, but Draco insisted he was going to be there.

“I don’t care what you say to the contrary.”

“I could always break up with you,” Harry had suggested.

“You could, but I’d still be there.”

Despite what he’d said, he and Draco were still together. In fact, they were talking about moving in together. Draco wanted them to move into Malfoy Manor. Since Lucius and Narcissa retired to the Malfoy château in France this past spring, Draco felt the Manor was too large for just him, which was why he spent most of his time at Grimmauld Place. Harry on the other hand wanted Draco to move in with him, but Draco argued, “It’s too small.”

“Compared to the Manor, which could house a small village yeah,” Harry argued back.

“Be that as it may, Potter, that was not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“I realize you are attached to Grimmauld Place, but we don’t have any privacy, I don’t have an adequate lab and what happens when the stork decides to pay us a visit? We’re already tripping all over each other as it is.”

His lips twitching, Harry cocked an eyebrow. The stork huh?

Unfortunately, at that very moment, Jamey walked in. Having heard the last, he asked his Bearer, “Are you pregnant Dad?”

No, he wasn’t pregnant. He hadn’t been when Jamey asked back in the spring and he still wasn’t, but that did not stop his son from asking--repeatedly. The boy was obsessed with someday, preferably sooner rather than later, having siblings--a brother especially.

Harry leaned back in the lounger and closing his eyes, tipped his head back to capture the sun. It felt so good against his skin.

The sound of the backdoor opening and slamming shut--Harry winced at the sound; how many times has he told his son not to let the door slam shut?--cut through the distant sound of traffic and the orchestra of twittering and chattering. It was followed moments later by his son’s voice. “Hey Dad?”

“No,” Harry replied automatically. He snickered as heard Jamey wander off, grumbling.

“You, my love, are terrible,” drawled another male voice.

“I don’t now what you are talking about,” Harry said innocently.

“Uh huh. And I suppose waking up to you worshipping the porcelain throne, again, was what? Wishful thinking?”

“Yup,” Harry answered, suppressing a smile.

There was a snort. “Then I guess that makes me the king of wishful thinking.”

Harry snickered.

“C’mon then my not pregnant love. Lunch’s ready. Jamey! Lunch!”

Grinning, Harry peeled open an eyelid and watched his blond haired Potions Master lover as he strut back across the yard to the massive Muggle grill--see outdoor kitchen--that he’d insisted on Harry buying him for his birthday. Last summer, they’d gone to Ron and Hermione’s for a barbecue and as soon as Draco saw the monstrosity of a backyard grill Ron had purchased with his bonus, Draco had insisted on having an even bigger one.

Harry laid a hand on his abdomen as a frown wiped away the grin. He wasn’t pregnant. He couldn’t be. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t love to have another child, especially Draco’s child, but not only was it not a good time with the trial and everything just starting, but he made sure they used contraceptive charms. Despite what happens occasionally in the Muggle world, in the Wizarding world, Harry had never heard of a pregnancy taking place despite the usage of contraceptives.

It wasn’t as if he would have to worry about side effects from the Hasala Tahsil if he was pregnant. There had been minimum drainage to his Core, but that was it. Nothing a little rest hadn’t cured.

“Harry,” Draco called. “Want a burger or hot dog?”

“Burger,” Harry called back as he sat up. Swinging his legs off the lounger, he stood up and made his way across the yard to the two men in his life.

He wondered what Mind-Healer Perks would say if he were to tell her that he was a year into what was turning out to be a pretty serious relationship with a man he’s had a crush on for years; that they were talking about moving in together and might just be having a baby. While he wasn’t sure what she would say, he would say that he hasn’t been happier than he was right at that very moment.

+ END +

A/N: For those who don’t know, Kanji is a form of Japanese writing based on Chinese ideograms.

As for Hasala Tahsil, it doesn’t really mean anything. “Tahsil” (via Urdu and Persian) means “revenue” and “Hasala” (via Arabic) means "collect". Forgive me if I’m using them wrong.

Also, I’m not sure what the statute of limitations are on cases of rape in England, but here in the state of New York, it’s ten years, so that’s what I went with in the story. In my opinion, there should be NO statute of limitations for ANY crime.

Shadow Ghouls are my invention that I use in my original story, Predilection, and which I have borrowed for this story. As defined from the Index I created for my original story, “They are spirits of the dead who refuse to or who cannot move on to the afterlife. They linger on Earth not as ghosts or spirits, but as sexless, shapeless, black shadows with white pupil-less ‘eyes’. They serve and obey all whom command them. They do not need to sleep nor do they need food or drink. Most do not ‘speak’. They do not speak, hear, smell or see in the sense that they have a mouth, ears, nose and eyes for they do not. They can take the shape of anything, becoming anything or anyone’s shadow and melt into the shadows. They are the shadows of the world.”

Any questions, let me know!

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End of the Day