Chapter Text
Harry walks into his boss's shitty little office with Hermione's pleas from the night before still ringing in his ears. His hip is pissing him off. It's hurting him more than usual today; the pain stabs through him with every step.
He knows taking another job so soon is stupid, but what is he supposed to do? He'd tried sitting around feeling sorry for himself. Five months, a half-destroyed house, and a drinking problem later, he'd decided that probably wasn't the best way to deal with the bullshit that his life had become. If not for the fact that his metabolism is so high and he has that freaky healing thing going on, he probably wouldn't have come out of his spiral at all. His lack of healthy coping skills had been one of Hermione's arguments the night before. Very old arguments. Which she'd given him repeatedly since he signed up to work for PROtego.
'Harry, you know this job isn't good for you.' 'Harry, we can find another way.' 'Harry, we can make people change.' Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
He's pulled out of his thoughts as he picks up the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. A minute later the door opens. A grim-faced man walks into the dingy room, slaps a file down in front of him and takes a seat opposite Harry at his battered desk.
'Archer,' Harry says, lifting his chin slightly. Archer hates when Harry challenges him. Even subtly. So he makes sure he does it all the time. Man's a bully. Harry may have fallen far enough that he has to work for scum like this, but that doesn't mean he has to respect him.
Archer narrows his eyes at Harry, looking him up and down. 'You look like shit, Hunter,' he says with a grimace. 'Are you up to taking on another case? Wasn't expecting you back for another week.'
Harry shrugs, forcing a cocky grin onto his face. 'It looked worse than it was. I'm fine. What's next?'
Archer raises an eyebrow at him, and Harry can sense the tension in his body, smell it in the air.
'You took a Reducto to the chest at close range. You shouldn't even be able to stand.'
Harry leans back, knowing he needs to sell it. Merlin, but he hates the lie his life has become. Archer is right though. He shouldn't be able to stand. Harry winces with pain he doesn't feel. The wounds had healed within a day. Hurt like a bitch, but healed. Not that he can tell Archer just how that had come about. Not that he can let anyone find out.
Instead he lets his grin broaden and take on a knowing edge. He lets some of the darkness that is always so close to the surface nowadays come into his face. 'I know all sorts of interesting people, Archer. They supply me with all sorts of interesting things.' Harry touches his ribs through his thin, cotton shirt as though they pain him. 'You know that. It's part of why you hire me.'
The tension leaves Archer's body and he leans back, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. 'Right. Sure.' He flicks the file towards Harry.
Harry reaches out, forcing himself to move slowly—or what feels slow to him but will look normal to Archer.
Act normal. Look normal. Be normal. That's his mantra now. He's never been less normal.
Harry opens the file. It's the fifth he's received since he started at PROtego a few months ago. This one is like all the others. A headshot, the particulars of the person he's assigned to, and a description of what they've come to PROtego looking for. Harry scans it quickly.
The man in the image has a look of money about him. He's dark-haired, with strong, cruel-looking features and an arrogant gaze. He sneers out of the photo and Harry immediately knows his type. He's the sort of man Harry used to love being able to pull down a peg or three when he was Senior Auror. There's something about this sort of self-assured entitlement that just grates on him. Always has.
Harry returns his attention to the file. Darius Markwell is thirty-six, most recently from France, and is looking for personal protection for approximately five weeks while he conducts business in London.
Harry flips the folder shut and looks across at Archer. 'Five weeks? Full time?'
He tries to ignore the immediate spike of anxiety that thought gives him. The longest job he's taken so far is three weeks and he'd timed the dates carefully for that one. Five weeks. The thought of being away, cut off, for five weeks makes the anxiety rise higher. His heart beats harder in his chest and he feels something shrink inside him, whimpering faintly. He needs to ground himself more frequently than that. Needs to be around his… people.
Harry grits his teeth at how much he hates that weakness in himself. He used to be totally self-sufficient. Used to run a rigid schedule, run a whole bloody Auror team. And look at him now. Pathetic.
'Negotiable?' he asks.
Archer shrugs. 'Everything's negotiable,' he says, voice flat. The subtext is clear. Your job here is negotiable, if you don't want to take what's offered.
Archer glances at his watch and then back at Harry. 'He'll be here in five minutes. Are you interested?'
Harry looks at the manila folder on the desk in front of him. He feels an itch under his skin—the same itch that he gets whenever he contemplates sitting inside Grimmauld Place with nothing to occupy his mind or his body. It makes him think of booze and darkness. If he doesn't take the job, he'll piss Archer off. And if he pisses Archer off, he might not get another job. He'll figure something out. Five weeks can be managed. He has his potion for when the time comes, after all.
'Sure,' he says, ignoring the Hermione in the back of his mind, telling him this is a bad idea.
Archer nods and stands, the chair scraping on the ground with a screech that puts Harry's teeth on edge. 'I'll meet you in the briefing room,' Archer says. He reaches across the table and collects the folder before he turns and exits the room.
Harry pushes to his feet with a wince, not faked this time. Fucking hip. He follows Archer out, turning the opposite direction and making his way down the dingy corridor to the pokey little space that has the dubious honour of being called a briefing room. He leans against the wall opposite the door, taking the weight off his leg.
It's barely a minute before Archer's coming back and Harry hears a second set of footsteps beside him. They're brisk. Purposeful. It must be Markwell. His shoes click on the tiles. They sound expensive. He's probably an entitled prat.
Harry forces himself to focus on his job. If he's scowling at the door when the bloke walks in, he isn't exactly going to make the right impression, is he? Hermione's voice echoes in his mind, I know it's harder now, Harry. I know you're angry all the time. But you have to try.
He spends every second of every damned day trying.
The door opens a second later and Markwell walks through, glancing dismissively around with barely concealed contempt. Harry's instinctive dislike of him deepens and solidifies at that look. He knows the company he works for now is one he probably would have raided as an Auror, but seeing this wanker put it down is a step too far. He feels a strange sort of protectiveness. This place is his. It's his territory and if this tosser wants help, he needs to kill his attitude.
Harry grits his teeth, but he keeps his smile in place as he straightens. He has to work not to show that he's favouring his hip. Something in Markwell's posture makes Harry think of a predator sizing up prey. He has a feeling this is not a man to show weakness to. He pushes aside the grinding agony. If only that wound would heal the same miraculous way all his others do now.
Harry lets his familiar bitterness go as he watches Markwell's gaze flick over him. His eyes linger for a fraction of a second on the bulge of Harry's arms, the broadness of his chest, the stubble he hadn't bothered to shave that morning. Harry uses a Glamour to do his job. Not a lot. Just enough to hide his scar, to change his eyes from green to a more common brown and to modify his features so that he isn't him anymore. Merlin forbid anyone find out just how low their Chosen One has sunk.
Markwell likes what he sees. It's incredibly subtle—if Harry's senses weren't so razor sharp, he would have completely missed it—but the way he's wired now, Markwell may as well have asked him for a fuck. Harry wants to curl his lip at the man, deride him for being into the help.
Instead he extends a hand.
'Hunter James,' he says.
Markwell glances at Harry's gesture and hesitates for a moment before he steps forward, extending his own hand. Harry wants to tell him to go fuck himself at the hesitation. He can't check Harry out one second and consider himself too good to shake hands the next.
'Darius Markwell,' he says, his voice smooth and clipped. Something about it tugs at Harry's memory, burrowing inside him.
Their hands clasp and Harry can feel Markwell's pulse under his skin. He feels a strange impulse to linger there, just for a second, but he shakes it off, dropping his hand and taking a seat.
Markwell turns to Archer with a cursory word of thanks that is clearly a dismissal.
Archer stiffens imperceptibly but nods. 'A pleasure doing business with you, Mr Markwell.'
Markwell waits until Archer has left the room, the door clicking shut behind him before he sits opposite Harry, crossing his arms over what is clearly an expensive black suit. Harry isn't surprised to see that it's Muggle. There are many things that haven't changed since the war, but one thing that has is the wide-scale adoption of Muggle clothing. Wizarding robes are the exception, rather than the norm, now.
'So, "Hunter", is it?' Markwell says, condescension in his tone as his gaze flicks over Harry again, this time in a look that seems to consider him to be more brawn than brains. Harry ignores his tone and the annoyance it stirs in him as he catches Markwell's scent. It's warm, just a hint of spice to it, layered over something darker. Something heady.
He frowns slightly, leaning forward and flaring his nostrils subtly. Act normal. Be normal. He gets another breath of it and his frown deepens. There's something familiar about the way the man in front of him smells. Something that tugs at the edges of his memory, the same way his voice had.
Markwell's fingers snap in front of his face and Harry has to contain the growl that wants to rise in his throat. He feels his annoyance rise, at himself this time. He hates it when he has reactions like that—like an animal.
'Are you a half-wit, Hunter?' Markwell asks, the derision clear in his voice as his lip curls. 'If you're going to be daydreaming in the middle of a job, you're hardly going to be of any use to me.'
Harry feels his annoyance flare into the anger that's always so close to the surface now.
'I won't daydream in the middle of anything,' he says, wanting to tell this posh wanker that he's got a hundred missions under his belt, that the work he does for PROtego is so far below his pay grade that it's laughable that it's the only relevant work he can get now. He bites his tongue. Patience is hard, especially now, especially in front of this prat, but he needs to keep his temper. Act normal. Be normal.
Markwell makes a dubious sound, looking down his nose at Harry in a way that tugs at his memory. He cocks his head to one side, trying to let the thought unravel. But Markwell speaks before he can catch the tail of it.
'If you think you're capable of doing this job, then I will require absolute discretion while I complete my business in London,' he says. 'One of the reasons I work with your company, such as it is, is that I know I will have no questions asked of me, or tales told of me afterwards. I trust that remains true?'
Harry feels like telling this twat in his over-priced suit to stick his job up his arse. He's clearly going to be a nightmare to deal with. Harry barely knows the bloke and his motivation to do his job and keep the guy alive is dropping fast.
He purses his lips and just nods in response, forcing himself to let the words flow over him. He breathes in deeply and focuses on the hint of familiarity that interests him far more than the posturing going on in front of him. He lets the connections form in his brain. It's a different place now, his brain. It sees the world through sights and smells and sounds in a way that's so vibrant it's sometimes overwhelming.
It connects things from the past to things from the present in a way that's often jarring, sending him flashing into memories he'd long forgotten. A few months ago he'd vomited in Molly's toilet after he'd got a hint of scent from a cleaner Aunt Petunia had scrubbed him down with one time when he'd pissed himself. One time when he'd been locked in for so long he'd had no choice.
'I will require you to lodge with me for the duration of my business in London,' Markwell says, eyes sharp as he watches Harry. Harry feels strangely on show, as though Markwell is seeing beneath the surface of him, and he takes another deep breath as he tries to focus back on the conversation, on his role. Be normal. There's no way this guy could know anything about him. He's not one of the thirsty horde that had camped outside Harry's house for weeks after he'd left the Ministry, begging for any scrap of information about him, ready to tear him to pieces to get it.
No, Markwell is a client and Harry is a random choice—one of ten employees—and Archer just happened to pick him. That's all.
His attempt to focus comes too late. His instincts have kept hunting and his senses are filled with the smell of the man across the table from him. The vague hint of familiarity is digging its way through his mind, patterns forming and fading, until finally something connects and memories begin to streak through his brain. Flying. Potions. Feasts. School robes. Lying helpless on the ground as a foot smashes into his face. The cut of a curse and the sharp tang of blood in the air—
Harry's eyes fly wide and he feels anger burn into life as a name flashes into his consciousness. Every single behaviour he's just seen exhibited clicks into place and he feels his anger turn to fury.
'Malfoy,' he growls, leaning forward, fingers gripping the table.
Markwell's eyes widen in shock. He looks, for an instant, as though Harry has punched him in the guts. His expression immediately changes to a glare, eyes narrowed in suspicion and what looks like anger.
For a moment, Harry second guesses himself. The man in front of him looks nothing like Malfoy, but now that the connection has been made, it's all he can think of. He knows that scent. Some part of his brain remembers it faintly. Remembers it enough, now, that he has no doubt. Malfoy is sitting in front of him, glamoured as someone else.
'Who the fuck are you?' Malfoy demands coldly, his voice sounding subtly familiar and subtly wrong.
Harry sees Malfoy's hand drop to his wand, but he doesn't even think to grab his own. That's never his first reaction anymore. His fingers flex against the table and he remembers the feeling of claws erupting through his skin. Strange how so many years of training can be overridden by foreign instincts so quickly.
His anger churns and grows at this thought and Harry glares at Malfoy as he lets the heat fill him. The rage in him is only partly about Malfoy, he's just what's triggered it, this time. There's always something in him, now, that wants to fight and tear and rend, and it's so hard to contain it all the time.
Harry glances at Malfoy's grip on his wand and grins savagely at the very thought that Malfoy might try something with him. It's this that makes him decide to drop his own glamour. He's itchy under his skin. Spoiling for another fight. He always is nowadays. He didn't get to take down the bastard that hit him with the Reducto, and now here's Malfoy, out of nowhere after all these years. And his hand is on his wand.
Harry clenches one fist and the door locks with an audible click. Malfoy shoves to his feet and has his wand pointing at Harry within a second. He's still not fast enough that Harry couldn't have stopped him with ease. But he doesn't. No matter how much his anger drives him. Be normal. He forces himself to think of what this means, to see Malfoy in front of him; of what he should do with that. He forces the creature inside him to think. Harry sits back, letting his smile morph into a provocative smirk as he lets the glamour slide from his features.
He knows what Malfoy is seeing. His hair is losing its mousy brownness, reverting to the black tangle he sees every morning in the mirror. His eyes are bright green again, no longer hidden behind the glasses he has no need for anymore.
It's not until the scar flashes back into view that Malfoy seems to believe what's in front of his eyes. His mouth drops open, his grip slackening on his wand.
'Potter,' Malfoy breathes. 'What the fuck?'
Emotions flicker across Malfoy's face too quick to follow. Harry catches a calculating gleam in his eye last of all, before his face smooths.
'I could ask you the same,' Harry says, laying his arm across the back of the chair next to him, the very picture of nonchalance. He pushes the anger down again, redirecting it, forcing himself to think this through. An idea occurs to him, possibilities threading themselves together so quickly that it happens between one breath and the next. If he plays this right, Malfoy could be his ticket back to everything he's missing.
'Drop yours too,' Harry says, letting some of his former authority bleed into his voice. He'd been a legend in the Ministry. There is nothing he won't do to get back there.
Malfoy hesitates for just a moment and that look of calculation flashes back onto his face. Harry can hear his heartbeat hammering through his chest, though on the surface Malfoy looks calm again, all outward signs of his shock gone.
Then Malfoy flicks his wand and Harry feels wards go up around them, prickling against his skin. Malfoy gestures again and his glamour disappears. Harry clenches his teeth to contain the surge of emotion that seeing Malfoy's face creates in him. The anger rushes back to the forefront, hot and vicious and Harry wants to slam Malfoy into a wall and demand to know what the fuck he thinks he's playing at.
His eyes move over Malfoy and he forces himself to take in the details, to catalogue them, letting his training take over, making sure the Pensieve memory will be sharp, if he ever has to provide it.
Malfoy hasn't changed a lot in the past ten years. The last time Harry had seen him in person had been at the hearing when he was released from Azkaban. He'd served a four-year sentence and had been all over the papers after his release. And then, a few weeks later, he'd just disappeared.
His photo had been on the Criminals at Large board in the Auror Wing for years after that, until he'd finally been declared a cold case. Harry had had to look into that sneering, arrogant fucking face every day for years. He clenches his fists at the thought of how much everyone—him included—had wanted to bag Malfoy for breaking his parole; had wanted to slam him back in Azkaban, for good this time.
He looks older now, of course, but older in a way that means he's grown into his angles and sharp edges. His hair is buzzed short at the sides and left loose and tousled on top. Harry lets his eyes flick down, noting that Malfoy's body hadn't changed when he'd dropped the glamour. He's still slim and tall, lean and strong under his designer clothes. He looks good. Harry feels a particular kind of disgust at himself for that thought.
He realises Malfoy is taking him in too, when the silence stretches too long between them.
'Where the fuck have you been?' Harry demands, tempted to just summon the Aurors here and now. But the thought of having to face anyone from his former office—of having them know just how low he's sunk—stays his hand. He needs to do this right. If he can deliver Malfoy to them, with all of his backstory, they'll have to overlook his… affliction. Surely.
Malfoy cocks an eyebrow, pursing his lips. 'That's none of your business, Potter. Unless you have a warrant for my arrest?' His face makes it very clear he's aware Harry has no such thing.
'My infraction has exceeded the ten year convictions limit,' Malfoy continues. 'You have no legal right to detain me.' The sour hint of stress in the air is the only thing that tells Harry how concerned Malfoy is by his presence.
Harry bares his teeth slightly in response. He can't let that slide. 'Your "infraction" was jumping parole and disappearing off the face of the fucking planet. I'm sure the Auror office would still be very interested to see you, Malfoy. I'm sure they'd have a whole list of questions to ask you about just what the hell you've been doing since you bailed.'
Malfoy's gaze sharpens and he leans forward slightly. 'They would, would they? What are you doing here? Since when do you work private security?' The disdain is back in his voice, full force. He looks Harry up and down. 'Are you here by choice? What the fuck made you quit the Ministry to take a dodgy job in a shitshow organisation like this?'
Harry forces himself not to react to the questions. They're the same ones the papers blew up with for months—still print every time he's seen outside of his house, which is rarely. Harry Potter's Shock Break From Ministry Career. Is Harry Off his Rocker? What's next for the Chosen One? Harry Potter: From Department Head to Departed Recluse.
He feels a trickle of concern, for the first time, at the thought that Malfoy might tell someone what he does now, and then he'd have the papers breathing down his neck here too, ruining any chance he has to get out of his house, out of his own head. He forces himself to take a breath. He can manage this. He knows he can. He's hunting Malfoy, not the other way around.
Harry cocks an eyebrow and folds his arms as he deliberately mirrors Malfoy's tone. 'That's none of your business, Malfoy.'
Malfoy lets out a huff, so soft most people wouldn't have caught it. Harry's surprised to realise he's made Malfoy laugh. He narrows his eyes at the thought. Malfoy doesn't laugh in his presence. He sneers and taunts and provokes. What the hell is he playing at?
He looks at Malfoy, mind racing as he thinks through the best way to talk him into giving Harry what he needs. It will have to be done slowly, he knows. Malfoy is a slippery bastard, clearly, and despite his rot about exceeding the ten year statute, Harry knows the Auror office will happily slap a dozen new charges on him the moment they see him.
The thought tugs at him, that he could just bring Malfoy in now, Auror or not. Ron would happily take the case off his hands. But that would be equivalent to a citizen's arrest. It might get him a pat on the head and a 'good dog,' but it won't get him what he wants: full access back into the Ministry. No, he knows what he will need for that. He'll need to discover every single dodgy thing Malfoy has done in the past ten years, as well as just why the hell he's back in London now.
Malfoy is watching him, face impassive, and Harry thinks of a second consideration: the little matter of what Malfoy knows now, and who he might tell. He considers for a second casting an Obliviate Malfoy's way, but knowing Malfoy he's probably got inbuilt Shield Charms in his clothes or some rubbish.
'What now?' Harry asks, wondering how Malfoy wants to play this, and how he will manage to talk Malfoy into an arrangement that will end with Harry sending him to Azkaban for good.
Malfoy rolls his eyes. 'What do you mean, "what now", Potter? You're clearly still as dense as you always were. Now, I walk out of here, change my glamour, find a new company for what I need, and we never see each other again.'
Malfoy says it in such a matter of fact tone that Harry gets a sudden insight into the way he must have lived for the past ten years. The way he's managed, somehow, to stay off every radar.
The idea that Malfoy will just disappear again stirs something deep within Harry's chest. He was on the case boards of the DMLE for years. There were bets about who would bring him in. It was one of the cases that had sat on Harry's unsolved pile throughout his nine years as Senior Auror, almost as though Malfoy were taunting him. The fact that he's eluded everyone for so long, only to pop up right in front of Harry's nose, is not something he can ignore. Even if there is a possibility Malfoy will out him, he can't let this opportunity slide.
Malfoy's looking at him with incredulous suspicion and Harry wonders how the hell he's going to get Malfoy to agree to let him be his protection. Then an idea comes to him and it's so juvenile—so clearly transparent—that he thinks it just might work.
'Scared?' Harry asks, letting the challenge issue through every part of his body as he makes it clear how little regard he has for Malfoy's courage.
Malfoy's eyes darken and Harry hears his heartbeat skip. He frowns, his mouth a hard line. 'What are you, fucking twelve? I'm not scared, Potter,' he says. 'I'm prudent. Until a year ago you were the head of the organisation that put me in Azkaban. Putting my life in your hands is madness.'
'So, scared, then?' Harry says, leaning forward with a smirk. 'I have no power with the Ministry anymore.' He doesn't bother to hold back his bitterness as he thinks for a second just how true that is now. Every bridge he might have had is burned. The way they made him leave… he'd be damned if he ever went crawling back to them. He would come back at the head of one of the biggest cases in a decade, with Malfoy in chains, or he wouldn't go back at all.
Harry forces himself to focus on what's in front of him: Malfoy, and talking him into this arrangement so that Harry can keep an eye on him and figure out what he's been up to.
'Besides, like you said, your charges for skipping parole have passed the convictions limit. There's nothing the Ministry could do to you anyway.' Harry spreads his hands, looking Malfoy in the eye, taking in the faint tension around his mouth.
He decides to push it just a little bit further. 'I mean you no harm, Malfoy. We're grown men now, and anything that was in the past between us is dead and gone. Look, fresh start.'
Harry stands and reaches across the table, stretching his hand towards Malfoy, who eyes it with barely concealed amazement.
'Hi,' Harry says, the barest hint of sarcasm threaded through his voice. 'I'm Harry Potter - otherwise known as Hunter James because I have no interest in people finding out what I'm doing here.' He stresses the words 'no interest' and wonders again what he can do to make sure Malfoy doesn't blab.
'I was an Auror for five years,' he continues, hand still stretched out in front of him. Malfoy's eyes haven't left it. 'And a Senior Auror for nine. I've been assigned to be your personal protection.'
Slowly, Malfoy looks up to meet Harry's eyes. He seems to be wrestling with something as he looks at Harry for a long moment.
Then, to Harry's amazement, he tucks his wand inside his jacket and stretches out his own hand. It's warm, and his handshake is firm. Harry can't quite believe it worked and he has to bite back the smirk of triumph that wants to spread across his face.
'I'm Draco Malfoy,' he says, eyes not leaving Harry's, as though he's looking inside him, looking for any hint of deceit. 'Otherwise known as Darius Markwell. I'm in town for a while, the reason why is none of your business, and I need someone to assure my safety.' His tone is still full of scepticism, and he drops Harry's hand after a moment.
'Everything about me screams safety,' Harry says, spreading his arms. He smiles, letting just a hint of tooth show.
Malfoy lets out that faint huff of amusement again, though it doesn't show on his face.
'Nothing about you screams safety, Potter,' he says, with a flip of his hand at Harry. 'Everything about you screams "run the other way before you get beaten up in a dark alley."'
Harry shrugs, letting his grin become more natural, as though taking Malfoy into his confidence. 'Just what you want in your hired muscle.'
Malfoy rolls his eyes and Harry knows he's considering it. 'This is ridiculous, Potter. You'll hex me the moment my back is turned and we both know it.'
Harry's mood changes and anger rushes through him again. Fucking Malfoy. He can't help himself; he's always been a suspicious, judgemental prat. At least the handshake has served its purpose; he's successfully placed the tracking spell on Malfoy. Technically illegal, now that he's no longer an Auror, but as natural as breathing. Now he can figure out where Malfoy goes and what he does whether or not Malfoy agrees to take him on. There's no need to continue trying to be nice to the prick.
Harry leans forward, placing his hands on the table. 'You don't know shit about me, Malfoy. You don't know a single thing about what I would or wouldn't do.' He straightens, trying to hold back the snarl that wants to rise to his lips.
He spares a thought for Archer and the clear directive he had to take the job. He forces himself to make one last attempt at getting into Malfoy's inner circle, rather than watching him covertly.
He grits his teeth. 'I'm offering to protect you. Take it or leave it.'
Harry stares at Malfoy for a long moment. Malfoy says nothing, though Harry can smell the tension on him now, can see it in every line of his body.
The silence stretches on until Harry huffs in frustration. His patience was never any good to start with, and now it's next to zero. He makes for the door, forcing himself to walk straight, to hide the limp, the pain that twists at his hip. He shreds Malfoy's wards with a wave of his hand and is pulling the door open when Malfoy speaks.
'Wait.'
Harry turns to see Malfoy's put his glamour back in place.
'I accept,' Malfoy says without preamble.
Harry is tempted to throw the offer back in his face, but he forces the impulse down and nods instead, a hard jerk of his head. He may have been forced out of the Ministry, but a lifetime of suspicion dies too hard. The tracker is one thing. He'll get more out of Malfoy if he's close to him.
'Meet me tomorrow at seven at the Dark Twin,' Malfoy says. 'It's on—'
'I know where it is,' Harry interrupts, turning away before Malfoy's finished speaking. Even though Harry's decided he needs to do this job—can't let Malfoy disappear again—it doesn't mean the anger rushing through him will magically calm itself. He needs to get out. To run. To get away from the strangely familiar sounds and scents, and the memories that are weaving themselves back into his mind.
'Oh, and Potter?' Malfoy says, and Harry turns back to him, anger churning in his chest.
'What?' he snaps.
'I assume you have a reason for using a Glamour. You might want to put it back on before you storm off.'
Harry only just stops himself from baring his teeth in a growl. He slams his glamour back into place and walks out, the door crashing shut behind him. He stops for just a second in Archer's office to confirm he's accepted the job, and then he's out of there. If he's lucky he won't have to see Archer or this building for at least a month.
Malfoy and all of the emotions and memories his appearance have stirred up in Harry's mind mix with the feeling of uneasiness he gets every time he visits the PROtego building. He hates spending time there. It smells wrong. Like sadness, hopelessness, jealousy, anger, pain. People need their services for all sorts of reasons, but they're rarely happy ones.
Harry runs home from PROtego, needing to stretch his legs, feel his muscles burn. It hurts his hip something fierce. The twisted mess of scar tissue he's had for the past twelve months will never be right again, but once he warms up into a loping gait, it's easier to push the pain from his mind.
Instead, Malfoy fills his thoughts. He forces himself to think like an Auror, to take the anger out of his system. Harry sifts through every detail of the meeting, reconciling it against the file on Darius Markwell that Archer had given him. He can feel the pieces turning over in his mind like a puzzle, waiting to be slotted into the right places. The Ministry may have rejected him, but that doesn't mean he's lost any of the skills that made him a force to be reckoned with over the last fourteen years.
Why is Malfoy hiding himself? What is he doing in London, posing as a businessman under a fake name? What does he need protection from? None of it makes sense, and Harry mentally begins to tally a list of questions and observations for their meeting tomorrow. If Malfoy shows up.
The thought throws his stride off for a moment and he swears as his foot thuds hard on the footpath, sending pain stabbing up into his hip. An old man sweeping in front of a shop gives him a dirty look and Harry has to actively resist glaring at him. Hermione is always telling him he needs to get his temper under control. He hadn't had a problem with it for years. Not until the incident. There have been so many things he's had a problem with since the fucking incident.
Harry shakes his head, getting his hair out of his eyes. Malfoy will show up. Something in him is sure of it. It was in the sharpness of Malfoy's scent, the interest in his eyes, the way he studied Harry just as closely. And if he doesn't show up, there's always the tracker.
The feeling of being angry and off-balance hasn't faded by the time Harry makes his way to the Burrow that night. Molly is expecting him—he's had a standing date at the Burrow on Wednesdays and Saturdays for the past year—but he would have gone anyway.
He needs to ground himself; to be surrounded by family. By pack, if he's honest. Harry steps through the front gate, feeling a tension in himself ease. His level of dependence on this place now worries him, but at the same time he embraces it, running headlong into it. Here, he can let himself think thoughts that are not safe anywhere else. Here, he is home.
He can hear a warm babble of voices as he walks across the grass and he focuses on them, picking out individual ones and feeling his anger slip further away. George is here, of course. His voice had taken on a more subdued tone after the War and had never gone back to its former exuberance. He can hear Fleur singing quietly to herself and Molly telling Arthur off about something or other. As he steps closer he makes out Hermione's soft voice as she reads to Rose.
Harry feels a glow of warmth in his chest at the thought of Rose. He's always loved her—been fascinated by the way she'd grown, the way she was loved, the way she learned about the world. He'd seen her in some ways as his chance to start again, to do better than he had when he'd been a godfather to a child he had let down in the worst of ways.
But ever since the incident, those feelings have intensified. He loves Rose now with a fierce protectiveness that means he would lay down his life for her. It's built into his very DNA. Pack. Cubs. Protect. He'd struggled against it when he was first bitten, convinced that he was wrong, that he was sick and that he shouldn't be anywhere near any of them, but Rose especially. She was too young, too weak. He was dangerous. A monster.
After all, he's seen what happened to children who played with wolves. He still has nightmares some nights, still hears that voice calling out to him in the darkness.
The first few months after the bite had been the dark times, the times when he almost thought he'd go mad with it. The times before Hermione had made him see, had reminded him, that he was both now. Human and wolf. And both parts of him have needs. Some days he still doesn't believe it. Some days he wants to tear himself apart, go feral like so many do. Every time, she talks him into accepting it, trying to embrace it. Everything hurts less if he just gives the wolf what it needs. He walks a constant, desperate line, trying to make sure that what the wolf wants balances with what he, what Harry, needs too. It's a balance he doesn't get right most days. Fuck, but he hates the thing that lives inside him.
Harry pushes the door open and the scents inside wash over him. A small smile tugs at his lips as he gets confirmation that Bill is there too. Always so quiet, but unmistakable. Harry feels more settled by this knowledge. Bill's not like him, not fully, but he knows enough that Harry always feels better in his presence.
A moment later Bill is there, pulling Harry into a hug and rubbing their cheeks together, lingering for a moment. Harry breathes him in, letting their scents mingle and then lets go with a sigh.
'Hard day?' Bill asks, looking him in the eye as he steps back.
Harry shrugs, feeling the turmoil of his thoughts, even now. 'You could say that.'
They walk together into the living room and Hermione looks up with a smile, nudging Rose, whose face lights up as she sees him. She jumps off the couch, running towards him and yelling, 'Uncle Harry!'
Harry bends, ignoring the flare of pain in his hip as he does. It's far worse than normal and he has to fight not to show it on his face—he's run too hard and too fast today. He picks Rose up, swinging her light form into the air with ease. She laughs as he swoops her through the air, settling her on his shoulders.
'Giddyup!' she yells, kicking at him. She's six now and starting to grow out of some of his games, but he's glad this is still one she loves. He takes a few quick laps around the lounge, making sure to jolt her around, to her screams of delight. Then he tips her off his shoulders and onto the couch beside Hermione before slumping down on her other side.
He leans across Rose to rub cheeks with Hermione, breathing her in as well and letting the scent of her, the sweet pomegranate smell of the body wash she uses, settle him further. She'd stopped using perfume a week after he'd turned.
'Ron still at work?'
She nods. 'He won't be back until late. They have a few big cases on at the moment.' She doesn't say any more and Harry doesn't ask. That's an unspoken agreement between the three of them. Ron had tried to keep him abreast of the doings of the DMLE after he left, but Harry had wavered between a longing to be back in the action, rage at how he had left, and frustration at the way things were being handled in his absence. They'd all agreed it was better to avoid the topic.
'How was your day?' he asks instead, and Hermione launches into a detailed discussion of the meeting she's had with members of MACUSA and the Bulgarian Ministry of Magic.
'It's so frustrating, Harry. It's like they're deliberately walling me off because I don't specialise in the same field as they do. It's the exact same thing I had with the French, Malaysian, and Chinese Ministries. It's like there's some worldwide conspiracy to keep knowledge and control of magical creatures in the hands of the few.' She huffs in frustration, and puts an arm around Rose, pulling her in close. 'I have half a mind to re-train and change fields.'
''Mione, please. It's not worth it.' Harry puts a hand on her knee, trying to soothe her. This isn't the first time she's expressed a similar sentiment, and he loves her for it, but there's no way he'll let Hermione throw away her career for him. She got a seat on the Wizengamot three years ago and she's well on her way to being elected Minister in the next five. He's not worth throwing that away.
The world is the way it is. There are all sorts of reasons, after the War, that people like him have become feared and cast out. He's seen too much carnage, has known the chaos werewolves wreak on people's lives too intimately, to think that that hatred isn't justified. Werewolves are monsters. There's not a lot she can do about it and he refuses to let her waste her life trying.
Hermione narrows her eyes at him and opens her mouth to argue. He could probably go word for word with her. Harry, you are worth it. You're still you. And it's not just about you. This discrimination isn't right. Lupin was facing it twenty years ago, and it's only got worse from there. He wants to tell her the families of those killed by wolves every moon would beg to differ. Some days he wants to grab her and shake her and make her see the way the wolves have torn everything apart.
'Dinner's ready,' Molly calls from the kitchen, and Harry sends up a silent thanks for the reprieve. He gives Hermione's leg a squeeze before he stands, reaching down for Rose and pulling her onto his shoulders again. She giggles at the way he almost needs to bend in half to get through the doorway without smacking her head on it. When he sits down at the table, he leaves Rose on his shoulders, and she giggles harder as everyone pretends to look for her.
Harry takes a deep, calming breath and lets go of the tension shifting inside him. He hates bringing bad memories into this place with him. Instead, he watches as his plate is piled high with lamb chops and mash, steamed veggies and gravy. He lets out a small grin as he sees the drip of blood coming from the rare meat. Molly meets his eyes with a kind smile from across the table, and Harry breathes out and feels himself settle fully. He's safe here.
He is home.