Chapter Text
Harry emerges sluggishly from a dream in which he’d been making a speech to a crowd of people. A sea of indistinguishable faces and muted applause gives way to a cocoon of tangled bedding. He slides one hand across the mattress but finds the other side of the bed cold and empty.
It takes a minute for his brain to catch up as he rubs at his eyes. Of course it’s empty. He can’t remember the last time he hooked up—longer still since he felt like bringing anyone back to Grimmauld Place. And yet he lies there confused for a minute as if something isn’t right, palm flat against the linen, trying and failing to stitch the pieces of his dream back together.
Harry stretches and thinks about going back to sleep, but whatever speech he was giving doesn’t seem like something he wants to return to. It’s Sunday, and he’s due at the Burrow for lunch in a few hours, but otherwise his day is blissfully clear—something that’s less and less common as the election approaches. Downstairs he can hear Kreacher clattering around in the kitchen. The wizened little elf is increasingly cantankerous in his old age and only at Grimmauld Place on the weekends. Harry’s glad he has plans to go out and doesn’t have to listen to yet another meandering rant about the state of his shirt sleeves.
He takes his time in the shower, whistling a tune he doesn’t recognise, and lingers over toast and coffee at the kitchen table. His own face stares back at him from the front page of the Prophet. The headline makes him frown: Potter Pitches Creature Caution. He’s pretty sure that’s not what he said, but if there’s one thing he’s learned while campaigning for office it’s that the newspapers are no more accurate about him now than they were when he was in school.
His owl brings a stack of post carefully pre-sorted by his campaign assistant with the latest poll numbers clipped neatly to the top. It’s looking good, he thinks, feeling the last of his waking tension leave his shoulders. Three weeks to go and he’s on track to be the youngest Minister for Magic in wizarding history. He’ll finally be in a position to make real change.
The Burrow’s crowded and noisy as Harry steps through the Floo, and he has to move quickly not to get tripped by Victoire, spiralling past the fire like a whirling dervish. Molly presses a pile of plates into Harry’s hands and a kiss to his cheek, steering him in the direction of the table.
“Where’s…?” Ron trails off around a mouthful of pilfered Yorkshire pudding.
“Who?” Harry answers absently as he lays the table. But when he looks up again, Ron is shaking his head and shrugging as if he’s forgotten the rest of his question.
“You’re getting dotty in your old age.” Hermione squeezes Ron’s arm fondly and trails Harry around the table laying cutlery beside the plates. The aroma from the kitchen is warm and delicious and Harry fears his stomach may start rumbling at an embarrassing volume.
“Prophet coverage was a bit alarmist this morning, wasn’t it?” Ron tries again, swallowing quickly as his mother comes into the room, fixing him with a warning stare as she wields a gravy boat in each hand.
Harry shrugs. “There’s some bleeding hearts that think we need to focus more on some academic idea of rights than on prioritising wizarding safety. It’s not reflected in the numbers.”
Hermione pauses as if she’s about to say something but then furrows her brow, her mouth a thin line.
“You disagree?” Harry asks.
She shakes her head slowly. “No, I … you’re absolutely right. We need to take a much firmer stance. What Kingsley’s proposing is outrageous.”
Platters of roast chicken float in from the kitchen, arranging themselves neatly down the centre of the table. Harry thinks it’s time they concentrated on that and not whatever nonsense the Prophet has chosen to write about him and says as much.
“Hear hear,” George agrees, leaning right across the table to snag a particularly delicious-looking chicken leg from right under Harry’s nose.
The conversation is easy, as it is every week, and Harry feels relaxed and at home. Rose natters away on his left about a school project she’s been working on studying bees. Even Percy’s obsequiousness seems tolerable as he bends Harry’s ear about some dull Ministry initiative he thinks deserves Harry’s full attention once he’s elected.
It’s hard to imagine, sometimes—if it all comes together the way he hopes—what it will be like to leave the Aurors and have to deal with the likes of Percy and whatever bee he has in his bonnet day in and day out. But it will be worth it, Harry thinks confidently. It’s been over a decade since the War and it’s time the wizarding world faces up to reality and does what it needs to do to make sure something like that never happens again.
And if that means getting the Prophet’s nose out of joint, or having to put up with a few more Percies in his life, well, so be it.
Harry’s determined that death won’t touch his family again.
It’s time to get things back on track.
“So, Harry, counting down the days now, I suppose?” Arthur asks. “I must say, it will be good to have some clear direction from the top.”
Harry nods. It’s not that Kingsley’s been ineffectual as Minister, but he really has started to be very lax. All this talk of tolerance and forgiveness. As soon as he started to advocate for bringing the post-War period of exile, reparations, and magic restrictions for Death Eaters to a close, Harry knew he had to do something. That simply can’t happen.
“He means well,” Harry says diplomatically, though he doesn’t believe it for a second. “But the reality is we’ve extended all the mercy we can. Nobody was Kissed. The Dementors are no longer in Azkaban. The Post-War Prohibitions cannot be relaxed, or we’ll simply face a third war.”
“They should count themselves lucky,” Percy rushes out in agreement, and there’s something about how quickly he sides with Harry that sends a shiver down his spine. Harry takes another sip of wine and tries to ignore it.
“We’re all very proud of you,” Molly says as she gets up to go to the kitchen, patting him on the shoulder as she passes. “Achieving everything you’ve ever wanted.”
The cold shiver seems to take up residence in Harry’s stomach then. All he’s ever wanted? That doesn’t seem right. Politics is necessary, certainly. Stopping the Death Eaters from ever being in a position of power again is vital. And that’s what really matters. But all he’s ever wanted?
He twists his napkin in his lap. His hands feel clammy with sweat.
Harry pushes the feeling of discomfort away. The whole thing is overstated anyway. Those who escaped imprisonment mostly fled the country. They’ve been living the high life, probably, completely unaffected. There’s no reason why they should be allowed to come back now. Kingsley’s had his day, is all. It’s time for someone with a clearer vision of the future to take the lead.
It’s time to get things back on track.
~
On Monday, Harry finds his Auror uniform pressed and hanging in his wardrobe but can’t for the life of him find a clean vest. He rummages around in drawers and digs in the back of his cupboards, exasperated and cursing whatever washing spree Kreacher must have been on over the weekend. He grabs at something white thinking he’s finally succeeded but curses when he discovers it’s not a plain shirt at all. Emblazoned across the chest is a logo that reads Arctic Monkeys. Harry stares at it in confusion.
It’s certainly not his. He’s never seen it before, and can’t work out how it came to be in his drawer. He’s not even sure an ‘arctic monkey’ is a real creature and would put it down to being one of Luna’s flights of fancy except it’s clearly not a woman’s top. It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s running late, the shirt is his size and the logo isn’t going to be visible under his uniform so he tugs it over his head and forgets about it.
Harry’s caseload is still heavy, even though he’s pretty sure these will be his last few weeks on the force, and he spends a frustrating morning surrounded by paperwork. Head Auror Dawlish has been amazing at letting him have as much time off as he needs for campaigning, but Harry can’t let this pile up any longer or Ron will just be stuck with it after he’s gone.
It’s almost two in the afternoon before he forces himself to have a lunch break, taking a clutch of campaign memos with him to read as he heads to a little hole-in-the-wall sandwich place he likes that’s a short walk from the Ministry. He nods at the guy in the open kitchen who grins broadly and gives Harry a thumbs up as he starts automatically making his order without even asking. Harry leans against the tiled wall, trying to focus on talking points for a speech he’s supposed to be giving later in the week.
“Here you go, Harry,” the sandwich guy calls, lining up two neatly wrapped sandwiches on the counter.
Harry frowns. “I wanted a BLT?” He always gets a BLT. And he likes them best from here because the bacon is extra crispy.
Sandwich Guy—maybe his name is Tom? Harry feels like he knows his name but he’s suddenly not sure that it’s Tom—taps the sandwich on the left. “That’s the BLT, the other one’s the egg and cress.”
Harry glances around, feeling like he’s mixed him up with someone else. The little shop is busy, after all. “No, just a BLT.”
It’s maybe-Tom’s turn to look confused. “But you always get both?” And now Harry’s sure he has him mistaken for some other regular, because Harry doesn’t like egg sandwiches and Ron certainly doesn’t and Harry’s never had a regular order for two sandwiches in his life.
“Not me, mate,” he says with a baffled shake of his head and takes the BLT, leaving his Sickles on the counter, and trying to focus on his notes again as he makes his way out of the shop. The thing is, he must have read these talking points before. Parvati’s note at the top says this is the final set of revisions, and she’s his communications director so she would know. But they’re not familiar to him and he’s not sure that they sit quite right. He feels an uncomfortable prickle at the back of his neck.
It’s one thing to take a strong stance on denying any relaxation of the punishments imposed on Death Eaters but this speech is about creature rights, and while it’s true that the likes of Greyback and others got everything they deserved, imposing stricter controls on creatures more generally feels different. Not all creatures are the same.
He must have missed the decisions they made about this as a team. It’s true he’s been working extremely hard, balancing his caseload and his campaigning, and probably Parvati or one of the younger interns has just gotten a little overzealous with the tone.
He’ll come back to it, Harry thinks, tucking the notes inside his jacket and ignoring them for now. He’ll read over it again tomorrow, maybe, when he’s fresh. Get them to soften the language a bit.
It turns out, though, that he doesn’t get the chance. On Tuesday, Harry and Ron manage a major breakthrough in their main case and spend the next few days arresting potions smugglers and overseeing the dismantling of an illegal lab. It results in long hours and little sleep, and Harry finds that the small amount of downtime he has is consumed with demands from Angelina, his campaign manager, for photo ops and interviews. He counts himself lucky he can seemingly do these almost on autopilot. He feels like he used to be reticent about public speaking, but now it’s almost effortless—political rhetoric spilling easily from his mouth.
It’s time to get things back on track.
“You’re doing great,” Angelina says encouragingly, patting him on the arm and straightening his tie between a round of pictures in front of the newly-dedicated War Memorial. “You’re exactly what we need. Clear direction from the top.”
Dennis Creevey, who followed in his brother’s footsteps and became a photographer for the Prophet, calls Harry over again.
Campaigning on top of his usual Auror workload leaves him feeling tired and addled. He finds a pair of Muggle trainers under his bed on Wednesday that he doesn’t even remember buying for himself, white with silver swooshes on the side. He stares at them for a long minute, trying to recall what he’d even want running shoes for, but can’t come up with anything and casts them into the back of his wardrobe with a sigh.
On Thursday, a package is delivered to the Ministry’s Muggle entrance, clearly addressed to Harry, containing a pair of extremely expensive leather gloves and no explanation. He uses the Muggle phonebox nearby to call the retailer to ask about the mix-up and how to send them back and gets an extremely snooty response from the owner saying that there are no returns on bespoke orders.
“But I didn’t order these. They don’t even fit me,” Harry sighs after the man has hung up on him. He figures they must be some ostentatious gift from a well-wisher and throws them in a drawer when he gets home.
He feels stretched thin and like he needs a holiday, so it’s a relief to get to Friday and have Hermione and Ron and the kids over for a barbecue in the garden at Grimmauld Place. It’s a mild English summer evening and the children play late under the trees while the adults enjoy their wine, picking at the remains of dinner and bowls of fresh strawberries for dessert. Eventually Hermione insists it’s well past Hugo’s bedtime, and Ron goes to round up the trail of toys and abandoned socks and shoes strewn through the grass.
Hermione follows Harry into the kitchen, balancing a precarious tower of bowls and plates.
“Shove over, Harry,” she laughs, nudging his hip. “These are heavy.” She pushes his toaster out of the way to make room for her pile.
Harry picks up the toaster to move it, but gets distracted. Plugged into the charmed socket in the corner of his kitchen worktop is a black plug with a snaking cord that doesn’t connect to anything. Harry stares at it in confusion and then puts the toaster down so he can tug it out of the socket.
It looks a little like a Muggle lamp cable, he supposes, though it’s been a long time since he’s used a Muggle lamp. In fact the only charmed socket he uses in the whole house is for the television, and even then the Prophet swears there will be a fully-magical version of that by next year.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Do you know what this is?” He holds the cable up, turning the plug over in his hand. He feels like he should know what it is. A tickle in the back of his mind that’s almost like recognition.
Hermione frowns for a second. “It’s a … charger.”
The word doesn’t sound right. Harry thinks immediately of horses, but he knows that’s not what she means. Even Hermione seems confused, her brow furrowed as if she’s trying very hard to remember something.
“Yes, a charger. For a Muggle electronic device,” she nods finally.
“Like a lamp?”
“No, something you normally use while not plugged in, like a … mobile phone. Merlin I’ve clearly had too much wine. My mind feels positively sluggish.”
Harry’s aware of mobiles from films, but they’ve always seemed a bit inefficient compared to a Patronus.
“Why would it be here?”
“It’s not yours?”
Harry shrugs and shakes his head. “I don’t own a phone. Or anything else Muggle that needs charging.”
Hermione takes it from him, peering at the embossed letters on the plug and tugging a little at the cable.
“Maybe someone left it here by accident. They might have been charging their phone while they were visiting?”
Harry tries to think who’s been by the house lately but none of the likely culprits use phones.
“Dean, maybe,” Hermione suggests, and that makes a certain kind of sense. Except.
“When did we last see Dean?” Harry asks, trying to recall. He and Seamus came for dinner the week before last maybe, or….They were at Ginny’s last match at….
Hermione’s expression seems far away as well. Maybe they’ve both had too much wine. “Oh you know. It must have been last month some time. I bet it’s his.”
She hands the charger to Harry and turns back to the dishes, casting to set them cleaning in the sink. Harry tugs open a kitchen drawer, already overstuffed with odds and ends, and tucks the plug inside. He’ll owl Dean tomorrow and let him know he left it behind.
“Get Ron to take the kids home to bed. I’ll open another bottle of wine.”
~
Harry hopes that with the illegal potions case wrapped up neatly he’ll be able to concentrate more fully on the final leg of his campaign, but if anything he finds himself more worn-down and confused. He’s sleeping terribly, tossing and turning and waking in the middle of the night abruptly from vivid dreams of places he’s never been: a country estate where he goes for walks on wild moors; a crowded dance party on a beach, pressed up against a faceless man’s broad chest.
He’s disoriented for several minutes after waking when it happens—nothing at all like his normal dreams. It makes Harry uncomfortable because the closest thing he can compare it to is the unending moments he was forced to spend in Voldemort’s head. Not that Voldemort was ever doing anything aspirational like dancing in Ibiza, but still. It’s unsettling.
And it doesn’t help that he keeps having the feeling someone has been in his house.
No one has, of course. He checks the wards carefully and more than once. But he finds things in places he knows he didn’t put them. And he feels confused by blank spaces on the walls or shelves where he thinks things should be. But it’s a vague sensation; not precise. It’s not like he can actually identify anything specific that’s missing. And somehow that’s even worse.
He has a fruitless argument with Kreacher about it, who snaps at him that if he wants things moved around he can hire a house elf to work during the week. “Kreacher is old and enjoying the peace and quiet now you’re on your own,” he says, disappearing back to Hogwarts with a pop.
Parvati turns up at his house early in the morning, clutching a bag of pastries and an inhumanly large cup of coffee, but even that doesn’t help as he stares at her speech notes for an address he’s meant to be giving, the words swimming a little.
“Don’t even worry about it,” she soothes. “The words will be up on the Magi-Prompter. All you have to do is read them.”
“I’m not sure they’re quite right, though,” he says, taking another large gulp of coffee and trying to focus. “I think we need to take another pass at the tone.”
She gives him an indulgent smile. “The language is all agreed, Harry. Stop fretting. You’ll be late for work.” He would argue with her, but she’s right. Time keeps running away on him. The sooner the election is over and he can get some rest, the better.
He encounters Dawlish as he steps out of the Floo and feels bad at arriving so late to work, but the Head Auror gives him a wide smile. “Great work on that speech to the cadets last week, very inspiring. I’m sure you’ll have all of their votes.”
Harry’s so tired he’s not sure he can distinguish that speech from any of the others he’s given but he’s glad it’s having the desired effect. It’s important work that he’s doing and he’s glad the Head Auror can see that.
It’s time to get things back on track.
Ron glances across at him, half falling asleep on his hand at work that afternoon and says, “Why don’t we bring some dinner over this evening? You look like you could do with a break.” Harry wants to protest that he’s fine, and also that he still needs to read over Parvati’s new talking points and work out how to fit in an extra couple of hours of door-knocking on Saturday and also—
"Seriously, mate. You're dead on your feet."
And so he finds himself nodding, grateful, and it does help, to just kick back on the couch and chat with them both, the kids at Molly’s for the evening. He suggests they watch a film, but Hermione complains that it’s a dull way to spend time together and argues for a wizarding parlour game. Harry’s pretty sure she mostly likes it because she always beats the pants off Ron and Harry.
“Only if you start with a handicap,” Harry insists.
“Do you have anything to write on,” Hermione asks, digging around in her bag for a quill.
“Sure, let me grab a bit of parchment.”
Harry’s hardly been near his desk at home in the last few days, and he frowns at the teetering piles of papers and reports that he clearly needs to organise. Maybe he can convince Parvati to send one of the campaign interns over to do it. If he asks Kreacher to do it he may never see some of these folders again.
He tugs open a drawer looking for blank parchment, and instead finds a folded piece of paper he doesn’t recognise. It’s typewritten; Muggle. Official-looking. Harry scans it quickly, but it’s hard to understand.
A penalty notice, he reads. It’s a fine, he realises, for a Muggle vehicle. Parked over double white lines, whatever that means.
“C’mon mate, it’s not that vital,” he hears Ron call from the other room, and wanders back to join them, still studying the foreign bit of paper.
“I found some parchment in my bag, Harry,” Hermione says, waving it at him.
“What do you reckon this is?” he asks, holding out the letter for her to take. She tilts it slightly toward the fire so the light is better, frowning as she reads the text.
“This is an infringement notice,” she says, though she sounds uncertain, turning it over to look for more information on the back.
Ron lets out a chuckle. “What did you do, mate? Not a good look for someone running for Minister to be getting fined. You’re the law and order candidate!”
“It’s not mine,” Harry rolls his eyes at Ron, looking back at Hermione for some sort of explanation.
“It has your name on it, Harry. But it’s … this is a parking ticket for a car?”
“Exactly. I don’t own a car. I don’t even know how to drive.”
He’d thought about learning, after the War. But then it seemed unnecessary. It wasn’t as if he needed to go anywhere that he couldn’t get to by Apparating or Floo. He didn’t even have Sirius’ old motorcycle anymore, though he couldn’t remember what had happened to it.
Hermione hums, considering the notice again. “I wonder if someone has used your name. Muggles have a concept they call identity theft, where a person pretends to be someone else to defraud them, gets access to their bank accounts and so on.”
Harry thinks about pointing out that wizards had a similar concept until Gringotts installed Polyjuice-detection wards after their visit during the War, but decides against it.
“Be a bit weird, wouldn’t it?” Ron asks, reaching over with the wine bottle and topping up their glasses. “Stealing the name of the most famous wizard in the world?”
“Well, a Muggle wouldn’t know that unless they knew you, Harry. Do you think this is connected to the Dursleys somehow?”
Harry hasn’t thought about his cousin in years.
“I doubt it,” he shakes his head. “I don’t think they’d want to be associated with me even to rip me off.”
“How do you even have this?” Hermione asks, passing the notice to Ron, who has reached out and waved a hand for it.
“It was in my desk drawer. Do you think someone is pranking me? How would it even have gotten in here.”
He feels uneasy and paranoid. He doesn’t want to tell them both about his fears because they make absolutely no sense. No one has been in his house. He has the specialist Auror ward diagnostics he’s repeatedly cast to prove it.
“It’s a good point,” Ron says. “How do you get Muggle mail at an unplottable house?”
“Is it addressed here?”
“Harry Potter, PO Box 21 389, London N7 8JZ. What does that mean?”
“It’s a postbox,” Hermione explains. “Just like an owlbox. You can pay to have one, rather than having mail sent to your own home.”
“So we can go and find out who’s behind this, then. Whoever used your name must have signed up to get the post sent there. Easiest case I’ll solve, I reckon.” Ron chuckles, wiping at a smear of cheese on his Auror uniform.
Harry nods, taking the notice back. He keeps looking at the plain institutional text. His name, right there in black and white. Something about it makes him deeply uneasy.
~
“Should we open a file?” Harry muses, when Ron suggests they go to the Mailboxes, Etc branch in Islington the following morning.
Ron side-eyes the pile of paperwork on his desk and wrinkles his nose. “Let’s just see what we find first, shall we? Might be nothing. If it’s Seamus pulling some sort of practical joke, then we’d have to sort that all out here as well. None of us needs that headache.”
They transfigure their uniforms and head to the address Harry looks up on a conjured map.
The shop is small, a cramped counter with appliances behind it—a photocopier, Harry thinks. Some other things he doesn’t recognise, but feels like he should. Along one wall tiny metal doors of the postboxes are lined up in rows.
“We’re going to need a key,” Harry mutters under his breath, glancing at the disinterested employee with his feet up behind the desk reading a magazine.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Ron grins, touching the correct door with his finger and casting a barely audible wandless Alohomora.
Inside, they find a clutch of envelopes and advertising flyers. Harry takes them out and Ron relocks the door.
“THANK YOU for your assistance,” he calls a little too enthusiastically to the clerk who gives him a bemused look, and Harry drags him out onto the footpath before he embarrasses them further.
The flyers are of no use—ads for office products and pizza delivery and real estate listings. The first envelope Harry tears open is a reminder notice about the parking ticket.
“Better pay up, mate,” Ron laughs. “They’ll impound your imaginary car.”
Harry elbows him in the ribs as he opens the next envelope. It’s a receipt for a donation to an LGBT charity, with a handwritten note along the bottom “So grateful for your support Harry.”
“Did you give them money?” Ron asks, but Harry’s already shaking his head. He’s never been particularly political about his sexuality, and he’s certainly never given any thought to Muggle charities.
“Well, at least whoever’s pranking you has a heart, I guess,” Ron says.
Harry’s reshuffling the pile of post to get to the last one when his blood runs cold. The final envelope isn’t addressed to him at all. It’s addressed to Draco Malfoy.
That’s a name Harry hasn’t seen or heard in a very long time.
Ron lets out a low whistle. “What the fuck.”
Harry tears into the envelope. It might not be addressed to him, but whoever the hell is playing this stupid game can get stuffed if they’re expecting privacy as far as he’s concerned.
It’s a hold notice from the library at the London School of Economics, letting Draco Malfoy - Student ID number 9437894 - know that his copy of Davis, Lance E. and Robert A. Huttenback. 2007. Mammon and the Pursuit of the Empire - The Political Economy of British Imperialism 1860-1912 is ready for collection.
“Some sort of practical joke, mate. Has to be.”
And, of course. It must be. Draco Malfoy fled to Europe with his mother as soon as his father was sentenced to life in prison and hasn’t been seen since. Harry certainly hasn’t given him a moment’s thought, except perhaps in the general sense that life after the War was a lot more pleasant without the poisonous likes of his ilk around every day. And that under no circumstances should they be allowed to return to wizarding life.
They should count themselves lucky.
But in any event, Draco Malfoy is definitely not attending a Muggle university in London. So whoever has dreamed up this joke has a warped sense of humour.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this,” Ron says, pulling out the fake Muggle police ID that Aurors use when they need to get people to comply with their instructions before the Obliviators turn up.
He goes back into the shop and brandishes it at the employee who gets to his feet, but doesn’t seem particularly intimidated.
“We need to see all the paperwork around the opening of this posthole,” Ron announces assertively.
Harry sighs and shows one of the envelopes to the clerk. “This box number here. What records do you maintain about who signed up for it and when?”
The man tugs open a dented filing cabinet and rifles disinterestedly through a bunch of tired-looking hanging files in mismatched colours, eventually plucking out a sheet of paper and staring at it for a long minute.
“Is this a joke?” he asks finally, looking back at Harry and Ron.
“Excuse me?”
The man waves up at the corners of the shop’s ceiling, looking around as if for ghosts or cobwebs. “Like, am I on telly or summat?”
“Could we see that?” Harry asks, taking the piece of paper from him. It’s an account opening form, completed with Harry’s details, in Harry’s handwriting. And at the bottom is a photocopy of a driving licence with Harry’s face on it.
“Seriously,” Ron whistles beside him. “What the fuck.”
Harry’s chest feels tight, like he can’t get quite enough air in his lungs, staring at this official-looking depiction of himself that he’s never seen before. Harry asks the man for a copy of the piece of paper, which he begrudgingly makes, all the while glancing over their shoulders as if someone is about to burst forth from somewhere and explain what’s going on. Harry wishes someone would, actually, because nothing about this makes much sense. If it’s a joke, it’s not very funny.
They thank the man for his help and head back out to the street. Harry rubs at the back of his neck. There’s a headache building high behind his eyes and staring at this stupid form isn’t helping.
“Let’s get back to the office and make a plan. We can Apparate from around the back of that pub,” Ron says, waiting for a gap in the traffic to duck across the road.
For a split second Harry’s distracted by something and he swivels around to glance along the crowded footpath. He catches a glimpse of bright blond hair that he imagines for a moment might have been Draco Malfoy. Ridiculous, of course. He hasn’t thought about that tosser in a decade, and now someone is deliberately trying to get Harry to think about him again. Merlin only knows why. Harry wonders where Malfoy wound up. Probably swilling expensive wine in some chateau in Burgundy. Definitely not in a crowd of commuters heading into the Highbury & Islington tube station, in any event.
Harry shakes his head to clear it and jogs after Ron.
Back in their cramped little office at the Ministry, the form seems to make even less sense.
“We’ve got to tell Dawlish, mate,” Ron says with a sigh. “If someone is out there passing themselves off as you; faking your ID? Well, that’s a real problem.”
Harry can’t do anything but agree. He’s stumped about what’s going on, and the idea of someone masquerading as him feels as invasive as the idea that someone might have been in Grimmauld Place.
Harry’s expecting to be told they have to wait a while for an appointment to see the Head Auror, but a memo flaps back into the room within the hour, demanding they both come to his office immediately.
Dawlish is wearing the tight-lipped expression that usually means he’s displeased. Maybe he’s annoyed that Harry and Ron have started half-investigating this unofficially themselves instead of following proper protocol, but Harry decides not to wait to find out and barrels into an explanation.
“You think someone is harassing you?”
Harry shrugs. “It hasn’t felt malicious, exactly. But I think they’ve been in my house, so there’s a security threat.”
Ron gives him a concerned glance at this revelation, but holds his tongue.
“Start at the beginning,” Dawlish insists. “Leave nothing out.”
Harry tries to be as objective as he can about it, but it’s hard to work out which things to include, and which things might be just… odd coincidences.
“I’ve found things at home that I don’t recognise. Items of clothing, Muggle things. And then we discovered this letter, which led us to a Muggle postbox service near my house.”
He shows the post to Dawlish. For one split second, he considers holding back the library notice addressed to Malfoy. He’s not even sure where the instinct comes from, but it feels harder than it should to pass it over for Dawlish to examine.
The Head Auror’s expression gives nothing away. He straightens the post into a pile and tucks it into a folder.
“Yes. Well. We’ll get the wards at your home re-checked and strengthened, obviously.” Dawlish scribbles some notes on a bit of parchment in his tiny, cramped script. Harry can’t make out what they say.
“It’s vitally important that you tell me if anything else unusual happens. And only me.”
“I don’t think it’s that serious,” Harry argues, although he’s not sure he believes that himself. “Seems more like a prank than anything. A little unnerving, maybe. But there hasn’t been anything threatening in it.”
Yet.
“Only me,” Dawlish reiterates, ignoring Harry’s dismissal altogether and folding his note into a crane that quickly swoops away.
It’s only that evening as Harry’s getting undressed that he realises he still has the parking ticket in his jacket pocket. He should have given it to Dawlish with the papers from the postbox, but he’d forgotten. He’ll find out which Auror’s been assigned the case tomorrow and give it directly to them. Harry thinks for a moment about also mentioning Malfoy, but decides against it. It wasn’t actually Malfoy he’d seen in the street, after all. Just the idea of him. The last thing he needs is for Dawlish to start thinking he’s going crazy.
Really, if anyone is starting to question his mental health, it’s Harry himself.
He tells himself it’s just because he’s unsettled by the idea someone might have gotten into Grimmauld Place without him realising. But even after the Auror Ward Specialists have been and reset everything top to bottom, it doesn’t seem to help.
Late at night he gets this feeling. Like there’s someone else in the house right then. The first few times it happens he paces from attic to basement, wand out, casting spells to reveal intruders. But he gradually comes to realise it’s not that he’s seen or heard someone. It’s more that he’s just … expecting someone to be there. That when he’s lying on the couch he feels like he could call out to the kitchen and someone would answer.
And that doesn’t make any sense at all.