Chapter Text
The Ministry quietly came to life as early workers ambled through the halls and the lifts to the various departments. A few stray letters fluttered overhead, nothing like the chaos of forms and interdepartmental memos that would fill the space in a few hours.
Nodding hello to those he recognized, Harry made his way to his cubicle on Level Two and, as usual, was one of the first to arrive in his department. He plopped down in his chair. The stack of files on his desk was reaching dangerous heights, leaning precariously to one side. With their latest case solved, he knew he’d need to start digging in. Wrapping up a case was an amazing feeling—solving the puzzle, knowing that someone dangerous was taken off the streets. Unfortunately, for every lead and piece of evidence that was tracked down, another page would need to be written up and added to the report file.
“Try these,” Ron said, as he entered their cubicle, shoving a tin of baked goods in front of Harry’s face. His empty stomach grumbled as the smell of freshly baked scones hit his nose.
“Newest batch?” He grabbed one and took a large bite. The flavour was mostly okay, but it was somehow very dry without being crumbly. He felt like his mouth was being suctioned closed from the lack of moisture, unable to open enough to even chew.
“I think I got the texture right this time.” Ron sat down at his desk, spinning his chair back around to face Harry.
Harry nodded, looking around for something to drink—yesterday’s cold leftover tea would have been fine. There was nothing. He slowly kept chewing, hoping that his mouth could produce enough saliva to eventually work through this bite. Not that he would ever complain about Ron’s new hobby. The majority of baked goods Ron brought in were excellent. Harry would never say anything that would threaten his morning treats, particularly since he was living the bachelor’s life in Grimmauld Place sans house elf. Working late so often, he rarely bothered with grocery shopping any more, relying on takeaway most nights. At present, his cupboards were looking pathetically bare. He was pretty sure he was down to condiments at this point.
Ron continued to talk about this latest batch of scones and all the things he did differently this time. Harry nodded and continued to slowly work his way through his first bite, feeling relief when he could finally feel his tongue again.
“Tea?” Harry asked, as he quickly put the scone down on his desk and grabbed his mug.
“Nah. I’m good.”
Harry nodded and headed over to the break area, listening to a few Junior Aurors talk excitedly about their first case while he made his morning tea. Some days it was hard to believe it had already been fourteen years since he’d joined the force, twelve since he’d completed training and become a full-fledged Auror. There were days that were hard: cases that were particularly gruesome, criminals that got away, meetings that could have been a memo. But, Harry still loved his work. He loved the satisfaction of locking someone away that had hurt others. He liked the feeling he got after figuring out a clue after weeks of obsessing. And, he liked knowing he was helping make the world a safer place.
The kettle finally whistled, pulling Harry out of his thoughts. A few minutes later, with one steaming mug of tea in hand, he went back to the cubicle he shared with Ron. Their first few years as Aurors they had spent with other partners, more senior Aurors that could show them the ropes and help them with all the additional learning they needed to do on the job. Training could only teach them so much. So, they’d bid their time until they could ask to be partnered together, and had been partners for the past four years. They worked well together, both complementing each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Harry sat down, dreading a day with only paperwork to do, but before he could pull one of the files out to get started, Robards popped into view.
“Potter, Weasley. My office.” He walked brusquely back towards his office while Ron and Harry shared a look. Robards wasn’t one for pleasantries, so Harry and Ron followed him quietly until they were in his office.
“New case.” Robards picked up a file from his desk and handed it over to the two Aurors.
Harry grabbed the folder and nodded, trying not to sigh outwardly with relief—paperwork could wait another day.
“Anything we should know?” Ron asked.
“Break-in and a cursed artefact. You’ll be working with Malfoy on this, so, Potter, I expect you to act like the professional this time.” Robards looked at Harry for a long second.
“Yes sir,” Harry replied, wincing internally. It wasn’t like he’d wanted to get into a screaming match with Malfoy in the middle of a crime scene. If Malfoy could manage to act professionally for more than two seconds, they would have never had an issue in the first place.
“Understood,” Ron said, crowding Harry through the door.
“Fucking Malfoy, why is it always Malfoy?” Harry asked as they got to the lift, pushing the button harder than necessary.
Ron looked slightly exasperated as he turned to Harry. “Because Bill is currently somewhere in South America, and he’s the next best curse breaker the Ministry has—at least according to Bill, and he’d know.” Ron sighed. “I don’t understand how I can manage to work with the git these days and you still can’t. Even Hermione gets along well enough with him at work when he gets called in for projects in her department.”
“Because he doesn’t start fights with the two of you!” Harry exclaimed as they entered the lift.
Ron looked at him flatly.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Harry huffed.
As they walked through Diagon Alley towards the crime scene, Harry flipped through the file.
An antiques and charmed collectables shop had been broken into. It appeared a few trunks with new acquisitions from an estate sale were rifled through, but the owner of the shop wasn’t sure if anything had been stolen because she hadn’t yet done an inventory on all the items in the trunks. Several objects looked to have been dropped or abandoned during the crime, and it was one of these objects that was causing the most concern. No one knew what the object did, but the readings were what charms and curse experts classified as D-5, the highest level of artefact magic, which indicated something that was messing with powers far beyond what any magical object should. Instead of a simple break-in case, one that the MLE patrol force could have handled, it was now a high priority Auror case.
As Harry entered the dark and dusty shop, he saw a few other Ministry personnel wandering around the shop, sidestepping the larger antiques on the floor and peering at shelves packed with all sorts of objects. The Ministry photographer was already busy at work, her camera clicking away as she captured the scene. In the middle of the room, Malfoy was huddled over an object on the floor, his light blonde hair a stark contrast to his sombre dark grey robes.
“Of course they’d send their Golden Boy,” Malfoy drawled from his crouched position, barely glancing up, as Harry walked over to him.
“Shut it, Malfoy. What do we have here?”
“Couldn’t be bothered to read the file again?”
“I read the file this time!” Harry exclaimed, feeling immediately dumb for taking the bait.
Malfoy snorted softly. “Sure you did. Well, the leather and gold pieces look homemade, possibly recent given the way the materials are cut, but we’d need an expert to verify. That’s not the problem, though. It’s the stone that’s sending off readings like I’ve never seen. This is- I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Malfoy sounded actually concerned about the readings, which definitely piqued Harry’s curiosity. In Harry’s experience, Malfoy treated even the most dangerous artefacts as if they were a bit beneath him in skill. Something rattling him was disconcerting.
Harry knelt just across from Malfoy, bending over what appeared to be a thin leather necklace laying on the scuffed up wood floor. A smooth black stone, about the size of an egg, was attached to the necklace by a golden rod that pierced its sides. It looked like the stone might spin if one were to flick it. Inside the stone, a dark substance swirled, almost as if the rock itself were liquid. There was something interesting about the stone—something that begged for closer inspection. Harry leaned in to get a better look.
“Careful! Don’t touch it. With these kinds of readings, there’s no telling what contact with a person will do to it,” Malfoy said, with exasperation.
“I wasn’t going to touch it, Malfoy.” Harry grit his teeth and sat back, curiosity quickly replaced by irritation.
“Okay, well now that you’ve gotten a good look, let me do my job.” Malfoy looked at him expectantly.
Harry took out a pad of parchment and self-inking quill. “I need to record and notate every item around it and the placement in the room before you start messing with it.”
“I don’t mess with things,” Malfoy ground out. “You need to let me stabilise it first, then you can do whatever recording you need to do.” Malfoy's eyes narrowed dangerously.
“If we don’t get everything recorded, we won’t have a complete idea of the whole scene if your spell work goes wrong. We don’t even know that we have all the facts yet.” Harry looked at him in a challenge.
“I’m not going to mess up your bloody crime scene, Potter,” Malfoy spat. “I realise that you think I’m incompetent, but surely someone at the Ministry has explained I’m the best person for this job, so kindly give me five minutes to do it! And, I think we both know of the two of us who the more likely candidate is for fucking up a crime scene or have you forgotten Aberdeen?” Malfoy’s mouth quirked in a mocking smirk.
Harry felt his cheeks flush. “I don’t really know anything about your abilities, actually, including how you bribed your way into this position-”
“Says the Saviour who gets whatever he wants handed to him on a silver platter. I worked my arse off to get this job,” Malfoy said in a harsh whisper, glancing around at the other Department of Magical Law Enforcement staff milling around the room. “And fuck you for suggesting otherwise. Maybe the Boy Wonder doesn’t remember what it’s like to work hard for things, but the rest of us still do.”
Harry felt himself vibrating with anger as he leaned towards Malfoy, dropping his hand to his side to brace his body.
“Stop- you’re too close!” Malfoy exclaimed, just as Harry felt his hand brush the egg-shaped stone.
Harry froze, but it was already too late. Malfoy seemed to register what happened a split-second later, his eyes going wide, but he didn’t get his wand up in time. A bright purple light suddenly shot out of the object and swirled around the two men, shimmering slightly. Before either could react, the light dissipated.
They both lifted their wands, scanning the room and each other in a panic. To the side of the room, Ron stood frozen, staring at the scene that just unfolded.
Harry looked around quickly and couldn’t see anything wrong. He looked down at his hands, lowering his wand slightly. Nothing. He looked back up at Malfoy.
“What happened?” Harry asked, some fear in his voice.
“I- I don’t know.” Malfoy was patting himself down, eyes still wide in panic. “Those readings... we should-”
Malfoy started hurriedly casting spells on both of them, muttering under his breath. When he finally stopped and nodded, they both started to sag in relief.
“Okay. It look- I think we’re okay.” Malfoy dropped to the floor from his crouched position, letting out a loud sigh.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Ron said as he walked over. “Are you both okay?”
Malfoy shot him a dirty look and then turned back on Harry, nostrils flaring. “You imbecile! You could have gotten us both killed! I don’t care what you think of me and how I got this job, you could at least bother to follow basic fucking safety protocols.”
Before Harry could reply, Ron was dragging Harry towards the door. “Malfoy, we’ll just let you finish up in here, and do our stuff after.”
Malfoy looked like he was shaking with anger as they walked out to the street.
“That no good, bloody-” Harry spat. Now that the initial panic was over, Harry felt heat rushing to his face and his temper rising.
“Harry.” Ron looked at him. “You need to calm down. I’m not saying that Malfoy isn’t a git, I know we can agree on that until the end of our days, but you’ve got to stop letting him get to you. You could have gotten really hurt; we all could have gotten really hurt.”
“Everyone just acts like he doesn’t start it every single time! It’s completely fine for him to walk around being a bastard to someone he works with, but if I say anything back, suddenly I’m the bad guy! How can you stand working with him?”
“I’ve got two kids at home who never let me sleep, a wife who is often stressed about her new job, and a house and my own career to worry about. Frankly, I don’t have the energy to let it get to me anymore. And, I don’t give enough of a crap about Malfoy these days to care what he thinks about me. You need to let it go.”
Harry deflated slightly. He knew Ron was right, but just the presence of Malfoy was enough to make his blood boil. Malfoy still acted like he was better than everyone, better than Harry as if the war never even happened. Or worse—as if it were some mild inconvenience from his past that he just needed to brush off before moving on with his life.
But, Harry also knew he needed to be a professional here, even if Malfoy wouldn’t, and calm down. He found himself increasingly embarrassed by his behaviour every time he lost his temper with Malfoy. Somehow just being around him made him feel like a teenager again—all anger and hormones and irrationality. He cursed Malfoy internally for bringing out this side of him. In all other areas of his life, he acted like a mature adult, but the minute Malfoy came even into his periphery, somehow he reverted back to an angry fifteen-year-old. And, now he’d probably get in trouble with his boss, again .
Harry blanched slightly when he thought about this getting back to Robards. There were enough Ministry staff at the scene - people securing the site and the photographer from forensics - that Harry knew Robards would hear about this by the end of the day. Harry worked on staying calm while they waited for Malfoy to finish up.
“You’ll have my report in the morning,” Malfoy said coldly, as he walked by the two Aurors.
Ron gave Harry a look that clearly was meant to remind him to keep his mouth shut. Harry managed to not start up another fight and walked back into the building for them to finish up their investigation.
As they walked back towards their cubicle later that day with their case file now thicker with new evidence, Harry felt some shame creeping in. Surely at 32 years old, he was too old to let Malfoy goad him like a schoolboy. He had set off a potentially dangerous artefact just because Malfoy had been rude to him.
Harry sighed, sitting down on his chair with a plop and tossing the case file on his desk.
“Potter!” Robards came bursting into their cubicle, his face red. “We are going to have a long talk about your behaviour tomorrow. But for now, you need to get to St Mungo’s.”
“Sir, I don’t think that the artefact did anything. Malfoy ran some tests and we both felt fine after,” Harry explained, sitting up straight and trying to look like his most professional self.
“You don’t know what that artefact did or did not do. Weasley, take Potter to St. Mungo’s immediately and see that he gets a full checkup.” Robards gave Harry one last irritated look and then said, “Tomorrow, Potter” as he walked back out.
Ron stood up immediately. “Let’s go.” Harry grit his teeth and followed Ron out and towards the Floo to the hospital, deciding this might be the worst day he’d had in a long while.
After several hours of waiting, spells, prodding, and precautionary potions, Harry was finally released from St Mungo’s with a clean bill of health.
“I told you I felt fine,” Harry muttered to Ron as they wound through the halls of the hospital back to the lifts.
“And I wasn’t about to disobey Robards. Look, just be happy you’re alive and that object didn’t rip a hole in reality. We’ll deal with Robards tomorrow and hopefully, no more cursed object cases will come in while Bill’s still out of the country.”
Harry sighed, pushing through the main doors to the hospital. Bill had left Gringotts for a Ministry job when his kids were young. He still had to travel occasionally, but far less often than when he worked for the bank. Harry supposed he should have been grateful that he usually got to work with Bill.
“Okay, I’m off to spend time with Hermione and the kids.”
“Night, Ron.” Harry turned and decided to walk for a bit before apparating. The early summer air felt refreshing after several hours breathing in the dry and too sanitised air of the hospital. The late June sun still wouldn’t go down for a couple of hours. For having been an entirely shite day, it was a beautiful evening, not too cold or too warm, the skies clear. He walked for some time, feeling the stress melt away. Eventually, when he felt like he’d calmed down fully, he apparated home.
Landing on the top step with a practised ease, Harry pushed through the front door. The dread of his upcoming meeting with Robards was starting to weigh on him.
Harry knew he was a good Auror. He had an excellent closure rate, and even if he couldn’t manage to be professional around Malfoy, Harry was known for being good with victims and always staying within professional boundaries with criminals. He hoped that would work in his favour and his punishment wouldn’t be too severe. If this were the first time this issue had come up, he’d be less worried, but he’d already been written up twice due to arguments with Malfoy while at a crime scene, so he knew it didn’t look good. Fucking Malfoy.
Harry wondered if Malfoy even got reprimanded at all, or if he managed to worm his way out of it like he’d wormed his way onto the job. He couldn’t imagine why else they’d hire someone so rude and condescending, regardless of what Bill said about him. The worst part of it was that no one else seemed to notice; Malfoy was all polite and professional to everyone else’s face, seemingly saving up his outward animosity for Harry.
After attempting and failing to rummage around for some food, he called it an early night. His house always felt so empty, and lately, it was showing signs of disuse—dust and dirt accumulating in the less used areas. After spending some time immediately after the war renovating, trying to make it feel like the living could exist in the house again, it had slowly crept back to its sad state. Furniture worn and dusty, floors dingy, the air feeling heavy with neglect.
At first he hadn’t noticed how much he avoided being home, just chalking it up to being busy at work—trying to learn the ropes and prove himself as more than the Boy Who Lived and as a genuine Auror. But over the years, he started to notice that he just didn’t want to be home. Even dreading holidays and weekends where there wasn’t any work to do. He’d pick up extra cases, offer to stay late and help out with things, anything to avoid having to think too deeply about how profoundly dissatisfied he’d turned out to be with his life.
Working late became the norm, and though Ron occasionally got on his case about it, he knew his friend was generally relieved that Harry was happy to pick up his slack while he had little ones at home.
While he tried to make sure to get away enough to see his godchildren once in a while, he knew he was absent too often. Teddy was now a teenager and too busy with his friends to care much, but Ron and Hermione’s kids, Rose and Hugo, small as they were, still wanted to see him. He also tried to make it to Sunday dinners at the Weasley’s occasionally, but those were getting further and further apart as well. After Ginny and he had split after the war, he’d stopped going altogether, thinking he might be less than welcome. After he’d missed Christmas, Mrs Weasley finally put a stop to that with a howler explaining that she expected family to show up for holidays.
Harry would be forever grateful for the Weasleys and knew they considered him family, but somehow, after the war, he always felt just on the outside. He knew they loved him like their own, but somehow it never replaced that aching feeling that he was still missing something, missing his own family that was long gone. Grief for a life that he didn’t even remember. So he threw himself into work and tried not to think about it too much.
When he’d finally drag himself home at the end of a long day, he’d generally go straight to bed or watch tv in his study that he had warded to allow electronics to work. But generally, he couldn’t stand being in his house. It was big and empty and full of broken dreams of the family he had hoped to one day fill the space with. But every time he thought of selling and getting someplace smaller, he felt like he was throwing in the towel. He’d become irrationally convinced that if he downsized, he’d never have a family of his own. So, he kept his too big house with all of its empty rooms and avoided spending too much time there.
As he got ready for bed, his thoughts spun back around to the inevitable reaming out he was in for in the morning and sighed. Hopefully, this all would look better in the morning.
Harry woke feeling refreshed as his wand went off, and he had a good solid minute before he remembered that he was dreading going to work that day. He tried to remind himself he was lucky that he wasn’t actually in St Mungo’s suffering the effects of some terrible curse... or dead. But a small part of his brain thought he might prefer laying in a bed at St. Mungo’s to dealing with Robards.
With a deep sigh and great reluctance, Harry forced himself out of bed.
A short while later, he exited the Ministry floo, and a witch in a purple robe ran right into him.
“Sorry,” she said quickly and hurried on her way. Harry laughed to himself. He was pretty sure that was the same witch that had run into him just yesterday too. He wondered if she worked nights in some department and was always raring to get out of there first thing in the morning.
He slowly made his way through the winding atrium.
Like most Ministry workers, Harry hated the new monstrosity of a statue in the Atrium. The statue was actually an enormous circular piece of marble with a wide curving path cut through the middle, forcing any Atrium traffic through the statue instead of around it. Along the path were carved scenes of Wizarding-Magical Being history. The problem wasn’t in the art or the meaning, but the design. Instead of promoting recollection and remembrance of their problematic history, it caused daily irritation and bottlenecks of Ministry workers trying to get to and from work.
The statue was one of Hermione’s first missions at the Ministry after the war. Both she and the artist had insisted the design would give people time to contemplate the meaning of the scenes. Harry was pretty sure not a single person was contemplating anything other than how frustrating it made everyone’s daily walk into and out of work. Always the loyal friend, Harry often found himself defending the statue to random co-workers, even as he secretly agreed with them.
He eventually made it to his desk and felt dread settle in his bones. He glanced at the giant stack of files that he hadn’t gotten a chance to start yesterday. Well, at least if Robards put him on desk duty, he’d get a chance to catch up on his paperwork, he thought wryly.
A few minutes later, Ron shoved another container of scones under his nose. “Try these.”
Harry laughed. “Another batch?” Ron obsessed over one recipe at a time until he got it right. “I’m going to get a cup of tea first, but I promise I’ll have one right after.”
“Alright, let me know what you think of the texture of this batch though. I think I finally got it right,” Ron said as Harry walked away.
Harry didn’t know if Ron had managed to fix the dryness, but he figured he should probably have a cup of tea ready until Ron moved on to the next recipe. After procuring a large mug of tea, he ventured back and immediately tasted the scone. The flavour was still not great, and it was definitely too dry again. Harry quickly took a sip of tea this time and felt the scone soften in his mouth. Much better.
A few minutes later, Robards appeared in the cubicle entrance. Harry felt his stomach drop out and straightened his posture immediately.
“Potter, Weasley. My office.” Harry gave Ron a look as they quickly followed Robards to his office.
Wondering if Ron would be temporarily reassigned to a new partner, Harry took a deep breath and entered the office.
“New case.” Robards thrust a case file towards them. Harry’s heart jumped, and he felt a flutter of hope that whatever disciplinary action awaited him might be put off. Perhaps they were too busy for Robards to deal with it just yet.
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Harry said quickly, herding Ron out of the office.
Ron looked at him oddly. “In a rush much?”
“Just happy to have a case,” Harry replied, feeling a smile creep up on his lips. They headed straight for the lifts. Harry knew he’d still get disciplined eventually for the incident—not only for getting into another unprofessional argument with Malfoy but also for setting off a potentially cursed object. He could hope, though, that the longer it took to come up, the more time Robards had to cool off about it.
“Where to?” Ron asked. Harry flipped open the file to look at the info sheet that had the address and case overview on it. It was the shop.
“Huh.” Harry frowned and stopped in his tracks. Ron leaned over, reading over Harry’s shoulder.
“Come on, let’s go,” Ron set off for the Floo to Diagon Alley. Once they were walking down the cobblestone road, Harry continued to flip through the file.
“Why do they have us going back there? And why did he call it a new case?” Harry asked, mostly just to himself.
“What are you talking about?” Ron looked over at him.
“The shop—the one we went to yesterday.” Harry opened the file towards Ron to show him the same case description.
“You feeling alright, mate?” Ron asked, as they turned the corner to the shop.
“Fine. I already told you that last night.” Harry looked up at him confused and followed Ron into the shop.
A few Ministry personnel wandered around the shop, scooting around the larger antiques and collectables. The crime scene photographer was once again busy collecting photographic evidence of the shelves full of dusty artifacts. Everything looked the same, except Malfoy who was standing over the object. When they entered, Malfoy looked up at them, brow furrowed, and then looked back at the object.
Harry waited for the anger or at the very least a sarcastic retort about how he was being let back on the scene, but none came. He walked carefully over to Malfoy, reminding himself to stay calm and not let himself get baited into a fight. “Do you know why they have us back here?”
Malfoy looked up, brow still furrowed. “What?”
“Did something new happen since yesterday? Normally we just work the case, but Robards handed it back to us—I thought maybe something happened.” Harry explained.
“You remember?” Malfoy asked carefully.
“What?”
“You remember being here? Yesterday?”
“Of course I remember... why wouldn’t I remember that?” Harry asked, trying to figure out if Malfoy was taking the piss.
“Oh, thank Merlin,” Malfoy said letting out a long breath.
“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, starting to get concerned.
“Everyone else... it was like yesterday never happened. I thought...” Malfoy ran a hand through his hair and let out a slightly hysterical laugh.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure, fine.” Malfoy said, still looking a little unhinged. “And you don’t know why we are here?”
“I thought you knew. Robards just handed me the file, so I came here. I thought it was a little strange because it was the same file as yesterday, so I thought you knew why we needed to come back.”
“What do you mean it was the same file as yesterday?” Malfoy asked slowly.
“Just that. It’s the same... none of the additions we made to it yesterday.” Harry said, now realising that was a little strange also. Hadn’t the file been on his desk?
“Potter... Can you tell me what happened this morning?”
“With the file?”
“Yes, or just-” Malfoy ran his hand through his hair again, eyes a little wild. “What happened today when you left your house? Just humour me, please.”
Harry wondered again if he was being messed with, but the please took him off-guard. Malfoy was never this polite with him.
“Erm- I flooed in and then went to my office, Ron offered me a scone and then Robards called us in his office and gave us the file.”
“Okay, and what happened yesterday morning?” Malfoy asked carefully.
“I mean pretty much the same,” Harry replied, still confused. “My mornings aren’t really that interesting.”
“Pretty much the same? Or exactly the same?”
“What do you...” Harry thought for a minute about the woman at the Floo. “A witch ran into me just outside of the Ministry floo yesterday and I’m pretty sure it was the same woman today.”
“Was she dressed the same?”
“Erm- yes.”
Malfoy exhaled. “And then did anyone talk to you before you got the file?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Please just... I’ll explain in a minute.” Malfoy looked so worried that Harry was starting to panic even though he didn’t understand what was going on.
“Ron came in and offered me a scone.”
“And he did the same yesterday?”
“Yeah...”
“Did that seem odd that he did the same thing both days?”
“Not really, he’s been on this baking kick where he makes the same thing every day until he gets the recipe right.”
Malfoy looked up at the ceiling, and then took a deep breath. “Weasley, did you bring in scones to work yesterday?”
“What?”
“Just-” Malfoy huffed in frustration.
“As yesterday was Sunday, that would be no,” Ron answered slowly. “Harry, I'm going to make sure we get all the photos, are you okay over there?” Ron looked back and forth between the two of them.
“Yeah, erm- we’re fine. Thanks.” Harry turned back to Malfoy.
Malfoy let out a somewhat crazed laugh.
“What is going on?” Harry asked. “Malfoy! What is going on?”
Malfoy rubbed his hands over his face. “We’re reliving yesterday.”
“What? That’s not possible. There aren’t any time turners left and no one knows how to recreate that magic,” Harry explained, feeling a creeping panic as he replayed in his head all the events of the day so far. “And wait—we’d still be here right?! There’d be two of me and two of you. Why aren’t we here then?”
“I have no idea. I have no idea what happened, but somehow, and I’ll put money on it having to do with this object right here, we went back.”
Harry looked at the device, feeling more ominous about it than he did at any point yesterday and feeling foolish he’d let his anger at Malfoy get in the way of being careful around such a powerful artefact.
“But it didn’t even take us back immediately,” Harry said. “Did it wait for us to fall asleep?”
“Potter, do I look like I have any idea what this thing did? I was sitting down to read a book with a glass of wine last night and then suddenly I was in bed and it was morning. I have been walking around today thinking I’d lost my bloody mind with people trying to start the same conversations with me all morning.” Malfoy sighed and ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I suppose we should go to St Mungo’s. I should have gone last night, but I felt fine and all my diagnostics were coming back clean, so I thought I’d be okay to wait a day... which was probably ill-advised.”
“I already went,” Harry said.
“What?”
“I went last night, they ran every test they had—completely clean.”
Malfoy groaned. “Okay. So...” He started pacing around the room. “Maybe it's just a different type of time turner, which wouldn’t necessarily show up as a curse anyway, so we went back and as long as we don’t touch it again, we should be fine.”
“So, if everyone doesn’t remember yesterday, then that means no one knows we got in a fight and I set off the device?” Harry said with a dawning realization, suddenly feeling more optimistic than he had all day.
Malfoy looked at him flatly. “I know you set off the device.”
“Any chance you could not tell anyone?” Harry asked very nicely.
Malfoy crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “What’s in it for me?”
Harry groaned. “You not also getting in trouble for getting into a fight?”
“Oh no, I have witnesses that you start-”
“Oh!” Harry laughed suddenly. “No, you don’t! It would just be your word against mine.”
“You-” Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “Fine, Potter. But don’t touch anything this time. Stay completely away from this object and I’ll not tell anyone what an idiot you are. Let’s just get through today and hopefully we don’t have to see each other for a while.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Harry walked over towards Ron with a smile on his face.
“What was that about? And are you actually smiling after talking to Malfoy?”
“Let’s just say I finally won a round,” Harry said, feeling light as a feather. Tomorrow, he could go into work with no worries. There would be no desk duty, no probation or write-up. Things were looking up.
Harry woke up feeling refreshed as he cancelled the alarm on his wand. He’d gone to bed early again, as he was still feeling fairly exhausted from the stress of the past few days’ events. As he got ready for work, he couldn’t believe his luck. Not only had the device not been something catastrophic, he now wasn’t even going to get in trouble for his unprofessional and dangerous behavior.
He made a mental promise to himself to never do that again. Ron was right; he needed to stop letting Malfoy get to him. This was an unexpected second chance, and he thought he’d better not tempt fate by not learning his lesson.
He exited the Floo and was promptly run into by the witch in the purple robe.
“Sorry,” she said and quickly walked off. Harry froze. No, no, no. Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe she really did work the night shift and left at the same time every morning... in the same purple robe. He made his way up to the second level in a daze.
Once at his desk, he looked around.
Was there something that should be different? He couldn’t tell. He hadn’t touched his paperwork in days, and he’d spent yesterday in the field. He sat down, trying to think.
A few minutes later, Ron popped into the cubicle with a container in hand, quickly taking off the lid and offering it to Harry.
“Try these.” Harry looked up at Ron and then dropped his head to his desk with a groan. He needed to find Malfoy.