"This is ridiculous," Draco said, glaring at the rows upon rows of dusty, old books that smelled of mildew. As though it were their fault that he was being forced to go through them and sort. "This isn't my job."

Potter snorted, flipping through one of the old books. He had the dust-turned-thick-disgusting-grime smudged across his cheek. Draco shuddered. They didn't even get gloves. This was so wrong.

"It's not like we were doing anything important," Potter said as he tossed the book into a box. They were supposed to be careful with the ancient and post-modern tomes, but honestly, they both didn't give a flying rat's arse about some musty old books. Even if Potter wouldn't admit it, they would both have rather been out catching the bad guys and saving the world and what have you. Well, really, Draco would have preferred to be having a nice cup of tea and doing nothing at all, but the world wasn't perfect. That and he'd been forced to get a job since the blasted Ministry had seized all his father's assets, making him pretty much broke.

So there they were, sorting books for the Artifacts department.

"You should have argued," said Draco stubbornly, examining a book that had neither a title nor author listed. How were they supposed to sort books that weren't properly labelled, anyhow? He opened the cover and a plume of dust went up. He coughed and held the book at arms length away. Gross.

"And then we'd be stuck with an even worse job," Potter answered, just as stubbornly. They weren't the perfect partners, that was for sure. They got the job done but one always wondered if someone would lose a limb along the way. He heard Potter mumble something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'git'. "If you actually would help, we'd get the job done faster and be off on our merry way."

Draco glared. As if he wasn't helping. He glanced at the boxes on Potter's side and the boxes on his side. Okay, so Potter had sorted more books. He probably wasn't even looking at the titles and authors and appendices like Draco was. Draco dropped the book he was holding into the box labelled 'Unknown'. It probably should have been labelled something like 'ridiculously dusty' or 'in need of cleaning.'

"Why can't they just use magic like normal people and sort them that way?" Draco grumbled, pulling a smaller book off one of the low shelves. Another book that went unlabelled.

"Something about magic mixing and delicate pages," Potter answered through a cough. He was waving his hand in front of his face. One of the books was smoking. Well, if Potter was just going to destroy the books, Draco shouldn't have to do anything at all. "I dunno, I wasn't really listening."

"Do you ever?" Draco muttered under his breath, but Potter had stupidly good hearing (probably to offset his decidedly bad vision - or perhaps it was practice from all those years he spent sneaking about eevesdropping) and he shot Draco a glare. Draco rolled his eyes before turning back to the task at hand.

He peeled open the cover of the unremarkable book he'd pulled off the rickety shelves.

"You're bloody kidding me."

"What?" Potter asked, glancing over at Draco. Draco held up the book for Potter to see.

"This is a bloody story book," he snapped. He hadn't signed up for sorting bedtime stories. These were supposed to be legitimate magic books, not... Alice in Wonderland. He flipped the book back around and flipping a few pages, landing on the first chapter.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank...

His eyes skimmed the first few words and that was when he felt it. There was a tug behind his navel and a bit of a dizzying sensation.

Well, blimey. So the book was magical.