AN: Sorry! This took way longer to write than I'd anticipated (what with university and anxiety problems I'd never known I suffered from getting in my way...)
Hope you will enjoy it either way!

Disclaimer: Sadly, Harry Potter's characters and universe are still not mine.

Chapter 9

6:29 am, Harry Potter's apartment.

Harry woke up exactly a minute before the alarm clock went off, feeling rested and content. He couldn't remember what he had dreamed about, but, whatever it was, it was enough to give him that fluttery feeling one only gets when something very nice has happened.

Yawning, he grabbed his glasses from the bedside table and looked out of the window on the other side of his bedroom. It was a cloudy, terse November morning, with the sun appearing from behind a veil of clouds, only to be covered once again minutes after. All in all, Harry thought, it seemed as if it couldn't decide if it wanted to rain or not.

Just as soon as he was going to head to the kitchen to fix himself some breakfast, a mouth-watering smell of sausages and fried tomatoes hit his nose. Apparently, Kreacher had already thought about it.

"Good morning, Kreacher" he said, entering the kitchen. A full English breakfast was already lying on the table, ready to be eaten. "Thank you for breakfast, but… shouldn't you be at Hogwarts?"

"Kreacher has completed his tasks for the morning, Master Harry," replied the elf with a smile and a bow. "But you should eat! You has to go to work soon"

Harry snorted, not bothering to correct Kreacher and tell him it wasn't "soon" if it was more than two hours away, and tucked in.

9:00 am, Ministry of Magic, office of Aurors Potter and Weasley.

Harry walked into his office fully certain that he would find a familiar blond head behind his partner's desk, messing with his photos. That's why he was pretty surprised when he saw a ginger one instead and was greeted by a "What the hell happened to my pictures?"

"Hello to you too, Ron."

"Sorry, mate. Just… why are our faces coloured pink, green and red?" Ron asked, holding the picture Malfoy had "redecorated" the day before.

Harry tried his best to put on an innocent expression. "No idea."

The other growled. "We both know who did this… that ferrety git! Oh, but we'll see who's going to win this mutual pranks thing!"

Despite knowing that eventually they would have had to talk about that subject, all Harry could feel right then was absolute dread. His discomfort grew even more when Ron asked, "Speaking of which, how's it going? Are you two…" and he wriggled his eyebrows suggestively "bonding?"

"He… er… had dinner at mine, yesterday. We worked late." Harry replied. "We found the plant's shipments. As soon as he arrives, we're getting clearance from Robards to interrogate the Muggle owner of the garden centre it was shipped to."

"Wow, Harry! You found it! At least you're getting somewhere, even if you have to work with the prat. I have been working with Winters for days, reviewing thousands of criminal records and magical signatures and we've found nothing. I swear I won't make it to the end of the month without going mad!" said Ron, rolling his eyes.

Harry grimaced sympathetically. Alice Winters, Ron's new partner, was a weird, middle-aged witch, who usually worked as a link between the Departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Transportation. Always "eccentrically" dressed, most of the time so distracted she didn't hear half of what people said, she had become something of an interdepartmental joke.

"Is she really that terrible?" he asked.

His best friend made a sound halfway through a snort and a groan. "Imagine Luna, just ten times crazier and nowhere near as fun."

Considering that Harry had never actually met anyone crazier than Luna, he thought that, yes, he was pretty happy he hadn't ended up having her as a partner.

"At least she's not Malfoy, though. Must suck to be stuck with him, even if it is for the plan's sake." the ginger added in a low voice.

"Actually," Harry replied, "I work quite well with him. After all Malfoy is…"

However, Ron never knew what exactly Malfoy was, because right in that moment the door burst open to reveal the very object of their conversation, ruffled and obviously out of breath, saying hurriedly, "Harry, I'm sorry I'm so late, I oversle-"
He stopped mid-sentence as soon as he realized Ron was there. He recomposed himself and said, more calmly, "I overslept. Good morning, Weasley."

Ron rolled his eyes, patted Harry on the shoulder and, without answering to the greeting, said his goodbyes. On the threshold, he half turned towards Malfoy and threw him a heated glare. "If I find out you've tampered with my pictures again, I'll make you regret it!"

"Is that a threat?" the blond called after him, but whether the Auror hadn't heard or he just didn't bother to respond, the question remained unanswered.

"Whatever." Malfoy shrugged, shedding his coat and picking another picture, choosing to turn Ron's face alone into a bright Smurf blue, while Harry snickered.

"As fun as it all was, try not to purposefully make him mad again, alright?"

His partner smiled mischievously. "I'm afraid he makes it too easy," he said. Then, changing the subject, he added "Now that I'm here we can go speak to Robards to get the go-ahead we need to question the Muggle right? We've already lost way too much time."

"And the fault is…? Whose exactly?"

"Mine, again, I'm sorry, I couldn't really sleep last night."

Harry widened his eyes dramatically and, while he gathered his robes from his desk with one hand, he brought the other to his mouth in a staged gasp. "Did I just hear Draco Malfoy admitting he was at fault and apologizing for it?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes, his lips smirking, and turned towards the door. "Just don't get used to it, Harry."

Hearing his name pronounced by that soft, smiling voice, he was stuck into place, a traitorous giddy feeling blossoming in his chest. He sighed. 'Seriously? You're not a hormonal fifteen year old! Get to work, for Merlin's sake!'
Following Malfoy, he exited his office in stride.

10:03 am, B. & O. Garden Centre.

As a matter of fact it took more than half an hour to get Robard's clearance for an interrogation involving a Muggle – even if the best part of it consisted in snide remarks about "Auror's superior investigative abilities". Harry would have told him that Draco had found the shipping address (and while running away from an imaginary spider, no less!), but the other wizard silenced him with a glance and a grin. In the feeble sunlight of northern London, Harry smiled. It had felt… private, almost intimate, somehow, as if they shared an inside joke no one else would understand.

"Do you wish for tea and pastries to better enjoy the sun or may we go ahead?" said Malfoy, raising one blonde eyebrow.

"Uhm, sorry, I spaced out" Harry replied, sheepishly.

His partner smiled. "You know you seem to do that a lot?"

The Auror looked around, avoiding his gaze "I'm all for introspection, I guess… Ah, there it is. B. & O. Garden Centre".

The garden centre itself, while nestled in a very spacious, redbrick neighbourhood, was quite small, but a few rectangular greenhouses surrounding an octagonal building made of glass and steel, most probably the owner's office.

Harry headed that way, Malfoy in tow, and their entrance was greeted by the sound of a little bell above the door. With a charming smile –and a quick, muttered Confundus Charm, he introduced himself and the blond as police officers to the pudgy, glassy eyed owner and requested to see his registers of the past month.

The man grinned brightly, eyes still unfocused, and led them to the back. "Here, officers! What did you say you needed, again?"

Malfoy shot him a half amused half exasperated look. 'Can you not even do this properly?' his expression clearly said.

Harry shrugged. He had probably overdone it a bit. Exactly the reason why it was usually Ron (who'd been perfectly taught by Hermione) who casted that spell during missions.

"We need a copy of your sale's register for the months of May and October and for you to answer some of our questions, sir."

"Ah, yes, yes. Just a minute, if you please."

Ten minutes later the copies were still in the making, since poor Mr. Bentley kept spacing out every few minutes, and Harry, though he felt guilty, decided he'd had enough. "Would you mind if we took a look at the originals while we wait, Sir?" he asked.

The man smiled and nodded enthusiastically, gesturing for them to sit at his desk. The file which recorded May's sales was not at all large, only a few pages, meticulously ordered and neatly written. It took the two of them very little to find what they were looking for, even if, judging from his audible gasp, it was Malfoy who noticed it first.

Of course, Harry thought, he was surprised: the name belonged to a man who had been dead for the last seven years. A quick look to the folder labelled 'October' confirmed what they had found in the other: the client was registered as Severus Snape.

When the Auror glanced at his partner he saw that he was terribly, impossibly pale.

"I'm lifting the spell," Draco whispered urgently. "You confused him silly and we need him clear headed. We need answers."

Harry sighed, looking at him with sympathy. "Draco, you know as well as I do that Snape is dead."

"I know," he answered, staring determinedly straight ahead, "but the sooner we interrogate Mr. Bentley, the sooner I- we'll know who used his name to commit yet another crime. And why."

With a slightly trembling, long-fingered hand, Draco waved his wand.

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