Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or NCIS or any of their characters.
Hadrian slept surprisingly well though the time difference had him awake before dawn. Feeling well rested and anticipating his new friend would have the same problem sleeping, he got up and started to cook breakfast. There was limited foodstuffs in the cupboard but he managed to make hash browns and pancakes that wouldn't arouse too much suspicion though he had to transfigure some of the ingredients. Part of him worried that he was overstepping his boundaries but Tim had admitted the day before that he wasn't much of a cook and mostly lived on takeout and frozen meals and he wanted to do something to repay Tim's generosity in inviting him to stay.
"Hey smells great" Tim said stumbling into the kitchen and turning on the coffee maker.
"I hope you don't mind me making free with your kitchen" Harry said shyly.
"No I can't cook anything that smells this good so you've saved yourself from my poor attempts. I honestly didn't think I had this much food available. I usually just grab something on my way to work. It's a bad habit I know but I work pretty insane hours."
"Are you working today?" Harry asked.
"No not til Monday. I didn't know how jet lagged I'd be and my boss doesn't accept anything but 100% effort at all times" Tim replied. "I need to call my Mom today, and buy some groceries. Other than that I'm free to help you get a new wardrobe and start looking for a place to stay. I can't believe you moved continents with nothing but carry on luggage."
"I wanted a complete new start and most of my clothes other than my uniform were bought for me by my ex-fiancé to meet her idea of how she wanted me to look. But I've never had much in the way of possessions. I lived solely out of my school trunk for eight years" Harry said shrugging.
"What are you looking for? Do you plan on staying in a long stay motel or do you want a furnished apartment? And do you have a budget in mind? Or a neighbourhood?"
"Umm" Harry replied looking overwhelmed. "An apartment I think. I like the privacy of not having the staff come in and out. And given that you're the only person in Washington I know maybe somewhere near here so we can visit. I won't make a total nuisance of myself I swear."
"I'm enjoying your company and with the hours I work I'm not here enough for you to become a nuisance" Tim said smiling. "There might even be an apartment in this building if you're willing to buy your own furniture and you don't mind the stairs."
Harry grinned. "I lived on the tenth floor at boarding school. I'm used to stairs."
"Surely you would have used the elevator?" Tim said.
Hogwarts was over a thousand years old. There was no elevator."
"It must have been a huge school" Tim commented. "Was the building heritage protected?"
"No there really wasn't anywhere near enough students to fill the castle, I think it was much bigger school in the past but there were about three hundred students rattling around in a huge drafty old Scottish castle that could easily accommodate ten times that many. It had its drawbacks but it was beautiful" Harry said smiling at the memory.
"Okay then stairs are no problem. I'll talk to the building super" Tim offered. "Do you have any references?"
"References? Like for a job?" Harry asked.
"Rental references. I'm guessing you've never rented before?" Tim clarified. "Or just general character references."
"I can contact my agency and get some" Harry said nodding.
"Let's organise clothes first. The super won't rent to you dressed like that even if you had a reference from the Queen herself. You can stay with me for another couple of days" Tim replied.
Harry took his bag to the bathroom and tried some simple wandless reparo and colour change charms on his clothes which wasn't any more successful than it had been the day before. He showered quickly and pulling on his clothes. He brushed his teeth the muggle way leaving the brush and toothpaste on the sink.
"Bathroom's all yours" he called going out to pack up his bed.
"What sort of clothes do you like?" Tim asked.
"I'll need a whole new wardrobe so jeans T-shirts, jumpers, work slacks and shirts and ties" Harry replied. "And some sort of jacket and coat" he added as he felt the breeze as they left the building.
"Let's start with something to impress the super" Tim suggested.
"And the warm coat" Harry said wishing he could wandlessly cast an effective warming charm.
Tim laughed. "In afraid you're not going to be very impressed with my car heating either" he said.
"Wow" Harry whistled when he saw the silver porsche boxter. "It's almost worth freezing."
"Almost" Tim agreed laughing.
-o0o-
They had a great time shopping, though Tim gasped in horror as he got a glimpse of the scars marring Hadrian's well muscled back and shoulders, some of which could be nothing but marks from a belt.
"That looks like shrapnel" Tim said pointing to his shoulder. "Did you grow up in a war zone or was it an IRA bombing? It looks several years old. You couldn't have been in law enforcement that long." He tried to keep his gaze clinical instead of openly admiring the sexy body.
Since it was the wound Harry had got from the horntail's tail in fourth year he was glad Tim had come up with his own interpretation of the scarring.
"I'm afraid that's classified, I can't talk about it" Harry replied apologetically.
Tim understood and dropped the subject.
Tim started with the cheaper shops and Harry was happy with this having never placed much value on designer brands though he did venture through several expensive men's tailors before finding the jacket he wanted, then bought a duck down coat at an outdoor store along with thermal underwear, paying the exorbitant prices for the warmest things they had without hesitation.
"Shall we get some lunch before we tackle the rest" Tim suggested wanting to draw out his time with his new friend.
"I've just spent more time shopping for clothes than I have in my entire life put together" Harry exclaimed disbelievingly "what more could there be?"
"Shoes and groceries, and you'll want a phone that works here" Tim said laughing.
"We'll I'm starving so lunch sounds great. Where do you want to go?" Harry asked.
"What are you in the mood for?" Tim asked.
"I'll eat almost anything. You choose" Harry said enjoying the interactions.
"You eat Japanese?" Tim asked.
"I've never tried it but I'm game" Harry said grinning.
They sat talking over lunch exchanging stories from their childhoods, Tim talking about his overly strict father and how stressed his mother always was when his father was home, how they all breathed a sigh of relief when he was at sea and about the various countries he'd lived in. In return Harry had mentioned a little about living with the Dursleys, and more about school and the Weasleys' chaotic household carefully avoiding any mention of magic. They talked until they noticed the staff starting to lay the tables for dinner. "We'd better get out of here" Harry said.
"Yeah you need shoes and then we need to talk to the super. I can't believe time got away from us" Tim agreed wondering how it was that Hadrian was so easy to talk to. This was the second day they'd spent hours talking to each other. They hit the shoe store, though Hadrian knew he could buy more comfortable dress shoes in the wizarding world, and stopped for groceries before heading back to the apartment complex.
Tim called the apartment super but couldn't get an answer. "You're welcome to stay here again and I'll try contact the super in the morning" he said tiredly. "Or I could drive you to the nearest motel?"
"I'd like to stay. The blow up bed was fine. I slept really well but can I ask why you don't have a couch?" Harry replied curiously.
"Not enough room! I get more use out of my writing desk and my computer stuff than I would a couch. I keep the blow up bed for when my sister is in town" Tim replied. "My Mom and my sister tell me to get a bigger place but I'm hardly ever here. It seems a waste to have more space just for me."
Harry nodded. "Yeah I know what you mean. This is cosy. I had this dingy old house I'd inherited from my godfather. It was a stupid amount of space just for me. I offered all my friends room but only Hermione stayed regularly. Most of the houses around it had been converted into apartments, but I just couldn't let it go. I was trying to do it up a bit in my spare time but I never had enough time to tackle the big jobs. I should sell it if I'm going to stay here."
"There's no hurry to make that decision unless you need the money. I'd imagine you'd pay quite a sum in rates for a house that size, how far out of London is it.
"About thirty five minutes' walk from Kings Cross station" Harry replied. "It's in one of the poorer neighbourhoods but the area's starting to show signs of renewal so it would be a good time to do the house up and sell or rent it out."
"Wow it must be worth a fortune" Tim said.
Hadrian shrugged, the monetary value of the house had never occurred to him. The place was so dark and dingy he didn't really like living there, it was just too difficult to buy another home in the wizarding world without the press finding out and a sit was technically peacetime he wouldn't have been able to ward a new home as effectively as Grimmauld Place had been warded over the years.
They moved around the tiny kitchen cooking dinner together getting in each other's way but both secretly felt surprisingly comfortable with the closeness of the other getting in their personal space as they reached past each other to access the fridge and sink. Harry stopped short at one stage, apologising as he realised he was ordering Tim around as if he was in charge but Tim just laughed and said that given his cooking skills it was just as well someone else was in charge.
"Have you ever played a RPG?" Tim asked.
"What's that?" Hadrian asked confused.
"A role playing game" Tim explained.
"No" Harry said hesitantly. "How do you play?"
"On the computer, there's hundreds of different on line games" Tim said.
Harry sighed. He knew that admitting he didn't know how to use a computer would raise doubts about his honesty to Tim. Computers were widely used in all forms of muggle law enforcement. "I've never played any computer games, I don't own a computer. Computers and I really don't mix, the static electricity in my body tends to make them not work for long around me. I have the same problem with most technology. I'm not sure how long this phone's going to last" he confessed.
"That's why you wanted the cheapest phone you could get even though you were prepared to pay for decent quality with everything else" Tim understood. "But there's no way I'm letting you near my computer set up" Tim said hastily looking around for something else to do, he didn't have the energy to go out but it was too early to sleep. "Maybe we could watch a movie?"
Harry looked around. "I don't see a TV" he said only just realising that he hadn't noticed before now.
Tim blushed. "Um it's in the bedroom, there wasn't room anywhere else. I promise it's not a come on. You can drag a chair in if you don't feel comfortable sitting on the bed."
Harry blushed. "Okay let's watch a movie" he agreed.
"What genre do you like?" Tim asked.
"I don't have a preference. There was no television at my school and no movie theatre close by and my aunt and uncle wouldn't let me watch theirs. Since then I haven't had much free time so I haven't seen many movies or get into the habit of watching tellie" Harry said. "Whatever you like is fine. I probably won't have seen it."
"What age did you go to boarding school?" Tim asked.
"Eleven til seventeen" Hadrian replied.
"That must have been hard. I'd hate to have been away from my Mom at eleven" Tim replied.
"My friend Hermione struggled with it for the first few months, particularly as she had difficulty making friends" Hadrian replied. "Ron had three older brothers already at school and had heard all about it, so he seemed to manage well and I was glad to be away from my relatives. Getting used to the regimentation was easy my Aunt and Uncle were quite strict about what free time I had."
"Did it make your teachers seem more human because you were around them all the time?"
"Not really, they ate up at the high table and I never took much notice of them other than that they were supervising the meal so things didn't get out of hand. Our head of house Professor McGonagall said our house would be like a family but she didn't have much to do with us unless there was trouble. I've heard that the other heads of houses were more involved but McGonagall was deputy headmistress as well as teaching full time."
"So there weren't extra staff on hand to look after you at night?" Tim asked surprised.
"No, it was mostly the prefects' job to keep control in the common room and dormitories" Hadrian replied. "And the other seventh years would shut us down pretty quickly if we got rowdy while they were trying to study.
"It was hard enough going away to college just before I turned sixteen" Tim commented.
""That's because you were the only one" Hadrian said. "There was a whole class of us to learn together."
"There were a whole class of freshman" Tim replied. "It's just that most of them were eighteen or older so I got my own room. I thought it was great at the time but in hindsight I hid in my room and didn't meet people."
"There were five of us in the dorm so there was next to no privacy" Hadrian said. "They had these super old fashioned beds with curtains though to give some illusion of privacy, pity they couldn't muffle the snoring and we'd mostly leave them open in the winter so the fire would keep us warm. In first year anyway."
Tim shuddered. "That sounds like hell or school camp which is pretty much the same thing at night."
"I wouldn't know, never been on school camp" Hadrian replied laughing, "but it really wasn't hell once you got used to it."
"I'll Take your word for it" Tim said dubiously holding up a DVD. "Have you seen the Lord of the Rings series?"
"No but I loved the books, do the movies do them credit?" Harry asked enthusiastically.
"I think they do" Tim replied.
"Then let's watch the first one" Harry said. He followed Tim into his bedroom and they sat on opposite sides of Tim's king size bed.
Tim put the movie on and sat careful not to touch the young man beside him not wanting to scare off his new friend.
Harry enjoyed the movie but found himself dropping off to sleep during the start of the second. Tim thought about waking the young man and sending him off to his own bed but in the end decided to pretend he hadn't noticed him falling asleep until the end of the movie. Unfortunately Harry had a nightmare as the movie was ending. Tim placed a hand out to wake him up and Harry woke violently shoving him away and falling off the bed.
"Hadrian it's me Tim. You're safe here" Tim said soothingly.
"Tim?" Harry asked confused for a moment.
"Yes I'm Tim McGee, you are in my apartment in Silver Spring in Maryland, just outside Washington DC" Tim said gently knowing that waking up in a strange place after a nightmare could be disorienting.
"Tim" Harry confirmed he knew him. "Why did you shove me off the bed?" he asked, worried he'd behaved inappropriately in his sleep.
"I didn't" Tim said bemusedly. "You were having a nightmare and you threw yourself off the bed when I tried to wake you. Are you okay?"
Harry got up slowly checking his body for injuries. He suspected he was going to have a sore bum for a couple of days but nothing other than that. "I'm fine" he said, hoping his new friend accepted it better than Hermione would have.
Tim didn't believe him for a moment but he supposed he was physically fine.
"I should go to bed" Harry said getting back up and heading out to the lounge and his camp mattress.
"Are you sure you want to be alone?" Tim asked.
Harry looked up surprised. "I'm fine" he said automatically.
"That was a pretty violent nightmare. Don't be embarrassed we've all had them. There's always one case that gets to you" Tim said. "There's no weakness in needing support."
"You need your sleep to get over the jetlag" Hadrian said concerned.
"I know, but I hate trying to get back to sleep on my own after a nightmare" Tim said. "I'm not working tomorrow so it's fine. Come back and lie down. I'll try to be more careful if I have to wake you up again."
Hadrian gratefully settled back into the warmth of the bed, flinching slightly when Tim put his hand on his shoulder.
"Sorry" Tim said withdrawing and turning his back.
"No it was fine, I just wasn't expecting it" Hadrian replied. He turned to face Tim's back and nervously put his own hand on Tim's shoulder.
Tim turned back and looked at Hadrian.
"Thank you" Hadrian said softly.
-o0o-
One of the trainee Aurors knocked nervously on Head Auror Robbards door after lunch on Monday. "You asked us to inform you if Miss Weasley came to see Potter" he stammered.
Robbards sighed and threw his quill back onto his blotter. "As if I don't have more important things to do."
"Sorry Sir" the trainee said.
"I'm not frustrated with you, shall we go and see what the deceitful harpie wants today. Do you know the conception confirmation spell? The version that produces a written transcript?"
"Yes Sir" the Auror blurted surprised.
"See if you can cast it on Miss Weasley while I'm talking to her" Robbards ordered.
"Why Sir? We cast it last week and it was negative" the trainee asked curiously.
"The spell can fail to read a pregnancy that's less than 48 hours old. Potter's been gone 62 hours now so if the spell comes back negative today we'll have proof that the baby isn't Potter's if she tried to pull that stunt again" Robbards explained.
"Isn't there a spell to test for paternity?"
"Yes of course but it needs to be cast directly on the baby and most honourable men want to be married before the wedding to ensure that the babe's legitimate if there's a good chance it will be theirs. Particularly where there's old family inheritances to consider."
"Miss Weasley can I help you?" Robbards announced his presence speaking with authority.
"I came to see Harry" Ginny said.
"Mr Potter is away on assignment" Robbards said repressively. "You were told not to approach him at work."
"He's my fiancé. When will he be back?" Ginny demanded.
"You are not entitled to know the details of Auror Potter's assignments and investigations Miss Weasley" Robbards stated firmly.
"I'm his fiancé" Ginny argued stamping her foot.
You are not a family member or Mr Potter's nominated next of kin. Therefore, I cannot reveal his whereabouts. In fact, Mr Potter left instructions that you are to be arrested for fraud if you continue to claim to be his fiancé" Robbards countered. "I'm asking you to leave peacefully and not return. Do not send the other members of your family. They are not Potter's next of kin either. This is your last warning Miss Weasley, please take it seriously, for your family's sake if not your own."
Ginny shrieked and stormed out turning at the doorway. "Tell him he's going to regret this" she said.
"Be very careful Miss Weasley impugning the reputation of an Auror is a serious matter" Robbards warned before turning to the trainee questioningly.
"She is not pregnant" Wilkes said. "I also cast several revealing charms, she's not under the imperious or mind control spells though there's one spell acting on her I didn't recognise."
Robbards looked at the Arithmancy. "It's a secrecy or security spell of some kind. It's very similar to the Fidelius."
"Given how vindictive the bitch is I wouldn't be surprised if Potter did spell her so she couldn't talk about his secrets" Wilkes said.
"I'd say he's cast it on his home so she can't invade it or send the reporters to camp out on his doorstep and harass him except I still remember where he lived" Robbards said thoughtfully.
A/N: Thank you to xDarklightx, Lizzie Snape-Malfoy, ToTheStarButPickMagic, DS2010, Rori Potter, buterflypuss, acherongoddess, Lientjuhh, Locket1, Silvermane1, Guest, Fae0306, gabrieljuarezl, julschristine975, tarynrpotter, shadowrunner83, Dreaming24'7, maya884, Lucina Lutia, Cosmos89, writer2000z, anthea tronchard step, Mytryk, KawaiSara89, Let'sTalkSPN, Shaggy37, Elruwen the Blessed, larissa8, Justdeath72, K'S Room of Requirement, krismontiel48, Afrodity, ThePizzaManToughtMe, Itty bitty evil ringy of doom, bluesz, lsmatyca, JavBK, Dia Regan, Tiniii25, Lunaconspiracy365, PreciousJewelLake, caramon1992, Somnus Ecru, smallzscience, missceltika, mumimeanjudy, Jully Reed, Neferthy, NicoleBearThomas, eleventyspiders, meiscof, dianemalfoy, mahive, MoonbeamDomination, il2swim57, Kane the girl, melissa. , chefyan08, HowlingRain, Gilnara, MaddyCatty, nogoalielikeme, Olivia Grace the Fox, One-who-must-read, Hiedra, Kyreewolf, KrisiMwahz, LongWayHome, Miyu Amamyia, moonkey2790, NoirLuxure and Kai3anime for your support.
