Chapter 4

Harry Potter and The One That Got Away

Harry Potter knew that he'd made an error in judgement. For three days following the incident whereupon Mad-Eye Moody's Eye had disappeared, Harry had allocated all of his division's resources to the wrong leads. They had been waiting for the eye to surface on the Black Magic Market, had been searching for it among their street contacts, had been fixated on locating it outside of the ministry. Meanwhile, per Malfoy's reasoning, the eye could have been inside the DoM all this time – simply misplaced. This task, according to Malfoy, would have been much easier to accomplish than having to extract it through all the layers of magical security. Grudgingly, Harry had agreed.

All the while, the real missing artifact was still a mystery, and Harry had only just organized teams to search the premises for a fake. A fake what? Nobody knew. Needless to say, this would be no easy feat.

Harry was sitting in his office alone, contemplating how royally he'd screwed up, when he heard a rap on the door. He jerked his head upward, as if awoken from a reverie, only to be disappointed by the entrance of Draco Malfoy and his arrogant, lopsided grin. If Harry could just reach over and pull at his mouth in the other direction to make it more symmetrical, he was sure that it would lend to a less patronizing appearance. It's not that Malfoy didn't know how to smile with his whole mouth, it's just that he saved it for very special occasions. And, evidently, meeting with Harry to discuss the progress of their investigation was not one of those.

"I see you've assembled the entire work force of the Ministry to locate the piece." Malfoy said with a heavy undertone of sarcasm.

"Until we know what exactly has gone missing," Harry said firmly – he was not about to get into it with Malfoy, despite the latter's leading remark – "we must proceed with the assumption that it could very well be the most valuable asset in the building."

"Which is? I mean, besides me, of course." Malfoy cracked a wider smile. Harry had been wrong – half or full, Malfoy's grin remained equally irritating.

Harry gave Malfoy a scathing look. "Nice try. As if I would tell you."

"Come now," Malfoy said, helping himself to one of the sugar quills arranged inside a sweets bouquet on Harry's desk. He sat down at the desk opposite Harry and fixed him with a look of mock concern. "You brought me here to exploit my knowledge. So, use me."

Harry sighed reluctantly.

Malfoy leaned back and stuck the sugar quill into his mouth. "You know that reproductions are my specialty," he mumbled around the candy.

Just then, there was another knock on the door. Harry, particularly grateful for the interruption, looked up expectantly. Malfoy lazily turned his head to glance over his shoulder at the newcomer.

Harry winced when he saw his wife's expression turn sour at the sight of Malfoy lounging in his office. "Ginny –" he began, quickly skirting his desk to meet her halfway, "I meant to tell you –"

Ginny, wide-eyed, looked down at Malfoy. "What's he doing here?" she said as Harry gingerly lifted the parcel she'd been holding out of her grasp. She seemed not to have noticed, because her arms lingered in their outstretched position, as if still embracing the box. Harry backed away from Ginny and set the package down on his desk, eyeing her anxiously as she processed the scene before her.

"How're you doing there, Weasley?" Malfoy winked at Ginny. "Or …" he paused, "is it Potter now?" He turned to Harry, raising his eyebrows.

Harry shook his head, pressing his lips together in a grimace. He was signalling for Malfoy to abort all endeavours of communication and shut the hell up. But Malfoy only smiled wider.

"Still a Weasley, huh?" Malfoy turned back to Ginny. "How unfortunate for you. Not that Potter's much better, mind you –"

"Malfoy, shut up!" Harry hissed from his side of the desk. His eyes darted between Malfoy and Ginny nervously.

"Potter, man to man," Malfoy leaned further back into his chair, if that were even possible, "the girl won't wait around forever." He made a broad gesture with his arm to indicate Ginny.

"Malfoy, we're already married," Harry said, not bothering to conceal his exasperation.

"Oh!" Malfoy seemed pleasantly surprised. "Oh," he repeated, more gravely. "And she didn't take your name? That must've hurt."

"It felt fine," Harry said evenly.

"Fine?" Ginny looked at Harry. She'd finally let her arms fall to her sides.

"Great," Harry corrected himself. "I felt great about it."

"Tension," Malfoy said in a sing song voice.

"Shut up, Malfoy!" Ginny and Harry yelled.

"Alright," Malfoy said, rising from his seat. "I can take a hint."

…

"How are things with Ginny?" Hermione popped her head into Harry's office on her way out. "I saw her come in today."

Harry pointed to the unopened box sitting in the corner of his office. "I got a delivery. Muggle mail. She decided it was urgent and brought it over."

"She wanted to see you," Hermione said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. "It's a good sign, I reckon."

Harry shrugged. "She doesn't need a reason to come see me. She's my wife."

"May I?" Hermione pointed to the empty chair at his desk.

"Of course," Harry motioned for Hermione to sit. He leaned into the table with both his elbows and rested his chin on his knuckles.

"Unfortunately," Hermione said, "she won't talk to me about you. Probably because she knows I can't keep you in the dark about anything."

Harry raised one of his eyebrows and the action creased the skin around his scar. "Can't you?"

Hermione sucked in her bottom lip and sank her teeth into it. "Right," she said. "Can't keep you in the dark about much."

Harry nodded, relaxing his face. "How is it?" he said. "Having him around again?"

Hermione's eyes shifted to the cabinets behind Harry's head. "Nothing I can't handle."

"I know," Harry said. "I just wondered."

Hermione sighed, glancing back at Harry. "Ginny seems fine," she said, circling back to the original purpose of her visit. "But whenever I try to steer the conversation in your direction, she shuts down."

"Honestly, Hermione," Harry said, "we're not even fighting anymore."

Hermione lifted her eyebrows sympathetically. "That's bad."

"I know," Harry agreed. "At least, when we were always at each other's throats, I knew we cared. Now?" he shrugged again. "I'm just tired of it all. Spent from fighting the same fights over and over again. I don't give a rat's arse if we do or don't agree on something."

"That's terrible, Harry," Hermione placed her hand on the desk, reaching toward Harry, "I'm so sorry."

Harry stroked his jaw absently, staring at the box Ginny had brought into his office earlier in the day. "I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?"

Harry fixed her with a somber expression. "That I let Malfoy out."

"Yes, now that was rather short-sighted."

Harry chuckled. "Our search has brought up absolutely nothing thus far."

Hermione nodded. "I heard."

"Malfoy said he could help."

Hermione brought her hands into her lap and looked down at her fingers. Slowly, her thumbs began to revolve around one another. Only Hermione Granger would literally twiddle her thumbs. Harry concealed a grin with the hand he still kept around his mouth. "What's in it for him?" she said.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Well," Hermione said, sounding as though she were reasoning more with herself than with Harry, "he's already here. Might as well take advantage. Besides, it's not as if you have much of a choice."

Harry let out a heavy sigh. "I'm going to need you to keep an eye on him."

"Why me?" Hermione exclaimed. Her thumbs stopped moving.

"Because you know him better than anybody else."

Hermione shook her head. "I absolutely do not."

Harry looked at her pointedly. "Name one person who knows him as well as you do."

Hermione fixed him with an equally measured expression. "You."

Harry chuckled. "I suppose I am a bit of an expert, aren't I?"

Just then, there was a knock on the door. It was Neville, wearing his red Auror robes and an apprehensive expression.

"How goes it, Neville?" Harry said almost cheerfully.

"Not too well, boss," Neville said.

Harry ran his hand over his face, silently cursing Neville for calling him 'boss' again. "Can you be more specific, Neville?"

"We haven't found anything missing as of yet."

Hermione turned to Harry and shrugged. It was her way of giving him permission.

Harry looked back at Neville. "Alright, find Malfoy. Get him to give you a hand."

"That's the other thing," Neville said timidly.

Hermione, who was watching Harry, suddenly froze. She whipped her head around to look at Neville. "What's the other thing?"

Neville swallowed and it looked painful. He took a deep breath.

"What is it, Neville?" Harry barked, louder than he meant to but he wasn't about to apologize for it.

"Malfoy's gone," Neville said meekly.

"Gone?" Hermione said. "What do you mean, gone?"

A wave of panic rushed over Harry, together with an eruption of sweat. Funny how those things often emerged together. He began to rummage through the chaotic pile of papers on his desk in search of the key card to Malfoy's anklet. "Have you checked his location?" Harry said. He'd brought in the computer together with Malfoy's anklet and most of his employees were still somewhat wary of its presence. They may not have checked.

"He's disappeared," Neville said. "I checked the computer device myself. It's like he turned off the anklet. Or cut it off."

"That's not possible!" Hermione said indignantly. "We'd hear an alarm if he'd even attempted to cut it off. Or tamper with it in any way."

"He didn't cut it off," Harry said quietly.

Hermione turned to him. "What do you mean?"

It was Harry's turn to swallow. He looked up guiltily at Hermione and then at Neville. "He stole the key card to his anklet."

"What?" Hermione exclaimed in outrage. "When?"

Harry leaned back in his seat resignedly. "Yesterday," was all he said.

"But, how do you know?" Neville asked.

Harry looked at Hermione. "He swindled me."

Hermione shook her head, although the surprise was quickly fading from her features. She'd clearly expected this, and Harry was almost waiting for her to say, 'I told you so.'

Harry sighed. "My coffee spilled. I was trying to save my files and he said something about distraction. How was I to know that he was being literal?"

"So, he was explaining the con to you as he was conning you?" Neville said.

Hermione shook her head. "Classic Malfoy. Cocky and arrogant as ever."

"It's quite brilliant, actually," Neville said, and both Hermione and Harry shot nasty looks in his direction. "I just mean, you'd never expect to be hoodwinked as you're being taught the fundamentals of hoodwinkery?"

"That's not a word, Neville," Hermione said tersely.

"I cannot believe I fell for it," Harry lowered his head into his palm. "It was misdirection in its most basic form. Amateur hour. He helped me gather my papers and he must've grabbed the card right out of my pocket while I was busy attending to my bloody coffee."

"Don't sweat it, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "He's duped minds far cleverer than yours."

Harry rolled his eyes because he knew she was referring to herself. It was a low blow, but he supposed that he deserved it. "We have to find him," he said, ignoring her comment.

"Don't look at me," she said. "I'm not wasting another minute on Draco Malfoy."