Chapter One: Potter's Proposition

Draco sighed heavily, straightening his paper with a brusque flourish before folding it, tucking it back under his arm and checking the time. If his father kept this up much longer they would be truly late. Which of course was his father's intention no doubt. The man was practically a professional at sulking, and his timing was impeccably inconvenient – as always.

Usually taking his mother – and now his father – to the Ministry twice a week for their classes was a next to weightless burden. Today, however, he did have a morning engagement. Draco tapped his shoe impatiently, the sound echoing in the vast entrance hall of the Manor. He hated having last minute meetings sprung on him.

He growled, unfolding the Prophet again to study the leading article.

There wasn't much movement in the magical photograph taking up the front page, given that it depicted a pair of dead bodies, but the shadows of people blocking the light source behind the camera flitted over the corpses every now and then. The faces of the victims had been purposefully left out of the top of the shot, but they were men, their naked white torsos filling the frame and glaring against the black of the ground, the letters E and W gouged, one on each of their chests. If the photo had been printed in colour, Draco was certain the grisly lettering would have been scarlet. The headline took what little was left of the page – Will 'The Seven' Become Nine? Two More Bodies Found in Peckham.

Draco pursed his lips for what felt like the umpteenth time since reading the article over his breakfast. The papers had named the previous string of killings 'The Bloodless Seven' after they had stopped a month ago, the case left cold. The Ministry had naturally copped a lot of flak from the papers and people writing into the Prophet for their handling of the case. Someone from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had been in charge, the murderer assumed to be some kind of out-of-control creature, but their investigations had drawn naught. He had followed the case with mild interest, more to keep abreast of matters than out of true investment in the matter, and had to admit, the entire thing had been bungled. Draco snorted.

If the morning's murders could be traced to the same killer, which was undoubtedly a human, why they had stopped then started again was beyond him. The Ministry certainly hadn't been close enough to catching them to force a halt to the killings. Perhaps murder was tiring and they'd needed a break, although his aunt had never seemed to think so. The murderer's apparent desire to practice the alphabet on humans was an escalation however, and not a comforting one.

Various clocks chimed nine, calling Draco back to his impatience.

"Come ON!" he bellowed. His voice rang along the polished marble corridor and out into the vast hall beyond that housed the main staircase, travelling up into the other floors of the house.

"Coming, coming! Possess your soul in patience!" called his mother, gliding down the stairs at last, resplendent in emerald green travelling robes and pulling on her gloves against the winter chill.

Draco eyed the long gloves with a raised eyebrow, his gaze travelling to her fur-trimmed winter cloak, and then to his sulking rugged up father as he grumpily descended the carpeted marble steps. Six years in Azkaban had done Lucius few favours, and despite the bulk of the many layers his wife had swathed him in, apparently concerned that a stray gust might carry him off, he looked frail. The lines lay deeper on his face, his eyes haunted and shrouded with shadows. Even his infamous mane of platinum hair looked lank and brittle. But he had only been out of prison three days. Even magic couldn't erase six years' ageing, no matter what claptrap witches' beauty products claimed to be able to achieve.

Draco stiffened a little at the sight of his father, but retained his sardonic expression. "I've waited so long, I've aged, Mother," he drawled, feigning a self-conscious stroke through his own hair. "And is all that really necessary? You're hardly going to actually spend time outside."

Narcissa pursed her lips at her son, but said nothing, and Draco did not pursue the matter. The light had returned to her eyes with his father's homecoming, and he had no wish to douse it.

Aware of the indulgence in her son's gaze, Narcissa turned back to her loitering husband instead and wrapped his cloak and scarf more firmly about him, chivvying him along towards the massive fireplaces near the front door as she did so, veering right towards the one for departures.

"Come along, Lucius! Being late to your first re-education class won't make a good impression."

Draco could tell from her tone that his mother had been exhorting his father in this fashion the entire time they had been upstairs. She'd taken on a nagging quality that she only did when she was fussing, and neither of them had yet managed to refuse her solicitude when she was in such a state, no matter how exasperating they might find it.

Lucius muttered something unintelligible that probably involved a number of disparaging comments about the Ministry, and kicked half-heartedly at the house elf who had appeared to hand him his cane – still unoccupied by a wand. The elf squealed a little, dodging most of the glancing blow, but was otherwise silent. The Ministry had flatly refused to allow the replacement of the lost or destroyed wands of the Death Eaters, or even the ex-Death Eaters, and the fact that Lucius's old wand had been a Malfoy heirloom for over a thousand years before the Dark Lord had destroyed it did little to improve his bitterness regarding the fact.

Draco rolled his eyes, his expression as sour as his father's. A fleeting image of a scowling Granger darted across his mind. She had been the one to push through the bill on house elf rights a few years ago, much to the displeasure of Pureblood owners. She'd likened it to the abolition of slavery in the Muggle world. What his father had just done was probably illegal. Whatever. How the servants should be treated could be argued over another time. Even so, Draco twitched slightly at the thought of Granger, uncomfortably aware of the bad blood that still subsisted between them, despite the fact that he and Potter had settled their differences. He pushed the matter to one side, however.

"We could always arrange your return to Azkaban," he snapped, frowning at his recalcitrant father. "I assume it must be a great deal more comfortable now there are no Dementors standing guard, and I do have a meeting with the Head of the Auror Office that you're making me late for; I'm sure he'd oblige." He didn't mean it of course, but his father needed to remember that there were conditions on his release. The vast majority of the wizarding world still considered him a war criminal, which, technically he was – defected Death Eater or not – and that meant he had to do what the Ministry expected of him. Which naturally rankled for Lucius.

"Draco!" Narcissa turned an outraged expression on her son, and Lucius's eyes narrowed with a glint of his old terrifying anger.

Draco shrugged, stopping just short of insolence. "It's true." He met Lucius's gaze squarely. He wasn't the little boy who had hungered for his father's approval and affection anymore – he was twenty-three and a man, and had been head of the family in his father's absence for six years. He'd had time to think, and time to grow up, and although the flash chased a flicker of the old respectful fear for his father through Draco's heart, it was easily expelled. His father was not in charge anymore. "Come on, then," he muttered, putting out his hands to grasp his mother and father's.

Narcissa took her son's hand readily, but Lucius scowled darkly. He might have lost weight in Azkaban, but his temper was as it had ever been if not worse. "Reduced to this just for freedom," he spat.

Narcissa frowned at her husband. She had adjusted better to the changes since the Dark Lord's death, her behaviour at the end going far to mitigate a great deal of the punishment that might otherwise have befallen an aide to Voldemort and his Death Eaters, even if she had never strictly speaking been one. Permanent house arrest and no wand were light terms given the circumstances. It had remained a rough journey for her, however, especially with her husband in prison and the family disgraced, but Lucius did not seem to even be aware of the fact. They were wan, the pair of them, but Lucius seemed to have settled for a poisonous kind of discontent that grated against her determination to make the best of the situation. Prison tended to have that effect.

Draco wondered privately whether his father would ever let go of his blood purity issues. He himself had managed to slough off the Pureblood prejudices and racism he had been indoctrinated into as a child, but then he wasn't his father. Currently, it seemed more likely that the murderer would turn them self in before his father renounced his hatred. But if Lucius was to stay out of prison, he had to change. Which was the point of these re-education classes, of course. Draco was sceptical about their effectiveness on people like his father, who was quite determined to think of Muggles as lesser beings as he had done so his entire life, regardless of what achievements the Ministry curriculum would illustrate. But it was what the Ministry wanted to do, somehow deeming it a viable way of reducing blood prejudices towards Muggle-borns, and was therefore law.

It was a bit much to expect of a man freshly out of prison – even a prison without Dementors – but Draco couldn't help but want to slap his father and scream at him to pull himself together. Prison was no picnic, but neither was living in a society where no one trusted you. It had been an uphill struggle getting himself and his mother to where they were now, and Draco had had to go to the Ministry more than once to apply for Auror protection in the first year after finishing school.

Draco glared at his father, leaning forwards to grab a pinch of floo powder from the silver basin above the fire. "Your situation could easily be far worse, Father. House arrest after only six years in Azkaban is practically unheard of for an ex-Death Eater."

"You seem to have done all right," Lucius snarled mutinously.

Narcissa's face turned white, the leather of her gloves squeaking under the strain as she clenched her hands, and Draco's previously patiently irate expression became flat, taking on the signature controlled indifference of Malfoy anger as he withdrew his hand from the floo bowl, the powder untouched.

He turned to his father, and although his expression remained blank, his pale skin had tautened over the hard planes of his face, and his eyes burned with something like fury. "I was under age and forced to take the Mark against my will. Or have you forgotten in your absence the exact circumstances leading up to my initiation? I know that, given you were also away at the time, the details may be somewhat hazy for you." His voice had become so cold the temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees.

"And I suppose you regret the choice you made, do you?" Lucius spat, challenging his son to agree.

The control over Draco's features flickered for a moment, and true anger, scorching in its intensity, showed for a moment. "I didn't have a choice, Father. That's the thing about blackmail. Having a choice is an illusion. There is only ever one option to take, and I don't know whether I would take it given a chance to do that over again."

Narcissa gasped at the admission, her hands flying to her mouth, watching her husband and son verbally attempt to crush one another in the most devastating way possible.

"Well, as you never visited me in my cell, I don't suppose your regretting saving my life really comes as a surprise – even if you are my son," Lucius returned viciously.

Draco opened his mouth to retort that if his father had placed looking after his family slightly higher than his allegiance to an insane psychopath then he would never have been put in that situation to begin with, and maybe Lucius would never have faced Azkaban in the first place, but was stopped by his mother's impassioned interruption.

"Stop it! Just stop it – both of you!"

Father and son turned simultaneously to take her in.

Narcissa's eyes were red with unshed tears, her distress evident in the tremor of her voice, and the way her hands shook despite her best attempts to still them. "We have not survived all the hellfire that could be thrown at us to tear ourselves apart!" she cried, equal parts admonition and supplication.

Draco dropped his head, sighing deeply, guilt washing through him at his mother's expression. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, eyes screwed shut. A confrontation was the exact opposite of what he had been planning for his first encounter with his father since his release. He had guessed something might happen, but dredging up the worst parts of the past had not been on his mind, nor in his intentions, and it simply would not do it go into his meeting in a temper.

Two feet away from his son, Lucius went through similar motions of controlling his anger, although his expression remained resentful.

The ticking of the clocks filled the silence that hung between the Malfoys, remaining Draco that they were already pressed for time. Reining in his anger with immense difficulty, he composed himself, lifting his head and reaching for the floo powder once more. "You would do well to forget the past and do your best to start afresh, Father," he said, coolly.

Lucius's scowl deepened, degraded to the point of being lectured by his own son, and he avoided his wife's reproachful gaze. "When did you become so righteous?" he muttered, but the venom was lacking from his tone.

Draco glanced at his father. "A lot can change in six years, Father." He paused. "Welcome back, by the way."

Lucius snorted.

Draco threw the glittering powder into the fire, which roared green, and took his father's hand firmly in his own, the three of them stepping forwards as he shouted, "The Ministry of Magic!"


The Ministry was always busy, but today it was writhing like an overturned ant's nest. The serenely winking gold runes in the peacock blue of the atrium ceiling had never looked so out of place, curving high above the frenetic scurrying of Ministry works across the dark polished floorboards.

Harry Potter appeared in one of the gilded fireplaces on the left side of the atrium in a blast of green flames, and dusted the soot off his robes looking harassed. It was the third time he had come back into the Ministry that morning and it was only just nine o'clock. He sighed heavily. They're going to give us hell for weeks if this isn't resolved. And we've got a snowballs chance of that happening soon. He thought of Kingsley, and wasn't surprised that the Minister flooed directly into his office from home. It was a security precaution that only the Minister could floo into the Ministry's internal fireplaces, as it necessitated that Kingsley's home was a next to impenetrable fort. All other employees could only floo out from the office fires. Still, Harry envied him the privilege, especially on days like today.

The turbulence of people before him did little to improve his mood as he sallied forth, hurrying quickly from the hearth he had arrived in before the next user appeared and cannoned into his back, moving with the surging tide towards the golden gates at the far end of the atrium, and the lifts beyond. Voices surrounded him on all sides, but no one approached him. Everyone seemed to know not to engage the sour-faced head of the Auror Office today.

As he passed the new Fountain of Magical Brethren (deeply relieved, as always, that the petition to install a new fountain with statues of him, Ron, and Hermione had been scrapped), he spotted the horde of reporters clustered near the golden gates barring them entry to the Ministry. There were nearly a dozen spread out along the gates, pressing against the magical barrier charmed to keep them out, and badgering likely looking Ministry workers as they passed through into the Ministry. Aurors were usually easy to spot; casually outlandish in their dress and sporting scars from their run-ins with the Dark wizards they caught, and a number looked like they had become close to drawing wands to deal with the tenacious reporters accosting them.

A frown creased the famous lightning bolt scar on his forehead, and Harry pulled the collar of his robes up, hunching his shoulders as he flattened down his fringe, doing his best to get mixed up in a group from Magical Maintenance, hoping to get past the reporters before they spotted him.

No such luck.

"It's Harry Potter!"

Repressing the urge to jinx whomever it was into a jelly, Harry soldiered on as the reporters rushed towards him, trampling Ministry workers in their eagerness to get to him first. He had to battle his way diplomatically forwards, making very little headway despite his efforts as they remained in jostling formation about him, voices and questions and camera flashes raining down on him from all directions.

"Mr Potter! Can you confirm that this morning's murders are linked to the unsolved case of the Bloodless Seven?" "What kind of Dark activity has the Aurors involved?" "What is the significance of the letters carved in the bodies?" "If the cases are linked, what was the meaning of the month-long gap?" "Were the victims wizards or Muggles?" "Who were they?" "Could this be another attempted uprising of You-Know-Who's sympathisers?" "Will we be seeing you at the Harpies match this weekend?"

Harry tuned out the incessant buzz of questions as best he could, pushing on towards the checkpoint, and wrestling his way out of the huddle and through the gates. He breathed a sigh of relief as he passed over the line that kept the reporters from accessing the Ministry proper, straightened his round glasses and robes, and crossed the small hall, making for the constantly shuttling lifts and his office, the cries of the reporters following him. Today was going to be nightmarish.

Harry sat hunched in his chair, trying to sort out the morass of interdepartmental memos swamping his desk about the case. Everyone had something to say about the subject, apparently – right down to Magical Maintenance, who were complaining about the marks the reporters' camera tripods were leaving on the atrium floorboards. That memo had been incinerated. The air was thick with those still circling above his head, the planes filling his usually spacious office with paper-based clutter.

At the knock on his door, he looked up, not sure whether relief or further grief was about to enter.

"Come in!"

Draco Malfoy entered, suave as ever, his expression as uncertain as it was possible while still shuttered with the classic Malfoy impassiveness and native superiority. Harry had become quite good at decoding it.

"Malfoy – please sit a moment."

Draco took a seat, brushing off a few fallen memos and straightening his already immaculate black robes with a flash of platinum cuff-links, studying Potter over the desk.

With age had come maturity – which was more than could be said for some – and after Potter had testified in his mother's trial, Draco had had to admit that he did owe the Boy Who Lived a few massive favours. He hadn't demurred when Potter had asked him for information on escaped Death Eaters in the years after the War, and had actually become an integral cog in the operation to round up those that had escaped after the battle of Hogwarts. Potter had been the only one willing to risk his help in Ministry business, and because he was Potter, the Chosen One and the Boy Saviour, people hadn't caused too much fuss.

After that, he had become something of a consultant on any unknown Dark item the Aurors discovered, always at Potter's request. They had buried the hatchet a year or so after, much to Weasley's displeasure. Draco regularly thanked Merlin that the Wonder Duo weren't partners in the Auror Office. Potter and Longbottom had had to drag Weasley off him in a very well-publicised nasty little incident at the Ministry's annual gala held to celebrate the ending of the War and the death of Voldemort, which had put paid to any reconciliation on that front three years back.

Weasley, it seemed, would never quite get over their old school rivalries, and Draco had a sneaking suspicion that Potter had always tried to engineer their meetings when the redhead was otherwise occupied. The near brawl made such precautions necessary, as even though Draco was perfectly capable of maintaining his composure, Weasley clearly had no such control. What was more Draco had no intention to go out of his way to avoid Weasley when he was needed at the Ministry, even for the sake of diplomacy. That particular problem was Weasley's to handle if he couldn't reconcile himself to the fact that his friend and boss occasionally needed help from a Malfoy.

Potter, however, was sort of decent to be around – although Draco would never have admitted it to anyone – and was at the very least reliable, not to mention predictable. They had had enough meetings for Draco to have learnt his mannerisms, and he could see quite easily that the world was weighing heavily on the shoulders of the young head of the Auror Office.

Harry had run his hands through his hair so many times that its naturally untidy state had been surpassed, reaching the point where he appeared as though he had been repeatedly electrocuted, every follicle on end and determined to point in a different direction to its fellows. With a grunt, Harry waved his wand at the papers covering his desk and the floor and those still flying above his head, and they sorted themselves into not-quite tidy piles, making the office suddenly look a great deal more organised. Hermione could have done better, but it was sufficient to ease some of the chaos of his mind.

"I'm assuming you don't want to order potion ingredients," Draco began, seeing Potter was at last ready, "although you look like you could really do with a calming draught."

Harry nodded, appreciating Malfoy's dry attempt at cheering him up and actually smiling a very little. It was subtle enough that anyone who didn't know the Malfoy heir well would have missed it. "You've seen the papers, I suppose?"

Draco chucked his copy of the Daily Prophet onto the desk in answer. "Is it related to the previous series of killings like they're saying? And more to the point: how in Merlin's name did the press get hold of it so fast?"

Harry sighed, adjusting his glasses. "It might be. This morning's bodies were found close enough to that of the first killings in the other case that we have to consider a connection likely. We're looking into it – but we can't be sure; these ones are…different."

"You don't say," Draco muttered humourlessly, eyeing the gory photograph once more. "I assume there's Dark magic involved, seeing as you have the case now?" Potter's eyes flickered for a moment, and Draco sensed the Auror was debating something, aware that further information was being withheld. It was unusual. Usually Potter called him in and laid things out. Something was different about this, and Draco couldn't help but feel a little unsettled by it. He changed tack. "And the press?"

"Bad luck," Harry muttered, grimacing. He scanned the front page of the paper, and the three-page spread inside recapping the bungled case of the Bloodless Seven. The victims smiled and blinked up at him, the photos of them in life horribly juxtaposed against those from the crime scenes, their desiccated bodies illuminated in harsh detail by the camera flashes, eyes sunken, and their shockingly pale skin like a loose garment. Of course, their bodies hadn't been defaced, but the new ones hadn't been exsanguinated. "Reporters got to the scene before we could set up repelling charms, so we cut a deal with them."

"You what?!" Draco snapped. Surely he'd misheard. Potter had as much, if not more, experience with the press as he had. Getting involved with them on any level was asking for trouble.

Harry sighed heavily, resting his head on his hands. "Lesser of two evils, Malfoy. They got the photos to print – but we took them." He looked up, collecting himself, but his face remained drawn. "I'm going to need you on this case – and I don't mean as just a consultant."

Draco frowned. "I don't want to be an Auror, Potter."

"I'm not asking you to be one. You'll still technically rank as a civilian. I'm asking you to be on the team, full time. This isn't something that will be solved with a few hours of research. You'll have full Ministry protection and pay, but you also have to abide by our rules. We'll try to keep you out of any combative fieldwork if it comes to that, but I need you here for the duration of the case."

Draco's eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms. "Why do I get the feeling you're not telling me something? And by 'something' I mean everything."

Harry met his suspicious gaze directly. "Because I am. And I won't until you agree to be on the team, and meet my conditions." Harry knew he'd hooked Malfoy's interest – curiosity and a genuine, if repressed, desire to help were the reasons their odd partnership had developed in the first place, and lasted.

The two men eyed each other, diametrically opposed. One pale and expensively attired, his white blond hair indolently styled, silver-grey eyes calm and incisive; the epitome of composure. The other, rumpled and stressed, tie twisted sideways beneath his collar, concerned green eyes beneath his wild black hair, the infamous lightning bolt scar only just concealed by his fringe.

Draco pursed his lips, clicking his tongue thoughtfully as he leant back in his chair. He knew Potter was playing him. But Potter had also come to him the moment the case had come up – and that was rare. And interesting. It had to be bad – it was too early for them to be desperate. "What are the other conditions?" he asked slowly.

Harry grinned. "Confidentiality is the biggest one – obviously. No one not involved on the case can know anything without my clearance. You'll have to abide by Ministry regulations as far as what spells are acceptable, as well as on jurisdictional and procedural matters, and you'll have to go through basic Auror training to make sure you're safe to go in the field – if you're not cleared by our instructors you can only help from behind the lines. As there is a degree of risk involved in being on this case, the Ministry will send Aurors to your home and the Manor to ensure they are well protected, just to be on the safe side. We won't advertise your involvement, but there's always a possibility that working with us could make you a target. They're the main points. Oh, and you'll have to sign a magical binding contract to the effect."

Draco rolled his eyes at the last bit. "Of course."

"Nothing beats the red tape," Harry quipped with a shadow of a laugh. His eyes remained on Draco, however, watching him with anxious intentness.

Draco considered for a moment. Then nodded. "So what's this flaming secret of yours?"

"Uh-uh, Malfoy – sign first; answers later." Harry pulled a contract out of his drawer and put it on the table in front of Malfoy to read.

"You were very certain that I'd agree," Draco commented wryly, leaning forwards to peruse the details of the fine print. It was pretty much as Potter had stated, with a few extra minor details. The thing was ironclad.

Harry restrained a grin. "I had confidence in you."

Draco blinked, looking up from the contract and frowned. "How can I be sure that you're the real Potter? Polyjuice isn't so hard to make you know."

Harry laughed at that. "You'll just have to trust me, won't you?"

Draco snorted richly, picking up a quill and signing the contract with a flourish. "Just imagine our younger selves watching this. Potter and Malfoy – a trusting team, ready to save the world." He threw the quill back down. "My father will be sick if he hears about this."

"Better have a bucket on standby, then," Harry muttered, rolling up the contract.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Answers, Potter. Spill."

Harry turned, waving his wand at the wall to the left of his desk. In an office this large, it ordinarily would have been an enchanted window. Instead, the entire thing was a huge pin board from ceiling to waist height. At Harry's direction all the notes and memos pinned to it turned translucent, revealing the real information board behind it.

Sectioned off on the far right were the photographs and details from the Bloodless Seven. On the left were the details of the latest killings. The photographs to this were similar to the ones in the Prophet, save that the scene hadn't been cleaned up. The bodies were almost invisible under the thick coating of blood in these, little lumps of skin and flesh casting odd shadows in the camera flashes. There was one other difference that explained exactly why the Ministry had cut a deal with the papers, taking the photographs themselves, however, and why Potter had deemed a contract necessary.

Under splatters of blood, Dark Marks gaped sinisterly on the victims' left forearms.


I hope you liked the cliff-hanger/twist!

So this is going to be a pretty long fic - my first extended Dramione. I've been working on it for a while now, and I'm happy to start posting. It's going to be a magical murder mystery with a twist that made reading "The Cursed Child" kind of hilarious.
Oh, also, because this is a murder mystery, there will be continued descriptions of bodies at the crime scenes, etc. (and there will be some torture scenes way down the track) so if that's a bit too much, I'm sorry, but this isn't the fic for you.

I know Hermione doesn't make an appearance in this chapter, but she'll get a proper mention and initial appearance in the next one, the real Draco-Hermione interactions will start in chapter 3 (quite explosively, might I add)!
All is most definitely not well between Draco and Lucius - lots of daddy issues to hash out there in later chapters! I hope it wasn't too much of an information dump with the case, I tried to be clear and concise. Erm...that's it for now, I think.

Hope you enjoyed it! Please review or favourite if you did!

Also, if you like this story, or any of my other ones, and you want access to sneak previews on chapters that I'm working on, you can Like my Facebook page, and Follow my Twitter or Tumblr :)
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