AN: I was way too impatient. As soon as this chapter was done I had to post it! This chapter is a little bit more filler to tee up for the next big thing, but I hope you all enjoy it :)
-..-
Hastings was not paid nearly enough for the shite he put up with. Azkaban was cold, dreary, and an altogether horrid place to work. Even without the dementors, the sprawling prison was still filled with the worst criminals and situated on a desolate island in the middle of the freezing sea. No, Hastings was certainly not paid enough.
Which was why, when an odd shadow caught his eye during his rounds, he fully considered ignoring it. The small shadow had not been large enough to be a dementor and was carried on the wind with far more purpose than their tattered cloaks. The thing flew towards one of the small, barred windows of the uppermost cells and floated through, as if there were no wards on the prison at all.
Hastings had stared in incomprehension for several moments and then rubbed his tired eyes. He wanted nothing more than to pretend the thing was a bird, or better yet not even real. A hallucination perhaps, caused by staring at a grey sea for months on end. He wanted to go home and warm up with a nice cup of tea in front of a roaring fire next to his sweet wife. But that was a cell near the rear of the prison in an area that he knew housed the more high profile prisoners. He knew this needed to be reported. Sighing heavily, he wrapped his cloak tighter around his shoulders and trudged back up to the prison to alert the rest of the guards. They would have to call the aurors, and that realization caused him to walk just a bit slower.
—..—
There's no rest for the wicked, Harry thought miserably as he scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair. He downed a second pepper up potion and grimaced at the taste. He could already imagine the lecture Madame Pomphrey would give him if she knew, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The hangover thundering through his skull like a herd of hypogriffs was certainly making him feel desperate. Merlin help the man who made him get up at such an ungodly hour on his day off. And the day after a holiday, no less.
Harry eyed a third pepper up potion but decided against it and instead apparated to his office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
And immediately vomited into his waste basket.
Thank Godric he would be taking the floo system to get to Azkaban; although, he doubted that would be much better. He really should ask Hermione to come up with some sort of magical transportation that didn't make him lose his lunch. She was certainly clever enough.
Despite his eventful morning, Harry was the first to arrive after the alert went out. He had been on the lookout for any notifications coming in from Azkabah since his chat with Draco a few weeks ago and had received three separate patronus messages when the call came in to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. While appreciative of their hard work, he wished they could have picked a morning that he wasn't struggling with a post quidditch tournament hangover. He tossed floo powder into his fireplace and stepped out into the Warden's office. He grimaced at the uncomfortable feeling of the wards checking his magical signature for the proper permissions and quickly took stock of the situation.
The room was in chaos.
Prison guards were yelling and pointing fingers, accusing each other of inattention to the prisoners or even falling asleep while on duty. The Warding Division were there trying to figure out who had managed to screw up such an important job. Minister Shacklebolt was doing his best to calm everyone down, but he looked to be near the point of hexing the Warden, who should be noted was the only calm person in the room.
Harry made his way over to the pair and interjected before the Warden could say something to finally set off Shacklebolt's barely contained fury. "Sir, if I could have a word with the Warden. I would like to sort this out as quickly as possible."
Kingsly threw his hands in the air and shouted, "Be my guest!" He threw the Warden one last glare and stormed off to try and sort out the Warding Division.
Harry pulled the Warden to a quieter part of the room and asked, "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"
"Well…" The man spoke as if he were discussing the latest quidditch standings rather than a matter of national security, and it set Harry's teeth to grinding. "I had just arrived for my shift when one of my guards came in to tell me he'd seen some shadow goin' in through an upstairs window. Now, Hastings is a quiet man, but he's never given me no grief, so of course I immediately went to investigate."
Somehow, Harry sincerely doubted the accuracy of that, but he motioned for the man to continue.
"Turns out it was Malfoy's cell, so I sent some of my men up to see what's what, and they came across that thing there." He pointed towards a crate in the corner of the room that looked to have at least four warding and locking spells on it. "Figured it was suspicious enough to call the aurors over." He glared around the room and added, "Not that they've been any help."
Ignoring the slight towards his men, Harry asked, "How did they manage to catch it?"
"They threw a bunch of spells at it 'til it quit movin'."
Taking a deep breath to keep from rolling his eyes, Harry thanked the Warden for his time and sent him home. He would get little more from the man, and he preferred not having to deal with him any longer. Using his wand to pull the memory of the Warden's statement from his mind before he left, Harry stashed the silver thread in a glass tube and stored it in his robes. Motioning for the creature expert the Ministry had contacted, Harry made his way over to investigate the crate.
As of yet, no one was sure what the creature was. Everyone who had seen it described a small shadow, about the size of an owl. Lucius Malfoy had been seen speaking to it when the guards arrived, but the man had been uncharacteristically silent since and refused to answer any of their questions. The Magizoologist Harry had called in walked past him and, ignoring everyone's warnings, stooped down directly in front of the crate. Adelaide Forester, rumored to be one of the greatest Magizoologist on this side of the Atlantic, was fearless and known for her near encyclopedic knowledge of magical creatures. If she couldn't identify the thing, Harry would be out of ideas.
"I am assuming it's inside the box?" She asked, already flipping through the large tome she had brought with her.
"Yes, it is." Harry smiled at the Hermione-esque behavior and said, "Thank you for coming, Forester."
"My pleasure," she answered without looking up from her book. "Can we remove the wards so I can see it properly?"
Harry waved over one of the warders. "We're going to keep one of the wards on the floor so it can't escape, but we'll remove the wards from the crate itself. If it's intelligent enough to communicate, it might be able to tell us why it was speaking with Malfoy."
The wards were quickly dismantled, and the room fell silent. Everyone watched in nervous anticipation as Harry cast the spell to open the box. At first, nothing moved.
Slowly, as if hesitant, a small shadow eased itself out of the box. It was as if a portion of the inky black inside the box had separated itself from the rest of the shadows and moved on its own. It had no real features or form and slid down the side of the crate like a bead of water. No larger than a bird, it's deep shades of black reflected oddly in the light of the room. The constant shifting of its form made it impossible to see its true shape or size, like a constantly moving puddle of ink. It made no sound, nor did it attempt to leave the circle of magic cast on the floor, as though it was aware of the boundary it sat in.
Everyone in the room stared in awed silence at the creature, and even the Magizoologist seemed to be at a loss for words. In any other situation, Harry would have laughed at the way Adelaide's mouth hung open in shock, the book in her lap entirely forgotten.
"What is it?" Harry asked, finally breaking the silence. His voice was hushed so as not to startle the creature or cause it to retreat back into the crate.
She shook her head slowly, eyes never leaving the creature. "I'm not sure. I've never…" The sentence died on her lips as shook her head again.
Scratching the back of his head and squinting at the shadow, Harry sighed quietly. This investigation was becoming far more complex than he had thought. "You're the best in your field, Adelaide. If you don't know what this thing is," he let the rest of his thought hang in the air, both of them knowing this could make or break his investigation.
"I'm not the best." Adelaide finally pulled her eyes away from the creature and looked up at him. She didn't speak with modesty or humility but as though she were reading a fact from one of her books. Her gaze was measuring, and Harry felt like he had passed some sort of test when she said, "I know someone who might be able to help."
Adelaide ended up writing down her contact's information on a piece of parchment and took the creature with her for further examination. Harry instructed his aurors on how to finish taking statements and sort the paperwork and then apparated back to his office. He massaged his temples to try and slow his still throbbing headache and wished he had risked that third pepper up potion. This was going to end up being a very long day.
—…—
Draco groaned and threw an arm over his eyes to try and block the light. He could have sworn he had closed the curtains, but everything from last night was still a bit of a blur. Cracking one eye open to try and find the source of the blue light, he immediately shut it again at the spike of pain the shot to the back of his skull.
Fuck hangovers.
Reaching out blindly, Draco's hand batted around his bedside table until he found the handle of the drawer. Pulling it open, he began digging around for a pepper up potion. He stopped when a small hand pushed against his shoulder.
A gruff voice whispered next to him, "Too much noise."
Rummaging a bit quieter, Draco's hand finally closed around a vial. He was fairly certain there weren't any other potions in his side table, and that was a risk he was willing to take. Not like this hangover can get much worse, he thought miserably as he quickly drank the whole thing.
The relief was immediate. His headache was still there, but it had softened to a dull ache, and he found that he was finally able to open his eyes without wanting to die. Looking beside his bed, he finally found the stag patronus that had been illuminating the room.
"What the hell…" Draco rubbed at his eyes until he saw star bursts behind them and then looked again. Sure enough, a ghostly blue stag was standing in his bedroom looking at him.
"Turn off the light."
He looked over and found Hermione tucked up against his side, her face covered by her wild mane of hair. She was still dressed in her winter clothes from the night before, and he realized he was still similarly dressed. No wonder he was sweating.
Hermione murmured something else he couldn't understand and tried to burrow further into his side. He hated to wake her, but the patronus in his room was unsettling, and something told him it was waiting for both of them to be awake.
He gently brushed her hair out of her face and spoke as softly as he could. "Hermione, you need to wake up."
She groaned and tried to bat his hand away. "Too early."
Draco wasn't even sure what time it was. "Come on, love. There's a patronus here for us."
"Patronus?" She finally cracked and eye open and squinted up at him. "What's it look like?"
"A stag, I think."
Hermione sat up so quickly she almost caught Draco's chin with her head. She immediately groaned and covered her face with her hands, the movement no doubt making her hangover that much worse.
"Listen to the message, and I'll get a hangover potion for you."
She nodded, but didn't take her hands away from her face.
Draco began digging through his side table once more as the echoing voice of Harry Potter began filling the room.
"Malfoy, I've got an update on the situation you asked me to look into. I'm going to be honest, I'm far too hungover to properly explain what's going on. Pop over to my office when you have a moment."
Draco was staring at the patronus, hand still stuck in the drawer and mouth open in surprise.
The patronus turned to leave, paused, and added, "Oh, and bring coffee." It then dashed through the wall of his bedroom and vanished.
Heart pounding loudly in the new silence of the room, Draco slowly turned to look over his shoulder at Hermione. He hadn't wanted to mention his father yet, if at all. It wasn't something he believed she needed to be concerned with, but it would be a bit difficult to keep it from her now.
A soft snore carried through the hands pressed over Hermione's face, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found her once more burrowed under the blankets of his bed. She hadn't even made it through the message before she had sought the relief of sleep once more. He would tell her what was going on, but not yet. There were too many unknown variables; it could very well end up being nothing more than the crazed ramblings of a prison inmate.
Draco eased himself out of bed, mindful of the sleeping witch beside him, and quickly dressed for a trip to the Ministry. He left a note on the bedside table along with a hangover potion. He debated back and forth before finally conjuring a single rose to add to the note. He then walked swiftly to the fireplace and left.