Harry Potter is having a shit day. And that is putting it mildly. It might be fair to call it the worst day since the end of the second wizarding war, which in all fairness definitely ranks up there with really shit days. Granted, the end of the second wizarding war was bittersweet as well, as that fucking asshole was finally dead and the Death Eaters had relinquished their control of the government. But in terms of loss of life, it had been really bloody awful. Obviously.

And now this day is turning out to be pretty shit too. Perhaps not as bad, because only one person died, but as Harry and Oliver had been more than just partners, it really ranks up there.

Harry blinks back a tear as he thinks about what they had been talking about over breakfast. It had been so casual. They had been excited about the fact that tomorrow was Saturday and they had the whole weekend to do nothing but sleep late, eat whatever they wanted, and, well, fuck a lot. It had been Harry's birthday yesterday and Oliver had promised him an entire weekend of debauchery. Because if there was one thing they did well together, it was sex. Not that they were strictly supposed to be sleeping together, but it wasn't strictly forbidden either.

He knows he needs to pull himself together. Croaker is going to need him for the investigation into why his partner went rogue. Harry had known Oliver was a good spy, but Merlin he hadn't thought he was so good as to catch Harry with his trousers down like this. Harry had thought they talked to each other about most things, but clearly there had been parts of Oliver's life that Harry didn't know anything about. On top of everything else, that stings.

He is glad that he was not in the office when he heard about Oliver's death. He is not sure how well he would have held his emotions in check. He is, of course, trained to keep himself calm under pressure, but he is only human and this news hurts a lot.

Harry wants nothing more than to curl up in his bed, and inhale the scent of Oliver that he knows is still on the duvet. But Croaker had called him in to deal with the mess that Oliver had left behind and Harry can't afford for his boss to find out about their ill advised relationship, even if it was involuntarily cut short. So Harry needs to be the consummate professional. He takes a deep, steadying breath as he walks down the corridor to Croaker's office.

"What is the latest?" he asks once he is standing in front of the man. Harry almost does a double take as he looks at his boss. Croaker is not carrying the stress of the situation well. Harry can see his hair sticking up from where he has run his hands through it multiple times and there are deep furrows in his brows.

"The port key team has isolated the house in question appears to belong to a civilian, though we are not sure who that civilian is just yet. Beryl has gone to fetch the property records."

"Do you need any eyes on the ground? I am happy to stake out the building." In fact, a stakeout will be perfect, Harry thinks. It will take his mind off of things. Croaker considers this for a second before nodding and rummaging around his desk for a pen. He scribbles the coordinates down on a piece of paper.

"Yes, if you watch the house concurrently with us getting the records, perhaps you can get an idea of whether or not Wood had any prior contact with this person. Apparate to the nearest street and watch the door." Croaker hands the paper to Harry who nods and turns to leave. "Oh, and Potter." He stops. "I'm sorry. I know this must be hard on you. It's never easy to lose a partner." Harry does not trust himself to say anything, so he just nods once and then leaves Croaker's office.

He pulls out his wand and taps his watch as he walks down the corridor. A 3D rendering of London appears above it, centered on where Harry is now. His eyes flick down to the coordinates in his other hand and he waves his wand at the rendering while concentrating on them. The map moves and a small blinking dot appears in a tiny translucent building. Harry prods the image with his wand and the view moves in towards the dot, other buildings and street names coming into focus. Harry scans the surrounding streets for a moment and then nods to himself.

Increasing his pace, he strides, now with purpose, towards the exit. Once outside, he finds the first alleyway that he can, looks around quickly to make sure there are no Muggles about, and then apparates with a small pop.

A brief stop at his house - very brief - just enough time to pick up his invisibility cloak which is his most valuable piece of (possibly not sanctioned) spy equipment, not enough time to get emotional - and then Harry apparates to a quiet street, a few streets over from his mark. He slips under the invisibility cloak and begins to walk.

As luck would have it, two men step out of the house question just as Harry rounds the corner of the street. He sucks in a breath as he sees who it is. Well that answers the question about prior contact. It's Oliver's sodding ex-boyfriend.

Harry grinds his teeth and thinks there is no way that this day can get any worse. Happy fucking birthday, Harry. Grumbling to himself, Harry begins to tail the two men.

By the time Draco and Greg stumble back across the alleyway to their own house, they are both three sheets to the wind. Once they had gotten to Hannah's, they split a of bottle of wine between the three of them. When Hannah's boyfriend, Ernie MacMillen showed up (Hannah and Ernie, the Hogwarts sweethearts, did not help with Draco's preconceptions about Hufflepuffs), they opened another one. The promised Chinese food never materialized and instead they threw together some spaghetti dish out of things found in Hannah's kitchen. Finally around eleven thirty, Draco glanced at his watch and called an end to the evening.

"You up for a game of exploding gobstones snap?" Greg now asks as they burst through the door into their house. It is a game that involves exploding snap cards and gobstones and a host of convoluted rules that they had invented on a night similar to this during which they had been equally as intoxicated. Draco'd had the brilliant sense to set up a self writing quill to copy down the rules they would otherwise have forgotten while they played and thus exploding gobstones snap had been created. (They are still working on a better name for it.)

"I think I'm going to call it a night," Draco says. "We do have work in the morning, after all."

"Suit yourself." Greg makes his way to the back of the mews house, where his room is, while Draco turns and heads upstairs.

Draco's room is at the top of the house, on the fourth floor, under the eaves. In reality, the whole floor is his, though the floor consists of just a landing, his bedroom, and a small bathroom. This evening the stairs feel like they take forever and his feet feel as though they are made of lead. He blames the man with the giant bloody pockets and sticky fingers for this exhaustion. It feels good to blame someone.

He freezes as he reaches the top of the stairs and sees the landing of his floor. There is a large box sitting in the middle of the floor. Draco may be tired and drunk but he knows he did not leave a giant box in the middle of the floor. Carefully he draws his wand from the holster he wears around his waist. Then he proceeds with caution towards the box.

As he nears it, he realizes that there is a watch sitting on top of it. And it is a watch he recognizes. He breathes in sharply. It's Oliver's watch. He hasn't seen Oliver since around the time he started at Flourish and Blotts, but he would know that watch face anywhere. The number of times he had lain in Oliver's arms, playing idly with the dials and watching the planets move about the face. He takes a step backward. He does not know why Oliver has seemingly sent him a mysterious package, but the year spent trapped in Malfoy Manor with the (other) Death Eaters has made him wary, even now, almost ten years on.

He tries to run down the stairs, only to be impeded by the alcohol in his system. He stumbles down the last few stairs and falls heavily onto the landing, twisting his ankle on the final stair. His wand flies out of his hand and clatters away down the landing, out of reach. He suddenly feels quite sober.

"Greg," he calls, wincing as tries to stand and put weight on his leg. He collapses back to the floor. His ankle hurts in a way that makes Draco think that it is sprained at the very least. Even if he weren't worried about the mysterious box upstairs and thus want Greg's help investigating it, he would now need help getting up the stairs to go to bed.

Something in his voice must alert Greg to the fact that something is not right because a second later he hears his friend's thunderous footfalls coming towards him up the stairs. As he reaches the third floor, Draco sees his wand is drawn.

"What is it?" Greg asks. His eyes rake the corridor as if he expects there to be an intruder there. Finding no one, he drops his eyes to Draco who is still sprawled on the floor. "Are you ok?" Draco shakes his head.

"I fell down the stairs. Or more accurately, the stair." Greg lowers his wand and crouches down next to Draco. "I hurt my ankle and my wand went flying somewhere over there." Draco points down the corridor. Greg nods and waves his wand in the direction Draco points.

"Accio Draco's wand," he says and the wand flies over from where it had landed. Greg grabs it out of the air and hands it to Draco.

"Thanks," Draco says. He points his wand down at his ankle. "Episkey." Instantly the pain that had been growing steadily while he had been sitting there dissipates. Greg straightens up and pulls Draco to his feet.

"What were you running down the stairs for?" Greg asks.

"A funny thing happened," Draco starts to say.

"On the way to the forum?" Greg hazards.

"Yes, that's exactly right."

"Really?" Greg looks pleased with himself. Draco rolls his eyes.

"No," he snaps. "There is a strange box upstairs."

"Strange how?"

"Strange as in I didn't put it there. It just appeared." Greg frowns and eyes the stairs nervously.

"Should we firecall someone about it?" Draco can't believe he did not think to do that and almost smacks a hand to his forehead but stops himself at the last moment. Draco has no idea where Oliver is or could be and so could not even call him if he had wanted to. They had lost touch when they had broken up, and Draco has had no notion as to where Oliver had moved to after he left Puddlemere United. For some reason the Daily Prophet had declined to list his new address in all their coverage of his leaving the team. Privacy and all that.

"There's no one to call," Draco says finally. "I know who the box is from, or at least I think I do. But I don't know how to contact him." Greg cocks his head to the side and frowns down at Draco.

"Well, if you know who it's from, then what's the issue?" Draco sits down heavily on the bottom stair.

"The problem is that I don't know why he's sending me anything. He broke my heart, not the other way around." Draco can't keep the note of hurt from his voice. A small part of him wants to cry, but this is not the time. Comprehension dawns on Greg's face.

"It's from Wood?" he asks. Draco nods. "But why would he be sending you something after so long?"

"That's precisely what I'm wondering. And that's why I am so alarmed."

"But how did it even get here?"

"That's another good question." Draco thinks that Greg is full of good questions tonight. Not for the first time, Draco is glad that Greg agreed to be his housemate, even though it could be argued that Draco had been the one doing Greg the favor.

"Well, should we go look at it?" Draco nods and stands. They make their way slowly up the stairs. Draco is still being gentle with his ankle, even though the healing charm has taken care of most of it.

The box is exactly where it was before. Not that he thought that it would move, but they're wizards and stranger things have happened. After all, the box had shown up here of its own accord. He and Greg both stare at it from about four paces away. After a moment Greg breaks the silence.

"How do you know it's from Wood?" he asks. Draco points to the watch that is still sitting atop the box.

"That was his watch." His voice catches slightly in his throat and he prays that Greg does not notice. Greg begins to move his wand through the air, staring at something that Draco can't see as he does. Draco does not ask where Greg learned how to perform that sort of magical analysis. He is sure the answer would have something to do with Greg's time as the Amycus Carrow's teacher's pet in his Seventh Year at Hogwarts. That time is not a topic they discuss frequently, as both of them are still working to put it behind themselves.

"It's a portkey," Greg says finally, lowering his wand again. "The watch is a portkey. Or, more accurately, it was. It's deactivated now."

"Can you tell where it came from?" Draco asks but Greg shakes his head.

"Only that it was spelled to come here, to these precise coordinates."

"Of course," Draco says, mostly to himself. Those were the coordinates he had given Oliver so that he could apparate into the house without anyone seeing him.

Their relationship had been during the height of Oliver's Quidditch popularity, and the Daily Prophet gossip witches seemed to stalk the star wherever he went. He had been Quidditch Today's most eligible bachelor, which Draco had thought was hilarious as Oliver most definitely had not been single. And of course he could not be seen with Draco, who was still tainted in the eyes of the public. So they had met in secret.

The first night they met, of course, was in public. Oliver had come to the Leaky Cauldron and spent the first half of his evening fending off overly flirtatious witches. Draco had been tending bar and had noticed the steady stream of women walking over to one corner of the bar and minutes later walking away looking dejected.

Recognizing Wood from school, he had invited him into the new VIP room that he had created and which he had been trying to convince Hannah was a good idea. Wood had been grateful to escape the adoring (annoying) public and had asked Draco to sit with him in the empty VIP room. (It had been a few months before the idea really caught on.) Somehow Draco's clumsy flirting must have worked because a few drinks later, Draco had found himself pinned against the wall with Oliver's mouth on his. He thinks he must have given him the apparition coordinates that night because almost every evening after that, Oliver would turn up on his landing and they would spend the night together. Until, of course, the night when he stopped coming and had never contacted Draco again.

The memory is still fresh in his mind even though it has been several years now. Draco feels a stab of longing go through him and he looks away from the box. and the watch. Greg has been watching him. He must notice a shift in Draco, perhaps a slight slump to his posture, because he reaches out a hand and rests it on Draco's shoulder. He doesn't say anything else. He doesn't ask how Oliver knew the coordinates. He just stands there with Draco, supporting him.

Once Draco has a handle on his emotions, he takes a step towards the box. Greg moves with him. Greg has his wand raised again. Draco decides to throw less caution to the wind. He doesn't think Oliver would want to hurt him. Or at least, he fervently hopes Oliver wouldn't want to hurt him. Draco had said nothing about their breakup, not that he had seen Oliver again to say anything. It had been shortly after he stopped coming over that he quite suddenly quit Puddlemere United and became a recluse. Draco knows he is not the only one who hasn't seen or heard from Oliver in several years.

The box does nothing as he approaches it. It just sits there, box-like and unmoving. Draco decides to just bite the bullet. He walks the last few feet to the box, crouches down next to it and picks up the watch. Before he can stop himself, he lifts it to his nose. It smells like Oliver's cologne. Draco recognizes it instantly and falls backwards onto his arse, all the energy draining out of him. It is so sudden - it almost feels like being punched in the gut. He feels Greg's hand on his shoulder again, this time from above.

"It's definitely from Oliver," Draco says. "I gave him these coordinates when we first started dating. If you could call it dating." Draco is no longer sure he would call it that. The only dates they ever had were here in the house, when Draco would cook dinner or they would order take out. But he supposes that was all that Oliver could do. He sighs and Greg squeezes his shoulder.

"So are you going to open it?" Greg asks.

Draco nods and sets the watch down. He reaches over and opens the box. Inside is a large book. Draco reaches in and lifts it out of the box. From the feel of it, it is bound in dragon hide. The pages are gold-leafed. The title on the front reads 'The Reliquary' in large, serifed letters, also in gold. Draco frowns at the book. Holding it in his hands, the book feels powerful. He wonders why Oliver has sent it to him. Could it be because he works at Flourish and Blotts?

"Huh," Greg says. "Interesting." His tone says he finds it anything but that. Greg does not work at Flourish and Blotts for his love of books the way that Draco does. Greg works there because it is a job.

"It is interesting though," Draco says. He holds the book up to Greg. "Feel it."

Greg reaches out a hand and touches the book. He brings his hand back quickly as though it has been burned and he stares at the book with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"I don't like it," Greg says. "It feels wrong."

"It feels powerful," Draco says.

"I don't think you should read it."

"Greg, it's just a book."

"It doesn't feel like it's just a book."

"Fair point." Draco put the book back into the box. "What do you think I should do with it?" Greg shrugs.

"I dunno," he says. "Ask Wood why he sent it to you? Take it to work and see if any of the boffins there know anything about it? Either way, I wouldn't open it."

"Not even a peek?" Now that Greg has suggested that he not read the book, Draco really wants to read the book. It is the same feeling he had when he was a child, when his parents told him he should not read at night and instead go to sleep. He had done precisely the opposite and stayed up far beyond his bedtime, reading under the covers, consumed by the need to read just one more page and then another, until it snowballed into just one more chapter and so forth. He had come down each morning with bags under his eyes until his mother snuck in one night, caught him at it and grounded him for a week.

"Not even a peek," Greg says. He reaches up and yawns. "You should sleep." And he's said the magic words. The words that mean that Draco will not sleep, but instead will look at the book and just read a couple of pages. But Greg doesn't know it.

"Fine," Draco says, lying so that Greg will leave and let the subject drop. He closes the top of the box. "I'll ask Mr Blotts about it tomorrow, if he pays us his usual 'surprise' Saturday visit." He picks himself up off of the floor. Greg stands near the stairs, unsure if he should leave yet.

"Are you going to be alright?" he asks. Draco gives him a small smile and nods.

"I'll be fine. And everything will be better in the morning."

"It always is." Greg starts to descend, but Draco stops him.

"Hey Greg?" Greg looks up.

"Yep?"

"Thank you," Draco says. He tries to fill his words with the amount of gratitude he feels towards his friend. He is not sure he manages that, but he thinks Greg understands either way.

"Anytime. Sleep well." And then he disappears around the turn in the stairs.

Draco waits until he hears Greg walk down the third flight of stairs to the ground floor before he walks back over to the book. Pulling it back out of the box, he feels the thrill in the pit of his stomach that comes from knowing he is doing something he shouldn't be doing. The book thrums in his hands. He starts to open it and then stops himself.

Instead, he walks into his bedroom and places the book on his bed. If he is going to read a book he's not supposed to read at a time when he should instead be sleeping, he is going to do it properly. Quickly, he takes off his clothes until he is wearing just his boxers and goes through his evening ablutions. It is only when he is tucked up in bed, propped up against the pillows, that he picks the book up again.

He takes a moment to admire the cover, tracing a finger over the gold-embossed lettering. It really is a gorgeous book. If Oliver sent it to him because he thought Draco would admire it, he was spot on. Draco is damn well infatuated with it.

Dry mouthed with anticipation, Draco opens the front cover.

And then it is as though a demon possesses him. He reads each page feverishly, unable to look away. He barely blinks as he devours the contents of the book. He cannot quite say what it is about - he is hardly aware that he is reading it. He only knows that it is imperative that he should not stop reading until he reaches the end.

Page after page, Draco reads as though he is a man trapped in the desert and the words are water. The words are life. The words are power. The words are like oxygen and he needs them to live. They pour into his mind, even if he does not comprehend them. Pages turn as if of their own free will as the words march into his brain.

Outside, the moon rises and sets. Stars move through the sky. The world turns.

As dawn's pale fingers begin to stretch across the sky, Draco finally sets the book down. He has read the entire thing in one sitting. He takes a deep, steadying breath, and then immediately falls asleep, his head finally falling back against his pillow. He does not see the pages of the book tear themselves out of the spine, fly up into the air and disappear until he is left with nothing but an empty cover.


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