Chapter 23

Light rain was falling steadily on the two men who were crouched on the rooftop. Rather than using a water-repelling charm, they were exposed to the elements, out of concern that the shimmer of droplets bouncing off of a shield might alert others to their presence. Not that there were any others in sight.

They'd been watching the building on and off for several days, ever since Harry had first Floo-called Draco about their lead on Travers.

For the last couple of years, the Aurors had been systematically rounding up all of the Death Eaters who had escaped or gone into hiding during the last Wizarding War. Some of them, like Jugson or Rowle, were just trying to put the war behind them and make a new life. In those cases, they were brought to justice for their war crimes but granted the opportunity to apply for a program where they could make themselves useful to Wizarding society and integrate fully back into the world.

Technically, Draco had been the first unofficial recipient of such open-mindedness and yes, mercy. Having been tried immediately after Voldemort's death, and then serving an incredibly short sentence due to his youth, he'd already been granted a provisional position within the Auror department before the first of the missing Death Eaters and Dark Wizards had been smoked out and convicted.

Since then, Draco had been a staunch advocate for former Death Eaters who just wanted to live quiet, law-abiding lives. He was also the most aggressive about tracking down the witches and wizards who were still considered 'Dark & Dangerous'. Wizards like Travers.

Travers was well-known for his xenophobic obsession with blood purity and his hatred of all things Muggle, including the so-called blood traitors who he viewed contemptuously as weak-minded fools. Since Harry had Imperio'd him all those years ago, he'd been violent and angry, taking Voldemort's defeat as a personal affront.

Over the years, there had been the occasional glimpse of him, but nothing concrete to go on. He had refrained from the poorly planned and clumsily executed missions of vengeance that had dotted the political landscape in the year after the war.

Recently though, there had been a surge of Dark activity. Several seemingly unconnected events-from stolen Dark texts to unexpected pockets of Dementors, and even an imported Lethifold-were indicating that there was possibly a resurgence of organized activity.

There wasn't any proof that Travers was involved with any of those things. But no one, least of all Harry, had been fooled into thinking that meant he would not be a concern in the near future. Potter treated every name on his list as the possible next Dark Lord.

That's why even now they were on the rooftop watching an empty building across the street. Several Auror teams had taken shifts to give the building coverage around the clock, but Malfoy and Potter handled most of them. Harry was convinced Travers was up to something, and he was determined to find out what it was.

Still, Draco wished he wasn't so adamant about not having a shield charm just for the water. At least Potter allowed him a bit of a Warming Charm, so he didn't catch a chill while they sat in their soggy robes taking turns observing the building through their Omnioculars.

They'd long ago cast a modified Sound-Proofing Charm around them that kept their voices from carrying beyond the boundary of the stone wall that edged the flat roof of their chosen location. And a good thing, too, since the two men spent most of their time bickering.

"Potter, nothing has changed in 72 hours, I don't see why we can't switch out already!" They sat with their backs leaned against the wall, heads well below any angle that could be seen from the other buildings. Draco was taking his turn to view the building, casting a practiced eye over it. This particular Omniocular was a slim contraption, long and bendy, that could be twisted and aimed behind them and could see magical objects as well as Muggle. They hid it in a crack between the stones so it couldn't be seen.

The other Auror teams used a variety of spells and mirrors to see across the street without being noticed, but Harry had a special custom-made scope from George Weasley's shop that made their shifts go much easier, making Draco wonder why George spent so much time on joke items when he could make more (and more respectable) money crafting actually useful items.

"Malfoy, I already told you, we accepted the shift, we'll finish it out. Quit whinging." Sitting the way they were, the rain collected in little pools in the fronts of their robes. Harry had arranged his clothing into more of a bowl for the water, and periodically, he would flick the accumulated water at Draco, making Draco wonder how he and the Weasel had ever accomplished anything together.

It was silly, as both men were already completely soaked through. Yet, it never failed to make Draco clench his jaw in irritation. He sniffed disdainfully, trying to ignore Harry as he snickered at his well-aimed droplets. "It's hardly whinging to point out that we take twice as many shifts as any of the other partners, and no one would think it unfair for us to get out of the rain for a bit."

"If I didn't know better, Malfoy, I'd think you were made of sugar the way you're always so worried about melting."

"Hardly," he scoffed. "It's just so—"

"Undignified," Harry finished for him with a huffy sigh. "Yes, I know. You've only mentioned it about a thousand times." He switched to a haughty upper-class accent. "Malfoy Rule #117: A Malfoy never allows himself to be blasphemed with rain, particularly on his perfectly blond hair. Also, water in general is only for the lower classes. A Malfoy never bathes, only washes the soil of the peasants off with streams of magic."

Draco's mouth twitched a tiny bit, refusing to admit that Harry was being funny. He tried to remind himself to have patience with Potter, as his only examples for propriety and manners came from Weasleys, and everyone knew they were hardly models worth imitating. In response to Potter's boyish grin, he said, "You would make a terrible Malfoy."

"Thank Merlin for that!" Harry quipped, wiping his brow in an exaggerated gesture of relief.

That grin was still on his face, though, so Draco added, pointedly, "You do, however, sound exactly like Great-Aunt Walburga."

Harry made a face of horror, and both men laughed quietly at their shared distant relative.

"I'd forgotten what she sounded like," Harry mused. "It's been a long time since I've heard her screeching voice shouting obscenities." He shivered in remembrance, and Draco cringed at his own memories of the voice that was like a hundred house elves ironing their hands.

"Figured out how to get her picture off the wall, did you?" he asked, impressed despite himself.

"Oh, no, Hermione got tired of the constant stream of epithets being hissed at her whenever she visited, so she silenced her and then covered her up with fabric printed all over with Gordon the Gopher's face. And now whenever she comes by, she uncovers the portrait and squeaks loudly like a gopher until Aunt Walburga gets all red in the face screaming things no one can hear."

Both men laughed heartily at that, even though Draco had no idea who Gordon the Gopher was. Anyone getting the better of stuffy Aunt Walburga was funny enough.

He looked forward to asking Hermione all about it later. They did have plans to spend time together as it was nearly the weekend again. Other than a few heavy snogs snuck around work, they'd barely seen each other, and he found the days seemed much longer than normal when he was stuck in the dreary rain with no hope of 'accidentally' running across her.

Harry sighed, throwing his hands up dramatically. "There you go again." He took the scope back so that he could examine the empty street below them and the unchanging building.

"What are you talking about now, Potter?"

"It's your eyes. I only have to bring up her name, and they get all soft and misty. It's revolting, really," he said with fake disdain.

"Captivated by my eyes, are you, Potter?" Draco said, nastily, to hide the fact that it disturbed him to think the expression on his face had been that easy to read. Was he losing all of his Slytherin qualities from spending so much time with Gryffindors? That was definitely unacceptable.

"No, I just enjoy watching Draco Malfoy, of the Malfoys, Sacred Twenty-Eight even, reduced to gibbering mush, with heart pupils and everything, over a nerdy little bookworm," he answered, cheerily, grinning at him from around the scope.

Draco tried scowling, at least for consistency, but his heart wasn't in it. His irritated mood from the weather was suddenly relieved by the introduction of his favorite topic. "My nerdy little bookworm," he muttered quietly to himself, and it sent a tiny thrill down his spine, as it always did, to use the possessive adjective.

That's right, he told himself, she was his. And if he wanted to have soft, misty eyes about that, he damn well would.

Harry laughed so hard at the pouty expression on his face, he nearly started choking. "You know, if anyone had told my Hogwarts self that we'd be here one day, partners on a stakeout, and that you'd be dating my best friend, I would have thought they were completely barmy."

"Considering your best friend was the Weasel," Draco said, sardonically, "I'm pretty sure that would have shocked everyone."

Harry sobered, as he usually did every time Ron was mentioned. He didn't flinch like Hermione did, pretending that his name didn't hurt. But his eyes always got sad, like there was a part of him that was missing. Draco almost regretted bringing him up, but he wasn't about to tiptoe around the subject. Not only did he think it was silly, but then people would suspect him of having more than the occasional feeling, and he really couldn't have that.

Draco took his turn with the Omnioculars to avoid continuing that line of conversation. The building remained empty and lifeless. He scanned the whole front of the building, taking special care to check if there was anything different from the last time he'd looked. He was much more observant than Potter was, and was more likely to spot a single item out of place. But there was nothing worth noting, again, and Draco scowled once more at being out in the rain with no cover when they could have been delegating the whole thing to junior Aurors.

As Draco sat back, Harry decided it was time to return back to the topic at hand.

"So, since you are dating my best friend," he started, segueing with a finesse only a Gryffindor could appreciate, "Ginny's been bugging me to have the two of you over for dinner."

"I'm not doing a happy double-date with the Potters," Draco said. "Not now, not ever." Then he shuddered dramatically.

"Ginny and I are already married," Harry pointed out. "It would hardly be a date. More like…chaperoning, I suppose."

Draco didn't have trouble with a scowl this time. "Even worse!"

There was a glint in Harry's eyes as they narrowed in suspicion at Draco. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Too late, Draco realized he may have just walked himself into a trap. He was a grown man, and she was a grown woman. And he rather thought that very soon they were going to confirm those thoughts for themselves, in a naked sort of way. But it surprised him to be suddenly-and unexpectedly-faced with an overprotective family member, and he was at a loss as to what the appropriate response would be.

He sputtered a bit, and then said, "It means I don't need your help, Potter. We're doing fine on our own."

"Yes, but have you two gone public, yet? Ginny said that Hermione said that you'd only been out in the Muggle world where people wouldn't recognize you. Have you introduced her to any of your friends, yet?" Harry paused there, and then raised his hands up as if warding off an argument. "Right, right, you don't have any."

Draco glared at him, not even bothering to argue the point. He was mostly right, anyway.

"Well, what about your family, then?" Harry continued. "Surely you're going to need to take the possible future Mrs Malfoy to go meet the current Mrs Malfoy."

Draco's stomach flipped in circles. First of all, he'd never referred to Hermione as even possibly being the 'future Mrs Malfoy' because those are the kinds of thoughts that can get a man in all sorts of trouble. Those are the kinds of things teenage girls doodled on their parchment in History of Magic class. Those are the words ex-Death Eaters like him didn't go around saying for fear of jeopardizing the only good thing in his life. And Potter just said it out loud like it was nothing. He fucking hated being around Gryffindors.

But second of all, the thought of Hermione walking back into Malfoy Manor, and taking tea in the drawing room she was tortured in, in order to make small talk with his estranged pure-blood mother, was enough to make him feel quite ill.

Harry must have recognized the panic on his face, as he suddenly looked very concerned. "I'm sure it will be fine, Malfoy." Seeing that Draco still looked unusually pale, he tried to backtrack a bit. "Your mum will love her, because she's Hermione. And at any rate, you don't have to worry about that for a while, yet. You can both figure all that out when the time comes."

Draco could tell Harry wanted to pat him comfortingly on the shoulder, so he glared at him even harder to remind him to keep his distance. Miraculously, Harry kept his hands to himself, angling the scope so he could take his turn looking for clues.

"If it makes you so nervous, it's best to start small, then," Harry said, offhandedly, one eye pressed to the scope while the other one shut in a piratical manner. "A select group of people who already know and are supportive. Sounds like dinner at my house next weekend!" He smiled gleefully. "I'll be sure to let Ginny know."

Before Draco could protest the heavy-handed manipulation, Potter made an urgent motion with his hands.

"Shit, something's happening!"

All their conversation was forgotten as Draco switched into Auror mode. Since Potter had the scope, Draco cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and turned around to peek his head up over the stones, just enough to see what was happening down below. Two men were slowly approaching the building, walking as if they were regular blokes out for a stroll, having a conversation.

Even from that distance, it was clear that one of the men was Travers, as there was no mistaking that bulk. Their intelligence had been correct, and their diligence was about to pay off.

The other man was older, and walked with a certain flair to his step, but his face was hidden by the shadows from the brim of his dark hat. As they passed near to one of the large front-facing windows, they both stopped and carefully scanned their surroundings.

Draco ducked just in case they noticed something off about his charm. "What's happening?" he asked.

"They just disappeared," Harry whispered, heedless of the sound charm that was still around them. "Took a step and vanished."

There was no crack of Apparition, and no evidence of Portkey usage. So it was obvious there was a concealed entryway into the building.

"Looks like we're not going anywhere now, Malfoy," Harry said, quietly. After several days with nothing to report, Kingsley would at least be happy to know that their time was not wasted. And now that it was obvious they were in the correct location, Harry would likely redouble his efforts to find out what the Death Eaters were up to.

"Did you get a glimpse of the other man?" Draco asked. "I couldn't get a clear view of him under the hat."

Harry looked grim. "It was Rookwood."

It took Draco only a second to process that information. "Shit."

Neither one had to explain. Augustus Rookwood had been at the top of their list for most dangerous Dark wizards still at large, but he had gone underground right after Voldemort had been defeated. Though the rumors had persisted that he was involved in leading some of the criminal organizations they'd uncovered, they'd never been able to prove that he was involved, and no one they'd ever arrested had had any proof that he was still around. A curious fact, when it was well known that Augustus Rookwood always hid in plain sight.

Rookwood was particularly dangerous because he had been an Unspeakable before being outed as a spy during the war. Charismatic and intelligent, he had the ability to plan and execute those plans far above the levels of the average minion of the Dark Lord. His history of work in the Department of Mysteries also meant that he might have knowledge and information on subjects that were not included in his classified files. If he was involved, there was a good chance their mission had just escalated far beyond that of an ordinary capture.

"I'll send a message to Kingsley right away," Harry said. "And we'll see what else we can uncover while we're here. What are they using the building for? What are they doing together? What's their ultimate goal?"

Draco didn't bother answering, as he'd learned early on that Harry liked to talk to himself when he was puzzling out a problem. If he knew the answers to those questions, they wouldn't be sitting out there in the rain, now would they?

As he was muttering under his breath, Harry suddenly threw a question out that wasn't rhetorical. "Malfoy, why did you cast the Patronus?"

The question startled Draco, not because it seemed to come out of nowhere, but because he'd already answered it several times. In the days after that fateful rescue of Ron Weasley, he'd been debriefed and cross-examined repeatedly to try and find out what exactly had gone wrong, and why Draco had made the choices that he had.

The fact that Draco had used a Patronus was common knowledge, and shocking in itself, as it was widely believed that Death Eaters (current and former) were incapable of producing a Patronus charm. Even Draco had a twinge of doubt when he'd cast it, wondering if he was about to be eaten alive by maggots. But what was known to only a few, those who had been in the actual battle, and those who had needed to know the details, was that there were no Dementors in that battle.

There was no reason for Draco to have attempted a Patronus charm. More importantly, there was no reason for it to have worked.

Draco had been hard-pressed to explain his reasoning, particularly since he'd been under considerable stress in an urgent situation.

Ron Weasley had been separated from the rest of his team, and the knot of Dark wizards had created a nasty web of Dark magic that he'd been trapped by. No one had been able to get close, despite the fact that Weasley was screaming like he was being Crucio'ed, until Draco had charged in with a flurry of hexes and sliced straight through the heavy magical wards. The team had immediately taken advantage of the hole he'd made to begin picking off the wizards, and to retrieve Weasley once Draco had flung him outside the immediate location of the spell boundaries.

But the spell had surged again, and that was when he'd gotten trapped, screaming as his back arched with pain that he later described as if a shovel of fire were digging his lungs out of his ribcage. And as the Aurors advanced, renewing their efforts, they'd seen him raise his wand, and cry out, "Expecto Patronum!"

To everyone's surprise, not only had the brightest of white light shot out of the end of his wand, but it had blasted through the magic of the wizards, knocking them all out, and temporarily blinding all of the Aurors. When everyone had shaken off their surprise and recovered, they'd found Draco unconscious on the floor, wand still clutched in his hand, and all of the Dark wizards similarly unconscious. And no sign of what they'd been trying to accomplish.

Draco sighed, not liking to remember that day, not least because rescuing Ron Weasley was one of the worst decisions of his life. It didn't quite rank up there with taking the Dark Mark, or trying to kill Dumbledore, but it rankled in his soul. He rubbed at his chest, the memory of how that blazing emptiness had gnawed at him causing him to wince.

"I don't know, Potter," he said, tiredly. "There was something about the way the magic felt. You don't live for so long with Dementors sailing in and out of your home, and the Dark Lord constantly hovering about, and not become familiar with what it feels like to be near them."

"There's a coldness, a crawling sense of fear and dread," Harry said, remembering his own numerous encounters. "Like everything good and happy was being smothered, replaced with despair and death.

Draco didn't bother nodding. "It was more than that though. It was like everything that was good or happy inside was being forcibly ripped out through my sternum. I suppose I imagined it was what a Dementor's Kiss might be like." They both shuddered at that thought.

Then Draco quietly admitted what he hadn't said in all of the other debriefings. "I don't know, Potter. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't explain why it seemed like the right choice, or why it seemed to work on regular Dark wizards. I don't even really remember doing it. I just remember trying to hold onto one good memory, and feeling like everything was ripping apart. And then nothing."

Harry was silent for several moments, his eyes still glued to the Omnioculars that were focused on the building opposite where their two targets had disappeared.

He finally pulled away from the scope and faced the man with the wet blond hair plastered to his head. "Draco," he said, his green eyes serious, causing Draco the tiniest bit of alarm at the use of his first name. "I can't explain what I'm thinking, or why I'm thinking it. But something tells me you need to start practicing that Patronus charm."

Draco forbore to mention that he'd already tried it on his own several times since then, and only occasionally managed the incorporeal version of the charm. It was a useful tool to have in your arsenal when you never knew when you might run into a Dementor.

But the way that Potter gave his advice without a hint of his usual jocularity carried an extra weight with Draco. He just nodded, and didn't question Potter's intuition. Everyone knew he had an uncanny knack of knowing just exactly what would be needed to save the world.

Draco reached out his hand for the scope, and then looked through it at the street that was once again empty and uninteresting. "I don't suppose we're going to be headed home soon?"

Harry shook his head. "Not yet."

Draco sighed and pushed the Omnioculars back to his partner. He shucked off his water-logged outer robes, wringing them before tossing them aside. He should have done that long ago, as they were no longer doing any good protecting him from the elements. Then, he recast the Warming Charm on his clothes and Potter's—because the man was likely to forget once he'd put his focus on the task at hand, and Draco couldn't have people holding him responsible for Harry Potter catching his death of cold—and settled in for another long afternoon.

A/N: Hello lovely readers. I have not forgotten you. I have not forgotten this story. I've been busy doing some other things, though. I joined some Facebook writer groups that have gotten me writing more, but not always focused on the things I THINK I want to be writing. I recently wrote a one-shot Dramione that won Runner Up for Best Relationship, and I'm quite proud of it. I'll have to revise a bit before I post it on FFN, but it's up on A03 if anyone wants to check it out. I'm slowly migrating my stories to A03 as well, though I will continue to post all appropriate things on H&V and FFN as well. (Explicit material will only be available on A03 and on H&V to registered users. As H&V is only for Dramione, eventually the most complete place to find all my works will be A03.)

Anyway, I've also joined Camp NaNoWriMo this month, which is how this chapter got written in three days, when I'd been stalled for six weeks. My cabin has been amazing and keeping us all writing and on task. I hope that by the end of April I will have at least one more chapter (mostly written already) for you all. My goal is to have 25k words written on this fic by the end of the month. I have a feeling I will fail, BUT each chapter is a success and so far this camp has produced at least this chapter, so I'm pleased with it.

Also, a big thank you to some of my new friends, brandinm05 (who volunteered to try her hand at beta-reading), and Ariel Riddle (who offers great feedback and insight on my story as it progresses).