"Loony Lovegood so does not count, Potter," Malfoy drawled when Harry walked into their office the next morning. "It only counts as a date if you can score." A horrified look crossed his face. "You didn't score with Lovegood, did you?"
"You're insulting my friend, Malfoy," Harry said, passing him a fresh cup of takeaway coffee, one of the few Muggle luxuries Harry had managed to introduce to him, and sitting down at his desk. "She'd be a great girlfriend, but we're not interested in each other like that. And it still counts. The purpose of a date is not to 'score'. It's to enjoy time with someone of the opposite sex and see where it leads."
Malfoy frowned. "But you already said you weren't interested in each other."
Harry shrugged. "I wasn't interested in Ginny to begin with either. I figure I need to date someone before I can develop feelings for them."
A strange expression crossed Malfoy's face, but was gone just as quickly. He shook his head and sighed dramatically. "Then we're even. For now. But you can't use Lovegood again. They have to be different women."
Harry smirked. "Changing the rules already? Slytherin."
Malfoy took a sip of his coffee and immediately closed his eyes and groaned his approval. "What's this one, Potter? It tastes sweet."
"White chocolate mocha," Harry replied, taking a sip of his own caramel mocha.
Malfoy pulled a face at the name, but kept drinking. "Speaking of Slytherin and our undeniable superiority," he said after he had drained half his cup. "I've been testing the potion some more. I should have results soon. We need to find out what it was reacting to so that we can trace it and find out where the stash is. If we're lucky, it's an unrelated evidence stash that no one linked to this case. If we're not-" Malfoy trailed off.
Harry waved his wand at the door so that it shut quietly. "I was talking to Luna," he said. "And she had an interesting idea." He relayed Luna's story to Malfoy and waited for a reaction.
Malfoy frowned thoughtfully. "It's not impossible," he said. "The Wizard's Council wasn't happy with the changes the new Ministry introduced, but I never knew the changes were so severe."
"Yeah, imagine trying to study Dark Magic in the Ministry today," Harry said. "They'd never allow it." He couldn't keep the faintly bitter tone from his voice.
Malfoy stared at him. "No," he said slowly. He readjusted his seat so that he was sitting up straight, a shrewd expression on his face.
Harry shifted in his seat, trying to think of a change in subject.
"So where do we look first?" Harry asked.
"If you were going to be casting dark magic in a building full of innocent people, you'd need the wing to be far away from everyone else," Malfoy said. "Which would have made it easy to seal off. I think we need to go below the courtrooms."
Harry grunted. Malfoy was probably right. They both paused, contemplating what excuse they could give for prowling around the courtrooms. There really wasn't one. It was going to have to be the cloak.
"Well, ladies first, Potter," Malfoy said as Harry tucked his cloak into his pocket.
"Hang on," Harry said, searching around the room. "Do you have anything left in that potion you've been testing?"
Malfoy leaned behind his desk and plucked the immunity potion from one of his drawers. It was still more than half full.
Harry eyed it with distaste. "Keep it on you so we know if we're getting close," he said.
Malfoy sniffed his begrudging approval of the idea and they climbed out the window again.
This time there was no one around in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office when they climbed out, so they threw on the cloak and shuffled toward the elevator.
"As comforting as it is being under here with you, Potter," Malfoy hissed in Harry's ear. "Maybe we should have waited until we were at the Department of Mysteries. It's going to be difficult not to give ourselves away inside a bloody box." He nodded his head at the elevator.
"Too late now," Harry whispered back as the doors pinged open. Three witches exited quickly, and Harry and Malfoy shuffled in to the back of the lift.
The wizard standing by the numbers gave their corner a confused glance, which made Harry think they must have made a noise, but he shook it off and closed the doors. The elevator continued down.
Two floors later at the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the wizard by the button panel left and another wizard came on. Malfoy took the opportunity to quickly press the button for level nine, Department of Mysteries. Harry thought the wizard may have spotted it, but fortunately, given the level it was, it didn't elicit more than a curious glance.
One floor down, at the Department of Magical Transportation, three witches climbed on. Harry gritted his teeth, certain they were about to be stepped on, but Malfoy drew his wand and muttered "Raschio". The witch who had been about to back into them immediately stopped walking and started scratching her back furiously.
"Argh," she muttered. "I hate new clothing tags." Her friends muttered sympathetically.
The elevator opened again and another wizard entered, along with a flock of memos. As Harry watched with vague disinterest, one of the memos suddenly stopped it's gentle meandering at the front of the lift and turned toward them. In a second it shot purposefully in their direction and started circling their heads excitedly.
Harry and Malfoy stared up at the memo in panic. One of the witches turned to watch the memo.
"Look," she said, nudging her friend.
Harry looked at Malfoy and mouthed "Shit".
Malfoy nodded furiously, his usual expression of relaxed cynicism replaced with alarm. The cloak was one of the Deathly Hallows. It should have been infallible. Unless…
Harry looked down suddenly and saw the very tip of his shoe poking out the bottom of the cloak. He grabbed Malfoy and pulled him down so that they were crouching. Malfoy opened his mouth in a reflexive protest, but luckily managed to shut it again without saying anything.
The memo stopped circling and floated back to the front of the elevator.
The two witches continued to stare at the back of the elevator curiously, but before they could think to investigate the empty space, the doors opened at the Atrium and they left.
Apparently, since no one entered the elevator, no one had a pressing need for the Department of Mysteries. Harry breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut.
"That was close," he muttered to Malfoy, snatching the offending memo out of the air.
"Revised training schedule: explosive and anti-explosive spells. 2pm," he read aloud.
Malfoy made a noise of approval, his eyes gleaming.
"Settle down," Harry muttered, straightening the cloak as the doors opened.
There was no one waiting as they exited. Malfoy took the potion out of his pocket and eyed it warily. "What now, Savior?" he asked under his breath.
Harry hushed him. The long and eerie corridor still unsettled him, even after so many years. "The stairs are this way," he said, leading them to the stairs that would take them down to the courtrooms.
Malfoy eyed him curiously. Harry had made no attempt to hide his familiarity with the area, even though neither of them needed to come to the lower levels for their work, but he didn't enlighten Malfoy as to why. His memories of being on trial, or visiting trials in Dumbledore's memories, or even when he had come back for the Horcrux, gave him a strange feeling that he didn't like to acknowledge. Almost like nostalgia, but for something terrible. It felt wrong.
Two of the court rooms were in session, but there was no one in the corridor to see them. Still, they kept under the cloak and walked quietly. Twisting through the corridors, the light gradually dimmed until they reached another staircase. Harry had never been here before. He paused at the top of the stairs. Far below, he could faintly see a glimmer of metal bars from the first cell. He couldn't help but imagine Sirius here, waiting to be taken to Azkaban.
"What's wrong, Potter?" Harry heard Malfoy whisper. He looked up in surprise at the oddly perceptive tone in Malfoy's voice.
Seeing Malfoy's face inches from his own - not quite filled with concern, but not malicious either - made him remember just how hot and claustrophobic it was under the cloak.
"Nothing, let's go," he said, turning forward and starting down the stairs. The temperature dropped even further than the court rooms and a thin coat of slime oozed from the walls.
There was only one wizard in the cells. He sat upright on the floor, his legs crossed, facing the back wall. As they passed, Harry thought he could hear him muttering.
It wasn't long before they reached the end of the corridor. There was nothing but a blank wall in front of them.
"Well, this is probably where the blockage is," Malfoy muttered. "But the passages wouldn't be right next to the original entrance. That would be too easy for someone to find." He took the potion out of his pocket, but it was still. He put it back.
"Let's check the cells," Harry muttered back.
They moved into the closest cell and pulled the cloak off since they were out of sight from anyone in the corridor. They ran their hands along the walls, muttered spells, and stamped on promising looking stones. It was entirely useless, and Harry quickly felt like an idiot.
He looked over to see Malfoy running his hand through his hair, looking defeated.
"It always sounds so much easier in theory," he muttered. "How did you find the Chamber of Secrets, Potter?"
"Luck," Harry answered promptly.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I shouldn't have asked. Wasted breath, really."
"Don't suppose you know any murdered teenage girls in the area?" Harry asked.
"What?" Malfoy stared at him like he had gone insane.
"Nevermind."
Harry turned back to the wall.
"Password?"
"Say again?" Harry asked, looking back at Malfoy again.
"I didn't say anything," Malfoy said, frowning.
"Password?" the voice whispered again.
Harry swore violently and backed away from the corner, stumbling. Malfoy caught him just before he fell and shoved him upright. Harry glanced at him and saw that Malfoy was suddenly pale, his eyes fixated on the man sitting at the back of the room. The man was sitting just as he had been in the other cell, cross legged and facing the back of the room.
"You'd think Hogwarts would make you used to ghosts," Harry muttered as his heart rate came back under control.
"It's not a ghost," Malfoy said, looking considerably calmer. He pulled the potion out of his pocket and looked at it. It vibrated gently, glowing a bright green. Malfoy pocketed the vial, walked slowly passed the man, and faced him. "It's a portal."
Harry frowned and followed Malfoy. As he moved, the man seemed to move as well, so that no matter where Harry stood the man was facing the other way.
"He'll turn around when we give him the password," Malfoy continued. "And then I expect he'll lead us to the hidden passages."
"So," Harry said after a long pause. "It isn't that the Ministry can't find the passages. It's that they can't find the password?"
"I expect so," Malfoy said. "And I would imagine they are quite embarrassed by that, and so have kept the knowledge of the portal so hidden that few people, if any, know about it. In fact, their administration is so bad anyway that each case is documented by a different department. Most people who come down here probably think he is just a prisoner. And he can obviously change cells at whim, so it's not as though he is conspicuously stationary. If the cells weren't full, he could sit down here in this last cell for decades without anyone noticing."
Harry shuddered. "Well, let's not stick around, hey? We should go try and find the password."
Malfoy smirked as Harry pulled out his cloak. "What was that? Scared, Potter?"
Harry laughed and threw the cloak over both of them. "You wish."
Bit cheesy XD Couldn't resist. I'm tired. Umm, I think I'm waiting too long to start their tension, for reasons that I don't want to say although they're probably obvious. I'll start it soon…