Authors Note: Okay, so there are some pretty major changes to the story starting now that didn't get uploaded the first time, which I'm sorry about. I'm working hard to fix everything and find the pieces that didn't save properly (so, almost all of them) so I can upload them how I intended to, I hope its still a story you guys can read and enjoy, please comment and let me know your thoughts!
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Harry hadn't seen Malfoy for almost two weeks after the Summer holiday started, and he was made busy with the kids, who had become much more difficult to handle now that they knew magic. Ginny had been traded to a new team and hadn't been able to see them since Hogwarts let out, so Harry was struck with relief when she showed up on his doorstep with an apologetic smile and a request to borrow their children for a couple days. Harry all but pushed them onto her, ignoring it when she laughed and asked him, "The great Harry Potter can't handle a few kids?"
"He's not that great." Albus had rolled his eyes with a sly smile at his father, "He can't even make eggs the right way."
"You try working overnight as an auror and raising three teenagers, then tell me how important it is to make eggs properly." Harry said huffily, but mussed Albus's hair with a smile. Lily hugged him quickly before she left, and James gave his father a half-smile, and then the house was empty besides Harry.
He would have liked to say that he missed having the kids in the house, but in truth he was so relieved to have a moments silence that he hardly spared them a thought, collapsing onto the couch and flicking on the television with an open butterbeer. He ended up watching old cartoon reruns, and fell asleep without meaning to, his empty bottle sitting on its side on the carpet as he snored through the night and up to the next morning.
Once again, his alarm woke him, blaring from his bedroom. He barely heard it, being so far away, but was grateful for it nonetheless as it saved him from flooing into work late again. He may be Harry Potter, but he knew better than to try and get away with getting special treatment. He burst through the fireplace at the ministry at the same time Ron did, and his companion grinned, saying, "Ginny stopped by this morning. She's taking Rose and Hugo out with your lot to see a muggle aquarium. Hermione's gone with her, so I've got the house to myself if we finish work early enough. You know how long it's been since I've been the only one home?"
"Joys of having kids, mate." Harry grinned, and clapped him on the back. "You can always come over to mine, you know. I've been meaning to go over to Grimmuald place and finish cleaning it out, but I haven't got the time."
"You and that bloody house." Ron sighed, shaking his head, "It's been a good twenty years and you've still barely stirred the dust. I don't see why you can't just use magic to get it clean."
"It's just nice to do some things the muggle way." Harry shrugged, not sure himself why he was so insistent on cleaning everything up by hand. Spells certainly would be easier. "You know what our assignment is?"
"We're on patrols in Diagon." Ron said, "Not as exciting as an actual case, but it sure beats paperwork, doesn't it?"
"Anything beats paperwork." Harry chuckled, and they stepped distractedly into the lift to the third floor to retrieve their badges from the office and to sign into work. There was a queue in front of the assignment board when they stepped into the office, which was strange in itself, but not as strange as seeing Kingsley wringing his hands in front of the door to Harry and Ron's cramped office. Harry exchanged a look with Ron, and said at once, noting the sweat the beaded their superiors brow, "Somethings happened."
Kingsley never came to the auror offices anymore, and when he did he was either casually stepping in, or dropping by for a chat with Harry or Ron with a wide smile, his openness reminding them of why he had been elected the new minister of magic. He didn't look pleased to be there in the least, and Harry and Ron cautiously made their way before him, trying to gauge what sort of greeting they should go for. Ron said tightly, his voice pinched with nerves, "Morning, Minister."
Normally, Harry would have scoffed at seeing Ron intimidated by somebody they considered a friend, but it hardly seemed the time, and he bent his head forward politely to the man, who returned the greeting in kind.
"Is there something we can do for you, sir?" Harry asked, with a severely dried out town, starched with professionalism. He had practiced it for ages when he'd first got the job, hoping to appear much more mature. He was glad to have it as a skill in times like these, when it seemed there was no best emotion to settle on displaying.
Kinglseys dark eyes scanned the room of talkative aurors slowly before he beckoned to their door, saying out the side of his mouth, "It's best we talk privately, I think."
"Of course, Minister." Ron said, trying to match his voice with Harrys as he fumbled with his key and pushed the door open. They entered at once, and before Harry had a chance to ask another question the door was shut and Kingsley had cast a gruff muffliato.
"Don't tell me it's another dark lord." Harry said, hoping to break the tension now that there was only the three of them, but Kingsley gave hm a hard look and he closed his mouth with a snap. Right, not the time.
"You know about the two recruits who were dismissed just this past winter, don't you?" Kingsley finally asked, sitting back in a chair that he had transfigured out of their coat stand. It had a long barred back and curled feet that seemed too thin to keep the man up. Harry shook his head.
"Sater and Harver, wasn't it?" Ron asked, perking up as he settled behind his desk. "They got into it with a criminal during an interrogation and tried to curse information out of him, right?"
Oh. Harry did remember them, now that he heard the story again. They had been new and young, just out of Hogwarts, and hadn't put a toe out of line until the incident. It had been so sudden and unexpected that nobody had known what to think, and they were barely able to keep it out of the media when the pair were tried and sentenced to half a year in Azkaban. Kingsley nodded stiffly, his eyes moving from Harry to Ron in turn, as if to convey some hidden meaning, and he leaned forward in his seat, wrinkling his puce robes to whisper gruffly, his voice like sandpaper around Harry's heart, "There's been another incident."
Normally, Harry wouldn't have felt so chilled by the news; it was a simple case, and it wasn't like it hadn't happened before, but there was something in Kingsley's eyes that told him there was something much darker at play. Ron sensed it too, shoulders snapping into a hard line, his face creased with attention. Kingsley nodded, and continued gravely, "Two more aurors went against the books last night, and tried to use extreme measures in order to attain information. They've never done anything like this, similar to the last two, and this pair has been working together since before you two joined the force."
"Pressure of the job got to them, maybe." Ron said, in an attempt to shrug the problem away. It was clear he didn't believe it for a second. Harry didn't either.
"Shannon Hardy and Don Knacks were on patrol last night in Diagon." Harry said, suddenly remembering. Shannon had always been quiet, the oldest auror there, gaining on her eighties, and had amused Harry for a long time when he saw her romancing with an older bloke from the department of Mysteries, sneaking him in for lunch when there weren't many people around to see them. Don was a father of four, all having graduated from Durmstrang, and he had given Harry helpful advice about parenting in the lift more times than he could count. Neither seemed capable of going against the a person in such a way that they would injure them for information. It wasn't in their nature. Kingsley looked solemn as he nodded at Harry.
"They caught up to a man selling illegal potions on a street corner. According to all of our witnesses they had been casual and pleasant until then, dropping by a local coffee place and stopping for ice cream only an hour before it happened. They had just put him under an incarcerous before curses started flying. The suspect in question didn't seem to have done anything to set them off, and was reported to be compliant with all of their wishes."
"That doesn't make sense, they're the friendliest people on the team." Ron frowned, practically reading Harrys thoughts. "I personally have received Christmas socks from Shannon on two different occasions. She wouldn't curse anyone if she didn't have a really good reason."
Harry nodded his agreement, and Kingsley gave a deep sigh, running his palms over his face in a rare show of exhaustion as he said, "Thats exactly how everyone else felt about it, too. We sent them home for the night to recoup and find out what happened; told them that we would discuss it in the morning, but didn't want to make any rash decisions until we knew the details."
"Something happened when they got home." Harry guessed, his blood going to ice and his lungs hardening with the labor that breathing caused him. He tried to focus on counting the seconds between his breaths, forcing himself out of the panic attack before it could properly hit him.
Kingsleys hands dropped and he said, without looking at either of them, "Don had a seizure, and collapsed on the welcome mat in front of his house. He didn't make it to St. Mungo's before the cold got him."
"And Shannon?" Ron asked, his voice a notch higher than before. "Is she alive?"
"Worse." Kingsley said miserably, the lines in his face far more prominent than they ever had been before, "She apparated to her daughters house in the middle of the night. Killed her, the husband, and two grandkids. The third was at a friends house. Aurors found her sitting with the bodies this morning when she failed to show up for work."
Harry swallowed down bile and blinked the film away from his eyes that had started to build up. Don was dead. Shannon murdered her daughter. Ron looked green, and stared slack-jawed at Kingsley, who only had worse news to give, claiming, "Someone cursed them to do it."
"An imperius curse?" Harry guessed, trying to maintain his professionalism. Things never went well when his emotions clouded his head, and all he could think of right then was his own children, smiling and happy, and then of Shannon, who must have been paralyzed with grief when the spell wore away.
"We don't know what it was. Something new, clearly, and very dangerous. Shannon won't be the same; she's got to babbling out of control, we can't understand a word she's saying, and her eyes are somewhere else when we speak to her. She doesn't seem to understand what it is she's done."
"What will you do to her?" Harry asked, his hands shaking so badly he had to put them in his pockets. Could this effect his kids? Could he do something to hurt them like Shannon had? Could he kill them?
"Not Azkaban, surely!" Ron cried in alarm, his face so pale that his freckles stood out like neon road signs.
"St. Mungos is looking after her." Kingsley groaned, "And we've pulled the other two kids from Azkaban as well after reviewing their reports; they were patrolling in Diagon on the day they snapped, too. They don't have symptoms as severe as Don and Shannon did, but there were enough similarities to bring the case back to the wizengamot. We've put them under observation at St. Mungo's as well."
"If you're going to put us on the case then you've got to promise our kids won't be in danger. I won't be chasing some baddie that will have me ripping my family apart, and Harry won't either." Ron said determinedly, standing abruptly.
"I'm keeping you off of the case outside of research based investigation, actually." Kingsley said, his voice softening as he said, "You two would be too much of a liability to send out. If somebody is targeting aurors then they'll go for the big names sooner or later; really work to tear the ministry down. It's clever, testing the spell on different aurors under our noses, seeing how long it takes us to catch on."
"So other aurors could be effected?" Ron asked, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline, "If the first two we noticed were cursed back in December, who knows how many have been hit since?"
"Exactly, which is why we need you two to be available in the office to go over all of the cases we have had over the past year and check for similarities."
Harrys gut sank. Ron suddenly didn't look so concerned, and asked with a crestfallen expression, "Every case over the past year? But sir, we will never be able to do it on our own."
"You'll have help, of course, from the department of Mysteries. There are thirty one Unspeakables who have been tasked to investigate case files with you."
"Why Unspeakables?" Ron asked with a frown, "Why not aurors?"
"You don't want anyone else to know." Harry said, staring at Kingsley in horror, rage bubbling in his gut all too explosively as he snarled out, "There is somebody out there who will let us kill our families, and you don't want anyone else to know what they're up against! You don't want them to be scared, you want them to-"
"It's not just for their sake that we are keeping this quiet, auror Potter!" Kingsley raised his voice, cutting Harry off successfully, though he still felt furious enough to scream. Kingsley lowered his voice again, and said, "So far, nobody knows we have caught on, least of all the person casting this spell. They don't know we are looking for them, and if they don't know they are being watched for, it is far more likely they will slip up and get themselves caught."
"How do you plan to find them if you aren't going to tell the other aurors what to look for?" Harry scoffed.
"Unspeakables. They are trained for things like this; to detect unknown curses and trace dark magic to its source. We will have three a night trailing our aurors on their shifts to look for signs of the castor, and for possible reasons people are being cursed. You understand that this is delicate knowledge, don't you? You can't breathe a word of this to anyone-no, not even your wife, Mr. Weasley, for her own safety. Right now all you need to focus on is the paperwork. The sooner we can rule out who's been affected, the sooner we can eliminate the threat."
"Our families will be safe?" Ron asked meaningfully, and held Kingsley's gaze for a long moment.
"Unspeakables will be on guard outside auror houses to be certain nothing will harm them, Mr. Weasley. For all we know, there is only one person out there casting the spells, and they haven't gotten a handle on how to control it yet. It is imperative we get to them before they do, especially now that they've got six months ahead of us, at least."
"We'll start with the most recent cases." Harry said, relief not quite filling him completely when Kingsley left them alone with seven boxes of paperwork he had conveniently unshrunk from the pockets of his robes. They wouldn't be working with the Unspeakables for another day, and they had been instructed to finish off the boxes by the next morning in order to begin the next set. Harry had a terrible feeling about this case, and even though he and Ron tried not to comment about it too much, Harry knew they both continued to sneak glances across their desktops at the framed photographs they kept of their families. Suddenly, it didn't seem so important that he was becoming friendly with Malfoy, and Quidditch at the burrow felt like something that had happened years ago, like a distant memory from somebody else's head.
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A week following and Harry had never been so glad to do paperwork. Two more aurors had been cursed while responding to a report of a shop being robbed in Knockturn Alley. The Unspeakables set to watch them hadn't seen anything, and couldn't report a single suspicious event from the entire day. Kingsley was so furious he nearly fired them on the spot, from what Harry heard, and he couldn't have pitied them more. Day and night he poured over files, checking and cross-checking with little to show from his efforts. Thirty Unspeakables were crammed in his and Rons office with them, and they weren't doing any better, which would normally make Harry feel relieved to not be an idiot, but instead filled him with a terrible sense of dread.
He was so worked up about the chances of being cursed that when he heard his doorbell ring unexpectedly on a Saturday morning he ran down the stairs, screamed at his kids to stay put, and threw the door open, immediately throwing a punch when he didn't immediately recognize who was standing in front of him. To be fair, he had never seen Draco Malfoy wear a baseball cap before, and the entire ordeal at work was taxing his nerves severely.
"Shit!" Harry immediately gasped when the blond doubled over, clutching a bloody nose as his son stared in horror. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, I-"
"That's nothing new, Potter." Malfoy said, groaning as he straightened up, and put a comforting hand on Scorpius's shoulder to ease the boys worry. The other was still cupped over his face, and watering eyes fixed curiously at Harry as he asked, "Is it a bad time?"
"No, uh, no, of course not." Harry said, shaking himself and forcing his wand into his pocket, guilt flooding his gut. "I'm so sorry, Malfoy, I didn't realize it was you, I just-"
"Why does everyone keep attacking you?" Scorpius piped in fascinated horror beside Draco, his mouth open and his nose wrinkled in confusion. "Were you really that mean to them when you were in school?"
Harry laughed despite himself, and then froze, asking in alarm, "What did he mean by that? Who else attacked you?"
"Weasley." Draco said, "Seemed to believe I was at his door with the worst intentions, and came flying out the door in a bathrobe, waving a fire stoker at me. You won't believe the freckles on that mans legs."
"I'm sorry about that." Harry groaned, feeling more embarrassed by the second as he led the duo over the threshold. He flashed a thumbs up to the Unspeakable that Kingsley had assigned to watch the house under a dissolussionment charm farther down the yard. He was supposed to approve of all the guests that came into his home, and he didn't ever memorize the proper signal for that, so he figured a thumbs up would suffice.
"You should be; he accidentally smacked my in the elbow with it." Malfoy said with a sniff as the door shut, and he followed Harry up the stairs towards the kitchen. Harry glanced at him, and found that the man was holding his arm at a delicate angle, tucked close to his body.
"Is that why your eyes are all puffy like you've been crying?" Albus asked, startling Harry as he appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He hadn't heard him at all. But he was right; Malfoy's eyes were particularly red and swollen, and it wasn't just because Harry had punched him. Lily and James appeared on the stairs to flank their brother.
Harry smiled a little, able to relax now that he had determined there wasn't a threat nearby, and asked Malfoy with thinly veiled amusement, "You cried in front of Ron?"
Malfoy's face darkened and he pointedly turned up his nose, huffing, "I'll have you know that there is no shame in that, Potter, and an auror like yourself ought to have more sensitivity than-"
"Oh, so that's where you get it from, Scorpius." Lily said loudly, sighing, "You always put your nose up like that when you are making a point."
"I do not." Scorpius said, and put his nose up to make a point. Harry and Draco both smirked at that.
"Err, I should probably ask why you are here." Harry said, suddenly realizing he had neglected to do as much.
"No, you should probably get me some ice, since you just assaulted me." Draco snorted, which only made a small wave of blood ripple over his fingers, which were still bent over his nose.
"Right, sorry." Harry said, shaking himself. He led Malfoy the rest of the way into the kitchen, waving the children off to go upstairs to their bedroom with Scorpius so that he and Draco could talk properly. He gestured for Draco to take a seat while he set the tea kettle on the stove and went about rummaging the fridge for something cold. He produced Lilys bear-shaped ice pack from when she was a toddler, and handed it to Malfoy, who rose an eyebrow, but pressed it against his face anyways once Harry cast a cleaning charm and an episky on his nose. It was a little crooked, but Harry didn't tell him that.
"So..." Harry began stupidly, "You got my address from Ron?"
"Scorpius wanted to get ice cream and go for a Quidditch game. I thought he might want to bring some friends along, and thought I'd stop by and ask in person, since my owl is off delivering a letter to Pansy. Should have fire-called, now I know how I'll be greeted."
"I really am sorry about that, Malfoy, I didn't expect it to be you. I've been really worried about-"
"The case you and Weasley are on?" Malfoy guessed, tipping his head to the side. He was still holding his arm in an odd position, and Harry turned back to his refrigerator to fish out a bag of frozen broccoli, handing it to the blond wordlessly. Draco settled his arm against it with a deep flush.
"How do you know about that?" Harry asked, for some reason less surprised than he thought he should have been.
"I'm a very powerful legilimens." Malfoy shrugged, and Harry rolled his eyes. Draco smiled and said, "Alright, you know thats a lie. I worked it out of Weasley after he hit me with that damned poker. I told him that if he didn't tell me what had him so worried I would tell Hermione what he did to me."
"So Ron beat you up and made you cry, and you threatened to tattle to Hermione?" Harry asked, unable to help himself. Malfoy glared at him from around the pink ice pack. "How much did Ron tell you?"
"Not much, just that he's worried someone will show up at his door and curse him into doing terrible things to his kids. Is that actually happening? Why didn't you question me at the door, then? I could be under a polyjuice potion for all you know."
"Nobody would show up at my doorstep polyjuiced as you." Harry scoffed, "Nobody is dumb enough to think we are friends; they'd go for somebody I'm likely to let in."
Immediately Harry realized what he had said, and clamped his mouth closed, the twinge of guilt in his stomach growing at the hurt look that flickered across Draco's eyes. Why had he said that? He had told Draco they were friends, why would he say that?
"I'm such an ass." Harry said with a deep breath, closing his eyes to try and center himself, "That wasn't what I meant, Malfoy. We are friends, I just-"
"Nobody else knows that though, you meant." Draco suggested, with a note of hope in his voice that didn't escape Harrys notice. He nodded anyways, even if it wasn't completely true. Nobody really knew that they were friends, that much was true, but when he had said it he hadn't meant it the way he Malfoy had suggested. It was as if they were back in school for a moment, and it shook Harry that he had been taken back to that time with such a misplaced comment.
"Somebody is targeting the aurors and possibly their families." Harry said, hoping that would explain everything. He knew he shouldn't be telling anyone, but he felt strangely trusting of Draco. "We don't know how, but they are cursing them to do terrible things; trying to tear us apart from the inside so they can get to work on the public without the chance of being stopped. Or maybe maybe they are infiltrating the ministry."
"You haven't got a suspect yet?" Draco asked thoughtfully, and the bag on his arm crinkled loudly as he shifted. "Or any motives? Hard to catch a guy that you know nothing about."
"We know he or she is based around Diagon, just from where the attacks keep happening, but we don't know much more than that. We just know they are going after aurors, and they're not struggling to get to them."
Harry didn't mention that he had seen the pictures of what Shannon had done to her daughter and her grandchildren while under the spell; didn't think he could make himself admit that he had seen the bloody carpet, intestines thrown around the room like garland. He had been more on edge since seeing the photos of the crime scene, a little girl who looked strikingly like Lily laid out with her eyes open, gold hair a halo around her concave skull, swollen brain matter spilling between the cracks of bone that shone through her scalp. Harry shivered, and suddenly Malfoy's hand was on his, eyes wide and concerned.
"I've seen what dark magic can do to people. I've seen the way it sneaks into families, and breaks people apart. Whoever is targeting the aurors is going to target you and Ron too, you know that, don't you?"
Harry was hyperaware of it. He hadn't stopped thinking about it, laying awake to listen to the sounds of the house when he meant to be asleep. He hadn't liked the idea of only having an Unspeakable outside to protect him, when there had been three tailing the aurors a few days before who had seen nothing before they were cursed.
"The manor has a lot of extra rooms." Draco said, swallowing thickly, and his hand tightened on Harry's, "I can offer it to Ron too, to keep the kids out of harms way. Like you said, nobody suspects us to be friends, and they wouldn't look to find any of them at my place."
"Ginny can-"
"Ginny has a career too, and it would be the first place somebody would look if they went after your kids. You don't need to do it now, I'm just saying that if you ever feel you need to, you can room at mine. Even if you just drop the kids off for some peace of mind, thats fine. Just...stay safe, will you?"
Harry hadn't considered that, and the idea of having to put his kids into hiding made his stomach curl. But Malfoy was right; aurors and their families were being targeted, and as much as he hated it, he wasn't safe where he was, and his kids weren't either. He needed to talk to Ginny and to Ron first.
"Give me three days, and I'll think about it." Harry said hoarsely, barely able to speak. His head felt like it was spinning out of control. "I need to talk to them first; make sure its the best option."
"Of course. I should go; let you relax on your day off." Malfoy said, and stood quickly, levitating the ice pack and the broccoli back into the freezer. Harry sat still at the table, his head still spinning, as Draco and Scorpius apparated out of his front lawn minutes later. What was he going to do?