A/N: I've been really bad and instead of posting more IitC I've mired myself in editing it...if you're reading that then I promise the last few chapters will appearing soon! In the meantime more 'Seekers'.

*SPOILER ALERT* If you haven't yet read IitC and you think you'd like to then this little sequence does contain spoilers.

As ever, hope you like, and please let me know what you think!

THE SEEKERS - 2 - MATSUMOTO

The sky outside the window could accurately be described as glowering, and Draco Malfoy saw no reason not to glower back. Of course McGonagall had decided to send them to Japan in fucking July, he thought, as the rain sheeted down outside. He gave a quiet snort of disgust and turned away from the window to survey the small, plain hostel room. He understood the need to keep a low profile, but this was -

"Shit." The angular, fiery-haired witch perched on the futon on the other side of the room whispered, staring at the charmed parchment in her hands.

"What?" Draco asked, dragging his hands through his hair, still damp from the rainstorm they'd trudged through to get to the rendezvous point.

Ginny glanced up at him, biting her lip. "It's Harry."

Draco's eyes narrowed at her tone. "What's Harry?"

"The Seeker on the ground. The one we're here to help. It's Harry." Ginny winced at the expression on his face, but her voice was hard as she continued: "Come on Malfoy, you two were going to have to work together eventually."

Draco turned to glare out of the window again, before half-smirking. "True enough. And I guess if there's anyone who would be incompetent enough not to be able to handle an Oni alone it would probably be Potter." He could see the Weasel girl's scowl reflected in the glass of the window, and had to suppress the chuckle that rose in his throat.

"That sort of attitude is hardly going to help matters, you know."

He allowed himself a small smile as he turned back to her. "Sometimes you sound just like bloody Granger." He held up a hand as she opened her mouth to retort, "I know, I know. I'm laying off. When's Potter getting here?"

Ginny glanced down at the parchment again, "He's…uh…downstairs."

Draco muttered an indelicate curse word that would have earned him an icy reproach from his mother as he slipped his wand into his pocket and gathered up his small rucksack. He'd placed an Undetectable Extension Charm on it which meant he was actually carrying enough junk for the three of them to survive in the mountains for nearly a week. Draco felt a measure of relief at his own tendency to overpack; knowing Potter he had brought nothing more than his wand and broom.

Ginny was waiting for him by the door and Draco rolled his eyes at her expression, "Merlin and Nimue, Weasel Princess, I can be civil." He glanced sideways at her, "Do you think the same can be said for the Chosen One?" He watched as her eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything and Draco snickered as she turned on her heel and flounced ahead. A clear, resounding No.

When Ginny was ten, Fred and George had taken her out to the Orchard one afternoon and taught her to punch with her left fist.

"Because," Fred had said, "If it ever comes to it of course you want to be able to hex away with your wand arm but -"

"- being able to land a really good left hook while you're hexing away," George continued, "is only ever going to be an advantage."

Ginny could remember the sound of their laughter as she watched the glorified pissing contest play out in front of her between her boyfriend and her reluctant ally, feeling her right hand tightening around her wand and her left hand curling into a fist.

She had wisely chosen to stay under the awning above the hostel door but the boys were in the carpark hurling insults at one another and they were both managing to get soaked through as they did it. She sighed, casting a Muffliato and a muggle-repelling charm over the pair of them, then folded her arms in resignation. They needed it out of their systems if they were going to be able to work together; she just hoped they'd be done before it got dark.

"- you turncoat, bigoted, evil fucking Death Eater!" Harry roared.

"Oh very good, Potter, how fucking original." Malfoy screwed up his face as he made a cruel but not inaccurate imitation of Harry's voice, "'You're so evil Draco, signing up for these stupid deathtrap missions like the great big evil dickhead that you are.' Well fuck you." His voice had lowered to a hiss, his fury no less vehement than Harry's.

Harry stabbed a finger in the other boy's face, and to his credit Malfoy didn't flinch. "Don't even pretend you're doing this for any reason other than to save your own skin, and who cares whose skin gets in the fucking way while you do it."

"Yes of course. Why don't we ask your girlfriend again who rescued her from getting her arm chewed off in Katagarama?"

Harry's face flushed, "Don't you dare bring Ginny into this, you cowardly prick I -"

"Don't you dare call me a coward." Malfoy spat. His voice was low and even and lethal, his eyes glittering, "Bigot, snob, toadying arsehole; I don't care. You don't call me a coward."

Harry stared at Malfoy, clearly unnerved by the outburst. Both of them were breathing hard as they eyed one another, having seemingly reached an impasse. Harry cast an uncertain sideways glance at Ginny. She kept her expression neutral as she shrugged, "Are you finished?"

Harry's eyes flicked back to Malfoy, who met his questioning gaze with a level glare for a couple of seconds before blowing out a breath and nodding. Ginny watched as the tension melted out of both boys and tried to quell the desire to growl with frustration. Nearly eight years of hating one another, a whole wizarding war with them pitched on opposing sides, and apparently it could all be solved by knocking their stupid thick heads together.

Men were idiots.

"This is worse than the Forest of bloody Dean." Harry gasped as they continued up the narrow, rocky path into the mountains. It had only just stopped raining on this, the third day that they had been in the mountains, and they had yet to catch anything but dead trails for the Oni that was supposedly terrorising the local magical creatures.

Ahead of him on the path, Draco paused and looked back over his shoulder. Potter and Princess Weasel were in decent shape but they obviously hadn't taken McGonagall's suggestion that they get used to hard physical circumstances very seriously. Draco had never thought that he'd be grateful for Blaise's insane vanity, but his friend was unnervingly obsessed with muggle fitness regimes and Draco had to admit he could see the benefits of going for ten-mile training runs now that he found himself halfway up a mountain and still breathing evenly.

Draco turned his eyes back up the steep mountain path, noting the lavender cloud that was spreading across the sky, orange bleeding into it from where the sunset was hidden by the mountaintop. "We should probably make camp soon, Gryffindorks." He could feel the air turning thick and staticky, surely the prelude to another bloody thunderstorm, and he for one would rather not be putting up a tent in the sheeting rain for the third night running.

Potter finally drew level with him, breathing hard, but nodded as his eyes skated across the gathering storm clouds. "I hate to say it, but I agree."

Draco smirked at him, "About making camp, or about the nickname?

Potter snorted and punched his shoulder in a matey fashion that would have seemed out of the question a few days before. "Fuck off, Malfoy."

"You two are the worst." Ginny sounded exhausted, and as she reached the little outcrop where the boys were stood she sat down without ceremony, flopping backwards onto her pack. "I still don't understand why we couldn't have conducted the search by air."

Draco was about to snap a derisory comment at her but was surprised when Potter beat him to it, "You know that's stupid, Gin. Even if we weren't spotted by hikers, an Oni is hard enough to track when you're on the ground, let alone flying over it."

Ginny pulled a face and seemed about to shoot a scathing retort back at Harry when she suddenly went quiet, frowning and lifting her hand from where it had rested on the scrubby ground. Wordlessly, she turned her palm to show the sticky, dark liquid on it to the boys, then hastily scrambled to her feet. Barely hidden behind the rock that she had been leaning against was a trail of blood, gleaming darkly in the fading light, and leading away from the path into a narrow cleft in the rocks.

"Did Weasel Princess just find our Oni's trail by sitting on it?" Draco's voice was incredulous, his relief at their break warring with his disbelief.

"You. Are. Amazing." Harry leant down and kissed a surprised looking Ginny, who grinned into his mouth for a moment before seeming to collect herself.

"Oh, ew, I've still got blood all over my hand and my bum." She twisted, trying without success to look over her shoulder around her pack, and nearly went toppling off the edge of the path. Draco dropped his face into his hands as Harry steadied Ginny with one hand. Rehabilitation, he reminded himself. Play nice with the Gryffindorks.

"So," he coughed, trying to ignore the fact that Harry was attempting to brush blood and dirt from the seat of Ginny's shorts. Did Potter enjoy ignoring the fact that he was a wizard? "HEY!" Harry and Ginny looked up at him in surprise and Draco bit his cheek to stop himself growling, "Would the two of you rather investigate an Oni's lair at nighttime or camp within its hunting ground?"

The two Gryffindor wizards exchanged a look, and it was Harry who turned to Draco first, face twisted into a grimace, "I mean, neither of those sounds like a particularly attractive option."

Draco smirked at him, making his smile as evil as he possibly could. "Scared, Potter?"

Behind the dark-haired wizard Draco saw Ginny roll her eyes and open her mouth, presumably to berate him, but then Harry smiled back, a keen-edged little grin that Draco hadn't seen before but made him suddenly and improbably nervous. "I'm not an idiot, Malfoy, so of course I'm scared. But please," he gestured with a sweep of his arm, "Which course of action would you prefer?"

Fuck, Draco thought. Nice work making whatever fiasco this descends into entirely my fault.