Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Walking Dead and I don't earn any money with this story.

Author's note: Fair warning, this ends in a cliffy and the next chapter will be out mid- to end-April. Read at your own risk ;) And I'd be happy about any and all comments.

Rating: M

Warning: walkers, lots of them

Daryl really, really hoped that no walkers were nearby, because he was currently a bit busy with retching. He hated apparition. A lot. Araminta didn't look much better than he felt, but that was barely any consolation at all.

"It's because Severus had to side-along both of you. If I find a new wand, I can take you back and it's not going to be as bad," Harry explained, rubbing Daryl's back in sympathy.

The brunet nodded half-heartedly and finally looked up, when he was sure that his breakfast wouldn't make a reappearance. They had arrived in a well-lit store with rows upon unbroken rows of shelves, most of them filled with phials, glass containers with dubious content and boxes. All of them were undisturbed.

"So, this used to be your potion store?" Araminta, who was looking less green now, wondered while picking up one of the phials and studying the label.

"Indeed," Severus affirmed, his face pinched as he eyed his life prior to what had basically been the end of the world as they knew it. "It used to," he added more softly, before pressing his lips into a thin line and striding to the front door. "Let us proceed to the wand shop. Dawdling will get us nowhere."

At first glance, the wizarding alley (or rather street) of Atlanta looked pretty much like any other shopping street, Daryl noticed a bit disappointed as they slipped out of the warded potion store. Then he noticed the oddities.

In one store window a mannequin, wearing a flashy robe, was not only posing for them, it was also blowing them kisses, the shop sign of another store displayed a dragon, which moved around and gave off clouds of smoke. Unfortunately, Daryl didn't have ample opportunity to take in every magical detail, because the alley was filled with walkers, which they had to avoid or get rid of as inconspicuously as possible.

A few minutes later, they reached a building, which was missing its door – Demelza's Wand Wonders. They entered the store cautiously and before long Daryl shot an arrow through the head of an oncoming walker, while Harry rammed an ornate dagger through the eye of another. In the meantime, Araminta had magicked up a new door and Severus was doing… something with his wand. When they'd checked the remaining rooms and gotten rid of every threat, Daryl finally allowed himself to take a curious look around.

The wand store was filled with shelves (similar to Severus' actually), all of them harboring small, brown and black boxes. A few of the shelves had been knocked over and wands of all sizes and colors were strewn across the floor. Some of them were broken, but most still seemed to be in good condition.

He bent down and picked one of them up to study it more closely. It was made of dark wood, rather short and pretty much looked like a sanded twig. Actually, it also felt like it, there was no magical spark whatsoever. It was to be expected, he wasn't a wizard, after all.

"The shop is silenced, feel free to make a ruckus, Potter," Severus stated and the mockingly arched eyebrow indicated in no uncertain terms that the brunet expected such a thing to happen. "We will proceed towards the trunk shop down the street."

"Have fun, guys!" Araminta added cheerily and followed the older wizard out of the building, leaving them alone.

Harry pointedly rolled his eyes, but went to business soon after. He pulled a burlap sack out of his pocket and placed it on the counter, before turning towards Daryl.

"Can you put the wands I discard into the sack, please? We might as well take them with us, in case more accidents happen."

Daryl nodded and held the short wand in his hand out to the wizard. Harry responded to the gesture with a lopsided grin and reached out to accept the wand.

"I don't think this is going to be the one…," the brunet mumbled, before his fingers had even closed around the wood, but when they did, his suspicion proved true. From one second to the next, the wand caught fire like a torch drenched in gasoline. Harry quickly dropped it to the floor and stomped the fire out with his boot until nothing more than a charred piece of wood remained.

Daryl stared at it with a twinge of guilt, then looked up to check if Harry had burned himself.

"Sorry… you okay?"

The brunet waved his hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about it. Like I said, the wand choses the wizard and that one just didn't like me." He walked over to the first shelf and studied the boxes. "My original wand is made out of holly and a phoenix feather. I should probably start with that. Good thing these are labeled."

Harry began his search and Daryl helped him to speed things up. Fortunately, the selves were sorted by wand core, but apparently Demelza hadn't been a huge fan of phoenixes – phoenixes! - because they only found two boxes with the right cores and none of them was made of holly.

"Did ya live here, too?" Daryl inquired as the wizard opened the boxes anyway to test the wands inside. They didn't burst into flames like the first one had, but Harry looked unsatisfied after casting a few spells with them.

"No, I used to be a British auror. That's a type of magical law enforcement officer," the brunet explained as he went back to the shelf with unicorn hair cores. Daryl slid the two discarded wand boxes into the burlap sack, marveling at the irony of both Rick and Harry being, basically, cops. "I came to the USA because of Snape. He was my potions professor in school and…" The brunet grimaced. "It's hard to explain… There was a magical war and we were both part of it, fighting for the same side. Snape got badly injured near the end of it." He tapped the side of his neck with his fingers. It was the spot where Severus still had scar tissue.

"We thought he was dead and had to leave him behind to finish the fight and when we came back later, he had disappeared. A few months ago I got a lead that he's here and-" he shrugged. "I checked it out and here I am, in the middle of the bloody zombie apocalypse, far away from home." Harry's lips formed a bitter smile as he approached the counter with several new boxes. He set them down and absentmindedly swiped along the side with his thumb.

"The worst of it is not knowing if the people, who're important to you, are still alive, I think."

Daryl didn't have a lot of those, but he could relate anyway, so he nodded. Merle was, after all, still missing and he had no chance of knowing if his brother was still alive or whether he'd ever see him again or not. He wondered who Harry had left behind – Parents? Friends? A significant other or even kids…?

"Ya can't just… pop back?" Daryl wondered, his eyes tracing the lines on the box labels. All of them spelled 'Hawthorn + Unicorn hair', then different lengths in inches. "Apparate or something?" The thought made him slightly nauseous. Not the apparition part of it, just... Harry disappearing suddenly. Of having the chance to sort out which (potential) feelings were swirling between them snatched away from him.

The wizard slowly unboxed the first wand from the new batch and gave it a swish. At first it looked like nothing had happened, but then Daryl noticed that the ugly paper weight next to him was levitating half an inch above the counter. Harry hummed but put it back and pushed it towards Daryl.

"I… I thought about it. A lot. I'd probably manage to get back eventually, be it by flying or apparating, but… When all of this started, when we were still figuring out what was happening, we saved a women and her sons and an elderly man and… suddenly we were an ever expanding group on the run. I couldn't just leave." He snorted. "One of my best friends once told me I have a 'saving people thing'. But by now the Sanctuary is as secure as possible and there are enough people to keep it running Maybe I'll chance it during spring..."

The brunet looked up, his probing stare fixed on Daryl's face and his cheeks and the tips of his ears flooded with blood. Daryl was both intrigued and confused by the blush, although…

Maybe Harry was interested in him and now he was waiting for a sign that he didn't want the wizard to leave? Was he trying to test the waters? Was that wishful thinking on Daryl's side?

He shifted his weight nervously and opened his mouth, but the words were stuck in his throat.

Fuck, why did he have to suck so much when it came to these things?

Before he had time to beat himself up further, a warm palm grasped his wrist, which, surprisingly, calmed him down a bit - as did the tentative grin on Harry's lips. Daryl swallowed hard and slowly leant forward, giving the other man enough time to withdraw, if he was inclined to. Harry didn't move and then, suddenly, their lips were touching. It was no more than a peck, but it was enough to bolster Daryl's confidence.

He wrapped an arm around the brunet's waist and tugged him closer, before their lips met again, this time a lot more passionate. He felt Harry's fingers in his hair, the occasional tugging a familiar sensation.

When they pulled away from each other, both of them breathing heavily, Harry laughed softly.

"I wanted to do that for ages."

"When ya almost ripped my hair out?" Daryl inquired with a smirk. Now he wondered why asking these questions had been so difficult for him just minutes ago. "Or when ya were tryin' to give me some piercings?"

"I just-" Harry directed an embarrassed scowl at him and punched his arm. "Shut up!… but yeah. It was an instinct thing, the preening and stuff."

Daryl snorted, so the brunet had been (creepily) flirting with him. He left a trail of kisses from the corner of the wizard's mouth to his neck, before reluctantly pulling back.

"Ya should continue with that." The brunet nodded to the boxes next to them. "We can figure this-" He waved his hand between Harry and himself. "out when we're back in the Sanctuary"

The other man looked just as reluctant as Daryl felt, which was… actually really satisfying, but agreed and went back to his searching and testing.

An hour and a half went by, the shelves got emptier, but Harry still hadn't found the right wand. Daryl was beginning to understand why the brunet had been apprehensive the previous day. Twenty minutes ago, he'd had wandered upstairs to take a look around, in hopes of staving off his boredom. So far, he'd found some interesting knick-knacks, but nothing noteworthy.

That is, until he reached the display cabinet, which housed another wand box. This one was old, the color faded and worn on the corners, but the wand therein was in pristine condition. 'Blackthorn + Horned Serpent horn, 11 inches' was proclaimed on the bottom of the box in faded letters.

"Daryl!"

The brunet flinched, but quickly shoved the box into his bag, before sprinting down the stairs, one knife in hand. When he entered the store part of the building, Harry looked alarmed as he gestured to the ghostly mountain lion next to him.

Ghostly. Mountain lion.

"Snape and Araminta need help, we've got to go!"

Daryl had no idea what the animal spirit had to do with that, but he grabbed his crossbow and followed the wizard to the door. Then, the mountain lion ran off, right through the fucking wall, but when they'd left the store, it was patiently waiting for them a couple of feet away. The walkers ignored it, but unfortunately not them. They ended up losing precious time, but in the end reached the plant shop their animal guide had led them to.

It was crawling with walkers. A shit-ton of them and Araminta was the only one fighting them. She had been driven into a corner and was barely holding on. The doorway to the next room had been blasted open, the door itself was nowhere to be seen. Daryl spotted Severus' body buried beneath a few unmoving walkers, bleeding and with scorch marks. Maybe already dead or at least bitten.

"He's unconscious!" Araminta shouted from where she was kicking a red-haired walker away, while driving a dagger through another one's skull. Harry set out to help her, leaving Daryl to carve his way towards Severus. It wasn't easy, the number of walkers didn't seem to decrease, either, but after what felt like ages, he finally reached his goal. Severus was still breathing shallowly, but if he didn't get medical attention soon, he'd probably bleed out.

A sudden, pained cry made his blood run cold. Daryl turned around as if in slow motion until his gaze settled on Harry and the walker, which had sank its teeth into the brunet's biceps