CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I don't see Potter again until Tuesday, so I actually almost completely forget about the whole him-disappearing incident until he charges up to me in a hallway at the Ministry, looking a little bit livid.

"Draco, what the fuck were you playing at, getting yourself caught by Skeeter?" He hisses at me, gripping my arm and leading me to his office. Yes, he has his own office now.

"Excuse me, I think it turned out for the best, actually. She told me who had been publishing the leaks in your department! And you were nowhere to be found anyway, so what do you care?"

"Nowhere to be found? I was right there, I watched you bumbling your way through that whole incident. You're probably the worst spy I've ever seen, Malfoy." He says, angrily. But he can't keep up that level of rage, so he deflates a little. "But at least now we know Mulligan is the one doing the publishing. And, after you had gone, I found his desk and nabbed his address from some paperwork."

"Great," I say, brightly. "When are we going to check him out?"

"We're not doing anything. Ron is coming with me. At least he won't be caught drenched in horrible perfume. I can still smell it on you, you know." Potter pulls a face.

"Your compulsion to sniff your co-workers is your own business." I snap, stung. "And this is my mission, I'm the one who'll get the blame if this informant isn't caught. I'm the one who had the idea to sneak into the Prophet building! You wouldn't even have a case if it weren't for me!"

Potter rolls his eyes. "As much as you want to make everything about you, this actually isn't any of your business. I doubt you even care about the Ministry, or the Aurors, or any of it."

"So what?" I reply hastily. "Doesn't mean I want to get sacked and dragged to Azkaban."

Potter walks towards his office door and opens it. "Don't be silly, Draco. Sacked is one thing, but you aren't going to Azkaban, as long as you don't actually talk to Skeeter. Don't worry yourself about it and get back to work."

I purse my lips with anger, debating whether to keep arguing. But I know it won't do any good. Potter's thick skull is practically impenetrable. So I settle with huffing and shutting the door behind me with a little more vigor than usual.

The day passes eventlessly with endless piles of paperwork – I swear, when I'm a real Auror I won't just throw parchment everywhere like a spoiled child – and getting about a million cups of tea. Now that the weather is cooling off, everyone's desperate for tea.

That evening's class is based on Stealth and Tracking, and it actually gives me a few good ideas. I plan to let Potter think it's just him and Weasley going to check out Mulligan, but I'm going to follow them, to see what I can find out. The class instructor – a homely looking guy who claims to be an expert in tracking Dark suspects – taught us a nifty spell that makes your wand point towards the direction of the suspect. You just have to get close enough to perform the spell on them in the first place.

Of course, it'd be difficult to apply this spell if you're chasing Dark criminals you've never met across the country, but for my purposes, all I have to do is be in the same room as Potter.

So, right after training ended, I snuck away from the crowd and made my way back to Potter's office. I didn't know whether he'd be there or not, but he does work ridiculous hours, so I was counting on it.

His office looks even more dull and boring by night than it did by day. Plain beige walls, horrid thin carpet. It's like he doesn't even care about power and status. Right now it's empty but I'm sure if I hang around, he'll stop by.

A few minutes later, I am bored silly. Looking around the office isn't interesting – the only personal item Potter has is a mug that says World's Best Seeker on it, and I've already decided against stealing that. Because I'm one of the good guys, remember? And good guys don't steal things, even if the person who has it doesn't deserve it. Plus it has tea stains in it.

I step over to Potter's filing cabinet – surely if there was anything sensitive in here, he'd be clever enough to actually lock his door before leaving? It's probably just junk. So I pull open the top drawer, labelled A-D.

To my surprise, I see a file labelled 'Draco', which strikes me as odd for two reasons. Firstly, he wouldn't spy on me – he wouldn't need to, I don't go anywhere. Secondly, wouldn't I be under 'Malfoy'? What kind of idiot organizes surveillance files by first name.

So I pull out that file with curiosity. Inside it is a bundle of unorganized newspaper clippings. All the articles ever written about me – about Potter and me – are here. Why would he keep these? There are even articles I've never seen before, from magazines and papers I've never heard of. One of them looks to be in German.

Is he building up evidence against me, or something? I think in panic. But then I remember that it wasn't me who wrote the articles, it was Skeeter. So I'm the innocent victim in all this. I wonder why-

"Malfoy, what the fuck are you doing?"

Oh crap. The plan.

"Er—good evening Potter." I say, trying to act casual, not guilty. Not caught red-handed snooping through secret files.

Potter stomps over to me and snatches all the clippings out of my hands, and if you've ever had a handful of newspaper clippings snatched from your hand, it won't surprise you to learn that he manages to scatter them all over the floor. We both curse.

"Thanks a lot." Potter says, exasperated. He quickly bends down and starts scraping the newspapers from the carpet. "What do you think you're playing at?"

"I was waiting for you." I say, projecting innocence. "And I saw all these…"

"Ah yes, with your famous Malfoy see-through-closed-cabinets-vision?" Snaps Potter, getting redder and redder in the face, presumably with rage.

"Why do you even have those?" I ask, frankly. "Surely we're trying to forget this whole thing?"

"It's none of your bloody business, Malfoy. Now what did you want?" Potter says, starting to crawl under the desk for more paper.

"Oh, erm…" I hesitate, not having thought up a cover story for my plan. I start to fish out my wand while he's under the table. "You know, I just wanted to… ask. So, how are you?"

"Fucking fantastic." His voice comes from under the desk. "Can you leave now?"

I quickly cast the Tracking Spell non-verbally, pray it works, and make haste out of there.

An hour or so later, after I've gotten home, sat through dinner, ran upstairs to get changed, I am sitting on my bed, dressed in my best super-spy outfit, and I cast the other part of the Tracking Spell. I put my wand on my bed and watch it spin around a few times, glowing red.

My wand goes green and points West. And I think, well now what? Do I have to walk there? Should I grab my broomstick? I really should have thought this through. Or at least researched the spell. Or maybe listened to the teacher in the first place.

I go to pick up my wand and sort myself out, and as I touch it, I feel a strange sensation. A picture appears in my mind of an alleyway next to a townhouse in London. I have to Apparate to that place. What a cool spell!

So I hurry up out of my room. I make my way out of the house, and when I run by my confused looking mother I call out to her that I'm on a secret mission and I'll be back before midnight. I pass the wards that surround the Manor and its lands.

As soon as I'm out of the gates, I immediately Apparate. The chest tightening becomes unbearable for a moment, then with a pop I can breathe again, and I suck in several grateful breaths. Merlin, that was weird, I didn't even have to concentrate on the picture I saw - my wand just knew where to go. No wonder that dreary looking fellow said that this spell required Ministry permission to operate.

I look around, finding myself in the correct alleyway. The dustbins smell like rotting food, it's starting to rain, and there's a homeless Muggle man and his dog blocking the exit. He wants spare change, so I just tell him I don't do Muggle money and get the heck out of there.

As I round the corner, I see Weasley's distinct red hair, and Potter right next to him. They're walking away from me so they don't see me. They duck into the next alley over, presumably to put on Potter's invisibility cloak. I turn my back on the alley and pretend to be waiting at a Muggle mass transport stop. I put up my hood.

A few moments later, I hear their shuffling footsteps going right by me. They are whispering amongst themselves, not even aware of me, and I have to stifle a laugh. This is their espionage? Pathetic. I bet they're not even wearing spy outfits. I was going to use my Tracking Spell again to point their way, but I quickly Disillusion myself and follow their shuffling, stumbling, swearing footsteps.

I stay close to the wall, trying to stay out of the rain and out of sight. I hear them stop and Potter whispering to Weasley that Mulligan's house is the one with the red door. Then I hear them arguing about 'the plan'. Weasley wants them both to stay under the cloak, but Potter wants one of them to distract Mulligan while the other one searches the place for evidence.

Personally, I think Potter's idea is better, but I'm not about to spend 45 minutes listening to a debate about it. So I step up to the red door and knock loudly three times, then stick close to the wall so I'm not seen.

As Mulligan opens his door, and steps out in the street in frustration to see who knocked, I duck behind him and all of a sudden I'm inside his tiny, cramped sitting room. There's space for a small sofa, a side table and a fireplace. I squeeze by it all and go through to his kitchen, which is equally cramped. I've always despised two-up two-downs.

I slowly head upstairs as Mulligan shuts the front door with a curse, conscious of the creaking floorboards beneath my feet. The door to his office is open, so I step into it and pause, trying to hear what Mulligan is doing next. He might see me in the brightly lit office if I'm not more hidden.

Thankfully, it sounds like he's making himself a cup of tea – I hear bustling and clanking from the kitchen. So I hurry over to his writing desk and go through the papers on them. Tonight he seems to be writing about the history of the Code of Wand Use and how it has changed recently, one of those dry 'informational' articles that gets pushed off to the side somewhere as a feature, certainly not main-page material.

So I start going through his desk drawers, looking for envelopes, memos, or anything that could carry a message.

As I'm fruitlessly looking – Mulligan's office is a crowded, disorganised mess – I hear more knocks on the door. I tense up to listen. Mulligan's footsteps creak across the floor, and I can hear him muttering to himself. He opens the door, pauses, and lets out a swear.

"You damned thugs! Leave my house alone!"

The door slams again, and I hear the magical clicks of locks, letting me know I'm going to have a hard time getting out of here. I try to hurry up with my search, knowing that as soon as Mulligan is done making tea, he's going to be back up here to work. But I can't make sense of these papers – hundreds and thousands of them, all out of order. Mulligan must be one of those people who 'finds' things simply by Summoning them.

A small creak on the upper landing is enough to make me freeze. I think my heart even freezes because there's no place to hide in here except under the desk, which I doubt will help if he sits down and traps me underneath.

My heart refuses to beat while the door slowly creaks open. Has time slowed down? Am I in a cheap Muggle horror film? Does Mulligan know I'm here, and he's got a wandful of Killing curses just for me?

The door opens wide… and no one is there.

"Potter." I breathe, my heart making up for its lack of beating with rapid-fire palpitations.

"Malfoy, for fuck's sake. Can't you ever leave anything alone?"

"I could ask you the very same." I shoot back, hissing. "Now help me look. This place is a mess."

We hurriedly go through Mulligan's remaining desk drawers, and his filing cabinet – which is filled with junk, no actual paper. I find a small hard black thing that Potter informs me used to be a banana peel. Fuck. There's no evidence here, and if there is, the chances of us coming across it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. We can't even summon it, because we don't know exactly what we're looking for.

Soon enough, we hear Mulligan's own footsteps – heavy and careless stomping, more like – and I freeze again.

Potter lets out an annoyed-sounding sigh, and then I feel him bump into me and throw the silky, silvery cloak on top of me a second before Mulligan bursts into the room, still muttering to himself about the kids outside playing knock-a-door-run. He sets down his tea, and Potter and I shuffle off to the side as he heads toward the window.

Mulligan opens the window wide, it's one of those sliding windows that you have to lift up, and his house is so old that he has to prop it up with a piece of wood. He's expecting an owl.

Suddenly, as Potter and I are squashed together awkwardly to stay out of Mulligan's way in his tiny office, I realise why Potter kept those clippings. He fancies me!

Of course! It's obvious! Well, now that we're in ridiculously close quarters, it's definitely obvious. As a polite member of society I would never point it out, but as a Slytherin, I know that's not his wand in his pocket.

Part of me wants to have a bit of fun with this new-found information, but my sensible side says I should tuck it away and use it when it really benefits me. So I stay hunched, pretend not to notice, and focus on the window.

As Mulligan hums to himself and writes, clacking away on his typewriter, I can't help but think. Has Potter had a crush on me all this time? Is that why he testified for me? It certainly would explain a lot, especially his behaviour at the Charity Ball. He's probably secretly been loving all the attention from the press – though maybe that's what prevented him from making his move. Not that he should ever make a move on me, because even if I was gay, which I'm not, but if I was then Potter's not even my type.

Just then, his breath right on my ear is ticklish, so it sends a shiver right through me. "We should go." He whispers.

I put my finger to my lips in a shushing motion, and shake my head. There'll be an owl here any minute and Potter just wants to leave? What if the owl is from the informant?

So we wait it out. Strange how ten awkward, silent minutes feels a lot like ten lifetimes. But eventually, a flapping noise and hooting and rustling invades the tiny space. Mulligan's owl is pretty bog-standard, nothing that stands out from the crowd. Which I expect is just how he likes it.

I urge Potter to shuffle with me so we can get behind Mulligan as he reads the letter, which is more like a torn off scrap of parchment, really.

Lunchtime – usual place. V.

Great. Nothing.

Mulligan crumples up the parchment and throws it on the ground – I swear, this man is a pig. Disappointed, I just want to get out of here.

I start to nudge Potter towards the door, but he grips my arm and points to the window, that has been left open even though the owl has gone.

I struggle against Potter's grip. I'm not jumping out of any windows. I'll take my chance on the creaky stairs, thank you very much. But Potter doesn't yield. I understand what he's saying. The Cloak is his, so if he goes, it goes. And I don't want to be stuck here in this brightness with nothing but a shoddy Disillusionment Charm.

So here we go. I can do this. We step up onto the windowsill. I take a deep breath. Start to count-

And I land with a soft thwump.

"You pushed me! You fucking pushed me!" I hiss, climbing off the Cushioning Charm as Potter lands invisibly next to me. "Wait, what's going on?"

Weasley shushes me and grabs me, dragging me through Mulligan's back garden and off into an alleyway at the side of his house.

"We actually investigated the surroundings before we barged right in, Malfoy." Says Weasley with what seems like a permanently disgusted expression on his face. Oh yes. That whole business. I almost forgot.

"And what if Mulligan hadn't opened the window at all?" I say. "Would we have broken through it?"

"I was going to knock on the door again." Weasley says, suddenly proud of himself.

"Come on." Puts in Potter. "We need to get out of here, we can't all fit under the Cloak."

I never realised how bossy Potter was, as he grabs us both and Apparates suddenly.

We arrive with a pop and I wrench myself away from Potter with a gasp. "First you push me out of a window, now kidnap? You can't just Apparate someone like that!"

I look around at where we are, and recognise it immediately. The doorstep of Grimmauld Place! I immediately forget my outrage, and ignore Potter and Weasley's protests as I let myself in.

Potter runs in behind me, telling me to shush. But I don't listen. I deposit my cloak on the rack, and greet my nasty Aunt Walburga's portrait with a bow. She gushes about how tall I am, and how blond, definitely Malfoy... my mother not as much of a harlot as she thought, etc. The usual.

It's only when I start down towards the kitchen and she catches sight of Potter and Weasley that her screaming begins, and I have to stifle a laugh. Good old Walburga.

When they've finally shut her up, they both stomp downstairs and find me preparing myself a sandwich.

"Wow, make yourself at home, Malfoy." Potter remarks.

"This is my home, actually." I reply darkly. "We were next in the bloodline to inherit it, remember?"

Potter looks like that vaguely rings a bell, and nabs the other half of my sandwich. "Yeah? Well, thankfully all that bloodline stuff is rubbish, because this has been a useful little hideout for us."

I nod, mouth full of ham and cheese, knowing the extent of the Defensive Charms on this place. "I bet."

"Erm, not to interrupt." Interrupts Weasley. I shoot him a glare. "But what happened up there?"

"Nothing at all," I say. "It was a complete waste of time."

"What are you on about, Malfoy? We found out more than we wanted to know! I thought he opened the window just to get some air, I was shocked when that owl came."

"And what did the message say?" Asks Weasley. "Anything incriminating?"

"It said who the informant was and where and when they'll be meeting tomorrow." Potter says with a grin. Mine and Weasley's faces match – both confused and eager.

"How did you get that from that message?" I say. "All it said was 'lunchtime – usual place. V." I say, wondering whose last name starts with V. I can't put my finger on it. The Arithmancy professor at Hogwarts was Ms. Vector, but I thought she died?

"Oh yes!" Exclaims Weasley. He high fives Potter and I am even more confused.

Potter takes pity on me and decides to explain. "You see, this past week we've had an Auror Trainee leaving the Ministry every day for lunch. I asked Duncan to do some trailing for me, just in case. It turned out innocent enough – a quick lunch alone at a local restaurant. Until that owl came."

"And you think this trainee is the culprit?" I say, confused. But then it all clicks into place. "Vanessa!"

"Exactly. The only thing is, her attendance is always perfect. I don't understand how she could have been pilfering evidence after hours."

Now it's my turn to take pity on them. "Okay, well that part is easy. She must have an accomplice somewhere who goes to her lessons disguised as her. Look at her marks, to see if there's a pattern."

Potter and Weasley gawp at me. "Merlin, why didn't we think of that? And how come you did?"

"As soon as you mentioned someone being in two places at once, it was pretty easy actually." I boast, wiping crumbs off the counter.

"Wait a minute. So you've known how it could be done all along?" Weasley says, getting seriously high-pitched. "And you didn't tell us, why?"

"As if I was going to incriminate myself – I was the prime suspect, remember? You would have raided my house looking for Polyjuice Potion."

"No we wouldn't have." Says Potter, with determination in his voice. But Weasley's face says the opposite.

"Anyway." I try to get the subject back on track. "When are we going to apprehend Vanessa? Can I be there?"

"We can't, Malfoy. We don't have any evidence yet. No legal evidence anyway." Potter says, adding the last part in response to my facial expression.

I cross my arms in frustration. "Well you lot will have to keep extra tabs on her then. And I can trail her lunchtime activities tomorrow. She'll never suspect me, even if she sees me."

Weasley doesn't seem to like that idea, but Potter consents.