Author's Chapter Notes:
Author's Notes: Lots and lots of thanks to my beta, Raisinous Fielding, for much needed corrections and support. I’d also like to note that I will be completely ignoring DH in this story.



Sunday came around swiftly. Before Harry knew it, he had spent far too long wondering what to wear for a simple meeting and it was practically two o’clock already. Not wanting to be late, he made a split second decision and pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a black jumper he hoped made him look sophisticated, before grabbing his coat. Holding his wand tightly, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his destination: Cherhill White Horse in Wiltshire.


Upon opening his eyes again, Harry was surprised to find himself on the slope of a rolling hill with a glorious vista of Wiltshire countryside spread out in front of him. True, the place was beautiful, even though the sky was overcast and it looked like rain, but Harry still wondered why Malfoy wanted to meet in Wiltshire, again.


Looking around he saw an old stone fort above him, great grey stones covered in moss and mildew, and in the distance he could make out the oddly geometrical shape of Silbury Hill. So far there were no white horses in sight.


Malfoy was already there; he was sitting on a stone to Harry’s left and gazing out over the land in front of him with a wistful expression on his face. After taking a couple of seconds to take in the still figure in front of him, Harry called out a greeting and Malfoy turned around to acknowledge him.


“Where’s the White Horse, then?” Harry asked as he jogged over to the reclining figure.


Malfoy smirked at him, his eyes crinkling in the corners with amusement. “You’re standing on it,” he said.


Harry looked down to find himself standing on white chalk rather than grass. He quickly moved off the white surface to stand next to Malfoy. Looking up the hillside, he realised he had been standing on the slim leg of a large white horse carved into the hillside. All in all it was rather impressive. Trust Malfoy to set a meeting place like this.


“I though the White Horse was a pub,” Harry said, slightly shamefaced.


Malfoy stood up and stretched himself, his form tracing a lean bow in the crisp air. “Come on then,” he said, ”let’s get a beer. The pub’s called the Black Horse.” He bestowed his strange half-smirk half-smile on Harry and began confidently leading the way.


Harry was very pleased to note that he was wearing the same tight jeans as last week, even if they were hidden under a long black coat. Malfoy was also wearing a soft grey scarf. Reflectively Harry noted that it was rather chilly and he had forgotten his own at home. He lifted the lapels of his coat, hoping it would warm him somewhat.


Malfoy led them down the hill and across some muddy fields, miraculously managing to keep his own shoes pristine while Harry got mud all up the legs of his trousers, before finally leading them to a Muggle road and the promised pub. Harry couldn’t help but find it strange that for a second time the pure-blood wizard was choosing a Muggle establishment.



The pub was cosy and warm and in the corner a group of locals were playing billiards. Malfoy looked around speculatively and unwound his scarf before turning to Harry. “Are you hungry?” he asked.


Actually, now that Harry thought about it, he was. They both ended up ordering a plate of food to go with their pint before heading for a small table in a quiet corner.


They sat for a couple of minutes in companionable silence, sipping their beers. Malfoy seemed content to just sit without speaking, but after a while Harry started fidgeting. His attention kept on straying to the blond’s thin wrists and high cheekbones and he wondered if Malfoy had gone to the Brass Wand the night before. If he had been taken home by a strange man, or if rather they had gotten off, fast and dirty, in the dark bathrooms. Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair, undecided if he was more aroused or irritated at the thought. Saturday night he had actually considered going to the Brass Wand, but then he had ruthlessly tamped down on that unlikely thought and Floo-called Ron and Patrick, his occasional partner from the Auror corps, for a boys’ night out instead. Now he couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if he had gone after all, if Malfoy would have been there...


“You seem to like spending your Sundays in Wiltshire,” Harry said suddenly in an effort to break off his train of thought.


Malfoy shot him a sharp glance. “They do say there’s no place like home, don’t they?” he replied. “I can’t help but feel that the grass is greener, the beer frothier and the Muggles more palatable in my home county.”


Harry wrinkled his brow. “I wouldn’t say I particularly miss Surrey or feel any particular desire to return.”


“Were the Potters from Surrey then?” Malfoy asked, sounding vaguely curious.


“My mother’s sister lived in Surrey. I lived with her family.”


“My family’s lived here since they first came to Britain with the Normans,” Malfoy said proudly. “The manor itself is not all that old, it was only built in the seventeenth century. It was built, however, in the place of the original Malfoy manor-house, keeping the original cellars and dungeons underneath the house intact.”


Looking at Malfoy speak about his house, Harry got some small inkling of what the other man felt about his ancestral home and why he was fighting so hard to get it back.


“In the Malfoy Estate,” Malfoy continued, “I feel a kind of belonging and power I can sense nowhere else, and it is due to more than the generations of my ancestors that have passed through, investing the house and the land with their spirit. Much more than simply that.”


Harry couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. He himself knew next to nothing of his family and ancestors. “How so?” he asked, eager to learn more.


Malfoy stared at his beer for a moment, considering his response. “When you visited the manor, didn’t you feel the energy in the area? By Silbury Hill, the stone circle and other places?”


Harry nodded. It was impossible for a witch or wizard not to feel the undercurrents of inanimate, but deep and ancient, magic and energy that suffused various areas, and was particularly strong in this part of Wiltshire.


“There is a strong line of earth magic that runs through here all the way to Cornwall. The ancient wizards and Druids felt it and built the sacred stone circle and the Hill and then the Barrows. With their festivals and rites they invested even more power into the land. When my ancestors visited the area, they were immediately drawn by the latent power of the land.” Malfoy paused to give a wry smirk before adding, ”My family has always been attracted to power. Malfoy Manor was built exactly on top of that strong line of earth magic. It was not uncommon practice for the old pureblood families to try and build their houses close to areas of natural magic, or above what Muggles call ley lines. The magic of the land augments the spells cast to enhance and enchant the structure of the house as well as those to ward and protect the estate.”


The waiter arrived with their food and Malfoy paused in his narrative. He sat for a while with a faraway look in his eyes as he absently circled the rim of his glass with a potion-stained index finger. Harry was entranced, he was being offered a privileged insight into the other man’s heritage. Looking at him now, a sad slim figure dressed in Muggle clothes that had seen better days, Harry suddenly hoped that he could be the hero to Malfoy’s ‘damsel in distress’.


“Growing up in such a place,” Malfoy wistfully continued, “is literally quite magical. As a small child, one is even more attuned and sensitive to the magic surrounding one and radiating out of the soil in pulsing waves. The feeling is... comfortable and pleasant. One feels safe and at home. One feels connected. At Hogwarts the place magic was very strong, you surely felt it?” Harry nodded affirmatively. “Only every place feels different, and no matter what positive feelings Hogwarts engendered, it could never be home,” Malfoy finished.



Having said that, Malfoy fell silent, his eyes gazing at some imaginary point far away as he picked at his food. After a couple of moments, he visibly pulled himself back together and turned sharp eyes to Harry.


“That’s enough of that,” he said. “Idle reminiscing will not get anything done. Are you going to help me or not?”


“Would I be here if I wasn’t interested in getting to the bottom of the matter?” Harry answered, slightly annoyed.


“Good. I assume you have already done some poking about. What have you found out?” Malfoy demanded without preamble.


Harry leaned back in his chair and eyed the other man. “What I’m actually more interested in is that information on Dark activity you mentioned the other day,” he said, sidestepping Malfoy’s question.


“Forever the virtuous Auror and defender of society,” Malfoy sneered but at Harry’s insistent gaze he spoke again. “As I said, the manor is situated very advantageously magically and energy-wise. Permanent Charms and Magical Artefacts that draw energy from the location are amplified to an impressive degree. What’s more, there is a very convenient well-hidden underground maze of dungeons and catacombs underneath the manor. The Dark Lord would have been a fool not to take advantage of it.”


The blond paused for breath and absentmindedly pulled on a stray thread at the sleeve of his jumper, immediately drawing Harry’s gaze to his nimble fingers. “For close on two years he made the manor his headquarters, spending an inordinate amount of time underground researching and experimenting. Near the end he was almost single-mindedly and obsessively engrossed in a particular experiment. Obviously it was a matter of the utmost secrecy and only a select few of the inner circle were privy to it. Severus was one of them, but like the rest he had been hexed silent on the matter and all he could tell me was that the experiment the Dark Lord was working on was particularly dangerous and abhorrent.”


“Why didn’t you mention all this to the Wizengamot during the trials?” Harry asked curiously.


“Of course I did!” Malfoy exclaimed. “I even described the catacombs underneath the manor in great detail for the benefit of the Office for the Investigation of Dark Artefacts and Locations to whom the investigation of the manor had been given as a matter of highest priority.”


“What’s the problem then?” Harry asked again.


“The problem is that absolutely no word, not even the slightest hint or rumour, has escaped after all these years of them finding anything at all, not even the smallest Dark Object, underneath the manor.”


“I see,” was all Harry said. And he did. He already suspected there was something going on, only now it looked like it was more sinister than he had originally believed.


After that they fell silent as they finished eating and to top off the meal, ordered themselves a second pint.


“So,” Malfoy begun, ”you still haven’t told me what you’ve found out so far.”


Harry stalled, not certain why he was so reluctant to share the scant amount of information he had gained with the other man. Malfoy put an elbow on the table, after pushing his empty plate aside, and rested his pointy chin in the palm of his hand as – Harry had to blink twice to be certain – he seemed to actually pout.


“Do you not want to share your information with me, or have you found yourself incapable of discovering anything?” he said, a strange cadence to his voice. He looked pensive as he dipped the long pale index finger of his other hand into the thick froth of his beer and brought it to his mouth to idly lick it clean with a pointy pink tongue. Harry suddenly felt light-headed and found it even more difficult to understand his reluctance to share what he knew.


“In either case,” Malfoy continued, glancing at Harry from under half-lowered eyelashes, much darker than they should by any right be for someone of his complexion, “I don’t see any reason to continue our little impromptu co-operation. Maybe I should just go on my way.”


“No!” Harry exclaimed before he could consider. All he knew was that he didn’t want the other man to leave and even more than that he was sure he didn’t want to come across as an incompetent. “You are right, I have discovered some... stuff. And we should share our knowledge. Don’t leave.”


Malfoy cocked an eyebrow and gave Harry a sly smile both smug and encouraging, so Harry begun speaking.


He told the other man all about the strange coincidences that seemed to point to a bigger conspiracy: Auror Merryweather and her brother, Clarence Brown’s friendship with Auror Timple, what Hermione had told him, and the general ignorance and evasion he had come across.


As Malfoy gazed at him, engrossed, his luminous grey eyes wide and almost unblinking, while he absent-mindedly nibbled at his lower lip with sharp white teeth, making in redder and wetter, Harry found himself embellishing his narrative with a great many details and exaggerations. Malfoy’s undivided attention and intense gaze, directed at Harry alone, made him feel a strange sense of euphoric drunkenness completely unrelated to the two pints he had had.


After Harry finished speaking, finding he had no more to say, Malfoy stretched himself, sleek and unselfconscious, like an underfed cat, and smiled a satisfied little smile, not much more than a slight upturning of the corners of his mouth and a brief twinkle of his eyes.



It didn’t take much prompting by Malfoy to persuade Harry that they should meet regularly to exchange information and work out a plan to break into the manor to investigate without tripping the complex and practically fool-proof wards.


Finally Malfoy rose from the table. “It’s getting late,” he said, “and as incomparable as your company is, I have a prior engagement and must be going. Owl me.” He tipped he head slightly before turning and rapidly striding out the pub.


Harry only stayed long enough to finish his drink before he too left, to return home to his empty apartment and his many thoughts.


******


Monday morning found Harry Flooing into the Ministry particularly late. His morning wank had been quite a drawn out affair accompanied by a very detailed and elaborate fantasy starring, unsurprisingly, Draco Malfoy.


As he sauntered into the Auror Headquarters, feeling sated and vaguely content and only sparing a passing thought to his tardiness, he came up against the state of organised chaos officially known as An Emergency. He stopped at the entrance, speculating if he had time for a cup of coffee before being sent off wherever today’s emergency was.


“Potter!” bellowed Robards, making Harry jump and guiltily wonder if he could pretend he was not just arriving but was rather simply returning to Headquarters from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office where he had gone for a cup of coffee. Only he wasn’t holding a cup and besides everyone knew that the Aurors had the best coffee in the whole Department.


“Potter!” Robards repeated. “Get your arse over here immediately. You are very lucky you have such a good track record and that today’s situation falls into your area of expertise.”


Harry rushed over curious. “My area of expertise, sir?”


“Yes, dealing with monsters.” Was Robards smirking?


“Sir?”


“It seems like old Nessie’s got herself into a bit of a fix. She’s gone and got herself captured by Muggles, again. I want you and Shacklebolt to take all the Aurors except for the auxiliary force and deal with the matter.”


“Who’s old Nessie?” Harry asked, wondering whether Robards might not perhaps be exaggerating.


The Chief Auror gave him a long-suffering look that Harry had become quite immune to during his first year of Auror training. “Nessie is the eighty-foot-long aquatic serpent that resides in Loch Ness in Scotland. I’m sure you must have heard of her, Potter.”


Harry made a little ‘Oh’ sound. Of course he had heard of the Loch Ness monster, only he hadn’t thought it (or rather she) actually existed. He couldn’t help but feel a little foolish and confused.


“Why does this fall into our jurisdiction?” he asked. “Shouldn’t the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures deal with the matter?”


“The Beast Division insisted it was out of their league and they couldn’t possibly cope with something so big. They also helpfully pointed out that their resident Parselmouth is over a hundred years old and is going deaf, whereas our Parselmouth is a well-known young able-bodied hero and vanquisher of evil wizards and dangerous monsters.” Robards took on such an expression of distaste when repeating Harry’s praise, that it was reminiscent of Snape and Harry was momentarily transported back in time.


“Now stop dawdling,” Robards commanded, “and go find Shacklebolt. I want this situation sorted out as fast as possible.”



It was windy and raining up by Loch Ness. A typically miserable Scottish March morning. A large crowd of Muggles had gathered by the lake to gawk. There was even a helicopter hovering above, trying to get a good view. In the middle a positively enormous water snake was struggling and screaming, kicking up large waves that splashed violently onto the shore. And all through that about four Muggle boats stubbornly held on to the ropes that were tying the beast down. The noise and the wet was amazing. Harry briefly wished he was back in bed with his comfortable, and pleasant, musings over Malfoy to keep him warm rather than this windswept place.


Shacklebolt took in the scene grimly. “Tonks,” he said, “take your team and round up all the Muggles on the shore. And...” He looked up with a slight frown. ”...those in the air. My team will get into to position to free her once Potter calms her down.”


“What?” Harry exclaimed, stunned. How was he supposed to calm down an angry serpent this size?


Shacklebolt turned to look at Harry. “No buts. You speak Parseltongue and Nessie’s really quite sweet – if a bit senile. There’s nothing difficult about it. Now go and get her to stop panicking so the rest of us can sort this out!”


“Yes, right. I’m off then,” Harry answered, mounting his standard issue Auror broom. As he flew off to single-handedly confront the manic serpent, he wondered if this were some sort of conspiracy to scare him off the job. How could a monster that size be actually quite sweet?



As it turned out, Nessie did speak Parseltongue, albeit with the snake equivalent of a heavy Scottish brogue. She proved to be scared and confused and it fell to Harry to painstakingly convince her that they were here to help and everything would be sorted out in no time, while hovering on his broom far too close to a huge rheumy eye for his comfort.


It took a while to calm the jumpy old serpent, especially with Shacklebolt constantly shouting at him to get on with it and the rain relentlessly beating down on him, but once that was done, Shacklebolt’s team made short work of the bonds tying her down and then swiftly rounded up the Muggle fishermen. Once she had been set free Harry led her off safely into the mist-hidden centre of the lake far away from the Muggles’ curious gazes.


After she had stopped panicking, Nessie turned out quite a chatty gossip and wanted to know all the latest news from the wizarding world whilst sharing bizarre details about obscure monsters Harry had never heard of. Harry didn’t manage to disentangle himself to make a getaway until the last of the army of Obliviators, which had descended on the scene once everything was under control, was departing, having successfully scrambled the memory of dozens of Muggles. The rest of the Aurors had long gone.



“Well?” demanded Robards the moment, soaking wet and windblown, Harry finally returned to Headquarters. “What kept you so long?”


“She wanted to chat!” Harry practically snapped, too miserable and tired to be in the mood for reprimands.


“Potter, you know that socialising should be done on your own time and not while on duty,” Robards responded with a barely perceptible smirk. “Now go and write your report. If I recall correctly you also haven’t handed in your report from your last case. I hope it will not be necessary to take disciplinary actions again.”


“No it won’t,” Harry answered sullenly as he trudged to his cubicle, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him.


******


The Archival and Storage of Dark Objects and Criminal Evidence’s office was annexed to the Auror Headquarters and thus Harry found it remarkably easy to sneak off in the calm the lack of cases provided on Tuesday evening. Michael Corner was employed as assistant archivist there and Harry was reasonably confident he would be able to get some discreet answers to his questions.


Upon entering the office Harry found only old Norbert Caruthers in his corner, peering at a pile of files.


“Hello, Mr Caruthers,” Harry greeted the chief archivist, “is Michael here?”


The wizened octogenarian lifted his head from his files to adjust his bottle-top thick glasses and squint at Harry. “Ah, Potter,” he said, “and a good day to you too. Young Michael is in the archives. You’d better go in and find him if you want him.”


The main archival area was remarkably large and hopelessly crammed full of all sorts of objects. Harry gingerly threaded his way through the narrow isles, crooked shelves reaching up to the high ceiling on each side. In the eerie magical light that illuminated the vast room, Harry caught glimpses of the precariously stacked and meticulously labelled objects that filled the rickety shelves: jars of disgusting potion ingredients and body parts of magical animals – or maybe even humans – floating in slimy goo, intricately carved ceremonial daggers, cursed jewellery, the embalmed head of a werewolf caught during his change, innocent looking boxes and books…


“Michael,” Harry softly called, somehow leery of disturbing the strange silence of the room.


“Over here,” a discordantly cheerful voice answered back.


Heading for the direction the voice had come from, Harry picked his way through the maze of isles to eventually find the other man in a well lit corner cataloguing jars of brightly coloured sparkling sands.


“Hello, Harry,” Michael Corner welcomed him brightly. “New delivery, this. Wizarding narcotics from a raid some of your boys made this morning.”


“That must have been Angelina and Peterson,” Harry offered. “Colourful stuff,” he added.


“Gives you colourful hallucinations too,” Michael answered. “What brings you to these parts?”


Harry lowered his voice. “I need your help on a case. You know, off the record and everything. It’s all very hush hush.”


“All right.” Michael gave a conspiratorial grin. “Tell me.”


“I’d like a list of the objects you’ve procured from the Office for the Investigation of Dark Artefacts and Locations, in particular any originating...” Harry took on an even more conspiratorial tone, “...from Malfoy manor.”


The archivist scratched his head, considering. “The Office for the Investigation of Dark Artefacts and Locations hasn’t given us anything in a very long time. Let’s go and look at the ledger, everything is in there.”


Michael led Harry out to the main office where he recovered a huge tome from a shelf and took it to the furthest corner from old Caruthers. He opened it and started leafing through.


“It’s just as I thought,” he whispered to Harry as they huddled over the big book, “we haven’t had anything from the Office for the Investigation of Dark Artefacts and Locations in at least four years. Anything of any import, that is. We’ve had a couple of broken objects that might have once been magical but are no longer anything more than junk. You wouldn’t be interested in any of that, would you?”


Harry looked at the entries; none were from the manor, so he shook his head negatively.


“Now, as for the specific location you mentioned...” Michael continued while expertly skimming through the densely written ledger, “no. We haven’t had anything from there since the Ministry’s raid back in 1992, before the War.”


Harry considered. “Is there any other location in the Ministry where Dark Objects might be stored apart from your archive?” he asked.


“All Dark Objects are supposed to at least pass through our office to be catalogued in the ledger. The Office for the Investigation of Dark Artefacts and Locations generally keeps all the objects it finds for a certain period of time to examine them and catalogue them in their own archives before passing them on to us. Also the Department of Mysteries often ‘borrows’ stuff from us for their own investigations and experiments. They’ve been doing a lot of that lately, and they hardly ever return the objects – at least not in working condition,” Michael finished, clearly annoyed. “Here, let me show you.”


He opened the ledger to the section for outgoing artefacts and showed Harry. True to his word there was a large number of entries for objects taken out by the Department of Mysteries, most of which hadn’t been returned yet. Harry soon realised that almost all the withdrawals were under the same name, a certain Unspeakable named Aloysius Hobson. It took Harry a moment or two to realise why the name seemed familiar. Aloysius Hobson was the third boy, the thin pale one, next to Thaddeus Timple in the seventh year Ravenclaw year-book photograph.


Harry thanked Michael Corner for his help and rushed back to his cubicle, his mind working overtime. For a brief moment he considered informing Robards of his findings, because surely this was a serious matter, one that the Auror division should investigate. But it crossed Harry’s mind that Robards might hand the case over to someone else. Besides, with suspicion falling on Aurors and Unspeakables, who knew how deep the conspiracy went? It would be better if Harry kept the whole matter under wraps until he had solved it and uncovered all the culprits. He could prove to Robards that he was capable of taking positive initiative and successfully undertaking an investigation, that there was more to him than being the Boy Who Lived. If he could also gain Malfoy’s gratitude, that was merely a fringe benefit.
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