分卷阅读31（2 / 2）

“Harry, wait!” Draco called.

“I can’t believe you’ve been lying this entire time!” he was halfway out the door. Harry turned back and glared at the man standing in the doorway. He couldn’t believe Draco had the nerve to keep something else from him, after everything they’d said to each other, everything they’d done. The omission felt like another betrayal. “This whole thing has been one lie after another!” He threw up his arms in frustration ready to ring the neck of the git staring back at him. Then he realized how familiar the scene was. “Wait. This is when—”

He turned and saw Archie Eversworn standing in the open lift down the hall, gawking back at him in horrified shock. Harry threw himself at Draco and pulled them back into the hotel room, slamming the door behind him.

“Obliviate!” Draco cast at his prone form on the bed. He gathered the rest of his things and made for the door.

“What are you doing?” Harry followed him out into the hallway. “We need to disappear until tomorrow night. We can’t let anyone see us.”

They argued for a few minutes until Draco admitted the Timepiece wasn’t broken. “Before you erupt, I will remind you that you kept your secret from everyone, just the same as me. Only I actually received a note from myself, in my own hand, mentioning the curse and such.”

“Draco,” Harry said through gritted teeth. “Take us back now before I throttle you so hard it sends you forward in time without me.”

Draco adjusted the Timepiece and Harry curled around him and waited a matter of seconds for the familiar feeling of falling to overcome him. When it subsided, he let go of Draco and turned back toward the hotel room.

“Ah ah ah,” someone tisked from down the hall. Startled, Harry jumped. Draco was scowling at the older man in Ministry ops robes.

“Sableton, what are you doing here?” Draco asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Well, I came to collect Zivantus’ Timepiece. I’m not the least bit surprised to find it in your possession.” The man narrowed his eyes and smiled. “You both need to come with me for a debrief.”

Harry scoffed. “Yeah, sorry, we’re a little busy.”

Sableton took a step forward. “It’s not a suggestion, it’s an order, Auror Potter. You and Unspeakable Malfoy have a lot of explaining to do.”

[a week later]

Igora was actually surprised. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. Harry Potter sat on the other side of her desk with a transfer request and sixteen letters of recommendation.

“Well, I want you to say ‘yes’ of course,” he smiled and his eyes crinkled. Adrenaline rushed through her at the odd familiarity of his gaze. “But I want to get the job because I’m qualified, not because of who I am.”

Ignora took a deep breath and motioned for him to hand over the documents. When Felix had been promoted out of Edinburgh to the London Missing Persons office, she thought she would continue on without a partner. Three days later, here she was, The Boy Who Lived practically begging to be her protégé. He had absolutely no experience but his marks from the auror’s exams were exemplary, and then there was the fact that he was the Savior of the Wizarding World. Of course, that was irrelevant. Saving an entire group of people from one maniac was not the same as finding one person missing in what usually ended up being mundane and indeterminate circumstances. Usually.

“Well?” he looked down at the parchments.

“I don’t need to read these to make my decision. This was a waste of time for all the poor souls who had to write these.” She eyed Potter and wondered if the bravery and the recklessness had been reined in, even if only slightly. She thought he might not be half bad if he didn’t feel he had something to prove. “Why do you want to work in Missing Persons?”