Work Text:
“You wanted to see me, Chief?” Draco drawled, closing the door to Robards’s office behind himself and settling his hands in front of him.
“Yes, the DRCMC needs an Auror to accompany them to some backwater town out in Scotland as protection for some local hubbub or another,” Robards said, tossing aside his personal seal and looking up to Draco. “You’ve been doing fantastic work with Potter, and I know you have completed all the requisites for your Care of Magical Creatures during your studies. You’re the only one not currently on mission, so I need you to go see what they need.”
Draco stood up straighter, “All due respect, sir, but that sounds like grunt work.”
“It is, but all the recruits are doing sensitivity training thanks to that muck up down in Hampstead.” He waved a hand in the air, rolling his eyes at the memory of the incident. “If I had anyone else I thought could handle this, I wouldn’t ask. I trust you; you’re good at your job. Please just go see what they need.” Robards sighed. “It’s just a security job; consider this an early vacation.”
“Fine, but I want my actual vacation when I get back,” he joked, giving Robards a lazy salute.
“Done,” chuckled Robards. “Send me a Patronus if you need anything. And thank you, Malfoy.”
Instead of responding, Draco simply waved his hand over his shoulder as he left Robards’s office. There wasn’t much at his desk to grab besides his overcoat and his wand holster, so once those were in hand, he quickly penned a note to Narcissa to let her know he’d been gone for a couple of days before making his way upstairs to the DRCMC.
Sara Whittle was at the front desk, reading the latest romance novel written by her favourite muggle author, when he entered the DRCMC. She looked up at him as her right hand placed her bookmark in her spot.
“What brings you up here, Malfoy? Did the weekly howlers finally reach Robards’s ears?” Sara deadpanned, but her eyes crinkled at the corners with mirth.
“Oh, rest assured he’s heard every single one and finds them hilarious,” Draco winked. “No, there’s someone who needs an Auror escort down to Wales, and I’ve been assigned to accompany them.”
Sara’s eyebrows rose as he talked. Putting down her novel, she shuffled around some loose missives on her desk and then held one up.
“Ah, Cathy must’ve forgotten to leave me a note…” she mumbled, quickly reading through the page. “It looks like Oscar made the request. He’s off to lunch, but I can send him a note and get him back here, just one second.”
“No need; let the man eat,” Draco assured her, watching as she picked up a pencil to write but then put it back down. “Where is he? I’ll meet him and get my own lunch, then we can head out.”
“He’s in the cafeteria, probably sitting in the back. Oscar doesn’t really like talking to people most days.” Sara cringed, offering Draco a half smile.
“Well, we have something in common then, thanks, Sara!”
It wasn’t hard to find Oscar once he made his way to the cafeteria. Just like Sara had said, he was sat in the very back of the room at a table all by himself. Oscar had several case files opened in front of him, reading while he slowly brought spoonfuls of soup up to his mouth. Draco waited for him to bring the spoon back to the bowl before clearing his throat and getting the man’s attention.
“Hey, Sara said you were the one who requested an Auror escort?” Draco asked, hand resting on the chair across from Oscar.
“Oh, um, well…” Oscar trailed off, looking down at the case file in his hand.
“Is there an issue?”
“You once held me upside down over Moaning Myrtle’s toilet when I was a second year,” Oscar replied, avoiding Draco’s eye. “Well, I suppose you had Crabbe and Goyle do it, but still.”
“I-” Draco cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry, Oscar. There’s no excuse or explanation, I’m just sorry. I shouldn’t have ever let that happen to you and I apologise.”
Oscar’s gaze slowly lifted until he was finally looking Draco in the eye once more.
“You know, they all said you’d changed,” he replied, tucking papers back into the file. “I didn’t want to believe it, I guess. I wanted to hold onto that grudge.”
Both men were silent for several moments, watching each other from across the cafe table. Draco worked hard not to throw up his occlumency walls. His court-ordered therapist would be proud of him for trying to stay present in his feelings. Oscar stood from his chair and held out his hand for Draco to shake.
“Thank you,” Oscar said.
Draco nodded, unsure what to say.
“Let’s get you up to date then, shall we?” Oscar offered. “There’ve been several curious complaints coming from muggles in the area that raised some red flags for the DRCMC. We thought it was just boggarts or ghouls, but we’re starting to think it might be something more serious.”
As he talked, Oscar gathered up his dirty silverware and dishes. Draco held out a hand to hold his case files and Oscar handed them over easily.
“I need to get down there and stake out the location, see if I can figure out what is causing the disturbance,” he continued, leading Draco to the receptacles. “If it’s something we can just handle on our own, we have the clearance to do so. Otherwise, we’ll need to file a report and then request extra manpower.”
“Are stakeouts really DRCMC protocol?” Draco asked.
“Not usually; this would be my first.”
“Did you want me to handle the stake out and report back my findings?” Suggested Draco. “It’ll give you some time to finish going over the various reports, and you can do more research based on my reports. If I need you, I can send word.”
“Oh-are you sure, Malfoy?” Oscar stopped in his tracks. “You don’t need to do all of that on your own. That’s the point of the collaboration.”
“I know, but stakeouts can take time, and you’re not properly trained for it.” He looked down, noticing Oscar’s wedding ring. “I’m sure your partner would much rather have you nearby in any case.”
Oscar’s returning laugh sounded surprised and relieved all at once. “You’re right about that. Pete’s always miffed with me when I have to leave for days at a time.”
Draco didn’t respond, instead letting Oscar come to a conclusion.
“Alright, but if anything happens, anything at all, you send me a message as soon as possible.”
“Deal.” Draco put out his hand for Oscar to shake again. “I’ll let you know once I’m there and settled. I’ll report every twelve hours. If you don’t get a message at the agreed time, wait an additional two hours before sounding the alarms.”
“Be safe, Malfoy.”
“Always am, Oscar. Let Pete know he owes me a pint for getting you out of this, huh?” Draco chuckled as he made his way out of the cafeteria.
“Two pints on me!” Oscar shouted after him.
Smiling to himself, Draco made his way down to the Transportation department. The man behind the desk didn’t introduce himself or speak to Draco in any way, as usual. Instead, he just pointed to a crusty-looking jar sitting at the far edge of the desk. Draco double-checked his pockets one last time for his wand, his shrunk camp kit, and emergency first aid and potions kits, then reached out and took the jar in hand.
When the spinning finally stopped, he found himself at the edge of a dense forest. An assortment of trees crisscrossed against each other. Broken branches were woven between live trees, creating bridges for smaller creatures to move quickly between them. Light moss decorated the bottoms of the trees in various colours, and the ground was covered in at least a foot of dead and decaying leaves.
He pocketed the portkey and pulled out his wand. “Homenum Revelio!”
Nothing of note lit up within the spell’s range, just a few squirrels and birds. Draco muttered a spell to conjure a compass and started walking northeast into the forest, keeping his footsteps light to avoid disturbing the quiet around him. A red stag brayed somewhere in the distance, and he listened to it echo across the canopy. Draco continued walking only once the sounds of the forest returned to the usual sounds of chittering birds and insects and leaves whispering against each other.
It was peaceful, walking through the forest by himself. A light breeze ruffled his hair, and petrichor flooded his senses; he could nearly taste the rain in the air. The reports had stated that muggles had heard “ungodly howls” late into the night and that a few locals had gone missing. It wouldn’t be long before the sunset, and Draco wanted to get as close to the location as the reports mentioned before that happened, so he set a brisk pace.
The first sign of anything magical going on within the forest showed itself about an hour into his trek when a Mooncalf ran past him. He flipped through his memories of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, wondering if perhaps the issue was a Hodag, seeing as there were clearly Mooncalves in the forest. Draco quickly shook off the thought as he remembered Hodags were local only to the Americas.
A small clearing caught his attention not twenty minutes after seeing the Mooncalf. Fresh hoof prints and snapped brush told him this was a throughway for most wildlife. However, the thing that caught his eye was what looked to be bare human footprints scattered amongst hoof and paw prints. They weren’t fresh, perhaps a day or two old, but he couldn’t tell which direction they had come from because of the other prints.
Draco sighed deeply to himself and cast another Revelio, but once again there were no people nearby. “Apparae Vestigium,” he whispered over the footprints.
Unfortunately, they were likely over two days old because the print he could see lit up orange, but he couldn’t see any more leading him in a clear direction. He resigned himself to setting up a small blind in the trees and stake out the clearing.
Conjuring his Patronus, he sent a quick message to Oscar: “Nothing yet, but I think I’m where the reports have been originating from; check in in twelve hours.”
As the silvery dragon took off into the sky, Draco set to work climbing a pine with low-hanging branches. He cast a sticking charm on his feet once he felt he was high enough and reached into one of his emergency packs. The one-person tent attached easily to the tree and Draco swung himself inside the opening. Inside the tent was magically expanded, but not to his usual level of comfort. He could stand comfortably within the tent, but the room wasn’t much larger than a broom closet. Draco settled down at the mouth of the tent and settled in to wait.
The next twelve hours came and went, with only a few foxes showing up to play in the clearing together. Draco sent Oscar the update via his Patronus and munched on a muggle protein bar Potter had turned him onto. As the sun rose, he climbed down the tree to relieve himself and placed a few perimeter wards to catch a quick nap.
Draco was sketching a fox in his notebook on the third day when one of the wards went off, causing his wand to vibrate lightly in his pocket. He sighed deeply and set down his notebook to peek around the tent’s flap, fully expecting to see another fox or red deer. Instead, a human-shaped figure walked purposefully through the clearing, steps light thanks to a distinct lack of shoes. The figure was shrouded in a dark green cloak, the hood oversized and heavy, pulling down around the face. Grass whispered as the edges of the cloak brushed across the ground.
With bated breath, Draco watched closely as the figure stopped in the middle of the clearing. Movements slow and precise, he pulled his wand from its holster, a disarming spell on the tip of his tongue. The figure’s head turned, and he could just make out a pert nose and full lips poking out from the edges of the hood. Mouth opened as if breathing in the air; the figure’s small left hand reached out and laid itself on a nearby aspen.
While the figure seemed distracted, Draco whispered, “Stupefy!”
Quicker than his eyes could track, the figure’s right hand came up and blocked the spell. Draco watched it bounce off of the protego just seconds before it met the soft flesh of the palm. His eyebrows raised into his hairline; he hadn’t seen anyone react that quickly to a spell since Dumbledore.
“Words are often preferable to spells, but I can volley if you’d like,” came a lilting woman’s voice.
Draco kept his wand in hand but sat at the tent’s opening with his legs dangling over the clearing. The woman didn’t turn in his direction, her left hand still pressed firmly against the tree. Her voice tingled a memory in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t track it down.
“There have been reports of something terrorising the local muggles, would you happen to know anything about it?” he called down.
Her hand slid down the length of the aspen before finally pulling away. Both of her hands slowly raised to her hood.
As the cloth fell from her head, she spoke, “Why would I tell Draco Malfoy, of all wizards?”
Draco couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips when the riotous brown curls of Hermione Granger sprung free from their confines. She looked up at him, face impassive.
“Wha-ho-Granger?” he stuttered.
“Has it really been so long you’ve forgotten how to pronounce my name?” She chuckled, curls bouncing with the movement.
“N-no, I just-” he cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “Sorry, I was just surprised to see you.”
“Imagine how I felt, finding you in my forest.”
“Your forest?”
“Indeed.”
“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” he asked, genuinely curious. It had been nearly a decade since anyone had seen Hermione Granger; she’d been presumed dead.
“As fun as it was seeing you again, Malfoy, I have things to do,” she snapped, turning quickly and making her way out of the clearing.
“Wait!” Draco shouted, but she wasn’t stopping.
He scrambled out of the blind and shredded his palms on the bark of the pine tree in his haste to get back on the ground. In the few moments it took him to get down, he’d lost sight of Granger and cursed.
“Revelio!” he snarled and took off sprinting after her tracks.
He ran for several minutes, breathing hard. Salazar, she’s fast! He thought.
Just as he came around the wide trunk of an old oak, he skidded to a stop. Granger was standing just before him, arms crossed and a hip cocked to the side, in front of a small building. It wasn’t decrepit, but it was littered in moss, lichen, and several types of vine-like flowers. Small totems made of sticks and animal bones twisted together with hair or vines dangled from various points along the small porch of the place.
“Leave this place at once, Malfoy,” Granger said with a sigh.
His gaze left the tiny house and landed on her once more, meeting her disapproving look.
“I was tasked with helping the DRCMC figure out what is scaring the muggles near here,” Draco explained evenly. “Once the issue is dealt with, I’ll be more than happy to leave you in peace.”
“I can handle the ‘issue’ myself,” she scoffed, using air quotes to emphasise her point.
“While I believe that to be true, I can’t just leave. I have to do my job, Granger.”
“Great, you did your job. The issue is being handled. Case closed.”
When she finished snarling at him, she turned away and made her way towards the house. Draco started following her, but was pushed back rather aggressively by whatever wards Granger had erected around the place. He landed on his arse in the grass and rubbed his sore nose.
“Good to know those work,” Granger chuckled from the porch. “Now leave.”
The door slamming shut echoed through the forest and several birds called out. Draco got to his feet, swiping away any dirt or leaves trying to attach to his clothes.
“Barmy witch,” he grumbled to himself.
With one last look at Granger’s hut, he resigned himself to pulling down his blind and setting it up closer to her. He’d either wait her out or handle the issue itself, whichever happened to occur first. Once he was well out of earshot, he pulled out his wand and sent Oscar another Patronus, updating the man that he was closer to a solution and still safe. The silvery dragon took off into the trees while Draco retraced his steps back to his blind.
It was near sunset when he finally found his way back to Granger’s spot. Her Notice-Me-Not charm had tried to set him off course several times. His stomach grumbled as he rounded the great oak, and the smell of her dinner wafted through the forest. What he wouldn’t give for some fresh food right now. There was zero chance of Granger sharing her food, of that he was sure, so he yanked another protein bar out of his trouser pocket and took a spiteful bite. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and he squinted curiously at his hands. In his haste to follow Granger, he hadn’t realised the tree bark had broken skin, and his palms were still oozing lightly in several spots.
Setting the bar down, he dug through his cloak pockets for the emergency medikit he had stored away. Holding it in his right hand, he cast an enlargement charm on the small brown case before opening it to find a small vial of dittany. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end; he could feel eyes on him, but he ignored it to quickly heal his hands. With healed hands, he replaced his kit and hastily scarfed down the rest of the bar to set up his blind in the fading light. His energy was flagging too much by the time he finally crawled into the tent to bother resetting perimeter wards, so he hoped Granger’s were enough should something come looking for him in the dark.
Just as he was getting comfortable, a hawk patronus phased through the tent’s canvas. Oscar’s voice poured from the bird’s mouth:
“Ah, good news, you’re getting closer to the problem. Another officer suggested hags, and I think they might be onto something. If they’re right, this might not be a one-man job. Keep your distance and report back with your findings as soon as you can.”
Hags? Great, Draco thought, rolling his eyes as the patronus dispersed into nothing like smoke.