Chapter Text
Harry finds himself slightly breathless when he sees him again. He’s almost practically unrecognisable, or would have been if it were anyone but Harry standing there. The fool would've been able to recognise him anywhere, even acres away and across decades.
Still, he had changed — that much, Harry could admit.
His hair was back to being blond, no longer dyed to be as dark as the canvas of the night sky that hung above the castle of Hogwarts with two platinum strands tucked neatly behind his ears. It now reached the dip of his back, ending in gentle waves that Harry wished he could thread his fingers through. The auror swallowed his urges, drinking in the sight of the other as fast as he could. He still dressed as if he was going to attend a funeral, although his coat seemed much more stylish than the drab suits he wore back in the day. The hat of fur that the other man wore complimented the large coat with its hems that were made of fur as well, which Harry was pretty sure was faux material.
The fool observed the exact second he realised Harry was here. In fact, it didn’t take too long at all — they’d always been like that, able to find each other in a bustling crowd, able to recognise one another even in a sea swarming with doppelgangers. The other man had even once admitted to being sensitive to Harry’s magic.
“I don’t know how,” rose-tinted lips curved into a shy smile that Harry desperately wished to lengthen into a coy grin, the kind of expression the other used to wear on a daily basis before everything went up in flames, “but I’ve always been able to tell when you’re around, even when you’re wearing that dreadful cloak of yours. Your magical signature has always been terribly recognizable, did you know that?”
Of course, if Harry wasn’t Harry and he wasn’t who he was, the slight tension in the shoulders would’ve gone unnoticed, but simply because they were precisely who they were, the auror was able to tell by the sudden shift in rigidity in the other’s posture that Harry had been found out — not that he’d been hiding very efficiently in the first place. The auror stayed where he had planted himself, opting to stand and mull over his next move while he practically fled the shop, hurrying out of there as fast as he could.
Harry wondered if this was how predators felt while stalking their prey. The rush of emotion he always experienced when tailing him was akin to that of a wild animal chasing down their dinner; perhaps this analogy was not the best one to make. It made Harry sound cruel, and somewhat of a beast. Then again, he had found his soul crumbling inside of his body with each day that Harry spent without him .
Anybody with a little bit of morals left in them would tell Harry not to chase after the poor man. Perhaps he still needed some time away, but alas, Harry had spent the past few years waiting and waiting and waiting . He had gone without his lifeline for too long, he couldn’t let such a wonderful opportunity slip his hands once again.
“You’re asking me how Draco’s doing?” Pansy Parkinson’s eyebrows shot up immediately, nearly touching her widow’s peak as she stared at him with incredulity. “I thought you would’ve asked him yourself.”
Harry made a frustrated noise. “Yeah, well, I don’t think he wants to see me right now.”
“That’s funny,” the corner of her crimson lips twisted upwards, while the other corner remained stubbornly curved downwards the way it always did when Harry spoke to her, “never thought you’d take anything into account before…well, whatever..”
“What?” Hermione’s levelled him with a look of surprise while also somehow managing to put on an air that screamed Well-I-Kind-Of-Expected-This . “You’re telling me that Blaise Zabini invited you to a Yule party which you know he attended but you still didn’t go?”
“Well, I—” Harry sighed in frustration as he dragged a hand down his face. “I just didn’t want him to run off. I think he needs more time.” Hermione’s incredulity grew visibly even at Harry’s response. Barely restraining his frustration, he asked her crossly, “what? Why’re you looking at me like that for?”
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just…” Hermione frowned, a slight knit of her brows as she seemed to ponder over something, “It’s just my first time seeing you not rush head-first into things.”
“I’m surprised, you know,” said Goyle, out of nowhere at all. Harry had run into him and Zaibini suddenly at a pub after a gruelling mission. “I thought you’d have chased him down by now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked, frowning as his hand clenched around the whiskey he held in his hand.
“Oh, good ol’ Goyle here doesn’t mean any harm,” Zabini commented, rolling his eyes — though the expression was nowhere near as perfect as his . “What he means to say is that us Slytherins, well, we… we never thought you had it in you to not go chasing after… you know,” Zabini waved his hand around in a vague gesture before continuing, “we thought you’d hunt him down in the first five minutes or something. Seems like a typical thing the Golden Boy would do.”
“I don’t think he wants to be found.” Harry gritted his teeth.
“I don’t know, mate. It seems like you haven’t even tried,” Goyle shrugged off-handedly, while Zabini regarded him with a vague look in his eye.
“...You think I should?”
Goyle snorted, “since when did anything we think matter to you, Harry Potter? Since when did anything that anybody thought matter?”
‘Always,’ thought Harry, but that had been a long time ago. It had come to a point when only one person’s thoughts mattered to the man, although he would’ve never imagined that to happen in the past — and now, he was gone. Did it matter? ‘...And yet, never.’
Harry had spent years searching for him, for any kind of trail. At first, he’d gotten a hold of a rumour of him , being in the Muggle World, but after Zabini’s Yule Party from years ago (that Harry still regretted not attending), he’d lost all traces of the other until last year, where he’d heard of a certain Potions Master making a name for themself across France, Italy and every European country other than the UK. Merlin, his reputation even stretched into Asia and the Middle East.
Now that the prick had finally made it back to England, Harry was not going to let this golden opportunity slip from his hands. He’d spent the better part of the year trying to track the bastard down, and the git had practically stumbled back into his arms by returning and Harry was determined to catch him this time, as if he were a snitch needed to win a desperate match.
Harry had always been a superb seeker.