His Unwanted Specialist

Harry had learned to live with the whispering. It threaded through corridors as he walked, rose and fell in the Atrium elevators, paused when he stepped into a room. He’d been nineteen and blazing with purpose when he’d thought he could outrun it. Now, in his thirties, the weight of everyone else’s expectations sat at the base of his skull like a permanent ache. Senior Auror Potter. Savior. The press always found another way to make him sound inhuman.

He tugged the office door closed with a soft click and leaned his hands on the desk. Files were stacked in cautious towers around the blotter, parchment edges frayed from too many thumbs. He’d been working a smuggling ring for the last month, a mess of counterfeit potions and false identities. It should have felt satisfying. Instead, his eyes kept sliding to the red-stamped folder at the center: Ministry Priority: Level One.

He had read it twice before Robards called him in. The first artifact stolen from a private collection in Bath: a bronze amulet etched with spiraling runes that refused to fix themselves under any light. The second from a warded library in Berlin, on loan to the British Museum of Magical Antiquity: a narrow knife with a twisted handle made from a single length of petrified wood. The third—two nights ago—from a closed vault beneath a townhouse in Mayfair: a ring whose metal couldn’t be identified. The three had no obvious connection except this: every time an artifact disappeared, the place it was housed in soured. The wards didn’t just collapse; they decayed. Wood went brittle and crumbled to dust under a fingertip. Ink bled out of books. The house-elf at the Bath estate had been found sitting in a corner, rocking, eyes blank, magic leached so thin he could barely speak.

He rubbed his thumb over the scar on his palm as he read the reports again. The Aurors had tried their standard battery of diagnostics. Residual signatures were mud—layers of nothing, as if someone had pressed a cold hand over the entire place and smoothed away every particular. Hermione had sent over a brief about generational curses, attached with a note: “It reads like an absence, not a spell. That’s a spell.”

The clock ticked toward eight. His coffee had gone cold. He drank it anyway and grimaced.

“Potter,” Robards said from the doorway, voice clipped, eyes crinkled with the kind of tired that didn’t go away with sleep. He was one of the only people who could stand there without Harry feeling defensive. Robards respected results, not headlines.

Harry straightened. “Sir.”

“Minister’s already put her foot in it,” Robards said, coming in and dropping a thinner folder onto the thick one. “Statement to the Prophet—‘Full confidence in the Auror Office.’ She’d like arrests by yesterday.”

Harry swallowed a sigh. “We don’t even know what to call what they’re doing.”

“Curses,” Robards said simply. “Old ones. The kind pureblood families keep in their attics and only bring out when they want to scare their children. I’ve got Hit Wizards running down who fenced the amulet. I’ve got Magical Catastrophes trying to stop an entire townhouse from falling in on itself. I need you to lead the investigative branch on this. All personnel, all hours. You can pull who you want.”

Relief warred with dread. He knew how to run a case. He didn’t know how to catch something that felt like air.

“Sir,” he said. “We’ve got no signature. The knife didn’t just go missing. It erased itself from the ward logs. Whoever did this knows how to hide in how magic works, not just under it.”

“Which is why,” Robards said, sliding his jaw, “you’re going to have to be clever. And fast. The Minister requested that you take point personally. She thinks your name will be reassuring.”

Harry stared at the desk for a beat. “Reassuring for who?”

Robards’ mouth twitched. “Everyone who wants to believe there’s someone to blame if it goes wrong.”

He wanted to laugh. He didn’t. He flipped open the thinner folder. Photographs, moving slightly with a dull, gray cast. The amulet in the first, gleaming like an eye. A scribbled note from the curator at the British Museum complaining that the knife didn’t reflect in enchanted mirrors. A list of names who might have had access to the Mayfair vault—half of them blacked out for privacy by some overeager solicitor.

“Witnesses?” Harry asked.

“None who remember anything useful,” Robards said. “They recall a draft. A smell like rain. Then nothing, for hours. I don’t like that. And there’s this.”

He produced a small sealed vial. The liquid inside was the color of smoke. “Collected from the Bath estate after the theft. Not quite residue. Magical energy that should have dissipated. When Magical Forensics tried to analyze it, their instruments flickered and then refused to record anything. Granger says it’s an inversion field. I say it’s a headache and a half.”

Harry took the vial. His fingers tingled. The skin along his wrist prickled like it remembered a Dementor.

He set it down. “I’ll pull a team. Ron, Bones, Chang. I’ll get Hermione in to consult properly. We’ll start with the Bath estate and Mayfair—compare decay rates and see if whoever’s doing this is accelerating the collapse. If we can predict where the next one will be, we can—”

“Park it,” Robards cut in, a hand lifted. “We’ll do all that. But listen to me, Potter.” His voice dropped. “The Minister was explicit. Public pressure is going to climb by the hour. She’ll be at my shoulder. And I don’t like telling you this, but I will: if we don’t start producing, she’ll bring in ‘outside expertise.’”

Harry bristled. He kept his tone even. “We can handle it.”

Robards held his gaze. He was not a man given to dramatics. “This is not a smuggling ring. We are out of our depth. We’re going to need someone who speaks this language, and I don’t mean Latin translations. Your pride won’t help us if another house collapses with people in it. Do you understand?”

He did. It settled in his chest like a stone. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Robards exhaled. “Get your team. Briefing in an hour. And, Potter—”

“Yes?”

“Don’t let the name on your door do the work. Let your head do it.”

After Robards left, Harry let himself sit for a long breath. He pulled parchment toward him and started writing names. The habits that had saved him before steadied his hands: make a plan, commit to it, adjust when it fails. He thought of the house-elf. Of the ink bleeding out of books like veins opening. He pushed away the memory of cold breath in his throat, of a green light, of cheers that felt like chains.

In the corridor, footsteps passed and paused, then moved on. He capped his ink, tucked the vial back into its padded box, and stood. Outside his office, the Auror Office buzzed with a low hum of urgency. Heads turned. Eyes tracked him. He squared his shoulders and went to find his team. The case was already breathing down his neck. The clock on the wall kept time with it, each tick an impatient heartbeat.

The first hour went the way they always did: a flurry of assignments, clipped orders, the illusion of progress. Ron arrived with a bacon roll and a grin that faltered when Harry pointed at the Level One folder. Hermione swept in from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures with her hair in a loose knot and ink on her thumb, muttering about recalibrating detection arrays. Chang and Bones took copies of the reports and a fresh set of diagnostic charms to the lab. Harry parceled it out, set deadlines, and watched the edges fray anyway.

By midmorning, the Auror bullpen smelled like old coffee and ozone. The vial of smoke-colored not-residue sat in a warded box under three overlapping containment spells Hermione configured herself. It still made the hairs on Harry’s arms stand up when he walked past.

“How did we miss this?” Ron said, burying his fists in his pockets as if he could squeeze an answer out of the seams. “We’ve seen half the ways people can rot a place from the inside out.”

“We haven’t seen this,” Hermione said, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her voice was crisp, but the tightness in it told Harry she was rattled. She’d been right about the inversion-field sensation; the readings from their standard charm arrays came back with a neat line of zeros, as if the events hadn’t tracked at all. “I can build a differential grid to map residual gaps, but it’s guesswork without a control. Whatever this is unthreads magic at its seams. It removes context.”

Harry turned the knife photograph so it pointed at him. “And it does it without damaging the artifact or whoever takes it.”

Hermione nodded. “Which suggests the decay is a by-product, not the aim. They needed a way in and out without leaving signature. Old work. Old techniques.”

Ron leaned on the table. “Meaning what? Ancient, ancient? Or ‘my grandparents used to whisper about it in the drawing room’ ancient?”

“Both,” Hermione said. “There were lines of research in families that never made it to the open archives. Private grimoires, rituals passed mouth to mouth.” She glanced up at Harry. “I can try to find more. But I don’t think the information we need is in the Ministry’s stacks.”

Harry suppressed the flicker of frustration. He dragged a hand through his hair. “We canvassed witnesses. They remember a draft. A smell. Then gaps. It’s not Obliviation. It’s like time moved around them.”

“Like the gaps are a ward themselves,” Hermione said. “A negative ward.”

He laughed once, short. “And we’re supposed to pin down a negative.”

Before he could say more, Robards’ doorway shadow fell across the table. The room quieted without being told to. Robards had that effect.

“Status,” he said.

“Minimal,” Hermione said, and Harry appreciated that she didn’t fluff it. “We have a theoretical model. No practical traction.”

“We went through the ward logs at the Bath estate again,” Harry added. “Nothing. The ink bled out of the ledger before we arrived. The elves’ magic is…still thinning. He remembers the wind. That’s it. Whoever did this is using a technique that erases evidence at the structural level.”

Robards’ mouth was a hard line. “So the Minister will want to know why the world’s finest investigative corps can’t find their arse with both hands.”

Ron bristled. Harry cut him off with a glance. He met Robards’ eyes. “We are working angles. But this isn’t in the manual. Hermione thinks this is generational craft.”

Robards didn’t bother sitting. “I know what she thinks. I’ve spoken with her department head. I’ve spoken with Catastrophes. I’ve spoken with a very cross goblin who wants to know when he gets his vault integrity back. Here’s the part you’re not going to enjoy: we don’t have it. We don’t have the language. We can’t afford to guess until we hit something.”

Harry felt the word coming before Robards said it, like a cold front arriving.

“An outside expert.”

The room went still. Harry kept his face blank. “Who?”

“We’re drafting a narrowed list,” Robards said. “I’m not opening our doors to a charlatan with a self-published pamphlet on runic reversal. We need someone who understands old pureblood cursework, not just pretends to. Someone with practical experience in wards our records barely admit existed.”

Ron made a noise of protest. “That lot don’t consult. They preen at parties and hoard their secrets.”

Hermione shot him a warning look. “Some of them write papers we’ve all cited, Ronald.”

“And some of them wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire,” Ron retorted, then subsided when Robards glanced at him.

Harry rolled the thought in his mouth like grit. It wasn’t bad pride. It was something else—muscle memory from years of refusing help because help came with strings. “Sir,” he said, careful, “we’re not incompetent. Give us another day. Let Hermione build the grid. Let us—”

“Potter,” Robards said softly, and that was worse than a shout. “You’re the best investigator I’ve got. You’re not on trial. I don’t care about feelings. I care about the house that is going to fall down tomorrow if we don’t plug the hole. We need someone who can read this at a glance and tell us which family was arrogant enough to write it into their annual rites.”

Harry stared at the tabletop. The ring glinted up at him from the photograph, mute. He swallowed the protest because it tasted like stubbornness, not sense. He could feel Hermione watching him, waiting to see if he’d plant his feet and force a delay they couldn’t afford. He could feel Ron’s discomfort like a hand on his shoulder, protective, useless.

He lifted his head. The ache at the base of his skull steadied him. “All right,” he said. The word came out level. “We bring someone in.”

Robards nodded once. “Good. There’s a briefing at thirteen hundred. High security. Bring only your immediate team. We’ll finalize then.”

“Do we have a shortlist?” Hermione asked.

Robards’ eyes narrowed in an expression Harry had learned meant he was keeping something back for the sake of timing. “We have names,” he said. “We’ll talk in the briefing.”

After he left, Ron exhaled explosively. “Brilliant. Some powdered-wig codger lecturing us on how our technique is ‘common’ and all that. He’ll take one look at me and faint.”

Hermione gathered her parchments. “If he can help, he can insult me while he does it,” she said. “Harry?”

He forced a shrug. “If this gets us a way to stop another house from turning to sand, I’ll sit through the lecture.”

He didn’t add: I’ll do it even if it means inviting into the room the exact kind of person who had once smiled while the world burned. He didn’t know if that’s who would appear. He didn’t know why the thought made his pulse tick up, uncomfortable and anticipatory at the same time.

Harry pushed his chair back. “Let’s get food before the briefing. We’ll need our heads.”

He spent the next two hours pretending not to watch the clock. Hermione sketched her grid—concentric circles over maps of Bath and Mayfair, noting where magic felt thin, how the holes might widen. Ron wrote up a draft list of interview targets they hadn’t hit yet: warders, private security, healers who treated exhaustion and did not report it. Chang sent him a note from the lab: nothing conclusive, ongoing tests gave null. Bones dropped a report on his desk: Knockturn Alley’s usual brokers had heard nothing, which meant they were scared or loyal, and neither moved the case forward.

At twelve-fifty-five, Harry straightened his tie, gathered the Level One folder, and tried to smooth his expression into something calm. He told himself, again, that he didn’t care who Robards paraded into the secure conference room as long as they could speak to the holes in the world. He told himself the prickle on his skin was the residue in the warded box and not an old instinct waking, warning at the thought of bringing a stranger into his circle.

By one, he was in the corridor outside the high-security briefing room, Hermione and Ron flanking him, the door sealed with layered enchantments that unfolded at Robards’ approach. The hinges opened on a room already humming with protective magic. Harry stepped inside, braced for a dry academic voice and the smell of dust. He took his seat and set the folder down. The remaining chairs filled. Robards cleared his throat.

“We need expertise,” Robards said. “We asked for it.” He looked toward the door, and a figure moved in the threshold, outlined against the lit hall.

Harry had a heartbeat to wonder why his chest felt tight. Then he told himself he was being ridiculous and fixed his gaze on the table, readying his questions.

The figure stepped in and the wards in the ceiling shifted—an almost-imperceptible recalibration that made the air feel thick, like a storm about to break. Harry’s hand tightened around his quill. The man at Robards’ side wore Ministry-black, not robes but a tailored set that looked expensive in the way that tried not to be. He moved with self-possession that didn’t read as Auror. Not a professor, either. Harry’s gut sank. Whoever he was, Robards had loaded every lock on the door for him.

Across the table, Hermione glanced at Harry, eyebrows raised. Ron made a face that said, What did we do to deserve this? Harry didn’t answer. He couldn’t, not when his mouth had gone dry.

Robards’ voice filled the room. “Given the thefts’ profile and the…novelty of the cursework, this briefing is under the highest confidentiality protocols. That includes a memory seal for all non-essential personnel. You’ll sign on exit. Do not discuss this outside this room without my direct authorization.”

A low murmur. Papers rustled. Harry felt the prickle climb his spine. Memory seals weren’t unheard of; they were just rare, reserved for things that tangled with old oaths and the kind of politics that cracked foundations. He exchanged another look with Hermione. She gave the barest nod, understanding the implications before anyone else.

Ron leaned close, pretending to check the folder. “This is a bit much for a consultant,” he said under his breath.

Harry didn’t disagree. He watched Robards’ eyes flick to him, then back to the room. “We have retained a specialist on generational curse structures, with intimate knowledge of family wards and rites not present in our archives. He will consult for the duration. You will treat his work as you would any classified internal process.”

He will consult. Not “today,” but for the duration. Harry’s stomach tightened. He swallowed, hearing his own breath in his ears.

The man at Robards’ side stepped forward into the full light, and the years fell away and changed nothing at once.

Draco Malfoy stood there, pale as winter paper, hair shorter than Harry remembered and styled with precise, careless fingers. The fine cut of his jacket failed to blunt the edge he carried, an old blade honed to something new. His mouth had lost the boyish pout and settled into a line that could be cruel or careful. His eyes, grey and sharp, moved over the table and landed on Harry like a touch.

Harry’s fingers went numb. The room’s hum narrowed to a thin whistle. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t have to when his whole body had already locked, braced by a memory that smelled of smoke and dust and a manor lit by cold light. He kept his face smooth through a force of will he hadn’t had to summon in years.

Ron made a choking noise that turned into a cough when Hermione’s heel found his boot. Under the table, she pressed her knee to Harry’s, a brief, grounding point. Harry didn’t look away from Draco.

“Some of you know Mr. Malfoy by name,” Robards said, and the understatement skittered over the table like a spark. “You may also know he has served under Ministry oversight since the war. In that time, he’s advised certain departments on the…clean-up we do not publish. He understands patches of history our records only imply. He also understands the politics that come with them.”

Draco didn’t bow. He didn’t smile. “I understand the mess,” he said, voice cool, crisp. It had deepened since school—less drawl, more tempered steel. “And I understand what happens when it’s left to rot.”

Harry felt heat crawl up his neck at the sound of him. He couldn’t say why. He didn’t want to.

Robards gestured to the empty chair at the far end. “Mr. Malfoy will be given full access to relevant files and sites. He is here to help us solve this before there is another incident.”

Draco’s gaze swept the table again, landing briefly on Hermione. A flicker of recognition, respect, maybe even apology, moved through his expression. Then his eyes returned to Harry, not lingering but not avoiding. The moment stretched, taut, then broke when Robards began distributing the amended nondisclosure parchments.

Hermione’s quill scratched as she signed. Her hand was steady. Ron scrawled his name with a dramatic sigh and shoved the parchment back at the runner. He leaned in again. “We’re really doing this,” he muttered. “With him.”

Harry’s throat felt tight. “Apparently,” he said, and didn’t recognize his own voice.

Draco took his seat without waiting to be offered. He folded his hands on the table, long fingers bare of rings. A tiny scar notched the knuckle of his right hand. Harry caught it and was thrown—by the knowledge that there were marks on Draco he hadn’t left and stories he didn’t know and had never been curious enough to ask.

“Let’s start with the atmospheric readings,” Draco said. “The zeros.” He flicked a glance at Hermione. “You tried a differential grid.”

Her chin lifted, defensive despite herself. “Yes. It showed gaps like inverted wards.”

“Because they are,” Draco said. “Not inverted. Braided. It’s old household work. Not public. Not published. But I recognize the pattern.” He paused a fraction, just enough to make room for the next sentence. “It’s not Malfoy.”

Ron’s scoff escaped before he could stop it. Draco’s head tipped a hair in his direction, not unkind, something like weary. “You don’t have to like me,” he said, eyes cutting back to Harry, “but you do have to listen if you want this solved.”

The room held its breath. Harry forced himself to nod once, slow. He felt Hermione relax beside him. Robards’ shoulders eased by a measurable degree.

“Proceed,” Robards said.

Draco reached for the file nearest him. His sleeve pulled back an inch, revealing a pale wrist with the faintest shadow of where other marks once lay and were now gone, erased by a war’s end and a choice. He focused on the parchment, and when he spoke again, his voice was all business. “The smell of ozone, the pressure drop, the silencing of log ink—someone twisted a family rite into a lockpick. And there are only a handful of families arrogant—or stupid—enough to do that. You brought me in because you want those names.”

Harry realized his nails had dug crescents into his palm. He let his hand go. He drew a breath and tried to pull the pieces of himself back into order. Draco Malfoy was in his briefing room, under high protocols, and the world had shifted half a degree without asking him.

He slid the folder closer. “Then let’s get the names.” He kept his tone level, and only the three of them—Hermione’s calm, Ron’s bristle—knew how much work that cost. He didn’t look at Draco again. Not yet. He didn’t trust what would happen if he did.

Draco didn’t break eye contact when Harry spoke. “Old families. The kind with vault wards that taught Gringotts to be afraid. The kind who inherit rites the way they inherit furniture, and forget they’re dangerous until they decide to weaponize them.” His gaze cut to the map pinned to the far wall, lit with a web of glowing pins where thefts had struck. “The society you’re chasing predated the Dark Lord and outlasted him. My father sniffed around their edges when I was a boy.” The corner of his mouth curled, something like disdain at himself. “They were boring until they weren’t.”

Silence spread. Papers whispered as people adjusted in their chairs. Harry felt the pressure in the room shift again, as if the wards themselves were listening.

Hermione leaned forward. “If the braid mimics a family rite, we need to isolate the pattern. You’ve seen something akin to it?”

Draco nodded once. “In a ledger that never should have survived a fire. It did. We do not have it.” He glanced at Robards. “But we can reconstruct enough to narrow your list to three.” His fingertips tapped twice on the folder, a precise rhythm. “Nott. Selwyn. Travers. They would know the shape. Whether they’d dare is another question.”

Ron let out a low, rude whistle. “That’s not a small accusation.”

“It’s not an accusation,” Draco said evenly. “It’s a diagnostic. You asked for expertise. This is what it looks like.”

The old bite in his tone slid under Harry’s skin and found all the wrong places. It was too easy to remember the boy who used to stand in hallways with a smirk and a crowd. It was harder to reconcile that boy with the man across from him now, sharp and contained, speaking with a steadiness that made the room listen whether it wanted to or not.

Robards cleared his throat. “You’ll have support as needed. Potter will be your liaison.” He said it like a stone dropping in a still pond.

Harry didn’t flinch this time either, but it took effort. Draco’s gaze returned to him, catching, darkening with a flicker of something Harry refused to name. Challenge, maybe. A test.

“Fine,” Harry said. “We’ll go to Gringotts again. Cross-check vault signatures with generational ward registries. If you can teach us what to look for.”

Draco’s mouth twitched. “Teach you? That would imply you’re willing to learn.”

Ron bristled. Hermione shot him a warning glance. Harry forced a breath past his teeth. He kept his voice even. “I’m willing to solve this. Whatever that takes.”

For a heartbeat, Draco’s expression changed—something softer, surprised, there and gone. He inclined his head. “Then we may yet survive each other.”

Robards began assigning tasks, his tone brisk. Runners moved parchment from one end of the table to the other. Names were listed, surveillance schedules inked. Draco leaned back in his chair and watched the flurry with a detached attention that didn’t miss a thing. Harry caught the way his eyes narrowed when a junior Auror mentioned a leak in Magical Records, the way his fingers stilled when Selwyn’s estate was flagged for quiet observation, the minute tightening of his jaw at the word “probation.”

When the last parchment was signed and sealed, Robards looked to Draco. “Any additional conditions?”

Draco’s eyes flicked to the door, then back. “I’ll need access to the private annex of Archives. The section you pretend we don’t have.” He didn’t blink. “And I want a lab space that’s actually secure, not a borrowed desk in a corridor where anyone can jostle a rune cage.”

Robards’ mouth thinned. “You’ll have a room on Sublevel Three. Keys will be keyed to you and Potter.”

Harry felt that drop again, rippling outward. Draco’s eyebrow arched a fraction, a silent commentary he didn’t voice. “Acceptable,” he said, as if this were a business negotiation and not a reopening of old scars.

Chairs scraped. People stood. The meeting ended in a hush broken by artificially bright chatter as if conversation could smooth what had just been set in motion. Hermione squeezed Harry’s wrist once, a quiet anchor. Ron muttered, “Brilliant,” like a curse, then added, sotto voce, “I’ll be nearby when you have to throttle him.”

Harry managed a ghost of a smile that didn’t touch the tight coil in his chest. “Don’t wait up.”

He gathered the folder, conscious of Draco doing the same. They reached the door together, an awkward choreography neither wanted. The corridor beyond was sterile and cold, the hum of wards crawling over his skin. For a breath, they stood too close, caught in a pocket of stillness. Harry could see the faint shadow along Draco’s jaw, the pulse at his throat, the precise press of his lips.

“Potter,” Draco said, as greeting and history.

“Malfoy.”

The word tasted different than it used to. Less venom, more weight. Draco’s gaze held, then dropped to the edge of the folder in Harry’s hands, to the way his knuckles had gone white. “Try not to break anything in my lab,” he said softly, and something unguarded moved under the dry tone. “Including yourself.”

Harry’s laugh came out too quiet. “You think I break things for fun?”

“I think you were born to be an emergency,” Draco said. “I’d prefer not to drown in it.”

The breath between them stretched. Harry felt the press of impulse rise and held it down with effort. “We’ll meet in Archives in an hour.”

Draco inclined his head, a neat, almost old-fashioned tilt that felt like truce and dare in one. “Try not to be late.”

He turned and walked away, leaving the air behind him threaded with tension that had nothing to do with the Ministry wards. Harry watched him go, the sharp line of his shoulders, the careful step, and let himself admit, if only for a second, that the ground beneath him had shifted. When he looked down at the folder again, his hand had steadied.

He exhaled, long and even, and went to find the keys to Sublevel Three.