Harrow

The Auror department is as lifeless as ever. 

Harry Evans has done everything to escape it- clawed his way out, dragged himself through the muck of cheap flats and dead-end jobs, pretending a quieter life could drown out the past. 

Yet, here he is, back in this rotting den of self-righteous beasts. The air tastes like stale paper and burnt coffee, the color of the walls leeching vibrancy from whoever lingers too long. 

Harry would have enjoyed it, if not for the man across from him.

Rufus Scrimgeour sits anchored, an old tree whose roots choke the very foundation of this place. He’s a statue of smug authority, the lines of his face chiseled deep, his gaze a blade, cutting through the quiet.

Harry stares back, silent out of spite— a deliberate flipping of the bird disguised as stillness.

In another life, perhaps, he might have appreciated the drama of it, might have even congratulated Scrimgeour on making Head Auror, despite nearly costing each other more than their jobs. But now, trapped in the silence of this poor excuse for a power play, all he wants is to leave.

Scrimgeour clears his throat, breaking the silence. 

"You’re only here as a consultant," he says, his voice dripping with unnecessary formality. "Any information you receive must first be cleared for release."

Harry barely keeps his eyes from rolling. 

“Why bother bringing me in, then,” he asks, “if I can get better information from the press?”

Scrimgeour scratches something  in his file before snapping it shut. He leans back, arms crossing. “Considering the nature of the last murder and your unfortunate background, you’ll have to make do with what we give you.”

Their half-baked deductions are useless to him. He has his own ways of getting what he needs, his mind always teetering between exhaustion and epiphany. That’s not the problem.

“That being said, you are not authorized to use any of the Unforgivables. That privilege remains reserved for on-duty Aurors, solely for self-defense,” his tone strains with cynicism, the irony of the situation not lost on either of them. “You are to report any minor breakthroughs and wait for authorization before taking action.”

“Wonderful,” Harry drawls dryly, unable to keep his tongue. “Shall I sit on command as well?”

“And,” Scrimgeour doesn’t so much as blink at the interruption, “you’ll be assigned a partner, another consultant.”

That earns him the nastiest look a man can give.  

“Fail to comply, and you will be barred from the investigation.” He raises a hand, unwilling to let Harry make another comment wrapped in barbed wire. “You’re on thin ice already, Evans.”

“I’m starting to feel like a suspect.”

Scrimgeour slides the file across the desk. Harry doesn’t move, just stares between the parchment and the wry smile Scrimgeour is bearing. He should walk away, but the gnawing ache of unfinished business won’t let him. 

He drags the file towards himself, flips it open. 

The scent of charred paper rises, thick and clinging. It shouldn’t mean anything—it’s just the duplicate charm’s residue. But his fingers tighten around the page. Breath traps in his throat as phantom heat skitters down his arms.

He’d assumed it was just another victim of the Reaper when the letter arrived, tucked beside the news article about the woman found in Knockturn Alley. Another Lifeless body, another calling card left in the wizarding world’s darkest corners. He had swallowed his coffee, bitter with resentment, and accepted Scrimgeour’s summons without much thought. He’d expected a scavenged chest, maybe more runes carved into skin– but this…

The photograph stares back at him, merciless.

Nothing remains to name her. The body had burned from the inside out– organs burst from their cavity, flesh blackened in a way only Fiendfyre could manage. The flames devoured every trace of humanity, leaving nothing but scorched remains.

“Lily, take Harry and run—”

“Please, please not Harry—”

His breath comes short, but Scrimgeour’s voice slices through the pulse thundering in his ears. 

“Curious, isn’t it? Two murders, each mimicking this department’s greatest failures— both happening a week after your return to London?”

Scrimgeour says this like a revelation, as if it explains everything. It leaves no ambiguity, no space to question why they called him in. 

No evidence links him to this—or to his parents. But that never mattered. Not at sixteen, and not now.

“You seem surprised. I thought you got all the best information out of the press?”

He wants to wipe that smug smile off Scrimgeour’s face, but casting a lethal spell on the Head Auror in the heart of the Ministry is a death wish.

“Why pretend it's the same perpetrator as Owen’s?” he asks instead. 

“It’s been months since Owen’s murder. The very last thing we need is this bastard disappearing for another three years.” Scrimgeour rises from his desk, moving like a lion despite the stiff drag of his bad leg. “He’s methodical. Precise…” His gaze burns into Harry’s. “Arrogant. He won’t take kindly to being linked to a vile, ill-planned crime scene.”

Harry stares at him, incredulous. “You’re baiting him to kill again?”

“It’s going to happen either way,” Scrimgeour snaps. “We might as well make him slip.”

He hadn’t expected this. Though, in hindsight, maybe he should have. Of course Scrimgeour would stoop to crude methods of manipulation.

“Why are you so sure it’s a man?” His voice is steady, but his jaw tightens. “We don’t even know if it’s the same killer as before. They left runes on Owen’s body — that’s not the usual MO.” He pushes the file away. “And what about your Jane Doe?”

“We have enough evidence that reinforces our theory that it’s the same man,” he says, needlessly fastidious. “As for the girl, we’re investigating it separately. Without a positive ID, there’s no way to link her to past cases, so stay out of it.”

“ Enough evidence,” Harry tastes the words, feeling a vindictive surge rise in him. “But not enough for you to keep your integrity.”

Scrimgeour’s eyes flash with irritation. “Yes, I’d forgotten you’d know all about that.”

Magic thumps violently in his throat. It’s been too long since anger so consuming slipped past the barriers of his occlumency, and now it roars within him, demanding a taste of blood.

“If that’s all,” Harry says, fingernails digging into his palms, “I’ll —”

“No, that’s not all.” Scrimgeour’s expression hardens. “We also need you in the press”

Harry blinks, his mind struggling to process the words through the haze.

“The note left at Owen’s crime scene was practically a love letter,” Scrimgeour says, a sneer just beneath the flatness, as if Harry should have pieced it together already. “Our profiler thinks seeing you publicly pursue the case might entice him. Reporters from The Londoner are waiting outside.”

“Lovely,” he drawls. “Will your profiler be in the group photo, as well?”

Scrimgeour makes his way to the door. “Come along, Evans. And do try to smile, hmm?”

Draco Malfoy hasn’t changed in the two years since Harry last saw him. 

Where time has worn Harry thin, stretching him taut, Draco remains untouched– pristine, the years merely polishing his arrogance to a sharper edge. He still moves with the same effortless confidence, his superiority draped over him like a designer cloak. If anything, he looks even more insufferable than before. 

Harry steps onto the restaurant patio and slips into the chair across from him. The place is empty except for them, like they’d agreed, yet Draco still startles. 

“Merlin’s bloody balls, Evans,” Draco barks, nearly dropping his cigarette. “Do you always skulk around like that?”

He’s wearing muggle dress pants and sunglasses, smoking and swearing like them. If Lucius Malfoy could see him now, he’d die all over again. 

“I see you smoke disgusting, little cigarettes now,” Harry says with a smirk, taking one for himself and sliding the box back. “And French, no less”

Draco sniffs, finishing his drag and lighting another. “They’re all the rage in Paris. Not like the cheap shit you fancy.”

Harry exhales, the menthol lingering on his tongue. Of course Malfoy wouldn’t smoke regular tobacco. “Good thing we’re in England, then.”

“Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t owled me.” Draco flicks a hand, dismissing the waiter without so much as a glance. “I believe in settling my debts, but next time, try giving me more than an hour’s notice.”

Harry feels his lips twitch into a smile. “First and last, Malfoy. Did you get it?”

“Not everything. For some reason, your parents’ case has access wards. I only managed to charm a copy of the first pages.” He slides a folded envelope across the table. “Couldn’t get anything on the woman, though. Only her name.”

Harry freezes from where he’s slipping the envelope inside his coat pocket, and pulls it back, turning the page. “They have a positive ID?”

“Dolores Umbridge. Race supremacist and pain in the arse of the Wizengamot. She’s the one that proposed and passed the Werewolf anti-wands bill.”

“Why keep it hushed, then?” 

Draco hums, bored. “If you ask me, I’m guessing they wanted to do it themselves. She was a harpy, that one.”

Harry keeps his eyes on the paper, shoulders tensing at the sight of the ugly toad-like woman smiling coyly up at him. Hard to imagine what someone like her had to do with his parents– or what they did to warrant the curse that killed them. 

“Are you ready to order now?”

The waiter stands beside their table, looking even more annoyed than Draco, who waves him off again.

Harry tucks the folder and cigarette box into his robes, ignoring the cry of indignation. “ This makes us even, Malfoy. ”

“No.” Malfoy smiles indulgently up at him, like he’s greeting a long-lost pet. “This makes us friends.”

His shirt hangs open where he’s left it half unbuttoned, the fabric shifting as he leans back, all careless ease. He looks almost appealing. Harry lingers in the strangeness of it for a moment—until Malfoy opens his mouth again.

“I’ll see you around, Evans.”

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe I’ll see you in France,” Harry says, moving past Draco and the waiter, who is rounding on them again. “Hopefully the men are better than the cigarettes.”

Draco’s bark of laughter trails behind him.