Security Detail

Truth be told, the case file didn’t have as much in it as Harry had expected. It had details about the previous threats that had been made on his life, a list of suspects and full reports on the attacks. Surprisingly, none of them had been in or near the ministry. One was outside of a bakery, another just down the street from Gringotts and another one in muggle London. According to Draco’s statement he was out gathering his mother’s favourite chocolates since she was still on house arrest and couldn’t go out to get them herself. 

It only took him a few hours to go over everything in the file twice. It wasn’t that difficult of a case, really. Most of the attacks were poor at best and hadn’t been very well thought out-except the most recent one in front of the bakery. Someone had clearly noticed he had a habit of going to that bakery specifically after court let out each day and waited for him to show up before trying to curse him through the shop window across the street as he paid. No one had seen whoever had cast the spell, and Draco had managed to deflect anything coming his way after the windows shattered, but the stalking aspect of it clearly caused concern. 

He contemplated over a plate of spaghetti if he thought he was even capable of keeping the same schedule of Draco Malfoy. Years ago he would have said no, believing that the blond would purposefully make his schedules as hectic as possible just to spite him, but he didn’t think that way now. Sure, it would take some getting used to but it didn’t seem that much different from when people start living together in serious relationships. Surely the trick was communication, that’s what Hermione, Molly and Arthur always said. 

He was sure that they could learn to communicate. It couldn’t be that hard. 

“I’ll do it.” Robards looked up from whatever he was reading and smiled when he saw Harry standing in his doorway. He put down the parchment before taking off his reading glasses. 

“I knew you’d take the case. Come on, no time like the present for your training.” He followed his boss down to the training rooms they had, nodded at the final reminder that he could back out during training if it wasn’t something he would be able to handle on a daily basis, and walked into the training room. 

His trainer, a short woman with spiky golden blonde hair, was waiting for him. They went over crash courses for cohabitation protocols, perimeter wards, tracking spells, muggle tracking devices, emergency portkey making, safehouse locations and plenty more. By the time he’d been cleared to go on duty with Draco, he was mentally exhausted.

He met Draco inside the courthouse prosecutor’s office where the blonde goes to drop off his paperwork after cases. Draco hadn’t even gotten through the door before spotting Harry and froze. 

“You know,” he closed the door before throwing up a silencing charm. “When they said they were sending the best, I thought they meant the best of their new recruits. I didn’t think they meant Harry Potter.”

“Is that a bad thing for you?” Draco plunked his briefcase down onto his desk before shaking his head. 

“No, no. Just didn’t think you’d want to be spending the unforeseeable future with me. My life is rather boring, aside from the threats of course.” Harry just shrugged. 

“I could do with some boring time. That extra training was brutal.” The two left the courthouse and made their way to Draco’s favourite bakery. Harry didn’t leave his side and he didn’t leave any opportunities for anyone to so much as sneeze on Draco, let alone get a spell in.

The next thing Harry knew, the two were arriving at Malfoy manor. He’d be sleeping in Draco’s room on a bed that had been added for his comfort-a large lavish thing that made him chuckle at the sight of it. It was identical to Draco’s with white wood and gold filigree decorations. Even the bedclothes matched the white and gold theme. 

“What are you laughing at? I wanted them to match, otherwise it would have thrown off the entire room’s decor.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Although I do appreciate the thought of adding a bed for me.” He pulled out his trunk from his pocket and resized it before setting it down as Draco headed for the bathroom. “Draco?” The blond stopped and turned to look at him. “When you’re done in there, we have some basic rules to go over so I can do my best to protect you, alright?”

“Of course, but for now I need to change out of this stuffy outfit. I’ll be out in a jiff.” And with that, Draco disappeared into his bathroom with a change of clothes. 

It was only a few minutes later when he emerged. Harry had expected at least an hour before he could even hope that Draco would come out, so the short wait time passed by incredibly quickly. He looked up to see Draco in a plain t-shirt and jeans; it was a sight that momentarily rendered him speechless. 

Draco, while not particularly muscled or broad, still had an incredible figure under all those robes. The jeans showed off muscular thighs-no doubt from quidditch-and his t-shirt clung to his torso, ever so nonchalantly showing off the subtle curves there. 

He almost had to tear his eyes away from the sight. 

“Come on, dinner should be ready soon. Maisy always knows when I’m hungry, we can talk while we eat.” The walk really wasn’t that long, Harry knew that. But it seemed to take so much longer because now he was following Draco and was very aware of just how round and pert his arse was, no thanks to those jeans of his. 

He managed to pull himself together before sitting down to a wonderful shepherd's pie for dinner. 

“So, what sorts of things can I expect from you tailing me all the time?”

“I’m sure they told you I’d be following your schedule. I’ll be with you in court, when you go to the grocery store, pretty much always within sight of you.”

“Yeah, they told me about all that. Judging by earlier, I’m still allowed to use the loo without you?” Harry just laughed. 

“Look, I’m not going to force you to take me with you to the bathroom whenever you need to go and I’m not about to force you to come with me whenever I need to go either. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the door open whilst you bathe or shower, but other than that we just have to be in the same room together here. In public I’m going to be within three meters of you, and in crowds I expect you to let me stay right next to you just in case.”

“Why all the precautions? I thought Aurors were allowed to use questionable means when protecting someone?” Draco wasn’t being sarcastic-he sounded genuinely curious.

“If I have to, I’ll get us back to a safehouse. The issue with that is I have to be close enough to you to grab you and apparate with you.”

“What about in court? The ministry has all sorts of anti-apparition wards.”

“That is lifted for very few select magical signatures-only full duty protecting aurors, like me at the moment, are exempt from anti-apparition wards. You’ve also been cleared but the goal is to try and make sure that doesn’t become common knowledge so you and I won’t be using that little perk unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Draco was quiet for a few minutes more while they ate. When he spoke up again, he sounded slightly worried. 

“What happens if we have to use a safehouse and they find us?” Harry turned a critical eye towards the blond. It was an oddly specific question, one that Harry wasn’t entirely sure what to make of. He wasn’t sure if Draco was really becoming very paranoid, if he had such little faith in the ministry, or if he just didn’t trust Harry explicitly. 

“I’ve got a personal safehouse no one knows the location of except for myself. Not even Ron or Hermione know where it is. Should the ministry safehouse fall under attack, I’ll take us to my safehouse. We’ll be unfindable there.”

“But how will we know it’s safe to come out of hiding then?”

“Oh, I’ve got a system with Ron and Hermione. She charmed a coffee table book to be able to get messages to me should I need to use the safehouse. Chances are if I disappear and stop talking to her or Ron, Ron will know I’m no longer in communication with the ministry which means he’ll have Hermione write to us in the book. It’s only charmed for her and I to read it, so there’s no chances of anyone else getting ahold of anything we don’t want them to. And once someone places any revealing spells on it, it’ll burn itself into ash, just in case.” Draco looked…impressed. 

“That’s incredible charm work, I’m not even sure Flitwick would have been able to accomplish something so intricate.”

“He was the one who helped her develop the spells necessary for it. I’m entirely sure he could if he wanted to.”  If Draco wasn’t impressed before, he was now. 

“I really don’t know how you didn’t pass schooling with more O’s. I’m lucky they didn’t have a strategists class, you would have creamed me in the grades department.” Harry laughed. It wasn’t a polite chuckle, it was more of a hearty from-the-belly laugh that eased the pressure on his shoulders he didn’t realize was there.

“I don’t think so, I was shite at planning back then. I couldn’t see farther than my own two feet! And all the built-up anger didn’t help any.” He gave a pointed look at the blond, who had the decency to pinken up around his cheekbones. 

“Look, I-”

“It’s in the past. Don’t worry about it, you grew up with a father that couldn’t accept imperfection and with a mother who was powerless to say anything. You were a kid and you didn’t know any better.” The two smiled at each other and finished their meal while talking about different school subjects they hated and why. Unsurprisingly, they both hated Divination. Harry, because the woman couldn’t stop predicting his death and Draco because she wouldn’t stop talking about how Harry would die. 

Eventually they decided to turn in, a welcome respite for Harry. Physically he wasn’t tired, but mentally he was exhausted. He needed to get as much sleep as he could before the next day. According to Draco, he had a new case to review and Harry, knowing how large those cases could be, wasn’t necessarily looking forward to watching Draco read a file all day.