Chapter Text
Recently, it felt to Harry as if every day of his life was exactly the same.
If he’d been asked at seventeen whether he’d be happy with a peaceful, monotonous life over the chaotic panic of chasing Horcruxes and trying to keep himself and his friends alive, he would have taken it, gladly and without doubt. However, now that life was his, Harry found it wanting.
He sighed and turned back to the weekly senior Auror sync, trying to focus on whatever crap Robards was droning on about this week. A change in the patrol circuit route around Diagon and Horizont, by the sounds of it.
Harry’s mind wandered almost instantly, and he caught Ron’s gaze and shared a knowing grin. Robards was a good man, and a good Auror, but he was no orator. The weekly syncs were tedious for everyone. And it was all made worse by the fact that Robards insisted on holding them straight after lunch, when everyone was full and sleepy.
Harry resigned himself to not taking anything in, and thought about his plans for the evening instead. It was Wednesday, which meant pub night with Ron and the boys from work. Neville, Dean, Seamus - quite a few of the old DA group had ended at the DMLE, and they’d been keeping their weekly ritual of Wednesday night drinks at the Leaky Cauldron for the past six years, ever since the war had ended and they started their Auror training.
At least Harry had something to look forward to, after the dullness of the day was done.
There was a clatter of sound around him, and Harry looked up in surprise to find the meeting finished. Neville looked down at him, an amused smile on his lips. ‘These syncs are getting worse, aren’t they?’ he laughed quietly, and Harry couldn’t help smiling in response as he got to his feet. Neville was big and buff, muscled and strong, but Harry was the same height, and just as broad. He breathed in Neville’s familiar scent, catching the lingering smell of Ginny on him.
It didn’t hurt anymore, but it had taken a long while to get used to.
‘Potter, I want to see you in my office later,’ Robards called out as he walked to the door. ‘Two o’clock.’
‘Shit,’ Harry muttered, and Neville clapped a sympathetic hand on his back.
‘Bad luck, mate,’ he murmured. Being called into Robards office was rarely a good thing. Harry just hoped it wasn’t anything to do with his blatant daydreaming in the meeting.
‘At least the afternoon might be a little more interesting than usual,’ Harry sighed. ‘How is Ginny, anyway? I’ve not seen her for a while.’
There had been a chaotic rending through their friendship group when their designations had become known.
After surviving the war, going back to Hogwarts to finish their education, and finally starting to settle down, with jobs and relationships and lives, everything had changed.
Some stayed as they were - betas, they were called - whereas alpha and omega designations became known as wizards and witches left their teenage years and turned twenty: a cruel twist of fate for those who were only just finding stability in their lives again.
Harry had been the first to suffer in their group of friends. He presented as an alpha, and Ginny an omega, and for a while it seemed everything might be okay between them at last. But then Neville had presented, a little later than usual, and the mating pull between him and Ginny had been too much for either of them.
Harry hadn’t been as sad as he knew he should have been. Truth was, things between him and Ginny had been strained for a while, although neither of them had been brave enough to end the relationship. In the end, seeing how happy she and Neville were together was enough for Harry to get over any lingering sense of betrayal.
And it hadn’t only been them: Dean was an omega, and beyond the Aurors there was Hermione, and Luna, and Ernie…
Harry listened now as Neville caught him up on Ginny’s latest training escapades with the Harpies, until they reached their desks and Neville broke away with a smile. Harry sat in his chair and unenthusiastically snatched at the first pale purple inter-departmental memo that danced over his desk, opening it without any interest.
Most of them were requests for approvals, or updates on new policies. There was one from the Curse-Breakers department from Hermione, inviting him for dinner on Friday night, and another from Cho in Magical Sports offering Harry free tickets to next week’s Cannons match. Putting aside Hermione’s and Cho’s memos, he pushed the rest into his overflowing inbox and pulled out Fabian Prewett’s old pocket watch, glancing at the time. Fifteen minutes until his meeting with Robards. Harry leaned back in his chair and wondered idly if there was supposed to be more to life than this.
‘Potter.’ Robards greeted Harry as he walked into his office fifteen minutes later, and Harry nodded hello and sat in the lumpy old chair in front of his desk.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
Robards didn’t reply straight away, and instead pushed forward a bulging folder towards Harry. Harry took it with a wordless look of questioning, and Robards sat back in his chair as Harry opened the file. The first items inside were a stack of wizarding photographs, all showing the shopfronts of several potions and apothecary shops. Harry recognised the ones from Knockturn Alley, having raided them a few times himself in the past, as well as one from Hogsmeade, another from Horizont, and a couple more he didn’t recognise.
‘We’re facing an unprecedented blight on wizard kind,’ Robards said, by way of introduction. ‘A black market potions ring trading in illegal and dangerous substances.’
Harry turned the photos over and found a few leafs of parchment with creature descriptions written across them. Harry recognised the signature of Mathilda Grimblehawk from the department of Magical Creatures, beneath creature descriptions for a unicorn, a Peruvian vipertooth, a Runespoor…
‘All magical creatures, sir?’ Harry asked with interest. Potions rings weren’t unheard of, but usually they traded in illegal potions or rare but more… benign ingredients. He flipped the page, his stomach turning as he saw a photo of what looked like a murder scene, only with the corpse of a unicorn plastered across the middle of the image. ‘Unicorn’s blood?’
Robards expression was a mixture of seriousness and tiredness. ‘Exactly. We’re worried not only about the illegality of a lot of these ingredients, but also the potions they’re being used for when they’re sold on. It’s going to be a tough case, Potter, and you know you’re one of my best Aurors.’
From the laconic Robards, that was high praise indeed. Harry looked up, surprised. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said and Robards gave him a knowing look.
‘I know you’ve struggled, what with the war and then—’ Robards waved his hand expansively, which Harry assumed meant finding out he was an alpha. ‘But if you work at it, Potter, you’ll have my job in the next five years. If you want it.’
Harry looked back at the file in his hands, feeling his ears heat up with the praise. He was so distracted he almost missed Robards next words.
‘You’ll be working with a consultant on this case,’ he was saying. ‘A Potions master with a specialism in magical creatures.’
Harry looked up sharply. There weren’t many Potions masters in Britain, and there was only one, as far as Harry knew, that had also trained as a dragonologist at the reserve in Romania. Someone he hadn’t seen or heard from since Hogwarts, other than on the pages of the Daily Prophet and in the gossip at the Leaky Cauldron. Before he could open his mouth to ask, there was a sharp rapping of knuckles at Robards’ office door.
‘Come in!’ called Robards, and Harry stifled a groan as he saw who it was.
Draco Malfoy stalked into the room, silver eyes flashing and his dark blue cloak swirling dramatically around him.
Harry breathed in the scent of him and became quickly and painfully aware of three salient facts.
1. Draco Malfoy had the most enticing scent Harry had ever smelled on anyone, ever. He wanted to stalk over to him and sniff every inch of his skin, rubbing his own body against Malfoy’s so he could drench himself in the smell.
2. Draco Malfoy was an alpha just like Harry.
3. And possibly most horrifying of all, a fact that Harry knew, instantly, with the same certainty as he knew the feel of his own heartbeat, the touch of his wand beneath his fingertips, the swirl of the magic in his veins:
Draco Malfoy was his mate.