Secrets and Promises (Abandoned Story)

NOTE: This story is incomplete. It will remain so. It was originally written as part of and online role playing game (RPG) and involved multiple authors. Unfortunately, a number of the players/writers lost interest in the story before the plot was complete. There are quite a number of things I would do differently now if I would to attempt to tell this story. So much differently that it would essentially require dumping most, if not all of the original writing and starting from scratch. So this remains on my journal as a kind of historical marker of the first writing with myself and aveeno_baby. She and I have written much since then, but I still adore some of the early scenes together so have not removed them from my list of fiction. We are taking what we liked best in our writing from this story and creating a series of one-shots, called Fools' Promises.


Series Title: Secrets and Promises

Fandom: Harry Potter

Series Rating: NC-17

Genre: Mystery & Romance

Pairing: Draco/Harry, but also mentions of other past and other relationships as the story progresses. (Draco/Theo in some chapters, mentions of Draco/Pansy, Pansy/Theo, Harry/Ron, etc.)

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy et al are a fictional characters created by J.K. Rowling as part of the Harry Potter series. We just borrow them to play. We don't make any money from it, but, we do have a very good time. [Beckett, Cocoa and the Malfoy Townhouse are inventions of  .]

Series Summary: -- Harry Potter fanfiction series featuring Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, with a Theo Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and more in the cast. Harry and Draco are Aurors who work for the Ministry of Magic. In this series, they find themselves investigating a serial killer and discovering they are in love with each other. It follows them as they struggle to build lives and heal their past wounds, now that the war is behind them. But will the serial killer end all that?

Warnings: Overall slash, language, graphic sex, violence. Also major theme of non-monogamy.

Notes: This series is written based in part on the RPG Ambiguous Desire. (Co-authored by slashpervert. aveeno_baby, acidpop25, cinnamon_sins, nefernat, citrus_tears, pez_gurl and more.)


Chapter Number/Total: 1/?.
Chapter Title: Monday Blues and Murder
Chapter Authors: slashpervert , aveeno_baby , acidpop25, and citrus_tears.
Beta(s): nefernat     
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Words: 3285 Words
Chapter Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Theo Nott and Hermione Granger.
Warnings: Language, angst.
Summary: Just another working day until a body turns up. Murder investigation begins.

             

Monday, Oct. 6, 2003

Draco nearly headed back out the door to go home and call in sick when he saw the pile of parchment in his "In Box." Gods, but hated Mondays. When he decided to be an auror, it was because after his work in the order, he found he was good at "field work." The last thing he ever thought of was sitting at a desk filling out reports. Reading reports. Filling out forms about reports. Gods, how were they suppose to get anything done sitting here all day? His head hurt just thinking about it. He hung his robe on a hanger he kept for such things and headed toward the break room. Tea. He could not do anything without tea.

Harry stood in the break room, a cup of warm coffee in his hands. He was tired and grumpy, having only gone to bed not too long before he had to get up again. He looked up when Malfoy came in and nodded at him, too tired to do much else.

Draco didn't stumble, because he just doesn't – well, not unless really pissed. But he wasn't exactly gliding either. His eyes flickered to Potter and then he headed straight for the tea. Earl Grey, hot, with milk and sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. After he finally took his first, almost-too-hot but oh-so-sweet sip, he looked over at his partner. "Potter," he acknowledged and leaned back against the counter. "What case?"

Harry took another sip of his coffee, turning to face him. "A body was found," he answered, annoyed by his hoarse voice. "Died of magical means. We have to go see if there's a connection."

Draco blinked. The shot of adrenaline was better than the caffeine and sugar. He looked up and met Harry's eyes, smiling, his eyebrows raising. "Field work? We get to get out of this office?"

Harry smiled just a bit. He knew Draco loved to get out of office just as much as he did. "Yes, field work. It's about time, too."

Draco bit the inside of his lip, turning his smile a little crooked. He could not remember the last time he had seen Harry smile. His heart sped up a bit, and he told himself it was just excitement about the assignment. "Let's go then," he said heading for the door.

Harry nodded and took one last sip of his coffee before he set it down and followed him over to the door. "Excited?"

Draco turned back toward Harry, just as Harry about walked into him, spilling his hot tea onto his hand. "Bloody hell, Potter!" he swore as he gritted his teeth, trying not to drop the mug to the floor.

"Oh, Malfoy." He quickly took the mug out of Draco's hand and set it down, getting a few napkins. He grabbed his hand and began patting down the skin, hoping he wasn't severely burned. "I'm sorry..." It was just like him to mess things up right before something as big as this.

Harry's hand touching his was an altogether different kind of burning sensation. Draco's mouth was dry and he stood silent for a minute, struck dumb by having Harry so close to him, touching him. If he leaned forward, he could kiss Harry right now. Wait, a minute, I could bloody well not. This is my partner. We work together. And this is Potter! He wouldn't want that. Draco shook his head, trying to bring himself to say something. Harry was still holding his hand.

"Ah, it's okay," he said, still patting the skin. "Just really red...sorry about your tea. Do you want..." He looked up at him, finally noticing how close he was standing, "...more?"

Looking down into Harry's green eyes, Draco felt... Well, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about what he was feeling. After all, he couldn't DO anything about it. "More?" Draco whispered, echoing Harry. He knew he should step back now. Pretend everything was, well, as normal as they got at least.

Harry felt his face flush, from what, he didn't know. Or want to know.

"More...more..." He blinked and took a small step back, still closer than usual. "More tea," he said finally. He looked down at Draco's red hand, running his thumb over the skin.

"Tea? Um," Draco came back to himself. "No, that's fine. We should really get going." His face turned a bit pink and then he pulled his hand back and half backed through the door. "Where are we going anyway?" he called over his shoulder as he turned around, going toward his office.

Theodore came around the corner on the tail end of the conversation, trying and failing miserably to suppress a smirk. "Need a knife to cut that sexual tension with, boys?" he said mildly.

"Hello to you, too, Theo," Harry said, deciding to completely ignore what he said. He glanced over at Draco. "We're going to Edinburgh, by the way."

"Nicely ignored, Harry," Theo said blithely. "Finally got an excuse to actually get out of here?"

"Field work," he replied, smiling again. "Finally."

"I thought you were on vacation?" Draco turned toward his friend, also ignoring the teasing.

"I was," Theo answered, leaning against the wall and frowning slightly. "They needed me here for something "urgent" this morning, I'll be Apparating back this afternoon for my last evening in Paris." His tone made it quite clear that he did not share the same definition of 'urgent' as his co-workers. "Anything interesting, then, or routine matters?"

Draco raised eyebrows at his friend, "New case, we don't know much either. Have to actually do our jobs now."

"Right. I'll leave you two to your work and unresolved attraction," Theo said, straightening. "Au revoir."

Harry was sure that his face was completely red. "Uhm, bye, Theo." He turned to Draco again, hoping that he decided to ignore everything Theo said just like he did.

Draco looked down at a blushing Harry and glanced up at Theo, wondering. Sighing, he pulled his wand. "Well, we better get there before the Muggles mess up our crime scene."

***

Harry leaned against the wall of the alley he Apparated into, waiting for Draco to land beside him. Damn Theo for reminding him about the so-called sexual tension between them. He had Ron at home. Ron. Even though he was mad at the moment..."No, no...Ron..." he said to himself.

"No, not Ron, Draco here. Keep your mind on the job," the blond sneered, having Apparated beside him in the alley, "You have that address?"

Harry rolled his eyes and pulled out a small piece of parchment, handing it over to Draco. "Address," he said, slipping his wand into the holster that he kept on his left arm.

Draco was still holding his wand. He nodded and took off into the lead. It didn't take long to find the body. You could smell it. Lying in a nearby alley was the body of a man. He appeared to in his late thirties, wearing Muggle clothing. There didn't appear to be any blood or other obvious injuries. Draco squatted down beside it and ran a simple detection spell to figure out what spells might have been used on it.
Harry squatted down on the other side of the body, covering his nose. He patted down his pockets for a moment before he felt a wallet. He pulled it out. "Still has all his money," Harry commented, looking through the wallet. He pulled out a card and tilted it towards the sun so he could read the words. "Peter Jacobs," he said quietly, looking up at Draco. "Did you get any spells?"

Draco scowled, "Yes." He gestured toward the wallet, asking, "Is that Muggle too?" Holding his wand out, Draco said, "Lumos." He began looking closely at the dirty pavement around the body. He walked in circles around the body, examining the ground closely as he did.

Harry nodded, checking the body for any visible marks. When he didn't see any, he moved closer and pulled out his wand, using the tip of it to carefully pull up his shirt. "Ugh, Draco. Look at this." The man's stomach looked hallowed out, but as Harry looked closer, he couldn't see any cuts.

Draco walked back to Harry and looked over his shoulder. "There are no footprints. He was Apparated here by whoever did this, after they killed him." Leaning over to look closer, Draco rested his hand on Harry's shoulder. "We need to move the body before some Muggle stumbles onto this."

"Ah, yeah." He stood up and pointed his wand at the body. "Mobilicorpus," he said, wrist moving slightly. He stepped back a bit when the body floated up and he looked over at Draco. "Ready?"

Draco nodded. "I'll contact Granger to let her know we have a Muggle incident and see you, and him," he said gesturing to the corpse, "at St. Mungo's morgue. After you," he gestured.

***

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2003

Hermione sat at the table in the meeting room re-reading the owl she'd recieved yesterday from Draco - in a meeting with the Minister, no less - with a distressed look on her face. Her pencil stuck jauntily in a bun on the back of her head, it jabbed her as she looked up occasionally to watch for Draco or Harry.

As the clock struck the hour of ten, Hermione groaned. She knew her co-workers liked to sleep in, and occasionally skip a meeting or two, this wasn't the meeting that she wanted delayed. A lot needed to get done, and fast.

Besides, she had a life to live, as she knew Draco and Harry did as well.

Draco could swear he was going blind. The light hurt his eyes. Why did people like Granger always insist on meetings first thing in the morning? Sighing, he straightened his robes and Apparated to the Ministry. Making his way past security and up to the lift, he walked through the door of the meeting room within a minute of 9 AM.

Draco's footsteps down the hall sounded like elephants. She knew he wouldn't like being up at what he would consider the crack of dawn, but after all there was serious work to be done.

"Sit down; I'm going to need you to relax so I can get a full grip of the situation. Your owl was rather brief." She motioned to two of the chairs at the table.

"Morning to you too, Granger," he drawled, "You won't mind if I get a cup of tea while we wait for Harry. I didn't think so," he said without pausing and walked back out the room and across the hall to the break room.

Her head went immediately to her hands. "Some things never change." she muttered. If Harry doesn't get here... not that I really want to see him... but if he doesn't get here and deal with Draco, I just might not live to see the end of this meeting..., she lamented.

Harry skidded to a halt in front of Hermione's office. He woke up late, and he didn't want Hermione to be mad at him for anything else. He ran a hand through his hair and took a few deep breaths before he entered the room, smiling at Hermione. "Morning, Hermione," he said, taking a seat.

Hermione looked up gratefully at the sound of Harry's voice. Thank God..., she thought. "Good morning. Draco's decided it's time for his tea break, so it may be a few minutes. Take a seat, please, make yourself comfortable."

Draco was sipping his tea and hoping Harry would get here soon. Having Granger order him around wasn't his idea of a way to start the day. Just when he thought he would have to go back in there without his partner, he heard the sound of Harry running down the hall. He knew that sound well, after all. He smiled and made his way casually back into the meeting room.

Draco sauntered back into the room, setting a cup of coffee in front of Harry and took a seat at the table. "Now we can get this started," he said pulling a stack of parchments out of their folder.

Harry smiled when he saw the cup, and he glanced up at Draco. "Thanks," he said, nodding. He didn't even have to ask him if he put just the right amount of sugar and cream in it. He always did. He took a sip and slouched in his seat, waiting for someone to start.

Draco glanced at Harry, nodding in response to his thanks. He controlled his features, not showing the smile that would have come easily at the sight of a very rumpled Harry. He enjoyed early in the day, just out of bed Harry. It made mornings bearable. He squashed down the thought of how good that messy hair would look against his Egyptian cotton sheets. Okay, Malfoy, keep your mind on the job. So he withdrew the pictures of the corpse from the file and laid them on the table. They were taken by the Mediwitch at the morgue. Stark, unmoving pictures of a corpse with the skin on his abdomen strangely sunken in.

"We have a 38-year-old Muggle named Peter Jacobs. He was found in an alley. My initial detection spell showed the last spell used on the body was an Apparation spell, but that some type of dark magic had been used to kill him. There were no footprints nearby. So the man was most likely killed somewhere else and then dumped in the alley. The spell that killed him is not on file, but whatever it was removed internal organs without opening the skin."

Pulling the pencil out of her hair, Hermione started to take notes, looking up occasionally to keep him talking. "An original spell, then? With Dark origins. Well, we'll have to call in Magical Law Enforcement on this one. It's an Azkaban-worthy offence to use original Dark magic on a Muggle."

Harry set down his coffee, sitting up in his seat. "Well, that's good and all, but where do we start to look for the bloke who did this?"

Draco shook his head. "Assuming it is a bloke, that is. It has to be someone who knows dark magic." He looked at Granger, "And we need to know about the victim. Was this random or targeted? Does he have any connection to the magical community?"

"Gender aside, the connection is probably the most important facet of this crime." Turning on the laptop she kept in a drawer (you never knew when the Muggle Studies crew would search around), she did a few searches for the victim. "Doesn't look like a man of prominence by any means." Hermione frowned. "Do you know anything about him? Did you find a wallet?"

"Wallet, yeah." He opened his robes and pulled out a plastic bag that he put the wallet in. He opened it and pulled it out, passing it over to her. "All the money was still in the wallet, so whoever did it wasn't looking for that."

Pulling out the money, she set that aside and focused on the various pieces of identification. "Credit cards, driver's license, library card? This is all typical Muggle stuff to be carried. Was there anything… original in there? Some form of government ID, perhaps?"

Harry shook his head no, taking another sip of his coffee. "No, only what you see," he said.

Grimacing, she set everything aside and went back to searching furiously on her laptop. "That's it? That's all we know?" Looking down, she commented softly, "I haven't seen something this…pointless since the war. There's nothing anywhere with this guy's name…anywhere."

Draco stood up and went to stand behind Granger, looking over her shoulder. "What does that do?" he asked.

She looked up, happy to have a distraction from what seemed to be her own incompetence. "The laptop? A lot of things. Right now, it's helping me search all of the Muggle government databases in the United Kingdom and narrow down the possible connections our victim might have to the Wizarding world."

"Does it interview the potential witnesses?" sarcasm in his voice, but he continued to look closely at what she was doing. He glanced up to see if Harry was following this.

She rolled her eyes and shrugged at Harry. "I wish. I can check up on how much porn you read at work, though."

Harry smiled a bit at the sarcasm in Draco's voice, having gotten used to it over their time working together. It was funny how before he would've said something back to him about saying that to Hermione, but now it was different. "Muggles are pretty smart, you know," he said to Draco, still smiling.

Draco looked at Harry, a ghost of a smile on his face, "Some of them." He ignored Hermione's quip about porn. Mostly, because he didn't understand it, since he had never used a computer.

"Some, yes. I have to say that whoever our mystery victim was- Peter Jacobs, you said?- he wasn't the brightest of the bunch." She knew Draco didn't know much -- or anything -- about computers, but hard copies were another story.

"Me? Porn? Never, Hermione..." Harry blushed anyway, looking into his cup. "What makes you say that he wasn't that smart, Hermione?"

"I don't really care about your sexual exploits, Harry. I've heard enough already." Looking back at her laptop, she groaned. "He failed his A-levels."

Draco ducked his head to hide a smile at Harry's blush. Gods, how he loved it when Harry blushed. He was glad he was standing behind Granger, as she might have noticed. Harry never noticed though. "So he's not a squib or connected to anyone in our world?" he asked.

"He's not mentioned in any of the Ministry's databases, and the Muggle school system wouldn't mention any connection to the Wizarding world..." She shrugged. "Unless you know anything else, I can't really help you."

"Well, I guess the Muggle box can't help us there. I am shocked," he said sarcastically. "Let's go do some field work, Harry."

Harry nodded up at Draco. "Okay. But first, Hermione. You want to get something to eat at lunch?" he asked, nervously biting his lip.

She smiled gratefully. "Actually.. I'd like to have a look at the crime scene, if you don't mind."

"You can come with us!" Harry answered, getting up. "Right, Draco?"

"Sure, why not. Another trip to alley will be fun," he sneered. Secretly he was happy that he wasn't being left out while Granger and Harry went to lunch.

"Draco, I'm not going to interfere with your lunch plans. I just need to see the scene close up, so I can get some clues about this man that a computer cannot tell me." She groaned and started cleaning up her office.

Draco crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. "First, I have no problem showing you whatever you need to do your job. But I should tell you the alley was a body drop. The victim was killed somewhere else and left in an alley. The body is at St. Mungo’s. So, we can go look at the alley, but it probably won't tell you much. Or the body, if you want to deal with that."

She nodded. "Preferably both, if you have the time. The alley will have residue left over from whatever curses did our victim in. But the body will be crucial." Gathering her things, she looked up at them both. "Ready, then?"