Harry Potter Just Another Case

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, nor is anything in his universe that you recognise. Sure there are a few OC in the story but we all know who they are right?

-ooo-

The beeping of his alarm clock in the early hours of Monday morning filled his ears, waking up his sleeping mind with it's wailing tone. Albus reached out a hand, groaning at the cold sensation that came through the limb as it left the warm cocoon of his blanket. Hitting the alarm clock in one sleepy movement he pulled his arm back into the warmth around him. Just as he was about to fall back into a shallow sleep a second noise penetrated his tiredness mind, the theme tune of a muggle tv show that his parents had once made him watch, his phone was going off.

"I'm up!" He cried out to the ringing phone, cringing as the ringtone continued its song without listening to his wish of silence. Finally, realising he was far too awake to go back to sleep he picked it up, checking the caller ID as he flipped the phone open. "You better have a good reason for calling me at this time in the morning Scorpius Malfoy or I swear I'm going to kill you."

An amused chuckle came from the other side of the line, "But then, Potter you'd be stuck with no coffee waiting for you on your way to work! I don't think you can survive without your morning coffee to get you up!"

Albus swung his legs out of the bed and into the cold early morning air, "I really hope," he said letting out a rather large yawn, "that the coffee is bloody brilliant, otherwise I'll get Teddy to get me some when he comes in later, and I'll hand in your body."

"Anyway, that should have been enough time for you to get one of your brain cells working, though I think the other braincell isn't doing anything for you at the moment -"

"Scorpius," Albus warned as he stood up, trying to find his work clothes from under the mess on the floor "There is a time and a place, now is not the time and I am not in the right place. What do you want? Aren't you meant to be on holiday or something?"

"Kingsley called yesterday to get me off my leave." Albus could hear the disappointment in his friends voice, Scorpius had saved up for that leave for months, he was meant to be at his family house in Scotland with his boyfriend for three weeks.

"Damn, did he give you a reason?"

"Something to do with Glass and King." Albus stopped putting his socks on at this, Elton Glass and Lillian King were some of the worst in the wizarding world. They had in their time on the most wanted list in the aurors' office, blown up several small buildings using magic in muggle neighbourhoods resulting in mass obliviations, robbed several large muggle businesses using magic, once again resulting in another obliviation and in all of this they had got hold of muggle weapons and tried to use it on wizards in Diagon Ally resulting in the deaths of the Minister of Magic's Third in command and his family before everything was contained.

Before their time on the most wanted list they had been involved in various other crimes that had peaked the interest of muggles and wizarding public alike. This had cause the auror office several headaches with various muggle police agencies that were too curious about the two wizards for their own good.

"Did he say anything else? I swear if they have Scotland Yard on them again I might just screw the statue of secrecy and tell them all about how these two keep getting out of impossible situations." Albus commented, leaning on a chest of drawers and stuffing his sock on his foot and and then, after looking around his room for a second, hastily grabbing his wand from his dressing room table. He was halfway to the kitchen when Scorpius answered.

"Nothing else. Oh and you can come around to mine again."

Albus had been banned from going around to his friends house on the basis that his boyfriend (a fellow auror by the name of Jamie Feathers) hadn't taken any shine to Albus at all, commenting on his attire, his parents and anything else that he could think of to insult the man. The reason that Scorpius hadn't broken up with him is because these insults would only occur whenever he wasn't in the room. Then, after about ten minutes, he would come back in and find Albus holding his boyfriend at wandpoint with apparently no provocation. "Why?" Albus asked "Has Jamie finally got over himself and had a personality adjustment?"

"Jamie left," Scorpius snorted "said that if I put the job ahead of him then he was wasting his time."

Albus frowned as he added a spoonful of sugar to his Weetabix "But he's an auror too. He has to understand?"

"I don't know. I think it was that he had done the same thing as me; no holidays for half a year and then using it all up in a thee week block."

"Still, he's mental. Are you okay?"

"I'll live. Where do you want to meet up?" Scorpius asked, mind clearly trying to come up with a topic of conversation that wasn't his ex, deciding against taking to him about the breakup on the phone Albus ended the conversation.

"Meet me at the usual place," Albus grabbed some cereal from the fridge "And please don't do anything stupid on the way. If the Minister asks you to give up your holiday then it must be important, I don't think you want to turn up drunk or -" There was a knock at the door. "Look I've got to go, see ya!"

"Bye."

Albus hung up the phone, chucked in down on the table along with the cereal and went to answer the door, the old door let out a creak when it was opened but all thoughts of oiling it went out of Albus' mind when he saw who had knocked. She was tall, pale and blue eyes, the woman had black hair kept off her face by an Alice band and in her arms she was carrying a pile of washing. "Oh," she said, looking at him with wide eyes "Hollie Wilcox, I moved in downstairs, I was just wondering if you knew where the laundry room was? I wasn't paying attention when the landlady explained the layout of the land."

"Bottom floor, you can take the lift down," Albus realised when he had just said and tried to re-fraise the answer "If you don't want to you can use the stairs, but the elevator is faster so perhaps it would be best if you-" He trailed off at her look of amusement.

"Thanks for your help," she smiled and went down the corridor away from him before looking back at him "I didn't get your name?"

"Albus," he replied, "Albus Potter."

"Albus," she shifted the name around her mouth, "Albus Potter." She looked him in the eye and winked at him "That's a nice name I if I don't say so myself. Have you been here long?"

"A year and a bit, yeah."

She smiled and gave him a conspiratory look "Any people I should watch out for?"

"No one that bad," Albus laughed slightly "Unless you found Chandler, poor bloke with the Whitechapel Police, has to get up at all hours to get the bad guys." Holly gave him a smile in return.

"And what do you do for a living, are you anything interesting?"

Albus automatically told her the lie about his job "Sales Representative, I go away a lot and often come back at obscure hours. All part of the job, not terribly exciting but there you have it. And you?"

Hollie blushed "I run health courses, speaking of which I have one that I need to prepare for right now - it's in a new spa resort that just opened up. It's a couples thing." She looked down at a gold watch that rested on her wrist. "Oh look at the time! I better hurry up if I want to get there early and get everything ready!" She nodded to him and made her way down the corridor. Before getting halfway to the elevator she turned and looked back.

"See you round Albus, Albus Potter."

He watched her go down the corridor, she pressed the button for the lift and smirked when she caught sight of him still ogling her. Quickly catching himself before he did anything any more idiotic than what he had just done, he shut the door and went back to his cereal.

-!-

The park always came alive on Monday mornings, there was a pathway through it that was the fastest ways to get to the business area of the city. It was a nice park, admittedly the regular crowd that pushed through the park were loud and noisy and they would moan about everything from the weather to the suspicious package that they had had on their doorstep and not had the courage or the inclination to investigate. Other times the members of the crowd would (unknowingly) fill the two men in on the latest Downton Abbey scandals and the latest muggle news.

"I can't believe," one man commented into his mobile as he walked past the waiting auror "that the firm lasted that long, it should have only lasted a week on the business model it was working with. I should know..." The man walked out of earshot and Albus moved onto another person, a young woman in her early twenties walking next to a man who looked to be twice her age. As he watched them, the woman moved her hand into the mans, there was a brief exchange of glances.

"I'm sorry," Album thought he heard the man say, the woman nodded and they continued along on their way.

Just as Albus was considering giving up his wait for his friend, the other man came into sight. A carbon copy of Malfoy Senior, Scorpius Malfoy was a sight for sore eyes, he had blonde hair that shined in the early morning light. Albus waved his hand in a welcoming gesture and soon they were side by side. Coffees where exchanged along with brief greetings. "Sorry for my lateness," said Scorpius.

"Nothing wrong with being late once in your life," Albus smiled "That and I'm sure his nibs liked the yelling part to the break up as much as the relationship itself."

Scorpius winced "That he did."

"On an even less cheery note - any more information on the current situation since we last spoke?" Albus took a sip of coffee and immediately felt his body wake up and rid itself of the sleepiness that had previously covered it.

"Nothing," Scorpius responded as they joined a throng of people walking in the general direction of the ministry's entrance "Not a peak."

They peeled away from the crowd easily when they reached the street leading up to the entrance, checking carefully that no muggle saw them going down a seemingly insignificant street and disappear down the secret elevator to the ministry. As they descended into the ministry floor, Scorpius banished their now empty coffee cups. "Thanks," murmured Albus as they opened the door and stepped into the ministry.

Almost at once they knew that something as going on that they weren't going to like - as soon as they had stepped into the atrium people hushed their conversations to look at them, shooting them critical, calculating looks, before turning back to their friends and continuing their conversations in a subdued manner. One or two people even turned and changed direction when they saw the two wizards coming in their direction.

Giving each other concerned glances, the men hurried their pace to the point that they were half jogging to the elevator that would take them their department. The only other person in the lift pressed their button for them and got out at the next floor. "It's not just me that's seeing this right?" Asked Scorpius when they were alone together.

"Something's going on, and I think we're right at the centre of it," Albus nodded "We didn't screw up our last mission did we?"

"No," replied his friend "Nobody died and we were told that we'd earned a break from everything 'please enjoy your time off and relax' I believe the common words of the time."

"And you're sure that nothing was off when you spoke to them on the phone?"

"They apologised for the interruption, didn't sound happy, but I put that down to the stress of having another situation with Glass and King in the centre of matters." There was an awkward silence between the pair - both were thinking back through their last few assignments and wondering if there was any possible reason that they'd be in trouble. There was a 'ding' when they arrived at the right floor. Scorpius got our first.

"Ah, there you two are," it was Albus' dad, head of the auror office - Harry Potter, the famous boy-who-lived "I wondered how long it would take you to get here."

"What's happening?" Asked Albus as they were shepherded into one of the meeting rooms the office used for briefings "why's everybody acting oddly?"

"All in good time, tea?" Albus rolled his eyes over the back of his dad's shoulder - recently his father had been making sure he was keeping a good hold on his personal health, something that Scorpius had thought very funny, and had thought that he needed to drink more fluids than he had been, hence the tea.

After tea had been accepted and made, the three of them settled down and into silence. Only a few seconds later however, the silence was broken by the entrance of Harry's partner and best friend, Ron Weasley. "Alright there Albus?" he asked, getting a cup of tea for himself and promptly ignoring Scorpius' existence.

"Not too shabby," the conversation was saved from the introduction of even more small talk by the entrance of the rest of the auror department. They crammed into the room, some pouring themselves cups of tea, others magically heating up another pot of hot water. Most avoided Albus and Scorpius, their eyes drifting past them to focus on the others in the room. Some of their better friends came and talked to them however Teddy Lupin, who'd been raised practically as Albus' brother, was the only one that sat down comfortably beside the duo.

When the last person trailed into the room all noise stopped and Harry stood up "So, thank you all for coming here today, I know that some of you were using time off and I assure that only the people that are essential to the operation were called in." There was shuffling around the room, according to all reports, the next month was meant to have been taken up by paperwork - something that nobody had wanted to do - so most people had taken the time off to dodge the proverbial bullet.

"Don't worry, you will be compensated for the time and have extra time off when the assignment's

completed," there was quiet again, everyone eager to find out the details of the assignment. Harry slapped two pictures up on the white board at the front of the room - the familiar pictures of Glass and Kings stared at the room of aurors, there was an instant of tensing among the room.

"Yes, I know, they're not a the nicest people..."

"Understatement of the century," Scorpius murmured to Albus "more deaths on their hands than most of the inner circle of death eaters combined, I think that puts them firmly in the "psychologically insane" collection of society - no remorse for anything they've done."

"Am I boring you at the back there?" Harry's voice interrupted "I think you'll need to pay the most attention to this you two you've got an important part in it."

"Probably working as surveillance and he's just making sure we know which rooms we're going to bug, I mean set up," Albus grumbled, his eyes not leaving his father, who was now talking about where the information had placed the two wanted magic users - a couples retreat in two weeks time where couples were isolated from society for a week of bonding activities.

Harry put up two pictures of two men up on the board "Meet Emerson and Louis Woods, they're the only people we could reach about getting into the conference without breaking the statue of secrecy."

"He sort of looks like you!" Albus whispered, teasing.

Unfortunately his father heard the comment "What was that Albus?"

"Nothing Da- Sir."

Harry looked him in the eye "No really, what was that? You might have actually predicted the outcome of this meeting."

Reluctantly, and continuously glaring at his friend (who was sniggering slightly at the sight), Albus repeated what he'd said "He looks a bit like Scorpius."

"Give the boy a gold star," muttered Teddy under his breath.

"Spot on son," Harry said "And if you looked at the other picture on the board you'd see the very good reason that you've been called off your three day leave. When I saw the two pictures I knew we had just the people for the job."

Albus looked at the other picture on the board, looking beyond the brown hair, the well shaped eyebrows and the manic smile that the man had directed towards the camera, the man could almost be Albus' identical twin. "So these two work at the house, brothers?" Albus asked. Teddy was failing at an attempt of silent laughter to his right.

"No," said Harry, his face flushing slightly, there was an awkward silence, and then Ron stood up.

"They're partners, well husbands."

One second, two seconds, and then "They're gay?"

"No," Harry jumped back into the conversation "Emerson's gay, Louis is bisexual."

"But they're together right?"

"Albus I'm pretty sure the meaning of husbands hasn't changed in the last hour," Scorpius snapped "And I find no problem in taking on the role, which I assume is the job we're being assigned?" The question was directed at Harry.

"Yes, we can't have someone on the inside taking polyjuice potion all the time as Glass and King will no doubt be on the look out for any guest drinking from a flask every hour, and the paperwork has already gone through with pictures of the two men that the house is expecting."

"But I'm not," started Albus, but Teddy talked over him.

"We could put me in instead of you Albus, but I don't know Scorpius as well as you do so we wouldn't have the chemistry you two have with one another."

"Chemistry, really, you couldn't have chosen a better word?" Teddy shrugged and Scorpius looked a little offended.

"You don't have anything against me being in a relationship with another man," Albus looked back sharply, and then stopped himself.

"That wasn't the point."

"Now you two have realised that perhaps you should be paying the most attention to the situation at hand, I'll continue," Harry sounded tired, the two wizards, about to start an argument looked up and nodded at the same time. Their group leader tried not to laugh. "We're sending these people to New Zealand on a second honeymoon (the couple not you two by the way boys) - it's where they got married in the first place so they were very open to the idea. We'll be sending some people with them to make sure that no harm comes to them due to their part in the operation. They'll be there for three weeks - any shorter and they would be too jet-lagged to appreciate it and since their doing us a favour..."

There was no movement around the room as Albus thought there might have been, everybody except himself and Scorpius seemed to be willing to be the ones staying behind, which was unlike anything he'd ever seen from the department in all of his two years working there. He waited until the names of the people going to New Zealand were read out before raising the point. "You all knew about this before didn't you?"

A strained silence filled the room "Perhaps you and Malfoy could come with me to my office," Harry said, handing a Manila folder to Ron and walking towards the pair at the back "Ron, finalise things with this lot and then come to my office, there are things we need to discuss." The second in command nodded and started speaking about the plans for the New Zealand team.

Harry guided the men to his office, none of them spoke to anyone in the corridor. Albus was sure that Scorpius was pissed at his earlier comment, he was starting to regret what he'd said. Holding the door open for the other two to get into his father's office he muttered a quiet "Sorry." Into his friend's ear. Scorpius nodded briefly, not breaking step.

They sat down, his father strode to the other side of the desk and sat down "I was going to tell you earlier but there was another case I needed to sign off on."

"So you just told everybody else and left us to find out that way?" Albus wasn't happy "Everybody in the entire ministry knew that we didn't know. Why was that?"

"That wasn't how it was supposed to happen, only the departments that needed to know were told, but then they let it slip to other departments and then the other departments got most of the picture from different sources and pup two and two together." Harry was took a breath and then continued "Look, if I had it my way you wouldn't be in the field at all - no offence to your skills and ability, but you're my son Albus, and I know you go where Scorpius goes. But we have no choice. Glass and King want to demolish everything we've been building since the war. And that is something that I personally have to deal with as one of the main targets for their anger."

"When I say there is no other option I mean that I've looked everywhere for another solution, but there's no way that we can link Glass and King properly to everything they've done without catching them in the act like we would in two weeks. We have memories showing them to be murderers, but nothing to prove that they're the terrorists we know they are."

"There isn't a paper trail?" Asked Scorpius, finally speaking up "Surely there's someone somewhere who has a memory of them earlier in their lives telling them their motives?"

"Saying that you hate the government is a lot more common that actually doing anything about it," was the grim response "we need you boys to get in there, gain their trust, get the information about everything they're going to do and have done. If, like we suspect, there's a deal going on in the hotel, we want to know every key player that's there to buy."

"Who're we getting as back up?" Scorpius asked, clearly interested in the undercover opportunity. Harry smiled slightly at the enthusiasm.

"I'll be there, working as the security manager, it'll give me the opportunity to be around most of the out of the way places that we may need to put bugs and the like. We needed someone older to do the role and since we're going of authenticity..." The 45 year old chuckled to himself before continuing "Ron- I mean Auror Weasley will be there working as a Night-Guard, which gives us access to the security desk, Teddy will be the are tender, your friend Mr Wakeford will be a waiter and Ms Thornton will work on the maids team - both of the later people started their roles earlier today."

He handed the pair of them two Manila folders full of information "This is everything you need to know, wrapped up all ready for you to read and memorise. Before you leave on the assignment you're going to have to burn these beyond recognition. I'm sure you'll take great pleasure in doing so."

There was a knock on the door and Ron walked in "The New Zealand team has left to pack, I'm going over which bugs the security team need to place where, then I'm going to finalise some of the aliases that we're going to need in two weeks. Is there anything else I'm forgetting at this point?"

"Nothing I can thing of," Harry ran his hand through his hair, a true testament to how stressed he felt "Remember that you're over at my place with Hermione tomorrow for dinner, Ginny's been threatening that if you forget again it'll be worse than the last two times combined." Both men cracked smiles, momentarily ignoring the other two in the room. Ron left and Harry turned back to them.

"You've got the next week to sort out everything, you'll be given an entirely new wardrobe - the men you're impersonating are known for their sharp clothing by certain people and it would be odd for them to turn up in the clothes - no offence meant - that you two regularly put on."

"Use the next few days to get to know one another and the two people that you will become for a week. By the time you report back here in a week I want you to be able to walk, talk and become them in a second - memories are included in the paperwork for you to observe them. You'll need to get comfortable around one another and be able to look like a couple fully in the honeymoon phase of the relationship."

Albus didn't know what to think, he vaguely registered being guided out of his father's office by Scorpius, and definitely registered the side along apparition that he was subjected to. After steadying himself on his best friend, they both made their way up to his flat and crashed out on the sofa.

It had been a hell of a day, and the clock on the wall said it was only ten thirty.

-ooo-

This one has been planned since 2011 and was one of the first fanfics I actually took the time out and planned, so every chapter knows where it fits to the other chapters and to the wider story (are you impressed yet?) The next update will be whenever in the next month I have the mood to type up the next chapter. And to the people thinking about the Lost Potter and all of the other things that I have on the go - I dropped my computer (well fell over with it in my hand) - so everything written on there is on hold until I get it back from the insurance. This was on my iPad.

As always, feel free to review. The comments are always welcome even flames.

Ten points to the person who names the character and the fandom I slipped into the chapter cunningly :-)


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