Spooks

Time and location unknown.

As he knelt in the middle of the cell, the cold flagstones biting into his knees, his tuxedo jacket torn and bloodied, a throbbing pain sitting high on his left temple, and staring into the silencer of the gun pointed unwaveringly at him, he could only think one thing:

He was a dead man.

He watched as his soon-to-be gunman’s finger tightened on the trigger, and –

-

That afternoon – London, England.

“Do you accept?” Harry Potter sighed, leaned back in his chair, and absentmindedly ruffled his hair when the man seated across from him didn’t answer immediately. “Look, I know it’s a bit last minute – ”

The corner of the other man’s mouth twitched.

“ – alright, a lot last minute,” Harry finished lamely.

The other man merely coughed and idly flicked through the file that he’d been handed only a few minutes prior. The words “TOP SECRET” had been stamped upon the folder in red ink, but it held only a handful of documents.

“So we know nearly nothing about this organization.”

Harry winced. “Correct,” he conceded.

“And you want me to somehow beat this organization at a game that we know nearly nothing about.”

“Er…yes?”

“And I only have one day.”

“Well, technically…a bit less than that, actually.”

“Ah.”

Draco Malfoy rose from his chair and mockingly saluted the new director of the Auror Department. “Count me in, boss,” he drawled, causing Harry to let out his breath all at once.

“Merlin, Draco, you nearly had me there,” Harry laughed.

“Hey, what are friends for,” Draco returned, tucking the file underneath one arm and turning to exit Harry’s office. Nearly out the doorway, he paused to look back, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Although I do expect a promotion for this.”

Harry furrowed his brow in confusion. “But you’re already head of SpecOps.”

The corner of Draco’s mouth twitched. “Perhaps I want to become head of the entire department,” he said, before shutting the door after himself.

Alone in his office, Harry couldn’t help but laugh to himself. Malfoy really hadn’t changed one bit.

-

“Within Spain’s national museum,” Harry had explained earlier, “there is a book referred to as the Unnamed Book. We don’t know what it’s about, but we do know that it is protected at all times by a live guard. And somewhere out there is a Muggle organization that calls itself Quantum – we don’t know why they call themselves that, or where they come from, or what their agenda is.”

“Bit poncy,” Draco murmured.

Harry grinned. “We can’t all have your good fortune…Draco.”

Draco narrowed his eyes at the man who had been his partner before being named Head Auror.

Harry cleared his throat. “We do know, though, that they want this book. And apparently they will most likely strike tonight during a huge ball that will be held at the museum.”

“Apparently?”

Harry shrugged, an apologetic look on his face. “Some bloke named Perkins has just passed; worked at the Department of Mysteries. They were cleaning out his office, found this file, and brought it over to us. That file is all we have to go on, and there’s not much there to begin with – aside from the whole prevent Quantum from getting to the book thing.”

“Bloody Unspeakables and their bloody...”

“Mysteries?” Harry finished helpfully.

“I was thinking more along the lines of their inability to take proper notes, but that works too.”

-

Harry had said no magic, and he meant it. “It’s Muggles we’re working with here,” he explained, choosing to ignore the scowl that was plastered on Draco’s face as he handed over his wand. “And the mission is straightforward enough. You’re fully qualified in Muggle espionage, at any rate. Why are you pouting?”

“I’m not pouting,” Draco pouted. “And it’s a…security blanket type of thing.”

“Security blanket? You?”

“I don’t think I have to tell you where you can stick my wand, Potter.”

-

Evening – Madrid, Spain.

Draco fell into step with a crowd of men and women heading towards the famed museum, which towered over their heads in all its old, stately glory. All of the men were clad in expensive suits, and the women hanging onto their arms were draped in sparkling jewels.

Inside the cavernous lobby of the museum, Draco idly straightened the cuffs on his own immaculately tailored tuxedo before accepting a glass of champagne from one of the many servers. Taking a sip of the beverage, his sharp eyes assessed the plainclothes security detail – to anyone else but a fellow serviceman, they would have blended right into the crowd. And there, to the right, was the door that would take him to the east wing – Harry had told him during his briefing that the Unnamed Book was housed there.

“Draco Malfoy.”

He turned at the sound of his name, finding that the voice belonged to a petite woman clad in a beautiful gown, her hair falling in loose waves around her shoulders. He’d know that shade of red anywhere in the world.

“Ginny Weasley.”

Ginny smiled at him, raising her own glass of champagne and touching it briefly to his. “Fancy seeing you here, Draco. It’s been years, hasn’t it?”

“It has,” Draco agreed, studying her as he took another sip of his drink. She looked even better than he remembered. “The last time I saw you was when you returned home to see Potter and me inducted into the Auror Department.”

“I’ve been busy since then. Archaeology is a consuming business, you know.”

“Ah yes, archaeology. And here I always imagined you playing Quidditch. Or tackling your own brood of bawling ginger brats.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I was good at other things besides Quidditch and being a Weasley,” she returned without missing a beat. She nodded at someone over his shoulder before turning a bright smile towards him. “Hopefully we can properly catch up later, Draco. If you’ll excuse me, I have a small business matter to attend to.”

Draco watched as Ginny wove her way through the crowd, before she was finally swallowed up by it completely.

-

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could direct your attention up here…”

Draco ignored the speaker as he made his way to a restroom located along the east wall. Checking to make sure that all of the stalls were empty, he locked the door behind him and made his way over to the window, sliding it open with ease and exiting into a courtyard.

The courtyard was dark and empty at this hour, and Draco blended easily into the shadows as he jogged along the length of the east wing, counting the windows until he reached the one he knew marked the room in which the Unnamed Book sat. Draco shook his head at how easy the museum was making this for him, before he reached up, grabbed one of the many bricks that jutted out of the building, and swung himself up along the wall, continuing until he reached the third and last story window.

Balancing himself on the window’s ledge, Draco reached into his jacket’s inner pocket and retrieved a pen, which he uncapped and touched to the windowpane. Upon contact, the glass began to disintegrate with a nearly inaudible hiss as Draco traced around the window’s border. He poked his head through the now open window and glanced down, noting that only one guard stood in front of the glass case that housed the Unnamed Book. Reaching into his pocket once more, inwardly grumbling all the while at his not being allowed to use magic, Draco exchanged his pen for a grappling gun, which he aimed at the center beam of the ceiling. The guard below him didn’t move a muscle as Draco silently flew through the air in all his tuxedo-ed glory, until he alighted upon the beam. Draco used the gun once more to descend slowly to the ground, until he was standing just behind the guard. The guard sneezed right as Draco’s feet touched the ground.

“Salud,” Draco said in a cheerful voice.

The guard spun around, eyes bulging and hand reaching for the gun strapped to his hip. “Qué– ”

But he never finished his thought, as Draco swung out with the hand still holding the gun, causing the guard to crumple in a heap at his feet. Tucking the gun back into his pocket, Draco turned to examine what he had come all the way there for. Sitting underneath a glass case was a small, slim leather-bound book. There was no lettering on the cover or the spine, no explanation nearby for why the book was so important – nothing. There was merely a small card next to the book that read “The Unnamed Book”.

Shrugging, Draco took out his pen once more and traced a large circle around the front of the glass cube. Reaching forth, he carefully retrieved the book and began to slide it into his jacket –

Behind him, a gun cocked.

Raising his hands in the air slowly, the book still in his left hand, Draco turned to find a stocky, dark-haired man pointing a gun at him.

“I’ll be taking that now,” the man said, holding his free hand out.

“You mean this book?” Draco asked, waving it around carelessly.

The other man frowned, jerking his gun in a threatening manner. “Give it to me, pretty boy,” he growled.

“Fancy a game of catch?” Draco asked in a bright voice, right before he tossed the book up into the air. Distracted, the other man looked up at the falling book, gun going limp in his hand. Draco took advantage of the man’s lapse in concentration, knocking the gun out of his hands and letting loose with a hard punch to his jaw. Grunting, the man charged at Draco, his momentum pushing them both back into the glass case, which toppled off of its pedestal and shattered. The man let loose a flurry of blows to Draco’s face and upper body, as Draco fought to regain his balance.

Draco finally shoved the man off of him and pushed himself away from the pedestal, ready to resume fighting, but the man suddenly made a leap for the book, which had fallen a few yards away from the fighting duo. Draco, in turn, flew at the man, knocking him to the side just before he reached the book. This time Draco had the upper hand as he rained blows on the other man’s face. Twisting away underneath Draco, the man kicked Draco hard in the side of the head, momentarily leaving him dazed. As the man crawled towards the book, reaching a hand out to grab a hold of it, Draco turned and launched his body at the gun that the man had been holding only minutes earlier.

“Got you!” the man crowed, turning only to find that Draco was sitting across from him, his own gun pointed unwaveringly at him.

“I beg to differ, sir,” Draco said calmly.

“Actually…”

Draco turned at the sound of the new voice, which belonged to a man standing over him, pointing a gun at the spot between his eyes. Behind him Draco could see two more men entering the room from a small side door that he hadn’t noticed previously. And flanked by the men was Ginny herself.

“Ginny, are you all right?” Draco called out without thinking. Inwardly, he cursed at the odds that had dragged an innocent bystander – Ginny, no less – into all of this.

“Shut up,” the man in front of him snarled, shoving the tip of his gun against Draco’s temple.

“I’m fine, Draco,” Ginny said, face impassive. “But I just can’t have you ruining everything, can I?”

Draco’s brow furrowed. “Wha–?”

But the man clocked him over the head with his gun, and all Draco knew was darkness.

-

Draco awoke in a flash of pain. Wincing, he put his fingers to his temple, where they came away sticky with blood. He sat up slowly, only to be faced down by a silenced gun.

Draco sighed. “You people and your guns,” he lamented.

“They’re rather useful, really,” the gun’s owner mused. He shifted in his chair – the only piece of furniture in the cell – and sighed in satisfaction when he found a more comfortable position. “Now,” he continued, pulling the Unnamed Book out of his jacket and holding it up for Draco to see, “you’re going to tell me who you are and what you want with this book.”

“Just someone who’s been itching for some new reading material,” Draco intoned. The other man’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Get up,” he demanded.

Sighing, Draco pushed himself to his feet, futilely attempting to brush the dirt off of his tuxedo as he stood.

“Kneel,” the man ordered, waving his gun at Draco.

Draco rolled his eyes even as he complied.

“I don’t know who you are, or what you want with this book,” the man said, standing over Draco with his gun at the ready. “But I do know that you’re not getting it – and you are very much a dead man.”

And as Draco knelt in the middle of the cell, the cold flagstones biting into his knees, his tuxedo jacket torn and bloodied, a throbbing pain sitting high on his left temple, and staring into the silencer of the gun pointed unwaveringly at him, he could only think one thing:

He was a dead man.

He watched as his soon-to-be gunman’s finger tightened on the trigger, and –

“Wait,” Ginny called out as she swept into the room.

The man looked annoyed. “What? He’s a liability and a nuisance. Let’s get rid of him now.”

“I need to question him,” Ginny returned in an authoritative voice.

“I’ve already questioned him – there’s nothing of use here.”

Ginny looked thoughtful. “Well then in that case, I guess I’ll just have to move on to Plan B.”

“Plan B?”

Draco eyed Ginny nervously. “Plan B?”

But Ginny just winked at Draco right before she placed her hand on the other man’s neck and did that thing to his pressure points that you always seem to hear about but never really understand. Incapacitated, the man toppled over at Ginny’s feet.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ginny said, moving forward to offer Draco a hand up. But Draco pointedly ignored her help as he got to his feet.

“What the fuck is going on here, Weasley?”

Ginny grabbed the Unnamed Book from where it had fallen and turned to face Draco. “You really want to hear this now?” she asked, as she tucked it into his jacket’s pocket.

“I’d rather do so, yes.”

“Can we run and talk?”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Come on.”

-

“When I left Hogwarts, four years ago, I was recruited by a man named Perkins who worked for the Department of Mysteries.”

Ginny was whispering as she peered around the corner. Draco had followed her out of the cell, which was attached to a tunnel that led to a house. There was only one way in and out of the house, she’d said – the front door. They’d stopped just before the lounge, where she’d said the men were currently gathered. Like him, she was still wearing her evening dress, and Draco had the sudden urge to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“Three men, all armed,” Ginny observed, pulling her head back and levelling a gaze at Draco. “Anyway. Perkins knew how good I was at history and all that sort of thing. And there was this case he’d been working on for years – an underground Muggle cell that called itself Quantum was convinced that there was a way to achieve world domination. They’ve killed people and everything else you can imagine in their ridiculous scavenger hunt for artifacts and knowledge. So while everyone believed I’d gone away for more school and work, I was really busy infiltrating this cell, living as a Muggle the entire time. This book is supposedly the key to all the work that Quantum’s been doing up until now.” Here Ginny’s gaze turned sober. “Nobody knew what I was doing aside from Perkins. And when I read that he’d died…well, I couldn’t not finish my mission.”

“Take down Quantum,” Draco whispered slowly. Ginny nodded.

“Count me in.”

-

“What are you doing?” Ginny hissed at Draco. They’d decided to retreat into the kitchen to regroup and come up with a plan of escape. Draco was currently rummaging around in the cupboards.

“Escaping,” Draco hissed back.

“Are we going to drink our way out of this?” Ginny asked, warily eyeing the hot water bottle that Draco was holding.

“Very clever,” Draco said dryly. “Hand me the vinegar, won’t you?”

Ginny watched, dumbfounded, as Draco poured pepper into the bottle, following closely with baking soda and then the vinegar that she offered. Closing the bottle and grabbing a knife, Draco nodded at her.

“Where did you come up with this?” Ginny wondered aloud.

“Module on Muggle espionage during regular Auror training – they made us read this book written by some bloke named MacGyver,” Draco explained. “Man was a genius. Let’s go.”

Ginny grabbed another knife, just in case.

-

“ – knocked out, don’t know where either the prisoner or Ginny are.” The voice of one of the men wafted out of the living room towards Draco and Ginny as they crept closer.

“They have to be here somewhere,” another voice answered, sounding angry. “Spread out!”

Using the hand holding the knife, Draco put a finger to his lips as he raised his eyebrows at Ginny. As one man barrelled out of the lounge, Draco stuck the bottle out at him and jabbed the knife into the side facing the other man, causing a spray of peppery liquid to shoot into his eyes.

“Blyearhghhhg!” the man cried, flailing around past Draco and Ginny as he attempted to regain eyesight and get rid of the burning sensation that a bottle full of pepper has a tendency to induce.

Moving forward into the lounge, Draco threw the bottle hard at another man’s head, catching him off guard long enough for Ginny to fling her knife at his gun hand, causing him to cry out and drop his weapon.

“Watch out!” Draco shouted as the third man raised his weapon and aimed at Ginny. Launching himself at her, Draco caused them both to tumble behind a couch, the bullet whistling past and embedding itself harmlessly in the wall.

“Thanks,” Ginny breathed, her face very close to Draco’s.

“No problem,” he returned, giving her a tiny smirk.

Hearing the footsteps of the gunman creeping closer to the couch, Draco reached out and grabbed a hold of the floor-length lamp sitting next to them. In one fluid motion, he stood and swung the lamp around and up, catching the man hard in the face and causing him to drop his gun as he dropped to the floor. Draco turned just in time to see Ginny break a vase over the head of the man whose hand she’d injured, causing him to collapse – he’d been ready to stick the knife Ginny had thrown earlier in Draco’s back.

“Thanks,” Draco said, eyeing Ginny appreciatively.

Ginny laughed. “No problem.”

“That’s enough, lovebirds,” a new voice chimed in.

Turning, Draco and Ginny found a man with extremely red eyes pointing a gun at each of them.

Draco winced as he dropped the lamp. “Too much pepper?”

“Shut up!” the man barked. “I won’t let you ruin our plans.” He cocked both guns (Draco was really tired of guns, honestly), and –

BOOM.

The force of the explosion at the front door knocked all three of the room’s conscious occupants over. Draco couldn’t help but laugh when Harry Potter came at the heels of the small unit that swept in to restrain the Muggles.

“How’d you know where I was?” Draco asked, using the hand that Harry offered to lift himself up.

“Tracking devices in your gadgets,” Harry explained. “Ingenious of our gadget master, really.”

“Lovegood really is rather remarkable, once you get past the radish earrings,” Draco agreed.

“Does she still wear those? I can’t wait to get back home,” Ginny sighed.

“Oh, hey, Gin, nice dress – Gin?” Harry did a double take. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Explanations later,” Draco interrupted. “As head of this operation, I need to have a word with Ginny. Debrief. You know.” Without waiting for an answer from Ginny, and leaving Harry looking extremely bewildered, Draco grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the house, which was now filled with the sounds of an Auror unit cleaning up the mess and a group formerly known as Quantum loudly demanding their lawyers.

A little way away from the house, Draco turned to face Ginny.

“So,” he said, tucking a strand of her vibrant hair behind her ear.

Ginny shivered as Draco rested his hands lightly on her bare shoulders. “So,” she echoed.

“In the name of better facilitating communications between the Aurors and the Unspeakables…I propose that we go out to dinner sometime.”

Ginny grinned up at Draco, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief in the moonlight.

“Sounds like a plan.”

And then, of course, Draco kissed Ginny.

They could always tackle the paperwork in the morning.

Fin.