𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇 | 𝐓𝐇𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 1

Chapter 1

Chapter One—Shadows from the Past

Harry Potter inspected the quills and placed each carefully chosen one on the counter. He was buying a stack of them as well as rolls and rolls of parchment, flush with the idea that he was venturing on his first year of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The last few years had been terrible. So much death and destruction. But being Year Two A.V. (after Voldemort) things seemed to settle back to normal. Harry never imagined he’d return to Hogwarts after the horrors he witnessed there, but when he was asked by Dumbledore to return (and after Dumbledore’s unexpected “resurrection”) how could he refuse? Besides, the curse on the position was gone with Voldemort. At least Harry hoped so. The idea of becoming an Auror and continuing the chase just didn’t appeal to him anymore. Finding and destroying all the Horcruxes and slaying Voldemort was enough for one lifetime.

He thanked the cashier, a pretty girl who, after her initial shock at realizing who she was serving, winked at him. Harry just smiled a little awkwardly, and left the shop. It was like that all over: either he was mobbed or he’d get little flirtatious gestures from strangers, letters of marriage proposals, and all sorts of strange stuff with owls. It was too bad girls didn’t interest him. There just weren’t enough wizards brave enough to owl him those kinds of letters, he supposed.

He left Diagon Alley and walked into Muggle London. The streets were safe now that all the Death Eaters had been rounded up. Most of them, anyway.

The air smelled damp with a heavy mist, and rain didn’t look too far off. Feeling a chill, he decided to duck into the next tea shop he saw, and there, across the street, was one fit to order. He dashed across the lane, shoes slapping wetly on the paving, and entered the warm shop, inhaling the buttery aroma of freshly baked scones. Shaking out his robe, he knew he must look like an eccentric to the Muggles, but he sometimes felt more at ease in Muggle shops, having been raised one by the Dursleys. He gave his relatives one little thought as he made his way to a table. Funny. He hadn't thought of them in two whole years.

He settled onto a seat and dug for his book in his bookbag, the same old one he had dragged around with him when he was a student at Hogwarts. Buried so deep in the bag, he hadn't noticed the waiter standing over his table waiting for him. He snapped up again, ready to order a pot and some sandwiches when his green eyes locked on ice gray.

They stared at one another, neither saying a word. Harry’s urge to grab for his wand was strong, but he deliberately pressed his palms to the table. For his part, the waiter only trembled, his eyes widening, his long blond fringe nearly obscuring those cold eyes. But he didn’t retreat, and Harry had to give him credit for that. Ten points to Slytherin, he said in his mind, not daring to say it aloud.

The waiter suddenly scanned the room, no doubt looking for another waiter. He gave Harry one more glare before he hurriedly moved toward the kitchen.

Harry breathed again. That was bloody awkward. And quite an unpleasant surprise. What the hell was Draco Malfoy doing working in a Muggle tea shop?

Harry shifted on his chair. He supposed it was all Malfoy could scrape up after the war. Draco had tried to be a Death Eater, wanted to be, except that he found that it wasn't exactly what he expected. Especially when Voldemort merely wanted to use him and hung the threat of killing his parents over his head if he didn’t comply. Harry hated Malfoy at first…before he fully understood his dilemma. Dumbledore made him see it, of course. Dumbledore was always doing that. Harry thought he’d never forgive the old wizard for making him think he was dead, but after a while, Harry saw the necessity of it; the impetus that would put Harry into necessary hunter mode and take him out of the fear of being the hunted. With Dumbledore’s protection out of the way—with no one else looking after him—Harry had seen no other choice. And all the while, Dumbledore could work unimpeded for the Order. Crafty, that old man.