(Romance/Fantasy/Drama/Comedy/Adventure)
After job hopping within the Ministry for over a decade, Harry sets off to investigate an abbey with strange, high-level magical anomalies. When he surveys the area, he discovers that Draco Malfoy is to blame...
A/N: Just for clarification, this fanfiction follows the books' canon, where Harry didn't break the Elder Wand. However, rather than putting it in Dumbledore's tomb, where anyone could easily steal it again, he kept it.
They landed and surveyed their surroundings with awe. Ceilings over twenty meters high were made of latticed glass, allowing the noon sun to pour in through weather-streaked panes. At the center of it all hung a grand candle chandelier.
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To the right, a staircase led up to a cobweb-covered loft. The walls were dreary, with black damask and mahogany wood trim. In the center of the marble-floored foyer, like a vortex into another world, was a timeless swirl mosaic.
"Where are we?" Draco marveled, squinting at the ray of sun that grazed his eye.
Hermione looked out the leftmost row of gothic windows, imposing as they were. All of them looked out into a forest, stretching out as far as the eye could see. "No idea," she lamented.
They heard Harry Apparate behind them, but he was alone, holding onto the other wooden bead.
"What are you—! Harry!" Draco bombarded him, "You couldn't have—I don't know—called for backup?"
Harry fired up to match his energy, shrugging vehemently in a way that asked, "What am I? Chopped liver?" but Draco's gasp prevented him from saying anything witty in reply.
From this new illuminated angle, Draco was able to recognize the two puncture marks on the man's neck. He blushed, yanking the strings of Harry's hoodie to hide the embarrassing eyesore. "You couldn't have put on a scarf first?" he chided.
Harry pulled the scrunched up hood away from his neck, to loosen it. He tried to assuage Draco's worry, "Relax . . . Hermione already saw it."
"Why would that make me feel relaxed?!" Draco panicked.
A crash from upstairs interrupted their needless bickering. The three of them held their wands at the ready, waiting for the cause to walk into view. Their determination faltered when the culprit's shadow seemed to continue across the upstairs landing, without a vessel to cast it. From the floor, a mass of black smoke rose like a tempest wave, mutating into the figure of a person that lacked any identifying features.
Immediately, Draco made a break for the front door. As he tried over and over to pry it open, a curious swirl-shaped brooch hanging just below the peephole rattled against the red wainscoting. The door wouldn't budge, and no amount of Alohomora seemed to help. Draco looked through the peephole and saw nothing but darkness, as if something had been nailed against the door.
Harry almost scoffed and told him he was overreacting, but when he saw the shadow's arm extending to grab a painting on the wall, specifically to throw at them, he changed his tune.
"Confingo!"—the fire went straight through the figure's chest.
"Arresto Momentum!" spelled Hermione, to no effect.
