Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, obviously, because if I did, I wouldn't be looking for a job. I'd be on an island somewhere, with a drink and a tiny umbrella.

AN: This story contains slash. A lot of slash. If that's not your cup of tea, I suggest you turn back now. :] This story was not inspired by anything other than Harry Potter and any references to other existing films or books are completely accidental or coincidental. I hope you enjoy this fic because I really enjoy writing it!

.oOo.

"Are you prepared for the unexpected?"

That was the first question asked of him before he'd started work as an Auror, and he still isn't entirely sure of the answer. The fact that he is currently standing in front of Borgin & Burkes and preparing to confront Draco Malfoy for the first time in five years would suggest, of course, that the answer is a resounding no.

He's not even sure if he can call it confronting him, as he's been standing on the front stoop for the past five minutes, trying to work up the nerve to go inside. He could stay where he was, waxing poetical to the wooden door about their past for a good five minutes more, and actually, that would be far preferable to saying it to anyone else. At least the door can't talk back.

With one final deep breath, one more lecture on being a man… whatever the hell that means… he charges into the dark artifacts shop with a great deal more charisma than has ever crossed its threshold before, even if it is forced. They can coexist in the same space, surely, and honestly, he's acting like they're ex-lovers with the way he keeps going on… a fact Hermione has already helpfully pointed out.

The boy-who-lived-twice stands for a moment in the dark shop, thoroughly disoriented, before Malfoy appears in front of him, having apparently materialized out of the valley of the shadow of death. Or perhaps the back room of the shop. He thinks perhaps they might just be the same thing.

"Potter," he drawls. He notices right away that his hair hasn't faded at all, not one bit, since he last saw him. If anything, it's brighter, which isn't all that surprising considering the last time he saw him, he was covered in soot and blood. He looks good, he assesses, before realizing he shouldn't be assessing any such thing. Still, he can't help but notice that he has the sleeves of his crisp white button-up pushed up to his elbows and is clearly not trying to hide any… scars. Harry is met with the sight of the same snake and skull motif that still looms out of the corner of his eye at times, like a ghost that just won't die. "Potter, if you came to compare scars, I can assure you… mine are bigger."

"Er…" His words seem to have already deserted him, the traitors, and he's left blinking unsteadily at his old childhood enemy.

"Quite. You're late. I was told you'd be here…" he checks his imaginary watch, "five minutes ago, which I'd imagine you would have been, had you not been too busy getting acquainted with my door."

Harry flushes a bit though stands a bit straighter, because he's being an absolute fool. He's twenty-three years old, and… perhaps no wiser than he had been five years prior… but surely both of them can move on past childhood grudges. Eventually.

"Borgin & Burkes is under investigation by the Ministry of Magic, Malfoy. I will be conducting a thorough appraisal of this shop over the next month which, according to our records, you are currently the sole proprietor of? Is that correct?"

His grey eyes darken considerably, a bit like the sky before a thunderstorm. Harry isn't sure he wants to stick around for that, because if Malfoy's temperament is anything like it was in school, it's less likely to be a storm and more likely to be a stage five hurricane. "Yes, that's right. What, might I ask, is the investigation in reference to?"

You know, Harry wants to shout. He wants Malfoy to make this easy, to provide him with the evidence, so they can both return to their own lives which don't include each other.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it." He begins a slow walk around the edges of the shop and stops to peer closer at a jar of what appears to be shriveled, human fingernails. "But consider yourself, and Borgin & Burkes, on thin ice. Or, if you prefer, probation." He's getting a small kick out of being top dog in this conversation, when the blonde had always seemed to hold the higher ground when they'd been in school. Then he has to chide himself for being immature, and for caring about their silly childhood rivalry that should have ceased to matter after the third, or perhaps the fourth, time he saved Malfoy's life.

But who's counting?

The shop owner's face flushes for a moment, a tinge of pink that creeps over his white collar and Harry finds himself momentarily entranced by it. Did Malfoys ever allow themselves to seem embarrassed? Surely that goes against some kind of code. Surely he'll be struck down by lightning within seconds.

Here's hoping, he thinks childishly.

"I see," he murmurs. "It's odd, Potter… quite odd that the Prophet seems to be privy to this information and not the person it convicts. Your friends at the paper don't seem to have much regard for your liberties and what they do or do not include."

Harry has a moment where he thinks seriously about coming back with a childish, then why'd you ask if you already know… but he thinks better of it. "What do your investigations involve? Or shall I stand idly by while you fraternize with the inanimate objects in this shop? You seem to be quite adept at that already. I don't think you'll need the whole month for it." Harry realizes belatedly that he is indeed staring rather fixedly at a nearby lamp.

"A month of on-the-job observations. Congratulations, you've just earned yourself a new employee. Malfoy, this can be simple, or this can be very difficult. It's entirely up to you but at the end of the month, it's me who gets to decide if you're fit for this job." He pauses. "You narrowly escaped Azkaban once already. Let's not tempt fate twice."

The blonde's fingers inch toward his wand and Harry sees it, though makes no move for his own. Malfoy is many things, but a fool is not one of them, and he won't pull his wand on an Auror in public. "You're just the same as you've always been."

"Well, here's hoping."

"And smug as ever," Malfoy offers.

"Wow. Pot, meet kettle," Harry returns sagely.

He's met unexpectedly with a dry smile, though it does somehow seem good-natured in a strange, Malfoyish way. He imagines it would be the same look a snake might give whilst finding something humorous, which he thinks is an assessment Malfoy would be quite pleased with. "Indeed. I have to say you're wasting your time here."

"I hope so, Malfoy," and Harry is surprised to find that he means it. He doesn't want to ruin his life. In fact, he never has. It seems regardless of how he feels about it, for the moment, Malfoy seems to have conveniently forgotten his earlier half-threat concerning jail time.

.oOo.

One week earlier…

After decades of suspecting Borgin & Burkes of it, the Aurors had finally sniffed out a lead suggesting that they had been involved in some way with the smuggling of illicit potions into England. Some of the potions act as narcotics, though others have magic-dampening effects. The rest are opiates, which had hit the streets a few months before Harry's arrival on the shop's doorstep. Ron was the one who had caught one of the Knockturn Alley dealers, who had cracked under pressure and informed them that he had gotten the potions from an underhanded deal with one of the shops in the area.

Borgin & Burkes is the only shop who imports from any of the countries the potions are brewed in, which means they are the only shop with the capabilities to smuggle the potions into England discretely.

The facts are quite simple and yet, quite complicated when laid side by side. Harry has gone over them too many times to count and each time, they get caught around each other, creating impossible knots and snares that he can't unravel no matter how hard he tries. Or indeed, how long he tries. After taking the case to the Wizengamut, they had assessed that there wasn't enough hard evidence. They had decided that Harry was the one to go out and find it.

One hour later, he finds himself in the Head Auror's office.

Astrid Blackwell is a tough old bird who rules her department with an iron fist and the demeanor of a battle-ax. As he steps into her office, she doesn't pay him so much as a cursory glance and he eyes the chair which – he sits – is just as uncomfortable as it looks. "Mr. Potter. It is my understanding that there is some bad blood between you and Mr. Malfoy." It's clearly a statement, not a question.

"Er… Well, I really can't see it getting in the way of the investigation…"

"Oh please, save the act for someone who can't see through it. I want that bad blood to seep into every crevice of this investigation. Let it affect your every question, your every instinct. Not getting the Malfoys convicted has been my greatest failure as head of this department. Do we understand each other?"

"Uh…" Harry is, as usual, very eloquent.

"Good. Now, believe me, your age has not been forgotten. You are young, but you have much to gain from finding me that evidence." Her voice is clipped and callous and Harry doesn't know what to say. The implications are clear, because as an Auror, there is only one thing to gain from this and it is her office space once she retires in the fall.

It's a nice space as far as spaces go, but it's clearly the placard nailed to the door that is worth the most. Hell, nailed to a broom cupboard door, it would still be worth more than any other within the Ministry walls, barring the Minister's himself.

But these days, Harry only makes promises he knows he can keep. "If there is any evidence, rest assured, I will find it." This seems to appease her – for the moment, anyway – and she gives him a curt nod before lowering her head to peer at whatever document is on her desk. The only thing he can see of her is the top of her silvery white bob. He decides this must be his dismissal.

It takes all of his willpower not to sprint out of range. He may have vanquished the Dark Lord, but it is his greying boss who is a hundred pounds soaking wet (a disturbing mental image) who frightens him the most.

.oOo.

After getting… reacquainted with Malfoy, Harry shows up the next day with a grim determination and doesn't hesitate at the door lest he suffer under the blonde's mocking humor for his entire first shift as Borgin & Burkes newest employee. The first face he is greeted with is not Malfoy's pale, sharp visage but rather, a bubbly looking brunette with softly curled hair and a mouth that looks like it doesn't know how to stop smiling.

"Well, Draco told me we'd be graced with your celebrity presence soon." She grinned. "His words, not mine."

Harry is stunned. This must be Malfoy's… girlfriend? fiancé? who Harry, of course, would not have ever met. The last he'd heard about Malfoy was that his father had bought Borgin & Burkes from Borgin himself a few years past, causing much speculation about their motives. They were, of course, under question once again much to Rita Skeeter's unquestionable joy. "Who are you?" is his brilliant response.

He sees the hair before he hears the man it belongs to. Again, seemingly out of nowhere, Malfoy's lithe form materializes in front of Harry with his mouth quirked in a grin that makes Harry feel a little uneasy. "Kira." He settles one slender hand on her shoulder comfortably. "What have I said about that smile? Grin any wider and your face will split in half."

The girl – Kira, apparently – looks over at Malfoy fondly, and Harry feels a twinge somewhere behind his ribcage. "I'm sure you know Potter," he continues, and Harry is irrationally annoyed that he can't even bother to introduce him using his first name, regardless of the fact that Kira probably knows it if she's bothered to pick up a newspaper in the past two decades.

"Of course." She reaches for his hand and shakes it firmly. "I've been so excited to meet you-"

Draco cuts her off with a curt, "Stop it, Kira. I assure you, he already thinks the sun shines out of his ass without your help."

"He does have a nice-"

"Kira! Good grief! I'm sure he's already aware of that too."

Harry notes this as a very strange way for the two lovebirds to interact. He has never been able to understand straight couples, even when he had been part of one himself.

He realizes belatedly that Malfoy might have kindasortamaybe just admitted that he has a nice ass.

And just for the record, he's right. "Maybe I'm not the only one with staring problems, Malfoy."

The blonde's pale cheeks visibly flush at that comment, and he wonders how he hasn't been struck down dead on the spot because surely humiliation goes against some kind of Malfoy code. Nevertheless, Harry can't help but feel a little triumphant.

The blonde man recovers quickly and nods at Kira quickly. "I'm off. I have to see a man about a dog." He looks at Harry significantly, and he realizes he doesn't trust him enough to talk business in front of him. Kira merely nods and slips a hand along his shoulder as he heads toward the door. "And Potter? I would keep your hands to yourself, lest you lose them. This shop is not friendly toward… tourists."

Harry bristles visibly as the door closes behind Malfoy, but Kira only coos sympathetically at his side. "Don't worry about him, Harry. It just takes him a while to warm up to people. That's all."

"Is ten years a while? How much more time does he need?" He realizes belatedly that he might be being rude, but she only laughs.

"Come on. I'll show you around."

.oOo.

After five minutes, he begins to think he'll never find his way around this bizarre, nightmarish shop. At every turn is something so shadowy and dark that he is sure he could never imagine the sorts of effects it might have and someone. He's survived, to some extent, death so he knows better than anyone that there are worse things that lurk in the darker corners of the earth than that. It seems the majority of them exist in Borgin & Burkes and somehow, he isn't all that surprised.

While in Hogwarts, it was true that he had been, for all practical purposes, obsessed with Draco Malfoy in their sixth year. And for good reason, as it turned out. But he hasn't forgotten the glimmer of something in those slate grey eyes in Malfoy Manor the next year. It hadn't been bravery... not quite… but it was, perhaps, the desire to be. Harry had never forgotten it. The pair of them are not so very different. They both know what it's like to be forced into a situation that's beyond their control, and seems beyond their capabilities.

Then, Harry reminds himself that he isn't the one suspected of smuggling dark potions into England.

At the end of the tour, Kira turns to him with a soft look in her eyes. "Listen, Harry. Draco… he's really been through a lot since he left school. I don't know all the details, of course – he's very secretive – but…" she hesitates before raising her dark eyes to his, "there's a lot you don't understand about him. There's a lot no one understands about him, and I think he prefers it that way."

Harry pauses, respectful of her desire to tell him this. "But, why? What makes him like this? He has been, you know… ever since we met in our first year."

Kira only gives him a small smile. "I really wish I knew that. But Harry… sometimes the people you think are the worst of… are really just the ones who have been hurt the most. And sometimes the people you don't understand are the ones who are most worth getting to know."

He is stunned, and she seems to realize this, because she grabs an envelope from behind the counter and heads toward the door. "I have to go to Gringott's to drop something off. Draco will be back soon, so you should be fine. If a customer comes in, just let them browse. Most don't have the stones to approach the counter."

Harry really can't blame them.

Kira gives him one last smile before leaving him completely alone in the shop for the first time. He should use the time to investigate every corner of the place, but he finds himself frozen to the spot. He thinks of Sirius, as he often does in strange situations like these, and wonders what advice he would give him. What was it he had said? About light and dark?

Harry tries to remember, but his godfather's words escapes him.

.oOo.

Harry notes with a degree of panic that he has been left alone in the shop for half an hour and does not have the slightest inclination of what he can or cannot touch. It doesn't take long, however, to figure it out.

He runs his fingertips over an ancient-looking spearhead and hisses as he slices his finger open on it. Crimson beads swell up on his finger and sting as they hit the air. He laments the unfairness of it all, because surely… surely those weapons should be dull with age by now. His attention is still fixated on the cut, and how dark his blood looks before he feels a sinking feeling in his gut, because he hears the weapons clinking together. And he's not touching them.

Within seconds, they raise up in the air with their tips pointed at various, important parts of his body, and he pales.

Harry backs up slowly and grabs an antique shield from one of the shelves, praying that it doesn't curse him blind. It doesn't, and he holds it above his head just as the weapons crash down on him. He hears metal on metal which causes a hideous scraping noises… but that isn't the end of it. The weapons rear up to begin their second attack, and then their third. They are relentless, and Harry thinks he can't have possible survived the Dark Lord twice, and various Death Eater attacks only to be thwarted by a collection of ancient-looking spears and swords in Borgin & Burkes.

He hears some low words and the weapons pause as though confused, or uncertain. Then, Harry is slammed against the ground and shoved behind the counter by a slim blonde before he flourishes his wand at the artifacts with fall to the ground with a loud clank. Malfoy breathes above him and looks down at the ground before sliding his gaze onto Harry.

Harry is, once again, frozen. Malfoy's stare is intense and he feels uneasy, unsure of what he should do about it. The appraiser is kneeling next to him with Harry still flat on his back, embarrassingly enough, and grabs Harry's hand to inspect the wound on his finger. He brings it to his mouth, and Harry gapes as… as…

He begins to suck on it.

"Wh-…" He stammers uselessly.

Malfoy stops long enough to inform that, "I have to get the poison out."

Whatever his reasons are, it looks obscene, and Harry swears his heart stops for a second. The blonde's mouth is wrapped around his finger with his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. Then, Malfoy flicks his eyes up to Harry's and oh god…

Malfoy stands suddenly and dusts himself off. "I trust you can heal that on your own. It's time to close, and I have some… errands to run. I'll see you tomorrow." Harry scrambles to his feet and looks determinedly at anything other that Malfoy. As Harry turns toward the door to leave, he looks over his shoulder finally at the blonde man.

"Thanks for that, Malfoy."

To his surprise, a ghost of a smile appears on his lips, and Harry finds himself grinning shakily as he leaves the shop. Finally, Sirius's words come to him.

Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us.

What matters is the part we choose to act on.

.oOo.

An hour later, Malfoy steps into the Knockturn Alley apothecary shop with a crooked grin on his lips as he steps up to the counter. He's had time to go home to his flat in Islington, change, and grab a few galleons before heading back to his alley.

"Give me an ounce of your best poison. Aconite, if you have it." The shopkeeper glances at him with a question written on his face.

He turns his arm until the light catches on a silver blade hidden in his sleeve. "Now, if you would."

He exits the shop with the same crooked smile on his lips that he entered with. He let Harry Potter ruin his life once.

He won't let him ruin it again.

AN: Thank you for reading this far. Please leave a review!