guhewk.cc 
Brevem Conspectum
lauren3210
Summary:
During a routine clearing of an old Death Eater house, Harry stumbles over an ancient spell that sends him somewhere completely different. He has to work out where he is and how to get back. Or if he even wants to.
“And I thought Grimmauld Place was bad,” Harry muttered, squinting through the gloom of the hallway stretching out in front of him.
“Be quiet, I’m trying to concentrate.”
Harry rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time in a week. Bloody Ron and Hermione, taking off and leaving him for two weeks to this bloody nightmare. He leaned against the grimy wall and sighed heavily, mentally sending a curse to his two best friends. Did they have to go off on holiday at the same time? What even was the point in a honeymoon anyway?
“Potter, I said be quiet,” Harry’s living nightmare whispered.
Harry gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to smack the blond git in the face. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You keep shuffling around and huffing and sighing.” Malfoy replied, his face still turned away from Harry as he ran his wand over the doorknob again and again. “It’s really very irritating.”
“What’s irritating is how long you’ve spent looking at that bloody doorknob,” Harry retorted, giving up on trying to be quiet.
“Well excuse me for wanting to be sure the thing doesn’t try to bite our hands off before we attempt to open it.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at curse-breaking?”
Malfoy drew himself up from his crouch and turned to face Harry. “I am,” he said imperiously. “I’m the best Curse-breaker the Ministry has on its payroll.”
“Then shouldn’t you be quicker at it?”
Malfoy sneered at him. “I’m the best, Potter, because I’m thorough. Just because you’re used to barging in with both left feet doesn’t mean that’s what you should do.” He turned back to the door in front of them. “Now, if you’ll kindly shut up for a minute so I can work out how to remove this curse.”
“Fine! Just hurry the fuck up. The quicker we get through that bloody door, the quicker we can wrap this case up and I can go somewhere you’re not.”
Malfoy snorted delicately but didn’t reply, just bent back down and began concentrating on the doorknob once more. Harry tried to keep his breathing calm as he forced himself to relax back against the wall. He knew Malfoy was good at his job; other Aurors that had worked with him in the past had said as much themselves. And Harry had seen it with his own eyes, on the few occasions that their cases had coincided. Malfoy was meticulous in his approach, and had put a stop to more than a handful of lethal curses before they’d been triggered. He’d even saved Harry from blowing off his own hand during one such memorable job. Plus it helped that Malfoy was fabulous at making tea just the way Harry liked it, strong and sweet, with just a touch of milk. Being greeted with a cup every day so far on this job had certainly made up for the early mornings. It was just that Harry was used to having his Auror partner with him when he and Malfoy had to share the same small space. Without Hermione there to act as a buffer between them, Harry couldn’t seem to stop himself from falling back on old behaviour, letting Malfoy get to him as much as he ever did when they were at Hogwarts. He was certain that Malfoy was taking his sweet time just to piss him off, but he had nothing to prove it except his suspicions and the occasional look Malfoy sent his way when he thought Harry wasn’t looking.
They’d been rubbing each other up the wrong way all week, ever since Hermione had left with Ron on their long awaited honeymoon. The Auror department had a policy of ‘floating’ their temporarily un-partnered Aurors to other sections of the Ministry. It was for safety reasons, Kingsley said, because sending out into the field a pair of Aurors who hadn’t had time to learn how each other worked yet was apparently dangerous. So lone Aurors were always at the top of the pile to be lent out to other departments who might need their services; the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, Muggle Liaison, and curse-breaking. While usually curse-breakers were called in to assist Aurors when they came across something suspicious in the field, they also had their own jobs that sometimes required protection, someone to watch their back.
And so for two weeks, Harry was that protection exclusively. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that Draco sodding Malfoy wasn’t the curse-breaking department’s golden boy, who was almost always assigned the trickier cases, the ones that would most likely require an Auror to be present. With the exception of a handful of cases, Harry and Malfoy hadn’t had much cause to be around each other, and certainly never alone for any extended period of time. That suited Harry quite well; although he’d spoken in defence of both Malfoy and his mother at their trials, the blond was still an absolute git, and the less Harry saw of him the better, as far as he was concerned. Their interactions with each other extended only to the occasional nod in the hallways or greeting in the lifts, and when they crossed paths while on a case or down the Leaky, Harry usually left Malfoy for someone else to deal with. Hermione didn’t like Malfoy any better these days either, but she was at least able to remain civil and professional when she needed to be.
Apparently, Harry couldn’t say the same thing for himself. He couldn’t seem to help himself; just the sight of Malfoy made his chest tight and his skin prickle. They’d been sniping at each other all week, as they worked together to clear an old house of its dark artifacts. Usually, curse-breakers would work alone in this, but the address had been known to house more than a few remaining Death Eaters on the run. Harry had been tasked with watching Malfoy’s back while he concentrated on lifting the curses and taking inventory of all the cursed objects held within. All that meant for Harry was that he’d got to spend most of the past week with nothing to do but watch Malfoy work.
Which was why he was certain that Malfoy was taking his time with this last door. With nothing to occupy his attention other than Malfoy, Harry had recently gained quite a bit of knowledge about how he worked. He knew that when Malfoy was concentrating particularly hard, the tip of his tongue could be seen poking through his teeth. When he came across a difficult curse, his nose would wrinkle slightly. During moments when he was casually sweeping for trigger points, Malfoy would hum a surprisingly soothing melody.
And currently, Malfoy was doing precisely none of those things; he was just staring, blankly, at the bloody doorknob. Harry had absolutely no idea why Malfoy would want to drag out their time standing in a dank, mouldy hallway of a dank, mouldy house. Harry didn’t exactly want to go down into the basement himself, but they couldn’t leave until every last inch of the house had been swept and cleared, and it wasn’t as though the hallway was much more of a fun place to be, hot cups of tea not withstanding.
Harry’s temper was very quickly fraying. “Seriously, Malfoy, what is the hold up?”
He tensed, waiting for the backlash of Malfoy’s anger for being interrupted again, and was surprised when it didn’t come. Instead, Malfoy sat back on his heels and rubbed at his nose—that was now wrinkled slightly, Harry suddenly noted—with the heel of his hand.
“I’ve removed the mordent manibus curse, but there still seems to be some residual magic.” Malfoy huffed out a quiet breath and scrubbed his hand across his face. “I can’t tell if it’s just leftover from the hand biting curse, or if it’s something else entirely.”
Harry thought for a long moment. “Does it physically stop us from opening the door?” He asked finally.
Malfoy shook his head. “No, but I don’t know what will happen if we do. I can’t even tell if anything will happen.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, neither do I,” Malfoy muttered to himself. He shook his head, and then stood up again, leaning against the wall next to Harry. “There’s something there, but I can’t tell what. It feels…”
“It feels, what?” Harry asked, when it became clear that Malfoy wasn’t going to finish his sentence.
“It feels like I’m not allowed to know it yet,” Malfoy said with a shrug.
“I don’t understand,” Harry repeated. He was starting to get a bad feeling; the creaks and groans of the house around them suddenly sounded louder, more purposeful, and the door in front of them seemed to shimmer with ugly possibilities. He was rapidly becoming very tired of this entire job.
“Well, the only way to know for sure is if we open it, right?”
“Are you joking, Potter?” Malfoy said, raising his eyebrows.
Harry shrugged. “We can’t leave until the house has been secured, and if you can’t work out what it is by looking at it, that only really leaves one option, doesn’t it?”
Malfoy blew out a loud breath, then rolled his eyes. “Fine. But you’re going first.”
Harry snorted. “I didn’t expect any differently, Malfoy.”
He drew his wand, then reached out with his left hand. He took a deep breath and grabbed the doorknob, wincing as he waited for something to happen. Nothing did, and both he and Malfoy let out a relieved breath. Biting down on his lower lip, he turned the handle and let the door swing open. A set of wooden stairs led down into yet more murky gloom, thicker and darker than anywhere else in the house. The wood was bent and cracked in places, and Harry wondered if it would be stable enough to take his weight. He mentally prepared a quick cushioning charm, just in case he fell through, and lifted his leg to take a step forward.
“Wait, Potter,” Malfoy said, gripping his arm as he looked down at the floor. Harry followed his gaze and saw two words etched into the wood of the doorway.
Brevem Conspectum
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Malfoy said, his nose wrinkling. “But I think if we step over it, we’re likely to find out.”
Harry glanced down into the yawning black once more, and gritted his teeth. The quicker they got down there, the quicker the suspense would be over.
“Here goes nothing,” he murmured, and then placed his foot firmly on the first step. Nothing happened. He gingerly placed all of his weight onto the step and brought his other foot down onto the next one. The wood creaked ominously beneath him, but he remained miraculously both upright and in one piece.
“Perhaps it really was just residual magic left over from a previous curse,” he heard Malfoy mutter to himself, and then he felt the gap between them close as Malfoy stepped over the threshold behind him. It was about six steps down when it started to happen. The darkness seemed to creep up towards them, enveloping them both despite the lumos that had lit both of their wands. The air was cold around them, and Harry started to feel dizzy. His footsteps faltered beneath him as he took another step down.
“Potter, are you alright?” Harry faintly heard Malfoy ask.
Harry’s knees shook and he felt suddenly very light-headed, and he tried to grab onto the banister to hold himself up. He stumbled back into Malfoy, and the wood beneath his hands gave way at the same time. Harry tried to regain his balance, but he was dizzy and sick and Malfoy was tripping over him. Their legs tangled together as the stairs seemed to disappear, and Harry grabbed on tight to Malfoy as they fell down, down, down…
The first thing Harry became aware of was the sunlight streaming directly into his face. He groaned and shifted, burying his nose into the warmth next to him to shield himself. His head was pounding and his entire body felt as though he’d been kicked down a flight of stairs. He stretched his legs and whimpered slightly at the ache in his lower back. He snuggled further into the warm pillow while he waited; no doubt a healer would be coming along in a few minutes to administer a blessed pain potion. And then the pillow beneath him spoke.
“Don’t even think about it, Harry. You promised me coffee.”
