Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You)

chapter 11

"I'm not going to argue with you," Robards says. "You're not ready to go back in the field."

"I am," Harry insists. "Really, I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Harry," Robards says slowly, and Harry can tell that his gentle, reasonable tone of voice is probably meant to be compassionate, but really it just sounds condescending. "Your partner died on Saturday. You need more than three days to heal from this."

Harry shakes his head, shrugging off the pain of Robards' words. He'll need more than three lifetimes to heal from this, but in the meantime the least he can do is try his best to reassemble his life. "Deskwork, then. There's got to be some paperwork you can give me, at least." His voice trembles alarmingly, and he can't keep himself from adding, "Please."

The pity on Robards' face is too much to bear. "Harry..."

But Harry's already fumbling for the doorknob. "Forget it. I was just, I thought... Just, forget it."

"Harry," Robards says again, but Harry's got the door open and he's fleeing down the hall. He can't stay here another minute.

He Apparates as soon as he's able and ends up back in Muggle London. For a while he loses himself in the crowds and it's nice to be no one for a couple of hours. Here, he's just one face among many, one more person going on about his business, and it's comfortable and anonymous. It's nice to pretend that he's a normal person, that his life is ordinary, that his entire world hasn't just shattered and sliced him to ribbons.

After a while, he's able to admit to himself that Robards was right to have turned him down. Harry's not ready to be out in the field again, and he's not ready to have a new partner. But he needs to do something and he doesn't understand why Robards won't let him at least do research or sort through evidence or some other sort of paperwork. He could be helpful. He could be useful. He could be doing something worthwhile.

After two weeks, Harry had more than had his fill of paperwork and he was more than ready to get out in the field and do something worthwhile. He, along with the rest of his training class, had been stuck on desk duty since they'd been promoted to full Aurors, assisting on paperwork of active cases to get a feel for all the forms that had to be filled out and all the rules that had to be followed, while the higher-ups reviewed all their test scores and compared them to the other Aurors to see who would be matched up with whom as partners.

But all that was at an end now, and the day he'd been waiting for had finally arrived. He and the rest of his class sat anxiously in their old lecture room, waiting to find out which Auror they'd be partnered with. Harry scanned over the older Aurors milling around the front of the lecture hall while Head Auror Robards called name after name, and he wondered which one of them he'd be assigned to work with.

It wasn't until the numbers had really begun to dwindle that Harry realised there were two fewer experienced Aurors than there were newly promoted trainees. And it wasn't until Robards called the very last two names on his list - Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy - that Harry realised why.

Even then, as he turned to Malfoy and they exchanged identical looks of horror and disbelief, it didn't feel quite real. It was almost unheard of for two inexperienced Aurors to be paired with each other. But not impossible, apparently. He expected Malfoy to object to it, to speak up right then and there and say that he refused to work with Harry. But Malfoy said nothing and, too shocked to react with anything other than mute compliance, neither did Harry.

Malfoy collected the key to their new office from Robards, and Harry followed him through the hallways and into the small room, furnished only with a pair of desks and chairs and a few empty bookshelves. He closed the door behind him.