Paper Trails

23rd March 2001

 Nearly a month had passed and Harry was still as jumpy as ever. His appearance in the office no longer seemed so sporadic now Theo had obtained a copy of the auror training schedule from Davis. But the glamours were still as thick as ever and Harry refused to take them off, just in case someone came in unexpectedly. Ever since they had become more than just co-workers, Harry had been more likely to stay and talk, but the slightest sound would still send him running. It was starting to infuriate Theo, but he was unsure what he could do without breaking their fragile friendship.

The final straw came when Harry tripped over the waste paper bin next to his desk as he shuffled out to the stacks with a pile of scrolls. The scrolls went flying and Harry ended up face down on the floor. Theo groaned slamming his quill down in the quill holder ignoring the spatters of ink it left on his notes for the German manuscript that had finally arrived that morning.

"Potter, you are barely standing." He snapped, "Take off the bloody glamours and let me have a look at you."

"No, I can't risk..." Harry trailed off with a glance to the door. "It's not that bad, don't worry about it."

"Fine." Theo raised his wand, sighing inwardly as Harry flinched minutely. "I am warding the office. If Granger or Weasley come within twenty foot of us we will be alerted. That should give you time to put whatever glamours you want on and get back to your seat or out to the stacks."

It was pitiful the look of relief that crossed Harry's face at those words. Merlin, he had to get Potter away from those three. How did they go from being the best friends of the boy-who-lived to this. Grabbing his healing kit, Theo knelt in front of his office-mate and began the far too familiar routine.

"Harry, I know you don't like talking about this, but is there somewhere you can go for a bit, just to relax and heal yourself?"

"Uh not really," Harry said playing with the frayed sleeve of his robe. The cut was about ten years out of date, patches subtly covering a few of the more well worn areas.

"What about your godfathers old place?"

"The Goblins took that as recompense for the Gringotts break in." Harry admitted with a small grin on his face. Theo sighed, he had forgotten about that. All in all, Potter had gotten off lightly, he imagined anyone else would have been killed for such an act.

"You have your inheritance though, can't you just rent somewhere, or use one of the Potter houses?"

"Not until I'm twenty-one," Harry said with a sigh, "The trust stipulates that I cannot claim any of my inheritance until that time and my salary isn't enough to cover rent on my own place, I don't have enough in my trust vault to budget for a flat either."

"You are working two jobs, surely that must give you a decent salary?" Theo exclaimed. Just how extravagant was the idiots tastes if he used two wages on a single apartment, or maybe he was just horrendous at budgeting.

"Uh, not exactly. I only really get my trainee archivist pay. It is enough for me to pay rent to live at the burrow, but not to get my own place, even if I went halves with someone."

Theo frowned, he thought the Burrow was the Weasley family home, how much were they charging for what surely amounted to just renting a room? Trainee archivists didn't get paid much, but it should be more than enough to cover most small flats in London, or possibly a house if Harry was willing to apparate or floo in from further away.

"Why don't you just go live with your family then." Theo asked, immediately regretting it when Harry flinched.

"Not possible." Harry said, turning away to his desk bending down to pick up the fallen scrolls. Theo sighed as Harry started to sort though his inbox. He had clearly hit another sore point for Potter, the man was full of hidden traps, but Theo wasn't going to back off this time. He had to learn more if he was going to help Harry.

"Why is it not possible?" Theo asked, unwilling to let this one slide. "They survived the war right? We would have heard if the Dark Lord had found them."

"Yeah they survived." Harry said bitterly.

"You do not seem too happy about it" Theo observed drily.

"They would probably rather I stayed dead." Harry laughed, "Not that I would know, I haven't seen them since my seventeenth birthday."

"What happened?"
"I left their protection and they were glad to see the back of me. I think the order helped them to go into hiding, but I didn't really care enough to ask where they went."

"They did not care for you then?"

"Lets just say I understand the reasons some of the death eaters had for muggle hunting." Harry threw a grin over to Theo, the dark look out of place on the usually passive face.

"They beat you." The words felt heavy, final. They were crossing into new territory and there would be no way back.

"It was more extreme neglect. Beating me would have required that they acknowledged my existence."

"They did not want you." He stated. It was easier than asking the question, he wasn't sure if he wanted an answer to.

"I was everything they did not want to admit existed."

"Dumbledore never..." Theo paused at the expression on Harry's face. "Ha, of course, the esteemed paragon of all things light would not even care about his own unless it was for the greater good."

Harry gave a sad smile, picking up the box of scrolls from his desk. Theo let him go, watching as he disappeared into the stacks. The more he learnt about the supposed saviour, the more he just wanted to offer him an escape. Who would have thought that Harry's supposed charmed life was not so charmed after all.

But then again, a spoilt celebrity would not have survived on the run from the Dark Lord for a year, nor would he have willingly walked to his death.

Turning back to his notes on the translation of Die Kunst der künstlichen Liebe, Theo held back a grin at the sudden mental image of Blaise on the run. In the ten years he had known the Italian, Theo had never known him to have so much as a hair out of place. The idea of his friend roughing it for more than a few minutes was so unbelievably absurd that it took all of his self control not to laugh out loud.