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0.
Honestly, it's a bit typical: why wouldn't the dormant dimensional portal explode mere weeks into Unspeakable Malfoy and Unspeakable Potter working together, taking not only half their archives but also their top magical travel expert with it too?
In a way, it's also typical for Unspeakable Potter to jump after him.
1.
On the other side of a scary, magical portal, Harry is greeted by the third level of his own Department. Draco has his hand on the door to the Vast room. They both freeze in place. Harry's heart skips a beat in relief. And then, it skips a beat in disappointment.
"You're not my Draco."
"Excuse me? Your Draco?"
"I didn't mean it like that—listen, you didn't happen to jump through any weird exploding portals about two minutes ago, did you?"
Harry doesn't really need him to answer; Draco's hair is braided and streaked with neon green, he's wearing a skin-tight pitch-black jumpsuit, and he's standing in a way that makes it obvious it wouldn't even take him half a second to flee.
He doesn't flee, though, but looks Harry up and down instead. "Did the metal ball thing get you, too?"
"What?"
"Nothing. Forget it. Good luck with whatever you have going on, but I'm kind of in a rush—"
"You're trespassing," Harry suddenly realises. It's so obvious now that it's in his head.
"So are you, Potter," Draco snipes.
"I work here!"
"You... work here. Here? Quidditch star by day, Unspeakable by night? Sure..."
Draco is looking at him like he's lost his mind and maybe Harry has—it would be very unlikely for every single version of him to be an Unspeakable after all. It was probably only luck that had him ending up in his Department after the jump.
"Well, not here-here," he corrects himself then. "I am an Unspeakable. In a different dimension. And you are too! But this weird portal thing stole you from our dimension and then I jumped after you, and now I have to find you—the real you— hey, wanna help?"
Draco looks him over again and then crosses his arms over his chest. "How?"
"I don't know... Come exploring different dimensions with me!" It's a wild idea, but somehow, the idea of jumping through unreliable portals alone is far worse than doing it with a person who both is and isn't a perfect stranger.
"Tempting," Draco finally says. "But my fifty thousand galleons are in this dimension."
"Fifty thousand galleons? For what?!"
"For this little beauty." The thing Draco pulls out of his breast pocket is the size of a plum and made of a shiny blue metal that makes it look as if it's glowing from within.
"Is that—?"
"Yep," Draco smirks and hides his prize again. "As I said, gotta run. Nice meeting you, good luck with your quest, yada, yada, Stupefy!"
2.
The blast from Draco's spell hits Harry at all the wrong angles, so when he next opens his eyes he's sprawled on the floor, staring at a green ceiling and a concerned, bespectacled face of Draco Malfoy—wait, bespectacled?
"Fuck. I need to go," he mutters and tries to get up only for Draco to gently, but firmly, push him back down.
"Don't move," Draco says in a calm and soothing tone of voice, as if he thinks Harry is scared, or maybe prone to ignoring instructions. "You may have spinal injuries. I haven't had time to examine you yet."
Harry shakes his head. "I don't have a spinal injury; I can move. I'm not even in pain!"
"That can be cause for concern. We should—"
"—go our separate ways, yes, I agree." Without letting Draco get another word in, Harry jumps up and rushes to the door. It's locked. "Where am I anyway?"
"You were transferred to the infirmary inside the Department of Mysteries, inside the Ministry of Magic. That's in London, England," Draco tells him. "What's your name?"
Harry shakes his head again: his name is the least important thing right now. "Do you have a headache reliever? I think I hit the edge of the portal on my way in..."
Draco raises an eyebrow. "That would be... this portal?" He pulls something out of his deep robe pockets and holds it up for Harry to see. It's a magical photograph of Harry's portal twisting and spinning in place in a nondescript DoM hallway. If he didn't know better, Harry would have thought it was taken in his DoM.
"Yes," he confirms quickly. "Where is that? I need to go back to that as soon as possible."
"You're not going anywhere before I can give you a full physical—"
"Look, Draco—Malfoy—thank you for the concern, but there are more important things right now than my headache. I'm alive and relatively okay. I've been worse. I need to get back to that portal."
Draco hums. "So we know each other in your world as well. I suppose your name is Harry Potter, too?"
"Yes. Exactly. I know a different version of you—a version of you who is trapped in some alternate dimension because of a little mishap in our department, and I have to go find him!"
"I'm an Unspeakable?" Draco's gaze strays towards the door, becoming distant and glazed. After a moment, he snaps back to attention. When he looks at Harry again, there's the smallest hint of a smile on his face. "How interesting."
"I bet he'd think you being a Healer is interesting, too. Let me go so I can go and tell him."
"I need you to stay here."
"What if you let me run away?" Harry suggests immediately, because he really, really needs to get going and who knows what kind of ward is keeping him locked in. "You can tell them I attacked you. They won't care I'm gone."
Draco snorts. "Won't care about a dimensional anomaly? Are you kidding? Are you sure you're an Unspeakable?"
"Okay, yes, you're right, they will care, but I really have to go -"
"You're as annoying as our Harry Potter."
"Annoying enough for you to quit trying to stop me?"
Harry spreads his arms like he's just offered this Draco some incredible boon. The only thing he can do is hope that Draco Malfoy’s tendency to let him get away with bullshitting his way through problems carries across dimensions.
Draco stares at him for a couple of excruciating seconds and then sighs deeply. "Fine. I'm releasing you against medical advice."
He flicks his wand, and the door unlocks with an audible click. Harry opens them immediately.
"Thank you. I owe you one," he says, already halfway through the door, but then backtracks and leans back into the room. "Tell your Harry to buy you a beer in my name!"
Draco snorts again, and Harry takes it as his signal to run. He's followed only by an exasperated sigh and a yell that, "The portal is the other way!"
3.
Maybe it's some sort of cosmic justice for rushing through the room of Unspeakables and jumping through the portal before any of them could stop him, but it seems that Harry is not the only one who knows the benefits of the element of surprise.
Barely have his feet touched the ground in the new dimension, and there are already ropes around his arms and legs, rooting him in place.
"State your name and intentions, or we'll gag you too."
Draco's voice is entirely no-nonsense. His wand arm is steady and his wand pointed straight at Harry's chest alongside two others. Harry can't read a single emotion on Draco's face, but there's an air of uncertainty permeating the whole area they're standing in.
He clears his throat. "Erm, my name is Harry Potter, I'm an Unspeakable and I'm looking for a colleague who fell through a dimensional portal."
The two people flanking Draco frown, and then the younger one—a man maybe in his mid-twenties—raises his wand higher, even if only a quarter of an inch. "Unspeakables have been abolished—"
Draco lifts a hand and the man quiets. Draco's eyes stay firmly on Harry as he asks, "You're not from this dimension?"
"No."
Draco hesitates for a brief second, some impossible mix of emotions grazing his expression before disappearing, and then lowers his wand. "Hazel, unbind his arms."
The woman on Draco's right waves her wand and the rope falls away. Harry rotates his wrists to loosen them. "What about my legs?"
Draco clicks his tongue. "The gag is still an option, Mr Potter."
"It's Unspeakable Potter, if we're being formal," Harry replies, emboldened by the small concession. "And may I know why I'm bound?"
"We don't have Unspeakables, Mr Potter," Draco says dryly. "They were disbanded six years ago. And you are bound because you're standing on consecrated ground."
"What?" Harry blurts out immediately. "I thought... I've always landed in the Department of Mysteries before. I can't control—"
Draco raises his hand again, and for some reason Harry can't explain, he shuts up. "The Department of Mysteries used to be here, yes, so I suppose your little portal is still spatially accurate."
Harry looks around: they're standing in in the middle of a huge plain of black rock, no foliage in sight. The sky above him is blue and cloudless but the slight wind curling around the four of them is making the tiny rolling rocks tumble between the crevices of the blackened earth.
"What happened to your DoM?" Harry asks quietly. This complete desolation... it's unexplainable.
Draco presses his lips together as if the question pains him, but answers anyway. "They messed with something no one should touch and it ruined them. If it weren't for..." Draco huffs, shares a look with Hazel. "Well, if you are who you say you are then perhaps I should omit the details lest your ego grows too large."
"Sergeant Malfoy, sir—"
"Quiet, Patrick."
Patrick ignores him. "He should know. Maybe he can prevent it in his world—"
"I said quiet."
The frown on Draco's face is a severe thing. His mouth is twisted into a grimace. His shoulders are as tight as the rocks they're standing on.
Harry swallows, takes a breath, and then asks, lowly, "You're a sergeant?"
"Have you ever heard of the phrase 'speak when spoken to', Mr Potter?"
"I mean, sure, but if you knew me, and I bet you did, you know I'm not the best at following the rules."
Draco's wand arm twitches at his side. Hazel throws him a panicked look.
"Sir—" Patrick starts but Draco just throws him a look, and then turns back to Harry. "I did know you. And for your own sake, you better stick to the script this time."
This time. What did their Harry do the last time he went off script? Slowly, bits and pieces of some terrible tragedy begin coming together in Harry's mind. The scorched wasteland around them, the near disaster that was only thwarted by... by what? Or better yet, by whom?
He debates over whether it'd be insensitive to ask, but his presence here is already insensitive. He tries to be as respectful as possible when he whispers, "What did he do?"
Draco scoffs anyway. His eyes move somewhere to the left again, avoiding all of them. "He sacrificed himself to save our world. To save its magic. Even though no one asked him to. Even though I…" He bites his lip and then adds, bitterly, "They call him Saint Harry without even a hint of irony nowadays."
"He died here," Harry says in a breath.
"He did. And you're standing on his grave."
Unwittingly, Harry looks down at his feet, at the ground made of ash and bone. "I... I'm sorry for your loss," he mutters. "I—I can get out of your hair if you unbind my legs."
"Hazel."
A spell and he's free. "Thank you," he says, to all of them, but mainly to Draco who's now staring at him all stoic and neutral again.
"Don't thank me," he tells him. "Just leave."
Harry nods. He's a foot away from the portal when Draco calls his name again.
"Potter! Who are you looking for?" Who did you lose?
"You, of course. Who else?"
4.
"You're not supposed to be here." Draco's voice is as intense as a stab of a knife to the gut when Harry appears in yet another universe.
"Is this the Department of Mysteries?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I'm an Unspeakable and—"
"The Department is supposed to be closed today," Draco cuts him off. "I told them to send out a notice in advance. I cannot do my job with you lot milling about like some sort of bloodsucking fiends. It's distracting! The whole scheme could collapse in seconds if one of you comes too close—"
"Scheme? What scheme?"
Draco's twitches. Harry almost laughs.
"The warding scheme? The configuration is very complex and I can't concentrate on layering it as well as entertaining your childish whims, so if you please leave the way you came!"
"I... Alright. Just one question—"
"No, you can't watch! How many times—"
"That's not what I was going to ask!"
Draco's mouth snaps shut. He grinds his teeth and then asks, "What is it then?"
"Have you seen any other Unspeakables today?"
"No, thank Merlin, and stop talking about it before you jinx me—I can finish this in a day but only if you give me the peace and quiet I have been promised! It's in the contract because I just knew one of you would try to pull something like this! Do not come complaining to me if Wilson takes the additional charge out of your paycheck! Why are you still here?!"
"Okay, okay, I'm going." Harry lifts his hands, palms up, as he slowly makes his way backward to the portal. "I'm sorry I disturbed you. Good luck with the wards."
"I don't need luck, Potter—"
5.
The room he lands in is white, large, and circular. Draco is sitting on the other side of it, a projection of some kind hovering in front of his face. He looks bored and doesn't even glance in Harry's direction as he says, "DIP, please."
"Sorry?"
"Your DIP, sir."
"Erm, what's a deeaypee?"
"Dimension number, identification document and purpose of visit. I need to enter them into the form."
"I... I don't have any of that."
Draco blinks. "You're... jumping illegally? You shouldn't be telling me this. Don't you have fake documentation at least? What kind of a smuggler are you?"
"I'm not a smuggler! I... I don't even know where I am—this portal just appeared and one of my colleagues fell inside and I'm trying to find him."
"...Right. Hm. Well... what's his DIP? I can check if he's been through."
"He... he wouldn't have a DIP either! Look, we... we're Unspeakables in our dimension and we've never done this before. His name is Draco Malfoy, if that helps. Unspeakable Malfoy, then. And he doesn't have a 'Purpose of visit' because he didn't come through on purpose!"
Draco blinks again. "His name is Draco Malfoy?"
"Yes! Is he in your... system thingy?"
"Is this a prank?" Draco asks, shoulders slumping. He levels Harry with a scathing, unamused look. "Did Greg send you?"
"No! Look, my colleague really is missing, so if he's not been here, I need to go and look for him elsewhere." Harry glances around and then shakes his head. "I don't know how long we've been gone: we might have been missing for days! We have sensitive research back at home—"
"Stop and take a breath."
"I don't have time to take a breath, I need to find him!"
Draco squints at him. Shrugs. "Well, chances are he's going to turn up here eventually. Our jump point is the second widest in the world, and it caught your portal."
"It's the same portal. If it caught my porta,l then it can't catch his because I'm using it. Oh my god, does that mean we'll never be in the same place? Are we stuck in foreign dimensions—"
A sharp pain bites Harry's side. He looks up just in time to see Draco putting his wand away.
"Calm down and breathe!" he says. "I swear I told you to breathe already. Are you always this neurotic?"
"I'm not neurotic—"
Draco rolls his eyes. "You're just concerned, yes, noted. Listen, no portal is ever the same. Whatever is making you jump is creating new portals each time. As long as your colleague has access to this portal-making thing, we're gonna catch him sooner or later."
"How much later is later?"
"I don't know. Could be minutes, could be years." Apathetically, Draco moves some of the words around his floating chart, and then shrugs again. "We're not fortune tellers."
"Years?! You're crazy if you think I'll be staying here for years—"
"We have quite comfortable accommodations across the bridge if you want to get settled there. I can send a message if your colleague appears."
"I'm not just gonna sit here and wait! I need to go find him! I need to—"
"You need to stay in the one place where you're most likely to cross paths!"
"No, you don't understand—"
Draco moves the screen away from himself, letting himself glare at Harry straight on. "You don't understand! You have no idea what you're doing, you have no control over your portals, you have zero clues about your colleague's whereabouts and you're acting like a child!"
"I'm not acting like a child! And if you're just going to sit there and insult me while being useless, I'm gonna go do some actual rescuing!"
"Shut up!"
"You shut up!"
"I said, watch out, you deaf moron—"
The portal sparks, fizzles, bubbles, crackles. Explodes. Harry flies across the room. His whole body is one burning ache.
He does his best to clear his spotty vision and manages it just in time to see a miracle: Draco, his Draco, stepping out of the portal.
+1
As soon as his eyes land on a Harry Potter, Draco rushes towards him. "What colour is your badge?"
"Lemon yellow."
"Oh, thank Merlin!" Without a second thought, he pulls Harry into a hug, cheek against cheek. His heart is hammering and now that he's finally found the right Harry, he feels suddenly a bit faint. And Merlin, he's so tired now that the constantly-on-edge feeling is slowly seeping out of him...
Harry's hands come to his waist quite tentatively and only then does Draco truly realise that he just pulled Harry into a hug. He pulls away immediately. "Sorry. It's just... Merlin, alternate versions of you are weird."
"No, I—I didn't mind," Harry mutters quickly and waves his hand between them. It's a rather awkward gesture and he seems to realise it because he drops it and gives Draco a small smile. "And tell me about it."
Draco smiles back and some ineffable understanding passes between them. Draco's chest fills with a strange warmth.
"Your DIP, please, sir?"
The voice comes from the other side of the room and Draco nearly chokes on his own spit when he sees who is speaking. It's like looking at a broken magical mirror—a marred reflection staring back at you. This other Draco has a slightly overgrown buzzcut, half a dozen piercings in his face and is wearing an ill-fitting corporate uniform in a garish orange. It's a discomforting image to find yourself having to face.
"DIP?" Draco murmurs, still taken aback.
"Dimension number, Identification document and Purpose of visit," the other Draco drones on, dispassionately.
Draco decides to at least cooperate when the other Draco's existence has, in some ways, helped him reunite with Harry.
"Oh. Erm, we're from Dimension 508-697—"
"We have a Dimension number?"
"Of course we have a Dimension number—every dimension has a number!"
"Your identification, sir," the other Draco says sternly.
"Will my badge do? I'm a government employee."
"That'll work just fine." Draco's badge is pushed into an invisible slot under the floating text the other Draco is staring at, and when it pops back out, all of Draco's badge information is there for the viewing too. "And the purpose of visit?"
Draco swallows, then glances at Harry. "Find a good spot to jump back home." Harry smiles at him again. It feels kind of magical to be on the other side of that smile. Draco clears his throat and turns back to the other version of himself. "Do you... Can you calibrate a portal for us to return?"
"We do offer that service, yes."
Score. They can actually get back home!
"Potter, tell me you brought your wallet with you."
"Erm, no?"
All hope from mere seconds ago disappears as quickly as it has come.
"Great," Draco laughs, "me neither. Which means we're stuck here—"
"Actually," Draco's counterpart interjects, "our calibration services are free of charge for the unintentional jumps. We work under a code of ethics which sees stranded travellers as an offence of the highest degree."
"Oh. Wow. That's rather..."
Harry bumps their shoulders together and it cuts through Draco's shock. "I knew you could be decent if you put your mind to it."
"Or if I'm forced to work under a code of ethics..." Draco mutters, but then shakes his head—not the point right now. "Well, do you need a particular level of magic to read our dimensional signature?"
"A simple Lumos will do."
"Care to do the honours, Potter?"
"Lumos."
The glow is perfectly circular and surprisingly warm. It's as bright as Draco's relief, as that thing that's appeared inside his ribcage.
A shower of sparks bursts out of the other Draco's wand. He's staring at his floating information and then, after a nod, turns to the two of them."Okay, so that is dimension 508-697 and the portal to take you there will appear on your right in three... two... have a safe trip!"
They fall over each other as they land in what is hopefully their own Department of Mysteries. Unspeakable Francis offers each of them a hand and then pulls them up.
"Good to have you back, Unspeakable Malfoy, Unspeakable Potter."
"It's good to be back, sir," Harry says and Draco just nods in agreement.
"Have you managed to rein in the portal?" he asks.
"It's quarantined—want to take a look?"
Draco shares a look with Harry and then turns back to their colleague.
"I think we'd appreciate some distance, at least for now," Draco says, as neutrally as he can manage. And then he gets an idea... "Maybe it would be best if Unspeakable Potter and I take the rest of the day off—to recuperate."
"Of course, of course," Francis replies immediately. Draco does his best to suppress his satisfied grin as the man continues. "That's completely understandable. Owl Melissa tomorrow morning if you wish to extend your time off. We all understand unexpected displacement can be rather startling."
"That's one word for it..." Harry mutters. Draco kicks his shin and then gives Francis a wide smile.
"Thank you so much for the offer. We greatly appreciate it. We'll be in touch."
With that, he grabs Harry's hand and practically runs to the exit. Once safely in the elevator, he releases the man—with no little amount of regret—and lets his shoulders slump.
"Hey, Draco?" Harry calls after a second or two.
"Yeah?"
"How about a drink?"
Draco's heart flutters in his chest.
"You know what? I'd love one." Harry smiles and Draco smiles back. "Your place or mine?"
Harry's eyes gleam when they meet Draco's. His smile is delightfully pleased.
"Yours," Harry says and takes Draco's hand back into his.