分卷阅读5（1 / 2）

Icarus closed his eyes and tried to summon more patience. At this rate, he should’ve run out hours ago. “I can hear that,” he managed to say back. His grip on the charmed listening device tightened and the voices from the flat became muffled for a moment. Icarus took a breath and loosened his fingers.

“Should we move?”

“No, the mission is observe and protect,” Icarus said, bringing the mental tally to sixteen times he’d had to repeat the basic tenant of their assignment. Silence finally settled between them, and he thought for a moment he would have some peace.

“I have a clear shot.”

“Don’t take it.” Icarus turned and saw McLaggen with his wand raised, licking his lips and smiling.

“Do I take it?”

“Don’t—” the words barely left his mouth before he heard McLaggen mutter a Stunning Spell that went flying across the alley through the open window of the flat. Icarus watched in horror as it ricocheted off a sconce near the door and flew somewhere into the ceiling inside. The stranger had shoved Malfoy through the entrance and slammed the door, missing the spell by mere inches.

McLaggen’s shoulders sagged. “Missed.”

Icarus sighed. “Thank Salazar for that. Pack up, we’re following the target.”

“Was that a spell?” Igora craned her head around to try and get a view of the building across the way from Eversworn’s flat. “What just happened?”

Felix lowered his thermos and shook his head.

They’d set up across the street from The Laughing Fox and expected a slow and boring night watching drunks fall out of the seedy pub. Upon finding out Eversworn lived above such an unsavory place, Igora felt even more justification in her belief that he was in fact hiding something. What she hadn’t expected was to watch a strange, well-dressed man expertly scale the building and break into Eversworn’s flat.

Felix pointed out the window. “Look!” The strange man in question came out of the side entrance and calmly strolled down the street. There was no mistaking the pointy features and long blond hair. Igora’s eyes bulged when she realized Draco Malfoy had just made contact with their person of interest.

A few moments later, movement from the building across the alley caught her attention. Two men in standard Ministry covert-ops robes rushed out from the entrance and crept in the shadows. They kept a safe distance from Malfoy. Igora snorted. “That looks like a standard Auror stakeout.”

Felix tilted his head and turned to her. “Is the guy we’re tailing meeting up with another guy who is also being tailed by other people?”

“That appears to be the case,” she replied, but Igora felt something entirely bigger was at play.

After having recovered from the break in and subsequent kicking out of Draco Malfoy, Harry left his flat to walk around and clear his head. He’d put up extra wards and sealed the window just in case Malfoy had any idea of coming back while Harry was gone.

At first he thought he might sneak back into the Ashtyl to spy on the card game, but his feet took him past the hotel to the border with Muggle Edinburgh. The air felt heavy around him, as if it held some sort of answer to his problem but wasn’t ready to offer it up. With every step he took away from Travertel and Cremfig Heights, Harry felt more and more at ease. He needed to start from scratch if he was going to salvage this assignment. He stopped by a pub for a pint before he headed back, wandering the smaller side streets of the area.

He wondered absently what Malfoy was up to in Edinburgh and how the man he thought was Archie Eversworn might be inclined to help him. Last Harry had heard, he had been kicked out of a Ministry training program for questionable test results in the field. Harry had felt a tinge of sympathy for Malfoy. Since the war, he had done nothing but try to right the wrongs of his family with charitable reparations, outspoken support of progressive ideas throughout the Wizarding World, and trying to join the Ministry, though Harry, for the life of him, could not remember what department he’d applied to. Hermione had mentioned Malfoy once after coming to the pub from a big meeting.