Winner
Beyond the farmhouse the fields lasted forever, stretching goldeny-crisp in the morning air. The sound of cows in the distance, the gentle gurgle of the stream, but—
“No chicken,” the man in the red cowboy hat said. “Noticed? Not roosters, no clacking, no nothing. Usually at this time there’d be a racket.”
Some clacking: just Malfoy’s boots, with the sharp, pointy edges that Harry couldn’t help but stare at indefinitely. Coming out of the barn, and the gleam of his hair in the morning light made something clench in Harry’s belly, too tight.
“All there,” Malfoy said and came closer. The crease between his eyebrows was familiar: the look of a puzzle. Harry lived for the mystery: Malfoy lived for this. The answers. He was sort of perfect, as a partner, at least.
“See? Just as I said. Chickens all there, roosters all in their place, but nothing. Like someone’s come and zipped their little beaks shut.”
Malfoy jotted something down in his notepad. “You say it began three days ago?”
“At sunrise. Everything suddenly went quiet. Thought, something this weird, I gotta tell my Marge, and then she called you folks.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?” Harry asked. “We got reports from the neighbouring farms about something they call ‘the alligator’. Ever heard of it?”
Cowboy-hat went still. “Alligator, you say,” with an exaggerated tilt to his frown he definitely didn’t have before, “no, don’t think I have.”
“Hmm,” Malfoy tapped the notepad with his pen. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Griffin. If you remember anything else, please let us know.”
He nodded, chewed his bottom lip, opened his mouth, then closed it. Walked away to his truck, to the sound of a tractor in the next field and, still, no chickens.
“He knows something,” Harry said.
“Obviously.” Malfoy was already collecting his things in that little bag he always insisted on carrying. He looked so strange in those boots, in that shirt, so oddly different and blaringly himself and annoyingly, overwhelmingly handsome. It was too early in the morning, and Harry was losing his mind. Malfoy being a condescending arse shouldn’t make him feel like that.
“Obvious? What’s so obvious about this?”
The tip of Malfoy’s mouth tugged upwards. “You mean you didn’t notice the secret hatch in the barn?”
Oh, he forgot how absolutely brilliant Malfoy could be. Fighting his own grin: “Of course I noticed it.”
“And you noticed, I presume, the carving in the chicken coop that is probably the password to unlock it.”
“Naturally.”
“A bit tacky, if you asked me, but then of course I don’t farm chicken, so. ‘Winner winner, chicken dinner’ it is.”
Harry shrugged. “Got a charm to it. So, do we try it right now, or…”
“Potter,” Malfoy laughed, a hand out to stop Harry, already on his way back to the barn, “I was joking. There is no carving. Although I do think there should be a way to crack the hatch open, in the right time. Sunrise or sunset, I reckon. Sorry, I just—you’re too easy.”
The problem was that Harry really was. Too easy for him, too charmed and too out of it in the heat of Texan summer, too early in the morning. “You’re an arse.”
“Astute observation, Special Agent Potter. Now, we have some hours to kill before out next chance at the spells. How about we take a drive to the river, see if we can dig up anything more about that ‘alligator’ from the fishermen?”
“Sure thing, Dr. Malfoy. If you wear the hat again.”
He frowned. “It really doesn’t match the shape of my face.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your face,” Harry growled, somehow not for the first time since joining the Hex-files. “Come on, let’s go. The river’s not a bad idea, but you still owe me breakfast.”
“Anything for you, Potter.” With that tiny almost-smile that drove Harry mad.
*
“I’m just saying,” Harry started, arms waving—
“Say it, then, don’t spray it!” Malfoy dabbed his face with a napkin. The movement so gentle, so prim, it dragged a reluctant smile out of Harry; made for something inside him go warm. Distracting. “Honestly, Potter. Don’t pout. One must insist on at least some table manners.”
Harry flipped him off with a chip. “All I’m saying is, it’s connected. The fish disappearing, the alligator, the chicken going silent—there’s something that connects them all.”
“The chicken curse,” Malfoy said with a delicately-arched eyebrow.
“Something of the sort.”
“You don’t truly believe it, do you?” without the mocking Harry still half-expected. “The chicken conspiracy those farmers were talking about.”
Harry took his time with the plastic cup of soda. Let the last couple of days untangle in his head, collected the bits and pieces of information. “I think I might,” he said carefully. Malfoy nodded, and laid down a couple of napkins on the table.
“All right. Show me.”
He’d do that sometimes: when Harry built theories upon theories in his head, make him stop and lay it out. Then say something that would shake Harry’s world to the core, like you’re a bloody genius, Potter or it’s amazing how you can do that, all delivered in a neutral, level tone.
So Harry pulled out his wand and threw a covert Notice-Me-Not. Drew it all out: from the fish in the river to the wheat in the fields to the ever elusive ‘alligator’ whom, he suspected, wasn’t so much a wild animal at all. Malfoy took it in with his calculating look, and tipped his head slightly in the way that meant he was interested.
“All right,” when Harry was finished, “if alligator is code, what do you think it stands for?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he confessed, heart hammering in his chest. This was the moment when his old partner would laugh at him, or his boss start shouting, or his friends would roll their eyes.
Malfoy said: “Okay. Where do you want to start?”
And Harry thought, I love you. Swallowed it, distilled into something he could use, the way he’s been doing for weeks now, for months.