He and Malfoy were not supposed to be comrades, but Harry longed to get any kind of reaction out of such a stone-faced man. He'd seen him damn well smile at that receptionist girl, and he knew there was more lurking under the surface than the KGB agent let on.

After encountering him for the third time on a mission several years ago, Harry had done his research on Draco Malfoy. His father had been a Nazi sympathiser, colluding with them during the war, and Malfoy Junior and his mother had suffered prejudice for it even after Malfoy Senior had taken his own life. Agent Malfoy was dedicated to his country's prosperity though, and had applied for a government position as soon as his conscription to the army had ended at age twenty one. He was swift and efficient, but unlike other agents of his ilk, Harry had observed he was not cruel.

Which probably explained why Harry had let him go once or twice when he really should have brought him home for interrogation. Malfoy had known the suffering of poverty and starvation as a youth, and he had made it through numerous Baltic winters through sheer stubbornness alone before being able to provide stability for him and his mother. He did what was necessary and had pride in his country, but there was no denying there was something that set him apart from other Soviets.

Was that why he had been selected for this mission? This ridiculous H.O.G.W.A.R.T.S. nonsense? Did his less-than-completely-ruthless mentality make him a soft option for the Brits, or was it compassion that would strengthen an international experiment?

Harry guessed only time would tell on that.

After their initial confirmation that the Lestranges were indeed still at the Gasthaus Berlin, both Harry and Malfoy had left the hotel briefly, one after the other, to make contact with their own agencies and convey the news securely. Now, twice a day every day, they would take turns to meet their handlers; Malfoy would go before they first switched over the rooms at 10am, then Harry would go once they were settled back in Malfoy's room. They would repeat this again at 5pm before they moved back to Harry's room. Harry's morning meeting was at a café down the street, his afternoon rendezvous in the middle of the Jannowitz Bridge. He had half a dozen agents that rotated who would see him, and slowly the information started to trickle through.

By the seventh day there were other teams put in place from both M.I.6. and the K.G.B. to tail the couple wherever they went, but Harry and Malfoy remained the only crossover unit. They were the only ones to have all the information at hand. So, when the Russians observed Rodolph Lestrange visiting a locker in Jannowitzbrucke train station, and then the Brits saw Bellatrix visit the same locker two days later, Harry and Malfoy knew they had something.

It took several more days to work out it must be some sort of drop point, and Harry became increasingly convinced this was where they were likely to discover something useful, maybe even the list they had been sent to the country to find. Therefore, they prepared to switch the nature of the mission from observation to action.

On the Wednesday morning of the third week of February, a team from M.I.6. set up camp in the room Harry had been using, and another K.G.B. team settled in Malfoy's. Housekeeping were distressed by all the extra bodies milling about, and Harry had to tip them extremely generously to not worry about the upheaval. One of the women wouldn't stop fussing, bleating in her native Polish which Harry couldn't speak as well as German, and she kept picking up clothes from the floor and trying to put them in the wardrobe, getting in the way of the six or seven men that were doing their best to set up equipment. Harry cursed, trying to explain that they were just surveyors, aiding him and Malfoy in their architectural report. She appeared a little mollified by the time he ushered her out of the door with an extra couple of Deutsche marks for her trouble, and the rest of the team were able to set up without further interference.

That finally left him time to shower and dress, troubled by the bad timing. Normally they had until at least 11am until they had to concern themselves with cleaners, and this had put him behind schedule. Finally though, he and Malfoy were allowed to leave the confines of the hotel for more than just half an hour, and actually engage in some field work.

Harry couldn't help but relish the stretch in his legs as he and Malfoy marked out every possible inch of Jannowitzbrucke train station, situated uniquely on the bank of the river Spree. Their colleagues had determined that the locker was positioned in a corridor near the ticket booths, and marked as number seven; the second row from the left, the second door from the top. They did not want to obviously approach the drop point though without first checking they were not being watched, or without marking every exit route.

Ideally, Harry would have preferred to have found a way to remain in the station after it had closed, when the members of the public had gone home so they could attempt to retrieve whatever was inside without being disturbed or risking anyone else getting in the way if it came to a confrontation. But as it often went with these things, that wasn't the way the chips fell.

Neither Lestrange was due to appear at thestation at least until the next day based on their schedule so far. But as Harry was doing another sweep of theconcourse to check the number of paces between platforms, he saw thedistinctive mass of Bellatrix's curls as she swept imperiously into thestation.