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Chapter Text

(Art by SnarkyShips-drarryside on tumblr)

Harry watched the bloke fumble through the stack of trays on his desk. Eventually, he found the right form and set it in front of himself. Overhead a faulty lumos spell occasionally flickered, shifting the shadows on the stone walls that, unlike the rest of the Ministry had no windows, false or otherwise.

The desk auror patted around his desk for a quill, flipping up the mess of parchment in search of an elusive pen.

“I swear if Brewster stole my quill again,” The desk auror muttered, “You do a nice thing, lend ‘em out for the signing, and they just walk away with ‘em. Do I look like I’m made of quills?”

Harry fought down a yawn. Next to him, the two newest junior aurors were holding onto either side of the suspect, both standing impossible straight and trying very hard to look like they’d done this before. Harry had done it about a hundred times before and it was always entirely boring.

The desk auror opened drawer after drawer until finally pulling out a bedraggeled looking quill, “Got ya!”

He slid the form in front of Harry.

Harry didn’t ask for the quill, he had concerns about what it had been through, instead pulling out the fancy fountain pen Hermione had given him when he had been promoted to regular Auror.

“I, Auror Harry Potter, do transfer this suspect to the custody of Auror…” Harry glanced at the name plaque sitting on the desk, “Smith.” He signed his name and pushed the parchment back to Smithson.

“Right you are, and I Auror Henry Smith, accept the suspect into the custody of the Ministry cells until such time as his trial or bail,” Smith said, signing the form with an well practised extravagant flourish. 

Smith grabbed a heavy wooden stamper, the rubber greying and faintly cracked with age, smacked it into a very sad looking ink pad and then thumped it onto the form. All formality seen to, the form folded itself up into a paper aeroplane and sailed off to the filing department.

Harry turned to his charges, the juniors straightening up even further so they were in real danger of italicising themselves. The suspect was wobbling slightly, still off-kilter from the effects of a stunning spell administered when he wouldn’t stop trying to bite the arresting auror, that being Harry, who rather wished he wasn’t at the time.

“Alright, you two help Auror Smith take the suspect to his new home for the time being,” Harry said.

“Sir! Uh, should we re-join you at the scene after we’ve- we’ve delivered him?” The brown-haired Junior asked. Harry thought her name might have started with K… but he wasn’t willing to risk a guess. He had no idea about the other one. Harry would just keep avoiding calling them anything until he heard someone use their names. It had worked so far with most of his other fellow aurors, in that he found he hadn’t really ever needed to use their names enough to learn them.

“No. Return to the office, and make sure you drop off your reports to Auror Shunter before the end of the day, or you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Yes, sir, Mr Potter sir!” The junior said, looking about ready to salute him. Sometimes the muggleborns got it into their heads they ought to. This junior, thankfully, managed to hold back.

Harry gave him a polite, tight-lipped smile and a nod, leaving them to the waiting Smith and headed back to the apparition point.

Harry tapping the auror badge affixed to his robes with his wand as he walked, turning the maroon half-robe into a London bobby uniform with the black vest and the stupid cap. He loathed the cap with every fibre of his being.

He apparated back to the scene of the incident, sheathing his wand and stepping out of the temporarily warded alleyway. Senior Auror Shunter was waiting in front of the shop where the incident occurred. It was a small narrow shop on a narrow street filled with other small business. The window of the place declared it Dickson’s Gold and Jewellery Exchange. The road itself was eerily quiet, the quick placements of muggle repelling charms and what looked like a swarm of police had convinced most of the other people working on the street to take the rest of the day off.

Two other junior aurors left as Harry approached, giving him a nod in acknowledgement as they passed, leaving only him and Auror Shunter.

“Auror Shunter, sir, suspect delivered to the holding cells for further questioning,” Harry said, stopping next to her on the pavement.

Senior Auror Shunter was one of the most senior of the senior aurors. Her hair, always pulled back into a simple, no-nonsense bun, was streaked with grey and her face was starting to wrinkle, but she radiated the same kind of youthful vitality that a fifteen-year-old bloke does right before he puts his fist through a wall. Harry had never actually seen Shunter lose her temper. He didn’t want to. He had a feeling it was the sort of thing you’d regret, a great deal.

Junior aurors were often passed around to whichever auror needed the most assistance, and Harry had ended up working under her quite a bit. He had been impatient with her at first, but he had come to admire her work. Shunter wasn’t flashy or impulsive. She always went into a situation with a cool head, and because of that, she resolved things with less destruction and less death and injury on both sides. Rumour was she never fudged evidence or lied either unlike one or two other senior aurors.

Harry was sure she would make an amazing Head Auror when Robards retired. He couldn’t think of anyone better suited for it.

Shunter sighed at him, “Took you long enough.”

“Desk Auror couldn’t find his quill,” Harry said.

“All aurors should carry a pen or ever-inking quill on their person at all times for taking statements and notes,” Shunter said more like a reflex than with any actual thinking involved.

“Yes, sir, I have my pen,” Harry said, patting his pocket.

Shunter raised an eyebrow, “Then why didn’t you lend it and get back here sooner?”

“Sorry, sir, I still wanted to have my pen afterwards,” Harry said, “The man accounts for half the department’s quill allowances.”

Shunter nodded, “Point made, unofficially.”

“Right,” Harry said.

“I’d wonder how Smith keeps his job, but he does a stellar job holding that desk down,” Shunter said.

Harry frowned in confusion.

“It’s hard to find a good desk jockey in the auror’s, we typically don’t join up for the paperwork,” Shunter said, “Course it’s easier now with that new interdepartmental transfer program.”

Harry nodded, “Orders, sir?”

“Got most of it wrapped up,” Shunter said looking over her shoulder at the shop, “Damage repaired, statements taken, suspect secured, all that’s left is waiting for the memory boys.”

Harry grimaced, “That’s where I come in.”

Shunter nodded with a tired grin, “I like a quick auror, Potter. It’s no wonder they ranked you so fast.”

Harry blinked, “Ranked me so-?”

“Oh, That’s right,” Shunter said distractedly, “They’re going to be sending the new department. From now on Obliviators are only to be sent for in cases of large scale magical misuse when there’s a large exposure.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Shunter shrugged, “New policy, just got the memo. I’ll read up on all the changes when I’m off.”

“You read up on the new laws and policies during your time off?” Harry asked.

“Right before bed, nothing better for falling sleep than dull ministry stuff. I sleep like a baby,” Shunter said with a wry grin. She looked at her watch with a frown, “Bugger. Alright, Potter, you’re in charge of the scene. Our shopkeep is taking a nap behind the counter. Once the new department shows, you can get their paperwork, add it to ours and take down the wards. Got all that?” Shunter said, rolling her shoulders with new energy now that she was no longer the one who’d be babysitting an empty street.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said.

“Send for backup if there are any issues, though I can’t imagine it, and get your paperwork in by the end of the day,” Shunter said and turned on her heel, hurrying to the alley.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said.

It occurred to Harry far too late that he probably should have asked what the new department’s name was or who was in it, or even, perhaps, what they did.

Once Shunter had apparated back to the ministry, Harry checked the wards along the perimeter before pulling a wad of blank mission report forms out of his pocket. He found the right one and shoved the rest back, holding the paper up against the window as he pulled the lid off his fountain pen with his teeth and quickly began filling it out.

Harry heard the car long before he realised it was coming up the street. It came up far too fast, and the tires squealed against the pavement as it slammed to a stop. Harry didn’t know much about cars, but he could tell this one reeked of money. It was a white two-seat convertible and looked like the sort of car you saw in magazines, not on the road.

The door swung open, and a man in a white suit stepped out, straightening his jacket and impeccable tie. He was tall and lean and had a dark blue shirt and black tie under the pure white of the suit jacket. He pulled off a pair of sunglasses, slipping them into his pocket, as the sun glinted off his white-blond head and he gave Harry a perfectly calculated smirk.

The pen cap went loose in Harry’s mouth, almost falling to the ground before he managed to clumsily catch it out of the air.

“Auror Potter. Of course,” Draco Malfoy said with a sigh of exasperation, “I should have expected you. I have that sort of luck after all.”

“Malfoy…?” Harry said.

“As opposed to?” Malfoy said, closing the door to his car and leaning his hip against it.

“Anyone else?” Harry said dumbfounded, “You’re the- the new department?”

“I am,” Malfoy said. He pulled a small notebook out of his breast pocket, “I might as well enjoy this while I can, I suppose.”

“Enjoy-? Have you- Do you know what you’re doing?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“No,” Malfoy said flatly. He flipped open the notebook, “According to the briefing I received this was a single muggle exposure, correct?”

“I-yeah,” Harry said.

“What happened?” Malfoy said

“I thought your wand was destroyed,” Harry said.

Malfoy blinked. “Not quite,” he said blandly, “I am not allowed to remove my wand or use it outside the wards of my home.”

“Which isn’t here,” Harry said.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, almost looking amused with him, “No. I do not, in fact, live in the middle of the street, Auror Potter.”

“Which means you can’t use magic,” Harry said.

“Yes? Is there a point to this? I am here to work you know,” Malfoy said, sounding faintly amused.

Harry gestured back to the shop, “You can’t obliviate someone without a wand.”

“I’m not here to obliviate anyone,” Malfoy said with the same sort of tone someone would say obviously.

“Then why are you here?” Harry said, suspicion mixing with impatience.

“If you’ll assist me rather than interrogate me, I can show you,” Malfoy said. He pushed himself away from the car with an unfair amount of grace.

“I don’t see how you can do anything useful right now,” Harry said.

Malfoy’s smile grew, “Ah, you sound like father. Delightful.”

Harry stared, taken aback.

Malfoy just chuckled and headed into the shop.

The bell over the door of Dickson’s Gold and Jewellery Exchange clunked loudly, sounding more like a cowbell than a shop bell as Malfoy disappeared into the gloom.

Harry rushed after him, shoving his pen and paperwork back into his pocket. He wasn’t going to let Malfoy just- leave without him.

Malfoy was looking at the glass case that ran along the length of the narrow shop. The glass was smudged with fingerprints, and the brass edge of the case was dull, inside the jewellery was mismatched and old-fashioned.

“Let me guess, someone tried to pawn some cursed jewellery?” Malfoy said.

Harry shook his head before he remembered he was supposed to be the one asking questions.

“No?…hmm,” Malfoy said thoughtfully, “Robbery by wand point?”

“What? No,” Harry said.

Malfoy shook his head, “Well… how about, they tried to buy something with galleons instead of pounds.”

Harry didn’t answer, but Malfoy smiled triumphantly anyway, “Ah! I’m on the right track-”

“I didn’t say anything,” Harry said, trying not to sound indignant.

Malfoy waved him off, tapping a finger against his lips in thought as he turned on his heel looking for more clues.

Harry sighed, “Malfoy, what are you-”

Malfoy rolled his eyes, “Are you always this boring?”

“What?” Harry frowned, “No, I- that’s not the point-”

“Am I carrying a wand or a weapon?” Malfoy asked, holding his arms out.

Harry hesitated.

“Go on, check. You’re being a nuisance. Check,” Malfoy said.

Harry drew his wand and tried accioing Malfoy’s wand, then accioed for knives, guns and, when absolutely nothing happened, tried weapons in general. There was a rattle as a baseball bat flew out from behind the counter. Malfoy just manged to duck as it sailed over where his head had been, and Harry grabbed it out of the air.

“Are you satisfied?” Malfoy asked as he stood and once again straightened his suit, looking annoyed even though Harry was certain Malfoy was the type to have had it absolutely covered it in charms so it never stained or wrinkled.

“No,” Harry said setting the bat in the corner.

“Well, now you’re just being irrational,” Malfoy said.

He wasn’t. Harry knew he wasn’t. There was just no possible way Malfoy was some sort of not-obliviator and Harry hadn’t seen him at the Ministry before. Or heard a rumour about him. Or Ron- Hermione definitely would have heard about Malfoy. There was no way Malfoy would be working at the Ministry, and Harry wouldn’t have learned about it.

“Gold… Gold exchange! Was someone trying to sell gold here? But it would have to have magic involved, or the auror’s wouldn’t be here,” Malfoy said, back to guessing. “A gold cauldron? No… galleons are involved-” his eyes widened, “No. They didn’t try to sell galleons?”

Harry reluctantly nodded.

“Aren’t they absolutely drenched in protective spells?” Malfoy said.

Harry nodded again.

“Why?” Malfoy said in dismay.

“The value of gold is higher than the value of a galleon right now,” Harry said.

“Unless the difference is significant, the margin of profit wouldn’t be worth the effort.”

“Yeah, I don’t think the suspect thought that far ahead,” Harry said and then cleared his throat, “That’s just speculation. Off the record speculation.”

“Speculate all you like, I won’t tell anyone, and you can rest assured no one would believe me if I did,” Malfoy said.

Harry was pretty sure no one should have ever listened to Malfoy, but that hadn’t stopped the Prophet from reporting the things Malfoy had told them in the past. Even now, they could call him an anonymous source, the paper was brimming with anonymous sources full of shite and photos taken entirely out of context.

“I’m surprised you have a suspect,” Malfoy said, “it seems to me you would just sell the coins and move on.”

“Muggles test the quality of gold with a drop of some sort of acid,” Harry said.

Malfoy’s eyebrows rose, “Ah. That would certainly activate the coins protective charms.”

Harry watched Malfoy look around again, and realised that he was probably looking for the owner, Mr Dickson.

“He’s behind the counter,” Harry said.

Malfoy leaned over the counter to have a look, “So he is.”

“You said you didn’t know what you were doing and you don’t have a wand, so why should I trust you to- to do anything?” Harry asked, standing in the doorway.

“It’s my first…” Malfoy looked uncertain for the first time since he had arrived, “case? Is that what you’d call it, a case?”

“Yeah?”

“-So I have an idea of what I’m doing but no certainties.” Malfoy went on, “I’m not going to lie to you, you’re unhinged enough as it is without me adding to it.”

“I’m not unhinged,” Harry said, offended. Malfoy was the weird one here with his ridiculous suit and car and not even knowing what a case was.

“I haven’t the faintest idea about trust. I’d probably need a time-turner to fix that.” Malfoy said and sighed, “I know I’m supposed to fail, but I thought I’d be allowed to try.”

“Supposed to fail?” Harry said.

“At least I’ll have the suit, so it’s not a complete waste,” Malfoy said to himself, brushing an invisible speck of dust off the pristine white fabric.

“It’s- Well…”Harry felt himself relenting and felt annoyed. “Fine. But I’ll be watching you. If you try anything I’ll-”

“Arrest me like the big scary auror you are,” Malfoy finished sing-song mockingly.

Harry glared at him, but Malfoy was unmoved. Harry took his wand out and went to the counter, leaning over and aiming at the unconscious shopkeeper laying on the grimy carpet, “Enervate.”

“Excellent,” Malfoy said, looking chipper again, “Go stand by the door and try to look intimidating, would you?”

Harry was plenty intimidating, and he would have told Malfoy that but the eponymous Dickson was getting up so it would have to wait. He stood in front of the door again, keeping a close watch on Malfoy.

Malfoy’s stood straighter, his shoulders rising with his chin. If Harry didn’t know what a prat Malfoy was, he might have found him imposing, but only a bit.

“Wha-?” Mr Dickson groaned, pushing himself up with the counter. He was balding quite extensively on the top of his head, the long combed over hair he had tried to hide the bald patch was sticking straight up in the air, gently waving in the air when he moved like seaweed in an ocean current.

“Mr Dickson?” Malfoy asked.

“I- yeah-” Mr Dickson muttered, “What happened? There was a weird bloke in a bathrobe and then-”

“I’m pleased to see you up on your own feet, I can call an ambulance for you if you require further medical assistance,” Malfoy said coolly.

“I don’t need an ambulance. What the hell happened?” Mr Dickson demanded, rubbing his temple.

“I’m afraid there was a rather large gas leak,” Malfoy said.

“A what?” Mr Dickson snapped, glaring up at Malfoy.

Malfoy didn’t waver, “A gas leak. The gentleman who came to your shop had a bad reaction and lashed out at you-”

“Because of… a gas leak,” Mr Dickson said suspicion lacing his voice.

“You needn’t worry about him, he’s in the holding of appropriate authorities. However, if you hit your head, I must strongly recommend you seek medical care,” Malfoy said.

“I don’t need a bloody ambulance!” Mr Dickson said, smacking his hand against the counter. He narrowed his eyes, “You got identification?”

That little faint smile of Malfoy’s showed up again, “That won’t be necessary, Mr Dickson.”

Mr Dickson’s glare narrowed into a squint, “I’ve heard of you government types, you won’t trick me. He was probably barmy, escaped from one of your special hospitals,” he tapped the side of his head, “Tryin’ to cover it up, aren’t you, tryin’ to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Delusions can be a sign of head injury,” Malfoy said.

“It ain’t a delusion, and you can’t make me go to the hospital!” Mr Dickson said.

Malfoy tilted his head slightly, and there was something almost sinister about the look on his face, “If I suspected you might in danger of death or hurting yourself or someone else I would be obligated to make sure no harm came to you. Mr Dickson.”

Mr Dickson stiffened and almost imperceptibly leaned back, his mouth pressing into a thin line, “…’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Malfoy asked again, and somehow the repeated question had gone from annoying to having the hint of threat.

“Never felt better,” Mr Dickson frowned, his words a mutter, “Just a gas leak, fellow was taken care of, everything’s fine.”

Malfoy smiled, “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yeah, right,” Mr Dickson said sourly, and waved for Malfoy to go away, “…I’m just gonna close up for the day. If that’s all.”

“It is,”  Malfoy’s smile grew, looking very much like a cat that has just pushed something off a table and was incredibly pleased with itself, “Good day, Mr Dickson.”

Malfoy turned on his heel, and Harry opened the door, letting Malfoy go through first. Harry could hear Mr Dickson mutter “I know what you’re up to, you aren’t going to fool me,” under his breath as they stepped outside. He firmly closed the door, and almost immediately there was a loud thunk and rattle as what sounded like several locks were engaged behind them.

Harry blinked in the bright outside light, “What was that?”

“A job well done.” Malfoy said with his pleased little smile, “Don’t you think it went well?”

“All you did was tell him it was a gas leak, I could have done that!” Harry said.

Malfoy turned around so suddenly Harry nearly ran into him. Malfoy leaned close, “First you’d have to convince them you work for the government, not for a costume shop that ran out of police uniforms in your size,” he flicked the brim of Harry’s cap which slid back off his forehead.

“Don’t-!”

Malfoy looked down, his finger following his eyes and curling around the edge of his black police vest, “This isn’t bad,” he tugged on the thick fabric with a faint smirk. “But that hat just does not suit at all.”

Harry blinked rapidly, stepping back from Malfoy and nearly running into the shop door. “Nothing’s wrong with the hat,” he snapped, ignoring the fact that he hated the hat himself. He wiped his cheek on his shoulder, feeling unexpectedly warm.

Malfoy was laughing, but it was… weird, although Harry couldn’t place why. It wasn’t a laugh he had ever heard from Malfoy, and for some reason, it made him uncomfortable.

“It’s not funny,” Harry said.

“Isn’t it? I find this whole thing is hilarious,” Malfoy said.

Harry bristled, “It’s not funny.”

Malfoy sighed, his smiled fading. He turned away, pulling his sunglasses out of his breast pocket and opening them with the flick of his wrist. “You really are quite boring,” he said as he put them on.

Harry’s automatic retort didn’t come out like he expected, seeing as it didn’t come out at all. Malfoy putting on his glasses, something about it had made him feel profoundly uncertain. Everything was a bit off, and Harry just kept feeling more and more off balance.

“I wasn’t laughing at you, obviously,” Malfoy said, “I was amused at the situation. I was more laughing at myself than anything.”

“What? Why?” Harry asked, genuinely confused.

“Why not?” Malfoy said. He turned away from Harry, looking up the street, “My life is a joke. People have been laughing at it for years, being good didn’t stop them, being angry only made it worse. I might as well have a laugh myself. It really is quite funny when I look at it from an outside perspective.”

Malfoy turned on his heel and walked over to his car, hand catching the door handle and pausing, “Strange isn’t it that my laughing at it seems to make them all so mad.” The door swung open, the car dipping for a second as Malfoy sat heavily.

It struck Harry that Malfoy was going to leave.

“Wait-!” Harry called, hurrying over to the edge of the pavement.

Malfoy took his hand off the key in the ignition, “Yes? Is there something else?” he said blandly.

“Uh, err…” Harry thought furiously, “Oh! Paperwork! I need um, the obliviators would fill out form AD 45-O. The case can’t be closed out without it.”

“And where would I find such a form?” Malfoy asked.

“Right, you wouldn’t have your own form yet,” Harry said, instead of the answer, which was Auror department main reception because, well… Malfoy couldn’t leave yet. There was so much Harry didn’t understand.

He patted his pockets and pulled out the folded stack of forms he always kept on him, “I think I have that one…”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

“Sometimes the obliviators would forget,” Harry said defensively, “It’s more efficient this way.”

Harry couldn’t read Malfoy’s expression with the sunglasses, but the eyebrow had stayed up, so Harry gave him a surly frown.

He found the right page, charmed the creases out and cast a duplication spell, handing Malfoy a crisp new form.

Malfoy glanced over the page and then looked around his middle console, then opened the glovebox- He was looking for a pen, Harry realised, and found his hand half-way to his pocket before he was aware of what he was doing. He couldn’t lend Malfoy his pen. He didn’t even let Ron borrow it.

Malfoy found a cheap-looking plastic rollerball pen in the glove box and started filling out the form on the small centre of the steering wheel.
As Harry watched, he suddenly understood, everything felt wrong because Malfoy was so wrong, so muggle and slick and…different.

“You have a car,” Harry said and immediately felt stupid.

Malfoy glanced up as Harry over the top of his sunglasses.

“I mean, of course you do, it’s right here,” Harry said, “I just meant, where did you get it?”

“At a place that was selling them,” Malfoy said, looking back to his form.

“What kind is it?” Harry asked, feeling silly and yet still wanting to keep Malfoy from leaving as long as possible, so he understood, that was it. He just had so many questions.

“I don’t know,” Malfoy said, “It’s the one I liked most, so I bought it.”

That was the most Malfoy thing he had said all afternoon, and it very, very slightly righted the world in Harry’s mind.

“It’s nice, or well, it seems nice,” Harry said.

Malfoy paused, his pen poised above the paper. He lifted his sunglasses up, resting them on top of his head so he could narrow his eyes at Harry, “Have you hit your head?”

“No. I was just talking, the way people do,” Harry said.

Malfoy smiled faintly, “I like it a great deal.”

“….Oh, the car! Right,” Harry said.

“And the weather,” Malfoy prompted.

“It’s been- been nice lately,” Harry said.

“Yes, it has been rather lovely out.” Malfoy was back to smiling faintly. 

Malfoy signed the bottom of the form and handed it back to Harry. He turned the key, and the engine roared to life. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, looking through the windshield as he said, “I appreciate your cooperation, Auror Potter. I might even look forward to working with you again.”

Before Harry could reply, Malfoy dropped his sunglasses back on his nose and took off, speeding down the street with little regard for the posted speed limits.

(Art by SnarkyShips-drarryside on tumblr)

Chapter Text

Harry checked the perimeter one last time as he took down the wards then went back up the narrow alley and apparated back to the Ministry. It was nearly five, and the atrium was starting to get crowded as people began to clock out for the day. He waited for an elevator that was full when the doors open and that he rode up alone and filled as soon as he stepped out onto the second floor.

There was a reception desk with three or four clerks staffing it right across from the lift, the offices of Misuse of Muggle Artefacts and Wizegamot Administrative were on the left, and the Auror’s took up the right, at least on this floor. They also had the holding cells on the lowest level, offices in International Magical Cooperation and Magical Creatures along with a lot of informal liaise positions in other departments. The higher up you got as an Auror, the more you ended up working with other departments, and politicking and schmoozing. The Senior Aurors who were good at it were few and far between, and when Harry did eventually get promoted, he knew without a shadow of a doubt, he would not be one of them.

Harry headed straight for his little cubical desk, absent-mindedly nodding to the other aurors he passed who were leaving for the day or clocking in for the night shift. He pulled out the form he hadn’t finished filling out, more crumpled than folded and had to do several flatting charms on it to get most of the wrinkles out. He knew better than to try an ironing charm unless he wanted his report to be singed at the edges.

“Harry! Lucky catching you!” Ron said jovially.

Harry didn’t look up, focusing on finishing up the last few boxes so he could sign off on the whole mess.

“You’re usually long gone by now,” Ron went on, stopping by Harry’s shoulder, “Thought you just had a standard Muggle Exposure.”

“It was,” Harry said, “We still on for dinner tonight?”

Ron nodded, “Yep, I was gonna pick up some Indian food on the way.”

“I’ll wait so’s I can tell you and Hermione at the same time,” Harry said, messily signing his name and standing back up.

Ron took out his wand and tapped it on Harry’s badge, turning it back into auror robes, “For how much you complain about the muggle uniform, you sure leave it on quite a bit.”

“Oh, shut up,” Harry groused, “I just forget.”

“Yeah, right,” Ron said.

Harry rolled his eyes, let his pace match Ron’s as they headed back to the reception desk where Harry dropped off his and Malfoy’s forms with the desk clerk there.

“Hey, Lewis was it?” Ron said, leaning on the other side of the counter.

“That’s me,” A scrawny looking bloke with glasses said, looking up from a mess of files he was attempting to organise.

“I heard you just transferred here. How do you like it so far, better than that stuffy old Patent Office by far, yeah?” Ron said.

“It’s certainly more exciting,” Lewis said, “But most things are more exciting than patent applications… unless it’s from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.”

Ron grinned, “Too true. But you ought to stick with the Aurors anyway.”

“Maybe,” Lewis conceded, “But my friend Geoffry asked me to transfer to Magical Creatures and work with him so-”

“Damn,” Ron said with mock dismay, “Friends beat out excitement every day.”

Lewis grinned, “I do like it here though. Top of the list.”

“Brilliant. I’ll take that. Have a good one, yeah?” Ron said with a wave.

All the receptionists waved and said goodbye, Ron being the sort of generally good-natured sort that he made friends easily and could charm an acquaintance with a grin and bad joke.

“What was all that?” Harry asked as they rode the lift down to the atrium, “Do you really care if he puts in for a permanent transfer to our department?”

“I suppose not,” Ron said with a shrug, “I just want people to use it, it was Hermione’s work, the whole one-week trial transfer and just making it easier to transfer between departments. If it does well, it’ll make it easier for her to get other proposals approved.”

Harry smiled, “You’re such a sop, mate.”

“Maybe a bit. I just like a happy Hermione best,” Ron said.

Truth was Hermione worked in the Wizegamot’s administrative office right across the hall from the Aurors, but she could reliably be counted on to always be an hour late, excepting holidays and birthdays. That and she usually wasn’t in her office, seeming to work mostly out of the little libraries and walls of filling cabinets that every floor had, when she wasn’t chatting with various officials on just about every floor but her own.

They flooed over to Diagon Alley and picked up some Indian food to go and took it back to Ron and Hermione’s flat. It was still had that slightly sterile feeling that comes from not being not having been lived in very long. It hadn’t been taken over by the knick-knacks and clutter of life though there were signs of it, photos stuck to the fridge with magnets, books piled on the side table, a magazine left open on the coffee table and an abandoned pair of socks, likely Ron’s, underneath.

Ron put the food on the table, flicking a warming spell over the cartons and then dropping onto the couch.

Harry sat on the other end, “Working on anything interesting? Or do they have you running errands with the rest of the Juniors?”

Ron shook his head, kicking off his shoes and propping his feet on the scuffed up second-hand coffee table, “Glad to be well out of it, thank you very much. Being the most senior the Juniors has its perks. I’ve been combing the books of a few Potion shops under suspicion of smuggling.”

Harry grimaced, he had hated learning arithmancy and accounting during their training, but Ron had somehow taken to it like a fish to water.

Ron went on, “Thing is, I don’t think it’s potion smuggling so much as money laundering. Old Leon told me how to spot it on the last case he put me on. I need to finish up combing through the other shop ledgers to make sure, and of course, figure out who is putting the money in the shops to launder it.”

“I suppose it’s good you’re on the case, better than me anyway,” Harry said.

Ron grinned, “You’re always more of a fan of the big raid at the end.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, “Turns out there’s not many of those. I don’t know if I’d have been as excited to be an auror back in school if I had known it was mostly paperwork.”

“And standing around,” Ron added.

“And standing around,” Harry agreed.

“Still a good job though, and I don’t mind this sort of paperwork. It’s like chess or…” Ron frowned in thought. “well, it’s more like finding each piece one at a time and trying to figure out where they went on the board and then when you’ve got enough of them then you can see the game.”

“Sounds more like a puzzle than chess,” Harry said.

Ron shrugged, “I like it either way.”

There was a pop of apparition from the bedroom, and Ron sat up with a frown.

“What-?” Harry said pushing himself up for slowly.

Ron held out a hand, “Just give it a minute. Hermione only apparates into the bedroom if it’s been a bad day.”

“Should I go then?” Harry asked.

“If you want to, but I think Hermione would rather see you than not,” Ron said.

Harry nodded, and when Ron got up and started setting up the table for dinner, he went and helped. By the time they both sat down, the food steaming gently and smelling fantastic, the bedroom door cracked open, and Hermione silently emerged. She had changed out of her work robes into soft pyjama bottoms and a baggy t-shirt that was probably Ron’s by the size.

She sat beside Ron and sagged against his shoulder.

“So, what happened?” Ron asked.

“Don’t want to talk about it,” Hermione grumbled, glancing across the table, “Hi, Harry. Sorry, I’m in a bad mood today.”

“ S’alright,” Harry said around a bite of lamb curry.

“You never want to talk about, ‘Mione, but you always feel better after you do. It’s just gonna build up and burst out of you later anyway,” Ron said.

Hermione sighed, “Why do you have to know me so well?”

“I don’t know, I suppose for the same reason you know me so well,” Ron said.

“Cause you’ve known one another since you were eleven?” Harry said with a tinge of sarcasm.

Ron looked at him flatly, “Or cause I love her to bits.”

“Ugh,” Harry said, rolling his eyes, knowing full well he walked right into it.

“I love her so much, mate,” Ron went on relentlessly.

Hermione smiled a bit which only encouraged him.

“She’s my stars and heart and, err, the pearls of my… eyes? Heart? Nah, I used that one already.”

Hermione laughed and sat up a bit straighter.

“Light of my life! That’s the one!” Ron said.

Hermione smacked his arm lightly, “Cut it out.”

Ron leaned close and whispered something in her ear that made Hermione look hopelessly embarrassed and fond.

Harry held his tongue because he really didn’t want to hear anything more, especially if it involved blushing.

Ron grabbed a carton of food, “You want the tikka or the veg curry?”

“Veg- well, is it mild?” Hermione asked.

“No,” Ron said, scooping out the vegetable curry onto her plate, “I learned my lesson last time. I ordered medium heat.”

“Thank you, it looks wonderful,” Hermione said.

They ate, a little pool of silence filling up between them. Harry always wished Ron and Hermione had a wireless, just some sort of noise in the background. Eating in silence always made him a little nervous, but Ron was relaxed, even looking like he was going to have a bit of fun.

The fun came when Hermione suddenly put down her spoon and pushed her plate away from herself, “I’m going to have a bit of an outburst now.”

Ron nodded, and Harry watched as Hermione took her open hands and smacked them repeatedly and loudly on the table, accompanied by a yell of frustration that all in all sounded like a mix between what you hear at night alone in the forest right before you die and the despairing wail of five-year-old who has just dropped their ice cream cone on the ground.

Hermione panted as her hair, a messy halo of curls, settled down around her face.

“Feel better?” Ron asked.

“A bit,” Hermione said, she looked at Harry with an apologetic smile, “I’m not allowed to get angry at work. If you do, they ask if you’re menstruating. And I’d rather be frustrated than condescend to.”

Harry nodded silently. Back in school if they told Hermione to calm down when she was angry, they risked being swarmed by birds or having a carrot shoved up their nose. Unfortunately, the Ministry  didn’t approve of that sort of thing and might decide you didn’t need the job they’d so graciously given you.

“Was it Sir Suirup again?” Ron asked.

“What?” Harry said with a laugh.

Hermione nodded, “The Sir is a preference, he’s not been knighted no matter what he likes to think, but he’s one of the committee heads that approve proposals.”

“But his name,” Harry insisted.

“I think his full name is, Sir Salas Suirup?” Hermione said, “Do you-”

Harry cut her off with a laugh, “That’s his name?”

Ron raised an eyebrow, “A lot of wizarding families have weird naming traditions.”

Harry shook his head, “No, no- It sounds a lot like parseltongue-”

Ron sat forward, “What’s it mean?”

“Uh, well, the best translation I can come up with would be…” Harry grinned, “Fart-eater.”

Ron clapped his hands together, cracking up as Hermione snickered.

“Oh, how am I going to keep from calling him that to his face!” Hermione said.

Harry shrugged, “I mean, you already are in parseltongue.”

“Fart-eater,” Hermione said, breaking into giggles again.

“So what did old Fart-eater do this time?” Ron asked, cleaning out the last of the tikka masala.

Hermione frowned, “I swear he’s out to get me. Every time I propose something, he nitpicks it until he finds enough things to convince the rest of the committee to reject my proposal.”

“But the interdepartmental transfers were so good!” Ron said.

“That’s the problem,” Hermione’s spoon pushed around a lonely lump of swede around her plate.

“What? How is that a problem?” Harry asked.

“I’m- I’m upsetting things,” Hermione said, “Everyone’s always telling me to slow down, to take a break, that I’m making everyone else look bad. They say it like they’re joking, but they’re not.”

“Oh,” Harry said. He had gotten that a lot too, been told to calm down, told that things would change eventually.

“I just- I don’t know how to slow down!” Hermione smacked the table again, “I want to make things better! I want to help, so the war never happens again, but they’re always pushing back!”

Both Harry and Ron had heard plenty about the Wizengamont since Hermione had got the job.
She had started on the bottom like they had, as a Minor Aide, which was little better than a glorified secretary. In the three years it had taken Harry and Ron to finish training and actually start in the field, Hermione had worked like blazes to get promoted to Research and Administration.
In Research she could help put together proposals for the Wizengamont’s various committees, from potential changes to how the Ministry functioned all the way up to new Laws. At first, she’d been confined to researching proposals made by Wizengamont members and the more senior staff, but with tenacity, hard work, and a lot of requests, she was allowed to create a proposal. That had led to the new interdepartmental transfers which, according to Ron, were the best thing since sliced bread.

“So… he rejected your proposal?” Harry hazarded a guess.

“Worse,” Hermione pointed her spoon at him, “He’s trying to make me look stupid.”

Ron whistled under his breath, “That is- You’re practically famous for being the smartest witch our age and he thinks he can try to make you look stupid?”

“Yeah, well… he’s going to, probably,” Hermione muttered.

“What?” Ron’s eyebrows shot up, “Spill it, I need to know everything.”

Hermione shook her head, “I should clean this all up.” She started stacking their plates and Ron took them away.

“I’ll do it,” Ron said.

“But you bought it and set the table-”

“You can owe me one,” Ron said.

Hermione rolled her eyes with a fond smile as Ron got up, wand drawn to begin directing the garbage into the bin and the dishes to the sink. Harry sat back to avoid getting smacked by a plate or a soggy sauce covered carton.

“Okay so the basic gist of it goes like this,” Hermione said, “I brought a proposal to do a study of muggle oblivations, to see if there’s any link between the increase in oblivation rates and the increase of dementia in the muggle population. Easy, right? Just interview muggles who have been oblivated, talk to our own healers that deal with oblivation, collect a bunch of data, analyse it, write a report on the findings. It’s very simple.”

“I mean, I couldn’t do it, but if you say it’s simple then, sure,” Harry said.

“Fine, not simple, but at least a very standard study. The sort we do all the time,” Hermione sighed at him and went on, “Of course, Fart-face couldn’t leave well enough alone-”

“Fart-eater,” Harry said.

Hermione wasn’t listening, too caught up in reliving the fury all over again, “He was asking his stupid, inane, never-ending questions and for some reason, he wouldn’t let go of what would happen if there ended up being a connection. How we couldn’t possibly stay hidden from the muggles without obviation, and I said, not everything required it to begin with and that the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee could be expanded- so he said-”

Harry’s eyes widened, his mind leaping ahead of the conversation.

“-That there was no point in doing a study if the alternative didn’t work and the committee would create a new department to test my idea,” Hermione threw up her hands, “which isn’t what I said at all!”

“A whole new department?” Ron said, turning away from the sink, a plate clattering back into the soapy water without supervision.

“Now they’re all calling it my new department, and there’s no way it won’t fail,” Hermione said. She groaned and slid down in her chair, “They named it the Liars Department,” she said in dismay, “and Fart-face set it up personally. I’m so entirely fucked.”

Ron jumped, “You swore.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hermione said.

“I’m not being- you only swear when things are really bad,” Ron said.

“I do not-”

“Do you know who’s in the-,” Harry hesitated, it was such a bad name, “the Liars Department?”

Hermione shook her head, “I only know the name of it, and I only know that because Fart-face so kindly came by my office to tell me about it today.”

“Could you fix it? Make it work somehow?” Ron asked.

“I don’t know,” Hermione said, “It’s not my department, and I have no say over it even though it’s supposedly my idea.”

“Couldn’t you take it over then, if Suirup keeps saying it’s yours?” Ron suggested.

Hermione’s face screwed up in thought, and she finally shook her head, “No. If I tried, he’d convince the committee I was interfering with their work or meddling or… something else. I’m just a researcher, I don’t have any real power,” she folded her arms on the table and dropped her head into the middle.

Harry watched Hermione, torn about what to say but wanting to help somehow, “Well… the uh, the guy from the Liars Department did a good job today, so maybe it won’t be too bad?”

Hermione sat up, “Wait. You saw them, him? You worked with him? Who? Did you know him?”

Harry sidestepped the last question, if Hermione knew it was Malfoy it would only make her feel worse, “It was today’s muggle exposure. He told the shop owner that it was all caused by a gas leak, but I think the guy ended up thinking it was a government cover-up… or something.”

“Or something?” Ron said.

“I couldn’t tell if the shopkeep thought the suspect was escaped from a hospital and the government was trying to cover it up or was like some sort of mad science experiment-”

“That the government was trying to cover up?” Ron said with a grin.

“The gas leak explanation isn’t bad,” Hermione said, “but the rest of it is just irresponsible.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Ron said.

“That’s not a good reason!” Hermione protested.

Harry watched them banter back and forth but mostly stopped listening.

He mentally replayed the meeting with Malfoy in his mind. He had acted like he was going to be fired at any minute. Had Malfoy known about Fart-eater’s plan? Was he part of it? But that didn’t make sense, what was in it for Malfoy? He had acted like he wanted to do the job, but someone else was going to take it away. Maybe there was a deal between Fart-eater and Malfoy that would lead to a better position down the line, and he was just pretending to care about the job.

This wasn’t just about Malfoy anymore, not with Hermione’s job mixed up in the mess. Harry would get to the bottom of it.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Harry stepped out of one of the many floos set along the wall of the atrium. He brushed ash off his robes as he headed toward the reception desk. A clerk was already waiting for him by the time he reached the semi-circular counter. “Good morning, Mr Potter,” said a bright-faced young lady who looked around his age though he didn’t recognise her from school. Then again, he had trouble remembering anyone outside his year. Ron and Hermione were always sighing at him not knowing who someone was.

“Err, Morning,” Harry said, “I was looking for the….the Liars Department.”

The young lady, she was wearing a name tag that said Florence, flashed him a bright smile, “Oh, the new department! You’re the first to ask,” she turned and pointed to one of the narrow hallways that started behind the reception desk, “If you go down this hallway, it’s about five doors down, you can’t miss it.”

Harry stared down the way she had pointed, “You’re sure? I didn’t think there was anything back there.”

Florence quickly nodded, “It’s- I- Yes. I wouldn’t lie to you, sir.  It’s...a bit strange, but it’s probably only temporary, the department only just being set up and everything.”

“Alright, thanks,” Harry said with a wave.

The light grew dimmer as he headed down the hallway, the lumos charms on the ceiling seemed further apart, and the stone walls were unpanelled unlike most of the upper floors. There was a plaque beside the first door. It read Stationary Supply. The next one read, Cleaning Supply, then there was Furniture. Harry pulled that door open, finding scuffed old desks and chairs that wobbled precariously in stacks up to the ceiling. Harry had thought the desks and cubicles in the Auror’s offices were bad, but he’d never complain again if these were the alternative.

He didn’t look into the next room. It was labelled Owl Supplies, and Harry was certain he could hear squeaking coming from inside. The next door was just labelled Storage. It was filled with filing cabinets. It was nice to know they’d never run out, Harry mused as he shut the door behind him.

Just as he was starting to think this was a joke after all, he found it. The next door had a piece of paper spellotaped to the wall on which someone had written The Liars Department. Harry flicked the paper up. The plaque underneath read Storage Overflow. His eyebrows rose, and he carefully rapped his knuckles against the door expecting… nothing to be honest.

“Enter,” Malfoy’s voice called imperiously through the wood.

Harry pushed the door open, only for it to thunk to a halt halfway. He squeezed through the gap and into the room and saw that it had run into a desk. A desk that took up most of the small storage sized room. Malfoy was sitting behind it, still wearing that flashy white suit or perhaps another that just looked remarkably identical.

“Auror Potter,” Malfoy grinned, looking far too amused. He pushed his chair back, and it made it six inches before running into the wall behind, somehow managing to rest his feet on the desktop at a sort of kitty-corner angle that looked precarious, to say the least. “Welcome to my office. I’d offer you a chair, but I’m afraid I only have the one.”

Malfoy’s trouser leg had risen up an inch revealing a pair of florescent blue socks covered in small, equally bright yellow ducks. Despite his best effort, Harry couldn’t help staring at them.

“Good, aren’t they?” Malfoy said. He dropped his feet back on the floor, “I didn’t think I’d get to see you again. The Auror uniform is a much better look on you, the dishevelment almost looks intentional.”

Harry blinked and frowned at Malfoy, remembering why he was there in the first place. “I don’t have time to mess about, Malfoy.”

Malfoy leaned back into his chair and bumped his head against the wall.

Harry winced as he dragged the chair forward, wood scraping across the floor. “I have some questions for you.”

Malfoy leaned back in his chair properly this time and waved at Harry to get on with it, “Ask away, Auror Potter. It’s a delight to be centre of your attention again after so long.”

Harry didn’t react, he forced himself not to. They had worked on interview techniques for months during training. Harry wasn’t the best at it, but he could do alright if he put his mind to it.

“Yesterday, you alluded to not having this job for very long, I need you to explain what you meant,” Harry said.

“I need you,” Malfoy repeated in a low voice, that cat-like smile on his face.

“Malfoy, answer the question,” Harry said sternly.

“So impatient,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes, “Can’t I enjoy the moment? Besides they aren’t going to do anything to you, not their darling Auror Potter.”

“Malfoy,” Harry prompted, feeling his temper rise and trying to swallow it down.

Malfoy sighed, and held his arms out, gesturing to the whole room.

Harry glanced from corner to short corner of the old storage room, the faint shadowed lines of where shelves had been still marked the walls. “I’m sure the room is temporary until you can be moved into a new office.”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, “We’re wizards, they can make room wherever and whenever they like.”

He might have a point, Harry conceded reluctantly.

“And even if I hadn’t been shoved back in the closet,” Malfoy smirked to himself. “I would think it’s obvious I was going to be fired almost immediately.”

“Why?” Harry pressed.

Malfoy gave him a funny look, when Harry didn’t respond to it, he went on, “They hired me, Auror Potter.”

“Yeah? So, you got a new job-”

Malfoy sighed at him again, “I have been applying, well, my mother has been applying for me for every single job that’s come up in the last four years. This is the only job that’s every responded. Honestly, I should have suspected it from the start when they hired me without an interview, but I got my hopes up.”

“Wait, your mother’s been applying for-” Harry stopped, cursing to himself, why did Malfoy keep distracting him like this?

“It keeps her busy,” Malfoy said. “I applied for work myself the first year before I realised it was a waste of my time. My mother seems to think if I get a good job, it will fix everything. It won’t of course, life isn’t that simple, but she’s persistent.”

Harry took a deep breath, chiding himself to stay focused, he had a goal, and not long to see it through. At least, Malfoy was being a lot more helpful than Harry had anticipated. “Why did you take a job you knew you would be fired from?”

“I didn’t know for sure until I was shown my beautiful office and-” Malfoy picked up a stack of papers that looked mostly blank. The top sheet was covered in doodles. The only other things on the desk were muggle magazines, with glossy, motionless covers.

“-was given this,” Malfoy passed Harry a piece of paper before he could read any of the magazine covers.

The paper was, well, calling it instructions would be generous, it was more like a memo. It read: ‘The purpose of the Liars Department is to provide an alternative to Obliviation without the use of magic. You may accomplish this in any way you see fit.

The Department will be receiving dispatches from the Auror’s to assist in place of the Obliviators and should be responded to with all possible haste.’

It was signed, Sir Suirup

Harry frowned at it and put it back into Malfoy’s outstretched hand, “Okay, that answers why you think you’ll be fired, so why are you still here? What’s the point of even coming in?”

“Novelty?” Malfoy said with a shrug, “I’ve never had a job before. It might be fun, or at least funny. It’s already been very amusing. This alone has made my day.”

Harry didn’t get it.

“I asked for a desk yesterday and came back to this,” Malfoy said, his smile growing, “Absolutely ludicrous. I mean, look at it. It’s just utter nonsense.”

“Why don’t you just shrink it?” Harry asked.

“No wand, remember?” Malfoy said.

“Oh, right,” Harry said, feeling weirdly guilty. “I could shrink it for you.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it, Auror Potter,” Malfoy said, “Besides, aren’t you meant to be at work right now?”

Harry’s eyes widened, and he fumbled out his pocket watch, “fuck,” he hissed, snapping the watch closed. He could hear Malfoy laughing as he squeezed through the door

“Delightful talking with you,” Malfoy called after him.

Harry hurried down the hallway, so focused on getting to work; he almost didn’t notice the narrow man coming down the hall towards him. He probably would have ignored the man altogether, but he recognised the robes, the dark purple robes of the Wizengamont.

Most members only wore their official robes when the Wizengamont was called to session. They were gaudy things made of heavy velvet hemmed with gold filigree. The design probably hadn’t changed since the Ministry was established. Harry always instinctively distrusted the robes, they always reminded him of the trial he went through before fifth year.

Harry stopped walking, waiting for the man to reach him. He was not particularly short or tall but stood like a small person straining to be seen. He had close trimmed grey hair to go with a neat moustache that had been waxed to a point on either side.

“Harry Potter. What brings you down here to the supply area?” the man asked, looking at Harry over the top of his little round glasses.

Harry had a suspicion who he was talking to and asked, “Salas Suirup?”

“It’s Sir. And you’re pronouncing it wrong, it’s Salas Suirup.”

Fart taster, Harry heard in the slippery, hissing Sss sounds of the way Suirup pronounced his own name. Not Eater, Taster. Truly, a man of refinement, Harry thought.

Harry managed to keep his expression blank, but it was a near thing, “Yes, Sir.”

“I imagine you’re here about our newest Department. I was just going to see to him myself after yesterdays terrible performance,” Suirup said.

Harry narrowed his eyes, “Funny, I didn’t see you there. I was the auror who assisted Mal- Draco Malfoy in the execution of his duty yesterday.”

Suirup startled, “Ah. So...you were there. I just heard a- a rumour.”

“I was.” Since lying was apparently fine, Harry decided to do some lying of his own, “In fact, I came down here to see if he was getting the support he needed. Yesterday, Malfoy didn’t have the supplies and information he should have been given. His office seemed, well, almost like an insult.”

Suirup blinked rapidly, his moustache twitching as he tried to recover, “I- I agree.”

“That’s good. Malfoy did remarkably well considering his limitations,” Harry said, “Do you know who’s overseeing the department? I’d like to talk to them.”

“I- No- No, I don’t. I plan to look into that myself,” Suirup lied.

Harry nodded, “Send me a memo when you find out. I plan on keeping an eye on the department, seeing as they will be working closely with the Aurors in the future.”

Suirup’s eyes narrowed, and Harry wondered what the dismal slip of a man was thinking.

“I… will,” Suirup said.

Harry gave the man a curt nod, “Good to meet you, Sir. Now I’ve got to be getting to work.”

He brushed past Suirup, bumping the man’s shoulder as he headed back out to the atrium.

Harry nearly ran out of the lift when it stopped on the second level.

“Good morning!” A clerk- Lewis was it?, said with an excited wave.

Harry belatedly waved back at Lewis before heading down the hall to his desk.

“Harry! You’re never late,” Ron said, leaning back to see around the cubicle wall, “Thought you  might be sick or something.”

“No, I was… distracted,” Harry said, “Did you see who I was assigned under today?”

“Still Shunter. With how often she requests you on assignments, she either hates you or loves you,” Ron said.

“Neither of those are good,” Harry said

Ron grinned, “Better you than me.”

Harry sighed and headed for Shunter’s office.

“Morning, sir,” Harry said, stopping in front of her desk.

“You’re late, Potter,” Shunter said, looking up from the stack of paperwork on her desk.

“Yes, sorry, sir,” Harry said.

“Don’t make a habit of it. I’m going to make something of you if it kills me, Potter,” Shunter said, looking tired.

Harry’s brow furrowed, “Uh, thank you? I guess.”

Shunter pressed her fingers into her temple, “Try to take this seriously. There’s a lot riding on you.”

Harry frowned, there weren’t any big investigations going on that he knew of, “Sir?”

“Yesterday’s suspect is being transferred to St Mungo's,” Shunter said, pulling out a file and passing it over, “Take a free Junior Auror along and escort the suspect to the Janus Thickly Ward.”

“Really? He’s not going to jail then?” Harry said.

“He didn’t actually manage to do anything, just cause trouble,” Shunter said.

“He bit me.”

Shunter pointed her quill at him, “Exactly. He needs help, not jail time. Besides we don’t have much room in the Ministry cells, I’m not sending him to Azkaban for minor muggle exposure, and there’s no way he could afford to pay the fine the Wizengamont would give him considering how he was arrested.”

“Make sense,” Harry said.

Shunter nodded, “The system isn’t fair, it isn’t built to be fair, so you have to learn where you can bend things, find cracks, make it work the best we can.”

“Why don’t you change the system?” Harry asked.

“You ever hear about snap-back?” Shunter asked.

Harry shook his head.

“When things change a lot all at once like they did after the war, there’s usually a reactionary force in the opposite direction,” Shunter said, putting her quill back in its stand, “People don’t like change, it makes them nervous. We’re in the snap-back right now. There’s a lot of heel-dragging, a lot of trying to get rid of new laws and rules to make things go back to how it was.”

“How it was before was Voldemort and Death eaters and corruption!” Harry said in dismay.

Shunter shrugged, “It doesn’t make sense to us, but it does to them. The best thing we can do is try and keep things the same until they calm down.”

“I think we should keep trying to change them. How things were hurt people, and that’s not okay, should never be okay,” Harry said.

“You’ve got a lot of hope in you, Potter,” Shunter said, “Don’t forget to take a transfer form along with you to Mungo’s and make sure you get a healer to sign it, not a mediwizard. Got it?”

Harry could tell when he was being dismissed and gave a quick, “Yes, sir,” and went to find an unlucky Junior Auror to assist in transferring the suspect.

Harry returned after noon, the transfer taking far too long, as they always did, and then the Junior insisting they stop off for lunch while they were outside.

The lunch itself had been nice enough, but there had been enough awkward silence to drown a moose in. Once a Junior ran out of hero worship to gush at Harry with, they often didn’t have any real conversation left in them. It was almost like they had trouble talking to him as if he were a real person, like they couldn’t relate to him. And Harry didn’t have the social skills to make up the difference.

He let the Junior finish the paperwork, and went back to his cubicle, resting his forehead on the desk for just a second.

“Went that well, huh?” Ron said.

Harry leaned back in his chair. Ron’s desk was still covered in ledgers and pages of maths, “You look like you’re having fun.”

“Can be. Sometimes,” Ron said, “It’s weird. At school, I always felt a bit dull, but here I feel pretty clever.”

"Hermione's so smart everyone looks stupid in comparison," Harry said, "And you've always been good at chess, and being a good keeper requires a lot of thinking ahead very quickly."

Ron cuffed him on the arm, “Trying to butter me up, are you? Well, it worked. What do you want?”

“To distract me before I have to go report to Shunter again,” Harry said.

Ron grinned, “Easy enough. Jack- he’s a Junior, since you never remember their names, we all call him Jack’willin because he does whatever anyone asks him to- He’s only been out of training a few months and just a few hours ago he exploded all the papers on his desk.”

“What? How? Was he secretly brewing something?” Harry asked.

Ron shook his head, “Nah. Robard sent him to the medi-witch, and Sally heard from Leon who heard from Mallaidh that the medi-witch diagnosed him with a metal-breakdown.”

“And that caused the explosion?” Harry asked.

"Magic's funny like that, it builds up and explodes for all sorts of reasons," Ron said, "All I know for sure was that he was muttering about 'bloody paperwork' all the way to the lift. Took an hour to collect all the scraps of paper and spell them back together."

"That's pretty exciting," Harry asked.

"And a muggle exposure just happened, some kid did accidental magic," Ron said, "But that's it really."

"Muggle exposure?" Harry asked.

“Yeah?”

“So they called the Obliviators?”

Ron frowned at him, “Yeah, or the Liars Department, I guess. Why?”

Harry didn't answer, already on his feet and hurrying to the duty roster hanging on the wall.

Like Mrs Weasley's family clock, the duty roster showed where everyone in the department was, except instead of a clock it was a chalkboard. The first row was if an auror was on duty or not, not on duty aurors showed no other information, there had been a big lawsuit about it ages ago. The second row showed auror location, most of them were at the office, but there were two at a park in north London.

Harry jotted the address down and headed to the apparition zone.

Harry stepped out of the little copse of trees that had been designated for apparition and hurried for the playground a little way away. Malfoy was standing in the centre like a small beacon of light, the kind that blinded you and made you run into street lights.  As he got close, Harry could see that Malfoy was wearing his sunglasses and a scowl beneath them with his arms crossed over his chest. Harry walked even faster. He had been right to come, things weren't going well.

“You honestly expect us to believe,” the first Auror said, “that there’s a department called, ‘the liar’s department? Do I look stupid?”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, “Obviously.”

The second Auror shifted her weight uneasily, “I should go back and check with Leopold, he’s the Senior-”

“We should arrest him and take him back to the Ministry and send the Obliviators back here,” the first Auror said.

Harry was close enough to recognise them as the Juniors he had worked with yesterday and close enough that Malfoy saw him approaching over their shoulders.

Malfoy’s mouth twitched, and he lifted his sunglasses up on top of his head, “Auror Potter.”

The Juniors startled and spun around their eyes wide.

“Mr Harry Potter, sir!” The- Harry had seen her name on the roster right before he came, it was… Kalya, he was pretty sure.

“It’s Auror Potter,” Harry said and shot Malfoy a glare which didn’t stop his smug grin.

“A-Auror Potter,” Kalya said nervously.

The first Junior, a rather bland looking bloke who might have been named… Jake? Jack? Jacob? Might’ve been Jacob, was looking like he might have a go at passing out.

Harry would deal with that if it happened “Juniors are not supposed to close out a scene without assistance from an Auror or Senior Auror,” he told them.

Jacob wobbled.

“Um-uh-um,” Kalya stammered.

“Calm down. It’s not as if you assigned yourselves here, did you?”

Kalya quickly shook her head.

“Right,” Harry said, “Let’s get this cleaned up before too much time passes. People tend to get nervous when they lose too much time.”

“R-right!” Kalya said and then immediately looked utterly at a loss again.

Jacob hadn’t moved, he was dreadfully pale.

“Give the- Give Malfoy a rundown of what transpired,” Harry told her.

Kalya spun around.

Malfoy was grinning, looking much more relaxed.

“Penelope Springwater, age six, was playing with muggle friends at approximately-”

“I don’t need the novel, just the synopsis from the back of the book,” Malfoy interrupted.

Kalya hesitated, “Um, she picked up a stick and accidentally shot sparks from it… it was elm, I think.”

They all looked over at the young father nervously holding on the shoulders of his daughter, he looked exhausted. The eponymous Penelope was kicking a groove through the grass and into dirt underneath, bored out of her mind but adequately determined to express her displeasure at having to stand still for what must have felt like an eternity.

“Is that all?” Malfoy said in dismay, “We could have been done ages ago.”

Harry tried not to glance around. There were at least a dozen muggles frozen in time around them, even the oblivators would take a half an hour with so many.

“Um...” Kalya said.

“Do you still have the stick?” Malfoy asked Penelope.

Penelope looked up from her digging and pointed to a broken branch right by their feet.

Malfoy snatched it up, “Transfigure this into a sparkler, would you?”

“A what?” Jacob said, finally coming to.

“I’m…not that good at transfiguration,” Kalya said.

Malfoy turned to Harry.

Harry drew his wand and did his best to make McGonagall proud, transfiguring the stick into a sparkler. It might have been a little too big, but fine detail had never been his strong suit.

“Truly a hero of the people,” Malfoy said.

Harry scowled at him.

Malfoy gave him a cheeky wink and motioned for the father and daughter to come over, “Take this,” he gave Penelope the sparkler, “make sure you only hold onto the bottom here.”

“Why?” Penelope asked petulantly.

“Because the rest will be on fire,” Malfoy said.

Penelope cheered up at that.

“Wait, you’re- On fire? You can’t give my daughter that!” the father said with growing alarm.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, “Muggle children manage to hold sparklers all the time without spontaneously combusting.”

“What if something goes wrong!” The father said.

“Then she will have learned an important lesson and will be more careful next time,” Malfoy said.

Harry stepped in front of Malfoy, “Ignore him, sir-”

The father was starting to look red in the face, “You of all people can’t allow this- this criminal to-”

“Sir,” Harry interrupted him firmly, “You and Penelope will go to your locations at the time of the event when all the muggles were frozen. The sparkler will be lit, the spells will all be lifted, and then you can run over and take the sparkler away from your daughter.”

Penelope huffed and kicked hard at the dirt.

“It will only be a moment,” Harry reassured him, “We can- We can put a fireproofing charm over Penelope so she’ll be perfectly fine. Do you understand and accept this scenario?”

“And what am I supposed to say? A- A firework just appeared out of nowhere?” the father said.

“You could say a stranger must have given it to her, which is nearly true, or she found it on the ground,” Malfoy said, “Better to say nothing and just complain about how dangerous they are. Don’t encourage anyone to think, people aren’t good at it and it will only cause trouble.”

The father looked ready to start another tirade, but Harry quickly sent him back to the bench he had been sitting on during the incident, Penelope went in front of the swings, three other kids were frozen around her, all holding sticks like swords.

“Go wait by the trees,” Harry told the Juniors, “I’ll light this and as soon as I reach you, release the spells.”

Kalya and Jacob nodded, jogging off to the treeline. Malfoy lingered.

“What? Go join them,” Harry said.

Malfoy leaned close, his soft words tickling Harry’s ear, “You’re still wearing your auror’s uniform.”

A shiver went down Harry’s spine as he quickly covered his ear, scowling at Malfoy, “fuck off.”

“Now now, no swearing in front of the children,” Malfoy said with a grin.

Harry swatted at him, missing as Malfoy stepped back out of the way and casually walked across the playground to join the Juniors.

Harry drew his wand from his sleeve, quickly tapping it on his badge to change his uniforms appearance.

“You ready?” Harry asked.

Penelope nodded, looking determined.

Harry put a charm over her to make her fireproof for about an hour. He then lit the end of the sparkler with a whispered incendio and legged it.

Kalya and Jacob quickly dispelled the charms around the playground once Harry was close.

“Penelope! Where did you get that!” Penelope’s father said, rather unconvincingly.

Harry turned around just in time to see Penelope take off running in the opposite direction screaming in delight and defiance, sparkler held high above her head.

“Penelope!!” her father yelled, very convincingly, running faster to catch up with her. “Come back here!”

“NO!” Penelope swerved, ducking under a slide and through the swings as the other children started chasing after in a parade of pure chaos

“That’s dangerous!!” Penelope’s father said, sounding a bit winded.

“Fuck Off!” Penelope shouted to the sky and then laughed hysterically.

Harry winced.

Malfoy laughed so hard he nearly fell over. He grabbed Harry’s shoulder to stay up and Harry couldn’t bring himself to shake Malfoy off.

“Sir?” Kalya asked quietly.

Harry stared in dismay at the playground. Some other parents had joined the chase, mostly to try and pull their own children from the chase. Penelope didn’t seem to be slowing down in the slightest. “You can finish the report and turn it in. I’ll make sure Malfoy’s form gets to Auror Leopold before the end of the day.”

“O-Okay. If you’re sure,” Kalya said.

“I am,” Harry added, “Just between you and me, Leopold likes to cut corners, and when he does, he’s not the one that gets in trouble. Read up on the rules and watch out for yourself. If you tell- if you remind Auror Leopold of regulation and he refuses to comply, take it to Robards or Shunter.”

“Okay, I will,” Kalya said and then, as Jacob hurried into the trees, added, “Thanks.”

Harry nodded.

Penelope’s sparkler had finally burned out, and she stopped running, panting but happy as she raised it into the air, shouting at the top of her lungs, “I’m the greatest witch queen in the whole world!!!”

Harry groaned, desperately hoping her father wouldn’t submit a complaint or he’d never hear the end of it.

Harry shrugged Malfoy off his shoulder. He was heavy for a bloke that could be mistaken for a piece of chalk.

“Good grief, Auror Potter, things are never boring when you’re around, are they?” Malfoy said, still grinning hugely.

Harry sighed, it seemed like the opposite to him, Malfoy was the one who brought chaos in his wake wherever he went.

“I’m starting to think this job is only enjoyable when you’re around,” Malfoy said.

Harry turned a glare in Malfoy, only to find his expression wasn’t as smug as Harry had been expecting. Harry’s glare faltered, and he looked away, feeling off-balance again.

“Then again, you’ve always had a knack for making things more exciting,” Malfoy went on, completely unaware of his own strangeness.

“How would you know, you’ve never had a job before,” Harry said.

“Ah. So things are always just this exciting then? I had heard that most of an auror’s work was keeping us all hidden,” Malfoy said.

“It’s mostly filling out reports, one of which I need from you,” Harry said.

Malfoy sighed, “You’re no fun, Auror Potter. I’ll get you your form. I know where they are now.” He spun his car keys it on his finger before catching them in his palm, “Well...” Malfoy hesitated, “Give you a lift back?”

For a split second, Harry could almost imagine what it would be like, sitting in the passenger seat of Malfoy’s car, the wind whipping past, the radio on and- and… the vision in his head broke down when it came to the person driving. Would they talk? Would it be awkward? Would it end in a fight and Harry would get kicked to the curb? That seemed most likely…. didn’t it? Then Malfoy’s easy smile came to mind and pushed all the other images to the side-

“Auror Potter?” Malfoy asked.

Harry’s mind went blank, and he scrambled to find something to say, “I, uh, what are you going to do if there’s a call outside London? If something happens out in the country? They can’t wait hours for you to get there.”

“Someone can side-along me, and I can still use floos. I’m not helpless,” Malfoy said, “Or useless.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that. The Malfoy of the past, the one he used to know, was synonymous in his mind with being useless and annoying. This Malfoy felt different. Well, he was still annoying, and cocky, and rude- but... Harry wouldn’t have been able to think up the gas leak excuse yesterday, and today he would have been entirely at a loss. But Malfoy had thought up a solution in a second, and it had been simple but so very effective.

Malfoy shook his head, “Never mind, I’m sure you’re busy, running around, causing trouble.”

Harry watched Malfoy, standing out like a sore thumb in his stupid white suit until he realised he was staring and hurried into the trees. There was still a faint muggle repelling charm on the area that would soon fade into nothing. He took a deep breath and apparated back to the Ministry, ready for the worst.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, POTTER?!?!” Shunter bellowed, slamming her hands on her desk as soon as Harry had shut the office door behind him.

Harry winced, “No, sir.”

“FUCK-ING HELL-! I CAN’T BELIEVE-! YOU-!” Shunter took a deep breath. She pinched the bridge of her nose and took another deep breath, the flush of anger that had been flowing out of her abruptly shifted to ice cold and seemed far, far more terrifying. “...You broke chain of command, interfered with another Aurors investigation, left duty without permission, assisted an outside case without permission, and gave orders to Juniors who were not under your command. These behaviours are completely unacceptable.”

Harry waited. He had been through plenty of lectures in the summer after the final battle for rushing in, for being reckless, but he hadn’t been in any real trouble since finishing his training. Harry knew what to expect though, from seeing the sort of punishments other Juniors were given and he would take it without complaint, he wouldn’t have done any differently.

Shunter braced herself on her desk, leaning forward, “Explain yourself. And it better be good.”

Harry straightened up, “I heard a muggle exposure happened and went to assist the new Liars Department.”

“The new department can take care of itself,” Shunter said.

“No, it can’t, sir. They are extremely understaffed and underfunded. They have been set up to fail.”

“It’s not our department. We are not here to babysit them. If it’s been set up to fail, then best to let it so we can get back to working with the Obliviators,” Shunter said flatly.

Harry frowned, “There were nearly a dozen muggles at the site and a half an hour had already passed when I arrived. What would have happened if the spells released before things were settled? Or the muggles lost an hour of time, and there was an incident? Isn’t our number one priority to avoid any and all detection by muggles?”

“Yes,” Shunter said through clenched teeth, “by following the rules. Not them. If you had come to me and requested to assistance-”

“There wasn’t enough time!” Harry’s voice rose, “The Juniors were talking about arresting Malfoy when I got there when they should have been assisting him!”

Shunter’s eyes narrowed, and she slowly leaned back from her desk, “Malfoy? As in Draco Malfoy?”

Harry hesitated, suddenly aware of his misstep, “He’s- He’s done a good job so far-”

“If the department has been set up to fail, we’ll let it,” Shunter said.

“Sir! That’s- what about the muggles?” Harry said.

“Potter-” Shunter said in a warning tone.

“Then what about the auror’s? It will reflect badly on us if muggle exposures keep failing-”

“That is an order, Potter, not a suggestion. No more meddling with the Liars Department,” Shunter said coldly.

They stared at one another until Harry knew Shunter wasn’t going to budge. He drew back his shoulders, staring over her head at the far wall, “My punishment, sir?”

“Punish-?” Shunter sighed, and sat in her chair so heavily it rolled back a few inches, “No punishment, Potter.”

“What?”

“Just... don’t make it a habit,” Shunter said.

Harry stared at her and then slowly shook his head, “That can’t be right. I broke chain of command, ordered around Juniors, left duty-”

“I know what you did, Potter-”

“Ron got a week on night shift just for ignoring orders. Another Junior got a month of desk duty for forgetting protocol and almost using magic in front of a muggle. There’s no way I shouldn’t be punished,” Harry said.

“You want desk duty?” Shunter asked, raising an eyebrow.

Harry’s frown deepened, “I don’t want special treatment. It’s not right.”

“It’s practical,” Shunter said, “You don’t want this written up on your record.”

“What? I don’t care about that. No one has a perfect record.”

“It will slow down your promotion to Senior Auror. Think about the future Potter, focus on that some more rather than what’s right,” Shunter said.

“Sir, I don’t care about-” Harry protested.

“Others do. I’m not going to be the one to come down on you, I worked hard to get where I am. I’m not getting demoted for you, Potter.” Shunter said. She looked down at her desk as she spoke, and there was such bitterness and bile in her tone; it was a wonder her paperwork didn’t turn black and melt from the acridness of it. “Get out, finish your paperwork and go home.”

Harry quickly stepped outside, easing the door shut behind him, his mind racing. Who cared about him being promoted so badly they would demote an Auror as good as Shunter just for doing her job? And had they done it before?

Harry went back to his desk.

“You alright, mate?” Ron asked, “We could feel the walls shaking from out here. I mean, not literally, but Shunter has a set of lungs on her.”

Harry sighed, pushing his hands through his hair, “Was I promoted quickly, do you think?”

Ron gave him a look, “Uh, yeah? Youngest promotion in Ministry history. The only person close was Kingsley, he made Auror in a year an’ a half.”

“Fuck,” Harry muttered.

“It was in all the papers,” Ron said, “Oh... right. You don’t read the papers.”

“I thought it was weird at the time that you weren’t promoted with me,” Harry said.

“Me?” Ron said.

“Yeah, we did everything together, if I deserved to get promoted so do you.” Harry frowned, “Then again, I guess I didn’t deserve it.”

Ron shrugged a shoulder, “After the war and everything I just figured they wanted to give you something, or like, the hero can’t stay a Junior Auror, can he?”

“Would’ve been nice if they thought to ask me about it,” Harry said.

“Hey, it’s good though, right?” Ron said.

It wasn’t. Harry had been feeling lost and inexperienced, always scrambling to keep up for months now, and he just thought all Aurors must feel like that after going up a rank. He wished he had turned down the promotion. He wished he had more time to- to learn. And not be left behind.

And from what Shunter had hinted at, it was just going to happen again.

“Hey-”

“Auror Weasley,” Hermione said, coming around the corner, “I have need of your very valuable expertise.”

Ron had just enough time to spin his chair around before being engulfed in a hug.

“H-Hey there!” Ron said with a laugh, squeezing her tight, “Hey.”

“Hello,” Hermione said, sounding tired, “I desperately needed a recharge.”

“I’m always available,” Ron said, “Gonna work late tonight?

Hermione shook her head, “No. If that’s alright.”

“Fine by me,” Ron said.

“Want to rent a movie and get pizza?” Hermione asked.

“And ice cream?” Ron asked.

Hermione nodded emphatically, “Merlin, yes.”

Ron laughed and stood up, picking up Hermione as he did like she weighed nothing and making her gasp.

“Put me down!” Hermione said with fake outrage, smacking Ron’s shoulder.

No doubt half the office was staring at them by now, but Ron didn’t care. He set Hermione back on her toes with a smile.

“Hi, Harry,” Hermione said, “Sorry, I’m just a bit stressed.”

“Understandable,” Harry said, giving her a smile.

Ron caught Hermione’s eye, and they exchanged a look, “Oh…Would you like to come?” Hermione asked, “We could have a movie night together.”

“And have to watch the two of you flirt all night, no thanks,” Harry said, making a face.

“You sure, mate?” Ron asked, “It’d be fun. We promise to keep the flirting to the minimum.”

“I doubt it. No really, go on. I have a lot to think on,” Harry said.

“Alright, we’ll talk some more tomorrow,” Ron said.

“And we’ll have to have dinner together again soon,” Hermione said.

Harry rolled his eyes fondly, “Yeah, of course.”

By the time Harry finished all his neglected paperwork, he was one of the last people leaving the office. His mind was still a mess of information that he was sure if he let sink in even a little would leave him furious.

“Have a good evening!” the clerk at the desk called as Harry headed for the lift.

Then stopped.

The clerk- Harry hurried over to the desk, “Lewis, right?”

Lewis nodded, looking startled, “Something I can help you with, sir?”

“You’re here on a one week transfer right?”

Lewis nodded.

“What happens after the week?” Harry asked.

“I- well, I go back to my old department and decide whether to apply for a full transfer or, um, I’m probably going to do another,” Lewis said.

“So you don’t have to transfer at the end?”

“No, it’s just a trial,” Lewis said, “I’m just seeing if it’s a good fit or not. I don’t have to stay.”

“Okay,” Harry said, nodding to himself, “Just one more question, then.”

“Sir?”

“Where can I find the forms?” Harry asked.

Chapter Text

Robards stared at the paper in his hand.

Harry shifted his weight on the uncomfortable chair in front of Robbards desk. There was a clock in the room somewhere. Harry had never been able to figure out where it was, but he could always hear the soft tick-tick in the office when things got quiet.

Aside from the wall with the door, the Head Auror’s office walls were entirely built-in bookshelves. Harry could have imagined that once they would be filled with books, there still were some on the shelves up by the ceiling, but the lower shelves had been repurposed for other uses. There were stacks of newspapers, piles of loose paper and several shelves were filled with file folders. On different shelves, pushed behind various detritus, Harry also spotted seven different mugs, two pairs of shoes, a couple award plaques and a sock.

“What is this?” Robards asked, setting the paper down on his desk.

Harry managed to pull himself away from the chaotic interest of the walls, “Its for a one week transfer to The Liar’s Department.”

“I can read, Potter,” Robards said, his patience already sounding strained, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going to work for the Liar’s Department for a week,” Harry said, unfazed. He had been too worked up last night to sleep, so the sun was starting to rise by the time he finally drifted off. The lack of sleep was seriously hampering his ability to care.

“Think about how this will look,” Robards said.

“It will look like the Aurors are helping a new department they are going to be working with regularly get on their feet. After all, we all want to do a good job,” Harry said.

“Your...dedication to the aurors is commendable, Potter, but I’m going to have to reject the transfer,” Robards said.

“You can’t, actually,” Harry said, “This is just a formality so that you know I haven’t skipped work. I’ve already filed a copy with Interdepartmental Services.”

“You’re needed here-”

“I’m not. We aren’t working on any urgent cases right now, and you have plenty of Aurors to take the strain if any new ones show up,” Harry said.

Robards’ jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth, “You can’t be playing around like this. Your career-”

“Is doing great,” Harry said with a smile fake as aspartame, “I’m the youngest Auror in the history of the department. Can’t imagine what I did to earn it but the pay raise is nice.”

“You’ve done plenty, you’re a hero, a credit to the uniform,” Robards said.

“Is that so,” Harry said.

“This isn’t like you, Potter. You’re solid, dependable. You don’t fly off the handle like this,” Robards said.

Harry wanted to laugh, Robards really didn’t know him very well. Then again, Harry really had been a model auror for the last couple years. He stood up, “I need to get going, or I’ll be late for my new job. I’ll be back in seven working days, sir.”

Harry headed down to the back hallway but Malfoy’s ‘office’ was just a storage closet again, filled with filing cabinets and no Malfoy to be found. He asked reception, but they also had no idea where the Liar’s Department had been relocated to. Apparently, they hadn’t been notified.

If Fart-taster thought he could hide the department, he was dead wrong. Harry went back down the narrow hallways, past the line of storage rooms and stopped in front of the door at the very end, knocking lightly and waiting until it was hesitantly opened and a house elf peeked out nervously.

“You’re not in trouble,” Harry said quickly, to head off any wailing and frantic apologies, “I need your help with something.”

“Helping with what?” The house elf said meekly, gripping the front of their pillowcase tightly.

“I’m looking for the Liars Department. It’s very new and has just been moved to a new office, but no one knows where it is.”

The house elf’s ears drooped, “Loopa doesn’t know.”

“Would you ask the others?” Harry said as gently as he could manage, “The new office would have needed a desk and chair… maybe a filing cabinet?”

“You will be waiting here, I will be asking,” Loopa the elf said, nervously closing the door again.

A couple minutes later, the door creaked open again, and Loopa peeked out, “New office with Mr Malfoy?”

“Yeah,” Harry said a little surprised, “You know him?”

Loopa nodded, “All house elves have been hearing of Mr Malfoy. Mr Malfoy has office on level seven in back corner past gobbystones and big big paper office. Do you need Loopa for other things?”

“Uh…No. Thank you,” Harry said and headed to the stairs, going up one level to seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports.

Half the floor was taken up by the chaos of the Quidditch League Headquarters, a large open room filled with conference tables covered in different broom models and sets of quidditch balls. There were also four blackboards. Three of them were covered in little O’s and X’s moving along dotted lines in various quidditch plays. The other blackboard had the start of a meeting schedule, but it had been half scrubbed off for more game plans. Otherwise, the office was empty. Rumour was the Quidditch League Headquarters didn’t start work until ten. But to be fair, they were usually still in their office late into the night arguing about rules and play regality and broom specs.

Harry walked past the tables to the offices in the back corner of the floor. Behind the door to the Official Gobstone Club, he could hear shouting, and mix of cursing and laughter as a game was played. The Ludicrous Patent Office had big glass windows that took up most of the wall and showed an office mostly taken over by paper, stacks and stacks of paper. There were six desks, and all of them were occupied by very serious looking people poring over various patent applications and then referencing older patents, history books and newspapers, occasionally frowning in thought.

It was no wonder Lewis was trying to transfer somewhere else. The idea of working in that sort of office, always doing paperwork, always hunched over a desk, for the rest of his life, made Harry shudder. It was just not for him.

In the corner of the room, just like the house elf had said it would be, was a door with the same piece of spellotaped parchment declaring it The Liars Department stuck onto it, looking a bit more crumpled from the move. Harry went to knock then decided not to, he was working here after all, and pushed open the door.

He caught a brief glimpse of Malfoy bent over something on his desk before he dragged a stack of magazines over it in a panic.

Then Malfoy looked up and instantly relaxed, “Oh. It’s you.”

A few pencils fell off the desk and rolled across the floor, Harry picked one up. It was blue, a blue coloured pencil. He gave Malfoy a curious look.

“I thought you were Suirup,” Malfoy said by way of explanation. The way he said Fart-taster’s name made it sound like syrup.

“He doesn’t approve of colouring on Ministry time?” Harry asked.

“He doesn’t approve of much of anything as far as I can tell,” Malfoy said.

Harry put the blue pencil back on the desk and nodded, “That sounds about right.”

Malfoy’s new office was about twice the size of his last one, which was to say, still really fucking small, but at least you could open the door all the way. And Malfoy had got two more chairs, one in front of his desk and the other in front a much smaller desk in the corner.

Harry shifted his weight. He thought he probably ought to sit, but felt weirdly nervous about it.

“Move!”

Harry jumped to the side, nearly banging into the door frame. He looked back where he had been, then down at a house elf wearing what looked like a child's ballerina costume, including bright pink tutu. She gave Harry an absolutely scathing glare as she went over to the desk, cardboard drinks carrier in hand. There was a massive cup and a small one, which she gave to Malfoy, taking the cup the size of her head back to the little desk in the corner.

“Is that all coffee?” Malfoy asked, “You’re going to throw up if you have that much.”

“Then Asbestos will find somewhere interesting to throw up,” the house elf-

Harry blinked, “Asbestos?”

Malfoy nodded, “She picked it out herself.”

“As-bes-tos,” Asbestos said carefully, “Nice to say. Feels nice.”

Harry frowned, “But isn’t that the-”

“It’s a lovely name,” Malfoy interrupted, his tone was light, but there was a warning look in his eye. “Asbestos, this is Auror Potter.”

“Pah. Don’t care,” Asbestos said.

Harry blinked.

Malfoy snorted.

“So she- So Asi is one of your elves?” Harry asked.

“Asbestos. Not Asi,” Asbestos said impatiently, “And Asbestos is not Mr Malfoy’s.”

Malfoy was grinning, which made Harry want to sigh.

“I took your comments to heart yesterday and hired Asbestos on as my secretary. She can side-along me to distant locations send me messages from the office while I’m out,” Malfoy said, pleased as punch.

“I mean, hired is a bit much when you own her,” Harry said sourly.

“Asbestos is own elf, Potter-man,” Asbestos said sharply. “Not owned by anyone but self.”

“...You’re a free elf?” Harry asked.

“Asbestos is secretary elf, which is better than being house elf that has to clean dirty pants,” Asbestos said.

Harry looked at Malfoy in the faintest chance he could explain what was going on.

“All the manor’s house elves are free,” Malfoy said.

“What?” Harry said, wobbling as the world shifted beneath his feet.

“Sit down, Auror Potter. Don’t you know it’s rude to loom about where everyone else is seated?” Malfoy said, “And it makes you look daft.”

Harry sat, too bewildered to retort.

“Better,” Malfoy said.

“You freed all your house elves?” Harry asked.

Malfoy nodded.

“Why?”

Malfoy shrugged offhandedly, “Oh well… you know, it made my father absolutely livid for one. That was a treat.”

Asbestos scoffed loudly in the corner.

“He the one who had his wand destroyed and isn’t allowed to ever use one again, you must have been thinking of him when you thought I didn’t have a wand. Since he can’t use magic he had to pass on ownership of the estate to me so we’d be able to access all of the grounds and rooms, some of them are bound by blood magic. Once the ritual was complete, I immediately freed them,” Malfoy grinned widely, “The look on his face, Auror Potter. It’s a memory I shall cherish. Do you have a pensieve? I’d be glad to share it.”

“No. I’ve had enough of Lucius Malfoy for the rest of my life,” Harry said.

“If only we could all be so lucky.” Malfoy leaned forward, “Auror Potter, you must understand, the things the elves buy- it’s wonderful, the clothes, the food, the toys and knick-knacks; there’s no purer delight in the world than visiting them in the evenings and seeing what they’ve gotten up to.”

Harry frowned, “...You just did it because it was fun?”

“No,” Asbestos said before Malfoy could reply, “Old man was hurting elves. Old man was punishing and being cruel because he was angry. Now Old Man can’t because free elves can hurt back.”

Malfoy slumped back in his chair with a frown that was mostly pout, “But that’s horrid and unfun and boring. No one cares about that.”

Harry was pretty sure he did. Hermione had been campaigning for ages to get the old houses, the Ministry, and Hogwarts to free their house elves but despite all the claimed support and vague promises, none of them had freed a single elf. And yet the one house she never asked had freed them all.

“Stupid,” Asbestos said.

“I am not,” Malfoy said.

“Double stupid,” Asbestos said.

“Well, you’re rude,” Malfoy said.

Asbestos grinned, “Asbestos is. Just as she likes. But not stupid like you.”

“not stupid,” Malfoy muttered under his breath.

Harry let out a surprised laugh.

Malfoy frowned at him, “Oh, go away. Don’t you have work to do, Auror Potter? You’re dreadfully late.”

“I was only a bit late, having to find this place wasn’t easy, you know. The receptionists weren’t told your office had moved,” Harry said.

Malfoy’s brow furrowed.

And it occurred to Harry that without anyone knowing where the office was, they wouldn’t be able to send him a notification that Harry had done the transfer.

“The Ministry has this thing where you can transfer to another department for a week to try it out,” Harry said, “I transferred here. To work. For a week.”

Malfoy stared at him.

Harry stared back.

“No. Not possible,” Malfoy said.

“I’m pretty sure it is. I filled out the paperwork myself,” Harry said.

Malfoy abruptly looked away, putting his hand over his mouth.

Harry watched as the tops of Malfoy’s ears slowly turned red. He sat back in his chair, enjoying the sudden change. See how you like being unbalanced, Harry thought.

“stupid,” Asbestos said under her breath.

Malfoy cleared his throat and ran a hand over his hair, “I certainly wasn’t expecting that. It seems like… an unusual choice.”

“Yeah, well, the department is being set up to fail, and it isn’t right,” Harry said.

“I can manage,” Malfoy said stiffly.

Harry shifted in the chair, it squeaked under his weight, “Sorry to bruise your delicate ego, Malfoy, but it isn’t about you. The auror’s are going to look bad if a muggle exposure goes wrong and Suirup’s set this whole thing up to make Hermione look stupid.” And well, it might have been a bit about Malfoy, seeing as he was just trying to do his job. But Harry wasn’t about to tell him that.

Malfoy’s brow furrowed, “How is Granger involved in this?”

Harry nodded, “She wanted to do a research paper on the effect of obliviating muggles in case it was causing memory problems and Suirup’s in charge of the committee to approve her proposals. He spun the whole thing into this department-”

“And set it up to fail so she would look foolish,” Malfoy said. He sighed and let out a strange little laugh, “Of course. Here I thought it was about me, but it never is, is it? Always the pawn, never the player.”

It was self-deprecating, Malfoy’s laugh, that’s why Harry couldn’t place it before. He’d rarely heard Malfoy be anything other annoying confident.

“It’s probably better this way,” Malfoy said. He took a deep breath and put a smile on that didn’t look genuine in the least, “Suirup used to be very vocal in his opinions about muggle-borns rising above their station before the war. I’m not surprised Granger is having trouble with him.”

“He’s a dick. I don’t know how he managed to get a seat on the Wizengamont anyway,” Harry said.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, “Most of them are dicks, and I mean that literally. The majority of the seats are inherited or are filled by Ministry department heads. In fact, there are only a few seats that are elected. I’d have thought you’d know that, Auror Potter-”

“Just Potter. I’m not an auror right now,” Harry pointed out.

Malfoy curled his lip in dismay, “No. I don’t think so.”

“I think so. Filled out the paperwork, remember?” Harry said.

“Ugh,” Malfoy said, “I cannot call you- No.”

“What?” Harry said grinning faintly, “You didn’t have any problem calling me Pottah in school.”

Malfoy winced, “That is exactly the problem. That name is full of baggage and horrid memories. I’m not interested in reminiscing.”

“It’s my name,” Harry said.

“Enjoy. It’s not mine, and I don’t have to use it if I don’t want to,” Malfoy said.

Harry rolled his eyes, “You could always use my first name, you know. I do have one.”

“No,” Malfoy said flatly.

“In fact, it’s Harry. You should try it sometime,” Harry said.

“I’ll be sure to use it at your funeral,” Malfoy said.

“Come on, Malfoy-!”

“Ah!” Malfoy pointed at him, “You still use my last name.”

Harry frowned at him, “That’s just a habit.”

Malfoy raised his eyebrows.

Harry frowned harder.

They stared at one another, stubbornness radiating off them like a bad fever.

“Fine,” Harry said, “Draco.”

Harry looked away at the same time Malfoy did, feeling really weirdly embarrassed by it all.

“double stupid,” Asbestos muttered.

Harry cleared his throat, “Yeah, no, this is a bit ridiculous. What we ought to be doing is letting reception know where your office is so they can contact you if something happens.”

“Yes...” Malfoy said thoughtfully, “Asbestos, can you do that?”

“Asbestos not stupid, so yes,” Asbestos said standing up on her chair, her tutu crinkling as it brushed past her desk.

“What? I could do that. You could do it,” Harry said.

“She’s my secretary, it’s her job. And we shall be going out,” Malfoy said.

“We shall?” Harry said.

Malfoy waved him off, “Do you have the phone I gave you, Asbestos?”

“Yes, yes. Asbestos will contact you if there is memo or person needing you,” Asbestos said dismissively. She snapped her fingers and apparated away.

“What phone? Muggle tec doesn’t really work here, there’s too much magic interference,” Harry said.

Malfoy stood up and straightened his suit before reaching into his pocket and drawing out a slim black flip-phone. Or something that looked quite like a mirror. When Malfoy flipped it open, Harry saw that the small screen on top had been replaced with a mirror.

“Oh! It’s like a two-way mirror?” Harry said, “Aren’t they really rare?”

Malfoy snapped it shut and put it away, “Yes. It’s because the spellwork required to make them permanently connected is extremely difficult. The spells to keep them temporarily connected are much easier. They should work for a year.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Harry said, “It’s really clever.”

“Thank you,” Malfoy said with a truly smug smile, “It’s a prototype. I still have to figure out how to get them to connect to other mirrors instead of just one.”

“You made it?” Harry said, sounding more than a little doubtful.

“Of course. I’m very creative and clever, you know,” Malfoy said.

“Sure you are,” Harry said derisively.

Malfoy sighed at him, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Hey-!”

“If you’re done antagonizing me,” Malfoy said.

“I- What? I wasn’t!” Harry said.

Malfoy gave him a look that said that Harry was very much being a total twat and to which Harry didn’t think he deserved in the least.

“Let’s go. We need to get you a uniform,” Malfoy said. He edged past the desk and then did his best to sweep past Harry out the door.

“Uniform? You don’t mean a suit? I’m not wearing anything like that,” Harry said, pointing at Malfoy’s white suit.

Malfoy put his sunglasses, “I’m your boss, aren’t I? So you’ll wear whatever uniform I like.”

Harry hesitated. It actually hadn’t occurred to him that he would be working for Malfoy, and he suddenly felt a deep sense of foreboding for what was to come.

“Come along. We don’t, in fact, have all day. I’m off at six,” Malfoy said.

“So am I.”

“No. You were late and will stay back a half an hour after to make up the time,” Malfoy said, “And your suit will be black.”

Harry stood up with a sigh and followed Malfoy.

They took the floo to Diagon Alley to the Leaky Cauldron. Malfoy’s white suit drew all eyes in the room, and instantly all conversation stopped. The expressions on most peoples faces went glacial. Harry narrowed his eyes and then pointedly cleared his throat, glaring around the room as people took notice of him.

“Quit posturing, Auror Potter, it won’t help,” Malfoy said, his eyes obscured by his sunglasses, and heading out the muggle street entrance.

He was gone before Harry could protest that it wasn’t posturing.

“Are you going to arresting that criminal, Mr Potter, sir?” someone asked from behind him.

Harry spun around, looking for the question asker but everyone seemed to shrink away from him, “Malfoy is a Ministry employee.”

Someone coughed faintly.

No one would meet Harry’s eye.

“We’re working together as colleagues,” Harry said.

An older witch nodded absently and forced a polite smile.

Harry glared at the room again before stalking outside.

“We’re working together as colleagues,” Malfoy repeated in a nasally tone.

Harry spun towards him, still glaring.

Malfoy was leaning against the wall on one shoulder. “So scary,” he said with a smirk.

“I wasn’t trying to scare anyone,” Harry said, “I just- It’d be better if people thought for a second before jumping to conclusions.”

“Does that include you, Auror Potter?” Malfoy asked.

“Harry. And yes, of course.”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Harry said.

“I recall that in our first encounter a few days ago, you seemed to jump to some very… strong opinions,” Malfoy said.

“That’s- That’s different. I know you,” Harry said.

“Knew,” Malfoy corrected, “I like to think I’ve changed since then.”

“...a bit, maybe,” Harry said.

“maybe a bit,” Malfoy muttered under his breath as he headed down the street to- Malfoy’s car.

Harry stopped, “You’re not expecting me to get in that thing, are you?”

“Afraid of cars? Weren’t you raised with muggles?” Malfoy said, glancing over his shoulder.

“I not afraid of cars, I’m afraid of one driven by you,” Harry said.

“I passed the theory and driving test,” Malfoy said taking a licence from his inside pocket and holding it up between two fingers.

Harry took the card and looked at it. He had no idea what a drivers licence was meant to look like. “How do I know it’s not fake?”

Malfoy shrugged, “I supposed you could request the record of my tests.”

“You could falsify the documents,” Harry said.

“It’s all digital now. I wouldn’t even know where to start,” Malfoy said, starting to get annoyed.

“You could still alter peoples memories so that they could put false information into the computers,” Harry said.

Malfoy turned back to him, lifting his sunglasses up and setting them on top his head, narrowing his eyes at Harry.

“What? It’s possible.”

“What a hypocrite. It’d be better if people thought before jumping to conclusions,” Malfoy said mockingly.

Harry felt a pang of guilt and ignored it.

“Give me my licence back,” Malfoy said, reaching for it.

Harry took a step back, “And this photo of you is awful.”

Malfoy gave Harry his most affronted look, “That is not my fault! I’ve heard everyone takes a bad photo for these things.”

“You look constipated,” Harry said.

Malfoy tried to snatch his driver’s licence, “Give. It. Back.”

Harry took a step backwards with every frantic grab, reminding Harry of Malfoy’s rather terrible luck catching the snitch. “And what happened to your hair?”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes and took a sudden step forward, to which Harry tried to back up just a quickly except the pavement ended, and he found himself falling instead, hitting the road hard enough to startle the breath out of him. A stinging throb of pain following soon after from his elbow and hip. Luckily the road was empty.

Malfoy leaned down and plucked his licence from Harry’s fingers and stood over him as he put it away, “The woman told me to stand in front of the screen, and she was taking too long, and just as I was about to ask if she was going to take the damn thing, she did and I wasn’t ready, and I asked to retake it, and she said I could in ten years. So it was not my fault.”

Harry tried to laugh but was too winded to do more than wheeze.

“You know, I had almost forgotten what an asshole you are,” Malfoy said.

“Am not,” Harry said, “Help me up, would you?”

“No.” Malfoy said flatly, heading back to his car, “And you’re fired.”

Harry stumbled to his feet and nearly ran after Malfoy, his aches and pain temporarily forgotten, “Fired? You can’t-”

“Can. I’m your boss,” Malfoy said.

“Technically, I’m just on loan, only Robbards can fire me,” Harry said, catching up.

Malfoy stopped and gave him a positively icy stare, “...Fine. You can return to the office. You’re Asbestos’ under-secretary now.”

“What?”

“Did I stutter?” Malfoy said, “Let me be more explicit then, I don’t want to work with you anymore. I’m not interested in being bullied or toyed with. I’m not going to suffer for anyone's amusement ever again, but especially yours.”

Malfoy turned and unlocked his car, fumbling with his keys slightly as he tried to get them in the lock. The engine roared to life, and the canvas roof began slowly rolling back on the convertible.

Harry realised that Malfoy was serious, and he was in real danger of being left behind with a house elf that might very well throw up on him for fun.

“Look! I’m- I’m sorry, alright? I was just- just teasing and went too far,” Harry said.

Malfoy gripped the steering wheel, looking straight ahead.

“I mean it! I’ll try not to- to be an asshole,” Harry insisted leaning over the passenger side door.

Malfoy looked at him then, with a glare, “Off the car.”

Harry leaned back, holding his hands up.

“Say it again,” Malfoy said.

“What- which…part?” Harry said.

“The part where you apologised,” Malfoy said, “I want to hear it again so I can properly enjoy it.”

A part of himself that embarrassingly reminded Harry of a toddler having a tantrum was shouting about how he’d never apologise to the likes of Malfoy of all people. He had to remind himself that he had already apologised even if he had just sort of said it, and it wasn’t any different to apologise again, even if it felt different.

Malfoy was watching him with interest, “Don’t strain yourself.”

“Shut up,” Harry snapped automatically.

Malfoy shrugged and put his hand on the gear stick.

“Okay okay,” Harry said and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

Malfoy snorted, “That was awful.”

“Hey-!”

“Get in, before I change my mind,” Malfoy said.

The seats of Malfoy’s car were pale grey and made that squeaky fart sound so particular to leather seats as Harry sat and pulled the door shut behind him, perhaps a little too hard by the way Malfoy’s eye twitched.

“Seat belt on, Auror Potter,” Malfoy said.

“Harry,” Harry said, reaching over his shoulder and pulling the belt on.

Malfoy rolled his eyes before sliding his sunglasses back on and putting the car into gear, pulling out onto the street.

Harry clutched the seat with both hands in a death grip as Malfoy accelerated, holding his breath in anticipation of the worst. But Malfoy slowed as the light turned red at the next intersection and was smooth in accelerating once it went green again, his hand shifting from gear to gear like it was second nature. He liked to accelerate on any clear stretch, but he never misjudged how close the next car was or rushed yellow lights. Malfoy was a surprisingly a good driver.

“How long have you been driving?” Harry asked, prising his grip loose.

“Three years,” Malfoy said.

That meant that Malfoy would have been driving while Harry had still been in training. “How did you learn? Did you take a class?” Harry asked.

“I hired a tutor,” Malfoy said.

Harry grinned, “A tutor?”

“All of my education outside of Hogwarts has been from tutors. It seemed logical enough to me.” Malfoy said.

Harry let himself relax back into the seat, the wind ruffling his hair, “And they have driving tutors?”

“I found someone willing.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“University student,” Malfoy said.

“University’s a bit strange for a first name,” Harry said.

Malfoy glanced over at him then back at the road, “I hardly see how it matters, but his name’s Trev.”

“Trev. Was he a lad? With that sort of name he sounds like a lad,” Harry said.

Malfoy sighed at him.

“You know the type, always going to the pub to watch footie on the tv with his mates,” Harry said.

“And you don’t go to the pub to listen to quidditch broadcasts?” Malfoy asked.

“Well, yeah… but I’m not a lad. Not a lad lad,” Harry said.

Malfoy snorted at him.

“It’s a thing, like a distinct thing,” Harry insisted.

“Well, since you’re the one defining it, you’ll excuse me if I don’t entirely believe you,” Malfoy said. He shifted down, the car slowing as he pulled half onto the pavement, his car parked right over the bright yellow line.

“You can’t park here,” Harry said, “The yellow line means-”

“I know,” Malfoy opened the glovebox and taking out a paper wrapped in a yellow plastic that read PENALTY CHARGE NOTICE, which he put under the wiper blade after getting out.

Harry scrambled out of the car, “That’s- You can’t do that!”

Malfoy smirked at him as he walked around the car, “Oh, but I must, Auror Potter. Don’t you know in order to own and use any muggle object that might conceivably be also touched or used by a muggle that the object must be carefully warded with muggle repelling charms?”

“So?”

“I’m not allowed to alter or bespell the car in case it’s sold back to a muggle. So, that,” Malfoy said with an elegant gesture that somehow contrived to be mocking, “is my muggle repelling object. I registered it with the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office.”

“They let you register that-” Harry pointed accusingly at the parking ticket.

“Oh, yes, its all perfectly legal. I have the papers back at my office if you want to check them,” Malfoy said.

“They have no idea what that even means do they?” Harry said.

Malfoy smiled with delight, “Not the faintest clue.”

“Is it even charmed, or is it just a parking ticket?” Harry asked.

Malfoy’s smile grew, “Not telling.”

“What are you, five?”

“What are you? Fifty? You sound like an old man,” Malfoy said.

Harry frowned at him, “We’re the same age, and two months difference doesn’t make me an old man.”

Malfoy laughed and took his sunglasses off, which felt like a victory to Harry.

“One, I was referring to your state of mind,” Malfoy said, “Two, why do you know when my birthday is?”

“What? It’s just- you know, you always got a lot of presents, and the house elves always made a little cake if it was someone's birthday,” Harry said, feeling embarrassed. Trying to shake the feeling off he said, “Besides I bet you know when mine is, it’s not that odd.”

“Your birthday is practically a national holiday. I don’t think they compare,” Malfoy said, “To think, I might have been flattered by that once. Now I just find it slightly concerning.”

“What? What do you mean-”

“Quit dawdling. You need to get fitted so they can finish the alterations for tomorrow,” Malfoy said, waving for Harry to follow him.

Harry hesitated, the shop was fronted in dark stained wood, the only sign were the names, Pyne and Baley, over the door in modest gold lettering. The windows were narrow and held no window displays or signs. There were no listed hours. There was no indication, in fact, that it was a shop at all.

Harry wanted to protest again, but Malfoy was already inside, the door swinging shut silently behind him. Harry wasn’t going to stand on the street by himself, so he went in.

As soon as the door shut behind him all sound from the street vanished. The air in the shop felt like crushed velvet and smelled very faintly of an earthy, expensive cologne.

The front room was small, with wine coloured carpet and matching heavy drapes hanging around the windows. The walls were covered in old fashioned ornate wallpaper, the light fixtures were brightly polished brass.

“It’s only a week,” Harry hissed under his breath, feeling utterly unnerved by the silence and privilege the room exuded.

There weren’t even any suits displayed, just a few chairs and small couch upholstered in black fabric so matte the shapes and shadow of the furniture were lost.

Malfoy glanced at him, unmoved.

“I have a suit I can wear,” Harry said.

The corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitched up.

“Malfoy,” Harry said, nearly- probably pleading.

Instead, Malfoy called out, “Mr Pyne? Mr Baley?”

His words were absorbed back into silence almost immediately, and there were a few nerve-wracking seconds before a door at the back of the room was opened, even more silently than the front door, followed by an equally quiet man. He was older with grey hair and a moustache neatly trimmed who exuded a perfect calm composure that Harry envied. He stared at Malfoy for a second before dipping his head in recognition, “Mr Malfoy, it’s a pleasure to have your custom once again.”

“For you and your partner’s skill, I would cross oceans, Mr Payne,” Malfoy said.

Mr Payne put on the faintest of smiles, “Your compliments would be better served in the ears of others. At sixty, We have heard them all.”

“They are well earned,” Malfoy said.

Malfoy stood differently in this place. He was always straight-backed, head held high and generally full of himself, but here, instead of looking stiff and formal, he fit. He felt easier in the way he talked and stood, even his expressions seemed smoother.

And Harry couldn’t have felt more out of place if he tried.

“I need a suit for my new associate,” Malfoy said, “In the same cut and style as mine but black to my white.”

“Yin to your yang,” Mr Payne said. His voice held no hint of meaning or implication, but there was a look in his eye that made Malfoy go still.

“I’m helping Malfoy’s new department get off the ground,” Harry clarified.

“Hmm,” Mr Payne said under his breath, looking from Malfoy to Harry.

Malfoy cleared his throat, “I’ll need it ready by tomorrow, I’m willing to pay for the rush.”

“Let me check our stock and see if we have anything we can alter,” Mr Pyne said and returned to the backroom.

“Just so you know, I’m going to look ridiculous,” Harry said once he was gone.

“I doubt that,” Malfoy said, “Everyone looks good in a suit and I mean everyone.”

“Well, you’re wrong because I look like a berk in one,” Harry muttered.

Malfoy turned and looked at him. The room was so small and quiet, it felt more than a little unnerving to be stared at so intently.

“Probably because it was one size too big, if not more,” Malfoy said, “Just like your uniform and everything else you wear.”

“I- I just don’t like tight-fitting clothing,” Harry said, feeling defensive,

“Clothes that fit correctly aren’t tight, unless you want them to be,” Malfoy said, “Did your uniform at school bother you?”

“What?” And it took a moment to remember they were in a muggle shop so of course Malfoy wouldn’t bring up robes. “They were fine, I guess, I never noticed one way or the other.”

“Those were tailored. Most of the clothes made in for us are. You’d know that if bought any of them,” Malfoy said.

“Yeah, well, I’m not really a fan of wiz- um, strange fashions,” Harry said.

“The point being,” Malfoy went on, “that bespoke tailoring won’t feel constricting because it’s made for you. And it’s your uniform, so your opinion really doesn’t matter.”

Mr Payne returned and hung several suits up on the wall, brushing his hands over the black fabric and stepping back, “I have these available for such short notice.”

Malfoy left, going over to Mr Payne, his voice dropping as he talked quietly and with avid interest about the different suits. They all looked the same to Harry.

Harry didn’t care what they were talking about. He was too preoccupied with the strange feeling his chest that had catapulted him back to sixth year like a sucker-punch to the face. It was a twisting, gnawing, why aren’t you looking at me? Feeling, right in the pit of his stomach. Except that this time Malfoy wasn’t up to something, unless Harry counted Malfoy being a general pain the ass to everyone he met for his own amusement. But Harry didn’t understand why he was feeling it now. Malfoy was just talking about suits. It just- it didn’t make sense.

“-tter! I told you he wasn’t listening,” Malfoy said, “He’s completely bull-headed.”

“My Oliver is the same way,” Mr Payne said, “Very single minded.”

“I am not,” Harry said.

“How is Mr Baley doing?” Malfoy asked.

“Quite well,” Mr Payne said.

“Was there-? Why were you calling me?” Harry asked.

“I need to take your measurements,” Mr Payne said patiently. He took a cloth tape measure from his pocket, “You will likely need to take off your jacket and trousers as they are quite bulky. Although I can try to get an accurate measurement with them on if you’re more comfortable that way-”

Harry saw Malfoy smirk.

“-we also have a small room in back for changing if you would prefer,” Mr Payne said.

Harry glared back at Malfoy, “No, that’s fine,” he said stiffly and shrugged off his jacket, dropping it over the back of one of the chairs. He was suddenly relieved he had put on his good pants that morning, if he had worn one of his older pairs Malfoy would have never let him live it down.

Malfoy draped himself onto the couch and proceeded to watch with apparent interest as Harry got measured and then fitted into the suit he had choosen. Harry had to assume Malfoy enjoyed watching him squirm.

Then they went to lunch. Which involved Malfoy randomly walking down the street in whichever direction he fancied until they came upon a restaurant and ordering whatever sounded interesting for the both of them. Though, because they argued and bickered through the entire meal, Harry couldn’t actually recall what they ate. But it didn’t make him sick, so it couldn’t have been that bad.

And before Harry knew it, it was nearly six, and they went back to the office.

While they were gone, Asbestos had filled the underneath of her desk with pillows and fluffy blankets, one of which she was wrapped up in as she read her way through a book nearly half her size. She carefully marked her spot in the book before getting up and brushing off her tutu.

“Enjoy watching the office for another half an hour,” Malfoy said.

Harry turned around, “What? Why did you come back if you were just going to leave again?”

“To pick up Asbestos,” Malfoy said, waving for Asbestos to join him, “See you tomorrow, Auror Potter.”

“Harry,” Harry corrected even as Malfoy shut the door in his face, leaving him alone in the small office.

Harry waited for about a minute to make sure Malfoy was gone then sat behind the desk, pulling open all the drawers but they were empty. He turned his attention to the mess across the desktop. The only neat stack on paper was copies of form AD 45-O in one corner. There were a lot of blank sheets of paper, a few covered in doodles and random notes that made no sense to Harry and coloured pencils and a few pens. The only interesting things were a bunch of cheap-looking magazines with unmoving muggle covers.

Harry picked up the top magazine titled, The Complete Guide To The Supernatural: Unexplained, Frightening, Otherworldly. There was a picture of a ufo on the cover apparently abducting a small figure below. The smaller print promised: Mysteries of the Unknown Revealed! Alien Abductions, Magic and Witchcraft, Ghosts and Spirits!

Harry flipped it open, skimming some of the articles. They seemed to be mostly large pictures and small, poorly written stories presented as truth. He looked over the other magazines, one about secret societies, another about the most haunted places in the world. They all looked like they’d been read, Malfoy had even earmarked some of the pages.

Harry dropped the magazines to the side and sat back, almost instantly bored. He sat forward, grabbing a blank sheet of paper and pen. He thought for a moment, then wrote, doing his best upper management impression;

Sir Salas Suirup, if you’re going to move the location of an office, you need to notify the front desk so that any memos or assignments can be delivered. Failure to do so can interfere with the smooth operations of both the Auror’s Department and The Liars Department. If you have any issues regarding these standard procedures, please speak with Interdepartmental Services on level eight.

-Auror Harry Potter

Harry tapped his wand on the sheet of paper, murmuring a quick charm, which folded it into a paper aeroplane and sent it sailing through the air. It stopped in front of the closed door, which Harry opened for it, watching it glide across the open offices to the lift.

He remembered too late that he had been pretending not to know who ran The Liars Department the last time he met Suirup. Then again, he said he was going to look into it, so it sort of made sense that he’d know everything by now.

Harry considered waiting another, he checked his watch, twenty-five minutes, but decided since no one was watching, he could just leave. If he was quick, he might still catch Ron before he left for the day.

Harry took the lift up to the auror’s floor, and headed to Ron’s cubicle, running into him as was he gathering up his things to leave.

“Hey, mate!” Ron said, “Where have you been all day? Thought maybe you were sick since you didn’t have a Senior assignment.”

Harry shook his head, “Nah, you heading out?”

Ron nodded, “I was gonna go to the pub for a bit till Hermione’s off.”

“I’ll come with,” Harry said, walking with Ron back to the lift.

“You still haven’t said where you were? Is it a secret mission?” Ron asked.

Harry shook his head, “...I’ll tell you once we’re out of the Ministry.”

They took floo to Diagon Alley and headed toward The Hopping Pot.

“...So-,” Ron prompted as they navigated the end of day crowds.

“Well, um, I’m gonna help out the Liars Department for a week,” Harry said.

“What? Who bright idea was that?” Ron said in dismay.

“Err...mine?” Harry said.

Ron grimaced, “That’s, uh...”

They had to walk around a pair of older witches so caught up in conversation they were apparently unaware they were blocking the middle of the street.

“Will Hermione be mad?” Harry asked, as the idea somewhat, very, belatedly occurred to him.

Ron absently scratched his chin, “Not mad per se… but if like something goes wrong and you get in trouble or something she’s definitely going to blame herself for getting you involved.”

“She didn’t get me involved, it was my idea,” Harry said.

“But that’s not how she’s gonna see it,” Ron said.

They edged around a crowd at the front of the Quidditch supply shop.

“The new Firebolt is still drawing a lot of attention,” Ron said.

Harry nodded, “I’ve heard it’s got some balance issues.”

“It’s a racing model, it’s meant for professionals. Those berks reviewing it in the Quidditch Weekly don’t know how to ride a good broom,” Ron said.

“If they’re selling it in shops for anyone to buy, anyone ought to be able to ride it,” Harry said.

“That’s what Cleansweeps are for! A racing broom is for racing!” Ron said.

“Alright, alright,” Harry conceded, pulling open the pub door.

They grabbed stools at the end of the bar and ordered a couple pints.

“Should I tell her, do you think?” Harry asked.

“What?” Ron asked.

“Should I tell Hermione I’m working with the Liars Department?” Harry said.

Ron took a swallow of beer and let out a huge sigh before answering, “That’s up to you, mate.”

“What would you do?” Harry asked.

“Dunno,” Ron shrugged, “Tell her.”

Harry sighed.

“Or well… that’s the smart thing to do. I’d probably not tell her and then let it slip on accident and then get shouted at,” Ron thought about it and nodded, “Yup. That sounds more like it.”

Harry sipped at his beer as a couple guys came into the pub and their friends greeted them with loud shouts of Hey! And Took you long enough!.

“How’s your work going with the whole, potion smuggling thing?” Harry asked.

Ron swivelled on his stool toward Harry, casting a muffliato around them, “Actually, I learned something interesting-”

“Yeah?”

“You know how Hogwarts has that book that knows whenever a magical kid is born so that they can keep track of them and send them a letter at elven and what-not?”

Harry nodded.

“Well, to get a business licence from the Ministry, you have to register in a ledger that’s linked to your shop, and it records every sale and purchase as it happens. That way, the Ministry knows exactly how much tax you owe. So the ledgers I’ve been working out of aren’t the shop’s books, they’re the Ministry’s copies,” Ron said, “Neat, huh?”

“I suppose,” Harry said, “but why would a shop that’s smuggling potions-”

“Laundering galleons,” Ron corrected.

Harry rolled his eyes, “Alright, laundering money then, why would they bother setting up a legit business? Wouldn’t it be easier to run illegally or under the table or what have you?”

“No. The entire point of laundering money is to put illegally earned money into a ‘real’ business, and then it comes out looking like profits made legally,” Ron said, “So the, whoever is behind this, ‘buys potions’ or gives the shop a bunch of money, and the shop makes a fake receipt for the ‘potions’ so there’s a sale and then the money’s been earned. The shops are just shells to move the money around. And they set up the shops as an owl-order only so no store or real customers to worry about.”

“Wow, that’s...”

“If the accountants in Admin hadn’t noticed something was off and sent us the ledgers, no one would’ve even known it was happening,” Ron said, “Senior Auror Leon says I’ve got a good head for this sort of thing. I’m hoping he’ll put in a good word for my promotion.”

“You’ll have earned it,” Harry said.

Ron finished his pint and slid it across the bar, “I’ll buy the next round.”

“This is plenty for me,” Harry said, lifting his half-empty glass.

“Suit yourself,” Ron said, waving to the barkeep for another.

Harry leaned his elbows on the bar, his mind drifting back to the day he had. He still didn’t understand why Malfoy called him an asshole when Harry said he didn’t think Malfoy was creative.

“Hey, would you say Malfoy’s creative?” Harry asked offhandedly.

Ron distractedly fumbled a handful of coins out his pocket, “I dunno...he made that dumb dementor costume and the Weasley is our King song, that turned out alright. I mean, most of the dumb shit he thought up blew up in his face.” He counted out the sickles and passed them over to the barman, “Not the Potter stinks badges but even a broken clock’s right twice a day.”

And Harry had to admit that lying was a creative sort of thing to do, in a Slytherin sort of way.

“Wait,” Ron froze, “Wait. Where’d you see Malfoy?”

“What? I never said I saw him,” Harry said.

Ron narrowed his eyes, “Its been years since you brought up the ferrety bastard, you saw him.”

“Well...”

Ron’s eyes narrowed further, “Where? Was he causing trouble?”

Harry thought frantically, he couldn’t say Malfoy was The Liars Department, that would cause more trouble than Harry working there. And if he said Malfoy was part of an arrest, which wasn’t strictly untrue, it would be well… Harry wouldn’t feel right about it. Malfoy was… not the worst. He’d even freed his house elves, even if he was enabling them to be little horrors.

“He works for the Ministry,” Harry said quickly to cover up for his pause.

Hermione tapped them on the shoulders, her words coming out muffled and strange through the spell.

Ron spun around, dispelling the muffliato, “Did you know Malfoy’s working at the Ministry?”

Hermione stopped in her tracks and pointed a finger at Harry, “Leave Malfoy alone.”

“What?” Harry said held up both hands, “I haven’t-”

“You heard me, don’t bother him,” Hermione said.

“I haven’t!” Harry said defensively.

“Has he been coming to you?” Hermione asked.

“Well, no-”

“Have you just run into one another accidentally?” Hermione asked.

“S-sort of, I mean, the first time-” Harry said.

“Or have you been hunting him down and bothering him?” Hermione said, her words cutting Harry to the quick.

“I thought you hated Malfoy, Mione,” Ron said.

Hermione sighed, putting her hands on her hips, “I don’t particularly like him, but I can still empathise with his situation.”

Harry… had been bothering Malfoy? He just- wanted to help? Right?

Ron’s brow furrowed which earned him a sigh from Hermione.

“He’s a social pariah, and the only place he can even use magic in a house that used to be infested with death eaters and is currently infested with his parents under house arrest, of which Lucius can’t use magic ever. It must be unbearable,” Hermione said.

Harry frowned. He had tracked Malfoy down to his office after Malfoy’s very first assignment…

“Besides, you saw him at the trials, I’ve never seen a more miserable human being, and there were a lot to compare him to,” Hermione added.

Harry’s frown deepened. Then he had charged onto an auror’s scene he wasn’t even involved with. It had looked like it was going badly but maybe it would have been fine, and Harry had just been forcing himself in where he wasn’t needed-

Ron nodded, “Malfoy looked like a ghost, all skin and bones and dark circles.”

And then he had signed up for the Liars Department without asking Malfoy or Hermione- Harry groaned and put his head in his hands.

Hermione huffed at him, “Just leave him alone, Harry. Malfoy has a right to- to try again, just like any of us.”

“Let him live his miserable life,” Ron said.

Harry sighed into his hands, it was too late for that.

Chapter Text

He was going to be helpful; Harry told himself the next morning. That was why he transferred, to help Malfoy and Hermione. He repeated it himself that over and over again on his way to the office.

“Good Morning, Auror Potter!” Malfoy said cheerfully shoving a suit on a hanger in Harry’s face as soon as he opened the door.

Harry sighed, pushing the suit down.

Malfoy was grinning.

“Really?” Harry said.

Malfoy nodded, “Asbestos has already charmed the suit against wrinkles, stains, tears and whatever else-”

“No,” Asbestos interrupted, “Asbestos had Killi do the charming because Killi is house elf and Asbestos is secretary elf. Secretary elves delegate.”

“Quite right. Excellent work, Asbestos,” Malfoy said.

Asbestos was wearing a little sailor’s suit with a white shirt and blue tie and blue shorts. She had included the little sailor hat perched between her ears and a pair of shiny black shoes.

“Err… nice outfit?” Harry told her.

“Asbestos knows, that is why I wore it,” Asbestos said.

“Auror Potter,” Malfoy said, sing-songy and impatient, “Time to change into your uniform.”

“It’s Harry,” Harry said, grabbing the hanger from Malfoy as he tried to shove it in his face again. “...Fine, fine. I’ll go change.”

He took the hanger to the loos, which were thankfully empty so he could change without any gawkers. Malfoy had included a pair of shoes, black patent leather and mirror shiny. Harry had been kind of hoping he could keep wearing his tennis shoes.

He made a pile of clothes on the counter as he stripped off his and started putting on the suit, which of course had a dress shirt and waistcoat. He tied the tie without really thinking about it, buttoning the jacket up, before even bothering to look in the mirror.

Harry blinked, looking from his face to the figure below it, the broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist and straight legs. His face just didn’t fit with, it didn’t seem like- Harry’s mind ground to a stop.

…

In…

In his mind… Harry had this image of himself that was… that was too thin, knobbily and gawky like he didn’t quite fit into his own skin right. He understood other people looking attractive, but he’d never been able to see himself that way…

Until now.

He took his wand out and tried to charm the mirror bigger so he could see all of himself, but nothing happened.

“I’m charm proof, I’m afraid,” the mirror said with a lilting genderless voice.

Harry startled, “Oh! Uh, a talking mirror. I didn’t think the Ministry had those.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t exactly get around,” the mirror said sarcastically.

“Sorry,” Harry said.

“It’s fine. I don’t usually talk much myself, there’s nothing much to comment on around here- most of the time. But you clean up quite nicely,” the mirror said thoughtfully. “You’ll want the seam of your jacket right on the top of your shoulders, it’s riding a bit forward.”

Harry tugged the jacket down a fraction.

“Mhmm. And your sleeve is a little twisted, and you’ll want to have your shirt pulled slightly out of your cuffs, just a touch,” The mirror said.

Harry did as the mirror said, watching his reflection as he did, recognising some of the little fussy movements Malfoy was always doing that Harry had thought of as snobbish.

“Now your hair-”

“My hair’s a lost cause,” Harry said ruefully.

The mirror sighed at him, “There’s a difference between a mess and an intentionally messy look, darling. First, get your hair damp.”

Harry hesitated.

“Come on. It will be worth it, I promise,” the mirror said.

Harry turned on the tap and ran wet hands through his rebellious curls.

“There should be a tin of sleek-easy on the shelf by the door,” The mirror said.

“But it’s not mine-” Harry tried to protest.

“You’ll only need a little, the size of a pea. Leave a knut if you’re really that worried about it,” the mirror said.

He did, feeling a bit ridiculous but unwilling to steal someone elses things.

“Now what?” Harry asked.

“Like this,” the mirror said, and then Harry’s reflection began to move on its own, brushing the sleek-easy over his fingers and then working it carefully into his hair.

The mirror winked with a coy grin, strange to see on his own face, that startled Harry into belatedly and awkwardly copying the mirror once it went back to reflecting him properly. When Harry caught up, his reflection carefully began to comb his fingers through his hair with more purpose. The mirror swept his hair to one side and scrunching the hair up, making it curl more, mussing it slightly, so it looked effortlessly attractive, like something from a fancy advert.

Harry knew he’d never manage something that good, but once his refection was reflecting him once again, he did his best.

“You look divine, darling,” the mirror said, “You can come back and see me anytime, it would be a delight to assist you again.”

“Thanks,” Harry said awkwardly, and was halfway out the door before he remembered he forgot his clothes and went back to grab them off the counter.

Harry shrank his clothes down and put them in his pocket. He stopped in front of the office door, hesitating before going in. Harry checked that his tie and cuffs, straightening them nervously, not sure why he was nervous only it seemed important right then that he look as good as possible.

“Took you long en-” Malfoy said as the door swung open only for the words to die in his throat as he stared.

Malfoy’s eyes were wide, searching over Harry like he was trying to memorise him.

It made Harry feel too warm and strangely pleased.

Malfoy made a noise in the back of this throat and sucked in a breath. When he looked away, Harry could see that his ears were bright red.

“You…are so unfair,” Malfoy said softly.

Harry closed the door to the office, “I guess, you were right about the suit.”

Malfoy blinked, coming back to himself, “Of course I was.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Have you ever considered growing a beard?” Malfoy said.

“What? No,” Harry said.

“Not a long one, just a nice tight cropped beard,” Malfoy leaned forward on his desk.

Harry sighed, “Still no and I’m only here for six days, I’m not growing a beard. I hate how itchy it feels.”

“We’re wizards, you incompetent, I can brew you up a hair growth potion in an hour,” Malfoy said.

“What part of no did you miss?” Harry asked.

“You don’t have to keep it,” Malfoy said, “Just try it, and there are beard oils if itchiness is such a problem.”

“Is it part of my uniform?” Harry asked sarcastically.

Malfoy sat back with a pouty frown, “No.”

“That’s what I thought,” Harry said.

“It would help though,” Malfoy said.

Harry raised an eyebrow, “How exactly does a beard help with lying?”

“It’s about-”

“You are so full of shit,” Harry said.

“It’s about giving off an air of authority,” Malfoy said.

“Authority,” Harry repeated.

“Yes, Auror Potter” Malfoy said, “you need-”

“Harry,” Harry said.

“so very much stupid,” Asbestos muttered.

Malfoy scowled at him, “The most essential component of this job isn’t the lying, Auror Potter, it’s getting people to believe the lie, and for that you need to be authoritative, confident, and-”

“You need to be full of yourself,” Harry said, “I think you have enough of that for both of us.”

Malfoy scoffed, “I’ve never met someone as infuriatingly self-righteous as you are.”

“I am not self-” Harry started to say, but was cut off by the door slamming open and having to jump back to avoid getting a face full of splinters.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing, Malfoy!” A familiar voice yelled from the other side of the door.

“Working, Sir Syrup,” Malfoy said.

“You should be grateful I allowed you to have this job,” Suirup said, Harry could just imagine his moustache bristling.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity,” Malfoy said, sounding not quite genuine.

“No one would give someone like you a second chance, but I have and you-”

The corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitched up, and he caught Harry’s eye for just a second as if to say this is going to be fun.

Harry sighed, fighting down a smile.

“-You should not be drawing unnecessary attention to yourself!” Suirup said, shaking a piece of paper at Malfoy.

“I’m afraid my job requires me to become the centre of attention,” Malfoy said with the relaxed cat smile of someone who is shamelessly and effortlessly riling someone else up.

“Out there!” Suirup said, sweeping his hand, “Here! Here you are to keep out of sight and out of trouble!”

“What sort of trouble have I caused?” Malfoy asked.

“After the move! After the move, you have to notify interdepartmental services!” Suirup said.

“I did,” Malfoy said.

“Immediately! Without delay! Or I wouldn’t have received this!” Suirup said, shaking the paper again.

Harry grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it back, “It’s the supervisor’s responsibility to report such things-”

Suirup startled backwards, running into the door frame and nearly falling over.

“-that’s why I sent it to you, Sir, as the supervisor of the Liars Department,” Harry said.

“I- I- well! I-,” Suirup clung onto the doorframe as he stuttered, “I would have, was going to- It- It must have slipped my mind! I- I- I am very busy, you know! I oversee a great deal in the Wizengamont!”

“Then perhaps, Sir, you ought to reduce your workload. Such hard work does no one any good if it is done poorly or not at all,” Harry said.

Suirup’s face went red, his white waxed moustache like a little boat on a sea of crimson.

“Delegate. Or transfer your work,” Harry said, “That would be my suggestion.”

“I- I will have no bad word said of my work! I am the head of the Wizengamont project approval committee and Ministry Purchasing Officer! I am a respected member of the Wizengamont! As my father was and grandfather and great-grandfather before him!” Suirup bristled.

“Then do better, and I won’t have to,” Harry said flatly.

Suirup straightened up, twisting one side of his moustache to sharpen the point, his face still as red as a tomato. His voice came out at a waver, shaking faintly with rage, “If you will excuse me.”

“Of course,” Harry said with a polite smile, “You’re so busy after all.”

Suirup drew his shoulders back and stormed off without further farewells; and Harry closed the office door once more behind him, sagging against it as the adrenaline he had been running on drained out of him.

Malfoy was clapping, slowly, with a huge shit-eating grin on his face, “Brutal, Auror Potter. An absolute slaughter. And much better than your little lecture in the pub, since you’re word actually means something in the Ministry.”

Harry snorted, “What? Not much.”

“The future Head Auror, Harry Potter? I can’t imagine anyone going against you,” Malfoy said.

Harry shook his head, “What? No? I don’t-”

“Everyone knows it. Robards and Kingsley are behind you, along with about half the Wizengamont, the ones who know what’s good for them anyway,” Malfoy said.

Harry frowned, a sinking feeling in his gut.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, “Seriously, Auror Potter-?”

“Harry,” Harry muttered.

“-I’ve only been working here for three days, and everyone hates me, and I still heard the rumours,” Malfoy said.

“There is work,” Asbestos said.

“People really think that?” Harry asked.

“More like know. It’s a foregone conclusion,” Malfoy said. He looked at Harry with a frown, “You really didn’t know?”

“How was I supposed to know that! No one tells me anything!” Harry said.

Malfoy grinned, “So many things make sense now. In school, I thought you knew the kind of power you had and enjoyed pretending to be humble about it. After the last few days, I’m entirely certain you’re just a bit stupid.”

“Hey!”

“There is work now!” Asbestos said.

“Fine, fine, how about just extremely unobservant,” Malfoy said.

“Don’t act like you’re being generous,” Harry said.

“But I am so very generous, in every aspect of my life,” Malfoy said, leaning back in his chair.

“Especially at being a wanker,” Harry said.

Malfoy winked at him, “A generous wanker.”

Asbestos sighed loudly and flicked her hand. The door snapped back open, smacking Harry in the side. A paper aeroplane sailed over his head as he cursed in pain and landed neatly on Malfoy’s desk.

Malfoy snatched it up and unfolded it, “It’s… what is this?” he held the memo out to Harry.

Harry glared at him, snatching the paper and reading over it, “Oh, an ASM.”

“I can read. What does it mean?” Malfoy asked.

“Apparition Seen by Muggle,” Harry said, “It’s our most common call. We need to hurry though, it’s a TMM.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes.

Harry grinned, “Too Many Muggles, they can’t lock down the area. Until we get there, they’ll try to isolate the muggles to keep them from causing too much of a scene.”

Malfoy stood up with a nod, “Asbestos, fetch the machines.”

Asbestos snapped her fingers, disappearing and then reappearing a few seconds later with two black boxes.

Malfoy came around the desk, taking them from her, “Excellent. Now go ahead of us and scope out the muggles in question, we shall follow momentarily.”

“Where?” Asbestos asked.

“The Natural History Museum in London,” Malfoy said, showing Asbestos the memo.

Asbestos studied the paper for a second, gave a sarcastic salute and apparated away.

“Is that a good idea? What if she’s seen?” Harry asked.

“She’s perfectly capable of casting a disillusionment spell. A house elf is never seen unless they want to be,” Malfoy said.

“But she’s not a house elf, she’s a secretary elf who tends to do whatever she wants,” Harry said.

“My point still stands,” Malfoy said, “Can you apparate us to the museum?”

Harry nodded, “We need to go up and check the auror’s map, it shows all the secluded apparition locations in a city.”

They headed to the lifts.

“Oh, that sounds very useful,” Malfoy said.

Harry nodded.

“I want one,” Malfoy said.

“You probably should have one for this kind of work,” Harry said.

“Yes. But also, I want one,” Malfoy said.

Harry rolled his eyes.

They stepped into the lift, hitting the button for level two and Malfoy pushed one of the black boxes into Harry’s hands, “Here.”

“What is it?” Harry asked, turning it over in his hands. It had two buttons, a knob and a small screen.

“It beeps,” Malfoy said.

“That doesn’t tell me what it does,” Harry said.

“It beeps,” Malfoy said, “It’s for show, Auror Potter. Do keep up.”

“Harry,” Harry said, pushing a button. The screen on top lit up with a red line that wiggled back and forth as he turned the dial the box began to beep, first slow and then with more urgency.

Malfoy pushed the button again, turning it off.

Harry shook his head, his ears ringing faintly from the shrill sound. He slipped the noise box into his pocket.

“Come on, we are meant to be going quickly, yes?” Malfoy said.

Harry wanted to roll his eyes again, but Malfoy grabbed his arm and towed him out of the lift even though he had no idea where to go.

Harry pushed past Malfoy, walking through the auror cubicles to the back corner where the map and auror apparition zone was. He gave an absent-minded nod to the new Junior Aurors Kalya and James? Jack… Justin? As he passed them.

Kalya let out a startled squeak, “A-Auror Potter?”

The half the papers in Justin’s arms cascaded on to the floor, his mouth hanging open. Then he blushed, his whole face turning red.

Malfoy slapped the remaining forms out of Justin’s hands as he passed, glaring at the young auror.

“Malfoy!” Harry said, grabbing his arm and pulling him over to the map.

“Draco,” Draco said mockingly.

Harry sighed, tracing a finger over the map, “You’re never going to get people to like you if you do things like that, Draco.”

“I don’t care if they like me,” Malfoy said with a pouty frown.

“Bullshit,” Harry said. “Come on, there’s an alleyway a block from the museum that the aurors on scene already used. Oh, by the way, I’m pretty shit at side-along.”

“What?” Malfoy said in alarm.

Harry squeezed Malfoy’s arm, stepping into the gap between the wards and apparated them out of the Ministry.

Malfoy staggered and leaned heavily against the brick wall, looking even paler than usual, “...fucking hell.”

“Warned you,” Harry said.

“One second is not a warning,” Malfoy snapped.

“It’s not like more time would have made it less awful,” Harry said. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry. I hope you have a plan.”

“Of course I have a plan,” Malfoy said, pushing himself off the wall and straightening his sleeves as he followed Harry out onto the street towards the museum. “What I want to know is who gave you an apparition licence. Because I’d like to owl them a dung bomb.”

“No one,” Harry said.

Malfoy stared at him for several seconds, “...Pardon?”

Harry grinned, “No one. I never passed the exam.”

“And they just let you-” Malfoy waved a hand vaguely.

“Yup,” Harry said.

Malfoy laughed, “Merlin’s beard, every time you apparate an alarm must go off in the licencing office!”

Harry frowned reluctantly, he hadn’t thought of that.

“Don’t get all noble about it,” Malfoy said, walking a little closer so he could bump his shoulder against Harry’s, “If they wanted to do something about it, they would. They probably have a specific alarm just for you, Auror Potter-”

“Harry,” Harry said.

“-and every time it goes off,” Malfoy went on ignoring him, “someone looks up and goes, ‘Ah, there goes our saviour, recklessly apparating about and making people feel horribly ill when he side-alongs them’.”

Harry bumped his shoulder back with a glare which, made Malfoy laugh again and mollified some of Harry’s annoyance.

They became more sombre and serious as they entered the museum. The first building had been built in 1870, and the carved stone archways and tall ornate ceilings felt more like a church than a museum, every step echoing on the polished stone floors.

“Where is Asbestos...” Malfoy said under his breath, looking around, “I should have told her to meet us somewhere...”

They slowly walked through the entrance hall underneath the skeleton of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling, forever swimming in invisible ocean currents long gone. Harry looked in each alcove around the room, searching for any sign of Asbestos.

A small child was standing alone in front of a glass case of petrified tree stumps—a small child wearing a little sailor outfit with shiny black shoes and a little sailor hat. The hat was perched on top of a comical amount of blond curls which just barely hid Asbestos’ large ears.

“Oh, no,” Harry said in dismay.

“Ah, you found her,” Malfoy grinned with obvious amusement. “Where in the world did you find that wig, Asbestos?”

“Stole it,” Asbestos said flatly, “Aurors this way.” she turned on her heel, heading out of the hall without any interest or concern that they were following her.

Malfoy leaned close to Harry, murmuring in his ear, “Just follow my lead.”

A shiver went down Harry’s spine, and he glared at Malfoy, rubbing his ear.

Malfoy grinned.

They heard the muggles in question long before they saw them. Two auror’s had managed to keep them in a side hallway leading to the loos, but their voices carried through the open, airy ceilings. As they got closer, the general shouting became words they could actually make out.

“You’re not listening to me,” A shrill older woman said, “I saw a man disappear.”

“Would you like to report a kidnapping?” An older man said. Harry recognized it as belonging to an auror he had worked with a few times before, he was fond of playing slow and thick until the muggle gave up in frustration. It worked often enough that he never bothered to try anything else.

“No. We don’t know who it was. Listen. Listen. He walked down the hallway and disappeared!” A different older woman said, her voice low and rough from smoking.

“Disappeared? A man disappeared?” Draco said, sounding entirely enthralled as they came into the hallway, “Tell me everything you saw.”

Harry caught the auror’s eye and gave him a subtle nod which he returned and took a few careful steps back out of the conversation.

“Finally.” The shrill woman said, she had short white hair, tightly curled and wore a pink dress with blue flowers on it, “I was just walking past and Edith said to me ‘look at that strange fellow’.”

“He very odd, Anna,” Edith said, she had grey hair, pulled back into a neat bun, she was wearing a blue dress with pink flowers, but Edith’s pink and blue were just different enough from Anna’s that it made Harry’s eyes hurt to look at them side by side.

“So I turned and looked-” Anna said.

“He was wearing a green dress,” Edith said.

“It was not a dress, Edith, it was a robe,” Anna said.

Edith nodded, “Yes, yes, like a bathrobe.”

“Not a bathrobe,” Anna said annoyed, “A robe like- like one for a play, for dress-up, nonsense clothes.”

“I suppose… it looked like a bathrobe to me...” Edith said doubtfully.

Malfoy had taken out a notebook and looked to be dutifully writing down everything they were saying.

“He went down this hallway, right here,” Anna pointed down the end of the hallway.

“Like he was going to use the bathroom,” Edith added.

“But instead, he disappeared,” Anna said, “Into thin air! I saw it with my own eyes!”

Edith nodded solemnly.

“A corporeal apparition!” Malfoy said. He spun to Harry excitedly, “Check the hallway for EMF readings.”

Harry gave Malfoy a very brief look of dismay before walking down the hallway. He fumbled out the noise box and turned it on, fiddling with the dial as he got closer to the end so it beeped with more urgency.

“What are the readings?” Malfoy called.

“High!” Harry guessed.

This seemed right because Malfoy only got more excited, “Any temperature changes?”

Harry nodded.

“Cold?” Malfoy asked.

“Very cold,” Harry said flatly, turning off the box.

“My god,” Malfoy said dramatically.

“What in the world are you on about?” Anna asked, annoyed that Malfoy was stealing her drama.

Harry came back over to them, “This is very exciting,” he tried to sound like he meant it.

Malfoy shot him a look that said he didn’t quite manage it.

“Is it exciting?” Edith asked.

“Why of course,” Malfoy said, “You saw an apparition, a ghost.”

“Ooo,” Edith said.

Anna frowned, her entire mood shifting.

“Could you describe what the man looked like? What he was wearing exactly?” Malfoy asked. “A robe might be victorian or even medieval-”

“Possibly a monk,” Harry suggested, which got him an approving look.

Anna set her hands on her hips, “Or just a man with no sense in a bathrobe.”

“Wait until Martha hears about this, we saw an honest to goodness ghost,” Edith said excitedly.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Anna said.

Edith tsked, “Oh, but you saw-”

“I saw a man in a bathrobe go into the restroom, that’s all,” Anna said, “I certainly didn’t see a ghost. What sort of foolish nonsense-”

“He vanished, Anna! I saw it as well!” Edith said.

“Oh, pish,” Anna said, waving the entire idea off, “I’ve never heard such a thing. He just went into the restroom.”

“I didn’t see him go into the restroom! I didn’t see the door open-”

“Well, your eyes aren’t what they used to be, Edith.”

Edith shook a finger at Anna, “Don’t you go talking about my eyes, I’ve seen the glasses you have to wear-”

“Reading glasses.” Anna said, “I can see everything else just fine.”

“Ha! You wish!” Edith said.

Malfoy caught Harry’s eye, and they left the little hallway, the two women continuing to argue behind them.

“That went well. Not as I expected, but still quite well,” Malfoy said.

Harry headed to the aurors standing next to the entrance of the room.

“Situation resolved?” the older Auror asked.

The young Junior Auror he was working with kept looking from Harry to Malfoy as if she couldn’t quite decide who to look at.

“Completely,” Malfoy said.

“We’ll have the paperwork sent to admin by the end of the day,” Harry said.

“Job well done, then,” the Auror nodded and headed towards the exit, his Junior lagging behind as she glanced over her shoulder to peek at them until she was out of sight.

“Shall we head back to the office?” Harry asked.

Malfoy set off in the opposite direction, “I want to look at the elephants.”

“I- what?” Harry followed in confusion as Malfoy headed straight towards a large hall that was indeed full of elephants, different species and older relatives and fossils, amongst a plethora of other animals.

Malfoy stopped in front of the model of the baby elephant.

“Why are we looking at elephants?” Harry asked him.

Malfoy looked over at him, “I like elephants.”

“You do?” Harry said.

“They’re massive but very gentle. I’d like to see one someday,” Malfoy said.

“So go to the zoo,” Harry said.

Malfoy sighed, “Not like that. I want to meet an elephant, properly.”

“They’re not people,” Harry said

“No, they’re better,” Malfoy walked around to the glass displays of other animals on the edge of the room, going slowly so he could look around as he went.

“I mean if that’s true, then most animals are better than people,” Harry said.

“I agree entirely,” Malfoy said.

Harry sighed, “That’s not that I meant-”

“I know. Don’t care,” Malfoy said. “Why don’t you want to be Head Auror?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Malfoy said.

“Well… I,” Harry frowned, “I had never really thought about it before today. I mean, the Head Auror mostly does paperwork and schedules and management...”

“Things that would drive you up the wall. I can’t imagine you content at a desk for long” Malfoy said.

Harry nodded, “Yeah, exactly. Like if I was older, like forty or fifty and ready for it. Then- then it’d be alright. And if- If I wanted it, you know?”

Malfoy stopped and looked over at him, pinning him in place with his eyes, “Not exactly. Tell me.”

Harry shifted his weight, feeling strangely fidgety, “Like, I wanted to be an auror and being a Junior was… boring most of the time, but I was learning, and I knew I’d be promoted when I had earned it and that- that was what I wanted. I hadn’t even thought past that...”

Harry ducked his head, absently running his hand through his hair, “...Then I found out I’d been promoted because I was Harry Potter. And because they want to promote me to Senior, and then Head Auror, I guess. None of it is because I’m the best for the job. I don’t have the knowledge or experience or anything-!”

“You have power,” Malfoy said. “A man with as much legacy and political influence as you would be able to do anything with the department he wanted.”

Harry closed his eyes.

“In fact,” Malfoy went on,” If I were a cynical man, and I am, I’d say that you having no experience is exactly what they want. You’ll be desperate for guidance, and that will make you easier to manipulate.”

Harry heard Malfoy turn towards him.

“If that’s true, then all you have to do is figure out what you want,” Malfoy said.

“Ha,” Harry said, “As if it’s that’s easy.”

“I wouldn’t say it is. But if you don’t know they will just continue to decide for you,” Malfoy said.

“And what did you decide you wanted?” Harry asked, feeling irritable.

Malfoy blinked, his expression suddenly hesitant, “...I’d appreciate if you didn’t laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“I want to be happy,” Malfoy said.

Harry felt disappointed for some reason, like he had been hoping Malfoy’s answer would help point him in the right direction, “Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

“I don’t know what other people want. To be frank, I don’t care,” Malfoy said.

“Then what is being happy for you?” Harry asked, “Is it your car? Driving? Doing- What did you do before you got this job anyway?”

“Whatever I wanted,” Malfoy said.

“Yes, but what-”

“I rather like this horse,” Malfoy said, “The way its posed on one leg really gives it a sense of movement.”

Harry glanced over at the display of a horse in full gallop, only one foot on the ground. He honestly didn’t care. He hadn’t been paying any attention to the displays at all. When Harry looked back, Malfoy was walking toward the centre of the main room.

“Malfoy-!”

“Draco,” Malfoy sing-songed.

“I answered your questions,” Harry said, nearly running to keep up, “So answer mine.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Malfoy said, stopping so Harry almost ran into him.

“That’s not fair!”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, “I have no interest in being fair.”

“What?” Harry said frowning.

“You heard me,” Malfoy said.

“You-” Harry raised a pointed finger.

“Excuse me! Gentlemen!”

They both turned to find a thin woman in a grey suit with a short blond bob heading towards them. She was holding Asbestos’ hand. Asbestos had a lollypop in her other hand and was smiling like an absolute bastard.

“Excuse me, is this your daughter? She seems to have gotten lost,” Grey suit said.

Malfoy smiled beatifically, and Harry sensed that some bullshit was about to happen.

“Asbestos! There you are, sweetheart,” Malfoy said, “I told you not to move on to a different room without us.”

Asbestos stuck out her tongue.

“Her- Her name is Asbestos?” Grey suit said.

“I just loved the way it sounded and when we adopted our sweet little girl, I just thought it was the perfect fit,” Malfoy said, without an ounce of sarcasm.

Grey suit managed a stiff smile, “Yes… It’s very- very unique.”

Everything about this was stupid, but… Harry had to admit it was kind of funny.

Asbestos let go of grey suit’s hand and came over to Harry, holding up the sucker, “Open.”

Harry hesitated and then decided, what the fuck, and played along, “Say ‘please’.”

Asbestos looked him dead in the eye, “Please, Daddy.”

Harry wanted to die a little bit inside. He took the lollipop, pulled off the wrapper and handed it back to Asbestos.

Malfoy sighed, “I’m not sure she should have sugar right before lunch.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about the candy. I’m Susan, by the way,” Susan said, “I was worried she was scared by herself and I- well, to be honest, I’m not great with crying children, so I always carry a few around with me in my bag. Mostly for my nieces and nephews, but it comes in handy in times like these.”

“Oh it’s fine,” Malfoy said with a put-upon sigh.

“My brother-in-law, well he’s a decent man in most respects, of course.” Susan gave a little social laugh, “But I really don’t hold with any of his ideas about, well- I think it’s marvellous that people of your- like you, are having families. Studies say you’re just as good of parents if not better in some respects and of course, there are so many children up for adoption. It’s so wonderful that they can have a family that loves them, no matter how… unique they are compared to most.”

Harry glanced over at Malfoy and found his smile had gone brittle.

Malfoy stepped closer to Harry, resting his hand on Harry’s lower back as he stared coolly at Susan. “Harry and I think it’s very important to raise our children to be aware of the bias’ in our society, and the value all people, especially those that are unique or different from her.”

Susan blinked, the meaning of Malfoy’s words taking a moment to register and bringing with them an indignant expression, “I didn’t mean it that way.-”

Asbestos pulled the sucker out of her mouth with an obnoxiously loud pop, “Hey,”

“-I am very open-minded. I’ll have you know that my cousin is gay and I think her and her wife are wonderful people-”

“Hey!” Asbestos threw the lollipop at Susan. It bounced off her forehead and got caught in her hair, “He said; you’re a cunt. fuck off.”

Susan gaped at Asbestos, before looking back at Malfoy and Harry, “How- How dare you! You- You-!” she shook a finger at them, “I was trying to be nice!”

“Try harder,” Asbestos said.

“Why you little monster-!” Susan snapped.

Someone gasped. As Susan turned, a mother quickly towed her sons away from her with a disapproving glare. An older couple shook their heads at her. A security guard straightened up and called, “Are you alright, little girl?”

Asbestos latched onto Harry’s hand, crying in a wavering falsetto, “This lady said mean things about my daddies! She called me a monster!”

The security guard came over, “Ma’am, could you come with me.”

“I- I-! She called me a cunt!” Susan said.

Asbestos stuck out her lower lip and sniffled theatrically.

“Ma’am, you need to come with me and leave these people alone,” The security guard said more firmly.

“I- Fine,” Susan said coldly, following the security guard out of the room.

“Cunt,” Asbestos muttered. She pulled a lollipop out of her pocket and pulled off the wrapper, sticking it in her mouth.

“Did she give you two?” Malfoy asked, stepping away from Harry.

“Stole it,” Asbestos said.

Malfoy snorted, “Let’s go to lunch. There are some lovely cafes nearby.” He headed toward the doors only to stop when he realised Harry wasn’t following him, “Auror Potter?”

“You called me Harry, earlier,” Harry said.

“Yes? It would have ruined the ruse to call you Auror Potter,” Malfoy said.

“You could’ve just called me Paul or- or Jack,” Harry said.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, “Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”

Harry joined Malfoy, following him out of the museum. He could still feel the ghost of Malfoy’s touch on his back.

Harry couldn’t concentrate. Malfoy talked all through lunch, mostly about lunch, but Harry couldn’t remember a word of what he said. He kept having to stop himself from touching his back, and he didn’t know why.

Harry had put his hand on Ginny’s back when they had dated briefly after the war, especially when they were out in public. It had felt protective and a little possessive, a way to link them together and to say ‘I am here’. But it had never been the other way around, not exactly. Ginny would sometimes put her arm around his shoulders or out her hand in his back pocket, but it hadn’t felt like that.

And he couldn’t understand why he kept thinking about it.

After they ate Malfoy dragged them back to the museum.

“This way! I love the bird displays,” Malfoy said, sounding like an excited kid.

Harry followed, trying not to look bored.

“Look, it’s you,” Malfoy said, stopping to point at a model of a dodo bird.

Harry sighed, “Very funny.”

“Lighten up, Auror Potter-”

“Harry,” Harry said.

“-it’s interesting. Don’t you find it interesting?” Malfoy asked.

Harry shrugged half-heartedly, “It’s the natural history museum. Everyone’s been to it at least once for a school trip. Not you obviously.”

“And what’s so awful about a school trip to such an interesting place?” Malfoy said.

“I don’t know, I spent most of the time avoiding my cousin Dudley. Anytime the teacher looked away, he would smack me upside the head or try to trip me while we were walking,” Harry said.

“The cad isn’t here now, so put in some effort, will you?” Malfoy said.

“Sure thing,” Harry said without an ounce of enthusiasm.

“Now I’m rather disappointed Hogwarts never had any school trips,” Malfoy said.

“Like where? Does the wizarding world even have museums?” Harry asked.

“There are some in Europe, and of course muggles have set up some on magical sites,” Malfoy said.

“Like what?”

“Stonehenge is an ancient ritual site, Pinkie was a battlefield not only between Scotland and England but about a hundred years earlier it was one of the first major battles of the Goblin Rebellions. The Mermaid Pool in High peaks was once a portal to the fae realm before they were all closed. I could go on for days.” Malfoy said.

“Where did you learn all this stuff?” Harry asked.

“History of Magic. Binns never talked about the muggle connections, but I’ve gone to visit quite a few of them, and there are informational plaques everywhere, so I’ve picked up the muggle history as well.”

“You could just not read them,” Harry said.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Malfoy said.

“They’re dead boring?” Harry said.

Malfoy made an expression at him like he was utterly barmy.  It looked remarkably familiar to the one Hermione used whenever he didn’t grasp her love of some minute academic interest.

“Well, I might have actually remembered a bit more from History of Magic if we’d gone to the places Binn’s droned on about.”

“Exactly,” Malfoy said.

“Shouldn’t you be back at the office in case a job comes in?” Harry asked Asbestos, who was still tagging along.

“Asbestos set up wards,” Asbestos said.

“I could have done that,” Harry said.

“Didn’t, did you?” Asbestos said.

Harry hadn’t. “You should take over my job. You’d probably be better at it.”

“Yes,” Asbestos said, “Don’t want it though. I would end up being Secretary elf and Liar elf at same time. Not worth it.”

“You said earlier that ‘Apparition Spotted by Muggle’ is your most common call,” Malfoy said, “Is that all you do? Hide magic from muggles?”

“Well-” Harry started to answer. “Wait. No, I know this trick. Last time you asked something, I told you and then you wouldn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, so you’re going to be obnoxious about it?” Malfoy said.

Harry raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘I’m being the obnoxious one here?’

“Oh alright, fine,” Malfoy said, waving a hand, “Ask me something then.”

“Answer what I asked before; what makes you happy?” Harry asked.

Malfoy sighed at him, “Really? You think that’s an easy question? You think I can sum up my years-long, nebulous goal, of which I’m not entirely sure of, in a pithy little anecdote, do you?”

“Well-”

“Rejected,” Malfoy said, “Ask something else.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “Alright… Then…um...”

“Come on, Auror Potter, I don’t have all day,” Malfoy said.

“Harry,” Harry said, “And what demanding appointment do you have to keep exactly? Looking at the elephants again?”

“Shut up and ask a question,” Malfoy said.

“Fine. You- You said you hired on this lad Trev to teach you to drive-”

“Yes?” Malfoy said suspiciously.

“So how did you meet him?” Harry asked.

Malfoy shifted his weight, looking annoyed, “When he came to my house to teach me how to drive.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, how did you hire him? Like did you just wander around a university asking random people to teach you to drive?”

“No, of course not,” Malfoy said as if that was entirely preposterous. “I had my assistant arrange it.”

“Who-”

Asbestos raised her hand.

“Asbestos was my personal assistant before I made her the Liar’s Department’s secretary,” Malfoy said.

“Same job,” Asbestos said.

“Not necessarily-”

Asbestos nodded, “Asbestos is pretty sure, as she is the one doing it, that they are the same job.”

“Fine, fine. How did you go about finding Trev, anyway?” Malfoy asked Asbestos.

“I put fliers on notice boards. Lots and lots of notice boards,” Asbestos nodded to herself, “Put: Stupid rich boy needs driving instructor.”

“I’m not stupid,” Malfoy said.

Asbestos stared at him flatly.

Malfoy changed his mind, “Well, it’s probably best to cover all bases.”

“What? You’re not, though,” Harry said, “stupid, I mean.”

Malfoy smiled, “How sweet. I’m flattered. However, at the time, I was a complete dullard when it came to anything and everything muggle, so it’s probably for the best that he very low expectations.”

“And you met him, for the first time, when he came to give you driving lessons,” Harry said doubtfully.

“In retrospect, it was quite remarkable anyone applied. I don’t have a muggle phone, so there was just an address to send in an application. I didn’t even know if he was qualified, I didn’t understand any of the things on his cv,” Malfoy said.

“So you just picked him at random then? Pulled his name out of the pile?” Harry said.

“Oh, no. Trev was the only one who applied. He got the job by default,” Malfoy said, “He told me later that he was pretty sure it was a coin flip between making a lot of money or being hunted in the woods for sport.”

Harry laughed.

“Now that that’s out of the way, answer my question,” Malfoy said.

“About what Auror’s do?” Harry said and then sighed, “Yeah, most of our work involves protecting the statute of secrecy. Muggles are everywhere and have cameras in their pockets now with cellphones and wizards aren’t careful. Hermione says the Ministry needs to do some huge public education campaigns but they probably won’t until there’s an incident they can’t cove-up.”

“And here I thought being an auror would be all fighting dark wizards and breaking up illegal potion rings,” Malfoy said.

“So did I and it was right after the war. Once all of Voldemort’s followers were cleared up, things quieted down. Now, something big only happens a few times a year,” Harry said.

“Don’t sound too disappointed,” Malfoy teased.

Harry made a face at him. “I know, I know. Hermione’s always telling me, real life isn’t like some sort of police procedural. If we had something happening every week, half the magic population would be in jail in a couple years. And that nothing bad happening is a sign that people are doing well. Sometimes crime is just greed or trying to get power, but most of the time its people who are poor and desperate, so it’s good that people are happy.”

“You’re just bored out of your mind,” Malfoy said with a grin.

Harry wanted to sigh again. It wasn’t something he’d admit to Ron and Hermione but, “...Yeah.”

“Isn’t a museum better than a pile of paperwork?” Malfoy said.

“Again? You’re not going to make me like the museum,” Harry said.

“Alright, what if we just look and don’t read anything, would that help?” Malfoy asked.

Harry shrugged, “I guess, probably.”

Malfoy smiled and grabbed his elbow, pulling him down the hallway, “Come look at the hummingbird display. It’s wonderful.”

When they came back to the office, Harry got stuck with filling out the form for the job they did early in the day.

“Why can’t Asbestos do this?” Harry asked crankily, sitting in front of the desk.

“Because if you stay late the Ministry they have to pay overtime. If Asbestos stays late, I have to pay overtime,” Malfoy said, “And she’s meticulous with her timekeeping.”

“Down to the knut,” Asbestos said.

“What?” Harry frowned, “What do you care about money? Aren’t you trying to waste it annoy your father?”

“True.” Malfoy said, “I mostly just want to bother you.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Because I can. My father isn’t going anywhere. This is a limited time opportunity,” Malfoy said flippantly. He gave Harry a wave, “See you tomorrow, Auror Potter!”

“It’s Harry!” Harry called, even as Malfoy shut the door in his face.

Harry grumbled under his breath even as he grabbed a blank AD 45-O form and started filling out.

He wanted to ask Ron and Hermione for advice. But then he would have to explain everything. Which would mean telling them about Malfoy right after they both told him to leave Malfoy alone.

Harry charmed the form into a paper aeroplane and opened the door, sending it sailing towards the Auror’s department. And caught an entirely different aeroplane as it came into the office. He was worried a late assignment had come in, but it turned out to be a note from Ron.

‘Hey, Harry. Don’t bother looking for me or Hermione. The ministry potion audit I’m doing ran late, and Hermione’s work suddenly got crazy. You can floo-call us later if something comes up. -Ron’

Harry sighed and went home.

Chapter Text

Harry ran his hand over his black suit the next morning. Smelling faintly of lavender, every wrinkle was gone as if it had just returned from the dry cleaners. Harry was impressed. The house elves back at Hogwarts would clean their uniforms the same way, but he had been living on his own for years now and usually just threw a haphazard cleaning charm at his clothes. It worked, but it didn’t do much for wrinkles and always left a slightly stale, atticy smell on everything.

He made sure to get to work a little early, stopping off at the loo before he went into the office.

“Oh! You came back!” The mirror said excitedly.

Harry smiled ruefully, “I wasn’t sure I could get my hair right.” he held up a tin of sleek-easy, “brought my own this time. My friends give one to me as a gift every now and then. They think they’re very funny.”

“Damp hair first,” The mirror reminded him.

“Right, right,” Harry said, running damp hands through his hair and then following the mirrors instructions. The mirror only took over his reflection at the end to show him how to better style it. “You know, I’ve met talking mirrors before, but never one like you, that can take over the reflection.”

“Oh, I’m quite old,” The mirror said. “having a mirror that could move and talk like a painting was all the rage in the seventeen fifties. It didn’t last. I kept to myself for ages so I wouldn’t be destroyed or worse, stored away.”

“But now you’re talking to me,” Harry said.

“I got so unbelievably bored, you can’t imagine. I’ve tried talking to the other people on this floor, but they’re all broom-heads and paper-pushers, and there’s not a decent robe amongst them,” The mirror said.

“Err, I’m sorry,” Harry said, “It must be frustrating, stuck there, not able to move.”

His reflection raised an eyebrow and then waved him off, “Oh, don’t worry yourself. I understand the concept of free will, I also understand that I don’t have it, and am plenty glad for it. It only seems to cause trouble as far as I’ve seen.”

“Then… what do you want?” Harry asked.

“To do what I was made to do. To help people look their absolute best. It brings me immense satisfaction,” The mirror said. “So do come back again, won’t you?”

“I will,” Harry said. Though he imagined the mirror would be disappointed when he was back to wearing his auror uniform. Harry wondered if he should get a new uniform, a properly fitted one. He straightened his sleeves before opening the office door.

Malfoy was hunched over his desk with coloured pencils again, working hard on some sort of drawing.

“Want coffee? Asbestos is fetching for Mr Malfoy and self,” Asbestos asked.

“I-”

“Hurry,” Asbestos said impatiently, “Asbestos wants coffee.” She was wearing a fuzzy yellow onesie.

“A- a small mocha, I guess,” Harry said.

Asbestos held out her hand.

“Use my money to pay for everything,” Malfoy said.

Asbestos shot him a glare.

Harry laughed and handed Asbestos a galleon, “Here. Your outfit’s a bit… ordinary compared to the last two.”

Asbestos snatched the coin and pulled a fuzzy yellow hood over her head, it had big cartoony eyes and an orange bill, “Quack,” Asbestos said flatly, flipping Harry off and apparating away.

Malfoy snorted in amusement.

Harry turned around, finding Malfoy leaning back in his chair, staring at Harry with his hands behind his head and his cat-like smile.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Just enjoying the view,” Malfoy said.

Harry rolled his eyes, feeling pleased, and annoyed that he felt pleased. “Colouring time at Nursery school, is it?”

“Nursery school? I had a governess,” Malfoy said.

“Of course, you did.”

“Well? Come look. It’s some of my best work,” Malfoy said, sliding the paper he was drawing on to the edge of the desk.

Malfoy’s drawing was much better than the rough stick figures he had sent to Harry in school. He had drawn a knight in shining armour with a white curly moustache and a weird light brown castle behind him.

“It’s no Mona Lisa, but it’s alright,” Harry said.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, “You mean; it’s delightful.”

Harry tapped the knight, “Is it like, what’s that guy’s name… Don Quitey- Quotey?”

“Don Quixote?” Malfoy said, trying not to laugh.

“Shut up, I’m not good at names, and it’s not like I’ve ever read the book, I just picked it up from- somewhere,” Harry said.

“It’s rather famous,” Malfoy said, “But that’s not what I drew. I drew-” He paused dramatically. “Wait, first pretend this is on a bottle of syrup.”

“Okay?” Harry said.

“Okay, I drew,” Malfoy paused dramatically again, “Sir Syrup, Knight of the Pancake Kingdom.”

Harry laughed, “I thought the moustache looked familiar.”

Malfoy looked terribly pleased even as he bit his lip trying to hide it. It was a good look on him.

“Not ‘Knight of the Waffle Kingdom’?” Harry asked.

“I considered it… but pancakes are more associated with syrup,” Malfoy said.

Harry grinned, “You thought about this way too much.”

“Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” Malfoy said with a sniff.

“What about… Lord of the Waffle Court?” Harry suggested.

“‘Lord of the Waffle court,’ I do like that,” Malfoy said.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Harry said.

“I’m not,” Malfoy said. He picked up a pen and wrote on the bottom of the picture in a perfect copperplate hand, ‘Sir Syrup, Knight of the Pancake Kingdom, Lord of the Waffle Court’. Somehow it looked more official in fancy curly cursive.

They looked at one another and laughed.

There was a sharp knock on the door. Harry stepped in front of the desk, and Malfoy quickly pulled his messy pile of magazines over the drawing, sending coloured pencils scattering across the floor.

“Excuse me,” the door swung open-

Harry froze.

“What-? Harry?” Hermione said in dismay, “Is that you? What are you doing here?”

Harry managed a weak smile that he knew wouldn’t help in the least.

“And what in the world are you wearing?” Hermione said, “I mean, you look nice. Nicer than usual-”

Malfoy snorted.

“-is there an official Auror function?” Hermione asked.

“It’s his uniform,” Malfoy said.

“What?” Hermione said.

Harry belatedly stepped back so Hermione could see Malfoy in his similar white suit.

Hermione looked from Malfoy to Harry and back again with widening eyes, “oh no-”

“Uh...” Harry said.

Hermione groaned under her breath, “oh, fuck.” She grimaced and looked at the floor and then looked back up at them like she was in pain.

“Hermione?” Harry asked.

“You’re the two employees for this department?”

Malfoy started laughing.

“Oh, shut it, Malfoy,” Harry said.

“Draco,” Malfoy said sweetly.

“How? Why?” Hermione demanded.

“It’s- It’s a temporary one week transfer,” Harry said.

Hermione put her hands on her hips, “When did the transfer start?”

“Let me exsp-”

“When. Did. It. Start?” Hermione said.

“This is his third day,” Malfoy said.

Hermione narrowed her eyes, “So when we talked last, you knew Malfoy was hired for the department, and you were already working here.”

“….Yeah? I mean-” Harry shrugged helplessly, “You’d just told me in your mum voice to leave him alone-”

“I do not have a mum voice!” Hermione said in her mum voice.

“-and after that, I couldn’t just say I’d started working in the department,” Harry said.

“So you lied?” Hermione said, her anger edged with hurt that worried Harry more than all the fury she could throw at him.

“I didn’t lie. I just-” Harry’s explanation came out halting as he realised how bad it sounded,” -didn’t say anything.”

Hermione threw up her hands, “That’s just as bad, and you know it!”

“Well, erm, why are you here? Do you need the department’s help?” Harry tried to deflect.

“Sir Siriup transferred the Head of Department to me,” Hermione said.

“Oh… oh no,” Harry said.

“Exactly ‘oh no’,” Hermione said, “I don’t know how to run a department! Much one as- as- as stupid as this one!”

“I rather like it,” Malfoy said.

Hermione sighed, “I don’t know why you think I would care, Malfoy. You were hired to make this whole thing fail faster, if that’s even possible.”

“While that might have been Sir Syrup’s intention, it was never mine. I have done my best to make the department as successful as possible,” Malfoy said.

Harry nodded quickly, “Every assignment we’ve done has been successful.”

Hermione sighed and deflated slightly, “That’s…. good, I suppose, but-”

“But?” Harry said apprehensively.

“There’s no reason for this to be a separate department. It should just be a part of the regular Obliviator’s department,” Hermione said.

Harry stared at her, turned to Malfoy who shrugged.

“She’s technically correct,” Malfoy said.

“What?” Harry said, disappointed.

“Technically?” Hermione said.

“I don’t have to like it,” Malfoy said.

“Once again, I don’t care-”

“What I think. Yes, yes,” Malfoy said.

Hermione took two steps, stopping right in front of Harry, making him lurch backwards, “I want to talk to you. Alone.”

Malfoy stood, “I shall wait outside.” he paused next to Harry, putting a hand on his shoulder like he was being comforting, “It was nice knowing you, Auror Potter.”

“It’s Harry. I can’t say the same,” Harry said.

Malfoy put a hand over his heart as he grabbed the door, “I’m wounded. I may never survive such cruel words.”

Harry tried not to smile, “You’ll live.”

Malfoy grinned and shut the door behind him, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in the room.

“What in the world were you thinking, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“I wanted to help,” Harry said.

“No, you wanted to ‘keep an eye on Malfoy’,” Hermione said.

“I- That might have been part of it-”

Hermione raised her eyebrows, “Just A Part.”

Harry’s brow furrowed, “Look! I’ll admit that keeping an eye on Malfoy was what started it, but that isn’t why I filled out the transfer form.”

Hermione crossed her arms.

Harry added a frown to his furrow, “It was to help you out, and help the auror department, and- and helping Malfoy out.”

“Why would you do care about Malfoy of all people?”

“Because he’s good at his job!” Harry burst out.

Hermione leaned back in surprise.

“The aurors listen to me, but he’s the one that does all the work with the muggles! He comes up with the stories and has the props and has done the research-!”

“Research? He’s studying muggles?” Hermione asked.

“Not- Not like that. He just lives- he explores and tries new things and- and-” Harry stuttered over his words.

“Malfoy, really?” Hermione shook her head.

“Draco. His name is Draco,” Harry said.

“So you’re friends now?”

“I-” Harry hesitated, “s-sort of? Maybe?”

“That’s good,” Hermione said.

“It is?” Harry said.

“It is. You need to make more friends.”

Harry stared at her, “I have friends. You’re one of them.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, “You need more friends. Both Ron and I chat with people in our departments. You can’t even remember their names.”

“I can. There’s Shunter-”

“Not your superiors, your peers, Harry,” Hermione said.

“There’s Kalya,” Harry said, “And- and I know the other guy’s name starts with a J-”

Hermione’s look was pure ‘I told you so’.

“Yeah, alright fine,” Harry muttered.

“I just wish-” Hermione sighed, “I wish you had asked me before doing all this.”

“If I had asked you would have told me not to,” Harry said.

“True.” Hermione smiled ruefully, “Would it have stopped you, though?”

“...No. But I would have felt worse about it,” Harry said.

“That’s what I thought. It’s just not something you can fix, Harry.”

“I wasn’t trying to fix it,” Harry said.

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

“No really, I was just trying to- to hold it together long enough for you to figure out a plan,” Harry said.

“I couldn’t.”

“Hermione-”

“I couldn’t come up with a plan!” Hermione snapped in frustration. “Suirup has too much power! Anyone who can do something about it is either on his side or doesn’t care!”

Harry stared at Hermione, dumbfounded by the very idea that Hermione might not be able to think her way out of something. Hermione stared back at him, looking embarrassed for shouting.

“Well-” Harry started.

“Sorry for shouting,” Hermione said quickly, “and taking all my frustration out on you. Suirup was the one who did everything, you- you were just trying to help.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you,” Harry said, “We might have been able to come up with something if we had all put our heads together like we used to.”

Hermione smiled faintly, “Maybe. Of course, Ron is too busy right now, and so am I, and so are you. And I hate the idea of this ruining your career as well as mine.”

Harry grimaced, “I hate the idea of having a career. I’d rather just have a job, you know?”

“Not really? They mean the same thing,” Hermione said.

Harry wanted to roll his eyes but decided to drop it for now, “Well, now with me and Malfoy holding the department together for the next four days, you can think up a plan to fix everything.”

“Two days,” Hermione said.

“What?”

“It’s only two days, Harry,” Hermione said, “You still have to take two days off. That’s how it works.”

“Oh.” Harry said faintly, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly disappointed at the prospect of having so little time left.

“It’s fine. I should have enough time to talk to the Obliviator Headquarters and Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee and find a way to blend this department into one of them before it falls apart,” Hermione said.

“What about Ma-Draco? What will happen to him?” Harry asked.

“He’ll be transferred and start working for one of the other departments,” Hermione said.

Harry frowned, “But he can’t use magic outside his home. And people don’t trust him.”

“He won you over, didn’t he? He’ll be fine,” Hermione said.

But it wouldn’t be fun. And Harry wasn’t sure Draco would keep the job if he didn’t like it. He wanted to be ‘happy’ after all, whatever that meant.

“I should get going, I have a lot to do,” Hermione said, opening the door and stepping outside, “Do you need anything for the department, Malfoy?”

“Not at the moment,” Malfoy said. He was leaning back against the wall looking infinitely relaxed.

“Send me a memo if you need anything, or an emergency comes up,” Hermione said, “I’d appreciate if you could do a good job until I can get this all sorted out.”

Malfoy nodded, “I look forward to working with you, Ms Granger.”

“Sure,” Hermione said.

There was a pop and Asbestos returned, drinks carrier in hand, “Coffee.” She held it above her head so Draco could remove one of the small cups, then stomped over to Harry who took the other small latte. Asbestos took the last, another massive coffee that looked more like a fancy milkshake with chocolate drizzle on the inside of the cup and across the fluffy tower of whipped cream on top.

“And who is this?” Hermione asked, her tone cold.

“Asbestos,” Malfoy said, “She’s my secretary.”

“She doesn’t work for the ministry or she’d be on the list of employees,” Hermione said.

“No, she works for me,” Malfoy said.

Hermione narrowed her eyes, “I see.”

“Hermione, Asbestos is-”

But before Harry could explain, Hermione turned and marched off, in a bad mood all over again.

Harry sighed, “...She’s a free elf.”

“Do me a favour, Auror Potter-”

“Harry.”

“-please observe her reaction very closely when you tell her Asbestos is a free elf and then show me the memory,” Malfoy said.

“That’s... weird,” Harry said.

“How is that weird?”

“Sharing with memories is just sort of personal,” Harry said.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, “It can be. I suppose. But I wasn’t suggested we have a heart-to-heart.” he said with sweetly mocking tone. “When someone slips on a puddle of bubotuber pus, what’s funnier, seeing it or having someone tell you the story?”

“Depends on how funny the fall is and how funny the person telling the story is,” Harry said, “The fall might not have been all that funny but if the person telling it-”

“Ugh,” Malfoy sighed. “Fine. Fine. Just show me the funniest version then. You’re occasionally capable of being clever.”

“You’re occasionally capable of not being an ass,” Harry said.

“Don’t count on it,” Malfoy said with a cheeky smile.

“Stupid,” Asbestos said.

Malfoy stood up and brushed off his jacket, “Asbestos, do we have any work?”

Asbestos’ expression didn’t change. She slurped noisily from her drink, turned on her heel and went back into the office.

“Call us if any work turns up!” Malfoy called.

Asbestos’ hand reappeared to give them the finger before she shut the door.

“Now that that’s settled-”

“How is that settled!” Harry laughed.

Malfoy shrugged, “Asbestos is more capable than both of us and she knows it. I just like to rile her up.”

“You like to rile everyone up,” Harry said.

Malfoy smiled, “Oh, certainly. It’s a lot of fun.”

Harry rolled his eyes and followed Malfoy as he headed to the lift, “What are we doing? I already have a uniform.”

“I don’t know,” Malfoy said.

“You don’t know.”

“Nope,” Malfoy said, putting his sunglasses on as they crossed the atrium, “It’s an adventure, Auror Potter.”

“Harry!” Harry called.

Half a dozen people turned to look at him, and Harry ducked his head in embarrassment as Malfoy laughed.

Just like before they flooed to Diagon Alley and went through the Leaky to the muggle street entrance. Malfoy had parked his car half on the curb, a ticket under the wiper blades. Harry assumed it belonged to Malfoy, but he could have been collecting them for all Harry knew. His family was rich enough that they wouldn’t even notice a few parking tickets.

“So, we just drive around until you spot something that takes your interest?” Harry asked as he sat in the plush leather passenger seat and pulled his seat belt on.

“Merlin, no,” Malfoy said, “Do you have any idea what London traffic is like? It’s enough to drive you spare even on the best days. We’re going to the library.”

“The- What? The library?” Harry said. “I thought this was meant to be an adventure, not a Sherlock Holmes novel.”

Malfoy glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow, “That made absolutely no sense.”

“Because the library, that’s where you go to find clues,” Harry explained.

“Have you ever actually read a Holmes novel?” Malfoy asked, “No, of course not-”

“Hey-!”

“Because if you had, you would know that he already knows everything a book might tell him. He’s smarter than everyone else around him, that’s how he solves the mysteries. It’s the appeal of the character,” Malfoy said.

“I thought the appeal was Sherlock being an asshole and taking shitloads of cocaine,” Harry said.

Malfoy laughed, “I stand corrected. I’m sure that’s it entirely.”

Harry leaned an arm out the window, enjoying the gentle breeze with a relaxed smile on his face. He watched the buildings go by, catching glimpses of people and their lives as they moved passed.

Harry couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a muggle library. The idea seemed very mundane compared to Hogwarts and the Ministry’s libraries. Still, as they stepped into the building, enveloped by the smell of books and a quiet hush, it seemed that libraries themselves had a magic all their own.

“Hello, Draco,” a librarian waved as she caught sight of him, “Need a computer?”

“Yes, if there’s one available, Louise,” Malfoy said, taking his sunglasses off and tucking them away.

Harry stared in bewildered silence. He felt as out of his depth as he had in the suit shop, but entirely on the other side of the spectrum. It was completely unfair for Malfoy to look so comfortable here, all the while, looking like a government agent from a movie in the middle of a muggle library. Small children stared at him as they came in for story time, having to be towed along as they tried to stop and look.

“This way,” Malfoy said, heading to a few rows of computers. He sat at the corner desk and moved the mouse, getting rid of the bouncing screen saver.

Harry numbly grabbed a chair and pulled it beside Malfoy. He watched Malfoy click on the internet explorer icon and take out his notebook, he flipped to the back where he had written some web addresses. He began typing them in with two fingers, henpecking the letters out with an absurdly serious expression.

“what…? What?” Harry said dumbly.

“I follow a handful of ‘blogs’,” Malfoy said absently as if that was at all what Harry cared about in this situation, “Food, travel, restaurants, that sort of thing. It’s wonderful for finding new things to try.”

“How, the fuck,” Harry hissed in a whisper, “do you know how to use a computer?”

Malfoy paused his typing to raise an eyebrow at Harry, “I learned. That is how most knowledge is acquired.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” Harry snapped.

Someone shushed him.

Harry sunk down in the chair with a muttered, “How did you learn?”

“The librarians aren’t just here for books, they’ll help with the computers or anything else. They’re paid to be helpful,” Malfoy said, hitting enter and waiting for the website to load, “There’s an old woman who comes in every week and makes Louise get into her email account because she can’t be bothered to learn how. There’s literally nothing I could ask that’s stupider than that.”

“Do you have an email account?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Malfoy said automatically. He added more hesitantly, “Of course, I really don’t have anyone to write and hardly check the library often enough keep up any sort of formal correspondence.”

Harry did his best not to laugh. He grabbed a pencil and piece of scrap paper from the desk and wrote out his email address. Hermione had helped him set it up. She was the only one who emailed him. She mostly sent him links to articles that made his brain go numb half a sentence in. “Here. My email.”

Malfoy took the scrap of paper, looking a little bewildered.

“So you can write me if you want. But I don’t check very often.”

“I can just owl you, Auror Potter,” Malfoy said, even as he folded the paper and slid it in-between the pages of his notebook.

Harry grinned, “So? That’s no fun.”

Malfoy frowned, “What happened to the ‘Harry’-”

“Yes! You said Harry!” Harry crowed, “Got you!”

Harry received more shushes and a handful of glares, but he was too pleased to care.

Malfoy glared at him balefully, his ears flushed red, “Good grief, what are you five years old?”

Harry laughed.

Malfoy huffed and turned back to the computer.

“Why’d you come to the library in the first place? It doesn’t seem that interesting,” Harry said.

“Books are interesting.”

“Not compared to the sorts of books we normally read,” Harry said.

Malfoy shook his head, “Yes. Yes. We are all aware you’re a Gryffindor, not a Ravenclaw.”

“Might have figured things out faster if I were,” Harry said.

“You’d need a personality transplant first,” Malfoy said and grinned when Harry protested. “To answer your question. Trev brought me here a few times when he was finishing up a paper.”

“What?”

“He is a university student,” Malfoy said, “They have to work occasionally.”

“No, but, I thought he was just teaching you to drive?” Harry said.

Malfoy started putting in a different web address, “And after I passed my driving exams, I hired  him on as a professional companion.”

“A what?” Harry said, a painful feeling twisting in his chest.

Malfoy looked at his expression and laughed, “Trev made the same face. He said he didn’t ‘swing that way’ and I told him he was entirely not my type.”

“What’s a professional companion, then?” Harry asked.

“It’s a Victorian term. They would sometimes hire on a companion for their children to act as their confidant and friend,” Malfoy said.

“A professional friend?” Harry said.

“Something like that,” Malfoy said absently, grabbing a scrap of paper and writing an address down, “It was the most expedient way to learn about muggles without feeling like a complete pillock. I pay well, and all Trev has to do is take me around to places I’ve never been and teach me how things work. I’m fairly certain he thinks I was raised in a monastery.” He pushed back his chair, “Shall we go?”

“Where?” Harry asked.

“A shop first, there’s a new flavour of crisps I want to try,” Malfoy said.

Harry crossed his arms. Malfoy was standing in front of the crisp section of the shop he had driven them to, staring at them like they held the secrets to the universe.

“What do you think?” Malfoy asked.

“About crisps?” Harry said.

“Of course,” Malfoy said with derision.

“I like cheese and onion.”

“Everyone likes cheese and onion, Auror Potter,” Malfoy said flatly.

“I know you can say Harry.”

“No I can’t,” Malfoy said, reaching out and grabbing a bag of wasabi and ginger crisps.

“I heard you say it-”

“You must have imagined things,” Malfoy said. He held the bag of crisps out to Harry, “What do you think?”

“I didn’t imagine anything, and what am I supposed to think about it? I don’t like wasabi. Do you?” Harry said.

“Not usually. But I might like these,” Malfoy said.

Harry took the crisps and stared at them blankly. It was a Walker’s brand of crisps called Sensations, all the bags were black and had swirling colours on them. They looked more like a brand of condoms than crisps.

“Weren’t you looking for a specific flavour?” Harry asked.

“They don’t seem to have it,” Malfoy said.

Harry pushed the bag back onto the shelf, “Why are we still looking?”

“We came for crisps so we might as well get some. There are plenty of flavours I haven't tried yet. Even more for you, I would imagine, Mr Cheese-and-Onion.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “I’ve tried other crisps, I just like to buy cheese and onion for myself.”

“Well, the point of the exercise is to try something new, so pick something you’ve never had before,” Malfoy said, grabbing the bag of wasabi and ginger again.

Harry looked over the selection and picked a bag of that was supposedly flavoured like steak and chimichurri, “These then.”

“Boring,” Malfoy booed.

“Yeah, but unlike yours, I might actually eat more than one,” Harry said.

“Should we just get every flavour of this brand?” Malfoy asked.

“No.”

“I think maybe we ought to,” Malfoy said.

“What in the world are you going to do with-” Harry waved at the shelf, “-however many bags of crisps that you probably won’t even like half of?”

“I’ll give them to the house elves,” Malfoy said.

Harry hesitated, “Something tells me this is how you deal with a lot of this random shite your try and don’t like.”

“Yes,” Malfoy said without an ounce of shame.

Harry gave him a look.

“Asbestos would tell me if they wanted me to stop. And they can always vanish it,” Malfoy said.

Harry had a feeling if he let this go on he would end up trying to carry an armload of crisps. He thought quickly, “If you get one of every flavour, then you won’t have any new ones to try the next time you’re in.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, “That’s unfair of you.”

“How is that unfair?” Harry said.

“You’re using my love of novelty against me,” Malfoy said.

“Yeah,” Harry said.

Malfoy frowned.

“What?” Harry said with a grin, “There’s no point in lying. It’s not that difficult to figure out.”

“Fine,” Malfoy said with a disappointed sigh. “Just these then.”

They didn’t head directly to the front of the store, wandering over to the magazine racks.

“What now?” Harry asked.

“Looking for important research materials,” Malfoy said, giving Harry his bag of crisps to hold.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“In order to effectively lie to muggles, you must first understand the sort of nonsense they already believe,” Malfoy said.

Harry started to say there was no point, that there were only two more days and then Hermione would dissolve the department, but the words died in his throat.

Malfoy grabbed a magazine, “The World’s Scariest Places: Haunted, Creepy, Abandoned!”

Harry shook his head, “You already have a magazine on ghosts, I’m not sure how haunted houses help.”

“If a location is derelict that makes a ghost story more believable,” Malfoy said, flipping through the glossy pages.

“More believable than the natural history museum,” Harry said.

“The old natural history museum,” Malfoy said, he stopped on a page and made a horrified expression, shoving the magazine into Harry’s face, “The Island of Dolls.”

The photo showed a derelict fence covered in dolls, old and faded, falling apart and missing eyes as their clothes slowly rotted off them.

“That’s… terrifying,” Harry said, pushing the picture away.

“It’s in Mexico. This man found a drowned little girl on this island and started hanging up dolls to appease her spirit, or at least that’s what he said happened,” Malfoy said, “There are hundreds of them, and now other people are hanging up dolls there as well.”

“People are weird,” Harry said.

“Says you,” Malfoy said, putting the magazine back and grabbing another title, Secret Societies: The Most Mysterious Organisations.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re the weird one here,” Harry said.

“You are the most baffling person I have ever met,” Malfoy said absently, flipping from page to page.

“Me? Me?” Harry said in dismay and then had a moment of doubt, was he weird? He thought he was pretty normal.

Malfoy stuck the magazine under his arm and went back to scanning the shelves. He laughed, “Witches: Inside Their Mysterious World.” grabbing the magazine and opening it to the middle.

“That’s- that can’t be helpful,” Harry said.

Malfoy shook his head, “What I know about witches isn’t what muggles believe now is it?”

“In what situation is telling a muggle ‘a witch did it’ a good idea? Because I’m pretty sure our job is to convince them that it was, I don’t know, anything else.” Harry said.

Malfoy flipped the magazine down so Harry could see the article he was looking at, Exploring Your Inner Witch. The photo had an open book and about a dozen different crystals and shiny rocks. He turned the page and laughed again, reading allowed, “Here’s the truth: You don’t need tools or permission to tap into your own magic. You simply need to connect to that effervescent, wild spark within you… Sounds like an excellent way to spontaneously explode or turn into a chicken. I shall have to send it to Pansy after I’ve finished with it. She’ll love this.”

“Pansy Parkinson? I haven’t heard about her in, well, forever really,” Harry said.

“Hm,” Malfoy said distractedly, “She lives in Paris, working for Belle Poubelle, they’re a famous robe designer, not that you would know.”

“Not exactly important to my everyday life, no,” Harry said flatly, “So she visits, or you go see her?”

“Oh, she’s far too busy with work and trying to design her own first robe line but we owl one another when there’s time,” Malfoy said.

Harry wanted to ask if Malfoy had any other friends, but he suspected the answer was no. It seemed like the only friends- the only regular friends Malfoy actually saw, were people he paid to be around him, like Trev and Asbestos. Harry supposed that he was sort of the same being Malfoy’s subordinate.

“Come along, Auror Potter,” Malfoy said, “We’ll have lunch next.”

Chapter Text

The wasabi and ginger crisps were not good. But the sandwiches they got to go with them were, and the crisps Harry had picked out were pretty alright.

After that was, of course, dessert. Which is how Harry found himself standing in the middle of a gelato shop that was so fancy and minimalistic it could be mistaken for being an empty room someone had managed to drag a counter and freezer into. The menu board, a large blackboard covered in white rounded writing, only made the shop look marginally more occupied.

“There’s a flavour called Chocolate Dirt,” Malfoy said.

“Have you ever considered just getting something you know you’ll like?” Harry said sarcastically.

“It’s chocolate, who doesn’t like chocolate?” Malfoy said.

“Luna prefers vanilla,” Harry said.

“Not pistachio? Or...Banana pudding?”

“What?” Harry frowned. Malfoy tapped the front of the display where the flavours were labelled, including a banana pudding flavour. He ignored the glare of the posh-looking young man behind the case, “It seems more her character to prefer something strange.”

“Luna isn’t strange,” Harry said, “She’s just… unique.”

“I didn’t say she was strange, just that she would prefer it,” Malfoy said, turning away from the glass for a second to look at him, “You have to admit that she’s a bit odd though.”

Harry didn’t have to admit anything. Luna’s friends could tease her about being strange because they weren’t mean about it, but no one else was allowed. “Luna’s great.”

The door swung open with a faint electronic chime.

“Welco-” the woman behind the register started to say and then stopped abruptly and blinked at the small figure in the duck onesie stomped inside.

Asbestos tugged on the edge of Malfoy’s jacket and held up a slip of paper, “Work.”

Malfoy took the work memo, read it and then handed it to Harry.

Harry read through the auror shorthand and codes and sighed deeply.

“Is it urgent?” Malfoy asked.

“It’s- fuck these are the worst...”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, “Is it urgent? Or can I get my gelato?”

Asbestos nodded, going up on her tiptoes to look through the bottom of the glass.

Harry rolled his eyes, “Get your stupid gelato.”

“Excellent,” Malfoy said. He ordered two scoops, one pink and the other purple. Asbestos got three scoops, all chocolate. The shop was so minimalistic that their waffle cones were black.

“Are you going to get one?” Malfoy asked.

“We’re going to a job,” Harry said.

“So?”

Harry sighed.

“Are you-”

“No,” Harry said, “I’m not going to get a gelato.”

“Suit yourself,” Malfoy said with a shrug.

Malfoy left the shop first, holding the door open for Asbestos.

Harry followed and heard the guy behind the display say, “Holy shit, that is the ugliest kid I have ever seen-” and the door shut and cut off the rest.

“This way,” Malfoy called, already disappearing down a narrow alley. “So what sort of call is it? I’d like to know what we’ll be headed into,” Malfoy said once Harry had caught up.

“Neighbourhood dispute,” Harry said, “Usually two neighbours that have snapped and ended up fighting, except one of them has magic, so that’s where we come in.”

“Sounds rather fun,” Malfoy said.

“Sounds exhausting, is what it is,” Harry said.

Malfoy swiped his tongue up the side of his gelato, pink and purple melting over his tongue into a pastel cream. He tsked and frowned at his black cone, “This isn’t gelato. This is just ice cream. Gelato is much richer and denser than this.”

“Is it any good?” Harry said distractedly, not really hearing anything Malfoy said.

“That isn’t the point? I was expecting gelato. Now I am inherently disappointed by the experience,” Malfoy said.

There was a smudge of ice cream on Malfoy’s lip, and Harry found himself raising his hand to wipe it off before the confused, half-smile on Malfoy’s face made him stop.

Harry cleared his throat, feeling far too hot in his own skin, “You, uh, you have some ice-cream,” he gestured to his own mouth.

Malfoy tongue darted out, licking the smudge of ice-cream off and somehow pulling the breath out of Harry at the same time. He had to look away and ended up looking down at a thoroughly unimpressed Asbestos.

Asbestos bit a chunk off her ice cream and then held it out. Harry took it without thinking, which seemed to be the right response because she grabbed Harry and Malfoy at the knees, a handful of fabric in both hands and apparated them away.

They landed in a small front garden in a quiet rather nondescript neighbourhood. The house they were standing in front of had a near twin built right beside it with an identical if slightly more yellow lawn. In fact, the two gardens were like a storybook illustration of the grass always being greener on the other side, with perfect green grass and flowers in full bloom on one side, as the other garden, looked well, ordinary and a bit sad in comparison. It was easy to guess which house had magic to help things along.

Asbestos snapped her fingers at Harry impatiently until he gave her ice cream back.

Harry could feel the faint buzz on his skin of strong interwoven wards, hiding the two houses from the street and gently pushing muggles away with a mix of notice-me-not and repelling charms.

The two junior aurors that Harry obviously knew the names of, Kalya and Joshua? no... Jeremy? were standing under a tree in the corner, looking up at something in the branches. Malfoy and Asbestos wandered over to them and started chatting.

Harry looked around for the Senior Auror and found Shunter standing in front of the nicer house behind him. Her hands were on her hips, and she was frowning severely, an expression that on both her and Professor McGonagall was always pants-wettingly terrifying. The rail-thin old man she was glaring at seemed unaffected, Harry had to assume he was either exceptionally brave or exceptionally stupid.

Harry walked over, trying not to make too much noise so he could listen in on what they were talking about.

“I understand the nature of your complaint,” Shunter said with the sort of firmness that was meant to try and continue the conversation, but with the sort of weariness that came from having failed to continue the conversation many times before, “but, Mr Hickenbottom-”

“Hickenbotham,” the man in the doorway corrected sharply, frowning through his long stringy grey beard, “It’s Hickenbotham.”

Shunter’s mouth pressed up in a vice-tight smile that held no amusement but possibly contained a multitude of suppressed fury. “Mr Hickenbotham,” she tried again, “I understand the nature of your complaint, however, you are not allowed to transfigure your neighbour's dog-”

“He lets it out where ever he pleases, and it shites on everyone’s lawn! And I get most of it!” Mr Hickenbothem said with indignant rage.

“-You can’t transfigure your neighbour's dog,” Shunter went on, ignoring Mr Hickenbotham, “It’s a blatant-”

“I’ve talked to the old fool, of course I have! He just won’t listen-!”

“Mr Hickenbotham!” Shunter finally snapped, “You used magic on a muggle! You broke the statute of secrecy! I do not care about your neighbour. I do not care about his dog. The simple matter is this: You broke the statute of secrecy, not accidentally, but with intent!”

Mr Hickenbotham opened his mouth and then, wisely, decided to close it again.

Shunter took a deep breath, calming down marginally as she pulled out her notebook. “It was a minor use of magic and your first offence, so you’ll likely be let off with a fine and warning, but you will have to testify to the Wizengamont. You’ll be owled the date of the meeting once all the paperwork is filed, failure to show may result in a more severe penalty. Do you understand?”

Mr Hickenbotham nodded sullenly.

“Good,” Shunter said, handing a copy of the ticket to him, “I hope to never see you again, Mr Hickenbotham.” She shoved her notebook into her pocket, “Now please return to your home-”

“Well, I never,” Mr Hickenbotham inflated his thin chest, all his self-righteousness returning in one fell swoop, “So this is what my taxes pay for? Harassing innocent wizards? I’m going to tell the Wizengamont about this! You’ll see-!”

Shunter flicked out her wand and levitated Mr Hickenbotham a few feet back into the house, ignoring his indigent squawking, and charmed the door shut behind him, “Please remain in your home until the situation is resolved! Thank you!” she said cheerfully, turned on her heel and headed for Harry once she spotted him.

“You get all the fun assignments, don’t you, sir?” Harry said.

Shunter rolled her eyes, “A laugh a minute, Potter. But this sort of work is just part of the routine.”

Harry nodded.

“You’re missing out the big case we’ve been working on.”

“With Ron?” Harry asked.

“Auror’s aren’t allowed to discuss ongoing investigations outside of the aurors they’re working with,” Shunter said.

“Just a guess. He’s been busy lately,” Harry said quickly. Neither he or Ron bothered with that particular rule between the two of them, they were best mates after all.

“Mhmm,” Shunter said doubtfully, “Enjoying your little rebellion with the Liars Department?”

Harry stiffened, and was about to defend his decision again when he heard Malfoy laughing behind him and felt himself relax. “It’s been pretty great, actually.”

Shunter frowned, “I know you’ve been frustrated with the work you’ve done as an Auror, but everyone has to go through it. Juniors work with Seniors to learn the basics. Aurors work basic cases and walk patrols in Diagon and Hogsmeade, and Senior Auror’s work the big cases. You have to learn every aspect of the job.”

“I haven’t done any patrols,” Harry said.

“Well-”

“Is it because I was promoted too soon?” Harry said.

Shunter’s eyebrows twitched up.

“I didn’t realise it until recently- I know, I know,” Harry said ruefully at Shunter’s expression of disbelief, “I don’t really pay attention to those sorts of things. I would have turned the promotion down if I had known.”

Shunter smiled ruefully, “I’m not sure they would have let you. There’s a lot of pressure to have you succeed, Potter.”

Harry sighed.

“And you aren’t suited for patrols anyway. You’re too impatient,” Shunter said.

“Great.”

“Different people are suited for different work,” Shunter said. She turned to the tree. The addition of Malfoy and Asbestos hadn’t seemed to progress whatever the Juniors were working on, but then again they were just standing back and eating their ice cream watching the show.

Shunter pointed at the Juniors, “Those two are prime patrol Aurors, I doubt they’ll be promoted past that. And you’d be a good fit for Senior Auror. You’re good at investigative work and raids. You think well on your feet.”

Harry frowned to himself, looking at the Juniors desperately waving their wands at the tree with no success, their spells bouncing off the branches and sputtering into sparks. “...Even though they want me to be the next Head Auror?”

Shunter didn’t say anything.

“Even though it should be you?”

Harry glanced over at Shunter and saw her expression tighten.

“You’re the most qualified, the next in line,” Harry said, “Not me.”

“It’s out of my control. The higher-ups have their plans.”

“Their plans are stupid,” Harry said.

Shunter hid a laugh with a hurried cough, but her amusement quickly faded. “It’s out of my control.”

“But not mine,” Harry said, “I’ll turn them down.”

Shunter’s expression very carefully didn’t change, “...That may not be… a possibility.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Shunter sniffed, “I’ve heard…let’s say rumours, that the intention of those… more qualified, are planning to promote you to Head Auror by the time you’re twenty-five or six. It would make you the youngest Head Auror in the history of the department.”

“Those more qualified, I figured Robards? Who else?” Harry asked.

“Maybe Kingsley, a number of the more senior members of the Wizengamont, just rumours of course.”

“Of course,” Harry repeated sourly.

“They did the same thing to Albus Dumbledore. He was a professor, so they pushed him into being Headmaster,” Shunter said, “You see it a lot throughout history, powerful people in powerful positions. I don’t know if they just like the tradition or believe that someone with great magic is destined to greatness like Merlin. Or, and this is very cynical of me, having them in powerful positions keeps them pinned in one place so they can’t cause trouble. You can’t learn dangerous magic and gather followers if you’re too busy working a demanding job.”

“It doesn’t sound cynical to me,” Harry said.

“I prefer to think things aren’t quite so bleak,” Shunter said with a sour smile. “Now shall we actually get some work done?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, following her to the tree.

“Wands down,” Shunter ordered, “What’s the situation?”

Kalya and Jeremy stood to attention.

“Uh, the object of illegal transfiguration is still up the tree-” Kalya said.

“You can call it a dog, Junior Auror Bhasin,” Shunter interrupted.

“It’s more like a cat- or a squirrel now,” Jeremy said faintly, “or kind of both-ish?”

“Why is it still in the tree?” Shunter asked.

“Uh-uh...um-” Jeremy stuttered.

“There are branches in the way we can’t hit it with our spells, M’am,” Kalya said.

Shunter didn’t look impressed, “It’s ‘sir’ Junior.”

“R-Right,” Kalya said nervously, “Sorry, um, sir?”

“It’s a preference, and I expect you to respect it. You respect me, I respect you,” Shunter said.

Kalya and Jeremy nodded.

“What about a broom?” Harry asked. “To get the dog down.”

“We don’t have time to locate-” Shunter started.

Harry turned to Asbestos, “Can you get a broom?”

“Get one of mine,” Malfoy said.

Asbestos snapped her fingers, apparating away and returning about thirty seconds later with a sleek racing broom.

Harry raised an eyebrow, “Showy much?”

“I didn’t pick the broom,” Malfoy said.

“You bought it,” Harry said.

“A house elf…” Shunter said thoughtfully, “why hadn’t I ever thought of that before? How useful...”

Asbestos narrowed her eyes, “Wizards only care about elves when they can use them. Otherwise filthy stupid creatures, annoying creatures, always in the way. That being why you’ve never thought of it before.”

“Let’s get this job done then!” Harry said loudly and took the broom.

Malfoy snorted in amusement behind what was left of his ice cream.

Harry threw his leg over the broom and pushed his toe on the ground, instantly sending the broom flying up into the tree. He pulled it to a stop, overcorrected, re-corrected, a tree branch slapped over his face and then finally managed to get it to hover. It figured Malfoy would have one of those overly sensitive, annoying ‘high performance’ brooms.

Harry scanned through the canopy and spotted a little fluff of white high up in the canopy. He used the branches to guide himself up to a Y-junction near the top where something that mostly looked like a fluffy white cat was clinging to the bark for dear life. It had the look of an animal who had panicked and used instinct to run away before realising too late that those new instincts belonged to an animal that climbed trees, while the dog mind inside it was usually at ankle height and had anxiety.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Harry said gently.

The low growl that grew as Harry reached towards it assured Harry that it was in fact not okay.

Harry stopped and considered his options. He could reverse the transfiguration here, but the dog might fall out of the tree. Or he could put the animal in a body bind but again, risked it falling out of the tree. The smart thing would be to levitated it down to the ground and let the others reverse the transfiguration, but he was rather shit at controlled levitation when it came to light things. Heavy things he was brilliant at, he could levitate a person no problem, but something as little as the cat-dog-squirrel might end up on a rather erratic rollercoaster ride at best.

Deciding he had to do something, Harry drew his wand. The growling raised an octave at the sight of his wand which the small, terrified deranged animal recognised as being vaguely connected to its current situation. Harry took a deep breath and then cast Immobulus, a mild body freezing charm as he reached for the dog with his other hand, hoping to grab it just as the spell hit. Unfortunately, just before that moment, the dog lunged forward, snapping its tiny sharp teeth into the meat of Harry’s hand, then it froze.

It took every ounce of will in Harry’s body not to fling the small animal off his hand. He breathed through his nose, holding very, very still except to shift his weight back and send the broom slowly descending towards the ground.

Shunter sighed at the sight of him.

Jeremy’s eyes went wide.

And Malfoy bit his lip, practically vibrating in silent laughter.

“You have an uncanny ability to injure yourself in the most unlikely of circumstances,” Shunter said.

Harry grimaced as he touched down, holding his arm out with a dog-cat hanging from it. Its expression was remarkably placid, as if it had found peace in the certainty that it had seen enemy, bit the enemy and defeated it, a rare novelty in its often frenetic confusing life.

Malfoy’s laughter was starting to escape in gasps as he clutched his stomach, his face slowly turning bright red.

“Will someone do something? This hurts, you know,” Harry said acidly.

(Art by SnarkyShips-drarryside on tumblr)

Shunter waved at Jeremy, “You hold the dog.” She told Kalya, “You dispel the charm.”

The Juniors stiffly followed her orders, Jeremy looking like he had never held an animal in his life, clutching the dog under the armpits as far away from himself as humanly possible. As soon as Kalya released the spell, the dog-cat began squirming and wriggling trying to escape. Before it could, Shunter deftly reversed the awkward transfiguration so that it was a dog once more.

Kalya made a face, “Are you sure you did it right, sir?”

“This isn’t my first transfiguration reversal, Junior. You see a lot of them in this job,” Shunter said.

“But... it was cuter before,” Kalya said.

Jeremy nodded, “Its face is flat. Was it dropped on its head?”

The dog wasn’t happy with how Jeremy was holding and started whining.

“Haven’t you held a dog before?” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. He pushed his ice cream cone into Harry’s hand and took the dog from Jeremy, holding it close to his chest. “It’s a Pekingese, they’re meant to look like that.” Malfoy’s voice dropped to a murmur as he told the little white mop, “I think you’re cute just as you are.”

The dog looked up at Malfoy, wagging its tail faintly and giving Malfoy a lick on the chin.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Harry asked. The pale purple ice cream was all gone, and only half the pink remained.

“Eat it,” Malfoy said, “It will soothe your bruised ego.”

“I’m not a kid,” Harry said.

Malfoy huffed in amusement, “We’re all children Auror Potter. We just pretend to be adults. The longer we do it, the better we get at it, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re all whiny sticky little monsters underneath it all.”

“Sure you’re not projecting there?” Harry asked.

“Oh, shut up,” Malfoy said.

Harry grinned at him.

“Asbestos will return this now,” Asbestos said, grabbing the broom and disappearing with a pop.

“Listen up, Juniors,” Shunter said in her ‘time for a lesson’ voice.

Kayla and Jeremy straightened to attention.

Harry didn’t listen, he had heard Shunter’s various lectures on proper dispelling procedure to have had dreams of them, and they were just as boring the second time around.

Ice cream dripped over the edge of the cone and onto his fingers. Harry looked at the pale pink mess and hesitantly lifted it to his mouth. Tasting it felt strangely illicit, his mind drawn over and over again the image of Malfoy’s tongue swiping over the cold treat. But the flavour pulled him right back out of his thoughts.

“What is this?” Harry asked, “It tastes weird.”

“Rose and guava,” Malfoy said.

“So that’s why you gave it to me,” Harry said, vanishing what was left and aiming a cleaning spell at his hand, “Wait, what was the purple flavour?”

“Lavender. And the flavour wasn’t bad, I just don’t like melted ice-cream,” Malfoy said.

“Lavender?” Harry repeated, “Why are we- they- eating flowers?”

“Some flowers are edible and quite good, if you happen to have taste,” Malfoy said.

“If you’re the type to wander around the garden sticking random plants in your mouth,” Harry said.

Malfoy ignored him and leaned close to the dog. His voice was a soft murmur that made the dog wag its tail in a gentle sweep back and forth, its flat face and bulgy goldfish eyes watching Malfoy’s face with rapt attention.

“You like dogs?” Harry asked.

“Who doesn’t?” Malfoy said, petting the dog.

“You dropped Care for Magical Creatures.”

Malfoy gave him a look, “Shockingly enough, I prefer animals that can’t murder me.”

“They weren’t all deadly,” Harry said weakly, knowing any defence of Hagrid’s classes in that direction was pretty hopeless.

“Pansy’s family always had crups, and Theo’s mum had half a dozen little dogs at any time.” Malfoy said absently, “I wanted one, but Father wouldn’t allow it. He hated mess.”

“You could get one now,” Harry said, “You’re master of the house, right? He can’t say no.”

Malfoy’s studied the happy little dog with a sombre expression, “I can’t watch it all the time.”

“You don’t need to watch it all the time. It’s a dog,” Harry said.

Malfoy sighed, “You don’t understand. If my father thought he could hurt me by hurting my dog, he would.”

“But- your father wouldn’t hurt you?” Harry said in confusion.

Malfoy snorted derisively which made the dog tilt its head in confusion, “He wouldn’t lay a hand on me if that’s what you mean. He’s always preferred a cutting word to the lash, but words don’t work as well anymore so he’ll look for anything he can use to leverage power over me. It’s all about power...”

Harry frowned.

Malfoy glanced at him and then back down at the dog who whined, and Malfoy gave it a smile, scratched it behind the ears.

“Alright, you two. We’ve done our part,” Shunter said loudly, “Now it’s your turn to do- whatever it is you do.”

“Did the owner of the dog see the transfiguration?” Malfoy asked.

“When we arrived he was in his garden calling for the dog,” Shunter said, “We don’t know how much he saw, but protocol dictates that a muggle on the scene is to be treated as if they had witnessed all magic that occurred.”

“Where is he?” Malfoy asked.

“Stunned and placed on his sofa,” Shunter said, nodding to the muggle’s house.

Malfoy nodded thoughtfully.

“The most efficient solution is to apply a mild obliviate to erase the last couple hours from his mind, leave the dog and everything as it was before the transfiguration and leave,” Shunter said.

“Yes, well, we’re not the obliviators,” Malfoy said.

Shunter and Malfoy stared at one another.

Shunter broke first, “Do you need us from anything?”

“Just be ready to dispel all magic when I say,” Malfoy said

“Very well,” Shunter said and motioned for the Juniors to fall back to the road with her.

Harry followed Malfoy to the closed door of the house, “So what’s the plan?”

Malfoy turned around, stepping close and pressing the little dog between them, “Put your arms where mine are.”

Harry lifted his arms, his hands brushing over Malfoy’s and sending shivers down his spine.

“Don’t drop the poor thing,” Malfoy said.

“I won’t. I’ve held Hermione’s cat before,” Harry said, staring down. The dog was looking between them in confusion, but all Harry could see was where he and Malfoy were touching and the warmth of him against his skin.

“A dog is not a cat,” Malfoy said.

“And you’ve never held Crookshanks before.” Harry looked up. This close he could see flecks of blue in the centre of Malfoy’s iris’. His eyes followed down Malfoy’s narrow nose to his lips. And Malfoy smiled that little half-confused smile that made Harry’s heart race and made him very much want to kiss him.

oh.

He- he wanted to kiss Malfoy.

He quite probably might even like him.

Malfoy’s mouth was moving, and Harry very belatedly tried to pay attention.

“Are you listening, Auror Potter?”

“No,” Harry said faintly.

Malfoy’s smile grew, “You’re cute when you’re stupid.”

Harry blinked at him, all the concentration he had been desperately trying to gather was smacked away from him once more.

“Try to listen for a second, would you?” Malfoy said. He slowly let go of the dog, so all the weight rested in Harry’s arms. Once he was certain Harry wasn’t going to drop it, he took a step back which was actually somewhat effective in restoring Harry’s ability to pay attention.

“What’s-” Harry cleared his throat, “What’s the plan?”

Malfoy pointed at him, “You are going to return the dog.”

“Me?” Harry wanted to point at himself, but the dog whined when he shifted his arms, and he thought better of it, “Why me?”

“You’re very personable,” Malfoy said.

“Personable?” Harry repeated.

Malfoy sighed and rolled his eyes, “You’re likeable. People like you, they trust you. It’s infuriating, but at least it’s useful for this sort of thing. ...And your outfit is more approachable.”

“What?” Harry teased, “People don’t wander around in flashy white suits everywhere?”

“They lack taste is all,” Malfoy said.

“So what am I going to do?”

“Just return the dog,” Malfoy said.

“Just-”

“Just return the dog,” Malfoy repeated slowly. “Our poor muggle is going to wake up on his settee, having had a terrible nightmare about his dog running away. It was strange but dreams rarely make sense.”

“Just a dream? You think he’ll believe it was just a dream?” Harry asked.

“Of course, it makes far more sense than his neighbour actually being a wizard and turning his dog into a squirrel, doesn’t it?” Malfoy grinned, “That sounds like utter nonsense to me.”

Harry laughed.

“So you just knock on the door, say you found the dog running about and give it back.”

“And that’s it? That’s the whole plan?” Harry asked.

Malfoy shrugged, “Sometimes it’s best not to complicate things.”

Harry looked down at the dog who looked at him with beatific ignorance and licked Harry’s chin. He supposed Malfoy was right. It was the easiest solution. But, if the neighbour was always letting their dog run loose, something like this was bound to happen again. “Alright,” he said reluctantly.

Harry headed to the front step of the house. Malfoy joined the aurors on the edge of the road, and a moment later, all the wards and magic in the area was dispelled, the aurors apparating away a second later leaving only Malfoy standing on the pavement.

Harry didn’t want to knock on the door and drop the dog, Malfoy would never forgive him, so he settled on kicking the door in the most knock-like way he could manage.

After a minute, and about give the door another kick, Harry heard someone shuffling inside.

“Coming, coming,” a voice called, soon to be followed by an old man opening the door. He was pleasantly round and seemed to carry a permanent smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“Ah! Princess! There you are my Princess!” the man crooned and scooped the dog, Princess, out of Harry’s hands before he could react.

Princess happily covered the man’s face with slobbery kisses.

“Was she out causing trouble?” the man said, then his voice went all high pitched and syrupy sweet as he asked Princess, “Were you causing trouble?”

Princess responded with an almost explosive amount of excited tail wagging and further slobbery kisses.

“George Hickenbottom. Bottom as in bottom,” George introduced himself with a chuckle and conspiratorial wink, “Go on ‘an have a laugh, I know I do. Hated the name as a tyke but it gives me quite a chuckle now. My Edith never found it all that funny, but now she’s not here to chide me about it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your lo-” Harry started to say.

“She’s at her bridge club until tea,” George said with a bright smile. “Funny thing about names, my neighbour's named Hickenbotham, if you can believe it. Hickenbottom and Hickenbotham living side by side, getting mail mixed up and people coming around to the wrong door. Funny old world isn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Harry sighed.

“Well, thank you ever so much for bringing Princess back,” George said, starting to close the door, “She’ll be on her best behaviour after this!”

Harry put a hand up, stopping the door and pushing it back open.

“Oh? Yes?” George said.

Harry thought frantically, saying the first thing to come to mind, “I’m with the Council.”

“Oh, oh! Well, um, can I help you with something, sir?” George asked, his smile catching the first edges of worry.

“We’ve received multiple complaints about a dog loose in the neighbourhood as well as direct complaints from your neighbours about your dog being allowed to roam freely outside the home without a leash or supervision,” Harry said channelling his official auror voice.

“It’s- Princess just goes out for a tinkle. She comes right back in. She’s a good girl,” George said.

It was easier reprimanding crup owners for not watching their dogs since the breed was prone to aggression towards muggles if they weren’t properly trained, but Harry figured he could use some of the same arguments.

“If a dog isn't in an enclosed yard they must be on a leash or on an appropriate tether,” Harry said.

“Princess is a good girl. She’d never hurt a fly,” George said, “In fact, she’s terrified of flies. All insects, really. Most things even. Princess has a tender heart.”

Harry wanted to shake the man, “And what if a stray dog comes through and attacks her? A small white dog like her, she looks more like a toy than another dog.”

“Oh, well-”

Harry cut him off, “And someone speeding down the street might hit her in the road, might be cruel enough to hit her on purpose.”

“Never! I can’t imagine-”

“And quite frankly I am surprised she hasn’t been stolen. She’s wandering free, a cute little dog with no owner around.”

George clutched Princess tighter to his chest, and she gave little whine of concern, “Nobody would be so cruel!”

“You don’t know that, sir. Even if everyone living in this area were practically saints, other people drive through, get lost, wander in,” Harry said. And for the coup de grâce, although to be honest he was bluffing since he only knew wizarding laws, “Regardless, Mr Hickenbottom, it is the council’s duty to enforce the laws, and those include the Animal Welfare Reform Act. So I am here to tell you, if you continue to let your dog out unleashed and unwatched, we will report you to the Dog Wardens for animal negligence and have the dog removed from your custody and adopted out to someone who will care for her properly.”

Mr Hickenbottom’s moustache was wobbling. He looked very much like he might start to cry.

Harry relented, but only slightly, “Do you understand, Mr Hickenbottom?”

“I, well, y-yes,” George said shakily, drawing himself up, “I- I can’t imagine us losing our Princess. Oh, it would break Edith’s heart. I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Then, from now on, you should only let your dog out on a leash or on a tether. Or invest in a bit of fencing,” Harry said.

Mr Hickenbottom nodded, “Yes, yes, I will- I will do that right away.”

Harry nodded and went to touch the brim of his police hat before remembering it wasn’t there. “Good. Well… I hope to never have to see you again, Mr Hickenbottom.”

“Good day to you,” George said quietly and shut the door.

Harry took a deep breath, his heart beating a little too hard in his chest from the surge of adrenaline.

Malfoy met him outside the house, and pulled him along, walking down the street and way from the twin houses of horror, “You did not just give the dog back, I take it? The man looked properly terrified by the end.”

“He wasn’t terrified,” Harry said, “Upset, maybe, but not terrified.”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

“I told him I was from the council and if he kept letting his dog roam free I would call the dog warden on him,” Harry said.

“Dog Warden? There are dog wardens?” Malfoy asked.

“Yeah, they only catch loose animals, dogs and cats and that sort of thing,” Harry said.

“And what is ‘The Council’? Sounds ominous,” Malfoy said.

Harry had to shrug at that, “I think some cities have them and sometimes churches? My aunt was always nervous about ‘the council’. I was just bluffing. Lucky it worked out, really.”

Malfoy grinned, half in delight and half in disbelief, “Bluffing. That’s- astonishing. Brilliant even.”

“Brilliant is a bit much,” Harry protested weakly, embarrassed to be pleased about it.

“And here I thought the auroring had managed to bore all the audacity out of you,” Malfoy said.

“Bore all the- what? What are you on about?” Harry said.

Malfoy shrugged, “You seemed like such a stiff when we first met again. All rules and protocols and ugly uniforms.”

“It’s not that ugly,” Harry said, “The hat, yes, but the rest is fine enough.”

Malfoy went on, not listening, “I thought perhaps they had trained all the reckless pigheaded-”

“Hey!”

“-foolish, idiotic-”

“Hey!” Harry said more sharply, putting an end to the list, “I wasn’t that bad.”

Malfoy gave him a look.

“Most of the time,” Harry said.

“Most of the time,” Malfoy repeated sarcastically.

“And it was usually because someone was trying to kill me, that’s hardly my fault!”

“Oh, there were plenty of times you were a complete and utter pillock all on your own,” Malfoy said, “You can’t blame Voldemort for everything.”

“I’m not,” Harry said shortly, “Sometimes it was werewolves.”

That surprised a laugh out of Malfoy, and he jostled Harry’s shoulder with a grin, “You are utterly ridiculous.”

“Now that’s the cauldron calling the kettle black,” Harry said.

“Perhaps,” Malfoy said with a smirky grin, “Now. We have a few things to get done before the end of the day.”

“The paperwork,” Harry said with a sigh.

Malfoy waved him off, “Pish, you can do that-”

“Wha-?”

“-I was talking about this,” Malfoy stopped abruptly and grabbed Harry’s hand. He held it up, pulling Harry’s fingers open and exposing the teeth marks on his palm right between this thumb and forefinger. It would have been mostly superficial if it had been a quick bite, but with all of Princess’ weight hanging from her tiny sharp teeth, she had ended up breaking the skin.

“It- It’ll scab over,” Harry said dismissively, once again having trouble forming a coherent thought.

Malfoy tracing a finger over the reddened skin, “It might scar.”

“I have lots of scars,” Harry said. Malfoy’s finger tickled across his skin.

“Some scars can be attractive, but this-?” Malfoy gave him a look, “You really want to explain to someone where this scar came from?”

“I can’t focus,” Harry pulled his hand free, shaking his head to try and clear it of Malfoy’s distracting influence, not really noticing the flicker of hurt on Malfoy’s face.

“It’s your hand, do what you like,” Malfoy said flatly.

Harry sighed, looking at his hand, “You’re right, I guess. But my healing charms leave scars half the time anyway.”

“You need a healing salve with dittany,” Malfoy said.

Harry looked around the empty and unnervingly quiet neighbourhood, “Where’s Asbestos? Can’t she just sort it out?”

“Asbestos?” Malfoy said, then after a few moments shrugged, “She must be on her break.”

“Her break?”

“Or lunch,” Malfoy said.

“You don’t know?” Harry asked.

Malfoy smiled faintly, “Where would be the fun in that?”

Harry laughed.

“Quite frankly, I would be disappointed in Asbestos if she started behaving like a proper employee.”

“Would she hear you call for her?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Malfoy said.

“I always wondered how house elves could do that,” Harry said.

Malfoy shrugged, “A house elf version of a tracking charm, I suppose. Shall we drop by St. Mungos?”

Harry blinked, confused for a second before realising what Malfoy was talking about, “Just for my hand? I can just go to the mediwitch in the Ministry, they’ll have something.”

“Better than nothing,” Malfoy muttered under his breath. Looking around, Malfoy pointed out a narrow alley behind two rows of houses, “We can apparate from there.”

Harry nodded and followed Malfoy’s lead.

Back at the Ministry, Harry had to ask the front desk where to go. He had always been either injured enough to have to go to Mungo’s or just slap a plaster on and call it good.

The Mediwitch’s office was located on level one with the Minister of Magic’s Office and all the various staff and researchers that worked for him. It took a few minutes of searching to find the right office, an unassuming door off to the side only marked by a plaque that read Heath and Healing. It looked like there had been a few names underneath the plaque, but now there was only one.

Harry knocked, “Excuse me? Mediwitch Bedlum?”

There was silence from the other side.

Harry tried the door, and it swung open easily. The office inside was about as small as Malfoy’s newer office. There was a bookshelf stuffed full of medical books, and some shelves, empty except for a few rolls of bandages. The biggest pieces of furniture in the room was a massive, mostly empty, locked cabinet holding a few shelves of potions and a narrow bed for people to rest on. For someone in green robes to sleep on now, apparently.

“Mediwitch Bedlum?” Harry said again.

The figure on the bed let out a panicked snort and sat bolt upright like some sort of inferius.

Behind him, Harry felt Malfoy jump and grinned at him, Malfoy glared back.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Bedlum said in a loud, slightly sleep fogged, voice, getting up and patting her robes down like she was trying to slap the dust out a rug. “Always get a bit sleepy after lunch.”

“Uh-” Harry started.

“Most of the time these days, they just send you lads to the hospital, especially since they let the healer go. Budget cuts, budget cuts, they’ll be the death of me, well someday,” Bedlum said, giving her robes one last enthusiastic smack and put her hands on her hips. “What can I do you for?”

Harry blinked and held out his hand, “I got bitten by a dog.”

“A small dog,” Malfoy teased over his shoulder.

Harry flipped his hand up to wave Malfoy off but ended up hitting his face.

“Watch it!” Malfoy snapped.

Harry gave him an incredulous look, “Don’t hover so close, then.”

Mediwitch Bedlum cocked her head, a growing smile on her face, “A healing charm would do well enough on such an injury.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes, “Do you have healing salve with dittany? The whole point of coming here was to avoid scaring.”

“Should do, should do,” Bedlum said, pressing her wand against the cabinet lock and unlocking it with a faint click. Even though the shelves were mostly empty, she took her time checking every single bottle and jar.

Harry turned back to Malfoy, who was rubbing his nose with a sulky expression. He sighed and said, “Sorry. About your face.”

“You should be. It’s my best feature,” Malfoy said.

“I would think your mind is,” Harry said.

“Blokes aren’t going to fuck me for my mind,” Malfoy said.

“I-” Harry’s mind shorted out, because one, he would, and two, who was Malfoy fucking?! He pressed his palm over the clenching twisting pain in his chest. This wasn’t a good time for this, he had hardly- he hadn’t come to terms with maybe sort of kind of liking Malfoy, and now he was being jealous of hypothetical blokes?

“Jesus-fucking-christ,” Harry muttered.

Malfoy smirked, misreading Harry’s reaction entirely- thank fuck- “Even I like to go out sometimes, Auror Potter. Have a bit of fun once and a while. Don’t be so prudish.”

“I can go back to my nap, if you’d rather,” Bedlum interrupted.

“No, sorry. Did you have it?” Harry asked, looking back at her.

Bedlum raised a little jar, “Indeed I do. A bit old, but it should work just fine.”

Malfoy scoffed, Harry could practically hear him rolling his eyes, and said, “Well, it’s been a delightful day, but I’m done.”

Harry spun around, “You’re leaving?”

“Clocking out. I’ve been here...well, long enough,” Malfoy said.

“I- Wait, Malfoy,” Harry called after him.

Malfoy raised a hand, “Done working, Auror Potter.”

“Draco, wait, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Malfoy or, maybe, yeah, Draco really was better, stopped abruptly. He took a breath, composing himself before looking back, “Yes?”

“Uh, this morning, Hermione told me that- that the one week transfer is just five days, I still have to take two off...” Harry hesitated, he couldn’t read Draco’s expression. “So I only have two more work days.”

“Ah.” Draco said flatly, “And you just decided to tell me now?”

“I forgot?” Harry said.

Draco shook his head with a frown, “Do you know the absolutely most frustrating thing about you?”

“...My hair?” Harry guessed.

“Obviously not,” Draco said gesturing to Harry’s head, which was currently styled to look intentionally messy.

Harry wasn’t sure that counted.

Draco went on, “The most frustrating thing about you, Auror Potter, is that as soon as I think I’ve figured you out, you do something that utterly baffles me. One human being shouldn’t be allowed to be so confusing.”

Harry’s brow furrowed, “...I just told you my work schedule?”

Draco waved at him dismissively, “Let me think.”

“What is there to think about?”

“Optimization of time,” Draco said, “Does Granger work on the weekends?”

“No?” Harry said, then catching on said, “You want to work on the weekend.”

“I don’t want to work on the weekend. I want to work without supervision,” Draco said.

“I wouldn’t say we were terribly supervised before.”

Draco gave him a look, “That was before Granger was in charge. I can’t imagine her not taking an interest.”

“I guess I could work Saturday, but Sunday I always go to the Weasley’s, it’s a thing,” Harry said.

“A thing.”

“Like a regular thing. They’re practically family, I always go,” Harry said.

“I’ll settle for Saturday and Monday,” Draco said.

“I’m ever so glad you could find it in your heart to allow me Sunday off,” Harry said sarcastically.

Draco made a face that was better suited to his eleven-year-old self pulling faces across the great hall and Harry couldn’t help returning it with one of his own.

Draco laughed, “Fine. Fine. See you tomorrow, Auror Potter.”

“It’s Harry!” Harry called after him with a smile.

He turned around to Mediwitch Bedlum staring at him and jumped in surprise.

“Too bad your beau didn’t see you jump, I imagine he would have enjoyed it,” Bedlum said, grabbing Harry’s forgotten hand and pulling it up, “Hold still.”

“My… beau?” Harry asked.

Bedlum huffed with a smile, “Young people these days- I meant your sweetheart there.”

Harry immediately felt his face flush red hot, “My- My sweetheart?”

Bedlum smeared the greenish paste on his palm and flipped his hand to do the back, “Isn’t he? You make a good pair. Having a similar sense of humour is important. If you can’t laugh together, how will you cry together, hm?”

“We’re- We’re not-” Harry quickly shook his head, “We’re definitely not.”

Bedlum looked up in surprise, “Really? I would’ve bet anything, the way you two get on.”

“I just realised I liked him a half-hour ago!” Harry blurted out in dismay.

Bedlum stopped, and burst out laughing, in great huge booming laughs. She screwed the lid back onto the jar and put it back in the cabinet her laughing dying down only marginally.

Harry frowned, feeling defensive.

“Your face!” Bedlum slapped his arm exuberantly, it was like being slapped with a frying pan.

Harry rubbed his arm, "Yeah, well, I better get going, got paperwork to do."

"Not just yet," Bedlum pulled him back before he could get away. She cast a little charm that wrapped some gauze around his hand and held it in place with a mild sticking charm, "Salves take longer to work. Keep it clean and dry, you can take it off in the morning, alright?" Harry nodded, "Okay… thanks for sorting out my hand."

“Just doing my job,” Bedlam said, “And you ought to ask that boy out before someone else does.”

Harry muttered something vague and hurried to the lifts. He was almost glad to be able to sit down and finish up the paperwork. Harry didn’t bother looking for Ron and Hermione after he finished, he had a lot of thinking to do.

Chapter Text

Harry went to bed early so he could stare at the ceiling for a few hours and try to think through his new feelings. He kept getting distracted by remembering Draco’s smile and the way he laughed when Harry said something funny, but he did try. It wasn’t Harry’s fault Draco was so distracting. He was the human equivalent of a neon sign with a kicking leg and a saucy wink.

In the end, a few hours turned into many, and Harry didn’t end up getting much sleep.

When he arrived at the Ministry the next morning, it seemed eerily quiet. The normally crowded atrium only had a few people walking across the tiles, which echoed loudly without all the extra bodies there to adsorb the noise. The lift was blissfully empty, a rare treat he only usually had experienced working the night shift. When it was full, inevitably there would be one person who hadn’t bothered with the cleaning charms and smelled like centaur ass or exploded potions or fear flop sweat. The later usually wafting from clerks that worked in the upper levels and thus Harry got to smell them the whole way up.

“You’re late,” was the first thing Draco said when he came into the office.

“You leave early, I can come in late,” Harry said through a yawn.

“Oh really, is that how it works now?” Draco asked.

“There are no rules,” Harry said, sitting in the chair across the desk from Draco, “Except wear a stupid suit, apparently.”

Draco frowned, “I ought to make up more rules. I can’t believe I neglected something so important.”

Harry rolled his eyes and asked “Coffee?”

“Asbestos already left,” Draco said.

Harry leaned on the edge of the desk with a groan. He had been looking forward to some coffee.

“That’s what you get for coming in late,” Draco said smugly.

Harry consoled himself by staring at Draco. He was wearing the same suit as yesterday, not that Harry would have been able to tell one way or another. The shirt under the jacket and vest was different though. Draco had worn lighter colours before, grey and pale blue sorts, but today it was a dark blue with thin white lines that stood out boldly against the stark white suit cloth.

“-ror Potter?” Draco tried to snap his fingers in front of Harry’s face, but he was really bad at it, barely making any noise.

Harry slowly dragged his gaze up, lingering on the line of Draco’s throat, which jumped as he watched. He looked higher, and Draco looked almost alarmed, the tops of his pale cheeks a blotchy pink.

“What?” Harry asked.

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again and abruptly looked away, “Nothing.”

Harry kept staring because it was nice. “...Your hair is loose,” he said absently.

Draco irritably tried to brush his fine white-blond hair back, but it immediately fell into his eyes, “Some of us like to be to work on time. So I didn’t have time to style my hair.”

“That’s alright, you use too much sleek-easy anyway. This is nicer,” Harry said.

The pink blotches became far redder, and Harry grinned.

“It gets in my eyes,” Draco muttered.

Harry stood up, “I haven’t done my hair either.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” Draco said sarcastically.

“Have you used the mirror in the bathroom?” Harry asked.

“I’ve used plenty of mirrors.” Draco said, “If you’re asking if I visited the facilities on this floor, no. Have you seen the people that work here?”

Harry stood up and gestured for Draco to follow him, “Come on then. You ought to meet the mirror. I bet you two hit it off like aces.”

“Hit it off like aces? That’s not a thing. People don’t say that,” Draco said, following Harry to the bathroom looking utterly confused, “Are you having a stroke?”

Harry laughed again, “No. That would make more sense.” He fished his little tin of sleek-easy out of his pocket and set it on the counter in front of the sink, “Mirror, meet Draco. Draco, meet mirror.”

Draco looked at him like he had lost his mind.

Harry grabbed Draco’s arm and dragged him in front of the mirror.

“Oh my. You know all the best people,” the mirror said. Draco’s reflection looked down at himself and brushed his hands over his suit, “Very nice. Exceptional dresser.”

“Of course,” Draco said automatically as if he was insulted by the very notion that he might be anything other than.

“How would you do his hair?” Harry asked over Draco’s question.

Draco frowned, “The way I do my hair is fine.”

“I would have said the same about my hair before-”

“Yes, well unlike you I’m not blind,” Draco said.

“Shut it,” Harry said, “but this mirror showed me how to do my hair so it’s all-”

“Intentionally messy,” the mirror said.

“Right,” Harry said.

“A massive improvement, but anything would have been,” Draco said.

Harry sighed, “If you’re just going to be a prick, you might as well move and let me do my hair.”

“I was not-”

Harry pushed his way in front of the sink.

“Hey!”

“You were a bit of a prick, darling,” the mirror chided.

Harry turned on the water, letting it run over his hands and wetting his hair until it was damp.

“Was not,” Draco muttered childishly.

Harry paused for a second then quickly flipped his hair back, showering Draco with water which left him sputtering and cursing.

“I wanted to try something new today,” the mirror said.

“Yeah?” Harry said warily.

“Have I ever led you wrong before?” the mirror said.

“Not yet,” Harry said.

“Wonderful,” the mirror said excitedly, and Harry watched as his reflection picked up the tin of sleek-easy. “It’s similar to the way I showed you before, but this way will give you more defined curls.”

Harry wasn’t sure he needed more curls, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to try and followed the mirror’s directions which used more water, more sleek-easy and scrunching the two into his hair.

Draco stood nearby, leaning one hip against the counter and watching, which made Harry feel a bit self-conscious.

“Like this?” Harry asked when the mirror stopped talking, his hair was still wet and dripping down his neck. “Should I dry it?”

“No!” The mirror said frantically.

Harry grimaced.

“If you dry it too quickly it will get frizzy,” Draco said. He reached for his pocket and then stopped with a quiet, “no wand, right.” He shook off the moment as if had never happened, “Wand out, Auror Potter, I’ll teach you a gentle drying charm.”

“Wand out,” Harry snickered, drawing his wand from its hostler under his jacket.

Draco fought down a smirk trying to look disapproving, “What are you five?” he took Harry’s hand, angling his hand just so and showing him the wand movement.

Harry wanted to sigh, “Can you show me again?”

“It’s a very simple charm, first years manage it,” Draco said.

“Yeah, well...” that’s not the problem, Harry didn’t say, being extremely distracted by how gentle Draco was being. “...just show me a couple times, okay?”

“Fine,” Draco sighed, as patient as ever as he guided Harry through the movement a few more times before stepping back, “Got it?”

“Theoretically. What do I say?” Harry said.

“Lenis ventus,” Draco said.

“Lenis ventus,” Harry said, his wand moving the way Draco had shown him more out of muscle memory than any conscious thought on his part. A soft breeze swirled out of his wand, blowing Draco’s hair back from his face in a fine frizzy cloud. Draco stared at him with a flat, entirely unamused expression.

Harry grinned at him.

Draco grabbed Harry’s hand and moved it like a hairdryer, aiming it at one side of his head, then the other, slowly drying it. But he looked like he wanted to do more.

Harry nodded at Draco’s hovering hesitation, “Go ahead, you know what you’re doing.”

“I know how it’s supposed to work, but I’ve never done it. We have very different hair,” Draco said.

“It’s fine, it’s just hair,” Harry said.

Draco frowned, he was starting to blush again. He carefully used his fingers to move a curl here or there, still hesitant, barely touching him. It still managed to make Harry shiver.

Draco glanced at Harry and then nervously back at his hair, “Stop staring.”

“It’s your best feature, I’m just enjoying the view,” Harry said and was rather impressed with himself for coming up with it.

Draco made a noise in the back of his throat and very deliberately didn’t look at Harry.

Harry thought that for someone who said shameless flirty nonsense all the time he had a lot of gall to be shy when Harry said something back. Harry was pretty numb to that sort of thing. Most days he had a marriage proposal before lunch; and just about every paper and magazine took time out of their busy schedule to speculate everything about him, from who he was dating, to if he was everywhere in proportion.

“Done,” Draco said, stepping back.

Harry looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was less intentionally messy, and more nice shiny waves and curls. It was probably the nicest his hair had ever looked.

“You really ought to invest in a nice conditioner,” the mirror said, “Wash your hair first and leave the conditioner on until right before you get out. And when you get out, take a little conditioner and work it back into your damp hair. It will make your hair much smoother and better moisturised.”

“If I remember,” Harry said. It seemed like a lot of trouble, and it’s not like anyone in the aurors would care.

“My turn,” Draco said, waving at Harry to move.

“Oh, now you care,” Harry said.

“Most of the time these mirrors are just mouthy critics,” Draco said. “It’s rare to find one that’s actually useful.”

“Am I supposed to be pleased with such a backhanded compliment?” the mirror said. Still showing Harry’s reflection, he shook his head and then gestured broadly to himself, “I am an entirely different class of enchantment. They don’t make mirrors like me anymore, I won’t be compared to the cheap trash they charm nowadays.”

Draco stared.

“Dra-”

“I’m going to steal this mirror,” Draco said.

“No.” Harry said, “No, you’re not.”

“Oh, please steal me!” The mirror called.

Harry shook a finger at the mirror, “Don’t you encourage him.”

His reflection stuck out his tongue.

“I might as well once the Liar’s Department is gone,” Draco said, “No one here is going to appreciate the poor thing.”

“I am ever so unappreciated,” the mirror said in a wheedling tone.

Harry sighed, “Have you forgotten that I’m an auror?”

“Have you forgotten that you’re a Liar right now, auror Potter?” Draco said.

“I’m going to go back to being an auror-” Harry started.

“Catch me then,” Draco said and raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve just given me motive and intent! You practically confessed!” Harry said.

Draco grinned, “That will make it all the more embarrassing when you fail.”

Harry let himself be elbowed out of the way and took up Draco’s spot leaning on the counter, crossing his arms over his chest.

“-your hair is just so fine,” the mirror was saying, “It’s terribly limiting, even slightly too much product can weigh it down.”

“Trust me, I know,” Draco said.

“What do you normally do?” the mirror asked.

“Water and sleek-easy, combed back,” Draco said, sliding his and over his hair and pulling it back to a dry approximation of his usual hairstyle. He cast a sidelong glare at Harry, “And I don’t use too much sleek-easy.”

Harry raised his eyebrows.

“When I was young I might have, but now I only use as much as I absolutely need to hold the style,” Draco said.

“Still more than your hair probably likes,” the mirror said.

Draco transferred the glare from Harry to the mirror, but his refection just smirked back at him.

The way the mirror moved reminded Harry a little of how Draco had been in fifth year, before everything had gone wrong.

Harry frowned down at his crossed arms.

“What do you think of this?” the mirror asked, showing Draco a different way to style his hair.

“What do you mean, once the Liar’s Department is gone?” Harry said, “Hermione will get you another job, with the Obliviators or the Muggle-worthy excuses committee.”

Draco kept his eyes fixed on the mirror, wetting his hair and drawing a thin comb from the inside pocket of his jacket, “And what exactly do you think I’m going to be able to do without magic?”

“Well, she still wants to keep the- the Liar’s part, it would just be a part of one of the other departments rather than it’s own thing.”

Draco snorted deprecatingly, “That’s very optimistic of her. But once the Liar’s Department is gone, there’s nothing making them keep me. I’m not only useless-”

“You aren’t-”

“-magically speaking,” Draco amended, sounding bemused by Harry’s protest, “but I’m… a liability, so to speak. Any department taking me on will look bad.” He paused and took a breath, though he kept his tone light and blasé, “I’m bad press.”

“They’d get over it once they saw how good you are,” Harry said.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Draco said under his breath.

“Just a little sleek-easy,” the mirror interrupted.

Draco held up a fingertip with a dab of hair potion on it.

“Less! Less! Pea-sized. A small pea,” the mirror demanded.

“Draco-” Harry started.

“Not that again,” Draco said.

“What, again?” Harry asked.

Draco gave him a look, “The ‘Draco’ thing. You’ve proved your point, but I’m not going to budge.”

Harry wanted to roll his eyes, “That’s not why I’m doing it-”

“You might recall that I have been applying for jobs of every conceivable kind for years now,” Draco said, jumping back to the other conversation, “and this is the first to ever accept me and it was only because Syrup wanted to sabotage the department.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re good at it,” Harry said.

“Who’s ever cared about that?” Draco said, a touch of bitterness seeping into his tone, “They’re going to make you Head Auror after all.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Harry muttered.

Draco carefully combed his hair, creating a new part to one side. The touch of sleek-easy kept the hair from flying away, but it was less than he usually used. Harry still preferred Draco’s hair loose but… it looked nice.

“You have to understand, Auror Potter,” Draco said flippantly, gesturing broadly with his comb, “I don’t need a job; the Malfoy family is still absurdly wealthy. I simply wanted to experience what one was like.” He tucked the comb back in his jacket and carefully straightened his sleeves.

That sounded like bullshit to Harry. It sounded more like Draco was trying to convince himself that it was okay and he wasn’t going to be upset about it.

Draco gave him an exasperated look, “It’s been fun, and that’s more than I ever expected.”

He pulled open the door and the mirror called after him, “I’ll be waiting! Steal me anytime! I’ll never tell!”

Harry glared at the mirror and mouthed a definite ‘NO,’ but his refection just rolled his eyes.

The problem, Harry thought as they went back to the office, was that he had been counting on Draco being here. That he could still see him and visit the office and help him via the auror’s. If Draco left, it would be a lot harder to- to have this, the easy chatting and joking, and to see him all the time.

Asbestos was sitting on the desk when they returned, wearing what looked like a firefighter’s costume; with a thin plasticy coat and pants with yellow reflective stripes sewed on, and a cheap plastic red helmet. She had had to cut some of the plastic away at the sides so she could wear it without her ears getting in the way.

“Hope we didn’t keep you too long, Asbestos,” Draco said.

“Pah,” Asbestos said, “Was hoping you had left.”

“Good morning to you too, Asbestos,” Harry said.

Asbestos gave him a tired look, then plucked out a coffee cup from the drinks carrier beside her, holding it out to him.

“For me?” Harry said excitedly. He had the drink half-way to his mouth before he got suspicious. “What’s in it?”

Asbestos smirked, “Potter-man wasn’t here, so Asbestos picked.”

Harry stared at the cup. On the one hand, it might end up tasting like absolute tripe, on the other, he really wanted coffee. He took a tentative sip and coughed. “fuck,” he managed and winced, “that’s so sweet. Is there any coffee in this or is it just syrup?”

Asbestos sighed at him, “No taste.”

“Your sweet-tooth is atrocious, and we both know it,” Draco said.

“Asbestos knows what is good and knows that you two are stupid,” Asbestos said.

“Fair enough,” Draco said, retrieving the other smaller coffee next to Asbestos’ massive sugary creation topped with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles.

Harry took another sip, hoping sugar could substitute for caffeine, but put the cup down when he heard the sound of someone running, and then not slowing down fast enough, running into the door and then struggling it open it.

“Oh! Oh, you’re here!” Junior Auror Kalya said breathless, her black hair flying wildly around her face, “Emergency! You have to come! Now!”

Kalya stopped and spun around, “Is there an apparition point on this floor? There has to be, right? In case of fire or flood or perpetually replicating rabbits-”

“Your emergency portkey, Junior!” Harry called over her panicking, “It’s keyed to your last point of apparition.”

“Right right right,” Kalya said quickly patting down her pockets until she found a thin paper envelope and upended it on the desk, sending a broken piece of clothes-pin skittering across the surface.

“Hands together,” Harry said, holding his hand out above the clothes-pin. “We have to stay touching when we make contact with the object in order to be transported.”

“I know how a portkey works,” Draco said, stepping around the desk so he could put his hand next to Harry’s, their fingers brushing.

Harry glanced over at Draco, who was very deliberately staring at their hands. He put his hand over Draco’s, weaving their fingers together as Kalya grabbed them both and guided them down onto the portkey. It activated as soon as they touched it and in a single twisting lurching moment, dragged them from the office to a closed bathroom stall far too small for three people.

“Ah!” Kalya shouted, stumbling into the door.

For a single, breathless moment Draco wavered backwards, the backs of his knees pressed against the porcelain toilet bowl. Harry grabbed the front of his suit and pulled him back before Draco fell into the loo.

“I don’t- I don’t remember closing the door,” Kalya said apologetically. “Uh, umm. I need a little more room to get it open.”

“You- you’re wrinkling my suit,” Draco said stiffly.

Harry let go, and wrapped an arm around Draco's waist instead, solving both problems in one movement as he stepped in close.

Draco’s mouth opened, but no sound came out, his ears turning red.

“That enough room?” Harry asked.

There was a click as Kalya unlocked the door and tried to open it and squeeze around the two of them, “A-almost...”

Harry held Draco even tighter, so they were pressed chest to chest. He grinned nervously at Draco’s silence. Draco was warm, the fabric of his suit smooth against Harry’s skin.

“Okay! Okay, I’m out!” Kalya said from the other side of the half-open door.

Harry spread his hand a possessively over Draco’s back, broad and leanly muscled.

“We need to go!” Kalya said. Much quieter, she said, “Shunter is going to kill me.”

“Auror Potter,” Draco said, his voice strained.

Harry breathed in.

“Potter,” Draco said, his face turning pink as a sunburn.

Harry blinked and stepped back, the edge of the door jamming into his shoulder and pivoting him painfully out of the bathroom stall with a hiss of pain.

“Come on! Come on!” Kalya said, waving them outside.

“Merlin, use your head sometime, would you?” Draco sighed and stepped around Harry, but for a second, his hand brushed over Harry’s shoulder and the tender ache that still lingered from the metal door.

Harry couldn’t stop the smile on his face as he followed them out into what turned to be a massive indoor shopping centre. An indoor shopping centre on a saturday. There were people literally everywhere, frozen in place, a world holding its breath as they carefully dodged around the masses and headed towards the centre.

“Junior! What is this? I told you to get the Obliviators!” Shunter snapped as they came in sight.

“Sir! Sorry, Sir! They weren’t there!” Kalya said.

“They weren’t there?!” Shunter said, her harshly pulled back hair was frizzing around the edges in a physical manifestation of her frustration.

“The office was empty, and the receptionist said they were already called out. I sent a patronus, but there was no response, so I thought- I thought I should try to do something and so-” Kalya gestured back to Harry and Draco.

“I commend you for trying to do something, Junior, however we have a magic exposure that involves possibly up to a hundred people!” Shunter said. She turned and looked at the crowded food court in dismay.

The other Junior J- just J, Harry was tired of guessing what his name might be, ran up the stairs and joined them, “Perimeter secured, wards are set, sir!”

“Good,” Shunter said even as she shook her head, “We have maybe fifteen minutes before muggle media and authorities start to take notice. Send another Patronus for the Obliviators and tell them its an emergency of the highest order.” She turned to J and told him, “Send a patronus to the Department of mysteries and tell them time dilation may be needed and to send someone.”

Harry looked from Shunter and the frantically casting Juniors, to Malfoy, standing off to one side with his arms crossed.

“What’s the situation?” Harry asked.

Shunter narrowed her eyes.

“We’re here, what would it hurt?” Harry said.

“I could think of half a dozen things off the top of my head,” Shunter said.

“Sir,” Harry said. He could see Draco rolling his eyes and ignored him.

Shunter sighed, “The perpetrator used various spells to alter muggle bodies. We don’t know what their intent was-”

“Altered how?” Draco asked.

“...One has antlers, another bunny ears and one has a pig snout... we almost managed to stop that one,” Shunter said. “It’s a mess.”

“How easy are they to dispell?” Draco asked.

“Seconds,” Shunter said, “But that’s not the problem. The problem is all the people that have already seen the transformations.”

“Right...” Draco said thoughtfully.

Shunter started to say something, but Harry held up his hand in a silent gesture to wait. Which earned him a look that he would normally deeply deeply regret, but Draco was thinking, and Harry wanted him to succeed here more than anything. No one would be able to doubt Draco’s skill at his job if he could clear this up.

“Have- Have you ever seen any television?” Draco asked.

“Probably more than you have,” Harry said.

“You had a head start,” Draco said dismissively. “As I was saying, I once saw a program about a man doing magic on the street. I couldn’t believe they just allowed magic to be done in front of people like that and Jeremy laughed at me and said it was all fake. Sleight of hand, I think he called it.”

“Yeah, muggles do a sort of magic with sleight of hand and clever tricks,” J said. Everyone turned to look at him, and he immediately turned into a stuttering mess. “I, uh-am-well, m-muggleborn.”

“Oh. I get it,” Kalya said, “We could pretend it was all a stunt for a tv program.”

“We’d need...” Harry thought, “A camera? Maybe a microphone?”

“I shall be the magician!” Draco said, sweeping his arm out in an extravagant bow, “The great, the marvellous, the magical….” he thought for a second then said, “Mephistopheles!”

“What? What sort of name is that?” Harry said.

“It’s from Faust, you philistine,” Draco said.

“I meant, it sounds like something from the fifties. I’m pretty sure magician’s just go by their name nowadays,” Harry said.

“Well, I like it,” Draco said.

“Look here-” Shunter started.

“Will this work?” Kalya said hurrying back though none of them had seen her leave. She had a big black camera perched on her shoulder, “I transfigured a trash bin. I think it looks enough like a tv camera. I even put some blinking lights on it.”

“Junior-” Shunter said.

Harry’s brow furrowed, “I thought you said, you were bad at transfiguration.”

“Oh, I lied,” Kalya said, “I was afraid I’d mess up because I was so nervous talking to you.”

“She was top of our training class,” J said quietly, he picked up an empty drinks cup from a nearby table and transfigured it into a grey and silver microphone, “Here.”

“Are any of you listening? Have I been hit with a silencing spell without noticing?” Shunter said in dismay, putting her hands on her hips.

“Me?” Harry said.

“Of course, you shall be the- the person with the microphone,” Draco said, pushing the microphone into Harry’s hand.

“The host of the tv program,” Kalya said with a giggle.

“I- No-” Harry said.

“But you’re-” J gestured to Harry which made him look down at himself, and the damn suit. Of course. Only he and Malfoy looked like they might be on tv. The rest of them were still in police bobby uniforms.

“Listen!” Shunter said, snapping her fingers, charming their mouths closed with a click and a good deal of shocked silence. “I haven’t authorised this plan. We wait until the Oblivators arrive and then do things the way we always have.”

Kalya’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed in disappointment.

Shunter pushed her sleeve back to check her watch and frowned. When she looked up, Draco met her frown with an absolutely insufferable smirk. 

“Fifteen minutes goes by fast, doesn’t it?” Draco said.

Harry elbowed him in the side.

“...Alright, times up, and we haven’t heard from any other departments so...” Shunter grimaced as if the words were painful to say, “I authorise this plan to go forward post-haste.”

“Excellent,” Draco said. He told the Juniors, “Off with the uniforms.”

They stared at him.

“You must wear something under those ugly robes. You have to blend in,” Draco said.

J tapped the badge on his uniform to turn it from a bobby uniform back to a robe which he took off and shrunk down, stuffing it into his pocket. He took the camera from Kalya, and she did the same.

“Is this how you make friends?” Harry asked.

“I don’t make friends, I buy them,” Draco said flippantly.

Harry had to wonder why he liked this little shit. He contented himself with a sighed, “Liar.”

“Boy Auror and Boss Auror will dispell the magic at the correct time,” Draco said

Shunter frowned, “And what is the right time?”

“At the ta-dah moment,” Draco said.

“What?” Shunter said flatly.

“The ‘ta-dah’ moment,” Draco said more slowly for the hard of thinking.

Shunter looked a bit like she wanted to punch Draco, which was a feeling Harry knew quite well.

“I get it. I know what he means,” J said.

“Good,” Draco said, “Girl Junior, you hold the camera and follow us.”

“I’m not a girl,” Kalya said.

Draco raised an eyebrow.

Kalya pulled back her shoulders defiantly, “I’m just- just a person. You can use whatever pronouns, I don’t care, but- I don’t like being called a girl.”

“Non-binary Auror, you shall hold the camera and follow us,” Draco said.

Kalya smiled, “Y-Yes! Right!” she grabbed the camera and settled it on her shoulder, “Ready to go!”

“When you see sparks release the freezing spell.” Draco told Shunter and scanned the food court, “We shall go, over there,” he pointed to a planter overflowing with fern fronds near the cluster of transfigured people, easily spotted by the antlers peeking over the crowd.

“How do you know about- about non-binary things?” Harry asked, following in Draco’s wake as he seemed to effortlessly step around the frozen people without running into them or almost falling over his own feet.

Draco reached back, catching Harry’s arm before he fell and pulled him along, “You are so clumsy.”

“Not when it matters,” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes.

“So how do you know-”

“I learned,” Draco said. He pushed some of the ferns out of the way so they could step into the mass of green out of sight.

“But-”

“Not now, it would take to long to explain,” Draco said

“Should I send up sparks?” Harry asked.

Draco shook his head, “I need something to obscure the change, something to make it more sleight of hand, more-”

“Ta-dah?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Draco said, “Any ideas?”

“A big sheet?” Harry said.

Draco’s brow furrowed, “Are you taking the piss?”

“No, no like when they make thing disappear on stage, the magician throws a sheet over them and then when they pull it off the thing’s gone,” Harry said.

Draco nodded to himself, thinking, “...yes, that’s suitably dramatic. Can you transfigure something?”

Harry looked around and grabbed a some abandoned paper napkins from the closest table, turning them into a large white cloth. It was gossamer thin, he couldn’t see through it but could still see the shadow of his palm underneath.

“Perfect-”

“Thanks,” Harry said.

“I doubt you did it this well on purpose, but I’m glad for the happy accident,” Draco said.

“You could have left it at perfect,” Harry said.

“And let you get an even bigger head than you already have? I think not,” Draco said. “Are you ready?”

Harry nodded and passed over the cloth, the microphone in one hand and his wand in the other as he shot a small burst of white sparks into the air.

They waited until the last sparks dissipated and a breath later all the air and noise came into the room, people moving and laughing, and a startled shout and scream-

Draco was already moving, pushing through the crowds with confidence, Kalya and Harry hurrying to keep up in his wake.

They broke into the centre of a growing circle of people pointing and staring, some with phones in their hands. Harry eased the tip of his wand out of his sleeve, casting a modified draining spell to siphon all the power from their phone batteries. The lights overhead flickered at the draw of power and harry quickly pushed his wand out of sight even as the shouts of dismay from all the phones going black joined the excitable screams of those who found power flickering to be particularly scary.

The three transfigured people looked to be teenagers, maybe fifteen or sixteen. A girl with immaculately curled hair and makeup was clutching the antlers coming out of her temples with a look of utter horror. There were two lads with her, the one with the pig nose was going cross-eyed staring at his new snout, while the other seemed utterly frozen in shock except one hand that was unconsciously petting a long floppy bunny ear.

Draco stepped in the middle, the white cloth clinging to his shoulders like a cape, billowing out behind him with his every move. He smiled, confident and bright, his hair practically glittering under the halogen lights as he spread his hands, effortlessly capturing everyone’s attention.

Kalya pushed past Harry’s shoulder, hurrying to get in front of Draco with her fake camera.

“Before you, you see the impossible! The improbable! Indefinable and utter mystifying!” Draco said, swirling the cloth off his shoulders, “Yet, as quickly as it appears-!” the white cloth drifted over the three transfigured people.

Harry moved behind the three muggles, and as the sheet settled, he cast a silent lumos maxima and just as quickly dispelled it, filling the white sheet with a flash of light that provoked a few more startled cries.

Draco dramatically drew the cloth back off. For a fraction of a second, Harry was afraid the transfigurations hadn’t been dispelled, but as Draco raised his hand in a ‘ta-dah’ sort of pose, Harry could see that the three teens were back to normal.

“-It disappears once more!” Draco said.

There was a moment’s hesitation before the crowd politely clapped. The little kids looked impressed and excited, but most of the people just looked embarrassed for them.

Draco looked around, annoyed until he spotted Harry and impatiently gestured for him to come over.

Harry took a deep breath, he hated stuff like this. He lifted the microphone to his mouth, “And that was Great Mephistopheles!” he did his best to project over the crowd.

Draco frowned, “The great, the marvellous, the magical Mephistopheles.”

There were a few titters from the crowd, but Harry obligingly played his part, “That was the great, marvellous, magical Mephistopheles!”

Kalya hovered in front of Harry with the camera.

“You gonna do somethin’ else?” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

A wag added, “You could make my mortgage disappear! That’d be some real magic!” which, of course, got more laughs and cheers than anything they had done.

Harry just kept playing along, “We can’t do miracles sir, just magic.”

He got a few pity laughs for that.

“We’d love to interview some of you about the amazing feat you’ve seen here today!” Harry added.

“Will we be on tv?” the girl that had the antlers before asked.

“We’re filming a pilot for an upcoming tv program,” Kalya said.

“A pilot?” The girl raised an eyebrow in disdain, “With one camera? Yeah, right. Do you even have investors for your little pilot?”

The piggy boy snorted and looked down his nose at them,

“Or is this your little dream project?” the girl added mockingly.

“It might work out, babe,” rabbits lad said.

The girl rolled her eyes, “I’m not making my debut on something this trash.”

“Trash?” Draco said, lifting his chin and sniffing imperiously, “These are custom hand-made suits by one of the oldest tailors in London. They cost more money than you’ve probably ever seen in your life.”

“You can buy whatever suit you like, money can’t buy class,” Antlers said.

“You wouldn’t know class if tore the arse out of your knock-off Gucci’s,” Draco shot back.

“Some class, you have,” Antlers said, “They’re Prada, not Gucci.”

Harry had always wondered how rich people fought, he had imagined a lot more hair pulling and snarling, or at the very least, expensive assassins. This was more like two Pomeranians standing inches apart and barking hysterically at one another.

The crowd was hanging around, more entertained by Draco and Antler girl trying to out-snoot one another than the magic show.

“Break it up. Break it up,” Came a loud flat voice.

The crowd split and revealed and middle-aged man, wearing a uniform that was police-like but much cheaper.

“Security,” The guard said, “Do you have permission to film here? Who did you talk to?”

“woops,” Harry said under his breath.

Chapter Text

“I think it went well,” Draco said.

“Do you?” Harry said flatly. His arse had gone numb sitting on the metal chair in the small security office.

“We obscured what really happened with a rather stupendous lie. That’s our job, and we did it spectacularly.”

“Then got dragged into a security office because you wouldn’t let me hit the bloke with a confundus and get out of here,” Harry said irritably.

“I’ve never been arrested before,” Draco said.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Muggle arrested,” Draco said and crossed his arms over his chest, “You’re not meant to mention the other.”

“I didn’t,” Harry said.

Draco slunk down in the chair, “You insinuated.”

“Yeah, well, it happened. Me not bringing it up isn’t going to change that,” Harry said.

Draco pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket, even though he could probably see next to nothing with them on.

“Draco.”

He didn’t answer.

“Draco,” Harry plucked the sunglasses off his nose.

Draco snatched them back, glaring balefully at him, “Those are not yours.”

“Don’t hide behind them, then,” Harry said.

“I- I wasn’t hiding,” Draco said. He shoved the glasses back in his pocket and turned away.

Harry sighed.

This was apparently as good as an insult because Draco spun right back around, “I’m not pretending it didn’t happen. It was one of the most traumatic moments in my life, amongst a cluster-fuck of them. I don’t like being reminded of it.” His frown deepened into something almost like his old sneers, and Harry felt himself tense up at the expression, “I suppose you just love being reminded of everything that happened, Goldenboy.”

“No,” Harry said, firmly, trying to stop this fight before it got started, “No. The war was traumatic as hell. We were fucking kids. I get it.”

Draco relaxed a bit, letting his arms unfold, “Well, I wasn’t fucking kids. That’s disgusting, Auror Potter.”

Harry shot him a look, and once he was certain Draco was joking, he gave him a half-hearted shove, “You know what I mean, arsehole.”

“Haven’t the faintest,” Draco said blandly.

The door clicked open, and the security guard came back in, sighing and trying to pull his pants up, only to ruin all his hard work by sitting in the chair on the behind the cheap plywood desk.

“Well, I talk Mr Fresa, and he’s decided not to press charges,” the security guard said, he gave them a grin what was probably supposed to come off as chummy. “Though if you pull something like this again, you’ll be banned from ever coming back on the premise.”

Harry nodded, keeping his expression neutral.

Draco leaned forward with a winning smile, “I appreciate it. We’re new at this.”

The security guard nodded, “Thought as much. You seem alright. Just don’t cause trouble in businesses without getting permission first.”

Draco nodded solemnly.

“Try a park next time, somewhere public. And you’re gonna need release forms to show peoples faces on tv, don’t know where you get those though, probably need a solicitor for that sort of thing,” the guard said.

“Of course, of course,” Draco said, his voice sweet as honey, “Thank you for the advice.”

The guard stood up, and Draco shook his hand with that fake saccharine smile, Harry settled for a nod and held the door open for the two of them to leave.

“See that wasn’t so bad,” Draco said as they made their way down a narrow cinder-block hallway to the approaching noise of the shopping centre.

“A security guard isn’t a real cop,” Harry said, “You wouldn’t enjoy being arrested by a real police officer. Or maybe you would, you’re white and rich after all.”

“You’re rich as well, Auror Potter, I’ve read the papers,” Draco said.

“It’s not about the actual money, it’s the poshness, it’s the- the ‘I want to talk to your manager’-ness. You’ve got that in spades.”

Draco frowned at him, “What in the world are you on about?”

“That’s part of it, isn’t it. Your type don’t even know what prats you are.”

Draco’s frown deepened.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just a muggle thing, I guess,” Harry said.

“If it’s a muggle thing then I want to understand it,” Draco said petulantly, “I don’t like not knowing how things work. I absolutely loath looking stupid.”

“That’s- yeah, of course you do,” Harry said, and it explained a lot about Draco really. “So it’s like… well, how do I explain this...”

“Took you long enough,” Shunter said as they stepped out of the hallway. “Was there a problem with the security guard?”

“Other than Draco not letting me confund him? No,” Harry said flatly.

“We’re the Liar’s Department, we don’t use magic if it’s not necessary,” Draco said with a sniff.

Harry rolled his eyes at that load of utter shite.

“If it’s sorted, we have reports to get done,” Shunter said.

“We’ll get your little slip of paper to you, you don’t have to worry about that,” Draco said.

“Nope,” Harry said flatly.

“Nope?” Draco repeated.

“Definite nope,” Shunter said, “with an incident of that scale a comprehensive report has to be written between all departments and all actions will be reviewed by the Department Heads.”

“I.e. it’s a pain the arse,” Harry said under his breath.

“I’ll see the two of you back at the Auror’s department, conference room one in a half an hour,” Shunter said, “If you’re late, you won’t get to choose lunch.”

Harry nodded and gave a half-hearted wave as Shunter left.

Draco dipped his chin beside Harry’s shoulder, “Is that threat?”

“Shunter always orders sandwiches from the cafeteria whenever we have meetings,” Harry said.

“So?”

“So, if you’re late she orders you the chicken salad sandwich,” Harry said, his tone filled with past regrets, “It tastes like wet cardboard and the mayo tastes off, even though the other sandwiches with the same fucking mayo and taste just fine. And there are big chunks of celery in it, just so when you think it can’t get any worse you bite into nature’s worst vegetable.”

Draco laughed, “Truly a fate worse than death.”

Harry nodded and looked around, “Well, sod that. We’re in a food court, let’s get a pizza,” Harry said.

“In a shopping centre?” Draco asked.

“Still better than cafeteria sandwiches,” Harry said.

“You have a point,” Draco said, “There?” Draco pointed out a place with a few people in line.

Harry agreed and they joined the queue.

“I can’t believe we have to do paperwork. We really ought to be celebrating,” Draco said with a sigh. “I want to go out dancing and drink until I can’t see straight.”

“Oh yeah?” Harry said hoarsely, his mind skittering sideways like a startled crab. ‘blokes don’t fuck me for my brain’ Draco’s voice echoed in his head. “Do you- do you go out often?” he asked.

“On occasion, it’s good fun,” Draco said.

“Then- then tonight?” Harry said, ‘blokes don’t fuck me for my brain’ rattling around in his brain like a pebble in a tin.

“Perhaps, but you’re not the only one with family obligations, I always have dinner with my parents on Saturday evenings,” Draco said.

“I’ve- I’ve never been to a club, maybe I could come with you-” ‘blokes don’t fuck me for-

“Have dinner with my parents? Why Potter, I thought you’d never ask,” Malfoy teased.

“And then you’re going to go out?” Harry asked.

Malfoy blinked at him, “Auror Potter, are you listening to me at all?”

‘blokes don’t fuck me for my brain’

Harry doubled down, “I’m listening, dinner with your parents and then we celebrate the job.”

“Sir? Are you ready to order?” the girl at the counter asked.

Draco ignored her, “You are completely barmy.”

“I am not,” Harry said, and because he couldn’t say that he was irrationally jealous of the thought that Draco might show that smarmy smile to another bloke, he said, “It’ll be interesting.”

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, Houdini! You’re holding up the queue!” A guy yelled from behind them.

“That’s sad for you,” Draco told the bloke.

Harry grabbed Draco by the elbow and hauled him to the counter before he got his nose broken, “We’d like a pizza.”

“Yes?” the girl at the counter said. She looked up at the menu board, “We don’t have anything else.”

“What do you want?” Harry asked Draco, “And don’t make it too weird.”

Draco looked up at the sign, “Two pizzas, we can share with the juniors. One half cheese and half pepperoni, nice and boring. And the other can be half… what’s Hawaiian?”

“It’s ham and pineapple,” The girl said.

Harry made a face which, of course, Draco saw and grinned, “Perfect. Half Hawaiian and half, I don’t know, vegetarian. That ought to cover everything.” He pulled an obnoxiously sleek black credit card from his suit and paid for everything.

“What’s your name?” The girl at the counter asked, pen poised over the receipt.

“The Marvellous, Magical Mephistopheles,” Draco said.

The girl looked at the receipt, pressed the tip of her pen to the paper then looked up with a sigh of resignation, that spoke of dealing with twats like Draco many many times before, “…Can you spell it?”

“Just put Harry,” Harry said.

“Harry,” The girl nodded quickly, scribbling his name, “You can wait over there,” she pointed, then called over their heads, “Next!” to get rid of them.

They stepped out of the way.

“Well, if you insist, I’m sure it will be interesting,” Draco said.

“What?” Harry asked, distracted.

“You coming along to dinner,” Draco said, “My father might have an aneurysm.”

“Is... that a good thing?” Harry asked.

Draco gave him a look that very plainly said, ‘you do know my father, don’t you?’

“Right,” Harry said.

“It’s not like I want him to die,” Draco said blandly, “but if were to happen...”

Harry snorted.

Draco went on, “I’m just saying, he’d be much easier to like if he were dead.”

“Fret not, we have arrived!” Draco said grandly as he pulled open the door to conference room one.

The Juniors stared back at him from the stiff-backed chairs surrounding the matching old-fashioned wood table, the table and chairs contrasting weirdly with the whiteboard hanging on the wall, currently covered in doodled red and blue flowers.

“No applause? I’m wounded,” Draco said.

Harry sighed and elbowed past him, “We brought pizza. I let him pick, so some of it’s weird.”

Kalya perked up at that, “Oh! I don’t suppose you have just cheese or something without meat? I can pick it off it not.”

Draco took the top pizza box and opened it with a flourish as he set it on the table, “We have cheese and vegetarian.”

Harry put down the other box, “And pepperoni and ...ham and pineapple.”

“I like ham and pineapple,” J said, perking up a bit.

“See, Auror Potter, he likes it,” Draco said.

Kalya sighed happily, “This is great. The cafeteria's only real vegetarian options are cheese and mayo sandwich, or all the vegetables they use on the other sandwiches and mayo sandwich.”

“Could be worse,” J said, “You could be vegan. Then you’d have no options.”

Harry tossed a stack of paper napkins in the middle of the table, “Where’s Shunter?”

“She went to talk to Robbard’s about the mission first,” J said.

Kalya grabbed a slice of cheese pizza, “Robards’ is busy with ‘the big case’,” she finger quoted with a mock ominous tone, “So she probably had to wait. Practically everyone is working on it except us.”

“I saw all three Ministry Prosecutors come up this morning. It must be big for all of them to be involved,” J said.

“Must be big for them to come up here rather than hold the meeting down on level ten,” Kalya said. “Then again the meeting rooms down there are always full of Wizengamont members.”

“This is strange,” Draco said.

Harry thought he was talking about the big case, but when he looked over, he saw Draco holding a slice of the Hawaiian pizza and wrinkling his nose as he chewed.

“And what about it exactly, made you think it was going to be a delight?” Harry asked sarcastically.

“People like it,” Draco said, “Junior likes it. They wouldn’t put it as an option if it wasn’t at least somewhat popular.”

“Do you like sweet and savoury things together? Fruit with meat and cheese?” Harry asked.

“Well, no-”

“Well, there you go,” Harry said.

“-not always, but I might this time,” Draco said, and stubbornly took another bite, just in case.

Harry rolled his eyes and looked around, “Did Shunter leave the paperwork so we can get started, at least?”

Kalya pointed at the end of the table, her mouth full of pizza.

“Are we allowed to fill in the forms ourselves?” J asked.

“I doubt Shunter will mind,” Harry said, “And she’ll only sign off on it if it’s up to her standards.”

Harry dropped into a seat next to Draco and grabbed a slice of pepperoni in one hand, filling out the form with the other and trying to keep the grease to himself. He noticed J was the only one not eating and nodded to the boxes, “You can have whatever you want. There’s more than we can eat.”

J’s face turned red. He quickly nodded, a bit of pineapple bouncing across the table as he clumsily grabbed a slice of pizza.

“Now if Ron were here that would be a different story,” Harry said absent-mindedly.

He saw Draco roll his eyes.

“What?” Harry asked.

“You are so dense sometimes, Auror Potter,” Draco said.

Harry narrowed his eyes, “What?”

“I’ll explain later,” Draco said, as the door opened and Shunter came in looking worn out.

“They want everyone on hands to work on the big case, so we need to finish this and get to conference room three,” Shunter said.

Kalya perked up, “Oh, we get to work on the big case? It’ll be our first one!”

“Hope you like fetching coffee and running errands,” Harry said.

J and Kalya’s expressions fell.

Shunter sighed, “Don’t let him discourage you. Pay attention to what’s happening, learn the case and the procedure so that when you’re promoted, you’ll know what to do. Everyone has to go through it.”

Harry mockingly mouthed her last line under his breath and then froze as Shunter came up behind him.

“You got a start on the paperwork?” Shunter asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said hoarsely, trying not to choke on his own spit.

Shunter scanned over it and nodded, grabbing the pen out of his hand and signed the bottom of the form, “Looks good so far, Potter. Finish that up and take it to reception. Come on, Juniors.”

J and Kalya stood, grabbing a last slice of pizza before rushing out the door.

“Must be nice to be so trusted,” Draco said bitterly.

Harry was too busy coughing to answer.

Draco raised his eyebrows.

“Swallowed wrong,” Harry said faintly and started coughing again.

He saw Draco’s expression change, the smarmy grin creep over his face.

“-Don’t-” Harry managed between coughs.

“Then don’t swallow next time,” Draco said suggestively.

Harry tried to laugh and cough at the same time, which came out as a painful hiccup.

Draco grinned.

“-fuck-” Harry laughed and coughed, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, his stomach aching, “-you-” he slipped out of his chair and collapsed onto the floor.

Draco’s smile grew until he fell into hopeless laughter, leaning against the edge of the desk to keep himself up.

Harry rolled onto his back, staring up at Draco, mesmerized by his wide smile, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners and a faint dimple on his left cheek. Harry clutched his chest, letting out another cough, “Fuck, Draco, you’ve killed me.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Draco said, “It takes more than that to kill you.”

Harry took a few more deep breaths. He kind of, sort of, might have felt like he would be happy if he could make Draco smile like that for the rest of his life.

He thumped his head back on the floor, “Why am I like this?”

“Trauma, I would assume,” Draco said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Harry said. He contemplated laying on the floor for the rest of his life but decided to finish the paperwork first.

Harry pulled himself back up onto his chair, “So what was the look for?”

“Which one? I have so many.”

“When I was talking to- to Junior, you rolled your eyes like I was an idiot,” Harry said.

“Are you really that oblivious?” Draco asked.

“About what?” Harry asked.

Draco sighed, “That Junior has a crush on you.”

“Oh,” Harry frowned to himself and shrugged, “I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice,” Draco said flatly, “You didn’t notice how he turns into a stuttering, blushing mess whenever you’re around.”

“You turn into a blushing mess around me,” Harry said, his fountain pen scratching across the paper.

Draco’s cheeks took on a faint flush, and he quickly turned his head away.

“People have been speculating about my love life since I was fourteen, maybe even before,” Harry said with a shudder. “I learned to tune it out, or I’d have gone barmy ages ago.”

“A few marriage proposals before tea, is it?” Draco said sourly.

“Depends.”

Draco narrowed his eyes, “Depends on what?”

“If I’m dating someone, there’s less, and I always get more around holidays. Valentine’s day is the worst, but I get half a dozen on even Guy Fawkes Day,” Harry said. He paused to scan through the report to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, adding a few more notes to the bottom and putting his pen away.

Draco was looking pouty, scratching at a scuff in the wooden table.

“I really only pay attention to that sort of thing when it’s someone I’m interested in,” Harry said and stood up.

Draco looked up abruptly, blinking at Harry like a bewildered kitten.

Harry smiled and held up the form, “Lets go drop this off and get back to the office, yeah?”

“The light’s green,” Harry said.

The car remained motionless.

“Drac-”

The car behind them honked impatiently.

Draco shifted into gear almost robotically, and the car started moving again.

Harry looked at the shops as they drove by.

They had only dropped by the office long enough to tell Asbestos to stay there until six, in case any more work came in. Which of course, earned them the most ‘double stupid’ look possible. Harry wondered if he was really beginning to lose his mind because he was growing rather fond of Asbestos acerbic personality.

Harry sighed, “The light’s green.”

Draco stared ahead.

“Draco. The light, it is green,” Harry said, prodding him in the arm.

Draco shot him a glare from behind his sunglasses and jerked the gearshift, the car giving an unhappy grinding noise that made them both wince and soured Draco’s expression even more.

“You’re the one who did it,” Harry said.

Keeping on hand on the steering wheel, Draco pushed his other hand blindly at Harry’s face, smacking Harry’s cheek and knocked his glasses askew, “Shut up. I’m thinking.”

“Thinking so hard you’ve turned off all other brain functions,” Harry said, batting Draco's hand away and righting his glasses.

“There is so much I need to re-evaluate,” Draco said distractedly. “So many conversations to replay in my mind.”

“I’d rather you re-evaluate your ability to drive,” Harry said.

Draco smirked faintly, “You’ll be distressed to learn that driving requires little to no attention once you get the hang of it.”

Harry frowned to himself, looking around at the cars passing them and driving alongside, the other drivers looking some mix of distant, bored and distracted. “You know, I think I could have lived the rest of my life not knowing that, actually.”

Draco let out a bark of a laugh, grinning lopsidedly so Harry could make out one pointed eyetooth.

Harry was too distracted by Draco’s smile to be very nervous about them possibly driving into a wall.

As they got further out of London, the roads got wider, with more lanes, but somehow slower as more people piled into them.

“Haven't these wankers something better to do, it’s still work hours,” Draco said, with an annoyed wave.

Harry snorted, “Like us?”

“We have magic, and thus we are technically at work and not at the same time,” Draco said.

Harry stretched his arms overhead, hands catching the breeze, “And here I thought we were shirking and using Asbestos as a way to not get in trouble.”

“Shh,” Draco said shortly, “She might hear you.”

Harry raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond, happy enough to just ease back in his seat, the smooth leather making faint creaks as he moved.

“There are cd music disks in the glove box,” Draco said.

Harry had noticed the sleek black and silver cd player in the car's dashboard but thought it had been installed by the previous owner. It hadn't occurred to him that Draco might actually use the thing.

Harry opened the glove box and took out the zipped fabric cd case, opening it and flipping through the different disks. The first was Bach, The Brandenburg Concertos, of course. Harry’s brow furrowed at the next, black with the band name in jagged white lettering that looked more like a thorn bush than recognisable letters, it was, Harry guessed, some sort of heavy metal band. He blinked and looked at the next, The Beatles, White Album. Good but… it was hard to imagine Draco listening to the Beatles. Next was… Harry tilted his head, as if that would actually help him understand what he was reading, Shania Twain. The cd after that was Moby-

Harry shook his head, “I don’t know any of these. Except for the Beatles. Let me guess, you just bought whichever random cds caught your eye?”

“If you already know the answer, why ask?” Draco said, “Ignore those then, there are some ‘mixed’ music disks in the back that are all quite palatable.”

Harry flipped to the back to a collection of blank silvery cds labelled in sloppy hand-written sharpie, Drive Mix 1, Drive Mix 2 and Draco 3. He frowned, “Who burned you cd’s?”

“Trev, of course,” Draco said. “He said if he was going to have to drive around with me all the time, he wanted something to listen to.”

“Trev,” Harry muttered.

“What, are you jealous, Auror Potter?” Draco teased with a smirky grin.

Harry thought about it for a second, “Yes.”

The car lurched to one side unpleasantly before Draco quickly corrected. “What?” he said, sounding strangled.

“I know he’s just some stupid lad and it’s not like I can travel back in time, not that I’d want to. You were probably still a prat back then. And you said he wasn’t your type.” Harry frowned to himself, “He isn’t, right?”

“Right,” Draco choked out.

Despite this, Harry took out the suspiciously marked Draco 3 and slid it into the disk drive, ready to listen for any romantic or yearning songs. The first song was a bouncy pop song Harry’s only vaguely remembered hearing once before, it was not especially romantic.

Harry put the cds back in the glovebox and looked over at Draco. He seemed to have gone back to being semi-catatonic, but they were out of the city now and had very few stoplights to worry about.

They were driving back to Wiltshire because, as Draco had logically pointed out, there was no reason to leave his car in London when he probably would only be working for one more day. Maybe a few days if Hermione couldn't merge the departments, but without Harry there to sort out the politics of things, he wasn't likely to get much work done.

Harry sighed. He rolled the window down and hooked an arm over the door, resting his chin on his forearm. The wind was cool and smelled sweeter without the constant exhaust fumes, at least until they went by a pigsty. The sun slowly dropped lower in the sky as they drove, winding through towns and stands of trees, past pastures filled with bleating sheep and goats.

“Oh, cows,” Harry said as they passed some cows.

Draco glanced over at him from the corner of his eye, “It’s the countryside, cows are fairly common.”

“Who doesn’t say ‘cows’ when they see cows?” Harry said.

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“You, apparently,” Harry said.

Draco’s smiled faintly, “We’re almost there.”

Harry glanced at his reflection in the side mirror with a grimace, his hair was back to its same old mess. Draco's hair was equally tangled, but he combed his fingers through it, and it looked good again. Harry had a sudden intense feeling of camaraderie for Hermione's hair struggles and how people like Ron and Draco could just, swipe a comb through it and look fine. How had he not noticed how annoying that was?

Draco drummed his fingers on the steering wheel anxiously, “You can leave at any time.”

“What?” Harry blinked, not following, “What do you mean?”

“I’ll adjust the wards as soon as we arrive so that you may come and go as you please.” Draco’s grip tightened on the steering, his voice quieting. “I don’t want you to feel trapped there.”

It took a second for Harry to catch on, and then he spent another few seconds in surprised, but pleased, shock before saying, “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Draco nodded stiffly.

Harry thought most of all, just the fact that Draco had changed enough to think of all that, to consider Harry’s feelings in the matter, meant more than anything he did. Harry hadn’t really been all that worried about going to Malfoy Manor to begin with, but now he felt utterly at ease with Draco at his side. He suddenly wished that Draco had joined the Aurors, he would have liked having him as his partner.

The car slowed as they approached the imposing wrought iron gates which swung open to allow them entry.

Harry sat up and looked around curiously.

The lawns were a deep green that looked as plush as carpet. Hedges were carefully sculpted into circles and long arching lines with curved edges, and there were flowers everywhere. The air was almost heady with the smell of roses, butterflies yellow as butter danced in lazy circles in the air above them.

Draco slowly drove up the gravel path to the manor, pulling past it and driving down into what looked like a stable, now converted into a garage. He shifted the car into park, turned off the engine and then sat there, looking like he wasn’t ready to move.

Harry opened his door and got out, stretching with a groan. It had been a two-hour drive, he hadn’t sat so long without moving since school. He could hear Draco take a deep, bracing breath before his door creaked open.

Harry stepped outside, staring up the slope at a group of peacocks and peahens walking toward the forest. There were white peacocks, which he had expected, but there were also the regular blue and green ones, and ones that looked mixed between the two, piebald and grey and purple.

“It’s changed a lot,” Harry said.

“The Manor back then was… sick in a way, poisoned by our misery,” Draco said as he came up beside Harry.

One of the peacocks made a shrill cry and raised his fan of tail feathers, blue and green, the many eyes of feathers arrayed around him like a halo.

“That and my mother really hasn’t had much else to do. She has become very involved with the landscaping,” Draco added.

A house-elf appeared, holding up a fancy box containing a silk pillow, on which Draco’s wand sat like a princess’ glass slipper.

Harry snorted.

“Shut up,” Draco said absently, taking his wand and raising it into the air. He cast a series of spells to alter the wards, and they shimmered in the air above them before settling back in place.

“Shall I tell Mrs Malfoy you have returned?” The house-elf asked. They were wearing a little immaculately-tailored butler uniform.

Draco nodded.

“And that you have a guest?” The elf hazarded.

“Oh no, I want that to be a surprise,” Draco said.

Harry could have sworn he saw the house-elf roll their eyes before giving a little perfunctory bow and disappearing again.

“Shall we?” Draco said.

The main doors opened as they approached, no house-elves or anyone else in sight.

Harry glanced over at Draco and raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Draco asked.

“They open automatically? Even Hogwarts doesn’t have doors that open when you walk up,” Harry said.

Draco held up a finger, “One, that would be highly impractical, children are going in and out of the castle at all the time-”

“And two?” Harry asked, expecting bullshit.

“And two,” Draco smirked, “I got the idea from muggle automatic doors, which they put just about everywhere.”

“Yeah, they don’t put them in their houses,” Harry said.

“That’s not my problem, is it?” Draco said.

Harry laughed, “I suppose not.”

The doors closed behind them, and their footsteps took on the ring of stone then hushed under intricate swirling carpeting. Harry didn’t actually remember much of the manor when the snatchers brought him here. He had been worried about more important things.

But a few things were randomly burned into his memory. He remembered empty portrait frames gilded in gold and the pattern of the marble mosaic of the floor in the ballroom. And he remembered Draco’s face as his father forced him to look at Harry, pale and shaking and trying so desperately to hide how terrified he was, though at the time Harry hadn’t been able to see it.

“Draco, dear heart,” Narcissa’s voice rang out ahead of her as she came down one of the twin staircases on either side of the large entry hall, “You’re home early, and you brought your automobile back, is everything alright?”

She swept up to Draco in flowing turquoise and silver robes, putting her hands on his shoulders and going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“Everything is fine, I brought a guest for dinner,” Draco said, gesturing towards Harry.

“Err hi-” Harry started.

“Really, Draco?” Narcissa said severely, “I suppose you think this is funny?”

“I find a lot of things funny,” Draco said.

“Where did you even get polyjuice potion? Or one of Mr Potter’s hairs?” Narcissa said, she walked up to Harry and glared at him, hands on her hips.

Harry stared back, nonplussed.

The war had aged her, but she was still icily beautiful in her own way.

“Polyjuice takes a month to brew,” Draco said,  “And they don’t sell it at the apothecaries.”

“Not the reputable ones,” Narcissa said.

“And I am the kind of fool to risk what little of my reputation remains by even stepping foot into Knockturn alley?” Draco asked.

Narcissa turned to glare at him, and Draco crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look serious but mostly looking like he was trying to hide one of his stupid smirky little smiles. Narcissa crossed her own arms over her chest, mirroring Draco, except without the amusement. They stared at one another, neither backing down.

“Fine,” Narcissa said, “Not polyjuice.”

“Not polyjuice,” Draco agreed.

“A glamour then,” Narcissa said.

“If its a glamour, dispell it,” Draco said.

Narcissa lifted her chin, “You would only say that if you had found a charm that can only be dispelled with its specific counter-charm.”

“Or it’s not a glamour,” Draco said.

Narcissa’s mouth thinned, “Even if I can’t remove the charm, it only changes what a person looks like, not who they are underneath.”

“Mother, it’s not-” Draco said, amused.

Narcissa ignored him, spinning around and walking up to Harry, putting both her hands on his face.

Harry blinked.

Narcissa blinked, her hands patting his cheeks and then the arms of his glasses, up to his messy hair.

Over Narcissa’s shoulder, Harry could see Draco had lost his fight against the stupid grin and now was just trying not to laugh.

“Hello, Mrs Malfoy,” Harry said, “I suppose I don’t have to tell you Draco’s alive this time, but I am afraid he is completely ridiculous.”

Narcissa let go of his face, and her eyes went wide, frozen in place with shock.

“She freezes up just like you do,” Harry told Draco.

“I do not,” Draco said.

“I do not,” Narcissa said, and then quickly stepped back, her cheeks flushing a blotchy pink.

Harry laughed, “Sorry to surprise you. It was my idea to come along, more or less.”

“You mean it was entirely your idea,” Draco said, “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Nothing,” Narcissa repeated, sounding far too distressed.

“Mother?” Draco asked.

“Nothing… oh, Draco-”

“Mo-”

“-I spent so long telling the other ladies what a good boy you were,” Narcissa said turning to Draco and waving placating hands, “how smart and diligent, and hard-working you were-”

Harry made a smarmy face behind her back, mouthing ‘so smart and diligent and hard-working’ at Draco.

Draco glared at him.

“-and every time they tried to suggest you were a bad influence-” Narcissa went on.

“A bad influence?” Draco said.

“I would say, ‘Oh, no, not my Draco, not my boy, he’s a leader, a prefect, at the top of his class-”

“Mother,” Draco said, a whine on the edge of his voice. He was starting to flush with embarrassment and very carefully avoiding looking at Harry.

“And now you’ve done this,” Narcissa said, gesturing back at Harry, “You’ve ruined Harry Potter. Of all people Draco-”

“I haven’t ruined him!” Draco interrupted, his righteous indignation overcoming his embarrassment, “He came ruined. If anything, I improved him.”

“Draco. Draco, my darling boy,” Narcissa said, walking over to him and grasping his arm, “You are the last person on earth whose opinion I would trust about Harry Potter.”

Harry laughed again.

Draco was starting to look pouty, “You don’t know him like I do. He was so boring and serious and-”

Narcissa sighed at him.

Draco rolled his eyes, “And of course, I’m a bad influence, Mother, I was a deatheater, wasn’t I?”

“We all knew that it was done to punish Lucius for his failures,” Narcissa said.

“Well, I didn’t know,” Draco said.

“You were sixteen ...and a bit self-involved-”

Draco looked dismayed.

“-I blame your father for that.”

Harry thought that both Draco’s parents were pretty self-involved as far as blame was concerned.

Narcissa spun around, suddenly all smiles, “I’m so sorry about all this, Mr Potter. I wasn’t expecting a guest of such… esteem, as yourself.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

Behind her, Draco snottily mouthed ‘such esteem’.

Harry only just resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him.

“You must excuse my rudeness, it has been so long since we’ve had visitors, I’m afraid I’m out of practice,” Narcissa said.

“Out of practice of hiding what you really think,” Draco said.

Narcissa shot a glare over her shoulder.

“I prefer it,” Draco said.

This Narcissa reminded him a lot of Andromeda, it was the first time he really believed they were related.

“You don’t have to be polite on my account,” Harry said. “I prefer knowing what people really think.”

Narcissa made an absolutely putrid expression like she had just smelled a particularity rank fart. “It’s not done. It’s not proper.”

“Proper is boring,” Draco said.

“I already know your thoughts on the matter,” Narcissa said coolly. “Your father isn’t going to take this well.”

“Then don’t tell him,” Draco said.

“Of course, I’m going to tell him,” Narcissa said.

“But it will be so funny when he-”

“No, it won’t,” Narcissa said firmly, “The two of you will just spend the entire meal shouting at one another. I don’t need a headache tonight, I’ve had enough of them lately.”

“But Mum!” Draco burst out, sounding all of five-years-old.

Narcissa held up a finger, “Not in front of guests.”

“Potter doesn’t count as a guest. He counts a nuisance,” Draco said petulantly.

“Then I shall put down two nuisances for dinner. We eat at six, and I expect you to behave yourself,” Narcissa said. “Now I have to go speak to your father.”

She gave Draco one more disapproving look before hurrying up the stairs.

“I think it went well,” Harry said once she was out of sight.

Draco laughed, “Oh, do you?”

Harry laughed too, pleased that Draco remembered saying it earlier. “So… your mum is a bit different than I remember.”

“She’s remarkably sane after going through five years of house arrest and dealing with Father and I,” Draco said.

“Does she-” Harry hesitated, “err...there’s no good to say this, does your mum have friends?”

“Only the fair-weather sort,” Draco said, “As you might imagine, no one wants anything to do with a family of Voldemort supporters.”

“You said it,” Harry said surprised.

“Said what? That my entire family is social poison?” Draco asked.

“No, Voldemort,” Harry said.

“I’ve said it before,” Draco said raising an eyebrow.

Harry’s brow furrowed, “Have you?”

“Yes,” Draco said.

“Oh,” Harry said, “Really?”

Draco raised his eyebrows.

“I just don’t remember you saying it before,” Harry said, “You always used to say ‘The Dark Lord’.”

“I just sat on my bed and said it over and over again until it wasn’t scary anymore,” Draco said sarcastically.

“Really?” Harry said flatly as if he believed in every word.

Draco rolled his eyes, “Come on, we have some time, and you need to fix-” he waved at hand at Harry’s hair, “that.”

“It’s no worse than it was before,” Harry said.

“As if that’s a good argument,” Draco said, “And besides it’s much worse. You look like you stuck your finger in a muggle electrical socket.”

Harry frowned and patted his hair down, “It’s not that bad.”

“You look like a cartoon,” Draco enunciated, which sounded just stupid enough in his posh voice that Harry laughed.

“You a fan of cartoons?” Harry asked.

“I find them quite engaging,” Draco said.

Harry grinned.

Draco’s ears flushed a faint pink, “I wasn’t talking about you. Cartoons are funnier than you.”

“Ouch,” Harry said lightly.

“Come on,” Draco guided him deeper into the Manor.

Harry couldn’t help noticing that they were headed in the opposite direction Narcissa had gone in. The doors they stopped in front of were doubled, two heavy old wood doors with unnecessarily curly handles.

Draco turned both handles and pushed open the doors in a dramatic flourish, an unspoken ‘ta-dah’ hanging in the air as he stepped aside to show the room off. Or rooms.

They were in what looked like a sitting room. Harry frowned and immediately walked over to the nearest door. Inside was a large bedroom with a massive walk-in closet left open with a mess of clothes scattering out its open maw like a trailing multicoloured tongue.

Harry turned around, there were two other doors on the other side of the sitting room. Harry stomped over to one, jerking it open, it revealed an office of sorts, with a desk and bookshelves on one side and a brewing table and shelf of potion ingredients on the other. The last room was a bathroom, massive and ornate with a bathtub big enough for two or three people, a shower- equally big, and a double sink, potion pots and salves scattered all across the counter.

“All of this is just your room?” Harry asked, annoyed on the principal of the thing.

“Yes?”

“It’s- like, I’ve seen flats smaller than this. And they had a kitchen,” Harry said.

“This is fairly modest considering I’m the master of the house,” Draco said, “You should see my parents apartments, they have fifteen rooms.”

“What the fuck do you do with fifteen rooms?” Harry asked.

“Mostly nothing,” Draco said.

“No, really, do they have like seven sitting rooms? Like each one a different colour?”

Draco smile grew, “You’re very nearly correct. There is the study, which is burgundy, mother’s parlour is pink, father’s office is green, the tea room is blue, their sitting room, in pale yellow, and the formal sitting room for receiving guests, in purple. The conservatory is mostly glass, but the connecting wall is-”

“Orange?” Harry guessed.

“It’s lilac. Orange? Really? You think my family would have anything in orange when they persist in carrying on their stupid  little feud with the Weasley’s?” Draco said.

“You think it’s stupid?” Harry asked.

“It’s objectively stupid,” Draco said, “I’m not even familiar with any of the Weasley family-”

“Except Ron.”

“Except that one,” Draco agreed sourly. “And you are well aware of our long, strained history.”

“I think the two of you could get on if you wanted to,” Harry said.

Draco made a face, “I doubt it.”

“We get on now,” Harry pointed out.

“Yes, well I don’t fan- ah, never mind-” Draco cut himself off, immediately looking embarrassed. He shoved Harry into the bathroom, “Fix your hair, would you?”

“I should hope you don’t fancy him,” Harry said under his breath, “might put a kink in our relationship.”

“And not the fun kind.”

Harry spun around, but Draco had already retreated out of sight. But the voice sounded familiar, in a genderless lilting way.

“Good grief, darling, what did you do to your hair? You look dreadful,” the mirror said, and his reflection reached up, drawing down a strand of frizzy windblown hair and glaring at it cross-eyed.

Draco stole the fucking mirror.

“You stole the fucking mirror!” Harry yelled, storming back into the sitting room.

He saw the smile on Draco’s face before he tried to hide it- badly- under a very serious- bullshite- expression.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Draco said.

“You stole the mirror from the loos on level seven!” Harry said.

Draco’s eyebrows rose a tick. He looked insufferably pleased with himself.

“The one we used this morning!” Harry said.

Draco shook his head, “I have no idea, auror Potter, I’ve always had that mirror.”

“You stole it,” Harry said.

Draco considered for a moment, “We were together all day.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. He was right.

“I’m sure you would have noticed, if I stole a mirror while we were together,” Draco said.

“Then you must have told Asbestos to take it,” Harry guessed, though he couldn’t figure when the two of them had been alone long enough for Draco to tell her.

Draco pursed his lips, “I never... directly instructed Asbestos to steal the mirror.”

“That’s- that’s not the point! You told me you were going to steal it and now here it is! You’re going to get arrested!” Harry snapped.

Draco crossed his arms over his chest, “Are you?”

“I- What?” Harry said.

“Are you going to arrest me?” Draco asked, his expression guarded, “You’re the only one that knows, after all.”

Harry’s expression curled into a snarl, “You bastard.”

Draco sighed, looking away, “I’m not stupid, or an arsehole. The bathroom on level seven still has a mirror. It’s the same size. It does what it’s supposed to, it reflects your face. I don’t know what more you want.”

“I want you to not have stolen it,” Harry said.

“But I wanted it,” Draco said.

“What are you, a child?” Harry said in exasperation.

“Sometimes. When it suits me,” Draco said.

Harry rolled his eyes.

Draco shot him a glare, “Look, I didn’t have much of a childhood, at least not the way I see other children having one. So I’m having one now.”

“You’re twenty-three-”

“So? I get to choose how I act and what I do. I’m certainly not going to pretend to be someone I’m not, pretend to be the person my parents want me to be. I think the utter misery of such a life would kill me,” Draco said.

Harry wanted to stomp, feeling as petty and childish as Draco in that moment, “So you think you can just be a kid again? You’re an adult!”

Draco stared at him, and Harry felt himself lean away a bit, unnerved by his expression.

“You can as well, you know,” Draco finally said, “It’s your life, isn’t it? You’re an adult, have the childhood you wanted.”

Harry blinked feeling a bit gut punched and extremely annoyed that Draco Malfoy might be even a little bit right about something so- so personal.

A house-elf appeared between the two of them before Harry could respond.

The elf in a little butler uniform bowed, “Dinner is ready in the formal dining room.”

Draco nodded curtly, and the elf disappeared, leaving them alone once more. Harry returned to the bathroom, quickly wetting his hair and squishing neat curls back into it and fidgeting with his suit, smoothing the fabric and righting the sleeves. Draco was waiting by the doors to his rooms when Harry came out. Both of them radiated annoyance at one another.

“I was going to arrange to buy the mirror from the Ministry,” Harry said.

Draco smirked, “I see. So you just wanted it for yourself.”

“I was going to buy it for you,” Harry said coolly. “I’m not big on talking mirrors.”

“I-” Draco opened his mouth, closed it, his ears flushing a bright embarrassed red. “That’s a stupid reason.”

“Stupid-?”

“It’s no fun. It’s boring. It’s-”

“Nice?” Harry suggested.

Draco huffed a sigh at him.

“Just don’t from now on, all right?” Harry said.

“Don’t what?” Draco asked.

“Steal things? Break the law? Especially in front of me?” Harry said.

Draco scowled at him.

“It’s not worth the risk. The Wizengamont won’t go easy on you,” Harry said.

“Fine. Yes. I know,” Draco said. “It’s not something I normally do. I tend to lose my sense of self-preservation around you.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“I assume it’s infectious,” Draco sniffed.

“Actually, that would explain a lot about my life,” Harry joked weakly, “Don’t tell Ron and Hermione.”

Draco smiled cautiously, “Your horrible secret is safe with me.”

Harry returned the smile with a careful one of his own.

Chapter Text

They walked through the manor, down identical lavish hallways and past dark wood doors that all looked the same. The portraits were technically different, but all the sneering blond faces looked unsettlingly similar. Harry was pretty sure he had had nightmares like this.

“What are you planning?” Harry asked.

“Hmm?” Draco said.

“You must be planning something.”

“I’m not,” Draco said, “You can’t plan with my father. He understands planning and scheming, he's a Slytherin to the core. Now impulsive stupidity, that almost always works.” He glanced over his shoulder at Harry, putting his hand over his heart, “I just pretend I’m you.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “I’m pretty sure you don’t need me as an excuse, you can do impulsive and stupid all on your own.”

Draco shot a glare over his shoulder and almost ran into a door, only saved by Harry grabbing the back of his jacket.

“Hey-!” Draco protested, then looked back, his nose nearly brushing the carved woodwork. He startled back with an ‘eep’ that Harry’s was sure he would have been embarrassed about if he hadn’t fallen back right into Harry’s arms.

Harry had to fight to keep his balance, holding onto Draco tightly and stumbling back with him. They stood very still for a moment, both breathing a little too fast and not just from the shock.

Harry thought- well, thinking wasn’t actually involved, as his hands curled into the fabric of Draco’s jacket, squeezing him tighter. Draco’s breathing hitched-

“Excuse me, sirs.”

They jumped apart, startled all over again.

“The table is prepared,” The butler house-elf had opened the doors in front of them and was staring at them, their expression completely unreadable as they gave a short bow and disappeared.

“fuck,” Harry said under his breath. “Are all your house-elves bastards?”

“No,” Draco said, taking a deep breath and nervously straightening his sleeves, “Not at all. Asbestos is one of a kind. That was Butler. He, as you might imagine, wants to be the perfect butler, in so far as he knows about them from those cheap muggle mystery novels he reads.”

“Your butler is named Butler,” Harry said.

“He picked it himself,” Draco said, “All house-elves pick their own names and change them whenever they like.”

“Isn’t that confusing?” Harry asked.

“Not to them, and I’m entirely certain they don’t care what we think on the matter,” Draco said. He hesitated and then said more slowly, carefully, “Before house-eves are freed, there isn’t a lot that they can change or choose for themselves, so those things that they can are very important to them. It’s a bit… cultural, I suppose.”

Draco and Asbestos must be better friends than Harry had thought. He had known Draco liked and respected Asbestos; otherwise, he wouldn’t let her insult him. Harry had never been quite sure if she liked him back. But since she must have told Draco all this information about house-elves, she must like him, at least a bit.

“So uh… you aren’t worried that ‘the butler did it’?” Harry asked.

“What?” Draco asked.

“It’s a cliché in those muggle mystery books, that the butler did it,” Harry said.

Draco continued to stare at him blankly.

“Like in a story with a butler, usually the butler is one of the suspects for who committed the crime,” Harry said, “I don’t know how often the butler is actually guilty, but it must have been enough for it to become a cliché.”

“A human butler might, but a house-elf-”

“A free house-elf?” Harry asked.

Draco froze, “...You think I ought to be worried?”

“I don’t know. Does Butler want to kill you?” Harry asked.

Draco thought, too long for the answer to be an easy ‘of course not’, before saying, “Probably not as much as he would want to kill my father.”

“Then you should be fine. Unless Lucius disappears, in which case you might want to leave the country,” Harry said, “I imagine if a free house-elf wants someone gone, they’d never find the body.”

Draco glared at him, “What a comforting thought,” he said sarcastically.

Harry shrugged and stepped around Draco into the dining room.

It was a massive room, elaborate tapestries and sconces that looked like they were gilded in gold, lined the walls. Across the room, there was a fireplace big enough to cook an ox in, the mantle and moulding made of white marble inlaid with gold filigree. Filling the centre of the room was a long, long table made of wood so dark it was almost black, and at the very end were four tiny little place settings.

Harry looked over at Draco and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s utterly ridiculous,” Draco said with a grin of amusement.

Harry snorted, “Yeah. I mean, why?”

“You’re an important guest. Mother wouldn’t want to insult you with anything less than the best,” Draco said.

“Does she know like, anything about me?”

“Obviously not,” Draco said.

Harry laughed.

“Knowing you, you’d be happiest eating the kitchen with the elves,” Draco said, trying to sound disdainful and missing the mark.

“True,” Harry said, “But then I wouldn’t get to have this lovely meal with your,” he paused meaningfully, “delightful family.”

Draco laughed and bumped his shoulder, “Come on. I’ll show you how you’re supposed to use the silverware so that we can both do it wrong.”

“Both?” Harry said.

“One of life’s little delights,” Draco said.

“No wonder your mum is so frazzled,” Harry said, following Draco to the end of the table and gratefully taking the seat neatest him and furthest from the table head where Lucius probably sat.

Draco did indeed walk Harry through the silverware, which quite boringly worked out to just using the ones on the outside and working your way in. Then told Harry about the time he spent twenty minutes trying to eat soup with a fish fork until both his parents had lost their tempers and sent him to his rooms like he was five.

“Next time you ought to just pick up the bowl and drink the soup,” Harry suggested, shuffling his silverware around randomly until he no longer remembered what anything was for, except the soup spoon which was soup shaped.

“I never thought of that!” Draco said excitedly, “Why, I might eat an entire meal without any silverware what-so-ever, with my fingers,” Draco said excited and

“Wouldn’t that be too messy for you?” Harry asked.

Draco sniffed, “I’m willing to make sacrifices for a worthy cause.”

“Worthy indeed,” Harry said with faux-solemnity.

“I apologise for our lateness,” Narcissa said as she entered. She had changed into an entirely new robe, this one had lavish golden embroidery along the hem as if to match the room.

“Oh, was Father having a tantrum?” Draco asked, his voice as casual as if he were asking after the weather.

“No. We were simply discussing some things and lost track of time,” Narcissa said coolly, shooting Draco a behave look.

Which Draco promptly ignored, leaning over Harry’s shoulder to loudly whisper, “He was having a tantrum.”

“Draco,” Narcissa hissed, just as Lucius came in behind her.

Lucius was dressed in black robes that hung loosely off his shoulders like he was a bony coat hanger. He ignored his wife, walking around her, and Draco; and Harry might as well have not been there. As he took his seat at the end of the table, Harry saw that Lucius’ blond hair had gone mostly white and wrinkles now lined his face making him look a good decade older than he was.

Narcissa hurried after him and took her seat next to Lucius, across from Draco.

As soon as they were all seated the first course appeared in front of them. It was a tiny bite of food on a tiny plate.

Harry glanced over at Draco.

“The starter,” Draco explained, “A hors d’oerve.”

Harry looked at the plate again, still unimpressed.

“It’s meant to whet the appetite. I imagine Mother ordered us a full seven courses,” Draco said.

Narcissa cleared her throat, trying to suggest that Draco should shut up.

“Because you’re so important,” Draco went on.

Harry couldn’t help grinning. He was rather glad Draco was joking around. There was nothing Harry hated more than aching silent, overly formal meals where everyone was being fancy and pretentious.

Harry used a random spoon to scoop up the small bite and put it in his mouth. It was good, not Molly Weasley good, but it was alright.

Narcissa was frowning. Lucius ate the bite in three smaller bites, with an expression like he was chewing through carpet.

Narcissa rang a tiny silver bell at her elbow when all their plates were clean, and the plate was replaced with a bowl of bright orange… soup? With a blob of white in it.

Harry poked it suspiciously with his spoon.

“It’s mostly carrots,” Draco said. He nodded to the blob, “That’s cream, it makes it actually taste good.”

“Our house elf’s food is impeccable,” Narcissa said.

“Chefs,” Draco corrected, “They’re our chefs. You can call them house-elf chefs if you prefer, but it’s a bit of a mouthful.”

Narcissa’s mouth tightened into a thin line, “Our chefs. Of course.”

Harry used the same spoon as he did last time which seemed to cause Narcissa a special kind of pain. Or it could have been seeing Draco attempt to use the tiny sorbet spoon to ferry very small amounts of soup to his mouth. She rang the bell before he even managed half of it.

The next course was a long narrow strip of fish, which was actually really good but there wasn’t nearly enough of it to really satisfy him. A steak was served next, also a bit small, but at least enough to be something like a meal. It had a few potatoes, green beans and carrots along the side.

“The main dish,” Draco said.

“I could have guessed that one,” Harry said wryly.

“I wouldn’t want our important guest to strain himself,” Draco said.

“Oh yes,” Harry said sarcastically, “Thinking is so hard, after all.”

"You do it so rarely," Draco grinned.

Harry rolled his eyes, “You would know, you use you head even less.”

The larger size of the entrée had a downside though, in that, with nothing other to do but eat, the room became very, very quiet. The sound of their silverware faintly clinking on the plates seemed to echo about like they were in the bottom of a ravine.

Draco set his fork down and leaned close to Harry. His voice had all the characteristics of a whisper except the quiet part, “You see, what my father is doing is known as the silent treatment.”

“Or we’re just having a nice meal,” Narcissa said without looking up from the carrot she was carefully spearing with her fork.

Draco went on, blithely ignoring her, “This was always his favourite form of punishment when I was young because it sent me into absolute hysterics to be ignored.”

“That’s not very surprising,” Harry said.

“I do have a fondness for being in the centre of things,” Draco embracing the jibe as a compliment. “Once I started school, I tried using the silent treatment myself, but the thing is it really only worked the first year or two. Because it’s a stupid childish thing to do.”

Harry glanced over to see Lucius’ face twitch.

“I mean, really,” Draco said, a cruel tone latching onto his words, “only children use something like the silent treatment and expect it to be anything other than a joke. Certainly not grown men-”

There was a thump, and the table rattled as Lucius brought his fist down on the heavy wood. He shot an absolutely fuming glare at the space above his plate, refusing to even look at Draco.

Draco waited for a second then continued to fill the silence, “Yes? Do you want to say something? Would you like to even greet our illustrious guest? He is Harry Potter, after all.”

“Draco, that’s enough,” Narcissa said, “Let’s just have a nice meal and-”

“Greet the man- the little wretch that ruined everything for our family-” Lucius hissed.

Draco laughed coldly, “Him? You ruined it all by yourself, Father. We would have come out of the war better if we had spent the whole thing sitting in a ditch covered in our own shit.”

“You will not talk about me that way,” Lucius said, finally looking at Draco, his eyes cold and bloodshot.

“I’ll talk about you however I like-”

“I should have never allowed you to be the master of the house-”

“No, you shouldn’t have, rather stupid of you,” Draco said.

“Draco, please-” Narcissa tried again.

“Now you foolishly bring an auror into our home, that auror of all people,” Lucius spit.

“Why?” Draco said with innocent mocking, “We have nothing to worry about, do we? Good upstanding citizens, the Malfoy’s, paragons of society-”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Lucius snapped, standing up so suddenly his chair fell over behind him in a clatter, “Are you really so stupid!? Do you really think he is here because, what- because he likes you?” he barked a laugh.

Draco went still.

And Harry felt his jaw tighten, his teeth grinding together.

“Don’t be a fool.” Lucius hit the table again, “This is obviously a trap. A plan to lure you into incriminating us and...”

Draco’s entire body was tensed with fury and- and it wasn’t what Draco had wanted, even though Harry suspected that it was what he expected, even pushed to happen. Harry couldn’t help thinking that Draco still despised being ignored more than anything, that even hate was better than indifference to him.

Harry blinked. Was that what it had been? The whole time during school-?

Draco had stood up as well, his face going a blotchy red as he yelled back at Lucius. Narcissa had given up trying to stop them, sitting back in her chair and massaging her temples.

Harry had the very Draco feeling that all this was stupid and boring and generally not fun.

He went very still as a stray idea occurred to him. It was completely mad and would require a rather big lie. But it would be fun.

He stood up and caught Draco’s hand mid-wave. Draco words died in his throat and he looked over at Harry in surprise. Harry gave him a faint smile that he hoped said I got this.

Harry laced their hands together, “Mr Malfoy?”

Lucius stopped and stared at their hands. The silence made Narcissa look up and she also stared at their hands.

“The truth is, I asked Draco to bring me here because,” Harry took a deep breath. He hoped his nerves made this more believable, “I felt it was important to meet the parents of my fiancée. I just… I didn’t want to hide us any more.”

Draco blinked.

Harry squeezed Draco’s hand and twitched an eyebrow up.

“I- I, yes,” Draco said hoarsely and cleared his throat, “I was just afraid something like this would happen-”

“I understand, I really do, I just couldn’t leave it like this, pretending we aren’t together, only meeting secretly-”

Draco’s ears were turning red, but Harry could see the faint smirk in the corner of his mouth as he began playing along in earnest, “I know, my darling.”

“I wanted your parents at least to know,” Harry said.

Lucius’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

“Draco, the longest you could have possibly even been talking with Mr Potter has been a week,” Narcissa said, not buying it for a second.

“It was Trev,” Harry improvised, “He had brought Draco a muggle bar where I was hanging out with my friends, and we started talking-”

“Teasing,” Draco corrected.

“Bantering,” Harry said.

Draco raised an eyebrow, “Flirting?”

“I think it took a few days to get to flirting,” Harry said.

Lucius's mouth moved soundlessly as what little colour he had drained out of his face.

“I’m glad we came. I can’t believe your father thinks I would- I would- I could never-,” Harry said, probably a bit too breathlessly.

Draco clasped both his hands around Harry’s, “I know. I know you. You wouldn’t hurt me.” He had to bite down on his lip, probably to keep from laughing but it almost looked like he was teary.

“Is there any way we could get your blessing? I know it’s old fashioned, but I want to do this right,” Harry asked Lucius and Narcissa.

“Yes!” Draco bit down on his lip harder, fighting a stupid smile, “Oh yes, please, Father. Won’t you give us your blessing?”

“If you’re engaged, where are the rings?” Narcissa asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Harry laughed nervously and then tried to bluff the laugh into, “I- I know better than to pick them out myself. I have no taste compared to Draco.”

“We’re going to have them custom made, of course,” Draco said. He looked at Lucius again, who seemed to be shaking faintly, “Father? Will you give us your blessing?”

Lucius turned, nearly tripping over his overturned chair, and stiffly, almost frantically walked out of the room without a word.

They all seemed to hold their breath until they couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore.

“Holy fucking shit,” Draco said under his breath, a huge smile taking over his face.

Harry grinned.

Narcissa sighed and got up, “I’m going to go keep Lucius from doing anything...rash.” She stopped next to Harry, going up on her toes to brush a kiss across his cheek, “I do so love a summer wedding.”

“I- We- Just joking,” Harry sputtered.

He saw a faint, but very familiar, smirky smile briefly grace Narcissa’s face. "I know this is a lost cause, but if you two could try to keep out of trouble, I would be eternally grateful."

She patted Harry on the arm and left before either of them could reply.

Draco caught Harry’s eye, and they exchanged a look.

“That went well,” Draco said.

“I think that went well,” Harry said at nearly the same time.

They both laughed.

“Now we have two fantastic lies to celebrate,” Draco said, “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I’ve been known to manage a good lie every now and then,” Harry said.

Butler appeared in the middle of the table and bobbed a brief bow, “Pardon the intrusion, I am to tell you: the Elder Malfoy’s will be finishing their dinner in their rooms.”

“Thank you, Butler,” Draco said, “I think… we shall as well?” he looked at Harry.

“Your rooms are slightly less ridiculous than this-” Harry waved at the massive empty room.

“You can send our remaining dinner up to my rooms. And double the dessert,” Draco said.

Butler nodded, “Any other wishes? Elves will be closing the kitchen for the night.”

“That’s all. Thank you, Butler,” Draco said.

Butler bowed again and apparated away.

“Double the dessert?” Harry asked.

“Are you really going to complain about dessert?”

Harry grinned, “I am now.”

“What a prat,” Draco said.

Harry’s grin grew, “Only to you.”

Draco gave him a sour look, “How sweet.”

“It’s how I show my affection,” Harry said.

Draco sighed at him and stood up, “Come on then, let’s go.”

“The food isn’t going anywhere,” Harry said.

“Oh, who cares about the food,” Draco said, “There are more important things to worry about.”

The more important thing, Harry discovered as Draco dragged him back into his rooms, was clothes.

“We can’t go to a club wearing suits,” Draco said, disappearing into his walk-in closet.

Their dinner was sitting under stasis charms on the table in the centre of the sitting room. Harry picked up one of the large bowls of ice cream and a spoon, carrying it with him into Draco’s rooms. It was pale pink and sprinkled with thin slices of almonds and frozen blackberries.

“I thought suits were good for that sort of thing. Like, you’re supposed to look classy,” Harry said between bites of ice cream. It was good, but he’d had better from Tesco’s.

“Oh my god, Potter,” Draco bemoaned, hangers scraping as he pushed them this way and that, “Suits are not good for dancing. We’re going to get wasted and dance, not ruin a perfectly good suit.”

Harry wondered if Draco had noticed that he called him just ‘Potter’ or if it was an accident. He also wondered if he should mention he couldn’t dance for shit.

“And I’m not about to pass up another opportunity to make you wear something decent,” Draco said.

Harry leaned against the doorframe, “I think my clothes are decent enough, y'know, as long as my arse isn’t hanging out.”

Draco stopped what he was doing to glare at Harry, “You do realise you have the exact opposite problem? Your clothes are so loose you might as well just wear blankets with a hole cut in it.”

“They’re only a little loose,” Harry said.

“A little loose,” Draco said derisively. “If your arse was hanging out, at least there would be something to look at.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, “I’ll have to remember that.”

Draco’s ears immediately went red, and he practically shoved his head into the hanging clothes to hide his face. “Shut up,” he muttered, his words muffled by the clothing.

Harry laughed. He was content to just watch Draco move around his enormous closet looking for the perfect clothes, through Harry had no idea how he knew where anything was. The only section that was even remotely organised was a back corner filled with dark robes and old school uniforms that might as well have been covered in dust for how untouched they looked.

“Here!” Draco said triumphantly, holding up a pair of black trousers and a black button-up.

“How is that any different than what I’m wearing now?” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes at him, “Other than the colour, you swine? They are quite different.”

“I don’t usually wear a lot of black,” Harry said.

“We’re keeping with the theme,” Draco said. “Besides, as you well know, you look good in every colour. It’s completely unfair.”

“Actually, I didn’t know that,” Harry said with a smile.

Draco sighed up at the ceiling, mouthing something that looked like fucking really?

Harry laughed.

“Just take these and get changed, would you?” Draco said, holding out the clothes.

Harry licked the spoon clean before putting it in the half-empty bowl and trading Draco the ice cream for the new outfit.

“You’re horrible,” Draco muttered, looking at the bowl of ice cream.

“Thanks,” Harry said.

“I liked it better when you still got angry at me,” Draco said.

“I doubt it,” Harry said.

“I do, simply because you being smug is completely insufferable,” Draco said.

Harry pointed at him with a grin, “Ah! I know that feeling. I get it from you all the time.”

Draco turned and pulled open a drawer, grabbing a pair of rolled-up socks and throwing them at Harry’s head, “Go-” He threw another, “Change-” And another which caught on Harry’s glasses, “You-” His hand hit the bottom of the empty drawer. He jerked open another, throwing with was inside without looking, “Bastard.”

Harry caught the last one out of the air. The pair of sleek black briefs unrolled and swayed gently in Harry’s hand.

“Give those back!” Draco said, sounding thoroughly embarrassed.

Harry looked at briefs and back at Draco was a bit of a grin, “But I’ve gotta keep with the theme, right?”

He wanted to wink because it was the sort of thing you did after saying something like that, but Harry had been thoroughly assured that he looked like a complete fucking wanker when he tried to wink. He had to content himself with running out of the closet before he was hit with a half-melted bowl of ice cream. There was a clatter behind him and the ringing roll of the dish as it spun across the floor.

Harry laughed and retreated to the bathroom, closing the door behind him in case Draco threw something else at him.

He changed out of his suit, into a pair of black jeans that he had roll up the cuffs to keep from walking on them, and a black button-up with a rose and vine pattern. It wasn’t something he would normally wear, or even think to buy, but it looked nice.

The mirror was excited by all the different potions and products crowding the countertop. Harry knew the Malfoy’s were still dripping in money, so he didn’t feel bad about using some of Draco’s things. The mirror excitedly told him all about how his hair would hold its curl longer and be shinier and how easy it was to fix, only half of which Harry listened to.

“Are you done?” Draco asked impatiently, opening the door and coming in without waiting for an answer.

Harry gave him a look.

“It’s my bathroom,” Draco said, elbowing him out of the way of the mirror and leaning in close to his own reflection.

Harry stepped back, thinking to finish off the rest of the ice cream just to be obnoxious but stopped at the door.

Draco had changed into a tight, tight pair of white jeans, that perfectly accentuated his long, lean legs.

“What?” Draco glared at him in the reflection.

“Robes are a crime,” Harry muttered to himself before looking up to meet Draco’s eyes, “I’m enjoying the view.”

Draco flushed but managed to lift his chin imperiously, “Of course. That’s why I wore it. I want to be looked at.”

Harry twitched, fighting down a frown. He was glad he had come tonight, he wasn’t keen on the idea of anyone else looking at Draco.

And Draco's shirt wasn't much better. It was a pale blue, long-sleeved pullover, with a scoop neck showing off his sharp collar bones and long neck. Harry narrowed his eyes as he stared; why was everything about the prat long and somehow attractive?

“Still staring,” Draco muttered.

“Do you want me to stop?” Harry asked.

“It’s rude to stare,” Draco muttered, not really answering the question.

Harry looked at his arse instead.

“You are insufferable,” Draco said, leaving the bathroom with a sigh.

Harry followed behind him, “I think it’s adrenaline from the lie at dinner.”

“Sure it is,” Draco said.

Draco dropped into a seat at the table to finish their meal, and Harry joined him. They were both quiet, focused on the food. In Harry’s case, it was because he wanted to finish quickly so he could get back to teasing and flirting with Draco.

He was starting to feel excited about what this might be. Ginny had been great, but they had been different people after the war and it hadn't worked out. After school, he had tried dating here and there, mostly blind dates set up by his friends, but none of them felt so- so electric like this.

Talking to Draco was always unexpected; Harry never knew what he'd say or do. And he loved pushing Draco, trying to make him flush or bluster or be angry, to see his reactions. With other people he'd have to be careful, but with Draco, he could still be a little mean, a little teasing, a little rude, and that was alright because Draco would throw it right back at him. Because Harry could tell that Draco like pushing him too, trying to make him mad or flustered, and the push and pull was exhilarating.

Draco might be obsessed with novelty, but for Harry, the only novelty he needed was Draco himself.

“Good grief, what are we going to do with ourselves?” Draco said, looking at his watch.

“What?” Harry asked.

“It’s only just gone eight,” Draco said.

“So?”

Draco rolled his eyes, “It’s too early; no one will be out yet.”

"So? We're going together, ergo, not alone," Harry pointed out.

Draco waved a hand dismissively, “Clubs are so depressing when no one’s there. They feel incredibly off somehow, and not in a fun way.”

“Well... you could show me around the rest of the manor,” Harry suggested.

“They’re just rooms,” Draco said, standing up anyway.

“Then tell me about something interesting that happened in them, like when you were a little snot-nosed brat,” Harry said.

Draco shot him a look, “Brat I may have been, but I resent the implication that I was ever snot-nosed.”

Harry snorted, "Everyone was snot-nosed at some point; it's one of the chronic conditions of toddlerhood."

“I don’t remember it, therefore it didn’t happen,” Draco said.

He was walking slowly so Harry could keep pace beside him.

“That’s a very convenient way of looking at things,” Harry said, “Err… I don’t need to see your parents rooms, though.”

“Oh, but they’re so exciting,” Draco said flatly.

“I can imagine,” Harry returned just as flatly.

For all his apparent disinterest, he still walked Harry to the various rooms, telling him tales of his delightful childhood escapades, most of which involved him getting hurt or breaking something or both.

The best story, though, was when Draco was seven and lured peacocks into the house one by one with crumbs of fresh bread. He closed the doors to keep them inside and had over a dozen wandering around the manor before he was caught. He had been thoroughly lectured about it, had a bit of a tantrum, and was sent to his room. Everything was quiet until around three in the morning when his parents were awoken by a horrible mocking laugh and a massive shadow rising from the end of the bed.

“Luckily the peacock escaped with only singed tail feathers,” Draco said.

Harry clutched his stomach, leaning against the wall to stay up as he gasped with laughter.

“If it hadn’t been one of Father’s prized white peacocks, it probably would have ended up as an apéritif,” Draco said, grinning with delight at Harry’s laughter.

Harry wiped his eyes, “W-Why? Why did you-?”

Draco shrugged, “I don’t know. I just… felt like it, I suppose. It didn’t actually occur to me that it was a bad thing to do until after I had done it.”

Harry took a deep breath, “Fucking hell, Draco. How did you manage to behave during school?”

Draco raised an eyebrow, “You, of all people, ought to know that I didn’t, seeing as you were the focus of all my stupidity back then. And schoolwork kept me quite busy, not that you would know since you so rarely did it.”

“I never liked writing papers,” Harry said, “I did alright with the casting, though.”

“You only rarely exploded things,” Draco said as if conceding a point.

“That was Seamus. I was more likely to have nothing happen at all,” Harry said.

Draco smiled faintly, "How did you manage the training to be auror? I've heard it's difficult. It takes two years, doesn't it?"

“Three,” Harry said, “And it was a bugger. I did great with the duelling and casting but learning all the other stuff, potions, accounting, arithmancy, ugh,” he made a face, “that was the worst.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re so bull-headed,” Draco said sarcastically.

“That helped, and having Ron there,” Harry said, “I was… I know it’s kind of stupid, but I always thought being an auror would be running and fighting and duels all the time, that it would be exciting. Eventually.”

They were just aimlessly walking down hallways now.

“Training was boring, but I figured the real job would be exciting. And then being a Junior was boring, but I thought, once I get promoted, then I’ll get to do everything I imagined.”

"I take it that hasn't happened," Draco said.

“No. I’ve been on a few raids now and one big spell fight, but it’s rare,” Harry sighed, “Most crime is petty stuff, pickpocketing and petty theft, accidental spells, stealing from the till, tax dodging, lost cats...”

Draco snorted.

“That was different. And it wasn’t a cat, or lost, strictly speaking,” Harry said sourly.

“Helping people is boring, what a surprise,” Draco said sarcastically, “I could have told you that.”

Harry thought about it for a second, “Yeah… I guess I was thinking more about saving people than helping them.” He grimaced, “That sounds awful.”

“Sounds normal to me,” Draco said, “People are selfish sometimes. It has been known to happen.”

Harry shook his head.

“Even to you, Saint Potter.”

Harry elbowed him in the side, “Shut up.”

“No,” Draco said.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“We should stop here,” Draco said, stopping and raising a hand, so it brushed Harry’s arm.

"Hmm?" Harry stopped and looked down the hallway. It looked like all the others, only a lot emptier. There were no portraits or tapestries on the walls, no vases or weird art on plinths, just the carpet runner and blank walls. "What's down there?"

“Nothing nefarious,” Draco said.

“No three-headed dogs, guarding trap doors that have to be lulled to sleep by music?” Harry suggested.

“Followed by various other trials and traps, what is this a bad fairytale? The myth of Eurydice?” Draco said.

Harry laughed.

“No and No,” Draco said, “This used to be a wing of guest rooms, though we seldom had guests, much less ones that stayed the night. Now they’re our household staff’s rooms.”

Harry gave him a questioning look.

“Our house-elves. Once they were free, I offered them proper room and board along with pay,” Draco said, “A few left, but it’s difficult for a free elf to find work in our society, so I wanted to...” he shrugged, “...do something for them. It’s not like we use most of the space in his house anyway.”

Harry smiled, leaning close, his fingers brushing over Draco’s palm, “Draco-”

“Hey!”

They looked down the hallway at Asbestos, hands balled on her hips, glaring at them, “Double stupids. Asbestos was looking for you. Come here.”

Draco hesitated and then obeyed, Harry a half-step behind.

“You’re off for the day, aren’t you, Asbestos?” Draco said.

“Yes. Asbestos is wasting her own time on this, so move faster,” Asbestos said.

Draco rolled his eyes as he reached her, “I do so hate to waste your precious time.”

“As you should,” Asbestos said, turning on her heel and walking a few doors down to the end of the hallway. She snapped her fingers, and a door swung open, “Found the stupids!”

There was an excited scream so high-pitched it made Harry’s ears buzz, followed close behind by an absolutely tiny house elf in a little knit jumper and grubby shorts.

They ran into Asbestos full speed and were stopped a few inches from hitting her, floating up off their feet for a couple second before dropping back onto the ground like a soup bubble burst around them, all with the flick of Asbestos’ fingers. The little elf laughed in peels of delight.

They barely reached Asbestos’ waist, but the small elf’s ears were already nearly full-grown when they tilted their head back, the tips brushed against the floor.

Asbestos took off her plastic firefighter helmet and dropped it on the little elf’s head, half-covering their eyes and provoking another delighted squeal and a rare genuine smile from Asbestos.

Another elf came to the door in a russet-coloured dress with a peach petticoat peeking out the bottom. The points of her ears were capped in little silver triangles, joined together by delicate silver chains, the top chain tight and looping progressive looser as they went further down. It pulled her ears back together very slightly and reminded Harry of a fancy necklace and earrings all in one.

“Meribelle,” Draco said, giving a little bow, “It has been a while since we’ve seen one another.”

Meribelle smiled and spoke, slowly and very carefully as if she was checking every word before staying it, “Then you ought to come down to the kitchens more often, Mr Draco. We would be glad to see you.”

“I shall try,” Draco said.

Asbestos was smiling at the other two elves, but her expression went back to sour when she looked back at Harry and Draco, “Here is Potter-man. Potter-man, this is Meribelle, Asbestos’ chosen, and-”

“It me, Dobby!” The little elf shouted, bouncing around on the balls of their feet.

“Dobby...” Harry said softly in surprise.

“Speak proper,” Asbestos corrected them.

“Whyyyy?” Dobby whined, “You don’t.”

“Asbestos doesn’t need to,” Asbestos said, “You is a free elf. You need to talk like the stupids, to be your own elf out in the world, not just servant elf.”

Dobby pouted and pushed up the firefighter helmet so Harry could see their eyes, “My name is Dobby.”

Harry knelt down in front of them and held out his hand, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Dobby wrapped their small hand over Harry’s top two fingers and bobbed their hands up and down in an excited handshake, “Dobby is-”

“I,” Meribelle corrected gently.

Dobby frowned and tried again, “I heard all about Harry Potter and Dobby! Dobby the free elf, Dobby the hero elf!” They bounced excitedly, and the firefighter’s hat fell off unnoticed, rescued from the ground by Meribelle. “I picked Dobby for my very first name after my baby name. I want to be brave and good-”

“And free,” Asbestos said quietly under her breath.

“-like Dobby,” Dobby finished, not hearing Asbestos or not caring.

“Dobby was good and brave,” Harry said and had to clear his throat as emotions welled up in his chest and threatened to overwhelm him a bit, “He was a good friend of mine. He saved me more than once.”

Dobby nodded excitedly, “He whisked you away from the evil Bella-tick lady.”

“Thank Merlin for that,” Draco said.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Dobby demanding, bouncing on their toes. “I wanna know everything about him!”

Asbestos scowled, “The stupids have better things to do.”

Meribelle sighed at her, “Please do not call our employer stupid, my dear one.”

Asbestos rolled her eyes with a look that said she might consider it, but only around Meribelle.

“Actually...” Draco said, “We could spare some time, say an hour?”

Asbestos narrowed her eyes at him.

Draco was fighting down a grin, “Even all night. We’re not in a rush.”

“We’re going out in a bit, so we can’t stay that long; Draco’s just being annoying,” Harry assured her.

Draco kicked him lightly. Harry smacked him on the shin.

“Of course,” Asbestos said with a sigh. She reluctantly waved for them to come inside the room, much to Dobby’s absolute delight.

It was a large bedroom with a sitting area and a separate attached bathroom. The bed itself was unchanged though a small step ladder had been positioned by the side to make it easier to climb up. The rest of the furniture in the room had been shrunk down to a more suitable elf size. It made Harry feel a bit like he’d stepped into a nursery classroom.

“Look! Look!” Dobby ran to a corner of the room littered with books and toys and returned with one, “This is Applebiscuit!” they held up a lumpy handmade doll made with green fabric. They held up a well-loved rabbit plush in the other hand, once pink and now faded almost white, “This a Bedbunny, she’s my favourite.” Dobby hugged her to show how special the rabbit was.

“And- And-” Dobby ran back the toy corner, dropping Applebiscuit and picking up a wooden train.

“No more toys, Dobby. Come sit down,” Meribelle said, “You wanted to hear a story, didn’t you?”

Dobby looked from their toys to Meribelle and back again, fighting their frustration before huffily coming over to the sitting area and dropping down onto a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. They held onto the bunny and train defiantly, as if daring either parent to make them put either one away.

Meribelle clapped her hands, and a pair of plush round cushions appeared on the floor in front of Dobby, “I could get some chairs if you would prefer them?”

Harry had already sat down, “Nah, this is great.”

Draco looked more dubious.

“Come on,” Harry patted the other pillow.

“I don’t think you understand how tight these jeans are. I don’t particularly want to rip the ar-”

Before he could finish the word, Draco’s feet were pulled out from under him, sending him sprawling onto a pile of pillows now covering the floor.

Asbestos slowly lowered her hand, “Dobby is four-”

“Almost five!” Dobby said.

“-so no swearing,” Asbestos said.

“But calling me stupid is just fine,” Draco muttered facedown in a pillow.

“Not an insult if true,” Asbestos said with a smirk.

Meribelle pointedly cleared her throat.

Asbestos sat down in a half-sized armchair, and Meribelle sat on the small couch. There was a tea service already on the table ready to pour, the two small cups suggesting Harry and Draco had interrupted their evening tea.

“Well, Dobby and I first met when he was trying to keep me from going back to school in my second year...” Harry said. He ended up embellishing the story a little bit just to see little Dobby laugh, and Asbestos really seemed to appreciate Dobby destroying the pudding.

After a minute, Draco got bored of being dramatic and rolled onto his side, propping his head upon his hand and drawing up one leg. He was probably trying to look like a model, but he just looked a silly. He grinned every time Harry glanced over at him. Harry had a feeling that Draco was more interested in provoking a reaction than anything else, in which case, it was working.

Harry told little Dobby a few more things about Dobby when he lived at Hogwarts, but he deliberately ended the story before the Manor and what happened there. It was too dark a story for a little kid, and Harry didn’t want to know what Asbestos would do to him if little Dobby had nightmares.

Little Dobby was getting sleepy anyway, fighting to keep their eyes open, their chin resting on top of their little stuffed rabbit.

“We should get going,” Harry said.

“Awwww!!” Dobby said, sitting up and rubbing their eyes. “But I didn’t hear everything.”

“Maybe some other time,” Harry said.

“You have to promise!” Dobby said.

“I promise, I’ll tell you the rest of the story someday,” Harry said.

Dobby sighed, “Dobby wishes we could play more.”

“I wish we could play more,” Meribelle said.

“I wish we could play more,” Dobby repeated with a groan of annoyance.

“Um… my godson, Teddy, is about your age. He’s always looking for new friends.” Harry looked over at Asbestos before going on.

Asbestos sat forward with a glint in her eye, “An elf friend?”

“He wouldn’t care. I’m not sure he’d even notice,” Harry said.

Asbestos nodded excitedly, “Yes, yes, Dobby needs human friends.”

“There is nothing wrong with having elf friends,” Meribelle said.

“Looli is a baby, and Niffler and Jiffler are mean,” Dobby whined.

“Well, I’ll see if Teddy wants to do a play date?” Harry said, “Is there a good time for you?”

“Anytime, elves can drop off and pick up anytime,” Asbestos said.

“Alright,” Harry said. He turned to Dobby, speaking softly, “It was good to meet you. I’ll see you again soon, okay?”

“Come visit again?” Dobby said sleepily. “I will,” Harry said. “Promise?” “I promise,” Harry said.

Meribelle slipped out of her chair and bundled a blanket around Dobby, “Thank you for coming. It is nice to meet another human who is kind to us.”

“It was great meeting you too,” Harry said.

Meribelle picked Dobby up and carried them back to the bed, giving Harry a brief nod, “Goodnight.”

“That means you leave,” Asbestos said, hopping to her feet and impatiently waving for them to move.

Harry quickly stood up and headed for the door. Draco did not follow.

“Draco?”

Draco rolled onto his back, “Leave me here to die.”

“You are such a dramatic little shi-”

Asbestos cleared her throat loudly with a glare for emphasis.

“-shi...ny boy?” Harry finished awkwardly.

Draco sniggered.

Harry walked back over and held out his hand, “Come on.”

Draco took it and let Harry haul him up out of his pile of pillows, doing very little to help, all while grinning like an idiot.

Asbestos followed them out into the hall, charming the door shut behind them, “Going out?”

“Yes-” Draco said.

“Wand,” Asbestos held out her hand.

Draco frowned, sighing and drawing his wand from his sleeve. He rolled it between his fingers, running his thumb over the pale wood before passing it down to Asbestos, who made it vanish with a snap of her fingers.

“I hate when you do that,” Draco said.

“Asbestos just put it away,” Asbestos said.

“I know. But you could wait until I’m gone, so I don’t have to see it,” Draco said.

Asbestos rolled her eyes, “Asbestos wants you to go away now. Which place?”

“You’re off work-” Draco started.

“Now,” Asbestos said impatiently.

Draco told her, and she must have known where the place was because she just grabbed their wrists and apparated away.

Chapter Text

They landed in a small gap left between two buildings. You could take a bicycle through it, maybe a moped, if you were careful and knew what you were doing. Harry didn’t and smacked back into the bricks behind him, hitting his head. Draco must have known where Asbestos would drop them, but he still barely caught himself.

“A little warning would be nice,” Draco said irritably.

“Nope,” Asbestos said, then gave a sarcastic little salute and apparated away.

“Hard to imagine her as a parent. She acts more like a- a disgruntled teenager,” Harry said, rubbing the back of his head.

“They waited until they were freed to have Dobby, so I would imagine she hadn’t planned to be a parent originally,” Draco said.

Harry frowned, “That’s sad.”

Draco nodded.

“I, uh, I never asked if Dobby was a boy or a girl. I was kind of hard to tell,” Harry said.

“It’s practically impossible with house-elves, and besides, I don’t think Dobby has picked one yet,” Draco said.

Harry blinked, “Picked one?”

“A gender.” Draco said, leading the way out of the ally onto a quiet street. He raised an eyebrow at Harry’s confusion, “They pick and change them the same as their names. They really don’t understand our obsession with sex and gender. As far as they’re concerned, they are entirely different things. Sex is how you have children, and a good time. Gender is how you dress and act, and is cultural or experimental or whatever they want it to be.”

“Oh,” Harry said,  “So... so this is how you learned about NonBinary, Enby stuff then?”

“Some of it, after talking with Asbestos for a while, well, nagging really, she’s not the chatty type,” Draco said. He headed down the street in no particular direction that Harry could discern. “But like I said before, they don’t care what we think. I found out, just recently, that an elf we had always called Rose had never actually picked that as a name, had changed his name four times, and generally preferred a masculine presentation. He just knew to respond to when we called for ‘Rose’ so he did.”

“That’s, um…” Harry said.

“I think my parents still call him Rose, he goes by Robert,” Draco said.

“Wait...” Harry said slowly, “Then was Dobby’s name actually Dobby? Like the Dobby I knew, old Dobby.”

“You were friends weren’t you? I’m sure he would have told you if he changed it. Some elves never change their names. Some even keep their baby names, the name their parents picked out for them,” Draco said, “Everyone is different. That’s what makes them interesting, don’t you think?”

Harry nodded, looking over at Draco as they passed under a street light, “Yeah, really interesting.”

“This way,” Draco led them across the street and up a few more. The darkened shops began to give way to more restaurants and bars, with people loitering outside, laughing drunk loud and leaving a mix of cigarette smoke and perfume on the air where they passed.

Harry felt his nerves jump up into his throat as he looked at the people they passed, presumably dressed to impress and possibly get laid. They seemed so utterly confident, walking and standing about like they weren’t at real risk of utterly embarrassing themselves because they couldn’t dance and tended to get nervous in bars and were even clumsier than normal when they were drunk. Except that was just him, really.

Harry looked down the street where bright marquees flashed above open doors with bodyguards and queues and thumping music spilling out. Harry had to content himself with the knowledge that if Draco laughed at him, it wasn’t anything new.

“Earth to Potter,” Draco snapped his fingers at him, “This way.”

“Err, right,” Harry said, as Draco turned and headed in the other direction entirely.

Harry jogged a bit to catch up just as Draco turned down a narrow side street between a large office building and a restaurant. Just off the pavement was a set of stairs leading down into a small door over which was a sign reading ‘The Closet Door’ in a rainbow of neon.

Inside was a long bar under vaulted stone ceilings of what must have once been the basement of the building above. There were small round tables littered around the room and stools in front of the bar but nowhere else to sit save two packed booths in the back of the room. Opposite the bar was a stone wall with a single arched doorway leading into a room that thrummed with music, swirling lights and moving bodies.

“What do you want to drink?” Draco asked, beelining to the bar.

Harry did his best to keep up, all while looking around at all the people. They were all so different, people in dresses and low cut blouses next to people in jeans and leather jackets. And there were so many different hair colours, bright pinks and blues, muted greys, soft lavenders, and all sorts of hairstyles, shaved sides and mohawks and long braids and locks.

Draco raised a hand, trying to catch the bartenders eye. She seemed to be ignoring him in favour of a cute girl in a floral top laughing at something the bartender said. Two blokes elbowed up beside them. There was a sheen of sweat on the backs of their necks from dancing, and they called loudly for drinks, obnoxious enough that the bartender couldn’t ignore them, though she did pause long enough to write something on the back of a bar mat for the floral girl first.

“Hurry up, there’s a cute girl waiting for me,” The bartender said, joking but impatient. She had black, close-cropped hair that seemed to perfectly suit her dark eyes and tattered tank top.

The two dancers ordered and leaned into one another, arms around one another. One ran his thumb along the top of the other’s jeans, grazing his stomach and whispering something that made his partner grin and bite his lip.

Ah.

It was a gay club or a club for gay people or… Harry felt he ought to be embarrassed how long it took him to realise. The sign over the door really should have clued him in. At least he saved himself the embarrassment of saying something stupid. No one had to know he was thinking something stupid.

“What in the world do you want to drink, Potter?” Draco said impatiently.

The bartender was waiting on them now and starting to look decidedly less goodnatured about it. He hadn’t been to a muggle bar in years and usually just ordered a pint of whatever. The back of the bar was covered in bottles Harry didn’t recognise, and he had no idea what was on tap, if anything.

The bartender stared at him flatly and raised one decidedly unimpressed eyebrow.

Harry grabbed a drinks menu and tapped one of the things listed at random, “I’ll have this.”

She added a smirk to the unimpressed eyebrow.

“Here,” Draco said, impatiently pushing twenty quid across the bar, “Give the change back in shots.”

The bartender snorted, lightening up a bit, “What kind?”

“Whatever you have on hand,” Draco said, “I want to get buzzed as quickly as possible.”

The bartender laughed and nodded and soon returned with a handful of glasses. The two blokes took theirs and disappeared, and Draco got two shots of something clear and likely to be vodka. Harry’s drink took longer to make.

Draco had already downed his shots and put another twenty quid on the bar as the bartender passed the tall glass of pink to Harry. It was sweet and fruity. Harry really only tasted the burn of alcohol when it hit the back of his throat.

“What is that?” Draco asked, shouting a bit to be heard over the music and chatter around them.

Harry shrugged and wasn’t surprised when Draco pulled it out of his hand to taste it.

“I mean, it’s not bad,” Draco said.

Harry laughed, “Don’t sound so surprised.”

Draco leaned close so he could drop his voice, “You can’t blame me when you literally just picked something at random off the menu.”

“It wouldn’t be on the menu if it wasn’t good,” Harry countered, taking his drink back.

“You would be supri-” Draco started, but his sentence was drowned out by an excited yell.

“Oh. My. God. Draco! You slag! I haven't seen you in forever!” and Draco was enveloped by a girl in a low cut top who hugged him and then squeezed his face with one hand in the overly friendly, touchy-feely way drunk people do once they’ve lost their sense of personal boundaries.

Over Draco’s shoulder, Harry could see that she had bright pink eyeshadow that stood out like neon on her dark skin, and her long thin braids were woven with ribbons in two shades of pink and orange and only one shade of white.

Draco batted her away with a grin, “You’re a clingy little slut, as always, Tiffy.”

Tiffy laughed and shoved Draco’s shoulder, “Perfect timing though! There is this bloke here that is just your type, he’s...” she turned to spot the mysterious bloke.

Harry decided to put a stop to that, stepping around Draco, “No need. He’s got a bloke tonight.”

Tiffy spun back around, her mouth falling open, “Oh my god, you brought someone?”

Draco rolled his eyes.

“Fucking finally!” Tiffy laughed, “You are such a catch, it’s taken too long. And he’s cute. I didn’t know you went in for glasses, though.”

“Unfortunately, they come with the rest of him,” Draco said.

“You like my glasses,” Harry said.

“I might like some glasses, possibly even on you, but those glasses?” Draco raised an eyebrow, “They make you look twelve.”

Harry frowned at them, “I like them-”

“I’m not saying you have to incinerate them, Potter. A person can have more than one pair of glasses. You could get multiple pairs to better accessorise your outfits,” Draco said.

“Accessorise,” Harry repeated.

“Yes,” Draco said, narrowing his eyes.

“Accessorise? You do know who you’re talking to, don’t you?” Harry said.

“Someone capable of improvement,” Draco said.

“Well, aren’t you two cute,” Tiffy said, “I met someone as well.” She raised an arm high over the crowd, waving it exuberantly, “Megan! Over here!”

A woman with a single long braid of brown hair down her back turned at the sound of Tiffy’s voice and headed towards them. She was wearing bib overalls, a yellow t-shirt and had blunt bangs dyed bright blue, looking decidedly dressed down to most of the club, but comfortable.

“There you are,” Megan said, “I turned around, and you had disappeared.”

“I found Draco!” Tiffy said, gesturing to Draco, “I told you about him, didn’t I?”

“The weird rich boy?” Megan said, looking Draco up and down, “He does look the part.”

“I’m not weird,” Draco said, scrunching his nose up.

“Megan likes to say the quiet part out loud, that’s what I like about her,” Tiffy said, “She’s so blunt, it’s hilarious.”

“I’m not weird,” Draco muttered and grabbed another shot off the bar. The bartender had helpfully lined them up while they were bickering.

“You’re going a bit quick, aren’t you?” Harry said.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Draco said, tipping the shot back and wincing briefly as he swallowed, “I need the fortification.”

Tiffy reached over and took two shots for her and Megan, clinking her little shot glass to Megan’s with a “Cheers.”

“You don’t mind?” Megan asked Draco.

Draco shrugged dismissively.

Megan drank the shot and made a horrible face, then coughed. “You really are rich then?”

“I suppose, rich enough not to worry about money, anyway,” Draco said.

“That must be nice,” Megan said.

Draco smirked faintly, “Oh yes, it frees me up to worry about all sorts of other things.”

“I always imagined if I was rich, I wouldn’t be unhappy. I mean, you can pay for counselling and meds and anything else you want, so what is there to be unhappy about?” Megan said.

“Being a war criminal mostly,” Draco said.

Tiffy laughed.

“I’m sorry. Unless you killed people, then I’m not,” Megan said.

“He’s joking, Meg!” Tiffy said.

“Are you sure? It didn’t seem like a joke,” Megan said seriously.

“I didn’t kill people, so you don't have to worry about that. But it is funny, in the sad way that most of my life is,” Draco said self-deprecatingly.

“Oh.” Megan said. “It doesn’t seem that sad. It seems like you might be a bit dramatic.”

Tiffy rolled her eyes, “Way to tank the mood, Draco.”

“It’s my speciality,” Draco said.

“Well, it’s kind of nice knowing everyone is a mess, even rich weirdos,” Megan said.

“Delightfully comforting, isn’t it?” Draco said, “I almost don’t trust people who say they’re happy.”

“Realistically, happiness is more a momentary feeling,” Megan said, “I generally try to be content, which is far more achievable.”

“God, don’t you two get on like a house on fire,” Tiffy bemoaned.

They ignored her in favour of their strange conversation, so she turned to Harry, “What’s your name then?”

“Harry.”

“And I thought Tiffany was bad,” Tiffy said.

“It’s not bad-”

“Boring though,” Tiffy said.

“A bit boring,” Harry conceded, “Still... I’m a bit attached to it, seeing as it’s mine. I mean, I could be named Eugene or Trev.”

“I know a lovely Eugene,” Tiffy said.

“Well... err, it’s not the sort of name I’d want is all,” Harry corrected.

Tiffy grinned, “Aren’t you a little sweetheart. You don’t seem like the type to go for someone like Draco. He’s a bit of an arse, and a flirt, and rude, which make him a great friend in my book but definitely not relationship material.”

Harry blinked, feeling defensive, “Well… I mean, he can be arsey and rude, in a funny way, but he’s not cruel.”

“Is there a difference?” Tiffy asked.

Harry nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, there really is.”

“Hmm,” Tiffy said, sounding unconvinced.

“And the flirting is all for show anyway. As soon as you flirt back, he turns into a blushing mess,” Harry said.

Tiffy blinked, “Since when? That boy can pull easy as breathing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him blush.”

Harry frowned, can pull as easy as breathing, fuck.

“You really are very strange,” Megan was saying.

Draco immediately shot back, “I am not strange. Or weird.”

Harry glanced at Tiffy to make sure she was watching before whispering over Draco’s shoulder, “You are, a bit. It’s cute, though.” He was glad he was close enough to see the blush in the low lights of the club. Draco even froze up a bit.

“Oh. My. God!” Tiffy laughed and clapped her hands.

Draco grabbed the last shot of vodka and downed it.

“That’s four you’ve had,” Harry said, “You could slow down a bit.”

“No.” Draco said, sounding petulant. He pointed at Harry’s pink drink which he had finished all of without really noticing, “That’s three shots.”

“It is not. It hardly tastes of alcohol,” Harry said.

“Check the menu, if you don’t believe me. Mixed drinks are always stronger than they seem,” Draco said.

Harry did, and apparently, his drink had two different shots of liqueur and one of tequila. Now that he thought of it, he was feeling a little buzzed, in that muzzy, warm sort of way.

Draco laughed at his expression.

“Have you danced yet?” Tiffy asked, “The DJ's pretty good tonight.”

“No and we should,” Draco said, giving Harry a look, “Shall we?”

“Just a minute, I need to put in my earplugs, or it will be so loud I’ll die,” Megan said, fishing around in her pockets.

Harry grabbed Draco’s arm, leaning close so Tiffy wouldn’t be able to hear, “I can’t dance.”

“I know that. I was there fifth year, wasn’t I?” Draco said.

Harry grimaced.

“Can you jump, Potter?”

“What?”

“Jump,” Draco repeated, “All you have to do is jump with the beat. Think you can manage?”

Harry nodded, “I… yeah?”

“Good,” Draco said.

Megan put on a pair of sunglasses and gave them two thumbs up. Tiffy grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the other room and the thumping music. Draco followed on their heel, and Harry held onto Draco so they wouldn’t get separated in the crowd, his grip slipping down until he was holding tightly onto Draco’s hand. Draco looked back at him, and Harry grinned and managed to coax a hesitant smile from Draco.

They fell into the mass of people, some dancing but most of them just jumping with the beat, a chaotic wave of movement. Harry could feel the thrum from the speakers on his skin, a pulse vibrating through the floor. Draco pulled him into motion, and Harry let himself go, losing himself in the rhythm like a heartbeat, all of them moving in time, so Harry felt more and more a part of the crowd rather than just himself. And Draco, Draco was right beside him, just as lost and so so beautiful, his hair flying wild, sweat making his hair and skin shimmer under the lights, and an easy, carefree smile on his face that Harry couldn’t look away from.

They paused a few songs in, panting to catch their breath. Draco bought two shots from a tray carried around by a staffer that looked like he’d very much be dancing than working, and pressed one into Harry’s hand.

“That’s five!” Harry said with a frown.

Draco ignored him, grimacing and coughing at the taste. He reached out like he would take Harry’s, so Harry quickly threw back the shot and coughed, it was jagermeister, strong and horrible tasting. Draco shared his look of disgust. He bought another one, though.

“Draco!” Harry smacked him on the arm.

“Liquid courage!” Draco shouted above the music and shoved the glass back on the tray. He grabbed Harry and pulled him back into the crowd as the next song began to pick up, grip tight on his arm.

As everyone moved around them, Draco cupped both hands around Harry’s face and kissed him, hard and bruising, nearly falling as Harry was bumped from behind, only to clutch onto Draco that much tighter. Feeling breathless and giddy, they danced together, grasping after one another’s hands and arms, trying to stay close even as the buzz of alcohol made their heads spin.

Megan rubbed her eyes and fumbled out her earplugs. They were standing beside the door, the music muted to a gentle thrum through the wall. “I need to go,” she said, sounding exhausted, “I’m- I’m over- over- something.”

“Overwhelmed?” Tiffy asked.

“That too, but that’s not the right word,” Megan said, “Whatever it is, I need to go or I’m going to have to cry, and I don’t want to. I’d rather go home and sleep.”

“Can I come home and sleep with you?” Tiffy asked.

Megan narrowed her eyes.

Tiffy raised her hands, “Just sleep, only sleeping.” She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout and wiggled a bit, “Maybe cuddling?”

Megan took a deep breath, “I like cuddling… but quiet cuddling? I really can’t take anymore… anything.”

Tiffy nodded, looking happy.

“It was nice meeting the two of you. Or… at least it wasn’t horrible,” Megan said.

“Draco, you need to get a cell phone, so I can actually call you. This meeting up on accident thing is shite,” Tiffy said.

“I gave you my email,” Draco said. He spoke very carefully, enunciating every word, so he sounded twice as posh as he usually did.

Tiffy rolled her eyes, “Which you check, once a never. Like who even does that?”

Draco made a face.

“Get. A. Cellphone,” Tiffy said as Megan grabbed her by the arm and towed her out the door.

Right as the door was shutting behind them, Harry heard Megan mutter, “Overstimulated. That was the word I was looking for-”

Draco snickered, “That girl is so interesting.” He was leaning on Harry’s shoulder, wavering a bit on his feet. He spoke very carefully, enunciating every word so he sounded twice as posh as usual.

“I’m feeling a bit done for the night myself,” Harry said.

“The great Auror Potter’s run out of energy?” Draco teased.

“Mostly, my feet hurt. I wish I had my trainers,” Harry said.

Draco frowned, “I had those shoes charmed to fit perfectly.”

“They fit. They’re just not, I dunno, made for dancing,” Harry said.

Draco made a grumpy face, shooting a glared down at Harry’s shoes.

“And you’re drunk,” Harry said. He was feeling tipsy himself, unsteady on his feet and prone to being far too silly.

“I am not,” Draco said. “I could still drink more, if I wanted.”

“I’m not going to hold your hair back if you throw up,” Harry said.

“I- what? I don’t need my hair held back; it’s far too short,” Draco said.

“Metaphorically,” Harry said, moving toward the door, “Come on.”

Draco followed, walking with the exaggerated care of one who had definitely had too much to drink and was pretended very hard that they were not drunk in the slightest, thank you very much.

The air outside had a mild chill that smelt of coming rain.

“Um… how are we going to get back?” Harry said, waiting at the top of the stairs.

“You are a wizard, Potter,” Draco said, holding the railing very tightly as he navigated the steps.

“A drunk wizard,” Harry said, “Hermione would kill me if I apparated now.”

“You’re hardly drunk,” Draco said dismissively.

“Oh yeah? I’ll just tell Hermione you said it was okay then,” Harry said.

Draco made a face, “That’s not fair.”

“I know,” Harry said. A group turned down the ally, and Harry grabbed Draco’s hand, pulling him out of the way.

“Just… this way,” Draco said, leading them deeper into the alley and behind the cafe’s wheelie bin that smelled like slimy lettuce.

“Romantic,” Harry said sarcastically.

Draco ignored him, “Asbestos.” Nothing happened. “Asbestos.”

“What are you doing?” Harry asked.

“Calling Asbestos,” Draco said.

Harry stared at him.

“It’s a house-elf thing. It’s like a tracking charm that’s activated by their name, or something.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, “Or something?”

Draco leaned against Harry’s shoulder with a sarcastic drawl, “You’ll not be surprised that fuck-all is known about house-elf magic.”

“Couldn’t you ask?” Harry asked.

“If I was a house-elf, I wouldn’t tell us shit,” Draco said.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Okay, so Asbestos is ignoring me, not exactly a surprise,” Draco said flatly, “Which house-elf is working tonight? Was it Follo? Or Diamond?” he squeezed the bridge of his nose, “Lilu? Robert?”

The night remained undisturbed by the crack of apparition. Something inside the bin started rustling amongst the garbage, then settled down to chew on something unsettlingly squishy.

Draco sighed, “I should have asked Asbestos before we left.”

“Can we not stand behind this bin then? It’s disgusting,” Harry said, already stepping away.

“I suppose,” Draco said, following Harry back to the street even as he continued to mutter random house-elf names under his breath.

“What about the mirror phone?” Harry asked.

“The what?”

“The cellphone with the charmed mirror that you were so proud of,” Harry said, “You showed it to me the first day we worked together.”

Draco held up his arms in a rather annoyed motion, “I only brought a hundred quid and my bank card, obviously.” Draco said.

“It was just a little flip phone,” Harry said.

Draco raised an eyebrow, “It would have ruined my silhouette.”

Harry laughed, “Impossible.”

“That shows what you know about fashion, which is next to nothing,” Draco said. “Besides, Asbestos has the other phone, and as already established, she is ignoring me.”

“Alright, well, my flat is in London,” Harry said.

“Good for you,” Draco said.

Harry had to roll his eyes, “Do you want to stay over?”

“Taking a bloke to bed on the first date, how forward,” Draco teased.

Harry laughed, “I missed that.”

“What?” Draco’s brow furrowed.

“The flirting, you stopped when I started flirting back,” Harry said.

“Yes, well, you weren’t meant to flirt back,” Draco said in annoyance.

“I think that’s what I liked; most people who flirt with me want me to flirt back,” Harry said.

“I wasn’t even flirting to flirt with you at the start, since obviously nothing could come of it,” Draco said.

“Obviously,” Harry said sarcastically, walking shoulder to shoulder with Draco.

“I only did it to get a rise out of you,” Draco said,

“I liked that part too. I’m so tired of people trying to suck up to me,” Harry said.

“Liar, you didn’t like it,” Draco said.

“I’m good at my job,” Harry said.

“You are adequate at your job,” Draco said.

“Hey!” Harry said and elbowed Draco, which made him stumble.

Harry grabbed after him to try and keep Draco from falling; as Draco tried to grab Harry to stay up, and they tripped back against the nearest building. Luckily, Draco’s chest caught him, so Harry didn’t run into another brick wall.

“Perhaps we are a bit drunk,” Draco said, sounding winded, sandwiched between Harry and the wall.

Harry giggled, pressing his face into Draco’s shoulder. He didn’t bother moving, enjoying the novelty of pressing against someone slightly taller whose chest was smooth and firm and smelled of cologne rather than perfume.

“Are you going to move?” Draco asked.

“Do you want me to?”

There was a pause and a slow sigh, “I am being held hostage then.”

Harry laughed again, “I’ll move if you tell me to.”

“Well, I can’t and since you won’t then I am being held hostage,” Draco said.

Harry couldn’t help wetting his lips as he looked up at Draco, “Would this be, what’s the opposite of being held against your will?”

“...You expect me to think when you’re looking at me like that?”

“Willingly, do you think? That might work,” Harry said.

“Use whatever word you bloody want,” Draco said.

Harry grinned and leaned up, catching Draco’s lips in his own, soft and a bit dry. He let his hands slide down Draco’s chest, the silky soft blue fabric radiating the heat of Draco’s body and the shiver that ran through him.

It was a nice change from the first kiss, which had been exciting and surprising and very good in its own way, but Harry had been wanting a slow kiss every since, a kiss that they could linger in.

Harry let the tip of his tongue brush the seam of Draco’s lips as they kissed, a shivery thrill going down his spine when Draco tentatively responded. Harry leaned all his weight against Draco, tracing his hands over the tops of Draco’s white jeans, and letting his fingers slide up onto smooth skin-

Draco jumped at the touch, letting out a little squeak that surprised him as much as Harry.

Harry blinked at him and did it again.

“Ah! D-Don’t,” Draco squirmed and huffed, his mouth twitching and twisting like he was trying not to laugh, his stomach jumping when Harry managed to touch him.

“You’re ticklish!” Harry said delighted.

“Shut up, shut up, I am not,” Draco managed to grab Harry’s hands and twist away for good measure, his face gone an almost alarming shade of red, though Harry didn’t know if it was from the tickling or embarrassment.

Harry was grinned so hard his cheeks hurt, “I can’t believe it.”

“You are the worst. The absolute worst,” Draco said.

“Draco Malfoy has a ticklish tummy!” Harry laughed.

“I hate you. I loathe you. You could not possibly be a more horrible person if you tried,” Draco said in annoyance, holding Harry by the wrists as far away from himself as he possibly could.

Harry was too busy laughing to try and pull free.

A cold drop of rain landed on the top of Harry’s head, quickly followed by its fellows.

“Shit,” Harry said, looking up at the sky and catching a blur of rain on his glasses for his trouble. “I could call the Knight Bus?”

“Absolutely not,” Draco said.

“The underground?” Harry suggested next.

“I have no idea where the nearest station is,” Draco said.

“Right then,” Harry stepped the edge of the pavement and waved his hand.

A black cab slowed and pulled over to pick them up. Draco had already climbed in by the time Harry had given the driver his address.

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in a black cab before,” Harry said, looking around the interior. It wasn’t quite as exciting as he had always imagined.

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“I use the underground or, you know,” Harry said, referring to more magical means, though it didn’t seem like the driver was listening to anything but the soft music from his stereo.

“Do I?” Draco asked suggestively.

Harry grinned, “Shut up.”

Draco giggled, leaning back into the black seat.

“You always use a cab?” Harry asked, taking off his glasses and smearing the water around with the bottom of his shirt.

“I prefer to drive myself whenever possible. Don’t like the underground,” Draco said, “I find it unnerving.”

“How do you get into your vault then?” Harry asked. He grabbed the bottom of Draco’s shirt, which was a much softer material, and properly cleaned his glasses off.

“I don’t,” Draco said with a shudder, “You can request a withdrawal at the counter.”

“And charge you for the privilege,” Harry said.

Draco raised an eyebrow, “So? And my bank card is directly connected to the vaults so I don’t even go to the bank often, not when those bank machines are so bloody brilliant.”

“I didn’t know Gringott’s had a bank card,” Harry said.

“You could probably get one,” Draco said absently, “Gringott’s doesn’t have any sort of government protection like every other bank in the world does. So they won’t take risks because if someone steals your money, they have to cover it. But you certainly have enough money not to be a risk.”

“I didn’t know that,” Harry said, “No wonder they’re so careful.”

“More like distrustful. Can you fucking imagine? So many wars and prejudice on top of that, and then the only concession to equality the Ministry gives is a bank but with no protections or insurance. If Gringott’s fails, it takes-” Draco gestured broadly, “everything down with it. It’s so stupid and ill-planned and stupid.”

“Sounds like the government alright,” Harry said.

“Merlin, I miss when I was too stupid to know better,” Draco sighed.

Harry laughed, “Things were simpler then. Well, sort of. I imagine they were for most people.”

Draco grinned, “Oh yes, you got to worry about saving the world just about every fucking year. Now that that’s over, you can worry about politics.”

Harry groaned.

“Which do you prefer, Mr Hero?”

“Neither! They’re both fucking unbearable,” Harry said.

Draco laughed, leaning against his shoulder. Harry leaned back, resting his head on Draco’s shoulder which, unsurprisingly, was rather thin and bony.

“Will your mum be worried if you don’t come back?”

Draco snorted, “This isn’t the first time I’ve stayed out all night.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Harry groaned.

“Hm? What it?” Draco asked.

“Other blokes,” Harry muttered.

“Jealous, Potter?” Draco teased.

“It’s not one of my better points,” Harry said.

Draco grinned with an absolutely delighted little shit-eating grin.

Harry gave him a sour look, “It’s a warning, don’t look pleased about it, you berk.”

Draco’s smile only grew, “I am very pleased.”

Harry sighed, “You’re planning some bullshit, aren’t you?”

Draco snickered, “Well, now I have to, don’t I?”

“Wait...” Harry’s mind jumped backwards in the conversation like an errant ping-pong ball, “If you don’t like the Underground or Gringott’s, how did you manage your dorms? Like they were underground-”

“It’s not the underground bit that bothers me,” Draco interrupted, “It’s the fast-moving contraption that I cannot control or see where the bloody fuck it’s going.”

“You like to be in control?” Harry asked suggestively. Or at least that was what he intended; he had no idea if it actually came across properly.

“Who doesn’t?” Draco said, apparently missing the subtext entirely.

“Some people. There’s a like a whole kink about it,” Harry said.

Draco blinked and then laughed, “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m not the one who missed the entire point,” Harry said.

The cab slowed, and Harry looked out the windows at the familiar street of his neighbourhood, “We’re here.”

Harry paid the cabbie and lead Draco into his building.

His flat was on the top floor. It was rather modest, the living area butted into the small kitchen and, there were two doors at the back of the room leading to the bath and his bedroom. He had preferred the small, dorm-ness feel of the place when he first moved in. After five years there, he was starting to feel like more space would be nice, to get a tv, more places to sit, a table one could eat at, a proper washer, maybe even something ambitious, like an office. Harry didn’t know what he was meant to do with an office, but loads of people had them.

And the flat had a pretty decent view, mostly of buildings, but he could see a few back gardens and the corner of a park on clear days.

“It’s so small! I could fit my entire sitting room in here,” Draco said as soon as they stepped inside.

Harry rolled his eyes. “When you have to take care of it yourself, small is much more manageable.”

Draco looked at the sitting area taking up much of the room, with Harry’s cluttered coffee table, the couch that was also serving as a coat rack and the armchair stacked with books and magazines that he really did mean to read one of these days. Draco looked back at Harry and raised his eyebrows.

“Wipe that judgey look off your face; I’ve seen your closet,” Harry said.

“It comes with my face,” Draco said flatly.

Harry couldn’t help laughing, “It does! Pre-installed, that one.”

Draco fought down a smile, patting Harry’s cheek a little clumsily, “Make us some tea, won’t you, darling?”

He was joking, but that didn’t mean Harry didn’t rather like being called Draco’s darling. The alcohol had subsided enough that Harry’s more sober mind was able to put in with a somewhat exasperated,  why are you like this? that made Harry laugh to himself as he went to his small kitchen and filled the kettle.

“Tiffy was right, though; we should get cellphones,” Harry said.

“We?” Draco said, and Harry could hear the raised eyebrow in the word.

“If we both get one, then I won’t be the only one completely fucking lost,” Harry said, “We can learn how to use them together.”

Draco sighed.

Harry turned to look at him.

Draco had a complicated expression on his face. His eyes slid over to meet Harry’s, and he put on an obviously forced smirk, “The Ministry is underground; cellphones don’t work there.”

“It’ll work everywhere else. I don’t live at the Ministry,” Harry said.

“Don’t you? You seem the type to be married to your work,” Draco said.

“You know exactly how I feel about my job, prat,” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes. He was moving around the room, looking at everything that wasn’t nailed down with far more interest than it surely deserved. Harry tried to keep an eye on him and make tea at the same time. He was fully expecting Draco to find something embarrassing that he would tease Harry about relentlessly. He hadn’t had guests over for months and without the fear of social embarrassment, there really hadn’t been anything to make him tidy up.

“Good grief, who are all these people?” Draco asked.

Harry filled the mugs with hot water before looking over, seeing Draco standing in front of his wall of photographs. The flat only had one decent wall, so Harry had covered it in all his pictures, of his friends, the Weasley’s, and of his parents. They were all copies and didn’t move; the original photos were all safely stored away in his vault.

Harry tossed tea bags into both cups before walking over to join him, “Well, you know-”

“I’m not asking about the one’s I already know, obviously,” Draco interrupted and pointed at an older photo, “Who is this? And why do they look so bloody familiar?”

“That’s my mum and dad when they were at school,” Harry said.

“Ah, he has the same dreadful hair! Now at least I know you don’t do it on purpose.”

Harry pointed at the two standing next to his parents, “That’s Sirius Black, your cousin, I think, and Remus Lupin; he taught us Defence one year. They were all friends in school.”

“Lupin was the one who got chased out for being a werewolf?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, not quite keeping the tightness out of his throat.

“Seems stupid. I mean, he managed an entire year without issue; there was no reason to think he’d spontaneously combust just because people knew,” Draco said, “And he was actually good at the job. That was the real rarity compared to most of the professors we had.”

“Especially considering the first two I mean, one had been a host for Voldemort, and the other was a complete fraud,” Harry said.

Draco frowned in alarm, “Wait, Lockhart was a host for Voldemort?”

Harry snorted, “No, he was the fraud. It was Quirrel.”

“Oh,” Draco said, his frown relaxing into disappointment, “That’s not nearly as fun.”

“Being a host for Voldemort would have required far too much actual effort for Lockhart to manage it,” Harry said.

“Was Quirrel actually growing Voldemort inside him, like some sort of giant chicken?” Draco asked.

Harry laughed, “Nah, he was stuck on the back of his head; you remember that stupid turban he wore?”

Draco blinked in surprise, “I thought he was just a cunt! Like those people who wear Native American headdresses or an Indian bindi.”

“He was still a cunt. I think the racism was accidental. Unless he was actually a Sikh, but I don’t think so.” Harry said. He tapped another picture frame, “This is Andromeda and Teddy. I’m his godfather.”

Draco leaned in close, narrowing his eyes to focus on the photograph.

“She’s your aunt, you know, and Teddy’s her grandson. That makes him like a second cousin.”

“I know who Andromeda is, Mum’s talked about her,” Draco said.

“You ought to meet her and Teddy. They’re family, after all,” Harry said.

Draco shot him a look.

“I can introduce you if you like. I try to go over and see Teddy wherever I can,” Harry said.

“What a little optimist you are,” Draco said.

“Wha-”

“Is the tea ready?” Draco cut him off, crossing the room to the kitchenette, “Ugh, it’s going to be too strong. You probably prefer it that way.” He fished out a tea bag and dropped it on the counter like a spoilt child.

“Really, Draco?” Harry said, fishing his wand out from his sleeve where he’d stuck it to his forearm for the night with a light sticking charm. He vanished the teabag, leaving behind a splotch of brownish water. “Where’s your sugar?” Draco asked, scanning the crowded countertop.

Harry grabbed his little sugar bowl and added some to his mug first.

“I take one lump,” Draco said.

“I don’t have sugar lumps, your majesty. You’ll have to spoon it out like the rest of us commoners,” Harry said.

Draco glared at the sugar bowl, “If I add too much, it will be far too sweet.”

“Add less then,” Harry said, taking a careful sip of tea. It was strong and the perfect temperature from sitting too long.

“But then it might be too bitter,” Draco said, sounding pouty.

Harry grinned, “Add more. It’s not the end of the world, you know.”

“I am very particular about my tea,” Draco said.

“Colour me surprised,” Harry said sarcastically.

Draco ignored him, filling half a teaspoon with sugar and putting it into his mug with a far too serious face on.

“You’ve been particular about other stuff tonight, the cellphone thing and meeting Andromeda and all that.”

Draco tasted his tea and stuck out his tongue in disgust, “Ugh, too bitter.” He spooned a tiny bit more sugar into his cup and tried it again. His expression wasn’t quite as disgusted this time.

“You don’t have to do any of it. They were just ideas,” Harry said.

“Just ideas. Ideas you’re having because on Monday, you’ll be back to being a good little bobby, and I’ll be out of a job. And you want to pretend it won’t happen,” Draco said.

“You won’t be out of a job. Hermione will-”

“It’s not going to work out,” Draco said.

“You don’t know that!” Harry said.

Draco shook his head to himself, “You’ll go back to your job, and I’ll go back to being a layabout, wandering around London and avoiding my parents. We might try to stay in touch at first, but you’ll be busy with your friends and your Weasley's. And I... am far too much trouble to bother with.” He sipped his tea, apparently found it perfect, and took a larger drink with a satisfied sigh.

“That’s a rather bleak view of the future,” Harry said with a frown.

“It’s a realistic view,” Draco said. He rested one hip against the counter, cradling both hands around his mug and holding it just under his chin. “Go on then, tell me yours.”

“My-”

“Your little fairytale of a future,” Draco said.

Harry narrowed his eyes, "Hermione will get you transferred, and you'll be able to keep doing the same work. So we'll still see one another when incidents overlap, and we can have lunch together and go out and talk with our new phones during the off hours."

Draco looked unmoved.

Harry frowned, stubbornness rising, “We could go on some proper dates as well. And you could meet Andromeda, and Little Dobby can have playdates with Teddy.”

Draco shook his head a little, a faint smile slipping onto his face, “I do like your idea of the future better.”

“Because it is better,” Harry said

“Fairytales always are. They get to end ‘happily ever after’ after all,’ Draco said. “The real world is a lot more messy and cruel. If you’d been kicked in the teeth as many times as I have in the past six, seven years, you’d understand.”

Harry shook his head and dropped his mug in the sink, “It’s not a fairytale. It could happen. We just have to make it happen.”

“Hm,” Draco said shortly.

“Fine,” Harry huffed, “I’ll make it happen.”

Draco shifted his weight, smiling faintly, “I’d like to see you try.”

“I will,” Harry said stubbornly.

“I won’t hold my breath, though,” Draco said.

Harry rolled his eyes so hard he could see his own annoyance written on the front of his brain.

Draco carefully placed his mug next to Harry’s in the sink, “I prefer to live in the present. And this present is far, far more interesting than an unknown future-” he waved his hand, “-whatever.”

Harry took this an invitation, stepping close and hooking his fingers into Draco’s belt loops, “Yeah?”

Draco quirk an eyebrow, “So… how far is this going, Potter?”

Harry bit his lip, equally nervous and excited, “Whatever- I mean, I don’t know. Anything, really.”

Draco laughed.

“As long as I get to see if you’re as good looking out of your clothes as you are in them,” Harry said.

Draco’s ears turned a lovely pink.

Harry tugged Draco flush against his body and kissed him, “I’ve never been with a bloke before, so you might have to tell me what to do.”

The flush spread from Draco’s ears to the tops of his cheeks, “I would be delighted.”

“Don’t get used to it. I’m a quick learner,” Harry said.

Draco stuck his lower lip out in a pout, and Harry took the opportunity to pull it between his teeth before kissing Draco again, and again, and again, as he walked them back into his bedroom.

Draco’s hands drifted down, finding and undoing whatever buttons his finger stumbled upon. Harry let him, shivering whenever Draco fingertips dragged across his skin. He was trying very not to grin and hid the expression by pressing into the arch of Draco’s neck, kissing a line down the pale sweat-touched skin.

Draco groaned, and as they bumped the edge of Harry’s bed, he pushed Harry back onto it. Harry bounced onto the rumpled duvet and pushed himself back onto the pillows as Draco knelt on the bed, kicking off his shoes and straddling over Harry’s thighs. He pulled his shirt over his head and let it fall onto the floor. Harry put his hands on Draco’s knees, sliding them over the tight material.

“You drive me mad,” Draco hissed between his teeth.

Harry grinned, “The feeling is mutual. Kiss me you, you ass-hat.”

Draco ignored him and focused on unbuttoning Harry’s fly, pulling the air from him as Draco’s hand pressed against him.

Draco hands froze, “Are you wearing my pants?”

Harry’s chest shook with suppressed laughter, “I told you! I told you I would!”

“You’re an idiot,” Draco said, his face gone completely red. He grabbed Harry’s wrists and pressed them above his head, “A complete berk.” He pinned his body tight to Harry’s.

“So I should definitely do it again then?” Harry said.

“Shut up, Potter,” Draco said, his voice rough.

“Make me,” Harry said.

Draco raised an eyebrow and obligingly kissed him until he could no longer think straight.

Chapter Text

“...Harry!”

Harry grimaced and wiggled further under his blankets.

“There you are. Up you get!”

Hands jerked the pillow out from under his head. Harry startled awake, blinking blearily into the light just in time to see his pillow come smacking back onto his face. Harry spluttered, grasping after the pillow before it could be pulled away and hit him again. Not fast enough, unfortunately.

The pillow smacked into his face again, along with an obnoxious giggle.

Harry grabbed the pillow and threw it blindly in the sound of the giggle, “Ginny!”

Ginny effortlessly snatched the pillow out of the air with a grin Harry could make out even without his glasses.

“What the fuck?!” Harry said, flailing blindly for his glasses with one hand, the other hand held up for pillow defence.

“Mum sent me to make sure you weren’t dead,” Ginny said.

“What?” Harry said, his brain still groggy and thrumming with an undercurrent of a headache.

“It’s sunday? You said you’d be coming to dinner this week,” Ginny said.

Harry fumbled his glasses on and scrubbed a hand through his hair. There was no one in the bed beside him. “Was there- Did you see anyone when you came in?”

“No?” Ginny raised an eyebrow with a growing grin, “Were you with someone? Did you get laid?”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“How long has it been? Holy shit!” Ginny laughed, looking around the room for evidence of another person.

“Shut up, Gin,” Harry said.

“I’m so proud of you!” Ginny crowed.

“You’re not my mum,” Harry said, “And he’s left already, so it’s not exactly the best outcome.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon, of course-” Ginny stopped abruptly, “He? As in, he?”

“Yeah?” Harry said.

Ginny blinked, “Since when are you into blokes?!”

“Since I found one I like?” Harry said with a shrug.

“Uuuuughhhhh!” Ginny groaned in frustration.

Harry laughed at her expression, “What?”

“I should have known! You are like the stereotype of the disaster Bi-”

“I am?” Harry said.

“Imagine all the obnoxious jokes we could have made! All the blokes I could have introduced you to-”

“You have terrible taste,” Harry said.

“All the- the fuck I do!” Ginny broke off, “I have excellent taste.”

Harry made a face.

“What that’s supposed to mean?” Ginny glared at him.

“I’m not saying they aren’t attractive, but even you have to admit that everyone you date is a bit odd,” Harry said.

“That includes you,” Ginny said.

“Yeah?” Harry said, “I am somewhat self-aware.”

Ginny snorted and put her hands on her hips, “Are you going to get up anytime soon?”

“Not without pants, I’m not,” Harry said.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Ginny said.

Harry made a face, “Erm, no. That’s was then, this is now, and now that’s a bit weird, alright?”

Ginny rolled her eyes, “I have six older brothers and have been in so many quidditch locker rooms, you would not believe the number of dicks I have seen.”

Harry didn’t move.

Ginny sighed, “Fine... Five minutes and you better be ready.” She held up her hand to helpfully illustrate the concept of five before stepping out of the room and shutting the door behind her.

Harry fished out a fresh pair of pants and socks and then just put on the same clothes from last night, figuring he’d only worn them for a few hours, and he already knew they looked nice.

He managed to slip past Ginny, who was very obviously snooping around the rest of his flat, into the bathroom. Harry almost felt a little off-balance that the mirror didn’t wink at him or give him hair advice as he did his best to refresh his curls.

As he was about to leave when he noticed a small vial on the edge of the sink. Harry recognised the pale lavender potion as a general headache, pain relief potion and all-around favourite hangover remedy. The potion label had been scribbled over in coloured pencil with a sloppy doodle of Harry’s frowny face, green dots for eyes and a scribble of black hair that could have just as easily been a hedgehog.

Harry saw his own stupid smile in the mirror and stuck his tongue out at his reflection.

“Are you done yet?!” Ginny called.

“Obviously not. Is Hermione at the Burrow?” Harry asked through the door. He drank the potion, shivering as the ache in his head was replaced by a cool rush. Rather than tossing the empty vial, he put it on the shelf beside his toothbrush so his own scribbled face looked back at him.

“Everyone is there but you!” Ginny shouted back.

Harry rolled his eyes, “Right, right.”

If Hermione was there, he could talk to her about the department. He was sure they could work something out between the two of them.

“Can you summon my wand? I didn’t see it laying around,” Harry said as he left the bathroom.

Ginny was staring at him, her mouth hanging open in shock.

“Ginny?”

Ginny’s mouth snapped shut, “Keep him.”

“What?” Harry asked.

Ginny waved a hand at Harry, “If this bloke is responsible for making you look like this? You need to keep him.”

“Gee, thanks, Gin,” Harry said sarcastically.

“It’s not my fault you look like you get dressed with your eyes closed half the time,” Ginny said.

Harry sighed, “My wand?”

“Is it a wizard?” Ginny asked.

“I’ll just have a look around then, shall I?” Harry said, shaking his head and going back into his room.

“Is it someone I know?” Ginny asked.

Harry looked under the bed.

“Is it? Merlin, who?” Ginny asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” Harry said. He shook out his duvet, and his wand flicked across the room, hitting the wall and then rolling to a stop, under his bed, “fuck.”

“You insinuated,” Ginny said.

“With what? I still didn’t say anything,” Harry said, dropping to his hands and knees to grope after his wand, “this... would be a lot easier... if you helped,” he muttered.

Ginny snorted, “Not likely. I helped plenty already by coming to fetch you.”

“You probably volunteered just so you could bother me,” Harry said, finding his wand, a dust bunny clinging to his knuckles.

Ginny laughed, “You know me too well.”

“It’s almost like we’re friends,” Harry said, dusting himself as he stood up, “I’ll meet you at the Burrow then?”

Ginny grabbed his arm, “Not until you tell me more!”

“I’ll just side-along you then,” Harry said with a grin, clamping a hand on Ginny’s hand before she could escape and apparated them both.

Ginny nearly fell into a hedge when they landed, swearing up a storm, “Fucking fuck you and your fucking shitty side-along’s. If I sick up, I’m doing it on your shoes.”

Harry laughed.

George, Angelina, Bill and Fleur were talking in the shade of the house, just across the way. Harry gave them a wave.

“Language, Ginny dear!” George’s voice called in a chiding falsetto, “Mum doesn’t like us swearing.”

Ginny rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath, “What’s the point of being an adult if I can’t even swear?”

“Thanks for fetching me. I’ve got to talk to Hermione-” Harry said.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ginny said, grabbing hold of him again, “Now, I’ve got to know.”

Harry tried to pull away, but Ginny’s grip was like iron. “Quidditch chasers,” he sighed.

Ginny grinned, “One of the best in the league. Come on, is it a muggle?”

“No,” Harry said and then grinned, holding in a laugh. He stepped in close to Ginny and whispered in her ear, “It’s Draco Malfoy.”

Ginny blinked, and let go.

Harry’s grin grew as he took a few steps back.

“What? No way.” Ginny said.

Harry raised his eyebrows, “It’s the truth.”

“If that was the truth, there’s no way you would have told me, that’s- that’s just, no way,” Ginny shook her head.

“Oh, I only told you because no one will believe you,” Harry said.

Ginny narrowed her eyes.

“Anyone you told would just think you’re taking the piss,” Harry said with a shrug and an insufferable grin.

Ginny crossed her arms over her chest, “Now I believe it. He’s obviously rubbed off on you.”

“In more ways that one,” Harry said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Ewww! Eww!” Ginny squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. “I do not want that image in my head. George!”

“What?!” George yelled back.

“I need you to obliviate me!” Ginny yelled, running across the garden.

“Fair enough!” George said, starting to take out his wand.

Angelina gently grabbed his wrist and pushed George’s hand back into his pocket.

“I wouldn’t have actually done it,” George said.

“Uhuh, sure,” Angelina said, raising an eyebrow.

Ginny reached the group and settled for tackling George in a flying hug that sent them both sprawling onto the ground.

Harry laughed and headed inside the Burrow, weaving around people and trying not to get sucked into conversations as he looked for Hermione.

“Harry, you made it, I’m so glad” Andromeda said, her voice smooth as soft butter, “Molly has just about finished dinner. Arthur and I are setting the table, so could you run upstairs and fetch down the children? They’re having a nap in one of the bedrooms.”

“I-” the protest died in Harry’s throat as Andromeda immediately turned away and went back to the table without waiting for an answer. “...will do that, then.”

Harry headed upstairs, peeking into the various rooms as he went until he found them. He expected two children but found three. Ron lying between Victoire and Teddy, all snuggled up together like a pile of puppies.

“It’s time to eat,” Harry said, gently shaking their shoulders until Teddy and Victoire began to huff and sigh and rub their faces.

Ron slept on like a hibernating bear.

“Ron,” Harry raised his voice. “Rooooon,” Harry shook his shoulder a little harder, eliciting a tiny snore and nothing else. Harry rolled his eyes and resorted to emergency measures, pulling off one of Ron’s socks and lightly tickling his foot.

Ron bolted upright with a startled squeak, pulling his knees up to his chin in an automatic defensive measure.

“Time to eat,” Harry said.

Ron narrowed his eyes.

“It was emergency measures,” Harry said.

“Was not,” Ron said, his voice rough and grumpy.

“Would you rather miss dinner?” Harry said.

Teddy slid off the bed and ran over to Harry, who scooped him up in a hug.

“Hey there, Ted, you get bigger every time I see you,” Harry said.

“Watchur, Harry!” Teddy said, excited and slipping over the word as he hugged Harry around the neck.

“Wotcher, indeed,” Harry said.

“Like my mum!” Teddy said.

“Yup, just like your mum.”

“Emergency measures are only for being late to class or training or something,” Ron said, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I always thought it was more in case of getting in trouble. And making Molly shout counts in my book,” Harry said.

“Been shouted at by Mum most of my life. I’d rather have the extra ten minutes sleep,” Ron said. He yawned hugely, “Emergency measures are only for emergencies, alright?”

“I don’t know, sounds a bit inconvenient for me, mate,” Harry said.

“Don’t actually care about your convenience, mate,” Ron said.

“Hermione doesn’t know about emergency measures, does she?” Harry said.

Ron’s eyes widened, “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Might,” Harry suggested with a grin.

“What are you talking about?” Victoire asked softly.

“Fine, fine. You win. For now,” Ron said, swinging off the bed and picking Victoire up before she could ask more, “It’s nothin’, Victoire. Let’s get downstairs. Mum’s excited so many people made it today, so dinner will be epic.”

They all clambered down the stairs as Molly levitated dinner out to the table with anyone trying to help her being shooed away. Before he could spot Hermione, Harry was pulled to sit next to Teddy and Andy. He did his best to just spend time with his godson, listening to his exuberant stories.

As soon as people finished eating and started to leave the table, Harry excused himself and headed toward the sitting area. He could see Hermione’s poof of curly hair over the back of the couch if he could just get over there-

“Harry, dear, won’t you take some food home with you?” Molly called.

“Erm,” Harry stumbled to a halt, “Yeah, sure. Thank you.”

“You’re always far too thin.” Molly said and gave him a quick hug.

“I’m not that-”

“I’ll pack in some meat pasties for your lunch as well,” Molly said.

“That’s-”

“And how about some extra pudding as well?” Molly suggested.

“Thanks, Molly, I appreciate it, but I really have got to find Hermione,” Harry said.

Molly frowned at him, “You’ll come by next week, won’t you? Early enough to actually catch up with everyone.”

“I’ll do my best, promise,” Harry said, backing away and turning right into George, who was laughing so hard his whole face had gone red.

“Harry! You won’t believe what Ginny just told me,” George said, clapping a hand on his shoulder and pinning Harry in place, “She said-” he snorted and broke into giggles again, “She said you were dating Malfoy!”

“I don’t really have a thing for older men,” Harry said flatly.

George wheezed, laughing so hard no sound came out, holding onto Harry to keep himself upright. “No- Not that one- fucking hell, mate,” he dissolved into another fit of laughter, “The younger- The ferret Malfoy.”

“Ah, you mean Draco,” Harry said, “Well, I’m sure I don’t know where she got such an idea.”

“Yes you do! You told me!” Ginny exploded as she came up behind George, her face also red but probably not because she found it funny.

“Told you what?” Harry said innocently.

“That you’re dating Malfoy-”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Draco Malfoy!” Ginny said.

“I’m... not dating Draco,” Harry said, which was technically true. It was something they’d have to talk about. He rather liked the idea of it.

“You-!” Ginny started.

George slung an arm around her neck, “Give it a break, Ginny.”

“I need to find Hermione. You two have fun,” Harry said, giving Ginny an ‘I told you so’ smirk before he stepped away.

“You’re dead to me!” Ginny shouted.

To which Harry laughed.

George just dragged her across the room, “Come on and tell it to Angelina, she’ll crack up.”

“It’s not a joke, you arsehat,” Ginny said.

“Ginny! Language,” Molly scolded from the kitchen.

“Sorry, Mum,” Ginny said in a beleaguered and entirely disingenuous tone.

Harry made it about two steps when Percy intercepted him.

“Harry, I wanted to talk to you-” Percy started.

“I’m a bit busy, Percy,” Harry said, trying to step around him.

“Just a moment,” Percy said, stepping with him and staying entirely in the way, “Since you also work in the Ministry, have you noticed the state and quality of the ink and quills lately?”

Harry was briefly distracted from his escape attempts by the unexpectedness of the question, “What? Quills?”

“It seems to me the quality has been extremely poor as of late, and there are new order restrictions on how many office supplies each department can use,” Percy went on.

“I really couldn’t care less about the quills, Percy,” Harry said. “Start carrying a fountain pen like I do, problem solved.”

“That’s not the point! It will directly impact the efficiency of every department to be hampered in such a fundamental way!”

Harry shrugged helplessly, “I’m just an Auror. You need to talk to someone that can actually do something, like the Minister.” He clasped Percy’s shoulder, sort of in encouragement and acknowledgement, but mostly to steer Percy out of his way.

“Which is why I was talking to you,” Percy muttered under his breath.

Harry ducked his head, practically sprinting the last few steps and finally, finally dropping onto the cushions next to Ron with a sigh of utter relief.

Ron was asleep again, snoring softly against Hermione’s shoulder.

“Hi, Harry,” Hermione said.

Behind them, Teddy let out an ear-piercing shriek as Victoire chased after him from one end to the house to the other before Andy coaxed them out into the garden to run off their energy.

Harry rather suspected that Ron could sleep through a stampede of erumpents.

“You were really late today. Everything okay?” Hermione said.

“I just overslept. Ginny pelted me with a pillow until I got up,” Harry said.

“That sounds like Ginny.” Hermione said with a faint smile. “I would have come to pick you up when we left, but Ron-” she nodded to him, drooling a bit onto her sleeve, “well, you see. I said we ought to stay home today, but he wanted to see everyone.”

“Is it the big case the Auror’s have all been working on?” Harry asked.

Hermione nodded, “Ron says they’ll be done soon.”

“Speaking of work, I wanted to talk to you about the Liar’s Department-”

“Harry.” Hermione sighed, “The last thing I want to think about right now is that stupid department.”

“I- Yeah, but it’s important. If the department is gone, then Draco will be out of a job,” Harry said.

“I’m not going to fire him,” Hermione said. “I have a meeting with the Obliviators on monday to sort everything out.”

Harry’s brow furrowed, “Tomorrow? I thought you’d have talked to them already.”

“I have been trying. They’re always out of the office,” Hermione said, “Apparently they only work ‘on call’ to be able to cover all the muggle exposures and only come into the office once a week for meetings and to finish up any paperwork.”

“Then tomorrow-”

“I have a meeting scheduled with them,” Hermione said, “and will have Malfoy transferred into the Obliviators. I can’t see why he couldn’t continue doing the same work he is now.”

Harry frowned, “But what if they’re biased against him and-”

“Harry.” Hermione interrupted him, “I know you’re friends with Malfoy now, and I’m going to do what I can, but…”

“What?” Harry asked.

“He’s still Malfoy,” Hermione said, “I’m doing my best to be neutral towards him. But I- I don’t like him.”

“He’s changed,” Harry said.

Hermione’s mouth pursed, “I’m sure he has. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine you would be friends with him.”

“But?”

Hermione sighed, “...It’s hard to explain.”

“Try? Please?” Harry asked, “I really want to understand this. I want to help.”

Hermione smiled ruefully, “Of course you do. Fine...” She shook her head, fluffing out her curls and slumping down deeper into the couch cushions. Ron snorted and slipped down with her, almost falling off her shoulder. “I grew up muggle without any friends and everyone in my classes hating me for being a know-it-all. Then I find out I have magic and I’m a witch, and no one knows about all that, except-”

Harry winced.

“Except I was a muggleborn. And suddenly, there were all these people hating me for being a know-it-all and muggleborn, only one of which I had any control over whatsoever. Mostly from Malfoy, the stuck up prig,” Hermione said, “And he was always making fun of my looks, I know I shouldn’t care, but it’s hard not to. When you’re a teenage girl, your looks feel like a lot of who you are.”

Harry couldn’t argue against any of that.

“I’d love to say I’ve moved on and gotten over all that but, it hurt, you know? It hurt a lot.” Hermione took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “I’ll try my best to get along with him because I know it’s important to you, and you’re one of my best friends.”

“Just one?” Harry said.

“I’m dating the other one,” Hermione said with a smile at Ron resting on her shoulder, “and you can’t have him.”

Harry laughed, “Not my type anyway.”

Ron frowned in his sleep as if he could hear them. Then he sneezed, blinked in a bleary approximation of being awake, yawned and let his head fall down onto Hermione’s lap, pulling his feet up onto Harry’s lap. Even curled up and using them both as pillows, he barely fit onto the couch.

“I suppose I could share, but just the feet. They’re always freezing,” Hermione said. She stared at Ron’s feet for a second longer and frowned, “Why does he only have one sock on?”

“I don’t know, maybe one of the kids pulled it off?” Harry shrugged and changed the subject, “If it helps any, Draco’s freed all his house-elves. I know freeing house-elves is one of the things you’ve been working on in your spare time, not that you have much to speak of.”

Hermione blinked, apparently not following.

“Like, Asbestos, the house-elf you met-” There was a crash behind them, and Harry glanced over his shoulder but relaxed once he heard Molly’s voice shouting after the sound. “Asbestos is Draco’s secretary, or personal assistant? Draco pays all the elves, and they get room and board.” He conveniently left out the part where at least part of why Draco freed the house-elves was to spite his father.

Hermione opened her mouth, hesitated, closed it and looked over at Harry, utterly lost.

“I- uh, I even met Asbestos’ wife? Err, chosen one? And they have a kid, they’re named Dobby.” Harry grinned to himself, remembering the little elf, “They’re a real sweetheart, a little younger than Teddy. I’m hoping Andy would be alright if they played together sometimes.”

Hermione blinked. She once again tried to speak, but words just utterly failed her. She did a remarkable impression of a confused goldfish.

“And I found out that house-elves pick their own names and change them whenever they like, and their genders as well, and yeah, it’s really cool.” Harry said, “Asbestos has a... a kind of personality, but I sort of like her.”

“And Asbestos thinks Potter-man is only slightly shit,” Asbestos said as she walked around the couch munching on a meat pasty. She was wearing an obnoxiously bright pink sweatshirt with black block letters reading ‘LEAVE ME ALONE’. The shirt was so big it almost brushed the ground. Asbestos had rolled the sleeves halfway up just to get her hands out.

“Harry, dear, this… lady says she’s a friend of yours?” Molly said over Harry’s shoulder.

“Co-worker,” Asbestos corrected, sounding annoyed.

“Yeah…” Harry said slowly, “Yeah, I know her.”

“You ought to introduce new people to me properly if you’re going to invite them over,” Molly said, sounding a bit annoyed.

“I would- will. This is… a bit of a surprise. I didn’t know she’d be coming,” Harry said, looking at Asbestos pointedly.

Asbestos did not care in the slightest. “Recipe?” she asked Molly, holding up the pasty.

“I shall get you a copy. You’ll have to tell me how they turn out when your partner makes them,” Molly said.

“Thanks much,” Asbestos’ said as Molly went back to the kitchen. She took another bite of meat pie, looking from Harry to Hermione, “Yes?”

“How-? Why are you-?” Harry said.

“You said Asbestos’ name, Asbestos came,” Asbestos said with a grin that suggested she knew exactly how much of a shit she was being.

Harry frowned at her, “You work for Draco, not me.”

“Co-workers,” Asbestos repeated.

“I don’t think that counts,” Harry said.

“Does,” Asbestos said, gesturing to herself as if to say, ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’.

“And you don’t even come all the time when Draco calls you,” Harry said.

“Asbestos didn’t want to interrupt. Both of you are very stupid and need all the help you can get.” Asbestos hopped onto the couch, sitting in the hollow between Ron’s knees and his elbows, looking like a little queen on a throne made of a sleeping giant.

Hermione laughed.

“She calls everyone stupid,” Harry said.

Asbestos looked at him flatly and slowly shook her head.

“Well, um, I’m glad to meet you properly, Ms Asbestos,” Hermione said.

Asbestos frowned at her, “Just Asbestos.”

“Okay. I was just trying to be polite-”

“Don’t bother,” Asbestos said and took a big bite of pasty.

Hermione blinked. She took a deep breath and tried again, “Well, rather than working for Draco Malfoy, have you ever considered working for the Ministry proper?”

Asbestos let out a bark of a laugh as well as a good many crumbs.

“I mean, wouldn’t it be preferable to working for you former oppressor?” Hermione asked.

“Mr Draco was just a stupid child,” Asbestos said, “Elder Malfoy was the head of family keeping us.”

“A job at the Ministry would let you get away from Lucius Malfoy, as well as the manor,” Hermione said.

Asbestos popped the last bite of the pasty in her mouth and clapped her hands, cleaning them and herself instantly of crumbs. “Listen. Asbestos is only going to say this once, got it?”

Asbestos stared at Hermione until she nodded.

Asbestos rolled her eyes like she was dealing with a particularly slow child. She said, picking her words more carefully than she normally did, “Asbestos has talked with assistants and other workers at the Ministry, and Mr Draco pays twice as much. Asbestos has seen the shithole storage room the Ministry elves live in and the cafeteria leftovers they eat. Manor elves eat same as the family. Manor elves stay in rooms in the house; big, nice, plush rooms, beds so soft they are like pudding. You cannot afford Asbestos.”

“Oh,” Hermione said faintly.

“And Mr Draco likes us to speak our mind. He likes Asbestos as she is, rude and mouthy and mean.” Asbestos nodded to herself in satisfaction, “So your offer is shit.”

“Yeah. It is. Compared to most jobs, that’s….” Hermione sighed, “I’m envious, really. If it wasn’t Draco Malfoy, I’d be properly jealous.”

“As you should be,” Asbestos said, “Also Asbestos wouldn’t give it to you anyway. It is a good good job. And as a house-elf, Asbestos knows a good job, because I have done so many many many shit ones.”

“Here you are, my dear,” Molly said from behind them, a little recipe card floating over their heads and into Asbestos’ hands.

“Thanks,” Asbestos said, hopping back onto her feet, “Thanks for inviting Asbestos.”

“I didn’t,” Harry said.

Asbestos raised her eyebrows, “Be more careful then.”

“Before you go,” Harry said quickly, “How is Draco? Like this morning-”

“Stupid,” Asbestos said shortly, “Like always.” she snapped her fingers and disappeared.

“She certainly has... some sort of personality,” Hermione said.

“Yep,” Harry said, “It grows on you.”

“I think I’m going to take Ron home, so he can get some proper rest before tomorrow,” Hermione said.

Harry nodded, barely resisting the urge to tickle the bottom of Ron’s unsocked foot as Hermione coaxed him awake. Ron only woke up enough to be pulled to his feet and steered over to the kitchen to say goodbye to Molly before they left.

Before Harry could think too much about tomorrow or the worst possible outcome, the children came rushing back inside to get him to play with them.

Chapter Text

There were two hangers hooked on the door of Harry’s closet; one held his Auror’s robes, the other a sleek black suit. Harry looked from one to the other. He reached for the suit and pulled his hand back. He looked at the robes and tapped his socked feet on the floor. Harry needed to leave soon, and well, he knew what he was supposed to wear, the robes. The week in the Liar’s Department was over, and he was back to being an auror, but…

Harry scrubbed his hand through his hair. He didn’t even like the suit. Sure it was so drenched in charms that it fit perfectly and never rubbed or chafed or even made him sweat. And made him look like an actual adult. And a bit taller. And a bit cool. He might like the suit a bit.

He gave up and grabbed them both. He had to wear something under the robes, after all.

The Ministry was busy first thing in the morning as people flooded through the Atrium towards the lifts for the day’s work. The air smelled like lattes in paper cups, footsteps rung on the tiles and mixed with conversation until they merged into a general crowd sort of noise.

Harry landed in the apparition zone, and his feet started moving before his brain caught up to what his eyes had seen, a head of white-blond hair heading towards the lifts. He dodged through the crowds, ducking under arms and around billowing robes.

“Draco!” Harry said, popping out of the crowd and catching Draco’s elbow.

Draco looked over at him, his sunglasses obscuring his eyes, “Auror Potter.”

“Don’t Auror Potter me,” Harry said.

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“You could just call me Harry, you know,” Harry said pointedly.

“In front of all these people? Don’t be lewd,” Draco said.

Harry laughed, “At this point, I’ll take Potter.”

“But you are Auror Potter,” Draco said, gesturing to Harry’s robes.

Harry rolled his eyes, “After saturday-” he stopped, suddenly realising everyone was watching them. He had felt like it was just the two of them, mainly because there was a circle of empty space around Draco like he was infectious.

Harry shook his head at the crowd around them, “Don’t you have work to do?”

A few people shuffled guiltily into the lift but more stayed behind to watch, judging, probably fairly, that this would be far more entertaining.

Harry grabbed Draco by the arm and pulled him back behind the reception desk into the narrow stone hallway that led to the supply rooms.

“Draco-”

“Muffliato, please,” Draco said, nodding towards the handful of people that were ‘nonchalantly’ standing near the main desk, their heads conveniently cocked in Harry and Draco’s direction.

Harry rolled his eyes and cast the spell, sweeping a curtain of noise distortion around them.

“Where’d you go sunday?” Harry asked.

“Home,” Draco said, leaning nonchalantly against the dull grey stone wall.

“Without saying anything?” Harry said.

“Were you hoping for morning cuddles?” Draco asked with saccharine sweet sarcasticity.

“Maybe,” Harry said, “Might have been nice, even if you are rather pointy.”

Draco’s ears took on a hint of a flush, “I wasn’t exactly quiet when I left; you sleep like a hibernating bear.”

“Only after drinking,” Harry said defensively. “Why’d you go, then? You could have stuck around.”

“I considered it,” Draco said, “Then I saw your bathroom.”

“What’s wrong with my bathroom?” Harry asked.

Draco raised an eyebrow, “Your shampoo and conditioner are shit and would have ruined my hair. You have a bar of soap, no body wash, no face wash and not even a genetic body lotion, much less something for the face. I don’t understand how you aren’t a dried out wrinkly prune,” Draco said.

Harry shrugged, “Never had an issue.”

“I hate you,” Draco said.

Harry grinned faintly. “Take off the sunglasses, would you?”

Draco didn’t move.

“Just while we’re talking, you can put them back on when you go in the lifts. So you can look all imposing and scary, and what-have-you,” Harry said.

Draco frowned at him, “I look unapproachable yet respectable and authoritative.”

“Same thing,” Harry said.

“It is not,” Draco retorted.

“Take them off, or I shan’t tell you how Hermione reacted when I told her about your freed house-elves,” Harry said.

“That’s not fair,” Draco said.

“We both know not-fair works better when it comes to you,” Harry said.

“But that’s not how Gryffindor’s are supposed to work; they’re all doing the right thing and being noble,” Draco said.

“Technically, it’s doing what they think is noble and the right thing. It can be a bit tricky that,” Harry said, “And I’m pretty flexible.” He paused and grinned to himself, “In more ways than one.”

“Was that meant to be funny?” Draco asked.

“Cause I’m bisexual? So I’m flexible,” Harry said, pointing to himself.

Draco looked doubly unimpressed, “That was so poorly done; it’s an insult to all other jokes to even call it a joke. Since you’re too dim to do it yourself, I suppose I shall have to feel sorry for you.”

“Oh, shut up, you prat,” Harry said.

“I have no intention of ever shutting up for the rest of my life,” Draco said.

“I noticed,” Harry said with a teasing tone. He turned and pretended to leave, “Well if you don’t want to know what happened-”

“Of course, I do,” Draco said irritably as Harry spun back around. He pulled off his sunglasses and slipped them into his pocket, “There. Happy?”

“Temporarily.”

Draco narrowed his eyes.

“You don’t really expect me to be happy all day, do you?” Harry said, “I don’t think I could manage it.” “When we first became reacquainted, I was fairly certain you spent all day being surly and generally miserable,” Draco said.

“Closing out a scene is always generally miserable,” Harry said.

“Tell me what happened, you promised,” Draco said.

“I didn’t promise,” Harry said.

“Just tell me, you berk!” Draco said, slipping into childishness in his frustration.

“Alright, alright,” Harry said with a laugh and then told Draco the story. He seemed pleased with Hermione reaction and completely delighted when Asbestos showed up, grinning hugely at what Asbestos told Hermione before up and leaving with her little recipe card in tow.

But it didn’t make Draco laugh.

“No, really, she looked like this,” Harry did his best to imitate Hermione’s shocked fish face, exaggerating the big eyes and open mouth, putting his hands on the sides of his face like fins.

Draco snorted into a laugh, half-covering his mouth with one curled hand. Harry smiled in return, marvelling at how good happiness looked on Draco.

“We’re going to be late for work,” Draco pointed out.

“I’m sure Asbestos is keeping track of things,” Harry said.

“For me, yes,” Draco said, “You, however, seem to be severely lacking in personal secretaries.”

Harry shrugged. “I’ll take the lecture. Might even say I wasn’t feeling well. I still have some sick leave.”

“How rebellious of you,” Draco said.

Harry laughed. “Mostly, I just want to see how the meeting with Oblivator’s is going to go. Hermione’s talking with them today to sort everything out, and once she does, then-”

“Don’t.”

“What?” Harry’s brow furrowed.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Draco said.

“My fairytale future, yeah, I remember-”

“I have had my hopes dashed so many times over the past few years that I can’t tolerate it anymore. I feel as if I might break in two,” Draco said, his voice more serious than Harry had heard all week.

“They won’t be dashed,” Harry said.

“You don’t know that, not for certain,” Draco said.

“Nothing is ever really certain, is it? So-”

“Stop it, or I’ll leave, Potter. I won’t say it again,” Draco said coolly.

Harry didn’t understand it, almost couldn’t. The only way he made it through school, through the last years of the war, was by desperately dreaming of a better future.

“...Okay,” Harry said slowly.

“Okay?” Draco said suspiciously.

Harry nodded. It wasn’t something to start a fight over. Just because he didn’t understand it didn’t mean he couldn’t respect it.

“Do you want to get something to eat after work?” Harry asked.

Draco’s brow furrowed.

“You can pick. I’m sure you have a list of restaurants a mile long,” Harry said.

“Are you asking me on a date?” Draco asked.

“Yes, unless you think sticking my hand down your pants is platonic somehow,” Harry said.

“I should hope not,” Draco said, “Should I be worried about the state of your friendships?”

“Ron and Hermione only stick their hands down each other’s pants,” Harry said.

Draco’s nose scrunched in disgust, “Ugh.”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded solemnly.

“Why would you tell me that?” Draco said.

“I like to share my suffering,” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes, “Go to work, Potter.”

“You didn’t say.”

“Say what?” Draco said.

“Yes, to the date,” Harry said.

“Of course, yes,” Draco said, “Call for Asbestos when you’re done; she can apparate you to me.”

“Great,” Harry said.

Draco looked away, his cheeks faintly pink, “Quit grinning like an idiot and go to work.”

Harry did not quit grinning like an idiot, but he supposed he should get going, “I’ll see you later.”

Draco waved him off, not entirely hiding how pleased he was.

Harry took the lifts up but got off on level three, heading straight to the reception desk. The young woman behind the long curved desk looked up at his footsteps and raised an eyebrow. Her name tag read Ava.

“Excuse me-” Harry started.

Ava stood up, leaning over the counter to look at Harry from the top of his head down to his shoes.

Harry smiled politely, “Yes, I am Harry Potter.”

“I could tell,” Ava said, waving at him, “If I’m gonna tell my friends I met you, they’re going to want details.”

“Err, okay,” Harry said.

“You must not take a good photo,” Ava said, dropping back into her chair.

Harry looked at her in confusion.

“You always look a bit… shite in the Prophet,” Ava said.

“That’s mostly on purpose,” Harry said, “I hate the Prophet.”

“On purpose like, you look bad on purpose? Or they only use the worst photos in their articles?” Ava asked.

Harry shrugged, “A bit of both.”

Ava nodded, “You do look alright in Witch Weekly, sometimes.”

“Thanks?” Harry said. “So, uh, Hermione Granger has a meeting with the Obliviation Department today. I was wondering if they were here already? Or maybe the meeting already happened?”

Ava slowly swivelled her chair around, looked up at the clock on the wall and then slowly turned back to him. She raised a perfectly arched brow at him, “It’s eight-thirty.”

“I just wanted to check because Hermione tends to be very punctual,” Harry said.

Ava stared at him, “A meeting with Obliviation, you said? I’m pretty sure only Jeremy is in so far, but he’s the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.”

“The whole muggle-worthy excuse committee? Is one person?” Harry asked.

“Used to be three, but Leon retired, and Andrea couldn’t stand working with Jeremy alone.” Ava looked over Harry’s shoulder and plastered on a bright smile, “Morning, Jeremy!”

Harry followed her gaze to a tall bean-pole of a bloke with glasses. He had a thick manilla folder and gave a startled wave back before realising he was doing it. A couple comic books fell out of the folder onto the floor, and Jeremy scrambled to pick them up and bolted into an open office.

“Jeremy just gives off, like, some intense awkward vibes, and eventually you can’t stand it and have to try and make it less awkward, and somehow that only makes it even more awkward, sort of thing?” Ava said, “He’s not too bad with other people around; they kind of, dilute the awkward.”

“So Jeremy, the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee, works alright with only one person?”

“So far,” Ava said, “Jeremy makes a couple new excuses every day. He has tons saved up for all sorts of situations.”

“So far,” Harry repeated flatly. It sounded depressingly, exactly like something the Ministry would do.

The lift rattled to a stop behind them, letting out a tired-looking and then very annoyed-looking Hermione.

“Hullo, Hermio-”

“What in the world are you doing here?!” Hermione demanded, storming over to the desk.

“I-uh, well, I was just… passing through?” Harry tried, and then immediacy backtracked, “I wanted to see how the meeting was going, I wasn’t going to do-”

“Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved in filing for overtime?”

“any- What?” Harry said in confusion.

“You’ve only had one day off, Harry,” Hermione said slowly, “You’re supposed to have two, Harry. Work over forty hours requires being paid overtime, Harry. And as the head of the department, I have to fill out the paperwork, Harry.”

Harry leaned away from her, the edge of the desk digging into his back, “I- I thought I was back to working for the aurors?”

“Two days off,” Hermione held up two fingers, “Two.”

“I- I mean, I haven't done any actual work yet. I... I just felt like wearing my uniform today? And visiting the ministry? On my day off?” Harry said.

Hermione breathed out, relaxing fractionally.

Harry froze as he remembered-

“What?” Hermione’s eyes narrowed.

Harry considered lying but decided being caught out later would be far worse than anything he dealt with now, “….I saw Draco in the Atrium this morning.”

Hermione groaned, grabbing hold of the desk to keep herself up.

Harry glanced over at Ava, who was watching them with interest. She waved at them idly, “Oh, don’t mind me.”

“Maybe there won’t be any work today,” Harry told Hermione, “I mean, if we’re supposed to be off, then any jobs would be sent here, right?”

“I very much doubt I’ll be so lucky,” Hermione grumbled.

Harry was saved from having to say anything else by the lift doors opening and a small group of people stepping out. Most of them headed towards one of the large cubicle rooms, but one older man broke off from the rest and walked over to them.

He looked uncannily like a plumber. Not any plumber in particular, but the soul of a plumber seemed to inhabit the man’s body. He was slightly overweight, wore practical trousers and slightly frayed tweed flat cap. Harry would have bet anything that the man was bald under the hat.

Hermione straightened, wiping all signs of distress from her expression and replacing it with a bright smile, “Mr Spiffing! I know I’m early but seeing as you only come to the office once a week, I just wanted to make sure we could talk today.”

“You’re Ms Granger, then?” Mr Spiffing said with an amiable expression.

“Yes, sir. I sent you a copy of my proposal. I don’t know if you had a chance to read through it?” Hermione said, “If not, I’d be happy to go through it with you and answer any questions you might have.”

Mr Spiffing hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and rocked back on his heels, “I read it. You were very thorough.”

Hermione hesitated, sensing the unspoken ‘but’ and tried to skirt past it anyway, “Wonderful! Then you understand that The Liar’s Department is effectively redundant, as it does the same things you already do.”

“But without magic,” Mr Spiffing said.

“Yes... but both departments goal is to hide magic use from muggles,” Hermione said.

Mr Spiffing chuckled, “I am sorry, Ms Granger.”

Hermione’s face fell.

“It’s not your proposal, or even the reputation of your Mr Malfoy. I read through the reports your group finished in the last week, and it would be an absolute boon to have them join on,” Mr Spiffing said.

“I don’t understand. What’s the problem?” Hermione asked.

“The Department has been under a hiring freeze for over a year now,” Mr Spiffing said, “I know technically it’s not a new employee, but adding anyone new to my personal rosters would count just the same,” Mr Spiffing said. “I’ve put in plenty of requests to hire on another crew, but as long as I have enough to technically function, I can’t get anyone new.”

“That’s-” Hermione shook her head in confusion, then her brow furrowed in thought and furrowed further. She asked warily, “Do you happen to know who’s in charge of hiring and staff numbers?”

“It’s a bloke from the Wizengamont that oversees the whole thing, hmm....it started with an S, I think,” Mr Spiffing rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Suirup?” Harry suggested, hoping he was wrong.

Mr Spiffing snapped his fingers, “That’s the ticket, Salsa Syrup! He oversees hiring and payroll! A right pain in the arse, that one.”

Harry and Hermione both nodded in silent agreement.

“If anything changes, I’ll take on your little Liar’s, no problems,” Mr Spiffing said, “Anything else I can help you with?”

Hermione shook her head, her smile forced and brittle, “No. Thank you for seeing me.”

“No problem,” Mr Spiffing said, touching the brim of his cap and heading into his offices.

Harry headed straight for the lifts.

“Harry!” Hermione yelled after him, a second too late to stop him, “What are you doing?!”

Harry pushed the button for the second level, “I’m going to give that little shit-eater a piece of my mind.”

“Harry, don’t-!” Hermione’s voice was cut off by the rising lift.

Harry squeezed out the lift doors as soon as they began to roll open, “Is Suirup here? Is he in?” he called to the desk, causing the young man behind it to jump in surprise.

“S-Sir Suirup? No sir, he just went down to the courtrooms to get some files, or it could be a meeting; I-I don’t think the court is in session today, I can check-”

“Thanks,” Harry said, stepping back into the lift and hitting the button for level ten. The doors were stopped from closing when a turquoise velvet armchair appeared between them, followed in a few seconds by Hermione, very irate and winded from running up a flight of stairs.

Harry stepped back as she flourished her wand, the armchair floating up a few inches and then shooting back into Harry’s chest, pinning him into the corner of the lift.

“Hermio-” Harry started but had the wind knocked out of him again when Hermione sat heavily in the armchair, pining him tighter to the wall. The doors closed with a soft ding, and the lift began descending.

“Are you an idiot?” Hermione said between gulps of air. “Confronting Suirup will only make things worse.”

“How?” Harry said, his voice a little pinched, “He’s pretty much ruined everything already.”

“He could destroy every proposal I ever make,” Hermione said.

“Doesn’t he already?” Harry said.

“-Could tell everyone I don’t know what I’m doing, ruin my credibility-”

“Again. It seems like he’s already-”

“He could get me demoted,” Hermione said.

“You might get more done at this rate,” Harry said.

Hermione tilted her head up, looking at Harry over the back of the plush blue velvet. Her expression on the edge of devastation, “I’ve worked so hard, Harry.”

“I know,” Harry said.

“I don’t want to start over,” Hermione said, biting her bottom lip.

“You won’t be. Me and Ron will back you up. There are plenty of other people who can help. You’ll have a better job in no time, in whichever department you want,” Harry said.

“I want the job I have,” Hermione said, “I want to be able to do the job I have.”

“Then let’s feel Shit-taster out, see if we can get any info. If he’s been targeting anyone or any other departments that we could talk to, get statements, get proof, and then take it to Kingsley,” Harry said.

Hermione huffed a faint laugh, “It’s not that simple.”

“We defeated a dark lord, remember?” Harry said.

“You can’t defeat a politician. If you try they just use it for clout,” Hermione said.

The lift slowed as it reached the lowest level and came to a stop. Hermione slowly pushed herself up, taking a deep breath.

“You were winded by one flight of stairs?” Harry couldn’t help teasing.

“Stuff it. I don’t have time to waste running about. I have actual work to do,” Hermione said, stepping out of the lift and giving her eyes a discrete wipe to get rid of any pesky tears.

“Ouch. What about the armchair?” Harry asked, stepping out after her.

Hermione turned around to dispel the conjured chair, but the lift doors gently closed before she could even raise her wand and headed back up, taking its new chair with it.

The tenth level always seemed darker than the other floors. The floor was a polished black stone that seemed to absorb the lighting charms high overhead, the walls were panelled in a dark wood, and the brass fittings were dull with age. The ceilings were unreasonably tall as the entry hall lead into the heavy, imposing double doors of the courtroom where the galleries of the Wizengamont sat high above the defendant’s docket and visitor seating on the floor below.

On either side of the entryway were two other, far more discrete doors. One led to the Ministry holding cells where they held people before trial and on short term imprisonment.

“It’s this way,” Hermione said, pointing to the other door.

The foyer was unnervingly quiet, their footsteps ringing loudly on the stone floor.

“I’ve never been to this side,” Harry said to break the silence.

“It’s just three conference rooms and a filing room,” Hermione said. “I’d swear they’re haunted, though. I feel like I’m in a low budget horror movie every time I have to come down here.”

Hermione grabbed the dull brass doorknob, but before she could turn it, it was pulled out her hand by one Sir Salas Suirup as he attempted to go through the very same doorway they were stood in.

Suirup’s moustache bristled. He pulled his shoulders up and back, his chin lifting, like a proud and haughty bird. “Miss Granger, I am surprised to see you down here. I had assumed your new duties would be keeping you quite occupied.”

Hermione hesitated then drew herself up as well, her tone cool, “I was looking for you, actually.”

“I really don’t have time right now,” Suirup said, trying to step around Hermione and nearly walking right into Harry. He froze in surprise, and, for just the skin of second, Harry could have sworn he looked completely terrified. “I-I Auror Potter. I didn’t- what are you doing here?”

Harry felt himself slipping into his old instincts and didn’t answer Suirup’s question, not even to lie. There was something else bothering him, a niggling little thought, “...The receptionist said you were coming down here to get some files?”

Suirup looked down at his empty hands and said quickly, “Ah, well, it was more to- to refer. I came down to refer to some files.”

“I was speaking to Mr Spiffing, the head of the Obliviation,” Hermione said, “He said you’re in charge of Hiring and Payroll.”

“I have many duties,” Suirup said, turning to step between them. “Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

Harry shifted his weight, carefully blocking more of the doorway.

Suirup’s eyes glanced between them, then behind them at the empty hall, “Ah, it’s just you then,” he said. Suirup’s posture relaxed almost instantly, and he reached up to twist the waxed end of his moustache into a tighter point, “Hurry up then. I do have an appointment to keep.”

Hermione stiffened, barely tamping down on her anger. “Mr Spiffing said that you placed a hiring freeze on his department even though he needs more obliviators.”

“Every department thinks they need more help, and yet they still manage to run,” Suirup said. “If a department can show they absolutely need to hire someone new, then I would obviously authorise it.”

“The entire Obliviation department has to be call at all times because they don’t have enough employees to cover a full range of shifts,” Hermione said, “They can barely afford to come into their offices once a week. What if there’s an emergency? What if they need to revise department policy?”

“What if indeed, Miss Granger?” Suirup said, his tone taking on a condescending tone, “The Ministry doesn’t operate on ‘What if’s’. It operates on a budget.”

“The Ministry won’t operate at all if key departments like Obliviation fail in an emergency!” Hermione snapped.

Suirup tsk-tsk-tsked under his breath, “Well, obviously getting the right balance the people working in a department is very important. But ever since last year, with the new transfer program making it so easy for people to move around, well, it made quite a mess of things.”

Hermione blinked in utter disbelief.

“It’s been such a headache for me. The hiring freeze was just... a necessary stabilising measure,” Suirup said, looking impossibly smug as he told Hermione this.

“This isn’t my fault.” Hermione snapped, “You can’t blame this on me. You’re just using it as an excuse to- to punish me! To put me back in my place!”

“If only that worked, Miss Granger,” Suirup said, “I wouldn’t say your little transfers were a bad idea. They have potential. And of course, I saw no need to keep the menials from transferring as they pleased.”

“The menials?” Harry said in disgust.

Which Suirup utterly ignored, “It’s not as if they’re going to affect anything. But, I strongly believe that your transfers could be best utilised by personal example.”

Hermione stared at him.

“Which is to say your nosiness-” Suirup cleared his throat, “I mean, talents, might be better utilised elsewhere. Surely you don’t want to spend your whole life as a clerk.”

“I don’t,” Hermione cut him off.

Suirup raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“I’m not transferring,” Hermione snapped.

Suirup sighed.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, “What’s the fucking point of this? You know we can just go to Kingsley with everything you’ve said. It’s not like he won’t believe us; we can show him our memories.”

“Ah, how quaint. Running to the headmaster for help, are we?” Suirup said, “I’m afraid that doesn’t work here. A Wizengamont member cannot be removed by the Minister. If a chair is up for vote, a new member might be brought in, but I’m from one of the old families that founded the Wizengamont. I cannot be voted out by anyone other than the Wizengamont itself. And it must be by a two-thirds majority.”

Suirup’s smile was particularly unbearable as he carefully twisted the other point of his moustache. “I’m sure some might say my treatment of you hasn’t been terribly… benevolent, but any complaint you brought to the Minister or Wizengamont would result in a reprimand at most.”

Suirup was looking pleased as punch as he pushed past them, neither Harry or Hermione having the wherewithal to stop him. “Being a bit harsh isn’t against the law,” he added.

“A bit?” Harry said, “You’re trying to ruin Hermione’s career!”

Suirup took a few steps into the foyer before turning back around, “If you really believe that, then it might be best if Miss Granger considered a new line of work in a more agreeable department.”

There was a faint rattle as the lift started coming back down.

Hermione hand’s were clenched into fists, “So you hate muggle-borns, is that it? Just another blood-supremacist-”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Suirup interrupted, “It’s more a problem with... your entire generation.”

The lift doors opened, and a pair of Junior Auror’s came out and went to cover the entrance to the stairs. Right behind them were two Auror’s that spread out to flank the two Senior Aurors, Shunter and Leon, at the head of the group. All of them were walking on silenced feet with their wands drawn.

Suirup went on oblivious to the auror’s coming up behind him, “You young people all seem to think you know what’s right. Always thinking things need to change and sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

Harry let his arms swing back behind his robes and eased his wand from his sleeve holster. Hermione was very, very carefully, keeping her eyes on Suirup as if she was actually interested in his petty tirade.

“Salas Suirup?” Shunter said clearly, her voice ringing around the room.

Suirup blanched and spun around to face the group of aurors, “Y-yes? Is there-” he tried to clear his throat, but his voice only came out at even more of a squeak, “is there something I can help you with?”

“You are under arrest for money laundering, misappropriation of Ministry funds, embezzlement of Ministry funds-”

“I- I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Suirup interrupted, shuffling backwards a step, “This is slander! Lies! I won’t have my name dragged through the mud like this!”

Shunter went on as if she hadn’t heard him “-and destruction of Ministry property.”

“Proof! Where is your proof!” Suirup demanded.

“Well, the Auror department placed tracking charms on the files you just vanished from the Wizengamont’s filing room in order to cover your trail. Will that do?” Shunter asked. She smiled, “Not to worry, we made copies.”

Suirup turned as if to run and saw Hermione and Harry blocking the way. His eyes skittering around the room. The only exits were covered; the other doors led to dead-ends. His hand shot into his robe, fumbling to pull out his wand.

“Expelliarmus!” Harry shouted.

Suirup’s wand jumped from his hand, clattering across the floor far out of reach.

Someone laughed. And everyone turned to look back at the lift doors, except Shunter, who never took her eyes off of Suirup, to see Ron standing at the back of the group. He raised his hands apologetically, “Sorry, sorry. That’s just classic Harry.”

Harry glared at him, and Ron had to press his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing again.

“Should we add resisting arrest to your list of charges, Mr Suirup, or will you come peacefully?” Shunter asked.

Suirup’s moustache quivered, and he blinked rapidly like he was trying hard not to cry, “I wish to speak to my solicitor.”

“And you shall, Mr Suirup, right after I read you your right to silence and find you a nice safe little cell to wait in,” Shunter said pleasantly, gesturing to the other side of the room and the door leading to the holding cells.

The two Auror’s took Suirup by the arms and led him across the floor, Shunter a step behind as she read out his rights.

“You lads collect the accused’s wand,” Senior Auror Leon told the Juniors. Leon was the oldest Senior Auror, a bit hunched with age with a long white beard streaked with grey. He was too old for raids and dangerous missions but often took point on intel and data gathering for the department. “We’ll file it into evidence and cast a priori incantatem on it to record the past couple spell uses. Evanesco should be the first one if we’ve done our job right.”

“What about me, sir?” Ron asked.

Senior Auror Leon turned to Ron with a smile, “Well, I suppose you can take the witness statements of these two, see what they were up to.”

Ron glanced over at Harry and Hermione with a grin, “Sure. No problem.”

“Once you’ve done that and all the paperwork is in order, go on home. And take the tomorrow off, as well,” Leon said, “You’ve worked yourself to the bone lately; a break would do you good.”

“Yes, sir!” Ron said.

“And I’ll be putting in a recommendation for you,” Leon said.

“A recommendation, sir?” Ron asked.

Leon nodded, a slow dip of the head, “For promotion. You’ve certainly earned it, and I look forward to the work you’ll do as a proper Auror.”

Ron’s face lit up, “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!” He managed to hold himself still until Leon had started over to the Juniors before running over to them, Hermione meeting him halfway in a hug that spun them both around from the momentum. Harry would have thought it was cute if he wasn’t obligated to give them a hard time about it. That was what friends were for, after all.

“Did you hear that-!”

“That was amazing-!”

The two of them excitedly talked over one another until Ron leaned down to kiss Hermione, shutting them both up.

Harry rolled his eyes as he walked over to join them, “Now, will you tell us about the big case you were working on?”

Ron grinned and hooked an arm around Harry’s shoulder, pulling him into the hug, “Congratulate me first, you shite.”

“Congrats,” Harry said, “Should have happened ages ago.”

Ron grinned.

Hermione sighed into Ron’s robes, “Merlin. I really can’t believe it.”

“So what was all of that, then? Money laundering? Embezzlement?” Harry asked.

“It started with those potion shop ledgers that were off. Leon thought it was potion smuggling, then we realised it was money laundering because there weren’t any actual potions being made. Then I noticed that one of the customers ‘buying’ these potions was the Ministry. It turned out the other purchases were fake, just business fronts, so all the real galleons were coming from the ministry,” Ron said.

“And Suirup-?” Harry said.

“Was in charge of Office supplies and Acquisition,” Ron said, “He’s been running the whole thing for decades. The Ministry used to have a healer on staff during business hours and a mediwitch after hours. Suirup changed the healer for a mediwitch, then got rid of the mediwitch after hours, turned the only mediwitch left into an assistant mediwitch and ‘potions’; lots and lots of utterly fake potions. He did the same with all the supplies, as far as we can tell. Charged the Ministry for loads of high-quality stuff and brought in cheap shite ones instead.”

“Like the quills,” Harry said, remembering Percy’s complaints yesterday.

“Like everything,” Ron said.

“And no one noticed?” Hermione said.

“He spent decades at it, changing things just a bit at a time,” Ron said.

“He was in charge of Hiring and Payroll, as well. How does that fit in?” Harry asked.

Ron shrugged, “Less people hired, more money to siphon off. We haven’t tracked it all down because he was using banks all over the wizarding world, but we figure he’s stolen millions of pounds from the Ministry over the years.”

Hermione gasped.

“Then you came along,” Ron said.

“Me?” Hermione frowned.

“Brightest witch of our age, getting promoted left and right, throwing out brilliant ideas everywhere you go-” Ron said, “My best guess, you scared the pants off him. If anyone was going to catch on to what he was doing, it would have been you.”

“You are the only researcher that talks to all the Departments,” Harry said.

“We were lucky to get the ledgers to start with,” Ron said, “And even luckier that when we started looking into these things, Suirup was distracted by you two causing trouble.”

“Glad to help,” Hermione said with a sarcastic eye roll.

Ron shifted his weight, squeezing both of them a little tighter, “There’s one other thing, you probably ought to know...”

“Oh no...” Hermione groaned.

“Okay, so…. If Suirup is convicted of all this stuff, and he will, it’s a pretty air-tight case, then he can’t hold a seat on the Wizengamont,” Ron said, “In fact, cause he committed crimes against the Ministry, his inherited seat will be turned into an elected seat.”

“That’s good,” Harry said.

“There’s more,” Ron said, looking like he was fighting down a grin, “They’ll put someone in the seat temporarily until the next election, and they always pick a department head, preferably one that’s never held or turned down a seat on the Wizengamont. And there’s only one department head that’s never held a seat before,” he looked at Hermione meaningfully.

“What?” Hermione’s mouth fell open, “What?”

Ron grinned properly, “It’s only temporary, but it shouldn’t be too hard to win it properly once you’ve shown what a good job you can do, right?”

“I- What?” Hermione said faintly.

“I think you broke her, mate,” Harry said.

“Nah. I haven't. Hermione's made of tougher stuff than that,” Ron said.

“I can’t believe it,” Hermione said, “I can’t believe you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Ron laughed, “You getting the job would have happened with or without me.”

“Not without you breaking the case,” Harry pointed out.

“Someone else would’ve-” Ron started.

But he was cut off by Hermione hugging him tightly around the neck and pressing kisses all over his cheeks, “Shut up, you! God, you’re terrible, horrible, wonderful, I want to marry you so much!”

Ron laughed, squeezing her around the waist so he could pick her up off the floor, “Yeah, of course. Always figured your proposal would be nicer than this, though.”

Hermione wiggled back to the ground and pointed a finger at Ron, “That’s not a proper proposal; it doesn’t count.”

“Yeah, I suppose. We decided to wait anyway,” Ron said.

“Hmm,” Harry said, “Wasn’t it that you wanted to wait until you got… what was it... a promotion or something?” He pointedly looked from one to the other, “And now you’ve got two.”

Hermione and Ron stared at one another.

Harry laughed. “Okay, first off, I’m staying neutral. I’m not going to pick sides between the two of you. And second, say, give it a month? Then it’s best proposal wins.”

“Shouldn’t it be first proposal wins?” Hermione asked.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Harry said.

Ron grinned, “I like it.”

“I want two months,” Hermione said.

“Wa-No way!” Ron said, “There’s no way I can beat you if you have two months to prepare.”

“One month is far too short,” Hermione said.

“Month and a half?” Harry suggested.

Both Ron and Hermione were frowning but reluctantly nodded.

“Shake on it,” Harry said.

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry but stuck out his hand. Hermione shook it with a stubborn set to her jaw.

Chapter Text

“Does anyone know why there’s a chair in the lift?”

“Oh, that’s mine! Sorry!” Hermione said, running across the foyer.

The auror at the lift gave Hermione a confused look and levitated the blue velvet armchair out onto the black stone floor.

“Yours?” Ron asked as he and Harry followed her.

“I conjured it,” Hermione said, sounding embarrassed, “I was in a rush and a bit frazzled-”

“Nice. I kind of like it,” Ron said, running his hand over the back of it.

“You want to keep it?” Hermione said doubtfully.

“Why not?” Ron asked.

Hermione frowned at the chair, “It’s not really our style.”

“Do we have a style?” Ron asked, sitting down in the chair and looking up at Hermione with a grin.

“Conjured things always disappear, don’t they?” Harry said.

“Usually, but when I conjure in a rush, they tend to stick around,” Hermione said. “You know the horrible pea green pot Molly keeps in the centre of the mantelpiece at the Burrow?”

“The one she keeps floo-powder in?” Harry said, recalling the ugly lumpy pot that was always above the fireplace

“Yeah,” Hermione sighed.

“Wait- Really? That’s conjured?” Harry asked.

“It was just after the war. Molly was still grieving, I’d just started dating Ron officially, and I forgot about a gift for Molly’s birthday until we were just leaving for the party. I panicked,” Hermione said. She laughed a bit, “I keep expecting it to be gone the next time we visit, but it’s always there.”

“That’s… a strong conjuration,” Harry said.

“Mum loves that pot,” Ron said with a grin that was full of shite.

“Merlin, it’s so ugly,” Hermione wrinkled her nose.

Harry grinned, “Unfortunately, it’s a gift from her youngest son’s girlfriend that she gave her right after the war when she was still grieving. Molly practically has to keep it.”

Hermione laughed, “Oh- Oh no!”

“Now we have to look at an ugly conjured pot for all eternity,” Ron said.

“Oh shut up, it’s not that funny. I have no idea what I’m going to do when it disappears,” Hermione said.

Ron did not stop grinning, “I think it’s pretty funny.”

Harry cleared his throat, “So… erm, to get the Wizengamont seat, you have to be a department head. Does that mean you have to keep being the department head of The Liar’s Department?”

Hermione blinked and then looked at Ron.

Ron shrugged, “I dunno.”

Hermione chewed on her lip, thinking.

Harry watched Hermione's brow furrow and unfurrow. After a tense minute, Hermione let out a sigh.

“Is that a yes?” Harry said.

Hermione glared at him.

“Sorry,” Harry said.

“Even if I don’t have to, it wouldn’t look good to take the position and then dissolve the department,” Hermione said, “So you win, Harry. I hope you’re happy; I’ll have to work with Malfoy now.”

“He really isn’t that bad,” Harry said.

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, he does like to annoy people on purpose, but if you know that’s what he’s trying to do, it’s pretty funny,” Harry said.

Hermione shook her head, “That doesn’t make it better. I’m probably going to have to hire someone just to mind him, aren’t I?”

Harry pointed at himself.

“You’re going back to be an auror, Harry,” Hermione said.

“I’ll transfer,” Harry said. “properly, not just for a week.”

Hermione shook her head in confusion, “You can’t be serious.”

“I am, I mean, I just thought of it but-”

“Have you lost your mind, mate?” Ron said in dismay, sitting forward in the chair.

Harry shook his head, “No… No. I like working in the Liar’s Department.”

“What about the auror’s?” Ron said.

“It’s alright. It can be great sometimes,” Harry shrugged, “but I don’t think I’ll miss it all that much.”

“What about the training? The promotion, all that hard work?” Ron said.

“I can always transfer back,” Harry said.

Ron and Hermione looked at one another.

“Well, I could, couldn’t I?” Harry said, “It not like they’re going to say no. It would look bad.”

Ron let out a weak wheeze of a laugh.

“I am Harry Potter; it has to be good for something,” Harry said.

“Um,” Hermione blinked, “Yes...? I… suppose so.”

“You’re barmy, mate,” Ron said.

“And I don’t want to be Head Auror,” Harry said.

“W-w-who said you you were going to be Head Auror?” Hermione said, nearly tripping over her tongue.

“Shunter said they have plans for me to be the youngest Head Auror in history. Kingsley and Robards and some of Wizengamont are behind it. Can you imagine? A Head Auror who’s only twenty-six? That’s-” Harry shook his head- “that’s barmy. I wouldn’t trust myself with a house plant, much less a whole Ministry Department. I mean, would you want me in charge of the Aurors?”

“No,” Hermione said without hesitation, “Absolutely not.”

Ron laughed and then tried to hide it in a cough, “That’s brutal, Mione.”

“You could’ve at least pretended to think about it for a second,” Harry said.

“Harry, I love you dearly, but-”

“But?” Harry said.

“-but, you’re hotheaded. You act without thinking, you follow your gut which-

“Which works!”

“-sometimes works,” Hermione said, “And you can’t always control your temper.”

“And it would be a bit weird to have you as my boss,” Ron said.

“A twenty-six-year-old in charge of all the UK’s wizarding law-enforcement? That’s just… irresponsible. Only an idiot would even consider something so foolish,” Hermione said

“You could have stopped at ‘No’,” Harry said, “And here I didn’t want to do it because it would be too much work.”

“Stressful and boring at the same time, the worst kind of job there is,” Ron said.

“Exactly,” Harry said.

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, “Are you sure, Harry? You should probably think about this before making such a big decision.”

“I don’t go back to work until tomorrow,” Harry said.

“Longer than that,” Hermione said.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Harry said.

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

“If Hermione says you should think on it, you probably should,” Ron said.

“I will, until tomorrow,” Harry said.

“Harry.”

“Hermione,” Harry said right back.

“Oh, and he’s stubborn,” Ron said, holding up a finger, “Can’t forget that. It’s usually a good thing in the auror’s, though.”

Hermione sighed again.

“The longer I wait, the longer you have to work with Draco alone,” Harry said.

“I’m not a child. I’m perfectly capable of working with Malfoy in a professional capacity,” Hermione said.

“Yeah, but do you want to?” Harry asked.

Hermione threw up her hands, “I give up. Do whatever you want.”

Harry grinned, took a step toward the lifts, then turned back, “You can do the witness statement without me, right?”

“What? Where you going?” Ron asked.

"To tell Draco about the Liars Department," Harry said.

Ron looked at Hermione in confusion.

“They’re friends,” Hermione said.

“They are?” Ron said.

“Mhmm,” Hermione nodded.

“Since when?” Ron asked, looking alarmed.

Hermione shrugged.

“Oh...” Ron said, “So…. I don’t have to be his friend, do I?”

“No?” Harry said.

“Alright. That’s fine? ...a bit weird...” Ron said. He looked at Hermione in confusion, “They only worked together for a week, right?”

Hermione nodded.

“He’s funny!” Harry said, “And it’s not exactly like we’re strangers.”

“Yeah, you used to hate each other’s guts,” Ron said.

“We got over it,” Harry said.

Ron frowned.

“He needs more friends,” Hermione said.

“That’s true,” Ron said.

“Not you too!” Harry said.

“You haven’t made any new friends since we left school. I wouldn’t have picked Malfoy but,” Ron shrugged, “you do you.”

The lift opened, and pair of confused looking clerks walked around them, heading to the conference rooms.

Hermione shook her head fondly, “I can give the witness statement, so you can tell Malfoy he’s keeping his job.”

“Great. Thanks!” Harry stepped to the lift and then turned back around, “Oh, I can just call Asbestos.”

“Here,” Asbestos said, appearing right behind Harry and making them all jump. She was wearing a frilliest baby-blue easter dress, absolutely drenched in lace and ribbons, and entirely at odds with her dour expression. “What you want?”

“The Liar’s Department is staying! Where is Draco? I want to tell him- everything,” Harry said.

Asbestos cracked the barest hint of a smile, “Good. Mr Draco is just called to a job. Asbestos will take you there.”

Hermione groaned, “Oh no.”

“Don’t worry about the overtime,” Harry said.

“I can’t-”

“Consider it volunteer work,” Harry said.

“Harry-”

“He’s stupid rich, Hermione; he won’t even notice,” Harry said. “And if he does, you can blame it on me.”

“I will,” Hermione said.

Harry rolled his eyes.

Asbestos cleared her throat in annoyance.

“Alright, so-” Harry turned around and then turned back, “One last thing-”

“What is it?” Hermione said in exasperation.

Ron laughed.

“What’s The Liar’s Department’s policy on dating co-workers?” Harry asked.

Hermione’s brow furrowed. She nervously looked down at Asbestos, “…the …elf?”

“Merlin, no,” Harry said.

“Eww,” Asbestos said, “Asbestos is married. And is insulted.”

“Sorry,” Hermione said, looking a bit lost. “Well… if I hire more people for the department, I suppose it’s fine as long as you keep things professional during work hours.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, “I was talking about Draco.”

“If he starts dating someone, then the same would apply to him,” Hermione said.

Harry gave her a confused look, “No… if I- “he slowly pointed to himself,  “start dating Draco.”

“Why would you do that?” Hermione asked.

“Because I like him?” Harry said.

Ron let out a long pained groan, slumping down in the chair, “Oh no... it’s sixth year all over again.”

“No. I don’t think he’s up to something this time,” Harry said, annoyed.

“...this is worse,” Ron breathed.

Hermione frowned, “I don’t know where this infatuation came from, but you should respect Malfoy’s wishes and not impose any feelings onto-”

“We’re going on our second date tonight,” Harry interrupted. “I very much asked him, and he said yes so, no imposition took place.”

“...it’s mutual...” Ron whispered, pressing his hands over his face, “...they’re going to be insufferable.…”

Hermione managed a blink and rubbed her eyes, “...okay. That’s fine. I’m …I’m just feeling a touch overwhelmed now.”

“We’ll try to keep things professional during work,” Harry said.

Asbestos snorted in amusement.

“….Hermione… Hermione, hold me,” Ron said weakly, holding out his arms.

Hermione collapsed into his arms, and they languished together like a Victorian couple dying from consumption.

“ A lot has happened today. So much,” Hermione said, her voice muffled by Ron’s shoulder.

“We’ll be alright. We made it through the war, we can make it through this,” Ron said.

“Really? Really?” Harry said with a laugh, shaking his head, “Well, have fun being ridiculous, I guess.”

Asbestos grabbed a handful of Harry’s robes and apparated them out of the Ministry.

Harry fell out a row of shrubbery and stumbled onto a paved walkway in the middle of the park.  When he spun around to yell at Asbestos, she wasn’t there and probably hadn’t even apparated with him, just dropping him in a bush near the scene.

Harry looked around, picking a leaf out of his mouth and ignoring confused looks from the people on the path. It didn’t take him long to spot the problem. Through the trees, Harry could see a wall of bright bubblegum pink.

He jogged down the path, dodging around people and bursting through the trees into a large square. Or at least, Harry assumed there was a square and presumably a fountain as well underneath the mass of pink bubbles. The hill of small delicate soapy bubbles was at least ten feet high and slowly growing, pressing up as it spread out from the centre. There were plenty of people gathered around to watch, cellphones held up to record the event. A handful of small kids played with the bubbles, scooping them up in their hands and throwing them into the air. Gobs of bubbles sat delicately upon beds of flowers and the tops of trees. There were a couple Junior Aurors around the edge of the square, trying to keep people at a distance.

Draco was with them, talking avidly with Kalya and Junior.

“-I really don’t think-”

“-we received a report of magic-”

“even if magic made it, it’s completely harmless-”

Harry caught Draco by the sleeve, “Hey.”

Draco jumped and scowled, “Auror Potter. I think your watch must be broken, or your head.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “Hi, Harry. It’s nice to see you earlier than I thought I would.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Draco said with an edge of sarcasm.

Harry huffed a laugh, “I came because I was talking to Hermione and we-”

“No. I told you I didn’t want to hear it,” Draco snapped.

“Listen-”

“For fuck’s sake, Potter,” Draco said, looking utterly livid. He pulled his arm free and stormed off, right into the wall of bubbles and quickly disappearing in a haze of pink.

“Wait-” Harry went to follow but was stopped by Kalya.

“Harry Potter, sir!” Kalya said in an urgent whisper, “You’re still wearing your robes! You could get in a lot of trouble.”

Harry looked down at his Auror robes in annoyance. He plucked his fountain pen from the pocket and undid the clasps, letting it fall into a puddle of crimson cloth on the ground.

“Oh,” Junior said, looking at Harry’s black suit with a rising flush in his cheeks.

“Nevermind, then,” Kalya said.

Harry pulled the jacket of the suit open just wide enough to slide the pen into the inside pocket, “Anything else?”

“No,” Kalya said.

Junior frantically shook his head, his face continuing to redden.

Harry followed Draco into the haze of bubbles.

Once inside, he cast a bubble-head charm over himself to keep his glasses clear and unsoaped.

He swept one hand through the bubbles with every step forward, the sound of water growing louder as he approached the fountain at the centre.

“Draco?” Harry called.

He heard the sigh and turned towards it and walked right into Draco.

“I was trying to get away from you,” Draco said bitterly, waving a hand irritably in front of his face to try and clear the bubbles.

“I noticed,” Harry said, “You didn’t let me finish, you prick.”

“And I told you, I don’t want any more of your wishful thinking,” Draco said.

“And if you’d let me finish, I’d have told you it was real and to listen to me for a bloody second,” Harry said, “This isn’t maybe, Draco, this is going to happen.”

“What… what’s going to happen?” Draco asked suspiciously.

“The Liar’s Department is going to stay,” Harry said.

Draco’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“And Hermione will be in charge of it,” Harry said.

“...Better than most,” Draco said, “At least she’ll be fair. I think? Wouldn’t she?”

“Of course,” Harry said.

“Don’t ‘of course’ me. She was rather cold to me the last time we talked,” Draco said. A blob of pink bubbles drifted down onto his nose, and he tried to blow it off which only half worked, leaving a little spot of pink.

“Yeah, well, she’d just found out you were working for her; it was a bit of shock,” Harry said.

“Does this mean Sir Syrup is no longer involved?” Draco asked.

“Oh, right. He was arrested for embezzlement,” Harry said.

“I- Pardon?”

“And money laundering.”

Draco blinked, his head tilting to one side like a confused puppy.

“And destruction of Ministry property,” Harry said, “There was another one, but I can’t remember what it was.”

“You- you’re full of shite, you have to be,” Draco said

“Nope,” Harry reached up, shaking off his hand and wiping the bubbles off the end of Draco’s nose, “I was there when the Auror’s took him into custody. Ron helped; he’s going to get a promotion.”

“I shall send him a fruit basket,” Draco said, sounding dazed.

Harry laughed. “Perfect, he’ll hate it. Do you want me to cast a bubble-head charm for you?” he asked.

“At this point, it’s a bit of lost cause,” Draco said, even as he stepped closer to take advantage of the space in the bubbles made by Harry’s own charm.

“And I’m going to transfer,” Harry said, feeling unexpectedly nervous.

“You don’t-” Draco hesitated, “Surely you don’t mean-”

“To the Liar’s Department,” Harry said.

Draco’s lips parted with a shaky indrawn breath, “Why?”

“Because I want to,” Harry said.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut for just a moment, “You had better not say it’s because of me.”

“I’d have thought you’d like that,” Harry said.

“No.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

“If this doesn’t work-” Draco pointed between the two of them, “-and it’s very likely not to. I don’t want you to- to blame me for this.”

“I won’t,” Harry said.

Draco frowned.

“I promise. And it’s not just because of you. I’m also kind of bored of Auror work and all the paperwork and protocol.” Harry said. He bit his bottom lip for a second then went on, “I told Shunter I don’t want to be Head Auror. I think it should be her, but I feel like no one actually cares about what I want. So, even if it’s only for a year or two, I like the idea of- of-”

“Telling them to fuck themselves?” Draco suggested.

“Yeah. But politely. In case I want to go back to being an Auror,” Harry said.

The corner of Draco’s mouth turned up, “Well, that’s no fun.”

“I’d much rather do it the fun way but-”

“But being an adult is ever so boring,” Draco said.

Harry grinned. “You know, even if this-” he pointed between the two of them, “-doesn’t work, and I think it will, I’d still like us to be friends.”

“Unlikely,” Draco said.

“You’re such a pessimist,” Harry said.

Draco blew a breath out, spraying bubbles over Harry’s bubble-head charm

Harry rolled his eyes as the bubbles slowly slid down so he could see Draco again, “You said that you preferred to live in the present rather than some future that may or may not be, yeah? So, this is the present, isn’t it? The Liar’s Department is going to stay, and I’m going to stay, and we get along, so we’re already friends, aren’t we?”

Draco smiled ruefully, a tiny pink bubble clinging to his eyelashes, “I never should have dared you to prove it, making your future a reality.”

“I didn’t really have anything to do with the Liar’s Department. That was all you and Hermione and Ron,” Harry said.

“As if,” Draco scoffed, “Without you sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong, the department wouldn’t have lasted a day.”

“That almost sounded like a compliment,” Harry said with a grin.

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“But, I do have to ask, well...” Harry took a deep breath, “Do you want me to?”

“To what?”

“To transfer into the Department? Like if you’d rather not work together...” Harry said.

“As this last week has shown, I can’t really work on my own without some knuckle-brained auror refusing to listen to me,” Draco said.

“Yeah, but that’s not the same thing as wanting to work together. Hermione could always hire someone else to deal with the shitty wizards,” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes in annoyance, “Fine. Yes. I want you to stay. Why must you make things so difficult?”

“Things tend to be a bit difficult when it comes to us,” Harry said.

Draco waved his arm through the bubbles, temporarily making a slightly larger space around them, “In general, I find your tendency to try and be the hero extremely obnoxious.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Harry said sarcastically.

“However,” Draco said with a glare, “I’ve never been at the centre of such heroics-”

“And Hermione, I did it for her too,” Harry said.

“Would you shut up, I’m trying to have a moment here,” Draco said.

“Go on, then.”

“As I was saying,” Draco said, nervously combing his hand through his hair.

Harry bit down on a laugh.

“Since you went to all this trouble for me, the least I can do is reward you,” Draco said.

Harry waggled his eyebrows cheekily.

“Not like that, you prick,” Draco said irritably. “Mother was right; I have ruined you.”

Harry laughed.

Draco sighed in exasperation and stepped right up against Harry, popping his charm, so a curtain of foam came down to rest on their heads. He cupped Harry’s face in his hands, bubbles smearing across his cheeks and pulled him into a kiss.

Harry pushed his glasses on top of his head, gripping Draco’s wrists and leaning in to deepen the kiss. Draco slipped one hand down to cup the back of Harry’s neck as they parted, pressing their foreheads together.

“thank you,” Draco whispered, so faint Harry almost didn’t hear it, and he was certain Draco would never admit to ever having said it.

Harry grinned, happy to stay close, even as the bubbles began to envelop them. “...So, what are the aurors going to do about all this mess?”

“Nothing? It’s bubbles. Muggles do this too, you know,” Draco said.

“Even though there’s magic in it?” Harry said.

Draco pulled back slightly so he could glare down his nose at Harry, “What magic?”

“It’s turned your hair pink.”

“What?!” Draco’s hand went up to his hair, currently a pretty shade of bubblegum pink all the way to the roots.

“And your suit,” Harry said, “I think it only affects white things.” He looked down at himself, glad he was wearing mostly black and a maroon dress shirt, none of which had changed colours.

Draco looked down at himself, frantically trying to wipe the bubbles off his jacket, which was already thoroughly pinked, “And you’ve just been standing here watching it happen?!”

“I mean, you were already half pink when I found you. I figured you’d rather be fully pink rather than blotchy pink.”

“I’d rather not be pink at all!” Draco said.

“It suits you,” Harry said.

“Everything suits me,” Draco grumbled, “And you haven’t even got your glasses on.”

“I saw before someone messed up my charm,” Harry said.

“It was in the way,” Draco said.

Harry grinned, “Yeah, it was,” and kissed him again.

Chapter Text

Robards stared at the paper in his hand, a deep furrow between his brow.

Harry shifted his weight on the uncomfortable chair in front of the desk, then leaned the other way and back until he finally illicit an agonized squeak from the metal.

Robards glanced up for only a brief second, then back down.

Harry sighed and looked around at the floor to ceiling bookshelves. All but one of the empty mugs looked to have been cleared up at some point, but a few changes of clothes stuffed into an empty corner shelf and a few dirty dishes from late night meals had taken up residence on the crowded shelves. It was probably all due to the big case the Aurors had all been so focused on the last week. The room could use a thorough deep clean. It was beginning to smell a bit whiffy.

“What are you thinking, Potter?” Robards said in dismay.

“That I’d like to work in the Liar’s Department, which is why I’ve requested a formal transfer,” Harry said.

Robards set the form down with a sigh, “Fine. We hadn’t planned on giving you the promotion for another year, but I’m sure we could work out something a bit earlier.”

“A promotion,” Harry said flatly.

“I’ll put you in charge of the next prominent case that comes in and use that as cause for your move to Senior Auror,” Robards said, “I can’t manage it any faster than that with raising suspicious.”

Harry muffled a laugh into a cough, “I don’t want a promotion.”

“What do you want then, Potter?” Robards asked, drumming his fingers across the desktop.

“How about a de-motion?” Harry asked. It wouldn’t actually change his mind, but he was curious what Robards would say.

Robard’s brown furrowed.

“Make me a Junior again,” Harry said.

“No. I couldn’t- there’s no precedent for such a thing,” Robards said.

“Make one, then,” Harry said. He shifted his weight back again to elicit another horrible metal shriek from the chair.

Robard’s eyebrow twitched. “Obviously, you have some issues with the department. I’m certain we can work something out-”

“No. I’d like to transfer, sir,” Harry said.

Robards dropped back into his chair, “I’m afraid I have to reject this transfer,” he dropped the form onto his desk. “We need you here, Harry.”

“I’ll just quit then,” Harry said with a frown. He really didn’t like Robards using his first name like they were chums.

Robards started forward, “You can’t; think about how it would look.”

“Yeah, really bad for you,” Harry said, “Even worse if I give an interview with the Prophet afterwards about how disappointed I am with the Auror’s and how they run things.”

Robards expression darkened.

“You know, all my life, people have been deciding things for me. That I’m a useless good-for-nothing because of my parents, that I was a hero because of something that happened to me as a baby, that I was the chosen one because of a prophecy.” Harry sighed and pushed another squeak out of the chair. “The thing I want, and have always wanted really, is to be judged fairly for what I do. Not promotions I haven’t earned, or given no punishments or demerits that I have earned. Not I would have liked them per-say but, it’s the principle of the thing.”

“Is there anything I can do to change your mind about this?” Robards asked, “I could arrange a more informal demotion; have you treated as a Junior within the department for as long as you feel necessary.”

Harry sighed.

“I could arrange for you to have more training or put you under a Senior’s personal purview or-”

“I’d like to transfer,” Harry said, “to the Liar’s Department.”

Robards stared at him.

Harry stared back.

“Is there anything-”

“No,” Harry shook his head before Robards could continue. The old man looked so grim that Harry conceded, “I’m not giving up on being an Auror completely. I might transfer back-”

Robards nodded slightly to himself, leaning forward in anticipation.

“If Shunter is made Head Auror when you retire,” Harry said.

“Marlene?” Robards said.

Harry blinked; it hadn’t actually occurred to him that Shunter had a first name. Aside from maybe sir.

“Shunter is the most qualified Senior auror in the Department, with the best record and a mind towards reform. She might not be famous, but she’d do a good job,” Harry said. “I’d be interested in working for her again.”

Robards sat back so heavily his chair rocked.

“Sorry, sir,” Harry said, “Just approve my transfer, and I’ll tell the Prophet that the Auror’s were great, and I was just feeling restless and looking for something new. No hard feelings all around.”

Robards shook his head slowly, even as he reached for his quill, moving the transfer forms back in front of him. “You’ve… changed, Potter.”

“Yeah,” Harry said with a grin, “I met someone; he’s a terrible influence.”

“The zoo, Potter? Really? I allow you to pick where we go, and you pick The zoo,” Draco glared around the brightly coloured signs pointing to various exhibits, “Do I look like a child to you?”

“No, but you certainly play the role well,” Harry said.

Draco turned and glared at Harry. His hair still as pink as a flamingo. He was always complaining about how difficult it was to make sure it didn't clash with his outfits, but Harry knew he like his new hair colour for the most part; otherwise, he'd glamour it.

Harry reached up and eased off Draco’s sunglasses and put them in his own pocket, “You don’t need to look imposing here; you’ll scare the children.”

“Give those back,” Draco said.

“When we leave, I will,” Harry said.

Draco settled for huffing and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Next time I bring Teddy, you should come. The zoo is a lot of fun with a little kid,” Harry said.

“You should have brought him this time,” Draco said.

“This is a date, not a playdate,” Harry said, checking his watch, “Come on, we’ll be late.”

“If it’s a water show, I’m not going. I hate getting splashed,” Draco said.

“It’s not a water show,” Harry said, grabbing Draco by the arm and pulling him down the path.

Draco looked around, “This zoo is probably too small for a decent water show.”

“I think they have seals and penguins,” Harry said, glancing at a large map as they passed to make sure he was headed in the right direction.

“Every zoo has seals and penguins,” Draco said.

“Not every zoo,” Harry said. “Are you going to be like this the whole time?”

“When you asked me out on this ‘date’ of yours, I was expecting something more-” Draco huffed again, “more… romantic.”

Harry laughed.

“What? What?” Draco said sourly, “You’ve never asked me out properly before.”

“I’m sorry, what do you call all the other times I’ve asked you out to dinner and lunch and-”

“Those were just meals,” Draco said, “This is the first time you’ve taken me somewhere.”

“Hmm,” Harry said, looking at Draco with a smile.

“What?” Draco asked.

“Just thinking that you take me places all the time,” Harry said.

Draco’s ears took on a pink flush that matched his hair. “Yes. Well. I’m not rude.”

Harry took Draco’s hand and gave it a squeeze, “Come on. We’re almost there.”

“Where-”

"Mister Harry Potter?" A young woman wearing a zookeeper uniform called.

"Yes! That's me, sorry, we're late," Harry said, leading Draco over to her.

"Hi! I'm Cam, and I'm one of the zookeepers here. Let's get going," Cam smiled brightly and led them through a side down and into one of the back areas of the zoo. The floors were concrete, clean and bright to match the white walls, and the air smelled like an earthy mix of hay, grain and manure.

Draco wrinkled his nose as he looked around,  channelling all the childish disdain of his eleven-year-old self.

Harry tightening his grip on Draco’s hand and pulled him along behind Cam.

"So today, you'll be feeding Bubbles. She's still young, so she's always excited for snack time," Cam said.

“Feeding? Bubbles?” Draco said.

Cam gave Harry a questioning look.

“I haven’t told him; it’s a surprise,” Harry said with a grin.

Cam stopped at a large sliding door and looked at both of them, “Here we are. You’ll be separated from Bubbles by a fence and will listen to all instructions I give you. No yelling, no grabbing and stay behind the fence, understand?”

Draco looked at Harry in alarm, “Is this safe?”

“Very,” Cam said, “Bubbles is a sweetheart. We just have to cover all our bases.”

“We understand,” Harry said.

“Oh, and sign these release forms,” Cam said, flourishing a clipboard.

Harry did. Draco only looked more alarmed.

“We’ve never had an incident. It’s just those bases we have to cover,” Cam said, “We’re a small zoo. We can’t afford a lawsuit.”

Draco looked at the clipboard with trepidation.

“Trust me, it’s worth it. I promise,” Harry said.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Draco muttered as he carefully signed a long and overly intricate curly signature.

“Thanks,” Cam said, collecting the forms and pulling open the doors.

They were barely inside when they were greeted by an ear-splitting trumpet followed by the large grey head of an elephant leaning over the chest-high fence separating them from the rest of a large barn.

“I know, I know, we’re running a bit late, aren’t we, sweet girl?” Cam said as she hurried to the back of the room to retrieve a bucket filled with fruit.

Draco stared open-mouthed. Harry tugged him closer to the fence.

Bubbles flipped her ears back and forth, watching the fruit with far more interest than them.

"Bubbles is an ivory orphan. Her mum was killed by poachers for her tusks, so Bubbles was taken in by an elephant orphanage," Cam said, "Ideally, they like to raise the elephants close to home and release them back into the wild, but Bubbles has some health problems so she came here where we can take care of her." She sat the bucket of fruit next to them.

“Is she okay?” Draco asked quietly, not taking his eyes off Bubbles.

“She’s fine. Bubbles just has a sensitive stomach, so her diet has to be carefully managed by us here at the zoo,” Cam said. “And part of that diet is her twice daily fruit snack.” She picked up an apple and held it out.

Bubbles reached over the fence with her long trunk, grabbing the apple and ferrying it to her mouth.

“You can feed her now,” Cam said, “Go on, she’s gentle.”

Harry knelt down and grabbed two apples, pressing one into Draco’s hand. He could feel Draco jump slightly as Bubbles took the apple from his hand. Harry put the other apple in Draco’s hand.

“You said she was young?” Harry asked.

Cam nodded, “African bush elephants can live up to seventy years. Bubbles is eleven, so she’s still a bit of a teenager.”

Harry picked out a couple sweet potatoes. He gave one to Draco and held out one himself. Bubbles deftly plucked it from his hand with an easy dexterity, and it disappeared into her mouth with a single crunch.

Draco couldn't take his eyes off her, hardly daring to blink. Harry let Draco do most of the feeding, only passing a few more apples to the elephant. When Bubble's trunk brushed his palm, the skin felt rough and warm. He was surprised how delicate Bubbles was, grasping things with the end of her trunk like it was a little hand.

“That’s all. All done, Bubbles,” Cam said, holding up the empty bucket.

Bubbles explored the inside of the empty bucket and then huffed, flapping her ears in annoyance. Food gone, Bubbles turned her attentions to her two visitors. She gravitated to Draco immediately, her trunk ruffling over his hair and even giving it a tug.

“That’s not food, Bubbles!” Cam laughed, patting Bubble’s trunk.

Bubbles tilted her head with a look that seemed to say, I know that.

“You never let me play with your hair,” Harry said, pulling out his new phone and managing to fumble on the camera app, taking a few photos and then recording a video.

“You make a mess of it,” Draco said absently, carefully touching Bubble’s trunk as she continued to explore his hair.

Harry snorted, “As if Bubbles isn’t?”

“It’s a special occasion,” Draco said.

Bored with Draco’s hair, Bubbles trunk moved down, practically engulfing his face.

Draco sputtered but only turned his head so he could breathe.

Cam was laughing, “Bubbles! Bubbles, that’s enough! Sweet girl,” she nudged Bubble’s trunk back, “She doesn’t see hair that colour very often. She’s just curious.”

“It’s fine,” Draco said, his hair standing nearly straight up.

Cam’s walkie crackling to life, signalling the end of their visit. Harry quickly put his phone away before Draco caught him recording.

Draco was silent as they walked back up to the zoo, and Cam left to go back to her regular work.

They lingered by the door in a spot of shade away from the crowd.

“You said you wanted to meet an elephant,” Harry said.

Draco let out a breath and blinked as if waking from a dream.

“What do you think of my date now?” Harry asked, feeling a bit proud about the whole thing.

Draco pressed Harry into the corner and kissed him breathless.

“I’ll take that as a roaring success then,” Harry said faintly.

Draco brushed his hair back with a belated look of embarrassment as he stepped back.

“So… do you want to go look at the penguins?” Harry asked.

Draco nodded, and Harry took his hand.

“Can we come here again?” Draco asked.

“Yeah, whenever you like,” Harry said.

“So cars are like small trains?” Little Dobby asked, pressing their nose against the front window. They were standing on top of a footstool to see the street outside.

“There are lots of different kinds of cars, though,” Teddy said, sitting next to them.

“Trains are different too,” Dobby said, “I’ve seen like- like five many, and they were different colours, and the Hogwarts express is super different!” They pointed to their wooden model train and Teddy’s little metal replica of the Hogwarts Express sitting nose to nose on the windowsill.

Teddy’s brow furrowed in thought, his hand going to his train and moving it back and forth, butting it against Dobby’s train, “...but trains are on rails, and cars can go anywhere.”

Dobby squinted outside, “Cars have to stay on the black paths, don’t they? How is that different than rails?”

“...I dunno,” Teddy said, frowning to himself and looking conflicted, “but- but- but they’re different! I know they are.” He looked over his shoulder at the three of them sitting around the living room, “Aren’t they?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about muggle machines, Teddy,” Andromeda said, “Perhaps Harry knows.”

Meribelle tilted her head in interest as well. She was half the size of the armchair she was sitting on, perched upon the edge with her legs hanging off. Her dark blue dress and shiny silver ear cuffs seemed too fancy for the little get together, but Meribelle had told Harry that she determined to make as good an impression as possible.

“Err...” Harry wiped his palms off on his jeans. Between Andromeda’s casual-elegance and Meribelle’s fanciness, he was feeling severely under dressed. “I don’t know a lot, but uh, you’re both right?”

“What? It can’t be both,” Teddy said, not happy at all with the answer.

Dobby looked from Teddy to Harry, “Can it? How?”

“Well, both trains and cars use engines to move so, they’re the same that way. But they’re different in the kind of vehicle, with trains on rails and cars on roads,” Harry said.

“What’s an engine?” They both asked.

Harry winced, “It’s, uh, I don’t know how they work exactly.”

Teddy frowned at him.

“I only went to muggle school till I was eleven, Tedster, you… you learn about engines at sixteen,” Harry said, half-truthfully.

“Engines aren’t magic then?” Little Dobby asked.

“No. It’s all- all a muggle machine,” Harry said. He shrugged, “Which I don’t know about.”

“We can look for a book on them when we go to the library on monday,” Andromeda said.

Teddy nodded. He told Little Dobby solemnly, “The library has lots and lots of muggle books about muggle things. Once I find out, I’ll tell you everything, okay?”

“A library? Can I go to the library too, Mama?” Dobby asked.

“It’s a muggle library?” Meribelle asked Andromeda.

“Yes,” Andromeda said, “But with sufficient glamours, I’m sure you could come along. Teddy loves the library.”

Meribelle hesitated and said carefully, “If Asbestos agrees. She knows far more about the muggle world than I.”

“Of course,” Andromeda said. She stood, “I shall start tea. I’m sure we’ll all be wanting something to eat soon enough.”

“I’ll help!” Harry said, jumping to his feet and following Andromeda into the kitchens.

Andromeda flicked her wand, filling the kettle and setting it on the hob to heat. “You can’t escape the questions, you know. They never end,” she said with a smile.

“I always feel terrible when I can’t answer Teddy’s muggle questions,” Harry said.

“You do your best, and that’s what matters,” Andromeda said. “I have some sandwiches prepared in the fridge. Get them out, would you?”

Harry took out the plate of sandwiches cut into little squares. “Should I get the juice out?”

Andromeda sighed, ever dismayed by Teddy’s preference for juice over tea, “I suppose so.”

Harry set everything on the counter next to the tray where Andromeda was setting up a tea service, the china cups clinking gently against one another as she set them down.

“Thank you for setting this up, Harry. I’m always pleased to see Teddy make new friends, and I have enjoyed talking with Meribelle. I hadn’t actually had a chance to talk with a house elf, properly, before. I looks forward to getting to know her better,” Andromeda said. She rested her hands against the counter, staring at the kettle, “I do worry, though...”

Harry’s brow furrowed.

“They work for the Malfoy’s? Is that right?” Andromeda asked.

“Yeah? Why? What’s the worry?” Harry asked.

“I'm just concerned about how they’re treated there,” Andromeda said.

“They’re treated fine. And they’re free elves; they would leave if things were bad,” Harry said.

Andromeda frowned faintly, “Oh, Harry, you have a very liberal mindset. There aren’t many houses that would trust a free elf.”

“Yeah, but Draco’s not-”

Andromeda huffed a silent laugh, a bitter smile on her face, “I know Lucius Malfoy and my sister quite well and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“You fell quite far,” Harry pointed out.

“Mémère!” Teddy shouted, “Mémère, come here!”

“Oh-” Andromeda looked from the stove to the doorway.

“I can finish the tea,” Harry said.

Andromeda nodded. “Don’t make it too strong, dear,” she said as she hurried back into the living room.

Harry grabbed his cellphone and tapped in Draco’s phone number. Using the contacts would have been faster, but part of him like having the number memorised.

“Hi… What do you mean, who is it? No one else calls you,” Harry said.

He rolled his eyes at the reply, “Tiffy only texts. She hates talking on the phone.”

Harry leaned his hip against the counter, “I’m at Andromeda’s- Yes-” He sighed. “This isn’t about whether or now you remembered or not-”

The kettle began whistling, and Harry pinned the phone awkwardly between his shoulder and ear as he turned off the heat.

“Andromeda- No, listen for a second, would you?” Harry said, “Andromeda is worried that Dobby and Meribelle aren’t being treated well at- ...I know. I know. I tried to tell her.”

He filled the teapot and dropped a tea bag in.

“I think, if she met you, then she’d understand-” Harry said and then stopped to roll his eyes again, “I do want her to meet you but not because she’s your aunt. Not everything is about you-” He laughed and shook his head, “Because we’re dating, and her and Teddy are important to me.” His smile grew, and he teased, “Yes, it’s all about me.”

Harry grabbed the tea cosy from the counter and slid it over the teapot to keep it warm while it steeped.

“Why not come over?” Harry asked, “Your schedule is so packed, is it? So many prior engagements-” he laughed, “Sorry, sorry-”

“Everything alright in there?” Andromeda called from the living room.

“Just steeping the tea!” Harry called back. “No, sorry, didn’t mean to yell into the phone I was just-”

“Not too strong, dear!” Andromeda called, “Not everyone likes it as black as you do.”

Harry covered the phone before calling back, “Okay!”

He pulled the tea cosy off and squinted at the light brown water, “What do you suppose not too strong looks like? ….’Darker than piss water’, thank you, you’re ever so helpful, Draco.”

He lifted the tea bag out and let it drip for a second.

“You’re hilarious,” Harry said flatly, grinning in amusement, “So, you should come over. Yes, now. We can get it sorted all at once, pull off the plaster sort of- ...Of course, you didn’t have plasters. You missed out on how great scabs are… No, I-” His smile grew, “It’s a kid thing.” Harry laughed, “Try it then! Next time you have a cut- I’ll help you then. Next time we go out, we can pick up everything at the store, and I’ll show you how it all works.”

Harry tossed the teabag into the sink and only belatedly remembered to vanish it.

“I can apparate over in a second and-” Harry shook his head, “My side-alongs aren’t that bad-”

He winced and moved the phone away from his ear.

“Okay, okay,” Harry mouthed a silent ‘whatever’. “Floo then- What? You don’t need to get dressed up. It’s not fancy- Socks? Yeah, you should probably wear socks? And- Yes, you need to wear a shirt.” He frowned, “What were you doing that you didn’t have-?” A laugh bubbled out of him, “You just woke up. I- What? …It’s nearly three! What does it being Saturday have anything to do with-”

“Is the tea done, Harry?” Andromeda asked, stepping back into the kitchen.

Harry nodded, quickly putting the lid and tea cosy back on the pot as Andromeda levitated the tray up and out.

Harry followed after her, “Uh, Andy? Can Draco come over, and can he use your floo?”

The tray set down on the coffee table a little too heavily, making everything clatter, “...Who?”

“Draco?” Harry held up his phone, “Malfoy? I want you two to meet and clear up any misunderstandings.”

“Why?” Andromeda said.

Harry blinked, “Oh. Right, uh...” he winced, “I’m dating him?”

For a moment Andromeda just stared at him, her face entirely still as if she had been petrified. “I see,” She blinked, “Well, why didn’t you say so before?”

"Sorry, forgot,” Harry said.

Andromeda sighed faintly, “If you like him enough to be dating, then I should like to meet him.”

“Mister Draco, is coming over?!” Dobby told Teddy excitedly, “Mister Draco is so funny.”

“You mustn’t tease Mr Draco too much, Dobby,” Meribelle said.

“Mum said I should. Mum said I should be mean to him,” Dobby said.

Meribelle pinched the bridge of her nose and said carefully, “I think your mum meant that Mr Draco values our honesty and prefers us to act however we wish. And Asbestos prefers to be-”

“Mean! But not to us, because we’re special,” Dobby said, clapping their hands.

“Yes,” Meribelle smiled fondly, “we are her most special.”

Andromeda looked from the two house elves to Harry with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, he’s- he’s something,” Harry said.

He told Draco Andromeda’s floo address and opened the grate. A few minutes later, the fireplace flared green, and Draco stepped out, his pink hair still slightly sleep mussed.

“What are you wearing?” Harry said in dismay.

Draco grinned. “Très chic, non?” he said and struck a pose, pointing a toe to better display the leg of his pyjama’s which was covered in a pattern of lightning bolts, round glasses, snitches and wands.

“Where- where did you even get those?” Harry said in dismay.

“Weasley’s Wheezes, of course,” Draco said proudly, “They are the only ones you allow to use your name and image on things.”

Harry broke into giggles just trying to imagine Draco in the shop buying them. “Wait. Wait. Who was at the till?”

“Oh, you wish!” Draco narrowed his eyes, “It was embarrassing enough without knowing the person selling it to me. But it was entirely worth it. My father won’t even look at me when I’m wearing them.”

Harry snorted in delight, “Of course.”

“Mama? Can I get one of those?” Dobby asked, pointing at the sleep pants.

“Oh no,” Harry said.

“Oh, yes. I shall buy you all the harry potter merch you desire,” Draco said, “You’re so small, it might have to be a t-shirt. I think they have ones with Potter’s face on them.”

“Can I have one too?!” Teddy asked. His hair had already turned a bright bubblegum pink to mimic Draco’s.

“Oh no,” Harry groaned.

“Absolutely!” Draco said, utterly delighted. “We shall start a fan club.”

“No. No, you won’t,” Harry said.

Draco stuck his bottom lip out in a fake pout.

Harry firmly shook his head.

They both turned at a soft laugh from behind them.

Andromeda was covering her mouth with one hand, looking amused and also strangely sad.

Draco straightened up, “Hello. Apologies for not introducing myself right away; I’m Draco Malfoy.”

“And I am Andromeda Tonks,” Andromeda said with a bittersweet smile, “Nympha- Tonks, my daughter, she would have liked you.”

“Do you think so?” Draco said, looking pleased.

Andromeda smiled, “You have a lot in common. Such as giving your parents a hard time.”

“You must admit, mine entirely deserve it,” Draco said.

“Your father for sure,” Harry said.

Draco frowned at him.

“What? I kinda like your mum. She’s not all that bad,” Harry said.

“You’ve met with Narcissa?” Andromeda said.

“Yeah, a few times. The first time, I crashed a family dinner and faked a marriage proposal with Draco,” Harry said with a grin.

Andromeda’s eyebrows rose.

“It was delightful,” Draco said.

Andromeda laughed lightly and patted the spot beside her on the couch, “Come. Let’s have tea and talk.”

“And juice!” Teddy said.

Andromeda sighed, “And juice.”

Harry stepped into the lift and pressed the button for level three, Magical Accidents and Catastrophe.

“Good morning, Ava,” Harry said as he stepped out.

“Morning, Harry Potter,” Ava said.

“You don’t have to say my whole name every time,” Harry said.

“I know,” Ava said. “I like how uncomfortable it makes you.”

“Are you and Draco friends yet? Because I feel like you’d get on like a house on fire,” Harry said.

Ava rolled her eyes and waved him off.

Harry headed down to the end of the hallway, where a new office had been put in big enough for two desks.

“You’re late,” Draco said without looking up from his desk.

Harry shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on his desk, “Ten minutes isn’t late.”

“I beg to differ,” Draco said.

Harry grabbed his chair, dragging it around to the other side of Draco’s desk and sat in front. Draco’s desk was crowded with magazines, pens, paper and all sorts of other mess. Harry’s desk had nothing on it because he never used it. “I thought we were caught up on paperwork.”

“We have an assignment,” Draco was writing LIAR in big capitals on a piece of paper.

“Hermione was here?” Harry asked, folding his arms on the edge of the desk.

“An assignment from me,” Draco said, looking up and raising an eyebrow, “I am the senior partner here.”

Harry snorted, “You only worked for two days more than me.”

“So?” Draco said.

Harry laughed and leaned forward, “What’s our assignment then?”

“The Ministry loves an acronym-”

“No kidding,” Harry said.

“- and yet, we don’t have one,” Draco said.

“Well, we can’t have that,” Harry said sarcastically.

“Even though our name is perfectly suited for an acronym,” Draco went on, ignoring him. “It’s just four letters and-”

“You don’t count the ‘S’ then?” Harry asked.

Draco glared at him.

“It’s ‘Liar’S’ Department,” Harry said.

“The OWL’s and NEWT’s have apostrophe es-S, and those aren’t included in their acronym,” Draco said, “Ordinary Wizard Levels SisssiissSisss.”

Harry laughed.

Draco narrowed his eyes.

Harry grinned, “I know you were trying to mock me, but you just said ‘butthole’ in parseltongue.”

Draco frowned, “SssisSisss. Is that-”

“Nope,” Harry shook his head, “That was nonsense.”

“What was it then?” Draco asked.

Harry sighed and grabbed a green pencil, scribbling a snake onto a scrap of paper and then squinting at it until it was blurry enough to trick his brain into doing what he wanted, “SisssiissSisss. That’s- ” He looked up at Draco, who was suddenly looking rather pale, “...Bad memories?”

Draco nodded silently, his throat bobbing as he swallowed painfully.

Harry reached across the desk and caught a lock of Draco’s hair between his fingers, giving it a tug, “I think the colour is starting to fade finally. It’s less bubblegum pink and more a pastelly pink now.”

Draco looked cross-eyed at Harry’s hand.

“It lasted forever. If you bottled that, you could make a fortune,” Harry said.

Draco caught Harry’s wrist, “What are you doing?”

“Distracting you,” Harry said. “Is it working?”

“You are beyond annoying,” Draco said.

“So it is working,” Harry said with a grin, letting go of Draco’s hair.

Draco absently kept hold of Harry’s hand as he put them back on the desk, brushing his thumb over Harry’s palm.

“Hey, Draco.”

“What?” Draco said suspiciously.

“Just say ‘Salas Suirup’,” Harry said.

Draco narrowed his eyes, “Why?”

“Because it sounds like ‘Fart Eater’ in parseltongue,” Harry said.

Draco slowly grinned, “Salas Suirup.”

“And if you say it in the poncy way he did.” Harry mimicked Suirup’s slippery voice, “Salas Suirup, it sounds like Fart Taster.”

“Taster?” Draco raised an eyebrow, “How refined.”

Harry laughed, “I thought the same thing!”

“Salas Suirup, Salas Suirup,” Draco said, his voice low and inappropriately seductive for someone just saying fart eater, fart taster.

Harry winced and laughed despite himself, “Ugh, don’t say it like that!”

Draco squeezed Harry’s hand and leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper, “Salas Salas Salas Salas-”

Harry laughed even harder, feeling all of five years old. He pulled his hand free and pressed it over Draco’s mouth. “Stop saying ‘fart.’ You’re the worst!”

He felt Draco smile against his palm.

They sat back as a crack of apparition announced Asbestos’ arrival. She took her coffee monstrosity out of the drinks carrier first, something rainbow coloured with edible glitter on the swirl of whipped cream on top, before pushing it onto the desk.

Harry looked at his drink suspiciously, “I don’t suppose it’s just a mocha?”

“Nope,” Asbestos said.

“You never do this to Draco,” Harry said, taking a tiny sip. It tasted like cherry and white chocolate.

“He pays me,” Asbestos said, walking over to her small desk in the corner. She had draped a blanket over the top of it and filled the underneath with pillows. She curled into the pillow pile, opened a book nearly as big as her, and started reading, happily ignoring them.

Harry nodded in resignation. At least the drink wasn’t so sweet it made his teeth hurt.

Draco tapped the paper, “Focus, Potter, we have work.”

“Mmhmm, very important work,” Harry said. “So what? Do we just think up words that start with the ‘liar’ letters and shove them together into something that sounds halfway decent?”

Draco narrowed his eyes, “We shall brainstorm a brilliant acronym to complement the department name. Something that will look impressive on a business card.”

“You just want to have cool business cards,” Harry said.

“Would you rather have business cards that just say ‘Liar’s Department?’” Draco said.

“I don’t think we need business cards,” Harry said.

“Of course we do,” Draco said, “I already have the cases picked out. They’re silver-plated with engraved monograms.”

Harry snickered, “Alright. Let’s make something brilliant then.”

They got a couple dictionaries and spent the next hour just looking for good words that started with the right letters and making lists.

“Legal is a good start,” Draco absently, “Or Laudable,” Draco said.

“Laudable seems a bit full of ourselves,” Harry said.

Draco sighed, “It does lack gravitas.”

“What about Labour or Lawful? They’re both good,” Harry said.

“Not Labour.”

“Lacks gravitas?” Harry asked.

“Exactly,” Draco said.

Harry laughed.

“At least we’re narrowing it down,” Draco said.

There was the briefest of knocks on the door before it opened and Hermione came in, looking harried as usual.

“Good, you’re still here,” Hermione said in relief.

“Is there a job?” Harry asked.

Hermione shook her head, “I was worried the two of you would have left for lunch already before I could speak with you.”

“Hello to you too, Miss Granger,” Draco said with a beatific smile.

Hermione narrowed her eyes, “Cut it out. I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”

“You’re no fun anymore,” Draco said.

“Yet somehow you’re just as annoying,” Hermione said.

“It’s a gift,” Draco said.

“A curse, more-like. Wait-” Hermione shook her head, “No. I said cut it out. I don’t have all day to argue with you.”

“I like to think of it as banter,” Draco said.

“Banter is in the eye of the beholder,” Harry said.

“Both of you. Shut up.” Hermione said.

Harry did his best not to laugh.

Draco didn’t.

“I have a few things I need to talk with you about,” Hermione said, “First off, we need to get your hours worked out.”

“You’ve said that before, and nothing happened,” Harry said.

“Well, this time, I’ve set up a meeting with the Obliviator’s so we can work out a schedule between our two departments. It’s first thing monday morning, so don’t be late.”

“That’s not an issue for me,” Draco said.

Harry rolled his eyes at Draco, “Ten minutes is not-”

“Not even ten minutes,” Hermione said firmly, “In fact, I expect you fifteen minutes early that day.”

Harry groaned, “Why do we even have to be there? Can’t you just sort it out and then tell us what to do?”

“Don’t you want to have any input on your own schedule?” Hermione said.

“Not if it means going to a meeting,” Harry said.

Draco snorted in amusement.

“I don’t really care what days we work,” Harry said.

“What about Sundays at the Burrow?” Hermione said, putting her hands on her hips.

Harry raised an eyebrow, “Yeah? You know about that, though.”

Hermione sighed. “You’ll be there in case something comes up so that we only have to have one meeting and can sort it out all at once.”

Draco leaned across the desk and whispered, “I’ll bring coloured pencils.”

Harry grinned.

“I heard that,” Hermione said.

“We shall try not to be disruptive to the rest of the class, Miss Granger,” Draco said sweetly.

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

“What else did you have to tell us?” Harry asked quickly before they could start bickering. He knew Draco enjoyed it and he suspected Hermione had a bit of fun when they really got going, but the bickering occasionally still turned mean and Harry would rather avoid that if possible.

Hermione pushed an errant curl behind her ear, “Well, regardless of your schedule, you’ll both switch to being on-call for at least one day, maybe two.”

“And what’s that mean?” Harry asked.

“That you’ll come into the office three or four days, and for the rest of the week, you’ll be on call for any incidents that happen outside normal working hours. We’ll get something like the DA coins that can notify you of a job and act as emergency port keys.”

“Hopefully, with a delay,” Draco said, “I’d hate to show up at a scene in my pants.”

“At least it would distract everyone from whatever the magic was,” Harry said.

“I’ve always wanted to be a streaker,” Draco said with a grin.

“We’ll work out the fine details later,” Hermione said exasperated, “and then maybe you can get some actual work done.”

“We are working!” Draco said.

Hermione’s look said she did not believe him for a second.

“We’re working out an acronym for ‘Liar’,” Harry said.

“To give the department more gravitas,” Draco said.

Hermione sighed and came over to the side of the desk, “I would settle for not being laughed at whenever I tell anyone what the department is called. What do you have?”

Draco put his hand over the paper, “We haven’t finished yet.”

“Just tell me what you have so far,” Hermione said.

Draco gave her a grumpy look, pulling the paper close to him so she couldn’t read over his shoulder, “We have Legal Incident Alternative to Removal-”

“Awkward,” Hermione said.

“-Legal Invention of Alternative Realities-”

“Hmmm...”

“-And Laudable Information Alternative to Removal.”

“I mean, the second works the best, but it’s basically the same thing as ‘The Liar’s Department’,” Hermione said. “The ‘Alternative to Removal’ part is good; just find a better L and I.”

“You say that as if it’s so easy,” Harry said.

“It will keep you busy at least,” Hermione said with a grin.

“Umm, hello?” there was a light tap on the door frame, “We’re here.”

Hermione turned, “That’s right, we have new transfers.” She gestured to the door where two very familiar figures were standing. “You might know them; they were Juniors in the Aurors. This is Kalya and Eric-”

“Eric?” Harry interrupted, “Eric? It doesn’t start with J? It doesn’t even sound like J.”

Draco positively cackled.

Kalya and Junior Eric looked confused.

“I… don’t even want to know,” Hermione said. “Just take these two on all your calls this week so they can see how things work and decide if they want to transfer in permanently. And try not to scare them off.”

“They’ve already been on most of our calls. If that didn’t scare them off, nothing will,” Draco said.

Kalya laughed.

“We thought it looked interesting,” Eric said meekly.

“That’s everything,” Hermione said, heading towards the door, then stopped and turned around, “No, there’s one more thing. Molly wants to meet Malfoy.”

“What?” Harry said.

“Molly Weasley?” Draco said faintly.

“Ron was supposed to tell you, but he begged me to do it,” Hermione rolled her eyes. “You should bring him to sunday dinner-”

“With all the Weasley's?” Draco said in dismay.

“It might dilute his whole-” Hermione waved a hand absently, “-everything. That’s all, see you later.”

“Bye, Hermione,” Harry said as Hermione left, giving them a distracted wave as she hurried back to work.

“I think I might be ill on sunday,” Draco said.

“You’ll be fine,” Harry said.

“Very, very ill,” Draco insisted.

“I had dinner with your father, and you can’t tell me he wouldn’t happily murder me if he thought he could get away with it,” Harry said.

“At least you know,” Draco bemoaned, “I don’t know how many Weasley's want me dead.”

“None,” Harry said.

“Lies,” Draco said.

“I’m not saying that some of them don't want to beat the piss out of you, but none of them want to actually kill you-”

“Uh, what should we do?” Kalya asked, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

Draco sighed, “Asbestos, fetch two more chairs, would you?”

Asbestos blew a raspberry at them and apparated away.

Eric looked concerned.

“That’s just how she is,” Draco said.

Harry waved for them to come closer, “Grab a dictionary. We’re making up a new acronym for Liar.”

“To give the department more gravitas,” Draco said.

“Gravitas,” Harry echoed.

Kalya and Eric looked at one another and cautiously grinned.

Chapter Text

The sun was starting to set as they walked down the carriage path leading from Hogsmeade down into Hogwarts.

“I wonder what McGonagall wanted to talk to us about,” Harry said.

“Mhmmm,” Hermione said distractedly, letting her hand trail in the tall grass beside the road.

“I hope it’s not a memorial thing or a fundraiser thing,” Harry said with a frown, “They’re exhausting.”

“Uhuh,” Hermione said, staring blankly at the passing trees beside the road.

Harry smiled and shook his head.  He stepped close enough to bump her with his shoulder, “Hermiooooone-”

She blinked and looked up at Harry, “What?”

“You were in another world there,” Harry said.

“Oh, sorry,” Hermione said, shaking her head, “I was thinking and….”

“Got lost?”

Hermione smiled, “A little.”

“What’s got you so occupied?” Harry asked.

Hermione frowned at him.

“What?” Harry asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes, “It’s been a month and a half.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You forgot? Really?” Hermione said.

“Forgot what?” Harry asked.

“It was your idea!” Hermione said.

“What was?” Harry said, starting to worry he had forgotten something important.

“The proposal!” Hermione said, “After Suirup was arrested, you said in a month and a half Ron and I should propose to one another!”

“Oh! Right,” Harry said, “I mean, I guess I figured you’d ignore me. It’s kind of a silly idea.”

Hermione glared at him, “Shut up. It was a perfect idea. Without a deadline, it would have taken another year for us to get around to it.”

Harry laughed, “Well, you’re both busy. You especially.”

“I know,” Hermione said.

They both paused for a second as they stepped out of the trees, and Hogwarts rose in the distance, the windows faintly glowing in the growing twilight.

“So it’s been a month and a half then?” Harry asked as they crossed the grounds.

Hermione nodded.

“So?” Harry asked.

“So what?” Hermione said.

“What are you going to do?” Harry asked.

“You said you weren’t going to take sides,” Hermione said.

Harry grinned, “I wasn’t going to help. I just wanted to know what your plan was.”

“I wanted to get my thoughts in order-,” Hermione frowned to herself and pulled out her little beaded bag. She reached inside it and pulled out a handwritten multi-page essay, “-so I wrote out some notes-”

“Notes?” Harry said with a laugh, “That’s a bit more than just notes, Hermione."

“It’s important to get my emotions across properly. You only get to propose once, after all,” Hermione said, flipping through the pages.

Harry couldn’t help noticing it was written front and back. “You were always good at that sort of thing, talking about your emotions.”

“I’m just nervous,” Hermione said.

“It seems to me it’s the sort of thing you should be nervous about,” Harry said, “It would be weirder if you weren’t.”

“That doesn’t actually make me feel any better,” Hermione said.

“Ouch.”

“Thanks for trying, though,” Hermione said with a wan smile as they paused at the door.

“I am pretty good at trying,” Harry said, pulling open one of the doors and holding it for her.

Hermione gave him a fond look and stepped inside.

Harry followed, taking a deep breath as the door swung shut behind them. The air inside was cool and smelled like stone and wood smoke, dropping Harry right back into his memories, both good and bad.

“I’ve missed this place,” Hermione said.

“Hmm,” Harry said, not sure how he felt.

“You’re right on time,” McGonagall called out to them, “This way.” She was standing beside the entrance to the great hall holding a small box in her hands.

Hermione hurried over to her, “Your message didn’t say why you needed to see us. I was worried it was something important.”

“It is something quite important, yes,” McGonagall said with a smile. She flipped open the box and took out a simple golden bangle. “I need you to put this on for me.”