Chapter Text
As soon as he heard the disconnect tone yowling down the phoneline at him, Harry knew he needed to find Riddle—urgently because this was something he’d rather Riddle heard from him. This was hardly the ideal place for it, though; they were at another charity event that had too much alcohol to really be for work and too little entertainment to make it an actual party, and Harry was playing the part of bodyguard to everyone’s favourite up-and-coming politician. Well, not exactly playing, it was, after all, what he was being paid to do—the latest assignment for the Metropolitan Police’s own rising star—even if it made him feel like a circus act sometimes.
Despite the urgency, Harry stayed by the wall for a moment longer, one hand resting on the expensive wallpaper and the other still clutching at the receiver, as he tried to swallow down the nausea. He’d known this moment was coming—it had always been inevitable—but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, and he was in no way ready to do it. With that hopeless frustration only known to employees at the end of their tether, he leant his forehead against the wall before knocking it a couple of times.
He should have gone in yesterday—he wouldn’t be in this position if he’d just gone in yesterday—the Superintendent had called him in, but he’d brushed it off like he had three times already this month, and four the month before. So, this was his own fault, really. Harry tapped the receiver against the wall, frankly, he wanted to smash the darn thing right through, but he’d be damned by the Lord above before he’d let himself be sued by some petty well-to-do prick for property damage.
He was still there, banging the receiver as hard as he dared when a waiter came in from the main room and glanced at him with the same cautious look that the entire staff had been giving him all evening. Clearly, they thought he was too familiar with the guests to make his acquaintance worthwhile—Harry didn’t blame them. He’d have been suspicious of the guy that spent all his time attached to some faux-posh (because Riddle’s background wasn’t as blue-blooded as he wanted it to be) prat’s hip, though in this case, they were actually wrong.
The only people he knew here were Riddle, as his vicarious employer, and a few of his choice acquaintances, everyone else was strangers and, to be perfectly honest, they were a bunch of obnoxious tossers. Their wealth was stomach-churning and their politics, abhorrent, and that was without even mentioning their manners. No one beyond the present members of Riddle’s inner circle had paid him the slightest courtesy and it was starting to wear him pretty thin. There were only so many tense smiles a man could give, and so many veiled insults he could take before he’d snap and say something he shouldn’t.
If it was up to him, he wouldn’t step foot back in that ballroom again, and certainly not as a serving member of England’s most contentious police force. He’d had enough of entitled people praising the noble aims of such an institution whilst simultaneously belittling its attempts to tackle the crimes, they themselves, were so fond of committing. However, as much as he loathed it, he really did need to speak to Riddle—right now—and Riddle was in the ballroom.
He hung up the receiver, the conversation he’d just how still hot on his tongue and itching in his throat, and with a reluctant sigh, he pushed himself off the wall and headed back towards the ballroom, in search of the guy he was supposed to be protecting.
It wasn’t hard to find him. Riddle had always been magnetic, but his meteoric rise through the political ranks had given him a new class of adherents: sycophants who thought they could wheedle favours out of him in exchange for compliments. These new supporters hadn’t yet learnt the fine art of leaving space and they swarmed around him, squeezed tight into his orbit, alongside the political elites and the nobility that Riddle also counted in his set.
As events went, this was one of the more respectable ones that Harry had been forced to attend. It certainly wasn’t some sleazy city party with actresses and gangsters rubbing elbows with the darlings of the English aristocracy; this was a gathering for people who liked to think they were respectable, those with lineage and title and a mistress or two. This was for the landed gentry with their estates and horses and servants in starched uniforms, and for the capitalists with their full pockets and newfound taste for political influence—Harry hated all of them.
They were the kind of people that made his skin crawl, which also happened to be the type that Riddle could seamlessly blend with. No one should be able to work both sides of the law so effortlessly, but Riddle always made it look as easy as slipping out of one jacket and into another. He managed to embody both the oiliness that all the worst politicians had and the smooth sincerity of the most distinguished peers of the realm. The result was a smooth-talking charmer with enough governmental astuteness, not to mention intelligence, to make him a political heavyweight, and one that had caught the eye of the Met for all the wrong reasons.
And Harry had never liked politicians, they were slimy and arrogant and, in his experience, sickeningly self-interested, which was why, when he’d taken this gig, he hadn’t exactly been worried about falling for one—thinking back, perhaps he should have been.
Harry approached the current coterie from behind the bar, ducking past the rich men in their expensive tailoring and the glamourous women wearing impractical evening dresses. Everyone had a full glass, and they were drinking liberally, even Riddle had raised it to his mouth once or twice, though Harry knew that like everything else Riddle did, it was for appearances only. Unlike many of his adherents, Riddle wasn’t stupid enough to drink at an event like this. He still made a show of it though, taking his time to press his mouth to the rim and swallowing slowly, turning the mundane into something tantalising, dare Harry say, erotic.
Not that he’d ever admit that out loud.
Just as he’d never admit that, despite his faults, and there were so many, Riddle knew how to be good company, especially in a place like this. For someone who didn’t come from money, he sure knew how to act as if he had; he knew how to talk and what to talk about, he knew when to lean in conspiratorially and when to announce a thought to the group. It was hardly a wonder that he was always the centre of attention—everybody wanting to get a piece of the man they said would be Prime Minister within the decade.
On most people, Harry would have found it somewhere between pathetic and repulsive, but even he had to admit that Riddle’s dedication to the act was pretty darn impressive. The man didn’t even smoke and yet, he had a cigarette in his mouth and was leaning over to let some aristocrat’s wife light it for him. And, on anyone else a smile like that would look sleazy, but he managed to strike the right balance between provocative and sordid to be wonderfully frustrating, and Harry had to grip a little tighter at the bar to get over the way his heart lurched at the sight of it.
After all, there was really just one rule for being a bodyguard: don’t fall for your boss, especially when your boss was a morally compromised politician who almost certainly had links with organised crime, and doubly so when you were the undercover officer tasked with bringing him down. And at the time, he’d wanted to bring him down—he really had—who wouldn’t want the chance to get an arrest like that? It would get him a commendation for certain, maybe a promotion, but without a doubt, it would get him a sense that justice had been done, and that was what mattered most.
He made it through the horde, close enough to tap Riddle on the arm and give him a look, eyes darting to the side and his head tilted. It must have worked because Riddle nodded and began to make his excuses, extricating himself from the crowd with superficially sorrowful farewells and saccharine promises of his return like he was the next Messiah.
They joined up at the end of the bar and walked a few paces in silence, Riddle shadowing him a little closer than Harry would like—he always had a tendency to be that little bit too close; never enough to interfere, but always enough for Harry to be aware of him. They made their way through the room as Harry tried to find them a quiet corner to talk in, though that was harder than it should be. Every wall was lined with people raising their sparkling glasses to rolling conversations that swelled around them like the tides. The whole place was undulating under hazy conversation and soft, sagging air that was just that bit too warm to be comfortable.
They stopped in a small pocket of space, surrounded by people, as Harry continued to glance around, looking for privacy and already knowing he wasn’t going to find it. Riddle took advantage and with the deceptiveness of a master magician, he deposited his cigarette and three-quarters full glass on the tray of a passing waiter, and it disappeared into the crowd. He turned back towards Harry and offered him a smile—the stupid million-pound one that all the newspapers loved—and, in the guise of a man just talking to his bodyguard, he leant in painfully close.
“I think I should thank you,” he said, only just loud enough for Harry to hear, “they were starting to swarm.”
“Yeah, sure—no problem, its part of the job,” Harry said stiffly. Usually, he’d be thrilled to have Riddle’s mouth that close to his neck, but not when everyone around them was pretending not to see it. He was already the least popular person here by virtue of his employer and he really didn’t want to make it any worse, especially when he had an actual serious real-life problem still rattling around his skull.
Riddle stopped and glanced first at him and then around the room; apparently deciding he wasn’t about to be straight-up murdered by an aristocrat with more lineage than they knew what to do with, he turned back to him. “Fine, I’ll bite, what is it?” he said, a hand smoothing out the shoulder of Harry’s jacket, as he’d recently developed a habit of doing.
He wanted to tell him, but not in the middle of the ballroom, not where anyone could hear. “I need to talk to you—like really need to talk to you. But not—here.”
“Where then?”
“I don’t know,” Harry snapped, resisting the urge to shove the minor royal who’d just jostled him. “Anywhere will do.”
Riddle gave him a quick once over like he was checking for obvious signs of madness, and then a slower, more considered, gaze, though it was interrupted as he kept up his act with smiles and nods to passers-by. “You do know, you’re going to have to give me a reason,” he said, quiet and professional, “don’t you?”
Harry glared at him, trying to broadcast the situation through his skull. “Believe me, I can’t.”
“Well, I can’t just leave,” Riddle hissed back, hiding the abrasive tone under yet another sharp smile, this time at a handsome couple who’d pushed their way into their plot. They ignored Harry as the wealthy were wont to do and he glared at them, willing them to go away—they didn’t. Instead, they leant into Riddle’s space, the man’s hand brushing over his arm—in just the way Harry knew Riddle hated—as he introduced him to his wife; she just took a sip of her drink and looked him up and down, seemingly impressed.
He continued to scowl at them, as viciously and childishly as he could. He’d have thought that being the man’s bodyguard, however fake and half-hearted, would give him certain privileges to his time, space and attention, but apparently not. The three of them were still exchanging pleasantries and faux compliments while Harry stood there like a lemon and it had been long enough now that he was getting fidgety, tapping his fingers against his thigh and trying to catch Riddle’s eye. Riddle was ignoring him. In spite of Harry’s glare, or perhaps because of it, they’d offered Riddle another cigarette—everyone desperate to get something of theirs in his mouth—and just to annoy him Riddle had taken it.
The man, whose name, title and association, Harry hadn’t cared to remember, offered Riddle a drink with the kind of sleazy smile he’d come to recognise meant it was about business and he wasn’t invited. But before Riddle could accept and disappear into the crowd for another hour, Harry interrupted.
“Nah, he’s busy right now,” he said, and then, before Riddle got the objection off his tongue, he tugged him in the opposite direction. “Maybe later, though.”
As soon as they were out of sight, Riddle swiped his hand off him, before grabbing him by the shoulder and directed him roughly through the throngs of people. Harry had never, in his life, wanted to be manhandled, especially by a politician of all people, and he’d like to think that he still didn’t and that the tug he got in his stomach was entirely coincidental. At least it had worked though, if he’d learned anything from being around these people, there was nothing more tasteless than a disregard for social etiquette—he’d apologise later.
They made it to a dim corner beside the window, despite the late hour, the curtain was still drawn and hung, bunched up beside them. It was Riddle’s turn to glare at him and look unfairly good while he did it. “What is going on with you?” he said sharply, the cigarette between his fingers.
“We need to talk.”
“Is that your excuse?” Riddle hissed, “I don’t pay you to do that.”
“You’re not paying me,” Harry hissed back, which was true, his wages were being picked up by the Met in a deal he’d heard was unpopular with almost everyone. “Now, would you listen to me?”
Riddle glanced over his shoulder, offering a simpering smile to anyone who needed it, before turning his back to the room and facing Harry. “You’ve engineered it pretty well that I have to listen, so the least you could do is hurry it up.”
Maybe it was childish—actually, it was definitely childish—but Harry made a face at him, before turning his gaze to the floor. He had to tell him, that was obvious, though now that the moment for it had come, he wasn’t sure how to actually say it.
“I’m waiting, Harry.”
“God, alright, I got it.” He swallowed, pressing his palm into his thigh. “I got a call and—and look, I’m being—” Harry sighed and leant into the curtain. “Basically—basically, I’m pretty sure I just got fired from—this.” He gestured between them, still not looking at him, and actually saying it out loud made him feel kind of stupid, just like a kid tattling to the teacher, which he basically was. Somewhere in the handbook, there were probably rules about this situation, rules that probably suggested he should keep this information to himself and report back to Scotland Yard this evening, ready for someone else to take his job in the morning.
Harry had never been a big fan of the rules.
He chanced a glance up; around them everyone was still laughing their heirloom laughs and drinking stuff that cost more than his rent—they hadn’t noticed him and for the first time, Harry was glad for it. Riddle had noticed, though. He was giving him his full attention and while he did not look happy, he didn’t say anything.
Harry swallowed. There was plenty of noise in the room around them, but over here, in their little space, it was uncomfortably quiet, and he started shifting from foot to foot. “This is my last assignment,” he said, trying to fill the quiet, “and then I’m back to homicide—I only just found out.”
Riddle tucked them further into the corner and pushed in close to speak as hushed as they could in a crowded room. “And who informed you of this—change?”
“Head of department,” Harry replied, “Chief Super, himself—so, like, it’s happening.”
“He didn’t inform me.” Riddle was already not a fan of Chief Superintendent Dumbledore, so there was no love lost with this oversight, and Harry suspected that it had been a deliberate lapse in the official procedure, and one motivated purely by spite.
“Did you really expect him to?” he said. “Look, I just thought I should—you know, tell you, in case you… wondered what happened.”
Riddle opened his mouth, but they were disturbed by one of his people wading into their space. Malfoy was one of the inner circle and Riddle’s career had started out as his personal pet project; these days, he mostly greased palms and watched his hard work come to fruition. Harry had a file on him shoved under his mattress along with all the others (there were enough now that the mattress was getting kind of lumpy).
Malfoy approached with a glass of something sparkly and expensive, and offered a nod to both of them; he was surely going to say something too, but Riddle cut him off with a flick of his hand. “Bad timing, I'm afraid. I have to sort something,” he said quietly, visibly working it through in his head, before turning towards Malfoy. “Get me twenty minutes, won’t you?”
“Uh, sure. Where are you—?”
“Anywhere,” Riddle said, his hand back on Harry's shoulder, "anywhere, but here."