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“Oh for the love of Merlin,” a crash followed the angry exclamation causing Kingsley to bend further over the papers he was working on, he was a big man, intimidating to most, but that meant nothing at all in the wake of his partner Auror Pansy Parkinson’s ire. The past week had been hard upon the entire Auror department, a shipment of enchanted objects on their way to be destroyed had somehow gone missing in transit. Muggle items that had been enchanted. That would have been bad enough, but individual pieces had been popping up causing mayhem and mischief wherever they did. Shifts had been long and, although some of the cases had been pretty funny, some of the darker artefacts had caused significantly more trouble. Auror Franklins might never be the same again, having been turned into a small, yappy, Yorkshire Terrier, it had taken St Mungo’s a full week to reverse that change and still the poor young man moulted terribly all over his own robes and the occasional ‘yap’ could still be heard coming from the office he shared with his partner.
The silence that followed the crash was a little bit too quiet for Kingsley’s liking, it wasn’t at all like Pansy to stick to one outburst, indeed the young woman had made several of the other Aurors blush with her command of some more colourful words and phrases. Kingsley Shacklebolt was not one of them, nor had he been one of the Aurors to shrink from partnering with the young woman because of her heritage or house associations. Despite rumours, Pansy really had never had any ambition to marry and become a good little pureblood wife, she had excelled at Hogwarts and although she didn’t come top of the year she produced very respectable results and had aced the tests to become an Auror.
Kingsley had agreed to take the young woman under his wing as a trainee and had soon found out she had a wicked sense of humour, a keen eye and at times, an itchy wand hand. Stupefy first, ask questions later, not ideal, but as she had pointed out, it wasn’t Avada Kedavra and ask questions later, so what really was the harm?
Despite that, with careful training, patience and occasionally a good drinking session at the nearest pub, Kingsley and Pansy had become a formidable duo and their teamwork was often regarded with awe, they moved fluidly together, in sync and while Kingsley exercised his talent for charming people, Pansy employed her talent for terrifying them. It was the perfect good cop, bad cop routine and got sterling results. Kingsley had smugly pointed out to his counterparts, whose own trainer/trainee relationships weren’t going quite so well, that if they hadn’t been such prejudiced idiots, then they could have Pansy on their team.
Rising from his desk, Kingsley moved to the office door, pulling it open and peering out into the corridor, his eyebrows almost vanished under his hat as he observed his friend and partner Pansy Parkinson flat on her back, entangled in, what seemed to be some kind of yellow and black ribbon. She was still struggling against the bindings when he approached, she glared up at him as he stared down at her, trying his hardest not to break into peels of laughter. He recognised the tape for what it was, muggle crime scene tape, how the hell had Pansy ended up trussed like a bird ready for the oven? A strip of the tape even covered her lips, which explained the lack of cursing, although judging by the muffled grunts and huffing coming from the girl, she was still attempting to make her feelings of displeasure known.
“I don’t even want to know how this happened Pans, give me a moment, I really don’t want to use a severing spell so close to you, I have a letter opener in the office.”
He turned back to the office to retrieve the small knife, he may be an Auror and skilled with his spell-work, but why be foolish and try fancy wand-work when it would actually be much simpler to do it the muggle way? Perhaps that was also why Kingsley and Pansy worked well together, they could think outside the box. Kneeling beside her, he took another long look at his fallen companion, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. If looks could kill, the one that Pansy was giving him right now should have incinerated him on the spot!
Eager to not waste anymore time, in fear of what Pansy would do if he spent any longer cataloguing the memory to have a bloody good laugh about later he reached out to start to cut away the tape. No sooner had he touched the first strip of plastic tape when something alarming happened which awoke within him the definite feeling of ‘oh shit’. One end of the tape shot out, wrapping itself firmly around his wrist, he tried to yank his hand away, but it had a firm grip upon him. He reached into his robes to retrieve his wand, perhaps in this instance magic was the best policy after all, he was too late, another loop of tape shot out sending his wand scuttling across the corridor. His eyes widened comically as the tape, a writhing and seemingly sentient mass lassoed him, dragging him down to the ground next to Pansy, wrapping around his body restraining him, much as it had his junior colleague. He struggled gainfully, but it was apparent that he wasn’t about to get free, he wondered if this was a prank being played on the two of them by their colleagues. It did happen.
Eventually he gave up the struggle, resigning himself to the fact that the two of them would be found in this hallway by a dozen Aurors coming on duty in approximately half an hour, they would never live this one down, he knew that for a fact.
However as he stopped struggling something even stranger happened, the binding which tied he and Pansy seemed to start to dissolve, sinking into the skin and clothes they touched, leaving a residual warmth behind it, now he could move, he turned his head to glance at Pansy, seeing if she too had been released. She was still glaring at him, but the look had lost some of its rancour, but now held a hint of embarrassment.
“What the fuck Kings. Did you not realise I was telling you not to touch? Oh God, this is so embarrassing. Do you know what you’ve done?”
From the baffled look on Kingsleys face she realised that no, he didn’t know what had just happened and beyond that, the two of them were still laying in the middle of the corridor as if they’d been napping. She quickly sat up, brushing herself down, before retrieving her wand which had, like Kingsleys been slapped out of her hand by the tape.
Kingsley followed suit, wondering why she still looked embarrassed, he had ended up in the same situation as her, so it wasn’t as if he had anything to hold over her anymore and nobody else had seen them.
“Of course I didn’t know you were telling me not to touch. How the hell do I know that ‘mmmfflmmffll, mffsss’ means Kinglsey, don’t touch the tape, it’s a little handsy?”
She turned an even more ferocious glare upon him, but this time he met it with a raised eyebrow, he had a point, the muffled noises coming from Pansy could hardly have been understood. She rose gracefully to her feet and retrieved Kingsley's wand.
“That wasn’t just any tape, it was part of the shipment on its way to the magical disposal unit. Some idiot was planning on marketing it for traditional handfastings, a novelty twist. But the damn stuff targets the first people who touch it.”
She bit her lip and her cheeks flushed pink, Kingsley had never seen her blush before, she was a Slytherin, she had perfected the Slytherin mask of utter indifference whatever the situation. She glanced up at him, her voice was quiet, but he heard her quite distinctly.
“Kingsley, we just accidentally got married.”
Pansy looked down as Kingsley tipped backwards in a dead faint, her eyebrow rose elegantly, he was such a drama queen, it was definitely not ideal, nor something either would have chosen, Kings was a confirmed and stubborn bachelor, despite many witches having changed his mind and Pansy was a modern women with the attitude that she didn’t need any man to complete her.
However, she had to concede that it could be much much worse, she loved Kingsley, he had given her a chance when others had denied her requests to join the Aurors, they worked well together and had developed a genuine friendship. Carefully, so as not to damage her new husband, she waved her wand, levitating the large man through the door to their office. They would have to talk about it more when he recovered.