Work Text:
Merlin, Parkinson wasn’t even trying for subtlety anymore.
Ron Weasley shook his head and rolled his eyes as he watched his best mate and Auror partner, Harry Potter, attempt to make sense of Pansy Parkinson’s fourth call to the DMLE that week.
Harry scrunched his brow in confusion. “You suspect Neville Longbottom is the person attacking your shop because he shook your hand too firmly, ordered a dress, and said he would come back tonight to pick it up?”
Parkinson looked up with big doe eyes and nodded her head. “Threatened to come back. He’s getting me back for all those years of calling him a fat cry-baby. Why else would he threaten-–”
“Say,” Harry corrected—
“--that he was going to collect it himself instead of having it delivered by owl post?”
Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Maybe because it’s a present for his wife’s birthday, which is in two days?”
Ron winced twice over. First, Neville’s wife was a sore point for Harry. Second, Ron still hadn’t got Ginny a present.
Ginny had remained miffed with Harry for going off on the Horcrux hunt without her and decided to choose the bloke “who treats me like an actual, capable partner” instead. If Neville hadn’t been just about the nicest person in the world, Ron couldn’t imagine how their friendship would have survived.
Hence Ron’s point that Parkinson wasn’t even trying to come up with plausible reasons for Auror visits anymore.
“Oh.” Parkinson deflated. She bit her lip and looked up at Harry through her long, curled lashes. “But I’d feel so much safer if you could stay until he comes back.”
Ron snorted. Parkinson shot him a pointed glare before softening her features back into pleading looks at Harry.
Clueless, Harry gaped at Parkinson. “Pansy, I am sure you are safe from Neville, of all people. Ron and I have another case to investigate—someone also targeted Malfoy’s potion shop.”
“Yeah, and if we don’t find out who did,” Ron added, “Hermione will be so far up our arses for ignoring her boyfriend’s issue, we’ll be able to skip prostate exams for the rest of our lives.”
Both Parkinson and Harry looked over at Ron with disgust. He shrugged.
Parkinson looked back to Harry and her chin wobbled. “I’ve just felt so scared since the first time someone attacked my shop.”
That first call had been legitimate. Parkinson had opened her shop to find all the dresses and mannequins slashed and ripped. Parkinson’s wobbly chin and tears then had been sincere. She had been shaking badly as she attempted to pick up the things around her.
Harry had tried to calm her down. “Pansy,” he had said, “we’ll find out who did this, alright?”
“Like you would help me,” she had snapped.
Harry had shrugged. “Look, if I can get over one of my best friends shagging Draco fucking Malfoy, who actually let Death Eaters into the castle and is a prize prat, I think I can get over you saying ‘he’s right there!’ in the middle of a battle where everyone was scared shitless. Especially since you apologized for that.”
She had swallowed her tears and nodded. “Thank you.”
Harry had then reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Look, I can cast some extra enchantments around your shop, if you’d like.”
That was the first time Ron had seen Parkinson’s doe eyes pointed up at Harry like he was some kind of Chosen One or something.
Well, he was the Chosen One, but still, not the point.
The second time Parkinson called Harry and Ron back to her shop, Ron chalked up to her lingering nervousness from the first attack. When she had arrived to open her shop for the day, she had noticed a plant knocked over in her window display. Too afraid to enter her shop, she had insisted Harry and Ron check her store thoroughly. Ron had found a cat from the trail of dirt leading from the plant to the back room. Harry got the big thanks for the reveal, though (despite his “extra enchantments” not keeping out a measly cat).
The third time Parkinson summoned the DMLE, Ron began to get suspicious. Parkinson had complained that one of her pictures was askew and begged Harry to see if his wards had been disturbed by an intruder. Then she offered to take Harry to lunch as a thank you. She did not invite Ron.
But this time, Neville Longbottom? Yep, she wasn’t even trying for plausible excuses anymore.
Still, Harry took one look at Parkinson’s fake wobbly chin and looked over at Ron helplessly.
Ron sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll go on to Malfoy’s myself.”
Ron needn’t have gone to Malfoy’s shop. Hermione had Gregory Goyle strung up in the storage room. Apparently, the numpty was breaking into all his old mates’ businesses (Zabini’s Zinfandels two nights before and Nott Your Average Clock the night before that) because he was angry they hadn’t invited him to join their pick up quidditch league. What a troll.
After taking Goyle to a holding cell and doing the paperwork for that madness, Ron headed back to Parkinson’s to see if Harry was up for a drink at the Leaky. The shop was dark as was the street around it. The lamps were suspiciously dimmed. Ron heard a dull hissing from the side of the building.
Following the noise, he noticed a small person dressed all in black holding up some sort of canister writing “Die, Death Eater Wh—”
Ron ran up and grabbed the person and spun them. His jaw dropped. “Parkinson?” He looked back at the wall and shook his head. “You know, you could try just asking him out like a normal person.”
She raised a brow. “Or—you could let me finish this artwork and keep your mouth shut tomorrow.”
“And let you frame Muggleborns?”
Parkinson scrunched her nose. “Shit, it does look like that, doesn’t it?” She shrugged. “I’ll tell Potter the truth once he shags me.” Parkinson quickly sprayed “O-R-E” on the wall and stepped back to admire her handiwork.
Ron sighed.
He merely shrugged the next day when Parkinson pleaded, “Please Harry. What if someone follows me home? Doesn’t the DMLE provide protection for witches under threat?”
Parkinson gave Ron a pointed look.
Ron rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Harry’s done that before. Right, Harry?”
Harry hesitated, “Er, I suppose I could stay at your flat tonight.”
“Oh, thank you!” Parkinson breathed. “By the way, there’s only one bed.” She licked her lips, placed her hand on Harry’s sternum, and ran it down to rest just above his belt buckle.
Harry’s eyes went wide.
Fucking finally.
Harry Potter snorted.
Bulstrode wasn’t even trying for subtlety anymore.
For the fourth time that week, she burst into Ron and Harry’s office to haul Ron out for hand-to-hand combat training. Each time, her spandex shorts got shorter. In robes, with her broad shoulders, Bulstrode looked like a square. But, in the Muggle-inspired exercise gear she wore when physically training the Aurors, she was quite fit: muscular thighs and arse, massive tits.
Not Harry’s type, though. He preferred smaller, delicate women, with black hair and red lips that parted eagerly for—he shifted in his chair and absentmindedly rubbed a spot on his neck.
When Robards first proposed that the DMLE add hand-to-hand combat to the Aurors’ weekly training schedule, most of the Aurors had complained, but none were louder than Ron—especially when he saw who would be training them.
“What are wands for then?” Ron had asked.
Bulstrode had narrowed her eyes. Quick as lightning, she had twisted Ron’s arm behind his back, plucked the wand from his hand, flung it across the room, kicked his feet from under him, hauled him on his back, straddled him, and pinned his arms to the floor.
Ron’s eyes had gone completely round in shock as he gaped up at Bulstrode.
“Mmm,” Bulstrode had purred, “I do like teaching the tall, wiry ones how to pin me.”
Dennis Creevey had whispered to Harry, “She looks like she wants to eat him.”
Back in the present, Harry watched Bulstrode’s expression and thought the more accurate description was that she looked like she wanted to lick him. All over.
“Bulstrode,” Ron protested, “I have mounds of paperwork to do, and I’m quite good now at tossing your arse around. I pinned you twice the other day.”
Harry stifled a laugh.
“Until you pin me every time, you’re not up to my standards for a man.”
“How come you don’t have Harry in more for combat training? Why’s it just me?”
“Because Potter’s already up to snuff. You aren’t.”
Harry smothered another snicker. He had never pinned Bulstrode. She was the same height as Harry and probably had more muscle than he did. She had waved him off with, “You’ll have disarmed them all before it ever got to hand-to-hand combat, Potter. After all, it’s the only spell you know.”
Alright, actually, that hadn’t been funny.
Ron continued to complain, “And why do you get to wear that little bitty costume I can’t grab on to, but I have to wear my full uniform? Even the wand holster?”
Biting her lip, Bulstrode tracked Ron’s donning of said holster. She appeared to shake herself before shutting her sex eyes down and sneering, “You’re going to be in full Auror clothes when tackling the baddies, aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m not putting on the robe until I’ve visited the toilet. Do I have time for that, task-master?”
Bulstrode shrugged. “I’ll allow it.” Then she licked her lips and openly ogled Ron’s arse as he walked away.
“You could just ask him for drinks at the Leaky,” Harry said.
“And miss my chance to have that wiry frame pin me down?” Bulstrode replied with a shiver. “Hell, no.”
Harry winced. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “You know, over drinks, you could suggest that he pin you in a bed instead of on the training room mats.”
Bulstrode’s lascivious face slackened into sadness. “Yeah, I doubt I’m his type. I’m taking what I can get.”
Harry sighed. “You don’t know if you don’t try. Ron’s hopelessly clueless when it comes to women. He won’t notice you like him until you’re actively dry-humping him.”
Bulstrode’s lips curved up slowly. “Thanks for the tip, Potter.”
Ron came back in and put on his robes. “Ready, Bulstrode?”
Bulstrode’s lips now formed a full grin. “Oh, am I ever.”
When Ron returned an hour later, he looked as dazed as the time the brains grabbed him in the Department of Mysteries. His lips were swollen, his hair dishevelled, and half his shirt was untucked from his trousers.
“How was training?” Harry asked with a grin.
Ron’s eyes went wide and his ears turned red. “Er, unexpected.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Harry laughed. “You seem to have forgotten your robes, and, is it just me, or,” Harry gestured to Ron’s trousers, “are the buttons on your trousers undone?”
“Fuck,” Ron whispered while hastily redoing his front and tucking his shirt in.
Harry snickered again. “I thought it was Ginny’s birthday today, but you seem to be the one who got the present.”
Ron went red.
Harry really laughed. “All those times Bulstrode was hauling you around, only you, mind—everyone else she trained just once a week—and you never wondered why? Millicent Bulstrode eyefucks you every time she’s near you, mate. I’ve never seen a more clueless bloke for noticing when a woman is trying to shag him.”
Ron narrowed his eyes. “Oh, yeah, you think so?” He stalked up to Harry and moved his shirt-collar out of the way. “Were there vampires at Parkinson’s last night?” Ron asked. He pressed down on the bruise on Harry’s neck. “Because that looks just like a bite mark.”
Ron stood back smugly. “There’s only one bed. Please.”
Well, fuck.