Work Text:
I hate working in Moscow's auror department. Not because I hate being an auror, not at all, I love being a magical cop. I love busting dark witches and wizards. All day and all night. No, I hate it because of some of the people I work with. One person. Tired old story, but it's not dislike of this person that forces me to drink gallons of calming tea just to go into work each day…no.
“Yekaterina Igorevna, here, the files on yesterday's case.” - The most beautiful man in the world manifests in my cubicle at the very moment when I'm dropping jam all down myself. The shock and the sight sends me spluttering and flapping, compounding my embarrassment a hundred fold and making me wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole.
Yuri Igorevich Karkaroff, whose patronymic I secretly hold to be a sign that we are destined to be together, stares coldly at me over the top of the pathetically low cubicle wall, the files he came to deliver hanging loosely from a hand I often compare to Michelangelo’s David. That he has come to deliver those things personally I find to be a sign likewise, never mind that his eyelids are at a dangerous half mast and his cheeks are filling with angry blood, and never mind that we are part of the same squad and he delivers files to everyone so no one can lie to him about not having them. But my word is he stunning, like a vision of a young Pan in Arcadia, making my breath catch even beside the jam catastrophe. I ought not to eat at my desk.
“W-what's that?” I blabber, still attempting futilely to remove strawberry jam from my nice new wool cardigan.
“The files.” His voice, always smooth and soft, freezes solid. I can't even pretend it hasn't, because I've seen him with friends and…sigh...girlfriends, and I know what he's capable of. Nope, he doesn't like me, and not just in the romantic sense. And I don't know how I keep living with that fact, but I do.
Dropping the files on my desk contemptuously, he turns and struts off, back down the row of cubicles to his own, and, since I need the loo, I have to get up and follow. At such temerity he huffs and glances over his shoulder evilly, like a horse about to deliver a shattering kick to an idiot who has gotten too close. One day soon he's going to be my boss and then things are going to become even more painful. A wonderful pain, because most of the time I'd rather be near him than away.
You can't reach the loo without passing several massive logos of the Department emblazoned on the gorgeously panelled walls, running over the divides. Like the Underground, the Department, the Ministry as a whole, is something out of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when muggles were obsessed with prettiness, architectural froth, gold, and pastel colours. I'm not complaining, although the brutal symbol of our role is quite jarring in juxtaposition. They need to remind us to be tough, I suppose. Most of my colleagues need no reminding, including my crush, who kills far more than he apprehends. But I can't blame him, considering where he comes from. Karkaroff, the name strikes fear and garners respect, but I try to remind people that it belonged to a bad man. Futile. It is impervious to harm, and its holders are celebrities in their homeland. Why, why, why couldn't I fall in love with a nobody clerk?!
On the way back from the toilets, I take a ‘shortcut’ through the cafeteria. It's that time of the day - around three in the afternoon - which is like No Man's Land if you're stuck in the office. Energy stores are flagging, and the cafeteria is an oasis. A mural depicting the defeat of Napoleon arcs over one of the walls. Wizardkind had a large part to play in that campaign, and every campaign Imperial Russia was ever involved in. Magical and non-magical are not so separated in the Motherland. The secrecy is not so oppressive. No one thinks twice about people standing in fireplaces and disappearing. It's an easier life here in some ways, despite certain hardships.
Grabbing a conglomeration of high sugar sweets for the squad (so I can pretend like I don't know which are Yuri's favourites) I make my way back through the halls of governance, back to my own section of it. It is a dream come true to be not only an auror, but to work in Moscow and not some godforsaken place like all of Siberia.
“I bring gifts.” I say, upon entering the office, sounding like a twat to myself. My colleagues, temporarily transformed into my chicks, pop their heads over their cubicles, eyes and noses pointing at me for a moment before the rest of their bodies flood out. They mob me and the tray I'm carrying, making incoherent chirping noises of delight. All except the only one I really want to hook, who remains at his desk, his quill tapping away at a parchment pad, his eyes staring at nothing. Why must he be so difficult.
“Sweet?” I've saved a few of his favourites - Turkish delight - from the horde, and at my question he looks over, gaze halfway returning to this plane of existence. But after a moment he returns to staring at the cubicle wall in front of him. It's covered in crime scene photos and diagrams, but he's looking past them into something no one else can see. I know that look, it's the detecting state, and I shouldn't be messing with his concentration.
“No thanks.” he says, dully.
“But…urgh, never mind.” Dropping the remains of my sacrificial offerings onto my own desk, where they act as a lure for my colleagues throughout the rest of the afternoon, I attempt to get my mind back on work. But there's only one cubicle between me and the man I love, and every time he moves or says something my workflow is utterly shattered. This is why my mother always told me that women should not work outside the home.
And so on and so forth. It's like this everyday. Time passes and work switches between boring as hell office drudgery and terrifying yet exciting field work, and I come to know all the members of my team better, but the one I really want to get close to, I can't. We even, all of us, regularly go out for drinks, where I'm sure I look an extreme creep by sitting and staring hungrily at him from across a table, but I can't help it. And then I almost die of heartbreak when he goes off to dance with and kiss and who knows what with some other girl. My mom says it's a teenage crush, but I'm twenty-five and older than he is. Every member of the squad is older than he is, sometimes significantly so. Make it make sense. My mom says he's a hoity-toity nepotistic whore and not worth it, but try telling that to my heart.
Anyway, all of this is worth something in the end, as it leads to me receiving a commendation when my feelings prove too great for all the dark arts in the world.
💔💝💔
It's a normal, grey day in the in-between season that spans winter and spring. In Moscow it's about to go from painfully cold to painfully humid, and tempers will rise. Thank God wizards invented air conditioning before I was born. Living in the city as I do, I don't have to floo far from the flat I share with my mother. It is a relatively short distance to the Ministry in the centre of the city, within the Kremlin…You know where my crush lives though? You know what I discovered by catching a stray scrap of conversation between him and his best friend, the divine Viktor Krum? The Garden Ring. The Garden Ring…why do I even bother? I have not a snowball's chance in hell. I may as well attempt to get in with the muggle president.
“Have a nice day at work, Katya.” Says my mother from the kitchen, as I'm doing up my cloak and making sure I don't drop my badge on the floor in the process. She knows I sometimes blast people to bits in the middle of the street, but she always wishes me a nice day.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“And don't get caught up on that boy. He's not worth it. In about ten years he'll be a drunken wreck and not so pretty anymore. He might even be dead. What you want is someone who began ugly and boring. Like your father. Then you can't be disappointed.”
“Okay, Mom. I'll try, Mom.”
The whoosh of green takes me from my place, straight into the heart of the second largest Ministry in the world, after Tokyo. A vast domed ceiling, painted patriotically, soars to heaven above my head, while the floor gleams in white marble with gold grating. Silver statues of great Russian wizarding heroes and past Ministers of Magic and magically inclined tsars separate the enormous atrium into distinct sections. I happen to know one of my crush's secret goals is to have a statue of himself set up here. Hero, minister, tsar - any of those would be good.
There are even birds flying about. It's considered lucky if they do their business on you.
Someone bumps my shoulder, melting into the crowd with a ‘sorry.’ Crowds of men and women and magical entities galore swarm past, even at eight-thirty in the morning, their footsteps like that of an army on the move.
I should've flooed straight into the Department, but sometimes I like to get lost in the masses.
“Hi, Katya.” My friend Olga greets me as I'm watching my cloak hang itself up on its hook in the cloakroom, using that time to search for Yuri's. His hyper durable work cloak is there, but not his personal fur coat, but that's never freaking here because it's worth a million monies and he never lets it out of his sight. Gosh, I can't even imagine owning a piece of clothing that valuable. I'd die of a heart attack if I had to worry about such a thing.
“Hi, Olya. How's it going?” We chat and catch up on the past few hours since we last saw each other. My squad is basically family, so it's completely appropriate that some of them are difficult, shitty, and unruly.
“Yuri Igorevich is in a good mood today.” Olga, gorgeous, sweet Olga blinks at me the way a cow would - absolutely innocent, but the slightest hint that she will kill you if she has to floats around deep in those dark orbs. It always astounds newbies that after my crush, her kill record is the largest.
“Okay…what's that got to do with me though? Good for him, I guess.”
Olga blinks again. Then again. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Everyone knows you're in love with him. Including him.”
“Aaai!” A shriek pierces the conditioned air and I fall into a spinny chair, my hand over my heart. I can't understand why Olga isn't blasting someone, as I've clearly been shot.
She's not wrong though, Yuri Igorevich (I would never DARE call him by a diminutive. We aren't even close enough to forgo the formality) IS in a good mood when I show up in the office proper.
“Katyusha, chocolate?” The man offers me my choice from a box of Belgian chocolates gifted him by one of his many admirers, an incredibly rare smile on his lips, his voice warm.
All the air goes out the room, and my ears ring, as loud as church bells in an earthquake. I can't breathe as my beloved’s beautiful face grows larger and larger in my sight. I'm going to die, but at least I'll be looking at something pretty as I do.
And then the ringing stops and the air rushes back in. I'm able to breathe again, just as Yuri’s right and most perfect eyebrow is beginning to arch. Something is very, very wrong. He's never smiled at me, and he's definitely never called me by such an affectionate name. He’s offered chocolates, but to all of us in general.
“Ahhh…” Something is very very wrong, and I like it. Taking a chocolate, I fumble and drop it immediately, which rewards me with a barked but genuinely amused laugh from the offerer, his eyes, usually dead, glowing with life and love.
“Haha! Take a few, zaika. I have many to spare. You can have the box.” he drags a hand over his thick black hair, long and neatly tied back at the nape of his neck. Preening. For me.
My heart attempts to exit through the wall of my chest. Something is hideously wrong, and I am creeped out. Time to go over my squad leader's (Yuri's) head.
“What's this, Yekaterina Igorevna? You think we are all suffering the effects of a dark spell in which everything appears ideal? And you think this because Yuri Igorevich is being nice to you? How…peculiar.” The Head of the Department, Boris Romanovich Smirnov, narrows his bug eyes at me, intrigued rather than disbelieving. After a moment, he pours us tea. It's been a long while since he's moved out from behind his desk in the glass walled Head’s office.
“Yes, Yuri Igorevich never gives me the time of day beyond what is required for effective squad management. It is impossible that such a Greek god should suddenly graduate to calling me ‘Katyusha’, offering me ill-gotten confectionery gains, and preening. Maybe one of those could happen, but not all at once. No, we are all under the darkest of dark spells. A spell of lying.”
Boris Romanovich stares at me some more. I add one more shot to the volley. “It is as if Princess Anastasia should return and make love to our Mitya.”
Mitya is the department idiot.
“Hurrrrgh!” My boss leaps to his feet, his belly knocking the table and sloshing the tea. I'm quite proud of myself. The last time he stood up so quickly was when his office was two thirds on fire.
Charging out of there with his wand drawn, the man begins searching for the malefactors messing with his men's minds. They are swiftly found, hiding in dumpsters behind the Kremlin's number one bar.
In the most embarrassing ceremony in the world, I receive a special commendation and a cute badge for this. Prudently, I do not invite my mother, because she will physically attack my crush if I begin crying, assuming it is because of his hard hearted coldness.
“To Yekaterina Igorevna Kazakova, who preferred truth and justice to her own happiness and a life with the extremely pureblood, rich, and fancy free Yuri Igorevich Karkaroff, the Ministry awards this honour-” my boss pins a shiny badge to my chest while I try not to look down and off the stage and into certain of my colleague's eyes. The rest of the Ministry I don't care about, and so gaze upon their gormless faces willy nilly. “-as well as six months supply of vodka and cigarettes. Know that you are a deeply appreciated member of the auror force-”
Since most of the day was spent sorting out the attempted assassination by complacency of the entire headquarters of the Russian Ministry of Magic, no files are looked upon, and I choose to think that this is why Yuri looks so glum when we all end up back in that very bar behind which the malefactors were hiding.
Sitting opposite me upon a leather couch in the dim depths of the bar, he plucks a cigarette from his lips and glowers through the fragrant smoke, eyes back to basilisk. Rage is almost visibly radiating from him in jagged black lines. He likes to electrocute people, but I would not be so lucky. Fifteen minutes into his glower, he speaks. “Yekaterina Igorevna, because I offered you chocolates, you decided I was under the effect of a benign Imperius curse? Do you realise I have to go for mandated counselling now?” he says, sounding absolutely murderous. Well, that's infinitely better than indifferent. That's also more words than he's ever addressed to me before.
Our colleagues, to either side of us, giggle and laugh and carouse drunkenly. Crisps crunch and a glass shatters. My nice new badge gleams prettily upon my chest, where it sits skew.
“It sounds bad, Yuri Igorevich, but it was because of several factors. The chocolates, the smile, and the pet name. That was too much good at once. It must have been evil. And besides, you of all people deserve someone to speak to about your issues.”
My superior and fellow auror blinks, ever so slightly asymmetrically. “You are extremely Russian. So extremely Russian I am sure you are Ukrainian. Meanwhile, I am immune to the Imperius curse. Check my records, and see.”
I have checked his records, many a time. And they do claim he is immune. But they also claim he has brain damage.
“So, Katya, how was your day?” asks my mother, when I return home. She's doing a crossword puzzle, and is stuck on ‘spice’, as in ‘spice girl’.
“Yuri Igorevich gave me chocolates, but sadly, he was possessed.”
“What a bastard. You must set your sights on someone normal, dear. One must not torture oneself pursuing aristocrats, that is always what my grandmother told me. They will inevitably disappoint you by getting you pregnant and then promptly getting themselves killed in a duel or under the wheels of a carriage. Every time this happens, research and see.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants.” I say, falling onto the couch before the muggle TV my father left here.