Work Text:
“What do you mean Queen Victoria needs bodyguards?!” I, and most of my squad squawk. The only silent members are the Medvedev Twins (who stare) and Yuri (who also stares).
“I mean Queen Victoria needs bodyguards. Some wretched madman is going to attempt to blow her head off during a nice Sunday drive.” Boris Romanovich, the Head of the Department of Aurors, and our boss, says, swinging his great belly around like a rolling ball. Just as I think about how remarkable it is that he's standing up, he sits down, behind his desk, where he shall stay for the foreseeable future.
“All of my grandfathers had their heads blown off during nice Sunday drives. We must protect my, gran, uhhh, that poor woman.” says Nikolai Alexandrovich, over a cigar bound with gold.
Squad leader Yuri Igorevich crosses his arms, infecting the rest of us, beginning with the Twins and going from there, in a clockwise arrangement. “She's dead,” he says. “Has been for a while. We'd be protecting bone dust.”
“That's why you need this.” Big boss ruffles around in his desk for a while, the sound of crinkling papers, tinfoil, cardboard and assorted miscellaneous items forming the soundtrack of our lives for five minutes straight.
While I wait, I make sure to memorise the unique form of my crush's ears. They are rather small and satryrish, with a pointed tip. That marks him as irredeemably evil, but that's nothing I didn't already know. Regardless, I might need such information for, uh, identification purposes. Next - his deranged teeth. I will become a living dental record.
As I'm attempting to strafe my way in front of my beloved, hands up like a crab, the rustling in the drawer stops. “Here. Don't lose it.” The boss plops a time-turner onto his desk. A (twenty-)second hand, Pre-Schism time-turner made of gold and decorated with enamel portraits of saints.
“Hmpf. There had better be dark wizards involved in this shenanigan.” Yuri swipes the thing up, his manicured nails peeling varnish from the boss’ desk, briefly giving me werewolf vibes.
“Of course!” Chirps Boris Romanovich in his fat man’s voice, his fat hands laced together under his fat chin. He was quite a proficient auror back in the day. Allegedly.
As we're leaving he adds a further word of wisdom. “By the way, don't have anything to do with your past selves, or all hell will break loose,” He aims a meaningful glare at Nikolai Alexandrovich. “I'm being serious. I know most of you will get yourselves killed, given half the chance. Especially you, Yuri Igorevich.”
“Eighteen-forty is longer than twenty-three years ago. I'm certain I wasn't born yet.” Answers Yuri, indignantly. The only problem with him, and it's a very minor problem, is he thinks everything is about him.
⏳⏱️⏳
“Has everyone got their shit together? Are you ready to time travel to the most hypocritical period of all?” Yuri Igorevich throws the, woefully short, golden chain of the ancient time-turner around his best friend's neck, then begins fiddling with it.
“...What’s that you got there, Yurochka?” Asks Anna Petrovna, innocently. Gosh, I hate her sometimes. ‘Yurochka'. As if everyone didn't already know there is an office romance occurring in the midst of us like a Siberian forest fire. And just like a Siberian forest fire, everyone ignores it.
“A time-turner.” Replies Yuri, his beautiful eyes still on the handheld time machine. Meanwhile, Krum smiles and winks at me. Repeatedly. I still need to answer his latest owl.
Anna’s smile becomes pained, her voice tense. “No, I mean, who is taking up most of our vehicle? I don't know how we are going to fit as is.”
Game playing Anna. She knows who is taking up the space with his burly quidditch body. Why doesn't she just say it!! Krum was inevitably going to prevent someone, probably me, from safely going on this work trip.
Yuri flicks his gaze at his Goth girl gf briefly, before returning to his winding back of the clock. “He's my emotional support Viktor Krum. He's a service animal.”
“Yup.” says Krum, looping his burly quidditch player's arm around his mate's neck as if to say that he ain't going anywhere, except into the past. Damn heterosexual, white male, rich bitch celebrity privilege.
“I need to go shopping.” muses Vasily, over a cigarette.
The time comes to strangle ourselves to death with a golden chain. I can't help it, but I find myself casting the body bind curse on three-quarters of my colleagues in my effort to duck under the chain, an act that ends up with me pressed up against Yuri Igorevich’s left armpit. There's nowhere I'd rather be. Blood spurts and showers us in a wack parody of wedding confetti as someone saws their neck open against the chain as more and more of eight (more or less) of my legit fellow team members scurry like lemmings under the shiny loop of metal.
“Owowowowowowowowowoowowow!!!”
Bloodcurdling screams echo around the Department until Yuri reaches the required number of turns and away we go.
⏳⏱️⏳
“You're one crazy girl, zaika. I like it. One hundred and sixty years you spent inhaling my musk, without a single complaint.”
I don't hear Yuri Igorevich's voice with my ears, I feel it with my lips, and nose, since I'm still stuck with my face in his armpit when we arrive in ye olde 1840s Englalond. Exerting an immense effort, I manage to push myself back enough to see his face. Thank God Olga had already freed herself from the time-turner and our enforced group hug, or else I would have sliced her head off in the process.
“I like it too,” I say. “Your musk. Not my craziness…although, I guess that's cool too. Sometimes.” Like when I need to inhale musk.
Being on a rescue mission (or was it an assassination mission?) seems to have put him in a rare good mood, either that or all the top hats and dandies are exciting him because the barest hint of a ghost of a phantom of a smile contorts his exquisite, bee stung, heart shaped lips. I want to ask him if he's had lip filler done. It's a great mystery around the office, on the level of the Bermuda Triangle. I say no, he, was born that perfect, and I dread having my innocence ripped away from me, something my mother keeps attempting to do by saying she often sees him in the best plastic-magic surgery clinic in Moscow.
But before I can answer life's greatest question, Nikolai Alexandrovich spazzs out. “Stop flirting! We need to save the Queen!” Performing a weird muggle dance move to get under the chain, the man goes running off across the leafy, elegant, mild weathered park we find ourselves in, wand out. Of all of us, he's the only one who fits in. The Medvedev Twins follow, along with Mikhail Mikhailovich, Vasily Sergeyevich, Olga and Anna. Good. The more that get lost and leave me alone with the little boss, the better.
“Yura. We need new dress robes. Now's the time to get fancy.”
Shit. I forgot about Krum.
“I'd like a nice hat.”
Oh. And Mitya's here. I didn't even notice him joining. The guys continue to speak as we (including me!) walk off in the opposite direction to where the assassination is due to take place, an array of fabulous buildings dazzling our sight. Ah, London. Back when it was good.
“I'd rather not be molested by a dressmaker.”
“They're called tailors, Yura. And no one said anything about molestation. You need to stop expecting the worst in every situation.”
“I'm a son of Igor Karkaroff.”
“...True.”
By esoteric means (walking) we soon find ourselves in Savile Row, where all three men soon get themselves molested in the pursuit of fashion. And what fashion it is. Yuri emerges dressed in black and white, the lines of his dinner jacket sharp enough to slice the purses off many a promenading lady. Krum went for a gold ensemble, looking like a paler version of the Golden Snitch. And Mitya exits the place in a Mad Hatter costume, inspiring a local pervert.
“Seen any of our colleagues while you've been waiting?” Yuri Igorevich asks me, still in an incomprehensibly good mood. It takes me a while to answer, because I am so overcome by his style.
I shrug and point from my position crouching in a gutter, watching the fashionable world pass me by. “I heard a flurry of gunshots and shouting coming from that direction ten minutes ago, but that could have been anything.”
“These muggles are crazy.” says Krum, doing the thing beside his ear. The whirly finger thing.
“This hat is so cool!” Says Mitya, his head completely obscured by his tatty green hat.
“Can we go home now? My favourite show's coming on.” I ask.
“What does my magic 8-ball say?” Turning, Yuri begins shaking his best mate, vigorously. Krum alternatively yelps and laughs.
I realise the boss is drunk, and therefore won't recall smiling at me tomorrow morning when he shows up at work in a regular scheduled bad mood. Dammit.