Dashing Heroics (1/2)

[lokifan]

For hd_erised, I wrote Auror fic with a little bonus power dynamic, daring rescues, and a fuckton of snarky banter. I LOVE SNARKY BANTER. There is possibly too much of it in this fic but I am weak.

I do hope it pleased at least some of the pinch-hitters, who are heroes. As are extremely patient mods. (I submitted this on the sixth of December. Shamed.)

Title: Dashing Heroics
Author: lokifan
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco; background Ron/Hermione and Neville/OFC
Rating: R
Word Count: ~21 400
Content notes: brief non-consensual voyeurism
Summary: Harry loves being an Auror. He loves it less when the Aurors start taking on the trainees for a few weeks of on-the-job training. As it turns out, Malfoy wants to be an Auror too.
Author's Notes: Thank you melusinahp for the beta!

I must warn you all that I wrote 21k of Harry as an Auror and Draco as his trainee and Harry doesn’t fuck Draco over his desk ONCE. I have betrayed all purveyors of teacher/student porn with this failure. I hope you can forgive me.


Dashing Heroics on AO3 or
Harry loved his job. The paperwork, and the talking to people, and the tea were all dreadful, but when he balanced it up against the doing good and occasionally punching criminals (purely in the line of duty, as he was always telling Hermione) he was still one of those people who could say they loved their job. Not bad for anyone who hadn’t yet hit the big three-oh, Harry always thought.

However, he had hated his three years of training. Hated it with a passion. Some of the classes were all right, mainly the practical ones where you got to make things go boom. But since the rest of the “wet behind the ears bunch of nancies” he shared his class with were all war veterans too, he didn’t shine all that much. And in his first Stealth and Tracking practical he tripped over a bin, and in Concealment and Disguise he kept making himself white-blond whenever the instructor requested “a generic dark wizard”. And the non-practical classes, about what the Aurors were not allowed to do and psychological profiles, were even worse. Harry had not expected Auror exams to involve a quill. Ron agreed with him. Hermione just made puns about the quill being mightier than the wand and snickered into her article on centaur oppression.

So when it was suggested that the Auror trainees spend six weeks working one-on-one with Aurors on the job, Harry immediately signed up to teach. He knew it would have made his own training infinitely less dull and pointless-seeming, and if he’d seen proper action before his first day he might have made less of a hash of it. Besides, the trainees would spend the summer holidays after their second year doing it. They couldn’t be that clueless.

“Better you than me, mate,” Ron told him, clapping him on the shoulder so that he nearly dropped his pint. Ron had really piled on muscle during his training. “They’re going to be a bunch of little sheep following us about, tripping over their hooves. And every time you talk to yours, it’ll stare up at you with big bunny eyes and not move until you look away.”

“A sheep with bunny eyes?”

“Yes,” Ron insisted. “Trust me.” He grinned slyly, and Harry was struck by his sudden resemblance to George. “Maybe you’ll be assigned some pretty blond thing. The kind to fall madly in love with the oh so heroic Harry Potter.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Some people have a kink for that,” Ron pointed out in mildly injured tones. “I certainly love Hermione when she’s all fired up and hexing people left right and centre. Besides, you’ll be teaching them things. Loads of people get crushes on their teachers.”

Ron was always doing this lately, talking in worldly-wise tones about romance; Harry suspected it was something to do with his recent fifth-anniversary celebrations with Hermione. It irritated Harry. Just because he hadn’t found The One yet didn’t mean he was clueless. Hell, he was twenty-nine, he had plenty of time. Maybe he hadn’t had sex in – in a while, but he was hardly hopeless.

“I always suspected about you and Professor Trelawney,” Harry told him, and enjoyed sweet, spluttery vengeance.

~*~

Harry wasn’t exactly a morning person, but he wasn’t nearly as bleary-eyed and smelly as most of his colleagues were at nine-thirty on a Monday. Still, that was the scheduled time for the trainees to meet their assigned Aurors, possibly so they would see the full horror of the job right away.

Tim Hayler, a colleague Harry was friendly with, met Harry at his desk and they headed to the meeting room together. It was one of the bigger conference rooms, but the trainees weren’t taking advantage of the space on offer. They stood in an anxious huddle off to the side, looking about with big eyes and bitten lips, fiddling with the sleeves of their new, official Auror robes. The little badges saying Trainee winked from their chests, as shiny as their well-polished shoes.

They all looked so young. Harry couldn’t imagine that he’d ever been so young. Maybe he hadn’t been, though: at their age, he’d already survived a war.

The main trainer, Angelica Williams, was standing at the front of the room giving them reassuring smiles. She was a few years older than Harry and light years more competent, with a distinct look of McGonagall around the eyes. He imagined the nine second-year trainees he counted were all rather scared of her. But then, the Aurors were too: she gestured imperiously at the Aurors who were still trickling in, and they all ducked their heads and went obediently to stand in the corner by the door.

Tim crossed his arms and looked the trainees over. The other Aurors were doing the same, muttering to each other and looking macho: there were a lot of artificially squared jaws. It’s rather a meat-market, Harry thought a little uncomfortably, as Tim leered at an Asian girl with a sleek bob. Tim leaned in and whispered, “who’d you want to get? Would you be interested in any of this lot?”

“Interes – no, no, I don’t think so. They’re barely out of Hogwarts; the Prophet would never let me forget it if I turned cradle-snatcher.”

“The price of fame,” Tim said mournfully, clapping Harry on the shoulder. Harry gave him an awkward, closed-mouthed smile and nodded. Tim leered at the girl again. This time she caught him at it, and shot him a savage glare. Tim shrank back and Harry tried not to grin.

“We should be getting started soon,” Angelica said suddenly, in one of those projected voices that showed she was used to talking to a large audience – and to having them pay total attention. “Of course the trainees have been here for half an hour, and I think most of you lot are here as well. Only a few people left and then I can match you all up.”

“I bet they’re all hoping to get you, oh great saviour,” Tim teased. Unfortunately he hadn’t done well in Stealth and Tracking either: the trainees all heard him. A gust of whispering went up, and Harry groaned.

“Thanks, thanks a lot for that.” They were all eyeing him now. They might have seemed pretty harmless one-on-one, but en masse it was like being surrounded by a bunch of wide-eyed, wand-happy hyenas.

The door banged open, hitting the doorframe and bouncing back as someone rushed through it. Harry looked over, and his eyebrows rose incredulously as he recognised Draco Malfoy. “What’s he – ”

“I’m sorry, Angelica!” Malfoy said quickly. He was pink-cheeked with running. “I woke up late and the elves weren’t prepared and – ”

“It’s quite all right, Mr Malfoy,” Angelica said dryly. “You’re not the only one who’s late; besides, I have unfortunately become aware that your being punctual is a foolish hope on a Monday morning.”

Malfoy flushed still pinker, and slunk over to the crowd of trainees. Harry stared. No one else seemed to be reacting to the sight of Malfoy – white-blond, arrogant, evil little pureblood bigot – standing with those young innocents as if he had every right to be there.

“You’re training to be an Auror?” he burst out.

Every head in the room swung towards him. The trainees were wide-eyed, looking as if they expected a showdown right here and now, or perhaps some display of messianic power. Well, aside from that girl Tim had leered at: she simply raised an eyebrow and looked as if she thought Harry was being rather silly.

Harry, under the cynical gazes of his fellow Aurors, was starting to agree.

“Yes,” Malfoy said succinctly, grey eyes flying up to meet Harry’s instantly, as though he’d known just where Harry was standing. “I’m training to be a great Auror. Much better than you.”

He grinned. Harry felt rage throbbing through his veins and tried to control himself. It was Malfoy, and if Harry hexed a mouthy trainee into unconsciousness he’d probably have his colleagues’ full support; but his superiors wouldn’t like it and the other trainees looked scared enough already. Besides, the Prophet had started doing things like reporting on Auror brutality lately.

Hermione was an excellent editor, but she did make things difficult sometimes.

“Right,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t know how you think you’re going to do better than me, Malfoy, since I’ve been fighting evil since I was eleven while you were running away and hiding behind your mummy’s robes – ”

Malfoy’s eyes iced over. Harry winced.

“You – ”

“Silence,” Angelica said in tones that were not so much ‘cold’ as ‘reminiscent of an Arctic wind that would gleefully freeze your bollocks off’. “Ms Edgecombe has just arrived, and if I’m not mistaken that means all the Aurors participating in this scheme have arrived. Much as this little scene fills Aurors of the right age with nostalgia for their Hogwarts days, I must remind Mr Malfoy that I disapprove of melodrama and Mr Potter that he is meant to be setting an example.”

They both shuffled back to their own groups. Tim clapped Harry companionably on the shoulder, and whispered, “let’s hope we don’t get that little bastard, eh?” Harry eyed Malfoy askance, and noticed two splotches of pink on his pale cheekbones. No doubt he, like all other trainees, had come to hate it when Angelica disapproved of him.

“Now,” Angelica continued. “I’ll read out the name of each trainee in alphabetical order. When I read out your name, step forward. Then I’ll read out the Auror’s name, and they can step forward to claim their trainee. All clear?”

There was a vague murmur, and Angelica said, “First: Akiko Bhee.”

Akiko Bhee stepped forward: she was the girl who’d glared at Tim. She turned out to be Tim’s trainee. He whispered, “hell yeah,” before he stepped forward to get her, and Harry worried a little about the future of Tim’s testicles. Still, if he got himself into trouble there he’d only have himself to blame. Harry would speak to him later about not coming on to one’s trainee.

Harry was drawn out of these thoughts by Angelica saying Malfoy’s name. Malfoy stepped forward and tipped his chin up, looking at the Aurors with a defiant expression. Harry thought that someone should explain to him why exposing your throat to people who didn’t like you very much was a bad idea, particularly when it looked all pale and vulnerable. That sort of thing tempted people to bite you.

“Harry Potter.”

Harry choked, tried to step forward, and tripped on air. While he was lying on the hard floor and trying not to die of embarrassment, Malfoy was protesting.

“You can’t make me his trainee! Our Aurors are meant to teach us things and take us on missions and not get us brutally murdered. And they have an impact on our final marks – he’ll sabotage me, Williams, you know he will!”

Harry got up, and in a movement he had no intention of ever repeating, stood at Malfoy’s back and supported him.

“Come on, Angelica! Don’t the pairs have to get on at least a little? I’m not having him following me around and trying to trip me up for the next six weeks!”

Angelica looked at them both for a moment. She looked like an owl trying to decide which fieldmouse she should heartlessly devour first.

“So you two would like me to change your assignments.”

“Yes!” Malfoy said, and Harry nodded fervently.

“You would like me to assign you both to someone else. To change my system, which was worked out painstakingly over weeks of unpaid overtime, in order to give each trainee an Auror most suited to improving on their most egregious weaknesses – ”

“No Ms Williams, we’re sorry Ms Williams, this will be fine. Your system cannot fail!” Malfoy said, and gave Angelica a charming smile that would have been more effective without the crazy eyes. Harry decided that their being partners was indeed better than facing Angelica’s wrath. He grabbed Malfoy’s arm and dragged him off to his -- their -- cubicle.

~*~

When they got there, Harry snapped at Malfoy not to break anything and went back to his reports. He tried to, at least; writing under Malfoy’s cynical eye made him itch. Malfoy was maintaining a sulky silence, but Harry was sure he was cataloguing all his mistakes for the purpose of later mocking, or perhaps so he could sell the details of Harry’s incompetence to the Prophet.

Although it wasn’t like Hermione wasn’t fully aware.

When did I get this insecure? Stupid Malfoy. He was a good Auror, he knew that. It was just like Malfoy to watch him with that supercilious little smile on his face and make Harry anxious, even though he was just a trainee. He hadn’t felt this desperate to do well since his own training under Angelica’s hard eye. But then if he cocked up under Angelica she might eviscerate him with sarcasm, but she wouldn’t point, laugh, and then go and do impressions of his failure at the pub.

Besides, it was Malfoy. The idea of him being impressed, maybe even intimidated by Harry’s Auror skills was just... it made him feel tingly. At least he was a trainee. Maybe Harry could do something suitably heroic and Malfoy would be impressed, and stare at him with huge grey eyes and know he could never, ever, hope to be such an amazing –

He turned round to see Malfoy picking a photo of Harry, Ron and Hermione off his desk and making a face at it. “Give me that,” he snapped, snatching for it. Malfoy pulled it out of his reach and kept looking, narrowing his eyes at it.

“What on earth is the Weasel wearing, Potter? It’s like all the luridly coloured wool in the world came to him to die of shame.”

“Sit down and shut up.”

Malfoy obeyed, which was rather satisfying. He was still holding the photograph, though, and a small smirk was appearing on his pale face. Harry tried to ignore it. He was an Auror, and he had important work to do.

“Oh, Potter,” Malfoy said, his voice shaking a little. Harry looked round to see Malfoy trying not to smile, his cheeks a little flushed. “Why is your little photographic self puffing his chest at me?”

Harry felt his face go scarlet.

“Now he’s running his hand through his hair,” Malfoy observed. “I mention this only because I wish to be a great Auror and that involves seeing all. Oh, now he’s – ”

Malfoy went rather pinker and put the photo back on the desk, face-down. Harry decided not to ask.

Working with impressive dedication was difficult under Malfoy’s eyes, though, especially with Malfoy sitting down. There wasn’t much room in the cubicle, and Harry could smell Malfoy’s cologne.

He was probably sneering at Harry’s handwriting. Besides, Harry was aware that his trainee, who was going to be grateful for Harry’s nurturing, mentoring ways whether he liked it or not, the horrible little twerp, was probably not learning much. He threw his quill onto the wood and sighed in frustration. “Right, I’m off for lunch. I think I deserve an early break, under the circumstances.” Malfoy frowned. Harry wasn’t sure why: ‘circumstances’ was probably the kindest term a Gryffindor had ever used to describe the wanker.

“Fine,” Malfoy said, sneering. “Where are we going?”

Harry stared at him. “We’re not going anywhere. I’m going to find Ron and complain about you. You can find one of your jailbait friends to spend time with. Assuming you have any – maybe people who’re training to be Aurors have too much sense to make friends with you.”

Malfoy made the expected “hmph” noise, but his expression was uncertain. He looked up at Harry from his seat, his eyebrows furrowed. His colourless eyelashes were glinting a bit against his pale skin, under the florescent lights.

Harry was pretty sure that he wasn’t making sad eyes so that Harry would give in. Malfoy had never been much good at subtlety; the great ‘I Have Been Tragically Injured By That Evil, Rabid Hippogriff’ incident had shown that.

Harry crumpled like wet cardboard anyway.

“Oh all right,” he snapped. “Come along, then, we’ll probably go to the Hippogriff’s Head, round the corner.”

“A pub lunch? Eugh. There’ll probably be insects in their soup.”

“Personally I think Doxies add a delicious texture to any meal,” Harry said. The look of horror on Malfoy’s face was entirely worth it. Malfoy was so busy having a silent aneurysm at the concept Harry had just presented him with that he didn’t notice where they were going until they were there.

Harry knocked on Ron’s door. “Ron? You busy, mate?”

Ron was unusual in the department in having an office rather than a cubicle; the number of pranks he’d suffered after his wife’s run of Stop Auror Brutality editorials, and his few anti-corruption cases, demanded it. Harry was fairly sure that Ron enjoyed this special treatment, and therefore mocked him about it relentlessly.

“What?” Malfoy demanded. His tone suggested he was inches from using a horrible blood-related slur, or ordering Harry to iron his fingers. “I’m not having lunch with Weasley! He’ll probably eat from a trough like the pig he is – ”

“Harry,” Ron said, opening the door with his usual grin. “Got your trainee yet?”

“Oh yes,” Harry said grimly, and looked around. Malfoy was standing behind the door and aiming his wand.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Harry snapped, grabbing Malfoy round the wrist and dragging him forward. “Look at this, Ron. I’m teaching the ferret.”

Ron blinked at them both for a few seconds, while Malfoy twisted his wrist and tried to look as if he wasn’t, and Harry refused to let go. Then Ron started to laugh.

“Seriously? Bloody hell, Harry!”

“Shut it, Weasley,” Malfoy snapped. “I don’t see what’s so funny about this.” Harry rather agreed with him, and since there seemed no imminent danger of a fistfight, he let go of Malfoy’s wrist. Malfoy instantly drew the wrist to him and rubbed the slightly pink skin, pouting a little.

“You don’t?” said Ron, grinning. “You never did have much of a sense of humour. I suppose calling people names is highest comedy to a Slytherin.”

“That’s rich coming from you, since Gryffindors wouldn’t know witty repartee if it bit them. You lot just set off the latest Weasley Wheeze and give a belly-laugh.”

Harry could see it coming: Ron was going to say something about how Malfoy wasn’t above using Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes when it suited him, and once that night was mentioned this conversation could only go downhill. “I don’t think it’s that funny either. I’m going to have him following me around for six weeks, Ron!”

“True,” Ron agreed cheerfully. “But since the Aurors get to evaluate how their trainees are doing, you can probably make him shut up and bring you tea like an idiot little intern.”

“The marks aren’t worth that!” Malfoy spat. “Try to make me get you tea, Potter, and there will be quite a few ‘extra ingredients’.”

“You – ”

“Much as I love watching you two snarl at each other,” Ron interrupted, “I don’t miss my Hogwarts days all that much. Let’s get to the pub.”

“Oh joy,” Malfoy muttered to himself, as they headed into the lift. “Grease and Weasley table manners.”

“Aww, don’t worry, princess,” Ron cooed. Harry was fairly sure he didn’t pat Malfoy’s head only because Malfoy was the type that bit. “You don’t have to get a pint. The barman knows us; he’ll make a nancy cocktail with an umbrella, just for you.”

“Ha ha, I’m girly because I’m bi, I’ve never heard that before. Truly, you are a master of wit.”

“It’s being married to Hermione that does it,” Ron said smugly. He and Malfoy kept snarking back and forth, while Harry blinked a little. He’s bisexual? I’ve never seen –

At this point, Harry’s brain presented him with an image of the proof he’d never seen: Malfoy being shagged against a wall by some random black-haired bloke. He could feel his face flushing, so pushed the image away quickly and asked Ron how his day was going.

They settled themselves in the Hippogriff’s Head with a minimum of fuss. The moment when Alan, the barman, had asked Harry if Malfoy was his new boyfriend had been humiliating, but entirely worth it for Malfoy’s face.

Ron continued to be cheerfully mocking all through lunch. Harry joined in more as Malfoy’s face started to go pink, and his mouth pouted. Malfoy snapped a smart remark back every so often, but he was obviously aware that Ron had had a point: Harry did have a certain amount of power over him. Harry munched his toad in the hole and watched the carnage.

“So why did you go into training so late, Malfoy?” he asked eventually. Malfoy had almost vanished from public life in the wake of the war. Harry had assumed he was just avoiding public condemnation, and would reappear in a few months, sarcastic and arrogant as ever. It hadn’t happened. He’d disappeared from Harry’s life, leaving a peculiar void. This sudden reappearance was still throwing him for a loop. At least Malfoy looked mostly the same as he had eleven years ago, which made the situation slightly less unnerving.

It was a little annoying, though. Harry knew he himself didn’t look very old, but Malfoy’s pale skin was barely marked by time, and he was as slim as ever. Bastard.

“Yeah, Malfoy,” Ron said through a mouthful of chicken. “What’ve you been doing all this time? I suppose pampered brats like you are allowed to spend a decade pissing about before they start doing anything with their lives.”

“We are lucky that way,” Malfoy agreed, the only sign of annoyance his tightening lips. Harry realised he was staring at Malfoy’s mouth, and quickly looked away. “It means we don’t end up peaking at seventeen as a side-kick and ending up a married man with a paunch, forever looking back on our glory days.”

“Lucky, since your kind doesn’t seem to have glory days so much as ‘spat on by everyone’ days.”

“Steady on, Ron,” Harry said with a slight frown. Malfoy slanted a quick, grey-eyed glance his way. Harry thought it might be gratitude.

He engaged Ron in a discussion about the Chudley Cannons. Malfoy frowned a few times, looking as if he was bursting to say something scathing about the Cannons’ tactics in general and their last match in particular, but he stayed silent. It was odd, having a glaring blond presence sitting in on the usual, genial pub-lunch-with-Ron dynamic. To his surprise, Harry found himself wishing not so much that Malfoy wasn’t there, as that he’d talk. A silent Malfoy was just too odd, and at least he could keep up with them on Quidditch talk.

Unfortunately, the silence couldn’t last. It was obviously bothering Ron too; he started giving Malfoy suspicious glances more and more often. Finally, Malfoy snapped.

“Stop giving me that look, Weasley. If you want to know why I’m being quiet, it’s because I poisoned your chicken while you were in the loos and I’m waiting to see how long it is before you collapse.”

Ron choked.

Malfoy started to laugh.

After a few seconds, Harry fought down the urge to laugh himself. Malfoy was laughing even harder now, and Ron was red in the face with mingled anger and embarrassment. “Shut up, Malfoy! Merlin, what kind of Auror trainee makes death threats?”

“The special kind.” Malfoy got his giggles under control, but he was still smiling widely. It was the first time Harry had seen him smile properly all day.

“Like special needs?”

“Ron!” Harry said. “Shouldn’t you be giving me friendly advice to keep calm?”

“That’s Hermione’s job,” said Ron with a shrug. “But all right, I can be calm.” He turned a false smile on Malfoy. “It’s okay to be a late bloomer,” he cooed. “Don’t worry about being ten years older than everyone else on the training programme.”

Two points of pink appeared on Malfoy’s sharp cheekbones. His pale eyes narrowed, and Harry wondered if a brawl would result in them being banned.

“At least I’m still enjoying my youth,” Malfoy said. “How boring are you, for fuck’s sake? I know you and Granger were playing at couples all through Hogwarts, but you’re Old Marrieds already! Tell me, is your dear wife as fat as your mum yet?”

“You – ”

“Time to go!” Harry grabbed Malfoy’s upper arm and tugged him up as he went. “I’ll see you later, Ron. I’m sorry. I should have controlled him better.”

“Controlled me how? Stop treating me like an animal!”

“Stop acting like a particularly stupid bull!” Harry pulled Malfoy from the pub, and slammed the door behind them. “That was a horrible thing to say, Malfoy. Bringing his wife and his mother into it with one insult? You’re lucky I didn’t leave you to get beaten up.”

“I’d have pounded him,” Malfoy muttered, but he went quiet. The walk back to the Ministry was conducted in stubborn silence. Harry glared at the world as he walked, stewing over Malfoy’s rudeness and the way he’d spoilt their lunch. When they got to the Ministry, Harry reached out to stop Malfoy going in.

“Malfoy?” he said, very quietly.

“What?”

“If you insult Ron again, I will make you call me sir. I will do it until the end of your training, and I will do it in public.”

Malfoy stared at him, eyes going wide and shocked. His face, after a moment, went splotchy pink. “Fine,” he said, in a low voice. He looked humiliated, and Harry felt a little horrified at just how much that pleased him.

“Good,” he said coldly, and turned away. He checked the coin he was meant to carry around, but usually forgot and left sitting on his desk. The mass usage of coins for sending messages had been instituted a year after Harry became an Auror, with the advent of Dumbledore’s Army alumni joining the force en masse.

The message called all the senior Aurors into a meeting room. It didn’t give a reason. His pulse sped up a little, and Harry felt he’d reached that place he could almost live in: like playing Quidditch, when his body was working just a little faster than life and spells were leaping through his head and he was ready to fight.

“Come on,” he snapped out at Malfoy, already leaving. Malfoy gave a heavy sigh that made him sound like a petulant teenager, but followed.

The meeting room was fairly heavily warded, but not set up for emergencies: this was a problem, but not a crisis of the kind that made memories of the war flare up behind people’s eyes. When he entered, Harry went to talk with a few of his colleagues, who had all got here first. Harry scratched the back of his neck and hemmed when Alice asked where he’d been.

As it turned out, the other senior Aurors didn’t know what was going on either, but they were more than happy to discuss the effect of having the new trainees around. A few of them were scattered around the room, attached to their respective Aurors. Except for Malfoy, of course, who’d quickly sidled away and had a speedy conversation with Tim’s trainee, Akiko, and another trainee Harry didn’t recognise. Harry could guess what he was talking about: Malfoy messing up his hair and puffing out his chest usually meant he was doing his ‘I’m Such A Gigantic Hero Man’-Harry impression. Akiko and the other girl were laughing.

Robert Garner, head of the Auror department for the last few years, came in before Harry got the chance to complain about Malfoy much. Harry called Malfoy over before the announcements could begin. He came, with a distinctly ill-tempered expression on his pointy face.

“Don’t just call and expect me to come! I’m not a dog, Potter!”

“No, you’re pretty much an intern, and that’s lower than a dog. Now shut up, some of us care about making the world a better place.”

Mary, a friend of Harry’s, gave him a startled look. Colour rose on Malfoy’s cheeks as if he’d been slapped, but he stayed quiet. Harry felt a little guilty, but was glad. His nerves were frayed enough that he thought snappishness was justified. Stupid Malfoy, training to be an Auror and being bi and doing impressions of Harry so all the trainees would think he was an idiot.

“Okay, guys,” Robert said, making the room go quiet. “You’ll be aware that certain vampiric groups have been agitating for equal rights, that sort of thing, with the support of the redoubtable Miss Granger.” Harry stepped on Malfoy’s foot before he could say anything, and then watched with a smirk while Malfoy tried not to make a pained noise. “Unfortunately, we’ve become aware of certain, more dangerous groups of vampires, which wish to take revenge on wizarding society for its treatment of them. A group called Fang Fighters – ”

“Sounds like a band,” Malfoy whispered, and Harry tried not to laugh.

“– sent out a press release today, threatening society at large, and the Ministry establishment in particular. They say they have a hiding place in wizarding London itself, though we’re not sure how seriously to take that claim. We’re going to be trying to find them, obviously, now they’ve threatened violence. However, at this point it’s probably more important to have an Auror presence on the streets; public panic could do more damage than the vampires themselves. I’ll want some of you out in Diagon Alley and Knockturn, interviewing shopkeepers.”

“Me and Malfoy’ll take Diagon and Knockturn,” Harry said immediately. Walking the cobbles was the duty most likely to end in bloody battle with the vampires, after all. Besides, if Malfoy pissed him off on Diagon Alley, Harry could shove him into a barrel of newt eyes and passers-by would just laugh.

“Yeah,” Malfoy agreed. At Harry’s look, he said, “this whole department smells of righteousness. It’s starting to make me ill. I have to visit Knockturn Alley or I’ll think all human life has value by the end of the week.”

~*~

At the end of the meeting, copies of the vampires’ press release were passed around. Harry and Malfoy leant over their shared one. Harry made an irritated noise, and hoped Malfoy hadn’t noticed that Harry was smelling his hair. It didn’t smell of much, just hair and expensive shampoo, but something about the musk sent a flash of lust through his body.

“They really aren’t scared, are they? This is pretty bloody stuff.”

Harry blinked in confusion, and felt a pang of disappointment when Malfoy pulled away and took his smell with him.

Oh. Murderous vampires. Right.

“Your spouses and children are not safe,” Malfoy read. “Those who try to oppose us will return from their battles to find those they love screaming under a vampire. Sexy,” he said, and smiled wickedly because he was an irreverent bastard who thought murder was funny.

Harry tried to stop snickering.

He leant over to see the parchment, feeling he should be productive. “I suppose that’s the ‘threatening the Ministry establishment’ part,” he said. “See: do not think we will only target the most vulnerable. We will drink deeply of old families, of sweetest pure blood. Maybe we should use you as bait, eh Malfoy?”

Malfoy squeaked. It was almost unbearably cute, and Harry fought down a grin as Malfoy snatched the parchment away. “No, no, that’s not a good plan,” said Malfoy. “Silly vampires, they’re just being hyperbolic. There’s no difference between my blood and everyone else’s!”

“Oh really?” Harry said archly.

Malfoy flushed. “Shut up.”

Harry wanted to keep teasing him, but murderous vampires, unfortunately, had to take precedence over making Draco Malfoy blush. “Stupid rules,” he muttered to himself.

“What was that?” Malfoy said absently, peering at the parchment and stealing Julia Miles’ quill so he could make notes. She slapped his hand, and he smiled sunnily and refused to give it back.

Harry coloured a bit. “Er, I said ‘stupid rules.’”

“Of course you did,” Malfoy said tartly, not looking up from his notes. “Tell me, are there any rules in this department you haven’t bent? Or to be more accurate, haven’t stamped into tiny pathetic pieces?”

Harry opened his mouth in outrage, and tried not to panic when nothing came to mind. “Er...I’ve never hurt or killed a suspect in custody.”

Malfoy’s eyes dragged up from his parchment, over Harry, until he met Harry’s eyes. Harry tried not to fidget under the grey gaze. “Bravo,” Malfoy said. His voice was dry enough to parch the Amazon.

“It’s not like you’re a big fan of rules yourself, Malfoy,” Harry shot back. A thread of amusement was running through his voice, like a shining, horribly inappropriate thread in a drab tapestry. “I played Quidditch against you, remember?”

“Oddly enough, I do.” Malfoy’s voice was wry, and the smile tugging at his thin, mobile mouth was still there. Harry smiled back at it while Malfoy returned to his paperwork, then realised he’d been staring at Malfoy’s mouth again and quickly averted his gaze. Really, it hadn’t been that long since he’d had sex.

“So that’s a definite no on being bait? I’ve done it before, it’d be easy for you. You just sit there and scream helplessly when the bad guys grab you.”

“Yes, but what about the part where my noble colleagues leap in to save me? I am not putting my life in your hands, Potter.”

“I’ve done okay with that before,” Harry pointed out. The scowl faltered on Malfoy’s face, as if the expression had been knocked off-balance.

“True. But still, I don’t think it’s practical. No being bait for me. The vampires would see my pale perfection and bite down right away, you’d never get there before they were picking me out of their fangs.”

“Or maybe they’d turn you.”

“Ooh, yes!” Malfoy looked excited; Harry tried not to think it was endearing. “And I could be a sexy, evil vampire and ravish lots of maidens. Or virginal youths, I suppose, but they’re not so likely to be wearing the traditional lacy white nightgown.”

“Not really. I suppose it’s for the best that we make sure you don’t become a vampire. Or get all your blood drunk before we can save you, if you really think that would happen.”

“It would,” Malfoy insisted. “They are rabid beasts, Potter, they would leap and eat me, and it would be messy. When I was laid out in state for the public to weep over my robes would be stained, the whole thing would be very unattractive. Not that it’s not understandable,” he added thoughtfully. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to suck on my neck?”

Harry made a vague noise, and moved his chair a little further under the table.

~*~

It didn’t take Harry long to read the vampires’ press release. It didn’t take Malfoy long either, but after he’d finished reading it, he reread it and made more notes with his stolen quill. Harry wasn’t really good at analysing documents or picking up on telling psychological quirks or any of that stuff; he did better when he could hear people’s voices, having made a long career out of eavesdropping. So he lounged in his chair and watched Malfoy do it. After a while he thought he should contribute, since he was the one getting paid to do this.

“Why don’t we visit the lab tomorrow? They’ll have looked at the original parchment for clues, it might help us put something together.”

“Oh, definitely.” Malfoy actually sounded a little excited at the idea of visiting the Aurors’ lab. It would probably feel like home to him, although the Aurors kept far fewer slimy things in jars than Snape had. “I suppose we’re off to Diagon Alley for now, though?”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, wanting to stretch his legs and possibly behead bloodthirsty vampires. “We’d better ask the shopkeepers if they’ve seen anything.”

“Like what? Are we going to ask the sweetshop if they’ve had a run on blood-flavoured lollipops?”

“No,” Harry said absently, “those are usually eaten by the ones who have a willing donor, so they’re stuck on just one vintage. Come on.”

Malfoy followed him, and a few minutes later they were strolling out of the Leaky Cauldron. Malfoy’s trainee robes had a purple trim, but otherwise he looked just like another Auror, a partner to provide back-up. It was odd, to think he was expected to rely on Malfoy if needed; Harry poked at the thought, like investigating a loose tooth with a tongue, as they asked Madam Malkin if she’d seen anything suspicious.

He hadn’t seen Malfoy in action yet, and it was possible that the other man would go to pieces in a firefight and end up whimpering and clinging to Harry’s robes instead of cursing the enemy. After all, Angelica had said she had partnered trainees and Aurors according to the trainees’ weaknesses, and Harry’s strength had always been with action. Presumably that meant Malfoy had something to learn about duelling in the Aurors.

But he hadn’t failed out of Auror training. He couldn’t be doing that badly.

“Maybe we could go out tonight and try to scare up the vampires,” Malfoy said. It was odd hearing the phrase scare up in Malfoy’s cultured tones: it was one he must have learnt from Angelica, whose speech patterns imprinted themselves on every Auror. “I know Akiko would come, and maybe some of the others. Lucia, now, she’s every inch the blonde, virginal maiden. Well, maybe not so much virginal, but the vampires probably won’t realise that unless they’re up close – ”

“Sorry, I think I got lost amidst all that prattling,” Harry interrupted, not wanting to hear about this Lucia’s virginity or lack thereof. How did Malfoy know, either way? “Are you suggesting we take a bunch of trainees out to fight the evil terrorist vampires?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Harry felt a headache starting behind his eyes. “Malfoy, I know you’re not over-enthused about the concept of keeping people alive, but this is a bit much. If you lot rushed in, wands blazing, you’d be killed before you could say ‘law-enforcement entree.’”

“Bit rich coming from you – ”

“Which is why I know what I’m talking about.”

“Don’t be so patronising,” Malfoy snapped. “I may not like them all but don’t treat us like a litter of over-eager puppies. We’re not children, and we’re not idiots. We can help.”

“I’m sure. But you’re trainees, not actual Aurors. Take it from someone who did it: fighting evil without all the information is a bad plan.”

“I don’t need you to point that out, Potter! I’m not some idiotic Gryffindor just dying to get into the Auror corps and lose my first limb.”

Harry made an irritated noise that sounded like a blocked drain and steered Malfoy into Eeylops Owl Emporium. The shopkeeper wasn’t the woman Harry remembered from his schooldays, but a slim young black man with a smile that was attempting I Am Honoured To Assist The Aurors and getting We Don’t Actually Sell Vampire Bats, Ahahahaha instead. Still, the number of foreign imports the shop got meant that he might well have seen – or heard on the grapevine – something relevant. The Fang Fighters were locals, but most vampires weren’t, and this new bravery suggested something had changed. Maybe someone had gone on holiday to the Mother Country and brought back reinforcements.

He kept trying, and the bloke was polite enough, but didn’t come up with anything terribly interesting. Harry wanted to poke about a bit more, though – it was amazing what neighbours’ gossip could turn up – so he asked a few leading questions and scandal fell out of the other man’s mouth wholesale.

Malfoy wandered off to talk to the customers during all this; Harry would’ve thought that the gossip would interest him, but maybe Malfoys had a higher standard for scandal. He strolled up to a pretty girl with a lot of smooth dark hair, arranging himself against a glass display case and smiling at her.

Harry questioned how germane this was to the case.

After four minutes, Malfoy was having a bit of her ice-cream – licking it right off the cone, the tart! – and Harry was so busy glowering that he missed some of what the shopkeeper was telling him.

Harry was not putting up with this. Missing a vital clue because he was giving Draco Malfoy’s smile the side-eye would be dramatically non-heroic behaviour. He snorted to himself, said “pardon me,” and went to detach Malfoy from the girl and bring him back over.

“Malfoy. Leave the nice girl and her ice-cream and come and help me interview the shopkeeper, would you?”

Malfoy’s narrow face twisted into a scowl. “Sir, yes sir,” he said. Then he turned to the girl. “I’m sorry for my partner’s abrupt and condescending behaviour, Olivia. Enjoy your ice-cream.”

Harry winced in embarrassment; bloody Malfoy, knocking him off-balance without even trying. He attempted a smile for Olivia, who looked unimpressed, and led Malfoy back to the shopkeeper.

Unfortunately, the man was obviously wary and a little amused by now; Harry suspected his stamping over to reclaim his trainee had not been as authoritative and impressive as he might have hoped. They got nothing more, and ten minutes later Harry and Malfoy were standing outside the shop scowling at each other.

Harry tried to find a way of saying ‘look, my blinding rage at your ice-cream-sharing was distracting me from the case. And how much could that girl know, anyway?’ that would make him sound less of a nutter. Then he tried to find a way to apologise without having to say the word ‘sorry’.

Damn, he knew he should have paid more attention to the Wizengamot speeches.

“Potter, are you on muscle potions? They tend to cause rage and erratic behaviour, and sometimes hallucinations.” Malfoy paused. “Actually, have you been on them all along? It would explain a lot – ”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” interrupted Harry. He tried very hard to sound like a rational human being. “We’re on a case. Maybe interviewing people instead of making eyes at them or using nasty spells isn’t fun, but this matters. You’re meant to fight the bad guys with me, not wander off.”

Malfoy went pink, colour blossoming high on his cheeks, and dropped his eyes. Then he seemed to regain his essential Malfoy-ness and sneered. “If you ask me – ”

“Nobody did. You’re a trainee.”

“It’s not like you were doing so brilliantly with that shopkeeper, you know. He thought you were doolally.”

“Only because you distracted me!”

“At least now we don’t have to talk to the public any more. I don’t want to deal with the Great Unwashed any more than is absolutely necessary for our cases.”

“You’re such a snob! Anyway, that girl didn’t look like one of the Great Unwashed,” Harry said, and instantly hated himself.

Malfoy’s smirk widened, insinuating itself across his face. “Well, no. She had the good sense to be attracted to a Malfoy, you see. So much of the public is unhealthily attached to ideas of virtue.” He eyed Harry sardonically. “They tend to think the Auror combination of thick muscle and thick skulls is attractive.”

“Why did you even go in for training?” snapped Harry, at the end of his patience. “You hate the Aurors, you can’t stand the public, you loathe moral values...”

“Why, Potter,” Malfoy said in saccharine tones, his eyes widening theatrically. “I’m here to save lives, to protect the wizarding world, to be a dashing hero like yourself.”

Harry snarled incoherently, grabbed Malfoy’s weedy upper arm and dragged him along the pavement to the next shop. Malfoy was laughing and gasping and entirely failing to have the appropriate look of We’ll Do Everything We Can, Ma’am about him. He wasn’t anything like Harry’s other partners, who’d been members of the DA or former Gryffindors themselves.

It wasn’t until later that Harry wondered if Malfoy’s sarcastic tone had been hiding the truth.

~*~

Over the next week, Malfoy was infuriating, annoying, appalling – and strangely fascinating. There was little progress with the Fang Fighters investigation, and when Harry got tired of beating his head against it, he found his eyes travelling to the blond mystery sharing his cubicle. Malfoy seemed no less inexplicable, but he was prettier than most terrorist vampires and only his wit was biting.

Besides, when Harry was less of a bastard to him, he sometimes got a positive response, which didn’t seem to be the case with evil seducing monsters. Malfoy was stubbornly not proving himself an evil seducing monster, unfortunately, so self-restraint seemed like the best option. It was just a matter of holding himself back despite Malfoy’s incredible ability to be annoying.

And that was embarrassing. The sheer predictability of having developed a crush on his pretty blond trainee embarrassed Harry. That it was Malfoy, who would mock and snarl and jeer if he found out -- who Harry disliked for damn good reasons, whatever Hermione said, and who would laugh at sad, not-getting-any Potter who thought he had a chance... That was worse than embarrassing. That was close to mortifying.

But at least Harry could be interested in Malfoy’s peculiar decision to join the Aurors. His interest in the enigma of Malfoy wasn’t about sex. After all, he’d been obsessed by Malfoy’s strange life decisions in sixth year, and he hadn’t been attracted to him then, had he?

Anyway.

Tuesday morning saw them entering the chilly Aurors’ dungeon, where the tests to find physical traces of clues were done. (There was a Muggle word for it, but Harry always forgot.) The dungeon had once been an alchemists’ den, and the smell of scorched potions hung over it.

They had to wait while one of the Auror potioneers got the report on the Fang Fighters’ missives. Harry started to shiver almost immediately. The dungeon was kept cold to preserve the potion ingredients that lined its walls, and besides, the overwhelming sense of deja vu made him miserable. It seemed that at any moment Snape was going to swoop from some dark corner and start telling Harry about how inadequate he was.

Turning, Harry caught Malfoy’s wistful look as he gently touched a jar with a dead cat in it.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one experiencing deja vu.

“Here’s the report,” Malorie said, appearing out of the gloom. Harry flinched. Malorie was some sort of Weasley cousin, but her freckled wholesomeness had clearly been no impediment to her cultivating an ability to swoop about in black robes. “Not much to be found, unfortunately. Being dead means creating a lot less in the way of useful forensic hints. Still, there’s some stuff to follow up on... they’re definitely in London. It’ll be somewhere low on wood to lessen the chances of staking, probably built from stone… It should be possible to narrow things down from there.”

“Legwork is my life,” agreed Harry. “Cheers, Malorie.” He stuck the report in one large robe pocket, hearing the parchment crumple irreparably, and turned away. “Malfoy!”

Malfoy jumped and spun, his pale eyes wide.

“Stop molesting the little wooden drawers of dead things and come away, all right?”

Malfoy scowled, and said something very nasty. Harry resisted the temptation to say something horrible about Snape, and felt rather proud of himself.

Even if it did mean that Malfoy got the last word.

~*~

By eleven o’clock the next morning, Harry had found only four significant details in the dungeon report, but he’d doodled a lightning bolt, a little broom, and a Snitch. Then he drew a titchy Malfoy reaching for the Snitch and, appalled, decided enough was enough. A crush was natural enough, it happened a lot in a workplace where people saved each other’s lives this much, but drawing Malfoy getting to the Snitch instead of himself was surely a sign.

“Am I allowed to doodle too?” Harry jumped, and saw Malfoy stifle a smirk from across the cubicle. “I’m sure it’s an excellent Auror technique, and I am, after all, here to learn best practice.”

“Shut up.”

“Excellent retort.”

“‘Weasley was born in a bin’ was the best you could do when you were fifteen, don’t tell me about wit.”

“The lyrics needed to be easy to remember, you know, I was working with Goyle and -- ” Malfoy cut himself off. Harry felt a pang in his chest at the look on Malfoy’s face, an echo of grief. He pushed a cup of tea over silently. Malfoy sipped it and didn’t even complain about the brand.

“Well, doodling helps me work through all the clues in my mind. Anyway, I’m still waiting for word to come back on that inquiry with the Department of Mysteries. I’m not going down there to chivvy them along until after lunch, they’re nutters.”

Malfoy grinned. “Too true. D’you remember Lisa Turpin from school? She joined them and… man. Pansy’s last party -- I can’t even tell you half of it -- ”

“Yes you can, I’m your supervising Auror.”

“Who’s desperate for Slytherin gossip, apparently.”

“I had to put up with playing Quidditch against you dirty cheaters for six years, I should at least get some good stories out of it.”

“You do know that stuff about orgies in the dungeons was all a myth, right -- ”

Harry’s laugh rang out through the office. He hid behind some parchment as people turned to look.

“All right, while we’re waiting, let me teach you one of the great secrets of the Aurors.”

“Ooh,” Malfoy said, with less than total sincerity. “Let me just warn you, weird initiation ceremonies, I’ve been burned before, you know -- ”

Harry screwed up a requisitions form and threw it at him. “Shut up. We’re gonna play some table Quidditch.”

Malfoy’s eyes lit up. It turned out the unholy glee in his face was endearing when it wasn’t matched with Harry being horribly humiliated in some way. “Table Quidditch?”

“Yep. Okay so we each get three matchsticks, and you charm the ends different colours so you can tell which is which. Let’s start off with one each, though. Then we have a ball bearing -- ”

“A what?”

“Now you see why having Muggleborns around the office is a gift.” Harry produced matchsticks and a ball-bearing from a drawer. “The ball-bearing’s the Snitch, the matchsticks’re brooms. Whoever hits the ball-bearing with their matchstick first wins.”

“Brilliant.”

“There’s a catch -- you need to use wandless magic.”

Table Quidditch had originally been invented by Harry’s cohort of Auror recruits as a way to practice wandless magic. Wandless magic was usually only seen in children, before they got a wand and learnt to channel their magic properly, but adults could do it too - if they found the right level of control. It was one of the toughest things Harry had learnt in Auror training.

Even so, he was one of the best in the department on raw power in wandless magic. He rather hoped Malfoy would be impressed.

Harry turned the end of one matchstick green and put it on his desk in front of Malfoy. He put his own red one next to it, and cast the spells to make the ball-bearing into a tiny Snitch.

“All right, Malfoy. Game on!”

Harry’s matchstick careened into the air as the words left his lips. Malfoy swore and turned to stare at his Snitch, gesturing at it. It swung into the air.

Harry’s broomstick whizzed towards the ball-bearing but overshot it. He’d put too much power into it again. It could’ve been worse -- back in training he’d blown up plenty of matchsticks by mistake. Malfoy’s matchstick was jabbing towards the ball-bearing, not quite managing to hit it. The ball-bearing did a loop-the-loop around Harry’s quills, teasing them. Malfoy was ahead of Harry, his matchstick following the ball-bearing’s movements. By now they were both yelling at each other, leaning into each other’s shoulders to keep a clear view of the ball-bearing as it shot across the room. Then it swerved and Malfoy reacted faster.

“Yes!” yelled Malfoy. “Too slow, Potter!”

“No!” Harry yelped, but Malfoy’s matchstick was glowing: he’d won. Harry slumped back into his chair, laughing. Malfoy was punching the air, cheeks a little flushed.

“Beginner’s luck,” Harry told him.

“We’ll see,” Malfoy said. “Best of three?”

It became best of fifteen before their colleagues got sick of it and tried to hex them. Harry heroically stood in front of Malfoy, talking about how horrible they were to pick on a defenseless trainee, while Malfoy worked on an exciting pile of parchment projectiles combined with a slime-creating hex.

They ended up going down to the Department of Mysteries after all; the howls and avowals of vengeance were unnerving.

The Unspeakables were unspeakable, as ever, but somehow it wasn’t as bad with Malfoy making faces behind their backs while Harry tried to look serious. They ended up hiding from the other Aurors in a conference room, alternately working on the vampires case and playing table Quidditch. Malfoy growled every time Harry won which was hilarious, and spent a lot of time complaining that Harry had more firepower.

“It’s like a Cleansweep versus Firebolts,” he said, arms folded. He was pouting and Harry tried not to think any thoughts about his lower lip.

“Aw, that’s not true! It’s like the Nimbus 2000 versus a Firebolt. Massively better of course but it’s not a ridiculous gulf.”

“Whatever, Potter. Brute force isn’t enough. I’m all subtlety and control, my friend. I have magic fingers.” He fluttered said magic fingers at Harry and Harry burst out laughing.

“I’m sure you do,” he said, and was proud of himself for not even sounding strangled as he got the words out. “Still, subtlety?”

“I’m a sneaky Slytherin.”

“You were under suspicion at the end of fifth year so you publically told me you’d have me.”

Malfoy’s face went stiff for a second at the reminder, and Harry winced; then Malfoy leant back in his chair with a smirk. “And I will in the end.”

Harry bit down on “promise?” “You are good,” he admitted instead. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; you were a good Occlumens even when we were kids, and that’s wandless magic.”

Malfoy looked startled. “How did you - ” He cut himself off, obviously realising the answer wouldn’t be something he wanted to talk about. “Well, my control’s getting better all the time with this practice. Unlike certain Falcons Keepers I could mention.”

“I know! And the rat bastard fouled against the Harpies last game and the ref didn’t even seem to notice.”

“I have a theory the Falcons are buying her off with sexual favours.”

“Tell me about it, then.” He shouldn’t indulge Malfoy, probably; that’d just make him crazier, and besides trainees should be seen and not heard. Malfoy explained his theory, which got more eye-poppingly work-inappropriate as it went on. It inspired some useful vampire-hunting ideas, though, and Harry found himself roaring with laughter.

Malfoy looked pleased with himself. Harry grinned back at him and issued a lordly request for tea. Malfoy said something anatomically improbable and Harry threatened to give him detention. Then they made a shedload of progress on one of Harry’s other cases and Malfoy did the paperwork, grumbling.

Even so, by the end of the day, Harry was feeling distinctly grumpy because of Malfoy again. He met Ron in the queue for the Floo, and Ron clearly caught his expression. “Malfoy?”

“Yeah. Brat. He beat me twelve times at table Quidditch. He’s definitely cheating.”

“Definitely,” agreed Ron loyally. “You’re defending champion of the department still. And when has he ever beaten you at Quidditch?”

“Exactly!”

Harry stepped through the Floo feeling smug. The memory of Malfoy doing his Victory Dance on a chair, with an annoying smirk on his pointed face and far more hip movement than was appropriate for the office, stayed with him nonetheless.

By the end of the night, Harry gave in, and wanked. He pictured Malfoy naked and begging, then added handcuffs just for the sake of it. He still couldn’t lose the feeling that he was distinctly out of control.

Harry was up late, between worrying about the vampires and Malfoy and wondering what Malfoy’s nipples tasted like. He got into work late the next morning. Malfoy, instead of working away industriously at his little desk in Harry’s cubicle, had his pureblood arse parked on Mark’s desk and was telling him, Akiko and Jenny a joke.

“Malfoy.”

“Hello Potter,” Malfoy said, grinning. “Your hair’s even more of a disaster than usual, did someone tell you a horrible lie about effort being enough?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Come on, Malfoy.”

Malfoy was in an excellent mood all morning, trading ‘memos’ with Akiko. He seemed to blossom under the light of attention. Which, Harry reflected, shouldn’t have come as a surprise, really.

He left for lunch with Akiko, Mark and Jenny; Malfoy was already doing an impression as they left, and the lift closed on their laughter. Harry felt a bit left out. He went and dragged Ron out to remind himself that not having Malfoy’s focus wasn’t the same as not having any friends and told himself not to be so ridiculous.

He shouldn’t care this much about whether Malfoy was looking at him. But he was used to grabbing Malfoy’s attention whenever they encountered each other. And at least if they were glaring intensely at each other, it might be less obvious that Harry was watching the line of his throat.

Workplace crushes in the Aurors were common, intense, and usually very short-lived. Harry clung to this between bouts of dwelling on the way Malfoy’s scruff was so pale that you couldn’t see it unless it caught the light. Malfoy would only be working under him for a little while -- Harry wrenched his mind back from the pit of terrible innuendo it wanted to descend into -- and then he’d be gone. Nothing wrong with spending time with him in the meantime.

Malfoy might be funny, and clever, and like Quidditch, but there were lots of witches and wizards like that. It needn’t become anything important.

The next day, Harry asked Malfoy if he wanted to get lunch with him. Malfoy went still and startled for a moment, like prey waiting for the pounce; then he nodded, and his narrow mouth arrowed up his cheeks into a smile. “If I get to choose where we go.”

“Okay.”

Malfoy chose a tiny sushi place near the Ministry. “You might be a traditionalist, Potter, but all that stodge at Hogwarts has left me with a horror of pastry-based meals. Rice and fish with some spice suits me better.”

Harry shrugged. “It’s fine; I’m not a big fan, but I like everything, really.”

He didn’t hoard food any more, as he had throughout his first two years at Hogwarts, and he’d got over the urge to snap at anyone who tried to nick a chip off his plate. But even if something didn’t taste good – and the sushi did – Harry’s childhood meant that he was never going to refuse food. Never going to pass up the chance to feel full.

He was tempted for a moment to tell Malfoy that. After a moment the desire passed – easy time with Malfoy was too rare to disrupt – but the urge to tell someone anything about his life with the Dursleys surprised Harry.

Malfoy had a system about eating sushi. He ordered salmon nigiri and California rolls with the ease of habit, then set them up on one of the folding tables. Harry watched Malfoy’s narrow, pale hands as Malfoy squeezed soy sauce carefully over his food, letting it soak into the rice, and added a dollop of wasabi to each.

Malfoy looked up; his pale eyes caught Harry watching him, and pink bloomed on his cheeks. “What?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. Hearing something perilously close to fondness in his voice, he hastily filled his mouth with wasabi peas. He immediately regretted it, and Malfoy started to laugh as Harry choked.

Years of friendship with ink-stained yet meticulous Hermione, and hundreds of chess games with a Ron gone narrow-eyed and focussed, had taught Harry to find careful movement endearing. It was a nice change after Dudley’s vicious carelessness and the chaos of fighting bad guys.

But Malfoy had always had that reptilian focus on whatever he was doing at the time; usually something nasty. He hadn’t changed. It was ridiculous for Harry’s reaction to have changed so much.

Malfoy’s fingertips were stained with soy sauce, Harry noticed.

He tried not to be disappointed when Malfoy cleaned them with a napkin instead of his tongue.

*

Ron invited Harry for dinner that night. Neville came along with his girlfriend, a funny French witch with the most amazing Afro Harry had ever seen. They struggled through some of Hermione’s execrable stroganoff -- cookbooks were the only kind of books Hermione didn’t get along with -- until Ron offered to go to the chippy. Hermione hit out at him, laughing, her cheeks flushed from Bitterbeer. Neville went with him, and Hermione and Renata got into a long conversation about Neville’s mad family and the difficulties of mixing Muggle and pureblood relatives. Harry listened happily enough, but soon drifted.

God, imagine trying to do Meeting The Parents with the Malfoys. Mrs Malfoy already saved his life once; maybe she’d want to make a job of it and keep Lucius at bay. At least the Aurors had gone through the Manor after the war, so Lucius hopefully wouldn’t have any untraceable poisons on hand.

What was he thinking?

“Harry, are you all right?” said Hermione.

“I’m fine! Fine.”

Hermione eyed him dubiously. “If you say so.”

“Potentially going mad due to a dark wizard, but I’ve thought that before and it’s always worked out okay.”

“Ah,” she said, grinning. “Ron told me about Malfoy.”

Ron could not possibly have told her about this.

Part Two here