Happy Birthday Smoochiepants
Title: Assault, Trespass and Vandalism - PART ONE!
Author: moonflower_rose
Pairing: HP/DM
Genre/Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings: The usual...also, don't run with scissors...
Length: 2300(ish) words
Summary: Sequel to the fic Disturbing The Peace - written for my darling silentauror!!!
Disclaimer: Please see my disclaimer here.
Harry closed his eyes in bliss and savoured the taste of pickles bursting across his palate.
Oh. Oh yeah. Why do I always forget the pickles when I order a sandwich? And why does Sandra always remember them?
He twitched a little with happiness, and chewed.
It must be some kind of superhuman secretary thing.
Crumbs clung to both sides of his mouth, and the front of his robes, but Harry really didn’t care. No one would see him, anyway. It was late, he was working the night shift, he had this fabulous sandwich to concentrate on, and nothing much happened these days, anyway. One of the perils of doing his job so well, was that Harry had almost done himself right out of it.
Good grief. Sandra should be sainted. Who knew olives and mayonnaise should even be in the same sentence as each other, let alone the same sandwich?
Harry had volunteered for the night shift. He had found, through personal experience, that if one was present during the day shift, one may find himself assigned any number of menial tasks to support the other divisions of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement - and not any of the fun stuff, like hiring new hit wizards, or joining a raid for Dark Magic artefacts. No, you were more than likely to be saddled with the transcription of letters to poor sods caught using magic ‘inappropriately’, filing reports from the Wizengamot (which appeared to be firmly in backlog by about 300 years), or worst of all, heading the inter-office investigation into who boiled the bottom out of the kettle in the tea room.
The day shift was for suckers, Harry had decided. Any jobs coming through, real, proper Auror business, would be fought over by everyone on staff to see who would get to take the case. It was like a Muggle wedding, where the bride throws the bouquet, and all the single women at the reception simultaneously bite, claw, scratch, and hair-pull their way to the blasted thing, each desperate to get their hands on it first. Harry’d seen that with his own eyes when Fleur Delacour had married Bill Weasley. And Veela had real claws, and everything.
No thanks, Harry shook his head emphatically. Who needs that crap? I’d rather the night shift. Just me and my sandwich, and that chap Bender, and old Foxworthy, to squabble with. And both of them are probably napping as it is.
He leaned back on his chair, crumbs multiplying at a rate of millions, and looked around his partition towards the reception desk, where the night secretary Sandra sat, listening to the wireless and clacking away on the typewriter.
Plus, we on the night shift have Sandra, Queen of the Sandwich, as opposed to Day-Shift Madge, Duchess of Weak Coffee That Looks Like Washing Up Water, And Tastes Like It Too. He smiled affectionately at his sandwich, then Sandra. Totally worth it.
The phone jangled loudly out front, and the already muted music was turned down while Sandra went to answer it. The Ministry was finally, finally conceding to the need to integrate some forms of Muggle technology into their infrastructure. A message by Owl or Patronus still took time, and not everywhere had a fireplace you could count on these days…in fact, lots of new apartments and houses had one of those things up on the wall that Ron said looked like weapons of mass destruction, but which were actually the cooling and heating apparatus.
“Reverse cycle air conditioning,” Harry had repeated for the umpteenth time to Mad-Eye and Arthur, who were looking suspicious and fascinated, respectively. “And telephones - instant communication, no waiting for some bloody bird to get about London. You can call abroad and speak to the Minister in Denmark pretty much instantly. All the European Ministries are updating, well, most of them, and there’s things called mobiles, which are telephones that are portable. So, if you were away from the office, out in the field somewhere, or on the way to an important meeting, and something came up that needed your urgent attention - well, you could be contacted right away. ”
Arthur’s eyes had lit up and Mad-Eye’d made a sound which would not have been out of place on a pirate. Sort of an ‘arg’…
“We’re working on ways of adapting the current Floo method to accommodate those new contraptions, Potter!”
Harry added a silent ‘ye scurvy knave’ and pressed on earnestly.
“Mad Eye! How many more Auror trainee’s need to have fingers, toes and sometimes noses regrown before you’ll accept that machines with fans inside are not safe to stick your face in!”
That had been two months ago, and after a final, nasty mishap which had left a trainee without ears for several days, Mad Eye acquiesced. So, now they had telephones. They were old, ugly, cumbersome telephones, with only one volume setting (deafeningly loud) and only one ring tone (painful jangle) apiece, but it was a start. Harry thought briefly of his visit to Paris last year with Hermione and the Weasley’s to see Bill’s in-laws, and the fact that Gabrielle Delacour, who worked at the French Ministry, not only bragged that they had telephones, but webcams and wireless headsets hooked up to their bleeding laptops, and that the phones didn’t clang so much as they purred with every incoming call.
Patience, Potter, patience. Little steps. At least we have phones, even if they are from the dawn of technology. Little steps.
Harry snuck a peek at Bender. Snoring. He leaned back further still in his chair, and checked out Foxworthy. Awake…crossword - the triple-decker jumbo version from last week’s edition of the Sunday Prophet. Okay. So he really only had to worry about competition from Foxworthy, depending on the job, if whatever the caller on the line with Sandra had to say even was about a job. Harry reached down beside his desk to pull open the drawer, as he leaned back further in his chair and squinted at the back of Sandra’s head. Her body language wasn’t giving a thing away. Sandra was always calm, so the call could be so-and-so selling subscriptions to Witch Weekly, or it could be the Minister of Magic declaring war on vampires, and charging all Aurors to battle effective immediately.
And so my old friend the Extendable Ear is brushed off and called out of retirement.
Pulling the Ear from his desk drawer while keeping a keen eye on Sandra, Harry tried not to get his hopes up. His sandwich was set down on his desk with care, and charmed to stay fresh - he might not be getting his hopes up, but it wouldn’t hurt to be practical, would it?
“…yes, madam, I understand…Flat 408…yes…I see…well, in that case I’d strongly advise that you don’t leave your own residence, and double check your wards and locking charms…indeed…no, we take this sort of thing very seriously madam, I can assure you…yes, I have it written down…we will send the next available Auror as a matter of urgency…thank you madam…yes, goodb- pardon? …Malfoy? Draco Malfoy, madam? …Yes. Of course. We’ll keep that in mind. Goodbye.”
Malfoy!
Several things happened at once. First, Harry’s heart stopped for a moment, and he had an involuntary bodily spasm. Second, he noticed Bender’s eyes shoot open, and Foxworthy drop his paper and quill on the desk. Third, Harry wobbled and lost his balance, his chair already teetering on the two back legs, and fell smack on the floor.
Ow.
…Malfoy!
He scrambled to get to his feet, ignoring the ache in his back, and headed towards reception at a dead sprint.
“I’llllllll doooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
Everyone was moving, himself, Bender, Foxworthy. Although he’d lost time by falling on his arse, he had the advantage of being closer than the other two, and younger, and more determined to win. He had to get this assignment, he just had to. This was the chance he’d been waiting for. Harry put his head down, lengthened his strides, stretched out his hand for the mission slip Sandra was calmly holding out for whoever could get their mitts on it first, and-
“Yes!” The slip of paper was crushed in his hand, and he tripped over a potted plant as he attempted to slow down and crow in victory at the same time. Bender huffed and puffed, and stomped back towards his own cubical thoroughly out of breath, and Foxworthy muttered something about Harry ruining the whole sodding department, before heading back to his seat, too. Harry couldn’t have cared less, as he lay grinning on the floor, covered with bark and a little potting mix. He was going to see Draco Malfoy.
Wasn’t he?
With a worried frown, he uncrumpled the mission slip and flattened it out, reading.
Yes - yes, he was going to see Draco Malfoy, at his flat, no less. Draco Malfoy was disturbing the peace, and his neighbour had called to dob him in. This really was the chance that Harry’d been waiting for, hoping for.
I love the night-shift!
Sandra’s face appeared above him, an eyebrow raised in what might have been amusement.
“Two spills in two minutes. That might be a record even for you, Auror Potter. I saw you fall out of your chair at your desk - you were in Gryffindor, weren’t you? Surely Professor McGonagall taught you not to swing on your chair.”
Harry shrugged, a clod of dirt falling from his shoulder and landing on the lino next to his ear.
“She might have mentioned it once or twice.”
*
Harry Potter’s crush on Draco Malfoy was perhaps the best kept secret in all of Wizardom.
It had even come as somewhat of a surprise to Harry. He’d been a little late catching on to the fact that he was even that way inclined, until Ginny politely broke up with him on her nineteenth birthday. It had been entirely unexpected. One minute, they were singing Happy Birthday and cutting into a bright pink cake with peak after fluffy peak of glossy yellow icing; the next, they were out on the back veranda - Ginny patting his shoulder and telling him she just couldn’t live a lie anymore, no matter how much she thought he was really great, and hadn’t Harry ever wondered why he spent so much time following her brother Charlie around, and why he only seemed to be able to finish when she let him do her from the back?
The answer to that last had been a baffled ‘no, not really’, and Ginny sighed affectionately, already with one eye straying back inside the house and over the eager form of Neville Longbottom, who upon reflection, always seemed about one apologetic burble away from explosion around Harry’s girlfriend. She told him not to worry, and gestured to someone out of his field of vision, and then she kissed Harry’s cheek and left him there to puzzle it out on his own.
The ‘someone’ out of his field of vision was Charlie, who proceeded to educate Harry rather thoroughly on pretty much everything he’d been cheerfully oblivious to. Harry left the Burrow the following morning exhausted, sticky, sore in unusual places, and most importantly, enlightened.
Harry used the intervening years to further his education, and the education of others, with zeal. It was important, he reminded himself, to always continue your studies. Hermione had taught him that. She tended to roll her eyes when Harry said so, although Ron thought it was pretty hilarious, and was always after Hermione to do a bit of study of their own.
Then, he saw Malfoy trying on a jumper at Metrosexuelle, the ponciest robes shop in wizard London, brand new (owned and operated by Justin Finch-Fletchley) and specialising in muggle menswear. Draco Malfoy, tall and lean, and gay, according to all rumours. Draco Malfoy, buff beyond description, looking a little tousled from all the jumper-swapping, a close fitting white t-shirt hitched up to about mid-torso, trousers low-slung and barely hanging on to his hips by the swell of his arse and the disappointment of many a lusty gaze, and not much else. Draco Malfoy, practically glistening with animal grace, sensuality, and maybe a little bit of Ella Bachè daily moisturiser Lurophase For Men (not that Harry’d know anything about that sort of pansy crap).
Seven years of sniping, squabbling and physical violence suddenly made a lot more sense to Harry. A crush. He wondered to himself how he managed to be this clueless, and still find his way out of his flat every morning. And, how he could possibly be such a great Auror, so intuitive and never missing a clue, but yet have basically no idea what was going on inside his own head. Or pants. Harry Flooed home in a daze, the seam of his jeans pinching his erection uncomfortably, and a baffling twelve bags of merchandise he couldn’t especially recall purchasing. Damn Finch-Fletchley.
Harry kept it quiet, this thing about fancying Malfoy. For one, Ron would do his nut, which he really didn’t want to have to deal with. And for another, the media would go berserk - that is to say, they would if he got the nads to ask Malfoy out, and Malfoy actually even said yes. Which really, was no sure thing. Malfoy was an enigma, wrapped up in a paradox, wrapped up in Prada (not that Harry knew anything about poncy shit like designers), and Harry didn’t even know whether Malfoy had a live-in boyfriend, or whether he was still on and off with Zabini, or how Malfoy felt about scruffy hair and glasses and green eyes and scars.
Harry pined in silence, until opportunity knocked by way of a decidedly non-silent complaint. It was like fate, or something (not that Harry believed in any of that namby-pamby bollocks).
...more to come.
Author: moonflower_rose
Pairing: HP/DM
Genre/Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings: The usual...also, don't run with scissors...
Length: 2300(ish) words
Summary: Sequel to the fic Disturbing The Peace - written for my darling silentauror!!!
Disclaimer: Please see my disclaimer here.
Harry closed his eyes in bliss and savoured the taste of pickles bursting across his palate.
Oh. Oh yeah. Why do I always forget the pickles when I order a sandwich? And why does Sandra always remember them?
He twitched a little with happiness, and chewed.
It must be some kind of superhuman secretary thing.
Crumbs clung to both sides of his mouth, and the front of his robes, but Harry really didn’t care. No one would see him, anyway. It was late, he was working the night shift, he had this fabulous sandwich to concentrate on, and nothing much happened these days, anyway. One of the perils of doing his job so well, was that Harry had almost done himself right out of it.
Good grief. Sandra should be sainted. Who knew olives and mayonnaise should even be in the same sentence as each other, let alone the same sandwich?
Harry had volunteered for the night shift. He had found, through personal experience, that if one was present during the day shift, one may find himself assigned any number of menial tasks to support the other divisions of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement - and not any of the fun stuff, like hiring new hit wizards, or joining a raid for Dark Magic artefacts. No, you were more than likely to be saddled with the transcription of letters to poor sods caught using magic ‘inappropriately’, filing reports from the Wizengamot (which appeared to be firmly in backlog by about 300 years), or worst of all, heading the inter-office investigation into who boiled the bottom out of the kettle in the tea room.
The day shift was for suckers, Harry had decided. Any jobs coming through, real, proper Auror business, would be fought over by everyone on staff to see who would get to take the case. It was like a Muggle wedding, where the bride throws the bouquet, and all the single women at the reception simultaneously bite, claw, scratch, and hair-pull their way to the blasted thing, each desperate to get their hands on it first. Harry’d seen that with his own eyes when Fleur Delacour had married Bill Weasley. And Veela had real claws, and everything.
No thanks, Harry shook his head emphatically. Who needs that crap? I’d rather the night shift. Just me and my sandwich, and that chap Bender, and old Foxworthy, to squabble with. And both of them are probably napping as it is.
He leaned back on his chair, crumbs multiplying at a rate of millions, and looked around his partition towards the reception desk, where the night secretary Sandra sat, listening to the wireless and clacking away on the typewriter.
Plus, we on the night shift have Sandra, Queen of the Sandwich, as opposed to Day-Shift Madge, Duchess of Weak Coffee That Looks Like Washing Up Water, And Tastes Like It Too. He smiled affectionately at his sandwich, then Sandra. Totally worth it.
The phone jangled loudly out front, and the already muted music was turned down while Sandra went to answer it. The Ministry was finally, finally conceding to the need to integrate some forms of Muggle technology into their infrastructure. A message by Owl or Patronus still took time, and not everywhere had a fireplace you could count on these days…in fact, lots of new apartments and houses had one of those things up on the wall that Ron said looked like weapons of mass destruction, but which were actually the cooling and heating apparatus.
“Reverse cycle air conditioning,” Harry had repeated for the umpteenth time to Mad-Eye and Arthur, who were looking suspicious and fascinated, respectively. “And telephones - instant communication, no waiting for some bloody bird to get about London. You can call abroad and speak to the Minister in Denmark pretty much instantly. All the European Ministries are updating, well, most of them, and there’s things called mobiles, which are telephones that are portable. So, if you were away from the office, out in the field somewhere, or on the way to an important meeting, and something came up that needed your urgent attention - well, you could be contacted right away. ”
Arthur’s eyes had lit up and Mad-Eye’d made a sound which would not have been out of place on a pirate. Sort of an ‘arg’…
“We’re working on ways of adapting the current Floo method to accommodate those new contraptions, Potter!”
Harry added a silent ‘ye scurvy knave’ and pressed on earnestly.
“Mad Eye! How many more Auror trainee’s need to have fingers, toes and sometimes noses regrown before you’ll accept that machines with fans inside are not safe to stick your face in!”
That had been two months ago, and after a final, nasty mishap which had left a trainee without ears for several days, Mad Eye acquiesced. So, now they had telephones. They were old, ugly, cumbersome telephones, with only one volume setting (deafeningly loud) and only one ring tone (painful jangle) apiece, but it was a start. Harry thought briefly of his visit to Paris last year with Hermione and the Weasley’s to see Bill’s in-laws, and the fact that Gabrielle Delacour, who worked at the French Ministry, not only bragged that they had telephones, but webcams and wireless headsets hooked up to their bleeding laptops, and that the phones didn’t clang so much as they purred with every incoming call.
Patience, Potter, patience. Little steps. At least we have phones, even if they are from the dawn of technology. Little steps.
Harry snuck a peek at Bender. Snoring. He leaned back further still in his chair, and checked out Foxworthy. Awake…crossword - the triple-decker jumbo version from last week’s edition of the Sunday Prophet. Okay. So he really only had to worry about competition from Foxworthy, depending on the job, if whatever the caller on the line with Sandra had to say even was about a job. Harry reached down beside his desk to pull open the drawer, as he leaned back further in his chair and squinted at the back of Sandra’s head. Her body language wasn’t giving a thing away. Sandra was always calm, so the call could be so-and-so selling subscriptions to Witch Weekly, or it could be the Minister of Magic declaring war on vampires, and charging all Aurors to battle effective immediately.
And so my old friend the Extendable Ear is brushed off and called out of retirement.
Pulling the Ear from his desk drawer while keeping a keen eye on Sandra, Harry tried not to get his hopes up. His sandwich was set down on his desk with care, and charmed to stay fresh - he might not be getting his hopes up, but it wouldn’t hurt to be practical, would it?
“…yes, madam, I understand…Flat 408…yes…I see…well, in that case I’d strongly advise that you don’t leave your own residence, and double check your wards and locking charms…indeed…no, we take this sort of thing very seriously madam, I can assure you…yes, I have it written down…we will send the next available Auror as a matter of urgency…thank you madam…yes, goodb- pardon? …Malfoy? Draco Malfoy, madam? …Yes. Of course. We’ll keep that in mind. Goodbye.”
Malfoy!
Several things happened at once. First, Harry’s heart stopped for a moment, and he had an involuntary bodily spasm. Second, he noticed Bender’s eyes shoot open, and Foxworthy drop his paper and quill on the desk. Third, Harry wobbled and lost his balance, his chair already teetering on the two back legs, and fell smack on the floor.
Ow.
…Malfoy!
He scrambled to get to his feet, ignoring the ache in his back, and headed towards reception at a dead sprint.
“I’llllllll doooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
Everyone was moving, himself, Bender, Foxworthy. Although he’d lost time by falling on his arse, he had the advantage of being closer than the other two, and younger, and more determined to win. He had to get this assignment, he just had to. This was the chance he’d been waiting for. Harry put his head down, lengthened his strides, stretched out his hand for the mission slip Sandra was calmly holding out for whoever could get their mitts on it first, and-
“Yes!” The slip of paper was crushed in his hand, and he tripped over a potted plant as he attempted to slow down and crow in victory at the same time. Bender huffed and puffed, and stomped back towards his own cubical thoroughly out of breath, and Foxworthy muttered something about Harry ruining the whole sodding department, before heading back to his seat, too. Harry couldn’t have cared less, as he lay grinning on the floor, covered with bark and a little potting mix. He was going to see Draco Malfoy.
Wasn’t he?
With a worried frown, he uncrumpled the mission slip and flattened it out, reading.
Yes - yes, he was going to see Draco Malfoy, at his flat, no less. Draco Malfoy was disturbing the peace, and his neighbour had called to dob him in. This really was the chance that Harry’d been waiting for, hoping for.
I love the night-shift!
Sandra’s face appeared above him, an eyebrow raised in what might have been amusement.
“Two spills in two minutes. That might be a record even for you, Auror Potter. I saw you fall out of your chair at your desk - you were in Gryffindor, weren’t you? Surely Professor McGonagall taught you not to swing on your chair.”
Harry shrugged, a clod of dirt falling from his shoulder and landing on the lino next to his ear.
“She might have mentioned it once or twice.”
*
Harry Potter’s crush on Draco Malfoy was perhaps the best kept secret in all of Wizardom.
It had even come as somewhat of a surprise to Harry. He’d been a little late catching on to the fact that he was even that way inclined, until Ginny politely broke up with him on her nineteenth birthday. It had been entirely unexpected. One minute, they were singing Happy Birthday and cutting into a bright pink cake with peak after fluffy peak of glossy yellow icing; the next, they were out on the back veranda - Ginny patting his shoulder and telling him she just couldn’t live a lie anymore, no matter how much she thought he was really great, and hadn’t Harry ever wondered why he spent so much time following her brother Charlie around, and why he only seemed to be able to finish when she let him do her from the back?
The answer to that last had been a baffled ‘no, not really’, and Ginny sighed affectionately, already with one eye straying back inside the house and over the eager form of Neville Longbottom, who upon reflection, always seemed about one apologetic burble away from explosion around Harry’s girlfriend. She told him not to worry, and gestured to someone out of his field of vision, and then she kissed Harry’s cheek and left him there to puzzle it out on his own.
The ‘someone’ out of his field of vision was Charlie, who proceeded to educate Harry rather thoroughly on pretty much everything he’d been cheerfully oblivious to. Harry left the Burrow the following morning exhausted, sticky, sore in unusual places, and most importantly, enlightened.
Harry used the intervening years to further his education, and the education of others, with zeal. It was important, he reminded himself, to always continue your studies. Hermione had taught him that. She tended to roll her eyes when Harry said so, although Ron thought it was pretty hilarious, and was always after Hermione to do a bit of study of their own.
Then, he saw Malfoy trying on a jumper at Metrosexuelle, the ponciest robes shop in wizard London, brand new (owned and operated by Justin Finch-Fletchley) and specialising in muggle menswear. Draco Malfoy, tall and lean, and gay, according to all rumours. Draco Malfoy, buff beyond description, looking a little tousled from all the jumper-swapping, a close fitting white t-shirt hitched up to about mid-torso, trousers low-slung and barely hanging on to his hips by the swell of his arse and the disappointment of many a lusty gaze, and not much else. Draco Malfoy, practically glistening with animal grace, sensuality, and maybe a little bit of Ella Bachè daily moisturiser Lurophase For Men (not that Harry’d know anything about that sort of pansy crap).
Seven years of sniping, squabbling and physical violence suddenly made a lot more sense to Harry. A crush. He wondered to himself how he managed to be this clueless, and still find his way out of his flat every morning. And, how he could possibly be such a great Auror, so intuitive and never missing a clue, but yet have basically no idea what was going on inside his own head. Or pants. Harry Flooed home in a daze, the seam of his jeans pinching his erection uncomfortably, and a baffling twelve bags of merchandise he couldn’t especially recall purchasing. Damn Finch-Fletchley.
Harry kept it quiet, this thing about fancying Malfoy. For one, Ron would do his nut, which he really didn’t want to have to deal with. And for another, the media would go berserk - that is to say, they would if he got the nads to ask Malfoy out, and Malfoy actually even said yes. Which really, was no sure thing. Malfoy was an enigma, wrapped up in a paradox, wrapped up in Prada (not that Harry knew anything about poncy shit like designers), and Harry didn’t even know whether Malfoy had a live-in boyfriend, or whether he was still on and off with Zabini, or how Malfoy felt about scruffy hair and glasses and green eyes and scars.
Harry pined in silence, until opportunity knocked by way of a decidedly non-silent complaint. It was like fate, or something (not that Harry believed in any of that namby-pamby bollocks).
...more to come.