Fic: Discombobulation (Albus/Viktor Krum), NC-17 (Part 1 of 3)
Recipient: femmequixotic
Title: Discombobulation (Part 1 of 3)
Pairing(s): Albus Severus Potter/Viktor Krum, other pairings (beware of spoilers): Ginny Weasley-Potter/Anthony Goldstein, James Potter/Cormac McLaggen, James Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, Severus Snape/Draco Malfoy
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: ADW: 54/25(26), murder (victim: Cormac McLaggen)
Summary: A man has passed away, and a man has come back. Distraught and confused, Al Potter reaches a new understanding of his life and himself.
Word Count: 25,000+
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's notes: Dear femmequixotic, I was very excited to have you as my recipient. You are one of my favourite authors, both in original fiction and fan fiction, and it is thrilling to have a chance to thank you for all the wonderful moments your writing has given me. This story wouldn't have seen the light of day without N, who held my hand and showed the greatest kindness and support when most of the Writing Obstacles of Doom decided to happen. The words are not enough to thank B3, my lovely, thoughtful, attentive, brilliant beta reader, who patiently stayed with me even when I exceeded my planned word count by 200%. And, last but not least, I'd like to thank BB: like a paladin of reason, she gave me priceless strategic advice without actually reading this and saved the story at the last moment. Dear femmequixotic, I hope you find it to your liking.
~*~
MONDAY
~*~
The headache was a bitch.
Al cradled his head in his hands, hating bright sunny Mondays and his cluttered desk with a passion. He peered at the McLaggen report through his fingers, saw the creases and a tiny dark smudge in the bottom left corner, and shuddered from disgust and caffeine withdrawal.
It was all Mother's fault, of course. If she hadn't insisted on a bloody Sunday wedding, Al wouldn't be whimpering down here, cornered by the Death by Apparition Lag. Didn't she realise people had to go for work the next day?
But wait, Al was the only one who actually worked for a living, wasn't he? He should just see reason, poor darling, and not overexert himself at that awfully boring job. He was a Potter, for Merlin's sake, wasn't he allowed some slack?
Cringing at the memory of his mother's hoarse voice and drunken good-bye kisses last night ('No need to work so hard, dear,' and 'Don't you want to stay for the afterparty with James?'), Al craned his neck to the insistently buzzing Fireplace. He scowled at the perfect, cheerful face that appeared in the flames, radiating way too much energy for his liking.
"Tiens, c'est quoi ce visage triste? On aurait dit qu't'as pas eu un bon week-end, mon p'tit lapin."
"Tais-toi," Al grumbled, for once not caring what Gabrielle thought. She gave a mock-scandalised gasp. Al envied her; he should have stayed in Kishinev, too. He could have pleaded work, after all: he had it in spades.
Banging his aching head against the desk, Al mentally went through his to-do list, which, as Gabrielle helpfully pointed out, began with a visit to the Commissioner's office about the nonsensical World Cup report.
It was too bloody early to be alive.
~*~
Having alternately plodded, jogged, and ambled down the corridors of the slowly filling ICW building, Al finally reached the shiny brown door of McLaggen's office. He sort of knocked, a perfunctory graze of knuckles against wood, really, and pushed the door open. The air was a bit stale in the first room; Al saw that McLaggen's secretary had left her unwashed coffee cup on the table. There was a fly fighting for its life in the sticky sludge.
He did knock a bit more firmly on McLaggen's own door, and then called out when he got no answer. Wincing at the throbbing pain in his temples, he opened the door and went in, eager to get the paperwork out of his way.
McLaggen was lying on the floor, his head at an awkward angle, and a grisly puddle of dark blood was marring the pride and joy of the Magical Games and Sports Commissioner: his full floor Uzbek carpet. The Commissioner himself was lying on the floor, his face a sickening shade of yellow, a large Curse burn visible on his chest where his robes were ripped and singed.
The Commissioner was indisputably dead.
Al glanced at the fancy Swiss clock set on the mantelpiece, all glass and chrome, his own ashen face staring back at him from its smooth surface. The first clock said, 7:29 a.m.
The second one said, "Shit happened".
~*~
The ICW building pulsed.
There was no other word for it: if one looked at it from the street, provided he could get past the magical barrier on the outskirts of Kishinev, and could see through the top-class Disillusionment charm that covered the gigantic 'under construction' site, one would realise the entire building was contracting and expanding minutely, as though suffering through violent, all-body spasms. Which was a rather apt way to describe what was happening.
Since 7:31 a.m., when A.S. Potter, Second Junior Undersecretary from Funds Allocation and Regional Development, shook off his stupor and kicked the first arriving trainee out of the office of Cormac McLaggen, ICW Commissioner on Magical Games and Sports, a lot of things happened.
First, Al Potter sealed the door with the maximum level charms that his clearance allowed. Then he dragged off the trainee, a short, buxom Bulgarian girl who looked terrified by the fact that a full SJU - and from FARD, no less - seemed to have misplaced his brain, down the already busy corridors to the Internal Security. They intercepted the other trainee from Games and Sports, a round-faced boy barely old enough to be there, and disappeared behind the glimmering doors.
At 7:46 a.m., the entire Fifth Eastern corridor was sealed and magicked, witches and wizards were being discreetly sought out and escorted away, and no one was allowed to leave the building.
What with one thing and another, by the time the Main Special Committees meeting had to be interrupted because the interpreters had to have their lunch, teams of wizards were scanning the building with the most powerful security spells, the Defence and Strategy Secretary was personally supervising the investigation, and the United Kingdom was officially no longer represented by a Commissioner.
The ICW building hummed and vibrated with magic and barely contained panic.
Crammed in a tiny room with six other witches and wizards, Al prayed his headache would kill him already.
~*~
There was not enough light in the room, the bleak, bluish Lumos making everything but the table and the figure of the investigator vague and sort of smudged around the edges. Al could swear it was too dark to breathe.
The investigator looked like a younger version of Uncle Bill, minus the long hair and scars. His mouth was set in a grim line and Al would have wholeheartedly supported his feelings on such an ugly scandal if he hadn't been too busy feeling like their potential prime suspect.
Who benefited from Commissioner McLaggen's death?
Al rubbed his eyes tiredly. Well, who didn't?
Now that the Commissioner's position was empty, all the other member states had a go at it. Games and Sports might not be one of the Main Committees, but there was a lot of money involved. And it was a position that gave other, subtler kinds of influence.
Peru had an eye on it for years.
Al's headache had grown into a steady, burning sort of pain in his temples and the back of his skull, and he winced every time the Quick Quotes Quill scratched on the parchment-like, eco-friendly, standard ICW issue paper.
What was your relationship with the Commissioner?
Oh, we were madly in love and planning to elope to Poland, where we would grow strawberries. Al snorted and the investigator looked at him sharply. Al rubbed his bare forearms and forced himself to relax. He had shed his outer robe and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt in an attempt to lessen the hot choking feeling the room gave him, but now he felt a bit naked.
Al worked at FARD. FARD distributed funds. McLaggen was organising the Quidditch World Cups. Al scanned the information in his head, wondering about the repercussions. McLaggen was pushing for Bulgaria in three years' time; Bulgaria, who had weaker magical infrastructure and would need outrageous ICW subsidies to be able to build and maintain all the facilities. Which meant that there was more to steal, though of course no one said that out loud. Al watched the investigator take a sip of coffee and quelled a flare of jealousy.
FARD was insisting on Kazakhstan, who could do well on their own with minimal contributions. Senior Undersecretary had finally come to an agreement with McLaggen last week, and that morning Al was supposed to have been going through their official proposal about Kazakhstan.
Only, when he set his eyes on that stack of papers, he saw that it was Bulgaria all over again.
And is that normal procedure for a Second Junior Undersecretary to go personally to clear such a... misunderstanding?
No, he should have sent a bloody memo, to either make McLaggen look like an idiot in front of his own staff, or give him a reason to fire his secretary. What was it with people from MLE and tact? Al had always wondered whether his father acted like a Re'em in a yurta because of his job, or he picked the job because it was a git haven...
Thank Merlin there were restrictions for questioning the staff under Veritaserum. Considering his fiery headache and shock, and also his being pissed off, Al was afraid he would spill something he shouldn't. Like how he had flipped the bird at the Senior Undersecretary when she had told him to go see McLaggen.
Or how he had always thought that the investigator questioning him had a delectable arse.
Who do you think is going to be the next appointed Commissioner?
Al stifled a sigh, going through the countries and faces in his head. Peru, maybe Japan, Bulgaria, Norway... One face in particular came to him, and Al didn't like the sickening feeling in his stomach. Nothing like honesty.
"I don't know."
~*~
It had been an excruciatingly long day. The murder of the Commissioner made shock and fear and indignation spread like wildfire through the building, and Al didn't know which buzz was worse, the one that the protective and procedural spells made or the sickening, morbid gossip. Each new bit of information thrown his way felt like a hammer landing on the back of his skull.
McLaggen had been dead for hours when Al found him.
Did he think Senior Undersecretary Delacour had sent him to discover McLaggen's body on purpose?
The curse had burnt McLaggen's heart to a crisp.
The dark stain on the report had been McLaggen's blood.
Al thought his spine might break from relief when they said he could actually go home. He didn’t even care about the investigator’s arse anymore; he just wanted out.
Al walked all the way home, not trusting himself to Apparate. He felt blurry. He regretted missing the last bus; right now, he wanted nothing more than to be lulled asleep by its spasmodic rocking and never think of McLaggen's gruesome, dead face again.
The chill of the street was settling in his bones, disconcerting after the pulsing heat that had plagued him all day. When Al finally got to his house, grey and bleak with its large blind windows, he rested his back against the biting cold of the lamppost and stared, relishing the painful, longing feeling of home that he had only discovered here.
He smoked away, waiting for the old homeless guy sitting on the porch to go away. The man was harmless, but Al didn't have the energy to come and walk past him, maybe even be forced to say something. If he smelled reeking, rotting flesh right now, he would probably pass out.
The smoke was bitter and sharp on his tongue. He breathed it out through his nose, wondering how in Merlin's name this dung heap had begun to feel like home, in a way the chiming, bursting house of his dysfunctional family hadn't.
The flickering light of the TV-set went on in one of the third floor windows. Alone was good. And honest. He liked living alone; he could never understand the thrill his other family members got out of lying and pretending to be the people they weren't. The dissonance between their words and actions had jarred him since he was a little kid. He still squirmed remembering his disappointment when he had realised that even Grandma Molly, his favourite person until he reached the age of six, was constantly and effortlessly misinterpreting the truth. To this day, he found it mind-boggling. Things like 'Are there any cookies left?' and 'Does Merlin really sneeze when a lightning strikes?' mean a great deal to a six year old, and Al didn't think he was rancorous. He was reasonable. Misinterpreting the truth might be a part of his job description now, but playing games was only fun when there were rules. And the rules clearly said that you don't lie to your own about things like 'Are you and mum splitting up?' and 'Would it be OK for you if I wasn't really into girls?' That just makes your crap ten times worse. Or so Al thought.
But his family was never very keen on following rules, and this particular thing just wasn't as dashing and glamorous as the history books implied. It resulted in one big epic fail at understanding each other. He wanted to be close to his family (or at least, he had wanted it for a very long time), and the fact that he just couldn't hurt.
Even his own mother was impossible to communicate with, but there was nothing he could do about it, and she was probably happy being the way she was. He sort of loved her no matter what. He certainly hoped she would be satisfied with Goldstein, and maybe they would even pop out a couple of fat kids and finally let Al fade to the background completely.
The homeless guy finally got up and began to limp away. Al dragged the burning tip of his third cigarette against the lamppost and dropped the fag to the ground. He walked at a brisk pace, eager to shake off the gloom and the chill, and all but ran up the three flights of stairs to his ugly, scratched metal door.
He closed it behind himself, shutting out the world.
Al took a long shower, desperate to wash the crazy day off him, and let thoughts swirl freely inside his head. The Games and Sports Commissioner would have to be replaced, immediately. It was unlikely that the temporary Commissioner would be elected permanently, though. (God, had he touched McLaggen's blood on the report? Had he?) Norway had good chances of getting the position in the end, but the whole thing might take months. Who would they get? The bloody work didn't stop just because someone died. (Bloody. Fuck.)
His movements were sluggish, and drying himself, Al remembered he hadn't eaten anything but a vile blood sausage sandwich. He wrapped a towel around his hips and staggered to the kitchen, the stray droplets on his neck not even having time to cool before he fried himself some eggs and dumped them on a plate. A tiny splash of sizzling oil landed on the bare skin of his arm and he jolted, first from the slight burn and then from the sudden vision of a larger, dark, calloused hand wrapping around his wrist and bringing his pink burned flesh closer to a hard, hot mouth...
Shaking a little, Al sat on the windowsill, the painted wood cool against his thigh where there was no towel between them. He ate in silence, watching the homeless guy crouch and go through the fags that littered the ground beneath the lamppost. Finally, he stroke a match and lighted one, the small tongue of flame eerily vivid in the dim electric light that bathed the empty street.
Al left his plate in the sink and went to bed.
~*~
TUESDAY
~*~
Al woke up at four a.m., sweaty and disoriented, with his legs hopelessly tangled in the sheets. With a shout still ringing in his ears and a hoarse throat. Had he been having a nightmare?
Al dropped his head back on the pillow. He breathed deeply through his nose, allowing his brain to register one thing at a time. The cold, humid morning air that crawled over his skin. He had left the bedroom window half-open. The old, thin, sticky sheets clinging to his body. A hazy memory of being warmed and safe and taken care of. He rolled away from the wet spot on the bed.
He had dreamed.
His notebook was on the bedside table, its spine glowing red. A Message from Family. Al groaned and reached for the damn thing.
He flipped through the pages and there it was, the last entry. From Rose. Well, better from her than from James, really.
ROSE WROTE:
Evening Prophet says McLaggen is dead and you found him! Your dad freaked out but I calmed everyone. Keep cool. I asked Rita but nobody knows what happened. So gross. Did you kill him?
XOXO
Al reached for the small quill tucked into the cover and wrote back.
Ha ha. I'm fine, thanks for asking. McLaggen's very dead, the rest is confidential. BTW, your mother finds your friendship with Ms Skeeter disturbing, and so do I. Kiss everyone, take care.
Al yawned. He could almost hear Rose's voice in his head, throaty and laughing. She was easily his favourite cousin, and he wished they would see each other more often. Rose was a cool, breezy girl; grounded and sensible about most things, unless one counted stuff like hairstyles or glam rock.
He was about to close the notebook when fresh ink began to appear under his answer. So the Queen of Clubbing was still up. Al often wondered if she ever slept at all.
ROSE WROTE:
Kissing right now, will get to our folks eventually. Keep your secrets, killjoy. DON'T MOTHER ME. And while we're on the subject, do you think our parents are shagging?
Al blinked. Picked up his watch. 4:16 a.m. Blinked. Shaking his head, he wrote,
Which ones?
There was a pause, then the notebook jolted and glowed again.
ROSE WROTE:
I hate you.
Al let out a short laugh and closed the notebook.
Afterwards, he lay in bed, motionless, and let the chill seep into his bones. Images from his dream spitefully lingered in front his eyes, so he chased them away. (Because those were just fantasies, and they made him look needy and lonely. Which he was, but it was something he would only admit at half past five in the morning. To himself. In his head.) He stared at the yellowish stain on the ceiling until the dull grey light and muted noises of traffic made it painfully clear that it was time to get up and face the world.
Al stretched, a nasty shiver running up his spine, and got out of bed. He glanced at the watch. 5:47 a.m. Al thought his breathing sounded creepy and loud in the empty apartment. London was very, very far away. He stared at the battered notebook, once again dead and quiet.
"'Night, Rose."
~*~
Al could have predicted the day would suck when he received the memo about extended Anti-Apparition wards around the ICW building. Which meant that he could just as well go by bus, only, hey, the traffic schedule had nothing to do with rules, it was more like general guidelines. He had no idea if he was too late or too early, and so, dreading the traffic jams on the bridge, he decided to save himself at least half the time and Apparate across the Bic. This proved to be a monumentally bad idea.
With a head-splitting push-pull-squeeze, Al landed in a dirty alley just a little off the bank. The thick smell of the river hit his nostrils and Al's knees buckled. His stomach lurched violently, and he lost his pitiful breakfast right there, with crows and random Muggles sliding by in slow motion.
He should just have taken the fucking share taxi.
Somehow Al made it to the ICW building, going through the check-in with two grumpy, skinny-looking guys from Goods and Substances and McLaggen's secretary, a very tall and wide-shouldered Baltic blonde with a voice too loud to be used in the mornings. He was feeling blurry, wretched, and already royally pissed off.
The day brought more of the same, How long have you been working at the ICW Committees Headquarters? and What's your favourite jam flavour? and other things they could have very well read on his file and fucked the fuck off. Al's neck and shoulders had gone practically numb with tension as he talked about the body and the angle and the colour of the blood. He couldn't remember being so happy to get back to his own office. (Unless one counted that unfortunate case of walking in on Gabrielle and the Mexican interpreter.) He toed off his shoes and socks and shuffled his feet over the threadbare rug. Heaven.
Heaven was a little short-lived, however.
Veronika's head appeared in the fireplace, hair a little too bleached, lips a little too painted.
"Finally! You've been there for hours! What do they say?"
Al shrugged.
"Come on, I told you all about mine," she whined.
"You're just here for the macabre gossip." He smirked. "And anyway, aren't you the one who's always going on about confidentiality?"
"Committees' meetings are confidential, if they are. I want to talk about what I said to that redhead, I damn will." Veronika's head stuck a little further out, soot getting on Al's rug. "Oops. He's a cutie, for a Dane."
Says a woman who looks like a horse. She gaped at him and Al flinched, wondering if he had blurted that out. Then he remembered she just didn't shut her mouth on principle. Al looked wistfully at his dirty rug that was getting less and less blue with every day. Honestly, would it kill Chinese wizards to cast a decent Dyeing charm?
"But it is rather dreadful, isn't it?" Veronika obviously wouldn't leave him alone. "In his own office. ICW. It means that," she lowered her voice, empty blue eyes boring into his, "people hate us."
"What are you talking about? Your Commissioner's been done in, not ours. Everybody loves Funds and Development. We are justice personified."
She stared, her mouth gaping so wide Al could have stuck a paper aeroplane in.
What was it with Slovenian girls and their wide mouths?
Al pushed a stack of papers aside and sat on his table. "Well, they wanted to know where his secretary was."
"The Goblin?"
"She's a Goblin?" Al frowned. "Isn't she a bit too tall?"
Veronika giggled. "Half-Goblin, and they come in all shapes and sizes, dear. Think outside the box."
Al flexed his aching shoulders, but she didn't take it as a hint that he was going to kill her. Pity. "You just won't let me melt in ecstasy with my balance sheet before I ask you, right?" She shook her head. "So where was the Half-Goblin?"
"All non-human or partially non-human staff are entitled to free health-checks every six months under the Directive 1369 on the Healthcare of Magical Beings, paragraph 17.1."
Al had always thought he should pick up that particular Directive and check the definition of 'partially non-human'. All kinds of benefits. He wondered if developing superhuman patience qualified.
"Shocking," Al said dryly. "Make sure you quote the directive when you're locked up with the handsome Dane. Now if you excuse me, my boss is still alive and kicking, and I have work to do."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't get your knickers in a twist about that World Cup. Everybody knows it's going to be Bulgaria."
"Kazakhstan," Al snapped, but, with a green flicker, she was already gone.
~*~
The smoking break was the highlight of Al's day. He normally relished the opportunity to break up the bleak yet somehow soothing routine of filing and writing and calculating to just walk down into the yard and fill his lungs with harsh, unforgiving poison. He deliberately picked odd times for his break, as if he was having an affair with his pack of cheap, non filtered cigarettes. As if his trusted Astra wanted to take him by surprise in addition to playing it rough.
Al flicked his wand a little too sharply. The tip of his cigarette flared up, a spot of warm, bright red. Today was different; it was the bitter burst of smoke in his mouth that soothed and comforted him. The ICW building was still softly pulsing with security charms, and Al felt his world crumbling around the edges in the same erratic rhythm.
"Have you got a light?" The voice was young, slow and stuttering. A boy's.
Al tried to smile and pulled out his wand. The boy - that confused trainee from McLaggen's office - blushed and held out his cigarette. Al's flick was way too sharp again; the boy jerked as the charm slipped and scorched his hand. The cigarette fell on the grey stones and rolled away, picking up dust and dirt.
"Is okay."
The boy shrugged and began to reach for his pack again. Al scowled at him and got him one of his own. The boy's ears turned a little pink as he took the offered cigarette - which was probably too nasty for him, anyway - and waited patiently until Al finally managed to cast a halfway decent charm and get some fire.
Al looked up at the patch of filthy grey sky visible from the yard. They were basically in the middle of a box, walls of opaque glass rising around them. It was rather like looking up from the bottom of a deep well. Sounds resonated spookily here, the rustle of little stones under Al's feet and the boy's stuttering, shy voice.
A single ragged cloud slowly dragged itself across the sky. The boy tentatively told him how everyone thought McLaggen's murder was a hate crime, that it was personal. Perhaps some sort of revenge, the boy coughed. His inexplicable nervousness and Estonian accent made the story feel like forever.
Al smoked his cigarette so far that it burned his fingertips, and the lick of heat forced his brain to wake up. He realised the boy was trying to flirt with him and felt like a total dickhead. He smiled back awkwardly and wondered what in Merlin's name he should do.
Perhaps the kid would realise that talking about dead people was not the best way to chat up someone and just vanish. Al breathed smoke through his teeth.
Who had wanted McLaggen dead? Who hated him so much they wanted him to burn?
Al felt the notebook vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out, shrugging at the boy apologetically. The spine flashed red again, so it couldn't be his godmother: Gabrielle insisted she be filed under 'Friends'. For a moment, Al was confused and excited. Maybe it was dad. Or his mother, just to ask how he was doing. He promptly cursed himself and stomped on his hopes before they managed to raise their dumb little heads too high.
Anyway, it wasn't father, it wasn't mother. In fact, it wasn't anyone who, by any stretch of imagination, could have written to Al announcing they were stopping by his shithole to see how he was keeping it up.
It was Lily.
~*~
Al spotted her right away.
At the smoke-filled bar, flanked by men of all shapes and sizes in various stages of inebriation, stood a woman in a short, tight black dress. Her hair spilled down her back, drawing the starved gazes of almost everyone. The woman sipped her cocktail lazily, a small, dirty smile lurking in the corners of her thin mouth.
The hazy light seemed to slither over her, accentuating the curves of her hips and her obscene cleavage. Her hair, fingernails, and stilettos glinted with the same shade of crimson.
Al walked to the bar, unexplainable anger already bubbling just beneath the surface, and stopped a hairsbreadth away from her.
"Hey."
Lily twisted in her seat, flashing her teeth and a diamond choker with rocks so big it was probably illegal in Kishinev. Thank Merlin everyone probably thought they were fake. Sometimes his siblings were so afraid of using their brain as though it might hurt.
"Hi, big brother." She wrapped her pale arms around him, and Al was painfully aware how every man in the room envied him at that moment. Probably quite a few women, too. "Look at you," she crooned, her breath sweet with something fruity and spirits. "Such a handsome, important man you are. Have you grown so tall since the last time I saw you?"
"You saw me on Sunday." Al squeezed her back a little and quickly freed himself, vaguely disgusted by the way her barely clothed back felt hot and damp with sweat under his fingers. "Although you spent most of the time crawling under the table, which would explain your distorted perspective."
Lily gave a syrupy laugh, her eyes already raking over Al, peeling off his skin to get to whatever secrets he might have. "Sit down. Have a drink. Tell me all about your big, bad scandal with old Cormac that you serious guys have."
Al leaned against the bar, debating whether he should get pissed with Lily and tell her exactly what it was like to intrude on the Commissioner in such a private moment as lying stone dead in his own stinking blood, with a lump of charred flesh instead of his formerly functional heart muscle. Lily toyed with the stem of her glass. Very, very bad idea.
Lily could not be trusted, and that was a fact, plain and simple. Al resisted the urge to slap her when she stood and bent over the counter in one sinuous movement, giving the tanned bartender a full view of her breasts as she reached for another drink. Lily didn't just come to the other end of Europe the next day because she was worried about Al.
She came because she needed something.
Which meant that Lily knew something, and Al didn't like that thought at all.
Talking to her was worse than diplomatic training or practicing resisting Veritaserum. Al always felt at a disadvantage when it came to his sister; it was like she was using Legilimency, or Dark magic, or both. He couldn't be sure that there wasn't a small grain of truth in it, although Lily's pathological laziness made her secure only three OWLs, so he was probably safe.
Her most prominent magical talent was shamelessness.
After half an hour, Al had the feeling that he was about to grasp the Firebird by the tail when, with a sudden stroke of inspiration, he stole the cherry from her glass and asked, "How is James?"
Lily's eyes were suddenly, strangely lucid. "And here I thought you didn't know," she murmured. Al's heart sped up. "Looks like we keep underestimating you, big brother." Al bit into the cherry, an entirely too alcoholic taste exploding on his tongue. "You've grown into a big snake yourself."
Al breathed through his nose, imitating Gabrielle's permanently disinterested face as much as he could. His mind itched to make the connection, but he was holding himself back, unwilling to believe. Lily called for another cocktail.
"Fine, I guess, under the circumstances." Lily's voice was raw and husky, as though she was choking on a sob. "Got pissed out of his mind yesterday. Tried to blast his veins open with a Reductor curse." She ducked her head, moist eyelashes resting heavily against her flushed cheeks. "Cocksucking idiot."
Al was sure his mask of bitchy calm was slipping. James and McLaggen. Really. Fuck. What had it been for him to try to... Al stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked the cherry flavour off the pad, trying to cover his amazement from Lily. Fuck. Fucking hysterical harlot. A Reductor curse, Merlin's fucking wand.
He glanced at Lily who held her half-full glass, her knuckles white with tension. James was alive, at least. She said he was fine. Al knew their ideas of 'fine' were a world apart, but Lily wouldn't have been here if James had been in real danger. True, she could have left Al in a similar situation. But not James.
Al thought he might vomit and thanked Merlin he hadn't drunk anything yet. He wanted, needed to see James, but he knew his brother would never allow it. Stupid, stupid. He turned to face Lily fully, not caring about his naked expression. She gave him a mildly impressed and disgusted look. Al shrugged. He was bound to win some day in this little game; she couldn't be the one to play him for information forever.
They sat in silence for a minute, Lily's features gradually returning to cheeky superiority as Al traced patterns on the chipped counter with a fingernail.
Slowly, Lily moved closer, reaching to unfasten the top buttons of Al's shirt. She tilted her head and the heavy sheet of her hair gave them some privacy in the packed bar. Immediately, her hand shot to his throat, well-placed hard pressure too expert and definite to be meant in jest.
"If you tell anyone, I'll fry your guts myself."
Al looked in her eyes, gripping her bony wrist and effectively cutting off blood circulation. 'Anyone' was code for 'daddy', of course. Al never really understood Lily's relationship with their father; he supposed it was a special, spoiled youngest child thing he was just not meant to comprehend. Soon Lily's fingers began to twitch, causing her sharp nails to graze his skin a couple of times. She gave him a crooked smile.
"Would I ever do something like that?" Al forced his voice to be something more normal than a croak.
A spark lit and died in Lily's eyes; she let go of Al's throat and stroked his collarbone where it now showed. Al dragged her hand away.
"Would you expose a poor, confused little thing that fell in love with an older man while no one was watching?" Lily drank her cocktail to the dregs and her mellow, evil smile made Al's stomach twist. "Mind you, it's not that I could ever get what he saw in that obnoxious, wrinkled bastard. I'll leave your quirks to you, little perverts." She twirled on her stool and sat facing the room, her sharp elbows resting on the bar counter. "I'll tell you a fairy-tale," she said, her voice smooth and rich like treacle. "There lived a boy who was saucy and bright, and knew how to party - oh, you'll have to use your imagination to figure out what it means, big brother. And he had his pick of anyone he wanted. But then one day, he met a man who was unlike anything he had ever had: older, experienced, battered. He was oh-so-interesting, with his stories and crinkles and rheumatism and... whatever it is old people have. And that old prick went and broke our poor little boy's heart." Lily arched her back, looking at Al over her shoulder. "Well, there was some shagging involved, at some point."
She puckered her wet lips. "You would never, ever mock something like that, would you, dear?"
~*~
Al went back home, purposefully taking the longest route. He changed the Muggle public transport twice, the first time because the ratty bus stank like retch and cat piss, the second to actually get back to his district. The people on the bus didn't smile, and he liked them that way. He was feeling teary and maudlin.
Somehow Lily always managed to find his weakness, forcing herself into his soul like a ladle scraping the inside of a dirty cauldron.
He still remembered the nagging worry from before, that something bad might happen to his little sister, and the conviction that he had to take care of her. That feeling had dulled to mild anxiety over the years, and was now mostly replaced by indistinct dread that she might do something bad to somebody else. Lily practically radiated some indefinable, carnivorous confidence. Al knew she always got what she wanted, how she wanted it. He vehemently wished to never know whatever that might be.
He couldn't very well accuse her of bringing up James' story to hurt him, although that was exactly what it felt like. He hadn't told her anything; she couldn't possibly know. But tonight, when she smiled her shark-like smile and told the tale in honeyed tones, Al felt like his insides were being prodded by a blazing poker. He knew Lily suspected something. She was too cocky and ruthless, even for a Gryffindor.
At home, he took a bottle out of his stash, running his thumb slowly over the brightly coloured coat of arms on the label. The clear liquid sloshed around as he poured himself a shot. Al knocked it back and for several minutes just stood, breathing heavily. Then he kept standing, dragging his fingers through the spilled vodka and licking them clean, pretending that there were no silent tears running down his cheeks.
~*~
WEDNESDAY
~*~
Al recalled the sick feeling in his gut and thought he should reconsider the meaning of 'premonition'. For future reference, it was the dark, wrenching sensation that had tried to tell him that the person appointed to act as the Games and Sports Commissioner would be the one man Al had sworn to avoid at all costs.
Al spent most of the morning in his office being wretchedly idle, tapping his foot and re-reading a most exciting 599 pages long report, Tanzania and Termomagical Technologies: Ten Years of Transition, but when the third paper aeroplane landed on his desk, he was forced to admit that ignoring the problem really didn't make it go away. He tore the struggling aeroplane in little pieces and went to see the new MGS Commissioner.
The new temporary Commissioner, thank Merlin for small favours.
No one, least of all Al, would have said it wasn't a logical choice. The previous Commissioner had been very competent and very efficient, and of course there can be no solution more suitable than calling a man of independent means and ready intelligence when one suddenly finds oneself up to one's neck in dragon dung. He had the time, the energy, and he already knew the ropes. Importantly, most of the high and mighty at the ICW had been happy to kiss his arse before, so begging for help this time wasn't much of a hardship.
Forty-eight hours, and Viktor Krum was back on board.
Al took his time, stopping by the First Junior Undersecretary, but couldn't wheedle out any urgent assignment for himself. The prospect of showing up at the dead man's den again was rather daunting, for reasons he did not care too much to examine. Al made a little detour to walk through the Glass Corridor and just stare at the city splayed in front of his gaze like a virgin for the taking. He was one of the few here at the ICW who actually liked the Glass Corridor and didn't consider it another freak accident of wizarding architecture. It coiled around the building at a vertiginous height, rather like a glass snake embracing a glass tree. And you could see everything from there, the dreamy parks and the lazy flow of the Bic, the churches and houses pinned to the earth like butterflies as the corridor rolled and rolled, moving forward with tantalising slowness. Al walked and watched, transfixed and resolutely not thinking. Finally, at a little past noon, he was at the Commissioner's - Krum's - new office.
It looked like he hadn't even left.
The first room was abuzz with activity, five people Al vaguely recognised going through the filing cabinets. There were fresh flowers on the secretary's table. Red carnations. The short trainee girl jumped a little when she saw him, nearly losing control of the tea-tray she was levitating. She motioned with her hand and Al followed her through the door.
The carpet was gone, and Al suspected the freshly waxed, gleaming inlaid floor was also new. He carefully sidestepped the area where McLaggen had been lying, which left him standing near the very edge of McLaggen's - Krum's - wide oak desk. The tacky pictures and memorabilia McLaggen kept on the walls were gone, replaced by a single technical drawing of the first, now hopelessly retro, Firebolt.
Very phallic.
Al felt his mouth curving in a smile and breathed with relief. Really, he shouldn't have been so melodramatic. He was obviously over it; it happened such a long time ago, after all. Here he was, in Krum's office, his heavy Commissioner's robe hung casually over the back of his chair - if he leaned a little across the table he could even smell Krum's cologne on it, and nothing. Krum was in every little detail here, in the heavy brown curtains and the old, grumpy clock on the mantelpiece that pointedly said, "Давай работай, а не на часы смотри". But Al didn't get any fluttery feelings in his chest or waves of nostalgia. Nothing at all. Honestly, why on earth had he thought that seeing Krum would affect him after three years...
The door opened and Al turned around, sliding off the table when he realised he had been half-sitting on it. The Goblin secretary stomped into the office, looking even more monstrous now that she was wearing high heels. Her too-loud voice scratched through Al's brain like a poisoned needle.
"Mr Kru-u-u-um!"
Al winced, and the expression more or less stuck to his face when Krum walked in, in a pressed white shirt casually unbuttoned at the collar and black trousers that clung indecently to his thighs. He was browsing through a manila folder that looked flimsy and unimportant in his large hands. Al's eyes followed the trail of dark, coarse hair that disappeared in Krum's sleeve. A little more grey there. Just a little.
Al scowled and made himself look in Krum's eyes. "Commissioner," he said, inclining his head an inch. Damn, he should have used the full title, but Al knew his voice wasn't very operational at the moment.
Krum nodded, for some reason holding eye contact for longer than he had done before. Al was sure he would begin squirming any moment under that hot, black gaze when Krum finally let him go, sticking his nose back in the folder and walking to his desk. Al willed his shoulders not to slump.
The smell of Krum's cologne intensified tenfold, vetiver and musk and being naked. (Don't even think that.) Clearly conspiring against Al's heart, his brain registered the firmness of Krum's walk, the breadth of his shoulders and how his muscles rippled under that simple, pristine, pornographic shirt. Krum gestured at the visitor's chair and sat down behind the desk, every movement so economic and commanding Al could practically hear the nails being hammered in the coffin of his normal, rational existence.
The chair he was offered stood alarmingly close to where McLaggen had been, so Al stiffly sat in the other one, placed much closer to Krum's desk.
Al felt drops of sweat sluicing between his shoulder blades and, in a pathetic attempt to regain some semblance of composure, accepted the proffered cup of bitter tea. He knew he didn't look like he cared, but that was a small consolation when his heart was going a mile a minute and Kazakhstani subsidies were the last thing on his mind.
So Al hadn't been melodramatic, after all. He had assessed the situation to the best of his ability, and used his skills to draw a professional conclusion.
He was so fucked.
~*~
"The Committee on the Mobility of Magical Goods and Substances announced that the Decree Number Twenty-eight Sixteen B is to be revoked as being contradictory to the Directive 985 on Internationally Acclaimed Magical Foodstuffs. A special Assessment Committee is to be created to evaluate the necessity of passing new legislation concerning the export of edible hemp..."
The nasal voice droned on the intercom, wrapping Al's brain in a warm and fuzzy blanket of bureaucratic stupidity. It was a bad time for a smoking break: too many people in the yard, too much agitation in the air. Al concentrated on two things: breathing and willing his hands not to shake as he sucked the end of his third Astra in his mouth.
"Isn't it a lovely, lovely day, Junior Undersecretary?"
Fuck. Unpleasant, sugary - Al knew that voice. It ruined his bitter-smoke-and-broadcasted-babbling-induced zen in a second. Al took another fortifying drag, turned on his socially acceptable facial expression, and looked the too well-known bastard in the eye.
"It's Second Junior Undersecretary, actually." Al nodded at Gryzbowski and offered him a cigarette. The git glanced at the pack and mock-shuddered. Al clenched his teeth.
Gryzbowski just smirked, then picked imaginary lint from his impeccable blue suit. "Oh, my dear Mr Potter, I'm sure a boy like you is going to get promoted in no time."
His oily smirk matched his oily hair. Al hated when Gryzbowski - or anyone - called him boy.
"After all," Gryzbowski's plump fingers played with a candy wrapper, "you have a real talent for subordination."
And Al really hated when anyone implied that he was putting out for his boss. The man was practically Al's father, for all that mattered.
"Are we to hear of some good tidings from MGS soon?"
Al concentrated on the folds of the candy wrapper. Yellow. Red.
"I'm sure everything that immediately concerns Muggle Relations will be brought to your attention at once, Mr Gryzbowski."
Yellow. Red. McLaggen's eyeballs. Ghostly yellow. The caked blood. Dark red.
"Oh, please do, please do bring it to my attention. I imagine there will be quite a few issues to settle with our Bulgarian colleagues. You do realise, when such sums are involved..."
Red. Yellow. Red - Al looked up sharply.
"Kazakhstani."
Gryzbowski tilted his head and looked past Al's shoulder.
"Oh really?"
Warning bells went off in Al's head as he turned around and watched Krum's secretary approach him alarmingly fast, her stilettos clicking loudly on the stones of the yard. She was clutching creased memos in her hand, and those looked vaguely familiar. Al suspected they came from his rubbish bin. Her voice practically boomed in the crowded yard.
"You can't hide from him forever!"
The way she stretched her vowels made Al want to bang his head against the magically fortified wall.
Al flipped the fag and squeezed it in his fist, the still-blazing tip burning his palm. The pain anchored him. He would not throttle the Goblin, he would not throttle Gryzbowski (damn, he could feel the nosy bastard jeering behind his back), he would not run out of the building and drown himself in the Bic.
He would just go back and revise the proposal with Krum, just like he would have done with McLaggen.
~*~
Damn, damn, damn.
He would not have spent forty minutes in a meeting with McLaggen mortifyingly aware that his thighs were sweating, with muscles that he had forgotten even existed in his body suddenly tense and alert. Al was sure about that.
Damn, damn, damn.
Al walked back to his office at a brisk pace, trainees and random friendly colleagues scurrying away from him like spooked Shrakes. He suspected he looked murderous, possibly channelling the trademark Potter ire. Well, good. Al was not in the mood for casual banter and titillating gossip over a cuppa.
It had been a disaster. Krum seemed intent on torturing him, questioning the pros and cons in minute detail. Krum asked for Al's opinion, and so there was no choice but to speak. It was too hot in the office; Al shrugged off his outer robe and sat across from Krum, excruciatingly aware that he looked scruffy and too young. His jeans were washed-out and worn. His shirt was old and tighter than it should have been; it had been Gabrielle's present for his twenty-first birthday, and he had put on a bit more bulk since then.
So he just sat there, in a pale pink shirt too small for his frame, and tried his best to look nonchalant, twirling a quill in his fingers as Krum asked one question or another. Al could feel his own pulse point fluttering against the unbuttoned collar of his shirt and prayed Krum couldn't see the sweat beading on his collarbone.
Inexplicably, Krum reduced him to this overwhelmed, helpless lump of anticipation and need. It was embarrassing. It was horrifying. Al had rattled off sums and figures, grasping at straws and trying to think of McLaggen's dead body, or the screeching Goblin secretary from hell who was pouring them tea, or even of Gryzbowski. But he could feel his cock filling and rising as Krum looked at him, his voice pitched low and soft.
And all the while, Krum was as calm as a Sphynx, of course. He was a real professional. Al admired and envied his focus, torn between the desire to have that focus on him and fear that it might actually happen.
Intellectually, Al appreciated that Krum actually knew what he was doing and grasped the finest details of accounting and diplomacy faster than McLaggen had ever been capable of doing.
But in his gut, Al knew that he was teetering on the brink. The way Krum's eyes followed his movements - not quite undressing, no, but somehow intimate, as if there still was a secret he had managed not to spill out that drunken night three years ago. As if now, suddenly, Al was a curious mystery Krum needed to solve. Another challenge. Krum radiated such quiet power and sexy determination. Al was actually afraid he was about to fall for him again, only much worse than the last time. Just a little nudge, and he would fall into the abyss.
Damn, damn, damn.
He was out of breath when he finally reached his floor. Safe again. Al closed the door to his office and spelled it shut for good measure.
There was nothing worse than being so out of control. He couldn't keep his emotions on a leash; they broke away, ran amok, and wouldn't let him think rationally. There had to be something he could do.
Only, with McLaggen's murder having turned the ICW upside down and inside out, he wasn't allowed to take leave.
Al jabbed his wand at the music machine and sank on the floor. There was the quietest click, like a hitch in a lover's breath, and then the sounds came. Al rested his head against his desk and felt the pulsing beat bore its way into his skull. His blood sang longingly in response.
He allowed his mind to be slowly filled with the hard, steady thumping. The first blissful wave of the saxophone's wail reached him, covered him, and he sank under. There, in his small, hermetically closed, and ascetically furnished office Al could face the truth.
It hurt being a fool.
Al drummed his fingers against his thigh. He needed to pull himself together. He needed to find his focus.
There were two things that were driving him insane. One was Viktor. But whatever strange possibilities he imagined now, they had clearly settled the matter three years ago. Al's jaw bloomed with phantom pain. It didn't get any clearer than a killer punch when you went for a man's cock, dammit. (Best not to think about that.)
The other was James.
Stupid, infuriating, crazy James. Al wasn't sure he could ever forgive him for losing his nut for Cormac McLaggen. He knew James' standards were low, but that was so deep down the only alternative was the Giant Squid. That man had had no brains, no empathy, and no charisma. James should have picked the Squid.
The music was heady and heavy, reverberating in Al's bones. He kicked his shoes off and tapped his foot with the rhythm.
Al wondered if he should send James a fruit basket or something. Or better not. That basket would probably do more harm than good.
He wanted to see him, to help him and comfort him. He also knew he was being selfish. He wanted to comfort James for himself, to assure himself that James was okay and not blasting his veins bloody open. But James didn't want it. He didn't need comfort or pity, certainly not from Al.
James wanted a cellar packed with booze and a dozen birds and blokes to shag his grief out. James needed a good beating and a good clinic to take care of him. Their family couldn't be counted upon.
Al banged his head against the desk, following the intoxicating beat.
If he got James in Switzerland... There was a good place he could arrange for James. Al knew Scorpius Malfoy had been treated there once, some time in their seventh year. All right, Al didn't really know how to reach them, but he knew who could do it...
Another paper aeroplane forced its way through the slit in the door and landed at Al's bare feet. He glanced at the name written on the wing and felt a headache coming on.
Al clicked his fingers and the music became louder. His capacity for wandless seemed to be directly linked to his sexual frustration.
He would not leave the office until the day was over, fucking memos be damned.
~*~
"Long time, no see."
Belby caught his eye and grinned, the grin a little rough around the edges. Al peered through the curtain of smoke that seemed to hang between them, took in the other man's hopelessly creased shirt and loosened tie.
"Just work, you know." Al shrugged and knocked back another shot, slowly but surely working his way towards being pissed.
He and Belby had been in the same year at Hogwarts. For some reason, Al had never warmed up to the man. Maybe it was the way he seemed detached, like most Ravenclaws. A bit creepy. Or the fact that he, like far too many boys after the Second Voldemort War, had been called Harry.
All those legions of Harrys swarming around Britain gave Al the creeps.
Al looked around and called for another shot. The fleshy, dour-faced barmaid poured him a refill. Al ignored the questionable cleanness of both the glass and the bottle - those were spirits, they sterilised everything, right?
Al scratched his stubbled chin and tried to look friendly. It wasn't like he was avoiding Belby - that would have been ridiculous. They knew each other, and they both lived in Kishinev. But it just so happened that, apart from a fondness for this crappy bar packed with elderly, half-deaf retired construction workers, Al and Belby had absolutely nothing in common.
"Yeah, man, I know. You ICW guys are always sooo busy inventing new rules for us, common folk."
Besides, Belby, being the British Representative Wizard in Moldavia, basically saw Al as a renegade and another evil head of the poisonous hydra that was the ICW. It didn't make their conversations exactly amicable.
"Sorry, you'll have to wait a bit for those. We're still too shocked to find out we're not immortal."
He thought he heard Belby snort in his glass of what was called cognac around here. (Moldavian brandy, actually, but Al had stopped noticing the difference about two years ago.)
"Hmm, too bad about McLaggen." Belby slanted him a glance that was bit too shrewd, but didn't say anything else.
It was a bit sad, really. Tired and trying to get pissed as they were, Al and Belby should have been able to bond somehow and become mates right there by the cracked and greasy bar counter.
Al would much rather see him and his diplomatic immunity bugger off.
"So now it's just one Commissioner for us Brits," Belby mumbled in his glass.
Al frowned. "McLaggen's dead, man. That means no Commissioner."
"Yeah, but -" Belby hiccupped and spilled brandy over his shirt. "Shit. But your FARD man is one of ours."
Al's scowl deepened. "He's from Russia." That conversation was way too old. Older than Al, in fact.
Belby was unsuccessfully trying to wipe his shirt with his tie. "Yeah, yeah. That citizenship's just a f-formality -"
"I suggest you actually think who you are and who you're saying these things to."
Belby looked up, trying to focus his gaze on Al and slipping. "Relax, Potter. Merlin, don't you ever relax?"
Al took his wand and spelled Belby's shirt clean, then called for another drink.
"Thanks," Belby muttered. Al waved him off. Stupid wanker. The Ministry thought that if it was Eastern Europe, they could dump all their idiots down here.
Belby was cradling his brandy again. "Now Malfoy, he knows how to relax. Good bloke. Always liked him."
Al actually put down his glass. "What are you on about, Belby?"
"Huh?" Belby rubbed his eyes. "Malfoy. Ran into him last week. He was catching an Int-international Portkey. Went for drinks. Nice bloke."
Al downed his shot, numbing his throat. The only nice thing about Scorpius Malfoy was his arse, but even that had lost the appeal once the novelty had worn off. Al had been able to realise no good was coming out of that spiteful, attention-starved prat at what, sixteen? Nice, Merlin's left arse.
Loud snoring caught Al by surprise. He turned and, resting his chin in his palm, watched Belby drool over the counter in his sleep. Lightweight.
Malfoy, huh. What Al remembered most clearly was Malfoy's shrill voice when Al had said that yes, they shouldn't be seeing each other. Never mind that Malfoy had suggested it first. Not that Al himself hadn't been planning to break it off with him. Malfoy's face had gone all sour, like he couldn't believe someone didn't want his pouty lips and precious arse. Honestly, the guy loved himself so much he was going to marry himself one day.
Malfoy was too much work for one big fat nothing, not to mention the fact that he had been dying to suck James' cock the whole time. Al suspected James had done Malfoy while the two of them still had been sort of together. He knew it for a fact that Malfoy had been bouncing on James' prick in Greenhouse Three the next day after they had had that row, or break-up, or whatever. Al just never really cared enough to ask if it was true.
The full bar buzzed on. The door banged open and closed every few minutes. Voices, shouting, and laughter blended in one mildly annoying noise. Al imagined he could discern a rhythm in it, a cadence. It sounded a bit like Bulgarian.
The barmaid poured him another glass and this time, Al asked her to leave the bottle.
~*~
Part Two
Title: Discombobulation (Part 1 of 3)
Pairing(s): Albus Severus Potter/Viktor Krum, other pairings (beware of spoilers): Ginny Weasley-Potter/Anthony Goldstein, James Potter/Cormac McLaggen, James Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, Severus Snape/Draco Malfoy
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: ADW: 54/25(26), murder (victim: Cormac McLaggen)
Summary: A man has passed away, and a man has come back. Distraught and confused, Al Potter reaches a new understanding of his life and himself.
Word Count: 25,000+
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's notes: Dear femmequixotic, I was very excited to have you as my recipient. You are one of my favourite authors, both in original fiction and fan fiction, and it is thrilling to have a chance to thank you for all the wonderful moments your writing has given me. This story wouldn't have seen the light of day without N, who held my hand and showed the greatest kindness and support when most of the Writing Obstacles of Doom decided to happen. The words are not enough to thank B3, my lovely, thoughtful, attentive, brilliant beta reader, who patiently stayed with me even when I exceeded my planned word count by 200%. And, last but not least, I'd like to thank BB: like a paladin of reason, she gave me priceless strategic advice without actually reading this and saved the story at the last moment. Dear femmequixotic, I hope you find it to your liking.
~*~
MONDAY
~*~
The headache was a bitch.
Al cradled his head in his hands, hating bright sunny Mondays and his cluttered desk with a passion. He peered at the McLaggen report through his fingers, saw the creases and a tiny dark smudge in the bottom left corner, and shuddered from disgust and caffeine withdrawal.
It was all Mother's fault, of course. If she hadn't insisted on a bloody Sunday wedding, Al wouldn't be whimpering down here, cornered by the Death by Apparition Lag. Didn't she realise people had to go for work the next day?
But wait, Al was the only one who actually worked for a living, wasn't he? He should just see reason, poor darling, and not overexert himself at that awfully boring job. He was a Potter, for Merlin's sake, wasn't he allowed some slack?
Cringing at the memory of his mother's hoarse voice and drunken good-bye kisses last night ('No need to work so hard, dear,' and 'Don't you want to stay for the afterparty with James?'), Al craned his neck to the insistently buzzing Fireplace. He scowled at the perfect, cheerful face that appeared in the flames, radiating way too much energy for his liking.
"Tiens, c'est quoi ce visage triste? On aurait dit qu't'as pas eu un bon week-end, mon p'tit lapin."
"Tais-toi," Al grumbled, for once not caring what Gabrielle thought. She gave a mock-scandalised gasp. Al envied her; he should have stayed in Kishinev, too. He could have pleaded work, after all: he had it in spades.
Banging his aching head against the desk, Al mentally went through his to-do list, which, as Gabrielle helpfully pointed out, began with a visit to the Commissioner's office about the nonsensical World Cup report.
It was too bloody early to be alive.
~*~
Having alternately plodded, jogged, and ambled down the corridors of the slowly filling ICW building, Al finally reached the shiny brown door of McLaggen's office. He sort of knocked, a perfunctory graze of knuckles against wood, really, and pushed the door open. The air was a bit stale in the first room; Al saw that McLaggen's secretary had left her unwashed coffee cup on the table. There was a fly fighting for its life in the sticky sludge.
He did knock a bit more firmly on McLaggen's own door, and then called out when he got no answer. Wincing at the throbbing pain in his temples, he opened the door and went in, eager to get the paperwork out of his way.
McLaggen was lying on the floor, his head at an awkward angle, and a grisly puddle of dark blood was marring the pride and joy of the Magical Games and Sports Commissioner: his full floor Uzbek carpet. The Commissioner himself was lying on the floor, his face a sickening shade of yellow, a large Curse burn visible on his chest where his robes were ripped and singed.
The Commissioner was indisputably dead.
Al glanced at the fancy Swiss clock set on the mantelpiece, all glass and chrome, his own ashen face staring back at him from its smooth surface. The first clock said, 7:29 a.m.
The second one said, "Shit happened".
~*~
The ICW building pulsed.
There was no other word for it: if one looked at it from the street, provided he could get past the magical barrier on the outskirts of Kishinev, and could see through the top-class Disillusionment charm that covered the gigantic 'under construction' site, one would realise the entire building was contracting and expanding minutely, as though suffering through violent, all-body spasms. Which was a rather apt way to describe what was happening.
Since 7:31 a.m., when A.S. Potter, Second Junior Undersecretary from Funds Allocation and Regional Development, shook off his stupor and kicked the first arriving trainee out of the office of Cormac McLaggen, ICW Commissioner on Magical Games and Sports, a lot of things happened.
First, Al Potter sealed the door with the maximum level charms that his clearance allowed. Then he dragged off the trainee, a short, buxom Bulgarian girl who looked terrified by the fact that a full SJU - and from FARD, no less - seemed to have misplaced his brain, down the already busy corridors to the Internal Security. They intercepted the other trainee from Games and Sports, a round-faced boy barely old enough to be there, and disappeared behind the glimmering doors.
At 7:46 a.m., the entire Fifth Eastern corridor was sealed and magicked, witches and wizards were being discreetly sought out and escorted away, and no one was allowed to leave the building.
What with one thing and another, by the time the Main Special Committees meeting had to be interrupted because the interpreters had to have their lunch, teams of wizards were scanning the building with the most powerful security spells, the Defence and Strategy Secretary was personally supervising the investigation, and the United Kingdom was officially no longer represented by a Commissioner.
The ICW building hummed and vibrated with magic and barely contained panic.
Crammed in a tiny room with six other witches and wizards, Al prayed his headache would kill him already.
~*~
There was not enough light in the room, the bleak, bluish Lumos making everything but the table and the figure of the investigator vague and sort of smudged around the edges. Al could swear it was too dark to breathe.
The investigator looked like a younger version of Uncle Bill, minus the long hair and scars. His mouth was set in a grim line and Al would have wholeheartedly supported his feelings on such an ugly scandal if he hadn't been too busy feeling like their potential prime suspect.
Who benefited from Commissioner McLaggen's death?
Al rubbed his eyes tiredly. Well, who didn't?
Now that the Commissioner's position was empty, all the other member states had a go at it. Games and Sports might not be one of the Main Committees, but there was a lot of money involved. And it was a position that gave other, subtler kinds of influence.
Peru had an eye on it for years.
Al's headache had grown into a steady, burning sort of pain in his temples and the back of his skull, and he winced every time the Quick Quotes Quill scratched on the parchment-like, eco-friendly, standard ICW issue paper.
What was your relationship with the Commissioner?
Oh, we were madly in love and planning to elope to Poland, where we would grow strawberries. Al snorted and the investigator looked at him sharply. Al rubbed his bare forearms and forced himself to relax. He had shed his outer robe and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt in an attempt to lessen the hot choking feeling the room gave him, but now he felt a bit naked.
Al worked at FARD. FARD distributed funds. McLaggen was organising the Quidditch World Cups. Al scanned the information in his head, wondering about the repercussions. McLaggen was pushing for Bulgaria in three years' time; Bulgaria, who had weaker magical infrastructure and would need outrageous ICW subsidies to be able to build and maintain all the facilities. Which meant that there was more to steal, though of course no one said that out loud. Al watched the investigator take a sip of coffee and quelled a flare of jealousy.
FARD was insisting on Kazakhstan, who could do well on their own with minimal contributions. Senior Undersecretary had finally come to an agreement with McLaggen last week, and that morning Al was supposed to have been going through their official proposal about Kazakhstan.
Only, when he set his eyes on that stack of papers, he saw that it was Bulgaria all over again.
And is that normal procedure for a Second Junior Undersecretary to go personally to clear such a... misunderstanding?
No, he should have sent a bloody memo, to either make McLaggen look like an idiot in front of his own staff, or give him a reason to fire his secretary. What was it with people from MLE and tact? Al had always wondered whether his father acted like a Re'em in a yurta because of his job, or he picked the job because it was a git haven...
Thank Merlin there were restrictions for questioning the staff under Veritaserum. Considering his fiery headache and shock, and also his being pissed off, Al was afraid he would spill something he shouldn't. Like how he had flipped the bird at the Senior Undersecretary when she had told him to go see McLaggen.
Or how he had always thought that the investigator questioning him had a delectable arse.
Who do you think is going to be the next appointed Commissioner?
Al stifled a sigh, going through the countries and faces in his head. Peru, maybe Japan, Bulgaria, Norway... One face in particular came to him, and Al didn't like the sickening feeling in his stomach. Nothing like honesty.
"I don't know."
~*~
It had been an excruciatingly long day. The murder of the Commissioner made shock and fear and indignation spread like wildfire through the building, and Al didn't know which buzz was worse, the one that the protective and procedural spells made or the sickening, morbid gossip. Each new bit of information thrown his way felt like a hammer landing on the back of his skull.
McLaggen had been dead for hours when Al found him.
Did he think Senior Undersecretary Delacour had sent him to discover McLaggen's body on purpose?
The curse had burnt McLaggen's heart to a crisp.
The dark stain on the report had been McLaggen's blood.
Al thought his spine might break from relief when they said he could actually go home. He didn’t even care about the investigator’s arse anymore; he just wanted out.
Al walked all the way home, not trusting himself to Apparate. He felt blurry. He regretted missing the last bus; right now, he wanted nothing more than to be lulled asleep by its spasmodic rocking and never think of McLaggen's gruesome, dead face again.
The chill of the street was settling in his bones, disconcerting after the pulsing heat that had plagued him all day. When Al finally got to his house, grey and bleak with its large blind windows, he rested his back against the biting cold of the lamppost and stared, relishing the painful, longing feeling of home that he had only discovered here.
He smoked away, waiting for the old homeless guy sitting on the porch to go away. The man was harmless, but Al didn't have the energy to come and walk past him, maybe even be forced to say something. If he smelled reeking, rotting flesh right now, he would probably pass out.
The smoke was bitter and sharp on his tongue. He breathed it out through his nose, wondering how in Merlin's name this dung heap had begun to feel like home, in a way the chiming, bursting house of his dysfunctional family hadn't.
The flickering light of the TV-set went on in one of the third floor windows. Alone was good. And honest. He liked living alone; he could never understand the thrill his other family members got out of lying and pretending to be the people they weren't. The dissonance between their words and actions had jarred him since he was a little kid. He still squirmed remembering his disappointment when he had realised that even Grandma Molly, his favourite person until he reached the age of six, was constantly and effortlessly misinterpreting the truth. To this day, he found it mind-boggling. Things like 'Are there any cookies left?' and 'Does Merlin really sneeze when a lightning strikes?' mean a great deal to a six year old, and Al didn't think he was rancorous. He was reasonable. Misinterpreting the truth might be a part of his job description now, but playing games was only fun when there were rules. And the rules clearly said that you don't lie to your own about things like 'Are you and mum splitting up?' and 'Would it be OK for you if I wasn't really into girls?' That just makes your crap ten times worse. Or so Al thought.
But his family was never very keen on following rules, and this particular thing just wasn't as dashing and glamorous as the history books implied. It resulted in one big epic fail at understanding each other. He wanted to be close to his family (or at least, he had wanted it for a very long time), and the fact that he just couldn't hurt.
Even his own mother was impossible to communicate with, but there was nothing he could do about it, and she was probably happy being the way she was. He sort of loved her no matter what. He certainly hoped she would be satisfied with Goldstein, and maybe they would even pop out a couple of fat kids and finally let Al fade to the background completely.
The homeless guy finally got up and began to limp away. Al dragged the burning tip of his third cigarette against the lamppost and dropped the fag to the ground. He walked at a brisk pace, eager to shake off the gloom and the chill, and all but ran up the three flights of stairs to his ugly, scratched metal door.
He closed it behind himself, shutting out the world.
Al took a long shower, desperate to wash the crazy day off him, and let thoughts swirl freely inside his head. The Games and Sports Commissioner would have to be replaced, immediately. It was unlikely that the temporary Commissioner would be elected permanently, though. (God, had he touched McLaggen's blood on the report? Had he?) Norway had good chances of getting the position in the end, but the whole thing might take months. Who would they get? The bloody work didn't stop just because someone died. (Bloody. Fuck.)
His movements were sluggish, and drying himself, Al remembered he hadn't eaten anything but a vile blood sausage sandwich. He wrapped a towel around his hips and staggered to the kitchen, the stray droplets on his neck not even having time to cool before he fried himself some eggs and dumped them on a plate. A tiny splash of sizzling oil landed on the bare skin of his arm and he jolted, first from the slight burn and then from the sudden vision of a larger, dark, calloused hand wrapping around his wrist and bringing his pink burned flesh closer to a hard, hot mouth...
Shaking a little, Al sat on the windowsill, the painted wood cool against his thigh where there was no towel between them. He ate in silence, watching the homeless guy crouch and go through the fags that littered the ground beneath the lamppost. Finally, he stroke a match and lighted one, the small tongue of flame eerily vivid in the dim electric light that bathed the empty street.
Al left his plate in the sink and went to bed.
~*~
TUESDAY
~*~
Al woke up at four a.m., sweaty and disoriented, with his legs hopelessly tangled in the sheets. With a shout still ringing in his ears and a hoarse throat. Had he been having a nightmare?
Al dropped his head back on the pillow. He breathed deeply through his nose, allowing his brain to register one thing at a time. The cold, humid morning air that crawled over his skin. He had left the bedroom window half-open. The old, thin, sticky sheets clinging to his body. A hazy memory of being warmed and safe and taken care of. He rolled away from the wet spot on the bed.
He had dreamed.
His notebook was on the bedside table, its spine glowing red. A Message from Family. Al groaned and reached for the damn thing.
He flipped through the pages and there it was, the last entry. From Rose. Well, better from her than from James, really.
ROSE WROTE:
Evening Prophet says McLaggen is dead and you found him! Your dad freaked out but I calmed everyone. Keep cool. I asked Rita but nobody knows what happened. So gross. Did you kill him?
XOXO
Al reached for the small quill tucked into the cover and wrote back.
Ha ha. I'm fine, thanks for asking. McLaggen's very dead, the rest is confidential. BTW, your mother finds your friendship with Ms Skeeter disturbing, and so do I. Kiss everyone, take care.
Al yawned. He could almost hear Rose's voice in his head, throaty and laughing. She was easily his favourite cousin, and he wished they would see each other more often. Rose was a cool, breezy girl; grounded and sensible about most things, unless one counted stuff like hairstyles or glam rock.
He was about to close the notebook when fresh ink began to appear under his answer. So the Queen of Clubbing was still up. Al often wondered if she ever slept at all.
ROSE WROTE:
Kissing right now, will get to our folks eventually. Keep your secrets, killjoy. DON'T MOTHER ME. And while we're on the subject, do you think our parents are shagging?
Al blinked. Picked up his watch. 4:16 a.m. Blinked. Shaking his head, he wrote,
Which ones?
There was a pause, then the notebook jolted and glowed again.
ROSE WROTE:
I hate you.
Al let out a short laugh and closed the notebook.
Afterwards, he lay in bed, motionless, and let the chill seep into his bones. Images from his dream spitefully lingered in front his eyes, so he chased them away. (Because those were just fantasies, and they made him look needy and lonely. Which he was, but it was something he would only admit at half past five in the morning. To himself. In his head.) He stared at the yellowish stain on the ceiling until the dull grey light and muted noises of traffic made it painfully clear that it was time to get up and face the world.
Al stretched, a nasty shiver running up his spine, and got out of bed. He glanced at the watch. 5:47 a.m. Al thought his breathing sounded creepy and loud in the empty apartment. London was very, very far away. He stared at the battered notebook, once again dead and quiet.
"'Night, Rose."
~*~
Al could have predicted the day would suck when he received the memo about extended Anti-Apparition wards around the ICW building. Which meant that he could just as well go by bus, only, hey, the traffic schedule had nothing to do with rules, it was more like general guidelines. He had no idea if he was too late or too early, and so, dreading the traffic jams on the bridge, he decided to save himself at least half the time and Apparate across the Bic. This proved to be a monumentally bad idea.
With a head-splitting push-pull-squeeze, Al landed in a dirty alley just a little off the bank. The thick smell of the river hit his nostrils and Al's knees buckled. His stomach lurched violently, and he lost his pitiful breakfast right there, with crows and random Muggles sliding by in slow motion.
He should just have taken the fucking share taxi.
Somehow Al made it to the ICW building, going through the check-in with two grumpy, skinny-looking guys from Goods and Substances and McLaggen's secretary, a very tall and wide-shouldered Baltic blonde with a voice too loud to be used in the mornings. He was feeling blurry, wretched, and already royally pissed off.
The day brought more of the same, How long have you been working at the ICW Committees Headquarters? and What's your favourite jam flavour? and other things they could have very well read on his file and fucked the fuck off. Al's neck and shoulders had gone practically numb with tension as he talked about the body and the angle and the colour of the blood. He couldn't remember being so happy to get back to his own office. (Unless one counted that unfortunate case of walking in on Gabrielle and the Mexican interpreter.) He toed off his shoes and socks and shuffled his feet over the threadbare rug. Heaven.
Heaven was a little short-lived, however.
Veronika's head appeared in the fireplace, hair a little too bleached, lips a little too painted.
"Finally! You've been there for hours! What do they say?"
Al shrugged.
"Come on, I told you all about mine," she whined.
"You're just here for the macabre gossip." He smirked. "And anyway, aren't you the one who's always going on about confidentiality?"
"Committees' meetings are confidential, if they are. I want to talk about what I said to that redhead, I damn will." Veronika's head stuck a little further out, soot getting on Al's rug. "Oops. He's a cutie, for a Dane."
Says a woman who looks like a horse. She gaped at him and Al flinched, wondering if he had blurted that out. Then he remembered she just didn't shut her mouth on principle. Al looked wistfully at his dirty rug that was getting less and less blue with every day. Honestly, would it kill Chinese wizards to cast a decent Dyeing charm?
"But it is rather dreadful, isn't it?" Veronika obviously wouldn't leave him alone. "In his own office. ICW. It means that," she lowered her voice, empty blue eyes boring into his, "people hate us."
"What are you talking about? Your Commissioner's been done in, not ours. Everybody loves Funds and Development. We are justice personified."
She stared, her mouth gaping so wide Al could have stuck a paper aeroplane in.
What was it with Slovenian girls and their wide mouths?
Al pushed a stack of papers aside and sat on his table. "Well, they wanted to know where his secretary was."
"The Goblin?"
"She's a Goblin?" Al frowned. "Isn't she a bit too tall?"
Veronika giggled. "Half-Goblin, and they come in all shapes and sizes, dear. Think outside the box."
Al flexed his aching shoulders, but she didn't take it as a hint that he was going to kill her. Pity. "You just won't let me melt in ecstasy with my balance sheet before I ask you, right?" She shook her head. "So where was the Half-Goblin?"
"All non-human or partially non-human staff are entitled to free health-checks every six months under the Directive 1369 on the Healthcare of Magical Beings, paragraph 17.1."
Al had always thought he should pick up that particular Directive and check the definition of 'partially non-human'. All kinds of benefits. He wondered if developing superhuman patience qualified.
"Shocking," Al said dryly. "Make sure you quote the directive when you're locked up with the handsome Dane. Now if you excuse me, my boss is still alive and kicking, and I have work to do."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't get your knickers in a twist about that World Cup. Everybody knows it's going to be Bulgaria."
"Kazakhstan," Al snapped, but, with a green flicker, she was already gone.
~*~
The smoking break was the highlight of Al's day. He normally relished the opportunity to break up the bleak yet somehow soothing routine of filing and writing and calculating to just walk down into the yard and fill his lungs with harsh, unforgiving poison. He deliberately picked odd times for his break, as if he was having an affair with his pack of cheap, non filtered cigarettes. As if his trusted Astra wanted to take him by surprise in addition to playing it rough.
Al flicked his wand a little too sharply. The tip of his cigarette flared up, a spot of warm, bright red. Today was different; it was the bitter burst of smoke in his mouth that soothed and comforted him. The ICW building was still softly pulsing with security charms, and Al felt his world crumbling around the edges in the same erratic rhythm.
"Have you got a light?" The voice was young, slow and stuttering. A boy's.
Al tried to smile and pulled out his wand. The boy - that confused trainee from McLaggen's office - blushed and held out his cigarette. Al's flick was way too sharp again; the boy jerked as the charm slipped and scorched his hand. The cigarette fell on the grey stones and rolled away, picking up dust and dirt.
"Is okay."
The boy shrugged and began to reach for his pack again. Al scowled at him and got him one of his own. The boy's ears turned a little pink as he took the offered cigarette - which was probably too nasty for him, anyway - and waited patiently until Al finally managed to cast a halfway decent charm and get some fire.
Al looked up at the patch of filthy grey sky visible from the yard. They were basically in the middle of a box, walls of opaque glass rising around them. It was rather like looking up from the bottom of a deep well. Sounds resonated spookily here, the rustle of little stones under Al's feet and the boy's stuttering, shy voice.
A single ragged cloud slowly dragged itself across the sky. The boy tentatively told him how everyone thought McLaggen's murder was a hate crime, that it was personal. Perhaps some sort of revenge, the boy coughed. His inexplicable nervousness and Estonian accent made the story feel like forever.
Al smoked his cigarette so far that it burned his fingertips, and the lick of heat forced his brain to wake up. He realised the boy was trying to flirt with him and felt like a total dickhead. He smiled back awkwardly and wondered what in Merlin's name he should do.
Perhaps the kid would realise that talking about dead people was not the best way to chat up someone and just vanish. Al breathed smoke through his teeth.
Who had wanted McLaggen dead? Who hated him so much they wanted him to burn?
Al felt the notebook vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out, shrugging at the boy apologetically. The spine flashed red again, so it couldn't be his godmother: Gabrielle insisted she be filed under 'Friends'. For a moment, Al was confused and excited. Maybe it was dad. Or his mother, just to ask how he was doing. He promptly cursed himself and stomped on his hopes before they managed to raise their dumb little heads too high.
Anyway, it wasn't father, it wasn't mother. In fact, it wasn't anyone who, by any stretch of imagination, could have written to Al announcing they were stopping by his shithole to see how he was keeping it up.
It was Lily.
~*~
Al spotted her right away.
At the smoke-filled bar, flanked by men of all shapes and sizes in various stages of inebriation, stood a woman in a short, tight black dress. Her hair spilled down her back, drawing the starved gazes of almost everyone. The woman sipped her cocktail lazily, a small, dirty smile lurking in the corners of her thin mouth.
The hazy light seemed to slither over her, accentuating the curves of her hips and her obscene cleavage. Her hair, fingernails, and stilettos glinted with the same shade of crimson.
Al walked to the bar, unexplainable anger already bubbling just beneath the surface, and stopped a hairsbreadth away from her.
"Hey."
Lily twisted in her seat, flashing her teeth and a diamond choker with rocks so big it was probably illegal in Kishinev. Thank Merlin everyone probably thought they were fake. Sometimes his siblings were so afraid of using their brain as though it might hurt.
"Hi, big brother." She wrapped her pale arms around him, and Al was painfully aware how every man in the room envied him at that moment. Probably quite a few women, too. "Look at you," she crooned, her breath sweet with something fruity and spirits. "Such a handsome, important man you are. Have you grown so tall since the last time I saw you?"
"You saw me on Sunday." Al squeezed her back a little and quickly freed himself, vaguely disgusted by the way her barely clothed back felt hot and damp with sweat under his fingers. "Although you spent most of the time crawling under the table, which would explain your distorted perspective."
Lily gave a syrupy laugh, her eyes already raking over Al, peeling off his skin to get to whatever secrets he might have. "Sit down. Have a drink. Tell me all about your big, bad scandal with old Cormac that you serious guys have."
Al leaned against the bar, debating whether he should get pissed with Lily and tell her exactly what it was like to intrude on the Commissioner in such a private moment as lying stone dead in his own stinking blood, with a lump of charred flesh instead of his formerly functional heart muscle. Lily toyed with the stem of her glass. Very, very bad idea.
Lily could not be trusted, and that was a fact, plain and simple. Al resisted the urge to slap her when she stood and bent over the counter in one sinuous movement, giving the tanned bartender a full view of her breasts as she reached for another drink. Lily didn't just come to the other end of Europe the next day because she was worried about Al.
She came because she needed something.
Which meant that Lily knew something, and Al didn't like that thought at all.
Talking to her was worse than diplomatic training or practicing resisting Veritaserum. Al always felt at a disadvantage when it came to his sister; it was like she was using Legilimency, or Dark magic, or both. He couldn't be sure that there wasn't a small grain of truth in it, although Lily's pathological laziness made her secure only three OWLs, so he was probably safe.
Her most prominent magical talent was shamelessness.
After half an hour, Al had the feeling that he was about to grasp the Firebird by the tail when, with a sudden stroke of inspiration, he stole the cherry from her glass and asked, "How is James?"
Lily's eyes were suddenly, strangely lucid. "And here I thought you didn't know," she murmured. Al's heart sped up. "Looks like we keep underestimating you, big brother." Al bit into the cherry, an entirely too alcoholic taste exploding on his tongue. "You've grown into a big snake yourself."
Al breathed through his nose, imitating Gabrielle's permanently disinterested face as much as he could. His mind itched to make the connection, but he was holding himself back, unwilling to believe. Lily called for another cocktail.
"Fine, I guess, under the circumstances." Lily's voice was raw and husky, as though she was choking on a sob. "Got pissed out of his mind yesterday. Tried to blast his veins open with a Reductor curse." She ducked her head, moist eyelashes resting heavily against her flushed cheeks. "Cocksucking idiot."
Al was sure his mask of bitchy calm was slipping. James and McLaggen. Really. Fuck. What had it been for him to try to... Al stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked the cherry flavour off the pad, trying to cover his amazement from Lily. Fuck. Fucking hysterical harlot. A Reductor curse, Merlin's fucking wand.
He glanced at Lily who held her half-full glass, her knuckles white with tension. James was alive, at least. She said he was fine. Al knew their ideas of 'fine' were a world apart, but Lily wouldn't have been here if James had been in real danger. True, she could have left Al in a similar situation. But not James.
Al thought he might vomit and thanked Merlin he hadn't drunk anything yet. He wanted, needed to see James, but he knew his brother would never allow it. Stupid, stupid. He turned to face Lily fully, not caring about his naked expression. She gave him a mildly impressed and disgusted look. Al shrugged. He was bound to win some day in this little game; she couldn't be the one to play him for information forever.
They sat in silence for a minute, Lily's features gradually returning to cheeky superiority as Al traced patterns on the chipped counter with a fingernail.
Slowly, Lily moved closer, reaching to unfasten the top buttons of Al's shirt. She tilted her head and the heavy sheet of her hair gave them some privacy in the packed bar. Immediately, her hand shot to his throat, well-placed hard pressure too expert and definite to be meant in jest.
"If you tell anyone, I'll fry your guts myself."
Al looked in her eyes, gripping her bony wrist and effectively cutting off blood circulation. 'Anyone' was code for 'daddy', of course. Al never really understood Lily's relationship with their father; he supposed it was a special, spoiled youngest child thing he was just not meant to comprehend. Soon Lily's fingers began to twitch, causing her sharp nails to graze his skin a couple of times. She gave him a crooked smile.
"Would I ever do something like that?" Al forced his voice to be something more normal than a croak.
A spark lit and died in Lily's eyes; she let go of Al's throat and stroked his collarbone where it now showed. Al dragged her hand away.
"Would you expose a poor, confused little thing that fell in love with an older man while no one was watching?" Lily drank her cocktail to the dregs and her mellow, evil smile made Al's stomach twist. "Mind you, it's not that I could ever get what he saw in that obnoxious, wrinkled bastard. I'll leave your quirks to you, little perverts." She twirled on her stool and sat facing the room, her sharp elbows resting on the bar counter. "I'll tell you a fairy-tale," she said, her voice smooth and rich like treacle. "There lived a boy who was saucy and bright, and knew how to party - oh, you'll have to use your imagination to figure out what it means, big brother. And he had his pick of anyone he wanted. But then one day, he met a man who was unlike anything he had ever had: older, experienced, battered. He was oh-so-interesting, with his stories and crinkles and rheumatism and... whatever it is old people have. And that old prick went and broke our poor little boy's heart." Lily arched her back, looking at Al over her shoulder. "Well, there was some shagging involved, at some point."
She puckered her wet lips. "You would never, ever mock something like that, would you, dear?"
~*~
Al went back home, purposefully taking the longest route. He changed the Muggle public transport twice, the first time because the ratty bus stank like retch and cat piss, the second to actually get back to his district. The people on the bus didn't smile, and he liked them that way. He was feeling teary and maudlin.
Somehow Lily always managed to find his weakness, forcing herself into his soul like a ladle scraping the inside of a dirty cauldron.
He still remembered the nagging worry from before, that something bad might happen to his little sister, and the conviction that he had to take care of her. That feeling had dulled to mild anxiety over the years, and was now mostly replaced by indistinct dread that she might do something bad to somebody else. Lily practically radiated some indefinable, carnivorous confidence. Al knew she always got what she wanted, how she wanted it. He vehemently wished to never know whatever that might be.
He couldn't very well accuse her of bringing up James' story to hurt him, although that was exactly what it felt like. He hadn't told her anything; she couldn't possibly know. But tonight, when she smiled her shark-like smile and told the tale in honeyed tones, Al felt like his insides were being prodded by a blazing poker. He knew Lily suspected something. She was too cocky and ruthless, even for a Gryffindor.
At home, he took a bottle out of his stash, running his thumb slowly over the brightly coloured coat of arms on the label. The clear liquid sloshed around as he poured himself a shot. Al knocked it back and for several minutes just stood, breathing heavily. Then he kept standing, dragging his fingers through the spilled vodka and licking them clean, pretending that there were no silent tears running down his cheeks.
~*~
WEDNESDAY
~*~
Al recalled the sick feeling in his gut and thought he should reconsider the meaning of 'premonition'. For future reference, it was the dark, wrenching sensation that had tried to tell him that the person appointed to act as the Games and Sports Commissioner would be the one man Al had sworn to avoid at all costs.
Al spent most of the morning in his office being wretchedly idle, tapping his foot and re-reading a most exciting 599 pages long report, Tanzania and Termomagical Technologies: Ten Years of Transition, but when the third paper aeroplane landed on his desk, he was forced to admit that ignoring the problem really didn't make it go away. He tore the struggling aeroplane in little pieces and went to see the new MGS Commissioner.
The new temporary Commissioner, thank Merlin for small favours.
No one, least of all Al, would have said it wasn't a logical choice. The previous Commissioner had been very competent and very efficient, and of course there can be no solution more suitable than calling a man of independent means and ready intelligence when one suddenly finds oneself up to one's neck in dragon dung. He had the time, the energy, and he already knew the ropes. Importantly, most of the high and mighty at the ICW had been happy to kiss his arse before, so begging for help this time wasn't much of a hardship.
Forty-eight hours, and Viktor Krum was back on board.
Al took his time, stopping by the First Junior Undersecretary, but couldn't wheedle out any urgent assignment for himself. The prospect of showing up at the dead man's den again was rather daunting, for reasons he did not care too much to examine. Al made a little detour to walk through the Glass Corridor and just stare at the city splayed in front of his gaze like a virgin for the taking. He was one of the few here at the ICW who actually liked the Glass Corridor and didn't consider it another freak accident of wizarding architecture. It coiled around the building at a vertiginous height, rather like a glass snake embracing a glass tree. And you could see everything from there, the dreamy parks and the lazy flow of the Bic, the churches and houses pinned to the earth like butterflies as the corridor rolled and rolled, moving forward with tantalising slowness. Al walked and watched, transfixed and resolutely not thinking. Finally, at a little past noon, he was at the Commissioner's - Krum's - new office.
It looked like he hadn't even left.
The first room was abuzz with activity, five people Al vaguely recognised going through the filing cabinets. There were fresh flowers on the secretary's table. Red carnations. The short trainee girl jumped a little when she saw him, nearly losing control of the tea-tray she was levitating. She motioned with her hand and Al followed her through the door.
The carpet was gone, and Al suspected the freshly waxed, gleaming inlaid floor was also new. He carefully sidestepped the area where McLaggen had been lying, which left him standing near the very edge of McLaggen's - Krum's - wide oak desk. The tacky pictures and memorabilia McLaggen kept on the walls were gone, replaced by a single technical drawing of the first, now hopelessly retro, Firebolt.
Very phallic.
Al felt his mouth curving in a smile and breathed with relief. Really, he shouldn't have been so melodramatic. He was obviously over it; it happened such a long time ago, after all. Here he was, in Krum's office, his heavy Commissioner's robe hung casually over the back of his chair - if he leaned a little across the table he could even smell Krum's cologne on it, and nothing. Krum was in every little detail here, in the heavy brown curtains and the old, grumpy clock on the mantelpiece that pointedly said, "Давай работай, а не на часы смотри". But Al didn't get any fluttery feelings in his chest or waves of nostalgia. Nothing at all. Honestly, why on earth had he thought that seeing Krum would affect him after three years...
The door opened and Al turned around, sliding off the table when he realised he had been half-sitting on it. The Goblin secretary stomped into the office, looking even more monstrous now that she was wearing high heels. Her too-loud voice scratched through Al's brain like a poisoned needle.
"Mr Kru-u-u-um!"
Al winced, and the expression more or less stuck to his face when Krum walked in, in a pressed white shirt casually unbuttoned at the collar and black trousers that clung indecently to his thighs. He was browsing through a manila folder that looked flimsy and unimportant in his large hands. Al's eyes followed the trail of dark, coarse hair that disappeared in Krum's sleeve. A little more grey there. Just a little.
Al scowled and made himself look in Krum's eyes. "Commissioner," he said, inclining his head an inch. Damn, he should have used the full title, but Al knew his voice wasn't very operational at the moment.
Krum nodded, for some reason holding eye contact for longer than he had done before. Al was sure he would begin squirming any moment under that hot, black gaze when Krum finally let him go, sticking his nose back in the folder and walking to his desk. Al willed his shoulders not to slump.
The smell of Krum's cologne intensified tenfold, vetiver and musk and being naked. (Don't even think that.) Clearly conspiring against Al's heart, his brain registered the firmness of Krum's walk, the breadth of his shoulders and how his muscles rippled under that simple, pristine, pornographic shirt. Krum gestured at the visitor's chair and sat down behind the desk, every movement so economic and commanding Al could practically hear the nails being hammered in the coffin of his normal, rational existence.
The chair he was offered stood alarmingly close to where McLaggen had been, so Al stiffly sat in the other one, placed much closer to Krum's desk.
Al felt drops of sweat sluicing between his shoulder blades and, in a pathetic attempt to regain some semblance of composure, accepted the proffered cup of bitter tea. He knew he didn't look like he cared, but that was a small consolation when his heart was going a mile a minute and Kazakhstani subsidies were the last thing on his mind.
So Al hadn't been melodramatic, after all. He had assessed the situation to the best of his ability, and used his skills to draw a professional conclusion.
He was so fucked.
~*~
"The Committee on the Mobility of Magical Goods and Substances announced that the Decree Number Twenty-eight Sixteen B is to be revoked as being contradictory to the Directive 985 on Internationally Acclaimed Magical Foodstuffs. A special Assessment Committee is to be created to evaluate the necessity of passing new legislation concerning the export of edible hemp..."
The nasal voice droned on the intercom, wrapping Al's brain in a warm and fuzzy blanket of bureaucratic stupidity. It was a bad time for a smoking break: too many people in the yard, too much agitation in the air. Al concentrated on two things: breathing and willing his hands not to shake as he sucked the end of his third Astra in his mouth.
"Isn't it a lovely, lovely day, Junior Undersecretary?"
Fuck. Unpleasant, sugary - Al knew that voice. It ruined his bitter-smoke-and-broadcasted-babbling-induced zen in a second. Al took another fortifying drag, turned on his socially acceptable facial expression, and looked the too well-known bastard in the eye.
"It's Second Junior Undersecretary, actually." Al nodded at Gryzbowski and offered him a cigarette. The git glanced at the pack and mock-shuddered. Al clenched his teeth.
Gryzbowski just smirked, then picked imaginary lint from his impeccable blue suit. "Oh, my dear Mr Potter, I'm sure a boy like you is going to get promoted in no time."
His oily smirk matched his oily hair. Al hated when Gryzbowski - or anyone - called him boy.
"After all," Gryzbowski's plump fingers played with a candy wrapper, "you have a real talent for subordination."
And Al really hated when anyone implied that he was putting out for his boss. The man was practically Al's father, for all that mattered.
"Are we to hear of some good tidings from MGS soon?"
Al concentrated on the folds of the candy wrapper. Yellow. Red.
"I'm sure everything that immediately concerns Muggle Relations will be brought to your attention at once, Mr Gryzbowski."
Yellow. Red. McLaggen's eyeballs. Ghostly yellow. The caked blood. Dark red.
"Oh, please do, please do bring it to my attention. I imagine there will be quite a few issues to settle with our Bulgarian colleagues. You do realise, when such sums are involved..."
Red. Yellow. Red - Al looked up sharply.
"Kazakhstani."
Gryzbowski tilted his head and looked past Al's shoulder.
"Oh really?"
Warning bells went off in Al's head as he turned around and watched Krum's secretary approach him alarmingly fast, her stilettos clicking loudly on the stones of the yard. She was clutching creased memos in her hand, and those looked vaguely familiar. Al suspected they came from his rubbish bin. Her voice practically boomed in the crowded yard.
"You can't hide from him forever!"
The way she stretched her vowels made Al want to bang his head against the magically fortified wall.
Al flipped the fag and squeezed it in his fist, the still-blazing tip burning his palm. The pain anchored him. He would not throttle the Goblin, he would not throttle Gryzbowski (damn, he could feel the nosy bastard jeering behind his back), he would not run out of the building and drown himself in the Bic.
He would just go back and revise the proposal with Krum, just like he would have done with McLaggen.
~*~
Damn, damn, damn.
He would not have spent forty minutes in a meeting with McLaggen mortifyingly aware that his thighs were sweating, with muscles that he had forgotten even existed in his body suddenly tense and alert. Al was sure about that.
Damn, damn, damn.
Al walked back to his office at a brisk pace, trainees and random friendly colleagues scurrying away from him like spooked Shrakes. He suspected he looked murderous, possibly channelling the trademark Potter ire. Well, good. Al was not in the mood for casual banter and titillating gossip over a cuppa.
It had been a disaster. Krum seemed intent on torturing him, questioning the pros and cons in minute detail. Krum asked for Al's opinion, and so there was no choice but to speak. It was too hot in the office; Al shrugged off his outer robe and sat across from Krum, excruciatingly aware that he looked scruffy and too young. His jeans were washed-out and worn. His shirt was old and tighter than it should have been; it had been Gabrielle's present for his twenty-first birthday, and he had put on a bit more bulk since then.
So he just sat there, in a pale pink shirt too small for his frame, and tried his best to look nonchalant, twirling a quill in his fingers as Krum asked one question or another. Al could feel his own pulse point fluttering against the unbuttoned collar of his shirt and prayed Krum couldn't see the sweat beading on his collarbone.
Inexplicably, Krum reduced him to this overwhelmed, helpless lump of anticipation and need. It was embarrassing. It was horrifying. Al had rattled off sums and figures, grasping at straws and trying to think of McLaggen's dead body, or the screeching Goblin secretary from hell who was pouring them tea, or even of Gryzbowski. But he could feel his cock filling and rising as Krum looked at him, his voice pitched low and soft.
And all the while, Krum was as calm as a Sphynx, of course. He was a real professional. Al admired and envied his focus, torn between the desire to have that focus on him and fear that it might actually happen.
Intellectually, Al appreciated that Krum actually knew what he was doing and grasped the finest details of accounting and diplomacy faster than McLaggen had ever been capable of doing.
But in his gut, Al knew that he was teetering on the brink. The way Krum's eyes followed his movements - not quite undressing, no, but somehow intimate, as if there still was a secret he had managed not to spill out that drunken night three years ago. As if now, suddenly, Al was a curious mystery Krum needed to solve. Another challenge. Krum radiated such quiet power and sexy determination. Al was actually afraid he was about to fall for him again, only much worse than the last time. Just a little nudge, and he would fall into the abyss.
Damn, damn, damn.
He was out of breath when he finally reached his floor. Safe again. Al closed the door to his office and spelled it shut for good measure.
There was nothing worse than being so out of control. He couldn't keep his emotions on a leash; they broke away, ran amok, and wouldn't let him think rationally. There had to be something he could do.
Only, with McLaggen's murder having turned the ICW upside down and inside out, he wasn't allowed to take leave.
Al jabbed his wand at the music machine and sank on the floor. There was the quietest click, like a hitch in a lover's breath, and then the sounds came. Al rested his head against his desk and felt the pulsing beat bore its way into his skull. His blood sang longingly in response.
He allowed his mind to be slowly filled with the hard, steady thumping. The first blissful wave of the saxophone's wail reached him, covered him, and he sank under. There, in his small, hermetically closed, and ascetically furnished office Al could face the truth.
It hurt being a fool.
Al drummed his fingers against his thigh. He needed to pull himself together. He needed to find his focus.
There were two things that were driving him insane. One was Viktor. But whatever strange possibilities he imagined now, they had clearly settled the matter three years ago. Al's jaw bloomed with phantom pain. It didn't get any clearer than a killer punch when you went for a man's cock, dammit. (Best not to think about that.)
The other was James.
Stupid, infuriating, crazy James. Al wasn't sure he could ever forgive him for losing his nut for Cormac McLaggen. He knew James' standards were low, but that was so deep down the only alternative was the Giant Squid. That man had had no brains, no empathy, and no charisma. James should have picked the Squid.
The music was heady and heavy, reverberating in Al's bones. He kicked his shoes off and tapped his foot with the rhythm.
Al wondered if he should send James a fruit basket or something. Or better not. That basket would probably do more harm than good.
He wanted to see him, to help him and comfort him. He also knew he was being selfish. He wanted to comfort James for himself, to assure himself that James was okay and not blasting his veins bloody open. But James didn't want it. He didn't need comfort or pity, certainly not from Al.
James wanted a cellar packed with booze and a dozen birds and blokes to shag his grief out. James needed a good beating and a good clinic to take care of him. Their family couldn't be counted upon.
Al banged his head against the desk, following the intoxicating beat.
If he got James in Switzerland... There was a good place he could arrange for James. Al knew Scorpius Malfoy had been treated there once, some time in their seventh year. All right, Al didn't really know how to reach them, but he knew who could do it...
Another paper aeroplane forced its way through the slit in the door and landed at Al's bare feet. He glanced at the name written on the wing and felt a headache coming on.
Al clicked his fingers and the music became louder. His capacity for wandless seemed to be directly linked to his sexual frustration.
He would not leave the office until the day was over, fucking memos be damned.
~*~
"Long time, no see."
Belby caught his eye and grinned, the grin a little rough around the edges. Al peered through the curtain of smoke that seemed to hang between them, took in the other man's hopelessly creased shirt and loosened tie.
"Just work, you know." Al shrugged and knocked back another shot, slowly but surely working his way towards being pissed.
He and Belby had been in the same year at Hogwarts. For some reason, Al had never warmed up to the man. Maybe it was the way he seemed detached, like most Ravenclaws. A bit creepy. Or the fact that he, like far too many boys after the Second Voldemort War, had been called Harry.
All those legions of Harrys swarming around Britain gave Al the creeps.
Al looked around and called for another shot. The fleshy, dour-faced barmaid poured him a refill. Al ignored the questionable cleanness of both the glass and the bottle - those were spirits, they sterilised everything, right?
Al scratched his stubbled chin and tried to look friendly. It wasn't like he was avoiding Belby - that would have been ridiculous. They knew each other, and they both lived in Kishinev. But it just so happened that, apart from a fondness for this crappy bar packed with elderly, half-deaf retired construction workers, Al and Belby had absolutely nothing in common.
"Yeah, man, I know. You ICW guys are always sooo busy inventing new rules for us, common folk."
Besides, Belby, being the British Representative Wizard in Moldavia, basically saw Al as a renegade and another evil head of the poisonous hydra that was the ICW. It didn't make their conversations exactly amicable.
"Sorry, you'll have to wait a bit for those. We're still too shocked to find out we're not immortal."
He thought he heard Belby snort in his glass of what was called cognac around here. (Moldavian brandy, actually, but Al had stopped noticing the difference about two years ago.)
"Hmm, too bad about McLaggen." Belby slanted him a glance that was bit too shrewd, but didn't say anything else.
It was a bit sad, really. Tired and trying to get pissed as they were, Al and Belby should have been able to bond somehow and become mates right there by the cracked and greasy bar counter.
Al would much rather see him and his diplomatic immunity bugger off.
"So now it's just one Commissioner for us Brits," Belby mumbled in his glass.
Al frowned. "McLaggen's dead, man. That means no Commissioner."
"Yeah, but -" Belby hiccupped and spilled brandy over his shirt. "Shit. But your FARD man is one of ours."
Al's scowl deepened. "He's from Russia." That conversation was way too old. Older than Al, in fact.
Belby was unsuccessfully trying to wipe his shirt with his tie. "Yeah, yeah. That citizenship's just a f-formality -"
"I suggest you actually think who you are and who you're saying these things to."
Belby looked up, trying to focus his gaze on Al and slipping. "Relax, Potter. Merlin, don't you ever relax?"
Al took his wand and spelled Belby's shirt clean, then called for another drink.
"Thanks," Belby muttered. Al waved him off. Stupid wanker. The Ministry thought that if it was Eastern Europe, they could dump all their idiots down here.
Belby was cradling his brandy again. "Now Malfoy, he knows how to relax. Good bloke. Always liked him."
Al actually put down his glass. "What are you on about, Belby?"
"Huh?" Belby rubbed his eyes. "Malfoy. Ran into him last week. He was catching an Int-international Portkey. Went for drinks. Nice bloke."
Al downed his shot, numbing his throat. The only nice thing about Scorpius Malfoy was his arse, but even that had lost the appeal once the novelty had worn off. Al had been able to realise no good was coming out of that spiteful, attention-starved prat at what, sixteen? Nice, Merlin's left arse.
Loud snoring caught Al by surprise. He turned and, resting his chin in his palm, watched Belby drool over the counter in his sleep. Lightweight.
Malfoy, huh. What Al remembered most clearly was Malfoy's shrill voice when Al had said that yes, they shouldn't be seeing each other. Never mind that Malfoy had suggested it first. Not that Al himself hadn't been planning to break it off with him. Malfoy's face had gone all sour, like he couldn't believe someone didn't want his pouty lips and precious arse. Honestly, the guy loved himself so much he was going to marry himself one day.
Malfoy was too much work for one big fat nothing, not to mention the fact that he had been dying to suck James' cock the whole time. Al suspected James had done Malfoy while the two of them still had been sort of together. He knew it for a fact that Malfoy had been bouncing on James' prick in Greenhouse Three the next day after they had had that row, or break-up, or whatever. Al just never really cared enough to ask if it was true.
The full bar buzzed on. The door banged open and closed every few minutes. Voices, shouting, and laughter blended in one mildly annoying noise. Al imagined he could discern a rhythm in it, a cadence. It sounded a bit like Bulgarian.
The barmaid poured him another glass and this time, Al asked her to leave the bottle.
~*~
Part Two