“This is a stake-out,” Harry said. “Put that book away because it’s your duty. And because it kind of makes me want to cry.”
“It is my duty to read this book,” Malfoy announced virtuously. “I am your partner. Your danger is my danger, your case is my case, and your crazy Veela charms are my crazy Veela charms. Except technically not, which is such a shame, because I would put them to good use.”
With that, he returned to the awful book he’d found in the Unspeakable library. It had a picture Harry found very distressing on the front, and it was called Virgins and Vixens: A Veracious Version of the Vicissitudes of the Veela.
Harry returned to staring over his dashboard at the house occupied by Halperin, Dixon’s silent partner, the man who they suspected of making the plan that had got four goblin children killed. In four hours, they had gathered the important evidence that he recycled.
Malfoy had gathered some other things, but none of them were relevant to the case and all of them upset Harry on many levels.
At this point Malfoy gave another delighted cackle, and Harry braced himself.
“Potter, look,” he said, flashing a brilliant and evil smile, and he showed Harry the picture.
After a moment Harry shut his eyes, because it was shut his eyes or go blind.
“It’s the ceremonial nightgown of the Veela,” Malfoy told him in hushed tones, as if he did not want to scare his own unholy glee away. “All Veela have to wear it on their wedding nights.”
“Not going to be an issue,” Harry said between clenched teeth.
“I like the organdie,” Malfoy observed, still in those hushed tones, and then he laid his face down on the book and laughed and laughed. He emerged from the book wielding a pencil, and made a mark beside the horrible picture. “That’s your Christmas present sorted out, then.”
“I think this is an appropriate time to mention that I am actually licensed to kill,” Harry said.
It turned out that since ninety per cent of Veela were female, their traditions tended on the feminine side. With the organdie.
Malfoy hummed happily to himself as he turned the pages.
“So,” he said after a bit. “Let’s talk about this monster in your chest.”
“Let’s not.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Malfoy said. “Since Slughorn was the man who discovered it, I’ve decided to name it Horace.”
In the darkness, illuminated by a single far-off lamp post, Malfoy’s eyes gleamed manically. Harry waited in dread for what was to come.
“And since Horace is a civilian in the line of fire, I feel he should get compensation for the risks he has to run, living in an Auror’s chest. Since you’ve been an Auror for three years, Horace is actually owed quite a lot of back pay.”
“Have you been sniffing stuff in the evidence locker again?” Harry inquired.
“Horace is going to be a monster of means,” Malfoy said.
“As my partner, I feel you should know I’m out in the dark with a maniac,” Harry said. “Help. Help.”
Malfoy laughed and returned to his book, upon which he laughed some more. “Wait until you hear about the ritual dances!”
“Really, I’m all right with never knowing. Really.”
“They are celebrations of beauty and sensuality,” Malfoy drawled, infusing both words with as much deep amusement as he could muster. Then he made a sort of arm gesture which indicated that celebrations of beauty and sensuality greatly resembled the dance to Walk Like An Egyptian.
“Please stop,” Harry said.
“Well,” Malfoy said. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to impart useful and educational knowledge on the unworthy if I could drive once in a while.”
“I let you drive once,” Harry pointed out. “Against the orders of my boss and the urgent advice of half the department. You drove into a high rise building. We had to Obliviate over a hundred people. I drove better than you when I was twelve.”
“Filthy Muggle things, cars,” Malfoy muttered.
“We only got another car because Ron’s my best mate.”
“You only got special treatment because you were using your connections?” Malfoy said. “But that is so unlike you, Potter! I am deeply, deeply shocked.”
Harry hit the back of his head. Malfoy raised his eyebrows and returned to the book. He kept smirking meaningfully, which somehow conjured pictures even more appalling than the one of the ceremonial wedding nightgown.
He looked at the deserted, darkened back garden, and tried to think about the car instead. He liked the car, actually. It was better than the one Malfoy had crashed into the building. Ron had let him pick and then charged as if it was a standard Auror car. Ron did pretty well with the standing Auror order.
It wasn’t what they had pictured going into Auror training camp, but as the only flying car salesman in the world, Ron was one of the richest wizards in England, so it had worked out OK for him.
Harry supposed Ron had liked that Ford Anglia a lot, especially after it had saved them from giant spiders, but Harry hadn’t thought it would actually rule Ron’s destiny.
Still, richest wizard in England, and Harry got discount cars.
Malfoy yawned and stretched like a cat. “I hate stakeouts,” he complained. “I’m tired.”
“Malfoy, it’s ten thirty.”
Malfoy snapped his book shut and placed it carefully on the floor of the car. Then he curled up in his car seat and rested his head against Harry’s shoulder.
Malfoy seemed to store sleep like a camel stored water. He required a mad amount of it most of the time, and then he pulled his crazy all-nighters when they needed him to come up with something really good, and it seemed to sort itself out. Of course, if they had one of those nightmare cases that meant nobody had enough sleep and they were all stumbling around in a daze, around day three Malfoy went all ashen and got his Old-Fashioned Romance Heroine With Wasting Disease look.
Hermione said he was highly strung and it was probably due to the inbreeding.
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” Malfoy said crossly. “I miss Katie. What kind of people need an archivist in Germany, don’t they have their own archivists, why do they have to nick mine—”
His voice was running together a bit, low and lazy. Malfoy always talked himself to sleep.
Harry kept his voice calm and low as well, so as not to disturb him. “What if we are surprised by desperate criminals and killed?”
“On the Chosen One’s watch?” Malfoy said. “That’d be really embarrassing, that would. The media would have a field day. Wake me if there are desperate criminals, or when it’s time for pastries.”
After a while Malfoy’s breathing evened out, and he became a warm relaxed weight against Harry’s side. He began to make a soft cooing noise in his sleep.
It was the same bloody absurd sound he always made. Harry hadn’t thought much about it, besides feeling obliged to tease Malfoy about it now and then. Once the Aurors’ office had been under siege, though, and they had all been trapped in there for four days. Malfoy had worked flat out for two and then fallen asleep abruptly by his desk. He’d started to coo, and Katie, with circles under her eyes, had knelt down and kissed him into silent sleep.
She’d looked up and seen Harry watching, and given him a rueful smile.
“It’s the only thing that keeps him quiet,” she said, and then laid down beside Malfoy. Even sleeping, he’d slid his arm around her.
Malfoy cooed, sighed and shifted in his sleep. Harry reached out and cupped the back of his head, holding him steady, but did not look at him. He looked over the dashboard and across the darkened garden, towards a window with the curtains closed and a low light on. Someone was home, and safe and warm. Harry didn’t think they were coming out anytime soon.
He’d never thought that Malfoy and Katie Bell would last.
After the night of the ball almost three years ago, they had been an official item and a topic of much interested conversation in the break room, especially since about the only time Malfoy did not get coffee was at his coffee break.
In his coffee break he went and found Katie, and spent fifteen minutes kissing her slowly in some secluded corner until she broke away and went back to work. Harry found them twice in the archives room, and once behind the door of the office supplies cabinet.
Katie said that kissing in the office was forbidden after Shacklebolt had a word with her.
He had a word with Malfoy, too. “Do you realise that you have other duties besides swilling all the coffee and romancing Miss Bell, Mr Malfoy?”
“No, do I?” Malfoy said, and smiled lazily with his swollen mouth. “Do I have to do actual work? You’re supposed to be my partner, Potter,” he added in a reproachful aside. “Shame on you for not telling me.”
Katie had obeyed the boss’ orders, however, and soon after everyone was complaining because the coffee was always running out.
They were just—odd together, that was all. When Malfoy was with her he was gentle and considerate, and it seemed incongruous, as if he was a lynx trying very hard to pass for a housecat.
Harry hadn’t thought they would last, and they had. He’d thought that Ron and Hermione would last forever, and they had fallen apart.
Harry and Ron had still been living together then, even though that got a bit more strained every time Ron went in for Auror training and flunked out. He’d done it three times.
Things got a lot more strained between Ron and Hermione when Ron said that he wasn’t going in for it again.
Things had been strained between Ron and Hermione for a while before that, Harry could admit now. At the time, he’d done a lot of coughing and looking away and starting bright conversations about the Chudley Cannons.
He couldn’t ignore it when the screaming was echoing around the flat, and Ron had started to shout back.
“I do not understand, Ron,” Hermione said thinly but very loudly. “Please explain to me. Why are you doing this? What are you going to do with your life? Do you have absolutely no ambition—”
Ron yelled: “D’you know what, Hermione? I don’t want to spend my life with someone who can’t stop acting like she’s my Mum!”
Hermione had hesitated, and Harry had seen real hurt before she started screaming again, hurt that meant what was happening was serious, and what was said tonight would not be forgotten. Harry had bolted from the flat. It was raining, he recalled, raining hard on an April night two-and-a-half years ago.
He had gone to Malfoy, who had opened his door in socks, jeans and a half-unbuttoned shirt, and said: “In the middle of the night? They’re slave-drivers,” and then looked a bit more closely at Harry and said: “It’s kids again, isn’t it? You always look like this when it’s kids.”
Harry, dripping wet and breathing hard, had realised that he’d gone running to Malfoy.
Malfoy made things right. The first time they had worked on a case with murdered children together, they’d found the man who had killed them, and Harry had hit him, and hit him, and then he’d stopped and realised that he’d done it again and he was out of the Aurors this time for certain.
At that point Malfoy had Stunned him. He’d woken up in St Mungo’s and found Malfoy staring at a no-smoking sign as if it was tempting him to start.
“What,” he began.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Malfoy said. “Good job on subduing that man desperate to escape. Shame he sustained so many injuries, but they say he’ll be all right.”
“But that’s not what—”
“Now, Potter,” Malfoy said. “I’m sure the man would remember if events had transpired any other way. After all, it’s not like someone cast Obliviate on him, now is it?”
“You didn’t,” Harry breathed, and then tried to rise from the bed. “I wouldn’t,” he began. “I wouldn’t ever do anything like cast Obliviate on a prisoner—”
“Well, I wouldn’t do anything like hit him!” Malfoy snapped. “Let’s keep our voices down about being unique lawbreaking snowflakes, shall we?”
After that, Harry had to control himself, because if he didn’t he knew Malfoy would fix things and do something terrible in the process. Somehow it worked better than knowing there would be disastrous consequences.
Somehow it made him feel better about the whole mess.
He’d got used to Malfoy being there when things got bad, but that was because things got bad at work. Malfoy was around at work: this wasn’t work. What this was, was stupid.
Harry dripped on Malfoy’s welcome mat and said: “I’m sorry. I’ll go. It’s not—it’s nothing.”
Malfoy gave him his narrow-eyed glare of judging someone and finding them stupid. “It looks like nothing,” he drawled. “When you go off and die of despair in a gutter, it’ll be such fun to tell Shacklebolt that I was the last one to see you alive, and you were all wet and looked like hell, but you said it was nothing so I let you run along and I do hope he doesn’t think any less of my trained investigative abilities. Come in, you imbecile.”
He pulled Harry in by his wet t-shirt, and then ordered him into the bathroom to change into some dry clothes of Malfoy’s. They were more or less the same size.
When Harry came out, Malfoy shoved a cup of tea into his hands. Harry took a sip and it went down, scorching his throat. He coughed frantically.
“Sorry,” he said. “I think someone slipped a spot of tea in my Firewhisky. I don’t know how it happened.”
“You were raised by Muggles, weren’t you?” Malfoy demanded, and on Harry’s cautious nod he said: “Good. Come here and show me how to set up my television.”
It wasn’t hard to do. Malfoy had apparently been foiled by the complications involved in taking a television out of its box and plugging a few things in.
When the picture jumped into vivid flickering life, Malfoy reached out and placed his hand against the screen.
“Success!” he said, glowing. “Victory! Tiny people in a box just for me!”
“You’re welcome,” Harry said, feeling steadier because of the stupid little task or the Firewhisky, he didn’t know which. He looked around the flat, which he had only seen before in half darkness when he had to pull Malfoy out of bed and haul him to a case. It was big and white and expensive-looking. There were pictures on the wall which were not moving, and some shining, clearly-unused appliances on the low countertops. “Malfoy,” he said. “Why did you buy the TV?”
“I like it,” Malfoy said. “But if you are unsubtly referring to my decor, you blatantly obvious twerp, may I remind you that I have a Muggleborn girlfriend and I am trying to woo her with my soon to be complete mastery of Muggle machinery.”
“Katie’s Muggleborn?” Harry asked blankly.
“Weren’t you on the same Quidditch team for six—oh, what a fool I am, I’m applying the normal people rules to you again,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. “Yes, she’s Muggleborn.”
“How long have you known about that?” Harry asked.
“Four years,” Malfoy answered in a level voice.
“Ah,” said Harry.
There was a slightly awkward silence.
“Now that you’ve implicitly accused me of being prejudiced against the Muggleborn, which notion of course horrifies me right down to my Dark Mark, why don’t you tell me what has you all worked up?”
Harry looked up, and Malfoy looked mainly amused and a little carefully blank. He looked back down at his hands, twisted around a mug full of tea-diluted whisky.
He said in a low voice: “Ron and Hermione are splitting up. Er.” He started to speak faster. “Look, I know how that sounds. I mean, obviously it’s none of my business if they break up or not. Only they’ve been together for three years, I mean, since Voldemort—I thought they’d get married, and after I knew—about me, I mean. Well. I thought it would be a bit like a home, since I wasn’t going to—anyway. They’re my best friends. They’re sort of—my only friends, and it looks like they won’t want to be anywhere near each other, anytime soon, and—they’re all I’ve got.”
“Oh, Potter.” Malfoy’s voice was very kind: Harry looked up. “That’s because you’re obnoxious,” Malfoy explained gently, and Harry almost smiled.
He went on, haltingly. He blamed it on the Firewhisky.
He talked about Lupin, and how he’d been discovered as a spy and they’d all thought he was dead, and the horror of what should have been Harry’s seventh year at Hogwarts. Everything had just seemed so—well, Malfoy had been there sometimes, he knew what it had been like. And Zacharias Smith had tried it on and—Harry had let him. He’d put it down to adrenaline or despair or missing Ginny or anything, he’d used every excuse he’d been able to think of.
He’d said it wouldn’t happen again. Every time.
And while terrible realisation was dawning and he was trying to escape it but it just kept dawning, merciless light filling every corner of his mind, Ginny had shown up to surprise him, and seen them.
“I’d broken up with her!” Harry said defensively. “I mean, when I did it, I thought if I lived I’d go back to her, but we were broken up. I thought of it that way. She didn’t—she thought of us as still together. She thought I was being noble and it didn’t count or something, and then—” He swallowed.
“And then gingery wrath, I imagine,” Malfoy said.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Yeah, there was a lot of that. And the Weasleys really—well, they had to be on Ginny’s side. She’s their daughter, and I’d—I was to blame. Ron, he forgave me after a bit, but the others—well, I used to see them on the holidays and things, stay with them, but I couldn’t anymore. Not with Ginny there. I didn’t—I haven’t tried. I haven’t seen them in two years.”
“And Smith?” Malfoy inquired. “I’m quite impressed with his sneakiness: I knew him a bit, back then. I never had a clue he even liked you.”
Harry tried to smile, but he felt it come out a little twisted. “He didn’t, I don’t think. We didn’t like each other.”
He’d tried to, after the whole mess occurred, for a bit. Even Ron hadn’t been talking to him for a while, and he’d been desperate.
Only people had been dying, and plans were frantically being made, and Zacharias would have a fit if he thought he was being left out or ignored. Like he was in some special circle now, but that was not how it was, there was no special circle, they were all just doing the best they could and Zacharias was still acting as if they were playing Quidditch or being invited to take tea with Professor Slughorn.
Harry thought now of the way Malfoy had given up on Quidditch and everything in their last year of school, taken a sharp step back as soon as he’d needed to and done what had to be done.
Of course, he had been working for the side of evil.
“He was—he was petty,” Harry said eventually.
“And you were obviously extremely non-judgemental,” Malfoy observed, who was one to talk about being judgemental.
“Anyway,” Harry said. “After a while, I couldn’t bear to be around him. And then Ron started talking to me again, and Voldemort was sorted out, and there was the Auror training camp, and I just thought that I could get on with things, and at least there’d always be Ron and Hermione.”
Malfoy took Harry’s mug away from him and went to the kitchen where he started pouring more Firewhisky.
“I’d rather have some tea,” Harry called out.
Malfoy poured a tiny drop of water from the kettle into both mugs. “See?” he said, sliding easily over the low counters. “Came from the kettle. So it’s tea.”
Harry took the false tea. “Malfoy, you don’t make any sense. And you never did, either.”
“I am too exalted for Gryffindors to comprehend, it’s true,” Malfoy agreed serenely. He looked down at his own false tea. He drank it down as if it was real tea, and then said, mouth travelling between a smile and a smirk: “Hey, are you secretly in love with Weasley?”
Harry choked. “No!”
“I was just checking,” Malfoy said. “Good. And you’re coming to my party.”
“What party?” Harry asked.
“My birthday party,” Malfoy said, lifting his eyes heavenward. “Next month. Debauchery, necessary. Presents, costly.”
“Er,” Harry said. “OK. Thanks.”
At that point Malfoy got distracted by the television, and pointed out many interesting things to Harry about how miraculous volume control and channel changes were. Harry kept drinking false tea and feeling, inch by inch, a little better.
At the time, he hadn’t known about Malfoy’s penchant for matchmaking.
The day after the stakeout, Harry came into the office trying to pretend to himself that he’d had more than four hours of sleep. He smiled at Lisa the receptionist as he went in, and heard a thump behind him as he went inside.
He presumed Lisa had dropped something.
Then he sat writing the official report on the Dixon case until Shacklebolt prowled by his desk.
“Where is Mr Malfoy?” he inquired.
“Sir, he’s out of the office collecting data on a case,” Harry said promptly.
“Strange how he always is, before ten o’clock in the morning.”
“Sir,” Harry said. “It’s in the Auror charter that an Auror must always be accounted for by his partner. And Malfoy always is. Sir.”
“Some days,” Shacklebolt said, his face an impassive blank, “I feel that I am slowly falling into the abyss.”
“Sir,” Harry said.
“Have you, ahem. Done anything about the matter we discussed yesterday?”
“I was on stakeout,” Harry pointed out.
Shacklebolt straightened up and gave a heavy sigh. “You will never know how much it hurts me to admit this,” he said, still in a flat monotone, “but you and Mr Malfoy are the best we have. We cannot have you working at less than maximum efficiency. So. Ahem.”
He took out a card and slid it onto Harry’s desk.
“Good morning, Mr Potter, I’ll want that report on my desk by the end of the day,” he said in a carrying voice, then nodded crisply at Harry and was gone.
Harry looked down at the card. It was black, with a pink drawing of some lingerie.
The card read: Sinistra’s Sinnin’ Spot: Exotic Erotica, Naughty Nuns and Bootylicious Banshees. Harry kind of shoved at it until it fell into the bin, trying with quiet horror not to think of Professor Sinistra, or indeed his boss and any bootylicious banshees.
“Hey there, handsome.”
Harry glanced up and saw long legs and a soft-looking shirt with two buttons undone and a lazy smile, all adding up to someone lounging against his desk and peering at his report.
“Morning, Malfoy.”
“I wasn’t addressing you,” Malfoy said. “I was speaking with Horace.” He grinned. “Where’s my coffee?”
“It’s on your desk,” Harry said. “And it’s cold, because it’s ten minutes to ten.”
“I knew I could’ve had another ten minutes in bed,” Malfoy remarked, and leaned down and swiped Harry’s report from under his nose. “No, no, no, stupid, bad procedure, you can’t say we did that—”
It was entirely forbidden to have another Auror tamper with your reports. Harry leaned back in his chair.
Malfoy sat down at his desk and started making corrections with his red ink, grabbing up his coffee with his left hand.
“Ugh, I can’t drink this,” he said, drinking it. “What are we doing today?”
“Well, this morning we have Cuthbert,” Harry said, making a face.
Cuthbert was their trainee. It was a new feature of the Auror training camp, assigning the students to be taught by Aurors in the field and making the students hand in a report on the process.
Malfoy had been dodging it for two years, but doom had come upon them, and its name was Cuthbert. He was small, extremely earnest and wrote down everything they said.
“I hate Cuthbert,” Malfoy said gloomily.
Cuthbert, coming up behind Malfoy, looked very hurt. Then he wrote it down. He had a little notebook that Harry was planning to drop into a toilet at the first opportunity.
“Morning, chaps!” said Cuthbert. “I’m excited to learn more about the process of combating injustice!”
“Go make me some coffee,” Malfoy ordered.
Cuthbert trailed sadly away.
Malfoy handed Harry back his report. “Now do it again,” he said. “And do it right.”
“I don’t see why you can’t write it, since you know everything.”
“Because that is what Hermione would have done, and it is Hermione’s fault that you are barely capable of stringing coherent sentences together,” Malfoy said sternly. “Anyway, I have my own report to do.”
He pulled down some parchment from the tangled shipwreck of his desk, and started to write very quickly, looping flourishes obscuring some words completely.
“I was thinking,” Harry said, writing his own report in a more leisurely way. “When Cuthbert gets back, we should take him to the sparring room. Teach him a few things.”
Malfoy smirked his best smirk at his parchment.
“I do feel called to teach,” he said. “The best part is the look on their little faces.”
The sparring room mysteriously emptied soon after Malfoy and Harry went in, trailed by Cuthbert, who seemed to be taking notes on the corridors and the changing rooms as they went.
“We’ve done the drills in the camp, of course, but of course you two will be much more advanced,” Cuthbert said happily. “We’re only halfway through the rulebook.”
Malfoy, in practise clothes and socks, padded around until he located his favourite blue mat. “The rulebook,” he said distantly. “Yes. Shall we start?”
Harry grinned at him. “Let’s.”
They threw away their wands.
“Sometimes an Auror will find himself disarmed,” Malfoy said to Cuthbert, who nodded enthusiastically. “At this point he will have to defend himself. One thing which is very important to remember is not to fight by the rulebook. The other person won’t be.”
Cuthbert looked deeply crestfallen. “But the rulebook is very—”
Malfoy prowled around Harry, watching for a weakness, and Harry stood still and let him do it. Stillness unnerved people, and it was easy to capitalise on fear.
It was harder to stay perfectly still with Malfoy’s eyes travelling over him, slow and intent, but it was good practise. He controlled his breathing and did not move a muscle.
“Here is an interesting statistic, Cuthbert,” Malfoy said. “Do you know that ninety per cent of all Aurors on record have been Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs?”
Cuthbert beamed. “Yes I did. I was in Hufflepuff, you know, and—”
“I never doubted it,” Malfoy remarked. “The thing is, this means that our superiors are from the ranks of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. We can’t start obeying all the rules, because then we’d start obeying all the orders, and then we would undoubtedly be killed.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Harry said. “It’s perfectly OK to obey the rules. I mean, most of the time. Now and then you have to do things on your own because—well, the others have misunderstood something, or there’s no time to tell them, or something, but most of the time it’s fine.”
He caught Malfoy a light blow on the jaw. Malfoy turned his head to absorb it, caught it and feinted in return: when Harry leaned back and away he punched him in the stomach. It was a nice move.
“What Potter is trying to conceal is the well-known fact that he’s never met a rule he hasn’t stamped on,” Malfoy remarked, drawing back a little. “Whereas I would be delighted to obey the rules if we only had some sensible leaders. Like Professor Snape, for instance.”
He said the name in the tone of one who, had he not chosen to be an Auror, might have opted to stand on street corners passing out pamphlets which said ‘Have You Accepted the Love of Professor Snape Into Your Hearts Today?’
“Were you a Slytherin, sir?” asked Cuthbert in a slightly appalled tone.
Malfoy cast him a scathing look. “I should hope that was obvious!”
Harry took advantage of Malfoy looking away to punch him twice in the body and then twist his shoulder around to throw him down. Malfoy hooked a leg around Harry’s ankle and Harry fell hard on his face.
He couldn’t stop for a moment or Malfoy would have his elbow in his back: he rolled and punched out, and got Malfoy in the throat.
Malfoy choked, and Harry grabbed him by his shirt and held him down. Malfoy said, his voice rasping slightly: “The reason that Aurors are all Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors is that becoming an Auror is suicidal and insane.”
“But sir, you’re an Auror,” said Cuthbert, much taken aback.
“Oh don’t bother me with stupid questions, Cuthbert, can’t you see I’m busy,” Malfoy snapped. He looked up at Harry, smiled sweetly and then reached up, pulled Harry’s glasses off and threw them with some violence against a wall. “It’s very important to take advantage of every weakness,” he called over to Cuthbert, and punched Harry in the mouth.
Now Malfoy was just a blur of wild blond hair and exertion-pink skin. Harry had to keep hold of him or the fight was lost. Not that it was hard to keep hold of Malfoy when Malfoy was punching him in the mouth, scientifically, four times. Harry hesitated when he tasted his own blood, and Malfoy wrenched out of Harry’s grip and rolled Harry so he landed hard on his back.
Malfoy lost no time in pinning Harry’s arms over his head. Harry did have a weight advantage, since whenever a bad case hit Malfoy tried to live solely on sugar and caffeine, and that meant the weight and the muscle kept sliding down.
Harry waited his chance to use it. Malfoy was breathing hard, his hair a soft fall brushing Harry’s face.
“Surrender,” he suggested calmly into Harry’s ear, and Harry felt the curve of Malfoy’s mouth as he smiled.
Harry shifted his weight slightly. “Are you watching closely, Cuthbert?” he asked, and twisted violently, using more solid hips to get Malfoy slightly off balance and then throwing Malfoy over one hip, throwing him exactly right so Malfoy fell half off the mat and hit his head against the wood floor. Harry was on him in a second. “The thing is,” Harry said conversationally, imprisoning one of Malfoy’s wrists easily in one hand and wrestling Malfoy for the other, “most Aurors will hold back in the sparring room. It’s natural not to want to hurt your partner too badly—”
“Funny,” Malfoy said breathlessly. “I never have a problem with that.”
“That’s a serious mistake,” Harry informed Cuthbert. “If you don’t give it everything you have, then an Auror could get a very nasty shock when he gets into a real fight. Holding back can get your partner killed.”
Malfoy snarled something incoherent: Harry kept tight hold of the one wrist he had, pinned tight against Malfoy’s chest, which was hard muscle under a soft, worn t-shirt. Malfoy’s heart was hammering.
When Malfoy spoke, Harry could tell he was smirking. “If at all possible,” he told Cuthbert, “you should surprise your opponent.”
That was about when Harry realised what Malfoy was doing with his free hand, and he felt the spare wand, aimed and pressed against the centre of his own chest.
“Who left a spare wand in this t-shirt?” Malfoy asked. “Dear, dear. What an unfortunate turn of events for Mr Potter.”
Cuthbert sounded extremely distressed. “Sir, this is supposed to be wandless combat, the rulebook is very clear—”
“What have I told you about the rulebook, Cuthbert?” Malfoy demanded. “You must try to listen.”
“You must try not to talk so much,” Harry told him. “It gives your opponent a chance to do this.”
He let go of Malfoy’s wrist, grabbed the wand in both hands and snapped it in two.
Malfoy sat up, shoved him off and punched him. “Potter!” he squawked. “Those are expensive!” He punched him again before Harry had time to let go of the broken wand ends, and rolled away and to his feet. “Though he illustrates an important point,” he added to Cuthbert. “Don’t assume things about your partner. For instance, most men will try not to go for another man’s more, ah, sensitive areas, but a woman will have no such compunction. A Muggle will instantly try to break a wizard’s wand—and so, of course, will any truly ruthless bastards you have the misfortune to meet.”
“That isn’t true, Cuthbert,” Harry said. “I’m the nice one.”
Malfoy kicked out at Harry, but did not take into account that kicks simply were not as powerful without shoes on. Harry grabbed his leg and rose still holding it, despite Malfoy elbowing him in the throat.
He boxed Malfoy’s ear and then caught him under the chin with the edge of his palm. When Malfoy stumbled back, he managed to catch him, turn him and lock an arm around Malfoy’s throat.
He found his voice past the persistent impression that it had been knocked out of his own sore throat, and said: “Surrender?”
“I think it’s quite clear I’m the nice one,” Malfoy remarked. “Comparatively speaking. I surrender.”
He leaned his head back against Harry’s shoulder, breathing soft and tired-sounding. Harry looked affectionately down at his ruffled hair and kept his arm like an iron bar against Malfoy’s larynx. Given any opportunity Malfoy would twist and bite, treacherous little weasel that he was.
“Surrender and don’t attack from behind to prove that no matter what, you have to neutralise your opponent,” Harry stipulated. “It’s an important point, but we don’t have all day.”
“Oh, fine,” Malfoy said sulkily.
Harry let him go, and Malfoy went over to fetch Harry’s glasses and their wands. He murmured a repairing spell over the glasses before he could return them. When Harry could see, he saw Cuthbert looking as sad and betrayed as he usually did at the end of a lesson.
He and Malfoy used a few healing spells on each other, and then Malfoy tucked his wand into the band of his trousers and started pulling off his shirt.
“I hope you have learned something today, Cuthbert,” he said in a muffled voice. “Another interesting fact about Aurors is that fifty per cent of them retire without the full complement of limbs.”
He sighed tiredly, bunching up his t-shirt in his fist.
Malfoy still had all his limbs, but Harry’d been right: he’d shed weight again during the Dixon case and Harry could see his ribs. He hadn’t lost any muscle off his shoulders, though.
He had fairly broad, strong shoulders. They were nice.
Harry had seen better, he reminded himself irritably.
“I need a shower,” Malfoy said. “This afternoon we get to go see Dixon sentenced to life in Azkaban, hurrah. I hope he cries. What was the end result of the points for the Dixon case?”
“Six to you, four to me,” Harry said.
“Points?” Cuthbert said. “That’s not in the rule—”
“Your monomania on the subject of the rulebook is very tiresome, Cuthbert,” Malfoy said, wheeling on him.
All the Aurors had scars. Harry didn’t mind it, because it made him feel rather less conspicuous. Malfoy had a burn scar on his left shoulder blade and a long, white line from a Muggle knife along his right side.
Then there was the twisted scar that started out as a light, almost invisible line on his throat, and ended up silver and knotted over his heart. But Malfoy had come into the Aurors with that scar.
“I could use a shower myself,” Harry conceded, and pulled off his own shirt.
He looked up to the sound of Cuthbert’s notebook falling on the ground, and saw Cuthbert advancing with a glazed look spreading over his face.
“What,” Harry said, and took a step back.
“Easy there,” Malfoy said, and grabbed Cuthbert by the collar of his robes. “Come back here, little molesting tiger, because being killed and having your body hidden by trained Aurors often offends. I think we’ll take our showers in another room, OK?”
“Right,” Harry said, feeling a bit shaken.
Malfoy frogmarched Cuthbert off, and Harry was upset when Cuthbert cast a yearning look over his shoulder. He went off to the other showers to wash himself clean.
He threw shirt and trousers over a bench, and was just stepping under the spray, shower door still open, when he heard a most alarming sound and looked up to see Auror Dawlish, a rather portly and elderly man, charging like a rhinoceros.
Harry gave a scream of horror and slammed the shower door shut. Auror Dawlish connected with a nasty crunching sound.
Harry realised that shutting the shower door had been a bad move when he saw, through clouded glass and steam, a wall of pink flesh start to gather.
Melodramatic thoughts started to rise to the front of Harry’s mind, like: I’m alone. They’re closing in. They’re all around me!
“Let us in, Harry,” murmured Auror Dawlish seductively.
“Malfoy!” Harry yelled at the top of his voice. “Malfoy, help!”
The others took up Dawlish’s words and began a terrible, hypnotic chant. “Let us in, Harry… Harry…”
“Malfoy, come quickly!”
A chorus of long moans started to come after every chanted repetition of his name.
“Yes, what—oh, my God.” Malfoy’s irritated drawl had never been such a beautiful relief.
“Malfoy,” Harry appealed, keeping his voice low so as not to incite anything. “Could you just. I really feel that right now, I need my trousers. Please.”
“Oh, my God, do you know who’s out here?” Malfoy asked, starting to sound very amused.
“Malfoy, I am begging you,” Harry said, and was very upset when another moan followed the word ‘begging.’ “Trousers!” he cried. “For the love of heaven!”
“You don’t need trousers, you idiot,” Malfoy said, and threw in Harry’s wand.
It landed with a clatter on the tiles of the shower. Harry seized it up in wet, shaking hands and Apparated back to his flat. The sound of moans and the blurred sight of flesh thankfully spun away, and Harry ran into his bedroom and found a pair of jeans.
Malfoy was wrong. He felt the very urgent desire to be fully clothed at once.
He’d moved into the flat he was living in now not long after the night when Ron and Hermione had broken up, and Malfoy had invited him to his birthday party. Ron had moved back home, and Harry had found a single bedroom place.
He still saw Ron and Hermione a lot, though separately at first. In fact, he took Ron with him to Malfoy’s birthday party. He’d been a bit nervous about a place crawling with Slytherins, and Ron was enthused about the idea of meeting some new girls.
Malfoy had rented out a pub for the occasion. It was packed with people by the time Ron and Harry got there, and they had to fight their way to the bar.
“I’m not looking for much,” Ron said. “Just, you know, someone easy-going, maybe, and maybe a fan of the Chudley Cannons. And maybe large breasts.”
The bartender gave Ron a shocked look and Ron’s ears went red.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know what I was thinking. Uh.”
He abandoned his beer and fled to the bathroom soon afterwards.
Harry looked around for Malfoy and saw him, dancing with Pansy Parkinson. He was twirling her and they were eye to eye, laughing, Malfoy’s bright hair close to her black head. He recalled that they’d seemed like an item, back at school.
The dance ended and Malfoy led Pansy off the floor, swinging their linked hands. He leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and then went off, like an arrow aimed for the bull’s eye, cutting through the crowd to where Katie Bell stood waiting.
Pansy, in much the same fashion, went straight for the bar and the only seat empty, which was next to Harry.
She looked unhappy, and some vague sense of fellow feeling prompted Harry to say: “Buy you a drink?”
“Sweet Jesus, it’s Harry Potter,” she said. “Look, you’re not my type.”
“You’re not my type either,” Harry said. “What with the breasts, and everything. No offence meant.”
He wondered if mentioning a woman’s special places was an enormous social faux pas, but Pansy’s robes sort of drew attention to them, which was why they had come to mind.
“Oh,” said Pansy. “In that case, sure. Bacardi on the rocks.”
Harry got it for her. She sat there stirring her drink for a while and then said: “So, the partners thing is going well? Draco doesn’t talk about it much, so I assume it is.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Yeah, pretty well.”
“This Katie works where you guys work, doesn’t she?” Pansy said, looking at her drink.
“Yeah,” Harry said again, and then after a pause: “I was—kind of surprised when they got together.”
Pansy snorted. “Who can blame you.” She stirred her drink. “He didn’t fancy her at the start,” she said suddenly. “How much do you know—about sixth year?”
“Everything,” said Harry.
“Well, then. He just—when she got out of hospital, he was always hanging around her, looking—oh, he’s a man and hopeless—all worried and helpless and trying to carry her books and things. Especially after some demented freak, I’m being polite and naming no names, carved him up and he had all the fellow feeling as well as the guilt. He was chasing her all around the place, and what else was she going to think? And I suppose he got used to the idea.” Pansy crushed an ice cube rather viciously with her stirrer. “She felt sorry for him, I think, and tried to be friends. She was with him when the news about—his mother came. By the time I saw him again—after You-Know-Who—well, by then it was real. But if he hadn’t been such an idiot in the first place…”
Pansy, her feelings given vent to, seemed to realise who she was talking to and smiled a crimson, casual smile.
“Well, it’s all worked out, hasn’t it?” she drawled, rather reminding Harry of Malfoy. “He has her, and he’s wanted her for five years. And he has you, and he’s wanted you for ten years. Though in a rather different way, obviously.”
She laughed.
“Obviously,” said Harry.
“I’m going to touch up my face,” Pansy said. “If you see anyone touching my drink, eviscerate them. You like that, don’t you?”
Pansy was obviously not a girl who let things go easily, even if she seemed to be prepared to be friendly otherwise. She went off before Harry could respond either way.
Ron took her place a few minutes later.
“Someone’s been using Katie Bell’s neck as an all you can eat buffet,” he said. “D’you know who?”
“Malfoy,” Harry said, jerking his chin towards the dance floor. “They’re an item.”
A new song had started, with a whirling fast tempo. Katie couldn’t quite keep up with it, and she was trying to escape Malfoy’s hands, laughing, until Malfoy scooped her up and danced with her in his arms, his head curved down towards her.
“Oh,” said Ron. “That’s weird. I always thought Katie was so nice.”
Harry made a noncommittal sound.
“Plus, you know, not saying a word against Katie, but Malfoy was seeing Pansy Parkinson in fifth year, wasn’t he,” said Ron. “I always thought she was hot, in a Slytherin sort of way. Talking about breasts, did you ever notice the ones on her, they were huge, and you always got the impression she was kind of—”
“Ron shut up,” Harry said urgently from the corner of his mouth.
“Kind of what?” said Pansy from behind Ron.
Ron jumped like a shot hare. Red flooded his ears and then staged a hostile takeover on his face, drowning all his freckles in a relentless tide.
“I am,” Ron said. “I am really. I am so sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have. Ladies. Mum would—”
“You stole my seat, Weasley,” Pansy said. “And since you were also insulting me, you can buy me a drink.”
“Right,” Ron said. “Absolutely. As many as you want.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Pansy said. “You may have buried potential, Weasley. Deeply, deeply buried.”
She slipped into the seat Ron had hastily vacated for her, and Ron took one look at her cleavage and then looked very quickly away.
Then Malfoy, having somehow torn himself away from Katie Bell, popped up and Harry gave him his present. Duly thanking him, Malfoy slanted a horrified glance Ron and Pansy’s way. Ron, still very red about the ears, was saying something that was either going over well or going embarrassingly wrong, because Pansy was laughing.
“Oh, that’s horrible,” Malfoy said. “You brought Weasley here to steal our women? That’s—well, never mind. Come with me.”
He took Harry by the elbow and dragged him through the crowds to some particular destination he had in mind, which turned out to be a boy with fluffy golden hair, wearing glitter and eyeshadow. He turned at Malfoy’s call, and gave Harry a bit of a once-over.
Harry tried to edge behind Malfoy, but Malfoy kept a firm hold of his elbow and said superbly: “This is Malcolm Baddock.”
“Hi,” said Malcolm, batting his eyes. Mascara too, Harry saw.
“He likes boys,” Malfoy added happily.
“Really,” Harry said in a low voice. “How could you tell? Look, I don’t know what gave you the impression that I go for twelve year olds in glitter, but—”
“He’s eighteen,” Malfoy said brightly. “That’s legal!”
“That’s legal,” Harry repeated. “Well, your brilliant arguments have convinced me.”
“I have to go be with my guests,” Malfoy said, scowling at Harry. “I’ll leave you two boys alone. Talk,” he said, and made a terrible face. “Or whatever!”
“Don’t leave me,” Harry said.
Malfoy walked backwards a few steps, beamed and then became lost in the crowd. The next time Harry saw him, he was dancing with Vincent Crabbe and laughing his head off. Harry looked around for Ron’s assistance, but Ron, that traitor, was absorbed by Pansy Parkinson’s conversation and cleavage.
“Soooo,” said Malcolm Baddock, smoking in what was clearly meant to be an alluring fashion in Harry’s direction. “Malfoy tells me that you like boys.”
“Malfoy is a dead man,” Harry said.
“I remember you in school,” Malcolm said. “You were all scowly and attractive then, too.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” Harry told him. “But stay away from me, all right?”
“Malfoy said you were going to be a challenge,” Malcolm remarked, rolling his eyes at Harry like a mad pony.
“Look,” Harry said desperately. “I mean, I know Malfoy was your prefect and everything, but really, that’s not the same as letting him be your—pimp or whatever, so—”
Malcolm gave him a long look. “Of course, you weren’t in Slytherin,” he said.
Harry spent the next couple of hours trying to talk to Ron, who was apologetically but firmly ignoring him, trying to talk to Malfoy, who divided his time between kissing Katie and informing Harry of all Malcolm Baddock’s good points, trying in desperation to talk to Gregory Goyle, which amazingly succeeded for a while until Crabbe came to collect him, and hiding from Malcolm Baddock.
Hiding from Malcolm in the men’s bathrooms had turned out to be a terrible mistake. Only Harry’s height and weight advantage had got him out of that one.
Another terrible mistake was staying when most people were going because Malfoy asked him to, apparently so Malfoy’s select group could stay and take tequila shots. Pansy had reached the stage where she was taking tequila shots off Ron’s wrist.
“I may quite possibly never forgive you for this, Potter,” said Malfoy, sitting on the floor with his arm around Katie. “Look, darling, it’s against all laws of God and man.”
“Shh,” said Katie. “I like Ron.”
“I am mad with jealousy,” Malfoy said easily, and kissed her again.
“I may quite possibly never forgive you for this, Malfoy,” Harry said grimly. Malcolm was lurking: his trained Auror senses told him so.
“I thought it would do you good to loosen up a little,” Malfoy said in a plaintive voice. He had another tequila, licking salt off his own wrist: tongue and pale skin gleamed for a brief wet moment, and then he tipped head and drink back, exposing his throat.
Harry had another tequila. Then another.
He still wasn’t as sloshed as Malfoy when they all tumbled out into the street. Malfoy had his arm looped around Katie’s shoulders, and was singing, soft and off-key, in her ear as she ducked her head and laughed at him.
“Harry, I’m going to—I’ll er, catch up with you, um, tomorrow or something, right,” Ron said, as Pansy Parkinson stood impatiently to one side.
“Are you waiting for my rash offer to expire,” she said. Harry noticed she was no longer wearing any lipstick.
“I’ll see you later,” said Ron, and ran.
Ron and Pansy were another thing Harry had never thought would last, and which had anyway.
“Miss Kitty, have you ever thought about running away and settling down?” Malfoy sang, and Katie laughed some more.
Crabbe and Goyle peeled off home, and then Harry found himself on a lamp-lit street at four in the morning, head spinning and a knot in his chest, with Malfoy and Katie and Malcolm Couldn’t Take A Hint Baddock. Malfoy was standing against a lamp post kissing Katie again, eyes closed, face golden and intent in the lamplight.
“You want to go home with me?” Harry demanded, wheeling on Malcolm.
Malcolm brightened. “Yes I do!”
“Fine,” said Harry.
The cigarettes turned out to be herbal: they tasted bitter in Malcolm’s mouth. Malcolm was small and not very athletic and after the fact Harry was a bit worried that he’d hurt him. Harry went without sleep altogether to have a long and punishingly cold shower.
At work the next day Malfoy, sharp edges rubbed away a bit by an atrocious hangover, saw something on Harry’s face and leaned against him, and said quietly: “Sorry. I honestly thought it was a good idea.” He looked at his rolled-down shirtsleeves, to his left arm. “Mind you, I think a lot of stupid things are good ideas at the time.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Harry said, and smiled tiredly at him.
He knew that Malfoy had meant it for the best. Malfoy, though he hid it well what with all his oceans of steely hatred whenever he thought you didn’t like him, was a soft touch as soon as he thought you did.
Still, even after the incident in the showers, Harry didn’t consider Shacklebolt’s suggestion. He was aware that nothing would be worse than just trying to solve the problem, in as fast and brutal a way as possible.
Malfoy arrived in the flat soon after Harry was fully dressed and making himself a soothing cup of tea.
“This is more serious than I had supposed,” Malfoy said.
“No, really?”
“Dean Thomas was out there,” Malfoy said in an awed sort of way. “Dean Thomas hates you.”
Harry had been mystified when Dean spent all his time avoiding Harry in Auror training camp and after at the office. Eventually he’d got Malfoy to take him out for a drink and see why. Malfoy had reported that since Harry had kissed Dean’s ex-girlfriend in front of him and then smirked when Dean broke a glass in his hand, Dean had thought he was a complete git.
Apparently Malfoy had enthusiastically agreed, and they’d had several more drinks.
“Perhaps,” Malfoy said thoughtfully, “Dean Thomas is the answer. After all, you did realise that you, ahem, fancied the female Weasley when you saw her locked in Thomas’ manly arms. Considering everything, perhaps it is Dean Thomas you crave!”
“I do not,” Harry snapped. “And don’t say crave, ever again.”
“All right,” Malfoy said. “I suppose we need some ground rules. Apparently your naked Veela flesh is as catnip to the Aurors, so you should probably keep your kit on at all times. We don’t want a riotous orgy in the office. People would talk.”
“I cannot believe this is happening to me,” Harry said.
“Maybe you should wear your Weasley jumpers at all times,” Malfoy suggested. “I cannot believe that anyone could find anybody attractive wearing one of those things. If Fleur Delacour and the Patil twins all arrived at my door wearing shreds of one and nothing else, I would plead a headache. Yes, that’s it, the Weasley jumpers. The Weasley wool is death to love!”
Harry put his head in his hands. Malfoy went over to the countertop and slid onto it, from which vantage point he put a comforting hand on Harry’s shoulder.
“There, there,” he said. “Dawlish won’t get you. I am your partner, and I will solve this. Come on, it’s time to go see Dixon sentenced. Won’t hearing a man’s despairing screams as he gets sent to Azkaban cheer you up? You know it will.”
“I suppose,” Harry said.
Once they were in the court room, Harry did feel a little better. They had drawn Marianne Fripplewhit as a judge, and word was she was severe. When Dixon was led out to the dock, Malfoy made a terrible face and then laughed.
No matter what madness was going on here, at least they had done that.
Then it was Harry’s turn to make his report on Dixon’s confession, and at one point the defendant turned to Dixon and said: “Did you say that?”
With slow, cold horror Harry saw the glazed look on Dixon’s face.
He said, staring worshipfully: “I’d say anything he told me to.”
“Objection, your honour!” rapped out the defendant. “My client has obviously been tampered with by enchantments or—” he squinted narrowly at Harry—“Veela charms,” he said finally.
Judge Fripplewhit pursed her mouth and gave Harry a once-over. Then she paused, and gave Harry a much more lingering and appreciative once-over.
Harry’s mouth went dry with dread.
“I am determined to get to the bottom of this,” Judge Fripplewhit announced. “I shall take this young Auror into my chambers where I have whips, and question him thoroughly.” She paused. “Did I say whips?” she asked. “I meant, ah. Papers.”
Shacklebolt strode over to where they sat, leaned forward and spoke to Malfoy.
He said: “Get him out. Now. This case can go to Thomas and Louison.”
They protested in one voice. “Sir, this is our case!”
“You are strangely mistaken,” Shacklebolt snapped. “Now get him out of here.”
Once Shacklebolt was out of court himself, he hauled them over the coals. Malfoy violently protested that it wasn’t his fault.
“I have sex all the time!” he said, and on Shacklebolt’s appalled look he added hastily: “Within the context of a loving, committed relationship. Sir.”
“Mr Malfoy! What on earth gave you the impression that I care?”
Shacklebolt’s voice was level as ever, and his face a blank mask, but he was pacing up and down the floor of his office. That little groove in the carpet had not been there on Harry’s first day as an Auror. Sometimes he felt a bit guilty about that.
“Now, Mr Potter, it is clear which way your duty lies,” said Shacklebolt. “To Sinistra’s Sinning Spot.”
“Beg pardon?” said Malfoy.
“Sir, I really do not feel I can do that,” Harry said, and looked at the floor and shrivelled up and died inside a bit more.
“Mr Potter, I do not care what your tastes are, I assure you that Sinistra’s Sinning Spot can cater to them. The management will even provide house elves on request.” Shacklebolt paused and added: “You might want to ask for my favourite, Nasturtium.”
There was an awful pause.
“Your favourite… house elf?” asked Malfoy, a man whose curiosity led him to mental images which other men feared to dwell on.
Shacklebolt fixed him with a level stare and said: “I don’t think that’s really any of your business, Mr Malfoy.”
“Right, sir,” said Malfoy. “Sorry, sir.”
“You have to be a professional about this, Mr Potter.”
“Nasturtium will be,” Malfoy remarked, sotto voce.
“Sir, I really can’t,” Harry said. “I won’t. I refuse.”
“If you object so strongly to the ministrations of trained professionals whose service it is totally natural for the busy man of affairs to use,” Shacklebolt said, giving him a cold stare, “Do you not have any friends who—I believe the term is ‘booty Owls.’”
There was another horrified but strangely speculative pause.
“Er—no, sir,” Harry said. “Sorry, sir.”
“Sir,” Malfoy said. “I think perhaps there’s a way to counteract the, ah, powerful Veela allure of Mr Potter.” He got all the words out without laughing, but his mouth twisted on a smile and it was obviously a close thing. “If I could have a day.”
“This is going to be another lollipop sticks sea monster thing, isn’t it,” said Shacklebolt. There was something strangely hollow about his deep voice, like a sad kitten crying all alone in an echoing cave.
“Er—yes, sir,” said Malfoy. “Sorry, sir.”
“It was a bitter and shameful day for the Aurors when you passed the psychology tests, Mr Malfoy,” said Shacklebolt. “All right, both of you, out of my sight.”
They were going out when Shacklebolt lifted his head again.
“Mr Potter?”
“Yes, sir?”
“If you change your mind, do consider Nasturtium.”
They went out into the street feeling a little dazed.
“I now know at least eight things I never needed to know,” Malfoy said. “But on the bright side, I have enough gossip to make me king of the break room for a month.”
He headed for the nearest coffee shop like a salmon heading upriver. They were sitting down while Malfoy cooed over two cappuccinos when Harry asked him what his diabolical plan was.
“Well,” Malfoy said. “The thing is, I’m not entirely sure it will work.”
He reached into his pocket and touched the ring uneasily, like a good luck charm. It had been a hard day, and Harry lost patience.
“I know you have a ring in there,” he said.
“Oh,” Malfoy said. “You could’ve said. I would’ve asked you if you thought she’d like it before.”
He took it out. It was a small, plum velvet box, and the lid snapped open with a creak in his hands.
Inside was an elaborate silver ring, with a design of two snakes, one with its head in the other’s mouth, on top of which was a great glittering emerald.
“Um,” Harry said.
“It’s been in the family for generations,” Malfoy explained, a bit anxiously. “I had to get it altered, though. It was, er, originally designed to… bite the finger off anyone who was Muggleborn. More or less.”
“More or less,” Harry repeated.
“Sometimes it got a little carried away, apparently,” said Malfoy. “There’s a story about a woman who was concealing her Muggle heritage, and it sort of—jumped up and bit her in the eyeball. But the jeweller assures me it’s quite tame now.”
“Oh, good,” Harry said. “I, um—” It had been a long day, and he was tired, and Dixon might get off, and Malfoy was marrying Katie Bell. “It’s a lovely killer ring, Malfoy,” he said wearily. “You’ll be—really happy. I’m sure.”
“That sort of depends on her saying yes,” said Malfoy, and turned the ring so he could see it. He made a face, as if the snakes were sticking out their tongues at him.
“She’s mad about you,” Harry said. “She’ll say yes.”
Malfoy slipped the ring into his pocket, and smiled a slow sweet smile.
At that point the waitress, whose legs Malfoy had been admiring since they came in, threw herself into Harry’s lap and pressed her lips to his.
“Don’t marry him,” she breathed, and tried to slip him the tongue. “Have me.”
Harry shoved at her and they ended up tipping up the coffee table. Malfoy gave a heart cry when his coffees were upset into the woman’s lap. Harry stood and looked on helplessly as Malfoy helped the waitress to her feet.
“Sorry about that,” Malfoy said. “Excellent service you provide here. We will definitely leave a generous tip.”
He steered Harry out of the shop. Harry felt sort of numb with despair.
“It’s all right,” Malfoy told him. “I am your partner and I will solve this. I have a cunning plan. Trust me.”
Harry wanted to, he honestly did. It was just that he was perfectly aware of how all Malfoy’s cunning plans had worked out at school.
He was really dreading tomorrow.