[hp] corridors of power 3
Corridors of Power
Being An Originally Intermittent Account
of the Political (Mis)Adventures
of the Viscount Northallerton, Lord Malfoy of Wimbledon;
and the Rt. Honourable Harry J. Potter,
Member of Parliament for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Liberal Democrat).
Annotated, with Footnotes
RM. B29.2
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT (COMMONS)
Wednesday March 16th, 12:45 pm
"Potter, why do you have your--hmmph." Draco turned around to ask Harry exactly why he was displaying his first-class Order of Merlin on the wall of his Muggle parliamentary office, but was stopped by the exasperated shush-ing motion that Harry made.
Not that Draco was not a patient man. He had been in the basement office for twenty minutes now and Harry had done nothing but take telephone calls.
"Make an appointment," Harry had said, the phone balanced in the crook of his neck while he folded back his shirt cuffs, barely glancing up at Draco when he'd entered the office.
Draco had sat in one of the too-small chairs and balanced his feet on another. "You never do," he'd said cheerfully, to which Harry had had the cheek to insinuate that none was necessary; Draco was unlikely to be caught doing any actual work. He'd been saved the inconvenience of defending himself by the first telephone call, but now Draco was growing increasingly irritated because the cursed thing wouldn't shut up and the damp down here was probably giving him a chill.
Harry put his hand over the mouthpiece and pointed his wand at the framed certificate. "Muggles see this one," he whispered, and it wavered into a similar-looking document, this time proclaiming that the University of Middlesex awarded one Harry James Potter a masters degree in Political Science. "Okay great," Harry said into the phone, "Ready at four? Cheers. Bye."
"Any more desperately important telephone calls, or might I have a minute of your time?"
"Don't sulk. That was my drycleaner." Harry laced his hands together behind his head and leaned back with a grin. "So what's so important that you're slumming it down here with the duly-elected riff-raff?"
"Duly. Elected." Draco had yet to use Blaise's tasty bit of information. First he wanted to prod a bit at Harry's composure. "Is that so?"
Harry frowned, a little flicker. "What?"
"Oh, nothing," Draco said airily. That was enough to let Harry stew for a bit, if it were true. "What I came to find out was if you were one of the tardy seventeen missing from last night's vote."
He already knew the answer. He'd been sat on his couch with a glass of Piper-Heidsieck1 and a lamb vindaloo, watching the commons session and taking notes (technically, watching his dictaquill take notes) as the House debated the Prevention of Terrorism Bill2. It had been fairly entertaining until he became convinced that the bloody Lib Dem MP for Tweeddale3 was aggressively flirting with Harry. Surely there was nothing so politically riveting in the briefing papers that required them to sit quite so close together?
"Of course I was there." Harry sounded snippy. "Besides, 46 Tory members skipped out on the vote as well, you know."
"Yes, but no-one expects a Conservative to be at every vote, do they? You, on the other hand," and here Draco took in the framed party promises on the office wall, ran his finger down the glass to number seven, "Work Hard To Represent Constituents Voices. You know that bloody bill got through by only fifteen votes?"
"Malfoy," Harry sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose. "My colleagues are not perfect. But at least they are not prejudiced, old-fashioned, small-minded wankers who had to be bullied into recognising that their privileges were anachronistic and blatantly unfair--"
"Where did you learn a word like anachronistic?"
"You."
Draco peered suspiciously at Harry.
"You gave me a thesaurus for Christmas." Harry turned his attention to a pile of letters and thumbed open an envelope. "Don't worry," he grinned, "I'm only up to the C's."
"Did you reach considerate yet?" Draco grouched.
A pause, and Harry raised his eyebrows. "Oh, do tell me why, Draco."
"If your colleagues--okay, and the 46 Conservative members whom I sure had dreadfully urgent family affairs that called them away at the last moment--if they had been at that circus last night, and had voted the bill back, it wouldn't have to go to the Lords."
"You're pissy because you'll have to debate the Bill?"
"I am so bored with terrorism. It's so 2002."
Harry threw a paperclip at him. "You're deplorable."
"Will tell me how deplorable I am over lunch?"
"Will you take me somewhere appallingly expensive and make the taxpayers fork out for it?"
Draco shrugged. "I'm a Malfoy."
"Chuck me my jacket, then."
1. PIPER HEIDSECK: This stuff just turns up by the case in the office. It's quaffable, for a Muggle champagne.
2. PREVENTION OF TERRORISM BILL: A nasty bit of freedom-curtailing legislature under debate in March 2005 that gave the Home Secretary the ability to, amongst other things, impose a control order on people suspected of terrorism, whatever that meant. Due to the restraining action of the Lords on passing the Bill it was watered down a little in practise, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
3. MP FOR TWEEDDALE: You can't trust a Scotsman.
SKETCH
CONDUIT ST, WC1
2:08 pm
"--there's exorbitant, and then there's just. Well. Is this supposed to be modern art, this menu? Some kind of comment on capitalism?"
The waiter snickered. So did Draco. After a brief pause, so did Harry.
"The forty-one pound Loch Fyne scallops, please." The way Harry got the -ch to catch perfectly in his throat made Draco go a bit weak.
"And how would sir prefer them?" The waiter had more attitude than Blaise, which Draco admired in someone who got ordered around for a living.
Harry, holding his wine glass by the stem, looked impishly at Draco. "Hmm," he said, his gaze not flickering from Draco's face, "I think. Poached."
"Tartare," Draco said, knocking back the Gevrey Pinot in an attempt to quash the vague feeling he was being played.
The waiter sauntered off. "Draco," Harry said, thoughtful creases behind his glasses, "what do you say when people ask where you went to school?"
"Depends," Draco was cagey. "Why? What do you say?"
"Tutored at home," Harry said over a mouthful of Ethiopian flatbread. Draco pushed the ramekin of hazelnut oil across the table in order to facilitate more licking of fingers. "But I asked you."
Ah. Not a trick question, then. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, most of the time."
Harry blinked. "You do not."
Draco leaned forward and grinned. "I do. And then the old duffers clap me on the back and tell me that they used to call Harrow 'The Seventh Level Of Hell', and everyone thinks I'm terribly clever."
"I haven't started on your deplorability yet, have I?"
"I strongly suspect there's no such word as deplorability, Potter."
"If anyone is ever to describe your political career it may be very necessary to invent it."
No need to be nasty, Draco was going to say, but then Harry licked a rivulet of oil off the back of his thumb and he couldn't quite muster the edge, especially when Harry raised his eyebrows in the kind of slow smirk that said I know exactly what you are thinking and also? You are so my bitch.
"I don't notice you trying very hard to discourage my alleged bad behaviour," Draco said, rather intent on regaining some sort of upper hand. "Aside from your ridiculous petition, of course, but whatever happened to the liberal humanist belief in redemption?"
"You? Redeemed?" Harry flicked off a crumb from Draco's cuff. "What would be the fun in that?"
End, Part III ~ Part IV
Being An Originally Intermittent Account
of the Political (Mis)Adventures
of the Viscount Northallerton, Lord Malfoy of Wimbledon;
and the Rt. Honourable Harry J. Potter,
Member of Parliament for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Liberal Democrat).
Annotated, with Footnotes
RM. B29.2
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT (COMMONS)
Wednesday March 16th, 12:45 pm
"Potter, why do you have your--hmmph." Draco turned around to ask Harry exactly why he was displaying his first-class Order of Merlin on the wall of his Muggle parliamentary office, but was stopped by the exasperated shush-ing motion that Harry made.
Not that Draco was not a patient man. He had been in the basement office for twenty minutes now and Harry had done nothing but take telephone calls.
"Make an appointment," Harry had said, the phone balanced in the crook of his neck while he folded back his shirt cuffs, barely glancing up at Draco when he'd entered the office.
Draco had sat in one of the too-small chairs and balanced his feet on another. "You never do," he'd said cheerfully, to which Harry had had the cheek to insinuate that none was necessary; Draco was unlikely to be caught doing any actual work. He'd been saved the inconvenience of defending himself by the first telephone call, but now Draco was growing increasingly irritated because the cursed thing wouldn't shut up and the damp down here was probably giving him a chill.
Harry put his hand over the mouthpiece and pointed his wand at the framed certificate. "Muggles see this one," he whispered, and it wavered into a similar-looking document, this time proclaiming that the University of Middlesex awarded one Harry James Potter a masters degree in Political Science. "Okay great," Harry said into the phone, "Ready at four? Cheers. Bye."
"Any more desperately important telephone calls, or might I have a minute of your time?"
"Don't sulk. That was my drycleaner." Harry laced his hands together behind his head and leaned back with a grin. "So what's so important that you're slumming it down here with the duly-elected riff-raff?"
"Duly. Elected." Draco had yet to use Blaise's tasty bit of information. First he wanted to prod a bit at Harry's composure. "Is that so?"
Harry frowned, a little flicker. "What?"
"Oh, nothing," Draco said airily. That was enough to let Harry stew for a bit, if it were true. "What I came to find out was if you were one of the tardy seventeen missing from last night's vote."
He already knew the answer. He'd been sat on his couch with a glass of Piper-Heidsieck1 and a lamb vindaloo, watching the commons session and taking notes (technically, watching his dictaquill take notes) as the House debated the Prevention of Terrorism Bill2. It had been fairly entertaining until he became convinced that the bloody Lib Dem MP for Tweeddale3 was aggressively flirting with Harry. Surely there was nothing so politically riveting in the briefing papers that required them to sit quite so close together?
"Of course I was there." Harry sounded snippy. "Besides, 46 Tory members skipped out on the vote as well, you know."
"Yes, but no-one expects a Conservative to be at every vote, do they? You, on the other hand," and here Draco took in the framed party promises on the office wall, ran his finger down the glass to number seven, "Work Hard To Represent Constituents Voices. You know that bloody bill got through by only fifteen votes?"
"Malfoy," Harry sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose. "My colleagues are not perfect. But at least they are not prejudiced, old-fashioned, small-minded wankers who had to be bullied into recognising that their privileges were anachronistic and blatantly unfair--"
"Where did you learn a word like anachronistic?"
"You."
Draco peered suspiciously at Harry.
"You gave me a thesaurus for Christmas." Harry turned his attention to a pile of letters and thumbed open an envelope. "Don't worry," he grinned, "I'm only up to the C's."
"Did you reach considerate yet?" Draco grouched.
A pause, and Harry raised his eyebrows. "Oh, do tell me why, Draco."
"If your colleagues--okay, and the 46 Conservative members whom I sure had dreadfully urgent family affairs that called them away at the last moment--if they had been at that circus last night, and had voted the bill back, it wouldn't have to go to the Lords."
"You're pissy because you'll have to debate the Bill?"
"I am so bored with terrorism. It's so 2002."
Harry threw a paperclip at him. "You're deplorable."
"Will tell me how deplorable I am over lunch?"
"Will you take me somewhere appallingly expensive and make the taxpayers fork out for it?"
Draco shrugged. "I'm a Malfoy."
"Chuck me my jacket, then."
1. PIPER HEIDSECK: This stuff just turns up by the case in the office. It's quaffable, for a Muggle champagne.
2. PREVENTION OF TERRORISM BILL: A nasty bit of freedom-curtailing legislature under debate in March 2005 that gave the Home Secretary the ability to, amongst other things, impose a control order on people suspected of terrorism, whatever that meant. Due to the restraining action of the Lords on passing the Bill it was watered down a little in practise, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
3. MP FOR TWEEDDALE: You can't trust a Scotsman.
SKETCH
CONDUIT ST, WC1
2:08 pm
"--there's exorbitant, and then there's just. Well. Is this supposed to be modern art, this menu? Some kind of comment on capitalism?"
The waiter snickered. So did Draco. After a brief pause, so did Harry.
"The forty-one pound Loch Fyne scallops, please." The way Harry got the -ch to catch perfectly in his throat made Draco go a bit weak.
"And how would sir prefer them?" The waiter had more attitude than Blaise, which Draco admired in someone who got ordered around for a living.
Harry, holding his wine glass by the stem, looked impishly at Draco. "Hmm," he said, his gaze not flickering from Draco's face, "I think. Poached."
"Tartare," Draco said, knocking back the Gevrey Pinot in an attempt to quash the vague feeling he was being played.
The waiter sauntered off. "Draco," Harry said, thoughtful creases behind his glasses, "what do you say when people ask where you went to school?"
"Depends," Draco was cagey. "Why? What do you say?"
"Tutored at home," Harry said over a mouthful of Ethiopian flatbread. Draco pushed the ramekin of hazelnut oil across the table in order to facilitate more licking of fingers. "But I asked you."
Ah. Not a trick question, then. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, most of the time."
Harry blinked. "You do not."
Draco leaned forward and grinned. "I do. And then the old duffers clap me on the back and tell me that they used to call Harrow 'The Seventh Level Of Hell', and everyone thinks I'm terribly clever."
"I haven't started on your deplorability yet, have I?"
"I strongly suspect there's no such word as deplorability, Potter."
"If anyone is ever to describe your political career it may be very necessary to invent it."
No need to be nasty, Draco was going to say, but then Harry licked a rivulet of oil off the back of his thumb and he couldn't quite muster the edge, especially when Harry raised his eyebrows in the kind of slow smirk that said I know exactly what you are thinking and also? You are so my bitch.
"I don't notice you trying very hard to discourage my alleged bad behaviour," Draco said, rather intent on regaining some sort of upper hand. "Aside from your ridiculous petition, of course, but whatever happened to the liberal humanist belief in redemption?"
"You? Redeemed?" Harry flicked off a crumb from Draco's cuff. "What would be the fun in that?"
End, Part III ~ Part IV