Happy Holidays, sirius_luva! Part 2
“Quills down!” bellowed Professor Shadwell, banging a tin of condensed milk down on his desk like a gavel. “Ach, that means yer quill too, Stibbons! Keep your arses parked while I collect yer scrolls.”
After all the parchments were collected, he barked, “Awa’ wi’ ye, dibbuns!”
No one knew what a dibbun was, but the students understood they were free to go. Everyone left without waiting for Professor Shadwell to change his mind and start cross-examining the students for cheaters. Professor Shadwell was known to judge a bloke’s character by the number of nipples he had.
Crowley left the classroom with Severus. His friend was still absorbed in his own examination paper, but he knew that Severus could read and pretend to listen at the same time.
“Five signs that identify the werewolf. What a joke,” said Crowley as they emerged into the entrance hall and joined the cluster of students milling out of the castle. Everyone was eager to be out on the grounds between examinations. It was a bright and sunny day.
Severus made a noncommittal sound in reply.
“Of course it wasn’t a piece of cake for everyone. I could see Pettigrew sweating bullets.”
“Right.”
“Our conversations are positively scintillating.”
“Without a doubt.”
“You’re probably going to get a sunburn out here.”
“Unquestionably.”
Crowley scanned the grounds. There were many different groups of students separated into the usual cliques. A gaggle of chattering girls were sitting on the bank of the lake, dipping their feet in the water. The notorious Gryffindor foursome had claimed the shade of the beech tree as their territory. He saw Potter making Pettigrew practically wet himself with excitement by catching a small golden snitch. Not far from them, White was knee-deep in the lake, but Crowley only saw Zuigiber and Sable standing by the edge, watching their friend kick up clods of mud with approval.
There was no sign of Azra.
“Your hair would look lovely in a fuchsia shade of pink,” Crowley remarked because he had the distinct feeling he was talking to himself.
“Have I spent five years laboring under the false belief that you’re intelligent, Crowley?” Severus asked without looking up from his review questions. Crowley knew because he glanced over.
“All right.” Crowley smirked. “How about flamingo pink?”
“No shade of pink is my colour.”
“How unfortunate. We should avoid the sun for your sake. Let’s sit here, yeah?”
Together they settled on the grass in the shade of a clump of bushes. Laying on his back, arms pillowed under his head, Crowley stretched his legs out from the reach of the shadows. He needed some part of himself to soak in the sunlight.
“Do you know who Freddie Mercury is?” Crowley blurted out the question.
Severus finally unglued his eyes from his parchment. “Why?” he asked uncertainly, brow furrowing.
“Someone mentioned the name to me. Nevermind. It’s not important.”
Severus wordlessly accepted the dismissal and returned to studying. Crowley gazed up and applauded himself for not asking about the assless chaps. Instead, he thought about sleeves. Sleeves. Azra had a fair point about the word, he thought to himself.
Crowley might have asked Severus to share his thoughts about sleeves when he sensed his friend tense up.
“We should go back,” muttered Severus, stowing the paper in his bag and rising to his feet.
“What? Right now? We’ve still got half an hour.”
Confused, Crowley sat up just as Potter loudly called over, “All right, Snivellus?”
His friend reacted quickly, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the spell that sent his wand sailing through the air. It landed in the grass several feet behind him.
“Now what do you need that for, Snivelly?” asked Potter as he and his friend advanced on him, wands ready. “You’re not trying to hex us, are you?”
When Severus made a dive for his fallen wand, Black knocked him off his feet by shouting, “Impedimenta!”
Neither cared that they were drawing attention to themselves. Students all around turned to watch. Pettigrew scrambled up to his feet, edging closer for a better view, while Lupin remained underneath the beech tree, determined to keep his face in his book.
Crowley sighed. It was audible enough to make the pair stop laughing at Severus and glance over.
“Don’t you think you’re being unfair, two wands against none?” Crowley stood up casually, but there was nothing careless about the way he had his wand pointed at the two Gryffindors.
Crowley disliked heroic displays, but someone had to do something.
“You’re Gryffindors. Aren’t you supposed to be against bullying helpless blokes?”
Potter and Black exchanged a glance before one of them reasoned, “We were just having some harmless fun.”
“And besides that, you’re armed.”
“Care to join your greasy friend?” Potter asked coolly.
“If Snivellus didn’t have the hots for Evans, I’d say they’re poofs for each other.” Black barked a laugh.
“Could be unrequited.” Potter grimaced. “Don’t know why.”
“Can you imagine all the grease that would get on you, if you snogged that?”
“You’d probably slide off his face.”
“Maybe that’s why he wears the sunglasses,” Sirius hazarded a guess. “Keeps his eyes dry.”
“Are you two quite finished?” said Crowley.
By that time, the Impediment Jinx had worn off and Severus had retrieved his wand. He wasted no time to get even. Severus directed his wand straight at Potter. There was a flash of light and a gash appeared on Potter’s cheek. It was a tiny cut, but a red river flowed down his face, spattering his shirt with blood.
“OI!” Potter howled before retaliating with a curse Crowley had never heard before.
Instead of hitting Severus, the flash of green smacked Crowley square in the chest. An invisible force grabbed him by the ankles and hauled him upside down in the air. His robes fell over his head and his sunglasses dropped to the grass.
Severus might have done something to help Crowley, but he wasted his attempt on trying to cut down Potter. Another slashed cheek may have stung, but it did nothing but fuel the fire of his hatred. Potter didn’t miss his target on the second try. Crowley couldn’t see, but everyone else saw his friend’s skinny legs and graying underpants.
“Check me out.” Black put the shades on. Several onlookers laughed as he made a show of strutting around with them on. “I think they look better on me, don’t you?”
“PUT THEM DOWN!”
Crowley knew that voice. It was Azra. Instead of feeling grateful, Crowley inwardly groaned. It was humiliating enough without Azra trying to help him. This was only going to make matters worse. He just knew it.
“Leave them alone right this instant,” another voice demanded. That voice, he knew, belonged to none other than Lily Evans.
“All right, Evans?” James suddenly sounded a lot more pleasant and mature.
“Put them down,” Lily repeated coldly.
“Tell you what... I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly and his pal again if you go out with me, Evans,” Potter tried to bargain.
“I’d rather snog the giant squid, you arrogant toerag,” Lily shot back.
“Just put them down!” Azra said briskly.
“Certainly,” said James, and without warning, he jerked his wand and made the two Slytherins fall to a crumpled heap on the grass.
Disentangling themselves from each other, Crowley was the first to get to his feet, wand ready, but Black said, “Locomotor mortis!” and sent him tumbling over again, rigid as a board.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Azra shouted, pointing his own wand. “Take the curse off him right now.”
“Or what?” Potter challenged haughtily.
“Or you’ll never have a chance in hell at dating me, Potter,” said Lily. She had her wand out now.
“Fine, fine.” Potter deeply sighed and muttered the counter-curse. “Don’t even think about trying anything, or I might change my mind about letting you go.”
“Give him back his sunglasses,” demanded Azra, who noticed that Crowley was shielding his face with an arm.
“Why don’t you?” Black tossed them over. “I think we’ve found another poof, Prongs. Let’s leave the lovebirds alone.”
“You owe me, Evans!” Potter flashed a grin before retreating back to the beech tree with his friend. Pettigrew gushed after them with an endless stream of praise, while Lupin said nothing but quietly shook his head.
“Come on, just ignore that stupid prat,” said Lily, helping Severus to his feet.
“Here,” Azra said, kneeling down and placing the sunglasses in Crowley’s hands. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help sooner,” was mumbled in a lower voice.
“I didn’t need help from you, you fat filthy Mudblood!” hissed Crowley, shoving him with all his might. Azra fell back on the grass with a stunned look on his face. Crowley didn’t see it. He saw nothing but pure white rage as he stood up and stormed off.
Crowley didn’t know where he was going. He just knew that he needed to be far, far away from Azra.
Azra made no attempt to stop Crowley. He sat up and watched the Slytherin disappear from his line of vision. Crowley became a speck of black that blurred into the green grass. He shut his eyes. He wasn’t crying. There was merely a bit of condensation in his eyes.
“Want me to kick his arse?” asked Carmine as she approached with Chalky and Raven.
“I was only trying to help,” mumbled Azra, oblivious to the question.
Chalky helped him up to his feet. Azra didn’t care that his hands were covered in a substance that resembled oily tar. Everything seemed insignificant compared to the blow Crowley had dealt to their friendship.
“We can take care of him, if you’d like,” offered Raven.
“I’ll snip his bollocks off and cram them down his throat.”
“Really, now that half the school saw that display, it would only take a mere word to completely destroy his reputation.”
“I’ll crush those sunglasses into his bloody skull.”
“He’ll be the social pariah of his House after his parents disown him.”
“I can give him dragon pox.”
“That’s enough.” Azra didn’t need to shout. His frigid tone of voice - a rival for Professor McGonagall’s razor sharp tongue lashing - proved effective at shutting them up.
Azra sighed heavily. “Just leave him alone,” he said, speaking not only to the trio, but to his own darker thoughts. What good would come from revenge? Azra shook his head. “I don’t want him disowned, ostracized, or physically harmed. All right?”
“Fine.” Carmine pouted while Raven and Chalky shrugged at the same time in a ‘so be it’ fashion.
“Let’s go,” said Azra, ignoring the students who murmured as they watched him make his way back to the castle. It made a difference when you refused to acknowledge them.
Regret always had a funny way of showing up right after everything was said and done.
Crowley regretted everything. He regretted it all the more when Lucius took the opportunity to drop into The Three Broomsticks when he was trying to sulk by himself with a butterbeer. Crowley knew that it couldn’t be a mere coincidence. One of his flunkies must have tipped him off. Lucius never made appearances on the weekends that they were allowed to go to Hogsmeade. Or, rather, he never made an appearance without an ulterior motive.
“Crowley, what a pleasant surprise,” greeted Lucius, seating himself at the table unceremoniously.
“Isn’t it just,” Crowley said flatly.
“I heard about what happened.” Lucius wasted no time with pleasantries or beating around the bush with small talk. His lack of delicacy was one trait he could appreciate.
“That didn’t take long,” muttered Crowley. He wondered if Father knew. Was there a Howler on the horizon? Buggery.
“Now you saw for yourself how the blood traitors treat us and how the Mudbloods mock us. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. I tried.”
“Is that all you came for? To tell me, ‘I told you so’? Because if it is, you can bugger off.” Crowley was all out of tact.
“No,” Lucius said with thinning patience. “I came here to extend a personal invitation to you from someone very important... Someone your father holds in the highest respect. He wants to meet with you. Soon.”
On the outside, Crowley remained calm and composed. On the inside, he was writhing and listing off every swearword he knew. Lucius was trying to be vague about it for the sake of any prying ears, but he knew exactly who he was talking about: Lord Voldemort. Every respectable Slytherin had heard his name murmured in the higher pure-blood circles.
With a number of disappearances splashed on the pages of the Daily Prophet, the wizard was becoming quite popular.
“Tell him I’ll think about it.”
The corner of Lucius’ mouth twitched. He looked as if he wanted to say more than, “Surely you do not think he will wait upon a fifteen year old boy?”
“I have to finish this term,” Crowley reasoned. “Can’t we postpone this meeting until the summer? Or until I’m completely done at Hogwarts? I mean, what good am I to him now?”
“We shall see, but I’ll warn you now. My master mustn’t be kept waiting. Nor will your father be pleased to learn that you are anything but eager to meet with my lord. He will hear of this,” he sniffed.
And with that, Lucius swept out of the establishment in a swirl of velvet green robes. Crowley was left to stew in a whole new soup of misery filled with chunks of regret and self-pity. His fate, it seemed, was already mapped out for him.
Sixth year was miserable.
It was also filled with letters. Letters may have been putting it in generous terms. Letters implied a certain length and artfulness, with a beginning, middle, and end. The letters Crowley wrote weren’t letters so much as notes written on scraps on parchment.
Some he sent, but most remained unsent and later fed to the flames of any nearby hearth.
The few that Azra received were kept in an old shoebox beneath his bed, but Crowley never knew because there was not one reply delivered back to him.
Seventh year, James Potter was made Head Boy.
Azra wrote a very strongly worded complaint to the Headmaster that outlined why he had made an egregious mistake. It was the second day of the term and he was completing his third draft when one of the barnyard owls dropped a tiny scroll of parchment on his head. It rolled down his nose and nearly landed in his goblet of pumpkin juice.
“And they wonder why I prefer ducks,” Azra muttered under his breath.
It was from Crowley. His fingers recognized the parchment. It had the same texture and the same lines. That, and he could sense the Slytherin watching him from the other side of the room.
Azra was conflicted. There was some small part of himself that felt vindicated. And that little piece of himself was at war with his conscience. The last letter he had received over the summer had been an apology.
Another plea for his forgiveness could potentially be bad. Another would threaten to break his otherwise firm resolve.
Azra had forgiven Crowley months ago. He couldn’t hold a grudge if it walked into his hands and tied itself to his thumbs. It simply wasn’t possible. Occasionally glaring in the Slytherin’s direction took a considerable amount of effort. He wondered how people kept that amount of hatred and resentment pent up for so long. Just pretending was exhausting.
If Crowley didn’t know that he had his forgiveness, that was all for the best, wasn’t it? Azra reasoned that keeping his distance was the safest way to avoid problems.
Crowley wouldn’t be in any danger of being disowned.
He wouldn’t be coerced into smoking illicit substances.
No one would have to call names, or be called very hurtful names.
It was a win-win for everyone.
It was, he convinced himself, more than necessary. He knew what was best for the both of them. For a year, he had ignored any niggling voices that raised any doubts. What was one more year?
Azra unrolled the scrap of parchment. His cheeks suffused with pink as he read it and reread it three times over.
It took a moment for it to sink in. And when it finally registered, it hit him like a bag full of bricks.
“He’s having me on,” Azra murmured to himself in a flat voice.
Before Chalky stopped mining for bogeys long enough to take any notice, he stuffed the note into his pocket, gathered his writing materials, and left the Great Hall without another word.
Azra was seldom the brooding type, but he knew he needed to brood. There was no telling what he might say if he didn’t brood on Crowley’s tasteless joke. With a heavy frown, Azra stalked toward the broom closet.
“Fantastic,” muttered Crowley.
He watched Azra flee the Great Hall like a hell-hound was nipping at his heels.
It was an odd thought, because he didn’t even know what a hell-hound should look like, but there it was.
Crowley frowned and sighed. Severus looked over, but Crowley shook his head dismissively. Even if he could tell his friend what was wrong, Severus wouldn’t know how to comfort a friend if the instructions walked up and hugged him. Crowley knew a moot point when he saw one.
After listing off some excuse, Crowley stopped shoving the remainder of his lunch around his plate and left.
He almost went to the broom closet, but then thought better of it. He didn’t have to read books religiously to know irony.
Little by little, Azra grew more upset.
He wanted to shred the note. He wanted to tear it up into a thousand little pieces, feed those little pieces to a fire, and then scatter the ashes across the lake where they would then dissolve into tiny particles.
But every instance he mustered up the anger to do it, he stopped himself and slid it back into his pocket.
The scrap of parchment did not meet the same fate as its papery kin. Azra couldn’t even hide it in the shoebox. He was afraid that if he put the note down for a moment, he would later pick it up and find the ink had evaporated into nothingness.
He did not pause to examine why it was so important to preserve this piece of parchment. Or why he kept it in his pocket, or tucked between the pages of a book, with him everywhere he went.
That, obviously, was not important.
One whole month, and Azra wouldn’t even spare a glance in his general direction.
Crowley had waited. It was not his custom to wait, but as far as waiting went, he reasoned that a month was enough time to wait.
But he was done waiting.
With a purpose in his stride, the Slytherin headed toward the library. He knew exactly where to find Azra. The Ravenclaw was a creature of habit. He sat at the same table in the same chair. If he wasn’t afraid of being on the receiving end of Madam Pince or the Librarian’s wrath, Azra probably would have carved his name into the wood and claimed the spot as his territory. Crowley wouldn’t have been surprised to find the grooves of his backside permanently embedded in the chair.
When Crowley found Azra, he also found him sitting with the three who had more or less adopted him as their fourth.
The skinny Hufflepuff, the dirty Ravenclaw, and the lethal Gryffindor.
He paused and was one step away from turning down a different aisle when the redhead glanced up and caught his eye with a keen glare.
Without any regard for universally known library conventions, Carmine loudly shot over, “Looking for a bruising, Shades?”
Azra, he noticed, did not look up from his book. The others were watching him like a beetle pinned under a magnifying glass.
“I’d rather not become acquainted with your fists today, but thanks all the same,” replied Crowley, stepping forward despite the barrage of cold looks.
“Well? What do you want?”
“I came to talk to Fell.”
“If you have anything to say to him,” said Raven, normally assigned the role of the diplomatic speaker for the group, “you can say it to all of us.”
Crowley had his eyes on Azra, who was doing a spectacular poor job of pretending to read his textbook. His eyes weren’t moving and a funny colour was traveling up his neck on a path en route to his ears.
“Why don’t you let him speak for himself?” asked Crowley.
“If he wanted to speak to you,” murmured Chalky, “perhaps he would have spoken.”
“They’re right.”
Finally, Azra looked up without quite meeting Crowley’s eyes. He was, more accurately, addressing the bookshelf right behind Crowley.
“I can speak for myself, but I don’t believe we have anything left to say to each other after your crude joke.”
“Joke? What joke?”
“Don’t play daft. You know very well which joke I mean,” Azra replied sharply before deflating. He seemed ashamed for getting worked up for even a split second. “If you came here to laugh at me, please have your laugh and leave me alone.”
“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you,” Chalky murmured at the same time Carmine’s chair screeched against the floorboards as she stood up.
“You heard him,” the Gryffindor snapped. “Sod off before we make you.”
“Yes, it would be wise for you to leave and let things be,” Raven added with a thin smile. “I can’t promise we’ll hold her back for much longer.”
Crowley’s gaze darted back to Azra as he asked, “That’s what you want, then?”
“Yes.” Azra nodded and trained his gaze back on the book.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Azra repeated, and in a lower voice added, “You should go back to your Death Eater friends. They must be wondering where you are.”
Crowley was, for a moment, stunned. Carmine could have punched him and it wouldn’t have stung as much as that little remark.
“Fine.” Crowley’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “When you decide to get your head out of your arse, you’ll know where to find me.”
Before Carmine could add injury to insult, Crowley walked away. Stalking out of the library, his elbow clipped someone, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Everyone could bugger off. He saw nothing and heard nothing on his way to the greenhouses where he would stay until Professor Sprout threatened him to leave her plants alone or spend the rest of the week in detentions with Filch.
That evening, two infant mandrakes withered and died from fear of Crowley.
Long after his friends had left the library in pursuit of recreational activities, Azra dragged himself out the library. It was a few minutes before curfew. He had left before, rather than after, because he did not want the Librarian hoisting him up from his seat by the collar again. That had hurt. And his head already hurt enough from replaying and analyzing every word Crowley had said earlier that day.
How could he try to pretend it wasn’t a joke?
There were few things Azra disliked. Crowley’s annoying habit of looking and sounding utterly full of conviction, when he was in all likelihood lying through his teeth, had to be one of them.
Above it, not knowing what to believe claimed the very top of the list.
Below both if those items on the list was the smell of boiled cabbage.
Azra was halfway down the corridor when someone yanked him into the shadows behind a suit of armour. A hand clasped over his mouth, muffling his immediate protests.
“Mmffpsshhff!” was his best attempt to call for help.
“Shut your cake-hole,” warned a voice.
“Mmfffhh!”
“I want you to listen, and just listen to me. All right? I’m not going to hurt you. Unless you bite me. But you’re not going to bite me. You’re going to listen.”
Finding himself unable to disagree, Azra nodded and stopped trying to scream or scramble away. Despite his common sense, he relaxed.
“See? That wasn’t so bad,” said the voice. “I just wanted to say this. All this fighting has gone on for long enough, I think. Don’t you?”
Azra nodded again. No reasonable Ravenclaw would object to a fair point.
“You should listen to what Crowley has to say. Deep down, you want to hear him out, don’t you?”
This time, his head moved in agreement by its own accord.
“And you want to forgive him.”
It was true.
“You want to go back to the way things were.”
But how did he know that? How did he know any of this?
“I’ve been watching you both.”
Was it Headmaster Dumbledore? It didn’t sound like him, but Dumbledore knew the goings on at Hogwarts better than an omniscient narrator.
“Tonight,” the voice continued, as if reading his thoughts by a script. “He’ll be in the broom closet.”
When the hand dropped from his mouth, Azra only had one question.
“Who are you?”
“Dunno.” There was a chuckle. He could hear the voice grinning. “Guess you could call me your guardian angel.”
“But that’s absurd.” Azra frowned. “Guardian angels don’t exist.”
The chuckling became laughter. “I’m never gonna let you live that one down, Aziraphale.”
“Aziraphale?”
Azra turned around but he couldn’t see anyone. His fingertips only met the cold stone walls as he felt around the inky darkness. No one was there.
“Aziraphale,” he murmured to himself, as if trying the name on his tongue. He found that, oddly enough, he liked it.
The Ravenclaw didn’t know if he was going mad, but he was certain of one thing. Figment of his imagination or not, he wanted to find Crowley.
Firewhiskey wasn’t named for the deep red colour. It was named for the way it could burn holes through your stomach lining.
Crowley took another swig from the bottle and grimaced. He would have preferred something smoother. Maybe even something that tasted sweet. His options had been, regrettably, very limited. Hastur had no taste and not a single bottle of wine, but he was the only one who wouldn’t notice a bottle had been nicked from his supply.
And, if he did, he would probably blame Ligur and set his robes on fire.
“Ssslytherins,” Crowley chuckled, not slurring so much as hissing.
He raised the bottle for another tug. The burning sensation, he found, did not lessen over time. His eyes were watering when he heard the doorknob twist. Someone was trying to get in.
“Bloody hell.”
He had locked it, hadn’t he? Crowley relaxed for a moment, but the doorknob turned again and he heard a muffled voice. A voice that sounded like Filch.
If Filch caught him in here with a bottle of Firewhiskey, he would have to spend the rest of the year grooming Mrs. Norris while he was hung upside-down from the ceiling. Crowley had a moment to stash the bottle before he heard the lock click. He buried his face in his hands as the door opened. Maybe, if he was lucky, Filch wouldn’t be able to see past the fake tears and notice the peppery scent of Firewhiskey on him. Crowley mentally braced himself and sniffled.
“Crowley? Are you- dear boy, are you crying?”
Crowley froze and peered between the cracks of his fingers. He saw Azra standing there with a guilt-stricken look on his face.
“No!” Crowley answered hotly and dropped his hands. “I thought you were Filch,” he mumbled by way of explanation.
“So you started crying?”
“No, I wasn’t-”
“Your face is wet,” Azra continued, stepping inside the cramped space and making it feel even smaller. “Would you like to borrow my handkerchief?”
“Drink this and see if your eyes don’t water up,” Crowley countered, batting away the red polka dot cloth with the bottle of Firewhiskey.
Azra took the bottle and unscrewed the lid. He hazarded a sniff before drawing back with a grimace. “You’ve been drinking this wretched brew?”
“Sss’not that bad,” Crowley half hissed, half muttered.
“You shouldn’t drink when you’re upset, Crowley,” Azra admonished, and that’s when the niggling feeling that something was off caught up with Crowley.
“Oi wait wait waaait,” Crowley said, drawing out the words to give him more time to regather his wits. It was a struggle to stand, but he managed to hoist himself up without falling over again by grappling a hold of the wall.
“You,” he jabbed Azra’s chest with his finger, “you told me to bugger off, then you barge in here, accusing me of crying and telling me what to do? I mean, what the hell? What are you doing here?”
“I, erm, well, I, you see,” Azra started, but then stopped and lunged forward, crashing his mouth against the side of Crowley’s cheek.
It was, Crowley supposed, a kiss.
Not a very good one, if he had to be completely honest, but it was a promising start. Crowley cupped Azra’s jaw.
“You blessed fool,” he murmured before showing Azra the correct way to kiss.
“You taste like pepper,” Azra whispered breathlessly before fisting his fingers in Crowley’s shirt and closing the distance between their mouths again.
Before Crowley knew what was happening, their hands were mapping across unchartered skin, their bodies were arching into each touch, and he was hissing for more and more and more.
And the last thing Crowley remembered was lying in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor with Azra absently tugging on his tie, murmuring nonsensical words before he slipped off to sleep.
Aziraphale was the first to awaken. He sat up and knuckled the sleep from his eyes. A beat later, Crowley stirred, mumbling something until his eyes opened and his brow furrowed. It took him a moment to focus on the angel.
“That,” said Crowley, “was all your fault.”
“When I asked Adam to explain what those Harry Potter novels were all about, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“S’probably his idea of a good Christmas present,” Crowley muttered.
“It wasn’t all that bad, dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured, which earned him a look from the demon.
“What was there to like about it?
“I quite liked casting spells. There’s no Upstairs bureaucracy to worry about with the wands.”
“Is that all?”
“Well.” The angel hesitated before admitting, “I enjoyed something else.”
“Yes?”
“This,” said Aziraphale, leaning down to kiss Crowley, “was quite brilliant.”
Anything else he may have added was lost against the demon’s lips as he was tugged down for more.