Harry Potter/White Collar Crossover; Fic; Yours for Mine; R
Ok. This is EASILY the weirdest thing I've ever written. snegurochka_lee, this is ALL YOUR FAULT, and I'm sorry it's not...quite...what I thought it was going to be.
So, uh. Here you guys go.
Title: Yours for Mine
Fandom: Harry Potter/White Collar crossover
Rating: R
Pairings: Neal/Draco, Neal/Peter, Neal/Kate. Previous Harry/Draco and Draco/Astoria. Offscreen Harry/Ginny and Peter/El.
Warnings: Be warned! This is UNUSUAL.
Summary: You can't always get what you want, but there's nothing wrong with a decent copy.
Neal Caffrey wasn't an easily distracted man. When he had a target, he stuck to it. It was what had made him such an excellent thief--he wasn't subject to the whims and fancies of most of the criminal element. If he was after a 2 carat diamond, he wouldn't scrap his whole operation to go after a 4 carat one; there would always be time, later, to come back for it.
But sometimes, even the most focused mind could be tempted.
He...stared. He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten into this room; it wasn't on any floor plan he'd ever seen, and he'd checked the floor plans pretty damn carefully. He'd taken the right turn that was supposed to take him to the side entrance, and then he'd slipped and leaned into the brick wall to catch himself--
--and now he was here, in the middle of any thief's wet dream. Neal, who was nothing if not experienced in the art of checking for surveillance, had swept the room with great attention. There were no cameras. There were no laser motion sensors. There weren't even weight detectors on the damn pedestals.
He was in a room full of completely unguarded art.
Admittedly, he hadn't seen any of it before--none of it even bore a passing resemblance to anything he'd ever encountered. Still, it wasn't hard to tell that it was valuable. That one statue alone had a ruby sitting on it the size of a grapefruit, and he'd never seen paintings so...so alive.
Neal Caffrey looked around the room, flexed his fingers in his gloves, and tried to decide. It wouldn't do to be greedy.
***
"Goddamn it, Malfoy, open the fucking door."
Draco Malfoy sighed, swirled the mimosa in his glass, and raised his eyes to the heavens. It was so tiresome, having callers at this hour. He could hardly be blamed for making his impolite guest wait.
Still, it sounded like Potter, and Potter was likely to bang the damn door down if he waited too long. Draco sighed again and, against his better instincts, waved a hand.
The door opened. Potter, who looked as though he'd been planning on trying to break the door down, barreled through. He recovered well enough, straightening and brushing off his clothes, but Draco still had a clear upper hand, something he always relished with this particular Auror.
Well, with anyone, really, but that was neither here nor there.
"Potter," he drawled. "I might have known it was you--I can't think of anyone else in the wizarding world boorish enough to knock on my door at 5 AM." Potter just scowled at him, and Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Care to explain why, exactly, you've dragged me out of bed? I can't imagine this is a social call."
"Look," Potter said, angrily, "don't start with me. I know you've got it, and I don't want to have to bring you in. Just give it over and we can pretend this never happened, alright?"
Draco raised both eyebrows now, genuinely confused. "I'm sorry," he said, "but what on earth are you talking about?"
Potter slammed a hand down on the table and yelled "Goddamn it, Malfoy!" Draco took an instinctive step back. It was not at all that he was afraid of Potter, that would be gauche and ridiculous, but he did have a healthy sense of self preservation and first-hand knowledge of Potter's ability to maim. He eyed Potter as though he was likely to catch fire.
"I am more than happy to return whatever property it is you're seeking," Draco said mildly. He meant it, too--there was nothing left in the house that he'd have particularly minded parting with. "I'll need you to do me the small favor of telling me what it is first."
"You're honestly going to try and tell me you have no idea why I'm here?" Potter asked him. There was fire behind his eyes, and Draco was a little too interested in that.
"I'm not trying to tell you that, Potter," he snapped. "I am telling you that. What do you want?"
Potter glared at him. "The Simpatico painting," he hissed, furious. "It's been stolen."
--
Three hours later, they were in the Portkey office at the Ministry, still bickering. "I can't believe you thought I'd be so stupid," Draco said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
"I still think you could have been," Potter muttered, but then he sighed at Draco's dirty look and said "Fine. Fine! I don't think you took it. But you can't blame me--you said you would, when the Ministry confiscated it."
"First of all," Draco said, eyes narrowed, "that was more than six years ago. Secondly, the Ministry didn't 'confiscate' it, they stole it, along with everything else of worth in my house--and I don't give a fuck about your reparations malarky, Potter, so don't even try." Potter, who'd had his mouth open around a rant, closed it sullenly. "And thirdly," Draco said, triumphantly, "why the Ministry's been keeping the damn thing in America is simply beyond me."
"Let me see if I can make this clear for you," Potter said. His voice was drawn out, mockingly slow, as though Draco were two years old. "You said you were going to steal your stuff back, so we thought it would be wise to keep it far away from you."
Draco raised his eyebrowss and gave Potter a triumphant smile. "What?" Potter snapped, exasperated. "What now?"
"You admitted it was my stuff," Draco said, still grinning. Potter groaned.
"We've got three days," he said, apparently determined to ignore Draco's logic. "After that, I'm going to be obligated to throw you in Azkaban whether I think you're innocent or not. I hope you have a pretty good idea of where to start."
"Oh, I've got an idea, alright," Draco said. He felt the tug of the Portkey before Potter could ask him any questions, and he was oddly grateful.
***
"Neal," Mozzie said, stepping away from it. "Paintings don't move."
Neal rolled his eyes and sighed. "Really?" he asked. "They don't? I had no idea."
Mozz put his head in his hands. "I don't know why you're not more concerned about this!" he wailed. "First you go off and take an extra piece on a job--"
"It was a completely unmonitored room full of art, Mozz, what would you have had me do--"
"And now you're dismissing the fact that it's moving around!" Mozz lifted his head long enough to glare at Neal and added, bitterly, "You would be able to break laws of physics, too. That is so like you."
"Mozz--" Neal tried, and Mozz waved a hand.
"I don't want to talk to you for at least ten minutes."
"Mozzie, come on--"
"Minutes, Neal. Not seconds. Minutes. I am not above setting a timer."
"Well, I think it's fascinating," Kate said, peering at it. "There must be some kind of AI wired to it, or something."
Neal grinned at her and wiggled his eyebrows. "Maybe it's magic," he said, and didn't miss the wistful look that passed momentarily over her face. Kate had always been one for mysticism and grand gestures. He moved to crouch next to her, examining it.
"I think if I take it out of the canvas, I should be able to find..." He trailed off, reaching out curiously.
"NO!" Kate cried, slapping his hand away. He was so badly startled he fell back, landing on the floor.
"Hey!" he snapped. "What the hell?"
"I just--" she sighed, and looked wistfully at the painting again. "I just don't think you should touch it."
Neal stared at her in honest confusion. "I'm not planning on selling it," he said, "it's too unusual. If anyone ever gets to the point where they find my prints on it, I'm already in way over my head."
"It's not that," she said. "Just--don't touch it, ok? If you're going to handle it, wear the gloves. Promise me."
She was looking at him with such open terror in her eyes that he nodded, and she let out of breath of relief. "Thank you," she said, and kissed him.
In the corner, Mozzie moaned. "A moving painting that's unsafe to touch. I knew I should have paid better attention to my karma."
***
Harry looked at the door skeptically. "You're sure, Malfoy?"
"I doubt he's moved," Draco drawled. "Didn't seem the type. He's a settle-down sort of guy--a lot like you that way." He'd infused as much scorn as possible into that last, and was pleased to see it had achieved the desired effect; Potter scowled viciously at him.
"Fine," he spat, and knocked.
"Coming!" The voice was light, airy, and unmistakably female--Potter raised his eyebrows in the universal expression of "I told you so," and Draco sighed.
"That'd be his wife," he said, just as the door opened. A bright faced, smiling brunette looked at them curiously.
"I'll warn you," she said, still smiling, "whatever it is, we're probably not interested."
"We're, er," Potter said. He put an uncomfortable hand to the back of his neck. "We're not selling anything. We're looking for, er, an Agent Peter Burke? Is this still his residence?"
"Oh!" she said. "Um, yes. I'll just...get him." She eyed both of them with friendly enough suspicion, clearly toying with the idea of inviting them in. Draco smiled at her, and that seemed to make up her mind. "I'll be right back."
She left them there on the stoop, though she was kind enough to leave the door open.
"I hope you have a good reason for bothering these people on a Sunday," Potter hissed. Draco rolled his eyes.
"Yes," he said, "because I dragged you across the Atlantic to waste time bothering hapless Americans instead of trying to clear my name. I do so relish the idea of prison time. You got me!"
Potter opened his mouth, probably to spit back something nasty, but Draco was saved by the appearance of Burke. He looked just exactly as nondescript as he had the last time Draco had paid him a visit.
"I'm Agent Burke," he said. "Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "I'm Harry Potter. I'm with, uh, British Intelligence." Draco winced at the lie--Potter could have at least put a little effort into it, Burke was a smart enough guy and he was looking increasingly ready to shoot at them. "And, uh, this is--"
"We've met," Draco cut him off. Burke narrowed his eyes.
"I don't recall--"
"No," Draco said, smoothly. "You wouldn't. Draco Malfoy." He held out a hand and Burke shook it, his eyes still narrowed. Draco sighed.
"Look," he said, "I'll cut to the chase. We're looking for Neal Caffrey."
From the way Burke's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, Draco knew he'd come to the right place.
***
"I can't believe you're making me hide it," Neal complained. "You don't even live here."
"I can't believe you want to eat looking at a moving painting!" Mozzie cried. The amount of hysteria in his voice had been edging up with every consecutive hour, and he was now speaking in more of a squeak than anything else. "I can't believe it doesn't make you nervous! I can't believe you don't want to hide it!"
Neal eyed him and sighed, shoving his shoes to one side. "You're weird," he informed Mozz, who rolled his eyes. "I want you to know that."
"The man steals a moving painting on a whim and I'm the weird one," Mozzie muttered. He was still muttering when they went back into the living room, sans painting.
"I do feel better with it in the other room," Kate admitted, and Neal laughed and dropped a kiss into her hair.
"It's cute when you're weird," he told her, and she smiled up at him. Mozz just glared.
The knock on the door startled all of them; Neal froze, his eyes roaming the room for escape routes, Mozz scuttled automatically toward the fire escape, and Kate made a resigned little noise.
"You expecting anyone?" she asked, and when Neal shook his head, still planning the best way to get all three of them out, she sighed. "Right. I'll get it."
Before Neal could stop her, she'd stood, crossed to the threshold, and swung the door wide. He ran towards it, ready to give himself up to whatever embittered thug had come looking for him if it meant protecting her--
--and gasped when he saw who was on the other side. "Peter?" he said, shocked. The FBI agent shrugged, complete confusion written in every crevice of his face.
"Draco," Kate said, next to him. She appeared to be speaking to the blonde man, who was eying her with distaste.
"Astoria," he said. "It's been too long."
***
"Astoria," Draco said, "It's been too long." She didn't even look surprised to see him, the bitch--she'd probably been expecting him since Caffrey had shown up with the painting.
"Not long enough," she shot back coolly. God, he hated her. "How'd you figure it out so fast?" Next to her, Caffrey was opening and shutting his mouth like a stunned fish, which filled Draco with a certain amount of sick pleasure. It was...not a small amount. He shrugged.
"No wizard would be idiot enough to try and steal it," he said, "and that storeroom is set so Muggles can't get in. Had to be someone with enough exposure to magic to trip the sensors, or," he smiled at her, not without bitterness, "you. Either way, made the most sense to check here first."
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I honestly thought I'd seen the last of you."
"That feeling is mutual!" Draco snapped. "For Merlin's sake, Astoria, they want to throw me in Azkaban for this, what did you expect me to do? "
"Um," Caffrey said. "I--I think there's been some kind of mix-up." He smiled winsomely, though his eyes betrayed his deep confusion. "This is Kate Moreau. I don't know the Astoria you're talking about, but--"
"Neal," Astoria--no, Draco thought, mockingly, Kate--said quietly. "He means me."
"Is that some alias you never told me about?"
She sighed. "No. Damn it." She turned to the men in the doorway. "You'd better come in."
***
"You'd better come in," Kate said. Neal stared at her in disbelief.
"You're inviting them in now?" he asked, his voice cracking. "You're can't tell me what this is about first?"
She just walked into the apartment. The blond--Draco? What kind of a name was Draco?--started following her, but Neal held up a hand. "Alright," he said, "I at least want your names."
The blond guy raised a lazy eyebrow. "Draco Malfoy," he drawled in that high-brow accent--Wiltshire, maybe?--and breezed past Neal without another word. The other guy, with the dark hair, sighed and held out his hand. Neal took it automatically; regardless of the circumstance, he was hardwired for civility.
"Harry Potter," the man said. His accent was as thick as Malfoy's, but at least sounded a little less austere. "I'm really sorry about him. I'd like to say it's just today, but he's pretty much always like that."
"That must be such fun for you," Neal quipped, and Harry rolled his eyes.
"You've no idea. Do you mind if I...?" He gestured into the room and Neal nodded, moving aside.
"Make yourself comfortable," he said, because he wasn't sure what choice he had. Harry nodded his thanks and moved past.
Which left Neal standing in his threshold, staring at Peter Burke.
"Please tell me you have some idea what this is about," Peter said. He looked furious and at sea and deeply, utterly annoyed. Neal felt better already.
"No idea," he said. Peter gave him a probing look and he amended "Alright, some idea. An inkling of an idea."
"Caffrey," Peter groaned, "what did you do," and Neal smiled at him.
"Nothing worse than usual!" he said, cheerily enough, considering. "Want a drink?"
"I don't trust you not to poison it," Peter muttered, but he followed Neal inside.
Draco and Kate were bickering in the kitchen--Mozzie had, as Neal had rather expected, fled the scene. "And you wonder why I left you," she snapped. "It was always like this. He was always lurking around and everything was always my fault and--"
"Oh, right," Draco scoffed, "your biggest problem with our marriage was Harry fucking Potter, that's really rich--"
"You were married?" Neal said, his voice cracking again. Kate looked up to him with wide, scared eyes, and a hand clapped his shoulder. He turned around, and was surprised to find it was Peter's.
"I think," Harry said, "that maybe we should all sit down and talk about this for a minute."
***
"Lemme get this straight," Agent Burke said, half an hour later. "You," he pointed at Potter, "are the head of the British magical police." Potter nodded--it was close enough. Burke moved his outstretched finger to point at Draco, who grimaced at it. "And you," he continued, "are a reformed magical criminal?"
"For a given value of 'reformed,'" Draco drawled, dryly. "Sure."
Burke nodded slowly, as though trying to process this. "She--" he pointed at Astoria, "is a witch, and your ex-wife." Draco nodded, and Burke turned to Caffrey, who was sitting at the opposite end of the couch from Astoria--from Kate, goddamn it--staring at her like she'd grown a second head.
"And you," he said to Caffrey, barely contained rage trembling in his voice, "you broke into a locked storehouse last night, and made off with one of his confiscated cursed magical paintings that will cause you or anyone who touches it to suffer a slow, painful, irreversible death?"
Caffrey shrugged at him, offering a shaky ghost of a smile. "Apparently?"
Burke sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I was going to have a quiet Sunday with my wife," he muttered. "That's all I wanted. Why is that so hard?"
***
"Neal," Kate said, when they'd finally been allowed to step into the privacy of the kitchen. Her voice was thick with pleading, but he--god, he didn't want to hear it.
"Why is your accent American?" he asked her. It was the only question he could really fathom bringing up; everything else seemed too far out of the scope of reality. She sighed.
"There was a war," she said. "In Britain, in the Wizarding world, when I was a kid. My parents sent me to school here, because my sister had such a hard time adjusting, and they just thought--"
"You have a sister?" he choked out. She looked horrified at herself, but she nodded, and then redirected her gaze to the ground. She wouldn't look at him, and Neal... Neal felt like his world was imploding. "I..."
He stopped.
He had no idea what to say to her.
"I think you should go," he told her, finally. She opened her mouth to argue and he said "Kate--that's not even your real name, god, this is so fucked up--whoever you are. You should go."
"Neal," she said, her eyes wide and tearful. "I don't--"
"I can't do this right now!" he snapped at her. "I wish I could, but I can't. It's too much. I'm not--" he ran a hand through his hair and thought, very hard, about picking up one of the vases on the counter and throwing it into the wall. Then he pulled himself together, tried to remember how to rebuild the wall of casual indifference he'd worked so hard to put up in the first place.
He sighed, and offered her a wan smile, a thin sliver of his usual charm. "I'm not saying never," he said gently. "Just not right now, okay? Not today." She nodded, swallowed hard, and walked out of the room.
When she was gone, Neal leaned against the counter for a minute, breathing heavily. It had cost him more self-control than he'd imagined it would to keep his cool with her, and it took him a minute to collect himself. When he went back into the living room, Peter was sitting alone on the couch.
"Holmes and Watson locked themselves in your bedroom," he said, in response to Neal's questioning look. "Something about neutralizing that painting you stole."
Neal sighed and sank onto the couch, next to him. "Fuck," he muttered.
Peter, to his surprise, put a hand on his back. He leaned hopeless, helplessly, in to touch, and tried not to wonder why.
"Uh," Peter said, uncomfortably. "If it's any comfort, there's no way you could possibly have predicted any of that."
Neal looked up to the ceiling and thought about that. After a moment, he started laughing--because what else could you do, really? He started laughing and couldn't stop, let it fill him, let himself ride on the waves of hysteria until everything seemed a little more sane.
When he could breathe properly again, he leaned into Peter's touch a little more, surprised when he didn't feel any resistance. "This has been the weirdest day ever" he muttered.
"You're telling me," Peter replied.
"I'm sorry about your day with your wife," Neal said, after a long moment. Peter shrugged and moved his hand across his back, just once--almost a caress, but not quite.
"She'll get over it," he said. "She always does."
***
Draco stared at the Muggles through the observation charm Potter had put on the door. It was quite the touching little picture they painted, he thought bitterly: Caffrey and his watchdog. It was enough to make you sick up on your shoes.
He felt Potter's presence behind him--it wasn't exactly an unfamiliar sensation. He sighed, mostly because he didn't have the energy for this anymore. "What do you want, Harry?" he asked, and felt Potter's sharp intake of breath at the use of his given name.
Potter gestured at the Muggles. "Remind you of anything?"
Draco sighed again, and moved away. Potter was staring at him, that odd, fierce expression on his face, and Draco could just punch him for it. "Of course it does," he spat, hating Potter and the world and today. "Planning on leaving the Weaslette?"
Potter looked at him for just long enough for Draco to start to hope, despite himself--maybe this time--but then he shook his head, looking heartbroken.
"I can't," he whispered, and Draco turned away.
"Then we've nothing else to discuss," he bit out, hoping he didn't sound as pathetic as he felt. "You just finish up with that painting, and then we can Obliviate the Muggles and go the fuck home."
***
Neal wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting here, head in his hands, with his FBI tail's hand on his back. It was...he knew this wasn't normal, and he'd said as much.
Peter had shrugged. "The little blonde one," he'd replied, "he said something earlier that makes me think we're not going to remember this anyway." Neal had looked up, startled, and Peter had laughed. "Do you actually want to remember today?"
This part, Neal had thought, and immediately tried to unthink it. "If I forget," he'd replied quickly, and then he'd stopped and run a frustrated hand through his hair. "Maybe it would be better."
"You don't think she'd tell you, eventually?"
Neal had stared at the ground. "Do you?"
Peter had sighed, and he'd rubbed Neal's back a little harder, and Neal had figured fuck it and dropped his head onto Peter's shoulder. They hadn't spoken since then.
They were both a little surprised when the door opened, and Harry and Draco stepped out of it, the painting floating in front of them.
"Guess that answers the question of whether you boys can really do magic," Peter said. Neal lifted his head from Peter's shoulder and stared.
"Is there--" he said, and found his mouth had gone all dry. "There's not any way you could show me how to do that, is there?" He stood up and move towards the floating painting, moving delicately around it. "The practical uses alone," he murmured, and heard Peter stand up behind him.
"Don't teach him to do that," he commanded. Harry smiled.
"Couldn't anyway. Magic's something you're born with."
Neal stared at the floating painting with unconcealed longing. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I'm more than willing to put in the time--"
"I'm sure," Harry said, firmly. Neal sighed regretfully.
"That's a shame," he said. Then he stepped away from the painting and smiled at them, his best smile. "Any way I can talk you out of wiping our memories? I promise I'll be good."
***
"I promise I'll be good," Caffrey said, and Draco snorted with distaste. Next to him, Harry made a small noise--he was disgusted to realize that the thief's blatant attempt at manipulative charm was having an effect on him.
"Keep it in your pants, Potter," he muttered under his breath, and was rewarded with a scandalized look and a hot flush to Harry's cheeks. He turned to Caffrey.
"No," he said, "I'm afraid that won't be possible." Caffrey's face fell and he glanced longingly at Burke--oh. Oh, how utterly hilarious. Astoria had signed herself up for the same train wreck twice. Draco's mind worked quickly; there had to be a way to make this work in his favor.
"Right," he said smoothly. "Here's what's going to happen. Potter's going to take Burke down the the nearest bar--"
"That's not the plan!" Potter said hotly. "I'm going to stay here with Caffrey and you're going to take Burke--"
"What-so-you-can-molest-him-you-dirty-pervert?" Draco hissed, all in one breath. Harry colored, glared at him, and shut up. "As I was saying, I will stay here and Potter will take Burke to the bar."
"Why can't you just erase both of our memories here?" Neal asked. He had resumed his fascinated circling of the painting, and wasn't paying much attention. Before either he or Harry could answer, Burke sighed.
"Because then we'd both be here, with no memory of when or why I'd shown up," he said, sounding exasperated. "Honestly, Caffrey, you're supposed to be a criminal mastermind, don't make me do all the work."
"I'm a little distracted here," Caffrey said, without looking up from the painting. "Do you have any idea-- "
"How useful that skill would be for you?" Burke responded, dryly. "Yes, actually. But since I'm the guy who has to catch you, I don't exactly feel like standing around while you learn new tricks."
"Spoilsport," Caffrey muttered.
"Felon," Burke shot back. Draco looked at him with new eyes, and reconsidered the plan he'd set out. On the one hand, revenge did sound good. On the other hand, Burke had a certain something....
"Burke!" Potter barked. "Bar. Now." Burke raised his eyebrows at the order, looking ready to argue, and then sighed.
"Not going to remember this anyway," he muttered. He turned to Caffrey. "Do me a favor and stay out of trouble. Or get into trouble on camera, I'm good either way."
Caffrey stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. Draco, who knew a forced smile when he saw one, almost felt bad for him. "I'm not in the business of making it easy for you to catch me," he said, and Burke actually laughed.
"Don't I know it," he answered. Then he reached out a hand, ruffled Caffrey's hair, and said, "Take care of yourself."
"You too," Caffrey said, and then they were gone.
***
"You too," Neal said, and watched them go. That Potter guy had been--well, Neal would have preferred to spend a few minutes with him than with Kate's bitchy ex-husband, if he'd had a choice.
Still, he swallowed his regret and turned to Draco. "So," he asked, sprawling across his favorite armchair, "how does this work? Do you have to brew a magic potion? Is there wand waving?" He took a sip of the wine he'd poured into his glass hours ago, made a face at the taste, and then shrugged and took another sip. He needed the alcohol more than the flavor.
The blond rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to get me to reveal trade secrets," he snapped, "you're going to forget about them anyway."
"Can't blame a man for trying," Neal said, grinning.
Draco scowled. Then, suddenly he grinned back--Neal had never been met with a smile more calculated that his own, and was badly startled. "I think," Draco said, still smiling, advancing, edging on terrifying, "that we have something in common."
Neal raised both eyebrows. "Do you mean taste in art, taste in women, or dress sense?" he asked, curious. "I like that suit, by the way."
Draco's smile slipped off his face at once; as Neal watched his features settled into annoyance, an expression that looked a lot more normal on him. "You are incredibly irritating," he muttered, "I hope you know that."
Neal's own smile widened. "I've been told."
"Yes, well." Draco waved a hand. "Let's get right to the point: you're attracted to your friend."
Neal's eyebrows shot right up into his hairline, and his own smile vanished. He said "He's not my friend," which was not what he meant to do at all, and Draco laughed.
"Friend, pursuant, enemy--I don't care what you call him. You're attracted to him."
"No, I'm not--" Neal started, and Draco took a step forward, leaned into Neal's personal space.
"Yes," he hissed, "you are."
Neal was surprised to notice a strange sensation spreading through his body, a sensation he had previously associated with Kate. It wasn't so much attraction as it was....like his skin was a little bit on fire, like electricity was coursing through his veins. He'd always assumed it was something about her that did that to him.
Now, he realized it was magic.
"What's it to you if I am," he snapped, getting up and moving away. "I'm not planning on leaving Kate for him, if that's what you're worried about. He's married, for fuck's sake. It's nothing."
Draco smirked. Then he pulled a stick out of his pocket--oh my god, was that a wand?--and muttered something in Latin. Neal watched in fascinated shock as his features shifted, shifted until he looked exactly like Peter. "I think it's something," he purred, and Neal was horrified to notice something coming to attention down below. "I think you're just too afraid of what it might mean to see that." He pushed Neal into the wall, held him there with one hand. "Don't you agree?"
"I think you're a little too close to me, that's what I think," Neal said, and smiled brightly at him. He was panicking, but there was no point letting him know that. "Unless there's something I can do for you--"
Irritation passed over Peter's--over Draco's face for a split second. Neal took a moment to admire the man's facial control. "Maybe there is," Draco said.
"Look," Neal started, a little more breathily than he really intended, "I'm not--" and then the irritation was back on Draco's face, firmly in place.
"Goddamn it!" he said. "You're not going to remember this in the morning! Just go ahead and try it, it won't mean anything and I know you're wondering. Stop being obnoxious and just--"
So Neal kissed him. It seemed the best way to shut him up.
***
The little twerp was kissing him. Draco felt success screaming through his body, the promise of revenge close and beautiful, like a fine wine, like--
Oh. Caffrey was actually rather good at that, wasn't he? Unconsciously, Draco made a noise and shifted under Caffrey's hands. Caffrey moaned "Peter," into his mouth and bucked up into him, and Draco opened his eyes and saw--
--messy black hair and long calloused fingers. The face was wrong but--but god, if he squinted, he looked almost like--
"Harry," Draco murmured. Caffrey pulled back and smiled at him, a knowing, dirty smile.
"I'll play yours if you'll play mine," he said, and when Draco gasped "Done," Caffrey pulled him down to the floor.
It wasn't as good as it had been with Harry. Caffrey was a little thinner and a little taller, and he was so damn submissive--Draco missed arguing in bed, missed the brutal back-and-forth of snapping orders. Caffrey just did what he was told, saying "Yes, Peter," and smiling like he'd never been more thrilled and spreading himself for Draco's cock.
Still, it was the best Draco'd had since that morning he'd woken up to an empty bed, with a note that said "I have to try. I'm sorry. -H" pinned to his pillow. It was the closest he'd come, Caffrey's dark hair against his skin, Caffrey's eyes piercing and light enough to almost pass as Harry's.
He came in a shuddering burst, thinking of Harry, and fell off of Caffrey at once, collapsing onto the concrete floor. Caffrey stared at him--at the glamour, Draco remembered, and resisted the urge to remove it--and finished himself off, coming in slow, gasping strokes. Then he smiled, a brilliant, stunning smile, and said "Thank you."
"Obliviate," Draco replied, and watched in mild regret as Caffrey's face went slack and empty. Selective memory charms were a particular talent of Draco's--his mother had asked for one nearly every day during the war--and he'd been careful to leave some of their encounter in the back of Caffrey's mind. He'd think it was a dream, and it would be hazy like one, but he'd remember it; the way "Peter's" hands had felt on his skin, the way "Peter's" cock had felt inside him. Draco could only hope it would help.
Of course, he'd be planning to record the whole thing and send it to Astoria as a parting gift, but he found himself in an oddly good mood. No reason to bother her with that--it was obvious that she'd have to deal with the real thing soon enough.
Draco whistled cheerfully to himself, levitated Caffrey into bed, and went to find Potter. He was looking forward to going home.
Epilogue
Neal woke up gasping. "What--" he started, and then he looked around. He was in his bedroom, with Kate sitting in a chair next to him. His eyes hurt in the light.
"What happened?" he asked, finally. He was surprised how weak his voice was. Kate pursed her lips and sighed.
"You ran yourself ragged," she said, "again. Three jobs in one night, Neal, I told you not to do that." She held up a cold compress and reached up to put it to his head, and he edged away from her instinctively.
"Neal?" she said. Her voice was high and...almost panicked, which Neal though was weird. Fuck, but his head hurt. "What is it?"
He stared at her. He felt--he felt like there was something--like he shouldn't want her to touch him. But that was crazy, wasn't it? He loved her, didn't he?
He smiled, hesitantly, settled back against his pillows, and let her put the compress to his forehead. It felt good, cold and brilliant, and he felt himself slipping back to sleep already.
"Weird dreams," he muttered, with his eyes shutting. He saw her mouth quiver, like it did when she was going to cry--he thought about opening his eyes, but her voice sounded steady when she spoke.
"You have no idea," she said. That's an odd thing to say, he thought, and he promised himself he'd ask her about it, just as soon as he got some rest.
So, uh. Here you guys go.
Title: Yours for Mine
Fandom: Harry Potter/White Collar crossover
Rating: R
Pairings: Neal/Draco, Neal/Peter, Neal/Kate. Previous Harry/Draco and Draco/Astoria. Offscreen Harry/Ginny and Peter/El.
Warnings: Be warned! This is UNUSUAL.
Summary: You can't always get what you want, but there's nothing wrong with a decent copy.
Neal Caffrey wasn't an easily distracted man. When he had a target, he stuck to it. It was what had made him such an excellent thief--he wasn't subject to the whims and fancies of most of the criminal element. If he was after a 2 carat diamond, he wouldn't scrap his whole operation to go after a 4 carat one; there would always be time, later, to come back for it.
But sometimes, even the most focused mind could be tempted.
He...stared. He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten into this room; it wasn't on any floor plan he'd ever seen, and he'd checked the floor plans pretty damn carefully. He'd taken the right turn that was supposed to take him to the side entrance, and then he'd slipped and leaned into the brick wall to catch himself--
--and now he was here, in the middle of any thief's wet dream. Neal, who was nothing if not experienced in the art of checking for surveillance, had swept the room with great attention. There were no cameras. There were no laser motion sensors. There weren't even weight detectors on the damn pedestals.
He was in a room full of completely unguarded art.
Admittedly, he hadn't seen any of it before--none of it even bore a passing resemblance to anything he'd ever encountered. Still, it wasn't hard to tell that it was valuable. That one statue alone had a ruby sitting on it the size of a grapefruit, and he'd never seen paintings so...so alive.
Neal Caffrey looked around the room, flexed his fingers in his gloves, and tried to decide. It wouldn't do to be greedy.
***
"Goddamn it, Malfoy, open the fucking door."
Draco Malfoy sighed, swirled the mimosa in his glass, and raised his eyes to the heavens. It was so tiresome, having callers at this hour. He could hardly be blamed for making his impolite guest wait.
Still, it sounded like Potter, and Potter was likely to bang the damn door down if he waited too long. Draco sighed again and, against his better instincts, waved a hand.
The door opened. Potter, who looked as though he'd been planning on trying to break the door down, barreled through. He recovered well enough, straightening and brushing off his clothes, but Draco still had a clear upper hand, something he always relished with this particular Auror.
Well, with anyone, really, but that was neither here nor there.
"Potter," he drawled. "I might have known it was you--I can't think of anyone else in the wizarding world boorish enough to knock on my door at 5 AM." Potter just scowled at him, and Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Care to explain why, exactly, you've dragged me out of bed? I can't imagine this is a social call."
"Look," Potter said, angrily, "don't start with me. I know you've got it, and I don't want to have to bring you in. Just give it over and we can pretend this never happened, alright?"
Draco raised both eyebrows now, genuinely confused. "I'm sorry," he said, "but what on earth are you talking about?"
Potter slammed a hand down on the table and yelled "Goddamn it, Malfoy!" Draco took an instinctive step back. It was not at all that he was afraid of Potter, that would be gauche and ridiculous, but he did have a healthy sense of self preservation and first-hand knowledge of Potter's ability to maim. He eyed Potter as though he was likely to catch fire.
"I am more than happy to return whatever property it is you're seeking," Draco said mildly. He meant it, too--there was nothing left in the house that he'd have particularly minded parting with. "I'll need you to do me the small favor of telling me what it is first."
"You're honestly going to try and tell me you have no idea why I'm here?" Potter asked him. There was fire behind his eyes, and Draco was a little too interested in that.
"I'm not trying to tell you that, Potter," he snapped. "I am telling you that. What do you want?"
Potter glared at him. "The Simpatico painting," he hissed, furious. "It's been stolen."
--
Three hours later, they were in the Portkey office at the Ministry, still bickering. "I can't believe you thought I'd be so stupid," Draco said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
"I still think you could have been," Potter muttered, but then he sighed at Draco's dirty look and said "Fine. Fine! I don't think you took it. But you can't blame me--you said you would, when the Ministry confiscated it."
"First of all," Draco said, eyes narrowed, "that was more than six years ago. Secondly, the Ministry didn't 'confiscate' it, they stole it, along with everything else of worth in my house--and I don't give a fuck about your reparations malarky, Potter, so don't even try." Potter, who'd had his mouth open around a rant, closed it sullenly. "And thirdly," Draco said, triumphantly, "why the Ministry's been keeping the damn thing in America is simply beyond me."
"Let me see if I can make this clear for you," Potter said. His voice was drawn out, mockingly slow, as though Draco were two years old. "You said you were going to steal your stuff back, so we thought it would be wise to keep it far away from you."
Draco raised his eyebrowss and gave Potter a triumphant smile. "What?" Potter snapped, exasperated. "What now?"
"You admitted it was my stuff," Draco said, still grinning. Potter groaned.
"We've got three days," he said, apparently determined to ignore Draco's logic. "After that, I'm going to be obligated to throw you in Azkaban whether I think you're innocent or not. I hope you have a pretty good idea of where to start."
"Oh, I've got an idea, alright," Draco said. He felt the tug of the Portkey before Potter could ask him any questions, and he was oddly grateful.
***
"Neal," Mozzie said, stepping away from it. "Paintings don't move."
Neal rolled his eyes and sighed. "Really?" he asked. "They don't? I had no idea."
Mozz put his head in his hands. "I don't know why you're not more concerned about this!" he wailed. "First you go off and take an extra piece on a job--"
"It was a completely unmonitored room full of art, Mozz, what would you have had me do--"
"And now you're dismissing the fact that it's moving around!" Mozz lifted his head long enough to glare at Neal and added, bitterly, "You would be able to break laws of physics, too. That is so like you."
"Mozz--" Neal tried, and Mozz waved a hand.
"I don't want to talk to you for at least ten minutes."
"Mozzie, come on--"
"Minutes, Neal. Not seconds. Minutes. I am not above setting a timer."
"Well, I think it's fascinating," Kate said, peering at it. "There must be some kind of AI wired to it, or something."
Neal grinned at her and wiggled his eyebrows. "Maybe it's magic," he said, and didn't miss the wistful look that passed momentarily over her face. Kate had always been one for mysticism and grand gestures. He moved to crouch next to her, examining it.
"I think if I take it out of the canvas, I should be able to find..." He trailed off, reaching out curiously.
"NO!" Kate cried, slapping his hand away. He was so badly startled he fell back, landing on the floor.
"Hey!" he snapped. "What the hell?"
"I just--" she sighed, and looked wistfully at the painting again. "I just don't think you should touch it."
Neal stared at her in honest confusion. "I'm not planning on selling it," he said, "it's too unusual. If anyone ever gets to the point where they find my prints on it, I'm already in way over my head."
"It's not that," she said. "Just--don't touch it, ok? If you're going to handle it, wear the gloves. Promise me."
She was looking at him with such open terror in her eyes that he nodded, and she let out of breath of relief. "Thank you," she said, and kissed him.
In the corner, Mozzie moaned. "A moving painting that's unsafe to touch. I knew I should have paid better attention to my karma."
***
Harry looked at the door skeptically. "You're sure, Malfoy?"
"I doubt he's moved," Draco drawled. "Didn't seem the type. He's a settle-down sort of guy--a lot like you that way." He'd infused as much scorn as possible into that last, and was pleased to see it had achieved the desired effect; Potter scowled viciously at him.
"Fine," he spat, and knocked.
"Coming!" The voice was light, airy, and unmistakably female--Potter raised his eyebrows in the universal expression of "I told you so," and Draco sighed.
"That'd be his wife," he said, just as the door opened. A bright faced, smiling brunette looked at them curiously.
"I'll warn you," she said, still smiling, "whatever it is, we're probably not interested."
"We're, er," Potter said. He put an uncomfortable hand to the back of his neck. "We're not selling anything. We're looking for, er, an Agent Peter Burke? Is this still his residence?"
"Oh!" she said. "Um, yes. I'll just...get him." She eyed both of them with friendly enough suspicion, clearly toying with the idea of inviting them in. Draco smiled at her, and that seemed to make up her mind. "I'll be right back."
She left them there on the stoop, though she was kind enough to leave the door open.
"I hope you have a good reason for bothering these people on a Sunday," Potter hissed. Draco rolled his eyes.
"Yes," he said, "because I dragged you across the Atlantic to waste time bothering hapless Americans instead of trying to clear my name. I do so relish the idea of prison time. You got me!"
Potter opened his mouth, probably to spit back something nasty, but Draco was saved by the appearance of Burke. He looked just exactly as nondescript as he had the last time Draco had paid him a visit.
"I'm Agent Burke," he said. "Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "I'm Harry Potter. I'm with, uh, British Intelligence." Draco winced at the lie--Potter could have at least put a little effort into it, Burke was a smart enough guy and he was looking increasingly ready to shoot at them. "And, uh, this is--"
"We've met," Draco cut him off. Burke narrowed his eyes.
"I don't recall--"
"No," Draco said, smoothly. "You wouldn't. Draco Malfoy." He held out a hand and Burke shook it, his eyes still narrowed. Draco sighed.
"Look," he said, "I'll cut to the chase. We're looking for Neal Caffrey."
From the way Burke's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, Draco knew he'd come to the right place.
***
"I can't believe you're making me hide it," Neal complained. "You don't even live here."
"I can't believe you want to eat looking at a moving painting!" Mozzie cried. The amount of hysteria in his voice had been edging up with every consecutive hour, and he was now speaking in more of a squeak than anything else. "I can't believe it doesn't make you nervous! I can't believe you don't want to hide it!"
Neal eyed him and sighed, shoving his shoes to one side. "You're weird," he informed Mozz, who rolled his eyes. "I want you to know that."
"The man steals a moving painting on a whim and I'm the weird one," Mozzie muttered. He was still muttering when they went back into the living room, sans painting.
"I do feel better with it in the other room," Kate admitted, and Neal laughed and dropped a kiss into her hair.
"It's cute when you're weird," he told her, and she smiled up at him. Mozz just glared.
The knock on the door startled all of them; Neal froze, his eyes roaming the room for escape routes, Mozz scuttled automatically toward the fire escape, and Kate made a resigned little noise.
"You expecting anyone?" she asked, and when Neal shook his head, still planning the best way to get all three of them out, she sighed. "Right. I'll get it."
Before Neal could stop her, she'd stood, crossed to the threshold, and swung the door wide. He ran towards it, ready to give himself up to whatever embittered thug had come looking for him if it meant protecting her--
--and gasped when he saw who was on the other side. "Peter?" he said, shocked. The FBI agent shrugged, complete confusion written in every crevice of his face.
"Draco," Kate said, next to him. She appeared to be speaking to the blonde man, who was eying her with distaste.
"Astoria," he said. "It's been too long."
***
"Astoria," Draco said, "It's been too long." She didn't even look surprised to see him, the bitch--she'd probably been expecting him since Caffrey had shown up with the painting.
"Not long enough," she shot back coolly. God, he hated her. "How'd you figure it out so fast?" Next to her, Caffrey was opening and shutting his mouth like a stunned fish, which filled Draco with a certain amount of sick pleasure. It was...not a small amount. He shrugged.
"No wizard would be idiot enough to try and steal it," he said, "and that storeroom is set so Muggles can't get in. Had to be someone with enough exposure to magic to trip the sensors, or," he smiled at her, not without bitterness, "you. Either way, made the most sense to check here first."
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I honestly thought I'd seen the last of you."
"That feeling is mutual!" Draco snapped. "For Merlin's sake, Astoria, they want to throw me in Azkaban for this, what did you expect me to do? "
"Um," Caffrey said. "I--I think there's been some kind of mix-up." He smiled winsomely, though his eyes betrayed his deep confusion. "This is Kate Moreau. I don't know the Astoria you're talking about, but--"
"Neal," Astoria--no, Draco thought, mockingly, Kate--said quietly. "He means me."
"Is that some alias you never told me about?"
She sighed. "No. Damn it." She turned to the men in the doorway. "You'd better come in."
***
"You'd better come in," Kate said. Neal stared at her in disbelief.
"You're inviting them in now?" he asked, his voice cracking. "You're can't tell me what this is about first?"
She just walked into the apartment. The blond--Draco? What kind of a name was Draco?--started following her, but Neal held up a hand. "Alright," he said, "I at least want your names."
The blond guy raised a lazy eyebrow. "Draco Malfoy," he drawled in that high-brow accent--Wiltshire, maybe?--and breezed past Neal without another word. The other guy, with the dark hair, sighed and held out his hand. Neal took it automatically; regardless of the circumstance, he was hardwired for civility.
"Harry Potter," the man said. His accent was as thick as Malfoy's, but at least sounded a little less austere. "I'm really sorry about him. I'd like to say it's just today, but he's pretty much always like that."
"That must be such fun for you," Neal quipped, and Harry rolled his eyes.
"You've no idea. Do you mind if I...?" He gestured into the room and Neal nodded, moving aside.
"Make yourself comfortable," he said, because he wasn't sure what choice he had. Harry nodded his thanks and moved past.
Which left Neal standing in his threshold, staring at Peter Burke.
"Please tell me you have some idea what this is about," Peter said. He looked furious and at sea and deeply, utterly annoyed. Neal felt better already.
"No idea," he said. Peter gave him a probing look and he amended "Alright, some idea. An inkling of an idea."
"Caffrey," Peter groaned, "what did you do," and Neal smiled at him.
"Nothing worse than usual!" he said, cheerily enough, considering. "Want a drink?"
"I don't trust you not to poison it," Peter muttered, but he followed Neal inside.
Draco and Kate were bickering in the kitchen--Mozzie had, as Neal had rather expected, fled the scene. "And you wonder why I left you," she snapped. "It was always like this. He was always lurking around and everything was always my fault and--"
"Oh, right," Draco scoffed, "your biggest problem with our marriage was Harry fucking Potter, that's really rich--"
"You were married?" Neal said, his voice cracking again. Kate looked up to him with wide, scared eyes, and a hand clapped his shoulder. He turned around, and was surprised to find it was Peter's.
"I think," Harry said, "that maybe we should all sit down and talk about this for a minute."
***
"Lemme get this straight," Agent Burke said, half an hour later. "You," he pointed at Potter, "are the head of the British magical police." Potter nodded--it was close enough. Burke moved his outstretched finger to point at Draco, who grimaced at it. "And you," he continued, "are a reformed magical criminal?"
"For a given value of 'reformed,'" Draco drawled, dryly. "Sure."
Burke nodded slowly, as though trying to process this. "She--" he pointed at Astoria, "is a witch, and your ex-wife." Draco nodded, and Burke turned to Caffrey, who was sitting at the opposite end of the couch from Astoria--from Kate, goddamn it--staring at her like she'd grown a second head.
"And you," he said to Caffrey, barely contained rage trembling in his voice, "you broke into a locked storehouse last night, and made off with one of his confiscated cursed magical paintings that will cause you or anyone who touches it to suffer a slow, painful, irreversible death?"
Caffrey shrugged at him, offering a shaky ghost of a smile. "Apparently?"
Burke sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I was going to have a quiet Sunday with my wife," he muttered. "That's all I wanted. Why is that so hard?"
***
"Neal," Kate said, when they'd finally been allowed to step into the privacy of the kitchen. Her voice was thick with pleading, but he--god, he didn't want to hear it.
"Why is your accent American?" he asked her. It was the only question he could really fathom bringing up; everything else seemed too far out of the scope of reality. She sighed.
"There was a war," she said. "In Britain, in the Wizarding world, when I was a kid. My parents sent me to school here, because my sister had such a hard time adjusting, and they just thought--"
"You have a sister?" he choked out. She looked horrified at herself, but she nodded, and then redirected her gaze to the ground. She wouldn't look at him, and Neal... Neal felt like his world was imploding. "I..."
He stopped.
He had no idea what to say to her.
"I think you should go," he told her, finally. She opened her mouth to argue and he said "Kate--that's not even your real name, god, this is so fucked up--whoever you are. You should go."
"Neal," she said, her eyes wide and tearful. "I don't--"
"I can't do this right now!" he snapped at her. "I wish I could, but I can't. It's too much. I'm not--" he ran a hand through his hair and thought, very hard, about picking up one of the vases on the counter and throwing it into the wall. Then he pulled himself together, tried to remember how to rebuild the wall of casual indifference he'd worked so hard to put up in the first place.
He sighed, and offered her a wan smile, a thin sliver of his usual charm. "I'm not saying never," he said gently. "Just not right now, okay? Not today." She nodded, swallowed hard, and walked out of the room.
When she was gone, Neal leaned against the counter for a minute, breathing heavily. It had cost him more self-control than he'd imagined it would to keep his cool with her, and it took him a minute to collect himself. When he went back into the living room, Peter was sitting alone on the couch.
"Holmes and Watson locked themselves in your bedroom," he said, in response to Neal's questioning look. "Something about neutralizing that painting you stole."
Neal sighed and sank onto the couch, next to him. "Fuck," he muttered.
Peter, to his surprise, put a hand on his back. He leaned hopeless, helplessly, in to touch, and tried not to wonder why.
"Uh," Peter said, uncomfortably. "If it's any comfort, there's no way you could possibly have predicted any of that."
Neal looked up to the ceiling and thought about that. After a moment, he started laughing--because what else could you do, really? He started laughing and couldn't stop, let it fill him, let himself ride on the waves of hysteria until everything seemed a little more sane.
When he could breathe properly again, he leaned into Peter's touch a little more, surprised when he didn't feel any resistance. "This has been the weirdest day ever" he muttered.
"You're telling me," Peter replied.
"I'm sorry about your day with your wife," Neal said, after a long moment. Peter shrugged and moved his hand across his back, just once--almost a caress, but not quite.
"She'll get over it," he said. "She always does."
***
Draco stared at the Muggles through the observation charm Potter had put on the door. It was quite the touching little picture they painted, he thought bitterly: Caffrey and his watchdog. It was enough to make you sick up on your shoes.
He felt Potter's presence behind him--it wasn't exactly an unfamiliar sensation. He sighed, mostly because he didn't have the energy for this anymore. "What do you want, Harry?" he asked, and felt Potter's sharp intake of breath at the use of his given name.
Potter gestured at the Muggles. "Remind you of anything?"
Draco sighed again, and moved away. Potter was staring at him, that odd, fierce expression on his face, and Draco could just punch him for it. "Of course it does," he spat, hating Potter and the world and today. "Planning on leaving the Weaslette?"
Potter looked at him for just long enough for Draco to start to hope, despite himself--maybe this time--but then he shook his head, looking heartbroken.
"I can't," he whispered, and Draco turned away.
"Then we've nothing else to discuss," he bit out, hoping he didn't sound as pathetic as he felt. "You just finish up with that painting, and then we can Obliviate the Muggles and go the fuck home."
***
Neal wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting here, head in his hands, with his FBI tail's hand on his back. It was...he knew this wasn't normal, and he'd said as much.
Peter had shrugged. "The little blonde one," he'd replied, "he said something earlier that makes me think we're not going to remember this anyway." Neal had looked up, startled, and Peter had laughed. "Do you actually want to remember today?"
This part, Neal had thought, and immediately tried to unthink it. "If I forget," he'd replied quickly, and then he'd stopped and run a frustrated hand through his hair. "Maybe it would be better."
"You don't think she'd tell you, eventually?"
Neal had stared at the ground. "Do you?"
Peter had sighed, and he'd rubbed Neal's back a little harder, and Neal had figured fuck it and dropped his head onto Peter's shoulder. They hadn't spoken since then.
They were both a little surprised when the door opened, and Harry and Draco stepped out of it, the painting floating in front of them.
"Guess that answers the question of whether you boys can really do magic," Peter said. Neal lifted his head from Peter's shoulder and stared.
"Is there--" he said, and found his mouth had gone all dry. "There's not any way you could show me how to do that, is there?" He stood up and move towards the floating painting, moving delicately around it. "The practical uses alone," he murmured, and heard Peter stand up behind him.
"Don't teach him to do that," he commanded. Harry smiled.
"Couldn't anyway. Magic's something you're born with."
Neal stared at the floating painting with unconcealed longing. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I'm more than willing to put in the time--"
"I'm sure," Harry said, firmly. Neal sighed regretfully.
"That's a shame," he said. Then he stepped away from the painting and smiled at them, his best smile. "Any way I can talk you out of wiping our memories? I promise I'll be good."
***
"I promise I'll be good," Caffrey said, and Draco snorted with distaste. Next to him, Harry made a small noise--he was disgusted to realize that the thief's blatant attempt at manipulative charm was having an effect on him.
"Keep it in your pants, Potter," he muttered under his breath, and was rewarded with a scandalized look and a hot flush to Harry's cheeks. He turned to Caffrey.
"No," he said, "I'm afraid that won't be possible." Caffrey's face fell and he glanced longingly at Burke--oh. Oh, how utterly hilarious. Astoria had signed herself up for the same train wreck twice. Draco's mind worked quickly; there had to be a way to make this work in his favor.
"Right," he said smoothly. "Here's what's going to happen. Potter's going to take Burke down the the nearest bar--"
"That's not the plan!" Potter said hotly. "I'm going to stay here with Caffrey and you're going to take Burke--"
"What-so-you-can-molest-him-you-dirty-pervert?" Draco hissed, all in one breath. Harry colored, glared at him, and shut up. "As I was saying, I will stay here and Potter will take Burke to the bar."
"Why can't you just erase both of our memories here?" Neal asked. He had resumed his fascinated circling of the painting, and wasn't paying much attention. Before either he or Harry could answer, Burke sighed.
"Because then we'd both be here, with no memory of when or why I'd shown up," he said, sounding exasperated. "Honestly, Caffrey, you're supposed to be a criminal mastermind, don't make me do all the work."
"I'm a little distracted here," Caffrey said, without looking up from the painting. "Do you have any idea-- "
"How useful that skill would be for you?" Burke responded, dryly. "Yes, actually. But since I'm the guy who has to catch you, I don't exactly feel like standing around while you learn new tricks."
"Spoilsport," Caffrey muttered.
"Felon," Burke shot back. Draco looked at him with new eyes, and reconsidered the plan he'd set out. On the one hand, revenge did sound good. On the other hand, Burke had a certain something....
"Burke!" Potter barked. "Bar. Now." Burke raised his eyebrows at the order, looking ready to argue, and then sighed.
"Not going to remember this anyway," he muttered. He turned to Caffrey. "Do me a favor and stay out of trouble. Or get into trouble on camera, I'm good either way."
Caffrey stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. Draco, who knew a forced smile when he saw one, almost felt bad for him. "I'm not in the business of making it easy for you to catch me," he said, and Burke actually laughed.
"Don't I know it," he answered. Then he reached out a hand, ruffled Caffrey's hair, and said, "Take care of yourself."
"You too," Caffrey said, and then they were gone.
***
"You too," Neal said, and watched them go. That Potter guy had been--well, Neal would have preferred to spend a few minutes with him than with Kate's bitchy ex-husband, if he'd had a choice.
Still, he swallowed his regret and turned to Draco. "So," he asked, sprawling across his favorite armchair, "how does this work? Do you have to brew a magic potion? Is there wand waving?" He took a sip of the wine he'd poured into his glass hours ago, made a face at the taste, and then shrugged and took another sip. He needed the alcohol more than the flavor.
The blond rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to get me to reveal trade secrets," he snapped, "you're going to forget about them anyway."
"Can't blame a man for trying," Neal said, grinning.
Draco scowled. Then, suddenly he grinned back--Neal had never been met with a smile more calculated that his own, and was badly startled. "I think," Draco said, still smiling, advancing, edging on terrifying, "that we have something in common."
Neal raised both eyebrows. "Do you mean taste in art, taste in women, or dress sense?" he asked, curious. "I like that suit, by the way."
Draco's smile slipped off his face at once; as Neal watched his features settled into annoyance, an expression that looked a lot more normal on him. "You are incredibly irritating," he muttered, "I hope you know that."
Neal's own smile widened. "I've been told."
"Yes, well." Draco waved a hand. "Let's get right to the point: you're attracted to your friend."
Neal's eyebrows shot right up into his hairline, and his own smile vanished. He said "He's not my friend," which was not what he meant to do at all, and Draco laughed.
"Friend, pursuant, enemy--I don't care what you call him. You're attracted to him."
"No, I'm not--" Neal started, and Draco took a step forward, leaned into Neal's personal space.
"Yes," he hissed, "you are."
Neal was surprised to notice a strange sensation spreading through his body, a sensation he had previously associated with Kate. It wasn't so much attraction as it was....like his skin was a little bit on fire, like electricity was coursing through his veins. He'd always assumed it was something about her that did that to him.
Now, he realized it was magic.
"What's it to you if I am," he snapped, getting up and moving away. "I'm not planning on leaving Kate for him, if that's what you're worried about. He's married, for fuck's sake. It's nothing."
Draco smirked. Then he pulled a stick out of his pocket--oh my god, was that a wand?--and muttered something in Latin. Neal watched in fascinated shock as his features shifted, shifted until he looked exactly like Peter. "I think it's something," he purred, and Neal was horrified to notice something coming to attention down below. "I think you're just too afraid of what it might mean to see that." He pushed Neal into the wall, held him there with one hand. "Don't you agree?"
"I think you're a little too close to me, that's what I think," Neal said, and smiled brightly at him. He was panicking, but there was no point letting him know that. "Unless there's something I can do for you--"
Irritation passed over Peter's--over Draco's face for a split second. Neal took a moment to admire the man's facial control. "Maybe there is," Draco said.
"Look," Neal started, a little more breathily than he really intended, "I'm not--" and then the irritation was back on Draco's face, firmly in place.
"Goddamn it!" he said. "You're not going to remember this in the morning! Just go ahead and try it, it won't mean anything and I know you're wondering. Stop being obnoxious and just--"
So Neal kissed him. It seemed the best way to shut him up.
***
The little twerp was kissing him. Draco felt success screaming through his body, the promise of revenge close and beautiful, like a fine wine, like--
Oh. Caffrey was actually rather good at that, wasn't he? Unconsciously, Draco made a noise and shifted under Caffrey's hands. Caffrey moaned "Peter," into his mouth and bucked up into him, and Draco opened his eyes and saw--
--messy black hair and long calloused fingers. The face was wrong but--but god, if he squinted, he looked almost like--
"Harry," Draco murmured. Caffrey pulled back and smiled at him, a knowing, dirty smile.
"I'll play yours if you'll play mine," he said, and when Draco gasped "Done," Caffrey pulled him down to the floor.
It wasn't as good as it had been with Harry. Caffrey was a little thinner and a little taller, and he was so damn submissive--Draco missed arguing in bed, missed the brutal back-and-forth of snapping orders. Caffrey just did what he was told, saying "Yes, Peter," and smiling like he'd never been more thrilled and spreading himself for Draco's cock.
Still, it was the best Draco'd had since that morning he'd woken up to an empty bed, with a note that said "I have to try. I'm sorry. -H" pinned to his pillow. It was the closest he'd come, Caffrey's dark hair against his skin, Caffrey's eyes piercing and light enough to almost pass as Harry's.
He came in a shuddering burst, thinking of Harry, and fell off of Caffrey at once, collapsing onto the concrete floor. Caffrey stared at him--at the glamour, Draco remembered, and resisted the urge to remove it--and finished himself off, coming in slow, gasping strokes. Then he smiled, a brilliant, stunning smile, and said "Thank you."
"Obliviate," Draco replied, and watched in mild regret as Caffrey's face went slack and empty. Selective memory charms were a particular talent of Draco's--his mother had asked for one nearly every day during the war--and he'd been careful to leave some of their encounter in the back of Caffrey's mind. He'd think it was a dream, and it would be hazy like one, but he'd remember it; the way "Peter's" hands had felt on his skin, the way "Peter's" cock had felt inside him. Draco could only hope it would help.
Of course, he'd be planning to record the whole thing and send it to Astoria as a parting gift, but he found himself in an oddly good mood. No reason to bother her with that--it was obvious that she'd have to deal with the real thing soon enough.
Draco whistled cheerfully to himself, levitated Caffrey into bed, and went to find Potter. He was looking forward to going home.
Epilogue
Neal woke up gasping. "What--" he started, and then he looked around. He was in his bedroom, with Kate sitting in a chair next to him. His eyes hurt in the light.
"What happened?" he asked, finally. He was surprised how weak his voice was. Kate pursed her lips and sighed.
"You ran yourself ragged," she said, "again. Three jobs in one night, Neal, I told you not to do that." She held up a cold compress and reached up to put it to his head, and he edged away from her instinctively.
"Neal?" she said. Her voice was high and...almost panicked, which Neal though was weird. Fuck, but his head hurt. "What is it?"
He stared at her. He felt--he felt like there was something--like he shouldn't want her to touch him. But that was crazy, wasn't it? He loved her, didn't he?
He smiled, hesitantly, settled back against his pillows, and let her put the compress to his forehead. It felt good, cold and brilliant, and he felt himself slipping back to sleep already.
"Weird dreams," he muttered, with his eyes shutting. He saw her mouth quiver, like it did when she was going to cry--he thought about opening his eyes, but her voice sounded steady when she spoke.
"You have no idea," she said. That's an odd thing to say, he thought, and he promised himself he'd ask her about it, just as soon as he got some rest.