HAPPY H/D HOLIDAYS, ENCHANTED_JAE!
Author: nursedarry
Recipient: enchanted_jae
Title: This Foolish Lover's Game
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Blaise/Charlie
Summary: Harry and Ron are sent to elite Auror training. Guess who’s also there. Somehow, Harry and Draco manage to learn a few things and maybe even fall into bed in between the sniping and sparring to become the best of the best of the best.
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. All Top Gun characters herein are the property of the Scott estate and Paramount Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Crack, fluff, naughtiness, the threat of karaoke
Epilogue compliant? EWE, baby!
Word Count: ~8K
Author's Notes: Dragon-sized thanks to my most awesome beta and the proofers and mods of hd_holidays. Strangely enough, I decided on the plot for this prompt just days before Tony Scott’s death (may he RIP). I’m not sure he’d be too pleased with this homage to his best-known work, but I hope you will be. You wanted a competition, you got it. I was so glad to write for you, enchanted_jae; I couldn’t get a better-matched recipient. I think most of your kinks are in here, m’dear. The title is taken from…yeah, that song.
Ron and Harry watched as Auror Fletcher walked desultorily out of Kinglsey’s office. He looked calmer now than he had the last time Harry had seen him.
Of course that had been in a deserted wood when they had been about to become a Dementor’s lunch. Fletcher had tried to conjure his Patronus, but he had been overcome by fear and it had been up to Harry and Ron to fight the monster. Fletcher’s partner Melrose had been almost no help - more worried about getting back to HQ than saving his partner, his back-up team or his mission.
Harry still harboured a very healthy fear of Dementors. After all, in the past he’d dreaded them more than anything. Dementors hadn’t been sighted in England for years, though, and the Aurors had thought Harry, Ron, Fletcher and Melrose more than capable of handling one between the four of them. After everything that had happened to Harry between when he’d first encountered Dementors and the end of the War, he’d thought it was time to examine them more closely, so he’d waited till the last possible moment to call his Patronus, telling a reluctant Ron to do the same in hopes of discovering more about this most feared of creatures. It was only after the thing had flown off towards the sea that Ron had reminded Harry that his actions, although perhaps more courageous than Fletcher’s, had left his team in the same vulnerable position.
Now, two hours later, novice Aurors Ron and Harry stood as still as they were capable in front of their superior. Even after everything they’d been through together, Harry still felt overawed in Kingsley’s presence. He and Ron had formed a good working relationship with their boss, but they were hardly friends. And after today…anything was possible.
“Do you want to tell me exactly what you thought you were doing out there?” Kingsley asked.
“Fighting a Dementor, sir,” said Ron.
“I know that,” said Kingsley irritably. He turned his steely gaze toward Harry. “Was there a reason you felt it was necessary to allow it to get so close before casting your Patronus?”
“I just thought...” Harry began.
“You’re not always here to think, Potter. You’re here to do as well.”
Harry opened his mouth to explain further, but Kingsley cut him off. “We already have as much information about Dementors as we need. We don’t need to know what makes them tick; all we need to know is how to get rid of them. Which we do. Stunts like yours only put yourself and your colleagues in jeopardy. Son, your ego’s writing cheques your body can’t cash. One day you’re going to find yourself at the receiving end of a Kiss again and there might not be any future version of yourself around to stop it.”
Both Harry and Ron looked at the floor.
"I take it you'll mark my words when next you're out in the field?" Kingsley continued.
"Yes, sir," Harry and Ron said to their shoes.
With that, Kingley's mood improved. “Right, clear your schedules,” he ordered. "You're going to Mirbister."
“Sir?” Harry said, head snapping up.
“I’m sending you to Top Auror. Fletcher and Melrose were slated to go, but they lost it; Fletcher turned in his robes. You two are in.”
“Us? Really?” Ron gulped. “Wait, isn’t that in Orkney? We’ll freeze!”
The fireplace roared to life and Kingsley turned toward it. “Yes, you. And you will not freeze. That is all.” Kingsley dismissed them as a Firecall came through. He knelt down at the hearth, but as Harry and Ron reached the office door. “Gentlemen?”
The two junior Aurors glanced back at their superior.
“Good luck, gentlemen.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“You won’t say anything to Hermione about this, will you? I’m supposed to be behaving myself, and you know how girls like to throw themselves at Aurors.” Ron pushed the door of the pub open and they walked into the warmth of the cheery large room.
“Er, yeah…girls…” Harry said. Luckily for him, Ron was too enchanted by the bottles and babes to read anything into Harry’s lacklustre response.
“I’m just looking,” Ron assured him. “Unlike Blaise over there.”
Harry’s breath left his lungs in a whoosh when he looked over to the other end of the bar. Draco Malfoy and his partner Blaise Zabini were chatting up a couple of young lovelies, whose faces were hidden behind the two men.
Evidently the rumours weren’t true, and Harry’s heart sank. He’d heard that the two of them preferred men, although they apparently didn’t fancy one another. Harry had briefly entertained the crazy idea that Draco and he might somehow put aside their past and perhaps have some kind of future together. Even a very short future would do.
Just then Blaise leaned over to get the attention of the barman and the object of his pursuit was revealed.
“What the hell?!” Ron said to the bar at large, seeing his brother Charlie standing next to Blaise. The girl standing at Charlie’s side patted the dragon-wrangler on the shoulder before making for the door. Evidently she was a friend or colleague but wasn’t staying. In fact, she might not have been talking to Draco at all, Harry thought, his hopes rising.
Draco, obviously feeling like a fifth wheel with Blaise and Charlie, sauntered over with a glass in his hand, looking every inch the un-beaten Auror he was. Draco Malfoy had never let a suspect escape or get the better of him. Neither had Harry, but he didn’t sing his own praises as Draco did. Then again, he didn’t need to.
It must have been difficult for Draco to polish his name up after the mire it had been left in at the end of the War. By never putting a foot wrong and donating a huge amount of time and money to the rebuilding of the broken Wizarding community, Draco had gone a long way towards ensuring a brighter future for himself and his family.
Draco lifted his chin in a quasi-respectful greeting. “Potter,” Draco said around a cube of ice.
“Malfoy.” Harry nodded curtly.
Draco made a show of looking around the room. Yes, most eyes were on them, Harry noted. Hardly surprising with the Saviour of the Wizarding World standing next to the most handsome man in it.
“I hope you weren’t planning on leaving with the Top Auror trophy. I’ve already made a space for it on my drawing room mantle,” Draco said.
Harry couldn’t tell if he were joking or not. Probably not. He tried to think of a pithy yet flirty come-back. “You wish,” was all he could come up with, and immediately groaned inwardly at his lack of conversation skills. Even at school, he’d never been able to respond to Draco’s taunts with anything clever.
“Potter, I could win this competition with no partner and one hand tied behind my back,” Draco boasted, enabling Harry’s imagination to conjure up all sorts of scenarios, beginning with Draco standing over Blaise with a foot on his chest holding aloft the trophy, and ending with Draco standing completely naked with his hands in shackles and Blaise absolutely nowhere in sight.
Harry mentally slapped himself and glanced around the pub again. “It appears you’ve already lost your partner.” Indeed Blaise and Charlie now stood even closer to one another, while Ron next to them was looking somewhat nauseous.
“Ah yes, the dragon-keeper. Blaise has always had a thing for men in leather.” Draco wrinkled his nose.
Harry filed away that bit of information - the nose-wrinkling, not the part about Blaise. “And you? What do you like?” he asked. He managed to sound as nonchalant as possible whilst trying to hide his blush in the motion of sipping from his pint.
“I like winners, Potter,” Draco said cryptically and crunched another piece of ice.
That was Draco all over - ice cold and unfathomable. Of course, Harry had helped win the War, so maybe this was Draco’s way of flirting. Harry wished he knew for sure so he could figure out how to respond.
Draco broke into his musings. “Potter, you should leave,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Harry said, riled. “I think you’ll find Ron and I have as much a chance of winning the Top Auror trophy as you!” He hated sounding so petulant, but Draco had a way of souring every conversation and Harry was determined he wouldn’t stand for it. They weren’t at Hogwarts anymore, after all.
“Seriously, Potter, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave here. Now.” Draco slammed his glass down atop the nearest table.
Harry was just about to shout at him when Ron went whizzing past crying. “Run away!” He headed straight out the door, Draco hot on his heels.
Harry turned around to see Blaise, still ogling Charlie Weasley, pick up the microphone to the pub’s karaoke machine.
Not even bothering to find a safe place for his glass, Harry carried it with him out the door.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Top Auror.”
The woman in charge of their training was legend. She’d had the most successful career of any living Auror and had trained the best ever since her retirement ten years ago. Indeed, she’d trained Kingsley and nearly every other big name Harry had ever heard of. She’d been away enlisting the help of other nations’ Aurors at the beginning of the War and Voldemort had placed powerful wards around the country to keep her and her foreign recruits from returning. Had Harry been unsuccessful in the final battle, Voldemort would eventually have found his reign of darkness cut off anyway, once she and the others found a way through.
She was powerful, her reputation was unsurpassed, and she had one of the dumbest names in the whole of the Wizarding World.
“I’m Misty Melons, but you will address me as Cobra.”
Harry, along with everyone else in the room, tried - really tried - to control his giggling. Along with everyone else, he didn’t quite succeed. Eventually the room quieted down.
“For the duration of your training, you’ll be set exercises and assessed by myself and my team.” She indicated the group of stoic and capable assistants, which included Charlie Weasley. “You’ll learn to perform spell work faster, train harder, and zoom through any mountain of paperwork those bastard civil servants at the Ministry see fit to shovel onto your desk. Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, this is no holiday camp.” To emphasise the point she shook a finger at them, reminding Harry of every teacher he’d ever had a Hogwarts all rolled into one. With the possible exception of Professor Binns.
It was clear Cobra wouldn’t give any quarter, and she began the training course by pushing them straight in at the deep end. “Right everyone, assume your Animagi forms.”
There was a ripple of nervous chatter. At this advanced level, all the Aurors in the room had had Animagus training and had registered themselves upon proving their ability to transform. But the skill was still rare; there was a good chance that nearly all living British Animagi were present in that room.
One by one, the trainees began to transform themselves. A menagerie of animals appeared where the humans had been sitting. Animagi forms reflected the personalities of their human counterparts, and Harry was interested to see what his classmates would become. One of them in particular.
Harry effortlessly changed into his fox Animagus. His eyes were ringed where his glasses should have been, making him easily recognisable. As was the red-furred orang-utan that stooped beside him.
Not so obvious, but very, very amusing was the badger with the snowy white stripe down its back which Draco Malfoy had transformed into. Harry could see the venom in Draco’s beady black eyes as they stared down his fox form, daring him to open his mouth in a toothy grin. The gazelle at Draco’s side snorted in Harry’s direction too, and tilted its antlers in his direction, just in case the badger wasn’t threatening enough.
It was possible to communicate after a fashion with other Animagi, but before Harry could respond he felt himself Apparated away.
Not stumbling quite as much as he might have on two legs, Harry quickly regained his composure. Ron’s simian form stood at his side. They appeared to have been stranded somewhere in the midst of a rather desolate-looking landscape: there was nothing but scrub and hot sunshine as far as the eye could see.
In front of them, weaving the top part of its body back and forth hypnotically, was a large snake Patronus. “Welcome to Death Valley, gentlemen. Be back in time for tea,” it said in the voice of their instructor. “And bring me a bottle of 1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac.”
The snake disappeared.
“Ook?” said Ron.
Harry spent a few moments trying to get his bearings, then transformed back into his human form. Shedding his jumper he turned to Ron, who now stood taller and with less ginger fur covering him. The sun was directly above them, which at least gave them some idea of the amount of time they had to complete their task.
“Well, this should be fun…” Harry said, then headed off at random into the scrub.
~*~
Three and a half hours later, sweaty, knackered, but armed with a £450 bottle of wine which they had “borrowed” from an unsuspecting oenophile, Harry and Ron Apparated away from Las Vegas.
They sauntered into the classroom, which was partly filled with other trainees and instructors. Draco was there with Blaise, standing next to a table on which sat what looked like a small fortune in caviar.
Ron took the bottle from Harry and strode toward the table, plonking it down noisily next to the fish eggs. “Woohoo!” he enthused.
“Don’t start celebrating yet, Weasley,” Draco said, sneering. Blaise sneered along for good measure until he glanced up and noticed Charlie looking at him. “You came back in human form,”
“So?” Ron challenged. “She never said to stay an Animagus.”
“No, I didn’t,” Cobra said, walking up to the table. She picked up the bottle of wine and inspected the label. “Very nice.” Setting the bottle down more reverently than Ron had, she asked, “Did you acquire it as a human or in Animagus form?”
“Human,” Harry blurted before Ron could attempt a lie. He was rubbish at lying.
“Was the task too difficult a task for a fox and an ape?” Cobra asked, her eyes twinkling.
“It would have been harder,” Harry admitted, eyes downcast.
Cobra walked back to the front of the room. “Sometimes orders are implied, Auror Potter. As are clues and emotions. Now, let’s try this again. I think…mmm…a box of Belgian chocolates would make a nice dessert, don’t you?”
“Is this your idea of fun, Harry?” Ron whispered. He could just be heard above Draco’s laughter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ron smacked Harry on the back, nearly dislodging him from his broom. “Nice one,” he shouted and flew a circle around the goal.
He and Ron were playing two-on-two Quidditch above a makeshift pitch consisting mostly of sand. Years ago, students on the Top Auror course had constructed the pitch and now it was used whenever weather and time allowed. After all, it was just another opportunity to show the others who had the right stuff.
The pitch only had one goal hoop at either end, and the players used only a Quaffle. Both teams’ members held bats in which to fend off two dangerously-whizzing Bludgers that zoomed around the pitch. But even without a Snitch this game was just as fast and probably just as hazardous as regulation Quidditch.
“Gotta be faster than that, Weasley!” Blaise shouted as he flew up and snatched the Quaffle out of Ron’s hands.
“I’m a goal-keeper, not a Chaser!” Ron lamely shouted after him.
Down below, the crowd of students and instructors either cheered or booed, depending on who they were supporting, as Blaise hurled the Quaffle through the hoop. Harry had no chance to reach or deflect the shot at goal. Instead of flying a self-congratulatory lap around the pitch with his partner, though, Blaise looked at his watch then took off, leaving Draco hovering in mid-air over the centre of the pitch.
“Blaise! Get back here!” Draco shouted at his team-mate’s retreating figure, but Blaise either didn’t hear him or chose not to.
Harry heard him fine, though. He also heard Draco swear under his breath in French. “I know what you just said, Malfoy,” he said, trying to sound as juvenile as possible.
“Shut up, Potter.” Draco flew an angry circle around him. “And I’m not playing anymore if I’ve got no partner,” he added, just as childishly.
Ron flew over to hover just below them. “Guys,” he began.
“I’m not a ’guy’, as you so quaintly call me, Weasley,” Draco sneered.
Harry laughed. “What are you then, a madam?” he quipped.
“Well, whatever you are,” Ron said, and insinuated himself between Harry and Draco before any violence could ensue. “I’ve got to go. Hermione wanted me to Firecall her at seven, and it’s nearly that now. I can’t be late again, or she’ll kill me.” He had the good grace to at least look sheepish about leaving the game, which was more than Blaise had done.
Draco laughed, or pretended to, and not all that well. “Really keeping you on a short leash, eh, Weasley?”
“Unlike your partner, whose leash seems to be in the hands of Ron’s brother,” Harry said with the same kind of smile Draco had directed at Ron a moment ago.
Draco said that thing in French again, which wasn’t having the effect on Harry that Draco probably hoped it would. Harry backed off, just in case Draco noticed the effect it was having. Ron took the opportunity to ease away from them.
“Sorry, Harry,” he said, drifting backwards.
“That’s okay, Ron,” Harry said. “Tell her I say hello.”
Ron brightened at Harry’s response. “Sure, no problem.” He turned and flew off in the direction of the barracks.
“So, it’s just you and me, Potty,” Draco said, sounding as obnoxious as ever.
“No, Malfoy, it’s just you. I’ve had enough.”
Harry turned to glide away, but Draco shot over and blocked his path. “Scared, Potter?” he asked, hovering so closely in front of Harry that he was impinging on his personal airspace.
“No,” Harry said, dodging off to the side and heading for the stands. Until Draco caught up with him again. The crowd, whom Harry had forgotten for the last few minutes, now made themselves heard by cheering and laughing. Mostly laughing.
“Then why not continue the game?” Malfoy suggested.
Harry sighed. He’d hoped to make a speedy exit from the pitch. One in which he let Draco neither rile him up nor turn him on any more than he already had. Sadly, Draco seemed set on doing both, even though he was completely unaware of the latter.
“I’m tired,” Harry said, but he sounded unconvincing even to himself. He tried again to guide his broom past Draco, but the other man, caught him by the sleeve.
He leaned into Harry and said quietly, “You’re afraid.”
“Keep dreaming, Malfoy.” Harry tried to disengage himself from Malfoy’s grip.
Below in the stands, the spectators had started up a chant of “Fight, fight!” Although Harry was almost sure he heard one shrill voice shout “Kiss him!”
Deciding he had hallucinated that last, Harry tugged his arm away, this time so roughly that he nearly pulled Draco from his broom. Draco’s expression changed from mild goading to madder than hell, and he grabbed Harry by the tunic and shoved him so hard that Harry rolled over on his broom and the two of them careened towards the ground, spinning out of control.
The sound of the wind (or was it the crowd?) grew louder the faster they tumbled. Harry tried repeatedly to right himself but Draco was having none of it, kicking Harry and grabbing at his legs. Luckily, he did control their plummeting forms enough that they landed heavily in the sand with just bruises rather than broken bones.
The second they hit the ground they went for each other, growling and cursing, the crowd forgotten, their only goal getting their fists into each other’s face and the toes of their boots into each other’s shins.
That wasn’t quite what happened though.
Evenly matched, they ended up rolling around in the sand, dodging each other’s fists by burying their heads deeper into each other’s shoulders and chests, and wrapping their legs around each other in order avoid being kicked.
Evidently the spectators found this even more titillating than Quidditch. They were on their feet and shouting their support to each of the combatants. Or maybe just shouting for the hell of it; they were mostly a bunch of students, after all.
Finally Harry rolled free, but not before becoming very hard, and not just in a lean-mean-fighting-machine way. He immediately worried that Draco had noticed. Whilst lying face down in the sand mulling this over, Draco rolled on top of him and punched him once very sharply in the kidney before rising to his feet, muttering something unkind and stalking off.
Not the worst game of Quidditch Harry had ever played, but it was certainly close.
It was only later, lying painfully in his bed in the accommodation block that night, that Harry had a chance to ponder the fact that Draco had been just as hard as him. Harry had felt it through his clothing when Draco rolled on top of him. And what had Draco said when he’d climbed off Harry in the sand pit. Fuck you, Potter, Harry had heard at the time. But as he re-played events in his head, Harry thought he might have heard something different. Could Draco have preceded that with I want to...?
Harry couldn’t help but smile to himself. Top Auror, indeed. If anyone's going to be top anything, Draco, it's not going to be you…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Daaaaaddyyyyyyyy!”
Harry reckoned little Rosie’s squeal could be heard throughout the compound. Ron raced over to his daughter, picked her up and gave her a huge cuddle. Hermione’s greeting was more refined than their enthusiastic daughter, but no less heartfelt. Ron handed her a thorny bouquet of thistles he’d manage to transform from a handful of bracken. She forced a tight smile and pecked him on the cheek.
She turned and gave Harry a warm hug, holding the thistles well away from him. “So, Harry, Ron tells me you fancy Draco Malfoy.”
Ron turned around quickly, little Rosie twirling around in his arms as he did. “Hermione! I did not!”
Hearing Ron’s shout, several people turned and gave them curious glances as they left the Floo. Harry’s face flamed and he avoided meeting anyone’s eyes, wondering if they’d heard Hermione’s remark as well.
Hermione linked her arm through Harry’s as they followed Ron and Rosie towards the civilians’ bloc. “Ronald Weasley, that is a complete and utter lie and you know it. You told me two days ago that they weren’t not fooling anyone with their arguing and snarkiness and that it was about time they actually -”
“Hermione!” Ron hissed, trying to shush her before she could say anything more.
Harry’s head was reeling. His friends - not just friends, this was Ron and Hermione for god’s sake - his family - thought he and Malfoy had feelings for each other? Feelings other than wanting to hex each other’s balls off?
Little Rosie, still being carried in her father’s arms, turned her head and looked at Hermione. “Mummy, what does ‘fancy’ mean?”
“Nothing!” Ron interjected.
“Ronald,” Hermione chastised. She turned her attention back to her curious daughter. “It means to like someone or something. You know how you like to draw and to swim?”
Rose nodded. “So, Harry likes Dragon Mayflower…?”
“Draco Malfoy,” Hermione corrected.
Ron scowled at his wife. “You call him anything you like, Rose honey,” he said, giving his daughter a kiss on the cheek.
Rose grinned at her father. “So Harry likes to watch Draco Malfoy swim?”
If there’d been a wall handy, Harry would have banged his head against it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry peered into the largest Pensieve he’d ever seen. The entire class was reviewing yesterday’s training session and inside the memories, Harry was able to observe each group’s strategies and evaluate their execution of their latest assignment.
It had been the most bizarre mission yet - capture and calm a large dragon. But their dragon was running loose in the middle of a large Muggle shopping centre.
For this exercise, two pairs of trainees had been put together, as in the real world nothing like this would have been undertaken by less than four Aurors. Harry, who’d had to deal with a dragon on his own in front of his entire school (plus guests) at the tender age of fourteen, had naively assumed this exercise would be a breeze. After all, Charlie had reassured the class that this was one of the less difficult lessons; it required little finesse, though it did require that all four partners work together. But Harry knew this wasn’t going to happen the minute it was announced that he and Ron would be paired with Draco and Blaise.
They had Apparated to a location in the Wizarding part of the city that was the nearest point to the mall and walked, in Muggle clothing, to the shops. Harry, watching himself in the Pensieve, cringed. Did he really look like that from behind? And damn, didn’t that pair of expensive and no doubt designer jeans do wonders for Malfoy’s arse?
Harry dragged his attention back to the review. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Malfoy’s arse; he needed to concentrate on learning some lessons. Given what had happened soon after their arrival at the mall, they had a lot of room for improvement.
The first thing he had noticed was Charlie Weasley, standing as inconspicuously as possible next to a hat shop. They’d been told that Charlie would be present as their fail-safe, ready to step in and subdue the dragon if things went pear-shaped and the team couldn’t control the beast, or the crowd, or both. The four of them had risen nicely to the challenge at first and had responded quickly, each delegating himself to the task to which he was best-suited. Harry and Draco were in charge of wrangling the dragon, whilst Ron and Blaise set about crowd control.
Everything was going swimmingly until Blaise, who was busy Obliviating all the innocent bystanders on his side of the large atrium, noticed Charlie. He promptly forgot his mission, set upon Charlie, and the two of them started a heated discussion that sounded like it had nothing to do with dragons or Muggles, and everything to do with not returning Firecalls and being seen with ex-boyfriends.
As a result, Harry and Draco had been forced to Transfigure the dragon into a very tall, very confused-looking Starbucks barista. They pushed him in the direction of the nearest coffee stand and went to help Ron prevent a full-fledged disclosure incident.
By the time they finished, the crowd of onlookers was convinced the Apple Store had outdone themselves with indoor fireworks when launching their new iPhone, and that Starbucks had started serving the best coffee ever.
At this point the class were ejected from the Pensieve and they settled down to hear Cobra’s report. Charlie stood quietly behind her in the shadows, pointedly not looking at Blaise.
“I think we can all identify the point when things started to go wrong,” Cobra began. “Teams must stay on task and they must support each other. Charlie, feel free to jump in here anytime…”
At the sound of his name, Charlie looked up at Cobra and nodded. “The teams split up. Why would you do that?”
“You should know about splitting up,” Blaise muttered under his breath.
Charlie narrowed his eyes, while Harry and Ron exchanged an uncomfortable glance and the rest of the class sniggered. “However, despite the difficulties you had with one of your team members,” Charlie continued, “your plan, if there was one, worked.”
“No thanks to you,” Blaise said.
“Blaise!” Draco hissed.
“What?! If you hadn’t been mooning over Potter, we could have finished this on our own, but no, you wanted to split up the teams and -”
“Shut up!” Draco shouted at his partner.
“Oi, Malfoy, you shut up!” Ron shouted, yet again embarrassed for Harry.
Harry chose to just sit there with a stunned expression on his face.
“If we may get back to the assessment, people,” Cobra’s voice boomed over the noise of the arguing Aurors.
When they were back in their seats Charlie resumed his critique. “As we saw, there was no permanent damage to either the Muggles or the dragon. It was fortuitous that Potter and Malfoy kept their heads.”
“HEY!” It was unclear whether Ron or Blaise shouted the loudest.
“You stupid prat, I did my job! Unlike some people!”
“Shut up, Weasley,” Draco came to his partner’s defence.
Charlie ignored them. “Malfoy and Potter’s gambit worked, but for all the wrong reasons,”
“What the fu -?!” Ron started, but cut himself off as Cobra gave him a very black look.
Harry actually thought Charlie had a point. There was no way he and Draco should ever have attempted what they’d done; the scope for something to have gone terribly wrong was just too great. They had clearly been desperate, and desperation often gave rise to poor decision-making. Harry wondered what Kingsley would have said. Something disapproving, no doubt.
He was startled from this depressing thought by a poke in the ribs. The junior Auror sitting next to him leaned over and whispered, “Gutsiest move I ever saw, man. I hate dragons.”
Harry nodded curtly at him, still not convinced it had been the right move. After all, it had taken all of them nearly an hour to convince the dragon to step away from the espresso machine. And even then, he’d refused to return to the preserve.
Blaise had clearly had enough of the work-related discussion. “They wouldn’t have had to use that gambit at all if you hadn’t bailed on us!” he shouted at Charlie.
“You’re one to talk, Zabini!” Harry shouted back. “Ron was counting on you to help with the crowd. That was too big a job for one person!”
Ron’s face flushed angrily. “I could have managed it, Harry! I didn’t need you and your boyfriend to come running to my rescue!”
“I am not Potter’s boyfriend!” Draco hissed. “It was your bloody brother and his boyfriend that got us into the mess in the first place!
“No boyfriend of mine threatens to dump me for some other stupid instructor!” Blaise shouted to no one in particular, although the comment was most certainly aimed at Charlie.
“I’m not seeing any of the instructors!” Charlie said through his teeth, trying and failing to maintain a modicum of appropriateness.
“”Don’t call my brother stupid!” Ron cried at Blaise.
“He didn’t!” Harry and Draco shouted together.
“Shut up, all of you!” Cobra bellowed.
They did.
Charlie nodded to the instructor and made a hasty exit. Blaise chased after him, glaring at Ron, Draco and Harry on his way out.
“That’s enough for today,” Cobra said, shaking her head in disgust. She knew she was losing her audience.
Ron muttered something about finding Hermione and sped past Harry out of the Pensieve Room. Most of the rest of the trainees filed out after.
Harry was stayed by a none-too-gentle grip on his bicep. He turned, one hand already reaching for his wand. He’d nearly gone for it when the junior Auror poked him in the ribs earlier, and now he was being manhandled again.
“Potter,” Draco spat. “Why in the seven hells is Weasley calling you my boyfriend?”
Harry frantically looked around, hoping that no one was left in the room to overhear.
“There’s no point in making sure we don’t have an audience, Potter. Your partner shouted it out in front of everybody not ten minutes ago!”
“I don’t know, Malfoy!” Harry said, wrenching his arm out of Draco’s grasp.
“It seems an odd thing to say, don’t you think? I mean, for an insult.” Draco’s face had gone a bit pink; Harry wasn’t sure if that was because of anger or embarrassment.
“I said I don’t know, and I don’t, Malfoy! Now lay off!” Harry tried to leave, more uncomfortable than he’d been in years. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so awkward. Oh, wait - the Yule Ball. That’d been pretty much like this in the uncomfortable ratings.
Draco backed him up against the door frame. “You’ve obviously been saying something to someone, Potter. People just don’t assume we’re boyfriends for no reason. We’re barely civil to each other!”
Harry tried very hard not to stare into Draco’s eyes. He was too flustered to think, but he was sure he must have been obvious, must have said or done something to give the impression that he and Draco were an item. After all, Ron wasn’t known for his intuitive skills.
Draco leaned in closer. “Boyfriends don’t knee each other in the groin, Potter, they kiss one another.”
Brace!, Harry thought, preparing himself for the knee to the groin he was sure was coming.
But instead of inflicting a debilitating injury to Harry’s testicles, Draco chose the other option.
And Harry was completely unprepared for that. “Hmmpththd,” he managed to say around Draco’s tongue.
When their lips parted, Draco leaned back and looked Harry directly in the eye. “That’s what boyfriends do, Potter.”
Harry stood shell-shocked, his breath completely taken away. Then, not concerned by any lack of privacy or, indeed, finesse, Harry pounced.
“Ow!” Draco cried as he was shoved back into the Pensieve Room head-first by twelve stone of Saviour. “Potter, gerroff!” His arms flailed around, nearly breaking Harry’s nose again.
Harry really didn’t want to gerroff, unless Draco meant it in a figurative sense. But there was still enough blood left in Harry’s brain to register some permutation of the concept of no, and he gracelessly rolled off Draco.
“Thank you, Potter,” Draco said angrily, still sprawled across the stone flags. He smoothed down the front of his robes and sat up on his elbows. “These are a nightmare to iron.”
Sitting up, Harry waited for the inevitable fallout. More of his blood had found its way back to his head and was warming his cheeks nicely.
“Now,” Draco said, looking Harry up and down. “If you want to kiss me like a boyfriend, Potter…” Draco held up a staying hand as Harry, barely able to believe his luck, barrelled forward again. “…then do it properly.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The moonlight turned a beautiful shade of indigo as it filtered through the gauze-draped window. All Harry noticed of it though, was reflected off the pale skin of Draco’s chest when he slowly peeled the crisp white shirt from his shoulders. Harry had flung off his own shirt before even reaching the bed, but now, as they stood beside it, he wanted to take his time. Hormones allowing.
Oh, who was he kidding? Draco no sooner leaned forward and kissed Harry softly on the neck than Harry grabbed him by the arms and flung him onto the bed.
He tried not to prowl over to Draco, and in doing so somehow managed to pass whatever test Draco had set for “The Approach”. But that’s where Harry’s sense of poise ended and he finished the manoeuvre by climbing on top of Draco and kissing him soundly.
Happily, Draco appeared to have been won over by the animalistic growl Harry made whilst doing so, and rewarded Harry by twining his arms around Harry’s neck and his legs around Harry’s torso.
Harry’s eyes glazed over and his cock turned to steel: Draco was strong and spread open for him. At that moment, Harry didn’t think there was anything better in life than that combination. He latched onto Draco's neck and felt Draco’s fingers twist in his hair.
“What are you going to do now, big bad Auror Potter?” Draco mocked gently. “You’ve got a reputation to live up to, after all. Even if I’m going to be Top Auror.”
Harry’s passion wasn’t dulled for one second. Draco’s taunt only strengthened his resolve. It took a lot to push Harry’s buttons, but Draco managed to do it easily. He’d had a lot of practice, after all.
Harry broke off sucking the skin along the column of Draco’s neck and looked him in the eye. “I’m going to fuck you senseless, Auror Malfoy. Then I’m going to win that trophy and fuck you some more.”
Draco’s breath became ragged but his face lit up in a smile.
Harry kissed Draco’s mouth, and the smile widened. He pulled himself from the iron grasp of Draco’s arms and legs and shimmied down his body. Draco’s arms shifted upwards and his hands gripped the pillow on Harry’s bed, just as Harry hands gripped something else.
“Potterrrrr,” Draco gasped from above Harry’s head. He muttered a spell under his breath between loud inhalations, but Harry didn’t hear the words clearly as he engulfed Draco’s cock in his mouth.
The gasps from above strengthened and Harry knew he’d done something right. Best to keep the competition on the back foot. Or just on his back, even. Harry propped himself up on an elbow, careful not to lose the contact of mouth on cock, and slid a finger into Draco, only to discover he was slick. So that had been the spell Draco had cast. He was also pleased that whilst the spell had provided lubrication, it hadn’t stretched Draco; that was something Harry wanted to do.
Harry broke off sucking cock and moved further south. Draco bent his knees and wrapped his legs around Harry’s head in a move that could have suffocated him. Not that Harry would have noticed. He was too busy putting his tongue and fingers to good use to notice anything as mundane as a lack of oxygen.
Another finger slipped inside Draco as Harry’s tongue made its way up and down Draco’s perineum. The thighs around his head pressed harder against him. It was clear Draco wanted Harry as much as Harry wanted him, even if he couldn’t express it properly after ten years of denial.
Harry continued to fuck Draco with his fingers and moved his mouth back to Draco’s cock. That was all it took, and Draco exploded into Harry’s mouth, his thighs now almost painfully pressed against Harry’s ears.
There was much sputtering and coughing and a bit of apologising, and Draco laughed.
“Shut up, you prat,” Harry said, pushing another finger into Draco none-too-gently.
“I’m not laughing at you, Potter,” Draco said, his eyes widening even as his body did the same. “I’m laughing because it feels so damn good.”
Harry wasn’t sure he’d heard right, but Draco didn’t give him time to register the almost-compliment. “Now, get inside me,” Draco ordered.
If Harry had learned nothing else during Top Auror training, he’d learned how to follow orders.
~*~
A few hours later found them still at it. Until Harry went very still when he heard the front door slam. Draco turned his head, raising his eyebrows as he looked over his shoulder.
“Dementors!” Ron’s voice cried.
He burst into Harry’s bedroom, ran over to the window and slammed it shut, then turned to the bed and said quickly, “Good, you’re awake. Get up - we’ve got Dementors here!”
Ron sped out of the room and Harry could hear him crashing about in their shared living room, obviously trying to grab everything he needed to face the invading foe.
Suddenly it went very quiet.
Then it wasn’t so quiet. Evidently, what Ron had glimpsed when looking down at Harry’s bed had finally been processed. WHAT THE FUCK?!” Ron’s exclamation was probably heard in London.
Draco reached for his wand which he’d stashed under Harry’s pillow. He aimed it at the door and it slammed closed, as footsteps raced back towards the room. “Go away, Weasley,” he shouted.
The footsteps stopped. “Harry, is that you?” Ron asked in a shaky voice, Dementors evidently forgotten.
“Do I sound like Harry?” Draco asked the door between them.
Harry smiled and nuzzled the soft skin at the nape of Draco’s neck. “You called me Harry,” he murmured into the blond hair.
“Potter, focus. Not only has Weasley just had the shock of his life, but apparently there are Dementors coming.”
Harry considered and then discarded several possible responses before raising himself up onto his forearms and pulling out of Draco. They both scrambled from the bed and dressed as fast as they could.
When Draco was done save for his boots and robes, he opened the bedroom door and strode past a thunderstruck Ron to retrieve the rest of this ensemble. “Chop, chop, Weasley,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Ron did a very good impression of a goldfish.
“Apparently there are Dementors coming,” Draco told him. He grabbed his robes, his bag and Harry’s arm, and they were out the door leaving Ron, mouth still agape, pointing at the now-empty bedroom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they arrived at headquarters, they encountered a few trainees and a couple of instructors. “Where is everyone? Where’s Cobra?” Harry asked as they came skidding into the room.
Charlie looked up from where he was studying a layout of the compound. “She’s been cut off from us. She and the others were in the civilian bloc putting up wards when the Dementors surrounded it,” he said. “And before you ask, there’s something there preventing Apparition in and out of it.”
Ron’s face went pale. “Hermione! Rose!” Without a backwards glance, he raced out the door.
~*~
Ten minutes later Blaise and Charlie dragged Ron, unconscious, back through the door. Charlie’s dragon Patronus had given them just enough time to snatch him away before a Dementor could Kiss him. The creatures were obviously not taking any more prisoners than the ones they had already in the bloc.
“We’re going to have to find another way in there,” Blaise said, clearly shaken. He’d had little experience with Dementors, and had confessed during an earlier lesson to thinking they were rather “cool”. Now it looked like all he wanted to do was curl up and die.
Striding over to Cobra’s desk, Harry picked up the box of Belgian chocolates he and Ron had managed to scrounge up in Nepal and handed it to Blaise. “How many Dementors are we talking about?” Harry asked. The temperature in the room was dropping fast and the glass in the windows was starting to ice over.
“There must be about twenty of them. I’ve never seen so many in one place,” Charlie admitted.
“I have,” Draco said, frowning. “There’s not enough of us to get past them, even casting Patronuses.” He glanced out the window, threw up his wand and shouted “Expecto Patronum!”
No one was more surprised than Harry to see a large shining lion appear from Draco’s wand. As they watched, it leaped through the closed window and drove off the nearest of the Dementors menacing their building.
Blaise pulled up the hood of his robe. When he spoke, his breath left his body in a cloud of mist. “We need to get warm.” His teeth chattered.
“We need a plan,” Harry muttered.
“Well, think fast, Harry, or we’re all going to freeze to death,” Draco pleaded. Harry marvelled again at Draco’s use of his Christian name, but the warm fuzzy feeling it inspired was rapidly replaced by the freezing cold one blowing in from outside.
“That’s it!” Harry said. “We need fire! That, and our combined Patronuses should drive them away!” He grabbed the diagrams from Charlie and ran his eyes over the pages.
“Harry, fire isn’t going to get rid of those things. They’re not human. The only thing that might be hot and bright enough to match the magic of a Patronus would be dragonflame.” Charlie argued.
“Exactly!” Harry exclaimed. And I know just where to get some!” He Apparated away.
Fifteen minutes later he was back, with a double-shot caramel macchiato and the barista who’d made it for him.
Draco grinned at him. “Good thinking, Potter!”
Ignoring the praise (but filing it away for future gloating over), Harry led the tall man to the window, which was now completely frosted over. Rime began forming on the walls. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we need you to do...”
~*~
Three breaths of dragonflame and seven Patronus spells later, the trainees walked into the civilian bloc of the compound and rescued the captives. Those Dementors that hadn’t been turned into barbeque had fled out over the North Sea, quickly becoming distant specks on the horizon.
Hermione and Rose were both delighted, and very proud of Ron for rescuing them. Although Hermione lectured him to within an inch of his life about racing out without a wingman, he lectured her right back about how family came first, to which she said she approved of that sentiment. Then she announced she was pregnant again.
Harry didn’t see Ron the rest of the day, but suspected Hermione’s news might have given him the need for a quiet lie-down in a darkened room. Hermione and Rose said goodbye to Harry and went to catch an early evening Portkey to the south of England.
Charlie and Blaise left for Romania, having convinced the dragon to stay in dragon-form and return to the preserve.
Draco and Harry stopped at the pub with Cobra and the rest of the trainees for the quickest “quick one down the pub” either of them had ever had, before going back to Harry’s room for several not-so-quick ones.
“That was pretty smart, Potter,” Draco said. He sprawled atop Harry, who lay smugly with his arms behind his head and his cock still encased in Draco.
Harry reached for Draco’s waist and in one quick move, flipped them over and settled between Draco’s legs. “Still think I’m that speccy git you hated at school?” Harry asked. His freshly-Oculus Reparoed glasses were now tucked safely out of the way in a drawer in the bedside cabinet, after being rolled over and broken during Round Two.
“Yes,” Draco said with a leer. “But you certainly put the “top” into Top Auror.”
The End
Note: Three months later, Romania mysteriously started exporting organic dragon-roasted coffee beans.
Recipient: enchanted_jae
Title: This Foolish Lover's Game
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Blaise/Charlie
Summary: Harry and Ron are sent to elite Auror training. Guess who’s also there. Somehow, Harry and Draco manage to learn a few things and maybe even fall into bed in between the sniping and sparring to become the best of the best of the best.
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. All Top Gun characters herein are the property of the Scott estate and Paramount Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Crack, fluff, naughtiness, the threat of karaoke
Epilogue compliant? EWE, baby!
Word Count: ~8K
Author's Notes: Dragon-sized thanks to my most awesome beta and the proofers and mods of hd_holidays. Strangely enough, I decided on the plot for this prompt just days before Tony Scott’s death (may he RIP). I’m not sure he’d be too pleased with this homage to his best-known work, but I hope you will be. You wanted a competition, you got it. I was so glad to write for you, enchanted_jae; I couldn’t get a better-matched recipient. I think most of your kinks are in here, m’dear. The title is taken from…yeah, that song.
Ron and Harry watched as Auror Fletcher walked desultorily out of Kinglsey’s office. He looked calmer now than he had the last time Harry had seen him.
Of course that had been in a deserted wood when they had been about to become a Dementor’s lunch. Fletcher had tried to conjure his Patronus, but he had been overcome by fear and it had been up to Harry and Ron to fight the monster. Fletcher’s partner Melrose had been almost no help - more worried about getting back to HQ than saving his partner, his back-up team or his mission.
Harry still harboured a very healthy fear of Dementors. After all, in the past he’d dreaded them more than anything. Dementors hadn’t been sighted in England for years, though, and the Aurors had thought Harry, Ron, Fletcher and Melrose more than capable of handling one between the four of them. After everything that had happened to Harry between when he’d first encountered Dementors and the end of the War, he’d thought it was time to examine them more closely, so he’d waited till the last possible moment to call his Patronus, telling a reluctant Ron to do the same in hopes of discovering more about this most feared of creatures. It was only after the thing had flown off towards the sea that Ron had reminded Harry that his actions, although perhaps more courageous than Fletcher’s, had left his team in the same vulnerable position.
Now, two hours later, novice Aurors Ron and Harry stood as still as they were capable in front of their superior. Even after everything they’d been through together, Harry still felt overawed in Kingsley’s presence. He and Ron had formed a good working relationship with their boss, but they were hardly friends. And after today…anything was possible.
“Do you want to tell me exactly what you thought you were doing out there?” Kingsley asked.
“Fighting a Dementor, sir,” said Ron.
“I know that,” said Kingsley irritably. He turned his steely gaze toward Harry. “Was there a reason you felt it was necessary to allow it to get so close before casting your Patronus?”
“I just thought...” Harry began.
“You’re not always here to think, Potter. You’re here to do as well.”
Harry opened his mouth to explain further, but Kingsley cut him off. “We already have as much information about Dementors as we need. We don’t need to know what makes them tick; all we need to know is how to get rid of them. Which we do. Stunts like yours only put yourself and your colleagues in jeopardy. Son, your ego’s writing cheques your body can’t cash. One day you’re going to find yourself at the receiving end of a Kiss again and there might not be any future version of yourself around to stop it.”
Both Harry and Ron looked at the floor.
"I take it you'll mark my words when next you're out in the field?" Kingsley continued.
"Yes, sir," Harry and Ron said to their shoes.
With that, Kingley's mood improved. “Right, clear your schedules,” he ordered. "You're going to Mirbister."
“Sir?” Harry said, head snapping up.
“I’m sending you to Top Auror. Fletcher and Melrose were slated to go, but they lost it; Fletcher turned in his robes. You two are in.”
“Us? Really?” Ron gulped. “Wait, isn’t that in Orkney? We’ll freeze!”
The fireplace roared to life and Kingsley turned toward it. “Yes, you. And you will not freeze. That is all.” Kingsley dismissed them as a Firecall came through. He knelt down at the hearth, but as Harry and Ron reached the office door. “Gentlemen?”
The two junior Aurors glanced back at their superior.
“Good luck, gentlemen.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“You won’t say anything to Hermione about this, will you? I’m supposed to be behaving myself, and you know how girls like to throw themselves at Aurors.” Ron pushed the door of the pub open and they walked into the warmth of the cheery large room.
“Er, yeah…girls…” Harry said. Luckily for him, Ron was too enchanted by the bottles and babes to read anything into Harry’s lacklustre response.
“I’m just looking,” Ron assured him. “Unlike Blaise over there.”
Harry’s breath left his lungs in a whoosh when he looked over to the other end of the bar. Draco Malfoy and his partner Blaise Zabini were chatting up a couple of young lovelies, whose faces were hidden behind the two men.
Evidently the rumours weren’t true, and Harry’s heart sank. He’d heard that the two of them preferred men, although they apparently didn’t fancy one another. Harry had briefly entertained the crazy idea that Draco and he might somehow put aside their past and perhaps have some kind of future together. Even a very short future would do.
Just then Blaise leaned over to get the attention of the barman and the object of his pursuit was revealed.
“What the hell?!” Ron said to the bar at large, seeing his brother Charlie standing next to Blaise. The girl standing at Charlie’s side patted the dragon-wrangler on the shoulder before making for the door. Evidently she was a friend or colleague but wasn’t staying. In fact, she might not have been talking to Draco at all, Harry thought, his hopes rising.
Draco, obviously feeling like a fifth wheel with Blaise and Charlie, sauntered over with a glass in his hand, looking every inch the un-beaten Auror he was. Draco Malfoy had never let a suspect escape or get the better of him. Neither had Harry, but he didn’t sing his own praises as Draco did. Then again, he didn’t need to.
It must have been difficult for Draco to polish his name up after the mire it had been left in at the end of the War. By never putting a foot wrong and donating a huge amount of time and money to the rebuilding of the broken Wizarding community, Draco had gone a long way towards ensuring a brighter future for himself and his family.
Draco lifted his chin in a quasi-respectful greeting. “Potter,” Draco said around a cube of ice.
“Malfoy.” Harry nodded curtly.
Draco made a show of looking around the room. Yes, most eyes were on them, Harry noted. Hardly surprising with the Saviour of the Wizarding World standing next to the most handsome man in it.
“I hope you weren’t planning on leaving with the Top Auror trophy. I’ve already made a space for it on my drawing room mantle,” Draco said.
Harry couldn’t tell if he were joking or not. Probably not. He tried to think of a pithy yet flirty come-back. “You wish,” was all he could come up with, and immediately groaned inwardly at his lack of conversation skills. Even at school, he’d never been able to respond to Draco’s taunts with anything clever.
“Potter, I could win this competition with no partner and one hand tied behind my back,” Draco boasted, enabling Harry’s imagination to conjure up all sorts of scenarios, beginning with Draco standing over Blaise with a foot on his chest holding aloft the trophy, and ending with Draco standing completely naked with his hands in shackles and Blaise absolutely nowhere in sight.
Harry mentally slapped himself and glanced around the pub again. “It appears you’ve already lost your partner.” Indeed Blaise and Charlie now stood even closer to one another, while Ron next to them was looking somewhat nauseous.
“Ah yes, the dragon-keeper. Blaise has always had a thing for men in leather.” Draco wrinkled his nose.
Harry filed away that bit of information - the nose-wrinkling, not the part about Blaise. “And you? What do you like?” he asked. He managed to sound as nonchalant as possible whilst trying to hide his blush in the motion of sipping from his pint.
“I like winners, Potter,” Draco said cryptically and crunched another piece of ice.
That was Draco all over - ice cold and unfathomable. Of course, Harry had helped win the War, so maybe this was Draco’s way of flirting. Harry wished he knew for sure so he could figure out how to respond.
Draco broke into his musings. “Potter, you should leave,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Harry said, riled. “I think you’ll find Ron and I have as much a chance of winning the Top Auror trophy as you!” He hated sounding so petulant, but Draco had a way of souring every conversation and Harry was determined he wouldn’t stand for it. They weren’t at Hogwarts anymore, after all.
“Seriously, Potter, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave here. Now.” Draco slammed his glass down atop the nearest table.
Harry was just about to shout at him when Ron went whizzing past crying. “Run away!” He headed straight out the door, Draco hot on his heels.
Harry turned around to see Blaise, still ogling Charlie Weasley, pick up the microphone to the pub’s karaoke machine.
Not even bothering to find a safe place for his glass, Harry carried it with him out the door.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Top Auror.”
The woman in charge of their training was legend. She’d had the most successful career of any living Auror and had trained the best ever since her retirement ten years ago. Indeed, she’d trained Kingsley and nearly every other big name Harry had ever heard of. She’d been away enlisting the help of other nations’ Aurors at the beginning of the War and Voldemort had placed powerful wards around the country to keep her and her foreign recruits from returning. Had Harry been unsuccessful in the final battle, Voldemort would eventually have found his reign of darkness cut off anyway, once she and the others found a way through.
She was powerful, her reputation was unsurpassed, and she had one of the dumbest names in the whole of the Wizarding World.
“I’m Misty Melons, but you will address me as Cobra.”
Harry, along with everyone else in the room, tried - really tried - to control his giggling. Along with everyone else, he didn’t quite succeed. Eventually the room quieted down.
“For the duration of your training, you’ll be set exercises and assessed by myself and my team.” She indicated the group of stoic and capable assistants, which included Charlie Weasley. “You’ll learn to perform spell work faster, train harder, and zoom through any mountain of paperwork those bastard civil servants at the Ministry see fit to shovel onto your desk. Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, this is no holiday camp.” To emphasise the point she shook a finger at them, reminding Harry of every teacher he’d ever had a Hogwarts all rolled into one. With the possible exception of Professor Binns.
It was clear Cobra wouldn’t give any quarter, and she began the training course by pushing them straight in at the deep end. “Right everyone, assume your Animagi forms.”
There was a ripple of nervous chatter. At this advanced level, all the Aurors in the room had had Animagus training and had registered themselves upon proving their ability to transform. But the skill was still rare; there was a good chance that nearly all living British Animagi were present in that room.
One by one, the trainees began to transform themselves. A menagerie of animals appeared where the humans had been sitting. Animagi forms reflected the personalities of their human counterparts, and Harry was interested to see what his classmates would become. One of them in particular.
Harry effortlessly changed into his fox Animagus. His eyes were ringed where his glasses should have been, making him easily recognisable. As was the red-furred orang-utan that stooped beside him.
Not so obvious, but very, very amusing was the badger with the snowy white stripe down its back which Draco Malfoy had transformed into. Harry could see the venom in Draco’s beady black eyes as they stared down his fox form, daring him to open his mouth in a toothy grin. The gazelle at Draco’s side snorted in Harry’s direction too, and tilted its antlers in his direction, just in case the badger wasn’t threatening enough.
It was possible to communicate after a fashion with other Animagi, but before Harry could respond he felt himself Apparated away.
Not stumbling quite as much as he might have on two legs, Harry quickly regained his composure. Ron’s simian form stood at his side. They appeared to have been stranded somewhere in the midst of a rather desolate-looking landscape: there was nothing but scrub and hot sunshine as far as the eye could see.
In front of them, weaving the top part of its body back and forth hypnotically, was a large snake Patronus. “Welcome to Death Valley, gentlemen. Be back in time for tea,” it said in the voice of their instructor. “And bring me a bottle of 1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac.”
The snake disappeared.
“Ook?” said Ron.
Harry spent a few moments trying to get his bearings, then transformed back into his human form. Shedding his jumper he turned to Ron, who now stood taller and with less ginger fur covering him. The sun was directly above them, which at least gave them some idea of the amount of time they had to complete their task.
“Well, this should be fun…” Harry said, then headed off at random into the scrub.
~*~
Three and a half hours later, sweaty, knackered, but armed with a £450 bottle of wine which they had “borrowed” from an unsuspecting oenophile, Harry and Ron Apparated away from Las Vegas.
They sauntered into the classroom, which was partly filled with other trainees and instructors. Draco was there with Blaise, standing next to a table on which sat what looked like a small fortune in caviar.
Ron took the bottle from Harry and strode toward the table, plonking it down noisily next to the fish eggs. “Woohoo!” he enthused.
“Don’t start celebrating yet, Weasley,” Draco said, sneering. Blaise sneered along for good measure until he glanced up and noticed Charlie looking at him. “You came back in human form,”
“So?” Ron challenged. “She never said to stay an Animagus.”
“No, I didn’t,” Cobra said, walking up to the table. She picked up the bottle of wine and inspected the label. “Very nice.” Setting the bottle down more reverently than Ron had, she asked, “Did you acquire it as a human or in Animagus form?”
“Human,” Harry blurted before Ron could attempt a lie. He was rubbish at lying.
“Was the task too difficult a task for a fox and an ape?” Cobra asked, her eyes twinkling.
“It would have been harder,” Harry admitted, eyes downcast.
Cobra walked back to the front of the room. “Sometimes orders are implied, Auror Potter. As are clues and emotions. Now, let’s try this again. I think…mmm…a box of Belgian chocolates would make a nice dessert, don’t you?”
“Is this your idea of fun, Harry?” Ron whispered. He could just be heard above Draco’s laughter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ron smacked Harry on the back, nearly dislodging him from his broom. “Nice one,” he shouted and flew a circle around the goal.
He and Ron were playing two-on-two Quidditch above a makeshift pitch consisting mostly of sand. Years ago, students on the Top Auror course had constructed the pitch and now it was used whenever weather and time allowed. After all, it was just another opportunity to show the others who had the right stuff.
The pitch only had one goal hoop at either end, and the players used only a Quaffle. Both teams’ members held bats in which to fend off two dangerously-whizzing Bludgers that zoomed around the pitch. But even without a Snitch this game was just as fast and probably just as hazardous as regulation Quidditch.
“Gotta be faster than that, Weasley!” Blaise shouted as he flew up and snatched the Quaffle out of Ron’s hands.
“I’m a goal-keeper, not a Chaser!” Ron lamely shouted after him.
Down below, the crowd of students and instructors either cheered or booed, depending on who they were supporting, as Blaise hurled the Quaffle through the hoop. Harry had no chance to reach or deflect the shot at goal. Instead of flying a self-congratulatory lap around the pitch with his partner, though, Blaise looked at his watch then took off, leaving Draco hovering in mid-air over the centre of the pitch.
“Blaise! Get back here!” Draco shouted at his team-mate’s retreating figure, but Blaise either didn’t hear him or chose not to.
Harry heard him fine, though. He also heard Draco swear under his breath in French. “I know what you just said, Malfoy,” he said, trying to sound as juvenile as possible.
“Shut up, Potter.” Draco flew an angry circle around him. “And I’m not playing anymore if I’ve got no partner,” he added, just as childishly.
Ron flew over to hover just below them. “Guys,” he began.
“I’m not a ’guy’, as you so quaintly call me, Weasley,” Draco sneered.
Harry laughed. “What are you then, a madam?” he quipped.
“Well, whatever you are,” Ron said, and insinuated himself between Harry and Draco before any violence could ensue. “I’ve got to go. Hermione wanted me to Firecall her at seven, and it’s nearly that now. I can’t be late again, or she’ll kill me.” He had the good grace to at least look sheepish about leaving the game, which was more than Blaise had done.
Draco laughed, or pretended to, and not all that well. “Really keeping you on a short leash, eh, Weasley?”
“Unlike your partner, whose leash seems to be in the hands of Ron’s brother,” Harry said with the same kind of smile Draco had directed at Ron a moment ago.
Draco said that thing in French again, which wasn’t having the effect on Harry that Draco probably hoped it would. Harry backed off, just in case Draco noticed the effect it was having. Ron took the opportunity to ease away from them.
“Sorry, Harry,” he said, drifting backwards.
“That’s okay, Ron,” Harry said. “Tell her I say hello.”
Ron brightened at Harry’s response. “Sure, no problem.” He turned and flew off in the direction of the barracks.
“So, it’s just you and me, Potty,” Draco said, sounding as obnoxious as ever.
“No, Malfoy, it’s just you. I’ve had enough.”
Harry turned to glide away, but Draco shot over and blocked his path. “Scared, Potter?” he asked, hovering so closely in front of Harry that he was impinging on his personal airspace.
“No,” Harry said, dodging off to the side and heading for the stands. Until Draco caught up with him again. The crowd, whom Harry had forgotten for the last few minutes, now made themselves heard by cheering and laughing. Mostly laughing.
“Then why not continue the game?” Malfoy suggested.
Harry sighed. He’d hoped to make a speedy exit from the pitch. One in which he let Draco neither rile him up nor turn him on any more than he already had. Sadly, Draco seemed set on doing both, even though he was completely unaware of the latter.
“I’m tired,” Harry said, but he sounded unconvincing even to himself. He tried again to guide his broom past Draco, but the other man, caught him by the sleeve.
He leaned into Harry and said quietly, “You’re afraid.”
“Keep dreaming, Malfoy.” Harry tried to disengage himself from Malfoy’s grip.
Below in the stands, the spectators had started up a chant of “Fight, fight!” Although Harry was almost sure he heard one shrill voice shout “Kiss him!”
Deciding he had hallucinated that last, Harry tugged his arm away, this time so roughly that he nearly pulled Draco from his broom. Draco’s expression changed from mild goading to madder than hell, and he grabbed Harry by the tunic and shoved him so hard that Harry rolled over on his broom and the two of them careened towards the ground, spinning out of control.
The sound of the wind (or was it the crowd?) grew louder the faster they tumbled. Harry tried repeatedly to right himself but Draco was having none of it, kicking Harry and grabbing at his legs. Luckily, he did control their plummeting forms enough that they landed heavily in the sand with just bruises rather than broken bones.
The second they hit the ground they went for each other, growling and cursing, the crowd forgotten, their only goal getting their fists into each other’s face and the toes of their boots into each other’s shins.
That wasn’t quite what happened though.
Evenly matched, they ended up rolling around in the sand, dodging each other’s fists by burying their heads deeper into each other’s shoulders and chests, and wrapping their legs around each other in order avoid being kicked.
Evidently the spectators found this even more titillating than Quidditch. They were on their feet and shouting their support to each of the combatants. Or maybe just shouting for the hell of it; they were mostly a bunch of students, after all.
Finally Harry rolled free, but not before becoming very hard, and not just in a lean-mean-fighting-machine way. He immediately worried that Draco had noticed. Whilst lying face down in the sand mulling this over, Draco rolled on top of him and punched him once very sharply in the kidney before rising to his feet, muttering something unkind and stalking off.
Not the worst game of Quidditch Harry had ever played, but it was certainly close.
It was only later, lying painfully in his bed in the accommodation block that night, that Harry had a chance to ponder the fact that Draco had been just as hard as him. Harry had felt it through his clothing when Draco rolled on top of him. And what had Draco said when he’d climbed off Harry in the sand pit. Fuck you, Potter, Harry had heard at the time. But as he re-played events in his head, Harry thought he might have heard something different. Could Draco have preceded that with I want to...?
Harry couldn’t help but smile to himself. Top Auror, indeed. If anyone's going to be top anything, Draco, it's not going to be you…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Daaaaaddyyyyyyyy!”
Harry reckoned little Rosie’s squeal could be heard throughout the compound. Ron raced over to his daughter, picked her up and gave her a huge cuddle. Hermione’s greeting was more refined than their enthusiastic daughter, but no less heartfelt. Ron handed her a thorny bouquet of thistles he’d manage to transform from a handful of bracken. She forced a tight smile and pecked him on the cheek.
She turned and gave Harry a warm hug, holding the thistles well away from him. “So, Harry, Ron tells me you fancy Draco Malfoy.”
Ron turned around quickly, little Rosie twirling around in his arms as he did. “Hermione! I did not!”
Hearing Ron’s shout, several people turned and gave them curious glances as they left the Floo. Harry’s face flamed and he avoided meeting anyone’s eyes, wondering if they’d heard Hermione’s remark as well.
Hermione linked her arm through Harry’s as they followed Ron and Rosie towards the civilians’ bloc. “Ronald Weasley, that is a complete and utter lie and you know it. You told me two days ago that they weren’t not fooling anyone with their arguing and snarkiness and that it was about time they actually -”
“Hermione!” Ron hissed, trying to shush her before she could say anything more.
Harry’s head was reeling. His friends - not just friends, this was Ron and Hermione for god’s sake - his family - thought he and Malfoy had feelings for each other? Feelings other than wanting to hex each other’s balls off?
Little Rosie, still being carried in her father’s arms, turned her head and looked at Hermione. “Mummy, what does ‘fancy’ mean?”
“Nothing!” Ron interjected.
“Ronald,” Hermione chastised. She turned her attention back to her curious daughter. “It means to like someone or something. You know how you like to draw and to swim?”
Rose nodded. “So, Harry likes Dragon Mayflower…?”
“Draco Malfoy,” Hermione corrected.
Ron scowled at his wife. “You call him anything you like, Rose honey,” he said, giving his daughter a kiss on the cheek.
Rose grinned at her father. “So Harry likes to watch Draco Malfoy swim?”
If there’d been a wall handy, Harry would have banged his head against it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry peered into the largest Pensieve he’d ever seen. The entire class was reviewing yesterday’s training session and inside the memories, Harry was able to observe each group’s strategies and evaluate their execution of their latest assignment.
It had been the most bizarre mission yet - capture and calm a large dragon. But their dragon was running loose in the middle of a large Muggle shopping centre.
For this exercise, two pairs of trainees had been put together, as in the real world nothing like this would have been undertaken by less than four Aurors. Harry, who’d had to deal with a dragon on his own in front of his entire school (plus guests) at the tender age of fourteen, had naively assumed this exercise would be a breeze. After all, Charlie had reassured the class that this was one of the less difficult lessons; it required little finesse, though it did require that all four partners work together. But Harry knew this wasn’t going to happen the minute it was announced that he and Ron would be paired with Draco and Blaise.
They had Apparated to a location in the Wizarding part of the city that was the nearest point to the mall and walked, in Muggle clothing, to the shops. Harry, watching himself in the Pensieve, cringed. Did he really look like that from behind? And damn, didn’t that pair of expensive and no doubt designer jeans do wonders for Malfoy’s arse?
Harry dragged his attention back to the review. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Malfoy’s arse; he needed to concentrate on learning some lessons. Given what had happened soon after their arrival at the mall, they had a lot of room for improvement.
The first thing he had noticed was Charlie Weasley, standing as inconspicuously as possible next to a hat shop. They’d been told that Charlie would be present as their fail-safe, ready to step in and subdue the dragon if things went pear-shaped and the team couldn’t control the beast, or the crowd, or both. The four of them had risen nicely to the challenge at first and had responded quickly, each delegating himself to the task to which he was best-suited. Harry and Draco were in charge of wrangling the dragon, whilst Ron and Blaise set about crowd control.
Everything was going swimmingly until Blaise, who was busy Obliviating all the innocent bystanders on his side of the large atrium, noticed Charlie. He promptly forgot his mission, set upon Charlie, and the two of them started a heated discussion that sounded like it had nothing to do with dragons or Muggles, and everything to do with not returning Firecalls and being seen with ex-boyfriends.
As a result, Harry and Draco had been forced to Transfigure the dragon into a very tall, very confused-looking Starbucks barista. They pushed him in the direction of the nearest coffee stand and went to help Ron prevent a full-fledged disclosure incident.
By the time they finished, the crowd of onlookers was convinced the Apple Store had outdone themselves with indoor fireworks when launching their new iPhone, and that Starbucks had started serving the best coffee ever.
At this point the class were ejected from the Pensieve and they settled down to hear Cobra’s report. Charlie stood quietly behind her in the shadows, pointedly not looking at Blaise.
“I think we can all identify the point when things started to go wrong,” Cobra began. “Teams must stay on task and they must support each other. Charlie, feel free to jump in here anytime…”
At the sound of his name, Charlie looked up at Cobra and nodded. “The teams split up. Why would you do that?”
“You should know about splitting up,” Blaise muttered under his breath.
Charlie narrowed his eyes, while Harry and Ron exchanged an uncomfortable glance and the rest of the class sniggered. “However, despite the difficulties you had with one of your team members,” Charlie continued, “your plan, if there was one, worked.”
“No thanks to you,” Blaise said.
“Blaise!” Draco hissed.
“What?! If you hadn’t been mooning over Potter, we could have finished this on our own, but no, you wanted to split up the teams and -”
“Shut up!” Draco shouted at his partner.
“Oi, Malfoy, you shut up!” Ron shouted, yet again embarrassed for Harry.
Harry chose to just sit there with a stunned expression on his face.
“If we may get back to the assessment, people,” Cobra’s voice boomed over the noise of the arguing Aurors.
When they were back in their seats Charlie resumed his critique. “As we saw, there was no permanent damage to either the Muggles or the dragon. It was fortuitous that Potter and Malfoy kept their heads.”
“HEY!” It was unclear whether Ron or Blaise shouted the loudest.
“You stupid prat, I did my job! Unlike some people!”
“Shut up, Weasley,” Draco came to his partner’s defence.
Charlie ignored them. “Malfoy and Potter’s gambit worked, but for all the wrong reasons,”
“What the fu -?!” Ron started, but cut himself off as Cobra gave him a very black look.
Harry actually thought Charlie had a point. There was no way he and Draco should ever have attempted what they’d done; the scope for something to have gone terribly wrong was just too great. They had clearly been desperate, and desperation often gave rise to poor decision-making. Harry wondered what Kingsley would have said. Something disapproving, no doubt.
He was startled from this depressing thought by a poke in the ribs. The junior Auror sitting next to him leaned over and whispered, “Gutsiest move I ever saw, man. I hate dragons.”
Harry nodded curtly at him, still not convinced it had been the right move. After all, it had taken all of them nearly an hour to convince the dragon to step away from the espresso machine. And even then, he’d refused to return to the preserve.
Blaise had clearly had enough of the work-related discussion. “They wouldn’t have had to use that gambit at all if you hadn’t bailed on us!” he shouted at Charlie.
“You’re one to talk, Zabini!” Harry shouted back. “Ron was counting on you to help with the crowd. That was too big a job for one person!”
Ron’s face flushed angrily. “I could have managed it, Harry! I didn’t need you and your boyfriend to come running to my rescue!”
“I am not Potter’s boyfriend!” Draco hissed. “It was your bloody brother and his boyfriend that got us into the mess in the first place!
“No boyfriend of mine threatens to dump me for some other stupid instructor!” Blaise shouted to no one in particular, although the comment was most certainly aimed at Charlie.
“I’m not seeing any of the instructors!” Charlie said through his teeth, trying and failing to maintain a modicum of appropriateness.
“”Don’t call my brother stupid!” Ron cried at Blaise.
“He didn’t!” Harry and Draco shouted together.
“Shut up, all of you!” Cobra bellowed.
They did.
Charlie nodded to the instructor and made a hasty exit. Blaise chased after him, glaring at Ron, Draco and Harry on his way out.
“That’s enough for today,” Cobra said, shaking her head in disgust. She knew she was losing her audience.
Ron muttered something about finding Hermione and sped past Harry out of the Pensieve Room. Most of the rest of the trainees filed out after.
Harry was stayed by a none-too-gentle grip on his bicep. He turned, one hand already reaching for his wand. He’d nearly gone for it when the junior Auror poked him in the ribs earlier, and now he was being manhandled again.
“Potter,” Draco spat. “Why in the seven hells is Weasley calling you my boyfriend?”
Harry frantically looked around, hoping that no one was left in the room to overhear.
“There’s no point in making sure we don’t have an audience, Potter. Your partner shouted it out in front of everybody not ten minutes ago!”
“I don’t know, Malfoy!” Harry said, wrenching his arm out of Draco’s grasp.
“It seems an odd thing to say, don’t you think? I mean, for an insult.” Draco’s face had gone a bit pink; Harry wasn’t sure if that was because of anger or embarrassment.
“I said I don’t know, and I don’t, Malfoy! Now lay off!” Harry tried to leave, more uncomfortable than he’d been in years. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so awkward. Oh, wait - the Yule Ball. That’d been pretty much like this in the uncomfortable ratings.
Draco backed him up against the door frame. “You’ve obviously been saying something to someone, Potter. People just don’t assume we’re boyfriends for no reason. We’re barely civil to each other!”
Harry tried very hard not to stare into Draco’s eyes. He was too flustered to think, but he was sure he must have been obvious, must have said or done something to give the impression that he and Draco were an item. After all, Ron wasn’t known for his intuitive skills.
Draco leaned in closer. “Boyfriends don’t knee each other in the groin, Potter, they kiss one another.”
Brace!, Harry thought, preparing himself for the knee to the groin he was sure was coming.
But instead of inflicting a debilitating injury to Harry’s testicles, Draco chose the other option.
And Harry was completely unprepared for that. “Hmmpththd,” he managed to say around Draco’s tongue.
When their lips parted, Draco leaned back and looked Harry directly in the eye. “That’s what boyfriends do, Potter.”
Harry stood shell-shocked, his breath completely taken away. Then, not concerned by any lack of privacy or, indeed, finesse, Harry pounced.
“Ow!” Draco cried as he was shoved back into the Pensieve Room head-first by twelve stone of Saviour. “Potter, gerroff!” His arms flailed around, nearly breaking Harry’s nose again.
Harry really didn’t want to gerroff, unless Draco meant it in a figurative sense. But there was still enough blood left in Harry’s brain to register some permutation of the concept of no, and he gracelessly rolled off Draco.
“Thank you, Potter,” Draco said angrily, still sprawled across the stone flags. He smoothed down the front of his robes and sat up on his elbows. “These are a nightmare to iron.”
Sitting up, Harry waited for the inevitable fallout. More of his blood had found its way back to his head and was warming his cheeks nicely.
“Now,” Draco said, looking Harry up and down. “If you want to kiss me like a boyfriend, Potter…” Draco held up a staying hand as Harry, barely able to believe his luck, barrelled forward again. “…then do it properly.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The moonlight turned a beautiful shade of indigo as it filtered through the gauze-draped window. All Harry noticed of it though, was reflected off the pale skin of Draco’s chest when he slowly peeled the crisp white shirt from his shoulders. Harry had flung off his own shirt before even reaching the bed, but now, as they stood beside it, he wanted to take his time. Hormones allowing.
Oh, who was he kidding? Draco no sooner leaned forward and kissed Harry softly on the neck than Harry grabbed him by the arms and flung him onto the bed.
He tried not to prowl over to Draco, and in doing so somehow managed to pass whatever test Draco had set for “The Approach”. But that’s where Harry’s sense of poise ended and he finished the manoeuvre by climbing on top of Draco and kissing him soundly.
Happily, Draco appeared to have been won over by the animalistic growl Harry made whilst doing so, and rewarded Harry by twining his arms around Harry’s neck and his legs around Harry’s torso.
Harry’s eyes glazed over and his cock turned to steel: Draco was strong and spread open for him. At that moment, Harry didn’t think there was anything better in life than that combination. He latched onto Draco's neck and felt Draco’s fingers twist in his hair.
“What are you going to do now, big bad Auror Potter?” Draco mocked gently. “You’ve got a reputation to live up to, after all. Even if I’m going to be Top Auror.”
Harry’s passion wasn’t dulled for one second. Draco’s taunt only strengthened his resolve. It took a lot to push Harry’s buttons, but Draco managed to do it easily. He’d had a lot of practice, after all.
Harry broke off sucking the skin along the column of Draco’s neck and looked him in the eye. “I’m going to fuck you senseless, Auror Malfoy. Then I’m going to win that trophy and fuck you some more.”
Draco’s breath became ragged but his face lit up in a smile.
Harry kissed Draco’s mouth, and the smile widened. He pulled himself from the iron grasp of Draco’s arms and legs and shimmied down his body. Draco’s arms shifted upwards and his hands gripped the pillow on Harry’s bed, just as Harry hands gripped something else.
“Potterrrrr,” Draco gasped from above Harry’s head. He muttered a spell under his breath between loud inhalations, but Harry didn’t hear the words clearly as he engulfed Draco’s cock in his mouth.
The gasps from above strengthened and Harry knew he’d done something right. Best to keep the competition on the back foot. Or just on his back, even. Harry propped himself up on an elbow, careful not to lose the contact of mouth on cock, and slid a finger into Draco, only to discover he was slick. So that had been the spell Draco had cast. He was also pleased that whilst the spell had provided lubrication, it hadn’t stretched Draco; that was something Harry wanted to do.
Harry broke off sucking cock and moved further south. Draco bent his knees and wrapped his legs around Harry’s head in a move that could have suffocated him. Not that Harry would have noticed. He was too busy putting his tongue and fingers to good use to notice anything as mundane as a lack of oxygen.
Another finger slipped inside Draco as Harry’s tongue made its way up and down Draco’s perineum. The thighs around his head pressed harder against him. It was clear Draco wanted Harry as much as Harry wanted him, even if he couldn’t express it properly after ten years of denial.
Harry continued to fuck Draco with his fingers and moved his mouth back to Draco’s cock. That was all it took, and Draco exploded into Harry’s mouth, his thighs now almost painfully pressed against Harry’s ears.
There was much sputtering and coughing and a bit of apologising, and Draco laughed.
“Shut up, you prat,” Harry said, pushing another finger into Draco none-too-gently.
“I’m not laughing at you, Potter,” Draco said, his eyes widening even as his body did the same. “I’m laughing because it feels so damn good.”
Harry wasn’t sure he’d heard right, but Draco didn’t give him time to register the almost-compliment. “Now, get inside me,” Draco ordered.
If Harry had learned nothing else during Top Auror training, he’d learned how to follow orders.
~*~
A few hours later found them still at it. Until Harry went very still when he heard the front door slam. Draco turned his head, raising his eyebrows as he looked over his shoulder.
“Dementors!” Ron’s voice cried.
He burst into Harry’s bedroom, ran over to the window and slammed it shut, then turned to the bed and said quickly, “Good, you’re awake. Get up - we’ve got Dementors here!”
Ron sped out of the room and Harry could hear him crashing about in their shared living room, obviously trying to grab everything he needed to face the invading foe.
Suddenly it went very quiet.
Then it wasn’t so quiet. Evidently, what Ron had glimpsed when looking down at Harry’s bed had finally been processed. WHAT THE FUCK?!” Ron’s exclamation was probably heard in London.
Draco reached for his wand which he’d stashed under Harry’s pillow. He aimed it at the door and it slammed closed, as footsteps raced back towards the room. “Go away, Weasley,” he shouted.
The footsteps stopped. “Harry, is that you?” Ron asked in a shaky voice, Dementors evidently forgotten.
“Do I sound like Harry?” Draco asked the door between them.
Harry smiled and nuzzled the soft skin at the nape of Draco’s neck. “You called me Harry,” he murmured into the blond hair.
“Potter, focus. Not only has Weasley just had the shock of his life, but apparently there are Dementors coming.”
Harry considered and then discarded several possible responses before raising himself up onto his forearms and pulling out of Draco. They both scrambled from the bed and dressed as fast as they could.
When Draco was done save for his boots and robes, he opened the bedroom door and strode past a thunderstruck Ron to retrieve the rest of this ensemble. “Chop, chop, Weasley,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Ron did a very good impression of a goldfish.
“Apparently there are Dementors coming,” Draco told him. He grabbed his robes, his bag and Harry’s arm, and they were out the door leaving Ron, mouth still agape, pointing at the now-empty bedroom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they arrived at headquarters, they encountered a few trainees and a couple of instructors. “Where is everyone? Where’s Cobra?” Harry asked as they came skidding into the room.
Charlie looked up from where he was studying a layout of the compound. “She’s been cut off from us. She and the others were in the civilian bloc putting up wards when the Dementors surrounded it,” he said. “And before you ask, there’s something there preventing Apparition in and out of it.”
Ron’s face went pale. “Hermione! Rose!” Without a backwards glance, he raced out the door.
~*~
Ten minutes later Blaise and Charlie dragged Ron, unconscious, back through the door. Charlie’s dragon Patronus had given them just enough time to snatch him away before a Dementor could Kiss him. The creatures were obviously not taking any more prisoners than the ones they had already in the bloc.
“We’re going to have to find another way in there,” Blaise said, clearly shaken. He’d had little experience with Dementors, and had confessed during an earlier lesson to thinking they were rather “cool”. Now it looked like all he wanted to do was curl up and die.
Striding over to Cobra’s desk, Harry picked up the box of Belgian chocolates he and Ron had managed to scrounge up in Nepal and handed it to Blaise. “How many Dementors are we talking about?” Harry asked. The temperature in the room was dropping fast and the glass in the windows was starting to ice over.
“There must be about twenty of them. I’ve never seen so many in one place,” Charlie admitted.
“I have,” Draco said, frowning. “There’s not enough of us to get past them, even casting Patronuses.” He glanced out the window, threw up his wand and shouted “Expecto Patronum!”
No one was more surprised than Harry to see a large shining lion appear from Draco’s wand. As they watched, it leaped through the closed window and drove off the nearest of the Dementors menacing their building.
Blaise pulled up the hood of his robe. When he spoke, his breath left his body in a cloud of mist. “We need to get warm.” His teeth chattered.
“We need a plan,” Harry muttered.
“Well, think fast, Harry, or we’re all going to freeze to death,” Draco pleaded. Harry marvelled again at Draco’s use of his Christian name, but the warm fuzzy feeling it inspired was rapidly replaced by the freezing cold one blowing in from outside.
“That’s it!” Harry said. “We need fire! That, and our combined Patronuses should drive them away!” He grabbed the diagrams from Charlie and ran his eyes over the pages.
“Harry, fire isn’t going to get rid of those things. They’re not human. The only thing that might be hot and bright enough to match the magic of a Patronus would be dragonflame.” Charlie argued.
“Exactly!” Harry exclaimed. And I know just where to get some!” He Apparated away.
Fifteen minutes later he was back, with a double-shot caramel macchiato and the barista who’d made it for him.
Draco grinned at him. “Good thinking, Potter!”
Ignoring the praise (but filing it away for future gloating over), Harry led the tall man to the window, which was now completely frosted over. Rime began forming on the walls. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we need you to do...”
~*~
Three breaths of dragonflame and seven Patronus spells later, the trainees walked into the civilian bloc of the compound and rescued the captives. Those Dementors that hadn’t been turned into barbeque had fled out over the North Sea, quickly becoming distant specks on the horizon.
Hermione and Rose were both delighted, and very proud of Ron for rescuing them. Although Hermione lectured him to within an inch of his life about racing out without a wingman, he lectured her right back about how family came first, to which she said she approved of that sentiment. Then she announced she was pregnant again.
Harry didn’t see Ron the rest of the day, but suspected Hermione’s news might have given him the need for a quiet lie-down in a darkened room. Hermione and Rose said goodbye to Harry and went to catch an early evening Portkey to the south of England.
Charlie and Blaise left for Romania, having convinced the dragon to stay in dragon-form and return to the preserve.
Draco and Harry stopped at the pub with Cobra and the rest of the trainees for the quickest “quick one down the pub” either of them had ever had, before going back to Harry’s room for several not-so-quick ones.
“That was pretty smart, Potter,” Draco said. He sprawled atop Harry, who lay smugly with his arms behind his head and his cock still encased in Draco.
Harry reached for Draco’s waist and in one quick move, flipped them over and settled between Draco’s legs. “Still think I’m that speccy git you hated at school?” Harry asked. His freshly-Oculus Reparoed glasses were now tucked safely out of the way in a drawer in the bedside cabinet, after being rolled over and broken during Round Two.
“Yes,” Draco said with a leer. “But you certainly put the “top” into Top Auror.”
The End
Note: Three months later, Romania mysteriously started exporting organic dragon-roasted coffee beans.