(no subject)
Erm. Yeah. So. My challenge? *hides under the bed * I have pretty good excuse though; I’m in Paris. That wasn’t entirely planned when I started out the challenge. But hey; here I am now. And as you can imagine it took quite a bit of administration and packing to get here (I’m here for a whole month); that took up so much time and energy. Hence I ignored the challenge. Yeah. Excuses. I *could * have just posted old stuff. But I really wanted to post something H/D for this challenge; so; here it is! I don’t know when the 7th and last fic will arrive. I wanted it to be Arthur/Merlin and I’ve written something but I don’t know when I’ll have time to type and reread it…
Title: Recommended
Author: Lullabylily/Inkweaver
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
Rating: G
Summary: Draco is finally successful in applying for a job. But then he finds out who wrote him the letter of recommendation that landed him the job…
Word Count: -2.000
Warnings: none; perhaps for fluff and dual-POV
A/N: Dialogue-driven, pre-slash. I always like to start out with ‘tame’ stories to get to know the feel of writing the characters. I hope I managed to keep them both in character.
Recommended
Dear Mr. Malfoy,
We would like to meet you for an interview to assess your adequacy for the assistant job at our healing potions laboratory. Please reply when would be a convenient time.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Harris,’
Draco Malfoy snorted as he read the small piece of parchment. The small gray owl in front of him chirped softly as if agreeing with Draco’s scepticism. Making it to a selection interview should excite him. But the prospect of being rejected in the face was in no way appealing to Draco at that moment. As a former, known Death Eater he was virtually unemployable in the wizarding world. That didn’t stop him from trying to get a job, though. He’d starve before resorting to muggle jobs. He scribbled a few words on a piece of parchment and handed it to the owl. The bird was out of the window in swift strokes.
And so it was that twenty-four hours later, Draco Malfoy found himself signing a contract. He let a warm, fuzzy feeling overpower him for a moment. He called it the ‘Gryffindor-feeling’: the feeling that everything in your life was made of a perfect blissfulness.
‘It was your letter of recommendation that set you apart from the other candidates, Mr. Malfoy.’
Draco almost messed up the final curl on his signature. ‘Letter of recommendation?’ He recalled such a letter had indeed been part of the application procedure but relatives were excluded from the process and Draco couldn’t imagine anyone but his mother wanting to recommend him to anyone. The only solution had been to omit that part of his application file.
‘Yes. It was very convincing. I have to admit, the board was initially not inclined to accept your candidacy… But the letter quite transformed their opinions.’
Draco felt his bubble of Gryffindor-smugness burst and scatter around him as a chill crept over his skin. This was all a mistake; he realized. Anytime now the candidate whom the letter had really been meant for would burst into the room to claim his rightful position as the newest employee. Draco picture a flushed Madame Harris tearing his contract to pieces, muttering some weak apologies before ushering him out of the office.
‘Mr. Potter was quite adamant that we hired you. Said we would be missing out on a great workforce if we didn’t.’ Madame Harris sealed the contract and put it in a filing cabinet. ‘We look forward to working with you, Mr. Malfoy. We’ll see you on Monday.’
A blink of an eye later, Draco found himself in the crowded streets of Diagon Alley. Nineteen years old, no longer unemployed and about to have a thorough heart-to-heart with the bloody saviour of the wizarding world.
∼*∼*∼
Harry Potter would have said he wasn’t expecting a visit from Draco Malfoy that afternoon. Hoping, yes, but not expecting. And he certainly wasn’t expecting any demonstration of gratitude. Slytherins didn’t do thank-you-cards. So when a blond, lithe young man burst through the door of his office wearing a furious expression on his face, he wasn’t surprised. He was surprised Draco had bothered to seek him out but… he wasn’t surprised. Not really.
‘Mister Malfoy,’ Harry started cheerfully, ‘What can I do for you?’
Draco didn’t bother sitting down. He stopped in front of Harry, panting. ‘I want to know why the hell you are interfering in my personal affairs.’ He blurted. Not wasting any time on niceties, Harry noticed.
‘I have no idea what you are talking about. What is this about, Draco?’
Feigned ignorance was his usual strategy. He’d used it countless times before and, truth to be told, it was getting old. But then again he did defeat Voldemort with just ‘Expelliarmus’ so it was clear that originality wasn’t his forte. Harry also enjoyed calling Malfoy ‘Draco’. He knew it annoyed his former nemesis to no end.
‘I want to know why you wrote a bloody letter of recommendation on my behalf.’ Draco spat out the words.
‘Oh, is that what this is about. Did you get the job?’ Harry asked, as casually as he could manage.
‘Yes I got the job,’ Draco waved, as if it were beside the point, ‘Thanks to you apparently.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Harry smiled.
‘What?’ Malfoy spat, ‘I didn’t thank you!’
‘Oh, my bad,’ Harry said innocently, ‘I thought you said ‘thanks to me’.’ Feigned ignorance was really growing more and more out of fashion by the second. But it was worth seeing Malfoy look so frustrated with him.
‘I need to know why the hell you wrote that letter for me,’ Draco demanded fiercely, ‘What was in it for you, Potter? You can hardly pretend you did this for some greater good.’
Harry briefly wondered if the cause of Draco’s irate behaviour really was the fear of some hidden agenda. It had always been clear to Harry that Slytherins didn’t do each other any favours without expecting something (even bigger) in return.
‘Oh, they didn’t tell you?’ Harry finally decided to play along. ‘You need to sleep with me.’
‘WHAT?’
It sure had the effect Harry anticipated. Even better. Seeing a mixture of anger, fear and indignation on Draco Malfoy’s polished, aristocrat face was a strange delight. He’d managed to completely unbalance the man. Not that he had been stable to begin with.
‘Sure,’ Harry continued, ‘it was in the fine print. Didn’t you notice?’
Harry thought Draco really wouldn’t fall for that one. But he appeared to be mistaken; Draco looked just as incensed as a moment before.
‘What do you take me for, Potter?’ Draco started. It wasn’t the furious yelling Harry had anticipated. Draco’s voice was soft and dangerous. ‘I’m not a whore. I don’t sleep with people to get a job. I don’t trade sex for connections or money or anything.’
His voice had gradually risen to a low thunderous rumbling, his hand clenching tightly around the wand in his pocket. Undoubtedly Malfoy was already contemplating dozens of ways to hex Harry and if it weren’t for the tight monitoring charms the Ministry had in place, Harry would have found himself already covered in warts or something even more gruesome.
‘So you can take your dirty fantasies and…’
‘For love?’ Harry interrupted Draco’s ranting.
‘What?’ Confusion and irritation from being interrupted clear in Draco’s voice.
‘Would you trade sex for love? Most people would.’ Harry kept his voice serious and casual.
Draco just looked at him as if he was utterly insane
For a moment Harry relished in the awkward silence and then finally he emitted a soft laugh. ‘I’m messing with your mind, Malfoy. There is no catch.’
Malfoy opened his mouth only to close it again and repeated the action several times while trying to process the information. ‘I don’t understand.’ He said finally. He only appeared a little bit lost.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Draco.’
Now that they were on similar heights the conversation had regained a bit of level-headedness.
‘So why did you do it?’ Draco asked. There still was accusation in the tone of his voice.
Harry met Draco’s hard stare. ‘Can’t you accept that you were right for the job?’
Draco snorted. ‘Potter. You, working at the Ministry of all places, should know that no one will hire a known Death Eater.’
Draco pronounced the last words in a soft manner as if he were afraid of them. As if saying them out loud would make the dark mark materialize right above, like a hard neon warning stating ‘DANGER’.
‘In fact I know the Ministry has offered you a job before, Malfoy. You just didn’t take it.’
‘You really think I want to work for the people that took away my house, took away my parents…’
Draco sounded insulted and Harry felt the strong urge to placate him. ‘No… No of course not.’
Draco breathed heavily. ‘Wait a minute… How did you know?’ His eyes widened, ‘You were behind that too? Weren’t you?’ Draco sounded alarmed. ‘You were the one sending me job offerings too?’
Harry bit his tongue. He should have been more careful. He was getting too transparent. ‘No.’ he tried weakly.
‘Gods… You meddlesome fool! What do you think you’re playing at?’ Draco stood up. ‘I should resign at the Laboratories immediately. I don’t want to be the employee that was forced on them by Harry Potter.’ Draco turned to leave.
‘Wait! Draco!’
Draco turned. His eyes stormy, the gray darkened.
Harry tried to meet his eyes. ‘You deserve that job. They were interested in your profile to begin with. I only gave them a push, so that you your surname wouldn’t unfairly disadvantage you.’
Hurt and betrayal in Draco’s eyes, the blond didn’t appear ready to take his word for it. ‘Why would they have wanted me in the first place? I never even got my NEWTS. And my grades in sixth year Potions weren’t great either.’
‘Slughorn was afraid of you’, Harry reasoned.
A brief smile appeared on Draco’s face. ‘He was, wasn’t he?’
‘You’re good at Potions and you know it, Draco.’ Harry continued, relieved that Draco appeared to be genuinely listening to him. ‘You always were. And you want to excel at everything you do. That may make you a bit overly competitive but it’s a charming attribute when you’ll apply it to your work. You’ll be good at it, Draco. They know this. They didn’t need me to convince them about that.’
Draco still looked uncertain.
‘They needed a push in the back because of your name. It’s shouldn’t have to be that way, but those are the times we live in. It’ll get better in the future, when time… passes.’
Draco stared at the ground. He appeared to be tired. ‘Fine. I will keep the job. Only because I really need the livelihood it will provide me.’
Harry felt a sigh of relief escape his lips. He knew Draco was having financial problems.
‘You still haven’t explained why you’ve made me your…responsibility. Why did you bother? What’s the catch, Potter? I need to know.’
Harry looked at Draco. How determined he seemed to mistrust any goodness that stumbled across his path.
‘It would really make you more comfortable if I had done this with some kind of ulterior motive, wouldn’t it?’ Harry asked softly.
Draco seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘ Yes.’ He said finally. ‘I don’t want to be indebted to you any more than I already am.’
Harry wondered if Draco was referring to saving him from the Fiendfyre or to the testimony he’d given on Draco’s Wizengamot trial.
‘You aren’t indebted to me.’ Harry stated.
Draco started to protest but Harry prevented him; ‘But I can see that you feel you are either way.’
Suddenly an idea popped in his head. So spontaneously, that it felt as if had been there from the beginning. Harry smiled inwardly.
‘If it’d make you feel better, you can always do me a favour.’ Harry said cheerfully.
Draco’s expression turned apprehensive.
‘Go to dinner with me tonight,’ Harry asked bluntly.
Draco’s mouth fell open. He stared at Harry so intently that he felt as if he had to call upon his Occlumency skills.
‘Are you still messing with my head, Potter?’ Draco demanded.
Suddenly Harry felt nervous. He had managed to completely turn the tide. He had made himself inexplicably vulnerable. ‘No,’ he said, keeping his voice steady, ‘It’s an honest question.’
Harry could almost hear Malfoy ransacking his brain for an adequate answer. His own lungs spasmed painfully before he realized he was holding his breath.
‘Fine.’ Draco said finally. ‘But I am paying.’
The thin smile on Draco’s lips was something more akin to a frown or a smirk or both; but it translated itself exponentially on Harry’s face, in a teeth-baring grin.