closed: yes, even for breakfast

[reidinggg]

If at any point in the past ten years someone had told Reid that he would willingly be finding himself living under the same roof as Harry freakin' Potter (in a house charmed into practical nonexistence that had been inherited from some accused murderer and came furnished with a lunatic house elf, of all places), he would have likely laughed

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[so_harry]

He had been itching and waiting and pacing and bloody counting down the days until he was cleared for work. He had managed to make pretty good use of his suspension, the therapy actually helping and the time spent with Skylar really good for their relationship but he couldn't ignore the gaping hole in him- the inexplicable need for something more. Working as an Auror had always brought him that sort of completeness, whatever hero-complex quip one could make about the Boy Who Lived- it was still true. He loved his job.

But that didn't mean they had to hit him over the head with so much utter bullshit in his first month back. Werewolves creeping back into society. Former allies arrested under suspicions of being a Death Eater. Wives of co-workers attacked and nearly left for dead.

He'd have been properly okay with something simple.

Which was why he was barely dragging himself down the stairs for coffee, his hair wild and frantic as he raked his fingers through it, curls sticking up every which way as a yawn pulled through his lips. He was only wearing his boxers- white with blue stripes, the rest of his body bare, his glasses slightly askew as he reached the kitchen, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee hitting his nostrils.

And then-

"Oh hey-" he said, in a sort of sleepy greeting when he realized Reid was in the room. "Uh, morning-"

Although it had only been a few weeks and their schedules were both all over the place, it still pleasantly surprised him about how little he actually saw Reid.

[reidinggg]

Reid had been making an actual point of keeping himself scarce in the common areas of the house, particularly during the obvious high-traffic hours of the morning and early evenings - while he had done his best to tone down the attitude for Skylar's sake in the past few months, he was self-aware enough to know that blatantly sassing the person who had essentially invited you to live in their stupidly glorious house rent-free wasn't the smartest of moves, and also self-aware enough to know that logic and common sense often had no say over what came out of his mouth.

Minimal interaction, really was for the best.

Though, as spotty as his presence in his new supposed place of residence had been (he was still picking his clothes out of moving boxes and using his wand as his main source of post-sunset lighting since he had yet to dig out and assemble either his desk or floor lamp, for merlin's sake) and what with how random Harry's schedule seemingly was, luck had mostly been to blame for how well that mutual avoidance thing had been working out.

Early weekend mornings, as it turned out, weren't as safe as he had expected them to be.

"Oh. 'Morning-" Reid muttered in response as a very bed-headed, extremely not-dressed Harry Potter stumbled into the kitchen.

There may have been a bit of a double take involved in the glance he gave him before turning his attention back to the almost-boiling kettle.

Whatever his feelings for the bloke were, he wasn't bloody blind-

"Coffee's ready, help yourself-"

Too late to avoid it now. As annoying as small talk might be, it was decidedly better than awkward silence as far as he far concerned-

[so_harry]

He was decidedly still mostly out of it, sleep still stinging his eyes as he rubbed at his mouth, shuffling his bare feet across the tile as he reached the counter, the coffee doing little to wake him up but his stomach growling for it. He was a large mug of black type of bloke, too much sugar and milk ruining the whole experience for him. He fumbled for his favorite mug out of the cabinet, something Teddy had made for him when he was still in preschool (and by made, it was mostly scribbled markers set in a kiln on a white ceramic mug). There was a drawing of him on it and 'Love, Teddy' scribbled across it.

He nodded at Reid before reaching to fill up.

He'd grown mostly over his feelings toward Reid, mostly because he'd had far too much on his mind lately to remember he didn't like him.

"Thanks-" he said, a yawn catching in the word.

The coffee was very much needed, the caffeine already hitting his chest as he leaned back against the counter. He was due into the office in a little while, putting in weekend hours just to get through the Jacobs case. With everything going on with the werewolf pack, he'd been putting double time in on trying to understand the Lucius Malfoy confession.

The whole thing was so muddled, it was driving him batty.

"You uh, um- how are you?" he asked, then, realizing he couldn't just stand there in silence.

[reidinggg]

"Fine. Yeah. Good."

Reid busied himself with pulling the kettle off the stove, pouring a carefully measured, perfected over years of habit, amount into the awaiting bowl of dry noodles, and idly poking at the softening soupy jumble with his fork. He focused instead on his coffee as he impatiently waited (which he usually didn't, all too often digging into semi-crunchy noodles and still nearly-boiling broth despite his better judgement) for the whole thing to settle into its edible state.

"I, uh- I heard you got to meet the Fawcetts," he chipped in, casually throwing a quick glance up to catch Harry's reaction.

As much as he adored Skylar...well, her family was a bit of a different issue-

[so_harry]

Harry leaned back against the counter, one hand wrapped around his bare waist while the other managed the mug of steaming hot coffee. He looked to Reid briefly, a gruff breath of laughter passing through his lips.

"Ah, yeah-" he said, his shoulders shaking as he tried to prevent his laughter. "And it was a right disaster-"

He had always been skeptical of Skylar's relationship with her parents, how she always lamented ever having to return to Ottery St. Catchpole. He hadn't understood how that was possible, thinking Skylar was lucky to have parents at all. But then, he met her mother.

"I don't think that's happening again for a long while."

[reidinggg]

Reid was a bit less subtle about muffling his amusement, a proper snort of laughter shamelessly leaving himself hunching over his mug, wiping at the coffee he had managed to splash across his chin and nose with the back of his hand.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that particular family dinner-

"If I'd've known it was happening, I might've actually been tempted to warn you-"

He and Skylar had known each for nearly fifteen years. And for nearly fifteen years, Skylar's mother had continued to greet him a barely-concealed level of disdain and annoyance.

And he hadn't ever been sleeping with her. He could only imagine the hoops Harry had been made to jump through-

"So- Mrs Fawcett- what a bitch, right?"

[so_harry]

"She was.. rough-"

Harry shook his head, his eyes briefly focusing on the spot of ramen waiting for Reid on the counter. He knew the bloke liked that stuff a lot but for breakfast? His nose wrinkled briefly before he moved to the table in the center, sinking down into the seat nearest to him.

"Apparently Skylar is a mindless love-sick disappointment and I am the devil-"

He shrugged.

"I mean, I guess I see the second part but the first?"

He sighed.

"Yeah, Skylar pulled us out of there before we even started eating."

[reidinggg]

"Hmm, yeah, probably the right move to make-"

Reid let out another huff of laughter, then jumped up to take a seat on the counter next to his resting bowl, poking his fork at it to test the quickcooking progress. The look Harry aimed at the cooling noodles wasn't lost on him, but it was one he'd gotten too used to receiving over the years to be bothered by it - let them judge all they wanted, he'd kept himself from starving for barely a pound a day for a solid five years. Cheap and easy. Whatever.

"I imagine they both had an earful to hand out about this-" he pointed up to vaguely indicate the house around them, "-whole thing."

[so_harry]

"A bit, yeah-"

He ruffled his hand through his hair as he laughed. He didn't blame them exactly for the way they reacted to it all. Not many parents wanted their kids shacking up before any sort of commitment- well, commitment that came with a shiny ring.

But he didn't see the rush in that with Skylar.

"Her mum was really unpleased with all this-" he told him, gesturing again to the house before taking a sip from his mug. "Her dad seemed alright, though."

[reidinggg]

"Yeah, Mr Fawcett's a decent bloke," Reid shrugged, picking up his bowl and twisting his fork through the softened bundle of noodles.

On his own, Skylar's father really was perfectly pleasant, had been since Skylar had first taken him around to hers the summer after their first year (and had been even more so once he had realized just how not interested he was in having anything less-than-pure to do with Skylar). Her mother, however, had apparently never gotten over whatever speculative dislike she had somehow managed to garner for the skittish 11-year-old who had attached himself to her daughter, every year greeting him with a 'still here, are you?' sort of look. He had stopped caring right around the same time he shot up nearly a foot over the course of a summer and developed a sharp sense of sarcasm-

"I'm sure you're not asking for it, but here's a tip- if you accept the fact that Mrs Fawcett is always going to be displeased with everything, you'll be a lot better off. It's not actually personal."

[so_harry]

Harry barked out a laugh.

Mrs. Fawcett somewhat reminded him of his aunt and uncle, that permanent look of dislike splayed across her face almost heart-warming in a sense. If there was anything Harry had become used to in his lifetime, it was unpleasant adults in his life, sneering at him for one reason or another.

He connected it to his severe dislike of authority.

And snobbery.

But it was Skylar's mother and he was going to be as respectful as he could possibly be.

"Aye, yeah, I figured," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I take it she's not exactly hugs and kisses to you, either?"

[reidinggg]

"Not exactly, no, and that's a hell of an understatement," Reid rolled his eyes before taking a moment to shovel a fork-full of noodles into his mouth - semi-pleasant morning conversation aside, he was, strangely enough, planning on getting to work in a timely enough manner, before the phones started to ring and the previous evening's faxes and emails started demanding immediate responses.

"Think of how she treated you, then subtract the whole 'Boy Who Lived' fame, and the bottomless Gringotts account, and the probability of giving her grandchildren to fawn over, and you might be getting close to picturing the sort of attitude I've been getting from her since i was twelve," he shrugged, rambling that whole thing out with that sort of semi-sarcastic tone that was mostly reserved for topics he forcefully made a point of not caring about-

"Like I said- not personal. Not really sure why she dragged you in there to bother with it, to be honest-"

[so_harry]

Harry wrinkled his nose, having to look away from Reid as he shoved those noodles into his mouth, his stomach turning in a weird way as he thought about all the sodium clinging to Reid's veins.

"Erm- that might have been my fault, I guess," Harry admitted, shrugging his shoulders as he titled his head. "Her mum just kept Owling and I figured we might as well get it over with-"

If only he knew.

"If only I knew."