Night Without Day Chapter 2
Title: Night Without the Day
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Remus/Sirius (upcoming chapters), Ron/Hermione, past Fred/Angelina/George, George/Angelina, Fred/George, various others
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Warnings: Language, drug use, violence, slash
Other: Canon through 7th book except for Epilogue.
Summary: 10 years after the war, the DE trials are just drawing to a close. For Draco, Ron, the Weasley clan, and many others, life is just getting back into place. But when Harry Potter returns from a self imposed exile, haggard, emaciated, and withdrawn, he brings him with a mission to face a new threat, forcing open a Ministry Coverup that's made victims of not the living, but those who were supposed to have been dead.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Chapter 2: Sex with Plants and Paper Football
Choose me to be your champion, I am possessing of a very righteous style. I understand what’s happening. I have charisma, and of course, a winning smile.
Rasputina
~ ~ ~
“Black. Richard Black.”
The hotel clerk looked up at the abrupt greeting, followed by the curious eyes of Hermione as she waited patiently by the elevator. The way the boy spoke was old and rich, but slightly giggling-a giddy teenager just turning old enough to check himself into his first hotel room, if she judged him right. As she caught sight of him, she was struck at once by how strangely familiar he looked, a strong sense of déjà vu shaking her to her core. He was beautiful, effeminate in the way of only young men, his black hair in thick, loose curls around his face, as if his hair had tried to form of a spiral but had become lazy and given up halfway through the twist. Pale flesh sported the hint of freckles, and eyes, so pale and icy blue they looked almost blind, chilled like arctic water, peered out from the thickest lashes she had ever seen in the whole of her life. He was breathtaking, in a way of only models or angels, or perhaps even better than that, she thought, as he flashed a dimpled smile to the clerk, oblivious to the way the guests around him seemed to ogle and pant.
“Ah,” the clerk finally said, voice a high pitched squeak before clearing her throat. Then she tried for speaking again, bumbling as she typed away on the computer behind the desk. “Yes, Mr. Black. We uh-your rooms were actually-well-there was water damage to yours,” she stated, looking up, a blush turning pale cheeks crimson.
“Oh. That’s too bad,” he stated, at once crestfallen, shoulders slumping under the weight of a black zip up jumper with some sort of robot character emblazoned over the front. “I really wanted those rooms.” As if those rooms were special. He turned, casting a pout to the man beside him, a complete antithesis to the simple and pure beauty.
The other was bleach blond at the roots, all of it cut short except at the very top, where it was only a few inches longer, sticking up in the very front much like a style out of the movie Westside Story that Ron had taken her to for her birthday last year. Wearing an open bomber jacket and a pair of army print trousers tucked into knee high Doc Martins, he was older, and looked like the type of man that she would cross the street to get away from. The exposed neck under his jacket was littered with ink from tattoos, curling behind his delicate ears, and his eyes, the same piercing blue as the boy beside him, as well as the delicate structure of his face, showed that he, perhaps, could have been as beautiful as his comrade, if only he didn’t hide it behind the anarchy patches and piercings. Shrugging at the pout turned to him, he reached up and scrubbed at the back of his head.
“We can always go somewhere else, yeah?”
“Well,” the clerk quickly interrupted, catching their attention, seeming to melt-or at least dampen-under both of their stares. If Hermione wasn’t happily married, she could completely understand. “We have another room. Uhm, it’s not that, but it is...well...it’s a suite. It has a Jacuzzi in it.”
Richard Black perked up, and his companion turned away so neither would see the blond roll his eyes. He glanced at the mirror in the lobby, fixing the bleached tresses, catching Hermione’s stare and giving her a dashing wink. She quickly looked away, surprised when her heart skipped a beat for the scruffy one and looked to the elevator. Oh these stupid Muggle hotels. Why did the ambassadors from the Muggle Ministry always demand to meet her here?
A moment later, where Hermione pretended to ignore the two strange guests, and their voices went thankfully quiet. She hoped they were heading off to the other towers, until she found herself flanked on either side by the tall men, the collective heat from their bodies making the hairs on her arm stand on end. They smelled intoxicating, she thought vaguely. One like a classic scent of Old Spice, the other like tobacco and liquor and sex, and the aftershave that Ron liked to use. Her mouth watered as she imagined going home to her husband, burying her face in his neck and demanding he fuck her until neither could walk. But he had his stupid mission detail, and she had to go deal with the Prime Minister, and it was terribly hard to speak to the stupid man when she was aroused enough to copulate with a plant.
The boy-Richard-snorted, coughed, and covered his mouth to hide a laugh as the elevator dinged open.
She quickly stepped on, removing herself from the sandwich of-no, no, bad thoughts, no Hermione sandwiches, she was not a lunch meat!-from standing between the two strangers, she amended, she shoved herself into the back corner of the elevator, burying her nose into the briefing in her hands, brown curls falling around her face like a protective curtain to completely shut the other two out. Thankfully, they decided they had enough of invading her personal space, and the two crowded together by the buttons, the younger one reaching out to mess with a few of them before the blond smacked his hand away.
“Stop it,” the older male hissed. The brunet, Richard, frowned.
“Kill joy.”
Great, Hermione thought, noticing he had pushed at least four extra ones. She was going to wind up only ten minutes early instead of fifteen. Stupid muggle elevators. Stupid muggle boys.
“Richard Black,” the blond suddenly mused, tilting his head back, popping his neck. “You realize if you wrote it proper with a nickname, you’d be Black Dick.” The words made Hermione want to blush, her already dirty mind conjuring up images of just that, trailing back to Blaise as she had accidentally seen him a few nights prior at the ministry. Some witch had decided to play a joke on him and hexed his clothing off. A vindictive ex, she had heard. And he had just strutted through as if he and his...his...thing weren’t dangling as bare as the day he was born. But quite a bit larger than when he was born. She swallowed hard, shoving these thoughts down. Plants. Think of plants.
She missed the shared wide eyed look the two gave her.
The elevator dinged, doors sliding open. No one moved as one of the lights that the younger of the two males had pushed went out.
“I could have said another name,” Richard said, dragging Hermione’s attention back to them as they continued with their conversation. A fake name?
“Like what?” the blond demanded, fingers hooked behind his neck, shirt riding up to show a hint of a tattoo that disappeared with the curve of his hipbones and down to his groin.
“I don’t know. Optimus Jesus, for one. But someone didn’t like that,” Richard quipped, poking the exposed belly. The other male yelped and bent double to protect his side, smacking his hands away.
The elevator dinged. The door slid open. No one got off.
“Who the fuck names their kid Optimus?” he demanded, rising and scooting away, glancing back to Hermione to make sure he didn’t run into her.
“A really fucking cool parent, that’s who!” Richard, or whatever his name was, declared, stomping a foot and shoving his hands into his pockets, showing off the face of the robot on the front of his jacket. “If I have kids, I’m naming one of them Optimus Prime!”
“Please! You wouldn’t touch a poon if it bit you,” the blond groused, and Hermione felt something akin to sorrow. Oh. So the pretty one was gay. Maybe the blo-
--married. Married. Hermione was married. She had a husband. A husband who smelled fantastic. A husband who liked to sometimes tie her up, and oh, he had just bought those handcuffs, hadn’t he? The ones with the fur on the inside that matched the blindfold they had purchased at a Renaissance festival-
“Besides,” the blond continued, still talking, though Hermione was only half listening. “Your mum was nuts, but she wasn’t that nuts to name you something so horrible.”
“And she didn’t watch Transformers,” Rich defended as the blond sidled up beside him again, staring at him untrustingly. Hermione didn’t think about how she know how he looked at him, because she refused to acknowledge that she was still watching them instead of focusing on her very important national document held tightly in her death grip of a hand.
“I don’t watch transformers. Transformers is dumb,” the blond replied with a sneer.
“Your face is dumb!”
The elevator dinged. This time, the two looked up to the lights and grabbed the few bags they had, stepping off and onto the floor. As they made their way out, the blond hesitated, one foot stuck into the pathway of the doors to keep it from closing as he turned back to Hermione. Feeling the weight of his stare, her breath caught in her throat as tattooed fingers reached out. She registered that the word “HURT” was written one letter at a time across each digit. Then he was plucking the folder from her hand, and she made an indignant noise to protest, wanting to claim that it was confidential, and really, did he have no manners?
But then it was being settled back into her still curled grip, and she realized with a blush that he hadn’t meant to take it. No...she had been reading it upside down, and he had simply righted it for her.
He knew she had been watching!
He leaned forward, lip piercing glinting in the pale light of the elevator, and she noted with a hysterical feeling that her heart had started beating faster than the corny music that filled the square. Hot breath rippled over her ear as he moved in close, and whispered with an amused purr, “I promise, kitten, I’m better than a plant.”
And then he was gone. Quick enough that it could have been dream, leaving the door sliding closed as the mismatched pair wandered down hallway. The elevator moved up. The doors dinged. She gripped her file. She didn’t get off.
She realized, as her insides quaked her mind returned once more to Ron and the many naughty things she wanted to do to his body that night, that she had missed her exit about three stops ago.
“Oh what have they done? There's no fun to a draconian crackdown. And what will you do when they come for you?”
Rasputina
~ ~ ~
There were many things that Draco could have done after the war. Go to Azkaban was the most likely possibility, until a letter from Harry Potter arrived by authorized OWL that had somehow cleared his name. The contents of it were confidential, even to the young Malfoy, but whatever it was, he really didn’t care much. A few teary smiles and some false vows to a few reporters to repay the giving savior in some way and the incident, and Harry’s pity, were behind him. Of course, Draco had no plans to ever give anything back to the idiot Gryffindor, just like he knew Potter had no plans of ever calling him on that vow. Potters and Malfoys just...didn’t interact, ever.
There were other things he could have done. He could have gone to bed and let the world fall apart, sort of like the Goyle family did. He could have completely embarked on a spiritual crusade promoting light magic and completely forsaking his roots, like Crabbe Sr. had done from his prison cell. Hell, he probably could have even started giving head or wanking for money when the Malfoy fortune was seized shortly after his father’s execution, and the small amount they had left went to instituting Narcissa in Mungo’s. Yeah, after a little incident where she decided to stick her hand into a blender to see if she “could still feel anything” as she had put it, what little they had left had gone to shoving her into the deepest bowels of an asylum as possible and away from the prying eyes of the paper. One thing Draco could not afford was to have their name besmirched anymore.
But no. No. All of those things were drab. Sure, the whoring had a ring of excitement to it, and it’s not like the young Malfoy had ever been opposed to sex, but if he were to put his ass on the market for the highest bidder, it meant he might have to spread his legs for mudbloods. Or, Merlin forbid, someone who was fat. It meant he might even need to play nice with people who smelled weird or had deformities or something. No. He was a Malfoy, and thereby, perfect. He only associated with people who were attractive, and only slept with purebloods or powerful magic folk with enough money to cause his cock to ache just by looking at their bank statements. But no amount of money would permit him, in all honesty, to go against his Malfoyian morals and shag anything that was fat, ugly, irritating, pocked, pimpled, deformed, or otherwise unworthy to have his cock up their ass.
So instead of doing any of the above, he had decided, very simply, to fix it all. It had seemed a daunting task at first, especially as he was broke and living in a studio in Muggle London with Goyle. He had no idea how to even go about getting a job, much less fixing the Malfoy empire. Then one day Gregory had discovered an old IBM computer sitting on the curb waiting for the garbage truck. While Draco had been disgusted as his friend lugged the item back to the flat, it took an hour after first turning it on for him to realize there was potential, and less than a week for the piece of rubbish to become a flourishing business idea. In the new world that was forming-so radically different from image Voldemort had perpetuated of the total eradication of muggle influence in Wizarding society-Draco saw clicking and whirring before the two young men the opportunity of a lifetime. It was more than just a computer, it was a pathway and an inspiration. And the two set out to create the first products of integrated technologies to be introduced to Wizarding England.
And thus started the business firm of M&G Wizarding Technologies, The Original, The Best. At first it was tentative, and they received a lukewarm response from the magical world. But then the Twisted Sisters had come out with a DVD release, and it was all easy street from there. Soon they were having to set up assembly lines to perform the charms needed, hiring private consultants to get a magic exclusive internet up, transferring entire libraries onto electronic databases. Charmed, holographic ads were ordered to be placed through Diagon and other Wizarding towns-CDs and then MP3’s became more common place than music orbs. And all of it was under management of M&G or one of its sister corporations. In a single decade, Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle had gone from being disgraced, barely pardoned convicts, to the two richest, most vied after bachelors in the public eye. When their prices reached near 80 galleons a share, they had placed an investment in Boston, Massachusetts, and Gregory had moved to the US to open a branch there. It too had quickly caught on, spreading from east to west across the Northern American continent, from Halifax to Vancouver; Boston to Sacramento. Even down to the small Island of Oahu, where Gregory currently lived.
Their business had gone big, and despite the tumultuous economy the muggles had, and the quickly tumbling stock prices, the wizarding world, and M&G Wizarding Technologies, were stable to the point that he barely needed to do any work any longer-he had people to do that for him. But when it came to the large accounts, he personally liked to check in on them, especially at the Ministry, where Malfoys had held a consistent influence since before Witches were allowed to wear trousers.
Which was what had brought him originally to the large building. A meeting with Kingsley Shackelbolt, Minister of Magic, himself. His firm had been hired to install a new fingerprinting and criminal database to the Aurors office, then expand the availability to the regional offices located in the rural sectors of England. It was going to be a massive undertaking, and quite expensive, and all the bartering had caused a headache to lightly pulse behind his eyes. Or perhaps it was a hangover from the club the night before-Merlin’s snatch, he knew better than to drink any type of cheap beer. His delicate brain cells weren’t designed to cope with such filth corrupting his grey matter.
Speaking of filth...
He grinned as he stepped off the elevator, following behind two red clad aurors carrying a withered hag between them, manhandling the old woman like a piece of meat. Her feet barely skimmed the ground as she bit out curses and little pleas, toes skittering on the tile. He couldn’t bring himself to much care, or really focus on that, because the dirty state of her gnarled hair reminded him of the haggard appearance of Potter the night before, sending his heart soaring and his stomach fluttering. Oh, what a beautiful sight it was. Harry Potter, scrawny and starved, exhausted, delici-er-ugly. Ugly. Incredibly ugly. Right-o. No good thoughts about him. Those put him in a dour mood.
He was horrifying. Horrifying, and mudblooded, and probably smelled like the homeless hag’s poontang, because with his stupid face it was the only pussy Scary Harry could get, and only if the hag was feeling generous that day.
Oh Merlin, oh Merlin that brought up mental images...scrubbing his eyes, he dodged through the busy aurors office, dragging over a chair when he reached his destination and sitting down heavily beside the two desks. Facing each other were the spaces for Theodore Nott and Ronald Weasley, investigative aurors for the Dark Magic unit, partners for the past six years. Theo’s interactions with the redhead were the only reasons why Draco would even breathe in the same vicinity as the freckled freak. Since they had joined teams, the two had become veritable fuck buddies, stuck at the hip, best friends till death, drinking partners, homies, amigos, mates, brohens, braaaaaaaaaahhhhhssssss, etc., etc., etc., and all that. Whatever it was, Theo didn’t come without Ron, and when the stupidly gorg-ugly, ugly, hideous faced Potter wasn’t around, Ron was surprisingly tolerable.
Of course, Draco would never tell him that.
“Fucking hell, Weasley, put your mask back on. Your pasty flesh is making my eyes burn,” Draco whined, kicking long legs out in front of himself, expensive robes splitting up the front and flashing a set of muggle tailored Rag and Bone trousers. Covering his eyes with a light hand, the Malfoy male threw his head back, blond hair tumbling away from his forehead as he cried out dramatically, “The light, the light reflecting off your greasy nose! I think I can see God in i-“ He choked, jerking up, dislodging a paper football that had been expertly chucked into his parted lips as he spoke. Theo cracked up laughing, Ron joining as the two unlikely friends high fived each other across the table.
“I think that wins the fucking game. Least thirty points,” Ron bragged proudly. “Got one right in the yapper.”
“I’d say yeah, but everyone knows it’s not hard to get your balls into Malfoy’s mouth,” Theo shot back, sending both of them into uproarious whoops again, Ron’s hand smacking the desk.
“Ha. Ha,” Draco drawled, eyeing them both suspiciously for anymore origami attacks. “Fuck off, both of you.” He snagged one of the folded sheets of paper, flipping it in his fingers as he studied the oddly shaped item. Theo wiped his eyes as Ron’s chest heaved in mirth, both slumping back in near identical poses in their seats. “Don’t you guys like, work? I mean, aren’t you supposed to be investigating murders or something?”
“Nope!” Theo proudly hooked his feet on the desk, steel toed, military polished boots glinting. It reminded Draco of a time back during the war, when there had been only the feel of burning pain on his back as he shivered on hands and knees, face turned to the floor. An identical set of boots had appeared below his face, splattered with spots Draco knew were blood and tears-but not his own. No. Draco had seen his own on Theo’s father’s boots more than enough when the Dark Lord got mad. What had frightened him was that it was his father’s...his father, who had taken the beating for Draco’s misconduct. His father who had been tortured for hours, until the man had cried like a baby, and Draco had pleaded with the Dark Lord to stop hurting Lucius, please...let Draco have the last of the beating. He would handle it. He would take responsibility. He would never disobey again. Just please stop hurting his father. Please, please stop hurting his dad...
Theo kept talking, though Draco was having a hard time hearing him through the rush of blood in his ears. “-so they took us off the case until Lestrange’s execution.”
“Oh,” Draco said, swallowing hard, blinking and looking away. Ron was eying him curiously, and he suddenly hated the Gryffindor and all his perceptiveness-at least when the bastard tried. Fucking Weasel was oblivious to everything except when it actually counted. “So, when did Potter get back into town?” The quick change in topic probably wasn’t the most well executed he had ever performed, but it was affective. Immediately, the sandy haired Slytherin froze, and Ron’s intense scrutiny fumbled and turned into utter confusion, head tilting to the side in a manner that Draco thought was befittingly animal like with a name like his.
“Where’d you hear that?” Ron demanded, perplexed, lips pressing together as if unsure of his own words. “Harry’s in Montreal, mate.” Rolling his eyes, Draco flicked the paper football into the air, catching it in an open palm before turning to face the other two full on, grabbing Theo by his stupid boots and shoving his legs off the desk. He told himself it was because he wanted to actually see the other male’s face, and that he wasn’t shaken up by the site of his shoes. Draco Malfoy was not a coward when it came to fine leather footwear.
“Please,” the blond scoffed, carding his fingers through his own hair and tilting his lips down in a frown. “I’m not that much of a gossip monger. Sightings of Potter are as valid as sightings of Elvis or Dumbledore in drag.” Waving their words away, enjoying the attention, he gave out a little sigh and started picking at his cuticles, letting them squirm in their seats for a moment.
“So?” Ron finally snapped. “Why do you think he’s back?”
“Because,” Draco sighed, voice flippant, lashes fluttering as he peered between the two leaning forward in rapt attention. “I saw him, Weasley. Up close and personal. Last night. Dressed as an auror, if you must know.” Theodore whistled, obviously more appreciative of this revelation than the ungrateful Ron, who only narrowed a sky colored set of orbs and looked ready to start mocking him. Of course, Weasley didn’t, because like all stupid ingrates, Ron knew what happened when one mocked a Malfoy. And it wasn’t pretty. Or so Draco liked to think.
“...You have to be mistaken,” Ron simply said, dismissing the whole of the claims and turning away from him.
“Oh?” Malfoy challenged.
“Oh,” Ron answered, voice dripping with sarcasm before he rolled his eyes and crossed long digits over his stomach, slumping back in the wheeling chair at his desk. “Please, Malfoy. Harry quit four years ago to move to Canada. Even if he hadn’t explicitly made clear that he was quitting, he still moved out of country. You can’t live in one country and be a law enforcement officer in another. It just doesn’t work that way. It had to be someone else. Maybe someone who looked like him.”
“And has a scar like him?” Draco prodded, leaning forward, fingers finding the crack between the two wooden slats that separated the work spaces, drawing his nails along it. “Come on, Weasley. He had the scar. I spent most of my young adult life tormenting him. I can recognize him easier than I can spot pair of knock off Fendi shoes. And we all know how good I am at that.”
“Where was it at, you said?” Nott quickly interrupted, cutting off Ron before the male could follow up with the normal insults to Draco’s sexuality that always came after the blond brought up fashion. Ron snapped his jaw shut as Draco smirked, turning to the old Slytherin.
“It was at Steam and Whistle. That new place out by Picadilly?”
“...was he dancing?” Theo wondered, sounding amused. Draco flicked the paper football at the aurors head.
“No, fuck face. He flashed the bartender something and then went into the backroom with that fat guy. The owner. The guy from the commercials or whatever?” Brow quirking, the sandy haired Slytherin turned his attention to his redheaded partner, both of them sharing a strange expression across the mounds of paperwork, dirty coffee mugs, and quill holders. Draco suddenly felt like an outsider to a conversation that was happening between their shared expressions, and he didn’t like it one bit. “What? What am I missing?” he snapped.
Ron gave a nervous glance around the office, then moved forward in his chair, arms resting heavily on the table and over some scribbled notes, obscuring an angry mugshot of a gray haired Rodolphus Lestrange who didn’t seem to appreciate the blood traitors arm on him. Ron ignored the indignant wiggling of the subject of the photo, as did Theodore and Draco, who both moved in as well.
“...we’ve been getting alerts from that place daily about unauthorized Dark Magic use,” Ron whispered, voice low, conspiratorial. “But word is coming down from pretty high up, you know? They tell us to disregard. That it's a faulty trigger. The we shouldn't worry.” Licking his lips, Ron glanced around, and Draco had to hunch forward more to even hope to hear the next words he spoke. “Theo and I have noticed some weird shit from that place. You know, narcotics. Large amounts. One of our witnesses in the Lestrange case mentioned delivering over 200 kilos of pure Peruvian Potion-laced Cocaine directly to the head of this place.” He tapped the desk, near the file, as if to enunciate his point. Theo, flushed in the face with excitement, reached out and grabbed Draco’s finger from where it was lodged between the two desks.
“And how else to move this shit, who would be so unexpected, as Harry Potter himself?” Theo said, a little rushed, and Draco thought with disgust, with more anticipation than anyone should have for anything outside of a mindblowing orgasm or money.
“You think Harry’s a drug dealer,” Draco deadpanned, not buying any of this for shit.
“No,” Ron said. “But we could have a rogue meta on our hands masquerading as him.”
“Whatever it is, it gives us an excuse to finally poke our noses in,” Theo agreed, looking over to Ron. Ron nodded, taking in Draco's face, expression imploring, as if willing him to nod his head like a faithful hound or a ditzy cheerleader and congratulate them on their brilliant fucking deductions. But neither of them could even hope to suck Sherlock's nuts, and Draco knew what he had seen, and it hadn't been any meta, rogue or otherwise.
“Right.” Feeling like he were surrounded by two nutjobs, he carefully extracted his finger from the right hand of Theodore, wincing as the death grip relinquished. That grip was fucking strong, and the blond thought it either meant he was masturbating far too much, or providing his share of courtesy reach arounds. He resisted the urge to smack them both. “Look, you guys have uh, good luck with that. I gotta go and do things.” Like not try to throttle you both. “I need to go change my blinker fluid.”
The two nodded, accepting the excuse without question, even as Draco crowed with laughter on the inside that the fools bought it. Kicking the wheeled chair back to the original unoccupied spot it had come from, he spun on his heels and headed for the exit, ignoring the way the two began plotting like jolly old conspiracy buff chums.
Stupid fools.
Unsatisfied with the turn of events, he knocked the call button the elevator with his knuckles, scratching over the tip of his nose in thought. He’d just have to find out himself what the fuck Harry was doing in England. Because really, Draco didn’t care. At all. He just wanted to make fun of him, was all. It had absolutely nothing to do with being worried over how skinny the stupid faced savior had been, or wanting to know how, with all that weight he had lost, his ass still looked good even when obscured by robes.
Chapter One
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Pairings: Harry/Draco, Remus/Sirius (upcoming chapters), Ron/Hermione, past Fred/Angelina/George, George/Angelina, Fred/George, various others
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Warnings: Language, drug use, violence, slash
Other: Canon through 7th book except for Epilogue.
Summary: 10 years after the war, the DE trials are just drawing to a close. For Draco, Ron, the Weasley clan, and many others, life is just getting back into place. But when Harry Potter returns from a self imposed exile, haggard, emaciated, and withdrawn, he brings him with a mission to face a new threat, forcing open a Ministry Coverup that's made victims of not the living, but those who were supposed to have been dead.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Chapter 2: Sex with Plants and Paper Football
Choose me to be your champion, I am possessing of a very righteous style. I understand what’s happening. I have charisma, and of course, a winning smile.
Rasputina
~ ~ ~
“Black. Richard Black.”
The hotel clerk looked up at the abrupt greeting, followed by the curious eyes of Hermione as she waited patiently by the elevator. The way the boy spoke was old and rich, but slightly giggling-a giddy teenager just turning old enough to check himself into his first hotel room, if she judged him right. As she caught sight of him, she was struck at once by how strangely familiar he looked, a strong sense of déjà vu shaking her to her core. He was beautiful, effeminate in the way of only young men, his black hair in thick, loose curls around his face, as if his hair had tried to form of a spiral but had become lazy and given up halfway through the twist. Pale flesh sported the hint of freckles, and eyes, so pale and icy blue they looked almost blind, chilled like arctic water, peered out from the thickest lashes she had ever seen in the whole of her life. He was breathtaking, in a way of only models or angels, or perhaps even better than that, she thought, as he flashed a dimpled smile to the clerk, oblivious to the way the guests around him seemed to ogle and pant.
“Ah,” the clerk finally said, voice a high pitched squeak before clearing her throat. Then she tried for speaking again, bumbling as she typed away on the computer behind the desk. “Yes, Mr. Black. We uh-your rooms were actually-well-there was water damage to yours,” she stated, looking up, a blush turning pale cheeks crimson.
“Oh. That’s too bad,” he stated, at once crestfallen, shoulders slumping under the weight of a black zip up jumper with some sort of robot character emblazoned over the front. “I really wanted those rooms.” As if those rooms were special. He turned, casting a pout to the man beside him, a complete antithesis to the simple and pure beauty.
The other was bleach blond at the roots, all of it cut short except at the very top, where it was only a few inches longer, sticking up in the very front much like a style out of the movie Westside Story that Ron had taken her to for her birthday last year. Wearing an open bomber jacket and a pair of army print trousers tucked into knee high Doc Martins, he was older, and looked like the type of man that she would cross the street to get away from. The exposed neck under his jacket was littered with ink from tattoos, curling behind his delicate ears, and his eyes, the same piercing blue as the boy beside him, as well as the delicate structure of his face, showed that he, perhaps, could have been as beautiful as his comrade, if only he didn’t hide it behind the anarchy patches and piercings. Shrugging at the pout turned to him, he reached up and scrubbed at the back of his head.
“We can always go somewhere else, yeah?”
“Well,” the clerk quickly interrupted, catching their attention, seeming to melt-or at least dampen-under both of their stares. If Hermione wasn’t happily married, she could completely understand. “We have another room. Uhm, it’s not that, but it is...well...it’s a suite. It has a Jacuzzi in it.”
Richard Black perked up, and his companion turned away so neither would see the blond roll his eyes. He glanced at the mirror in the lobby, fixing the bleached tresses, catching Hermione’s stare and giving her a dashing wink. She quickly looked away, surprised when her heart skipped a beat for the scruffy one and looked to the elevator. Oh these stupid Muggle hotels. Why did the ambassadors from the Muggle Ministry always demand to meet her here?
A moment later, where Hermione pretended to ignore the two strange guests, and their voices went thankfully quiet. She hoped they were heading off to the other towers, until she found herself flanked on either side by the tall men, the collective heat from their bodies making the hairs on her arm stand on end. They smelled intoxicating, she thought vaguely. One like a classic scent of Old Spice, the other like tobacco and liquor and sex, and the aftershave that Ron liked to use. Her mouth watered as she imagined going home to her husband, burying her face in his neck and demanding he fuck her until neither could walk. But he had his stupid mission detail, and she had to go deal with the Prime Minister, and it was terribly hard to speak to the stupid man when she was aroused enough to copulate with a plant.
The boy-Richard-snorted, coughed, and covered his mouth to hide a laugh as the elevator dinged open.
She quickly stepped on, removing herself from the sandwich of-no, no, bad thoughts, no Hermione sandwiches, she was not a lunch meat!-from standing between the two strangers, she amended, she shoved herself into the back corner of the elevator, burying her nose into the briefing in her hands, brown curls falling around her face like a protective curtain to completely shut the other two out. Thankfully, they decided they had enough of invading her personal space, and the two crowded together by the buttons, the younger one reaching out to mess with a few of them before the blond smacked his hand away.
“Stop it,” the older male hissed. The brunet, Richard, frowned.
“Kill joy.”
Great, Hermione thought, noticing he had pushed at least four extra ones. She was going to wind up only ten minutes early instead of fifteen. Stupid muggle elevators. Stupid muggle boys.
“Richard Black,” the blond suddenly mused, tilting his head back, popping his neck. “You realize if you wrote it proper with a nickname, you’d be Black Dick.” The words made Hermione want to blush, her already dirty mind conjuring up images of just that, trailing back to Blaise as she had accidentally seen him a few nights prior at the ministry. Some witch had decided to play a joke on him and hexed his clothing off. A vindictive ex, she had heard. And he had just strutted through as if he and his...his...thing weren’t dangling as bare as the day he was born. But quite a bit larger than when he was born. She swallowed hard, shoving these thoughts down. Plants. Think of plants.
She missed the shared wide eyed look the two gave her.
The elevator dinged, doors sliding open. No one moved as one of the lights that the younger of the two males had pushed went out.
“I could have said another name,” Richard said, dragging Hermione’s attention back to them as they continued with their conversation. A fake name?
“Like what?” the blond demanded, fingers hooked behind his neck, shirt riding up to show a hint of a tattoo that disappeared with the curve of his hipbones and down to his groin.
“I don’t know. Optimus Jesus, for one. But someone didn’t like that,” Richard quipped, poking the exposed belly. The other male yelped and bent double to protect his side, smacking his hands away.
The elevator dinged. The door slid open. No one got off.
“Who the fuck names their kid Optimus?” he demanded, rising and scooting away, glancing back to Hermione to make sure he didn’t run into her.
“A really fucking cool parent, that’s who!” Richard, or whatever his name was, declared, stomping a foot and shoving his hands into his pockets, showing off the face of the robot on the front of his jacket. “If I have kids, I’m naming one of them Optimus Prime!”
“Please! You wouldn’t touch a poon if it bit you,” the blond groused, and Hermione felt something akin to sorrow. Oh. So the pretty one was gay. Maybe the blo-
--married. Married. Hermione was married. She had a husband. A husband who smelled fantastic. A husband who liked to sometimes tie her up, and oh, he had just bought those handcuffs, hadn’t he? The ones with the fur on the inside that matched the blindfold they had purchased at a Renaissance festival-
“Besides,” the blond continued, still talking, though Hermione was only half listening. “Your mum was nuts, but she wasn’t that nuts to name you something so horrible.”
“And she didn’t watch Transformers,” Rich defended as the blond sidled up beside him again, staring at him untrustingly. Hermione didn’t think about how she know how he looked at him, because she refused to acknowledge that she was still watching them instead of focusing on her very important national document held tightly in her death grip of a hand.
“I don’t watch transformers. Transformers is dumb,” the blond replied with a sneer.
“Your face is dumb!”
The elevator dinged. This time, the two looked up to the lights and grabbed the few bags they had, stepping off and onto the floor. As they made their way out, the blond hesitated, one foot stuck into the pathway of the doors to keep it from closing as he turned back to Hermione. Feeling the weight of his stare, her breath caught in her throat as tattooed fingers reached out. She registered that the word “HURT” was written one letter at a time across each digit. Then he was plucking the folder from her hand, and she made an indignant noise to protest, wanting to claim that it was confidential, and really, did he have no manners?
But then it was being settled back into her still curled grip, and she realized with a blush that he hadn’t meant to take it. No...she had been reading it upside down, and he had simply righted it for her.
He knew she had been watching!
He leaned forward, lip piercing glinting in the pale light of the elevator, and she noted with a hysterical feeling that her heart had started beating faster than the corny music that filled the square. Hot breath rippled over her ear as he moved in close, and whispered with an amused purr, “I promise, kitten, I’m better than a plant.”
And then he was gone. Quick enough that it could have been dream, leaving the door sliding closed as the mismatched pair wandered down hallway. The elevator moved up. The doors dinged. She gripped her file. She didn’t get off.
She realized, as her insides quaked her mind returned once more to Ron and the many naughty things she wanted to do to his body that night, that she had missed her exit about three stops ago.
“Oh what have they done? There's no fun to a draconian crackdown. And what will you do when they come for you?”
Rasputina
~ ~ ~
There were many things that Draco could have done after the war. Go to Azkaban was the most likely possibility, until a letter from Harry Potter arrived by authorized OWL that had somehow cleared his name. The contents of it were confidential, even to the young Malfoy, but whatever it was, he really didn’t care much. A few teary smiles and some false vows to a few reporters to repay the giving savior in some way and the incident, and Harry’s pity, were behind him. Of course, Draco had no plans to ever give anything back to the idiot Gryffindor, just like he knew Potter had no plans of ever calling him on that vow. Potters and Malfoys just...didn’t interact, ever.
There were other things he could have done. He could have gone to bed and let the world fall apart, sort of like the Goyle family did. He could have completely embarked on a spiritual crusade promoting light magic and completely forsaking his roots, like Crabbe Sr. had done from his prison cell. Hell, he probably could have even started giving head or wanking for money when the Malfoy fortune was seized shortly after his father’s execution, and the small amount they had left went to instituting Narcissa in Mungo’s. Yeah, after a little incident where she decided to stick her hand into a blender to see if she “could still feel anything” as she had put it, what little they had left had gone to shoving her into the deepest bowels of an asylum as possible and away from the prying eyes of the paper. One thing Draco could not afford was to have their name besmirched anymore.
But no. No. All of those things were drab. Sure, the whoring had a ring of excitement to it, and it’s not like the young Malfoy had ever been opposed to sex, but if he were to put his ass on the market for the highest bidder, it meant he might have to spread his legs for mudbloods. Or, Merlin forbid, someone who was fat. It meant he might even need to play nice with people who smelled weird or had deformities or something. No. He was a Malfoy, and thereby, perfect. He only associated with people who were attractive, and only slept with purebloods or powerful magic folk with enough money to cause his cock to ache just by looking at their bank statements. But no amount of money would permit him, in all honesty, to go against his Malfoyian morals and shag anything that was fat, ugly, irritating, pocked, pimpled, deformed, or otherwise unworthy to have his cock up their ass.
So instead of doing any of the above, he had decided, very simply, to fix it all. It had seemed a daunting task at first, especially as he was broke and living in a studio in Muggle London with Goyle. He had no idea how to even go about getting a job, much less fixing the Malfoy empire. Then one day Gregory had discovered an old IBM computer sitting on the curb waiting for the garbage truck. While Draco had been disgusted as his friend lugged the item back to the flat, it took an hour after first turning it on for him to realize there was potential, and less than a week for the piece of rubbish to become a flourishing business idea. In the new world that was forming-so radically different from image Voldemort had perpetuated of the total eradication of muggle influence in Wizarding society-Draco saw clicking and whirring before the two young men the opportunity of a lifetime. It was more than just a computer, it was a pathway and an inspiration. And the two set out to create the first products of integrated technologies to be introduced to Wizarding England.
And thus started the business firm of M&G Wizarding Technologies, The Original, The Best. At first it was tentative, and they received a lukewarm response from the magical world. But then the Twisted Sisters had come out with a DVD release, and it was all easy street from there. Soon they were having to set up assembly lines to perform the charms needed, hiring private consultants to get a magic exclusive internet up, transferring entire libraries onto electronic databases. Charmed, holographic ads were ordered to be placed through Diagon and other Wizarding towns-CDs and then MP3’s became more common place than music orbs. And all of it was under management of M&G or one of its sister corporations. In a single decade, Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle had gone from being disgraced, barely pardoned convicts, to the two richest, most vied after bachelors in the public eye. When their prices reached near 80 galleons a share, they had placed an investment in Boston, Massachusetts, and Gregory had moved to the US to open a branch there. It too had quickly caught on, spreading from east to west across the Northern American continent, from Halifax to Vancouver; Boston to Sacramento. Even down to the small Island of Oahu, where Gregory currently lived.
Their business had gone big, and despite the tumultuous economy the muggles had, and the quickly tumbling stock prices, the wizarding world, and M&G Wizarding Technologies, were stable to the point that he barely needed to do any work any longer-he had people to do that for him. But when it came to the large accounts, he personally liked to check in on them, especially at the Ministry, where Malfoys had held a consistent influence since before Witches were allowed to wear trousers.
Which was what had brought him originally to the large building. A meeting with Kingsley Shackelbolt, Minister of Magic, himself. His firm had been hired to install a new fingerprinting and criminal database to the Aurors office, then expand the availability to the regional offices located in the rural sectors of England. It was going to be a massive undertaking, and quite expensive, and all the bartering had caused a headache to lightly pulse behind his eyes. Or perhaps it was a hangover from the club the night before-Merlin’s snatch, he knew better than to drink any type of cheap beer. His delicate brain cells weren’t designed to cope with such filth corrupting his grey matter.
Speaking of filth...
He grinned as he stepped off the elevator, following behind two red clad aurors carrying a withered hag between them, manhandling the old woman like a piece of meat. Her feet barely skimmed the ground as she bit out curses and little pleas, toes skittering on the tile. He couldn’t bring himself to much care, or really focus on that, because the dirty state of her gnarled hair reminded him of the haggard appearance of Potter the night before, sending his heart soaring and his stomach fluttering. Oh, what a beautiful sight it was. Harry Potter, scrawny and starved, exhausted, delici-er-ugly. Ugly. Incredibly ugly. Right-o. No good thoughts about him. Those put him in a dour mood.
He was horrifying. Horrifying, and mudblooded, and probably smelled like the homeless hag’s poontang, because with his stupid face it was the only pussy Scary Harry could get, and only if the hag was feeling generous that day.
Oh Merlin, oh Merlin that brought up mental images...scrubbing his eyes, he dodged through the busy aurors office, dragging over a chair when he reached his destination and sitting down heavily beside the two desks. Facing each other were the spaces for Theodore Nott and Ronald Weasley, investigative aurors for the Dark Magic unit, partners for the past six years. Theo’s interactions with the redhead were the only reasons why Draco would even breathe in the same vicinity as the freckled freak. Since they had joined teams, the two had become veritable fuck buddies, stuck at the hip, best friends till death, drinking partners, homies, amigos, mates, brohens, braaaaaaaaaahhhhhssssss, etc., etc., etc., and all that. Whatever it was, Theo didn’t come without Ron, and when the stupidly gorg-ugly, ugly, hideous faced Potter wasn’t around, Ron was surprisingly tolerable.
Of course, Draco would never tell him that.
“Fucking hell, Weasley, put your mask back on. Your pasty flesh is making my eyes burn,” Draco whined, kicking long legs out in front of himself, expensive robes splitting up the front and flashing a set of muggle tailored Rag and Bone trousers. Covering his eyes with a light hand, the Malfoy male threw his head back, blond hair tumbling away from his forehead as he cried out dramatically, “The light, the light reflecting off your greasy nose! I think I can see God in i-“ He choked, jerking up, dislodging a paper football that had been expertly chucked into his parted lips as he spoke. Theo cracked up laughing, Ron joining as the two unlikely friends high fived each other across the table.
“I think that wins the fucking game. Least thirty points,” Ron bragged proudly. “Got one right in the yapper.”
“I’d say yeah, but everyone knows it’s not hard to get your balls into Malfoy’s mouth,” Theo shot back, sending both of them into uproarious whoops again, Ron’s hand smacking the desk.
“Ha. Ha,” Draco drawled, eyeing them both suspiciously for anymore origami attacks. “Fuck off, both of you.” He snagged one of the folded sheets of paper, flipping it in his fingers as he studied the oddly shaped item. Theo wiped his eyes as Ron’s chest heaved in mirth, both slumping back in near identical poses in their seats. “Don’t you guys like, work? I mean, aren’t you supposed to be investigating murders or something?”
“Nope!” Theo proudly hooked his feet on the desk, steel toed, military polished boots glinting. It reminded Draco of a time back during the war, when there had been only the feel of burning pain on his back as he shivered on hands and knees, face turned to the floor. An identical set of boots had appeared below his face, splattered with spots Draco knew were blood and tears-but not his own. No. Draco had seen his own on Theo’s father’s boots more than enough when the Dark Lord got mad. What had frightened him was that it was his father’s...his father, who had taken the beating for Draco’s misconduct. His father who had been tortured for hours, until the man had cried like a baby, and Draco had pleaded with the Dark Lord to stop hurting Lucius, please...let Draco have the last of the beating. He would handle it. He would take responsibility. He would never disobey again. Just please stop hurting his father. Please, please stop hurting his dad...
Theo kept talking, though Draco was having a hard time hearing him through the rush of blood in his ears. “-so they took us off the case until Lestrange’s execution.”
“Oh,” Draco said, swallowing hard, blinking and looking away. Ron was eying him curiously, and he suddenly hated the Gryffindor and all his perceptiveness-at least when the bastard tried. Fucking Weasel was oblivious to everything except when it actually counted. “So, when did Potter get back into town?” The quick change in topic probably wasn’t the most well executed he had ever performed, but it was affective. Immediately, the sandy haired Slytherin froze, and Ron’s intense scrutiny fumbled and turned into utter confusion, head tilting to the side in a manner that Draco thought was befittingly animal like with a name like his.
“Where’d you hear that?” Ron demanded, perplexed, lips pressing together as if unsure of his own words. “Harry’s in Montreal, mate.” Rolling his eyes, Draco flicked the paper football into the air, catching it in an open palm before turning to face the other two full on, grabbing Theo by his stupid boots and shoving his legs off the desk. He told himself it was because he wanted to actually see the other male’s face, and that he wasn’t shaken up by the site of his shoes. Draco Malfoy was not a coward when it came to fine leather footwear.
“Please,” the blond scoffed, carding his fingers through his own hair and tilting his lips down in a frown. “I’m not that much of a gossip monger. Sightings of Potter are as valid as sightings of Elvis or Dumbledore in drag.” Waving their words away, enjoying the attention, he gave out a little sigh and started picking at his cuticles, letting them squirm in their seats for a moment.
“So?” Ron finally snapped. “Why do you think he’s back?”
“Because,” Draco sighed, voice flippant, lashes fluttering as he peered between the two leaning forward in rapt attention. “I saw him, Weasley. Up close and personal. Last night. Dressed as an auror, if you must know.” Theodore whistled, obviously more appreciative of this revelation than the ungrateful Ron, who only narrowed a sky colored set of orbs and looked ready to start mocking him. Of course, Weasley didn’t, because like all stupid ingrates, Ron knew what happened when one mocked a Malfoy. And it wasn’t pretty. Or so Draco liked to think.
“...You have to be mistaken,” Ron simply said, dismissing the whole of the claims and turning away from him.
“Oh?” Malfoy challenged.
“Oh,” Ron answered, voice dripping with sarcasm before he rolled his eyes and crossed long digits over his stomach, slumping back in the wheeling chair at his desk. “Please, Malfoy. Harry quit four years ago to move to Canada. Even if he hadn’t explicitly made clear that he was quitting, he still moved out of country. You can’t live in one country and be a law enforcement officer in another. It just doesn’t work that way. It had to be someone else. Maybe someone who looked like him.”
“And has a scar like him?” Draco prodded, leaning forward, fingers finding the crack between the two wooden slats that separated the work spaces, drawing his nails along it. “Come on, Weasley. He had the scar. I spent most of my young adult life tormenting him. I can recognize him easier than I can spot pair of knock off Fendi shoes. And we all know how good I am at that.”
“Where was it at, you said?” Nott quickly interrupted, cutting off Ron before the male could follow up with the normal insults to Draco’s sexuality that always came after the blond brought up fashion. Ron snapped his jaw shut as Draco smirked, turning to the old Slytherin.
“It was at Steam and Whistle. That new place out by Picadilly?”
“...was he dancing?” Theo wondered, sounding amused. Draco flicked the paper football at the aurors head.
“No, fuck face. He flashed the bartender something and then went into the backroom with that fat guy. The owner. The guy from the commercials or whatever?” Brow quirking, the sandy haired Slytherin turned his attention to his redheaded partner, both of them sharing a strange expression across the mounds of paperwork, dirty coffee mugs, and quill holders. Draco suddenly felt like an outsider to a conversation that was happening between their shared expressions, and he didn’t like it one bit. “What? What am I missing?” he snapped.
Ron gave a nervous glance around the office, then moved forward in his chair, arms resting heavily on the table and over some scribbled notes, obscuring an angry mugshot of a gray haired Rodolphus Lestrange who didn’t seem to appreciate the blood traitors arm on him. Ron ignored the indignant wiggling of the subject of the photo, as did Theodore and Draco, who both moved in as well.
“...we’ve been getting alerts from that place daily about unauthorized Dark Magic use,” Ron whispered, voice low, conspiratorial. “But word is coming down from pretty high up, you know? They tell us to disregard. That it's a faulty trigger. The we shouldn't worry.” Licking his lips, Ron glanced around, and Draco had to hunch forward more to even hope to hear the next words he spoke. “Theo and I have noticed some weird shit from that place. You know, narcotics. Large amounts. One of our witnesses in the Lestrange case mentioned delivering over 200 kilos of pure Peruvian Potion-laced Cocaine directly to the head of this place.” He tapped the desk, near the file, as if to enunciate his point. Theo, flushed in the face with excitement, reached out and grabbed Draco’s finger from where it was lodged between the two desks.
“And how else to move this shit, who would be so unexpected, as Harry Potter himself?” Theo said, a little rushed, and Draco thought with disgust, with more anticipation than anyone should have for anything outside of a mindblowing orgasm or money.
“You think Harry’s a drug dealer,” Draco deadpanned, not buying any of this for shit.
“No,” Ron said. “But we could have a rogue meta on our hands masquerading as him.”
“Whatever it is, it gives us an excuse to finally poke our noses in,” Theo agreed, looking over to Ron. Ron nodded, taking in Draco's face, expression imploring, as if willing him to nod his head like a faithful hound or a ditzy cheerleader and congratulate them on their brilliant fucking deductions. But neither of them could even hope to suck Sherlock's nuts, and Draco knew what he had seen, and it hadn't been any meta, rogue or otherwise.
“Right.” Feeling like he were surrounded by two nutjobs, he carefully extracted his finger from the right hand of Theodore, wincing as the death grip relinquished. That grip was fucking strong, and the blond thought it either meant he was masturbating far too much, or providing his share of courtesy reach arounds. He resisted the urge to smack them both. “Look, you guys have uh, good luck with that. I gotta go and do things.” Like not try to throttle you both. “I need to go change my blinker fluid.”
The two nodded, accepting the excuse without question, even as Draco crowed with laughter on the inside that the fools bought it. Kicking the wheeled chair back to the original unoccupied spot it had come from, he spun on his heels and headed for the exit, ignoring the way the two began plotting like jolly old conspiracy buff chums.
Stupid fools.
Unsatisfied with the turn of events, he knocked the call button the elevator with his knuckles, scratching over the tip of his nose in thought. He’d just have to find out himself what the fuck Harry was doing in England. Because really, Draco didn’t care. At all. He just wanted to make fun of him, was all. It had absolutely nothing to do with being worried over how skinny the stupid faced savior had been, or wanting to know how, with all that weight he had lost, his ass still looked good even when obscured by robes.
Chapter One
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