Merry Christmas, cynthia_black!
Title: Practical Experience
Author: r_becca
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Length: ~2500 words
Characters: Harry, Parvati, Kingsley
Summary: An Auror's job isn't all it's cracked up to be, and Harry worries he's chosen the wrong career until he finds excitement on his first mission.
Notes: Written for cynthia_black, who wanted Harry/Parvati in the light of Deathly Hallows, or Kingsley genfic in the same era. I hope you enjoy this!
-----------------------
Harry sat back from his desk and rubbed his dry, itchy eyes. When he rolled his shoulders, he felt his muscles stretch and his spine crackle into place. It seemed like he’d been sitting hunched over all day, filling out forms and writing letters. And still, there was a flock of little paper cranes hovering over his desk, while his outbox held only a small stack of completed forms.
The clock on the wall said it was only three forty-two. Still an hour and twenty-eight minutes until he could leave.
Harry sighed. Was this really the job he’d dreamed of in school? Action, excitement, and adventure? Join the Auror Corps, travel to new and exciting places, learn powerful new spells, and cast them on deserving criminals! the pamphlets had advertised. Yet Harry had been a trainee Auror for nearly six months, and he hadn’t gotten to do any of those things. Well, except for learning a few new spells, but those were mostly boring defensive stuff. And even then, he only got to practice them with Parvati in the Beginning Spellwork practice rooms. Harry couldn’t help but feel kind of insulted. Beginning spellwork? He’d defeated Voldemort, for Merlin’s sake! A bit beyond the basics, that one.
They'd been forced to spend weeks in those padded rooms, practicing every defensive spell in the books, throwing each other against the walls for hours on end each day. And then, when they'd finished, the instructors had put them under silencio and made them do it all again nonverbally. Some training course: Harry could barely speak or walk afterward, his vocal chords and his legs aching from abuse. And then they'd have to go back and do it again. It was enough to make him wish he'd chosen a different field, decided to do something different with his life.
“Hey, Harry,” Parvati said, leaning over his desk and smiling. Her dark hair was pulled back in a simple plait, and she wore the same plain black Auror robes that he had on. Still, there was something about her that looked out of place in the banality of the Auror offices, brighter and more alive.
“Er, hi.” It was not good to be distracted by your own partner, Harry reminded himself. Not good at all. “What’s up?”
“Look what I got,” she said in a singsong voice, holding up a tight scroll of parchment tied with a black ribbon. Every color meant something different in the Auror Corps, but black was the one Harry had been daydreaming about for weeks.
“Field assignment?” he asked, straightening in his chair and reaching for the scroll immediately.
Parvati laughed. “Not so fast, Potter. This is for the both of us.” She untied the ribbon and dropped it on top of the unfinished forms on his desk, then unrolled the parchment with a flourish. “Blah blah blah, Auror corps orders, etcetera etcetera...” she murmured in a low voice. A little shiver ran down Harry’s spine at the sound of her low murmur, and it wasn’t all down to the assignment. “Ah, here we go. ‘You will accompany the Minister of Magic to the groundbreaking ceremonies of the new Hogsmeade Primary School and protect him from all threats both magical and mundane.’ “
She looked at Harry, eyes white in her dark face. Harry knew that his own face was equally surprised. He’d been expecting something with danger, intrigue...
“Guard the Minister?” Harry asked slowly. “But that’s--”
“Kind of a letdown,” Parvati finished, disappointment evident in her voice. It was exactly what Harry was thinking. A letdown, just like the rest of Auror training.
Together with Kingsley --Minister Shacklebolt, Harry reminded himself-- they apparated to the dingy little Hogsmeade field office. Harry’s dress uniform hung heavily from his shoulders, and he was hyper-aware of the silver badge pinned to his chest. Parvati, too, looked more serious than usual, and she kept raising her hand to trace the edge of her badge.
“Nothing to worry about, you two,” Kingsley said cheerfully, as they stepped out onto the high street. “Wouldn’t’ve sent you if there was any kind of a threat out there.” Indeed, it was a bright spring day, and the sun shone brightly in a vivid blue sky. It did not look like a day for threats. The weather did nothing to reassure Harry, however, and he gripped his wand tightly in his hand as they walked.
They were greeted by Hogsmeade’s Mayor Havisham, a small, portly man whose bald head did not quite reach to Kingsley’s shoulder. “Minister, Minister, so glad to have you here.” He shook Kingsley’s hand vigorously, glanced briefly at Harry and Parvati, and then directed them up the street.
In the Auror offices, Harry had studied a map of Hogsmeade in preparation for this outing. The town was long and narrow, with most of the shops and offices clustered along the high street that ran the length of the town. Hogwarts castle was just visible in a valley to the east. Above and behind the shops were a few homes, but as they walked away from Hogwarts to the west they passed more and bigger houses, with larger lawns and more space between the buildings. The houses were well-kept, decorated with bright flower beds and freshly-painted shutters. There were a few details, though, that proved this was a wizarding community: a child learning to fly a broom as his father looked on proudly, a rug shaking itself out from a window, and owls zipping around overhead. Harry wasn’t sure, but he suspected most of the flowers were too large to be strictly natural.
After only a few blocks’ walk on the gentle incline, Mayor Havisham paused, panting a little bit and dabbing ineffectually at the beads of sweat collecting on his shiny bald head with a large handkerchief. “Right this way, Minister,” he said breathlessly, gesturing down a side street. Harry could see a large empty lot about halfway down the street.
“Ah, is this the place?” Kingsley asked.
Mayor Havisham started, as though he hadn’t expected the question. “What, eh?” His forehead was sweaty again, despite the handkerchief he carried with him. “Oh yes, the school. Yes, yes. That’s the place.”
Harry glanced at Parvati and caught her eye for a moment, then she looked quickly away. The corners of her mouth were twitching, and Harry could see she was trying not to smile. There was a tiny dimple at the corner of her mouth, and her lips were a soft pink next to the dusky brown of her skin. Harry knew he was staring, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away.
As he watched, Parvati’s expression changed. One moment she could barely hide her amusement, and in the next moment he saw her eyes widen, her dimple disappear, and her jaw harden. Something in her posture shifted, and no longer just the pretty girl he knew from school, but an Auror ready for battle.
Harry pulled out his own wand and shifted into battle stance himself, scanning the surrounding buildings for the threat Parvati had identified. They were surrounded on all sides by quaint residential homes -- the threat could come from anywhere. Kingsley was standing before him, his back and shoulders stiff in the face of the threat.
Mayor Havisham was speaking again, and with a start Harry realized that he had forgotten all about the little man. “I’m quite sorry about this, Minister, but if you’ll just step over here this will all be over quickly.” What on earth...? Harry was so surprised that it actually took him a minute to realize that Hogsmeade's portly, jovial mayor was holding the Minister of Magic at wandpoint. How could this be happening?
Harry raised his wand to strike, but Kingsley’s broad shoulders were blocking the Mayor. He moved left, hoping to circle around and get into spellcasting position. “I don’t think so, Mister Potter,” Havisham said sharply. “Accio.” Harry’s traitorous wand flew out of his hand and around the side of Kingsley’s body, arcing through the air as if it had been perfectly designed to desert Harry in his hour of need.
“Just because you’re the Boy Who Lived, you think you can handle everything that comes your way, well you’ve got another think coming, boy.” Real bitterness had crept into his voice, and Harry could tell that the man was losing his focus a bit. From the corner of his eye, he could see Parvati with her wand out, moving around toward Havisham’s opposite flank. If Havisham caught sight of her, Parvati wouldn't have a chance at him. He had to keep up the distraction for just a little while longer.
“Oh yeah?” Harry asked, feeling stupid. He’d taunted better villains than this, for Merlin’s sake. His mind was racing, trying to remember every lesson he’d ever had in dealing with hostage-takers and hostile wizards. He was drawing a total blank. "I've handled better men than you, and I'm still standing."
Keep them talking, Harry remembered his instructors saying. Be a sympathetic listener; discover their motivation; distract from the target.
"Those men made mistakes, Potter," Havisham said, with a nasty sneer in his voice. Even when distracted, the Mayor was collected and aware of his surroundings. Not Imperius, then. So why was he doing this?
"True," Harry admitted. "I was just a kid. A lucky kid, really." He hadn't planned to say that, the words had just left his mouth without passing through his brain. Still, Harry felt they had the ring of truth. It had all been nothing more than luck.
It seemed to be the right approach. "What kind of wizard lets a child get the best of him?" Havisham asked. "A careless one, that's what. And then they go and leave Shacklebolt alive to take the job that should have been mine."
"So you wanted to be Minister?" Keep him talking, keep him talking, Harry repeated to himself.
"The position was mine!" the little man shouted, his voice getting higher and higher with each phrase as he worked himself into a frenzy of resentment. "Promised to me before Shacklebolt appeared, and then just because of the war and the Boy Who Lived, it was stolen from me. Stolen!" His voice had reached a shriek. "The position was MII--"
In the midst of the word, Havisham collapsed, his high-pitched voice still ringing in Harry's ears. His shining bald head lay in the mud of the street, and his body looked relaxed and loose-jointed, as though it had just been unable to support its own weight any longer. Harry slowly raised his eyes from Havisham's inert body and saw Parvati standing beyond, her wand still raised in attack position. Her eyes were wide and her lips parted in surprise, but her hand did not tremble.
"The nonverbal stunner," she said softly, and her voice seemed to Harry to carry loudly across the street. "It came in pretty handy after all."
"I'll say," Kingsley agreed, looking down at the small figure slumped on the ground at his feet. "That was -- well done, both of you." His voice shook as he spoke.
"We're not done yet," Parvati said grimly, and Harry felt a little surge of admiration for his partner -- she seemed to be a small step ahead of him all the time. "I'll take care of him," she said, pointing at the mayor on the ground.
There was no need to discuss: if Parvati was to take care of the perpetrator, Harry would handle the victim. He reached out to steer Kingsley away from the scene. "We need to get you out of here, Minister." Despite his impressive height and muscle strength, Kingsley moved easily and compliantly, almost like a child.
Quickly and efficiently, Parvati conjured ropes from her wand and bound the captive. Looking up, she caught Harry's eye, and both of their heads nodded in agreement. Parvati reached out and grasped Havisham's wrist, and as if on the count of three, they apparated away.
Within a few hours, Harry was back where the mission had begun for him: his desk. On the flat surface in front of him was a blank form titled "Mission Report." A shadow fell across the page, and he looked up to find the source. Parvati stood in front of him, her hair a little more disorderly than in the morning, her robes rumpled and her lipstick gone. She looked even more beautiful than she had before, and for a moment Harry considered telling her so, but then she spoke and the moment passed.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Never better." As he spoke, he realized it was true. He was filled with an unfamiliar feeling, a kind of peace and satisfaction that was altogether new. They had saved the Minister today, and no one had died or even been hurt. It was quite possibly the best feeling in the world.
"About what you said before," Parvati said slowly, "about luck." Harry had to search his mind to remember the comment. Oh, right. What he'd said to Havisham about being only a lucky kid. "I hope you realize that isn't true," she told him softly, meeting his gaze directly. "Luck had nothing to do with what you did today, or-- or before."
Her eyes were a deep, soft brown, and they were filled with warmth. "Yeah," Harry said. "I know. I just -- it's what he wanted to hear, you know?"
Parvati nodded, but he thought maybe she didn't believe him completely. He didn't really know if he believed it all himself.
"Hey listen," he said. "D'you want to go get a drink, to celebrate victory on our first mission?"
Parvati smiled, and he felt that it had very little to do with the mission and everything to do with him. "I'd love that," she said.
Harry grinned back, and stood up from his chair, leaving his paperwork on the desk behind him. There'd be time to finish it later, he knew. In fact, he thought to himself as he and Parvati walked side-by-side out of the building, he had a whole career ahead of him. It would be plenty of time to take care of paperwork. Maybe he'd even find the time to tell Parvati how he felt, one of these days.
Author: r_becca
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Length: ~2500 words
Characters: Harry, Parvati, Kingsley
Summary: An Auror's job isn't all it's cracked up to be, and Harry worries he's chosen the wrong career until he finds excitement on his first mission.
Notes: Written for cynthia_black, who wanted Harry/Parvati in the light of Deathly Hallows, or Kingsley genfic in the same era. I hope you enjoy this!
-----------------------
Harry sat back from his desk and rubbed his dry, itchy eyes. When he rolled his shoulders, he felt his muscles stretch and his spine crackle into place. It seemed like he’d been sitting hunched over all day, filling out forms and writing letters. And still, there was a flock of little paper cranes hovering over his desk, while his outbox held only a small stack of completed forms.
The clock on the wall said it was only three forty-two. Still an hour and twenty-eight minutes until he could leave.
Harry sighed. Was this really the job he’d dreamed of in school? Action, excitement, and adventure? Join the Auror Corps, travel to new and exciting places, learn powerful new spells, and cast them on deserving criminals! the pamphlets had advertised. Yet Harry had been a trainee Auror for nearly six months, and he hadn’t gotten to do any of those things. Well, except for learning a few new spells, but those were mostly boring defensive stuff. And even then, he only got to practice them with Parvati in the Beginning Spellwork practice rooms. Harry couldn’t help but feel kind of insulted. Beginning spellwork? He’d defeated Voldemort, for Merlin’s sake! A bit beyond the basics, that one.
They'd been forced to spend weeks in those padded rooms, practicing every defensive spell in the books, throwing each other against the walls for hours on end each day. And then, when they'd finished, the instructors had put them under silencio and made them do it all again nonverbally. Some training course: Harry could barely speak or walk afterward, his vocal chords and his legs aching from abuse. And then they'd have to go back and do it again. It was enough to make him wish he'd chosen a different field, decided to do something different with his life.
“Hey, Harry,” Parvati said, leaning over his desk and smiling. Her dark hair was pulled back in a simple plait, and she wore the same plain black Auror robes that he had on. Still, there was something about her that looked out of place in the banality of the Auror offices, brighter and more alive.
“Er, hi.” It was not good to be distracted by your own partner, Harry reminded himself. Not good at all. “What’s up?”
“Look what I got,” she said in a singsong voice, holding up a tight scroll of parchment tied with a black ribbon. Every color meant something different in the Auror Corps, but black was the one Harry had been daydreaming about for weeks.
“Field assignment?” he asked, straightening in his chair and reaching for the scroll immediately.
Parvati laughed. “Not so fast, Potter. This is for the both of us.” She untied the ribbon and dropped it on top of the unfinished forms on his desk, then unrolled the parchment with a flourish. “Blah blah blah, Auror corps orders, etcetera etcetera...” she murmured in a low voice. A little shiver ran down Harry’s spine at the sound of her low murmur, and it wasn’t all down to the assignment. “Ah, here we go. ‘You will accompany the Minister of Magic to the groundbreaking ceremonies of the new Hogsmeade Primary School and protect him from all threats both magical and mundane.’ “
She looked at Harry, eyes white in her dark face. Harry knew that his own face was equally surprised. He’d been expecting something with danger, intrigue...
“Guard the Minister?” Harry asked slowly. “But that’s--”
“Kind of a letdown,” Parvati finished, disappointment evident in her voice. It was exactly what Harry was thinking. A letdown, just like the rest of Auror training.
Together with Kingsley --Minister Shacklebolt, Harry reminded himself-- they apparated to the dingy little Hogsmeade field office. Harry’s dress uniform hung heavily from his shoulders, and he was hyper-aware of the silver badge pinned to his chest. Parvati, too, looked more serious than usual, and she kept raising her hand to trace the edge of her badge.
“Nothing to worry about, you two,” Kingsley said cheerfully, as they stepped out onto the high street. “Wouldn’t’ve sent you if there was any kind of a threat out there.” Indeed, it was a bright spring day, and the sun shone brightly in a vivid blue sky. It did not look like a day for threats. The weather did nothing to reassure Harry, however, and he gripped his wand tightly in his hand as they walked.
They were greeted by Hogsmeade’s Mayor Havisham, a small, portly man whose bald head did not quite reach to Kingsley’s shoulder. “Minister, Minister, so glad to have you here.” He shook Kingsley’s hand vigorously, glanced briefly at Harry and Parvati, and then directed them up the street.
In the Auror offices, Harry had studied a map of Hogsmeade in preparation for this outing. The town was long and narrow, with most of the shops and offices clustered along the high street that ran the length of the town. Hogwarts castle was just visible in a valley to the east. Above and behind the shops were a few homes, but as they walked away from Hogwarts to the west they passed more and bigger houses, with larger lawns and more space between the buildings. The houses were well-kept, decorated with bright flower beds and freshly-painted shutters. There were a few details, though, that proved this was a wizarding community: a child learning to fly a broom as his father looked on proudly, a rug shaking itself out from a window, and owls zipping around overhead. Harry wasn’t sure, but he suspected most of the flowers were too large to be strictly natural.
After only a few blocks’ walk on the gentle incline, Mayor Havisham paused, panting a little bit and dabbing ineffectually at the beads of sweat collecting on his shiny bald head with a large handkerchief. “Right this way, Minister,” he said breathlessly, gesturing down a side street. Harry could see a large empty lot about halfway down the street.
“Ah, is this the place?” Kingsley asked.
Mayor Havisham started, as though he hadn’t expected the question. “What, eh?” His forehead was sweaty again, despite the handkerchief he carried with him. “Oh yes, the school. Yes, yes. That’s the place.”
Harry glanced at Parvati and caught her eye for a moment, then she looked quickly away. The corners of her mouth were twitching, and Harry could see she was trying not to smile. There was a tiny dimple at the corner of her mouth, and her lips were a soft pink next to the dusky brown of her skin. Harry knew he was staring, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away.
As he watched, Parvati’s expression changed. One moment she could barely hide her amusement, and in the next moment he saw her eyes widen, her dimple disappear, and her jaw harden. Something in her posture shifted, and no longer just the pretty girl he knew from school, but an Auror ready for battle.
Harry pulled out his own wand and shifted into battle stance himself, scanning the surrounding buildings for the threat Parvati had identified. They were surrounded on all sides by quaint residential homes -- the threat could come from anywhere. Kingsley was standing before him, his back and shoulders stiff in the face of the threat.
Mayor Havisham was speaking again, and with a start Harry realized that he had forgotten all about the little man. “I’m quite sorry about this, Minister, but if you’ll just step over here this will all be over quickly.” What on earth...? Harry was so surprised that it actually took him a minute to realize that Hogsmeade's portly, jovial mayor was holding the Minister of Magic at wandpoint. How could this be happening?
Harry raised his wand to strike, but Kingsley’s broad shoulders were blocking the Mayor. He moved left, hoping to circle around and get into spellcasting position. “I don’t think so, Mister Potter,” Havisham said sharply. “Accio.” Harry’s traitorous wand flew out of his hand and around the side of Kingsley’s body, arcing through the air as if it had been perfectly designed to desert Harry in his hour of need.
“Just because you’re the Boy Who Lived, you think you can handle everything that comes your way, well you’ve got another think coming, boy.” Real bitterness had crept into his voice, and Harry could tell that the man was losing his focus a bit. From the corner of his eye, he could see Parvati with her wand out, moving around toward Havisham’s opposite flank. If Havisham caught sight of her, Parvati wouldn't have a chance at him. He had to keep up the distraction for just a little while longer.
“Oh yeah?” Harry asked, feeling stupid. He’d taunted better villains than this, for Merlin’s sake. His mind was racing, trying to remember every lesson he’d ever had in dealing with hostage-takers and hostile wizards. He was drawing a total blank. "I've handled better men than you, and I'm still standing."
Keep them talking, Harry remembered his instructors saying. Be a sympathetic listener; discover their motivation; distract from the target.
"Those men made mistakes, Potter," Havisham said, with a nasty sneer in his voice. Even when distracted, the Mayor was collected and aware of his surroundings. Not Imperius, then. So why was he doing this?
"True," Harry admitted. "I was just a kid. A lucky kid, really." He hadn't planned to say that, the words had just left his mouth without passing through his brain. Still, Harry felt they had the ring of truth. It had all been nothing more than luck.
It seemed to be the right approach. "What kind of wizard lets a child get the best of him?" Havisham asked. "A careless one, that's what. And then they go and leave Shacklebolt alive to take the job that should have been mine."
"So you wanted to be Minister?" Keep him talking, keep him talking, Harry repeated to himself.
"The position was mine!" the little man shouted, his voice getting higher and higher with each phrase as he worked himself into a frenzy of resentment. "Promised to me before Shacklebolt appeared, and then just because of the war and the Boy Who Lived, it was stolen from me. Stolen!" His voice had reached a shriek. "The position was MII--"
In the midst of the word, Havisham collapsed, his high-pitched voice still ringing in Harry's ears. His shining bald head lay in the mud of the street, and his body looked relaxed and loose-jointed, as though it had just been unable to support its own weight any longer. Harry slowly raised his eyes from Havisham's inert body and saw Parvati standing beyond, her wand still raised in attack position. Her eyes were wide and her lips parted in surprise, but her hand did not tremble.
"The nonverbal stunner," she said softly, and her voice seemed to Harry to carry loudly across the street. "It came in pretty handy after all."
"I'll say," Kingsley agreed, looking down at the small figure slumped on the ground at his feet. "That was -- well done, both of you." His voice shook as he spoke.
"We're not done yet," Parvati said grimly, and Harry felt a little surge of admiration for his partner -- she seemed to be a small step ahead of him all the time. "I'll take care of him," she said, pointing at the mayor on the ground.
There was no need to discuss: if Parvati was to take care of the perpetrator, Harry would handle the victim. He reached out to steer Kingsley away from the scene. "We need to get you out of here, Minister." Despite his impressive height and muscle strength, Kingsley moved easily and compliantly, almost like a child.
Quickly and efficiently, Parvati conjured ropes from her wand and bound the captive. Looking up, she caught Harry's eye, and both of their heads nodded in agreement. Parvati reached out and grasped Havisham's wrist, and as if on the count of three, they apparated away.
Within a few hours, Harry was back where the mission had begun for him: his desk. On the flat surface in front of him was a blank form titled "Mission Report." A shadow fell across the page, and he looked up to find the source. Parvati stood in front of him, her hair a little more disorderly than in the morning, her robes rumpled and her lipstick gone. She looked even more beautiful than she had before, and for a moment Harry considered telling her so, but then she spoke and the moment passed.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Never better." As he spoke, he realized it was true. He was filled with an unfamiliar feeling, a kind of peace and satisfaction that was altogether new. They had saved the Minister today, and no one had died or even been hurt. It was quite possibly the best feeling in the world.
"About what you said before," Parvati said slowly, "about luck." Harry had to search his mind to remember the comment. Oh, right. What he'd said to Havisham about being only a lucky kid. "I hope you realize that isn't true," she told him softly, meeting his gaze directly. "Luck had nothing to do with what you did today, or-- or before."
Her eyes were a deep, soft brown, and they were filled with warmth. "Yeah," Harry said. "I know. I just -- it's what he wanted to hear, you know?"
Parvati nodded, but he thought maybe she didn't believe him completely. He didn't really know if he believed it all himself.
"Hey listen," he said. "D'you want to go get a drink, to celebrate victory on our first mission?"
Parvati smiled, and he felt that it had very little to do with the mission and everything to do with him. "I'd love that," she said.
Harry grinned back, and stood up from his chair, leaving his paperwork on the desk behind him. There'd be time to finish it later, he knew. In fact, he thought to himself as he and Parvati walked side-by-side out of the building, he had a whole career ahead of him. It would be plenty of time to take care of paperwork. Maybe he'd even find the time to tell Parvati how he felt, one of these days.