wednesday.april.30.2008

Harry's invitation stalks him through the Quibbler newsroom like a thing possessed, the seventh owl in the past three days. Which should be the outside of enough, yeah?, but they've sent this one with a Snowy, so that's the outside of enough, fucking Ministry arseholes, sending bad post with owls Harry can't hex.

His colleagues, if the children passing as interns can be called as much, don't do a thing to help. He assumes that's related to the blatant coffee thievery or the way he calls them children, but fuck them, they are. And anyway, Truth telling's a thirsty occupation, he requires proper fuel for it and it's hardly his fault they leave the pot out unattended.

Someone will be hearing from his attorney.

One of the children snickers. Another snorts. Someone's passed word, then, that Regulus Black: Page Five Prick's being stalked by his post again, Harry's arsed about that, too.

It finds him hiding under his desk, which isn't so cupboard there's no light or anything, but isn't so uncupboard that it doesn't feel safe. He hears a final soft hoot, he wants to think it apology, and he cringes when he hears the parchment's thump on his chair.

He waits until the owl's gone to get out his wand. Incendio's untouched and unread, because the where and when of things tells him what it says.

He RSVPs the ash.                                                                

***

Luna calls him in for a "pep talk", like anyone still believes that euphemism, and he goes less because he cares than because as Editor In Charge, she's got the best biscuits. Doesn't really need to hear—yet again—why he's not meant to be a) terrorizing the interns, b) nicking the pot, c) threatening his sources, or d) insulting his fans, does he? Actually, he thinks they've possibly expanded the repertoire lately, added e) some combination of the above, but if Luna's wrath has talking points—and it does—Harry feels morally square with having bullet responses.

So he settles into her office and ticks them off, biscuit by sweet, ungodly-good biscuit: a) they are, they're barely out of Hogwarts and they've no edge to them at all, they'll be eaten alive in this business, he's doing this out of love. 

Luna's face draws Editor, drolly disturbed.

Harry practices his charming smile. It appears not to work. "Really, I love the interns," he says, and he actually means that. Loves most how they flee.

Luna's fingers tap her desk, which likely means b), but Harry's not sure until she snorts and looks dryly at her mug. He shrugs, talks about the importance of caffeination on the functioning brain, it's this or potions, does she really want him on potions, rehab's in the company plan. And yeah, Luna's snorting and all, but Harry's on a roll, Harry blows through c) in a flurry, because honestly, how anyone expects him to find his Truths by deadline if he can't put the fear of Merlin (or Harry's mad hexing skills) in them is beyond him, do they think the Ministry likes what he writes, have the law suits taught them nothing?, Harry's concerned by how thick they are.

Then there's d), which Harry thinks he might not have done lately, but he offers up a pre-emptive babble about how the only thing his readers love more than agreeing with him is Howling him to hell, you don't get that kind of rabid fanbase without pissing them off regularly.

When he's finished, Harry sneaks a last biscuit and tries to leave. Luna spells the door locked.

"Charming as all that is, that's not actually why I've called you in," Luna says. Harry feels the first stirrings of alarm.

The biscuit goes down badly and everything.

"Do tell."

"I've just been Floo'd by Angelica Noseworth over at the Ministry. Undersecretary for Muggle Relations, ring any bells? No? Perhaps you'll recall her name, then, from the numerous releases sent out for the Victory Tenth." Luna Lovegood-Longbottom's a hard fucking woman when she wants to be, all Editor's steel and Ravenclaw wit. There's no way she doesn't know she's more than made her point already, but Harry can't find words to make her stop, can't find words to get himself up, which is bloody ridiculous, really, he fucking lives by words, he'll be right arsed later about how they've let him down. So Harry sits speechless and Luna stares. Watches him squirm.

He stops. He likes her and all but if she's called him in to talk about the Ministry and their ridiculous Victory Tenth, she's been dragged into what should have been his own private war.

***

"You can't not go, Harry, don't be ridiculous."

He hears what she doesn't have to say, that it's the tenth fucking anniversary so of course he's obliged. "Because I'm Harry Fucking Potter? Funny, I thought saving the world that one time meant I didn't have to do a bloody thing for anyone anymore. No? Should've had that in m'fucking contract, then."

Luna looks startled, then absolutely disgusted. "Because you're the fucking Ministry bureau chief," she says, more like a snap. "This is the biggest Ministry do in Merlin knows how long, Harry, you can't just avoid it forever." She blows out a hard breath. Sags a bit in her seat, how he knows she'd stiffened at some point, and Merlin knows when. "Look, I didn't care when the Prophet had us on all their giddy coverage of it, right? Didn't say a thing even though we were getting beaten on what's probably the most talked about story of the year, because I know it's hard for you. Harry, I know." He half-thinks if they'd sat closer, she'd lay a hand on his then, offer up some sweet consolation because she's gone soft, lost the Editor's edge, turned back into Luna. That last biscuit sits like lead. "But we can't completely ignore it or we'll lose all credibility out there. You know that. S'the only thing the Ministry's done all year everyone can agree on, so how does it look if we skip out? Christ, Harry, you're not just turning them down, you're burning their invitations and shipping back the ashes. Have you any clue how that makes us look?"

He worries. Knows Editor Luna and Luna Luna and likes them both, but the way she's speaking, it's blending them, fucking with his hard-fought Truths, and he squirms again, feels like his Hogwarts self is descending somewhere to suck him in to Dumbledore's yes man.

Fuck.

"I can't," he says, but he can't look at her, either, just stares at the spot on her wall where there's a picture Luna calls her best men. Neville and Harry and Draco, all waving courage from behind their frame. He's not sure he should be looking there, either, but that Draco stops waving, frowns a bit and stills that Harry's hand, and that easy, Harry feels like himself. He stares at her to make sure she knows it. "Luna, look, I can't, all right? Made other plans."

"Cancel them," she says, like it's that simple. "Do it or I'll have to send someone else. Maybe one of the children. You honestly think that serves the readership well?"

Harry feels cold. Drained and horrid. "No," he says, swatting mentally at panic, the thought of those kids trying to sort out the Truths in the Ministry's history is just…He can't let that happen. Just can't. "S'going to be four days of hell, can't stick those kids in that, honestly woman, what sort of godawful plan is that?" He dangles his glasses by an arm and rubs his eyes, scrubs the stress and exhaustion away. Offers up a spec-free look. "For the record, I wasn't planning to ignore it."

He can't see her weigh the limbs he's dragged her out on over the years until he slides back on his glasses, but he knows. Knows, too, when he wins.

"All right," she says, soft but firming, the stirrings of Truth-lust in her voice. "All right, then, pitch me."

So Harry tells her about Phoenix Con.

***

"Merlinfuck, Harry." She toys with her quill. "You're certain about this? That you can handle it and everything?"

"Handled worse in my time."

"You know what they do there," she says, that's not really a question, of course he does, because they do it to him. He can almost hear Luna's mind working the numbers, running the probabilities and concluding what sort of hit her paper will take by the time it's done. Weighing that against the potential for brilliance in the assignment he wants, and Harry maybe started out pretty hopeless, but he's learned what makes a great read. Truths, he thinks, and craves them, can already taste the satisfaction ahead.

"You're fine with that?" Luna says, dragging him out of his musings. "You won't, oh, I don't know, require use of our legal department?"

"No," he says, and Harry feels cagey. Luna looks like she knows, and maybe she does, but she doesn't say anything about it, just goes soft on him again.

"No," she murmurs, not even really talking to him despite where she's looking. "No, I expect you'll take your own."

The Harry in her picture slings an arm around Draco's neck.

***

And on his way out, he stops by her door and says, "You're still going to cover it, aren't you?" But really, that's not the question and they both know it.

"I won't send any of the children," she promises. Not much of the newsroom left, he thinks, but he leaves that part alone because she's promised and in this, he trusts her to be good as her word. Then, probably to break the tension, she lifts both brows and says, "Seven owls, though, Harry? And all you ever sent back was ash? Merlin, if the fangirls could see you now..."

He shrugs. "They sent the last one with a Snowy. A real one."

This time when her gaze hardens, it's on his behalf.

***

He grins bloody fiendish all the way back to his desk. Almost forgets to nick the office coffee as he goes.

***

Consulting my attorney proves harder than anticipated. The bastard's gone to ground, laying low from some no-doubt demonic source in some hovel of a safe house. I suspect the authorities at work, some new Ministerial fuckwittery so terrifyingly insipid, it sends the rare remaining sane screaming fleeing into the night. Erm, evening. Afternoon.

I arm myself with the tools of Journalism— wands, cloak, and the new pot of coffee—and resolve to join his pathetic surge of furtive rebellion, if only because I've seen him fight, he'll be lucky to hold them off long enough for any sort of aid, he's not built for a siege, he'll snap like biscuits.

I add those to my supplies, too. S'not proper Journalism without biscuits. 

I locate him hiding from the parasitically servile grotesques bunkering down in force by our kitchens, a shattered shell of himself, sartorially-speaking, armor askew and manic-eyed, rambling in tongues neither of us speak.

"My god, man, get ahold of yourself," I say, forcibly removing his claws from the dignity of my person through a series of cunning combative gestures culled from the misanthropes of public transportation.

He is cowed, if not subdued.

Fear and Loathing at the Phoenix, Regulus Black, p. 2

"Fuck's sakes, stop hitting me, you fight like a girl," Draco says, smacking back, and Harry thinks that's awfully brave for someone hiding from house elves. Says so, and Draco's look turns bloody, speaks volumes about the length and quality of his day. "Yes, well, Tinky's tracked me all bloody day over some bloody form you've forgotten to post, and if I have to explain to the bloody bints at that ridiculous convention one more time that no, we haven't bloody registered, let alone asked after the upgrade, I swear to fucking Muggle deities, I'm digging out The Mask."

There's strange hell in Draco's eyes, patience drained and burned and joyous thumped under a righteous rage he's only just venting. Harry skims the bit about the hitting, honestly, Draco's hauled him clear over the couch, that bloody hurt, Harry's no doubt bruised, Harry's fully entitled to his hitting. Perks at the convention mention because really, makes his life easier if Draco's figured it out already, doesn't it? But then Draco throws out that Mask reference and Harry's grin feels unstoppable, Draco's got levels of pissed and they're none of them fatal if he's threatening to play up his Death Eating past.

"We got the upgrade?"

Draco eyes him cautious, one-eyed and still. "MotherMerlinfuck, Scarhead, what've you done now?"

"Nothing," Harry says, cagey. "Journalism."

"Way you say that, s'a fucking felony, journalism."

Well, Draco'd know. "Not yet, it's not," Harry says, debating the immediate wisdom of a Truth speech, because yeah, Draco already knows this and fully agrees and everything, but sometimes Harry thinks Draco forgets because he doesn't live it, not like Harry does, you can forget a thing when you're not living it.

"Give them time," Draco mutters. Leans back, asserts authority over his end of the couch, and maybe Harry's living how much he wants Draco, maybe Harry can't forget it, but it still wallops him sometimes. "What?" Draco asks after a moment. Draco's hand sweeps over his face, his unbuttoned shirt, his chest as though there's crumbs to dispatch. "What's wrong?"

"Licky spot," Harry says, words stumbling over too-thick tongue, gaze locked on the patch of skin at the base of Draco's throat, the divot at his collarbone. S'like his whole being's designed to draw Harry's eye, the hard angles of his face all arrows in light and shadow to the point of his chin, the spread collar of Draco's snow white dress shirt, the deep blue lines of his loosened tie, all of it there to frame and focus on what's important.

Draco hasn't said anything and Harry thinks maybe he's not been clear, so Harry points and says, "Licky spot," again with less patience, and he's only distantly aware of Draco's smirk.

"Cunning as ever, aren't you?" Draco says with gleaming, feral teeth. Drags a finger over the neck of his shirt, tugs at the line of his tie. Loosens it more, one cocktease finger toying over that prettypale skin Harry thinks he can taste already. "See something you like?"

Harry spares a scolding glare for Draco's mocking eyes, then goes back to watching the licky spot in case it goes away. Draco chuckles, smallish shudders that rumble through him, dance his shirt like some perverse sartorial veil dance. "Cocktease," Harry accuses, and Draco laughs again.

There's a shimmy of well-dressed hips, an artful spread of thighs, Draco's sex on legs even when he's not standing on them, Harry's not meant to be patient, Sorted fucking House of Impulse, didn't he? So Harry moves in and Draco pushes him back. Hikes a brow when Harry points out the blatancy of the cockblocking.

"For someone who makes his living with words, you're surprisingly awful with them," Draco says. Harry's tried explaining before about words and speaking and words and writing, how they're not the same, but he's not sure anyone ever understands him but Luna. Besides, he's sure "cockblocking" says loads. "All right, Scarhead, fun as it is to bait you—and fuck me, it's still fun, who knew?—I'm very tired and I've had a very shit day. In the interests of at least ending it well before you explode in an inarticulate rage, we'll keep this simple, shall we? You want a go at my licky spot, I want answers."

Harry feels Draco's not treating this licky spot baring with the solemnity it deserves. Rare to find a mussed Malfoy when he comes home. Rarer still to see any of the prick from his bed in his attorney's clothes. And yeah, Harry kinks this, Harry kinks this hard, but it's not like he's never bent over his desk in the newsroom, let Draco have at him in the sea of Howlers and archives and such, fucking him through the floor and horrifying his portraits and celebrating his new office all in one go.

So really, if Harry can go along with Draco wanting him in battered trainers and scuffy jeans in his bloody office, Harry thinks Draco can go along with the importance of licky spot exploration on their bloody couch.

Still, he knows Malfuck; s'practically Draco's evil twin. Terror of the courts, Draco bloody Malfuck, all glibly gutting, the Malfoy cutting charm and that insatiable mind. Shark's skin, that mind, razored and fatal one way, smooth and sleek the next, and Harry's learned to recognize the Malfuck when it appears, knows he'll be ripped and worn into submission if Malfuck's taken a thing into his head.

"What sort of answers?" He lets go of his licky spot watching because Malfuck's not meant to be left unguarded, really, s'not safe.

Draco's smile's all Malfuck, slow and steady and predatory. "Tell me about this con."

***

"You're certain?" Draco leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands hung between them. "I mean, you're obviously certain, you're grinning like a twit and I swear you're bouncing, clearly we're doing this. But…You've thought about it all, yeah? Not just the bit where you've got your bloody great column, but all the rest of it?"

"Yeah." He wants to say it's not always about the column, but yeah, it sort of is. He shifts on the couch, drapes himself at Draco's side so their sides touch. It's no licky spot, but once there's the spectre of anniversary lurking in the room, there's bigger questions, anyway. "Luna was pretty clear, actually. It's this or the Ministry thing—"

"What? We told them no."

"Repeatedly, yeah, I know. Didn't stop the asking, though, did it?"

"For the cease and desist orders I laid on them, yeah, it should have." Draco studies sidelong. Harry feels the look, the warm of it, and there's licky spots and this, his life's fucking perfect, honestly, even if he's sometimes still got Ministry wank to handle. "Noseworth, right? She dim enough to contact you in person? Or were there minions involved?"

"Owls," Harry says, and tells Draco a bit about his day.

Draco slings an arm about his neck, draws him in for a squeeze when he says about Flooing Luna and Draco laughs a bit when he says about the ashes, and Draco says, "Fucking bitch, I'll have her," when he says about what sort of owl.

"Leave it," Harry says, dipping his head and looking up. "Just…con? Can't ignore it, right? Me being Harry Fucking Potter and all, but if I'm there, can't be there, so it's good, right?"

"Much as it can be, yeah," Draco says, words against Harry's temple, chased by a patient huff of resignation. "Yeah, all right, Scarhead, we'll do your ridiculous con. But you're talking to the fangirls and you've as good as said you'll owe me sexual favours for the rest of your oft-cursed life."

"Have I?"

"As your attorney, I'd advise you to make good with the licky spot, yes." And Draco tips his head back and Harry finds that spot waiting for him, and Harry bloody does.

***

Draco checks his bags when Harry's done packing, which leads to yet more legal advice.

"As your attorney, I'd advise you to lose any and all baggage contents with Wheeze provenance," Draco says, eyeing Harry's tote like he can see through it. Which he can't, Harry's packed around Draco before, he knows how to hide things now.

"Can't," Harry says, beating back the urge to clutch his bag in maidenly fashion. Draco makes ready a well-phrased Accio and Harry says, "No, no, I need those things for Journalism," before Draco can say it, and Draco looks ridiculously smug.

"As your attorney, I'd advise that taking a sack of ill-meant Wheezes and obscure, low-grade weaponry to an event you know will put you in prolonged contact with your fan club and its ilk has prolonged litigation and a potential stay in Azkaban written all over it. In big, fat, Gryffingit letters."

This seems like a good time to remind Draco he may be Harry's and he may be an attorney but he's not actually Harry's attorney, which makes Draco snort, "Thank fuck for that, they'd have me disbarred for what you've just done with m'licky spot."

"Yeah, s'the licky spot they're after," Harry says, petulance in his protection of the Journalistic implements. "Nothing at all to do with the rest of it."

"Scarhead, they'd have me fucking dismembered for the rest of it. Don't think you've any idea the blow you struck to the legal system when you won that case of yours."

***

Halfway through Harry's second year at the Quibbler, he's sued yet again by the Ministry, who seem to feel his penchant for profanity at the expense of spin detrimental to their message. When presented with the parchmentwork for said suit, the Quibbler's long-time lawyer, Artemus J. Ringshod, promptly declares himself retired in a flail of fury over irresponsible bloody editorial people and Harry being otherwise the death of him.

In response, editor Luna Longbottom, nee Lovegood, calls in former schoolmate Draco L. Malfoy, terror of the courts, for a consultation. One wreck of a meeting later, Draco L. Malfoy clears the room and demands private audience with Harry himself, ostensibly to collect the necessary details of the case. Harry proceeds to spew an unedited version of events, involving copious use of the phrase "Ministry fuckwits" and its variants at five-second intervals.

It takes Draco L. Malfoy less than four minutes to leave. He doesn't say a word.

Harry's column for the next month is equal parts scathing censure of said Ministry fuckwits and lengthy discourse on the depth and breadth of the persistent gitness of Draco L. Malfuck.

The Ministry sends cease-and-desist orders at regular intervals.

Harry declines.

From Draco L. Malfoy, he receives merely this: a scrap of parchment which reads, "Can't shag clients. Git."

One ill-fated appeasement effort later, as directed by his editor, Harry tugs up his trousers to the sound of Draco L. Malfoy drawling, “You know, I doubt this is what Luna meant by ‘kiss his arse, Scarhead.’” 

And that’s the fuck that.

***

"Luna says they threw it out so I'd stop writing about it," Harry says, half-sure that's the case. Draco's snort says he's right. Which is something.

"I'm certain they did. Defended yourself, so it certainly wasn't a display of legal brilliance."

They swap smirks, both aware of what the Wizengamot certainly isn't; that maybe Harry'd been on his own in that courtroom but he hadn't been utterly without resources.

"Oh, dunno about that," Harry says, because as far as he can tell, it was a stroke of brilliance, Draco having his case and sucking it, too.

"Oh, please. You had 'Ministry fuckwits" in the common vernacular inside of a month. They're still a little terrified of you, the Ministry lawyers. Trust me, I know."

"Took another year to have it in the dictionary, though," Harry says. Which feels a bit like failure, now he thinks about it. Fine to hear he's rocked Draco's world and all, really, but he actually cares about his own.

"Look, Scarhead, you can do what you'd like to get the job done. You will anyway, so there's no point in me telling you different, now is there? Only, and I say this as the poor put-upon who'll have to tell your boss, you will undoubtedly be back in a courtroom inside of a week if you go to this thing armed."

"By which you mean?"

"Premeditation, Potter. Goes a long way in court if it doesn't look like you planned it, yeah?"

***

They come at us like Inferi, beady-eyed and grinning the salivation of the openly damned, each step or jerk or crawl in our direction heralded by a grotesque squawk so high and thin and mighty, it's something Neolithic and horrible to behold.

I suspect I shall require fortification, and by fortification, I mean drink.

My attorney accosts me in my steady, silent organizing, one hand swiftly connecting with the bone beneath my sleeve. I give away our position in my surprise, correct his behaviour verbally until his eyes glaze and I recall how very little experience my attorney has with this sort of enemy.

And by "verbally correct", I mean hiss.

Fear and Loathing at the Phoenix, Regulus Black, p. 15

"Fuck, Scarhead, I've asked you not to do that," Draco says, eyes dark and deep and damp. Draco's got this way of looking at him that feels like a shag, like somewhere in some alternate life, they've the power of telepathy or whatever and when that Draco looks at that Harry like this Draco's looking at him, it's a private-public fuck that feels better than anything else in the world could.

Well, anything without contact, anyway.

"You've loosed the fangirls on me," Harry says, and he says it in Parseltongue just to hear Draco's moan. He's careful with the hissing, a telling rarity if ever he's got one, but considering Harry's trapped in a line of half-Harrys and semi-Rons and girls in big, silly hats like they maybe think they're faculty, Harry feels justified.

Draco's fingers curl hard in Harry's hair, tightening grip that reminds Harry all over again that yeah, yeah, he's got himself an attorney but it's one who's been in battle. One who still fights.

"You," Draco says, and he grinds it, forces the sound from between gritted teeth, mouth so close to Harry's it'll be a bit of a twitch to have them both rubbing noses. "You are a ridiculous git who's going to get us both caught at this if you're not careful. Running about bloody hissing, mucking about with m'licky spot, ChristMerlin, Potter, you're trying to destroy me, aren't you?"

That easily, the moment breaks. They hold their breath, wait for the gits in front or the girls behind to catch on to Scarhead-hissing-Potter, a combination lit like neon to Harry's mind, but no one does.

Instead, a semi-Ron snaps, "Oi, save it for tomorrow night, you two, we're not all on your ship."

Harry says, "Tomorrow?" as Draco says, "Ship?"

***

Joke's on them minutes later, when it's clear there's a run on his identity. The hotel registration witch looks about as bored as possible, doesn't even glance up when they reach the counter.

"Name?" Her quill's at the ready, though, so Draco says, "Potter," in his dullest drawl. She snorts. "Cute." Does look up then, obviously put out by the crowds, and there's not a spot of recognition in her eyes. Odd. "And you're in costume, too. Lovely." She practically sneers it, and Harry's not sure why until he thinks about the half-Harrys and semi-Rons. Shuddering feels necessary. "Name?"

Harry says, "Rita Skeeter," smooth as he can, gives her his best go at a charming grin. She ticks them off, slides their keys and their instructions, and Draco's faffed off with the map before Harry's finished spelling himself into the books.

Harry thinks he likes the hotel registration witch just fine.

He's not sure about the rest of the crowd, but one in a hundred's not bad.

***

"Hiss at me now, Potty, hiss at me now." Draco pushes him against the door of their suite, all roving hands and need. Harry tugs at his shirt, pulls it from his trousers and rubs his jaw over the bristles on Draco's cheek.

"We just got here," Harry says, protests a bit because he can. Draco's been a cocktease for ages, and yeah, all right, so maybe they'd gotten off at home but this is different, isn't it? Just being here, s'like a vacation a bit, and Harry wants to take his time. Make Draco mad for it, and he knows if he hisses they'll skip a few steps, Draco's never quite reasonable where Parseltongue's involved. "Slow down, settle the fuck down, s'no rush, we're here, got all night."

Draco is apparently less set on getting Harry naked than Harry thinks he should be, but that hand on his arse has quite obvious plans, and fuck, Draco hitches his hips, shoves in for the sort of still-dressed frotting they typically save for clubs and such. Not that Harry's not impressed, he quite definitely is, but they've already had a quick one tonight, he really wants the tease.

He tries to say all that, but between Draco's clever hands and Draco's nimble tongue and Draco's half-shag grind, Harry's not verbalizing much. Then Draco says, "Hurry up, we'll miss the Sorting," and Harry doesn't care.

***

"It's coming back to me now," Draco says ages later. "Always did have trouble making the Sorting Feast, didn't you?"

Harry thinks of flying Ford Anglias and being Stunned on the Hogwarts Express. Specifically ignores the feeling seventh year, when there'd been no train to catch. "Hey, yeah, but at least we made the bed."