grocery store.

He cooked in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, so much bigger and better and more responsive than his own crappy little one that Harry could almost have wept, and made them steaks and spinach and crisp rosemary potatoes, a quick carrot soup as a starter. Draco peered over his shoulder while he worked, and kept trying to add spices to things at random and clearly out of mischief, but he enjoyed the food and said so, and the conversation flowed easy between them over their long-empty plates and bowls.

It was the best night Harry’d had in a very long time. He still can’t quite put a finger on why.

So that’s…that. It’s not important; it’s just something he’s doing; it doesn’t really matter at all. It’s a nice distraction from work, though, because as it turns out, Ron was held back in Erhard’s office that day they were both called in there to be told he was getting promoted.

“It’s really incredible,” Ron gushed at dinner the evening after his first day as a Supervising Lead Auror. “I mean, I’ve been saying for years—'Mione, haven’t I been saying —that the department needs to take a more tactical approach to how they determine who works what case? How they allocate time and resources?”

“I have indeed heard you say that many times,” Hermione said, in a tone that suggested she had confirmed this for her husband more than once already. She gave Harry a fond, if exasperated, look. “And now you’re in a position to change that!”

“And now I’m in a position to—yes exactly, Hermione. That’s exactly right. God, you know me so well.” He leaned over the table to kiss her, a little tipsy, and put his elbow in the mashed potatoes, but Hermione didn’t seem to mind. “Plus, I mean, I don’t mind telling you —I loved my days in the field, I did, but being a father changes a man.” He gave Rose a serious look, which she returned by blowing a raspberry at him. Ron grinned. “It’s hard to be out risking life and limb all the time when you’ve got such an important set of lives and limbs waiting for you at home, you know?”

“Sure,” said Harry, who didn’t at all.

“Not that I won’t still be out in the field sometimes,” Ron said hurriedly, giving Harry an apprehensive look. He’d said the same thing, made the same face, when he told Harry about the promotion—like he was afraid Harry was going to fall apart without him.

Harry did, honestly, feel a bit like he might. He’d actually been thinking about…maybe asking, that night, if Ron wouldn’t consider sticking with his old job. Harry didn’t think it would be such a big ask; he couldn’t think of anything he, personally, would hate more than working any of the positions the department had to offer that were above his current one. They took you out of the field, and being in the field was the only part of Harry’s job that ever felt worth doing. He couldn’t understand why Ron would want to give it up, and— selfishly—he thought he might go a little mad without Ron there, at his side, joking around and reminding him to do his paperwork and just generally cutting through some of the mind-numbing despair and boredom.

He couldn’t say so, of course—not when Ron was so clearly thrilled, going on and on about how great even just the training was, how excited he was to get the opportunity to make decisions, shake things up. Harry ate his shepherd's pie and sipped his wine and said that he was happy, that it was great, that he couldn’t wait to meet his new partner.

He got assigned Trent, because of course he did.

“I want you to think of this as a teaching opportunity,” Erhard told him the morning he found out. “As in, it’s an opportunity for you to show me that you can teach. Your track record in this arena has not been stellar.”

“Hey!” Harry said, flushing. “That’s not true! People still talk about that seminar I did on defensive and protective magic!”

“That’s an excellent point,” Erhard agreed. “One that no one could argue. But I have your file here with me—let’s look at some of theplaints from previous Junior Aurors who have sought you out for advice on, oh, any other topic.”

Harry slumped down low in his chair, because: fuck.

“Oh, here’s a good one,” Erhard said. Her tone was even, but Harry could tell this was bringing her joy. “‘I asked Auror Potter how I could improve my stance and he said to stand better.’ Oh, or this one: ‘I went to Auror Potter for an evaluation of my civilianmunications skills and he said there'd been a crime and walked away.’ Or this one, a personal favorite, the department heads discussed it at great length: ‘Auror Potter caught me crying after my first murder inquest and he hit me in the shoulder.’”

“I did not,” Harry said, appalled. He remembered that night, and Auror Wipple was clearly exaggerating. “I was—it was a pat! I wasforting her!”

“She said you left a bruise,” Erhard said, and gave Harry a stern look over her glasses. “I don’t think most people find bruises veryforting.”

Harry did not say I do, but it was distressingly close.

So now he’s stuck with Trent. It’s not as bad as he thought it would be, in the sense that it’s much worse. Harry’s operated for years on the assumption that he and Ron were both pretty good Aurors—they had a decent closing rate, not the best in the department but nothing to sneeze at, either, and all the work always seemed to get done.

Now, though, Harry is beginning to suspect that Ron is in fact a great Auror, and Harry is a small butmitted dumpster fire cunningly disguised in an official DMLE robe. It’s… humbling. He’s trying not to think about it too much.

They haven’t even solved Draco’s case, which Harry can’t actually stop thinking about; it keeps him awake nights, nips worryingly at his heels all through the day. It’s not like he’s not working on it—they’ve made headway—but it’s not enough, and it needs to be, and it’s driving Harry slowly mad. He asked Draco about Slughorn’s suggestion about sentimentality magic weeks back and Draco told him, begrudgingly, that the Dreamless Sleep and the Draught of Peace were both potions he relied on to get him through the day, though he’d fixed Harry with a look of such intensely concentrated fury on admitting it that Harry hadn’t pressed him for why. The biscuits were obviously also of significance (though Harry still feels in his heart that the thief probably just swiped them because they were there), but the necklace, Draco assured him, meant nothing to him, so there was that theory scuppered.

The lack of resolution is obviously getting to Draco, too. Harry doesn’t blame him; he, personally, would probably relish the thought of some thieves out there that mighte back and have another go at him, but he’s aware that his feelings towards danger do not exactlyprise what most might call a sane outlook. And anyway Draco’s nervy, in general, suspicious of everyone from his street’s Muggle postman (“Look at his eyes, Potter! They’ve never known joy! I think he’s an Inferi, truly I do,”) to the barista at his local coffee shop (“I made ament about the temperature of my tea one time and now she’s out for blood— smell this, Potter. Does this smell dosed to you?”). It makes sense that it would eat at him, this unresolved violation, but Harry can’t seem to figure the bloody thing out, and Trent’s no help at all. It’s killing him, a little, to watch the way Draco’s eyes snap to the door at any little sound, the way he seems ill at ease even inside his own home.

It’s all ganging up on Harry a bit, though not necessarily in a bad way. He’s more frustrated and unhappy than ever at work, but after work—well, he doesn’t feel quite as guilty about going 'round to Ron and Hermione’s now that he doesn’t see Ron as much at the office, and it’s nicer to be at the Burrow now that things are sitting easier with Ginny and Nev, and there’s Draco. Harry maybe feels a bit overwhelmed every now and again but it’s better, he thinks, than the alternative; he hadn’t realized until he didn’t have time to do it anymore how much time he used to spend just sitting around, waiting for the next thing to happen, not thinking about anything much.

Anyway, that’s probably why he ets, until the ignominious day is already upon him, the approaching Gryffindor pub night.

When Harry gets to the bar, Seamus and Dean are already at a table, and there are two coats thrown across chairs that look like Hermione’s and Ron’s.

Harry raises his eyebrows at Dean, who always rolls in after his gallery closes at eight. “Early tonight, aren’t you?”

Dean shrugs. “Ron Owled me and asked me to be here early if I could, and the gallery was dead anyway.”

“He didn’t tell me to be here early,” Harry says, a little put out in spite of himself.

“You’re always here early, though,” Seamus says, rolling his eyes. “First one in, first one out—that’s our Harry!”

Harry is spared having to think up aeback to this frankly upsettingly perceptive jab from Seamus by the door opening. Neville, Ginny, Angelina, Ge, and then—to Harry’s absolute shock—Bill, Fleur, Penelope and Percy walk into the pub.

“Where’s Charlie?” Harry says faintly, just because—well, because it would be less weird to see Charlie here than Percy. Or Fleur, to be totally honest.

“Oh, who knows?” Bill says, waving a hand. “Last month he sent me an Owl that was just a singed piece of parchment with some coordinates and a smiley face on it. I’d’ve heard if he were dead and that’s about the best I’ve got. Blasted dragte season,” he adds, sounding cross. Fleur pats him on the arm.

Ginny rolls her eyes at Harry. “It’s a sore subject, y’see, because last time Charlie was in town they started playing this game—”

“We are not discussing this,” Fleur says firmly. “We are all 'oping to 'ave a perfectly lovely evening and I will not 'ear another word about it!”

“Yes!” Bill says, looking a little wild about the eyes. “Thank you, Fleur! A perfectly lovely evening! We’ll hear no more about it!”

“Oh, all right,” Ginny says, tone suspiciously placating, and then waits

本站無廣告，永久域名（fanyan.cc）