The Liars Department -33-
tags: drarry, bickering, hijinks, auror Harry, ministry employee Draco, Harry is oblivious, Draco is an unrepentant flirt, Asbestos is a little shit, and then there’s disillusionment, there’s just so much disillusionment
Part 1 (contains links to all parts) <– Part 32 || Part 34 ->
Kalya stopped and spun around, “Is there an apparition point on this floor? There has to be, right? In case of fire or flood or perpetually replicating rabbits-”
“Your emergency portkey, Junior!” Harry called over her panicking, “It’s keyed to your last point of apparition.”
“Right right right,” Kalya said quickly patting down her pockets until she found a thin paper envelope and upended it on the desk, sending a broken piece of clothes-pin skittering across the surface.
“Hands together,” Harry said, holding his hand out above the clothes-pin. “We have to stay touching when we make contact with the object in order to be transported.”
“I know how a portkey works,” Draco said, stepping around the desk so he could put his hand next to Harry’s, their fingers brushing.
Harry glanced over at Draco, who was very deliberately staring at their hands. He put his hand over Draco’s, weaving their fingers together as Kalya grabbed them both and guided them down onto the portkey. It activated as soon as they touched it and in a single twisting lurching moment, dragged them from the office to a closed bathroom stall far too small for three people.
“Ah!” Kalya shouted, stumbling into the door.
For a single, breathless moment Draco wavered backwards, the backs of his knees pressed against the porcelain toilet bowl. Harry grabbed the front of his suit and pulled him back before Draco fell into the loo.
“I don’t- I don’t remember closing the door,” Kalya said apologetically. “Uh, umm. I need a little more room to get it open.”
“You- you’re wrinkling my suit,” Draco said stiffly.
Harry let go, and wrapped an arm around Draco’s waist instead, solving both problems in one movement as he stepped in close.
Draco’s mouth opened, but no sound came out, his ears turning red.
“That enough room?” Harry asked.
There was a click as Kalya unlocked the door and tried to open it and squeeze around the two of them, “A-almost…”
Harry held Draco even tighter, so they were pressed chest to chest. He grinned nervously at Draco’s silence. Draco was warm, the fabric of his suit smooth against Harry’s skin.
“Okay! Okay, I’m out!” Kalya said from the other side of the half-open door.
Harry spread his hand a possessively over Draco’s back, broad and leanly muscled.
“We need to go!” Kalya said. Much quieter, she said, “Shunter is going to kill me.”
“Auror Potter,” Draco said, his voice strained.
“Potter,” Draco said, his face turning pink as a sunburn.
Harry blinked and stepped back, the edge of the door jamming into his shoulder and pivoting him painfully out of the bathroom stall with a hiss of pain.
“Come on! Come on!” Kalya said, waving them outside.
“Merlin, use your head sometime, would you?” Draco sighed and stepped around Harry, but for a second, his hand brushed over Harry’s shoulder and the tender ache that still lingered from the metal door.
Harry couldn’t stop the smile on his face as he followed them out into what turned to be a massive indoor shopping centre. An indoor shopping centre on a saturday. There were people literally everywhere, frozen in place, a world holding its breath as they carefully dodged around the masses and headed towards the centre.
“Junior! What is this? I told you to get the Obliviators!” Shunter snapped as they came in sight.
“Sir! Sorry, Sir! They weren’t there!” Kalya said.
“They weren’t there?!” Shunter said, her harshly pulled back hair was frizzing around the edges in a physical manifestation of her frustration.
“The office was empty, and the receptionist said they were already called out. I sent a patronus, but there was no response, so I thought- I thought I should try to do something and so-” Kalya gestured back to Harry and Draco.
“I commend you for trying to do something, Junior, however we have a magic exposure that involves possibly up to a hundred people!” Shunter said. She turned and looked at the crowded food court in dismay.
The other Junior J- just J, Harry was tired of guessing what his name might be, ran up the stairs and joined them, “Perimeter secured, wards are set, sir!”
“Good,” Shunter said even as she shook her head, “We have maybe fifteen minutes before muggle media and authorities start to take notice. Send another Patronus for the Obliviators and tell them its an emergency of the highest order.” She turned to J and told him, “Send a patronus to the Department of mysteries and tell them time dilation may be needed and to send someone.”
Harry looked from Shunter and the frantically casting Juniors, to Malfoy, standing off to one side with his arms crossed.
“What’s the situation?” Harry asked.
Shunter narrowed her eyes.
“We’re here, what would it hurt?” Harry said.
“I could think of half a dozen things off the top of my head,” Shunter said.
“Sir,” Harry said. He could see Draco rolling his eyes and ignored him.
Shunter sighed, “The perpetrator used various spells to alter muggle bodies. We don’t know what their intent was-”
“Altered how?” Draco asked.
“…One has antlers, another bunny ears and one has a pig snout… we almost managed to stop that one,” Shunter said. “It’s a mess.”
“How easy are they to dispell?” Draco asked.
“Seconds,” Shunter said, “But that’s not the problem. The problem is all the people that have already seen the transformations.”
“Right…” Draco said thoughtfully.
Shunter started to say something, but Harry held up his hand in a silent gesture to wait. Which earned him a look that he would normally deeply deeply regret, but Draco was thinking, and Harry wanted him to succeed here more than anything. No one would be able to doubt Draco’s skill at his job if he could clear this up.
“Have- Have you ever seen any television?” Draco asked.
“Probably more than you have,” Harry said.
“You had a head start,” Draco said dismissively. “As I was saying, I once saw a program about a man doing magic on the street. I couldn’t believe they just allowed magic to be done in front of people like that and Jeremy laughed at me and said it was all fake. Sleight of hand, I think he called it.”
“Yeah, muggles do a sort of magic with sleight of hand and clever tricks,” J said. Everyone turned to look at him, and he immediately turned into a stuttering mess. “I, uh-am-well, m-muggleborn.”
“Oh. I get it,” Kalya said, “We could pretend it was all a stunt for a tv program.”
“We’d need…” Harry thought, “A camera? Maybe a microphone?”
“I shall be the magician!” Draco said, sweeping his arm out in an extravagant bow, “The great, the marvellous, the magical….” he thought for a second then said, “Mephistopheles!”
“What? What sort of name is that?” Harry said.
“It’s from Faust, you philistine,” Draco said.
“I meant, it sounds like something from the fifties. I’m pretty sure magician’s just go by their name nowadays,” Harry said.
“Well, I like it,” Draco said.
“Look here-” Shunter started.
“Will this work?” Kalya said hurrying back though none of them had seen her leave. She had a big black camera perched on her shoulder, “I transfigured a trash bin. I think it looks enough like a tv camera. I even put some blinking lights on it.”
“Junior-” Shunter said.
Harry’s brow furrowed, “I thought you said, you were bad at transfiguration.”
“Oh, I lied,” Kalya said, “I was afraid I’d mess up because I was so nervous talking to you.”
“She was top of our training class,” J said quietly, he picked up an empty drinks cup from a nearby table and transfigured it into a grey and silver microphone, “Here.”
“Are any of you listening? Have I been hit with a silencing spell without noticing?” Shunter said in dismay, putting her hands on her hips.
“Of course, you shall be the- the person with the microphone,” Draco said, pushing the microphone into Harry’s hand.
“The host of the tv program,” Kalya said with a giggle.
“But you’re-” J gestured to Harry which made him look down at himself, and the damn suit. Of course. Only he and Malfoy looked like they might be on tv. The rest of them were still in police bobby uniforms.
“Listen!” Shunter said, snapping her fingers, charming their mouths closed with a click and a good deal of shocked silence. “I haven’t authorised this plan. We wait until the Oblivators arrive and then do things the way we always have.”
Kalya’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed in disappointment.
Shunter pushed her sleeve back to check her watch and frowned. When she looked up, Draco met her frown with an absolutely insufferable smirk.Â
“Fifteen minutes goes by fast, doesn’t it?” Draco said.
Harry elbowed him in the side.
“…Alright, times up, and we haven’t heard from any other departments so…” Shunter grimaced as if the words were painful to say, “I authorise this plan to go forward post-haste.”
đź’ś Next update will be tuesday pst đź’ś I wanted to finish the hijinks today too but ran out of time :(
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