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remix_reduxTitle: Companionship Is You (The Stealing is a Crime Remix)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
das_kabinett
Summary:Little girls are dying, the bureaucracy is closing in, and sometimes even magic isn't good enough to save them, but Harry keeps stealing these moments.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: JKR owns it all.
Original story: Companionship Is You bynekare
---
It really hasn’t been that long since they last did it, but Harry still presses Ron to the wall of the Ministry’s men’s bathroom, licks a path from his collarbone to his ear, and murmurs “Miss me?” just loud enough for Ron to hear him.
“The door is still open, you know?” says Ron in between pants, his eyes closed and smiling broadly. “Hermione’s right, you actually like danger.”
Harry laughs a bit, kissing Ron’s nose chastely. “Nah, you know me. It’s more like danger likes me.”
Ron chuckles, and then there’s no more talking, no sound other than sweat-slicked skin against skin.
It’s always easy like this, when they’re just alone and carefree and open for the other one to see.
That’s why Harry keeps on stealing these moments.
---
They find the body in a closet, little bits and pieces of it (her) missing, nibbled off. Her eyes are wide open and blank, a pretty sky-blue, and the dress she is wearing is stained with blood. It had been white, but now was a black color, rotten and foul.
Harry can't even begin to figure out how long she's been there. That's not his job.
He turns away from where she's tumbled out onto the floor, her pale skin garish and obscene against the dark carpet. It’s almost funny how all the dark wizards have the same sense of style, like they all hire the same interior decorator of evil. This house, like all the others, is dark and old and breathes in and out to a rhythm that probably made sense back in the day where witches were burned and Muggles were only considered long enough to be murdered.
Ron calls in the forensic team to do a full write up on the body and he taps Harry on the shoulder, pulling his attention away from the portrait of an old man he's been in a staring match with.
"We'll get the info by Tuesday."
"At which point another three or four more girls will probably be dead," Harry spits out, pulling away from Ron's touch. Ron looks at him, worried, his eyes wide open, a pretty dark brown.
Harry wants to punch him. He knows it isn't right and he'll so feel bad about it later, but now he has to leave. This isn't the moment for love; there’s evil in the world, evil that persisted past the day when it was all supposed to stop, and he can't do a fucking thing about it.
People are working, milling around them. Harry hears some Irishman (he recognizes the voice; he doesn't know the name) muttering in the background. He says: "Sick fucker."
Ron's hands clench into fists and his jaw works in the way it always does when they aren't alone and he's got the urge to touch. The way it always does when Harry pulls away. He wishes he could focus on him and Ron and the way they work so well together when it's just them, but it isn't just them. There's a dead girl, another soul Harry couldn't save.
"Same person who killed the Benton girl."
Ron says it like it was news, like he needed to state the fucking obvious. Harry barely resists rolling his eyes – he clamps down on his irrational anger; he knows he's at his worst like this.
Later that day, when they are back at the office, Harry hauls Ron bodily into the men's restroom and fucks him up against the wall. It isn't sweet like earlier, but harsh and sudden. Harry doesn't take enough care with his rough and unkempt fingernails and he scrapes Ron, causing him to cry out and slam his head back up against the wall.
When Harry enters with two quick jerks of his hips, Ron yells into his own arm. Harry can't figure out whether it's from pleasure or pain.
---
Some mornings Ron doesn't Apparate to work. He walks, alone, rising before Harry wakes up. Harry's cute when he's sleeping, his face softer than it ever gets when he's awake, and he always makes noises when Ron moves. He's like a puppy, complaining at the interruption and then rolling into the warm spot.
It always makes Ron smile, which is one of the reasons that Ron does this little ritual, rising and washing and walking all before Harry’s sensible. Greeting him at work with a cup of coffee and a kiss stolen in one of their offices. Ron has to steal the smiles, but he doesn't mind the effort.
He likes the walks, too. London is pretty in the morning, with a little chill and the ubiquitous wet. He likes the sound of people going on with their lives and all the strange and wonderful things the Muggles have come up with to make their existence easier.
Today, when Ron rises earlier than usual and tries to slip out of bed, a hand stops him. Harry's already awake and Ron feels off-balance; there's someone fucking with routine.
Harry peers out at him from underneath hair that is still untidy and too long, and says, "Stay."
Ron sinks gratefully back into bed and entangles himself in Harry. Harry kisses the side of his neck, at first almost chastely, then bites. Ron presses himself in closer and curls one of his hands in Harry's untidy and too long hair.
"I don't want to go to work today," Harry says. "If you make me, I might kill someone."
Ron strokes him and says, "Sure. Let's play hooky."
---
“You know, I’d love to count all of your freckles one day,” says Harry as he fans himself with a granny-like fan and nudges Ron’s right ankle with his index finger. They’re on Neville and Hermione’s porch, the wooden floor cold with all the Cooling Charms Neville has on the entire house to keep his plants in good shape. It’s June, and Ron lies on the floor while he covers his face with his forearm as if trying to keep the heat away, his feet on Harry’s lap.
Harry stops his poking momentarily to sip at his lemonade, finishes the remains in one drink, and stares at the green trees ahead through the melting ice on the bottom of the glass. He squints a bit at the way it all looks smudged and multicolor – almost like a kaleidoscope.
“If you would do it your tongue, I’d more than welcome it,” Ron says languidly, and Harry chuckles.
“You do realize I’m still here, don’t you Ron?” says Hermione from Harry’s right, and he’s aware of how she doesn’t blush anymore with any of their crude remarks, just smiles and tells them naughty stories involving Neville and plants that they really didn’t want to know (revenge, she calls it). They’ve all grown up.
“As if I could ever forget you, Hermione, with all the reading you’ve put me through in my innocent life. I’ll never recover from Pseudo-Seventh Year.” It’s been six years already, but their voices always go a bit dark when they speak about their seventh year at Hogwarts, two years after Dumbledore died and the war really started.
They go on, the three of them, and don’t let it affect them (much).
“Honestly Ron, it’s not as if I held a gun to your head and forced you to read, you know.”
“A what?”
“Forget it,” says Harry, and he starts moving his blunt fingernails on Ron’s legs in an attempt to make him quiet. His hand goes higher steadily, and just when Ron’s toes are starting to curl Hermione nudges him with her elbow.
“Would you mind not disgracing my floor?”
“Don’t you have some house-elf to save, or something?” asks Ron almost groggily, and Harry bites his lip to hold in his laugher.
“Don’t you have a job to do?” She talks back haughtily. Oh. Right. Both he and Ron are supposed to be ditching work today, he had almost forgotten. The Benton case is just not going anywhere, and both of them had been too frustrated to actually work.
Ron shrugs. “Fair enough.” He rubs his nose, and speaks just seconds later. “So absolutely no shagging on your porch?”
“Ron!”
They laugh, and Hermione pinches Ron’s foot. They just stay quiet for a while, sipping lemonade and watching Hermione’s three-year-old kid playing in the grass. Neville gets home after a while, and he babbles excitedly about the new plant he discovered that day.
Ron kisses Harry, slowly, as Neville goes on and on in the background about the what’s-its-name flower, and this, this feels like family.
---
The results of the tests about that little girl don't come in on Tuesday. They don't come in on Wednesday or on Thursday, until finally on Friday, Harry snaps and sends Ron to go scare up some answers.
Harry would do it himself, but he's dealing with the family of the latest victim.
There's a woman crying in his office, absolutely weeping. She's got her head in her hands and she's shaking, quivering, in the chair at the front of his desk. Her husband has dragged Harry outside and his grip his hard against Harry's bicep-- hard enough to leave a bruise.
"Sir," Harry says. "We are working very hard to catch your daughter's murderer."
"Clearly you weren't working hard enough to catch the bastard before he killed my Tracy, yeah?"
The man has a thick Brummie accent; Harry hates it. He's lilting and sing-songing his fury and all Harry wants to do is to throw him off and yell that he agreed, he agreed. They weren't working hard enough but there was no way to work hard enough; there wasn't any amount of work that would be enough to deal with all this shit, to force through the bureaucracy, to counter the evil.
Instead, Harry tries to look grave and conciliatory.
"I'm sorry, sir. We are doing the best we can."
At this point in the conversation, Ron gets back and he's holding a folder. Harry smiles (but not too broadly; it's a delicate balance between friendly and somber), and ushers the man into his office.
"This is my partner back with some results. Wait for a moment and I'll be right in."
He releases Harry's arm and walks in, as if in a daze. Harry slams the door behind him, leaning roughly on it.
"Who was that?" Ron says, handing Harry the folder.
"Mr. Ansley."
"Mr. who?" Ron says. Harry's not getting to the pertinent part fast enough, so Ron takes the folder back and flips to the right page, pointing about halfway down. "Look at this."
"The father of our latest murder victim, Ron. Not important enough of a name for you to remember?" Harry snaps.
Ron looks tight and hurt; for a moment, Harry feels bad. There are a lot of names to remember and this isn't their only case and they just found out about this latest body two hours ago and really, Ron's doing his best.
It's that phrase (doing his best) that makes Harry snarl and repent any inkling of sympathy. They might be doing their best, but like Mr. Ansley said, it clearly isn't fucking good enough. This girl, the new one, little Tracy Ansley, was a redhead. Looked a little like Ginny, back in second year. Lying on a stone floor, drained and empty, fright frozen on her face.
Harry takes a moment to compose himself, close his eyes, breathe. When he opens his eyes again, Ron's staring at him and the hurt has shifted to worry. Harry shakes it off.
"What am I looking at?" he says.
"Our next option," Ron says. "They found a hair."
That's good news. That's real good news. Just like that, Harry feels himself smooth out and relax, his shoulders just collapsing out of tension.
"Fantastic," Harry breathes. He feels almost post-coital. "Did you find out why it was taking so long?"
Ron shakes his head. "Nope. They didn't even have it done when I got there; I literally had to stay and bother them into it."
"Strange," Harry says, but he's not really thinking about it. He's already planning the spells he'll need to find this son of a bitch.
---
“What exactly is that supposed to be?” asks Ron dubiously from behind him, and Harry rolls his eyes at him. It’s noon the next day, the Ministry is almost empty, and there’s an eerie silence about the Auror department, something that rarely happens in the crowded building. Harry’s stomach is grumbling with hunger, but he really wants to finish this before he goes to get lunch.
“A tracking spell.”
“Then why does it look like you’re drawing a butterfly?” Ron rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry turns to bite Ron’s earlobe in revenge. Ron yelps a bit, but he doesn’t sound entirely like someone in pain.
“It is not a butterfly. It’s supposed to be a bird, only I’m apparently crap at drawing.”
“No kidding.”
“Would you mind stopping criticizing my drawing abilities and actually help? This is meant to help with the Benton case. Here, this is where I found it,” Harry signals vaguely to a thick book on the corner of his cluttered desk, his eyes still on the paper in front of him. He hears a rustle of cloth as Ron goes to see the yellowed book and he keeps on erasing furiously at his rather lacking sketch of a bluebird.
“This is quite strong magic, Harry,” says Ron as his eyes move over the blurry words, his voice going back to business mode.
“You up for it?”
Ron sends a lop-sided smile his way, and Harry nearly melts. “That’s a very stupid question, mate.” Harry smiles as well.
"Hey," Harry says, after a moment, "Could you go fetch the DNA sample from the lab?"
Ron snorts. "Of all the purebloods in the ministry, you are very lucky you have me as a partner. I'm the only one you can force to watch bad Muggle television."
"CSI's not bad television," Harry protests absently, biting his lip in concentration.
Ron rolls his eyes, but he stands. "Yeah, I'll go get the hair."
Harry is finished the drawing (figuring nothing too bad would happen if one of the legs still looks as if it came out of nowhere) long before Ron comes back. In fact, Harry has time to halfway finish cleaning off his desk (an epic task, to be sure), before Ron storms in. He's visibly fuming and he doesn't seem to have anything.
"They won't give it to me," Ron says.
"What?" Harry says, frowning.
"Apparently, we don't have proper authorization."
"Did you bring the--"
"Yes, I brought the fucking forms." Ron is totally furious. He's running his hands through his hair and it seems like he's been doing that a while from the way it’s sticking straight up. "Look, Harry, I know you hate this, but could you go throw your weight around?"
Harry winces. Merlin, he hates this, but there were four little girls dead and he would do anything to stop another one from dying.
"Fine," Harry says shortly. "I'll go."
Ron collapses into a chair and Harry leaves without another word.
---
Harry comes back, feeling drained and irritated. He felt like the idiots over in the lab had contaminated him, rubbing his skin with irritants and obsequiousness until he was sore. He collapses into his office chair, dropping an envelope onto his desk, and Ron comes behind him, rubbing at his neck for a moment.
Closing his eyes, he just breathes. Ron's huge freakish hands are lovely against his skin and he reaches behind him to touch. After a moment frozen in this milieu, Harry speaks:
"The hair's in that envelope."
Ron picks it up, peeks inside. "I wonder why it was so difficult?" he says.
"Yeah, I don't bloody care. Let's get to work."
Ron ruffles Harry's hair and retreats while Harry scowls. Harry watches him pick the lock of a coworker’s cabinet (an ability he has Fred and George to thank for), the one from the potion expert in their department, and get the herbs they need. He crushes the dry leaves with a hideous paperweight Percy had given him at Christmas for lack of anything better to do the job, and they both take turns sprinkling the herbs on the paper as they mutter one of the incantations the spell needs to fully function. Thyme for the energy the spell needs, for activity; Rosemary so it’ll ‘remember’ its target, to keep the spell from sidetracking; Valeriana for the astral projection. Ron says it sounds almost like a song.
The book is sideways to the sheet of paper so they can both read, and they both wave their wands over the paper while muttering the long incantation, both of them switching to the correct Latin accent by force of habit. The contours of the bird start glowing faintly as they keep on reading along. When they’re finished with that, the bird has already begun to color itself: orange on the neck, white on the belly and pure indigo on the wings.
“Looks better like that, doesn’t it?” Harry asks as they both put their wands down and reach for the dust of Wild Cherry Bark.
“You’re just fishing for compliments,” says Ron with a smile and just before he puts the dust on the tip of his tongue. Harry does the same, and it tastes horrible. He moves the dust around his mouth as the book says, and finally swallows with a grimace. The element of this herb is air, and it should give the spell invisibility and the ability to overcome obstacles. He doesn’t swallow again, even if he’s itching to get the flavor out of his mouth, and instead he leans over the paper, his hands braced on the desk. Ron mirrors his movements in front of him.
Harry inhales strongly, makes the air fill his ribcage and expand his lungs; he can hear Ron doing the same. They look at each other briefly, Ron’s fingers doing a regressive count. They reach zero, and they both blow on the paper at the same time, their breaths-turned-wind coming out a bit brownish from the bark powder. The colored breath permeates the bird drawing, but the rest of the paper remains white.
The color seems to bleed from the figure, and soon there’s an indigo-colored wind swiveling around the drawing. Then the wings twitch and flutter as they start to come out of the paper. It becomes almost corporeal as it lifts itself, almost gassy in texture, see-through. The bird tears itself out of the paper, its legs struggling to get out. The beak is the last thing to break free of the paper, and it opens and closes without any sound as it starts flying around Ron’s head, surrounded by a blue and orange mist that shines a bit after it passes and then fades slowly. This is the magic Harry always dreamt about as a child – colorful and showy and so different than McGonagall’s practical spells. Both he and Ron are smiling, even with the foul taste still in their mouths.
Ron picks up the (stupid fucking) hair and offers it to the light-made bird, as if trying to feed it, and the magical bluebird takes it with its beak.
“Go on, boy, find him for us.” Ron says quietly, bending a bit to be eye level with the bird. He tries to caress its head, but his fingertip only goes through it. The bird flies around the office one time, leaving blue sparks on its wake before going out of the window.
Harry turns to look at Ron, finds him sitting at his desk with a smile on his face. “Wow,” he says and Ron laughs.
“I keep forgetting you didn’t grow up with magic around you,” Ron says.
“When I first entered Hogwarts, I used to think that I shouldn’t get used to it, just in case it suddenly went away. That’s why I love it when I can do something that cool, just to remember that I actually can.”
“You’re so weird, Harry,” Ron says with a smile, and tugs the front of Harry’s robes until he’s close enough for a kiss. They both taste like the bark still, but they ignore it – it’s not that bad after Ron’s tongue touches the roof of his mouth and the bark dissolves faintly. The room still shines blue vaguely, indigo-colored sparks that fall onto their hair like glitter. Harry cups Ron’s face between his hands, pushes harder into the kiss with a contented sigh. Ron hoists him up, helps him so he’s straddling him on the desk, in the middle of the empty office.
“My, my, isn’t this kinky?”
“Any complaints, Harry?” Ron whispers against Harry’s mouth, and Harry can only shake his head as Ron starts to bite his lip. He pushes Ron a bit more roughly that he had intended, and they both end up sprawled over the desk, the remaining herbs and the paper with a bird-shaped hole beneath Ron’s back. They both groan, and Ron’s hands go under Harry’s shirt.
“…That was a quite easy report to do, Bones, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to include the twenty feet high dragon attacking the town. I really don’t know how you could have missed it…” Comes Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice through the hallway outside the office, and Harry lifts himself up from Ron too fast for his head to handle. Ron kicks him as he sits up and tries to rearrange his clothes. The door opens.
Harry falls to the ground.
“Er, you alright Weasley? You look a bit flustered,” says Shacklebolt, and Harry thanks whichever deity that made him fall hidden from his boss’ sight.
“Quite all right, sir. The, uh, heat, you know. Um.” Harry hears Ron say with his head against the grey carpet, and then there are just footsteps. “They’re gone, you can come out now.”
Harry jumps to his feet and takes Ron’s wrist, dragging him away. “You, me, bathroom, NOW.”
---
On the way to the bathroom, Harry sees the bird flitting around behind them. It's staying in the ministry, going to someone here – and in a flash of clarity, Harry thinks of course.
Of course
The bastard was in the ministry. Harry felt his stomach clench when he realized the bird will reveal him to everyone, back the fucker into a corner, force him to do something.
Ron's wrist is warm underneath his fingers and Harry hears him make a wuffing noise when he takes a bad step and almost stumbles. Harry makes a decision to delay the decisions; they'll deal with this later, Harry needs this. Needs him.
They run through the Ministry’s hallways, laughing and slipping on the tiled floor.
---
It really hasn’t been that long since they last did it (only last night when they got to their flat after dinner at Hermione’s), but Harry still presses Ron to the wall of the Ministry’s men’s bathroom, licks a path from his collarbone to his ear, and murmurs “Miss me?” just loud enough for Ron to hear him.
Harry’s determined to steal as many of these moments as he can, before he sends it all crashing down.
Author:
das_kabinettSummary:Little girls are dying, the bureaucracy is closing in, and sometimes even magic isn't good enough to save them, but Harry keeps stealing these moments.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: JKR owns it all.
Original story: Companionship Is You by
nekare---
It really hasn’t been that long since they last did it, but Harry still presses Ron to the wall of the Ministry’s men’s bathroom, licks a path from his collarbone to his ear, and murmurs “Miss me?” just loud enough for Ron to hear him.
“The door is still open, you know?” says Ron in between pants, his eyes closed and smiling broadly. “Hermione’s right, you actually like danger.”
Harry laughs a bit, kissing Ron’s nose chastely. “Nah, you know me. It’s more like danger likes me.”
Ron chuckles, and then there’s no more talking, no sound other than sweat-slicked skin against skin.
It’s always easy like this, when they’re just alone and carefree and open for the other one to see.
That’s why Harry keeps on stealing these moments.
---
They find the body in a closet, little bits and pieces of it (her) missing, nibbled off. Her eyes are wide open and blank, a pretty sky-blue, and the dress she is wearing is stained with blood. It had been white, but now was a black color, rotten and foul.
Harry can't even begin to figure out how long she's been there. That's not his job.
He turns away from where she's tumbled out onto the floor, her pale skin garish and obscene against the dark carpet. It’s almost funny how all the dark wizards have the same sense of style, like they all hire the same interior decorator of evil. This house, like all the others, is dark and old and breathes in and out to a rhythm that probably made sense back in the day where witches were burned and Muggles were only considered long enough to be murdered.
Ron calls in the forensic team to do a full write up on the body and he taps Harry on the shoulder, pulling his attention away from the portrait of an old man he's been in a staring match with.
"We'll get the info by Tuesday."
"At which point another three or four more girls will probably be dead," Harry spits out, pulling away from Ron's touch. Ron looks at him, worried, his eyes wide open, a pretty dark brown.
Harry wants to punch him. He knows it isn't right and he'll so feel bad about it later, but now he has to leave. This isn't the moment for love; there’s evil in the world, evil that persisted past the day when it was all supposed to stop, and he can't do a fucking thing about it.
People are working, milling around them. Harry hears some Irishman (he recognizes the voice; he doesn't know the name) muttering in the background. He says: "Sick fucker."
Ron's hands clench into fists and his jaw works in the way it always does when they aren't alone and he's got the urge to touch. The way it always does when Harry pulls away. He wishes he could focus on him and Ron and the way they work so well together when it's just them, but it isn't just them. There's a dead girl, another soul Harry couldn't save.
"Same person who killed the Benton girl."
Ron says it like it was news, like he needed to state the fucking obvious. Harry barely resists rolling his eyes – he clamps down on his irrational anger; he knows he's at his worst like this.
Later that day, when they are back at the office, Harry hauls Ron bodily into the men's restroom and fucks him up against the wall. It isn't sweet like earlier, but harsh and sudden. Harry doesn't take enough care with his rough and unkempt fingernails and he scrapes Ron, causing him to cry out and slam his head back up against the wall.
When Harry enters with two quick jerks of his hips, Ron yells into his own arm. Harry can't figure out whether it's from pleasure or pain.
---
Some mornings Ron doesn't Apparate to work. He walks, alone, rising before Harry wakes up. Harry's cute when he's sleeping, his face softer than it ever gets when he's awake, and he always makes noises when Ron moves. He's like a puppy, complaining at the interruption and then rolling into the warm spot.
It always makes Ron smile, which is one of the reasons that Ron does this little ritual, rising and washing and walking all before Harry’s sensible. Greeting him at work with a cup of coffee and a kiss stolen in one of their offices. Ron has to steal the smiles, but he doesn't mind the effort.
He likes the walks, too. London is pretty in the morning, with a little chill and the ubiquitous wet. He likes the sound of people going on with their lives and all the strange and wonderful things the Muggles have come up with to make their existence easier.
Today, when Ron rises earlier than usual and tries to slip out of bed, a hand stops him. Harry's already awake and Ron feels off-balance; there's someone fucking with routine.
Harry peers out at him from underneath hair that is still untidy and too long, and says, "Stay."
Ron sinks gratefully back into bed and entangles himself in Harry. Harry kisses the side of his neck, at first almost chastely, then bites. Ron presses himself in closer and curls one of his hands in Harry's untidy and too long hair.
"I don't want to go to work today," Harry says. "If you make me, I might kill someone."
Ron strokes him and says, "Sure. Let's play hooky."
---
“You know, I’d love to count all of your freckles one day,” says Harry as he fans himself with a granny-like fan and nudges Ron’s right ankle with his index finger. They’re on Neville and Hermione’s porch, the wooden floor cold with all the Cooling Charms Neville has on the entire house to keep his plants in good shape. It’s June, and Ron lies on the floor while he covers his face with his forearm as if trying to keep the heat away, his feet on Harry’s lap.
Harry stops his poking momentarily to sip at his lemonade, finishes the remains in one drink, and stares at the green trees ahead through the melting ice on the bottom of the glass. He squints a bit at the way it all looks smudged and multicolor – almost like a kaleidoscope.
“If you would do it your tongue, I’d more than welcome it,” Ron says languidly, and Harry chuckles.
“You do realize I’m still here, don’t you Ron?” says Hermione from Harry’s right, and he’s aware of how she doesn’t blush anymore with any of their crude remarks, just smiles and tells them naughty stories involving Neville and plants that they really didn’t want to know (revenge, she calls it). They’ve all grown up.
“As if I could ever forget you, Hermione, with all the reading you’ve put me through in my innocent life. I’ll never recover from Pseudo-Seventh Year.” It’s been six years already, but their voices always go a bit dark when they speak about their seventh year at Hogwarts, two years after Dumbledore died and the war really started.
They go on, the three of them, and don’t let it affect them (much).
“Honestly Ron, it’s not as if I held a gun to your head and forced you to read, you know.”
“A what?”
“Forget it,” says Harry, and he starts moving his blunt fingernails on Ron’s legs in an attempt to make him quiet. His hand goes higher steadily, and just when Ron’s toes are starting to curl Hermione nudges him with her elbow.
“Would you mind not disgracing my floor?”
“Don’t you have some house-elf to save, or something?” asks Ron almost groggily, and Harry bites his lip to hold in his laugher.
“Don’t you have a job to do?” She talks back haughtily. Oh. Right. Both he and Ron are supposed to be ditching work today, he had almost forgotten. The Benton case is just not going anywhere, and both of them had been too frustrated to actually work.
Ron shrugs. “Fair enough.” He rubs his nose, and speaks just seconds later. “So absolutely no shagging on your porch?”
“Ron!”
They laugh, and Hermione pinches Ron’s foot. They just stay quiet for a while, sipping lemonade and watching Hermione’s three-year-old kid playing in the grass. Neville gets home after a while, and he babbles excitedly about the new plant he discovered that day.
Ron kisses Harry, slowly, as Neville goes on and on in the background about the what’s-its-name flower, and this, this feels like family.
---
The results of the tests about that little girl don't come in on Tuesday. They don't come in on Wednesday or on Thursday, until finally on Friday, Harry snaps and sends Ron to go scare up some answers.
Harry would do it himself, but he's dealing with the family of the latest victim.
There's a woman crying in his office, absolutely weeping. She's got her head in her hands and she's shaking, quivering, in the chair at the front of his desk. Her husband has dragged Harry outside and his grip his hard against Harry's bicep-- hard enough to leave a bruise.
"Sir," Harry says. "We are working very hard to catch your daughter's murderer."
"Clearly you weren't working hard enough to catch the bastard before he killed my Tracy, yeah?"
The man has a thick Brummie accent; Harry hates it. He's lilting and sing-songing his fury and all Harry wants to do is to throw him off and yell that he agreed, he agreed. They weren't working hard enough but there was no way to work hard enough; there wasn't any amount of work that would be enough to deal with all this shit, to force through the bureaucracy, to counter the evil.
Instead, Harry tries to look grave and conciliatory.
"I'm sorry, sir. We are doing the best we can."
At this point in the conversation, Ron gets back and he's holding a folder. Harry smiles (but not too broadly; it's a delicate balance between friendly and somber), and ushers the man into his office.
"This is my partner back with some results. Wait for a moment and I'll be right in."
He releases Harry's arm and walks in, as if in a daze. Harry slams the door behind him, leaning roughly on it.
"Who was that?" Ron says, handing Harry the folder.
"Mr. Ansley."
"Mr. who?" Ron says. Harry's not getting to the pertinent part fast enough, so Ron takes the folder back and flips to the right page, pointing about halfway down. "Look at this."
"The father of our latest murder victim, Ron. Not important enough of a name for you to remember?" Harry snaps.
Ron looks tight and hurt; for a moment, Harry feels bad. There are a lot of names to remember and this isn't their only case and they just found out about this latest body two hours ago and really, Ron's doing his best.
It's that phrase (doing his best) that makes Harry snarl and repent any inkling of sympathy. They might be doing their best, but like Mr. Ansley said, it clearly isn't fucking good enough. This girl, the new one, little Tracy Ansley, was a redhead. Looked a little like Ginny, back in second year. Lying on a stone floor, drained and empty, fright frozen on her face.
Harry takes a moment to compose himself, close his eyes, breathe. When he opens his eyes again, Ron's staring at him and the hurt has shifted to worry. Harry shakes it off.
"What am I looking at?" he says.
"Our next option," Ron says. "They found a hair."
That's good news. That's real good news. Just like that, Harry feels himself smooth out and relax, his shoulders just collapsing out of tension.
"Fantastic," Harry breathes. He feels almost post-coital. "Did you find out why it was taking so long?"
Ron shakes his head. "Nope. They didn't even have it done when I got there; I literally had to stay and bother them into it."
"Strange," Harry says, but he's not really thinking about it. He's already planning the spells he'll need to find this son of a bitch.
---
“What exactly is that supposed to be?” asks Ron dubiously from behind him, and Harry rolls his eyes at him. It’s noon the next day, the Ministry is almost empty, and there’s an eerie silence about the Auror department, something that rarely happens in the crowded building. Harry’s stomach is grumbling with hunger, but he really wants to finish this before he goes to get lunch.
“A tracking spell.”
“Then why does it look like you’re drawing a butterfly?” Ron rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry turns to bite Ron’s earlobe in revenge. Ron yelps a bit, but he doesn’t sound entirely like someone in pain.
“It is not a butterfly. It’s supposed to be a bird, only I’m apparently crap at drawing.”
“No kidding.”
“Would you mind stopping criticizing my drawing abilities and actually help? This is meant to help with the Benton case. Here, this is where I found it,” Harry signals vaguely to a thick book on the corner of his cluttered desk, his eyes still on the paper in front of him. He hears a rustle of cloth as Ron goes to see the yellowed book and he keeps on erasing furiously at his rather lacking sketch of a bluebird.
“This is quite strong magic, Harry,” says Ron as his eyes move over the blurry words, his voice going back to business mode.
“You up for it?”
Ron sends a lop-sided smile his way, and Harry nearly melts. “That’s a very stupid question, mate.” Harry smiles as well.
"Hey," Harry says, after a moment, "Could you go fetch the DNA sample from the lab?"
Ron snorts. "Of all the purebloods in the ministry, you are very lucky you have me as a partner. I'm the only one you can force to watch bad Muggle television."
"CSI's not bad television," Harry protests absently, biting his lip in concentration.
Ron rolls his eyes, but he stands. "Yeah, I'll go get the hair."
Harry is finished the drawing (figuring nothing too bad would happen if one of the legs still looks as if it came out of nowhere) long before Ron comes back. In fact, Harry has time to halfway finish cleaning off his desk (an epic task, to be sure), before Ron storms in. He's visibly fuming and he doesn't seem to have anything.
"They won't give it to me," Ron says.
"What?" Harry says, frowning.
"Apparently, we don't have proper authorization."
"Did you bring the--"
"Yes, I brought the fucking forms." Ron is totally furious. He's running his hands through his hair and it seems like he's been doing that a while from the way it’s sticking straight up. "Look, Harry, I know you hate this, but could you go throw your weight around?"
Harry winces. Merlin, he hates this, but there were four little girls dead and he would do anything to stop another one from dying.
"Fine," Harry says shortly. "I'll go."
Ron collapses into a chair and Harry leaves without another word.
---
Harry comes back, feeling drained and irritated. He felt like the idiots over in the lab had contaminated him, rubbing his skin with irritants and obsequiousness until he was sore. He collapses into his office chair, dropping an envelope onto his desk, and Ron comes behind him, rubbing at his neck for a moment.
Closing his eyes, he just breathes. Ron's huge freakish hands are lovely against his skin and he reaches behind him to touch. After a moment frozen in this milieu, Harry speaks:
"The hair's in that envelope."
Ron picks it up, peeks inside. "I wonder why it was so difficult?" he says.
"Yeah, I don't bloody care. Let's get to work."
Ron ruffles Harry's hair and retreats while Harry scowls. Harry watches him pick the lock of a coworker’s cabinet (an ability he has Fred and George to thank for), the one from the potion expert in their department, and get the herbs they need. He crushes the dry leaves with a hideous paperweight Percy had given him at Christmas for lack of anything better to do the job, and they both take turns sprinkling the herbs on the paper as they mutter one of the incantations the spell needs to fully function. Thyme for the energy the spell needs, for activity; Rosemary so it’ll ‘remember’ its target, to keep the spell from sidetracking; Valeriana for the astral projection. Ron says it sounds almost like a song.
The book is sideways to the sheet of paper so they can both read, and they both wave their wands over the paper while muttering the long incantation, both of them switching to the correct Latin accent by force of habit. The contours of the bird start glowing faintly as they keep on reading along. When they’re finished with that, the bird has already begun to color itself: orange on the neck, white on the belly and pure indigo on the wings.
“Looks better like that, doesn’t it?” Harry asks as they both put their wands down and reach for the dust of Wild Cherry Bark.
“You’re just fishing for compliments,” says Ron with a smile and just before he puts the dust on the tip of his tongue. Harry does the same, and it tastes horrible. He moves the dust around his mouth as the book says, and finally swallows with a grimace. The element of this herb is air, and it should give the spell invisibility and the ability to overcome obstacles. He doesn’t swallow again, even if he’s itching to get the flavor out of his mouth, and instead he leans over the paper, his hands braced on the desk. Ron mirrors his movements in front of him.
Harry inhales strongly, makes the air fill his ribcage and expand his lungs; he can hear Ron doing the same. They look at each other briefly, Ron’s fingers doing a regressive count. They reach zero, and they both blow on the paper at the same time, their breaths-turned-wind coming out a bit brownish from the bark powder. The colored breath permeates the bird drawing, but the rest of the paper remains white.
The color seems to bleed from the figure, and soon there’s an indigo-colored wind swiveling around the drawing. Then the wings twitch and flutter as they start to come out of the paper. It becomes almost corporeal as it lifts itself, almost gassy in texture, see-through. The bird tears itself out of the paper, its legs struggling to get out. The beak is the last thing to break free of the paper, and it opens and closes without any sound as it starts flying around Ron’s head, surrounded by a blue and orange mist that shines a bit after it passes and then fades slowly. This is the magic Harry always dreamt about as a child – colorful and showy and so different than McGonagall’s practical spells. Both he and Ron are smiling, even with the foul taste still in their mouths.
Ron picks up the (stupid fucking) hair and offers it to the light-made bird, as if trying to feed it, and the magical bluebird takes it with its beak.
“Go on, boy, find him for us.” Ron says quietly, bending a bit to be eye level with the bird. He tries to caress its head, but his fingertip only goes through it. The bird flies around the office one time, leaving blue sparks on its wake before going out of the window.
Harry turns to look at Ron, finds him sitting at his desk with a smile on his face. “Wow,” he says and Ron laughs.
“I keep forgetting you didn’t grow up with magic around you,” Ron says.
“When I first entered Hogwarts, I used to think that I shouldn’t get used to it, just in case it suddenly went away. That’s why I love it when I can do something that cool, just to remember that I actually can.”
“You’re so weird, Harry,” Ron says with a smile, and tugs the front of Harry’s robes until he’s close enough for a kiss. They both taste like the bark still, but they ignore it – it’s not that bad after Ron’s tongue touches the roof of his mouth and the bark dissolves faintly. The room still shines blue vaguely, indigo-colored sparks that fall onto their hair like glitter. Harry cups Ron’s face between his hands, pushes harder into the kiss with a contented sigh. Ron hoists him up, helps him so he’s straddling him on the desk, in the middle of the empty office.
“My, my, isn’t this kinky?”
“Any complaints, Harry?” Ron whispers against Harry’s mouth, and Harry can only shake his head as Ron starts to bite his lip. He pushes Ron a bit more roughly that he had intended, and they both end up sprawled over the desk, the remaining herbs and the paper with a bird-shaped hole beneath Ron’s back. They both groan, and Ron’s hands go under Harry’s shirt.
“…That was a quite easy report to do, Bones, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to include the twenty feet high dragon attacking the town. I really don’t know how you could have missed it…” Comes Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice through the hallway outside the office, and Harry lifts himself up from Ron too fast for his head to handle. Ron kicks him as he sits up and tries to rearrange his clothes. The door opens.
Harry falls to the ground.
“Er, you alright Weasley? You look a bit flustered,” says Shacklebolt, and Harry thanks whichever deity that made him fall hidden from his boss’ sight.
“Quite all right, sir. The, uh, heat, you know. Um.” Harry hears Ron say with his head against the grey carpet, and then there are just footsteps. “They’re gone, you can come out now.”
Harry jumps to his feet and takes Ron’s wrist, dragging him away. “You, me, bathroom, NOW.”
---
On the way to the bathroom, Harry sees the bird flitting around behind them. It's staying in the ministry, going to someone here – and in a flash of clarity, Harry thinks of course.
Of course
The bastard was in the ministry. Harry felt his stomach clench when he realized the bird will reveal him to everyone, back the fucker into a corner, force him to do something.
Ron's wrist is warm underneath his fingers and Harry hears him make a wuffing noise when he takes a bad step and almost stumbles. Harry makes a decision to delay the decisions; they'll deal with this later, Harry needs this. Needs him.
They run through the Ministry’s hallways, laughing and slipping on the tiled floor.
---
It really hasn’t been that long since they last did it (only last night when they got to their flat after dinner at Hermione’s), but Harry still presses Ron to the wall of the Ministry’s men’s bathroom, licks a path from his collarbone to his ear, and murmurs “Miss me?” just loud enough for Ron to hear him.
Harry’s determined to steal as many of these moments as he can, before he sends it all crashing down.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-23 05:11 am (UTC)Oh wow, thank you!! You managed to give the story so much substance and look! A plot! Oh man, this is so awesome. The murders were such a wonderful twist, and it changed the entire atmosphere of the fic - it ended up being so bleak and grimy, which I loved.
And I just adored the way both boys are such cops! Frowning in crime scenes, waiting anxiously for DNA results, it's all so very exciting and interesting. And they watch CSI. Probably while being all snuggly in bed, I assume. *g*
Just - thank you. You've made this story make sense, and be real and I just liked it so much. :))
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 06:01 pm (UTC)It was really great to see all what you have written; you are so talented and I had a great time reading through everything you had written and trying to pick. I picked this story because I saw a way to take your beautiful language and twist it into something of my own.
I'm so, so glad you enjoyed!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-03 11:36 pm (UTC)*squirms with glee* Really, I'm supposed to be praising you, not the other way around! XD
Really, thanks, I loved it lots. :))
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-27 01:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-28 03:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 06:03 pm (UTC)