Work Text:
“I haven't worked in an office environment before, but I'm genuinely excited about this opportunity,” said Harry. The corners of his mouth jerked. “It’d be a welcome change of pace.”
It was a blatant lie, and they both knew it.
Skeeter’s exposé had laid bare some uncomfortable truths about the British League, all of it splashed across the tabloids. Facing scrutiny from the public and pressure from the executive board, middle management had decided that one of the players had to take the fall, and Harry was the chosen one.
Riddle grunted. He had not looked up from Harry’s CV.
“Well, I don't exactly have references or anything,” Harry went on, “but I’m sure the Ministry would be a fantastic place to . . . erm, you know. To do whatever it is that you do.”
Riddle finally did look up, then. “I’m the Minister for Magic. You do know that, don’t you?”
The smug, condescending bastard.
Harry gave a faint smile that barely touched his lips, but he knew if he were standing he’d be weak in the knees . . . he had always been attracted to the rudest, worst sorts of people.
Harry nodded. “I know who you are, yes.”
“Very good,” Riddle mocked. “Now, tell me. Are you seeing anyone?”
The look in Riddle’s burgundy eyes went straight to Harry’s groin.
Harry swallowed. “Am I what now?”
“It’s not that difficult, Potter. A yes or a no would do.”
Harry supposed he should have felt deeply disturbed, Riddle’s behaviour was that inappropriate. He was old enough to be Harry’s grandfather, let alone that Harry was interviewing to work—figuratively speaking—directly underneath the man.
Somehow, this only served to make Riddle all the more appealing.
Harry’s mouth and throat felt completely dry. “Why are Human Resources not conducting this interview? I thought that was, you know, standard procedure.”
Riddle ignored this. He tilted his head back, eyes hooded, and slid a sheet of parchment across the desk. “Are these your NEWT results?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“With your marks in Defence, a role with the DMLE would have been the obvious career path.”
“Law enforcement?” Harry pulled a face. “Yeah, no thanks.”
Riddle was still staring at Harry, unsmiling. “All I need is a presentable secretary who can get to work on time, manage my calendar, and answer the floo. Think you could handle it?”
Harry envisioned what it would feel like to take Riddle’s calendar and smack it across his smug, arrogant face. He might have had the nerve to do it, too, if he hadn’t already inhaled his severance pay, if he wasn’t behind on rent, if he didn’t have too much pride to ask his mum and dad for another handout.
“Sounds thrilling,” he said sarcastically. “When can I start?”
Riddle fixed him with a look that was speculative but strangely benign. Then he said, “Right away.”
-
Harry’s friendship with Pansy had blossomed after they’d graduated from Hogwarts. Both had been involved in affairs concurrently with the same man, who had turned out to be an insufferable swine, but had brought them together in their mutual loathing. They’d slept together soon after.
The friendship, which had endured beyond their brief romance, was a complex network of support and reassurance that nurtured their shared self-destructive tendencies.
Harry’s relationships were generally distressing. He often found himself caught in an endless cycle, wondering why he was always drawn to the most vile and wretched people, only to realise he was still actively seeking them out.
There was the petty drug addict, the pompous art curator, the married ministry delegate, the narcissistic lawyer, and the Knockturn Alley club owner who had almost strangled him to death one night with his belt. Then there was the guy he met after the Quidditch World Cup in Denmark, who he fucked in the toilet of some dingy dive bar, that later talked him into an exhausting ménage à trois with his busty girlfriend. Pansy had vehemently disapproved of that one . . . Harry suspected she was jealous of the girlfriend’s rack.
Ironically, despite Pansy’s disdain for anything conventional or, as she put it, “suburban,” she held equal contempt for Harry’s bohemian lifestyle, dismissing it as pretentious and contrived.
“It’s horribly painful to be around you sometimes,” Pansy complained. Immediately following the interview, Harry had taken the elevator down to Level Four—Marketing and Communications—to relay the good news. “You can’t honestly think it’d be a good idea to pursue a romantic relationship with the Minister for Magic . . . he’s old, and he’s creepy. It’s so suburban, Harry.”
Harry rolled his eyes, then asked Pansy about her date the night before. He was in no particular hurry to return to his own desk, and so he made himself comfortable at Pansy’s.
“It went well,” said Pansy. She leaned forward and her over-large earrings swung back and forth, dangling around her chin. “I’m seeing him again tonight. He’s very well connected, and handsome too. The whole package.”
Harry sighed. “Where did Dreamboat take you?”
“That new seafood place in Upper Flagley.”
“And then what?” Harry leered.
Pansy’s eyebrows shot up into her fringe. Then, mirroring his expression, she told him everything.
-
“You’re still here,” said Riddle. He sounded almost surprised, as though he’d half expected Harry to raid the stationary supply cupboard and make a run for it.
Harry dropped Pansy’s nail file into his pencil holder, removed his feet from where they were perched on the large mahogany desk, and smiled sunnily up at Riddle.
“I’m still here,” he said unnecessarily.
Riddle retreated back into his office and closed the door behind him.
Harry’s desk was in the waiting area just outside. There was a stiff leather chesterfield, beige walls and a brooding houseplant. Harry noticed that everyone who came to sit on the chesterfield seemed to be terrified of whatever fate awaited them beyond Riddle’s door.
The morning passed in a dull and repetitious fashion.
Harry took delight in cataloging the mundane details of everyone that came and went. There was the middle-aged woman wearing thick cat-eye glasses who smelled of mouse droppings. Another was a man in canary yellow robes who kept nervously picking at his ear. When he thought Harry wasn’t watching, he discreetly ate the wax that had collected on his finger.
Before lunchtime, Riddle cornered Harry in the tearoom.
“You will accompany me to the opera tonight,” said Riddle, dispensing with any pleasantries. “I have tickets to Die Walküre.”
Harry tried to discern from Riddle’s expression if this was a professional obligation or a date—and, in either case, whether he’d be compensated for any overtime.
“The opera?” Harry repeated sluggishly. He was about to say, “What are you, a hundred?” before he caught himself at the last moment. He realised that, in fact, Riddle probably was almost that old. He twisted the string of his teabag around a spoon, wringing every last drop of caffeine from the small fibre pouch. “D’you go often?”
“Yes,” said Riddle. “I enjoy the music. And I like to watch the audience, too.”
Harry smiled, thinking of his catalog. “I can understand that, I suppose. I like to watch people as well.”
“Sometimes,” Riddle’s voice dropped, “I have this fantasy . . . ” He paused, as though uncertain whether to go on or why he was even telling Harry in the first place.
“D’you really?” Harry prompted. His heart beat a little faster in his chest. “Tell me about it.”
“I apparate to the stage,” said Riddle softly. He took a small step forward. “At first, the audience believes it’s a part of the show. Then I raise my wand and, one by one, I cut them down like pigs to slaughter. Blood flows down the aisles and paints the carpet red.”
Harry frowned. “Why would you have a fantasy like that?”
Riddle had not looked away from his face. “It’s not important.”
“I think it’s because you feel estranged from others,” Harry said quietly. “There’s an isolation that surrounds you, a loneliness you can’t escape. You long for connection but can’t grasp how to reach it. But there’s a part of you that embraces the role of the villain. You believe that if you can’t be loved, being feared is better than being forgotten.”
Riddle was standing so close now that Harry could almost sense the danger mingled with the scent of his cologne.
Then Riddle murmured, “I want to tear you apart.”
Moving without conscious thought, Harry side-stepped a bowl of fruit to grab Riddle tightly around the waist.
-
Departing from the tearoom sometime later, Harry headed towards the cafeteria for an early lunch. He was surprised to see Pansy and Draco already there, their heads bowed over their lunch trays beneath the glare of the artificial lights.
After bypassing the bain-marie and selecting his own sad little sandwich, Harry veered toward their table, pausing when he heard—
“—Potter’s taken a job on Level Six?”
Neither Pansy nor Draco had noticed that he was hovering right behind them.
Pansy let out an exaggerated sigh. “I know. And I’ve been trying to put some distance between us . . . just enough so that he doesn’t feel compelled to call me every time his next psychotic boyfriend slaps him around.”
“Does that happen often?”
“All the bloody time. I mean, where does he even find them?” Pansy paused to sip from her drink, then continued, “Obviously, it’s his own miserable life. But last time we went out, I ended up mediating between him and this meathead—one of the Bulgarian beaters, as it turns out—so they were screaming at each other, making all sorts of insidious threats, and then we ran out of drugs. It was so awful.”
Draco was picking at his sandwich with disinterest.
“If he wants to be a masochist,” Pansy went on, “whatever, I don’t bloody care. But he always wants an audience. Am I being a cunt? Be honest with me, Draco.”
“Yes,” Draco answered without hesitation, “but most people wouldn’t have put up with him for as long as you have.”
“It’s tragic, isn’t it? He could do so much better. I know at least a dozen really attractive people that are dying to get into his pants.”
Draco was obviously bored of the conversation. “Look,” he said, “Potter sets himself up for disaster, he always has. Don’t let him drag you down with him.”
Harry chose this moment to drop his lunch tray onto the table and slide into the vacant seat opposite. He looked from Pansy to Draco, smiling big and fake, and was rather amused when they both went pale and bug-eyed.
Deciding to add his own two sickles on the topic, he said, “I think I’m falling in love.”
Pansy slapped his hand away as he reached for her crisps. “Who with?” she demanded.
“Don’t tell her anything,” said Draco. “Did you know that she’s still showing everyone those awful home movies of you together in the tub? It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so revolting.”
Pansy levelled Draco a withering look. “Who are you falling for, Harry?”
Harry’s gaze drifted around the cafeteria. He spotted his father, who was eating with Frank and Alice Longbottom. At a nearby table sat Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, whom he had once sucked off in his mother’s laboratory during a family Christmas party.
Harry smirked. “You Know Who.”
Pansy’s lips disappeared into a thin line. “Sounds about right, doesn’t it? Inappropriate, emotionally unavailable, with potential for absolute ruin.”
“Who’s this?” asked Draco.
There was a tight crimp to Pansy’s shoulders. “Can we talk about something else?”
“She’s still got the hots for you, you know,” said Draco in his slow, familiar drawl. “I still have to hear about the times you tied her up and spanked her.”
-
“I have to tell you something,” said Harry. He had waited until the last Department Head had fled from Meeting Room Five before he snapped the door closed and leaned back against the jamb. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll probably make you miserable. It’s a bit of a pattern for me.”
Riddle, who was still seated at the head of the table, had not looked up from the paperwork strewn around him like a spilled deck of cards. “How bold of you,” he said, “to believe that you could matter to me in any way.”
Harry felt a stab of affection for the grumpy old bastard.
“I’m only ever attracted to narcissists and psychopaths,” Harry went on. He took his wand from his pocket, using it to collect the water glasses and refill the jug. “Once, back at Hogwarts, everybody was going on about how so-and-so had broken this person’s jaw. As soon as I heard about it, I started flirting with them any chance I got. Isn’t that sick?”
Riddle grunted.
Harry pocketed his wand. “You want to know what happened?”
In a monotone that implied Riddle did not, he ground out a perfunctory, “What happened?”
“Nothing at all. But it’s strange, isn’t it? I really wanted this asshole to hit me.” Harry paused for dramatic effect. “Are you weirded out yet?”
Riddle shuffled the paperwork into an orderly stack and sighed. It was then that his gaze fell upon Harry. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.”
A silence stretched comfortably between them, and a warm glow settled low in Harry’s stomach. He couldn’t contain the smile that played on his lips. “Good,” he said.
A quiet optimism carried Harry through the monotony of the afternoon and into the evening. It was well past midnight when they emerged from the Theatre Royale. Riddle grasped Harry’s hand and tugged him through the crowd spilling onto Drury Lane.
Harry had mostly enjoyed the opera, primarily for the novelty of it. The music had grated on him, and an uneasy tension gnawed at his gut as he imagined Riddle apparating to the stage at any given moment.
“You’re so strange,” said Harry. “Did you know, I don’t think you’ve smiled all day. Are you always this cold? Sometimes, when I touch you—” Harry squeezed Riddle’s hand for emphasis “—it’s like I don’t feel anything there at all.”
Riddle grunted. “There’s nothing to feel.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I may seem strange to you,” said Riddle, “but that's only because you don't understand me—nobody does. No one likes me either, you see, but they all envy me because I’m better than they are.”
“I think they don’t like you because you’re a grumpy old bastard,” said Harry fondly, “and you terrify them. But I do worry that you’re being far too nice to me.”
The long fingers curled around Harry’s own tightened imperceptibly.
Riddle looked back at Harry over his shoulder. “I don’t know what makes you think I have any intention of being nice to you.”
Harry laughed. He stopped on the footpath and pulled Riddle back towards him into a bruising kiss. They lingered there, one kiss bleeding into the next, causing the stream of people still spilling out from the theatre to flow around them. Riddle took a handful of Harry’s unruly hair in his fist and pulled it taught.
When they arrived at Riddle’s West End apartment, they sat on the floor beside an open fireplace, and Riddle poured them drinks.
“I want you to get completely inebriated,” Riddle told him. “I’m going to do things to you that you don’t want to do.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “But I won’t do anything I don’t want to. You have to make me want it.”
Riddle's expression darkened. Bathed in the warm glow of the fire, Harry noticed that his burgundy eyes appeared more red than brown.
“What’s your family like?” Harry asked.
Riddle grunted. “What?”
“Your family. Are you close?”
“I don’t know. They’re dead.”
Harry took a sip from his drink before launching into an unnecessary history of his own family, complete with detailed descriptions of his godparents and their numerous character flaws.
“Are you a liar?” Riddle interrupted. “You lied to me during your interview.”
“What? Well, sometimes.”
Riddle tipped his drink back, then poured himself another. “Why did you tell me that you were a masochist?”
“Did I say that?” Harry laughed.
Without even glancing at Harry, Riddle snapped, “Stop looking at me like that.”
Harry laughed again. “There’s something about you, Riddle. Sometimes I feel as though I’m staring straight into the eyes of my mortal enemy.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re out of your fucking mind,” Riddle grit out.
“I find it hard to understand how you can say that when you barely know me.”
After a long pause, Riddle said, “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
Harry looked around the room for inspiration. He was reminded of the brief period when his parents had separated, and his father had moved into a furnished apartment near Trafalgar Square. It, too, had been devoid of any personality.
“I can hardly just come out and tell you,” said Harry slowly. “Where would be the fun in that?”
In one fluid motion, Riddle set his drink on the floor, rolled onto his knees, and crouched in front of Harry. Then he raised one hand and slapped him hard across the face.
Harry gasped. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said furiously.
Unfazed, Riddle lay back down on the floor. “I knew you weren’t actually a masochist.”
“Oh, piss off.” The tips of Harry’s fingers lightly touched his cheek. “That was not in the least bit erotic. Funnily enough, I don’t get turned on when I fall off my broom either.”
A heavy, strained silence pressed down on them.
“I’m tired,” said Harry finally. He felt disappointed, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. He got unsteadily to his feet. “And I hate your fucking apartment. See you tomorrow, Riddle.”
A dazzling green light filled the room as Harry threw a pinch of floo powder into the fireplace. Harry looked back over his shoulder as the light fell upon Riddle, upon his rumpled suit, upon a stray curl of silver hair resting on his forehead.
Riddle’s eyes were hooded. “Running from your problems only puts what you want further out of reach.”
“You don’t know what I want,” said Harry gruffly.
“You want to believe that your pain sets you apart,” said Riddle. His voice was low and taunting. “That it elevates you above the ordinary, and grants you a sense of purpose and morality. You want the world to see your struggle as a testament to your strength, a narrative where you are both the hero and the victim.”
As Riddle spoke, Harry had become aware of an immense hollow inside him. He did not want to face it.
He stepped into the flames and emerged, somewhat to his own surprise, in Pansy’s living room.
Pansy was lying on the sofa, nursing an empty drink and puffing at the end of a cigarette. Harry could tell at once that she was very drunk.
“Is Dreamboat here?” Harry asked.
“Who?” said Pansy, confused.
“Never mind.”
Gently Harry lifted Pansy’s feet, then placed them in his lap as he eased himself onto the sofa beside her. He pried the empty glass from her fingers and placed it upon the floor, peeled off her socks, then reached over and turned on the salt lamp.
“Look,” he began tiredly, “what you were saying to Draco—”
“—I feel completely drained by you,” Pansy interrupted. “You’re entirely self-involved. You always need something from me, and I don’t know what it is, and I’m sick to death of it.”
Harry scoffed. “What? Piss off.”
“I want to support you, Harry, but it’s always the same thing. You never listen to me anyway, and you never ask about me.”
“That’s not true—”
“—And the way you bring up that man from Denmark all the time—”
“—Who?!”
“Oh, you know, that one you fucked in the toilet.”
Harry fixed Pansy with a look sharp enough to cut through stone. “I do not bring it up.”
“Well, it seems like you do. And the whole sordid mess was so disturbed, even if you mention it fleetingly I can’t get it out of my head.” Pansy removed her over-large earrings and dropped them onto the floor. “Don’t you see how they were using you?”
“They weren’t,” said Harry stiffly. “And even if they were, I don’t care, and I’m not trying to make you any part of it.”
“But when you tell me stories like that, it does make me a part of it. Why do you keep putting yourself in situations where you can't take care of yourself?”
For a moment, they stared at each other with what seemed painfully close to hatred.
Speaking slowly and deliberately, Pansy continued, “I think you want to sleep with Riddle because you’re bored, and you think it makes you interesting. But it’s not interesting at all. He’s too old for you, and he’s your boss, and it’s disgusting.”
“Oh, Pansy,” said Harry gently. He kicked off his shoes and reached for the packet of cigarettes on the coffee table. Then, in a teasing voice, he said, “Did you know, it’s horribly painful to be around you sometimes.”
“I know,” said Pansy miserably. Her face crumpled. “I’m so suburban.”
Harry lit the cigarette and took a long drag. “What’s this really about? Tell me everything that happened on your date with Dreamboat.”
“Well, we just went out for drinks.” Pansy sniffed.
“And then what?”
-
The following morning, Harry saw Riddle in the atrium. He noticed the dark gleam in Riddle’s eyes, and he felt something stir in the pit of his stomach.
“You should have let me beat you,” Riddle murmured. Their shoulders brushed as they moved through the atrium together towards the elevators. “I wouldn’t have really hurt you. Not too much, anyway.”
Harry let out a slow, measured breath. “That’s hardly the point. The moment was wrong, and it wouldn’t have meant anything.”
“It would have meant something to me,” Riddle countered, “but you probably would have ruined it . . . you’d have started screaming and made me stop.”
Harry couldn’t help but notice the stunned expressions on the faces of the ministry employees around them. He offered them all a pleasant smile, then turned his gaze back towards Riddle. “Piss off,” he said, “I wouldn’t have ruined it.”
“You would have.”
Harry stared—transfixed—as a slow, almost reptilian smile spread across Riddle's face. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened, and dimples appeared on either cheek.
It suited him, Harry thought. And he couldn’t help but smile back as he said, “What a mean thing to say.”