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annafugazziPairing: Harry/Draco, (Ron/Hermione in background, prior Harry/Ginny)
Summary: The Auror Corps provides Harry with a profession that's highly dangerous, demanding, and glamorous. Except when it's not.
Rating: R
Warning(s): Snow. And snark. Snowsnark!
Epilogue compliant? Everyone but Harry and Draco is dutifully headed towards Epilogue Compliancy.
Word Count: 18,083
Author's Notes: No babies were babysat and no Icelanders were harmed in the making of this fic. Tents may have been traumatized.
Thanks so much to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scrtkpr and goddessriss for your beta help, and thank you so very very much, marguerite_26, for concrit. Hope you like it, thebrandytook!
Addition, because I have the attention span of a goldfish: So yeah,scrtkpr was invaluable in writing this, helping me to turn it from something I deeply loathed to something I was rather fond of, as I said yesterday. Know who else was invaluable? goddessriss, for whom I just finished writting a very nice note thanking her for her beta help on an Ember to Ember DVD Extra. Which she has actually never seen. ::facepalm::
Thanks so much,goddessriss. I really appreciated your encouragement and troubleshooting. I just didn't remember you'd done that for this fic, in December, instead of the DVD Extra that I've had on the brain for the last week or so. ::sigh::
December 1
Harry shook his head in dismay. "Oh no. No, Kingsley, please don't."
"You know I can't let him go alone," said Kingsley. "This has to happen now, and you're one of the only available Aurors. And you two have worked well together in the past."
"That's just sheer luck. I nearly killed him last time."
"Yes, and some day you'll have to explain to me exactly what happened. That banshee was nowhere near him."
"Like I said, sheer luck. Although right now I'm thinking it was bad luck." Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We've gone along on how many of his contracts now? Why can't he go alone?"
"You know very well why. I'm not going to argue this with you."
"Why can't you send somebody else, then?" Harry said, wincing at his own plaintive tone. "Anybody else. He's worked with other Aurors."
Kingsley sat back and sighed. "All right, fine. I'll tell Weasley to pack; he's the only other member of your section not currently--"
Harry's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh my God you haven't asked him, have you?"
"Not yet, but--"
"Bugger, Kingsley, don't. Hermione would..." he shuddered.
"Hermione would what?"
"She's expecting," Harry said flatly.
Kingsley's brow furrowed. "In three months."
"You don't understand. She's expecting." Kingsley clearly wasn't getting it. Harry gestured helplessly with his hands. "You know how Ron's been wearing those odd robes to work?"
"The ones with the Celtic knotwork and dangly bits of fruit? I assumed they were from his brother's shop."
"They're to promote peace and holistic magical development in the baby. She's - you know how she went a bit odd during her first pregnancy?" Kingsley nodded. "It didn't get much better after the baby was born. No magic or potions during the birth, no nappy-change or colic spells--"
"Why on earth not?" Kingsley said, perplexed.
"Supposedly some magic can interfere with the baby's soul development, or maybe it's the unintentional aural spillover or I don't know, it doesn't matter, Ron going away right now would just be not on." He ran a hand through his hair. "She'd kill both of us. And she wouldn't use her wand, either."
"I'm afraid it's you or him. I'm not about to let a civilian handle this alone. Particularly not this civilian."
Harry sighed and took the parchment. Kingsley looked at him curiously. "You're willing to go to Iceland with Draco Malfoy, just to avoid Hermione Weasley's insanity?"
"Story of my life," Harry said glumly.
ooo000ooo
Ron trudged in, sank into his chair, lay his head on his desk, and let out a heartfelt sigh.
"Bad night?" Harry asked sympathetically, because it would have been insensitive to point and laugh.
"Wha? Oh. Right. Yeah, Hermione put a spell around the bedroom. Said something about Pluto and Mars. Or... Plato and Marge. Something. Anyway, I think it was buzzing through the night. Or maybe that was the enchanted fireflies in the nursery. I don't know." He yawned.
"Seventy-nine days till the due date," said Harry comfortingly.
Ron's head hit the desk again. "And the godparent ritual? Please tell me that's soon. She'll settle a bit after that. And if she doesn't, at least we'll get a chance to get very very drunk on the ritual mead."
"Twenty-one days." Harry ran a hand through his hair nervously. "And. Erm. About that. Kingsley called me in this morning. Talked to me about Iceland."
"Iceland?" Ron yawned.
"They've got this problem; apparently it's been getting more and more difficult to do magic there, over the last few years. And a week ago some Seer said magic was going to disappear for good from the whole island at the Solstice."
"What are their Aurors doing about it?"
"There's not a big wizarding population; they don't really have a proper Auror corps." He fiddled with his quill. "They hired Malfoy Cursebreakers. He's done the preliminary work here, but now, what with this prophecy..." Ron was nodding absently, yawning again. Harry braced himself. "You know how much I want to be there for the ceremony, but he has to go to Iceland, and..."
Ron's mid-yawn turned into a gape of horror. "Oh no. Please. Please don't tell me you're going to miss the ceremony."
"I have to." Ron groaned and covered his eyes. "Can't you, you know, ask her to move--"
"Are you insane? Mercury's going to cross over Venus right at Solstice and it's perfect for godparent spells! She's going to murder me!"
"Why you? I'll be the one skiving off."
"But you won't be here." Ron dropped his head to the table. "Merlin. Fleur actually glowed when she was pregnant; you could almost read by her light at night. Tonks built an addition to the house and a dozen mobiles out of Butterbeer corks. My wife goes right round the bloody twist."
Harry nodded sympathetically, since it would have been unkind to remind Ron that he'd been through this before and should've known better than to get Hermione up the duff ever again. Besides, Ginny and George were pretty good about making that particular point, repeatedly. And laughing, unkindly.
Ron gave a world-weary sigh and then tilted his head to the side, a small glimmer of amusement appearing in his eyes. "So... would this be a bad time to ask if you've still got a bit of a thing for Malfoy?"
Harry swiftly looked down at the parchment Kingsley had given him. "Yes," he muttered, regretting not laughing at Ron when he had the chance.
Ron utterly failed to suppress a snicker. "So, Iceland. Cold, dark... you'll probably end up traveling all over the island... staying in tents..."
"Shut up."
"Ooh, and no heating spells, I suppose. Whatever will you do to keep warm?"
Harry supposed it was only natural that, since his own glare was unaccompanied by a gleam of hysteria and an enormous belly, Ron appeared unmoved by it.
"Have fun, mate," Ron smirked.
"You are never going to let me live this down, are you?"
Ron grinned widely at him. "Never. It's not every day your best mate admits that the reason he broke up with your sister is that he had a yen for blokes. And that he really only accepted it when he realized he had a yen for Draco Malfoy." He laughed. "Honestly, Harry, would you ever let me forget it?"
"I am never going to drink again. At least Hermione's been decent about it. With friends like you and Ginny--"
"We are your friends. If we weren't, we'd've told George. He'd be marketing live action Potter and Malfoy dolls for his adult line faster than you could say Buggery."
"Point."
December 2
"Ah, my Auror babysitter," was the first thing Malfoy said to Harry, his nose crinkling in distaste, as they met at the Muggle-Wizard Travel Connection Agency the next morning. "Just what did you fuck up to rate this posh assignment again, Potter?"
And this was exactly why it drove Harry crazy to have this... adolescent crush on Malfoy. He was so fit, so sure of himself, so attractive in an understated way, so brilliant at what he did, and it all worked so very well together, until he opened his mouth.
"I volunteered," Harry said evenly, and headed for the desk.
Malfoy's eyebrows went up. "Good God. Why?"
"Because the alternative was that they were going to send in Ron." He handed his Auror identification to the Welcome Witch. "Picking up two MLE tickets to Reykjavik, out of Heathrow, please."
"And sending Weasley was a problem because..."
"Hermione's expecting again."
Malfoy made a small moue of distaste. "More bushy-headed buckteeth ginger rodents. Charming." He sniffed. "Oh God, she's not doing that demented brooding mother dragon thing again, is she?"
Harry racked his brain to think of a way to agree with the truth behind the description without agreeing with the description itself.
"And she's got Weasley so pathetically beaten, too. The man always smells like tabouli."
Harry's forehead creased. "Tabouli?"
"You know, that Muggle thing that smells like smoke. Meant to promote joy or tranquility or some such rot."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Patchouli."
"Patchouli. Ugh. Remind me never to procreate."
"Sirs, here are your tickets." The witch handed them small pieces of parchment with an odd mixture of runes and Muggle air travel numbers jumbled across them. "At your flight time, step into the Floo, call out your flight number, and you will appear on the correct airplane. Don't worry, the Muggles on board won't be concerned by your sudden appearance."
"I trust you received my earlier request?" said Malfoy, and she nodded.
"Yes, sir; I've removed all small children from the vicinity of your seats."
Malfoy nodded and they headed towards the Floo.
"Speaking of procreating, didn't I hear you were supposed to get married this summer?" Harry asked Malfoy as they waited. Malfoy gave him an impatient glance. "I take it you didn't."
"Obviously."
"Why not?"
"I was supposed to marry Astoria Greengrass."
"Yeah..."
"You've met her?"
"Queenie Greengrass's younger sister, isn't she?"
Malfoy blinked in surprise.
"Queenie's an Apprentice Healer. Aurors get hurt a lot. What's wrong with her sister?"
"What wasn't wrong with her. Starting with her name. I refuse to get married to a bloody Muggle hotel." He checked his watch. "Finally," he said, and stepped into the Floo, calling out, "Iceland Express 156!" and disappearing in a flash of smoke. Harry heaved a sigh and followed.
"This stays up in the air, does it?" Malfoy said suspiciously, looking around the interior of the plane as Harry settled himself in. "And how long will we be in here?"
"About four hours. You've never flown before?"
"Why would I?" Malfoy glanced around the cabin again in distaste. "I've no idea what my fee is going to be for this," he muttered. "It won't be enough, though."
Maybe it was a good thing Harry was accompanying him after all; skilled though he was, Malfoy knew next to nothing about Muggles, and seemed to have no desire to learn. Which, considering the fact that they were going to a place where magic wasn't working, might prove problematic.
"Kingsley said you know our contact," Harry said, buckling his seatbelt. "Raschida..."
"Hamidsdóttir," Malfoy said, nodding. He opened his briefcase and made an impatient face as Harry motioned his wand hand down. "Met her briefly. Seems competent enough. Some type of nun, I think."
"A nun?" Harry asked, as Malfoy searched his briefcase. Harry briefly wondered if he used the same spell Hermione used on her purses; the briefcase seemed to contain a small library of dusty books, scrolls, and bizarre glowing objects.
"Yes. She had... you know, one of those wrap-things on her head." Malfoy handed him a photograph.
He looked at it and rolled his eyes. "God, Malfoy, don't call it a wrap-thing, it's a--"
"Jihad! That's what they're called, aren't they?"
"Hijab, you--" he bit back the rest of the sentence. "On second thought please do call it a wrap thing. Better yet, let me talk to our contacts, all right?"
"Because you're eloquent and persuasive?"
"Because you're likely to mistake our Muslim contact for a nun, and compliment her on wearing a lovely jihad on her head."
"What does the type of cloth have to do with anything?"
"What?"
"The muslin. Is that what the wrap-thing's made of?"
Harry rubbed his forehead. "Muslin is a fabric," he said patiently. "Muslim is a follower of Islam. That's a religion."
"If you say so," Malfoy said distractedly, still searching his briefcase, and Harry wondered again if it would really be so wrong to just letting him do this assignment alone. "Ah, here's the prophecy." He handed it to Harry.
This island is losing its magic
Which surely is so very tragic
But fear not the danger
A handsome young Stranger
May save this fair island pelagic.
For old ways here have been amended
You may not know you have offended
But as of midwinter
All magic shall splinter
Unless what is broken is mended
Harry peered at it. "The prophecy was in limerick form?"
"Apparently not in the original Icelandic. Raschida says the translation Charm they use does that sometimes."
"What's 'pelagic'?"
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "It means 'on the open sea'," he said. "I assume it's referring to Iceland. Because it's in the middle of the Atlantic, you see."
Harry sighed and turned to the window. How bad would it be, really, to have Malfoy doing this alone? Sure, MLE didn't trust Malfoy, or they wouldn't insist on always having an Auror 'assist' him on his international assignments, but so far, in four years, there had been no hint that he was anything other than what he appeared to be: a skilled and competent private anti-Dark Magic Practitioner. And he'd been paired with more than one Auror who would've loved to report anything remotely suspicious about him, had there been anything at all to report. Harry often contemplated formally requesting that MLE justify their continued practice of accompanying him, though of course, there were plenty of unspoken reasons. It was good for the Auror corps to have him accompanied: made the public feel MLE was doing its job, and got certain problems handled in ways that sometimes the Auror department couldn't, restricted as they were in some of their methods. The arrangement was even good for Malfoy, in a way, despite his disdainful attitude about it: he got prestige, and good business contacts, and with every accompanied contract, fewer people mistrusted him.
The only one it wasn't very good for was Harry. And he couldn't even protest openly and honestly as to what exactly was the problem. Having Ron and Ginny humiliate him every time the topic came up was quite enough, thanks.
Harry laid his head back on his seat, wistfully wished he were anywhere but here, and tried to push out of his mind the last three assignments he'd had with Malfoy. Especially the one where he'd realized that his feelings, despite remaining firmly in the 'annoying prat' category with regards to Malfoy's personality, had somehow flown from 'pointy poncy git' to 'rather fit bloke who makes my heart flutter like Lavender Brown's before a squadron of professional Keepers wearing nothing but jock straps, unless he talks' with regards to his physique.
He closed his eyes. A nap was probably his best option right now. He murmured a sleeping spell and sank into oblivion.
ooo000ooo
"It's dark," said Malfoy.
"It's near the winter solstice, you see," said Harry helpfully, and felt a glimmer of satisfaction at Malfoy's impatient eye-roll. "It's always dark. What's the local time again?"
"Around nine," said Malfoy, pointing at a clock lit up on the snow-blown tarmac.
Harry frowned. "Didn't - wait, which way does the time change work here? I thought it would still be daytime when we landed."
An older woman in a bulky blue parka approached them on the tarmac, squinting at them in the dark. "Mr. Malfoy? Mr. Potter?"
"Yes?" Malfoy said cautiously.
"Good." She held out her hand. "I'm Raschida." Harry and Malfoy blinked at her, and Malfoy started to shake his head. "Polyjuice," she said, her blue eyes amused. "I use it a lot among Muggles. I'd suggest you do the same while you're here." Very good English, Harry noted. Slight Scandinavian-sounding accent.
"Polyjuice?" asked Malfoy. "Is it necessary for security?"
"A bit," she said. "We don't have enough official Obliviators. We Polyjuice so that Muggles don't always see the same people having odd things happen around them. But mostly it's just fun."
Malfoy looked at her askance.
"We're in Iceland, in winter, Mr. Malfoy. Amusements are few and far between. Besides, our Polyjuice is quite tasty mixed with Brennivin or Ethervodka. Now, come with me. We'll go to the nearest Floo, and take you to your hotel."
"I thought magical things weren't working here," Harry said.
Raschida shrugged. "Precious few of them are, and what's left is getting temperamental. We're now mostly using cars and airplanes to travel. Rather inconvenient, having to pay Muggle strangers to help us around the island."
"I thought Iceland was small enough that everybody knew each other."
Raschida laughed. "There's over 300,000 people here. You can't know everybody, you know. Now the wizarding population, yes, that's small enough. But not the Muggle."
"Do the wizard and Muggle communities intermix here?"
"More than most places, I think." She stopped in front of the tarmac fence and muttered a long series of spells. Harry noted how slowly a hole appeared in the fence, and how quickly it sprang back to its natural shape once they had passed through. "There's a lot of intermarriage, a huge half-blood population, and there's still many Muggles here who believe in elves, things like that. More than back home, anyway."
"Back home?"
"I grew up in Denmark. I'm Icelandic now, though. Married an islander fifteen years ago. Even changed my name; it was Al-Rassour, but most Icelanders use patronyms, so I'm Hamidsdóttir." She led them to a small white-roofed shed-like building next to the taxi stands, sporting signs Harry assumed were the Icelandic equivalent of 'keep out' or 'closed for repairs.' "We've set you up at the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica, so that will be our first stop. And I realize you're probably tired from your trip, but would you mind meeting with a few of our people as soon as you're settled in?"
Harry and Malfoy exchanged a glance. "Erm, we're not that tired but... isn't it nine o'clock?" Harry asked.
Raschida nodded.
"Wouldn't your people be off work by now?"
Raschida laughed. "It's nine in the morning, Mr. Potter. What kind of hours do British civil servants keep?" She laughed again at their expressions. "Don't worry, the meeting shouldn't be too long. It's just to make sure you aren't missing any of the information they've sent you." She stepped up to the Floo. "Now, please be careful; this Floo has always been temperamental, and the current magic situation hasn't helped. Please say 'Hilton Nordica' very clearly. The other day a German wizard stepped through and landed right in Paris Hilton's lap. She didn't seem to notice, but the local Obliviators had a hell of a time dealing with the score of paparazzi who were with her at the time." Raschida stepped in and disappeared in a flash of green.
Malfoy peered distrustfully at the Floo. "Sending people all the way to France. That's not just temperamental, it's downright unsafe. Maybe we'd be better off taking a Muggle taxi."
Harry frowned. "France?"
Malfoy gave him a pained glance. "Paris. That's in France."
"Oh!" Harry chuckled. "I think she meant the Paris with the sex videos on the internet."
"They take videos of you at the Paris Hilton? And put them on the... internet?"
Harry hesitated only briefly before responding. "Yes. Yes, they do," he said. "It's quite upsetting, actually. Millions of people have seen them. Be told. Don't have sex at the Paris Hilton. The Reykjavik Hilton is all right though."
December 3
"This is the garden spot of Iceland, is it?" Malfoy said the next morning, glancing out the Hilton's restaurant window at the cold, dark street, flurries whipping about and pedestrians scurrying back and forth braced against the cold. "And Muggles decided this was a brilliant place to settle?"
Raschida shrugged. "It's usually fairly warm, considering its latitude. We're warmed by the Atlantic current and by seismic activity from below. And there's good land, on the outer edges of the island. It is a good place to settle. At least, it's no worse than anyplace else in Scandinavia, where most of them came from."
"When did wizards decide to follow the Muggles here?" asked Harry. "Or did they get here first?"
"The first wizards are believed to have arrived about fifty years after the first Muggles," said Raschida. "It's difficult to be sure, though, because the wizarding and Muggle populations intermixed a great deal."
"And you said people still believe in elves here?"
"Many do, yes."
"One city even has a law giving elves the right to veto municipal decisions regarding new buildings," said Malfoy absently, squinting at his map.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Very funny."
Raschida laughed. "Believe it or not, he's right. Hafnarfjordur. I'm not sure how many people actually believe it's necessary, but it's kept on the books. Mostly I think the Muggles keep it because it adds flavour to the city."
"Hafnarfjordur," said Malfoy. "That's our second stop."
"Oh, you've decided where you're going, then?" said Harry. And about bloody time, too; Malfoy had told him almost nothing other than that he had some ideas and wanted to talk to local wizards and magical creatures.
"Yes." Malfoy took out two scrolls, handing one copy to Raschida and one to Harry. There, neatly drawn, was a map of Iceland, and an accompanying list of who Malfoy wanted to talk to, what he needed to see, what types of readings he wanted to do and spells he needed to cast... everything.
"You couldn't have shown me this last night?" he asked Malfoy irately. "Or on the plane?"
"I wasn't sure of our itinerary on the plane," Malfoy said. "Or what types of transportation were available to us. I did this last night."
"This won't be much trouble," Raschida said, scanning the list. "I'm assuming you can drive a Muggle car?" Malfoy looked blank, but Harry nodded. "Good. I'll provide you with road maps, Polyjuice for whenever you're in contact with Muggles, and some translation Charms. Hopefully you won't need those; they're unreliable. Although some of the magical creatures that live far away from Reykjavik only speak Icelandic, or their own tongues... hm, you'll also need some camping equipment..."
"You won't be coming with us, then?" Malfoy asked.
"Not unless you need me to. I do have a fairly busy schedule; dealing with the practical aspects of the loss of magic is my full-time job."
Harry didn't know whether to be relieved or dismayed that he and Malfoy were apparently going to spend most of this assignment alone together. That was probably a bad sign.
"First we need to go to the University," said Malfoy.
"What for?"
"I'm going to take readings of magical activity in the library. Potter will be speaking to the students." He turned to Raschida. "For some reason, Potter's under the impression that I don't deal well with people."
"And then you're going to Hafnarfjordur?" said Raschida.
"Yes, to talk to the local elves. See if their magic is being affected too."
"All right," said Raschida. "I'll get you a bus schedule too. Buses leave every fifteen or twenty minutes."
"You have a Knight Bus here?" Raschida shook her head. Malfoy looked rather appalled. "Not a Muggle bus?"
"We are on a budget, Mr. Malfoy. For most of what you're doing, you can only use cars. To speak to the elves, you don't."
ooo000ooo
"I'm an accountant," said Malfoy to the pretty young British exchange student who had started chatting him up at the student pub within five minutes of their arrival. Her smile dimmed visibly.
"And how did you get to Iceland?" she asked politely.
"We came with The Iceland Experience," said Harry, glad he'd had a chance to look over some of the information Kingsley had provided for him yesterday.
"Ve don't often see tourists here in vinter," said a student who sounded a lot like Viktor Krum.
"I wonder why not?" Malfoy muttered.
"It's cold. It's dark," said another girl, who sounded American. "It's not a time for sight-seeing; it's mostly just a time to hunker down and survive."
"Actually, the darkness was the selling point at Iceland Experience," said Harry. "It's much cheaper, and we get to see the Aurora Borealis."
"There's also supposed to be more magical activity this time of year, if you're into that kind of thing," said Malfoy disinterestedly. "That's more his passion than mine, though," he said, motioning towards Harry, and Harry felt the curious gazes of the students settle on him.
Very nice, thought Harry as he continued the conversation with the students and Malfoy moved off. They looked like they thought he was some kind of loon, but at least they were talking to him. And supposedly he was doing something useful, asking them the questions Malfoy had written out for him. He glanced surreptitiously at his list, concealed among the entries of his Icelandic-English phrasebook.
This was one of the less annoying things about being assigned to be Malfoy's Ministry watchdog; Malfoy generally kept him relatively busy. No doubt he did it for practicality more than out of a desire to make Harry feel useful and needed; free Auror labour, after all. But it was still a welcome change from some of the other escort duties Harry had been stuck with over the years.
Of course, he never could be sure that Malfoy wasn't having him on with at least some parts of these little assignments. Like, for example, the next question on his list.
"So, erm... how often do people throw up around here?" he asked. Damn it, there was no way that was a legitimate question. And the cross-dressing one farther down the page had to be Malfoy taking the piss too. He hoped Malfoy got a good laugh out of it when he transcribed the interview Harry was taping on the tiny Muggle tape recorder Raschida had given them.
Faster than he'd expected, Malfoy appeared to be done with whatever "readings" he'd wanted to do at the pub and library, and they were saying goodbye to the students. Harry checked the tape recorder as they left the campus and headed for the bus stop to Hafnarfjordur.
"Will you be able to figure out how to get this to work?" he asked Malfoy.
"It can't be that difficult."
"Have you ever used one before?"
"Tape recorderers? No. If Muggles can use them, I'm sure they can't be that complex."
Harry rolled his eyes and flipped his collar up against the blowing snow. "How much do you know about Muggles, anyway?"
"I've read books about them."
"Like what, Marvin the Mad Muggle? You do know that's satire, right?"
"Is it?" Malfoy said, shivering and not terribly interested. "I suppose you're an expert, being raised by them."
"Not really; I pretty much left the Muggle world as a child. Although I've kept in touch with my Muggle cousin and his wife."
Malfoy looked blank for a moment. "Oh, that cousin of yours who was the size of an orca, but duller?" Harry nodded. "Do I even want to imagine what his wife must look like?"
"Probably not what you'd think. She's American. Skinny. Bit of a compulsive cleaner." He shrugged. "Men marry their mothers."
Malfoy nodded. "So I've been told. Your mother was a redhead, right?"
Harry looked at him. "Yes, why?"
"No reason," said Malfoy. They reached the bus stop and he took out the bus schedule Raschida had given them. "Good. The next bus should be here in a few minutes. I hope the elves got my request to see them. I'm not particularly keen on traveling this way again."
ooo000ooo
That had been an enormous amount of fun, thought Harry sourly as he got ready for bed that night. A long, cold trip, a pointless stop, an uncomfortable interview with elves who looked distressingly like Dobby and Kreacher, only ridiculously tall and with red or white-blond ear hair. Kreacher as a Viking. He was going to have nightmares.
And through it all, Malfoy doing his work, perfectly polite to the elves and Muggles, and perfectly unpleasant to Harry.
Harry lay back and wished he were back in London. Wondered what Ron and Hermione were up to right now. Wondered what Rose was doing, how Teddy was spending his last Christmas before he went to Hogwarts... and he tried not to think of how the snow and the darkness felt oppressive and dull, and how for some bizarre reason that just made Malfoy seem somehow more attractive and interesting and intriguing than ever. Tried not to think of how it felt, watching that brain work, watching Malfoy get the elves interested in what he was saying; catching himself wanting to see that intensity turned on him... and how resoundingly he was brought back to earth with a thump, attraction and intrigue dimming considerably, whenever they were alone.
He turned over in bed and firmly made himself go to sleep.
December 4
"I'm a poet," Malfoy said at the Gulfoss falls the next day, much to the delight of the Muggle tourist girls they'd stumbled across upon arrival. Which wasn't really what they wanted; Malfoy was trying to find the lair of the ice fairies, and Harry was trying very hard to provide cover for him, and it didn't help that they'd happened upon a group of Literature majors.
"You should probably talk to my publisher, though," said Malfoy, nodding at Harry, when it became clear that the Muggles were not going to be put off by his aloof manner. "He can tell you about my work." He walked off to do his readings.
"Erm, can't talk about the poems, sorry," said Harry, grasping for some kind of reasonable way to get rid of the tourists. Thank God he'd stayed in touch with Dudley; otherwise he'd probably be just as much at sea about this kind of thing as Malfoy. "We're... involved in a lawsuit right now; there's another poet who's trying to publish some of his poetry as her own. And I'm... I'm actually not supposed to talk about anything having to do with publishing either. Sorry."
And it was probably a good thing that he had decided to use the Polyjuice kindly provided for them by Raschida, because the paunchy, balding, crooked-teeth form he'd chosen for today seemed to make him not terribly interesting to the girls once they had no literature-related reason to talk to him. He glanced over at them, giggling and stealing looks at Malfoy and mostly ignoring the waterfall they'd supposedly come to see. It really was spectacular, half of it frozen in columns of ice, half still crashing down in a raging torrent. A vivid mix of whites and greys and blues, roaring and wreathed in mist, powerful and awe-inspiring. The Icelanders apparently called it the waterfall of the gods, and by god, it really was.
And Malfoy, eyes darting about it, searching for something within it, was paying its beauty and grandeur as much attention as the Muggle schoolgirls were. Pity.
He approached Malfoy. "Anything?"
"Nothing. I'm trying to see where they can be hiding. Ice fairies usually use the back of the waterfall for their meeting halls, but I can't find them..."
"Use fairydust, then."
"What a marvelous suggestion, Potter. That's very helpful. And if I had any fairydust, what a joyful moment this would be."
"You didn't get fairydust from Raschida?"
"No, Potter, I did not get fairydust from Raschida. You may have heard that Iceland has a bit of a problem with magic. The local Potion masters haven't been able to make decent fairydust for years."
"Well, then, a Search spell. It's not that hard to make that work, is it?" Harry surreptitiously drew his wand and started to aim it at the column of ice. And it was... sluggish was the best word to describe it. He had a sudden flashback to trying to use Hermione's wand. He quickly checked to make sure he was still holding his own in his hand.
"Much as I loathe interrupting genius at work," said Malfoy, "it might be useful to you to remember that we're here because magic isn't working in Iceland."
Harry blew out his breath. "Look, I got rid of the Muggles, I'm giving you suggestions - I'm just trying to be helpful, all right?"
"When you say helpful, do you mean that in the normal definition of the word, or is this from your personal dictionary?"
"What?"
"Oh, you know, the way you might use 'competent' as in 'Rubeus Hagrid was a competent teacher'. Or 'interesting', as in 'Hermione Granger's educational soliloquies are interesting.' That kind of thing."
"No. 'Helpful' as in 'I'd like to drop kick you into the waterfall but instead I am trying to make your work easier, because I'd like to get back home as soon as possible.'"
"Well, please stop. When and if I need your help, I'll ask for it." He paused and looked a little closer at one of the columns of ice. "Ah. There they are. Potter, make yourself useful and come up with a diversion, so I can get over there without these bloody students noticing."
"What kind of diversion?"
"I don't know, go chat them up or something," Malfoy said irately. "Like you did at the pub in Reykjavik."
"I chatted someone up?" Harry asked, baffled.
"It was on the tape recorderer." Malfoy stared at the waterfall fixedly. Harry pushed down his annoyance as Malfoy didn't even deign to make eye contact with him. "You know, your little American girlfriend."
"What American girlfriend?" Harry ran over the pub conversations in his head. "Oh d'you mean the girl from Toronto? I wasn't chatting her up."
"Well she found your questions fascinating. Oh and don't forget wanting to show you her Celtic rune tattoos, so you could compare it to Celtic imagery found in Iceland." He shook his head. "If you really fell for that one..."
"Fine, all right, maybe she was coming on to me." Harry flushed. "Not sure how well trying to chat anyone up will go over right now, though."
Malfoy looked back at him and grimaced in distaste. "No, on second thought, don't. Not looking like that. Genius, that, getting rid of one of your only assets."
"What asset?"
Malfoy cleared his throat and quickly turned back to the waterfall. "Pretend to hurt yourself," he said, annoyed. "Make something up. Aren't you an Auror, trained to think on your feet?"
Harry blew out his breath and headed back to the giggling schoolgirls, leaving Malfoy to his ice fairies.
ooo000ooo
"Musician," Malfoy said to the chatty young couple at Strokkur geyser. "I compose jungles for adverts."
"Jingles," murmured Harry.
"Jingles. 'Make her your own, with Wizard's Cologne?' That's one of mine."
The couple looked at him blankly and he wandered off, humming under his breath. Harry gritted his teeth and made nice with the other tourists, reflecting that watching the geyser was rather cathartic. It swelled for a while, and then it blew up. Would be nice to be able to do that.
Of course that was only if the 'blowing up' was temper-related. He had a sudden, wildly inappropriate image of just how much he'd like to do some swelling and... geysering of his own, preferably in a hotel room of his own and not while sharing a tent with Malfoy. He swiftly banished the mental image with a shudder.
"That wasn't long," he said as Malfoy came back, looking disgruntled.
"They barely agreed to meet with me at all. And I think they sent the most demented member of their herd; didn't look like he knew his arse from his foreleg any more."
"Centaurs back home won't meet with humans at all," Harry pointed out.
"I think I would've preferred that."
"So did you get any useful information from them?"
"Not much. Their magic's unaffected. Same as the elves in Hafnarfjordur and the fairies at Gulfoss."
"That's all you're doing? Taking a survey of the state of magical creatures' magic? Couldn't you have asked the Icelandic authorities to do that for you?"
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "No, Potter, that's not all I'm doing. Give me a little credit. I'm also taking readings, and conducting experiments to see exactly how spells are affected. That sort of thing. I'm earning the exorbitant fee I'll be charging the Icelandic authorities."
"I do give you credit," Harry said, annoyed. "I was confused that you seemed to be doing pretty basic stuff here. Didn't seem up to your usual standard." He turned to go.
"Oh. Thanks," said Malfoy behind him, startling Harry a bit. Had Malfoy just thanked him?
No, couldn't have been. The geyser was making a lot of noise and Harry was hearing things, that was all.
"And are you getting the results you were hoping for?" he asked, as Malfoy caught up to him.
"Not exactly hoping for, but expecting. I'll have to see how things go in Laki."
December 5
"So how's it going so far?" Ron asked that night on the phone.
"Not bad," Harry said. "I think we'll be home before Solstice. He seems to know what he's doing."
"Does he?"
"Yeah. He usually does."
Ron's voice took on a slightly shaky quality. "Really. Firm and assertive, is he? Take-charge?"
"I suppose so."
"Forceful?"
"Ron."
"Manly?"
"Shut up."
"What about his hands, are they strong and--"
"How's Hermione, Ron?"
Silence.
Harry smirked. "Calm and peaceful? Serene, sensible--"
"That's low, mate. That's really, really low."
December 6
"I run a day care," Malfoy had told the Muggle girl who'd tried to chat with him at the hotel near Laki.
"Really? I love children!"
Malfoy smiled slightly. "Oh yes, so do I."
"The face of a child can say so much, don't you think?"
"Especially the part of it that screams when you tell it Mummy won't come back at the end of the day if it doesn't eat its peas."
Harry had suppressed a snicker as the girl gave Malfoy a horrified look and rejoined her companions. The three women whispered among themselves, shooting him and Malfoy suspicious looks.
Not a bad way to get rid of them. They'd been able to activate the distressingly slow Portkey taking them to the edge of the volcano crater Malfoy had decided he needed to see. Harry glanced around the crater; the snow a soft grey carpet beneath them, the still, sparkling dark all around them, and imagined what it looked like when it was spewing enough lava and smoke to disrupt the entire island. Reminded himself he wasn't a tourist, and began running the tests Malfoy had asked him to do. Apparate, Levitate, Transfigure, and Animate all felt lethargic, but not as much as they had been at the last place they'd stopped. He glanced over at Malfoy, who was busily taking notes and muttering into a Muggle recording device.
Competent. Professional. Dedicated. And rather good at this. He'd seen this kind of concentration in the Aurors he tried to emulate; the careful attention to detail, fitting new information in to a growing theory of what the problem was, and how to solve it.
This kind of impersonal problem-solving wasn't something Harry did terribly well; his main forte tended to be figuring out what Dark wizards were doing, and stopping them. He also worked fairly well with other Aurors, much to his surprise. He was up for a promotion sometime soon and, oddly, he was looking forward to it, despite the fact that it could very well take him right out of field work for good.
It was time to move on from endless tracking down of baddies. And he liked figuring out how to use MLE's resources well, trying to make people get along and do their jobs. He'd run his own squad for three years now, and enjoyed the challenge. It often reminded him of running the DA. The idea of running the whole department felt daunting, but exciting.
He gazed at the peaceful crater lake, wondering if Malfoy felt the same satisfaction in his own work. If he would feel better without an Auror around to escort him everywhere. If he got animated when he talked to his friends about his work. Did he even have friends to talk to about his work?
"Oh, no, don't stop daydreaming on my behalf," said a voice behind him, and he jumped. When had Malfoy finished in the crater?
"Sorry, I didn't realize you were out already."
"How MLE ever let you in is beyond me," muttered Malfoy. "Did you get anything useful done while I was in there?"
Harry handed him his parchment of observations, noting Malfoy's swiftly hidden look of surprise with pleasure.
"Did you get anything useful?" Harry asked as they sat down and started going through their backpacks.
"Not really. I was hoping to talk to an old volcano spirit here. It used to come out and accept offerings from the locals, but it's not answering my summons."
"Why not?"
"Well if I knew that, Potter, we either wouldn't be here, or I would've been able to talk to him, wouldn't I?" said Malfoy. He took out his meal, eyeing the smoked salmon with suspicion. "This isn't one of those rotten whale meat Icelandic delicacies, is it?"
"It's perfectly edible," said Harry. "And fish is good for your heart, Hermione says. Though she wouldn't eat any during her first pregnancy; something about possible contaminants harming the baby, I think."
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "What's happened to Granger - sorry, Weasley - anyway? Did she start hanging about with Loony Lovegood when she got pregnant?"
Harry decided not to mention that, in fact, Luna had once commented that some of Hermione's theories were 'a little odd.' "No, she just wants to give her children perfect childhoods."
"Ugh."
"And actually the fish thing she got from Muggles. They've apparently done a lot of studies on it."
"Oh that makes it much more believable, then," Malfoy said, and they both looked up at a sound from behind them. A small group of fire-fairies was approaching them.
"Ah. All right, here we go." Malfoy put down his sandwich and stood up. "Hello."
"Wieree veruhlinee ertthuh?" asked the fairy at the front of the group, a small, delicate-looking, lightly flaming creature that somehow managed to look ancient despite a complete absence of wrinkles.
"Ég tala bara ensku," said Malfoy, and the fairies broke into a babble of voices. Malfoy and Harry glanced at each other worriedly.
"...eeslensku?" said one.
"Bother. I suppose it's time to use the translation Charm," said Harry glumly.
"I hate those things," muttered Malfoy. "They hardly ever work. May as well try, though." He took a fish-shaped Charm out of his backpack and grimaced at its lurid aqua hue.
"Hang on, let me work the back-up spell," said Harry, pointing his wand at a blank parchment and taking three tries to get it right. "This'll re-translate your words, so we can tell if the Charm is working right. Go ahead," he motioned to Malfoy, who turned back to the fairies.
Malfoy held the Charm up. "Greiða yðar hundur," he said.
The fairies, as one, blinked at him in bafflement.
"You just told them to comb their dogs," said Harry, frowning at his parchment.
"Greiða yðar hundur fjólublár,"1 said Malfoy.
"Purple. Comb their dogs purple. Let me see that." He took the fish from Malfoy, shook it three times, rubbed it across his stomach, then tossed it back at Malfoy.
"What the hell was that?"
"The Charm goes a little wonky sometimes. You have to let it know you'll eat it if it misbehaves."
"What? How do you know that?"
"It's the same Charm the Aurors use sometimes."
"From where?"
Harry hesitated. "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."
Malfoy closed his eyes, obviously reaching for patience. "The Aurors. Use products from... there's a joke here, but I'm going to refrain from making it. No bloody wonder I've got so much business, if you people are the alternative."
December 8
"This is thrilling, Potter," Malfoy said, peering at their finally upright tent through the near-blizzard. "I'm ever so glad I accepted this contract."
"And I'm ever so glad you weren't sent to Azkaban," Harry snapped, "so I could be free to join you on these little romps."
Malfoy gave him a glare and ducked into the tent, and Harry ran a hand through his hair and fought the urge to scream. It was like living with a toddler.
In fact, it was worse than living with a toddler. Rose was nowhere near as annoying. Nowhere near. She was a lot quieter, too. And she liked him.
All of a sudden he felt a deep surge of longing. He didn't want to be here, with Malfoy, good-looking as he was. He wanted to be home, with Ron and Hermione, with little Rose hanging on to his every word. Swinging her up in the air and hearing her squeals of delight. Watching Ron and Hermione, who, despite Ron's tabouli scent and Hermione's wide-hipped wingy earth mother thing, were so fucking happy together.
He braced himself against the expected surge of longing for Ginny. Funny, bright, pretty, uncomplicated Ginny, and everything that came with her.
Why exactly had he broken up with her again? Told her he didn't like girls? So that he could be here, with Malfoy, instead of by her side, listening to her jokes and watching her smile and copping a feel in the hallway whenever her six - five, damn it - brothers weren't in sight? What the hell had he been thinking?
Honesty, he reminded himself. He'd wanted to be honest with her, honest with himself. Life with Ginny might have been many positive things, but it would've been, at heart, a lie. Because bright and pretty as she was, she didn't quite do it for him. No girl could.
He'd done the right thing.
Though it sure didn't feel like it right now. He wearily entered the tent, where Malfoy was looking at their Muggle sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses with disdain.
"Do you know what to do with this?" Malfoy asked, gesturing at their gear.
"Yes, I do," said Harry. "Part of Auror training."
"You mean it's actually good for something?"
"Yes." He shoved Malfoy out of the way and made himself useful.
Oh, this was going to be marvelous. Not only was he going to be spending an inordinate amount of time bumbling about in the icy dark, doing seismic readings and measuring magical levels, chasing down more magical creatures, visiting small Muggle villages and isolated wizarding settlements that probably hadn't changed since Viking times... he was going to be doing it all with Malfoy. In a tent, because most of the places they were going weren't even on the Muggle maps, let alone large enough to hold hotels. And most of it was going to be in the frozen, barren interior of the island, as opposed to the relatively welcoming coastlands. Not that Malfoy had been able to appreciate the coasts either, but this... this was going to inspire him to new heights of bratty whinging.
And they still probably wouldn't solve this in time. So when he got back to civilization, Hermione was going to kill him.
December 13
"It's not that bad here, you know," said Brynja Lárusdóttir, the witch in charge of a mixed Muggle-wizarding motel in Laugarbakki. "My ancestors came here a thousand years ago, and they were hardly idiots. They stayed because it's a beautiful place. It's not exactly a centre of excitement, but there are deep roots and there's history here. There's being at one with the island. We're not always terribly friendly to new folks, but that's all right. Not every place has to welcome outsiders."
"It's pitch-black for four months straight," said Malfoy. "I feel as though I've been dropped into a dismal well of darkness."
Brynja laughed. "Well, yes, there is that too." She paused. "But there's even beauty in that. We sit. We hibernate. Not so much the Muggles these days, but wizards definitely do. There's a certain beauty to living in the moment, following the rhythms of the land and the sea."
"I suppose there could be," said Malfoy skeptically.
"No, I could see that," said Harry.
"That friend of yours, whose ritual you are hoping to attend..." Brynja said, and Harry looked up at her in surprise. "She's lucky."
"What?"
She smiled. "It's not very steady or reliable, but sometimes the island lets us have bits of our former magic. I used to be very good at sensing personal Charms. I sensed the one your friend put on you for her first child. And you're going to be a godfather again. It's a wonderful honour."
"I know," said Harry. "I'm already a godfather. To two children."
"And father of none?"
"No."
"Do you want to be?"
Harry thought for a minute. "I don't know," he finally said slowly.
Malfoy blinked, surprised, and Brynja smiled. "You don't have to, you know. Fatherhood is an honour and an adventure, but it doesn't have to be for everybody."
Harry shrugged. "I suppose not."
"It's expected of you, though."
"Not by anyone who's close to me," said Harry. "Not any more."
Brynja nodded. "You expect it of yourself, though."
"I suppose so." Harry put down his cup. "Speaking of people close to me, I need to make a phone call."
"Go right ahead," said Brynja. "Just make sure to follow the instructions next to the phone, for long distance calls."
ooo000ooo
"He thinks Laki's where the problem's originating. There's an old spirit of a volcano or something. Who knows why, but Malfoy thinks it's drawing magic to itself."
"A volcano spirit?"
"The fairies told us it thinks of itself as a god. Ancient one, too."
"An ancient volcano god." Ron paused. "So why were you incommunicado for so long? Hermione was getting worried."
"Nothing dangerous, only there weren't any telephones. We were in the interior of the island. And then up north, looking for giants."
"Really."
"Yeah, pretty bleak, most of it, actually."
"No hotels, either, I suppose?"
"Muggle hotels have phones, so no," said Harry patiently.
"Really? All Muggle hotels do?"
"Yeah."
There was a pause. "So if you weren't staying in hotels..."
Harry rubbed the spot between his brows that started to twitch whenever Ron got that particular tone to his voice. "Ron."
"So. Tense? Erm, I mean, did you sleep in tents?"
"Ron."
"One or two?"
"One."
"And was it? Tense, I mean."
Was it tense. No, not tense at all, sharing a very small space with a very good looking man for five days in a row, seeing him in nothing but a white t-shirt and distressingly close-fitting thermal underwear. Hoping he wouldn't have any interesting dreams out loud. Having to clean up manually after said interesting dreams, because you couldn't rely on cleaning charms to work properly and the last thing he wanted was a big gob of eew flying out of his sleeping bag and plopping onto Malfoy's hair. Although it might have been amusing, especially if he did it during one of Malfoy's snark-filled morning grousings.
"Yes," said Harry evenly. "It was tense. I am very happy to be in a hotel room of my own. Now could we possibly talk about something else? Or do I have to start making fun of you for being able to sleep in the same bed as the person you're attracted to, but not being able to have a fully sane conversation with her? Probably until your youngest child goes off to Hogwarts?"
Ron laughed. "Look, I'm sorry," he said. "I know, I'm being an ungrateful prat. It's fun taking the mickey out of you over this, but I know you only went babysitting Malfoy because of me."
"What? How--"
"Kingsley told me. I appreciate it, I really do. I'm sorry, mate."
"Yeah, all right," said Harry. "Apology accepted." He cleared his throat. "And don't call it babysitting," he muttered.
"Providing an official escort, then." There was a very brief silence. "Harry, can we call you Malfoy's escort?"
"Apology unaccepted, you berk," Harry said, starting to laugh despite himself. "All right, I have to go. Give Rosie a hug for me. And Hermione. And tell her if she wants to hex me for not making it back in time, she can hex you instead."
"Not a chance. She doesn't need more reasons to do that. I tossed out a pot of moldy petunias yesterday and she nearly went mental... er."
"Why?"
"Turns out she was breeding baby-breath-bugs. You know, to promote proper respiration in newborn infants. I've been banished to the sofa."
"Better you than me, mate. Self-inflicted wound and all that."
"Don't remind me," groaned Ron. "Anyway, good luck with the volcano god."
"Thanks, Ron."
He lay back, stretching in the bed and grateful to no longer be sharing a small, cramped tent with Malfoy. Looked down ruefully at the erection that had begun before he'd even hung up on Ron, just from the knowledge that tonight he could go to sleep without feeling nervous about any dreams he might have. And that if he woke up as he had a few times while camping, hot and hard and inches away from coming, he wouldn't have to clamp one hand over his mouth as the other took care of things. Wouldn't have to hope that he wasn't making any noise, that Malfoy wasn't lying there a foot away from him listening to Harry finishing himself off.
Though that thought had been fairly hot all by itself, as long as he didn't let himself imagine the kinds of things Malfoy would no doubt say if he did catch on to what Harry was doing.
He touched himself now, lying back on the bed and letting the images of the last several days wash over him. Waking up and feeling Malfoy's presence, warm and asleep, across the tent. Hearing him turn over in his sleep. Dreaming about him, wishing he could reach out and touch him. Dreaming of Malfoy waking him up by going down on him. Fantasizing about touching him and not being met with an incredulous look, or hostile sarcasm, but with heat equal to his own, and feeling Malfoy return his advances, pull him close, run his hands all over Harry, grasp him firmly and--
Oh, fuck, yeah. He let himself cry out loud as he came, reveling in the freedom and the solitude.
ooo000ooo
On to Part II
Summary: The Auror Corps provides Harry with a profession that's highly dangerous, demanding, and glamorous. Except when it's not.
Rating: R
Warning(s): Snow. And snark. Snowsnark!
Epilogue compliant? Everyone but Harry and Draco is dutifully headed towards Epilogue Compliancy.
Word Count: 18,083
Author's Notes: No babies were babysat and no Icelanders were harmed in the making of this fic. Tents may have been traumatized.
Thanks so much to
scrtkpr and goddessriss for your beta help, and thank you so very very much, marguerite_26, for concrit. Hope you like it, thebrandytook!Addition, because I have the attention span of a goldfish: So yeah,
scrtkpr was invaluable in writing this, helping me to turn it from something I deeply loathed to something I was rather fond of, as I said yesterday. Know who else was invaluable? goddessriss, for whom I just finished writting a very nice note thanking her for her beta help on an Ember to Ember DVD Extra. Which she has actually never seen. ::facepalm::Thanks so much,
goddessriss. I really appreciated your encouragement and troubleshooting. I just didn't remember you'd done that for this fic, in December, instead of the DVD Extra that I've had on the brain for the last week or so. ::sigh::Harry shook his head in dismay. "Oh no. No, Kingsley, please don't."
"You know I can't let him go alone," said Kingsley. "This has to happen now, and you're one of the only available Aurors. And you two have worked well together in the past."
"That's just sheer luck. I nearly killed him last time."
"Yes, and some day you'll have to explain to me exactly what happened. That banshee was nowhere near him."
"Like I said, sheer luck. Although right now I'm thinking it was bad luck." Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We've gone along on how many of his contracts now? Why can't he go alone?"
"You know very well why. I'm not going to argue this with you."
"Why can't you send somebody else, then?" Harry said, wincing at his own plaintive tone. "Anybody else. He's worked with other Aurors."
Kingsley sat back and sighed. "All right, fine. I'll tell Weasley to pack; he's the only other member of your section not currently--"
Harry's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh my God you haven't asked him, have you?"
"Not yet, but--"
"Bugger, Kingsley, don't. Hermione would..." he shuddered.
"Hermione would what?"
"She's expecting," Harry said flatly.
Kingsley's brow furrowed. "In three months."
"You don't understand. She's expecting." Kingsley clearly wasn't getting it. Harry gestured helplessly with his hands. "You know how Ron's been wearing those odd robes to work?"
"The ones with the Celtic knotwork and dangly bits of fruit? I assumed they were from his brother's shop."
"They're to promote peace and holistic magical development in the baby. She's - you know how she went a bit odd during her first pregnancy?" Kingsley nodded. "It didn't get much better after the baby was born. No magic or potions during the birth, no nappy-change or colic spells--"
"Why on earth not?" Kingsley said, perplexed.
"Supposedly some magic can interfere with the baby's soul development, or maybe it's the unintentional aural spillover or I don't know, it doesn't matter, Ron going away right now would just be not on." He ran a hand through his hair. "She'd kill both of us. And she wouldn't use her wand, either."
"I'm afraid it's you or him. I'm not about to let a civilian handle this alone. Particularly not this civilian."
Harry sighed and took the parchment. Kingsley looked at him curiously. "You're willing to go to Iceland with Draco Malfoy, just to avoid Hermione Weasley's insanity?"
"Story of my life," Harry said glumly.
Ron trudged in, sank into his chair, lay his head on his desk, and let out a heartfelt sigh.
"Bad night?" Harry asked sympathetically, because it would have been insensitive to point and laugh.
"Wha? Oh. Right. Yeah, Hermione put a spell around the bedroom. Said something about Pluto and Mars. Or... Plato and Marge. Something. Anyway, I think it was buzzing through the night. Or maybe that was the enchanted fireflies in the nursery. I don't know." He yawned.
"Seventy-nine days till the due date," said Harry comfortingly.
Ron's head hit the desk again. "And the godparent ritual? Please tell me that's soon. She'll settle a bit after that. And if she doesn't, at least we'll get a chance to get very very drunk on the ritual mead."
"Twenty-one days." Harry ran a hand through his hair nervously. "And. Erm. About that. Kingsley called me in this morning. Talked to me about Iceland."
"Iceland?" Ron yawned.
"They've got this problem; apparently it's been getting more and more difficult to do magic there, over the last few years. And a week ago some Seer said magic was going to disappear for good from the whole island at the Solstice."
"What are their Aurors doing about it?"
"There's not a big wizarding population; they don't really have a proper Auror corps." He fiddled with his quill. "They hired Malfoy Cursebreakers. He's done the preliminary work here, but now, what with this prophecy..." Ron was nodding absently, yawning again. Harry braced himself. "You know how much I want to be there for the ceremony, but he has to go to Iceland, and..."
Ron's mid-yawn turned into a gape of horror. "Oh no. Please. Please don't tell me you're going to miss the ceremony."
"I have to." Ron groaned and covered his eyes. "Can't you, you know, ask her to move--"
"Are you insane? Mercury's going to cross over Venus right at Solstice and it's perfect for godparent spells! She's going to murder me!"
"Why you? I'll be the one skiving off."
"But you won't be here." Ron dropped his head to the table. "Merlin. Fleur actually glowed when she was pregnant; you could almost read by her light at night. Tonks built an addition to the house and a dozen mobiles out of Butterbeer corks. My wife goes right round the bloody twist."
Harry nodded sympathetically, since it would have been unkind to remind Ron that he'd been through this before and should've known better than to get Hermione up the duff ever again. Besides, Ginny and George were pretty good about making that particular point, repeatedly. And laughing, unkindly.
Ron gave a world-weary sigh and then tilted his head to the side, a small glimmer of amusement appearing in his eyes. "So... would this be a bad time to ask if you've still got a bit of a thing for Malfoy?"
Harry swiftly looked down at the parchment Kingsley had given him. "Yes," he muttered, regretting not laughing at Ron when he had the chance.
Ron utterly failed to suppress a snicker. "So, Iceland. Cold, dark... you'll probably end up traveling all over the island... staying in tents..."
"Shut up."
"Ooh, and no heating spells, I suppose. Whatever will you do to keep warm?"
Harry supposed it was only natural that, since his own glare was unaccompanied by a gleam of hysteria and an enormous belly, Ron appeared unmoved by it.
"Have fun, mate," Ron smirked.
"You are never going to let me live this down, are you?"
Ron grinned widely at him. "Never. It's not every day your best mate admits that the reason he broke up with your sister is that he had a yen for blokes. And that he really only accepted it when he realized he had a yen for Draco Malfoy." He laughed. "Honestly, Harry, would you ever let me forget it?"
"I am never going to drink again. At least Hermione's been decent about it. With friends like you and Ginny--"
"We are your friends. If we weren't, we'd've told George. He'd be marketing live action Potter and Malfoy dolls for his adult line faster than you could say Buggery."
"Point."
"Ah, my Auror babysitter," was the first thing Malfoy said to Harry, his nose crinkling in distaste, as they met at the Muggle-Wizard Travel Connection Agency the next morning. "Just what did you fuck up to rate this posh assignment again, Potter?"
And this was exactly why it drove Harry crazy to have this... adolescent crush on Malfoy. He was so fit, so sure of himself, so attractive in an understated way, so brilliant at what he did, and it all worked so very well together, until he opened his mouth.
"I volunteered," Harry said evenly, and headed for the desk.
Malfoy's eyebrows went up. "Good God. Why?"
"Because the alternative was that they were going to send in Ron." He handed his Auror identification to the Welcome Witch. "Picking up two MLE tickets to Reykjavik, out of Heathrow, please."
"And sending Weasley was a problem because..."
"Hermione's expecting again."
Malfoy made a small moue of distaste. "More bushy-headed buckteeth ginger rodents. Charming." He sniffed. "Oh God, she's not doing that demented brooding mother dragon thing again, is she?"
Harry racked his brain to think of a way to agree with the truth behind the description without agreeing with the description itself.
"And she's got Weasley so pathetically beaten, too. The man always smells like tabouli."
Harry's forehead creased. "Tabouli?"
"You know, that Muggle thing that smells like smoke. Meant to promote joy or tranquility or some such rot."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Patchouli."
"Patchouli. Ugh. Remind me never to procreate."
"Sirs, here are your tickets." The witch handed them small pieces of parchment with an odd mixture of runes and Muggle air travel numbers jumbled across them. "At your flight time, step into the Floo, call out your flight number, and you will appear on the correct airplane. Don't worry, the Muggles on board won't be concerned by your sudden appearance."
"I trust you received my earlier request?" said Malfoy, and she nodded.
"Yes, sir; I've removed all small children from the vicinity of your seats."
Malfoy nodded and they headed towards the Floo.
"Speaking of procreating, didn't I hear you were supposed to get married this summer?" Harry asked Malfoy as they waited. Malfoy gave him an impatient glance. "I take it you didn't."
"Obviously."
"Why not?"
"I was supposed to marry Astoria Greengrass."
"Yeah..."
"You've met her?"
"Queenie Greengrass's younger sister, isn't she?"
Malfoy blinked in surprise.
"Queenie's an Apprentice Healer. Aurors get hurt a lot. What's wrong with her sister?"
"What wasn't wrong with her. Starting with her name. I refuse to get married to a bloody Muggle hotel." He checked his watch. "Finally," he said, and stepped into the Floo, calling out, "Iceland Express 156!" and disappearing in a flash of smoke. Harry heaved a sigh and followed.
"This stays up in the air, does it?" Malfoy said suspiciously, looking around the interior of the plane as Harry settled himself in. "And how long will we be in here?"
"About four hours. You've never flown before?"
"Why would I?" Malfoy glanced around the cabin again in distaste. "I've no idea what my fee is going to be for this," he muttered. "It won't be enough, though."
Maybe it was a good thing Harry was accompanying him after all; skilled though he was, Malfoy knew next to nothing about Muggles, and seemed to have no desire to learn. Which, considering the fact that they were going to a place where magic wasn't working, might prove problematic.
"Kingsley said you know our contact," Harry said, buckling his seatbelt. "Raschida..."
"Hamidsdóttir," Malfoy said, nodding. He opened his briefcase and made an impatient face as Harry motioned his wand hand down. "Met her briefly. Seems competent enough. Some type of nun, I think."
"A nun?" Harry asked, as Malfoy searched his briefcase. Harry briefly wondered if he used the same spell Hermione used on her purses; the briefcase seemed to contain a small library of dusty books, scrolls, and bizarre glowing objects.
"Yes. She had... you know, one of those wrap-things on her head." Malfoy handed him a photograph.
He looked at it and rolled his eyes. "God, Malfoy, don't call it a wrap-thing, it's a--"
"Jihad! That's what they're called, aren't they?"
"Hijab, you--" he bit back the rest of the sentence. "On second thought please do call it a wrap thing. Better yet, let me talk to our contacts, all right?"
"Because you're eloquent and persuasive?"
"Because you're likely to mistake our Muslim contact for a nun, and compliment her on wearing a lovely jihad on her head."
"What does the type of cloth have to do with anything?"
"What?"
"The muslin. Is that what the wrap-thing's made of?"
Harry rubbed his forehead. "Muslin is a fabric," he said patiently. "Muslim is a follower of Islam. That's a religion."
"If you say so," Malfoy said distractedly, still searching his briefcase, and Harry wondered again if it would really be so wrong to just letting him do this assignment alone. "Ah, here's the prophecy." He handed it to Harry.
This island is losing its magic
Which surely is so very tragic
But fear not the danger
A handsome young Stranger
May save this fair island pelagic.
For old ways here have been amended
You may not know you have offended
But as of midwinter
All magic shall splinter
Unless what is broken is mended
Harry peered at it. "The prophecy was in limerick form?"
"Apparently not in the original Icelandic. Raschida says the translation Charm they use does that sometimes."
"What's 'pelagic'?"
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "It means 'on the open sea'," he said. "I assume it's referring to Iceland. Because it's in the middle of the Atlantic, you see."
Harry sighed and turned to the window. How bad would it be, really, to have Malfoy doing this alone? Sure, MLE didn't trust Malfoy, or they wouldn't insist on always having an Auror 'assist' him on his international assignments, but so far, in four years, there had been no hint that he was anything other than what he appeared to be: a skilled and competent private anti-Dark Magic Practitioner. And he'd been paired with more than one Auror who would've loved to report anything remotely suspicious about him, had there been anything at all to report. Harry often contemplated formally requesting that MLE justify their continued practice of accompanying him, though of course, there were plenty of unspoken reasons. It was good for the Auror corps to have him accompanied: made the public feel MLE was doing its job, and got certain problems handled in ways that sometimes the Auror department couldn't, restricted as they were in some of their methods. The arrangement was even good for Malfoy, in a way, despite his disdainful attitude about it: he got prestige, and good business contacts, and with every accompanied contract, fewer people mistrusted him.
The only one it wasn't very good for was Harry. And he couldn't even protest openly and honestly as to what exactly was the problem. Having Ron and Ginny humiliate him every time the topic came up was quite enough, thanks.
Harry laid his head back on his seat, wistfully wished he were anywhere but here, and tried to push out of his mind the last three assignments he'd had with Malfoy. Especially the one where he'd realized that his feelings, despite remaining firmly in the 'annoying prat' category with regards to Malfoy's personality, had somehow flown from 'pointy poncy git' to 'rather fit bloke who makes my heart flutter like Lavender Brown's before a squadron of professional Keepers wearing nothing but jock straps, unless he talks' with regards to his physique.
He closed his eyes. A nap was probably his best option right now. He murmured a sleeping spell and sank into oblivion.
"It's dark," said Malfoy.
"It's near the winter solstice, you see," said Harry helpfully, and felt a glimmer of satisfaction at Malfoy's impatient eye-roll. "It's always dark. What's the local time again?"
"Around nine," said Malfoy, pointing at a clock lit up on the snow-blown tarmac.
Harry frowned. "Didn't - wait, which way does the time change work here? I thought it would still be daytime when we landed."
An older woman in a bulky blue parka approached them on the tarmac, squinting at them in the dark. "Mr. Malfoy? Mr. Potter?"
"Yes?" Malfoy said cautiously.
"Good." She held out her hand. "I'm Raschida." Harry and Malfoy blinked at her, and Malfoy started to shake his head. "Polyjuice," she said, her blue eyes amused. "I use it a lot among Muggles. I'd suggest you do the same while you're here." Very good English, Harry noted. Slight Scandinavian-sounding accent.
"Polyjuice?" asked Malfoy. "Is it necessary for security?"
"A bit," she said. "We don't have enough official Obliviators. We Polyjuice so that Muggles don't always see the same people having odd things happen around them. But mostly it's just fun."
Malfoy looked at her askance.
"We're in Iceland, in winter, Mr. Malfoy. Amusements are few and far between. Besides, our Polyjuice is quite tasty mixed with Brennivin or Ethervodka. Now, come with me. We'll go to the nearest Floo, and take you to your hotel."
"I thought magical things weren't working here," Harry said.
Raschida shrugged. "Precious few of them are, and what's left is getting temperamental. We're now mostly using cars and airplanes to travel. Rather inconvenient, having to pay Muggle strangers to help us around the island."
"I thought Iceland was small enough that everybody knew each other."
Raschida laughed. "There's over 300,000 people here. You can't know everybody, you know. Now the wizarding population, yes, that's small enough. But not the Muggle."
"Do the wizard and Muggle communities intermix here?"
"More than most places, I think." She stopped in front of the tarmac fence and muttered a long series of spells. Harry noted how slowly a hole appeared in the fence, and how quickly it sprang back to its natural shape once they had passed through. "There's a lot of intermarriage, a huge half-blood population, and there's still many Muggles here who believe in elves, things like that. More than back home, anyway."
"Back home?"
"I grew up in Denmark. I'm Icelandic now, though. Married an islander fifteen years ago. Even changed my name; it was Al-Rassour, but most Icelanders use patronyms, so I'm Hamidsdóttir." She led them to a small white-roofed shed-like building next to the taxi stands, sporting signs Harry assumed were the Icelandic equivalent of 'keep out' or 'closed for repairs.' "We've set you up at the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica, so that will be our first stop. And I realize you're probably tired from your trip, but would you mind meeting with a few of our people as soon as you're settled in?"
Harry and Malfoy exchanged a glance. "Erm, we're not that tired but... isn't it nine o'clock?" Harry asked.
Raschida nodded.
"Wouldn't your people be off work by now?"
Raschida laughed. "It's nine in the morning, Mr. Potter. What kind of hours do British civil servants keep?" She laughed again at their expressions. "Don't worry, the meeting shouldn't be too long. It's just to make sure you aren't missing any of the information they've sent you." She stepped up to the Floo. "Now, please be careful; this Floo has always been temperamental, and the current magic situation hasn't helped. Please say 'Hilton Nordica' very clearly. The other day a German wizard stepped through and landed right in Paris Hilton's lap. She didn't seem to notice, but the local Obliviators had a hell of a time dealing with the score of paparazzi who were with her at the time." Raschida stepped in and disappeared in a flash of green.
Malfoy peered distrustfully at the Floo. "Sending people all the way to France. That's not just temperamental, it's downright unsafe. Maybe we'd be better off taking a Muggle taxi."
Harry frowned. "France?"
Malfoy gave him a pained glance. "Paris. That's in France."
"Oh!" Harry chuckled. "I think she meant the Paris with the sex videos on the internet."
"They take videos of you at the Paris Hilton? And put them on the... internet?"
Harry hesitated only briefly before responding. "Yes. Yes, they do," he said. "It's quite upsetting, actually. Millions of people have seen them. Be told. Don't have sex at the Paris Hilton. The Reykjavik Hilton is all right though."
"This is the garden spot of Iceland, is it?" Malfoy said the next morning, glancing out the Hilton's restaurant window at the cold, dark street, flurries whipping about and pedestrians scurrying back and forth braced against the cold. "And Muggles decided this was a brilliant place to settle?"
Raschida shrugged. "It's usually fairly warm, considering its latitude. We're warmed by the Atlantic current and by seismic activity from below. And there's good land, on the outer edges of the island. It is a good place to settle. At least, it's no worse than anyplace else in Scandinavia, where most of them came from."
"When did wizards decide to follow the Muggles here?" asked Harry. "Or did they get here first?"
"The first wizards are believed to have arrived about fifty years after the first Muggles," said Raschida. "It's difficult to be sure, though, because the wizarding and Muggle populations intermixed a great deal."
"And you said people still believe in elves here?"
"Many do, yes."
"One city even has a law giving elves the right to veto municipal decisions regarding new buildings," said Malfoy absently, squinting at his map.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Very funny."
Raschida laughed. "Believe it or not, he's right. Hafnarfjordur. I'm not sure how many people actually believe it's necessary, but it's kept on the books. Mostly I think the Muggles keep it because it adds flavour to the city."
"Hafnarfjordur," said Malfoy. "That's our second stop."
"Oh, you've decided where you're going, then?" said Harry. And about bloody time, too; Malfoy had told him almost nothing other than that he had some ideas and wanted to talk to local wizards and magical creatures.
"Yes." Malfoy took out two scrolls, handing one copy to Raschida and one to Harry. There, neatly drawn, was a map of Iceland, and an accompanying list of who Malfoy wanted to talk to, what he needed to see, what types of readings he wanted to do and spells he needed to cast... everything.
"You couldn't have shown me this last night?" he asked Malfoy irately. "Or on the plane?"
"I wasn't sure of our itinerary on the plane," Malfoy said. "Or what types of transportation were available to us. I did this last night."
"This won't be much trouble," Raschida said, scanning the list. "I'm assuming you can drive a Muggle car?" Malfoy looked blank, but Harry nodded. "Good. I'll provide you with road maps, Polyjuice for whenever you're in contact with Muggles, and some translation Charms. Hopefully you won't need those; they're unreliable. Although some of the magical creatures that live far away from Reykjavik only speak Icelandic, or their own tongues... hm, you'll also need some camping equipment..."
"You won't be coming with us, then?" Malfoy asked.
"Not unless you need me to. I do have a fairly busy schedule; dealing with the practical aspects of the loss of magic is my full-time job."
Harry didn't know whether to be relieved or dismayed that he and Malfoy were apparently going to spend most of this assignment alone together. That was probably a bad sign.
"First we need to go to the University," said Malfoy.
"What for?"
"I'm going to take readings of magical activity in the library. Potter will be speaking to the students." He turned to Raschida. "For some reason, Potter's under the impression that I don't deal well with people."
"And then you're going to Hafnarfjordur?" said Raschida.
"Yes, to talk to the local elves. See if their magic is being affected too."
"All right," said Raschida. "I'll get you a bus schedule too. Buses leave every fifteen or twenty minutes."
"You have a Knight Bus here?" Raschida shook her head. Malfoy looked rather appalled. "Not a Muggle bus?"
"We are on a budget, Mr. Malfoy. For most of what you're doing, you can only use cars. To speak to the elves, you don't."
"I'm an accountant," said Malfoy to the pretty young British exchange student who had started chatting him up at the student pub within five minutes of their arrival. Her smile dimmed visibly.
"And how did you get to Iceland?" she asked politely.
"We came with The Iceland Experience," said Harry, glad he'd had a chance to look over some of the information Kingsley had provided for him yesterday.
"Ve don't often see tourists here in vinter," said a student who sounded a lot like Viktor Krum.
"I wonder why not?" Malfoy muttered.
"It's cold. It's dark," said another girl, who sounded American. "It's not a time for sight-seeing; it's mostly just a time to hunker down and survive."
"Actually, the darkness was the selling point at Iceland Experience," said Harry. "It's much cheaper, and we get to see the Aurora Borealis."
"There's also supposed to be more magical activity this time of year, if you're into that kind of thing," said Malfoy disinterestedly. "That's more his passion than mine, though," he said, motioning towards Harry, and Harry felt the curious gazes of the students settle on him.
Very nice, thought Harry as he continued the conversation with the students and Malfoy moved off. They looked like they thought he was some kind of loon, but at least they were talking to him. And supposedly he was doing something useful, asking them the questions Malfoy had written out for him. He glanced surreptitiously at his list, concealed among the entries of his Icelandic-English phrasebook.
This was one of the less annoying things about being assigned to be Malfoy's Ministry watchdog; Malfoy generally kept him relatively busy. No doubt he did it for practicality more than out of a desire to make Harry feel useful and needed; free Auror labour, after all. But it was still a welcome change from some of the other escort duties Harry had been stuck with over the years.
Of course, he never could be sure that Malfoy wasn't having him on with at least some parts of these little assignments. Like, for example, the next question on his list.
"So, erm... how often do people throw up around here?" he asked. Damn it, there was no way that was a legitimate question. And the cross-dressing one farther down the page had to be Malfoy taking the piss too. He hoped Malfoy got a good laugh out of it when he transcribed the interview Harry was taping on the tiny Muggle tape recorder Raschida had given them.
Faster than he'd expected, Malfoy appeared to be done with whatever "readings" he'd wanted to do at the pub and library, and they were saying goodbye to the students. Harry checked the tape recorder as they left the campus and headed for the bus stop to Hafnarfjordur.
"Will you be able to figure out how to get this to work?" he asked Malfoy.
"It can't be that difficult."
"Have you ever used one before?"
"Tape recorderers? No. If Muggles can use them, I'm sure they can't be that complex."
Harry rolled his eyes and flipped his collar up against the blowing snow. "How much do you know about Muggles, anyway?"
"I've read books about them."
"Like what, Marvin the Mad Muggle? You do know that's satire, right?"
"Is it?" Malfoy said, shivering and not terribly interested. "I suppose you're an expert, being raised by them."
"Not really; I pretty much left the Muggle world as a child. Although I've kept in touch with my Muggle cousin and his wife."
Malfoy looked blank for a moment. "Oh, that cousin of yours who was the size of an orca, but duller?" Harry nodded. "Do I even want to imagine what his wife must look like?"
"Probably not what you'd think. She's American. Skinny. Bit of a compulsive cleaner." He shrugged. "Men marry their mothers."
Malfoy nodded. "So I've been told. Your mother was a redhead, right?"
Harry looked at him. "Yes, why?"
"No reason," said Malfoy. They reached the bus stop and he took out the bus schedule Raschida had given them. "Good. The next bus should be here in a few minutes. I hope the elves got my request to see them. I'm not particularly keen on traveling this way again."
That had been an enormous amount of fun, thought Harry sourly as he got ready for bed that night. A long, cold trip, a pointless stop, an uncomfortable interview with elves who looked distressingly like Dobby and Kreacher, only ridiculously tall and with red or white-blond ear hair. Kreacher as a Viking. He was going to have nightmares.
And through it all, Malfoy doing his work, perfectly polite to the elves and Muggles, and perfectly unpleasant to Harry.
Harry lay back and wished he were back in London. Wondered what Ron and Hermione were up to right now. Wondered what Rose was doing, how Teddy was spending his last Christmas before he went to Hogwarts... and he tried not to think of how the snow and the darkness felt oppressive and dull, and how for some bizarre reason that just made Malfoy seem somehow more attractive and interesting and intriguing than ever. Tried not to think of how it felt, watching that brain work, watching Malfoy get the elves interested in what he was saying; catching himself wanting to see that intensity turned on him... and how resoundingly he was brought back to earth with a thump, attraction and intrigue dimming considerably, whenever they were alone.
He turned over in bed and firmly made himself go to sleep.
"I'm a poet," Malfoy said at the Gulfoss falls the next day, much to the delight of the Muggle tourist girls they'd stumbled across upon arrival. Which wasn't really what they wanted; Malfoy was trying to find the lair of the ice fairies, and Harry was trying very hard to provide cover for him, and it didn't help that they'd happened upon a group of Literature majors.
"You should probably talk to my publisher, though," said Malfoy, nodding at Harry, when it became clear that the Muggles were not going to be put off by his aloof manner. "He can tell you about my work." He walked off to do his readings.
"Erm, can't talk about the poems, sorry," said Harry, grasping for some kind of reasonable way to get rid of the tourists. Thank God he'd stayed in touch with Dudley; otherwise he'd probably be just as much at sea about this kind of thing as Malfoy. "We're... involved in a lawsuit right now; there's another poet who's trying to publish some of his poetry as her own. And I'm... I'm actually not supposed to talk about anything having to do with publishing either. Sorry."
And it was probably a good thing that he had decided to use the Polyjuice kindly provided for them by Raschida, because the paunchy, balding, crooked-teeth form he'd chosen for today seemed to make him not terribly interesting to the girls once they had no literature-related reason to talk to him. He glanced over at them, giggling and stealing looks at Malfoy and mostly ignoring the waterfall they'd supposedly come to see. It really was spectacular, half of it frozen in columns of ice, half still crashing down in a raging torrent. A vivid mix of whites and greys and blues, roaring and wreathed in mist, powerful and awe-inspiring. The Icelanders apparently called it the waterfall of the gods, and by god, it really was.
And Malfoy, eyes darting about it, searching for something within it, was paying its beauty and grandeur as much attention as the Muggle schoolgirls were. Pity.
He approached Malfoy. "Anything?"
"Nothing. I'm trying to see where they can be hiding. Ice fairies usually use the back of the waterfall for their meeting halls, but I can't find them..."
"Use fairydust, then."
"What a marvelous suggestion, Potter. That's very helpful. And if I had any fairydust, what a joyful moment this would be."
"You didn't get fairydust from Raschida?"
"No, Potter, I did not get fairydust from Raschida. You may have heard that Iceland has a bit of a problem with magic. The local Potion masters haven't been able to make decent fairydust for years."
"Well, then, a Search spell. It's not that hard to make that work, is it?" Harry surreptitiously drew his wand and started to aim it at the column of ice. And it was... sluggish was the best word to describe it. He had a sudden flashback to trying to use Hermione's wand. He quickly checked to make sure he was still holding his own in his hand.
"Much as I loathe interrupting genius at work," said Malfoy, "it might be useful to you to remember that we're here because magic isn't working in Iceland."
Harry blew out his breath. "Look, I got rid of the Muggles, I'm giving you suggestions - I'm just trying to be helpful, all right?"
"When you say helpful, do you mean that in the normal definition of the word, or is this from your personal dictionary?"
"What?"
"Oh, you know, the way you might use 'competent' as in 'Rubeus Hagrid was a competent teacher'. Or 'interesting', as in 'Hermione Granger's educational soliloquies are interesting.' That kind of thing."
"No. 'Helpful' as in 'I'd like to drop kick you into the waterfall but instead I am trying to make your work easier, because I'd like to get back home as soon as possible.'"
"Well, please stop. When and if I need your help, I'll ask for it." He paused and looked a little closer at one of the columns of ice. "Ah. There they are. Potter, make yourself useful and come up with a diversion, so I can get over there without these bloody students noticing."
"What kind of diversion?"
"I don't know, go chat them up or something," Malfoy said irately. "Like you did at the pub in Reykjavik."
"I chatted someone up?" Harry asked, baffled.
"It was on the tape recorderer." Malfoy stared at the waterfall fixedly. Harry pushed down his annoyance as Malfoy didn't even deign to make eye contact with him. "You know, your little American girlfriend."
"What American girlfriend?" Harry ran over the pub conversations in his head. "Oh d'you mean the girl from Toronto? I wasn't chatting her up."
"Well she found your questions fascinating. Oh and don't forget wanting to show you her Celtic rune tattoos, so you could compare it to Celtic imagery found in Iceland." He shook his head. "If you really fell for that one..."
"Fine, all right, maybe she was coming on to me." Harry flushed. "Not sure how well trying to chat anyone up will go over right now, though."
Malfoy looked back at him and grimaced in distaste. "No, on second thought, don't. Not looking like that. Genius, that, getting rid of one of your only assets."
"What asset?"
Malfoy cleared his throat and quickly turned back to the waterfall. "Pretend to hurt yourself," he said, annoyed. "Make something up. Aren't you an Auror, trained to think on your feet?"
Harry blew out his breath and headed back to the giggling schoolgirls, leaving Malfoy to his ice fairies.
"Musician," Malfoy said to the chatty young couple at Strokkur geyser. "I compose jungles for adverts."
"Jingles," murmured Harry.
"Jingles. 'Make her your own, with Wizard's Cologne?' That's one of mine."
The couple looked at him blankly and he wandered off, humming under his breath. Harry gritted his teeth and made nice with the other tourists, reflecting that watching the geyser was rather cathartic. It swelled for a while, and then it blew up. Would be nice to be able to do that.
Of course that was only if the 'blowing up' was temper-related. He had a sudden, wildly inappropriate image of just how much he'd like to do some swelling and... geysering of his own, preferably in a hotel room of his own and not while sharing a tent with Malfoy. He swiftly banished the mental image with a shudder.
"That wasn't long," he said as Malfoy came back, looking disgruntled.
"They barely agreed to meet with me at all. And I think they sent the most demented member of their herd; didn't look like he knew his arse from his foreleg any more."
"Centaurs back home won't meet with humans at all," Harry pointed out.
"I think I would've preferred that."
"So did you get any useful information from them?"
"Not much. Their magic's unaffected. Same as the elves in Hafnarfjordur and the fairies at Gulfoss."
"That's all you're doing? Taking a survey of the state of magical creatures' magic? Couldn't you have asked the Icelandic authorities to do that for you?"
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "No, Potter, that's not all I'm doing. Give me a little credit. I'm also taking readings, and conducting experiments to see exactly how spells are affected. That sort of thing. I'm earning the exorbitant fee I'll be charging the Icelandic authorities."
"I do give you credit," Harry said, annoyed. "I was confused that you seemed to be doing pretty basic stuff here. Didn't seem up to your usual standard." He turned to go.
"Oh. Thanks," said Malfoy behind him, startling Harry a bit. Had Malfoy just thanked him?
No, couldn't have been. The geyser was making a lot of noise and Harry was hearing things, that was all.
"And are you getting the results you were hoping for?" he asked, as Malfoy caught up to him.
"Not exactly hoping for, but expecting. I'll have to see how things go in Laki."
"So how's it going so far?" Ron asked that night on the phone.
"Not bad," Harry said. "I think we'll be home before Solstice. He seems to know what he's doing."
"Does he?"
"Yeah. He usually does."
Ron's voice took on a slightly shaky quality. "Really. Firm and assertive, is he? Take-charge?"
"I suppose so."
"Forceful?"
"Ron."
"Manly?"
"Shut up."
"What about his hands, are they strong and--"
"How's Hermione, Ron?"
Silence.
Harry smirked. "Calm and peaceful? Serene, sensible--"
"That's low, mate. That's really, really low."
"I run a day care," Malfoy had told the Muggle girl who'd tried to chat with him at the hotel near Laki.
"Really? I love children!"
Malfoy smiled slightly. "Oh yes, so do I."
"The face of a child can say so much, don't you think?"
"Especially the part of it that screams when you tell it Mummy won't come back at the end of the day if it doesn't eat its peas."
Harry had suppressed a snicker as the girl gave Malfoy a horrified look and rejoined her companions. The three women whispered among themselves, shooting him and Malfoy suspicious looks.
Not a bad way to get rid of them. They'd been able to activate the distressingly slow Portkey taking them to the edge of the volcano crater Malfoy had decided he needed to see. Harry glanced around the crater; the snow a soft grey carpet beneath them, the still, sparkling dark all around them, and imagined what it looked like when it was spewing enough lava and smoke to disrupt the entire island. Reminded himself he wasn't a tourist, and began running the tests Malfoy had asked him to do. Apparate, Levitate, Transfigure, and Animate all felt lethargic, but not as much as they had been at the last place they'd stopped. He glanced over at Malfoy, who was busily taking notes and muttering into a Muggle recording device.
Competent. Professional. Dedicated. And rather good at this. He'd seen this kind of concentration in the Aurors he tried to emulate; the careful attention to detail, fitting new information in to a growing theory of what the problem was, and how to solve it.
This kind of impersonal problem-solving wasn't something Harry did terribly well; his main forte tended to be figuring out what Dark wizards were doing, and stopping them. He also worked fairly well with other Aurors, much to his surprise. He was up for a promotion sometime soon and, oddly, he was looking forward to it, despite the fact that it could very well take him right out of field work for good.
It was time to move on from endless tracking down of baddies. And he liked figuring out how to use MLE's resources well, trying to make people get along and do their jobs. He'd run his own squad for three years now, and enjoyed the challenge. It often reminded him of running the DA. The idea of running the whole department felt daunting, but exciting.
He gazed at the peaceful crater lake, wondering if Malfoy felt the same satisfaction in his own work. If he would feel better without an Auror around to escort him everywhere. If he got animated when he talked to his friends about his work. Did he even have friends to talk to about his work?
"Oh, no, don't stop daydreaming on my behalf," said a voice behind him, and he jumped. When had Malfoy finished in the crater?
"Sorry, I didn't realize you were out already."
"How MLE ever let you in is beyond me," muttered Malfoy. "Did you get anything useful done while I was in there?"
Harry handed him his parchment of observations, noting Malfoy's swiftly hidden look of surprise with pleasure.
"Did you get anything useful?" Harry asked as they sat down and started going through their backpacks.
"Not really. I was hoping to talk to an old volcano spirit here. It used to come out and accept offerings from the locals, but it's not answering my summons."
"Why not?"
"Well if I knew that, Potter, we either wouldn't be here, or I would've been able to talk to him, wouldn't I?" said Malfoy. He took out his meal, eyeing the smoked salmon with suspicion. "This isn't one of those rotten whale meat Icelandic delicacies, is it?"
"It's perfectly edible," said Harry. "And fish is good for your heart, Hermione says. Though she wouldn't eat any during her first pregnancy; something about possible contaminants harming the baby, I think."
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "What's happened to Granger - sorry, Weasley - anyway? Did she start hanging about with Loony Lovegood when she got pregnant?"
Harry decided not to mention that, in fact, Luna had once commented that some of Hermione's theories were 'a little odd.' "No, she just wants to give her children perfect childhoods."
"Ugh."
"And actually the fish thing she got from Muggles. They've apparently done a lot of studies on it."
"Oh that makes it much more believable, then," Malfoy said, and they both looked up at a sound from behind them. A small group of fire-fairies was approaching them.
"Ah. All right, here we go." Malfoy put down his sandwich and stood up. "Hello."
"Wieree veruhlinee ertthuh?" asked the fairy at the front of the group, a small, delicate-looking, lightly flaming creature that somehow managed to look ancient despite a complete absence of wrinkles.
"Ég tala bara ensku," said Malfoy, and the fairies broke into a babble of voices. Malfoy and Harry glanced at each other worriedly.
"...eeslensku?" said one.
"Bother. I suppose it's time to use the translation Charm," said Harry glumly.
"I hate those things," muttered Malfoy. "They hardly ever work. May as well try, though." He took a fish-shaped Charm out of his backpack and grimaced at its lurid aqua hue.
"Hang on, let me work the back-up spell," said Harry, pointing his wand at a blank parchment and taking three tries to get it right. "This'll re-translate your words, so we can tell if the Charm is working right. Go ahead," he motioned to Malfoy, who turned back to the fairies.
Malfoy held the Charm up. "Greiða yðar hundur," he said.
The fairies, as one, blinked at him in bafflement.
"You just told them to comb their dogs," said Harry, frowning at his parchment.
"Greiða yðar hundur fjólublár,"1 said Malfoy.
"Purple. Comb their dogs purple. Let me see that." He took the fish from Malfoy, shook it three times, rubbed it across his stomach, then tossed it back at Malfoy.
"What the hell was that?"
"The Charm goes a little wonky sometimes. You have to let it know you'll eat it if it misbehaves."
"What? How do you know that?"
"It's the same Charm the Aurors use sometimes."
"From where?"
Harry hesitated. "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."
Malfoy closed his eyes, obviously reaching for patience. "The Aurors. Use products from... there's a joke here, but I'm going to refrain from making it. No bloody wonder I've got so much business, if you people are the alternative."
"This is thrilling, Potter," Malfoy said, peering at their finally upright tent through the near-blizzard. "I'm ever so glad I accepted this contract."
"And I'm ever so glad you weren't sent to Azkaban," Harry snapped, "so I could be free to join you on these little romps."
Malfoy gave him a glare and ducked into the tent, and Harry ran a hand through his hair and fought the urge to scream. It was like living with a toddler.
In fact, it was worse than living with a toddler. Rose was nowhere near as annoying. Nowhere near. She was a lot quieter, too. And she liked him.
All of a sudden he felt a deep surge of longing. He didn't want to be here, with Malfoy, good-looking as he was. He wanted to be home, with Ron and Hermione, with little Rose hanging on to his every word. Swinging her up in the air and hearing her squeals of delight. Watching Ron and Hermione, who, despite Ron's tabouli scent and Hermione's wide-hipped wingy earth mother thing, were so fucking happy together.
He braced himself against the expected surge of longing for Ginny. Funny, bright, pretty, uncomplicated Ginny, and everything that came with her.
Why exactly had he broken up with her again? Told her he didn't like girls? So that he could be here, with Malfoy, instead of by her side, listening to her jokes and watching her smile and copping a feel in the hallway whenever her six - five, damn it - brothers weren't in sight? What the hell had he been thinking?
Honesty, he reminded himself. He'd wanted to be honest with her, honest with himself. Life with Ginny might have been many positive things, but it would've been, at heart, a lie. Because bright and pretty as she was, she didn't quite do it for him. No girl could.
He'd done the right thing.
Though it sure didn't feel like it right now. He wearily entered the tent, where Malfoy was looking at their Muggle sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses with disdain.
"Do you know what to do with this?" Malfoy asked, gesturing at their gear.
"Yes, I do," said Harry. "Part of Auror training."
"You mean it's actually good for something?"
"Yes." He shoved Malfoy out of the way and made himself useful.
Oh, this was going to be marvelous. Not only was he going to be spending an inordinate amount of time bumbling about in the icy dark, doing seismic readings and measuring magical levels, chasing down more magical creatures, visiting small Muggle villages and isolated wizarding settlements that probably hadn't changed since Viking times... he was going to be doing it all with Malfoy. In a tent, because most of the places they were going weren't even on the Muggle maps, let alone large enough to hold hotels. And most of it was going to be in the frozen, barren interior of the island, as opposed to the relatively welcoming coastlands. Not that Malfoy had been able to appreciate the coasts either, but this... this was going to inspire him to new heights of bratty whinging.
And they still probably wouldn't solve this in time. So when he got back to civilization, Hermione was going to kill him.
"It's not that bad here, you know," said Brynja Lárusdóttir, the witch in charge of a mixed Muggle-wizarding motel in Laugarbakki. "My ancestors came here a thousand years ago, and they were hardly idiots. They stayed because it's a beautiful place. It's not exactly a centre of excitement, but there are deep roots and there's history here. There's being at one with the island. We're not always terribly friendly to new folks, but that's all right. Not every place has to welcome outsiders."
"It's pitch-black for four months straight," said Malfoy. "I feel as though I've been dropped into a dismal well of darkness."
Brynja laughed. "Well, yes, there is that too." She paused. "But there's even beauty in that. We sit. We hibernate. Not so much the Muggles these days, but wizards definitely do. There's a certain beauty to living in the moment, following the rhythms of the land and the sea."
"I suppose there could be," said Malfoy skeptically.
"No, I could see that," said Harry.
"That friend of yours, whose ritual you are hoping to attend..." Brynja said, and Harry looked up at her in surprise. "She's lucky."
"What?"
She smiled. "It's not very steady or reliable, but sometimes the island lets us have bits of our former magic. I used to be very good at sensing personal Charms. I sensed the one your friend put on you for her first child. And you're going to be a godfather again. It's a wonderful honour."
"I know," said Harry. "I'm already a godfather. To two children."
"And father of none?"
"No."
"Do you want to be?"
Harry thought for a minute. "I don't know," he finally said slowly.
Malfoy blinked, surprised, and Brynja smiled. "You don't have to, you know. Fatherhood is an honour and an adventure, but it doesn't have to be for everybody."
Harry shrugged. "I suppose not."
"It's expected of you, though."
"Not by anyone who's close to me," said Harry. "Not any more."
Brynja nodded. "You expect it of yourself, though."
"I suppose so." Harry put down his cup. "Speaking of people close to me, I need to make a phone call."
"Go right ahead," said Brynja. "Just make sure to follow the instructions next to the phone, for long distance calls."
"He thinks Laki's where the problem's originating. There's an old spirit of a volcano or something. Who knows why, but Malfoy thinks it's drawing magic to itself."
"A volcano spirit?"
"The fairies told us it thinks of itself as a god. Ancient one, too."
"An ancient volcano god." Ron paused. "So why were you incommunicado for so long? Hermione was getting worried."
"Nothing dangerous, only there weren't any telephones. We were in the interior of the island. And then up north, looking for giants."
"Really."
"Yeah, pretty bleak, most of it, actually."
"No hotels, either, I suppose?"
"Muggle hotels have phones, so no," said Harry patiently.
"Really? All Muggle hotels do?"
"Yeah."
There was a pause. "So if you weren't staying in hotels..."
Harry rubbed the spot between his brows that started to twitch whenever Ron got that particular tone to his voice. "Ron."
"So. Tense? Erm, I mean, did you sleep in tents?"
"Ron."
"One or two?"
"One."
"And was it? Tense, I mean."
Was it tense. No, not tense at all, sharing a very small space with a very good looking man for five days in a row, seeing him in nothing but a white t-shirt and distressingly close-fitting thermal underwear. Hoping he wouldn't have any interesting dreams out loud. Having to clean up manually after said interesting dreams, because you couldn't rely on cleaning charms to work properly and the last thing he wanted was a big gob of eew flying out of his sleeping bag and plopping onto Malfoy's hair. Although it might have been amusing, especially if he did it during one of Malfoy's snark-filled morning grousings.
"Yes," said Harry evenly. "It was tense. I am very happy to be in a hotel room of my own. Now could we possibly talk about something else? Or do I have to start making fun of you for being able to sleep in the same bed as the person you're attracted to, but not being able to have a fully sane conversation with her? Probably until your youngest child goes off to Hogwarts?"
Ron laughed. "Look, I'm sorry," he said. "I know, I'm being an ungrateful prat. It's fun taking the mickey out of you over this, but I know you only went babysitting Malfoy because of me."
"What? How--"
"Kingsley told me. I appreciate it, I really do. I'm sorry, mate."
"Yeah, all right," said Harry. "Apology accepted." He cleared his throat. "And don't call it babysitting," he muttered.
"Providing an official escort, then." There was a very brief silence. "Harry, can we call you Malfoy's escort?"
"Apology unaccepted, you berk," Harry said, starting to laugh despite himself. "All right, I have to go. Give Rosie a hug for me. And Hermione. And tell her if she wants to hex me for not making it back in time, she can hex you instead."
"Not a chance. She doesn't need more reasons to do that. I tossed out a pot of moldy petunias yesterday and she nearly went mental... er."
"Why?"
"Turns out she was breeding baby-breath-bugs. You know, to promote proper respiration in newborn infants. I've been banished to the sofa."
"Better you than me, mate. Self-inflicted wound and all that."
"Don't remind me," groaned Ron. "Anyway, good luck with the volcano god."
"Thanks, Ron."
He lay back, stretching in the bed and grateful to no longer be sharing a small, cramped tent with Malfoy. Looked down ruefully at the erection that had begun before he'd even hung up on Ron, just from the knowledge that tonight he could go to sleep without feeling nervous about any dreams he might have. And that if he woke up as he had a few times while camping, hot and hard and inches away from coming, he wouldn't have to clamp one hand over his mouth as the other took care of things. Wouldn't have to hope that he wasn't making any noise, that Malfoy wasn't lying there a foot away from him listening to Harry finishing himself off.
Though that thought had been fairly hot all by itself, as long as he didn't let himself imagine the kinds of things Malfoy would no doubt say if he did catch on to what Harry was doing.
He touched himself now, lying back on the bed and letting the images of the last several days wash over him. Waking up and feeling Malfoy's presence, warm and asleep, across the tent. Hearing him turn over in his sleep. Dreaming about him, wishing he could reach out and touch him. Dreaming of Malfoy waking him up by going down on him. Fantasizing about touching him and not being met with an incredulous look, or hostile sarcasm, but with heat equal to his own, and feeling Malfoy return his advances, pull him close, run his hands all over Harry, grasp him firmly and--
Oh, fuck, yeah. He let himself cry out loud as he came, reveling in the freedom and the solitude.
- Translation of surreal Icelandic conversation between Draco and the fire fairies:
- Wieree veruhlinee ertthuh? (Hver í veröldinni ert þú?)
Who in the world are you? - Ég tala bara ensku
I only speak English - eeslensku? (íslensku)
Icelandic - Greiða yðar hundur
Comb your dogs - Greiða yðar hundur fjólublár
Comb your dogs purple
- Wieree veruhlinee ertthuh? (Hver í veröldinni ert þú?)
- Want to see Gulfoss Falls roaring?
- How about the Strokkur Geyser erupting?
On to Part II
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 08:11 am (UTC)And by the way, fantastic story. I read parts of it aloud to my boyfriend. He was confused but longsuffering. I think he secretly liked it.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-13 05:29 pm (UTC)I saw that! Very funny :D :D :D
And by the way, fantastic story. I read parts of it aloud to my boyfriend. He was confused but longsuffering. I think he secretly liked it.
LOL! Yeah, I've read lots of stuff out to my long-suffering partner too; sometimes he gets it, sometimes he just kindly humors me :D
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-13 05:37 pm (UTC)And you did comment, thank you!