Chapter Text
"Potter, you have five minutes to finish wanking, or I'm coming in there with a camera."
Harry threw his quill down on the desk with an exasperated sigh and glared at the door of his office. "Could you be a little louder, Malfoy?" he snapped. "I don't think they heard you in Brazil."
"I could send a memo," came the amused suggestion.
"You would," Harry muttered under his breath, pushing his fringe away from his forehead. Grudgingly, he flicked his wand at the door, and it opened with a soft click to reveal a smug looking Draco Malfoy lounging against the doorframe.
"Finished already, Potter?" Malfoy asked, raising his eyebrows in mock astonishment. "No wonder the Weaslette left you."
Once upon a time, the mention of Ginny would have provoked Harry into an outright fit of temper. Fortunately, almost four years of dealing with Malfoy on a daily basis had taught him patience, and he only scowled at the irritating prat before turning back to his report.
"Unlike some people, I don't exactly have time to wank at the office," he said, absolutely refusing to blush. Okay, so it wasn't entirely true, but that definitely fit under the category of Things Malfoy Doesn't Need To Know, Ever.
"Then why were you in here with your door locked?" Malfoy pressed with barely restrained triumph in his voice.
Harry looked up from his report long enough to shoot his childhood nemesis a pointed glare.
"Oh please," Malfoy replied with a dismissive wave, obviously getting the point. "Everyone in the division knows your password, so it's not like you're really keeping anyone out."
"Then why didn't you just barge on in like usual?" Harry challenged, tossing his quill back down on the desk and giving up hope of finishing his report by five o'clock.
"Because 'Catching Harry Potter Mid Wank' wasn't on my to-do list for the afternoon," Malfoy replied easily.
"You wouldn't know, since you never bother to check your schedule," Harry said, blowing his fringe away from his forehead with a huff. "What do you want, anyway?"
"Shacklebolt wants to see us," Malfoy told him with a shrug. "Told me to tell you to be in his office in thirty minutes."
"Oh," Harry said, and turned back to his report. After a few minutes had passed, and he could still sense Malfoy hovering over his desk, he looked up through his fringe and snapped, "What, Malfoy?"
"That was almost an hour ago," Malfoy replied with a smirk.
~*~*~
"What?" Harry asked faintly.
Kingsley Shacklebolt smiled at him serenely from the other side of the desk. Malfoy, meanwhile, snorted politely into his fist.
"What?" Harry repeated, expecting the rest of the division to pop in at any moment to laugh at him. Surely, Shacklebolt was having him on.
"It will only be for three weeks, at most," Shacklebolt explained patiently. "If you're lucky, it won't even take that long."
"No, no," Harry said, shaking his head. "Go back to the part where I have to pretend I'm gay."
At that, Malfoy apparently lost whatever self-control he still had, because he collapsed in his chair in a fit of side-clutching laughter.
"I'm glad one of us thinks this is funny," Harry muttered.
"Oh, I do," Malfoy promised, wiping tears from his eyes. "Trust me, this is the funniest fucking thing I've heard in a long time."
"Language, Malfoy," Shacklebolt reminded him, looking pretty put out for a man who had just spent most of the morning cursing at new recruits in the training room. "Look Potter, you're the best man for the job, and after that incident at Gringott's last January, you need some good marks on your record."
"That was Malfoy's fault!" Harry began to protest, but Shacklebolt held up a hand.
"That file has already been sealed," the Head Auror said grimly. "Whoever was at fault, it still reflected poorly on the two of you and the division, and this is a perfect chance for some damage control."
"Right," Harry said dubiously. "Because going to Venice and pretending to be gay to catch a couple of bank robbers is a great way to bolster my public image."
Beside him, Malfoy made a quiet squealing noise and bit his knuckles, his shoulders quaking with laughter.
"I'm glad you find all of this so amusing," Shacklebolt told Malfoy in a monotone. "Since you'll be going too."
"What?!" Malfoy shrieked, out of his chair and instantly furious. "What do you mean, I'm going too? I thought you just called me in here so I could laugh at Potter!"
Shacklebolt replied with another serene smile and started tidying the papers strewn across his desktop.
"No," Harry said, as plainly as he could. "There's no way I'm going to pretend to be gay with Malfoy."
"For once, I agree with Potter," Malfoy agreed with a vigorous nod. "Send someone else."
"The only other person qualified to take the job is Mottlefroom, who the Italian Council refuses to allow in their territory after he mistook a Muggle clergyman for a dark wizard," Shacklebolt replied, folding his hands on the desk. "And let's be honest, no one is going to believe he's gay."
Harry pictured himself walking hand-in-hand through the streets of Venice with Mottlefroom, who had a face like a rotten potato and a body to match, and shuddered. "No one's going to believe I'm gay, either," he said hopefully, getting a sadistic thrill from the thought of Malfoy being forced to snuggle up to Mottlefroom in a gondola.
Shacklebolt and Malfoy shared a look, and Malfoy dissolved into another fit of helpless giggling.
Harry groaned and buried his face in his hands.
~*~*~
"This is so completely unfair," Harry moaned into his pint of Guinness. "What did I do to deserve this?"
"You blew up half of Gringott's," Malfoy replied reasonably, taking a delicate sip of his own drink, which was dark purple and smelled like raspberries.
"That's not the point!" Harry protested, slamming his glass down on the desk. The idea of drinking with Malfoy was completely absurd, but Shacklebolt had ordered them to review the case file before leaving for the day, and they'd both agreed that alcohol would need to be involved if they were going to sit in the same room for more than a few minutes without hexing each other sideways.
Malfoy shrugged. "Shacklebolt's a sadistic bastard. He was in Slytherin, you know."
"He's a git- wait- what?" Harry stammered, wide-eyed. "He was?"
Malfoy rolled his eyes and set his drink aside on an overflowing box of files. "No, you gullible freak- god, how did you live to see twenty-one without getting yourself killed by a gang of ninja samurai?"
"A gang of- Malfoy, what the hell do ninja samurai have to do with anything?" Harry asked, shaking his head incredulously.
"They have everything to do with everything," Malfoy replied seriously.
"You're completely insane," Harry told him. "I'm spending three weeks in Italy with a madman."
"Look, it could be worse," Malfoy replied with an airy wave of his hand. "At least I'm gorgeous- you could have ended up with Mottlefroom."
"Please stop saying his name," Harry said with a shiver of disgust, suddenly understanding why everyone had such an aversion to saying Voldemort's name out loud.
"Besides, who knows, maybe this trip will pull you out of the closet," Malfoy commented thoughtfully.
Harry spit out the sip of Guinness he'd just taken. "Malfoy! God, would you stop? I am not gay."
"You don't sound very sure of yourself," Malfoy said, his voice dropping to a lazy drawl. He stared up at Harry through lowered lashes and murmured, "Maybe you just haven't met the right man."
"No, I'm pretty sure of myself, thanks," Harry replied. Impossibly, Malfoy was apparently even more irritating when he'd been drinking.
"Your mouth is saying no, but your body is saying yes," Malfoy continued, and the lascivious wink that followed was just really over the top, even for him.
Harry closed his eyes and began to count to ten under his breath, very slowly.
"Well, all except your hair," Malfoy continued, undeterred. "But your hair always looks like it's shrieking in terror and trying to run away from your face."
"I hate you," Harry replied, crossing his arms on the desk and burying his face in them. "I really, really hate you."