Dizzy

Chapter Four

They ran over the rudimentary stuff - double checked his hours, went over the set up of the office building. Draco was reassured that if he ever needed help, it was fine and in fact welcomed, to ask for it, and that he’d be working with Potter on a lot of the cases, since Harry was deeply involved with apprehending Death Eaters. Draco couldn’t help but smirk when Harry went on some diatribe about the evils of Voldemort. No doubt the sod would start whining about his parents, if the conversation kept veering in that direction.

“All right, so for today...” Harry spoke with the enthusiasm of a Quidditch Captain playing an easy game, “all we need to do is show you how to work the computer.”

Draco pointed at the bulky Gateway on his desk. “That thing?”

Harry nodded. “The very same.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m afraid not. Here,” he said, reaching over and pressing on some raised buttons. The thing flickered to life, and, after a moment of what looked to be loading, it made a despicable chirping noise. “You turn it on like that...and it's booting up,” Harry explained calmly, looking unaware as Draco edged away from the thing. “Now, we wait for all the icons to load. Like that, yeah. He pointed at something on the screen. “Click on this, which is a mouse, and pull this up,” Harry scooted around some little white thing that attached to the computer. “And we’re in Microsoft Word. Now, if you don’t want to type-”

“I don’t,” Draco assured him vehemently.

“-then all you do is tell this Quill what you want to say. It’ll set it up in the proper format.”

“Oh. All right.” Draco supposed he could handle that; it seemed simplistic enough, even if the computer thing was starting to look extremely menacing.

“Say something,” Harry instructed, and Draco hesitantly picked up the Quill and said, “This is Draco Malfoy...” To his supreme amazement, the very words he’d said appeared on the screen before he could blink. “Oh, bugger me.” Harry looked privately amused by his expression.

“Indeed.”

“Haha.” Draco had to laugh. The words, ‘Oh, bugger me,’ were now on the computer screen. Harry’s response, however, wasn’t. “Why...?”

“It’s programmed so only you can access it, and when you close the files, only your voice can open them.”

“Clever,” Draco remarked airily, and sniggered when ‘clever’ came on the screen, directly after ‘why?’

“Isn’t it? Now, turn it off...” Harry used the clicker-mouse thing to close the document. He didn’t save it.

Draco sat back and stared at the screen. He turned to Harry, a slow grin on his face.

“That was badass,” he said, using an atypical word, but finding it suiting. Harry grinned back and moved away from the desk, taking the small pen he’d picked up out of the circular utensil holder on Draco’s desk. “Well. If you don’t have any questions-”

“I do.”

Harry folded his arms and shrugged. “Shoot.”

Draco bit his lip pensively. He fidgeted at the desk, glancing down at his lap. “I don’t know how to turn the computer back on,” he admitted sheepishly.

Potter laughed.

----

Underneath a dull cloud of cigarette smoke, Harry Potter squinted at the pen he was holding in his right hand, hovered above a plain piece of muggle notebook paper. As if aware of an audience, the hand holding the pen twitched, and the smallest blot of black ink smudged the paper. Harry hurriedly lifted his left hand that was perched over his ashtray and took a drag of the cigarette, but left it to hang from between his lips.

Harry Potter had writer’s block.

Well. That wasn’t fully truthful. It was difficult to have writer’s block when writing profile notes - after all, it wasn’t as if you were basing it off of fiction. All you had to do was state the facts. What Harry was dealing with was diverse; he was battling his own scruples rather than a plot hole.

Harry had cringed when he realized he couldn’t start the paperwork on tracking Draco. He’d rather have left it up to someone else. During their dinner meeting last.. gods, was it really a week ago he’d met Malfoy for dinner? After their dinner and the few hours they spent together, Harry teaching him the ropes of his ‘job,’ he felt guilty, almost. Perhaps it was the memoirs Draco seemed to induce in Harry, or maybe it was his oozing sexual appeal, but whatever the reason, Harry found himself at a loss at what to do. One part of him, the loyal Gryffindor who’d stop at nothing to catch the villain, wanted desperately to dive headfirst into the trap for Draco, and the other... the more... Slytherin side of him, wanted to just drop the whole simulation or warn Malfoy about the ruse.

Harry opted the move away from his desk, hoping the new activity would someone spur him into action later that night. Food seemed like a good idea, or perhaps sleep. Sluggishly, Harry dropped the pen on top of the blank page. He stubbed the cigarette out into his ashtray and blew the remaining smoke in his lungs out. The air still clung to the scent, and he cursed himself for not remembering to open a window.

“Well, fuck me,” he said, standing with his hands in his jeans pockets and wearing a baffled expression.

---

Christian had long been disposed of, and Draco was now free to enjoy the luxuries of having an apartment entirely to himself. He snuggled into the burrowing covers tucked around him and flipped through the channels on the TV, sneering at the inane Wizarding excuse for MTV. Music seemed to be the one outlet that Wizards couldn’t master; when they tried, they fell short.

His smug expression died when he flipped to another channel. A documentary, on a channel that usually rivaled the slowness of the History channel, was playing, complete with over dramatic and poorly done sepia dramatizations. Draco’s blank expression sank into a frown when he realized the subject of the show; the history of Dark Magic. The narrator was explaining, in the cliched deep, brooding voice with pauses that made Draco think of Snape, all those years ago at Hogwarts, how the population of Dark Wizards was most noticeably increased with the reign of Voldemort and the invention of Death Eaters.

“...thought Voldemort is unheard of, Death Eaters continue to circulate, though it is extremely hard to apprehend suspects, due to the affluence and social status many hold, the Ministry of Magic persists. It’s main investigator is Harry Potter, the very same man who in infancy, caused the primary downfall of Voldemort.” The man paused, and the TV cut to an amiable-looking photo of Potter, smiling while getting out of a Ministry car. Draco irritably and erratically pressed the power button on the remote and sank down into his covers until they nearly covered his mouth and nose.

“Bloody Potter,” Draco muttered, feeling a twinge of familiar jealousy and unfamiliar ache. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. “I wish I knew what you were up to.”