FIC: The French Connection
Title: The French Connection
Author: tigersilver
Prompt Number: #100 by emerish
Travel Destination: France
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Summary: Draco Malfoy, a Very Junior Attaché for Wizarding Foreign Office, is selected as a diplomatic courier to ferry a highly dangerous Magical Item through Muggle France. Unable to use his wand, or any magic at all, he stumbles into difficulties here and there...as well as one Potter, Harry, Draco's ancient Arch-Nemesis from Hogwarts. Potter proves to be terribly helpful and concerned for a reputed Arch-Nemesis, however. What ever could possibly be the reason for that?
Warnings: EWE, AU, and other than that, none. Well...crack. Possible crack. No...definite crack. Oh - and snogging! And assorted evil puns, sly innuendo and underhanded references, but I do possess a license to carry, I swear. Trust me.
Word Count: 26,000+/-
BETAS! avenalanon lonerofthepack 8dreamcatcher8
Author's Notes: It's not exactly (to the letter) what you've requested, dearest Emerish, but still in the general vicinity, I hope. I hope, too, that you find it the slightest bit enjoyable. Or passable. Or... not awful. T'would be formidable, as the Muggles say! Toodles & au revoir, Anon.

00oo00

I'll see you at the seaside sandbox for the well-to-do, where two 'villes' are one; I'll watch you cavort amongst the rhinos and gorillas, amidst waving palm fronds; I'll delight as Flora serenades you, her waters lulling you sweetly. And then, my hopefully still-unDampened friend, I'll relieve you of your precious burden...completely.

~~~ extract from the rather daft instructions provided the British Wizarding Ministry as to the proper procedure for return of one Magical Item, borrowed, from Mr. Chomondeley Screwbik, noted inventor (and, quite arguably, certifiable lunatic).

0O0

To: Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt
Status: For Your Eyes Only
Dossier Document (Shred or Incendio after)
Harry James Potter, known to his friends and confidantes as 'Harry', is a graduate of the Hogwarts school (Cum Magna Laude, as Mr. Potter revealed in an interview that he'd found it much easier to concentrate on his studies when the continual death threats from Lord Voldemort [aka He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, 'You-Know-Who', and Thomas Marvolo Riddle, deceased] ended in 1999, and later, the London School for Covert Operatives (Muggle), from which he matriculated with First Honours.

Mr. Potter is approximately 5' 9'', is a dark-hued brunet, Caucasian and of English antecedents, has distinctive green eyes and an equally distinctive facial scar, located on his forehead, just above brow level. He is fluent in several languages and has earned advanced degrees in various Muggle martial arts, as well as being highly skilled in the arts of disguise and concealment. He is also a notable Wizarding dueler and is skilled in fencing. Mr. Potter possesses a Cloak of Invisibility, which he has kindly agreed to use on the job. Mr. Potter, or more familiarly, 'Harry', is currently the founding operative in the division known as M13, the recently-established Wizarding Secret Service, which functions as an adjunct to the Ministry with the goal of suppressing or eliminating threats to international Wizarding security.

Mr. Potter generally prefers to work by himself, under cover, and has assiduously developed a public persona of a mild-mannered, dilettante, mid-level philanthropist for purposes of concealing his real mission. Mr. Potter has also recently expressed a desire to expand the ranks of the M13 to include several other somewhat questionable Wizards and Witches he feels would be valuable contributors in the effort to maintain peace and good will between nations.

As a matter of additional interest, the Wizarding M13 is in accord and cooperates with several key Muggle institutions of similar nature: the M5 and M6 of the British Muggle government, the Interpol, the American CIA and France's Direction générale de la sécurité extérieur. A wide variety of national security agencies also loosely participate in the cooperative consortium, notably those of Romania, Japan, Bulgaria, China and the Commonwealth countries. Mr. Potter, as well as Ms. Hermione Granger, Mr. Justin Finch-Fletchley, socialite Pansy Parkinson, Mr. Blaise Zabini and Mr. Seamus Finnegan, Mr. Viktor Krum, Healer. Millicent Bulstrode, the entire extended Weasley family and a loosely banded-together group of families of strictly pure-blood extraction, previously tied to the practice of the Dark Arts but now reformed and redirected, have been instrumental in easing this effort to fruition. Cooperating members are issued special badges by the Ministry, bearing the seal and motto of the M13. The seal is of two flying beasts, rousant: draco argent displayed, phoenix or and gules, soaring. The motto of the M13 is: Lumen draco nunquam occlude; phoenix adhuc ascensoris. [The eye of the dragon never closeth; the phoenix also riseth.]

0O0

"Your mission, young Malfoy, should you choose to accept it," Arthur Weasley stated ominously, his pale blue eyes both serious and grim, "is to convey the Cube of Mystery back to its creator safely, without the use of magic. Also, that chair you're sitting on?"

"Yes?" Draco asked, determined to be polite no matter what the circumstances, for what else did a Very Junior Attaché to the Ministry's Foreign Office do but be unfailingly polite? "My chair, sir?"

"It'll self-destruct in five minutes," Mr. Weasley smiled genially. "But you should be perfectly safe till then, Mr. Malfoy. Plenty of time to read over the file on the Cube of Mystery. Tea?"

"Ah," Draco acknowledged this information impassively. Of course Arthur Weasley would have such a hazard in his office; he'd been promoted to the dual posts of Head of Muggle and Covert Operations Relations and Oversight of Oddball and Nutcase Inventions departments after the War, and he took his job in MACARONI (as the two related offices were familiarly known in the Ministry) terribly seriously, often testing out the Oddball & Nutcase Inventions in the confines of his own private office. If the Minister for Magic (ex-Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, and wasn't he just bloody impressive?) had asked him to be suitably grave and mysterious about what was a really only a simple courier job, then Arthur Weasley was the man to be mysterious. Not only did the man excel at charades, he honestly enjoyed them, Draco recalled, having done his homework on all the key personnel involved in this, his first official mission.

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Weasley. If you believe I'll have time enough to consume it before the chair explodes? Don't want to waste the Canteen's clean cups, sir."

Weasley also abhorred waste of any kind and was scrupulously frugal. Not at all surprising, given that great straggly ginger brood of his, Draco sneered - internally. Externally, he smiled charmingly.

"Ahahaha! Very amusing, m'boy!" Weasley chuckled, and then sobered instantly, once again donning his Head of MACARONI cap. "Are you a fast drinker, Draco? May I call you Draco, son?" Mr. Weasley wanted to know, but he was also at the same time tugging on an ornately tasselled bell pull, so that Draco wasn't certain if the query was rhetorical. A loaded tea tray appeared on the conference table between them almost instantaneously. "I find it pays to be efficient in all things and these Muggles really have that down to a science, don't they?" Weasley went on jovially, eyes twinkling. "Must admire them, mustn't we?"

"Yes, sir," Draco replied dutifully, shifting uneasily in his seat. He'd just about four minutes left, and counting. By his reckoning, at least. There were other chairs pulled up the conference table, but Mr. Weasley had ushered him to this particular one and he wasn't about to needlessly upset the man who was, in a manner of speaking, his temporary superior. Besides, Draco was young and quite spry and could dive out of danger with grace and panache. Was used to it, rather.

"Here we are!" Mr. Weasley grinned merrily over the silver-gilt Ministry-crested service, gleefully rubbing his hands together. "One Cube or two, Draco? Ahahah!"

Without ceremony, he used the sugar tongs to lift up a multi-coloured rectangular object, made of some smooth glossy substance. It was approximately a quarter the size of a teacup, and had shallow seams dividing the many-coloured squares that comprised it. Draco was able to have a much better look when it was plumped down in front of him, budged up against a stray slice of lemon on his saucer.

Apparently, Arthur Weasley had plumped on him as well: Draco Malfoy, a really very Junior member of the Diplomatic Corps, as the perfect candidate for this delicate mission into foreign Muggle territory. Draco shook his head over that. As if he knew Muggles! But his job required he swot up if he wasn't familiar, and his duties extended to dealing kindly with Department Heads who were known to be barmy.

Plus, he owed the lot of Weasels a debt, and Draco damned well knew it. Upshot was, he'd be polite and he'd do what Mr. Weasley told him to, no matter the personal pain.

"Thank you, sir. Seeing as I'm now in possession of the Cube, I'll need the file as well, correct? That I may understand its particular powers?" He cocked an inquisitive brow at the older man and grimly hung on to his thinning patience by the very tip of its twitchy tail. Three minutes and counting. He'd not been informed of much of anything actually useful by his own boss, Gosselink Greygoose. Draco was beginning to clue in that that oversight might've been deliberate. "Wouldn't want to make silly mistakes, sir," he tacked on, looking suitably earnest, "by not knowing."

"Oh, absolutely you need all the pertinent details! And here you are, m'boy," Mr. Weasley replied cheerily, passing over a manila folder stamped variously Danger!, Top Secret! and, curiously enough, Eat Me!

"'Eat me'?" Draco remarked, an eyebrow arching high. "Seriously, sir?"

"Fortunately, no. Not this time. It's our only copy, you know? Can't have it chewed to pieces, can we?"

"No, no," Draco managed, his face as bland as he could possibly manage in the face of such absurdity. "Of course not, Mr. Weasley. Er, you also mentioned filling me in personally, sir, in your Owl? In regards the Cube's creator, I assume?"

"Absolutely, son!" Weasley chuckled. "Yes, that'd be old Screwbik we're speaking of. Chomondeley Screwbik. He's of Prussian extraction; quite the genius madman type. Very hairy and peculiar these days; wears a great deal of extraneous lace, all shades of violet. He's visiting with relatives in France at the moment. That's where you'll be meeting up with him," Arthur Weasley advised Draco cheerily. "Care for a biscuit, son? They're m'wife's. Makes 'em specially for me."

"Don't mind if I do, sir."

Draco accepted the round of shortbread gracefully and then scooped up the dossier that lay untouched in front of him. He paged through at a rapid pace, well aware his chair time was ticking away, quickly committing to memory the salient gen. Included was a photo of a bear-like man, wearing a balaclava and bunchy velvet robes, along with an abnormally copious amount of inappropriate lavender-hued lace. He had bushy grey eyebrows, a bushy grey beard and mustachios, and masses of greying lank hair, curled into sausage ringlets. At first glance he looked to be a close relative of Rubeus Hagrid, but much the fouler of temper, judging by those impressively scowling brows.

Draco bit back a rueful sigh; mad Prussians were not whom he'd choose to associate with in the daily course of events. He'd enough of madmen already, thanks ever so. But this was his job: jollying along the foreign nutters on behalf of the Ministry. He felt it was truly a just compensation for his previous sins, no matter what the occasional Malfoy-hater might mutter in passing. And they did mutter, damn it - still, even years later.

Screwbik was 6'7", and weighed in roughly the same amount of stone as a Welsh pony, per the stats in his profile; a very impressive width and height, even for an elderly Wizard. He was indeed of Prussian extraction on his father's side; solid Hereford English on his mother's, and the inventor of any number of incomprehensibly avant garde yet extremely powerful Magical Items, many modelled after Muggle objects. Most of them had no purpose discernible, but a few - a miniscule few - had been adapted to the uses of the Ministry and the Cube was one of those latter. It served as a Magical Dampener, eating up any magic expended within a certain perimeter, and had thus proved very useful indeed to the ultra-secret cadre of Wizards and Witches who devoted their lives to behind-the-scenes 'situation control': the M13, as they were known in the back halls and break rooms of the wizarding government complex.

These 'super' secret M13 agents were responsible for preventing future Death Eaters and nascent evil overlords from bringing their nearly always clinically insane plans of world domination to fruition. The entire department worked in absolute discretion. No one knew just how many agents there were, nor their actual identities, excepting only the Minister of Magic, and that on a 'need to know' basis only. No one knew, either, what the M13 did or why at any given time, but the Minister seemed to rely on them heavily and Draco admitted to a grudging respect for the organisation.

If they kicked the arses of baby Voldies, Draco was all for them.

He'd done his own little jot of spying during the War, enough to get him off at the Trials with a slap on the wrist and a hefty fine, and it'd been no stroll through the park, that service. He couldn't imagine doing it for a living, day after day. The stress would do him in, surely.

No, no; give him simple diplomacy, a career ex-Slytherins were practically built for...of course, he'd entertained from time to time a perfectly understandable natural curiosity as to how an aspiring young Wizard (capable, competent - nay, superior! - and remarkably well-versed in a any number of Dark Arts but still firmly committed to the Good) might go about obtaining entrée into such an elite organisation as the M13. But that was merely idle curiosity on his part, Draco knew. He'd never seriously consider applying for a position that hinged on the trustworthiness of his prior rep - not and honestly believe he'd cut the mustard with the blokes that did the hiring. No, it was the good old F.O. for him, a steady but slow career track, and hopefully an ambassadorship of his own one day. Then he'd have the chance to prove his mettle - if anyone still cared by then.

Draco dragged himself back to the here-and-now with an inner start, closing the file with a snap. He calculated he'd have a little less than two minutes remaining of useful chair time after he'd fully absorbed the contents of the file; he'd not been nearly the tip-top of his year in Arithmancy at Hogwarts for nothing. Knowledge gained and in process of digestion, he polished off his tea with small graceful sips, crumbled his home-made biscuit politely, and then extended a casual hand for the brightly-hued Cube, intending to examine it more closely. It seemed rather as though it might twist about or perhaps come apart.

"No, son!" Weasley yelped, breaking the tiny silence that had fallen between them. Draco froze in place as the elder Weasley went on: "That's right - don't touch it! Strongly advise against touching it, the DOM does. Eats your magic right up, that thing. Use a handkerchief, at the very least - do."

Arthur Weasley sat back again, flapping his hands in a vague motion. He was frowning, a look that sat oddly on his jovial face.

"Er..." Draco drew his hand back abruptly, well aware that the time was ticking away and he'd only a minute, twenty seconds more before his seat exploded beneath him. "Marvellous. Um, then how shall I carry it...sir?"

"Oh, the M13's provided a special case for it. Here it is, dear boy." Jauntily, Mr. Weasley handed off a half-red, half-white ball composed of the same glossy material as the Cube, and hinged on the one side. "I wish you joy of it, m'boy - looks harmless enough, doesn't it?" At Draco's uncertain nod, Weasley carried on, grinning mischievously, for all the world as though he were being exceptionally clever. "That's actually a Muggle ball. They use for some sort of children's gaming activity, and one of our more perspicacious operatives has adapted it to safely contain the Cube. Can't have the ruddy thing leaking out its Dampening properties all over the landscape, now can we? End up as Squibs, all of us, right?"

"Squibs?" Draco rose abruptly to his feet, shoving his chair hard enough to send it nearly tipping over. "Sir, what do you mean exactly, 'end up as Squibs'?"

"Careful, there! Don't want to set that off before its ready, Draco," Weasley warned. "As to your question, the Cube eats magic, m'boy," Weasley grinned maniacally at this and Draco had to repress a shudder. "All magic. Including yours, naturally, should you so much as simply lay a finger on it without proper safety gear. Hoovers it right up upon contact, so you don't want to be carrying it about without the case and you certainly don't wish to expend any magic anywhere near it. Like a siphon, the Cube is. Or a sponge cake. But not as tasty, of course."

"Naturally not, sir," Draco responded absentmindedly, busy doing some further absorption of his own. So many factoids presented; so little time to parse them. And Weasley was a weird old arse and quite possibly as nutters as the Screwbik fellow. "So, it is quite dangerous, Mr. Weasley? As in," Draco went on, sidling sideways just the merest amount, "it's actually more of a secret weapon than a curiosity? And I'm not to use any magic near it, for fear I won't have any left, after?"

"Got it in one, m'boy!" The Head of MACARONI seemed quite jubilant at Draco's quick summation of the Cube's Dampening properties. "Young Hermione did put it about you were sharp on the uptake, Draco. Here, open that Ball up, now, if you please - and perhaps also...duck! Chair's about to go any moment now."

Draco hastily held out his new Muggle ball, pressing madly on the odd little black intaglio'd button on the one end that simply must pop it open and shut, as he couldn't discern any other latch or closure. He was fortunate; the ball did indeed spring agape and Arthur Weasley gingerly dropped the Cube into the matte black interior with a dull rattle, employing the sugar tongs once more. Abandoning them to the tea tray, the older man then thoughtfully scooped up the all-important dossier on Screwbik, before he, too, rapidly abandoned his seat at the conference table. Draco slammed the Muggle ball shut with a plastic snap and took a very long step backwards and away from conference table and his poor, unfortunate chair.

He waited, counting internally: T-minus ten seconds, as per his mental stopwatch.

At the five second mark, there was an ominous and extended dull rumble, which filled the room and caused Draco's ears to go all wonky. The doomed tea tray shook in place, clinking. Draco's cup spontaneously shattered.

"Might want to take cover, son," Weasley remarked casually when there was just two seconds left, peering out from behind a nearby filing cabinet like a gangly, ginger-maned grasshopper. "Messy things, chairs. All nails and spindles, you know."

BOOM!

"Thank you, sir," Draco replied dryly, from his highly undignified crouch behind a handy rolling trolley, fortunately piled high with yet more thick, cushioning files marked 'Danger' and (curiously enough) 'Drink Me!'. He calmly brushed the lingering sawdust off his robes and pocketed the Muggle ball, clearing his throat. The room would require the services of a crack team of Ministry elves, stat, in order to be usable again for the next scheduled meeting. "Ahem. I've just now realised that."

0O0