HD 'Mugglescaping'
Author: tigersilver
Fandom: HP
Pairing: D/H
Rating: NC-17 (rimming)
Warnings: AU;EWE. Prompt: architect or design-oriented; bottom!Harry. For megyal, as a humoungous wordy huggle!
Summary: Harry & Draco don't fit the regular moulds all that well. They're a bit more independent, really. Fortunately, a little experimentation with design and intention leads them in the proper direction, career-wise and personally. And that's a brand-new territory.
"No blood," Harry said.
"And no pain," Draco replied.
That agreed, they tried out Quidditch. Harry went up for Portree and Draco went for the Kestrals, but practises were fucking brutal, and, after a shared scrum during which Harry took a quaffle to the temple and Draco—the opposing team's third-string Chaser—almost broke his neck diving to save him, they were both sent off to the showers in disgrace, literally—and metaphorically.
"No fucking arseholes, either!" Draco exclaimed hotly, having been politely informed by Management they'd been formally shed of their prospective employers late that afternoon. 'Fucking wild cards,' the Kestrals coach had put it. 'Bloody distractible young twats,' the Pride of Portree owner had denounced them. 'In love, too. Pity.'
"You've got that right, Ma'foy" Harry nodded blearily over his pint. "Don' wanna be bossed 'round no more," he added, slurring slightly, "neither. Sick of it."
Hogwarts gave them their next big, bright idea: fixing up the damage Voldemort's forces had wrought upon a hapless countryside.
Fact of the matter was, they'd done so well by their alma mater in terms of restoring it to something approaching its former glory (enough to cause Headmistress to write them both glowing parchments of recommendation), they quite thought to make a go of doing something similar professionally. They'd first cast about them for potential careers that might play into that—and not include pain, blood or inconvenient lots of berks and arses lording it over them. That effectively ruled out the Ministry, curse breaking, becoming Healers at St. Mungo's, law firms and any number of other fine and decent moneymaking professions—but it left wide open the field of civic planning. And the attendant design and restoration, naturally: the meat and bones of it.
In fact, it bloody well invented civic planning, at least for Wizard folk. Most had never heard of it, being singular, insular types, who went about minding their own business, and preferred the company of their fellows comfortably far from their own bed-and-board. But Muggles—well, they were a different breed. (Harry slapped Draco upside the head for remarking exactly that in passing, much to Draco's dismay and indignation. He hadn't meant it that way, he protested truthfully, but it still took Harry rummaging about in his head a bit with Legilimens for the git to truly forgive him. Fortunately, Draco didn't mind that, either, as long as it was Harry doing it—and only Harry, ever. He rummaged a bit on his own and they tried out that spanking fantasy of Harry's, after.)
Right, so. The Muggles had taken a great deal of damage from the Death Eaters, and it was up to Wizarding folk to rectify this. Wizarding folk frankly hadn't a clue—but Draco and Harry did, and that was a good start. Draco decided they should begin in Little Hangleton, where the Dementors had practically annihilated the townspeople, and fix it up right and proper, to encourage the villagers to return.
Problem was, the Muggles who used to live there—the ones that had survived, that is—thought to a man, woman and child it was haunted, despite standard Ministry Obliviation. They'd fled and were boarding with their various relatives—or living off the dole, if they were farmers, separated from their livelihood, or the like. Buildings were abandoned and gradually falling apart; schools were left with their doors swinging open, their libraries and gymnasiums burnt to a crisp, with vermin practically invited to make homes in the emptied classrooms. Farmer's fields lay fallow, their wells poisoned, their stock carelessly slaughtered. Even the suburban parts of England had suffered. Block upon block of government-constructed housing lay empty of occupants; wallpaper peeling, faucets dripping, lawns run amuck, home only to the foxes and the field mice.
"Crying shame," Draco commented, looking over the lovely burgh of Little Whingeing, large parts of which had been flattened, burnt out and otherwise mangled. "We need to do something about this."
"Costs money," Harry replied. "Terribly dear, Homebase is. Need a contractor's discount, too. And a lorry."
"Er—Wizards, Harry?" Draco cuffed him. "Git-for-brains."
"You," Harry returned. "Still…need wads of Galleons, Draco. Have to hire people. More than we can do on our own."
"Alright," Draco nodded. "I'll lobby for a grant from the Ministry and establish another bleeding Trust. You round up a few drones for hire."
"Git!" Harry cuffed him back, harder. "Not drones—apprentices! But thanks for the loan, Draco."
Budleigh Babberton was just plain depressing. They stayed the night at the Inn, exhausted by their survey of all the places in need of urgent repair.
Harry spelled the bed bigger; Draco replaced the mouldy-smelling linen with fresh. Then he proceeded to divest Harry of his jumper and denims and shorts and lick him clean of all the day's cares, from furrowed forehead to wriggling toe-tip. Slowly, taking his time over his task, he did so, keeping Harry pinned down at the hips to prevent him from squirming away when he tongued the soft backs of knees or in between ribs. Harry moaned and moaned yet louder, till he ran out of spare oxygen enough to do so—right about the exact same moment Draco's lips landed upon his cock.
"More!" he pleaded, but Draco flipped him over, and tongued his arsehole, instead. Harry was undone, completely; shivering and helpless, and Draco lapped him to mewling, squeaking completion without so much as a fingertip laid elsewhere along the length of his squirming body.
A few weeks later, they Portkeyed to Cokesworth with a Shrunken parcel containing the tools of their new trade and hung their shingle out on the façade of the converted hotel. Harry had the most awful memories of the place—resounding back from his all-Dursley days— but Draco coaxed him out of the occasional bout of the blues, simply by shagging him whenever he looked the slightest bit squiffy. Their assistants had quickly learnt field work was preferable to hanging about the office.
"Merlin, you dunce!" Harry howled at him, a month into it, during a moment whilst their two assistants were beavering away at Reparo'ing an abandoned barn and thankfully not present. "You can't do this, Draco!"
"What?" Draco wanted to know. He'd his draughting quill and straight-edge out, and was peering intently away at a converted block of flats, occupied with the task of squeezing in yet more closet space. "What, Harry?"
"Add Wizarding space!" Harry yelped, leaping up and pacing, the parchment blue-prints flapping in his paw. "You can't do it! These are Muggles, arsehole—tell me you haven't been doing this all along?" he wailed.
"But," Draco interrupted. "I thought—I mean—they're dreary, Harry. These places." He blinked at his lover, nonplussed. "They're not fit for anything human, not even Muggles. Not even your relatives."
"You—you shouldn't, Draco—you bloody well can't! That's the whole point! They're bloody Muggles, fuck it! It'll send them completely barmy! Gods and Merlin alive, the Ministry's going to revoke our license! We won't be able to Obliviate them fast enough! Oh shite! Oh fuck! Have we had anyone move in yet? Tell me we haven't!"
"Just because they're Muggles doesn't mean they can't live like real people, Harry," Draco remarked, clearly not comprehending the issue involved at all. He cocked his head at his partner inquiringly. "Have you seen some of these places, love? Actually looked at them? Horrible!" he shuddered. "No decent Feng Shui to be found; all the bedrooms small and squirrely—"
"Draco! Shut the fuck up—we have to fix this!" Harry's upset had, if possible, increased. Exponentially. "Right now! Before anyone finds out what you've done!"
"And even Muggles need decent loos, Harry," Draco continued, hardly fazed, "and enough room to turn about without knocking their bleeding elbows on the cabinets. That's likely the root of all real evil, Harry," he added, meditatively, examining the point of his quill for proper sharpness. "Not enough room to live properly—like Jarvies in a box, you know. They'll eat each other if you leave them there long enough."
"You fucking ARSEHOLE! Shut up!" Harry screamed—and DisApparated, likely straight off to the Ministry—or perhaps the Janus Thickey Ward.
"Oh," Draco said, staring round-eyed at the crack in the air where'd his business partner had just been. "Hmm. Back to the drawing board, I suppose. Shite."
"I've fixed it," his partner informed Draco calmly. It was well past suppertime of the same day and Draco had been sitting patiently in their sitting room, a book on his lap, having made a few Floo calls and arranged some details with Granger earlier. Dinner awaited them in the spell-expanded dining room, steaming gently under a Charm.
"So've I," Draco replied. He eyed Harry carefully, checking for still-disproportionate anger, incipient rejection or other signs of collateral damage to a structure of far more importance to him personally than any mere Muggle dwelling. "Alright, Harry?" he asked, his smile tentative. He rose to his greater height and took a step in Harry's direction, hands fisting slowly at his sides. "Did it—did it go well, whatever you were doing? You're awfully late, you know."
Harry flung down the sheaf of manila folders he carried on the nearest surface and stalked closer. He waggled a finger at Draco's carefully bland face.
"You, my love, are now officially in charge of the Wizarding end of it, and I will have the final stamp of approval on any plans Muggle-related before a single sodding wand is lifted in this partnership," Harry announced smugly, twirling his wand between restless fingers. "That—and the fact that Shacklebolt was able to get an Owl off to stop Little Hangleton's elders from proceeding with Phase I of our recommendations, will prevent this screw-up from becoming an utter disaster. Which it almost was, all thanks to you."
"No, but wait just a bloody moment, Potter!" Draco protested. He stopped inching closer to Harry's form and glared instead. "See here! I'd absolutely no idea this was such a problem—you can't fucking well condemn me on the basis of an honest mistake!"
"I'm not," Harry replied, and he smiled. "You're solely in charge of rebuilding Godric's Hollow and the Alley and Hogsmeade, Draco—all the magical locations. Hardly punishment, is it?"
"Harry," Draco whinged, not at all appeased—nor distracted. "Harry, love." He drew closer again, circling cautiously 'round his lover as if worried he might snap suddenly, without notice. "Harry, I truly didn't know. I was simply attempting to make them comfortable, for once—you know, make up for it a bit. No more pain—no more blood. No worries, really—not about that, at least."
"Come here, prat," Harry replied, though he was already crossing the space between them. "I know what you were doing—thinking—Kingsley does ,too. And yes, I know full well you didn't realize. I mean, how could you, what with all the 'to the manor born' shite going on with you? I'm just amazed at myself, really—don't know how that got past me all this time. Not much of a civic planner, am I? But, it's alright. All's well that ends well, really. We're good."
"Yeah?" Draco had managed to get his hands on Harry's waist by then; his partner went fully into his embrace with nary a murmur. "Well, for my part, your pal Granger promised she'd find a Squib architect for us; help out with the design standardization for the Muggle end. So I won't fuck it up again—not knowing. That alright?"
"Good thinking, Draco," Harry smiled. He pressed a kiss against Draco's jaw. "You're bloody brilliant."
"Yes," Draco agreed, simply.
"You know…" Harry murmured.
"Mmm?" Draco's mouth was moving over Harry's hair; it muffled his distracted mutter. He pressed himself closer, matching hip to hip.
"I'm not very hungry—grabbed a sandwich earlier, at the Leaky. You, er—you want to just go straight to bed?"
Draco grinned. Good foundations, he decided, right then and there—that's what all buildings really required, no matter if they were Muggle or Wizarding. Extra space was just that: an extra.
FINITE
