It was not the sort of pub that Harry Potter normally hung about in. It was dark and dingy, the vinyl seats were cracking, and the floor was sticky. It smelled like smoke and brimstone.

He didn't have much choice, however. He needed to find a very specific and very dodgy sort of bloke. And he needed to find him fast. John Constantine was not an easy man to locate, nor was he an easy man to like. But Harry had a lot of experience getting what he wanted out of unlikable blonds. He just had to hope that it would be enough to get him through this encounter and get what he needed from the man. A bit of magic and a lot of leg work later, here he was.

When you needed the loo fixed you went to a plumber, when you needed new robes you went to a tailor, when you needed a curse lifted you went to a curse breaker. When you needed an exorcism, you went to an exorcist. When you needed to save a man's soul, literally, and everyone else in town had turned you down blank, well then and only then, you went to John Constantine. It should have been a simple transaction. Harry knew it wouldn't be.

Worst of all, it was the shock of blond hair that caught his eye first. The wrong blond, Muggle bleached and rough cut, not pureblood sleek, but nonetheless eye catching in the dim pub. Harry didn't hesitate. He walked right over, like he belonged there, and took a seat at the bar next to Constantine.

Constantine twisted slightly, cocked an eyebrow and took a very long look at Harry. He cataloged each scuff mark and soot stain, and the broken decorative buckle on Harry's blood red Auror robes. Harry had charmed himself from Muggles' notice but it was obvious that it didn't work on the man next to him.

"Bit outside your jurisdiction, ain't you squire?" asked Constantine.

"I'm not here for the Ministry." Harry spoke with confidence he didn't feel.

"That right?" Constantine didn't sound like he believed a word of it. He glanced at Harry's robes again, taking note of his rank and not, Harry realised, his face. Constantine knew what Harry was but either didn't know, or didn't care, about who he was.

Constantine snapped his fingers and lit a Silk Cut cigarette with a tiny spark of Hellfire. Harry shivered despite himself. That wasn't Harry's kind of magic, it was wordless, wandless and wrong. Not just the magic, either. The cigarette was the wrong brand, the wrong smell - so close but not close enough. Constantine blew the smoke from the first drag in Harry's direction. He held it wrong, too. It made Harry want to scream with the indignity of it all. The brutal parallels of what he wanted, of what was missing, close but nowhere near. Draco smoked a wizarding brand and used a cigarette holder, which Harry told him made him a complete ponce but Harry secretly loved it. If only he'd realised that fact just a little sooner. Maybe then they wouldn't be in this mess.

"What the bloody hell would one of your lot want with the likes o' me then, mate?" Constantine's voice snapped Harry's attention away from the curling smoke and back to the man next to him. Harry certainly didn't feel like the bloke's 'mate' when he said it like that.

"I need your help," Harry admitted. "To get a man out of a deal... with the King of Hell."

Constantine laughed, smoke rough and caustic. "Is that all? Always something like that with one of you, innit? And what are you offering in return?"

"My name's Harry Potter," Harry said, offering his hand. "And I'll owe you a favour."

"Is that bloody so?" Constantine smiled more like a snake than Voldemort ever had. "We might just have a deal there, Harry. We just might." He shook Harry's hand a little too hard. "Never know when a spot of that wand waving bollocks could come in handy for a man in my line of work. I happen to know a bloke that's got the number we need on speed dial. If you're up for a hop across the pond and a bit of blood sacrifice, that is?"

It was a very bad idea. Anything involving this man always was. But if it saved Draco, Harry supposed it would have to be worth it. Anything would.