A/N: I apologize for the sadness, I'm vaguely obsessed with Five Nights At Freddy's right now, I love watching people play it on YouTube and listening to the songs and such, and I enjoyed finding out the sad back-story, and this popped into my head and I almost started crying, so that should tell you how sad it gets, okay?
Nonmagic, and this is NOT the HP/FNaF idea I had that's on the Poll, okay, so feel free to vote for that, too, okay?
I love you guys.
Mechanical Hearts
Harry Potter stared silently up at the restaurant before him, jaw clenched tightly as he steadfastly took deep, careful breaths. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza had been a sore point for him for the last ten years.
Ever since he took Teddy there for his tenth birthday.
Ever since his Godson had disappeared that very same day.
And now, look at him, accepting a job as a Day Guard at the very place his beloved Godson had vanished from.
Shaking his head sharply, Harry let out a slow, shaky breath, straightened his shoulders, tugged on his pale blue Day Watch uniform shirt, and pushed the doors open. Instantly, his ears were assaulted by the cheerful singing of the animatronic band and the shrieking laughter and high-pitched voices of children, and his lips couldn't help but twitch as he stopped to just watch.
There were about twenty kids directly in front of him, in the Band/Party Area, dancing and bouncing and singing along with the band. Harry noted that the robots had gotten an upgrade since he'd last been there, as well as a new member of the band.
Freddy the Bear was sleek and shiny, paler brown and much friendlier looking, his top hat jaunty as he sang a song in a deep, cheerful voice about welcoming everyone to the show. Chica the Chicken had gotten slimmed, and wore a more feminine shape, her face bright and friendly as she danced around at her keyboard while holding a bright pink cupcake that had a smile on it. Bonnie the Bunny was much smaller, and blue, and very… Androgynous, Harry noted, taking in the blue-and-white guitarist, his bowtie a bright red as he bounced around, strumming his guitar. The newest member of the back was a wolf or coyote or something, it was hard to tell with robotics, but it was definitely canine in nature, and a dark gray and silver, with a bright green bandana tied around its neck as it skillfully beat out notes on its full drum set.
"Harry Potter!" A voice called; Harry turned and smiled at the man who had called to him. He was a short, pudgy man, with balding straw blond hair and gooseberry eyes not unlike Harry's cousin Dudley, but his face was bright with cheerfulness and the corners of his eyes and mouth were heavily marked by laughter lines. He was wearing a dark green pinstripe suit that hugged his round middle tightly and was sweating lightly, cheeks pink as he waddled quickly over.
"Mr. Slughorn," Harry greeted politely; the portly man chortled, grinning up at Harry as the two of them shook hands.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Potter!" He greeted warmly. "A true pleasure to have you working with us, no doubt!" The portly man grinned, and patted him on the shoulder before gesturing for Harry to follow him, which he did, to an office a few hallways away. They passed a curtained area called Pirates Cove, where a red, robotic fox with an eye-patch over its right eye and a hook for it's right hand jeered and made playfully aggressive gestures to a group of giggling, screeching children wearing pirate hats and holding foam hooks of their own, all of who was chasing one another and yelling about walking the plank.
"That's Foxxy," Slughorn cheerfully informed Harry as they walked past the area, and the new Guard couldn't help saluting the fox robot when it automatically saluted them as soon as its gleaming yellow eye caught sight of them. "Oh, don't mind if any of the animatronics approach you or act strangely," Slughorn urged kindly, smiling at a group of children that ran by, followed by exasperatedly smiling parent. "They're programmed with a form of AI, that is to say, Artificial Intelligence. They also have a Facial Recognition Software that is specifically programmed to recognize children and adults… Although," he muttered with a thin frown, "that seems to glitch sporadically at night…" Huffing, Slughorn shook his head and beamed easily over his shoulder at Harry. "But you don't need to worry about that, Harry m'lad! You're on Day Watch with the Head of Security, Tom Riddle!" He grinned cheerfully. "He used to be head of Night Watch, but voluntarily switched shifts a few years back. Said something about needing more sleep for a man his age, ha, ha!" Harry vaguely remembered Riddle from the last time he'd been at Freddy's, a tall man with black hair and handsome, sharp features, his eyes a sort of reddish brown that looked redder in certain angles of lighting. He'd been very polite, calm, and charming, and Harry remembered thinking that he was a man who belonged in politics, not working Security at a child-oriented restaurant, but he'd put it away at the time.
And then Teddy went missing, and he hadn't cared anymore.
Just then, they were passing one of the newer rooms Freddy had, and he paused to watched a strange black puppet swinging playfully in a dance with a little girl in a pink dress. Its face was similar to a drama mask, the laughing one, with blue streaks sliding down from its eyes to its chin, two bright red circles on its cheeks as it giggled sweetly while the two of them danced to soft music-box tunes.
"Ah, that's Marionette," Slughorn murmured to him, smiling softly at the giggling little girl as she was carefully spun by the robot, who was connected to a puppeteer hook by a black cord at the back of its neck. Harry morbidly thought it looked like a noose. "Our newest family member." Harry blinked, and glanced at him.
"I thought the drummer was the newest," he remarked curiously; Slughorn blinked, before laughing.
"Oh, Wesley! No, Wesley Wolf has been with us for, hmm, about ten years now, I believe. We had him shipped in a few months after that… ah… Horrible incident," he murmured, voice quieting and turning sympathetic as he remembered just who he was talking to. Harry's jaw clenched and he shut his eyes, letting out a slow breath as his hands clenched, before he forced a smile to his face and nodded at Slughorn.
"Let's keep on, then, yeah?" He prodded; Slughorn eyed him sharply, before smiling right back and nodding, leading the way down the corridor towards the Security Offices.
"How did you get enough sponsors to give the band a new look?" Harry asked curiously; Slughorn smiled brightly.
"Oh, it was easy enough, considering how, ah… Unfriendly their predecessors had started to look, what with the… incidents, and such," he managed, wincing at his 'delicate' statement. Harry ignored it.
"Yeah, Bonnie looks very different now," he stated, and Slughorn smiled brightly.
"Oh, yes, he goes by Bon-Bon now, by the way," he cheerfully declared, just as they rounded a corner and found themselves walking towards a well-lit room where a desk sat directly in front of them. "We had to get rid of the security doors in here, and add in some larger vents, to get proper airflow and such," Slughorn informed them, as the man sitting behind the desk watching video cameras on a laptop looked up, and Harry recognized the sharp, handsome features of Tom Riddle. The man stood, his six-foot-three form taller than Harry by about six inches, and his politicians smile in place, the pale blue of his Day Watch Uniform standing out against his pale skin.
"Mr. Potter," Riddle greeted, offering one long-fingered hand easily. Harry took it, the rough calluses he'd gained from gardening and the handiwork he'd been doing for work the last decade rubbing roughly against the smooth, cool skin of the older man, who was edging into his sixties, if Harry remembered correctly. The two of them shook firmly, but politely, and Harry was pleased that there was no bone-crushing challenge. Some men, especially in the security field, seemed to need to prove they were stronger, like a dog marking its territory. He was glad Riddle didn't feel the need.
"Mr. Riddle," he replied calmly, politely, and the older Guard gave him that cordial smile again.
"Please, call me Tom," he urged, but Harry heard the order to that statement, making the fine hairs on the back of his neck raise up. "We're going to be working together, after all." Harry managed a weak smile back, honestly slightly unnerved by this cool, collected man, and again, he wondered why he was working security instead of politics.
"Then you'll have to call me Harry," he offered instead; Slughorn clapped his hands together cheerfully, smiling at the two of them.
"Well, I'll leave you to it, then!" He announced cheerfully, glancing at his wristwatch. "I've got to run. Harry, my lad, it's excellent to see you again, I have high hopes for you, young man!" He announced, wagging one sausage-link finger playfully at Harry, who managed a slightly more natural smile for his employer.
"I'll try not to disappoint, then," he replied; Slughorn chortled and waddled off, while Harry turned his attention back to Riddle, who gestured at him to come around the desk and over to some lockers they had.
"This one will be yours," he told the brunette calmly, tapping the locker closest to the large vent opening on that side of the room, which mirrored one just like it on the other side. Tom opened the locker, exposing the inside, which was empty but for a dark blue cap that had the word Security emblazed in white on it. "Feel free to leave a change of clothes or your extra uniform in here, in case of emergence. Here's a lock," he plucked one from a basket, handing it to Harry without hesitation. "The number on the back is your combination; please remove the sticker once you've got it memorized. After that, you can feel free to patrol the building, I'll show you what rooms are on and off limits to the children from the cameras," Tom told him soothingly, pointing back towards the laptop, before nodding at Harry and moving back to the desk to continue working. Harry shrugged and quickly memorized his combination, before putting on his hat and locking the locker, and joining Tom at the desk. Tom nodded, and began neatly flicking through cameras and discussing rooms.
"Children are allowed in the Band Area," he flicked to a camera showing Freddy and his Band, "Pirates Cove," screen of Foxxy and his 'crew', "Party Room," Marionette dancing with more children, "Play Room," a room filled with slides and ball pits, a a short robot boy holding pretend balloons. "That's BB, by the way," Tom added, pointing at the watchful, laughing robot, before flicking to another screen. "And the Snack Room, where Chica usually goes after the band's done playing." A room filled with tables and happily eating children. "Children are not allowed in the Kitchen, Vents, Security Room, Storage, or the Sealed Room… Not that anyone can get in there," the older Guard remarked easily. "It's been sealed for well over a decade and the cameras in there have been broken just as long. We just ignore it, now." Harry nodded, watching as Tom taught him how to use the laptop, change camera views, and even wind up Marionette's music box from the office, but only if there were no adults there to do it for him. Her? It.
"Feel free to roam around the restaurant," Tom urged him easily, leaning back in his chair with a smile. "I'm sure Horace has informed you about the robots tendencies to interact with those around them…?" Harry nodded.
"Something about AI and Facial Recognition Software," he answered honestly; Tom nodded his head mildly.
"The robots are able to hold some forms of conversation, and each has their own quirk. You'll learn to work with it as you go, no worries. Just treat them respectfully, after all," here, his smile widened, showing perfect, white teeth, canines just a little sharper than normal, but otherwise fine. "These characters are beloved by the children, and they deserve our respect." Harry nodded, hooked a walkie-talkie to his belt, and left, resisting the urge to hunch his shoulders in response to the chill that went down his spine. Maybe the reason Riddle isn't in politics is because he's unnerving as hell, Harry thought to himself uncharitably, and set off to patrol the building.
Behind him, in the Security Office, Tom Riddle watched his newest underling's progress on the camera's, and smile, his head ducking forward slightly. With this movement, the bill of his hat shades his face, making his skin seem almost purple in its shadows, and his red-brown eyes gleaming much redder than before.
"Welcome to Freddy's," he murmured, and chuckled to himself as he switched cameras. He looked forward to working with Harry.
A/N: …Okay, straight up honesty, this was meant to be a one-shot with a sad ending, but then Slughorn came in, and then Tom and suddenly it's a multi-chapter fic with a sad edge and MAYBE happy ending? I don't know, tell me how you like it, and PLEASE Vote on my Poll on my Profile! You get Three Choices!
Thank You!