School: Hogwarts
Year: 5
Theme: Write about a bad influence
Mandatory Prompt: Last Night (Beer Fear) by Lucy Spraggan
Extra Prompt: "I have nothing to tell you, save that it is to you that I tell this nothing." - Roland Barthes
Special Rule: One Setting
Word Count: 2975
A/N: Muggle AU. Everyone is in their early-mid 20's.
Blue and violet lights flashed and pulsed to the beat of the music, and blurred the faces of the crowd–just the way Draco liked it.
The Dungeon was a far cry from the best club in town but it did have its charm. Small but not suffocating, it boasted a history as an underground speak-easy turned war bunker. Limping along behind the times, there was an old-fashioned feel about the place, while its aesthetic embraced the new and trendy. Briefly reclaimed by the LGBT community in the 1980's–mostly out of principle–the pub's clientele was a ragtag mix of patrons that didn't much care to mingle. For one reason or another, people found themselves in the crush of bodies on the dance floor, tucked into the privacy of booths along the wall or else perched at the bar.
Draco preferred the bar. It was the best place from which to see and, more importantly, be seen but not approached. He strategically sat where there was always bustling traffic to get the bartender's attention and stopping to chat would be a tedious inconvenience. He was content to nurse his gin; throned on his stool, he silently pondered the anonymity of the crowd.
Unless Pansy was out with him, then Draco required two shots upon arrival because she insisted on having an opinion about everything. Pansy did not understand the appeal of the Dungeon. "It smells," she'd whine.
Tonight her key complaint was "There isn't anyone cute here!" as she slumped against the bar after taking a turn on the dance floor to size up the crowd.
"That's not the point of coming here," Draco insisted.
"That's the point of going anywhere! It's like you're allergic to society."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Well, what you do on your own is fine, but why do you have to drag me along to mope in a bar no one's heard of? It makes me look bad."
"Then don't come. You'd do my wallet and my liver a favor."
"You're no fun!" Pansy announced before downing her cosmo. "Buy me another drink."
"Get someone fun to buy you a drink."
"Fine!" She disappeared into the crowd, on the hunt once again for someone foolish enough to give her what she wanted.
The song changed to a low thudding hum that reverberated around the room. Draco glanced down at Pansy's empty martini glass and denied his own guilt. She was a good sport for coming out with him, even if she didn't understand why he liked the place. He flagged down the bartender and asked for another cosmo to be waiting for Pansy when she got back from trolling the venue.
Perhaps he had outgrown the Dungeon? What had once held mystique and comfort was now knowable and stale. He started coming here after graduating. It felt like it was filling a function in his life. Now, he found himself here on more days of the week than he liked to admit. He looked down the bar and saw a group of grimacing old men. Draco knew he didn't want to be like them, pushing 70 and still frequenting the Dungeon.
But where would he go instead? Clubbing with Pansy? Definitely not.
"Draco!" Definitely not, because Pansy was batshit insane. "Come with me!"
"What? No way, I'm not giving up my spot! Besides, I have your cosmo."
"Forget the cosmo!" Pansy cried out over the music, which switched to a frantic electric beat to match her manic return. "I need you to beat someone up! This tosser won't buy me a drink. You need to defend my honor!"
She yanked him onto his feet and into the crowd.
"The hell do I look like to you? A Weasley?"
Pansy admired the glint of the red and blue lights as they reflected off the silver braces and pondered aloud, "I wonder if the police would let me keep these?"
Draco turned to her, gobsmacked. Pansy posed her wrists close to her face and she threw him a sensuous look, as if she had been selected to model the latest line of handcuffs on the cover of Vogue. Her smudged lipstick and cracked mascara completed the criminal-chic look.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Draco exclaimed, throwing out his closely linked arms as a stilted gesture towards their current situation. They were two amongst ten other restrained delinquents crouching on the floor of the Dungeon. Without the din of the usual bass and drum beat to hide it, the sticky floorboards of the pub squelched with each movement around them. The police had turned on the main lights to expose every greasy nook and cranny of the venue.
The neon paint on the walls that would glow and pulse to the music under the blacklight was now dull and flat in shades of tangerine, lemon, and salmon. The bartender, Artie, normally quite handsome framed by shelves of gin and whiskey, sat slumped amongst the apprehended, impotent and tired.
"I'm trying to keep things interesting." Pansy rolled her eyes and shrugged. In the unforgiving light of the busted pub, Draco could see the sparkling black shadow on her lids was oily and bleeding into the creases of her foundation.
"We've been arrested, Pans. Isn't that interesting enough for you? God, my father is going to hear about this!"
Pansy gargled her annoyance. She looked up to the ceiling, searching the collection of rogue darts lodged in the rafters for guidance. Then she dropped her gaze and swiveled her head back to look at him in exasperation. "Draco, when rebelling against daddy, you've really got to–you know–do something rebellious. You can't just putter around piercing your eyebrow and buying leather pants and think you're actually accomplishing something. Besides, if you didn't want to get in trouble with Lucius, you should have thought about that before you started that fight."
"ME?" he fumed. "You were the one egging on those bikers!"
"They needed to be put in their place," Pansy aimed a shrewd glare at a fellow patron cuffed to the now-defunct jukebox.
"Would you pipe down?" Draco scolded her. "You are so embarrassing sometimes. I don't know why I hang out with you."
"Oh, you love me," she teased. "You told me so last night."
"Yeah, well, that was the vodka talking," Draco grumbled.
"Well, well, well," a familiar voice called through the din and chatter of the officers interviewing other patrons. All the blood drained from Draco's face. It couldn't be.
It was a sight he would never fathom in all his time coming to the Dungeon.
Harry Potter sauntered up from the entrance and made his way straight towards them. He was wearing a blue policeman's uniform and a shit-eating grin.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Pansy protested as Harry appraised them both. They sat on the ground amongst dirty napkins and crushed beer cans. "This just shows you can't trust cops. They'll give anyone a uniform and a badge."
"Pansy, shut it," Draco commanded through gritted teeth.
"So you'll defend him but not me? Some friend you are."
"I'm not defending the twit. I am reminding your drunk ass that it's probably not smart to go off on a cop while you're handcuffed at the scene of a crime."
"He's right, you know."
"Shut it, Potter. Nobody asked you," Draco sniped. Officer or not, he was still Harry Potter and old reflexes were hard to quell.
Harry threw his hands up in mock surrender. He was too amused by the situation to appreciate any venom in Draco's words. "Look, clearly it's been a long night, so let me get your statements and we can keep this moving along."
"I know my rights. I'm not talking to anyone without my lawyer." Pansy attempted to cross her arms but was impeded by her handcuffs.
"You know that's something only guilty people say," Draco pointed out.
"You're only saying that because my lawyer is your father."
Damn, she's right. Draco's eye twitched in frustration.
"Pansy." Harry, also losing patience with her antics, hoisted her up by her elbow. "What's say we treat that cut on your eyebrow?"
"I'm bleeding?! Draco, why didn't you say anything?"
"I genuinely had bigger things to worry about," he responded with a sardonic sigh.
"Come on, you remember Ron."
"Jesus, him too?" Draco rolled his eyes. On Harry's cue, Ronald Weasley appeared at his side ready to take custody of Pansy.
"Wotcher, Malfoy. Parkinson." Weasley also wore a blue officer's uniform and an amused smirk.
Draco should have guessed. The two of them had been inseparable all through school. Of course, they would find a way to work together. It's unhealthy if you asked Draco. "Is Hermione Granger pulling the fire truck around, too?" Draco smiled with pride at the zinger as Pansy let out a cackle and Harry narrowed his eyes down at him.
"Alright, off you go!" Harry unceremoniously handed Pansy off to his partner.
"What, no! You can't separate us!" Pansy resisted, trying to dodge Ron's hands.
"Pansy you're going to be fine," Ron insisted, "Just come with me to the bar; there is a first aid station." More amiable now, he nodded over to the bar top at the other side of the Dungeon. One corner of the bar was uncommonly sterilized with an open box of bandages and iodine on the counter.
"Why would I take medical treatment from someone without a license?" Pansy asked with a snarky sneer.
"Certified paramedic," Ron responded with a crooked grin, that no doubt Hermione Granger found charming.
Draco rolled his eyes again, as Pansy settled down and let Weasley shepherd her away.
"You too, Draco. Let's get you off the floor." Harry offered an arm down to him. Draco wrinkled his nose at the gesture but he reasoned that staying on the ground surrounded by the smell of stale beer and pretzel crumbs was more distasteful than accepting help from Officer Potter. He latched both of his hands onto Harry's forearm and counterbalanced against him to stand.
Harry ushered him from the dance floor and into a booth against the wall opposite the pub. Draco did his best to sidle into the bench without incurring too many unseemly sounds from his leather pants coming in contact with the cracked vinyl upholstery. Had every surface in this place always been so sticky?
Harry slid into the space across the table. He stared back at Draco and let out a contented sigh. Probably happy to be off his feet for a minute.
A nervous lump grew in the back of Draco's throat as a rampant overactive slice of his mind compared their position to the cliche of a first date.
We'd go someplace nicer than the Dungeon. Draco let out a derisive snort.
"Something funny?" Harry cocked his head to the side.
"What!? No, mind your own business." A creeping blush to his ears betrayed his words.
"Alright, Draco. Now, can you tell me what happened?"
"I have nothing to tell you, save that it is to you that I tell this nothing," Draco said with a sly smile.
"Draco, I love a good Barthes quote as much as the next bloke but now really isn't the time to remind me how great you were in Philosophy 101."
Draco grimaced at this attempt to be friendly, but the handcuffs chaffed on his wrists and he would do anything to have them taken off and get as far from the Dungeon as possible.
"Well, it all started when we got to the bar…"
"Did you notice something out of the ordinary?" Harry prodded. Draco harrumphed. Same old Potter, steamrolling the setup to a perfectly good story.
"No, I was going to say Pansy was annoying me more than most days."
"Erm…okay." Harry furrowed his brow but seemed to learn his lesson not to interrupt anymore.
"So yeah, Pansy was up to her usual antics but she had cranked it all up to like eleven today. Whinging left, right, and center about every little thing she can imagine. I won't be surprised if she is nagging Weasley's ear off this very minute. At any rate, I am doing her a favor, coming out tonight. She knows I loathe dive bars."
"So you don't come to the Dungeon often?"
"Not at all…" Then Draco reconsidered his answer. "Maybe once a month. There is one good bartender that only works Wednesdays. And they have a food truck parked outside but that is only every other Friday."
Harry furrowed his brow at Draco's cryptic bar schedule but shook his head and jotted down something in his stupid little notepad.
"Anyways, in between dodging the crowd and having to at least pretend to process Pansy's 'woes', around 11:30 I miraculously had a good buzz going. So, of course, that is exactly when she comes barreling over to me, livid. She tells me some bloke across the bar has insulted her and wouldn't buy her a drink. She wants me to 'defend her honor' or some rot. The next thing I know, she is shoving me into that walking body odor factory over there and a whole fight breaks out on the dance floor."
"...And?" Harry prompted.
"And what? I just told you; Pansy started the fight–"
"You Judas!" screeched Pansy as she stomped over to the booth, popping the bubble of privacy between Harry and him. "I did not start that fight! How dare you throw me under the bus!"
"Oi! Settle down!" Ron cut her off. "Malfoy, budge up and sit, both of you." They obliged; Pansy reluctantly sat next to Draco. Ron too lumbered into the bench beside Harry. "We don't care who started the fight, you ninnies."
"I–" Draco, about to protest, processed the ginger cop's words. "What, why not?"
"Because it's not why we're here." Harry supplied as if Draco's question was rhetorical.
"So we're not in trouble for the fight?"
"NO," Ron and Harry insisted in unison.
"Oh, then what are we doing here?" Pansy asked, all at once bored by the sudden de-escalation of drama.
"The Dungeon is the central hub of a drug operation." Ron explained as if he were talking to children. Both Draco and Pansy dropped their jaws in shock. "Everyone in the fight was detained as a suspect, but clearly you both were in the wrong place, wrong time."
"Draco, you come here 5 nights a week and mean to tell me you had no idea?" Pansy hissed under her breath.
"No, shut up!" Draco's eyebrow ring twitched as Harry smirked at Pansy's remark.
"We were able to bust the leader tonight. Your fight happened to break out right before we moved in." Ron jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to a creep attached to the jukebox.
"That's the guy that wouldn't buy me a drink!" Pansy gasped.
"Him? Oh, Pans, ew no," Draco groaned.
"What!? He asked me if I wanted something special, I wasn't going to turn down the offer, but then he wanted me to pay him! Can you believe that?"
"Pansy…I don't think he was flirting with you; it sounds like he was trying to sell you drugs." Harry reached across the table and patted her still cuffed hands.
As his words sunk in, Pansy's incredulous disdain morphed to crestfallen shame. In an attempt to save face, she muttered, "whatever," and sank into the booth.
"Does this mean we are free to go?" Draco asked in the awkward lull.
"Yeah." Ron got out of the booth and heaved a sigh, having been keen on arresting Draco for something. He motioned for Pansy to join him back at the bar. "We just need to sign some release forms. I can take the cuffs off you, Pansy."
"About that!" Suddenly spry at the mention of the handcuffs, Pansy hopped out of the booth and followed after Ron with her request.
"So, five times a week, eh?" Harry quipped.
"I swear to God, Potter, I didn't know about the drugs–"
"I'm just taking the mickey out of you." Harry waved off Draco's unnecessary pleas. "I'm sorry your favorite establishment is going to be shut down, depending on how the rest of this investigation pans out."
"Oh. Really, it's not a huge loss. I think I had somewhat outgrown the place, to be honest. Coming here has made me pretty apathetic."
"You? No," Harry chuckled. "Hey–er–I was thinking since you're not a suspect, and all, maybe you wouldn't mind me showing you a couple of my favorite spots around town. Y'know, ones that don't double as drug dens. Maybe debate the finer points of Death of the Author?"
Gobsmacked once again, Draco gaped at Harry Potter. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah. Tonight's been weird, but I'm not gonna lie, it's good to see you, and maybe all that tosh from school is just that. Water under the bridge, right?"
"Ye-yeah." Draco felt himself return a sheepish smile. "I probably need more good influences in my life to balance out Pansy."
Harry winced to find an insightful perspective. "I can tell she cares in her own way. But you do have a pretty chaotic dynamic." They both looked over at Pansy smiling at Ron across the way. "You are going to remind her Ron is married, right?"
"Nope, I'd rather watch things sort themselves out."
Harry laughed and sidled out of the booth, "And you say she's a bad influence on you! Come on, let's get you uncuffed, and I'll see if Ron and I can escort you both home."
"Ugh! Finally! Yes, especially before–"
"Draco? What on earth is going on here?!" Lucius Malfoy tore through the caution tape around the entrance of the Dungeon. Fuming, Lucius looked between Draco, Harry, and the handcuffs.
"Draco!" Pansy called out. "Your father did hear about this!"