October 1995, two years after Voldemort.
Harry downed the last dregs of his first pint of cider of the night, his right hand reflexively falling to the hidden holster inside the belly-pocket of his khaki hoodie, the hood of which covered almost all of the defining features of his face. The door had swung open and old reflexes died hard.
He'd learnt during the hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes that the only unfair advantage was the one you didn't have. So tucked into his pocket was a .45 Colt M1911, his old trusty which had seen him through hundreds of magical firefights. Tucked up each of his sleeves was a dagger for silent jobs and close combat.
It seemed that at least some of his paranoia with two years as an Auror Commandant effectively foisted on him without any consultation was going to pay off as a recognisable pale, slightly gaunt man walked in, platinum blond hair still insufferably slick and smart.
"Lord Black!" Malfoy exclaimed, seeing a signet ring on the man's hand which he'd been raised from birth to recognise, expecting it would be his on his seventeenth birthday.
"Great. Ferret." came the muffled retort from the hooded man whose head was now collapsed in his arms.
"Potter?" Malfoy asked.
"Look Malformed, if you're going to sit down and get drunk, just get on with it." Harry groaned, knowing that the overly curious RAF girls at the table a few yards away were probably still listening in, despite the fact that every time he came in and they tried to speak to him, his answers were generally ambiguous and monosyllabic.
Malfoy coloured, but quickly sat down at the table as Harry gestured for another round.
"And address me by any title unless it's one of your childish taunts, I'll chuck you in a nice cell for the night." Harry added.
"Frankly I'm surprised you haven't come up with an excuse to get me chucked away." Malfoy commented.
"I've kept an eye on you, but I don't put people away without trial. Nor do I follow egotistical megalomaniacs. Two differences between us. The third is you're blond and I'm not." drawled Harry.
"Low Potter, low." Malfoy replied, rolling his eyes. "So, what's the great and wonderful golden boy doing here."
"Trying to get drunk. Never works, I once downed two bottles of vodka and all I got was alcohol poisoning." grunted Harry irritably; "Drown one's sorrows in the bottle and wash the blood off one's hands with even more alcohol."
"I'll admit I was surprised when I found out about your job. I never took you for a suicidal idiot. An idiot yes." said Malfoy.
"Frankly I was both in school." Harry admitted; "But I was pretty much presented the job fait accompli."
"If the drunken wreck opposite me is the smug sanctimonious ass I remember, then frankly you should tell them to take their job and screw themselves with it." Malfoy advised, taking a swig of his cider, swilling it around his mouth for a moment before swallowing the unfamiliar alcohol.
"Maybe, but what else have I got, a meaningless earldom in the common world and a title which I hate amongst those 'in the know', do the maths." said Harry sourly; "And how can you tell if I'm a drunken wreck or not, you can't see my face as it's under the hood."
"I have seen photos of you." said Malfoy sarcastically as he saw his drinking partner draining his glass.
"Shut it Ferret." Harry growled with barely any venom as he slowly lowered the hood. Underneath, his raven hair was flecked with silver already, a long pale-pink scar ran across his right cheek from the corner of his mouth to his neck, grey bags hung under his eyes which were dull and lifeless.
"New scar Pothead?" asked Malfoy.
"Got it smacking down the new big bad before he could be anything more than a minor annoyance." said Harry dismissively, running a hand along his cheek, realising he really needed a shave.
"What happened to the Weaslette?" Malfoy enquired.
"Found her having a fling with three other men and then found she was drugging me. The Weasley family have her under house arrest." Harry shrugged; "I spend my days hunting down shit-heads who think they're the next Doctor Crippen, hiding in my manor and trying to get drunk."
"You know I almost prefer the sanctimonious git you were." Malfoy sighed; "Frankly, you look like shit."
"Thanks. And I seem to remember you were a total prick anyway." Harry said lazily; "Admittedly we were both naïve brats, I've learnt the hard way that the only people who can't betray you are your enemies."
"And that would account for the fact that the list of people who want to kill you could stretch around this building thrice?" said Malfoy sarcastically.
"Don't jinx my luck, nobody's tried to kill me in a record three days." replied Harry with a straight face.
That was when the door burst open, a masked man racing in brandishing a revolver.
"Well, fuck." Harry commented, unimpressed.
"THIS IS A ROBBERY, ON THE FLOOR ALL OF YOU. BARMAN, GIVE ME THE MONEY!" yelled the gun-wielding imbecile.
Harry just stood up and stared at him.
"YOU, ON THE FLOOR!" continued the guy with the gun.
"Put it away before I feed it to you." Harry replied acidly, flicking off the safety catch on his pistol.
Apparently that was enough to push the gunman over the edge as he fired twice at Harry. Stumbling back a pace, Harry drew his M1911 faster than the eye could see, falling into a Weaver Stance, right hand on the grip and trigger, left hand supporting and on the right hand. Right elbow almost completely straight, left elbow bent, facing the gunman with his left foot forward, balance on the front foot.
He fired twice, both rounds catching the gunman in the shoulder.
"And that's why you don't interrupt my drinking sessions." Harry said irritably, rolling the gunman on to his front to muffle the screams a bit and kick away the revolver; "And why not to rob a pub where a special branch copper is getting a drink. It almost always ends badly."
"How aren't you hurt." asked one of the RAF women who'd been at the next table.
"The combination of body-armour and the fact that you don't commit a crime with a handgun with a calibre which begins in anything less than a three including the word 'Magnum' or somewhere in the fours. He just did." he shrugged; "Ferret, could you go and get one of my minions, they're probably lazing around now that they know I'm off duty."
Malfoy, scowling at being called a ferret again, swept out.
"Oh, and you lot, don't go anywhere, I have no doubt they'll want your statements." Harry added, thumbing on the safety catch on his sidearm.
About twenty minutes later, the local police arrived in a parade of screaming cars, armed officers rushing in to find Harry sat at the table, unconcernedly drinking another pint of cider, no weapon visible, though the gunman, now unconscious from being kicked in the head, was lying face down on the floor, his gun a few feet away.
"Potter, you could have just taken the guy out for a 'discussion' you know." Malfoy commented.
"Too much effort. Anyway, weren't we discussing our screwed up lives, not this little irritation." Harry drawled, nodding disdainfully at the unconscious gunman.
"You mean I've got no life, my ex-fiancée was a dead fish in bed. You?" said Malfoy sarcastically.
"A whole load of psychological problems, the fact that the first of my last two girlfriends was the Weaselette who tried to drug me, the second was simply trying to get me to a suitably isolated location to kill me." yawned Harry; "Once this lot are done, I'll go and shout at my officers and crash at the manor tonight, head back to London for the week. Fuck it, you're right, twenty and I'm fucking burnt out. Retirement, here I come."
"You know I never found out what happened to my bastard of a father." commented Malfoy lightly.
"I'm fairly certain I killed him." Harry replied.
"I'll buy the next round of drinks." said Malfoy.
"Didn't you feel anything shooting a poor young man?" probed the defence barrister.
"Two times four pounds of pressure approximately applied to the trigger and medium recoil." Harry replied, rolling his eyes at the attempt at emotional blackmail; "And this 'poor young man' had just shot me, and is also several years older than me, make of it what you will."
He glanced at the area where the witnesses were sat, smirking as he saw that someone, probably Dennis Creevey had a number of people wearing black t-shirts with a cartoon outline of himself toting his pistol with the words emblazoned below it 'Do not kill him, it just makes him angry'. Amusingly, the RAF women, who had testified in his favour had then donned the t-shirts, probably at the behest of Dennis.
"No more questions."
Harry stepped back and watched as Malfoy testified in his favour, his amusement increasing when the defence lawyer asked the blond;
"What is your relationship with Inspector Potter?
"Sworn enemies." Malfoy said cheerfully; "Sworn enemies since we were eleven in '86. I'm fairly sure that he and all of his little minions will testify that we hate each-other's guts."
That five minutes after leaving the stand, Malfoy was wearing one of the t-shirts which he was considering passing a law to ban.