Stuck With You / drarry

Occupational Hazard

On Monday morning Harry arrived to work to find the permission slip on his desk denied. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he was expecting, Veritaserum was illegal after all. Judging by the lack of other case-related memos on his desk he figured that there hadn't been a sighting of Dargan yet, he sighed and put down the piece of parchment.

Harry removed his outer cloak and draped it on one of the chairs once again. His Sunday had been slow as always. He had woken up late and even then, laid in bed for ages before getting up and going to the gym. The blond man that had once caught his attention had made a reappearance, and Harry had tried his best to avoid his gaze. He had reluctantly noticed that the man shared some common characteristics with Malfoy, but had quickly directed his attention elsewhere in order to not ruin his only free day of the week.

That had not worked though, and he had ended up thinking about his peculiar conversation with the git. Harry had tried to process all of the information that he had grudgingly learnt: Malfoy had moved to Italy to run his own potions shop, Harry had never taken Malfoy as the entrepreneurial sort, but clearly life was full of surprises, he thought. He recalled Malfoy being good at Potions back in school, but had always just assumed that it was because he was Snape's favourite. Regardless, Harry didn't have much against him going about his business in peace. Harry hadn't ever considered moving abroad, although now that he thought of it, he'd never much travelled anywhere before. Besides Scotland, of course.

Another new piece of news was that McGonagall had offered Malfoy a job at Hogwarts. Harry had to admit that that made him trust Malfoy a bit more, knowing that McGonagall trusted him. Malfoy had said that he wouldn't accept the position, but Harry had still entertained the idea of him as the Head of Slytherin house. To him it suddenly seemed so obvious for Malfoy to take the job. Harry had wondered what it would be like for him to send his kids to Hogwarts one day and have Malfoy, his former rival, teach them, even be their Head of House. Probably not very different than Snape teaching me, Harry had thought upon recalling that James and Snape had also been at odds back in school. He wished that Malfoy wouldn't treat his kids, or anyone for that matter, the way Snape had treated Harry.

Then there had been the third piece of personal information that was nagging away in the back of Harry's mind. The little fact that Malfoy was into men. Harry did not really know what to do with that information, but it didn't seem to leave him alone, and he didn't know why. He acknowledged the fact that it was in no way his business and that he should simply ignore it, but it seemed like an impossible task. For now, Harry had decided to just stop thinking about it.

Now he grabbed the permission slip again and didn't so much as sit down before walking into the fireplace and emerging from the green flames in Kingsley's office. Harry lifted up the piece of parchment in his hand at the Minister who clearly was already used to Harry storming his office on the regular. "Denied?" Harry demanded.

Kingsley took a deep breath and put down his quill, before leaning back in his chair and bringing his clasped hands together on his chin. "Ah, Harry, I was waiting for you to show up." Harry hated Kingsley's nonchalance against his irritated mood.

"Denied?" he repeated slowly, and crumpled the paper in his hand.

Kingsley took another deep breath before standing up and walking from behind his desk to talk to Harry. He motioned for him to sit down in one of his maroon armchairs. "Harry, you're asking for permission to brew Veritaserum, you know that's been illegal for a decade." Again Harry reminisced the time thirteen years ago when Snape had threatened to spike his pumpkin juice with the stuff if he went through Snape's private potions cabinet again, only to later find out that the real culprit was Barty Crouch Jr Polyjuiced as Moody. How times had been more lenient then. Alas, rules were established for a reason.