Drarry One Shots and Fluff

Charity Case

Muggle!au

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Harry groaned, searching through his pockets with a groan, "damn!"

He threw his bag on the ground, slumping onto the mattress on the floor of his small apartment as he buried his face in his hands. He wanted to cry, he really wanted to curl into a ball and sob. But he had to admit, the only thing he had lost was a couple plastic cards. One of them allowed him to buy alcohol that he couldn't afford and the other reminded him that he had twenty seven pence to his name.

He allowed himself ten more seconds of self pity, wallowing in annoyance before he let out a sigh and stood up. He had to get to his job.

Six mindless hours of beeping and 'I want to see your manager' had Harry wanting to rip his hair out of his head. He didn't want to go back to his tiny flat with an empty fridge and just a mattress on the floor as any sign that someone lived there. It wasn't his fault he didn't have any money. It wasn't like his Aunt and Uncle gave him spending money and he wasn't allowed to use any of the money left by his parents until his twenty-first birthday. So he was forced to work multiple jobs in order to eat and spend the rest of it on rent. It was the best he could do to survive.

Deciding to sleep so that he didn't spend more money, he flopped onto his mattress, pulled a small blanket covered in holes over himself and fell into a fitful sleep.

***

The next morning, he woke up to the sound of someone sliding something under his door. He stumbled from his bed, wrapping the blanket around his shoulder for some sense of warmth in the cold building. He stumbled over, picking up the piece of paper and unfolded it.

He squinted at the words, the neat cursive writing along with the fact that he broke his glasses a couple days prior meant he really struggled to read it. But, eventually, he managed to make out the words.

Dear Harry,
I found your wallet. I will give it back to you if you vacate your premises between the hours of ten and three today.
I strongly suggest you do so.

There was a signature at the bottom but Harry couldn't decipher it so he left it a mystery. He wondered why he had to be out of his flat for five hours just so that someone could give him back his wallet but, since he was dreading applying for a new ID and spending the money that he could otherwise spend on food so he didn't starve, he decided to go to work that day and wait to see what would happen when he got home.

He pulled on a jacket and left his house. He hadn't eaten breakfast in years.

When he stepped into his second job, working behind the counter of a book store. It was great except for the age-old register that didn't scan barcodes and he was forced to squint at the book title, enter it into the database and find the price before asking the customer for the money in cash. He would then be forced to argue with the customer, who was absolutely adamant that they should be able to use apple-pay to buy a book that they're inevitably not going to read. Eventually, they would either sigh and dig through their bag to bring out the change or they would slam the book on the counter and storm off. Harry would sigh and call forward the next customer and the cycle would repeat.

"How's it going?"

Harry was relieved when he looked up to see Hermione stood in front of him, a wide smile on her face. She was his best customer and completely understood the cash-card situation, "it's been better," he admitted, "how many books are you getting?"

"Just three," she spoke, plonking three books on the counter and Harry watched as the water in his glass wobbled. "They're a bit big."

Harry just raised an eyebrow as he turned one of them over and began to input the title into the computer, "what are you researching now?"