When Harry called Hermione that evening, she was surprised to hear from him but supposedly grateful for the distraction.
"Solid orange?" she had asked repeatedly.
"Yeah."
"But what's the material? Plastic? Goo?"
"Just, er... just orange, really."
She deflated, but he was positive she would come up with something. Since bloody Malfoy wouldn't bother to tell him what charms would work.
In the end, she gave him a few spells to try, and he showed up at Wheezes very early the next morning to cast his first modified vanishing charm.
"Abstergeo," he said carefully, enunciating it the way Hermione had shown him, and swirling his wand in a tight circle.
At first, it seemed like nothing had happened, but then he peered at the ground more closely and noticed a blank spot about the size of a knut.
Well, that was... that was pretty unfortunate, really.
It was almost noon before he saw anyone else. Verity marched up to him and dragged him into the hallway, and he didn't put up much protest. By that point, Harry had taken off his robes and was sweating through his shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and glasses fogging from the exertion.
"You're an angel," he said, feeling half dead.
"I know."
He accepted the food she offered him and stepped out into the hallway to sit and eat. Verity plopped down across from him, sipping on a fizzy drink and leaning back against the balcony railing.
"You're making progress," she said with false cheer.
He had less than a square metre of the floor clear, and he already felt like giving up.
"Ha-bloody-ha. Malfoy's going to be so ruddy pleased with himself when he sees it. 'I told you to hire a professional,'" he mocked, scoffing and breaking off a bit of crust.
Suddenly, he sobered, thinking about the possible repercussions of all this. "What am I gonna do, Verity? What if he says the shop has to close?"
"You could issue an appeal..."
He got the feeling that that particular idea sounded just as useless to her as it did to him.
"Right. There's always that."
They sat in silence for the rest of their lunch, Verity eventually leaving to go work the register again.
Harry got up slowly, brushing off his hands on his jeans and sighing. It looked like it would take forever to get the office clean, but he started up with his casting again.
Eventually, he got into a groove, shooting a spell at the floor or the wall every 10 seconds as he hummed along to the same The Weird Sisters song he'd heard Ginny blasting from her room the other day while she pretended to not be crying. Verity always had something going.
Now, believe
That magic works
And don't be afraid
Afraid of bein' hurrrrrt
No, don't let this magic die
Ooh, the answer's there
Yeah, just look in her eyes
And don't believe that magic can die
No, no, no, this magic can't dieeeee
It was catchy, really, and he found himself bobbing his head to the imaginary beat as he cast rhythmically at the room.
So dance "Abstergo!"
your final dance "Abstergo!"
'Cause this is "Abstergo!"
your final— Just as he was about to cast again, his heel caught on a nail he hadn't seen on the floor.
Suddenly he was rushing towards the ground, bright orange only inches from his face before he was yanked backwards, reeling to catch himself as the sudden action rocked him and whoever saved him back and forth and they fell out into the hallway.
An arm was still clutched tight around his middle as he struggled to get his bearings, huffing for breath and staring up at the ceiling dazedly. He was directly on top of another rather bony body, their legs tangled together awkwardly.
After a moment, it was Malfoy who wheezed, "Get off me, Potter. You're crushing my lungs."
Harry scrambled to his feet.
He accidentally stepped on Malfoy's finger as he got up and apologised quickly at the hiss of pain, backing up to the orange panels outside of Fred and George's office, leaning between them and staring openly.
Malfoy's hair was ruffled, sticking up off his head even as he tried to force it to rights again, and his ears had pinked up profusely. He swore, brushing dirt off of his waistcoat and trousers, frowning at his foot.
Harry looked too and saw Malfoy was missing one of his shoes.
After a quick peek inside the room, he located it about halfway across the floor, covered in a solid coating of orange and fallen on its side.
"Well that's... that's," he was going to say unfortunate, but he settled on, "Thank you. I didn't mean to—"
"Of course, you didn't."
Harry jumped, taking another step back for good measure.
"You're a great, big oaf of a man who can't follow simple instructions. So obviously you didn't mean to. Hire a professional, Potter, how hard is that? But no, it had to be you who was almost suffocated by orange rubbish cause you were too busy singing Magic Works and dancing like a first year. What if I hadn't been here? What if it'd created a coating around your head? You'd die, that's what! If no one got up here in time—and believe me you, that manager of yours wasn't coming up any time soon—you'd be dead."
Harry stared at him a moment, just barely managing to take all that in. "You listen to The Weird Sisters?"
Malfoy gaped, sputtering. "They're... a very popular band!"
"Yeah, Ginny loves them. I just didn't peg you for a fan is all."
"That's not what we're talking about!"
"Right. Except that it is, actually."
"No, we're discussing how you're too much of a pig-headed—"
"Hey!" Verity shouted from down below and they both quieted. "Would you two shut it, already? You're scaring away my customers!"
"My apologies," Malfoy shouted back. "It's just your boss is an idiotic—"
"Excuse me?"
"Inconsiderate—"
"That's rich."
"Bone-headed!"
The music in the shop was suddenly turned up to ear-splitting levels to drown them out, but that didn't temper the rant even slightly.
Though Harry could no longer hear him, he got to watch as Malfoy's pale face grew redder and redder, making him into a very gratifying shade of scarlet.
Taking pity on Verity, Harry cast a Muffliato Charm, and she must have noticed somehow because the music was soon turned back to a normal level.
"Gormless," Malfoy continued, and Harry decided he quite missed when he'd had to guess what he was saying, "twit. And if you don't start taking this seriously, you're going to burn your pet project to the ground."
"Fuck you," Harry seethed. He hardly even noticed when a large span of the orange on the floor cleared all at once, but Malfoy did.
"How the hell," he asked, panting, "did you do that?"
"It— I, accidental magic. I can't control it. It just happens when I'm ticked off. Like when you around making completely baseless claims about my competency!"
Malfoy's mouth snapped shut and he stormed down the stairs.
Harry quickly broke the charm and raced after him.
"Hey, wait. Come on, Malfoy! I'm talking to you!"
"And I am done talking to you."
He was out the door before Harry had even made it down the steps, but Harry chased him out of the shop and down the street, pushing past witches and wizards in his way.
He caught up to Malfoy just one street away from the apparating point, grabbing his arm.
Malfoy spun around. "No." He jerked his arm away. "I refuse to put up with this. Either I mark your shop as failing and it closes, or you learn to be a goddamn adult."
"If you're so frustrated, why don't you just quit and do us both a favour?"
"Ha!" Malfoy laughed hotly. "Are you actually so bone-headed as to think that treating me like the thestral shite on the bottom of your trainers will solve your problems? If I quit, Potter, it's game over for you. Do you understand why I'm here?"
Harry just stood there, glaring, not sure why all of the sudden it felt like he was being reprimanded by a professor or something.
"I'm here because no one else was deemed objective enough to be your inspector. And believe me you, I asked. But you're a hero, Potter, like it or not. So there's not a single person in that office not looking to get on your good side."
Malfoy's eyes were cold, but with his hair all out of place and his chest heaving, he looked the most human Harry'd ever seen him.
"If I quit," Malfoy continued, and this part he said slowly, clearly, those cold eyes locked on Harry, "your shop is closing—no ifs, ands, or buts."
Slowly, Harry nodded, still not able to make words come.
"Be here tomorrow at 9 am, sharp. Don't be late. I haven't ever tolerated lateness from my other clients, and I won't tolerate it from you."
"You'll be there too?" Harry asked, knowing the question was ridiculous, but still needing confirmation.
"Yes, Potter, obviously I will be there too." His scowl softened ever so slightly, and Harry couldn't stop staring at it.
Then Malfoy was gone with a pop, and Harry was left staring at the empty space where he'd been. He wondered why this felt like such a win when only moments ago he'd wanted to do anything that would end with Malfoy being gone for good.
On the cobblestone street, there was a single dusty shoe-print, right next to the outline of a foot.
ϟ ϟ ϟ
Harry woke up the next morning like he always did, the remnants of his nightmare still lingering in the forefront of his mind. Tonks was being tortured, shrieking as Teddy was ripped from her arms by a version of Nagini that inexplicably had six heads.
It was a new one—usually, they were more grounded in reality—and he made a note to himself to write Andromeda about seeing his godson again soon.
He worked off some of his nervous energy doing his Auror preparation exercises, but he couldn't help feeling a bit silly about the whole thing. Was he really going to sign up for training next spring? It had always been the plan that he and Ron would do it together, but he had a feeling that wasn't happening anymore.
In fact, he had no idea what it was that Ron wanted to do. Maybe laze about all day for the rest of his life. Or perhaps once Harry got the joke shop back up and running, he'd join in on that.
At a quarter to six, Harry fire-called Hermione to fill her in on the events of his time with Malfoy. When he was done, her eyes were wide and she was leaning forward in interest so far into it was like she was just a few centimetres from his face.
"You're going to kill each other, aren't you?"
"Come on, Mione, we've grown up. We can handle it."
"See, I'm not so sure about the whole growing up part."
"I'll be twenty next year!"
"And yet you don't act a day over fifteen."
"I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
Hermione snorted, shifting in her seat. "Knock yourself out. You start acting like a great big baby whenever Malfoy's around."
"I do not."
The sound of her laugh echoed strangely against the stone fireplace.
"Harry?" he heard called from the other room.
Hermione's smile fell at Ron's voice, and he shouted back, "Er, just a minute!"
Ron came in without waiting, already halfway through his sentence. "Mate, what's this in the Prophet about you and Malfoy?"
There was a note of humour in his voice that Harry hadn't heard in far too long.
"It says you were spotted together in 'varying states of disarray' standing in the middle of Dia— Mione."
She let out a squeak, her attempt to back out unnoticed proving fruitless.
"Ron. You look well." Her cheeks pinked as she said this, and she wouldn't meet either of their eyes.
"You er... you too. I didn't mean to interrupt."
His voice had taken on a hint of the jealous tone Harry knew so well from their Hogwarts days, and Harry sighed.
What would Ron have had him do? Give up talking to one of his best friends until Ron pulled his head out of his arse and got back together with her?
"You're up earlier than usual," Harry pointed out.
"Yeah, the bloody owl was making a racket trying to get this rag in."
"Malfoy's the inspector," Hermione said, and then looked like she regretted it.
"The what?"
"He's, you know, the one deciding if the joke shop gets to stay open."
"You're trying for that?" Ron asked Harry. "You never... and with Malfoy?" His face brightened a bit at that. "Did you rough him up or something?"
"There was an erm..." Harry looked to Hermione for guidance and she shrugged unhelpfully, "confrontation. Of sorts. But it's all worked out. I'm meeting him this morning to discuss further plans for the shop."
"Ah. Right then." Ron blinked at him, then gave a stiff nod to Hermione and turned out of the room, leaving the paper on the arm of the sofa.
"Fuck," Harry breathed.
"I take it you didn't tell him about the shop. Or about talking to me, apparently."
"He's been really delicate. I didn't want to..."
Hermione held up a hand. "I'm not bothered. At least one of us has to be mature about this whole thing, and it won't be Ron. If it was me there with him instead of you, I'd probably do whatever it took to get him to shut up too."
Harry coughed sharply.
"Right, sorry, mature. But Merlin, the nerve of him. Did you see the way he was looking at me? Like a kicked puppy. Like he wasn't the one to break it off in the first place."
"And jealous over us talking," Harry said, "as if we're seventeen again."
Hermione broke out into giggles. "That's the best part."
"Hey, don't laugh so hard. I'm not that bad. I'm dateable!"
She rolled her eyes. "Of course, Harry, you're not that bad. But Ron has nothing to worry about."
She mumbled something else to herself, but when Harry asked, she shrugged it off and started laughing again, so he did too.