Work Text
Harry Potter gingerly shouldered open the door of his office, trying not to knock over any of the stacks of books and notes he knew were piled up behind it. Slightly late and halfway through a sip from the takeaway coffee cup he’d precariously balanced on top of the overflowing files in his arms.To find a bored-looking white Arctic fox sitting calmly behind his desk.Which was odd, because, for one thing, his office in Whitehall wasn’t in the Arctic circle, and, secondly, the fox didn’t have an appointment.Harry grimaced as the surprised gulp of coffee he’d taken burned his mouth.“Err, good morning?”Smooth, Potter, said the usual mocking voice in his head. Making small talk with a fox.A fox which blinked at him disdainfully. Chewing, Harry noticed, on his best quill.“Umm.” Another confused sip of his coffee. “If you’re looking for the Department of Magical Creatures, it’s one floor down, third corridor.”Are you thick? the look the fox gave him seemed to say, accompanied by an aristocratic swoosh of a fluffy tail.Right, Harry thought, his Friday morning already not at all going to plan.Massaged his temples a bit. Where was the part of the Auror handbook about unscheduled visits from remarkably self-possessed woodland creatures?Squaring his shoulders. Come on, Potter. You’ve faced down the Dark Lord himself, you don’t have to put up with sass, in your own office, from a weirdly patrician-looking fox.He glanced around for somewhere to deposit the heavy, wobbling set of files in his arms – no hope of finding space on his already overflowing desk. Eyed up his chair hopefully.“Could you, err, move?”The fox stayed exactly where it was.Harry dumped the files on his rickety visitor’s chair, instead. The top folder, full to bursting with the scratched notes he’d been up all night writing about the Vale of Clwyd vampire nest, slipped to the floor, scattering its pages across the tiny office.Two sets of eyes – one dismayed green, the other impassive… ice blue – since when did foxes have blue eyes? – regarded the mess. A photograph of one of the vampires laughed up at them, toasting Harry’s already rubbish Friday with his pint glass of suspiciously dark red liquid.An impatient tapping sound, of elegant paws against the desk.Harry looked up from the hopeless mess with a sigh. It suddenly seemed entirely possible that, rather than finally submitting his long-overdue report on haemovore activity in Wales and the South West, he would be spending his morning dealing with a sardonic fox.“Okay.” Straightening back up and squeezing himself in behind his desk, too. “Do you have a collar?”
It’s a fox, not a dog.
Still, he reached into the fox’s fluffy fur to check. It was beautifully fine and soft, like it bathed in very expensive shampoo. It didn’t smell… fox-y, either – its scent was refined, like cologne. Sandalwood and black pepper.Harry blinked. Foxes don’t wear cologne. And they… scavenge from bins.The fox looked for a moment like it was rather enjoying having Harry’s hands on its fur, shivering as he gave it a little scratch down its back.Then snapped long pointy teeth at him.“Whoa, okay!” Harry jumped backward. “Moody, aren’t you?”The fox glared at him and nosed at some of the papers on Harry’s desk.“Hey!” Six months of research on the Hartlepool hinkypunks crashed to the ground. “Be careful, alright?”A cool, blue-eyed stare that very distinctly said, 'if you ever bothered to tidy your desk...’ and a prod at one of the half-buried framed photos Harry kept on it.His class photograph from their eighth year at Hogwarts.Harry chose to blame lack of caffeine, and a soggy week chasing bloodsucking Welshmen through muddy fields, for the fact that he was only now beginning to suspect that this wasn’t an ordinary fox.In the middle of the photograph, a figure with ice-blue eyes and white-blond floppy hair, which almost certainly smelled of expensive shampoo, was rolling its eyes at him and pointing.Harry turned to the fox that was somehow, inexplicably, Draco Malfoy, and couldn’t suppress his tired groan. He really had been looking forward to an uncomplicated day.“Someone turned you into a fox?”The fox gave an eyeroll to match the figure in the photograph's.“Okay,” Harry tried again, not quite sure why, given the circumstances, he was apparently the thick one. “You turned yourself into a fox.”'Caught on, have you?’ said the tilt of a fluffy head.Raising his eyebrows, grudgingly impressed. “You learned how to become an animagus?”Casting his mind back to Ron, desperate for the Senior Auror promotion he thought would impress Hermione, being stuck with a bushy tail for a month, after a botched attempt to turn into a red squirrel.A squirrel, he’d sighed in disgust, frantically shelling peanuts and stuffing them into his cheeks, as he and Harry had sat in the sunshine outside Fortescue’s, about a week after St Mungo’s had finished transfiguring him back. Hardly intimidating, is it? How come Sirius got to be a bloody great dog, and I’m getting chased by poodles and having treats thrown to me by tourists in Hyde Park?Neither Harry, nor a deeply-amused Hermione, had pointed out that it wasn’t really surprising that Ron had transformed into the most ginger of animals.Back in the present, Harry frowned at the latest hopeless idiot in his life.“And did you ever think about learning how to, err, un-become an animagus?”Long, quite vicious-looking teeth bared in an unamused growl; Harry took a step backward, out of caution. He didn’t think Malfoy would have rabies, but he certainly didn’t fancy a permanent scar as a reminder of this bizarre encounter.
But why had he just felt that absurd little warm shiver at the thought of Draco Malfoy’s teeth against his throat?
Harry shook himself, downed the rest of his coffee in the hopes that would cure the temporary insanity which had momentarily overtaken him, and frowned down at sleek blond fur.What in Merlin’s name would have possessed you to decide to try to become an animagus? he wondered.Didn’t really have to think too hard to come up with a list of reasons, most of which related to the headline news in that morning’s Daily Prophet, about the impending outcome of Lucius Malfoy’s appeal to reduce his sentence.Felt a twinge of sympathy for the Malfoy who was currently scratching well-manicured claws across his desk. At least when everyone gawped at Harry in the streets, they weren’t usually muttering snide things about his family and how he ‘ought to be in Azkaban with the rest of them’.Although, trust Malfoy to turn himself into some ridiculous, rare, entirely out-of-place, haughty-looking animal. Inveterate snob.“At least you’re not a ferret this time,” he couldn’t help teasing, earning himself another warning snarl. Ignored it, and leaned against his wall, trying to puzzle out a plan.Fairly certain that there was no way that Malfoy had registered as an animagus, rubbish or otherwise. And aware that, fully rehabilitated member of society or not, he was only a vindictive judge away from a trip to Azkaban for anything that could be construed as potentially Dark activity.“So, St Mungo’s isn’t really an option,” he concluded aloud, to what might have been a grateful flicker of agreement from the fox. Harry was somewhat relieved, himself, that he didn’t have to explain another reject from the Island of Doctor Moreau to the perplexed-looking nurses at the admissions desk, quite so soon after Squirrel Ron.“Right, well. I guess we solve this ourselves.” He scrabbled around in his robes for his wand. “Let’s try, err-" racking his brain for an appropriate spell – Malfoy always seemed to make his thoughts go all foggy- “finite incantem?” A swish and a flick.Malfoy, steadfastly still a fox, gave him the sort of look that said 'if it were that simple, don’t you think I’d have tried it already?’“It’s not like you exactly have hands at the moment,” Harry muttered resentfully.Sighing, and grabbing a scrap of parchment to scribble a note to Hermione. Hopefully, she was somewhere down in the Department of Mysteries, rather than five hundred years in the past or in another dimension, or whatever it was that Unspeakables did all day; every time he went down there to meet her for lunch, they wiped his memory at the door.Hypothetically- he’d found that was always a good word to start with when dealing with Hermione’s colleagues- if someone’s turned themselves into an animagus, but can’t change back, what would you do?Felt the need to add, in brackets, Asking for a- glancing at the beady-eyed fox- friend.Folded the note into a paper aeroplane and let it loose in the stream of memos fluttering up and down the corridor.When he poked his head back around the door of his office, Fox Malfoy was busy devouring the croissant Harry had bought himself for breakfast.His annoyance magnified, when he was jabbed impatiently in the temple by the pointy end of Hermione’s reply.Can’t really talk right now, sorry, it read. Bit of an accident down here, woke up some ancient, tentacled creatures from the dawn of time-And Harry thought that his morning had gone sideways-
But if you’ve turned yourself into an animagus – and, Harry, you really shouldn’t be messing around with magic like that, unsupervised-
Harry sniffed indignantly. Malfoy, who could apparently still read as a fox, and was peering over his shoulder, made a sort of snuffling scoffing laugh noise-
I’ve still got the scars from Ron’s squirrel teeth-
Neither he, nor, from the grimace on its face, the fox, wanted to picture where those scars might be-
The spell should mostly wear off after twenty-four hours.
Harry thought about Ron’s auburn bushy-tailed month and decided that the word ‘mostly’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. He flipped the parchment over.You should have someone stay with you- Hermione had ostentatiously crossed 'you' out and written 'your friend’; Harry sighed. It can be a bit messy if the magic wears off in uneven patches.A sudden, half-amusing, half-horrific, imagining of the fox’s head on Malfoy’s tall, thin frame, like a rubbish, sulking, ancient Egyptian deity.And then a frown of confusion at just how readily, and in quite such a degree of detail, his imagination could conjure up an image of Malfoy’s shirtless body.Cheeks reddening, he glanced over at his very irritating temporary officemate. Twenty-four hours. With Draco Malfoy. Harry wasn’t quite sure why his insides felt all tight at the prospect.“When did you do this?”An elegant paw tapped once.“One AM?" Based on what he knew of Malfoy, he had to assume there'd been a bottle of firewhiskey involved, too. "You really are a prat.”As though Harry himself hadn’t ever had a few too many on a night out, and returned home to attempt all sorts of inappropriate charms. Although his usually all involved the engorgio spell. Rapidly followed by a desperate round of scourgify’s aimed at the bedsheets and walls and... the ceiling.Trying to stop his face resembling an overripe tomato, he checked his watch. Ten AM.
Only fifteen hours to go.
It wasn’t actually the worst workday he’d had recently, Harry admitted to himself as the grandfather clock down the hallway dinged five o'clock.Malfoy, by some miracle listening, for once, to Hermione’s advice, seemed to have resigned himself to waiting out his canid day. And, more bizarrely, had apparently selected Harry to be the person stuck watching over him.For some reason, Harry found that he hadn't hated that idea at all. Steadfastly ignored the confusingly... warm feeling in his chest.They’d spent the first half hour after Hermione’s note in ridiculous negotiations about what exactly fox Malfoy was allowed to do. More snapping and growling, when Harry had refused to let him go sniffing through the department."What part of ‘top secret’ do you not understand, Malfoy?" Running his hands through his hair in frustration.Malfoy had rolled his eyes disdainfully at the files scattered across Harry’s floor, as if to say ’and bothering some harmless, wizened old hags in Glamorganshire is crucial for national security, is it?’Or maybe that was Harry’s subconscious projecting.“I’m going to need my chair,” he’d pleaded, still feeling slightly ridiculous arguing with a fox. “It’s my office.”An elegant paw had ‘accidentally’ knocked another flurry of papers off the desk.“Right-” Gathering the spare robes he kept hanging in a cupboard in the corner, in case he had to work through the night, or was splattered with mud or blood or... unspecified goo and didn’t have time to get home to change. He made a soft nest on the floor, and pointed.“Your dog bed.” Injecting all the Auror authority he possessed into his voice. “If you don’t stop being an annoying prat, I’m going to drop you off at London Zoo. Now sit.”Surprised foxy eyebrows and, by some miracle, Malfoy had acquiesced. Harry ignored the little frisson of power shooting through his veins, as the fox slunk over and gave the pile of robes an experimental sniff. Turned a few circles to smooth them down, and then curled itself up on top of them.Malfoy was a pretty fox, Harry found himself thinking, studying him over the top of a dull page of dense legalese detailing updates to the Magical Creatures Act. Thumped the heel of his hand into his temple to shut down that terminally unhinged vein of thought. He shouldn’t think that about a fox.
And certainly shouldn't think that about Draco Malfoy.
He sorted through some of his unopened post – he really did need to get a new owl, Hedwig had always organised his letters for him – to find the latest edition of Quidditch Weekly for Malfoy to read, using a wet nose and careful long canine teeth to turn the pages.Harry noticed that Ginny was on the cover, along with the other Harpies chasers. He hadn’t known about that photo shoot. Ought to have known, he chastised himself, ought to have congratulated her.He’d make it up to her over dinner tonight, he thought, standing up to start pulling on his coat. It’d been an age since they’d spent the evening together.Maybe he could convince her to stay over at Grimmauld Place… She always protested that the house had too many ghosts, but Harry was heartily sick of spending nights alone. Or, worse, of awkwardly squeezing into Ginny’s bedroom at the Burrow, hyperaware of every sound or squeak of the bedsprings.Harry thought about the spring in Ron's step ever since he and Hermione had signed the lease on their tiny flat in Islington. Wondered if Ginny would ever agree to moving in together. Maybe he could suggest the idea at dinner tonight.He just had to… deliver a fox back home, first.A fox who looked up at him questioningly while he searched around for something to turn into a leash. Yanking on the little braided string that controlled the roller blinds over his office windows. Damn things were broken, anyway.A snarl from Malfoy as he cottoned on to the plan.“No arguing, idiot. We’ve got to pretend you’re an ordinary dog. I can’t just walk through the Ministry of Magic with a bloody familiar.”I’m Harry Potter, he didn’t need to say. Everybody watches and comments on my every move. Usually on the front pages of the Daily Prophet.A brief moment of chagrined amusement, imagining the spike in interest in Arctic fox cubs as pets, if Witch Weekly got wind that the Saviour of the Wizarding World had somehow acquired one.He tried not to think too hard about how soft Malfoy’s fur was, as he slipped the makeshift collar around his neck.Tried not to think too hard about the whole situation, really.They left the office, Harry stuffing his still-incomplete reports into his satchel. He’d have to finish those on the weekend… Ginny wouldn’t be pleased.Malfoy was, quite predictably, a complete pain in the arse on a leash. Pulling on the cord, straining to sniff all the corners of the corridor, trying, Harry was certain, to trip people up as they made their way through the crowds by the lifts. Growling, as Harry dragged him away from a half-eaten baguette someone had dropped on the floor by the little coffee cart in the lobby.“I’m not the utter pillock who turned himself into a fox,” Harry hissed, ignoring the perplexed stares from passing colleagues. Exceedingly grateful that he was just a quick apparition away from depositing stupid Malfoy back at his stupid Manor.Out onto the street, jostled sideways by a furious commotion spilling out from the Wizengamot building across the road.Throngs of shouting journalists and photographers and snapping flashbulbs, scurrying along in a clamouring pack, elbowing pedestrians aside, all trying to thrust sonorous charms and Quick Quotes Quills under the long nose of-Lucius Malfoy.Harry’s grip on the fox’s leash tightened. He felt Malfoy’s silky white fur standing on end.Do you have any comment about today’s verdict? one of the reporters shouted out, at risk of being crushed in the swarm.The fox tensed.Is there any truth to the rumours you bribed your way into a more lenient sentence? another needled, prompting a growl from the younger Malfoy.
What would you say to everybody who thinks you ought to be in Azkaban for life, Mr. Malfoy?
“Come on,” Harry tugged the lead. “You shouldn’t have to hear all this.”
Don’t you think your whole family ought to be punished, not just you?
The two of them were nearly knocked backward as Malfoy’s lawyers, and a few Crabbe and Goyle-sized bodyguards, desperately tried to shoulder a path through the sea of paparazzi.Staggering back to the Ministry steps; the fox looked up at him in what Harry could only describe as distress.The press vultures would be swarming around Malfoy Manor, too, he realised, no stranger to just how horridly invasive their attention could be.Making a very snap, and probably very stupid, decision. He tapped the fox gently on its shoulder, a stab of sympathy as it flinched. “Come on. You don’t need to deal with all that tonight. Come home with me. I can watch you in case you get stuck as some horrible Cronenberg-esque fox-man.”Malfoy’s blank blink might have been surprise at Harry’s plan, or because there was no way he’d understand a reference to a Muggle horror movie.This is a terrible idea, Harry thought, as they made their way back inside, to the floo portals in the Ministry lobby.Glancing around, hoping everyone was too distracted rubbernecking at the media circus outside, or just single-minded with relief at leaving the office for the weekend, he grabbed hold of the indignant fox and stuffed it into one of the fireplaces.Harry emerged, coughing, out of the green smoke and into his living room at Grimmauld Place.The white fox was standing in the middle of the room, looking about as awkward as a fox could look.Not exactly how you pictured bringing Draco Malfoy back to your place, Harry thought, absurdly.Froze. When had he pictured bringing Draco Malfoy home at all?Embarrassed, all of a sudden, at the state of the place. Viewing it as if through Malfoy’s disdainful eyes; the few rooms Harry actually occupied resembled a messy bachelor pad, the rest of the big house was brooding and dusty and silent.
No wonder Ginny refused to spend any time here.
He watched fox Malfoy sniffing around the small back garden, wishing he’d spent more time – any time at all – weeding and tidying it. Thought about the manicured, endless, grounds of Malfoy manor.The fox was looking at him with raised eyebrows.Harry backed away. “I’ll, err, leave you to it.”Hurried back inside and, because it was the only thing he could think to do, made some tea.Paused, before pouring some into an old dog bowl of Sirius’s he found in a cupboard. Felt somewhere between stupid, and sentimental.Was he imagining that Malfoy somehow seemed to understand? An unreadable look when the fox padded into the kitchen, before it lowered its head to lap at the lukewarm tea.Harry, who’d spent the week leaving raw steaks on top of gravestones, and lurking at crossroads to jump out and throw bulbs of garlic at passing strangers, decided that this was the oddest evening he’d had for a long time.Trepidatiously, he checked the fridge to see if it contained anything even remotely promising for dinner; stumbled back the customary metre or two at the musk that greeted him. He really needed to clean it out more often. Added that to the several-rolls-of-parchment-long list of ‘things he ought to do better’ that he’d begun compiling, recently.Tentatively extracted a beer for himself, and exchanged glances with Malfoy, who, between his general melodramatic ridiculousness and his heightened fox sense of smell, was looking distinctly green.“Order in?” Pulling a stack of takeaway menus toward him.Draco Malfoy was a lot more tolerable as a fox than as a human, Harry reflected, stealing a glance at the fluffy white form toying with a garlic naan bread at the other end of the sofa.Once Malfoy had bullied him into ordering precisely none of the dishes Harry wanted from the local Indian restaurant, and, after a symphony of sceptical sniffing, had grudgingly accepted that Muggle food wasn’t going to poison him, fox or otherwise, they’d settled into a rather… nice evening.A one-sided, but somehow still losing, argument about what to listen to on the wizarding wireless – Harry had muttered a few quick spells to skip any of the news channels that would, inevitably, be discussing the latest on Lucius Malfoy’s trial. And then mutual disgust as they listened to the England Quidditch team being absolutely battered by Zanzibar.Another performance like this from the England Chasers, Harry thought, he and Malfox both echoing the commentator’s groan at another dropped Quaffle, and Ginny’s got a good chance of being picked for the World Cup squad-Then leapt about a metre up off the sofa, swearing.
Ginny. Dinner.
He’d completely forgotten.Dimly aware of Malfoy’s impassive gaze on his back, as he fumbled with the pot of floo powder on the mantlepiece, cursing his stupid forgetfulness.Spluttering as his head emerged amongst the embers of the fire in the living room of the Burrow. Maybe Ginny had gone home.“Hi Molly," he began, recognising the fluffy slippers, "I was wondering if Gin-"The words dying on his tongue as he took in the full scene in front of him.“Oh. Fuck- I mean… Hi Arthur. Sorry- I didn’t realise-" Face burning like it actually was sitting in the flames, and eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. “I’ll, err, see you at dinner next week.” Brain in paniced shutdown mode, its only thoughts of escape. “Have a… nice evening?”Dragged his head at lightspeed out of the fireplace, and slumped backward on the carpet, clawing at his eyes. No amount of scourgifying could ever scrub that image off his retinas.
Maybe sandpaper?
He groaned softly for another minute or two, before looking up into the very amused ice-blue gaze of the Arctic fox grooming its paws on his sofa.“Shut up, Malfoy,” he snapped. “This is your fault.”Wishing he’d kept the contact details of all the psychiatrists who had pressed their business cards into his hands, in the year or two after the Battle of Hogwarts.Acting like a melodramatic nun won’t help the angry girlfriend situation, the fox’s expression seemed to say.“Since when are you any good at relationships, anyway?” Harry muttered. Wondering, for the first time all day, why Malfoy hadn’t sought out someone like Pansy Parkinson to help him with his furry little problem.Ice blue eyes held green for a moment, before Malfoy leaned down to, in a supremely unbothered manner, steal the last onion bhaji from the grease-stained paper plate on the coffee table.Harry didn’t think that he could blame the swooping feeling in his insides on the altogether-too-much of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that he’d just seen.He shook himself. Angry girlfriend, Harry. Focus.
Ron might know where Ginny was.
He took a deep breath before scattering some more floo powder into the grate.Peering through the green sparks in the little wood burning stove Hermione had talked her and Ron’s sceptical landlord into letting them install in their new flat.Harry groaned in dismayed disbelief, at the sight that assaulted his already-scarred eyes. “Oh, come on, not you two, as well? What in Merlin’s scrotum is up with everybody this evening?”A yelp, some swearing and the hasty rearrangement of sofa cushions.“It’s Friday night, Harry.” Ron and Harry had walked in on each other far too many times for Ron to sound embarrassed. Just more-than-slightly out of breath, and very frustrated. “And what do you mean by ‘as well’?”Harry decided to spare Ron the ruined childhood.“Nothing. Look, have you seen Gin? We were supposed to have dinner and I… I forgot.” He hung his head a bit, which earned him a slightly singed chin as it dipped into the embers.“Harry, that’s terrible!” Hermione’s head poked out from over Ron’s shoulder – hair even more bushy and askew than usual. Brightened when she saw his face. "Oh, you worked out how to reverse the animagus spell, then?""Let's just- What?" Ron was clearly quite keen to get Harry out of his fireplace, and resume his and Hermione’s previous activities. "Animagus?"Harry didn't really feel like going into it."Don't worry. False alarm. Tentacles all under control, Hermione?""Tentacles-?" Ron looked from Hermione's thumbs-up, and back to Harry for a confused few seconds.His libido, though, seemed to override his curiousity. “We haven’t heard from Ginny," he shook his head, a tone of finality in his voice. "I’m sorry, mate.”
Damn.
“Oh well, thanks. I’ll, err, see you for brunch on Sunday? Have a… nice evening.” Harry cringed as he dragged his head back out of the fireplace.“Buy her flowers,” he heard Hermione call out, as he re-emerged in Grimmauld Place with a ‘pop’. “Nice flowers.”I really don’t want to know, the fox blinked at him.“No,” Harry agreed. “You really don’t.”It must have been the many, many beers, trying to erase the memories of things glimpsed through fireplaces and the nagging guilt at having been such a dick to Ginny, coupled with his exhaustion from the week’s vampire hunting, but Harry had no real memory of falling asleep on the sofa.It was already mid-morning by the time he woke up, to the irritated tapping of Ginny’s owl at the front window, and a decidedly fox-free living room.He didn’t know why he felt a slight stab of disappointment at that.A soft throw blanket, which he barely remembered owning, let alone retrieving from the linen cupboard last night, had been pulled carefully over top of him.Some tufts of white fur scattered around the carpet, his favourite hoodie and a pair of his Chudley Cannons boxer shorts missing from his wardrobe.All of his paperwork on the Vale of Clywd vampires impeccably filed, and his more egregious spelling errors corrected in neat cursive.And an order confirmation from Floriblunders for a very large, very expensive bunch of flowers, to be delivered to Ginny at the Burrow. With a little note on top that read, Not great at relationships, but still a damn sight better than you, Potter.Which Harry decided to take to mean, in Malfoy’s inimitable style, thankyou.