Say it. Out loud.

 

Please, sir. I WOULD LIKE MY DAILY ELSA FIX TO BE SATISFIED.

BY THE AUTHORITY GIVEN TO ME BY THE PLOT BUNNY COMMIITEE, I CHALLENGE YOU TO WRITE THE ELSA/HICCUP FIC.

 

Harry Potter/Black Widow - sort of.

~*~*~​

July 4, 1996

When the three gleaming black Land Rovers turned onto Privet Drive Harry knew that they were there for him. They were totally out of place in Little Whinging and to Harry’s thinking that meant that they were there for him. They pulled up outside of Number Four and Harry stood, dropping the trowel he had been holding blade first into the rose garden.

Thirteen people disembarked from the vehicles, all male. Twelve of them were dressed in black suits with white shirts that didn’t hide the bulges on their hips. The thirteenth man was wore a long, black leather coat and unrelieved black beneath it. His left eye was covered by an eye patch. While most of the Suits spread out around the vehicles the other man approached Harry, two Suits following three steps behind him. Boss man, Harry decided.

Harry felt in his back pocket for his wand, reassuring himself that it was there, and wondered where his Order guard was. This seemed like the type of situation they should intervene in.

“Harry Potter, I’m Director Nick Fury with SHIELD,” the leader said as he came to a stop just outside of arm’s length. “I have an offer for you.”

Harry wondered what SHIELD was as he moved left, slowly and obviously, so that his back was to Number Six’s open yard rather than boxed in by Number Four’s front wall.

“Uh huh. I’m sure that if my mother raised me she would have told me not to accept offers from strange men.” Despite the situation Harry didn’t feel threatened. That didn’t make him relax though. He hadn’t felt threatened around Quirrell either.

“What would she about a strange man offering you the chance to kill your dark lord?”

Harry bristled. “He’s not my dark lord!” he said sharply.

“Alright but the question stands,” Fury said.

“I like to think she’d tell me to listen to the man,” Harry said. “Make your offer, Director, and make it quick. I expect my Headmaster will be arriving soon.”

“We’ve got as much time as we want. It’s been arranged,” Fury said.

~*~*~​

December 17, 1996

“Director, is this necessary?” Coulson asked.

They were standing in an elevated observation room, looking down on a training area through one way glass. Coulson held a thin file marked Project: Knight. The project was newly conceived and part of the older Operation Overwatch, the recruitment of intelligence sources within the wizarding world. The file held a photo of Harry Potter – the same one on his SHIELD identification – a copy of his psychological assessment and his current training regime. There was also a brief mission statement for Project: Knight.

“Hand-to-hand combat won’t help him against wizards, at least not enough to justify the time being devoted to it,” Coulson continued.

“It won’t,” Fury agreed as Harry was tossed to the training mats. There was a smear of blood on his lips and his torso showed several old bruises from past training sessions and several new bruises that were just coming out. “It’ll teach him discipline though, and he needs that.”

Coulson made a non-committal noise. “It’s Christmas soon. Have you given any thought to my proposal that we let him have some furlough?”

“No furlough, there’s too much to do and not enough time. I want him field ready in three months.”

“That’s not enough time!” Coulson protested as Harry caught his instructor’s attack and used the opening to hit him in the solar plexus. He brought his knee up into the man’s face as he doubled over and followed it up with a blow to the head.

“It looks like he’s getting there. You’re his supervising officer Coulson, figure it out,” Fury said. “And find him another hand-to-hand instructor. Try the new guy, Barton.”

~*~*~​

March 8, 2002

The FSB agent spat blood and cried out as Harry put pressure on the hole drilled through his right shoulder by a piercing curse.

“Tell me a story and tell it true, Sergei. Who told you to kill me? Was it your government or are you freelancing?”

Sergei’s laughed harshly. “You idiot,” he said in English with a flawless Midwest American accent. “We were just the bait.” He looked pass Harry to a high roof in the crumbling, fake city that had once been used to train Soviet agents in American ways.

Harry smiled at him as a small explosion rocked the roof. “So was I. Hawkeye, Knight. Target status?”

“Black Widow is moving,” Hawkeye reported. “I’m in pursuit.”

“Copy that. Call me if you need assistance.” Harry knelt next to Sergei; keep the tip of the Deathstick pressed firmly against his chest. “SHIELD knows that your operations team was ordered to lure me into a trap where Black Widow could kill me. We decided to use the opportunity to kill Widow. We also want to know who ordered the hit. You will tell me. The only question is, will you go to a SHIELD holding facility or the morgue afterwards. The first is what happens if you tell me voluntarily. The second is what happens if I have to dig the information out of your mind.”

Sergei grimaced and raised his hands in surrender. “It was a freelance job. I brought Widow in as an outside contractor to do the hit while my team lured you in.”

“And who’s behind the contract?” Harry demanded.

Harry recognised the name that Sergei gave him. He’d killed the woman’s son in West Africa eighteen months earlier. A SHIELD operations team would be paying the woman a visit in the very near future. He stunned Sergei. Fury had wanted him brought back alive. He had some valuable contacts that SHIELD could make use of and a wealth of knowledge about the FSB.

“Hawkeye, what’s your status?”

“Heading to pick-up.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Harry said, levitating Sergei’s unconscious form with a flick of his wand.

~*~*~​

Harry felt his eyebrows climb as he watched Barton approach with Black Widow at his side. He ran his eyes over her, assessing her just like he had been trained to do. He judged her to be about five seven, a lot of it leg as showcased by her tight black bodysuit. Her hair was auburn rather than the red it said in her SHIELD file. She’s hot. Harry could see why she’d become such a good seductress.

“Change of plans,” Barton said. “Harry, Natasha. Natasha, Harry.”

Natasha offered him a small nod but most of her attention was focused on Sergei.

“We had a talk,” Barton explained, watching Natasha carefully. “I told her what Sergei’s secondary objective was. It helped clarify some things for her.” Sergei had been planning to collect two contracts in one day by using Black Widow to kill Harry then using his rogue FSB operations team to kill Widow according to SHIELD’s intelligence.

“I need him alive,” Harry said with a hint of warning in his voice.

Her green eyes snapped to him. Harry noticed that they were several shades lighter than his own eyes. “I’m not going to kill him.”

Harry wondered if he was the only one who heard an unspoken ‘yet’. He wondered if it was wrong that he found her potential for violence sexy as hell. Hermione did say that I have a thing for dangerous women.

Any reply was cut off by the sound of an unmarked Antonov An-2 coming in to land on the dirt runway. It rolled to a stop seventy metres from the group and two SHIELD agents dressed in plain fatigues disembarked, assault rifles held crosswise across their bodies.

Barton set off towards the plane, Natasha easily keeping pace beside him. Harry followed, making sure to stay out of Black Widow’s reach. He couldn’t but notice how well her arse was displayed in the bodysuit.

World class assassin Harry, he reminded himself.

~*~*~​

March 10, 2002

“Were your orders unclear, Agent Barton?” Fury demanded, glaring at the archer.

“No, Director,” Barton replied, unfazed by the anger.

He and Harry were standing in an ‘at ease’ position in front of Fury’s borrowed desk. The office door was closed tight but everyone in the larger room outside it could hear the timbre of the words being spoken, if not the words themselves. Fury was impressed how his anger didn’t seem to bother them, though he’d never say it. They wouldn’t have been two of his best covert operatives if they were bothered by something like his displeasure.

“Agent Potter, an explanation please? You were the one Romanoff was going to kill.”

Harry shrugged carelessly. “It’s hard to take that personally Director. She was just doing her job.”

Harry thought that he saw the ghost of a smile cross over Fury’s face at his words, though he wouldn’t have bet money on it. He knew that his attitude, so different from the one that he had come into SHIELD with, was the reason for it.

“And you didn’t do yours!”

“Director, Black Widow possesses a great deal of knowledge about Russian covert operations and many of SHIELD’s targets, decades’ worth of secrets if the rumours are true. She also has many valuable skills that SHIELD would find useful,” Barton interjected.

For the first time since the meeting had begun Fury was surprised. “You want me to make her an agent! She’s …” Fury hesitated.

“A monster, Director?” Barton asked.

Fury met his hard stare with one of his own. “Yes Barton, she’s a monster.”

“So am I, Director,” Harry said quietly and a tense silence descended over the other two men. “Black Widow – Natasha – has done some bad things, Ivan Drakoff’s daughter, that hospital fire in Sao Paulo and more stuff than we even know about. I’ve done stuff that’s just as bad. We were in Russia because I killed Anna Petrov’s son. He wasn’t the only one I killed that day, Director. There were three hundred men in that village when I drowned it. And the stuff I did during the war, the werewolves …” Harry fell silent, remembering.

In 1997 Fenrir Greyback commanded nearly seventy werewolves and those werewolves had families. With the Dark Lord in retreat, crumbling under the assault of SHIELD’s wizarding mercenaries who operated as a fictitious Order-like group for whom Harry served as a figurehead, Greyback had taken his pack into the Welsh wilderness, sheltering amongst the same mountains and valleys that had sheltered Welsh guerrillas in centuries past. SHIELD had pulled Harry from the field and sent him to negotiate with several prominent Welsh families who had holdings near Greyback’s hideout. The families were mostly neutral in the war, with the odd child joining one side or another, but they largely regarded it as an English war.

Harry had brought the heads of the six families together, told them what SHIELD knew about Greyback’s location and showed them the aftermath of some of his attacks. The families had banded together and assaulted the camp. They had killed everyone they found there, including several dozen children, not all of whom had inherited the curse from their parents. Harry had toured the camp afterwards and only the threat of a dozen Welsh wands had kept him from turning on the wizards for breaking their agreement to not harm the children.

Harry had wanted to run from the UK after the tour. Instead he’d returned to his mercenaries. The next day he’d led an attack on a Death Eater safe house and killed three Death Eaters. Two months later he had finally killed Voldemort and then vanished from the UK, calling on all of his SHIELD training and war experience to disappear. Phil Coulson had pulled him out of a bar in Santiago less than three weeks later and less than a month later he was doing operations again.

“We’re not so different, Natasha and I,” Harry said at last. “The main difference is that I did those things under your orders and she didn’t.”

Fury turned away from his agents and looked out the office’s small window. It wasn’t an impressive view. SHIELD maintained a small office on Patch Barracks, a US military installation in Stuttgart-Vaihingen in Germany and from the office manager’s office – which Fury had commandeered – all that could be seen were drab institutional buildings.

“You’ll be responsible for her, both of you. If she goes rogue everything that happens will be on the two of you and it will be your responsibility to fulfil your original orders, understood?”

“Yes, Director,” Barton and Harry said together. Fury ignored the self-satisfaction that he heard in their voices.

“Get out.”

~*~*~​

April 9, 2004

“That looks complicated.”

Hermione jumped, sending her chair crashing to the ground, and spun around to see the smiling face of one of her best and oldest friends. “Harry, I told you not to do that,” she scolded.

Harry shrugged. “I couldn’t help myself. You were just so oblivious sitting there.” He sniffed theatrically. “A SHIELD agent should have better situational awareness,” he said, channelling one of his first combat instructors.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I’m Research, not field operations. I don’t need situational awareness, just the patience to deal with the apes in field operations.”

Harry pantomimed being injured and grinned. He wasn’t insulted, despite being one of those apes. He knew that Hermione was one of those rare members of the support branches who understood that field operatives had more than three brain cells between them.

“What are you working on?”

“Something magical,” Hermione said.

Harry rolled his eyes. That was a given since Hermione was a researcher with SHIELD’s burgeoning Mystical Division and on the fast track to lead her own research team.

“And classified,” Hermione added.

“All the good stuff is,” Harry said sagely. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes. I’m getting married this July and I haven’t received your RSVP.”

“You know I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it for … well, there are things that I’d miss it for,” Harry admitted somewhat sheepishly. “But only end of the world stuff, I promise.”

It was Hermione’s turn to roll her eyes. “And will you be bringing a plus one? And what about Ron’s bachelor party? It’s your job as best man to organise it.”

“Put me down as Potter plus one. I’m sure I’ll find someone, even if I have to pay her. That was a joke, honest!” he said at Hermione’s unamused look. “The bachelor party’s organised and paid for. It’s going to be awesome.”

“Excellent,” Hermione said primly.

Harry’s smile had grown during the conversation and he regarded Hermione with fondness. She hadn’t changed much in over a decade of friendship and he regarded her unchanging nature as a cornerstone in his tumultuous life. Sometimes he envied the stability that she and Ron shared and then he remembered that he had one of the best jobs in the world – even with the bad parts.

He checked his watch. “How about lunch? I’m buying.”

“Just let me put my papers away and grab my jacket.” Hermione started to turn back to her work but stopped. “Harry, that SHIELD agent, Donaldson, tried to recruit Ron.”

“I figured he would eventually,” Harry said. “Ron’s become a good Auror, made some big cases. He has skills that SHIELD can use.”

Hermione grabbed a handful of her shirt and twisted it in agitation. “I don’t want him to,” she said plaintively. “Being an Auror is one thing but SHIELD …” she swallowed heavily. “I only get the smallest glimpse of what you do Harry but the thought of Ron doing even that terrifies me. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

Harry grimaced, considering. “I don’t have much say over who gets recruited, not even into the Mystical Division. I can make suggestions but that’s a skill-based assessment. Donaldson won’t leave Ron alone just because I ask; he’s pissed off enough that he’s stuck doing recruitment.” Donaldson was a good agent who wanted to be great. He wanted Phil Coulson’s job as Fury’s go to guy and had made some mistakes pursuing that job and been shunted sideways into recruitment. He went about it zealously, determined to regain his previous rank. “I’ll speak with Coulson and if it comes to it I might be able to pull some strings and get Ron a position in training.”

Hermione grasped his hand, looking relieved. “Thank you so much.”

Harry smiled, a warm feeling in his chest. “Don’t mention it.”

~*~*~​

July 7, 2004

Harry felt the air get forced from his lungs as Natasha flipped him to the ground and then landed on top of him, straddling his stomach. Her blunt practice came to rest against his throat. His own practice knife was halfway across the otherwise empty training room.

“You win,” Harry wheezed, trying to ignore the rise and fall of Natasha’s breasts beneath her thin, snug shirt.

Natasha removed the knife from his throat and slid off of his stomach while Harry pulled himself into a sitting position as his breathing returned to normal.

“I have to stop sparring with you,” he said as he pushed himself to his feet. He admired Natasha’s casual grace as she stood. There was a cat-like quality to it, it was … Harry cut the thought off before it went down a path he wasn’t willing to tread.

“It’s the best way to get better,” Natasha said. She lifted her arms above her head and stretched, arching her back. Her top rose as she did, revealing pale skin and a flat, taut stomach. “Should we go again?”

Harry went lashed out, fast and strong, but he hit nothing but empty air. Natasha was faster than him and could read his body language better than anyone he had ever met. She slipped to his side and Harry barely blocked her kidney shot, catching her soft, slender wrist in his calloused hand. He stepped closer, hampering her ability to stab at him with the practice knife, and used his forward momentum, greater height and weight to force her backwards, not stopping until her back was pressed against the wall.

Natasha stared up at him, barely resisting as he knocked the knife from her hand, caught the hand and pinned it to the wall above her head. Her weak resistance forced Harry to take stock of the situation. He became aware of her breasts pressed against his chest, of the hand that he had settled on her hip.

“You win,” Natasha said, her voice a low, throaty purr that sent a thrill of delight through Harry.

Harry lent forward, bringing his face closer to Natasha, their …

The training room door slammed open and he released Natasha and stepped away as a group of trainees flooded into the room. The instructor waved to them and Harry waved back while Natasha collected their gear.

They left the training room together in a companionable silence that held an undercurrent of emotion that Harry couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t tension but he knew that it was related to what had almost just happened.

“So, I need a date to a wedding,” he said without thinking. He swore at himself when he realised what he’d said. He’d intended to ask Natasha to be his date to Hermione and Ron’s wedding but after what had just happened it seemed inappropriate or like a bad pick up line.

“Oh, what wedding?”

“My friends Ron and Hermione, we went to Hogwarts together.” Long hours spent on observation jobs meant that both Barton and Natasha had a fairly good overview of his time at Hogwarts and what had brought him into SHIELD, just like he had a working knowledge of their pre-SHIELD lives. Knight was most often assigned as heavy duty back up for Hawkeye and Black Widow when they needed it, just like they were assigned as back up for him when he needed people with their skill-sets.

“It’s the seventeenth. I meant to ask you earlier but I got sent to Iraq.” An Iraqi wizard had been taking advantage of the growing chaos in his country for his own profit and when there wasn’t enough chaos to suit him he created it by attacking Coalition forces and his fellow Iraqis. The Assyrian Ministry had proven unequal to the task of capturing him once he went to ground amongst the non-magical population. The US President had contacted SHIELD and SHIELD had sent Harry in. It had taken him seven weeks to find and kill the wizard, most of it spent disguised as an Iraqi wizard.

“I’m free,” Natasha said. “I’d be happy to accompany you. Coulson will be happy that I’m taking some time off.” The agent’s responsibilities had been growing in scope for years but he still acted as a handler for a few select field agents, including Harry, Natasha and Barton.

“Thanks. I’ll arrange transport. I’m heading over on thirteenth for the bachelor party, do you want to come over then or …”

“That’s fine. Where is it?”

“Devon but I’m staying in London.” Harry had a flat in London that he barely used.

“I’ll arrange my accommodations accordingly then.”

Harry toyed with offering her the spare room in his flat but discarded the idea. It would seem like a come on after what had just happened. They stopped outside of the change rooms.

“Natasha, about what just happened,” Harry said against his better judgement.

Natasha looked at him, her green-eyed stare steady and revealing nothing. “You beat me,” she said in a tone of great finality. “It’s about time,” she said in a different tone. It took Harry a moment to recognise the tone. It was like the flirty tone that she used to approach targets but softer, more genuine.

Harry wondered if he imagined it and if he was reading a double meaning into her words that wasn’t there. Natasha smiled at him one last time and disappeared into the female change room, leaving Harry standing in the utilitarian hallway, puzzling over her choice of words and tone.

~*~*~​

July 17, 2004

Ron was too nervous to stand still so Harry had dragged him outside the church where he could pace properly. He was doing just that, being careful to avoid anything that might get his crisp, clean crimson Auror dress robes dirty. His lips were moving as he muttered his vows under his breath.

Harry ignored him. He was watching Natasha who had followed him out of the church along with Hermione’ father and grandfather and engaged both men in conversation while they waited for Hermione to arrive with her bridesmaids, mother, grandmother and Molly Weasley.

God she’s sexy, Harry thought.

A black dressed hugged her body, teasing onlookers with a hint of what was beneath it. The dress revealed a soft valley of creamy cleavage and ended mid-thigh, showing legs covered in sheer black stockings. Her auburn hair was artfully tousled, giving the impression that Natasha had just gotten out of bed – And that’s a thought I shouldn’t be thinking.

Hamish and John, Hermione’s grandfather and father, had been charmed by her in short order and not entirely because of her physical qualities. Both smart, educated professionals Natasha had engaged them in conversation and soon had their undivided attention while Harry gave up on trying to calm Ron down in favour of watching her.

Sensing eyes on her Natasha looked around, spotting him. She smiled at him, a bright, genuine expression that lit up her face. Harry returned the smile. He didn’t wonder if the smile was false, he knew her well enough to tell the differences.

“Your friend is very beautiful,” Albus Dumbledore said, arriving at Harry’s side almost unnoticed. There were few people who could manage that.

“Albus,” Harry said.

There was a hint of intangible tension in the air around the two powerful wizards and several onlookers, on seeing them standing together, unconsciously moved away, as those to escape the epicentre of a disaster. A handful – Kingsley Shacklebolt, Emmeline Vance, Bill and Charlie Weasley – moved closer, ready to separate them if it proved necessary. Harry and Dumbledore had learned to work together to win the war but those close to them knew that the enmity born in Harry’s Fifth Year had never entirely died.

“Have you given any thought to my last offer?” Dumbledore asked.

“I’m not really cut out to be a teacher.”

“On the contrary, you would make an excellent teacher, and while you are at Hogwarts there are things that I could teach you, great magic that isn’t written down but passed on from mentor to protégé.”

“That’s a tempting offer but there are other people who can teach me the things that you know, people who have already taught me some of the things you’re no doubt intending to share with me,” Harry said.

“Are you sure about that?” Dumbledore asked as Natasha broke away from her conversation and headed towards them.

“There is only one Albus Dumbledore,” Harry admitted, “but there are many great wizards.”

“Very true. Just remember, the offer stands.”

Dumbledore drifted away and Harry watched him go with an unreadable expression on his face. There were some wounds that not even time could heal. Natasha’s light touch pulled him from his reverie.

“Your friend’s here,” she said as a trio of gleaming silver Rolls Royces came into view.

~*~*~​

The ceremony went perfectly. Ron remembered all of his vows and there were no commotions. After the ‘I dos’ and the kiss, the wedding party left the church for a nearby marquee that had been set up for the reception.

Harry found himself pulled away from Natasha’s side – his place taken by a number of other male suitors – to handle a dozen different minor issues that popped up, all without drawing Ron and Hermione’s attention. He was also determined to avoid Mrs Weasley as much as possible. The kindly woman had given up on getting him to marry Ginny (who was unmarried and three months pregnant with her first child and very quiet on the subject of the father) but was determined that he would marry someone and settle down and have a family and live her version of happiness. It was nice that someone cared but Harry decided that he could do without the aggravation.

“You can stop,” Natasha said as she handed him a glass of three thousand dollar scotch, several bottles of which had been donated for the wedding party. “The tent could turn down and they wouldn’t notice,” she added, nodding at Ron and Hermione.

They were on the dance floor and seemed oblivious to everyone around them. Harry looked at them and then looked around. Mrs Weasley and Fleur were sniping at each other – when aren’t they? – and a caterer was stealing food while one of Ron’s cousin’s was becoming progressively drunker and louder. Ron and Hermione hadn’t noticed any of it or if they had they didn’t care.

“Let’s dance,” Natasha suggested, pulling him onto the dance floor, barely pausing to let him place his empty glass on a passing caterer’s tray.

His hand settled easily on her hip and he could feel the warmth of her skin through the dress’s thin fabric. Harry felt comfortable on the dance floor with Natasha; despite the people he could see watching him. Having so many eyes on him normally made him wary, an occupational hazard, but with Natasha in his arms that was pushed to the back of his mind.

“I have to make a speech soon but after that, do you want to get out of here?” Harry asked, his heart thumping in his chest.

Natasha looked at him with an unreadable expression. “I’d like that.”

~*~*~​

This got away from me and I’m ending it here because 4700 words is enough. I didn’t intend to write more than two thousand words but it turned into the Plot Bunny that Never Was. You know the one, that idea you come up with and you write down just to get out of your mind before you realise that it isn’t very good for some reason. Maybe you’ve only got a beginning, maybe you’re not willing to devote the time needed to write the story.

The plot bunny that inspired this centred on the idea that SHIELD recruited Harry post-Fifth Year and ended up with a Harry/Natasha pairing.

 

@Peace

Not really what I expected romance-wise but now I want to see the plot bunny made into a larger story.

Well done.

 

ITS NOT ENOUGH.

 

This so much. You must write the full story or at least post the whole plot bunny.

 

What plot bunny is there in this story? It's more fit for a one-shot.

And how much of a crossover would this even be? Would just SHIELD exist in the HP world, or would it be the whole Marvel line-up?

Edit: just saw the tags for this thread and spent a whole minute laughing.

 

Nice Peace please write more. My half empty friend Jim says that you should get a mention in tags for that alone. I agree.

 

Oh no. You did not just quote Twilight in this thread.

 

Here is the problem I am facing. Regarding my Hiccup/Elsa fic, I have:
a) Created an outline.
b) Written about 7k into the next chapter.

There are three possible courses of action for this.
1) I post it here. Not reccomended, because even I can see that it would stretch the purpose of thread too much.

2) Make a WBA thread, and have absolutely no response. Again.

3) Continue posting on FFNet and post links here.

Thoughts?

 

FFN sounds like the best course - feedback here and there, right? Or you could post so much of it in thread and cap it off while linking to the full thing elsewhere.

 

It's happening. I'm not sure how, or when, but it's gonna happen.

 

Republic, start posting this on FF net. I'll follow it.

Don, you are my hero.

 

Glad to hear it. I scribed off a thing but it wasn't particularly inspired.

 

Harry/Mab story pt 1

A/n: Here you go, Rep. There's more to come, but I feel I've at least managed to set the scene, so to speak.



Harry had never been to a funeral before, but it was every bit as difficult as he’d always imagined. The mood was disturbingly bipolar and people went from laughing as they told old stories to crying over others. The speeches had been given, the casket lowered into the ground and he’d manage to do what was necessary by ending things with Ginny.

He remained in his seat for a while, observing the people who walked up to the open grave, dropping flowers or simply taking a silent moment. He’d been tracking Kingsley Shacklebolt’s progress back from the grave when he spotted Her.

It was one of those moments that would’ve been played in slow-motion in the movies and to Harry, it almost felt like reality froze for a second. It was the same woman he’d seen in Dumbledore’s office.

She walked down the aisle between the chairs with a confident stride in her business suit of charcoal gray. Despite the situation, Harry couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting down and sticking like glue to her perfectly rounded pert posterior for several seconds.

The woman stood by Dumbledore’s grave for a little while, still as a statue and it struck Harry that people weren’t staring. Not even the veela he’d seen at the Quidditch World Cup had been as hauntingly beautiful as – whoever she was – was. People seemed to be aware of her presence, but not more.

It had to be a spell of some sort, he concluded. He had the theory of her magical abilities confirmed a moment later when the woman conjured a single rose, coated in frost and dropped it down the grave. Then, a moment later, she turned – towards Harry in point of fact – and steered her steps in his direction. Oh boy.

His instincts screamed at his to get out of the chair and run, but his legs refused to cooperate and a second later, she settled down in the chair Ginny had vacated a couple of minutes earlier.

“You were there when he died.” It wasn’t a question and yet the statement demanded an answer.

“Yes,” Harry said shortly. He’d had this talk several times since that night and was in no mood for an encore. He could feel the weight of the woman’s gaze on him and despite the fact that she was slender and only a couple of inches taller than he, it made him feel an awful lot like when the lions at the Zoo observed him.

Her green eyes were intent and – Harry noted with a start – slitted like a cat’s. She might not be human, but she had been Dumbledore’s friend and as far as Harry was concerned, that was what really mattered.

So Harry told her about what had happened that night at the lightning-struck tower. They sat in silence a while after he’d finished speaking.

“You may call me Mab,” the woman said softly.

Harry blinked, then held out his hand. “Harry Potter.”

Mab’s fingers were cold and smooth and instead of shaking her hand, as he’d initially intended, he brought it up to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to it.
That put a crack in Mab’s cool mask and one corner of her mouth twitched in a brief smile.

“A bold young man,” she murmured. “Considering your teacher, I suppose a streak of impertinence is to be expected.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat up under her intent gaze and looked straight ahead as the silence stretched one.

“I hear you are to undertake a quest,” Mab said, her voice low.
Harry glanced at her and tried to keep his face neutral, but it didn’t seem to fool Mab.

“Fret not, child,” she told him. “It is not my intention to stand in your path. Quite the contrary.”

Harry forced down the conflicting feelings of nervousness, fear, sorrow and lust and met Mab’s gaze squarely.

“Why would you help me?”

“Favors owed,” Mab murmured softly. “You are about to embark on a perilous journey, Harry Potter, and you will need all the help that is available.”

Harry shuddered. There was something about the way she pronounced his name that made him feel like she’d just grabbed hold of him.

“And what help would you give me?” He asked.

Mab leaned in close enough for Harry to feel her cold breath on his ear, and her voice turned into a husky honeyed caress.

“Everything you will need and more besides, that I promise you.”

Harry swallowed and awkwardly crossed his legs to hide the effect she was having on him.

“Yeah- okay,” he said squeakily. “Do you know where I live?”

“Yes.” Mab stood, and leaned down over him. She put velvet soft hands on his cheeks and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“I shall see you soon. Farewell.”

Harry watcher her leave. There was no way to keep his eyes from descending this time either, but at least he didn’t drool. Half-way down the aisle, Mab came to a slow halt. She looked over her shoulder and her knowing smirk let Harry know he’d been caught. There was a gust of unseasonably cold wind, and she was gone.

 

See, Zeelthor? Wasn't that hard, was it?

Yeah, but the thing is, I could really use the help of some critique before I go public with it on ffnet.

 

Well I certainly would get into that WBA thread.

 

Well, one guy is better than none. WBA thread it is.

---------- Post automerged at 03:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:53 PM ----------

Posted.
A Chance Encounter

 

Fair point. I'll go over it when I wake up tomorrow and drop some feedback for you, Rep.

 

I find Bowmore to be the best Islay malt to inspire creativity