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petitemistletoe · 10 months

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Mediator

Pairing: James Potter x Reader, Remus Lupin x Reader

Warnings: smut and a little bit of angst!

Word Count: 2.7K+

A/N: a short one this time! but I absolutely adore this one so I hope you do too!

You can tell a lot about a person from the way they look when they drop off their kids in the morning. The afternoon is different, people have time to get ready to look put together in the afternoon, but the morning is telling. It was interesting to watch Harry Potter get dropped off every morning. His mother and his father were very different people in all cases but especially in the morning. His mother started work early in the morning, so the 7am drop-off was right on her way. She always wore something professional, some nice slacks or dress with a blazer or a blouse and a clean pair of heels. She wore a necklace, generally a string of pearls with a matching earring set, and a beautiful wedding ring on her fourth finger.

However, over the course of the past year, the wedding ring disappeared and a series of rings that matched her outfits took that place on her fourth finger. She always pleasant in the morning, holding a cup of coffee-or rather tea now, she switched after her divorce-in one hand and her son on her hip. Harry’s father was another story. No one was going to deny that James Potter was a gorgeous man, but to say that he was disheveled in the mornings was an understatement. He generally sped to the drop-off center, sometimes in his pajamas or workout clothes, or on one strange instance, in full quidditch kit complete the broom and goggles that made the workers at the daycare swoon. Sometimes he had an energy drink or protein shake with him and he usually was tugging a drowsy Harry along with him, apologizing profusely for being late. He still wore his wedding ring, much to the chagrin of many women who had their eye on the attractive actor. It was no secret that Harry Potter’s parents had problems despite the fact that James Potter still loved his ex-wife very very much. That why this particular visit to the mediator changed the everything.

“I don’t think I’m being unreasonable on this,” James said, arms crossed over his chest.

“You don’t think it’s unreasonable that I’m not allowed to have any adult I’m not related to in my house on my days with Harry?” You bit your lip and glared at your ex-husband.

“I have a compromise,” the mediator said, cutting off any of James’s smart remarks, “While it may be a bit extreme to ban all adults from your home, I think it’s very reasonable that any adult that is going to be around your son needs to be approved by the both of you.”

“Is this because of Remus?” You asked.

“Who’s Remus?” The mediator asked.

“A friend from work,” You sighed.

“Much more than just a friend from work.” James spat. This had all started when James had picked up his four year old, Harry, from school.

“Hey Harry, how was school?” James asked as he peeled out of the school’s parking lot.

“Good! Daddy I want to work in the ministry when I grow up!” Harry giggled from the backseat.

“Work in the ministry? Just like your mom, huh? You want to work in the department of magical accidents and catastrophes and solve problems?” James chuckled a little bit, trying not to think too much about you.

“No, I want to work in control of magical teachers.”

“Magical teachers? Oh magical creatures! Where’d you hear about magical creatures?”

“From Mommy’s friend Remus. He’s in the department of magical creatures and he helps creatures like werewolf and centaurs and dragons. I want to do that when I’m older!”

“Mommy’s friend Remus?” There was a ringing in James ears as he pulled up to his house. He helped Harry out of the car and lead him inside. Harry hopped up onto the kitchen counter as James reached into the fridge to pull out a plate of pre-cut and washed carrots.

“Yuckie. I want crisps.” Harry grumbled, pushing the plate of veggies away.

“Crisps aren’t good for you, you know. Especially not crisps like these,” James reached into the cabinet and pulled out a bag of sour cream and onion chips.

“Please please please please!” Harry begged.

“Tell me more about Remus,” James said, waving the bag in front Harry teasingly.

“He’s Mommy’s special friend. Yesterday he came over and made pasta for us! He spends a lot of time with Mommy now and sometimes he sleeps in her bed. Last week we went to the muggle movie theater and had popcorn and we saw Indiana Jones and it was so cool! Indiana Jones was like shoo shoo and he was running the bad guys and it was like boom boom and brah brah and-”

“You did great, buddy. Go crazy, I have a call to make.” James tossed Harry the bag and dialed the number the meditator that you both had used when you first divorced. He couldn’t bring himself to actually call the meditator though, it felt like crazy overkill. As the clock hit 7:30, James put a sleepy Harry in the car and drove him back to your place, prepared to have a nice, calm, conversation with you about your ‘special friend’ Remus. He wasn’t prepared, however, to see a tall, tan, drop-dead gorgeous, dark-haired man who James had once called a friend answer your doorbell in your short silk lavender robe.

“Oh James, you’re not pizza. Are you?” Remus laughed sheepishly.

“Remmy!” Harry murmured in his half asleep state, snuggling further into James’s arms.

“Been alright James?” Remus extended his hand awkwardly.

“Is she here?” James refused Remus’s hand and glared at him.

“Um, yeah, she’s here. Come on in.” Remus stepped back and let James walk into the house. He heard you humming as you walked out of your bedroom, only wearing a white button up that obviously did not belong to you.

“James? What are you doing here?”

“I’m dropping off Harry, bud go to your room. Your mom and I will be in a minute to tuck you in.” James set Harry down on the floor and watched him patter away.

“Why are you dropping him off now? You have to call before you show up you know that.” You crossed your arms over your chest.

“It’s not my fault you’re too busy fucking other men to realize what day you need to expect your son.”

“You’re supposed to drop him off on Thursday.” Your jaw was set.

“It is Thursday.”

“It’s Wednesday!”

“Wednesday? No,” James’s eyes darted to the calendar on the fridge and sighed, “shit.”

“It’s fine, James. Nico can stay here tonight, just go please.” You rubbed your temples.

“I’m not leaving Harry here with your man-whore.” James spat.

“That’s not fair, James.” Remus started but you and James both turned to him and said,

“Stay out of this!”

“Fine.” Remus said, chuckling awkwardly and walking to the bedroom to change.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t come to my house and use that talk about my friends like that.” You spun on your heel to face James.

“I’ll talk anyway I want to when it concerns my child.” James spat back, getting closer to your face.

“I, uh, I’m gonna head out.” Remus was standing at the door with a pair of pants and blazer that didn’t really cover his bare chest.

“Probably for the best.” James pursed his lips. Remus left and the only noise in the room was the sound of the door closing and a car starting up and reversing out of the drive.

“I think you should leave,” you said after a few moments of silence.

“Listen,”

“You know, James, that Remus only has mine and Harry’s best interest at heart. This isn’t some random guy, this is a man who we’ve known since we were eleven years old. One of your best fucking friends.” You said, trying hard not to raise your voice and alert Harry.

“Exactly. He was my best friend and now you’re fucking him.” James crossed his arms.

“You have no right to be jealous! We’re divorced!” You cried.

“Are you two fighting?” Harry asked, rubbing his eye and keeping a tight grip on a stuffed bunny.

“No, no, buddy. I’ll be in in a minute to kiss you goodnight.” You said, staying quiet until Harry made his way back to his room.

“No you listen here,” James started.

“No. Just go. Neither one of us are going to be able to say anything useful now. I’m just going to call the mediator and we can talk there.” You didn’t wait to hear James’s response, you walked back to your room and listened for the sound of the door clicking shut.

And that was where you were, sitting across the table from your ex-husband and trying to resist the urge to scream.

“You know what? I think it might be helpful for the two of you to go to dinner and just talk about what you want for your son. I think you’ll find that you both have Harry’s best interest at heart and hopefully it’ll help your relationship.” The mediator suggested. You bit the inside of your cheek and looked at James.

“Well I’m game if you are,” James was waiting for you to say no. You weren’t one to shrink from a challenge, however, and you nodded.

“Sounds great. I like Italian so let’s do Bocellini's at 8. I’ll get a sitter.” You walked out of the mediator’s office, thinking about this dinner tonight. At 7:30, you were finishing your glass of wine when the sitter rang the doorbell.

“Hey you look nice! Do you have another date with Remus?” Lily asked, walking into the house.

“No, I’m meeting with James actually, not Remus. Our mediator suggested this.” You slipped your coat on.

“Oh, uh, this is gonna get awkward then. His car pulled into the driveway after mine.” Lily said with wide eyes.

“Shit. Uh, I should be back by eleven at the latest. Thanks Lily! You’re the best.” You ran out the door and stared at Remus, who was walking up to the house with a bouquet in hand.

“What are you doing here?” You hissed, “James is coming to pick me up in 10 minutes.”

“I wanted you to know that I’m in love with you.” Remus said with a grin.

“Okay great now get out!”

“Alright,” Remus started to walk away when something clicked in your mind.

“Wait!” You ran to him and put your hands on his shoulders, “you love me?”

“Yeah. I was going to give you this, but I guess you’re busy.” Remus tossed you a small velvet box. You looked in and saw an engagement ring.

“Oh Remus…”

“I know its fast and I’m not saying we need to get married right away, but I love you and I love Harry. I want to be there for the both of you.”

“Oh God, Remus, you have the worst damn timing.” You stared at the ring.

“Don’t answer now. Have a good dinner, we’ll talk tomorrow.” Remus kissed you before getting into his car and driving away. You barely had enough time to shove the ring in your bag before James pulled into the driveway.

“How’s Harry?” James asked as the waiter poured wine for the two of you. You and James had been silent the entire car ride over.

“Good. Career day is next week and I’ll be going but Harry wants you there too. He wants his big shot quidditch star dad to talk about touring with the Bats.” You said, taking a sip of wine and pursing your lips.

“Why did we ever get divorced?” James asked.

“Really?” You laughed humorlessly, “You don’t remember? You don’t remember the fighting and the arguments?”

“I do, of course I do. But…things were good when we were together.” James said.

“Oh my God. James, you can’t be serious.” But you knew that look in James’s eyes. He was reminiscing, remembering the good times. And there were good times, as much as you loathed to admit it, and the good times were real good.

“Come on, don’t you remember that time that we went to the beach to have dinner and I brought a bag of crab legs and we didn’t have our wands and we couldn’t open them so I ran over them with my car to try and crack the shells?” James asked. You couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yeah, that didn’t work either. We ended up going through a drive-thru and getting burgers, fries, and shakes.” You giggled. “Those were the best burgers I’ve ever had.” James laughed.

“Would you make those burgers your last meal?”

“No, come on, what about that fresh penne a la vodka in Rome we got on our trip to Italy, that would be my last meal.” James licked his lips, practically salivating at the thought.

“Oh that was incredible. Almost as good as the tortellini we got in Napoli.” You grinned.

“Have you decided what you’d like to start with?” The waiter asked, interrupting the reminiscing.

“Uh, I’m going to get the penne a la vodka and…what about it, love? Tortellini?” James asked with a sly smile.

“I think that sounds great,” you smiled at the waiter. You hardly had a chance to try your food however, before James was carrying you into the bathroom, his lips on yours as your back his the wall. You snaked your fingers through his hair and moaned as he moved to your neck.

“Fuck James,” you gasped wrapping your legs tighter around his waist. His large hands went to your top, pulling it off and getting your bra off with it. He started squeezing your breasts and flicking at your nipples with one hand and shoving his fingers in your mouth. You held eye contact with him as you ran your tongue over the digits and you could feel him getting harder by the second.

“Dammit, love, I forgot how fucking hot you are.” He cursed, removing his fingers from your mouth and shoving them inside you.

“Shit,” you cursed as James scissored his forefinger and middle finger inside you while rubbing your clit with his thumb. You adjusted your position slightly and practically came right then and there as his middle finger brushed against your g-spot.

“Faster,” you moaned against James’s lips.

“Are you going to cum?” He asked, rubbing your clit faster. You nodded, your bottom lip coming into contact with his lips. He sucked your bottom lip into his mouth and placed more pressure on your clit until you came with muffled moans.

“You have another one in you?” James asked, unbuckling his belt.

“That’s up to you,” you teased as James pulled his cock out. He entered you in one swift movement and you swore you saw tears in his eyes.

“Goddammit I missed this.” He said, adjusting to the almost forgotten feeling of you clenching around him.

“Move, please,” you begged. You had missed the fullness that only James could provide. James started to thrust into you at a deliciously fast pace and you hoped that no one was waiting for the one bathroom stall you were occupying.

“Fuck, I forgot how good you felt.” James murmured in the crook of your neck. He fucked faster and deeper into you until you clenched around him as you came. James gasped and let out a strangled moan as he came inside you. You set your sweaty forehead against his as you came down from your high. He pulled out of you and tucked himself back into his pants.

“I’m gonna go order us some drinks,” James grinned kissing you quickly as you fanned your face.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you back at the table. I need a second to clean up,” you winked, James’s cum dripping down your legs. James walked back to the table and chugged his water. He looked down at his pant leg and saw that there was a questionable stain on it. He knew that you always had a stain remover stick in your bag and grabbed the bag on your seat, rifling through the purse to find it. He didn’t find the stick however, he did find a blue velvet jewelry box that held an engagement ring.

“Oh good, the food’s here. I’m famished.” You said, sitting down and starting to shovel the pasta in your mouth. James held out the ring and looked at you with a set jaw, practically spitting:

“What the hell is this?”

#James potter #James potter x reader #James potter smut #James potter x reader smut #remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x reader smut #atyd #atyd marauders #marauders smut #marauders era #harry potter

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thecouchsofa · 3 months

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Knot Your Average Coworkers

Draco/Harry | Rated E | 22k words | thecouchsofa

For @hpknotfest

Summary: It takes Harry a while to work out that every month, almost like clockwork, Draco is given an assignment in the field that takes him out of their shared office for days on end. After each assignment, Draco returns looking so bloody exhausted that Harry gears up to file a complaint with their boss. When questioned about it, Draco’s explanations range from mildly suspect to intensely suspicious. Harry takes it upon himself to find out what’s going on.

Or: Harry makes a bunch of unintentional knotting jokes while an increasingly baffled Draco is driven insane.

Tags: Werewolf Draco Malfoy, Co-workers, Ministry of Magic Employee Harry, Ministry of Magic Employee Draco, Humor, Banter, Banter as flirting, this is so unserious at times, Knotting jokes galore, Ron Weasley themed crafts, Oblivious Harry Potter, Himbo Harry Potter, Cooking as a form of love, Harry takes care of Draco, Fluff, Oral Sex, Oral Knotting, Semi-Public Sex, Anal Sex, Knotting, Coming Untouched, Dirty Talk, Getting Together, Bottom Harry

Read on AO3 here

#my stuff #drarry #drarry fic #drarry fanfiction #harry x draco #hpdm

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dhr-advent · 5 months

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Penguins, Pebbles, and Other Reasons to Pursue Unemployment by mightbewriting

Penguins, Pebbles, and Other Reasons to Pursue Unemployment (5000 words) by mightbewriting Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Harry Potter Additional Tags: Co-workers, Pining, Fluff, Romance, Christmas, Crack Treated Seriously, an abundance of penguins, and disdain for said penguins, plus some time shenanigans, D/Hr Advent 2023, Community: dhr_advent Summary:

“Is that…shit? On my desk?”

Granger doesn’t so much as look up from her mountain of teetering parchments at Draco’s question. Her hair: frazzled. Her frown: ominous.

The energy in their shared office: frantic.

“Penguin shit,” she says. “Specifically, it’s penguin shit.”

[In which a penguin-themed mishap at the Ministry nearly costs Draco his sanity.]

#dhr advent 2023 #dramione #dramione fanfiction #author: mightbewriting

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austenpoppy · 5 months

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Comparison of Ron and Hermione's contributions in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I will willingly admit this post was written out of pure spite, tired that I was of seeing people claim Ron had barely contributed to anything in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, or at least way less so than Hermione.

So you know me, what do I do in this sort of case ? I decided to analyse closely what exactly Ron and Hermione did in the book, on different levels and in different ways to completely understand what went on.

Edit: I changed some scores slightly by adding or removing points, and had to recalculate everything, though it didn't change anything to my conclusions; changes are highlighted in bold

List of Ron and Hermione's accomplishments/contributions in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So of course, to begin my analysis, I needed to list all of their concrete contributions and accomplishments. To be absolutely fair to either of them, I did not take into account feats of bravery that did not ultimately directly help or save anyone (so I did not count Ron begging Bellatrix to torture him instead of Hermione), but I did count elements in which one or the other protected, helped, or saved someone else.

I also listed any Duelling Feat or any fight Ron and Hermione had with Snatchers/Death Eaters/others that had to do with fighting against dark forces or people (I therefore did not include the fact that Ron punched Draco Malfoy during the Battle of Hogwarts).

Anything that helped Harry in the Horcrux Hunt or in getting Voldemort down was taken into account, however small, even if it was just knowledge regarding the Trace (this bit of knowledge allowed the trio to dispel the theory that Death Eaters had found them because Harry still had the Trace) or the location of the Lovegoods, or conjuring up a flask to get Snape's tears. I however omitted intelligent remarks that didn't move the plot forward directly (so for example, I did not include Ron's shrewd comment after he read Mundungus Fletcher's mind).

As Ron and Hermione's feats had to be concrete, I also omitted moments during which Ron was the buffer between Harry and Hermione, or during which one or the other recomforted/or tried to recomfort Harry/the other. I however judged that Ron leading the Horcrux Hunt for months was worthy of being listed, because he took on a major responsibility that helped the trio as they tried to move forward with the Hunt.

To make you understand how I proceeded, each point listed is a thematic element; so several actions from the same event can be listed as separate elements. The chapter in which the element listed happened/was referred to is mentioned after each element.

Ron

1. pretended to be Harry with the help of Polyjuice when he was part of the “Seven Potters” operation (“The Seven Potters”)

2. stunned a Death Eater right in the head from a flying broom (“Fallen Warrior”)

3. saved Hermione in the Tottenham Court Road Café when she didn’t notice that Rowle and Dolohov were going to attack the trio by lunging across the table and pushing her sideways (“A place to hide”)

4. cleared up the café on Tottenham Court Road with Harry after the fight, at Harry’s command (“A place to hide”)

5. gave information to Harry and Hermione regarding the Trace (“A place to hide”)

6. rugby-tackled Mundungus Fletcher when he tried to dive for the stairs (“The bribe”)

7. spied on Ministry workers with the Invisibility Cloak and heard that only the most senior Ministry members could connect their homes to the Floo network (“Magic is Might”)

8. convinced Harry and Hermione that Stunning three Ministry officials was not a good idea because a pile of unconscious bodies would be suspicious, and therefore suggested to use Fred and George’s products (“Magic is Might”)

9. snatched Red Cattermole’s bag without the latter noticing it before Reg Cattermole went back home (“Magic is Might”)

10. pretended to be Reg Cattermole with the help of Polyjuice Potion and convinced Albert Runcorn to take Nosebleed Norgat to ultimately take hair from his head (“Magic is Might”)

11. warned Harry and Hermione that Ministry officials knew there were intruders in the Ministry and that the trio had five minutes at most to leave the place (“The Muggle-Born Registration Commission”)

12. made the most of an uproar cause by the colleagues of some balding wizard to size Mrs. Cattermole and get her out of the Ministry through the fireplace, saving her and getting her away from the real Reg Cattermole – trying to deter other Ministry officials from scrutinizing the situation (“The Muggle-Born Registration Commission”)

13. prevented Harry and Hermione from saying the Taboo (Voldemort’s name) many times, after noticing that it felt like a jinx (“The thief”, “The Goblin’s Revenge”)

14. escaped from a gang of five Snatchers after being captured by them by hitting the one holding him in the stomach and grabbing his wand before Disarming the one who has his wand and Disapparating (“The Silver Doe”)

15. managed to steal a wand from Snatchers and brought the spare wand with him when he came back, which ended up replacing the one broken by Hermione (“The Silver Doe”)

16. saved Harry’s life by jumping into icy water to retrieve Harry who was drowning and by cutting the Horcrux to stop it from strangling Harry; also retrieved the sword of Gryffindor from the icy pond (“The Silver Doe”)

17. faced mental torture at the hands of Voldemort but won against Voldemort’s taunts, resisted possession and destroyed the locket (“The Silver Doe”)

18. learned about the existence of the Taboo during his time away and alerted Harry and Hermione that there was one (“Xenophilius Lovegood”)

19. knew approximatively where the Lovegoods lived (“Xenophilius Lovegood”)

20. led the Horcrux hunt for months while Harry obsessed over the Hallows, not only to search for the Horcruxes but also to gather the team’s spirit (“The Deathly Hallows”)

21. subdued Wormtail with the help of Harry, and took his wand (“Malfoy Manor”)

22. imitated Wormtail to reassure Lucius Malfoy that nothing particular was happening (“Malfoy Manor”)

23. Disarmed Bellatrix Lestrange with Wormtail’s wand (“Malfoy Manor”)

24. saved Hermione by pulling her from under the wreckage caused by the collapse of the chandelier detached from the ceiling by Dobby, and Disapparating after catching a wand thrown at him by Harry (“Malfoy Manor”)

25. was the one who suggested the trio should double-cross Griphook by swapping the real sword of Gryffindor with the fake and give the fake to Griphook to buy enough time for the trio to escape (“Shell Cottage”)

26. pretended to be Dragomir Despard during the trio’s break-out at Gringotts (“Gringotts”)

27. stunned a wizard who was lunging for Hermione’s throat (believing her to be Bellatrix) (“Gringotts”)

28. Stunned Goblins with Harry and Hermione (“Gringotts”)

29. helped Harry cast gouging spells to blast the ceiling apart and facilitate the trio’s escape from Gringotts, after they observed Hermione do it (“Gringotts”)

30. was the one who suggested that the students who were in the Room of Requirement could help them find the other Horcruxes (“The lost diadem”)

31. designed a plan to destroy the cup of Hufflepuff, by remembering the Chamber of Secrets had Basilisk fangs; told Hermione that she should destroy the cup of Hufflepuff (“The Battle of Hogwarts”)

32. managed to imitate Harry saying the word “open” in Parseltongue to open the Chamber of Secrets (“The Battle of Hogwarts”)

33. saved Gregory Goyle’s life by hoisting him on Hermione and he’s broom when the Fiendfyre conjured up by Vincent Crabbe engulfed the Room of Requirement (“The Battle of Hogwarts”)

34. grabbed Hermione with Harry to put her to the floor so she wouldn’t be hit with spells (“The Elder Wand”)

35. threw spells that collided with Harry’s and were cast to repel an Acromentula trying to get inside Hogwarts (“The Elder Wand”)

36. told Harry and Hermione to get back so they wouldn’t be hit by the galloping desks of Minerva McGonagall (“The Elder Wand”)

37. prevented Hermione from casting a spell on Grawp; had she done so Grawp would have crushed “half the castle” (“The Elder Wand”)

38. cast “Wingardium Leviosa” on a twig and waved it into the air to stop the Whomping Willow from moving around; he was spurred on by Hermione’s remark (“The Elder Wand”)

39. broke Voldemort’s Silencing Charm by standing up to him and yelling “He beat you!” (“The Flaw in the Plan”)

40. took down Greyback with Neville (“The Flaw in the Plan”)

Hermione

1. pretended to be Harry with the help of Polyjuice when he was part of the “Seven Potters” operation (“The Seven Potters”) (note: I did not consider that Hermione fought off Death Eaters - or managed to - during that operation because in my opinion, Kingsley Shacklebolt was clearly referring to his own actions when he reported what happened)

2. stole books about Horcruxes from Dumbledore’s study and told Ron and Harry what she had learned about Horcruxes from reading them (“The Ghoul in Pyjamas”)

3. packed elements that could be useful for the Hunt, including a batch of Polyjuice Potion that she stole from Mad-Eye Moody, clothes, the Invisibility Cloak, Essence of Dittany, Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Norgat, Decoy Detonators, Muggle money, and the tent (“The Ghoul in Pyjamas”)

4. Apparated the trio to Tottenham Court Road (“A place to hide”)

5. Stunned Dolohov while she was underneath a table and out of Dolohov’s sight (“A place to hide”)

6. Obliviated Rowle and Dolohov at Harry’s suggestion (“A place to hide”)

7. cast “Diffindo” to free Ron from the ropes holding him, though she left a deep cut (“A place to hide”)

8. dragged the waitress from the café on Tottenham Court Road’s body out of sight of the windows at Harry’s command (“A place to hide”)

9. cast an “Hominum Revelio” at 12, Grimmauld Place to check whether the trio was really alone or not (“A place to hide”)

10. remembered that the locket was in the cabinet in the drawing room of 12, Grimmauld Place when the Order was cleaning the house (“Kreacher’s Tale”)

11. Disarmed Mundungus Fletchers at 12, Grimmauld Place (“The Bribe”)

12. put Phineas Nigellus’ portrait inside her bag as she remembered he could travel from Grimmauld Place to Hogwarts (“Magic is Might”); later cast a black blindfold with the spell “Obscura” on him to prevent him from seeing inside the tent (“The Goblin’s Revenge”)

13. spied on Ministry workers with the Invisibility Cloak and heard information that indicated where Umbridge’s office might be (“Magic is Might”)

14. Stunned Mafalda Hopkirk using a non-verbal spell (“Magic is Might”)

15. pretended to be Mafalda Hopkirk with the help of Polyjuice Potion and convinced Reg Cattermole to take a Puking Pastille, before yanking hair from his head when he started throwing up (“Magic is Might”)

16. pretended to be Mafalda Hopkirk with the help of Polyjuice Potion and convinced Albert Runcorn to take Nosebleed Norgat to ultimately take hair from his head (“Magic is Might”)

17. duplicated the locket with a “Gemino” spell so that Umbridge wouldn’t notice the locket was gone (“The Muggle-Born Registration Commission”)

18. cast a Patronus, though with difficulty, to help Harry deter Dementors from coming near the group comprised of Harry, Hermione and Muggle-Borns (“The Muggle-Born Registration Commission”)

19. Apparated the trio in a forest after casting a Revulsion Jinx on Yaxley because Yaxley had got hold of her and Hermione had unwillingly get Yaxley in the Fidelius Charm cast on 12, Grimmauld Place (“The thief”)

20. saved Ron’s life with Essence of Dittany after having Splinched him (“The thief”)

21. was the first to cast protective enchantments around the tent (“The thief”)

22. noticed that the locket was having a negative influence on Harry (“The Goblin’s Revenge”)

23. figured out with Harry that the sword of Gryffindor could destroy Horcruxes because it was Goblin-made and Goblin-made swords imbibe only that which strengthens them, in this case Basilisk venom, and that Dumbledore had made a fake sword of Gryffindor because he knew the Ministry wouldn’t let Harry have the sword if he put it in his will (“The Goblin’s Revenge”)

24. saved Harry’s life after Hermione cast a spell on Nagini to force the snake to get away from Harry; dived aside to avoid it from striking her and one of her spells smashed the windows; cast a Blasting Curse charm that “flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling”, though it also broke Harry’s wand (“Bathilda’s secret”, (“The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore”)

25. took care of Harry by getting the locket, stuck to Harry’s chest, away with a Severing Charm; she also cleaned the wound caused by Nagini and put some dittany on it (“The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore”)

26. understood that the symbol of the Deathly Hallows was important after seeing it around Xenophilius Lovegood’s neck at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, on Ignotus Peverell’s headstone at Godric’s Hollows and in The Tales of Beedle the Bard (“Xenophilius Lovegood”)

27. designed a plan so that the Death Eaters who were at Xenophilius Lovegood’s house could see he was not lying about Harry’s presence: she got Ron to put on the Invisibility Cloak so that his presence wouldn’t be known, waited for Xenophilius to appear at the top of the stairs before Obliviating him and destroying the floor so that the Death Eaters could see the trio right before Hermione Apparated them away (“The Tale of the Three Brothers”)

28. cursed Harry’s face to make it unrecognizable so that the Snatchers wouldn’t see it was Harry (“Malfoy Manor”)

29. lied under torture done at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange that the sword of Gryffindor was fake (“Malfoy Manor”)

30. cast Glamour Charms on Ron to modify his appearance so he wouldn’t be recognized during their break-in Gringotts (“Gringotts”)

31. pretended to be Bellatrix with the help of Polyjuice Potion (“Gringotts”)

32. had to do most of the talking in trying to convince Travers and in trying to get the different Goblins to let the trio access Bellatrix’s vault (“Gringotts”)

33. cast a Cushioning Charm to soften the fall of the trio after they were thrown off the cart (“Gringotts”)

34. cast a Shield Charm to slower the people trying to catch the trio (“Gringotts”)

35. used “Levicorpus” to help Harry get the cup of Hufflepuff (“Gringotts”)

36. cast “Impervius” to protect Ron, Harry, the goblins and herself from being too badly burned after spells were cast on objects in Bellatrix’s vault (“Gringotts”)

37. Stunned Goblins with Harry and Ron (“Gringotts”)

38. was the first to cast gouging spells to blast the ceiling apart and facilitate the trio’s escape from Gringotts (“Gringotts”)

39. destroyed the cup of Hufflepuff (“The Battle of Hogwarts”)

40. Stunned Gregory Goyle in the Room of Requirement (“The Battle of Hogwarts”)

41. cast “Glisseo” so the trio would escape two masked Death Eaters (“The Elder Wand”)

42. cast “Duro” on a tapestry so the two masked Death Eaters pursuing the trio would face a wall (“The Elder Wand”)

43. cast a spell to blast Fenrir Greyback away from Lavender Brown (“The Elder Wand”)

44. conjured a flask and gave it to Harry so Harry could retrieve Snape’s tears (“The Elder Wand”)

Conclusions

From this you can see that in terms of sheer numbers, Ron and Hermione's contributions are roughly equal (40 for Ron, 44 for Hermione). Considering that depending on the way I managed the two lists I could have added some elements for Ron (e.g., telling Dobby to bring Dean, Luna and Mr. Ollivander at Shell Cottage in "Malfoy Manor") or removed items for Hermione (e.g., casting the "Diffindo" spell on Ron at the Tottenham Court Road café), I consider a 4-point difference to be negligible. For reference, I would consider a point difference above 8 (1/5 of Ron's contributions) significant.

Weighting-analysis of Ron and Hermione's contributions

Of course simply listing their feats and contributions was not enough, since all of them are not as impressive, were not as important, had unwanted consequences, or were the result of negligence, a mistake, or something else. So I also had to weigh on each of the items listed. To be fair to Hermione, I also added two "mistakes" for Ron that were not part of his contributions.

My point system is of course very subjective, but I think most will consider it fair. I calculated Ron and Hermione's points separately and only did the total in the end to try to be as unbiased as possible (though I did check that the number of points I would grant to one was equal to the number of points I would grant to the other for a contribution of similar nature).

Point system

+ 0.25 = small contribution

+ 0.5 = medium contribution; small duelling feat; small or medium element pertaining to the protection of others and/or reaction time in a dangerous situation and/or evaluation of a dangerous situation and/or defence or escape against unwanted forces

+ 1 or + 2 = important contribution; duelling feat; important element pertaining to the protection of others and/or reaction time in a dangerous situation and/or evaluation of a dangerous situation and/or defence or escape against unwanted forces

Bonus points

+ 0.5, + 1, + 2, or +3 for skill or particular display of intelligence or creativity (more bonus points can be added depending on the situation)

+ 1, +2 or +3 if the situation is risky and/or required particular bravery (more bonus points can be added depending on the situation)

+ 2 or + 3 if the element listed had to do with saving someone’s life, protecting someone from danger, or taking care of someone else

+ 5 for destroying a Horcrux

Malus points

- 0.25 or – 0.5 for a small mistake (especially one that hurt another person or could have endangered them)

- 1, - 2, or – 3 for a bigger mistake (especially one that really hurt another person or could have really endangered them)

Ron

1. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was very risky; Tonks and Ron were continuously and furiously followed by Bellatrix Lestrange)

2. + 2 (impressive duelling feat) + 3 (the situation was very risky; see above) + 3 (for skill)

3. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (he saved Hermione and sacrificed his own safety to do so) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 0.5 (for his rather quick reaction time)

4. + 0.25 (small contribution)

5. + 0.25 (small contribution)

6. + 0.5 (medium contribution)

7. + 1 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was risky)

8. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (for the creativity and intelligence shown in the design of the plan); however - 0.25 (the plan backfired slightly due to Reg Cattermole's dedication to being present for his wife, though it's very likely this would have happened even if the trio had stunned him, since Stunning Spells wear off)

9. + 0.5 (medium contribution) + 0.5 (for the skill it took to take steal somebody else's bag without them noticing)

10. + 0.5 (medium contribution)

11. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 2 (for his ability to get the information to Harry and Hermione rapidly)

12. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was very risky) + 1 (he got Mrs. Cattermole away from the Ministry) + 2 (for his quick-thinking)

13. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (this is one of Ron's very underrated contributions to the Hunt; think that literally every time Ron prevented Harry or Hermione from saying the Taboo, he prevented the Trio from being captured: what's more, it happened at least three times on screen, but there were undoubtedly dozens of moments like this one) + 1 (Ron's intuition told him something was off with Voldemort's name because his brain had picked up on a pattern even though he couldn't pinpoint what was amiss exactly)

14. + 2 (he escaped from Snatchers on his own) + 2 (the situation was very risky) + 3 (for the mad skill it took to escape five assailants, retrieve your wand and steal one of theirs)

15. + 2 (I already counted Ron's skill in the item above, but this was for having thought about bringing the spare wand)

16. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (he saved Harry's life) + 3 (he did so at great risks to himself) + 2 (for thinking about taking the sword of Gryffindor at such a moment)

17. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (had to endure mental torture and had to show great bravery) + 3 (he had to resist possession) + 5 (for destroying a Horcrux)

18. + 2 (important contribution)

19. + 0.25 (small contribution)

20. + 2 (important contribution)

21. + 2 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was risky) + 1 (for his synchronisation with Harry and for thinking about taking his wand)

22. + 2 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was risky, considering Lucius Malfoy suspected something was wrong) + 2 (for his quick-thinking) + 2 (for the skill it took to credibly imitate someone he'd barely heard)

23. + 2 (impressive duelling feat) + 3 (the situation was very risky) + 3 (for the skill it took to Disarm Bellatrix Lestrange; another underrated moment for Ron because people dismiss this considering Bellatrix was surprised, even though she had time to turn toward Ron...what do people think duelling is, exactly ?)

24. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (he saved Hermione's life) + 3 (he did so at great risks to himself, considering that he didn't have any wand at that point and had to quickly take Hermione from under tons of broken glass)

25. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (because this was a great plan)

26. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky)

27. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (he protected Hermione from being attacked and hurt) + 2 (the situation was dangerous) + 2 (for his quick reaction)

28. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky)

29. + 0.5 (medium contribution)

30. + 1 (important contribution) + 1 (because this was a good idea)

31. + 2 (important contribution) + 5 (for designing the plan that ended up with the destruction of the Horcrux) + 3 (the plan was brilliant)

32. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (for the skill it took to credibly imitate a word he had heard twice in a foreign language he didn't understand)

33. + 3 (the situation was very dangerous) + 2 (he saved Goyle's life and he alone made that choice since he was holding the broom, but other people influenced or could have influenced his decision) - 2 (he risked Hermione's life in doing so)

34. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky, spells were flying everywhere) + 2 (he prevented Hermione from getting hurt) + 1 (for his quick reaction time)

35. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky and he had just lost his brother) + 2 (for his quick reaction and skill)

36. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (he prevented Harry and Hermione from getting hurt) + 2 (for his quick reaction)

37. + 1 (important contribution) + 1 (he probably protected people from terrible unwanted consequences) + 2 (for his quick reaction and his quick-thinking)

38. + 0.5 (medium contribution)

39. + 1 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was very risky) + 3 (for the sheer nerve of standing up to Voldemort)

40. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was very risky) + 2 (Greyback was a tough opponent, but Ron was not alone when he took him down)

Supplementary malus points:

When he Disapparated after he left the Horcrux Hunt and ended up in a gang of Snatchers: - 1 (and reminder for everybody that the person writing this does NOT hold Ron responsible for what happened with the Horcrux and for leaving the tent); it could have had very negative consequences for Harry and Hermione but effectively it had none

When he nearly yelled Dobby's name at Malfoy Manor: - 0.5 : it could have had terrible consequences had the other Death Eaters head him but effectively it had none

Total: 183.5

Hermione

1. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was very risky; Kingsley and she even got followed by Voldemort for a short while)

2. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (the information was essential, getting her hands on the books required creativity on Hermione's part and required for her to plan ahead and think about what the trio would need)

3. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (all the elements that Hermione took in her bag ended up essential in the following months and demanded that Hermione plan ahead and think about what the trio would need; stealing Mad-Eye Moody's whole stock of Polyjuice Potion also required creativity on Hermione's part)

4. + 0.25 (small contribution)

5. + 1 (duelling feat, but she was out of sight) + 2 (the situation was risky); however - 1 because her slow reaction time forced Ron to push her aside, which means he didn't have time to defend himself) - note: if you want to know more about why I say that Hermione had a slow reaction time, I suggest you take a look at my analysis of Hermione's flaws in the last book

6. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (for the skill it took to succeed in doing a spell for the first time)

7. + 0.25 (small contribution); however - 0.5 because she cut Ron deeply

8. + 0.25 (small contribution)

9. + 0.25 (small contribution) + 1 (Hermione's caution was warranted and wise)

10. + 2 (important contribution)

11. + 0.5 (small duelling feat)

12. + 1 (important contribution) + 3 (for the intelligence shown in having thought about it)

13. + 1 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was risky)

14. + 0.5 (medium contribution) + 2 (for skill, considering she used a non-verbal spell)

15. + 0.5 (medium contribution)

16. + 0.5 (medium contribution)

17. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was very risky) + 3 (for the intelligence shown in having thought about it)

18. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 2 (this helped protect others)

19. + 0.5 (medium contribution) + 0.5 (small duelling feat) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 1 (for her quick-thinking); however -0.5 because the reason Yaxley got hold of Hermione is in my opinion because her reaction time was too slow to begin with; Harry was the one who had to take her hand to get away in the first place

20. + 2 for saving Ron's life (I'm only counting +2 because what really helped Ron was to have thought about packing Essence of Dittany, and I already took that into account) + 2 (for not completely losing her wits) ; however - 3 for having Splinched him in the first place

21. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (though Harry and Ron might have thought about it, those Charms were really important in protecting the trio and she was the first to think about it)

22. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (had she not realised it, who knows what could have happened ?)

23. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (deducting those elements were essential for the next part of the Horcrux Hunt, and showed great intelligence)

24. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (she was faced with Nagini) + 3 (she directly saved Harry's life) + 2 (though not a duelling feat, her knowledge of spells and quick-thinking ought to be rewarded); however - 3 for breaking Harry's wand

25. + 2 (took care of Harry when he was delirious)

26. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (for having made the link between the different elements she had found)

27. + 1 (important contribution, but didn't have to do with the Hunt directly; the trio could have left without it impacting the Hunt) + 1 (the situation was risky, though the trio could have gotten away before it getting risky) + 2 (her plan probably protected Xenophilius Lovegood) + 3 (the plan was brilliant)

28. + 0.5 (medium contribution, it ultimately had very little impact since the trio was brought to Malfoy Manor and Bellatrix Lestrange recognized them anyway) + 2 (the situation was pressing) + 1 (this helped protect the trio if only a little) + 2 (for her quick-thinking)

29. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was awful, and she had to endure torture) + 3 (for her quick-thinking) + 3 (for the sheer nerve of lying to Bellatrix Lestrange)

30. + 1 (important contribution)

31. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky)

32. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 3 (for having pulled off the Bellatrix impression)

33. + 1 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was dangerous) + 2 (she prevented the Trio from getting hurt) + 2 (for her quick-thinking)

34. + 2 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was pressing) + 2 (for her quick-thinking)

35. + 2 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was pressing) + 2 (for creativity)

36. + 2 (important contribution) + 3 (the situation was dangerous) + 2 (she prevented the trio and goblins from getting hurt)

37. + 1 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky)

38. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was pressing) + 2 (for her quick-thinking)

39. + 2 (important contribution) + 5 (for destroying a Horcrux)

40. + 0.5 (small duelling feat) + 2 (the situation was risky)

41. + 2 (this helped the trio get away from Death Eaters) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 2 (for her quick-thinking)

42. + 2 (important contribution) + 2 (the situation was risky) + 2 (for her quick-thinking)

43. + 2 (important contribution) + 1 (the situation was risky, but she was under the Invisibility Cloak) + 3 (she probably saved Lavender Brown's life)

44. + 0.25 (small contribution)

Total: 170.75

Conclusion

While factoring other elements such as the importance of the contribution in helping taking down Voldemort or fighting against dark forces in general, the level of dangerousness in which the contribution happened and the levels of bravery and/or sacrifices required to accomplish the feat, the level of intelligence or creativity involved, quick-thinking, quick reaction time, the level of skill involved to accomplish the feat, mistakes... You can see that Ron and Hermione's contributions are still roughly equal (according to my point system, Ron has 182.5 points and Hermione has 171.75... This is probably due to the fact that Ron not only destroyed a Horcrux but was directly responsible for designing the plan that allowed Hermione to destroy another -granting him + 10 points directly-, and to the fact that Hermione made more mistakes with rather terrible consequences - so Hermione has more malus points), and the point difference between them may seem important, but as I said I consider a point difference to be significant when it hits the bar of 1/5 of the lowest score (here 1/5 of 171.75 = 34.35, yet the point difference between the two scores is 12.75).

Nature of the Contributions

Ron and Hermione are different, and contributed differently to the Horcrux Hunt. I decided upon 8 categories: Strategy/Tactical Thinking; Research, Planning, Knowledge; Deductions; Duelling Feats and Fights; Quick Thinking in dangerous scenarios (which does not correspond to situations requiring a quick reaction time, those are counted in different categories depending on what it ended up doing, but is more akin to "presence of mind"); Resistance against Evil; Protection of others; Leadership. I thought that to really understand Ron and Hermione's profiles, I would put each item listed above in one or more of the categories but also count the points I attributed to each item in my weighting-analysis. There are in the end certain items that did not fit any of the category and that I thought best not to include.

Ron

Strategy/Tactical Thinking: 8 (4.75 points), 25 (5 points), 30 - knowing how to use people to one's advantage - (2 points), 31 (10 points), 37 - spatial reasoning - (4 points) = 25,75 points

Research, Planning, Knowledge: 5 (0.25 points), 7, (2 points), 11 (3 points) 15 (2 points), 18 (2 points), 9 (0.25 points) = 9.5 points

Deductions: 13 (6 points) = 6 points [reminder: this is not a representation of Ron's capacity for deduction, since there are many intelligent remarks I did not include in my analysis; this category only shows deductions that moved the plot forward)

Duelling Feats and Fights: 2 (8 points), 6 (0.5 points), 14 (7 points), 21 (4 points), 23 (8 points), 27 (5 - 2 points - I deduced the points granted to him for protecting Hermione for that category = 2 points), 28 (1 point), 35 (6 points), 40 (7 points) = 43,5 points

Quick Thinking in dangerous scenarios: 3 (5.5 - 2 - I deduced the points granted to him for saving Hermione for that category = 3.5), 9 (1 point), 11 (5 points), 12 (6 points), 14 (7 points), 16 (10 - 3 points - I deduced the points granted to him for saving Harry's life for that category = 7 points), 21 (4 points), 22 (7 points), 31, (10 points), 32 (5 points), 34 (7 - 3 - I deduced the points granted to him for saving Hermione for that category = 4), 36 (5 - 2 - I deduced the points granted to him for saving Harry and Hermione = 3), 37 (4 points) = 66 points

Resistance against Evil: 17 (13 points), 39 (7 points) = 20 points

Protection of others: 1 (5 points), 3 (5.5 points), 12 (6 points), 16 (10 points), 24 (8 points), 27 (8 points), 33 (3 points), 34 (7 points), 36 (5 points) = 57,5 points

Leadership: 20 (2 points) = 2 points

Hermione

Strategy/Tactical Thinking: 27 (6 points), 34 (5 points) = 11 points

Research, Planning, Knowledge : 2 (5 points), 3 (5 points), 6 (5 points)- I'm referring to her knowledge of spells -, 13 (2 points) 14 (2.5 points) -idem-, 21 (4 points), 26 (4 points), 30 (1 point) -idem- = 28.5 points

Deductions: 10 (2 points), 12 (4 points), 22 (4 points), 23 (5 points), 26 (4 points) = 19 points

Duelling Feats and Fights: 5 (2 points), 11 (0.5 points), 19 (3.5 points), 24 (7 - 3 points - I deduced the points granted to her for saving Harry's life for that category = 4 points), 37 (3 points), 40 (2.5 points), 42 (6 points), 43 (6 - 3 points - I deduced the points granted to her for saving Lavender's life for that category) = 24.5 points

Quick Thinking in dangerous scenarios: 17 (6 points), 19 (3.5 points), 27 (7 points), 28 (5.5 points), 29 (11 points), 32 (7 points), 33 (8 - 2 points - I deduced the points I granted to her from preventing the trio from getting hurt for that category = 6 points), 34 (5 points), 35 (5 points), 37 (7 points), 38 (5 points), 41 (6 - 2 points - I deduced the points I granted to her for allowing the trio to escape for that category = 4 points), 42 (6 points) = 78 points

Resistance against Evil: 29 (11 points), 39 (7 points) = 18 points

Protection of others: 1 (5 points), 18 (5 points), 19 (3.5 points), 20 (1 point), 21 (4 points), 24 (7 points), 25 (2 points), 36 (7 points), 41 (6 points), 43 (6 points) = 44.5 points

Leadership: 0 point (I did not count what happened at the Lovegoods as "Leadership" because trusting one person at one given moment to carry out a plan does not show, to me, that they are "the leader"; otherwise I would also count other plans made by Ron as examples of him being a Leader).

Conclusion

This to me so clearly shows what Ron and Hermione's strengths are. In terms of "Resistance against evil", both have roughly the same amount of points, while the point difference in "Quick Thinking in dangerous scenarios" is not significant according to my arbitrary cut-point (above 1/5 of the lowest score), showing that both Ron and Hermione are strong-willed and are quick-thinking in dangerous situations.

Hermione is in the lead in the categories "Research, Planning, Knowledge" (with a 19 point difference, the 1/5 of the lowest score being 1.9) and "Deductions" (with a 13 point difference, the 1/5 of the lowest score being 1.2). For the first case, the reason is obvious: out of the three members of the trio, Hermione is the one who thinks about what kind of knowledge, what tools, what objects they will need. She's also generally better at casting spells/ doing magic. The second case offers a bit less insight, because Ron's observations that did not directly make the Horcrux Hunt progress/had no real impact were not included even though many of them were brilliant. However, I think it does show that between Ron and Hermione, Hermione is the one who makes deductions that help move the plot forward.

Ron is in the lead in the categories "Strategy/Tactical Thinking" (with a 14.75 point difference, the 1/5 of the lowest score being 2.2) and "Duelling Feats and Fights" (with a point difference of 19 points, the 1/5 of the lowest score being 4.9). Again, not surprising. Despite people's inexplicable tendency to think Ron only showed his Strategic skills in Book 1, Ron is a very good tactician and strategist (Hermione is a good strategist when it comes to politics, but not war). Ron, unlike Hermione, is a fighter/soldier, with quicker reaction time and more impressive duelling feats. It shows in the sequence at Malfoy Manor when Ron and Harry are fighting together; the two are completely synchronised.

Ron being ahead in "Leadership" is only a reflection of the fact that Ron is Harry's second-in-command.

The category that I was most interested in was "Protection of Others" since Ron ended up being slightly ahead, too (with a 13 point difference, the 1/5 of the lowest score being 8.9). I think it mostly reflects the fact that Hermione has knowledge that helps protect people and or save them while Ron goes above and beyond to protect people in the heat of the moment (which means Ron got more bonus points).

Overall conclusion (for now...)

The hypothesis presented that Hermione contributed much more to the Hunt than Ron is quite absurd indeed.

#hp #ron weasley #hermione granger #harry potter and the deathly hallows #yes i am that petty #i regret nothing

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emsuemsu · 6 months

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East of Eden by WriteSprite

Words: 41,122

When Harry receives a dodgy brochure for an island vacation, he isn't sure he should attend. After a bit of a push, he decides to go for it and winds up spending the week in paradise. At least it would be, if it weren't for that pesky blond git.

Liked this one a lot. I need a holiday like this ok

#10k+#ministry worker harry #holiday fic #drarry #drarry fic rec #my rec

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alcoveofconcealment · 8 months

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I saw this while scrolling through the tags and now it's @hannshines fault it lives rent free in my head

For those who can't read my wack handwriting the top panel is Oliver saying "Merlin, this shouldn't have happened" and Percy responding with "What, you want a why? People suck. That's why."

#Disclaimer: I know nothing about Chicago Med I just found the contextless screenshots funny and I will do it again #Oliver Wood #Percy Weasley #Out here baring my soul by showing you my ass handwriting #CharacterClaws #SugerQuillAndInk #My Art #Tumblr User: hannsshines #Meme Redraw #I guess #Harry Potter #Ministry Worker!Percy #Puddlemere!Oliver Wood

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dramioneasks · 9 months

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Stirring the Porridge - endegame - E, 20 chapters - Set 11 years after The Final Battle, Hermione is a Ministry of Magic employee trying to survive years of burnout from her teen years and her work years. She returns after a 5-year escape to a life that seems mostly unchanged - except a new (but not unknown) colleague moves into the office next door.

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saintsenara · 1 month

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waitt i need to know why you hc ludo bagman as a genuine death eater sympathiser omg. that sounds fascinating

thank you very much for the ask, pal!

that bagman was really a death eater sympathiser is something i've been committed to believing since i first read goblet of fire, but it's something i've been pondering particularly recently as part of writing subluxation, which is a big look at the set-up and function of the wizarding state during voldemort's takeover in 1997-1998 from the perspective of percy weasley.

which means - of course - that it requires a bit of grappling with percy's main man - and bagman's frenemy - barty crouch sr.

the way the canon narrative - not only harry's perspective but also characters harry implicitly trusts, like sirius and dumbledore - wants us to react to crouch sr. is something that really interests me. because i think it's reasonable to say that - while the series doesn't regard him as a villain villain, per se [as it does for characters such as umbridge] - it doesn't see him as someone we are supposed to regard in a particularly positive light either, even after the reveal that barty crouch jr. was a death eater and his father was justified in sending him to azkaban [even if he didn't keep him there...]

crouch - like cornelius fudge, rufus scrimgeour, and percy himself - is a victim of the narrative's general consensus that ministry workers who are not under the impression that the ministry cannot function admirably or efficiently without input from dumbledore are people we should have no real respect for. he is shown, in his canon appearances, to be something of a jobsworth - officious and dull and uncreative in his thinking, which serves both as a personification of what the series thinks about the civil service and as a narrative device to make the reveal that he broke his son out of prison and kept him, essentially, drugged at home all the more shocking.

but crouch is also interesting in another sense - in that he is not a villain, but that he does not fit into the way the series categorises the behaviour of its heroes surrounding mercy.

we are told in goblet of fire that crouch - as head of the department of magical law enforcement in the 1970s - was responsible for the escalating harshness of the government's response to voldemort. policies such as the instructions for aurors to shoot to kill if they encountered suspected death eaters and the use of internment without trial of those accused of collusion with voldemort [both of which, as i am always banging on about, are references to the actual behaviour of the british state in northern ireland during the same time period] emanate directly from him.

and this ties into a theme which is prominent in the run of books between prisoner of azkaban and half-blood prince: that the world is not split into good people and death eaters. the purpose of these central books in the series is to show that - once harry's worldview widens from the hogwarts-exclusive focus it has in the first two, more childlike, books - the rot in the wizarding world goes far beyond voldemort. the wizarding state is shown - time and time again - to be cruel, corrupt, prejudiced, and stagnant, and the ministry's most loyal bureaucrats and their unwillingness towards mercy are largely blamed for this situation.

because of course - as i have complained about before - the morality of the harry potter series is individualist. good and evil are located by the text within the individual, which means that states and their institutions are automatically less interesting to it than singular heroes and villains in an epic baddies-versus-goodies showdown.

but it's also true that - as a protagonist - harry's morality is extremely self-serving. by which i mean that he has a tendency to reach black-and-white judgements on people he encounters - they're good if they're nice to him, they're bad if they're cruel to him - and to never deviate from them.

and - indeed - to never have to deviate from them. it's worth saying that harry's conversion rate on being right about people is really high - his immediate dislike of characters such as draco malfoy, lockhart, and umbridge is entirely justified; his immediate trust of characters such as sirius is the same. his only misjudgments relate to characters who are crucial to the narrative outside of harry's feelings towards them - he's wrong to trust the teenage tom riddle in chamber of secrets, he's wrong to trust the fake "moody" in goblet of fire, he's wrong to trust "bathilda bagshot" in deathly hallows, and he is, of course, wrong about both snape and dumbledore.

but - outside of this - his judgements are usually proven to be right [and, indeed, his good instincts are lampshaded by the narrative in deathly hallows, when lupin literally says this]. and so we are supposed to assume, i think, that character judgements he makes which we see no broader resolution to are correct.

for example - harry's conviction that stan shunpike is under the imperius curse is never taken by the text as anything other than true. there is no suggestion whatsoever that harry is wrong and that stan - a young, working-class man with delusions of grandeur, who would presumably be reasonably easy to radicalise - might be a genuine supporter of voldemort, and harry's complete certainty that stan is falsely imprisoned [with the callbacks this gives to his feelings about sirius' treatment] isn't used by the narrative as an example of him being naive and self-righteous, but as an example of the fundamental goodness, sensibleness and mercifulness of his character which justifies his ascent to an allegory for christ in the latter stages of deathly hallows.

and the same applies to ludo bagman. when harry witnesses his trial, he finds the suggestion that he might have been a death eater absurd, clearly finds the jury's immediate dismissal of it amusing, and is unsympathetic to crouch when he is infuriated by bagman's acquittal. he takes dumbledore's assurance that bagman has never been accused of any nefarious activity since without question [something he does not do for snape] and his view throughout goblet of fire - much as it is for stan - is that bagman is seedy and not particularly clever, but that he is also such a transparently ridiculous person that to suspect him of being someone voldemort would care about is idiotic, and that crouch's inability to bang him up in azkaban on spurious charges can only - given what happened to sirius - be a good thing.

but the issue is that - notwithstanding his commitment to extrajudicial punishment - barty crouch sr. is... clearly right to investigate bagman thoroughly.

we are told in order of the phoenix that voldemort's power depends on a vast network of ministry informants. we are shown in deathly hallows that his coup is only successful because almost the entirety of the civil service remains in post. we are shown time and time again throughout canon that voldemort's views - on blood-supremacy and magic-supremacy, on the supposed value of maintaining the class system - are incredibly mainstream political opinions, and we can infer from this that a majority of the population of wizarding britain have the view sirius tells us his parents did: that, while they're uneasy with voldemort's violence and while they're certainly not paid-up death eaters, they think voldemort has the right idea.

dumbledore - and the order - are shown throughout canon to be preoccupied with the big fish. the death eaters they target are voldemort's inner circle - the marked loyalists he trusts as generals. we never see - outside of the snatchers - the lower-profile but infinitely more important cogs in voldemort's machine: the people who traffic stolen goods and lift ministry secrets from filing cabinets and observe potential recruits in pubs and pass gossip along whisper networks until it reaches the dark lord. the sort of people crouch clearly wanted to eradicate, but couldn't find the goodwill within the ministry to do so.

bagman can easily fit this profile - he's presumably a pureblood or a half-blood and raised in the wizarding world, since his parents canonically have at least one wizarding friend [augustus rookwood]; he is clearly relaxed about making use of the class system, since he expects to finesse a job out of rookwood when his professional quidditch career ends; and he is possessed of extremely dubious morals. we also know that pleading ignorance of who you were working for was a famously successful - and, presumably, voldemort-sanctioned - way of getting away with having colluded with the death eaters. it makes just as much sense - then - for bagman's "oh, i just thought i was chatting about state secrets with rookwood as a mate" act to be in the same vein as lucius malfoy pretending to be under the imperius curse as it does for him to actually have been that dumb, and so it makes sense for him to have gone actively looking for information he could pass to rookwood because of some sympathies [even if they were uneasy ones] with rookwood's cause.

do i think he was a marked death eater? no - i think voldemort couldn't pick him out of a line-up and he never achieved anything other than being an informant rookwood could tap for details and documents he could pass up to his master if they looked interesting.

but this would have been what voldemort's ministry infiltration actually looked like - and it is a much more insidious, and interesting, concept than loads of aristocrats fighting and being sexy, which i think is really worth exploring when we think about wizarding politics.

#asks answered #asenora meta #i am obsessed with wizarding bureaucracy and i make no apologies #ludo bagman #barty crouch sr

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dreamcubed · 11 months

Text

daylight | harry potter x reader

song; daylight [taylor swift] pairing; harry potter x ministry worker!single mother!fem!hufflepuff!reader genre; s2l, fluff, angst word count; 4,4k timeline; post-second wizarding war warnings; references to abusive ex (verbal, emotional, baby-trapping), y/n has trust issues, references to poverty summary; after providing for yourself and your two sons alone for so long, you were foreign to the concept of help, and the last person you expected to receive it from was the infamous boy who lived

masterlist

"i once believed love would be burning red, but it's golden."

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Now both your sons were in school, you were finally able to take on a full-time job and bring more money in. It had been immensely difficult being limited to only a low-paying part time job for the last five years, but you had needed flexible hours due to your lack of support system when it came to raising your boys. They were a year apart, at four and five, and their father hadn't been in the picture since the third trimester of the youngest's pregnancy.

Your family had turned their backs to you after you fell pregnant so young, out of wedlock, and without a decent job. And Merlin knows your baby daddy's family wanted absolutely nothing to do with you.

It was a shame, because your academics were good, and you had received excellent scores in both your OWLs and NEWTs, originally having big plans for your career. Then your boyfriend at the time baby-trapped you, just to abandon you anyway.

But now your sons were both old enough to enrol in muggle primary school, which was unusual for magic families to do, but it gave you the opportunity to get a better job and create a better life for the both of them. Merlin knows you were too busy to adequately homeschool them in the years before Hogwarts, anyway.

"Well, Miss L/N, you seem more than qualified," the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic said to you, "Typically we only have freshly graduated applicants for such positions, though."

"Does that dampen by chances?"

"Not at all," she shook her head, "I see no reason not to hire you, unless there's something you need to tell me?"

You bit your tongue, deciding to not let her on to the fact you had two sons to take care of all by yourself. "No, ma'am."

"Well, perfect. Your hours would be from 8am til 5pm with forty-five minutes paid lunch break that you can take between noon and 2pm."

The hours were long, but you had already signed up your sons for their school's breakfast club every morning, as well as a different extra-curricular after school every day. Thankfully apparition would likely mean you would only be a minute or two late for pick-up.

"When can you start?"

"Immediately," you smiled.

***

While you worked in the department responsible for aurors, you would not be out in the field yourself at any point. You were simply responsible for distributing tasks and filling out and filing the reports after missions. Once upon a time you had wanted to be an auror, but now you had sons who would have no one else if something were to happen to you. You simply couldn't endanger yourself in any way.

The pay of your job was good: good enough to support a family of three and move you out of the one bedroom flat you lived in. You would wait a couple months until you were settled into the job, though, as you still needed to pay off the boys' uniforms and school lunches.

You were sat at your desk on the second day of your job, busy filling out forms for a small mission that had taken place earlier that morning. Ever since Voldemort's demise, there hadn't been any large scale missions. You supposed that was a good thing.

"Oh, you're new."

You looked up in surprise to see the Boy Who Lived stood before you, evidently having just returned from a mission as an auror.

He gave you an awkward smile, "Harry Potter."

You nodded mindlessly with your mouth slightly agape, before coming to your senses and saying, "Y/N. Y/N L/N."

"Nice to meet you."

"You too."

"How long have you worked here?"

"It's my second day."

"Wow, so you're, like, brand new?"

"I... I guess?"

"Let me know if you need anythi-"

"Potter," your supervisor's voice rang out, "My office."

"Shit, sorry, I have a mission debrief to give, we'll talk later?" he said, somewhat hopefully.

"Yeah, later..." you trailed off, staring after him as he walked to the office.

***

It was the end of the day, and you were packing up your belongings ready for your departure at exactly five o'clock.

"Y/N," a person called.

You turned around to see Harry Potter stood before you once more.

"Sorry I didn't have a chance to catch up with you after earlier," he said, "But, uh, do you think... do you think maybe we could go for a drink? It's important to have friends at work, after all."

You were in shock, but still answered, "I'd love to, really - but I have places to be today, I'm afraid."

"Tomorrow night, then?"

"I'm busy then too," you said apologetically.

"Okay, then when are you free?"

Great, now you were going to sound like a massive dick. "Rarely, unfortunately, I have a... chaotic family, you see."

"Right, well... see you tomorrow then."

Yep. He definitely thought you were making up excuses.

***

"I'm not too late, am I?" you asked the teacher that had been supervising the football club your sons had been attending.

"No, the other last kid just left moments ago," he smiled at you.

"Oh, thank Helga," you said without thinking.

The man frowned at your exclamation, but didn't say anything about it.

"Matty, Eric, are you boys ready to go?" you turned to your sons, who both nodded tiredly at you. Your heart dropped at how much the long day wore them out.

You led them around the corner from the primary school until you were out of sight from others, where you apparated to outside your small apartment. Upon entering, you gazed at the cramped space: you couldn't wait to upgrade to a bigger one.

"What's for dinner, mama?" your youngest, Eric, asked.

"I'll cook some pasta, yeah? And then I'll read you a story."

You couldn't fail them. They had to have a different life to you.

***

You didn't see Harry Potter at work again for the next two weeks, as he had been sent on a slightly larger auror mission abroad. But, when he did return, you ran into him almost instantly.

"How was the mission?" you asked immediately.

"Fine," he said dismissively, "Look, I'm sorry for asking you for drinks last time, you clearly didn't want to-"

"No, it's not that I don't want to," you said quickly.

"You don't have to lie to be nice, I shouldn't have asked something like that so soon after meeting you."

You sighed, "I'm not lying, I really am just an exceptionally busy person."

"Busy with what exactly?"

"I- I can't talk about it."

"You-"

That was when the ringing of your mobile phone cut through the air, making you jump slightly. You took the tiny flip phone out of your pocket and exhaled harshly at the sight of who it was. This was exactly why you had bothered getting a phone as a witch, you had just hoped it wouldn't happen so soon

"Sorry, I have to take this."

You began walking away as you answered.

"Hello, Y/N L/N speaking."

"Hello, this is Emily from St Andrew's Primary School," the woman on the other end spoke, "I'm calling on behalf of your son, Eric."

"What happened?"

"He... exhibited peculiar behaviour during a lesson today."

"Why? What did he do?"

"He made a classmate float in the air."

Your breath hitched, "That's not possible."

"I assure you, I'm being quite honest."

"Is this a prank call?" you asked. You knew it wasn't.

You didn't want the Ministry to find out you had enrolled wizards into muggle school. It was advised against for a reason, as they had enough on their plates when it came to dealing with the chaos muggle-borns caused. But, they would have already detected the use of improper magic and sent people to deal with it.

"I-"

"Y/N L/N," a man to your left said.

"If you excuse me," you spoke to the caller, hanging up. They would just think you still thought them a prankster. "Yes?"

"Simon Periwink of the Improper Use of Magic sector, can you come with me please?"

You sighed, "Is this regarding my son?"

He nodded.

"Lead the way."

***

"So as you seem to know, your son, Eric L/N, has caused a bit of a conundrum in a muggle school," Simon said, sat behind his desk with crescent moon glasses perched on his nose, "Now, he is a child, so obviously he will not be facing any consequences for this action. However, I am obliged to ask, why is he in a muggle school?"

"I don't have a choice, sir."

"Just Simon is fine- elaborate, please."

"I'm a single mother to two boys. My family abandoned me after my first pregnancy and my boyfriend upped and left during my second," you explained, although you didn't want to talk about it, "I can't afford childcare - muggle school is free and my only option."

Simon hummed, flicking through pieces of parchment, "I see. Well, I won't prevent this then - thanks to muggle-borns, we're well equipped to deal with these situations. Please, though, talk to your sons about this."

"Yes, sir- Simon. Thank you."

"We also have many support systems in place in the ministry to aid people in similar situations to yourself. Please consider looking into them."

"I will, thank you again."

"No worries - I suppose you should go and pick up your son for now."

You nodded.

***

By the time you arrived at the primary school, you saw that members of the ministry were already there - and, to your horror, Harry Potter.

He quickly spotted you, and raised a confused eyebrow.

"Y/N, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of y-"

"Mama!" your son, evidently in tears, called out. He ran from the ministry member that was comforting him into your arms; you didn't hesitate to pick up your son.

Harry watched as the situation unfolded, piecing everything together in his head, before saying, "They were a member short in the improper use department, so I offered to fill in. Is this your son?"

You hummed, rocking the sobbing boy about.

"I didn't know you were-" he cut himself off, "If I had, I wouldn't have asked you out."

You sighed, "I am single."

"Oh."

"Sorry for hurting your feelings, but I think I need to go pick my other son up too," you said, "Please don't mention this to anyone."

He showed his agreement through an absent-minded nod.

"Bye."

He stared after you as you walked away.

***

After a long chat with both of your sons about resorting to muggle methods in the face of problems instead of magic methods, you reluctantly returned to work the next day, dreading the next interaction between you and Harry Potter. Why was a literal celebrity even working a normal day job anyway?

Taking in a deep breath, you sat down at your desk to begin working your way through the stack of paperwork your manager had already left for you. Just when you had almost forgotten about the man who now knew your biggest work secret, you heard a cough for attention coming from in front of you.

You looked up and saw the exact person you didn't want to see.

"Hey, I just wanted to check up on you after... yesterday."

"Why?"

He seemed taken aback by your response, "Well, you know, I... care about you?"

"You hardly know me," you said pointedly.

"And I would like to change that."

"Potter!" a voice called from the hallway, "Where are you?"

"Coming!" he replied, giving a lingering glance to you but realising you were already focused on your work again.

You felt mean, and you thought he was cute, you just didn't want him to get attached to the mess that you were.

***

"L/N, I need you to stay late today to discuss your progress," your manager said to you later that day, "Don't worry, it's nothing negative."

"Late? Respectfully, I can't do overtime."

"It's hardly overtime. Half an hour, maximum."

"Yes, but-"

"What plans do you have that are so important you must leave exactly at five o'clock?" she raised an eyebrow at you.

"I-" you froze. Should you be honest?

"Y/N," Harry Potter.

You turned away from your manager to the man, pleased at the distraction.

"I can take care of the errand you need to run," he said simply, "It's no bother."

"You can't-"

"Well, it's settled then," your manager smiled, "See you at five in my office."

Once she had walked away, you turned to Harry with a scowl.

"I could've handled that myself!"

"You clearly don't want to admit to the situation," he shrugged, "I'll go pick up your boys, don't worry."

You sighed, "I'll have to call the school to let them know."

"No worries, where should I take them? Back to yours?"

"No!" you quickly said, a little too quickly.

"I'm not gonna judge your living quarters, Y/N."

"Just- I... fine. Fine. Take them back to mine. I'll write down the address for you."

As you handed the paper over, you admitted defeat.

"Thank you, Harry, for this."

"It's my pleasure."

***

You were severely hoping that you hadn't made a stupid decision in trusting Harry with your most prized jewels. He had to be trustworthy, you reasoned, he risked his own life to save the entire world from a horrible and cruel man, after all. As you reached the door to your flat, you took a deep breath before knocking twice. You had given the key to Harry earlier on.

The door quickly flung open to reveal the Boy Who Lived with Eric on his shoulders, who was giggling in a manner you had never seen him before.

"Mama!" he exclaimed, along with his brother, who was by Harry's leg.

"I must admit, I'm normally bad with children," he said as you hugged Matty in greeting.

"Coulda fooled me," you replied, entering the flat.

"Right, I'll get going then-"

Your boys both began complaining, Matty even running from your arms to cling on to Harry's leg again.

You sighed, looking up at the man, "Stay for dinner?"

***

Somewhere along the way, after helping you put your sons to bed, an old bottle of fire whiskey in the back of your cupboard had been cracked open and you were sat on the sofa with Harry Potter, drunker than him because you hadn't had the chance to drink in years.

"Do you really do this all by yourself?" he eventually asked, after a laughing fit from the both of you.

"Do what?"

"Everything. Work, chores, raising your sons. Do you have no help at all?"

You shook your head, "Their father took off during my second pregnancy, haven't heard from him since. As you can tell, I was young when I first fell pregnant, so neither of our families wanted anything to do with us."

"But- no friends?"

"I used to have friends," you sighed, "But I kinda lost them when I started dating Derran. He isolated me a lot. Never had the chance to remake them."

He hummed, "I'm sorry that happened to you - really. I'm happy to be your first friend."

You smiled.

"And more, if you'll let me."

"Really? Thing One and Thing Two haven't put you off?"

He chuckled, "No, not yet, they haven't."

"I don't know if I have the time for dating," you said, picking at your fingernails, "I'm struggling to keep all my plates spinning as it is."

"I understand that dating you would mean a lot of time with the boys."

"Really? Do you? We'd have no date nights."

"I'm prepared to make that sacrifice."

"I don't think you are," you said simply, "Anyway, this has been fun, but I should really get to bed. Are you good to get home or should I-"

"I'm fine to get home, don't worry about me," he said, standing up.

And as you showed him out the door, shutting it behind him, he paused and turned back to look at the spot where he just saw you, meanwhile you rested your back against the wooden frame on the other side, feeling a painful longing in your chest.

***

Saturday morning started like it normally did: a later start with both your boys waking up in your arms. It was as routine up until you all entered the main room ready for breakfast.

A knock arrived on the door.

You frowned, and told the boys to sit at the table before heading over and peering through the peephole. To your surprise, you saw Harry stood patiently outside. Opening the door, you questioned his presence with a simple furrowing of your eyebrows, when you caught sight of the bags he was holding either side of him.

"I hope I'm not here too early," he said, taking in your pyjama-clad presence.

"No- no... we just weren't expecting you," you replied, allowing him in.

"Harry!" your boys called, running over to cling to his legs.

"I wanted it to be a surprise," he shrugged, placing the bags on the kitchen counter, "Hello, Eric, Matty."

"A surprise?"

He hummed, "I brought some basic foods- including ingredients for chocolate chip pancakes."

Eric and Matty cheered.

"That's sweet but- but we don't need handouts."

"Then don't think of it as one," he said simply, "This is simply a man doing something for the woman he has romantic interest in."

You sighed, unable to stop a smile from creeping on to your face.

"Are you our new dad?" Eric asked, making you snap your head in his direction.

Harry was evidently at a loss for words.

"I've always wanted a dad," Matty added. Despite having been alive for when your ex-boyfriend was still around, he had no memory of him. Not that the memories would have been good ones, anyway.

"It depends if your mum lets me date her or not," Harry stated.

"Mama, please!"

"Please, mama!"

"I don't think you know us well enough to make a commitment," you said to Harry, ignoring your sons for the time being.

"Yeah, because you won't let me get to know you," he argued, but without malice, "Is it so hard to believe I genuinely want this?"

"Yeah, it is," you said, "After-" you nodded your head towards the boys, communicating your reference to their father.

"Let me prove it to you," Harry said, to both you and the boys, "What say after breakfast, we head to Diagon Alley and make a day of it?"

The boys began cheering, though you knew all too well they had no idea what Diagon Alley was.

You pulled Harry aside and began whispering, "I've never taken them there. I don't want to get their hopes up by seeing all the things in the shops and not being able to get any of it."

"I'm paying," he reassured you, "For anything they want- that you approve of, of course."

"But-"

"No buts. I told you, I'm proving this to you."

You sighed, admitting defeat, "Okay. Fine."

"Now, let's get the pancakes on," he announced loudly.

***

You watched your sons excitedly run around Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, unable to take the smile off your face. Part of you was overjoyed that they were finally getting some experience of a normal wizardly childhood; the other part of you was upset that it wasn't really you that had provided the experience.

"I think they like the place," Harry said from his place next to you, snapping you out of your thoughts.

"I've never seen them so happy."

"Don't think you're a failure as a mother or anything," he added, "You're far from it."

You smiled, "I know I'm doing my best, but they deserve more."

He didn't reply to that statement, instead wrapping his arm around your shoulder in a comforting gesture.

Maybe, just maybe, you should let him in.

***

After that day, things fell into a new routine. Any day that Harry wasn't on an auror mission, he would show up at your flat with dinner ingredients not long after you had gotten home with your sons. Together, you would cook the meal, and then sit and eat. On Saturdays, he would take you and the boys somewhere for the day, always insisting on paying if there was an associated cost. He had even on one Sunday insisted that he babysit the boys so you could get your first bit of lone time in years. You had treated yourself to some rest and relaxation in a spa.

You had become very comfortable with his presence, but at there same time there was this constant tension between the two of you, like something was going to snap at any given moment. You almost wanted it to.

It was after dinner one night, and you were putting Eric and Matty to bed with Harry, just having finished reading their bedtime story.

"Goodnight, my loves," you said, kissing each of their heads, and tucking them in, "I'll be here to join you shortly."

"Night, mama."

"Goodnight, mama."

"Goodnight, boys," Harry said, "I should hopefully be here again tomorrow."

"Goodnight," your eldest, Matty, said tiredly.

"Night night, dad," your youngest, Eric, mumbled.

You stilled in shock, but didn't say anything since he was drifting off to sleep, instead glancing at Harry to gage his reaction. He had a slight smile on his face, which admittedly filled you with a sense of warmth. Nonetheless, when you were back in the kitchen charming the dishes to begin washing, you decided to talk about it.

"Thank you, Harry."

"For what?"

"Everything you have done for us the last few weeks," you said, "And I'm sorry Eric called you dad."

"I don't mind," he quickly said, "But I understand if you mind."

"I don't mind... but I don't want them to get hurt."

Next thing you knew, Harry's hand was on yours, "I'm not leaving."

"That's an easy thing to say."

"Y/N, I-" he cut himself off, pausing for a moment to think, "Have dinner at my house on Saturday - bring the boys, obviously."

You frowned, "Are you sure?"

"I'm always sure."

You couldn't help but chuckle at that, "Okay, we'll be there."

***

On Saturday evening, you apparated outside Harry's cottage in Godric's Hollow with your sons holding a hand either side of you. This was your first time seeing his house, and it was absolutely gorgeous: large, too. From what he had told you, he had been born in this house, but it was also where his parents had died tragically.

You let Eric and Matty run ahead to knock on the front door, which was a classic medieval-style shape. All too quickly, it swung open to reveal Harry dressed up in dress trousers and a button up shirt, with the top button left undone. You were glad that you had opted for a more dressed up look yourself - you had gotten the feeling that this was a fancier occasion than usual.

"Hello, boys," he greeted your sons, hugging both of them before standing up straight, "And, hello, Y/N." He seemed even more awkward than normal, making you confused.

He beckoned you all in and through to the dining room, where a delicious spread was billowing steam throughout the room.

"I wish I could take full credit- Molly helped quite a bit," you knew Molly to be his best friend's mother, "But I wanted this to be perfect."

"Why?" you asked, "I mean- it is, but why?"

"Because it's for you," he said.

You held prolonged and tension-filled eye contact with him for a few moments, before your attention was diverted by your boys jumping about excitedly.

"I think they're hungry," Harry laughed, "Sit down, sit down."

You all sat around the table, and you scolded your sons for not showing good manners and trying to dig in right away.

"Not to make you wait too much longer, boys, but I would like to say something first," Harry said, taking in a deep breath, "When I first met you, Y/N, I thought you wanted nothing to do with me- because you rejected me."

You chuckled.

"And that was quite a blow to my ego, so it was certainly relieving to learn that it wasn't me that was the problem- not that there really was a problem. You are simply an amazingly independent woman who didn't want people to know about her two incredible sons, for some insane reason," he said with a grin, making your cheeks heat up, "And I know it's hard for you to accept that I genuinely do want to be with you given everything you've been through."

You started to get a feeling of what was about to happen.

"And I know that being with you means being with your sons as well," he continued, "But I need you to know that it's far from a chore for me to take them in as my own - so, I have to ask, even though it may seem too soon, will you marry me?"

Tears pricked at your eyes as Matty and Eric gasped, them both being old enough to understand what marriage meant.

"You'll be our dad?" Eric asked, his eyes shining hopefully.

"Well, if your mum says yes."

"Mama, please say yes!" your youngest begged.

His older brother joined in, "Please, mama!"

"Okay," you said, sniffling, "I'll marry you, Harry Potter."

It was then, as Matty and Eric were cheering about having a dad, that Harry pushed a small velvet box across the table, and you opened it to reveal a yellow gold band with a ruby stone set in the centre.

"It's- it's beautiful."

Harry beamed at you as you put it on and admired its place on your ring finger.

"Can we eat now?" Matty asked.

"Yes, yes, we can eat," you said through happy sobs.

"And, after dinner, you two can pick your new bedrooms."

Your eyes widened in shock as Matty exclaimed, "We get our own bedrooms?!"

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masterlist

written; 01/05/2023 —> 05/06/2023 published; 06/06/2023 edited; —/—/——

taglist ; @workinatdapyramid @iluvweasleys

#harry potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter x you #harry potter x y/n #hp #harry potter fanfic #hp fanfic #hp oneshot #harry potter oneshot #angst #fluff #strangers to lovers #fanfic #feminine pronouns #single mother reader #hufflepuff reader

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cuffmeinblack · 6 months

Text

Coming Home

Andrew Larson x f!reader

Collaboration with @written-in-cheese 🖤

9k words

ao3 link

Summary: An unwanted secondment to the Ministry's research division comes with an unexpected perk; a chance reunion with your quiet classmate that leads to much more than a professional relationship.

A/n: How could I resist collaborating on something with @written-in-cheese ?! I've never written anything for Andrew so I thought I'd give it a stab. Spicy turned unexpectedly sweet and much longer than I'd planned. I love the boy now.

⤍ Andrew Larson masterlist ⤎

You groaned at the large and ostentatious fountain in the lobby, rolled your eyes at the marble floors and pillars, the gold filigree and starchy suits. Sitting at a desk didn't suit you at all, and the dress you wore felt restrictive even without the whalebone corsetry—now that would have been a step too far. Tugging at the collar of your silk blouse, you stepped into the elevator along with a dozen other harried-looking Ministry workers. Was this your fate? To come into work each day with a sullen expression and shadows under your eyes, to feel the life force being drained from your body with every dull meeting and annoying memo? A tawny owl messenger clutched one such purple note stamped with the intricate 'M' and hooted balefully by your shoulder, ruffling its feathers in disdain as more bodies crammed into the already cramped space.

So far, your career has been nothing short of thrilling, every day more exciting than the last. Exactly what you'd expected when signing up for the role as a Gringott's curse breaker. The lavish flyers dotted around the Hogwarts library had promised generous commissions, hoards of treasure, exotic locations and the chance to test one's mettle. Three years later and you'd not grown bored; a great feat for your easily distracted brain. So, why, in Merlin's bloody name, were you now stuck in this stuffy office building for the next six months? You'd pleaded with Gordok, offered to forgo your next commission, asked again and again whether you'd proved a disappointment, all to no avail. Your performance was exceptional; this was just a secondment you'd have to endure for the benefit of career progression.

"What floor, miss?" the strangely cheerful attendant asked.

Perhaps he'd been cursed into submission.

"Erm…research…I think that's…"

"Basement," he interrupted, pressing the bottom button.

Of course it was.

Gods, as if this assignment wasn't bad enough, you were apparently not to see the light of day, either. You spent the arduously long trip down to the bottom of the building thinking over every interaction with your bosses—had you accidentally insulted their mothers? The pressure on your chest relieved as the elevator slowly emptied and your arms fell to your sides, no longer pressed so tightly against your body. There was only one other person remaining for the last stop, as well as the glazed-eyed lift attendant, and you were shocked to discover that you recognised him.

Andrew Larson looked much the same as you'd remembered. His jaw was sharper with a slight shadow though he was clean shaven, his hair the same neat coiffure he'd worn years before. He was even wearing blue, though gone were the Ravenclaw robes—instead, he wore a navy blue pinstripe suit, complete with starched shirt, tie and waistcoat. The tailoring seemed to hug his slim frame perfectly. The right word for him might have been dapper, and it was at that point whilst you were mulling over the correct term for his appearance that you realised you were staring.

"Andrew?"

"Hello," he greeted, as the elevator stuttered to a stop.

He held out his palm to indicate that you should precede him, and you did so, stepping into the surprisingly inviting basement room. Instead of the dank cellar you'd envisioned, it was a large atrium with a glass ceiling, the large panes allowing a warm light to flood onto the marble floor. Above your head there levitated a sign with gold engraving, reading 'Ministry of Magic Research Division.' Well, you were in the right place, then. You stood still, stunned, allowing the magically-conjured sunlight to warm your face.

"I thought it was you, but wasn't sure if you would remember me…," Andrew said, startling you out of your reverie.

"Oh! Yes, of course I do, Andrew. How are you?"

"Well, thank you. Yourself? What brings you down here?"

"I'm actually going to be working in the Department of Magical Artefacts for the next six months," you replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of your voice.

"Ah, so you're the new research assistant. Well then, erm…welcome to the department," he smiled shyly. "I can help you get settled, if you'd like."

Andrew gestured to a large mahogany desk that sat in front of you, manned by a severe looking witch whose face immediately softened upon seeing your companion.

"Good morning, Victoria. This is the artefacts department's new research assistant, it seems."

"So I've heard. Here's your pass, keep it with you at all times. Oh, and Mr Larson, the Minister is doing the rounds next week."

"Thanks, Victoria," Andrew said with a blush for the lady now openly ogling him.

"We get all sorts down here. I imagine your boss thought you could stand being exposed to our collection. Experience, is it?" he asked as you fell into step.

"So he says."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic."

You answered with a shrug as Andrew walked you down to your home away from home for the next half a year, though you didn't quite have a home to start with. Not when you'd been travelling so much. Home to you was currently a barely furnished flat in one of the rougher parts of London, and you didn't relish having to return back there at the end of the day. Along the long corridor of offices, you finally found your destination, through a door no more interesting than a broom cupboard. Inside was a different matter entirely. Whilst this cavernous room didn't have an impressive glass ceiling, it was absolutely packed full of bookcases, display cases, cupboards and tables, all groaning under the weight of their contents and sealed up tightly.

Almost all of the Ministry's precious and culturally significant artefacts were housed here, and as such the space practically hummed with magic. You followed Andrew deep into the room, to a cluster of bland offices. There wasn't much to see in your assigned space, merely a chair and desk and a stack of stationery.

"You'll spend most of your time out in the main archive, don't worry," Andrew said.

You flashed him a grin for sensing your thoughts, and he returned a soft smile before turning away. He'd not changed much at all in his demeanour, apparently—always shy and reserved, it appeared he was still so, though he seemed to manage to make it look endearing. Perhaps it was his gentle voice and handsome face that made him appear so charming and non-threatening.

After spending all of ten seconds glancing around the office, you were back out the door and following Andrew to meet your new supervisor. In fact, much of your first day was throroughly dull formalities and introductions that left you more exhausted than your trips abroad. Something about the bureaucracy was stifling, and you wondered how Andrew managed to not go insane whilst still finding the joy in his job. With any luck, you'd find out, and hopefully soon.

Your first week at the Ministry of Magic had proven to be more interesting than you’d given it credit for, even if half of that amusement was due to your new colleague. The other half was admittedly because of the array of magical artefacts now tantalisingly within your grasp. You were to be cataloging as you learned the ropes, but even such a dull task was made less so by simply being in their vicinity. Your favourite item thus far was a tiny gold hourglass strung on a chain long enough to wrap around you tenfold—at first glance, it appeared to be a very pretty necklace, but in actual fact it had the power to take the wearer back in time. Gods, what you wouldn’t give to tell each and every one of your friends about this little charm, but the reams of paperwork you’d signed on arriving last week forbade it.

At least you could talk to Andrew about it.

“Why in Merlin’s name don’t we just make more of these?” you asked, placing the box securely on a shelf.

“Time travel is risky, dangerous…I wouldn’t want to end up in a time loop, would you?”

“Depends what the time loop was. If it meant talking to you all day every day, I wouldn’t mind,” you said.

Andrew chuckled and looked at his feet, cheeks turning a delicious rosy pink. You’d found that he was very easily embarrassed by little flirtations, and you simply couldn’t help yourself—not when his reaction was so adorable.

“There is a whole stash of them, though…this is just for our collection,” he said after clearing his throat.

“What? Where?”

“The Department of Mysteries.”

He mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key, and you nodded your understanding. Top-secret stuff.

“I suppose you can’t talk much about your job, either?” he asked.

“Not too much…”

But then again, you felt compelled to tell him, to gush about the work that you loved so much. With a quick nod of your head, you indicated that he follow you down the rows, out of earshot of any nosey colleagues. The air seemed cooler at the back of the room, amongst the dustier shelves that appeared to house some of the older and more forgotten objects. The privacy was perfect for such a conversation, though, and other things besides.

You told him all about your travels, the adventure, the treasures that awaited you. Not so much the gold, but the rare and powerful artefacts that not even the Ministry housed, or so you surmised. Many of them were filled with dark magic, protected with curses that it was your duty to break. Sometimes you were able to keep your winnings, other times you regretfully watched them pass into the hands of the Gringotts goblins.

“It sounds incredible. I’d love to…well, I wish I were cut out for such a career. I’m not exactly the adventurous type,” he said.

“I’ve made it sound perfect when it hardly is. There’s some pretty awful stuff that comes along with it, but to me…to me, it’s worth it.”

Talking about your work seemed to break down a wall between you. Perhaps it was seeing your enthusiasm that prompted him to open up to you more. He told you exactly what he loved about his job, and something that you hadn’t expected in hushed tones.

“I like the uh, the darker artefacts, you know? Not that I condone dark magic at all,” he stammered. “But it’s morbidly fascinating.”

As he leaned casually against a tall, ornate cabinet, you regarded him with curiosity. You’d expected his love of reading and perhaps even the fact that he enjoyed to paint, but you realised then that he was capable of surprising you and wondered what other secrets he had.

A couple of days later, you decided to show him something that might interest him, though you had quite the time getting it into the building. The spot at the back of the archives room had become a frequent meeting place for you, and you dragged him down there with a cheeky grin, practically skipping with excitement. He looked bemused but followed at a pace, waiting with bated breath as you produced one of your most treasured possessions.

The tiny glass orb was something you’d procured on your travels, and had no real practical use beyond the macabre curiosity it invoked. You placed it in Andrew’s hands, a slight fluttering in your chest surprising you as your skin grazed.

“What is it, exactly?” he asked, turning the sphere over.

“I don’t even know if it has a name, truthfully. I’ve not come across it anywhere else. It echoes the last words of the dead.”

“Really?”

There was that illuminating smile, that spark in his eyes you'd noticed when he'd told you of his interest in dark artefacts. A typical Ravenclaw through and through, you thought, but the comment was by no means derogatory. The curiosity reminded you of another boy from Hogwarts, though Andrew certainly didn't seem the type to be lured by the promise of their power.

“Fascinating…”

You could practically see the cogs in his brain whirring as he stared into his palm. That might have been the moment you realised just how attracted you were to Andrew, and the overwhelming urge to press him into the cabinet and capture his plush, inviting lips was hard to subdue. Besides being inappropriate, he didn’t seem the type for a workplace fling. Not only was he a gentleman, you were sure, but his shyness would surely translate to his romantic relationships.

Luckily, you weren’t so easily put off by a challenge.

He was certainly bashful when you flirted with him at any given opportunity, but you saw a fire in his eyes amongst the doubt that excited you. Every day you grew bolder, firm in the belief that he was just as attracted to you as you were to him. Why else would his big brown eyes widen whenever you crossed your legs a little too fast so that your skirt rode up your thighs? Why else would his cheeks flush pink whenever you bit your lip in deep thought? Barely three weeks into your reintroduction, you’d decided to up the ante and pull off a little sabotage in the name of finding out once and for all. Perhaps one of your stupider ideas, it was certainly ballsy, and would prove disastrous if he in fact didn’t share your affections.

But where there was risk, there was reward.

A little overnight tampering with the atmospheric charms had made the entire department a good deal hotter than was usually, much to the annoyance of your colleagues. Victoria was even more surly than usual, using a folded piece of parchment as a fan as she sat flush-faced at her desk. You shot her a smile which she didn’t return as you arrived that morning, already sweltering but in high spirits.

You found Andrew amongst the rows, already working diligently and still disappointingly fully clothed. His neat hair fell onto his face, which had a slight sheen. He licked his lip as if parched, and your stomach churned whilst you wondered if your carefully laid plan had backfired, after all.

"It’s rather hot, do you ever take your jacket off?" you asked.

"Not if I can help it," he replied, surreptitiously smoothing the fabric with his palm.

"You're so well put together for someone who spends most of his time hidden amongst inanimate objects."

"Well, you never know who will turn up, I suppose," he replied with a shrug.

You smiled and pulled off your cardigan, discarding it over the back of a nearby chair before turning your attention to your hair, gathering the stray strands and pinning them to your head. Whatever breeze that might find its way down here would be sure to cool your neck now. You took your time, bending your neck to expose as much skin as possible just to see Andrew's reaction. Pleasingly, he was tinged a pretty pink when you turned to face him again.

“I promise I’ll let you know if the Minister decides to turn up so you can put your jacket back on.”

Andrew chuckled and sighed, admitting defeat as he shrugged off his suit jacket. He looked even better in only his slim fitting waistcoat; his biceps flexing against his sleeve garters as he positioned himself to lean over his table again. The lewd thoughts that entered your mind were proving harder to banish the longer you watched him, and you had the distinct impression he could sense your gaze.

With a practiced ease, you undid the top button of your blouse and walked around to his side, mirroring his pose to catch a glimpse of what he was reading.

“What are you working on?” you asked.

You saw the obvious bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed, the dead stare of his eyes that were quite clearly not reading the parchment between his hands. He mumbled something in answer, barely audible, and you leaned in a little closer.

“What was that?”

“Nothing interesting, monthly departmental report,” he said, shaking his head and fiddling with his shirt collar.

Gods, he was adorable when flustered. It made you want to slither into the space between the table and his delectable body and pull him on top of you, to rip his tie from that damned clip, wrap it around your fingers and tug him into a searing kiss. Amongst the heat of the room, your body now struggled to keep cool whilst white hot arousal rampaged and settled a throbbing ache between your legs.

“It’s so hot,” you sighed.

That just about did him in, it seemed, as he stood bolt upright and stared at you before excusing himself. If you didn’t know any better, you’d bet he was sporting a growing bulge in those tight trousers of his. He’d just made this little game so much more fun, and he didn’t even know it.

To your great surprise, Andrew asked you on a lunch date not soon after the incident. Once the charms had been fixed and the temperature and tensions cooled, he’d plucked up the courage the next day to ask. You shouldn’t have been so excited by the mere prospect of lunch with a colleague, but you were practically giddy by the time the clock struck twelve.

“Shall we go for lunch?” you asked a bemused Andrew.

“It’s a little early isn’t it…?”

“I’m feeling rather peckish today.”

He’d picked a table at the tea room nestled down the end of Diagon Alley. It was quiet, not the usual haunt of Ministry workers and thus afforded a little extra privacy from prying eyes. The fact surprised you, though perhaps it shouldn’t have—he was a gentleman, after all. Rather than a mug of butterbeer in the Leaky Cauldron, you were treated to delicious sandwiches and a cream tea, served in delicate bone china and exquisite silverware. This truly was a date, if you weren’t mistaken.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” you said, taking a sip of your tea.

“You’re welcome, it’s quite a nice spot. Sometimes I come here to people-watch.”

“You don’t bring other girls here, then?” you teased.

“I…well, no, not really. I hope it wasn’t too forward of me to ask you, but I thought…”

“No, it wasn’t. I like you, too.”

There was that soft smile that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. He was so sweet, almost saccharine, but you knew he held that fire that ignited behind his eyes when you caught him staring. What did his fantasies consist of? He was a hot blooded male, after all, with all the desires that came with it. Would he be a gentle lover, or was there a caged animal waiting to be released, to claim its mate? For all you knew, he could be a sexual deviant. You licked your lips at the possibilities and gazed over your cup of tea as you sipped, taking your time to let the thoughts roll around in your head.

"If we're to be courting, I suppose I'll have to let work know," he said.

Oh, you really were courting.

"How frightfully dull."

"It is, rather," he agreed.

"We could always be ever so discreet," you suggested.

Andrew chuckled, his melodic laugh tugging at your heart. It may have sounded like a jest, but you were deadly serious, and adjusted your expression accordingly. The dawning realisation made him smile wider.

"Okay, then," he agreed in barely a whisper.

You had the distinct impression you were bringing out the naughty side of him, ever the bad influence, and you loved it.

His restraint was mind-boggling. He had a tell, whenever he thought about doing something what he'd deem untoward. He would glance at your lips and lick his own. The small inflexion made your head spin, and even the chaste kisses he bestowed upon your hand sent a flurry of butterflies to your stomach. After weeks of courting, it was made abundantly clear that if you wanted more, you would have to claim it. You silently cursed his upbringing every time he ran a hand through his hair or glanced your way at work. Such a gentleman.

After so many weeks, you'd finally become accustomed to the nuances of office work, and even Victoria had become almost civil towards you. She might not have been if she knew of you involvement with her favourite colleague, but so far you'd been as discreet as you'd promised. Every time the surly receptionist complimented Andrew, you smirked, silently floating and revelling in your victory. He was a prize, to be sure.

That particular morning was a busy one in the department, drawing more spectators and visitors than usual. Some days, a particularly interesting artefact was sent to your team for research and cataloguing, and the more nosey employees would congregate around your office, blocking your path and irritating you to no end. Apparently, something had arrived to bring a larger crowd than usual, as you could barely squeeze through the bodies blocking your door. Gods, what you'd give for a cup of tea, but apparently that would have to wait. You saw the familiar ash blond hair making its way towards you before you'd had a chance to search for him.

"What's going on?" you asked, observing the hubbub from the sidelines.

"We've got a new artefact, said to be Merlin's," he shrugged.

"Ah. I don't suppose we'll get to see it anytime soon."

"Not likely…," he replied, considering.

You gave him a sideways glance and you caught him looking again, his gaze flicking away as soon as your eyes locked. With a smirk, you moved a little closer to him and felt his fingers twitch as the back of your hand brushed his, but he didn't pull away, only swallowed thickly and remained raptly interested in the throng. You wondered how deeply you could make him blush. Whilst everybody's attention was diverted you had a devilish plan to make him flustered beyond anything you'd tried before. Such a thought was more exciting than anything Merlin had to offer.

Your hand slipped into your pocket to retrieve your wand, your usually dexterous fingers fumbling the instrument and sending it clattering to the floor. With feigned shock, you bent down to pick it up as your periphery tracked Andrew's eyes following you. He did so enjoy it when you bent over, but this time you had something else in mind than merely showing the shapeliness of your behind. Your knees bent, lowering yourself until your face was practically level with his crotch. Gods, that was tempting in itself.

You watched through your eyelashes with an exaggerated tilt of your head and parted lips, subtly running a hand up the inside of his trouser leg as you returned to stand. His eyes bulged as your fingers slipped under his trouser leg, grazing his socked calf until your hand was forced above fabric. Further upward you roamed, over the bump of his sock garter that filled your head with salacious images—did he keep them on during sex?—around the curve of his knee and up his inner thigh. That's as far as you took it, because Andrew looked fit to burst already. As you stood at full height, peering up at him while innocently clutching your retrieved wand, you were thoroughly satisfied with the deep crimson shade you'd managed to paint on his cheeks.

"Mm…I…you shouldn't have done that," he muttered, glancing around to check nobody had seen.

"Didn't you like it?"

"I did," he said quickly. "I want it, I do."

His chest heaved as he took a deep, wobbly breath and ran a hand through his hair. There was that surreptitious glance to your lips, tongue darting out to wet his own. Just a little more teasing and then you'd be ready for your agonising workday spent wishing to fuck the poor man's brains out. You moved your body to his side, with an exaggerated pause by his ear to whisper.

"It's the thrill of being caught that makes it exciting."

"Godric's heart," he muttered almost like a prayer; a desperate plea for someone to end the torment of this seductress.

The thrum of excited onlookers became an irritating background noise to your tantalising game. Only when you heard your name being called did you pull yourself from the allure of his pleading eyes. Andrew turned to busy himself with a stack of paperwork, hiding his obvious arousal as your department head stalked towards you. She was dripping with irritation, clearly unimpressed at the amount of attention the artefact had garnered. Whilst a short woman, the witch was formidable and commanding, reducing a room full of wizards with not so much a raised eyebrow or clearing of her throat.

"I've called security to deal with this, I want you and Larson to take the tome down to examine immediately. Check it over for curses, will you?"

You nodded at her instruction as a group of uniformed wizards poured into the room, barking commands and corralling the visitors back out towards the elevators. Andrew still had his back turned, only facing you once the last straggler had been banished from the room. Any hint of the flustered young man was gone, replaced with one of slick professionalism, though a lingering shyness remained when he smiled at you whilst walking past. Finally, you could see what all the fuss was about—a very plain book, encased in glass and shielded with countless protection charms, the magic shimmered and pulsed as you approached. Andrew circled it, taking in every detail of the cover, of which there was very little. Merlin really did know how to draw a big crowd—his smelly sock could have been on display and doubtless hundreds would congregate just to get a whiff.

"It doesn't look like much, does it?" you asked.

"Not so far. I wonder what it contains? Hidden knowledge?"

"A diary?"

"Perhaps it's his favourite recipe book," Andrew said with a smile.

"I suppose there's only one way to find out."

As it turned out, deep amongst the stacks, the faded book revealed personal accounts of his time at Hogwarts. You'd checked it thoroughly for jinxes and curses, finding it safe to open, though you held your breath as Andrew turned the cover anyway. It would likely take a team of researchers months or years to translate much of the garbled language—clearly one of Merlin's own making. Whatever secrets lived on in his frantic scrawl wouldn't be yours to see. Your job was now to store it away safely, cataloguing and reapplying charms. All rather dull given its significance, making you all the more susceptible to distraction.

As you twirled your wands and let your magic knit together before your eyes, there was a palpable tension in the air. The space between you and Andrew seemed to reverberate with every subtle wrist movement, every timid glance and whispered incantation. It was strangely intimate, almost erotic, the way your subtly different charms melded in a deep hum of energy. The unspoken anticipation drew you closer, quickened your pulse and pulled deeply in your abdomen. The heat between your thighs and swell of blood was certainly diverting; it was incredible that you managed to complete the assigned task without succumbing to your arousal.

Once the priceless artefact was stored away under lock and key, now that was a different matter entirely.

You made the first move, but Andrew was quick to respond; quicker than you'd expected. You'd guided him into the shadows, back pressed against the hard shelves of receipts and ledgers. Nobody ventured this far if they could help it, and thus was the perfect place for a steamy rendezvous. So far, Andrew had only placed delicate kisses on your hand, your cheek, never allowing himself to claim your lips. As you dared to press your lips together, he moaned softly into your mouth at the first contact, an outpouring of relief straight into your throat that rippled through your chest. Oh, the wait had been worth it, and seconds later your hands were in his hair, so soft and silky, and his gripped your waist with a strength that made your knees weak.

A slip of tongue parted his lips and met with his own; warm, wet and firm pressure as they delved and dared to explore. A hint of peppermint lingered from earlier that morning, and you could smell it, too, mingled with the warm spices that seemed to coat his skin. You followed the scent down, along his jaw, placing slow and sultry kisses along the path to his neck.

"Fuck…," he whispered.

You smiled against his neck using your exposed teeth to nip at the delicate skin, pressing your tongue to his pulse to relish in every raging beat of his heart.

"I didn't think you were much for swearing, Andrew."

He responded with a quiet whine and a pull of your waist, driving you right into the path of his raging erection. All sense of propriety seemed to have vanished as his hips ground against yours in rhythm to the slow tugs of his hair.

"Tell me to stop and I will," you whispered.

"Please don't…don't stop."

You were lost then, the soft pleas sending shivers up your spine. It was no longer a case of fulfilling your own needs, despite the painful throbbing in your core; you needed to hear him say those sweet words again. To bring him to the edge and have him beg for release. His glazed eyes already pleaded with as you pulled back to look at him, arching your back just far enough to deprive him of that friction he so craved.

“Maybe later? After work? It’s hardly appropriate now,” you said, failing to keep the shakiness from your voice.

Andrew looked mortified before the sensible side of his brain kicked in, his fingers releasing the bruising grip from your waist with a sigh. He attempted to smooth his hair that you’d so thoroughly ruffled, until you swatted his hand away to take care of it and he tended to the problem in his trousers. No amount of repositioning was going to hide that, and you blushed furiously at the straining bulge.

“You’re right, of course. Sorry, I got a bit carried away,” he said.

“Don’t apologise, Merlin knows I wanted to…”

When you re-emerged from the shadows, you were convinced your colleagues must have sensed the tension or noticed how unkempt you both looked. If they did, they thankfully turned a blind eye and kept their mouths shut. The thought of what you'd be doing after work proved to be quite diverting, neither one of you quite sure what it would involve. What you did know was that you were slowly losing your mind as the hours dragged by, with only small touches and lingering gazes to sustain you. Even your usual lunch date felt more heated—you almost jumped out of your skin when his foot slid up your calf under the table. Quite unexpected, but very welcome, even if he couldn't quite meet your eye when he did it.

You got your own back for that, at least—his shudder was visible as you trailed your fingers down his back whilst he talked to his supervisor. So visible that the poor, oblivious man had asked if Andrew required a sick day.

"Coming down with a cold, Larson?"

He'd shaken his head and you'd stifled a giggle, only to find yourself being teased under your desk not an hour later. This game you played was excruciating in the best way, and Andrew grew bolder and bolder as his frustration mounted. You wondered how far you could push him until he burst, but by the time you'd formulated an idea, the work day had ended. As people filed out of the department, you sat filling out paperwork that wouldn't need finishing for weeks. Andrew was busy reading a ledger with glazed eyes, chewing his lip and muttering distracted goodbyes to bemused colleagues. Victoria was the last to leave, and as her ungainly form retreated down the hallway, you dipped back into the office to find Andrew.

He was already waiting, wide eyed and practically dripping with anticipation. You weren't sure who moved first, only that the end result was your lips fused together and tongues tangled as you backed deeper into the room, disappearing amongst the stacks. You found your favourite spot of solitude next to the towering wooden cabinet after some tripping and fumbling, neither person able or willing to loosen their grip on the other. Andrew's slim fingers stayed respectfully on your waist, though the grip was bruising as he kneaded your flesh. He hesitated for a second when you brushed a hand over his behind and you seized the opportunity to wrangle him back against the cabinet.

The groan he made as he made contact with the wood was little to do with the force of impact and more so a titillating sound of arousal as you took control of the situation. He pulled you closer, melding your bodies together as you struggled to pull off his jacket. He was wearing too many layers for the kind of fun you wanted tonight. The smart suit jacket was unceremoniously discarded on the floor, and you struggled free from his grasp, placing a palm against his chest. The fire in his eyes ignited, and your own chest blazed in response.

"Hands above your head for me," you muttered in his ear.

Andrew raised his arms tentatively, your hand traced the seams of his shirt to find his wrists obediently crossed above him. With a little pressure, you gripped them in one hand, pinning him back against the cabinet as you withdrew your wand, taking your time to trace the tip across his ribs as it moved upward. Once aligned with his wrists, you muttered the incantation to bind him in rope, controlling your charm as best you could amongst your heavy breath and thundering pulse. You didn't want to be rough, after all. Andrew whimpered slightly as the rope tightened, his back arching far enough to press his hardened length against your hip. The moan he let out from the brief friction was ear-shattering, and you thanked the heavens that your colleagues had long since left.

"Naughty boy."

"Please…"

The throbbing in your core had reached unbearable levels, your underwear already damp with arousal, and yet giving in wasn't an option. Andrew was so deliriously wound up, you could have asked for anything in return to be touched that he would have given it gladly, no questions asked. You weren't cruel, though—all you wanted was for him to have a mind-blowing orgasm whilst screaming your name. The better the buildup, the better the result.

You stowed your wand and turned your attention to the buttons of Andrew's shirt, unpicking them slowly to reveal the fair skin of his torso, a smattering of the ash blond hair around his chest disappearing in a thin trail beneath his trousers. A moan slipped from your lips as your lips delved to press against his collarbone, hands roaming his heated skin, slowly tracing the curve of his ribs and delicious jagged edge of his hip bones. Andrew was practically writhing beneath your touch, chest heaving beneath your agonisingly slow descent. By the time you reached his nipple, his hips had settled into a rhythm that pushed against the steady grip of your hand holding him in place.

You glanced down to watch him rocking, desperately seeking friction. His cock was straining against the fabric of his trousers, and you noticed the deep pink of his head poking out of his waistband, squeezed by his tightly fastened belt. A glistening bead of precum caught your eye, and you were suddenly dizzy, almost overcome with lustful desire. Andrew was in a daze, every movement he made causing his cock to bulge and squeeze against the leather, bringing him closer to climax without so much as a graze of your hand or lick of your tongue.

"Andrew…fuck, are you going to come for me?"

"Y-yeah," he answered shakily, his big brown eyes meeting yours and momentarily robbing you of breath.

Returning your attention to his chest, you kissed back down to his nipple and enveloped the tiny pink bud, swiping your tongue across with a soft moan. You felt Andrew twitching and shaking underneath your hands, all manner of expletives now leaving his beautifully soft lips as you teased and kissed, flicked and sucked the sensitive little nub. It took all of your self restraint to keep yourself focused on his pleasure, but it was worth it for every moan and whimper. Your hands still caressed the skin around his hips, now rolling faster and faster against your fruitless attempts to still him.

"Oh, Gods…I'm gonna-"

You didn't have time to respond—with a whimper and shaky moan of your name, he finished without you laying a hand on his erection, until then. You gripped his length and palmed him through the fabric as he came, his cock throbbing and pulsing against the restrictive leather band. As your hand felt the damp warmth spreading from his release you turned your attention to his neck, kissing gently and humming against his skin as he rode out his orgasm. You didn't think you'd ever seen anything so erotic as the gasping, blushing, dishevelled mess of a man now limp against the cabinet behind him.

"That…amazing…sorry," he panted.

Trying to steady your own breath was proving futile. Just looking at him made you crazed, your own desperation growing as the seconds ticked by. Despite Andrew's own fucked state, he tugged your blouse and you fell against him; against the mess of his trousers and his bare chest flushed red and heated. His bound hands came over your head to hold the back of your head firm against the ropes as he kissed you, hard. A kiss of thanks, perhaps; and you melted.

"Can you…let my…wrists free?" he asked between kisses.

"Hm? Oh, right…," you said distractedly, pulling out your wand to reverse the spell.

Once he was free, his fingers flexed before slipping into your hair at the nape of your neck, and another hand slid down the length of your body in one swift motion. He hesitated again at your hip, pulling back to ask permission with a look.

"Please touch me, Andrew."

He moaned again into your mouth, satisfied enough with your answer to gather the fabric of your skirt and manoeuvre you around to pin you against the cabinet. It was your turn now, and Gods you needed it. His leg slid between yours to prise you open, his hands were shaky and touch so delicate as he slid his fingers up your thighs. Your head fell back with a whine falling from your lips as he found your aching centre, pressing firmly against the saturated fabric with more confidence than you'd expected.

"Yes…oh, Andrew…"

"There?" he whispered as his fingers slipped past the seam of your underwear to the pool of slick at your entrance.

You whimpered in reply, grinding against his hand with no inhibition, desperately seeking your own release. Andrew kissed you gently before resting his forehead against your own, breath still heavy as he concentrated his efforts on the movement of his hand. The cotton of your underwear stood no chance as he pulled it to one side, delving inside you with one finger, then two. You took him easily, so wet and prepared from an entire day of teasing.

"Yes, like that. More," you demanded.

He did as he was asked, curling and pumping his fingers until you were reduced to a writhing mess, on a precipice and waiting to fall into sweet oblivion. Another finger almost ended you, and when he whispered your name, you let go. Your orgasm ripped through you so strongly you gripped his hair for dear life, filling the room with your wails. If anyone had come back for a stray piece of paperwork, they would surely hear but you didn't much care in that moment. Your walls pulsed around his fingers as his movements slowed, fingers gently stroking inside you to tease every second out of your climax. He certainly knew what he was doing, or he'd gotten incredibly lucky.

"Fuck," was all you managed to say before the pair of you burst into laughter.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Of course. That was incredible. Are you okay?"

"Never better."

He smiled and kissed you again as his arms enveloped you in his warmth and you allowed your eyes to close and head loll against his shoulder. You could certainly get used to this, perhaps somewhere more comfortable next time.

Had you gone too far? Pushed too fast? The questions raged through your head as Andrew failed to turn up to work for the second day in a row following your…encounter. You'd asked as soon as the first hour passed without him and was told that he was simply off sick. The Ministry had received an owl explaining that he was too unwell to come to work, return date unknown. An uncomfortable heaviness had settled in your chest and hadn't budged since.

You were finding it harder to concentrate as the morning dragged on, only made worse by having to manage Andrew's workload as well as your own. After two cups of tea and countless rereadings of a dull memo that refused to make sense, you gave up your show of indifference and left your office. Stalking through your room, you found your target in her usual spot, reading a housewitch magazine under her desk.

"Where is Andrew?" you asked as soon as her face was in view.

"Good morning to you, too," Victoria said. "He's off sick again."

"Can you give me his address so I can visit? I can check he's okay…"

"Shouldn't you already know his address since you're ever so close?"

Perhaps you'd not been quite as subtle as you'd thought, but were in no mood for her bitter jealousy.

"Victoria, I swear to Godric if you don't tell me his address right now I'll hex you."

"Alright, alright…feisty, aren't you?" she said, with a hint of admiration.

She folded her magazine and placed it on the desk as she searched for a quill and parchment to jot down the address. Your fingers tapped impatiently on the wood, eyes glancing over the article she'd been reading about scrubbing charms. The thought of finding that riveting made you recoil.

"Here," she said, handing you a scrap of paper with a scrawled note.

"Thanks, really."

She nodded curtly as you skipped off. At least you'd be able to see Andrew later, and with any luck, set things straight. The address in your pocket stayed there throughout the day, your palm patting it nervously every hour to ensure its safety. As soon as the clock struck five o'clock you were rushing out of the door, ignoring the curious glances and raised eyebrows from your colleagues.

Once clear of the department, you pulled out the address and reread it, committing it to memory as you approached the floo fireplaces. Waiting for your turn impatiently, the green flames enveloped you the second you stepped into the hearth and pulled you through the network with a squeeze. You were deposited seconds later outside a neat two-up two-down terraced house in a quiet suburban street. The frontage felt very Andrew; understated, clean and respectable. You wondered what lay inside as you pressed the doorbell, waiting with bated breath. As the seconds ticked by your nerves grew, foot tapping nervously on the brick pavement.

Finally, the door creaked open, revealing a very tired and very unwell looking Andrew, whose eyes widened upon seeing you.

"What are you…is everything okay?" he said, wrapping his arms around himself.

He was dressed only in pyjamas, clearly having been woken from a much needed rest. You bit your lip, guilt bubbling in your stomach.

"Sorry, I just wanted to check on you since you've been off work…wondered if there was anything I could do."

Andrew smiled softly and shook his head, stepping back to open the door a little wider.

"Would you like to come in? Sorry I'm not very presentable."

"I'm sorry for just turning up. But yes, I'd like to come in, if you're feeling up to it."

He guided you inside his home, through the handsome hallway with tiled floor and delicate cornicing, to the living room. The cosy space was sparsely furnished but dotted with photographs, ornaments and a collection of paintings. Some were landscapes, painted by a talented hand, many of the canvases leaning against the wall were facial studies. Portraits. Portraits of you. It wouldn't have been arrogant to say so, as the resemblance was striking. Andrew hadn't noticed you looking, instead busying himself attempting to straighten the creases in his cotton shirt. He truly was adorable.

"So, you've just been feeling under the weather?" you asked.

"Of course, why else would I be off work?"

"I just haven't heard from you, that's all."

"I'm sorry, I managed to send an owl to work and then I admit I've been asleep much of the time…did they not tell you I was ill?"

"Well, yes…," you said, feeling a little stupid.

What had you expected, really? A heartfelt letter detailing his ailment and wishes to see you soon? Well, perhaps, but that was unrealistic. The truth was, you'd just missed him terribly and assumed the worst.

"You don't regret what we did, do you?" you asked, holding your breath for the answer.

"Merlin, no! How could I?"

His shock dissipated as quickly as it had come, features settling into soft reassurance. He held out a hand to guide you onto the sofa, still looking weak as his fingers squeezed your palm tightly.

"I thought maybe I'd been too…too much," you admitted.

Andrew shook his head but took a while to reply, thumb stroking the back of your hand whilst he formed the correct words.

"Honestly, you've helped bring me out of my shell. Before you, I've never…I'd been so terrified to do anything with a woman," he admitted, blushing with embarrassment.

"You've never been with a woman before? I'm sorry, you must think I'm some sort of harlot…"

"Absolutely not."

"You certainly seemed experienced," you said with a smirk.

"Well, let's just say I'm well-read," he shrugged.

"You can get that from books?"

"Some of it, at least. There's still much I've not yet experienced."

"I'd be more than happy to demonstrate," you said, sliding your hand onto his thigh.

"That wasn't a hint! I'd never ask you to…"

"I'm offering."

If he'd been about to stutter another reply, he was silenced by the tug of his pyjama bottoms being pulled down his hips. You positioned yourself between his legs, knees on the hard wooden floor whilst you eased the fabric down, placing kisses to his abdomen as you did. His cock twitched and swelled, and another press of your lips to his length had him standing at full attention. He was impressive, much more so than you'd imagined from the sizeable bulge in his trousers. Unrestrained, he was magnificent, and you salivated at the thought of taking him in your mouth, tasting him.

By all accounts it was likely one of the quickest blowjobs you'd delivered, but one of the sweetest. He tugged your hair gently and muttered your name as your tongue worked him gently and slowly, never taking your eyes off of him. He never looked away either, and the connection made it all the better.

As Andrew lay slumped on his sofa, recovering, you wiped your lips with a satisfied grin and straddled his hips to hold him close. He was so warm and gentle, and you nuzzled into the crook of his neck with a sigh that he echoed along with a kiss to your temple.

"Andrew?"

"Yes?"

"Those paintings…"

"Ah."

"Are they of…"

"You? Yes. I didn't think it was such a bad artist that the resemblance wasn't clear," he chuckled.

"Just making sure," you smiled. "I'd have offered to pose for you if you'd asked."

Of all things you'd just done, that simple statement had made him blush.

"This might be far too forward to ask, but would you like to stay with me tonight?" he asked.

You smiled and nodded, allowing him to guide you to his bedroom, from which you didn't return for the night.

You'd fallen asleep in his arms wearing only a spare nightshirt, after being curled up reading a book whilst he rested. He was exhausted and needed the sleep, but the night hadn't been a disappointment at all. Being able to hold him close was a blessing, and you'd slipped into unconsciousness with a smile on your face. When morning came, you startled at the unfamiliar surroundings, but the gentle stroke of your hair soon calmed you.

"Good morning. It's the weekend," Andrew's quiet, croaky voice came from behind you.

You were laying on your side, book tucked underneath the pillow, as Andrew enveloped your back in his warmth. The tickle of his breath on your neck made you giggle as you stretched your limbs and blinked into the hazy sunshine flooding the bedroom.

"It is the weekend, isn't it," you sighed happily.

Despite his sleepy voice, you didn’t fail to notice the very obvious hard length pressed against your behind. With a smile, you shuffled back further, pressing your cheeks against his arousal with a little wiggle that made him groan softly against the back of your neck. His lips found your pulse, pressing gentle kisses below your ear as his free hand responded to your tease. The nightshirt put up no resistance to his swift ascent, fingers skimming your curves and exploring every inch of your body.

You rocked your hips gently, not only for his benefit but for the delicious friction as you squeezed your thighs. Andrew took his time caressing you, flicking and circling your peaked nipples as his mouth travelled down your neck to nibble at your shoulder. Soft pleas fell from your lips as you lost yourself to his touch, and his dexterous fingers repeated what they’d achieved that fateful night amongst the magical artefacts. By the time you’d finished squirming around his digits, you were soft, malleable, and so utterly enamoured by the man now towering over you.

Andrew looked down at you with parted lips, the nerves showing on his beautiful face. You reached up to cup his cheek, spreading your legs for him to settle between as your other hand wrapped around his swollen cock. He gasped at the touch, moaning softly as soon as you started to stroke him. His thickness was daunting, but you knew he’d be gentle, and so would you. There was no place for teasing here, only finding each other for the first time, and opening up a world for him.

“I’m ready, if you are,” you said.

He nodded, letting you guide him, rubbing his weeping tip over your clit before sliding him between your folds to your entrance. He pressed into you slowly and stretched you with only a little resistance, enough to make you gasp and grip the bed sheets below. Inch by inch he filled you, until he could go no further and you felt fuller than you’d ever been.

“Andrew, you feel amazing,” you sighed.

“So do you. Absolutely incredible.”

He kept his eyes on you through it all, gazing down at you with adoration as you returned the same, your fingers laced in his ashy hair or tracing the curve of his jaw. He kissed your fingers with plush, swollen lips as he found a rhythm, pulling out almost to the tip before pressing back inside with steady, deliberate strokes. He built your orgasm with ease, the constant caress deep inside your core pulling soft moans from your throat, harmonising with his own.

“Can I finish inside you?” he whispered as his breath grew ragged and shallow.

“Yes, oh please yes.”

Andrew groaned his approval and shifted on the mattress, pushing your legs further back as he leaned down to kiss you. Your tongues intertwined amongst breathy sighs as he hit you deeper than ever, resuming his previous pace with harder thrusts. Your knuckles grew white as you gripped the pillow behind your head, looking up at him with begging eyes as you approached your climax.

“I’m so close….”

Those words were enough to send Andrew over the edge, and he gasped your name as he exploded and pulled you along with him. His pulsing cock filled you completely as you rode out your releases together, tightly entwined in each other’s arms. You only stilled once the last wave ebbed away and Andrew stilled, his seed coating your legs and thoroughly ruining his bed sheets, though that didn’t seem to worry him in the slightest. He held you and kissed you, noses brushing, both of you wearing giddy smiles that didn’t appear to fade for the rest of the day.

The thought of starting this new job had filled you with fear, unease, even boredom—but you’d never been so happy to be proven wrong. For what might have been the first time in your life, you didn’t relish the thought of continuing your travels. For once, you had something keeping you rooted; someone and somewhere to call home.

#andrew larson #andrew larson x reader #andrew larson fanfiction #hogwarts legacy fanfiction

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walks-the-ages · 5 months

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ah, can't find the original post to respond to it, and tumblr was refusing to let me actually post with the usual bullshit of "sorry there was an error processing your post" . anyways.

If you see a post going around about Jewish restaurants being targeted for harassment by pro-palestine protestors "solely for being Jewish", stop what you are doing and actually look up the incident in question, because that is not what happened at Goldie's restaurant!

Full article below for accessiblity, and because we all know Tumblr only looks at headlines and doesn't click links to news articles.

Long post!

Bolding is my own for emphasis.

A protest against a top Israel-born chef was called antisemitic. Staff tell a different story

Wilfred ChanFri 8 Dec 2023 16.55 GMTFirst published on Fri 8 Dec 2023 12.00 GMT

The 21-second clip went viral almost as soon as it was posted early on Sunday evening. It showed hundreds of protesters, some with Palestinian flags, united in a rhyming chant: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”

They were protesting outside Goldie, a vegan falafel restaurant owned by Michael Solomonov, the Israel-born celebrity chef best known for Zahav, an Israeli-themed restaurant widely considered one of the United States’ finest eateries. It was one brief stop along a march traversing Philadelphia that lasted about three hours.

Many of the protesters hadn’t even returned home from the march when the condemnations began to pour in. The Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, posted on X: “Tonight in Philly, we saw a blatant act of antisemitism – not a peaceful protest. A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli. This hate and bigotry is reminiscent of a dark time in history.”

Even the White House piled on: it was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy”, said the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates. Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice-President Kamala Harris, wrote on X that he had spoken with Solomonov and “told him @POTUS, @VP, and the entire Biden-Harris Administration will continue to have his back”.

It was the apex of a saga that has resulted in at least three workers fired from Solomonov’s restaurants over, as they see it, their pro-Palestine activism coming into conflict with their bosses’ views and policies, and at least one other worker who has resigned in protest – thrusting the renowned Israeli eateries into the thick of bitter US disagreements over the Israel-Hamas war.

The street protest against Goldie has sparked heated debate. As the war on Gaza rages on, with over 17,000 people killed in Gaza since 7 October – 70% of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry – are Israel-linked businesses in the US implicated? Was Solomonov, a chef who has credited Palestinian influences in his cooking, an appropriate target?

Interviews with protesters and current and former employees at Solomonov’s restaurants paint a more complex version of events than what the video clip may have suggested. They reject the notion that Goldie was singled out because of the owners’ ethnicity, arguing that their objections stem from management using the restaurants to fundraise for Israel after 7 October in spite of worker concerns. Activists also say their protest shines a necessary spotlight on the political commitments of one of the highest-profile restaurateurs in the United States.

Tensions at work

There were political tensions simmering at Solomonov’s restaurants before Sunday’s march. The Guardian spoke to three Goldie workers who say they were fired due to their pro-Palestine advocacy: two who wore Palestinian flag pins in violation of a newly announced dress code that forbade non-Goldie branded adornments, and another who tweeted in support of Sunday’s street protest.

Their discomfort at work began following a fundraiser in October, during which Solomonov and his business partner Steve Cook announced they would donate all of the restaurant group’s profits from one day, over $100,000, to United Hatzalah, an Israeli medical non-profit that has supplied the Israel Defense Forces with protective and medical gear during the current war against Hamas.

And in early November, Solomonov’s Zahav hosted a private fundraiser by a prominent political action committee dedicated to supporting political candidates “who reflect Jewish values”. Attendees at the event, which has not been previously reported, included the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer; and dozens of other pro-Israel officials and lobbyists, according to a current Zahav employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The employee said that in recent weeks, Solomonov had also booked and paid for multiple, lavish private dinners at Zahav for IDF members preparing to deploy to fight for Israel.

“The amount of material support that we’ve lended to pro-Israel causes and Israeli military personnel has been really discomforting,” the Zahav worker told the Guardian.

In an email to workers on Wednesday, Solomonov and Cook apologized for not communicating about their political stances with staff more directly. The pair had sought to “avoid discussing politics at work … to make everyone as comfortable as possible in the restaurant,” the owners wrote. “But perhaps we created a void that had the opposite effect. For that, we are sorry.”

The fraught politics of food

The protest and its fallout have produced the biggest controversy ever faced by Solomonov, one of America’s most prominent Israeli cultural figures and someone who for years has cast himself as a culinary bridge between Israel, Palestine, and the United States.

Solomonov’s brother, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was killed in 2003 by Hezbollah snipers; Solomonov wrote in his first cookbook, Zahav, that the tragedy made him briefly consider joining Israel’s army. Instead, he decided to channel his emotion into food, something he found allowed him to “expose people to a side of Israel that had nothing to do with politics”. That led him and Cook, an investment banker-turned-restaurateur, to found Zahav in 2008, followed by other prominent Israeli-themed eateries: Dizengoff, Goldie, K’Far, and Laser Wolf, under a restaurant group called CookNSolo. In 2017, Israel’s ministry of tourism named him a culinary ambassador.

The restaurants have never been completely free from controversy. Debates over the origins and ownership of Middle Eastern food have raged for years; many culinary experts have argued that Palestinian contributions to Mediterranean cuisine have been used by Israeli chefs without sufficient respect or acknowledgement. Yet while Solomonov and Cook have always branded their food as Israeli, their menus and cookbooks cite Palestinian influences on many dishes. For years, Solomonov also spoke of his friendship with the Palestinian writer and cookbook author Reem Kassis – though the two are no longer speaking, according to the New York Times.

But the conflicts aren’t just over cultural appropriation. They’re about “the way Israel as a state has weaponized food against the Palestinian people”, says the Palestinian American chef Reem Assil, who owns Reem’s, a Arab street food joint in San Francisco. “Even before these last 60 days, Israel has restricted what Gazans can access in terms of food and water. They target bakeries, they target farms, they target markets. They uproot our olive trees, they make it illegal for us to forge our own ingredients, like za’atar.” The UN warned last month that Israel’s military operations in Gaza had put residents there at “immediate” risk of starvation.

A controversial fundraiser

Since the 7 October attacks, Solomonov has publicly sought to caveat his support for Israel. “I personally believe in the right of Palestinians to have their own state, and the right for self-determination, and I don’t deny those things,” he said at an event last month in New Jersey, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And I believe the Israeli government oftentimes does things that I would not do at all … and it can be quite damaging.”

But internally, Solomonov and Cook were using their restaurants to steer resources toward Israel.

On 10 October, Solomonov and Cook announced a fundraiser that would donate all the profits across CookNSolo restaurants on 12 October to United Hatzalah. “It is not associated with any military,” the restaurant group assured staff in a Slack message – something that simply wasn’t true, workers soon realized with alarm.

Goldie staff were caught off guard because they considered the restaurant a politically progressive institution. The vegan falafel restaurant proudly displayed an LGBTQ flag and Black Lives Matter flag on its wall. Many of the workers were young and identified as queer. There was a casual dress code: Noah Wood, a 25-year-old who uses they/them pronouns, said they did shifts at Goldie while wearing hats with slogans supporting indigenous rights.

The night before CookNSolo’s fundraiser, Goldie’s store manager at the time, 24-year-old Sophie Hamilton, says she discovered public videos by United Hatzalah about how the non-profit supplied protective gear to IDF soldiers. She rushed off an email to Goldie’s general manager, Emma Richards, saying she felt “deeply betrayed and misled”. “I feel like I’ve been left with no choice but to refuse to come to work tomorrow unless [CookNSolo] commits to also raising donations for a Palestinian humanitarian organization, of course with no connection to any military.”

But Hamilton’s suggestion was ignored, and Richards simply told her someone would cover her shift the next day.

When Hamilton returned to work, she decided to keep working but while wearing a small Palestinian flag pin. “There’s just a point where you can’t leave your humanity at the door,” she said. No customers complained, but two weeks later, management announced a new rule: staff were not to wear stickers, pins, or patches that were not Goldie-branded.

Wood, the other server, started wearing a Palestinian flag pin in open defiance of the new rule. Another worker, June, 24, wore a green shirt, black pants, and a red bandana – a reference to the colors of Palestinian flag.

On 15 November, the restaurant asked Hamilton to send Wood home for violating the dress code. Hamilton refused, and the next day they were both fired, Hamilton for “poor performance for failing to enforce the uniform policy”. Wood was not given any official reason, they say.

In the Wednesday email to staff, the owners wrote: “We recognize that people have different views on the war between Israel and Hamas, and we respect your rights to your own views. Many of our guests have passionate feelings about the current conflict and, knowing that not all of you feel the same way, our approach is to simply avoid discussing politics at work.”

They did not provide details on the firings beyond writing: “It is also important for you to hear directly from us that we have never terminated employees based on their support for Palestine.”

The owners added: “We think it’s important to say that our support of Israel is not unqualified. We have plenty of criticisms, particularly in the way that the government has stymied the prospects for Palestinian statehood in recent years.”

In a statement shared with the Guardian, United Hatzalah’s senior vice-president for international operations, Michael Brown, said that the nonprofit and the IDF “often train together, especially when conducting mass casualty training drills, or search and rescue training drills in order to hone our skills and help the IDF sharpen theirs, as well as to allow for an easier flow of collaborative life saving efforts should the need ever arise in the field, similar to what happened during October 7th.”

The restaurant group declined to respond to a detailed list of questions by the Guardian about the fired workers, but a spokeswoman said in a statement: “CookNSolo exists to create community through food. We are committed to fostering an open, safe, and supportive workplace for all of our employees who have varying backgrounds and political views. Like many hospitality companies, we have standard policies for our employees, which we consistently enforce.” Solomonov declined, through a representative, a direct request for an interview.

Justin Sadowsky, an attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights non-profit, says the firings of Goldie workers are the first time he’s heard of restaurant workers allegedly fired for supporting Palestine since 7 October. “We’ve seen it in hospitals, we’ve seen it at large corporations, we’ve seen it in law firms, but it’s sort of spilling into everywhere,” he said. The organization says it’s received a “staggering” 2,171 requests for help and reports of bias in the 57 days since the Israel-Hamas war began, equalling nearly half of the total complaints it handled in all of 2022.

Call for a boycott

Meanwhile, CookNSolo’s fundraiser for United Hatzalah had caught the attention of local activists in a group called the Philadelphia Free Palestine Coalition. The activists weren’t in touch with the restaurant workers, but drew the same conclusion: by funneling restaurant proceeds toward a group associated with the IDF, CookNSolo was complicit in Israel’s war crimes.

In mid-October, the activists called for a boycott. Natalie Abulhawa, a Palestinian American organizer at the Free Palestine Coalition, helped write an Instagram post for the boycott that named three of Solomonov’s restaurants – Goldie, Zahav, and Laser Wolf – as well as a number of other Middle Eastern restaurants in the city. “Restaurants and businesses claiming to sell ‘Israeli’ food, fruits, vegetables, and products are part of an ongoing colonial campaign of stealing, appropriating, and profiting off of Palestinian food and culture as a means of erasing Palestinian existence,” the call read.

The boycott made waves in the food world, and Solomonov addressed it at a closed-door event in November at a New Jersey Jewish Community Center. Speaking to the crowd of several hundred, he called the boycott misguided, adding that it wasn’t affecting his sales, according to the Inquirer. While acknowledging that “part of Israeli food is Palestinian influenced”, he argued that any suggestion that Israeli food was stolen from Palestinians was akin to saying Israelis “don’t have a right to be there”. Solomonov added that his restaurants credited Palestinian influences on their menus and claimed Zahav imported more Palestinian wines than any other Philadelphia eatery.

But privately, Solomonov and Cook were using their restaurants to platform Israel’s war effort. On 1 November, Zahav hosted a fundraiser by a major political action committee called Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania, whose guests included Whitmer and as many as 80 other pro-Israel officials and lobbyists, according to the unnamed Zahav employee. “It was an explicitly pro-Israel reception and speeches made were about that support,” the employee said.

The employee said that Whitmer, who delivered a keynote, opened with the Jewish expression of solidarity “Am Yisrael Chai”, or “the people of Israel live”, and called for providing material support to Israel, and that Solomonov, who was in the audience, was afterward “emphatically talking and thanking all of the attendees”.

In the following weeks, the employee became even more disturbed as Solomonov hosted and paid for at least two private dinners at Zahav for small groups of Israelis, including soldiers who were preparing to fly home to fight the Gaza war. Solomonov explained with “a level of reverence” that the restaurant would cover the bill because of the diners’ roles in the Israeli military, the employee says.

These events, in addition to the firings of Goldie staff, have made many of Zahav’s staff deeply uncomfortable. “Most of the employees here are not particularly interested in the support of Israel,” the employee said, but the workers fear retaliation if they speak out. CookNSolo declined to comment on the events at Zahav.

A clip goes viral

Pennsylvania’s Jewish and Muslim communities have been on edge since the Israel-Hamas war began. On Monday, a Jewish daycare in Philadelphia reported that vandals had spray-painted “Free Palestine” and other graffiti on its windows. On Tuesday, a pair of students sued the University of Pennsylvania, claiming it had become an “incubation lab for virulent anti-Jewish hatred”. Last week, a South Philadelphia mosque reported that it had been vandalized by anti-Muslim graffiti. And last month, a man was arrested for pointing a gun and yelling racial slurs against a group of pro-Palestine demonstrators at the state’s capitol.

The Goldie protest also followed a growing number of incidents that have entangled Middle Eastern food businesses. Palestinian restaurants such as New York City’s Ayat have reported being flooded with negative reviews since the war began; last month, an ex-Obama aide was charged with a hate crime for harassing a halal food street vendor.

But Goldie’s attempts to head off pro-Palestinian activism were futile.

On 3 December, the Free Palestine Coalition led hundreds of protesters in an evening of marches around Philadelphia to renew calls for a ceasefire. Starting from Rittenhouse Square in Philly’s Center City neighborhood, the march took a wrong turn, which brought it past Goldie, says Abulhawa. The encounter with the falafel restaurant wasn’t planned, she says, “but we ran with it”.

June, who is Jewish, was one of the employees working inside Goldie that night, and said the protest – which lasted just a few minutes – was completely peaceful: “There was nothing violent, no hint of antisemitism.” The store was devoid of guests when the marchers arrived, though one customer came in partway through to pickup an online order and displayed no reaction. June even thought about going outside to join the protest, but thought better of it and instead quietly chanted along to the slogans from inside the store.

Someone placed two small stickers on Goldie’s door and window. One read, “Free Palestine,” and another contained a statistic about the number of children Israel had killed in Gaza (Abulhawa says that whoever placed the stickers were not asked to do so by protest organizers). One protester briefly posed in front of the door with a Palestine flag. Then the protest shuffled on.

A few minutes later, a user named Jordan Van Glish posted a 21-second clip of the protest to X, where it quickly went viral. Comments flooded in: “Once again proving that this is about hating Jews,” one user wrote. Stop Antisemitism, a prominent pro-Israel group, posted that it was a “failure” that no anti-riot police were dispatched and no protesters were arrested.

But Philadelphia’s police force told the Guardian that officers observing the march “did not see, hear, or record any threats to persons inside or outside Goldie”, and the department received “no 911 calls or complaints” during the event.

Some marchers have acknowledged how the clip, taken out of context, could have been misinterpreted. “I’d say in hindsight, maybe [the organizers] should have spent another minute explaining why we were stopping there,” says Joe Piette, a photographer who joined the protest. “It would have been better to explain some of the details of the owner of that restaurant. Our mistake was not explaining it on the spot.”

June felt that frustration when they got home that night and saw the clip gaining traction. “So I felt like I should give the context that was missing from that tweet,” they said. June published a post explaining that the restaurant group had raised money for Israel-linked causes and punished pro-Palestine employees. “If you don’t want to be directly funding genocide, you should probably stay away from Goldie” and other CookNSolo restaurants, they wrote.

On Monday, June got a phone call while on the bus to work: they were fired as well. The manager gave no explanation, but June didn’t need to ask why. “Honestly, I didn’t really feel that bad or surprised,” they said. “I had no pride in this job.”

High-profile officials have continued to argue that the protesters were motivated by antisemitism. Governor Shapiro doubled down on his tweet after visiting Goldie and meeting with Solomonov on Wednesday. “A mob protested a restaurant simply because it’s owned by a Jewish person,” the governor claimed. “That is the kind of antisemitic tropes that we saw in 1930s Germany, and it’s the kind of thing we should not tolerate.” In a statement to the Guardian, his office reiterated: “This was not a peaceful protest”.

Two days after the march, Tess Rauscher, a 25-year-old barista at the CookNSolo-owned Israeli cafe K’Far, resigned, citing the company’s fundraiser and firing of Goldie workers, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It was these actions, not the identity of the owner, that changed the nature of my job,” she said.

This article was amended on 8 December 2023 to delete an incorrect reference to a manager taking down an LGBTQ+ flag. Also references to Governor Josh Shapiro attending an event at Zahav on 1 November were deleted. Governor Shapiro’s office have said he was not at the event.

[end article]

TL;DR:

Goldie's restaurant and 2 other restaurants owned by the same famous Israeli chef were part of a general boycott starting in October.

The famous israeli chef, Michael Solomonov, has been directly funding the Israeli military with fundraisers at his various owned resteraunts (including donating over $100,000 in a single day)

Michael Solomonov has also hosted multiple, lavish "going away parties" free of charge for people deploying to go fight in Gaza (you know, just, going on over to help commit genocide!)

Multiple staff were fired for being pro-palestine, including for wearing pins with the Palestinian flag, or wearing the colors of the palestinian flag to work.

June, A jewish staff member who was working when the protestors arrived outside the restaurant, did not feel threatened in any way, affirmed it was a completely peaceful protest, and actually considered stopping their work to go out and join the march, but ultimately decided to stay for the rest of their shift and quietly chant along with the protestors. They were fired a few days later, and not given any explanation.

#long post #bold text #large text #free palestine #palestine #israel #free gaza #michael solomonov #zionism #anti-zionism #signal boost

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