[Fic] blasting agent (Harry Potter)
- Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
- Pairing: Tom Riddle | Voldemort/Percy Weasley
- Tags: AU
- Word-Count: 1143
- Status: Complete
- First Published: 2024-06-26
- Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling and make no profit from this—it is solely a hobby for fun, with no financial compensation.
Notes:
- For beelzebaozi.
Work Text:
The man waited at Percy's desk again. Percy, eyebrows already furrowing at the league of work he needed to do today, sighed and stepped up, dropping the piles of documents onto the already-swarmed desk. "What do you want, Lord Riddle?" he asked, containing the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He was tired, and irritated, and overwhelmed by work; he had no time for whatever scheme Riddle was pulling.
He'd already spent hours being interrogated by his family, and the Order of the Phoenix; they thought Riddle was trying to become the Minister of Magic and was doing something to him in order to get him to help.
Percy thought that was bollocks, personally.
Percy was little more than a glorified clerk. He was secretary to a man of middling importance; the recent restructuring of the Ministry's workings and employees had left a lot of people with much less influence than they previously had, Percy included. He spent most of his time trying to track down and interpret data, and figuring out how to collect new data and numbers and statistics when none existed---which was far too often.
He'd broken into a muggle university and stolen a whole slew of their mathematics books because the wizard's arithmancy quickly reached a ceiling and he needed more, better, less magic calculations that he could trust.
It had taken a long time for him to learn it, and he'd needed to hire muggle tutors; something he'd never tell anyone, ever, because he would never hear the end of it.
"More work, Percy?" asked Riddle, in that suave voice of his that indicated a scheme afoot. Riddle was always scheming something; he pulled on every thread he could get his hands on, manipulating people to go where he wanted them to, to say what he wanted, to vote the way he wanted. He might very well try to become the Minister of Magic one day, Percy was willing to admit to himself, but he didn't much need to. Riddle already had the entire Ministry under his thumb, and it was foolishness to pretend otherwise.
And Percy liked to think he wasn't a fool.
"You know I'm busy, Lord Riddle," said Percy and sat down, pulling on his reading glasses. He still hadn't managed to find a good time to get his eyesight fixed; the muggle glasses did well enough, and they were a gift from his favorite tutor. And anyway, when he fixed his sight he'd have to be off work for a week while he adjusted and his eyes resettled, and he couldn't afford that. He was far too busy.
Riddle hummed. His hair was perfectly coiled, and his red eyes seemed to see right through Percy. Not, Percy thought, that there was anything in particular he would find; Percy was a normal worker in the Ministry with no specific influence and no specific reach or connections. Sure, his parents and much of his family were involved in Dumbledore's crusade against anything he deemed to be Dark, but Percy had never cared overly much about that. He liked laws, and regulations and bureaucracy, and making decisions based on what the numbers told him. He liked working in the Ministry, even now, and had no intention of giving up on it just because one scheming man occasionally talked to him.
"Certainly not to busy for lunch," said Riddle, and it wasn't much a question. Percy looked at him over the black rim of his glasses and sighed, finally pinching the bridge of his nose.
They'd eaten lunch together four times in the last two weeks. It was simply quicker, Percy thought, to give in and get it over with it. At least Riddle paid for everything, and he wasn't bad company.
Riddle was clever, and interested in the things was interested in some of the things Percy was interested in. He didn't have much of that, never really had, and he wasn't above taking advantage of it. It was nice, he could privately admit to himself, to spend 30 minutes ranting about the inadequate protocols for handling dangerous magical beasts in education, but also the sheer incompetency in what was categorized as a dangerous magical beast and what wasn't.
Percy shuddered in horror at the mere thought.
He stood up, and Riddle reached out to plush his glasses off Percy's nose before he could stop him. Percy stood still, going nearly cross-eyed as he watched the elegant fingers getting closer, and held his breath as Riddle picked them up, and took them away from him. "There," Riddle said, sounding so pelased with himself that Percy felt a spark of exxaspeeration shoot through him.
"If you're done with your theft of my personal property," said Percy and crossed around the table, getting his glasses back when he held out his hand, "Then we can go."
Riddle smiled. It was an extraordainrily handsome smile, all the more so because Percy suspected some part of it was real. Riddle had obviously approached Percy at first because of an agenda; Percy didn't have the connections, the looks, the personality, or the wealth for there to be any other reason. He must have 0had something, known something, that Riddle wanted.
And Riddle must have gotten it, by now.
IT had been omnths, after all.
Wahaterv Riddle was after, whataver made him approach Percy in the first place, he must have gotten it. It must be over. But he still wanted to take Percy out for lunch and insisted they walk to the restaraunt they always used, even though it was a ways away and plenty of people saw them walking beside each other on the streets and comments had started popping up everywhere Percy went, these days. About how Riddle was out of his laegue, how Riddle was just taking advantage of him, or about how he was so obviously trying to take advanatge of Riddle. Seduce him, or osmething.
Percy didn't much mind. He'd been called things his entire life. But he would have thought Riddle would have given up on this, whatever it was, when those whispers started. When things started blooming outside of their control.
Instead, Riddle turned up again the following day, loitering in a place he oviously was too... much for, Percy thought. It was obvious he had plans, things in motion, even without Dumbledore's increased amount of warnings and mutterings. It was obvious there was intent in teh way Riddle played with people, with the Ministry, with the way he aligned reality with his vision.
But, still, Riddle walked up to Percy's desk and leveled him with an unimpressed look. "You work far too much," he said, "You're going to collapse one of these days, you know."
Percy did know. But, he rather thought, maybe Riddle would be there to catch him.