Harry Hart

After a long day that had started in court, Harry sat in the dim light of his study in his Beverly Hills home, the soft hum of classical music playing in the background and the scent of aged whiskey lingering in the air as it rested on the table beside him.

The case had gone perfectly. As a junior associate at the firm, Harry had been assigned a thankless, high-profile mess: James Bond, the young actor whose reckless behavior had made headlines for all the wrong reasons for years. Driving under the influence of cocaine, Bond had caused a car accident that left the other driver paralyzed. But Harry had turned it all around in court today - Bond had gotten probation and no jail time. The victim, despite the overwhelming evidence, had also been convinced not to go public with her story, her own skeletons swept neatly under the rug.

Harry knew that pulling off this victory wouldn’t just put his skills on display—it would solidify his place at the firm. A victory like this was the kind of thing that made careers. He would be moved into bigger cases now, cases where the stakes were even higher, where he’d be given more leverage to negotiate, more power to dictate the terms.

But as much as he knew this would further his career, he couldn't help but feel unsettled. Bond was a mess of a man, brimming with arrogance, a spoiled brat with more money than sense. He hadn’t seemed to fully grasp the consequences of his actions, as if the law and its consequences were something that didn’t really apply to him. And Harry had made it all go away. With a well-timed bit of leverage and a quiet word here and there, Bond’s future was assured. No consequences yet again.

Harry wasn’t a saint. He’d made his peace with this line of work a long time ago. But it still left a sour taste in his mouth.

The sound of a doorbell broke his thoughts. He rose from his chair and walked slowly to the door. He was not overly surprised when he opened it and found Bond on the other side.

To Harry's knowledge, Q and Bond were currently holed up at Q's house... discovering their own feelings for each other. He thought there was perhaps a 50-50 chance that they would decide that there was no room for him. Probably less than that, actually. Given how much tension he saw between them, he almost wanted to tell them that there was obviously no room for him.

But it felt rather... pathetic, really, to just... wait. That's why he started texting Klaus.

He got a burner phone, just as a precaution. The first text he sent was:

Hello, pet. I've been thinking about you.

Within a few exchanges, he started to give Klaus orders. Asking him to go out without his underwear. To masturbate in specific ways. Harry purchased a couple of toys at a local sex shop and put them on hold, and told Klaus to go pick them up.

He also ordered him to take care of himself. To eat well. To sleep. One night he paid for an inexpensive hotel room for him.

Eventually he started asking for photos. Which was... a very good idea.

And then on a Friday around 5pm, he texted:

Go back to the hotel. Same room, 1214. I'll be there tomorrow.

In the days after Q left, it felt to Harry almost like it had been a dream. It was absolutely absurd, what he'd felt, and how quickly. And yet...

Once he knew for certain that Q was on the station, he waited a couple of days. And when he heard nothing, he assumed that Q indeed did not remember him. It was a hard pill to swallow, but he'd been expecting it. He did, however, put in a request for Q to come to his office.

And somehow, even though he'd been thinking about this for days, when the door opened and Q walked in, he had absolutely no idea what to say.

Harry was feeling very good about his burgeoning relationship with Nyx - it was casual, still, and he doubted that Nyx was interested in anything serious - but he still found himself frequently thinking of Q. It wasn't as if things had ended badly, in fact they hadn't really ended at all. And it wasn't as if that had ever been serious either, Harry had just.... hoped that it might be. Or maybe he was just realizing now that he actually missed him, which was not something he was accustomed to feeling when he dated.

Maybe this was why, when he found himself walking by a cafe the two of them had been to once, he found himself stopping even though he had no need for coffee. He and Q hadn't been planning to stop here either, they'd been on their way somewhere else, but it was raining, and they'd ended up getting coffee and scones and just sitting in here for hours, missing whatever they'd been planning to do before.

He bought a coffee, and the same type of scone that Q had raved about before, and then sighed to himself and stepped outside. And immediately saw Q.

It was just such a coincidence and so unexpected that he was visibly startled. "Oh, I - hello," he said, awkwardly holding the coffee in one hand and a scone wrapped in paper in the other.

Harry wasn't angry as he made his way off the deck and away from Bond, but he was certainly upset. Okay, maybe a little angry, but at Bond, not Q. But he was also confused, blindsided, hurt.

He finally found him, and the first thing out of his mouth was, "You knew? You knew who he was, this whole time?"

Harry was typically happy to do what the king asked of him. He had for years, after all. Even when they were children. And even if they weren't friends, it would have been his duty. He'd already lost an eye for him.

He was known as the king's right hand man, his chief advisor, a good hand with a sword and with a keen military mind. So he'd had to do plenty of things he didn't care for...

This was not one of them. This he was always more than happy to do. And it was completely silly, how happy he was to have an excuse.

He knocked politely on the wizard's door. Adjusted the patch over his eye, and then tugged at his coat to straighten it.

Harry Hart had been at the top of MIT Technology Review's Titans of Tech list five years running. Now he was taking apart a vending machine with a screwdriver because he was aware of the shelf life of twinkies.

After... everything, he'd scrambled for quite some time, trying pointlessly to salvage his company. But without a power grid, the self-driving cars that had literally just been approved for English roads, that had sent the stock in Lepidoptera skyrocketing, were just hunks of metal. And of course, the social media company he'd built from the ground up, the one he'd sold for three billion pounds to finance his dream to revolutionize transportation, was also just... pointless. Gone. Dust in the wind.

Still, Harry Hart was already known for pivoting. How to see the next big thing. And once everyone (himself included) was done sobbing and screaming into the void and ready to create this brave new world, he would be there. Pivoted.

In the meantime though, he was salvaging his own company's research and design labs for anything that might be of use to him. Starting with twinkies.

"Bloody fucking christ," he snapped grumpily, to no one, when the panel on the back of the vending machine he'd turned over on its side just snapped in half instead of coming off.

Out of habit, Harry held his hand out to hold open the elevator for the person approaching. He only realized after he stepped in that it was Bond.

The doors closed, and Harry hit the button for the first floor. "I see you had a long day, too."

Bond had been at the school for years, but Harry still didn't feel like he knew him particularly well. He admired the skill with which he did magic, if finding it a bit rough for his tastes. And he admired the way he looked from behind, and even better, the way he occasionally looked outside on the pitch in the summer with his shirt off. But Harry was more than used to admiring attractive men from afar, and had no desire for such complications. Besides, without corroboration he suspected that Bond was more the sort to have a dalliance with a student than another teacher. So they were friendly, but as far as Harry knew, Bond had never given him a second thought.

Though it appeared they were going to have an opportunity to get to know one another a bit better, as they'd been sent jointly to fetch a new student from, well, bum fuck middle of nowhere. And they'd been sent to fetch him personally because he was a werewolf and well, that was a rather sensitive matter.

Of course, not hours into the trip, a snowstorm completely grounded them. And as they stomped snow off of their shoes in the doorway of frankly a pretty shit hotel, Harry could tell that Bond was not particularly happy about the situation.

About twenty minutes ago, Dr. House had left Harry's office, and he left behind something new for Harry to worry about: a wolf rampaging through his ship. Which of course he would worry about, despite House's assurances. And despite even his memory of his conversation with Aaron in which he'd promised that he would do everything he could to help Remus Lupin.

He was honestly thinking of pulling out the bottle of scotch when the door chimed. He sighed. "Come."