Drops of Jupiter, a Harry/Blaise fic

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. I also do not own Torchwood or The Galactic Milieu Series or any of their characters. I am not making any money for this; I merely write for the fun of it.

Rating: PG-13 for the occasional swear word; otherwise fairly harmless.

Pairing: Harry/Blaise (boy!Blaise, obviously)

Word count: 1,250 / 17,000

Warnings/classifications: Slash, crack, cameos by Team Torchwood (post-S2), Jake Simmonds (Doctor Who) and a few characters from Julian May's Galactic Milieu series (Best. Books. Ever.). References to 10 Things I Hate about You (very, very vague), Star Wars and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Summary: In which Harry and Blaise are chased by 'Ewoks' and everybody thinks they're sleeping together, but they're actually not.

Author's notes: It took me three and a half years to finish this fic. I started writing it when I got stuck on the sequel to Starlight (which I still haven't even really started writing on), but then this one developed a plot and I got stuck on this one, too. Fortunately I always get very inspired when I should really be doing other things (like studying for exams and writing my thesis), haha. Parts of this story (most notably 'water' and 'Ewok' in chapter 3) were originally written for the 100quills challenge (in 2006...).

The story takes place a few years after Deathly Hallows, when Harry is working at the Ministry of Magic as an Auror and Blaise as a Spell Developer. The time line isn't quite right, because following the Harry Potter time line, this story should take place in 2002 (more or less), whereas the Torchwood parts and the epilogue would place it in 2008. (If you've never watched Torchwood, don't worry. All you need to know is that they're an organisation ("outside the government, beyond the police") that catches aliens.)

If you're interested in the backstory: there's also a prequel ("In which Blaise turns out to be not just a good teacher, but also a very good kisser") and at some point in the future there might also be an in-between-quel ("In which everything goes to hell").

Lots of thanks to moonshadow_nal for beta-reading the final version and gabo0 for beta-reading an earlier version quite a while ago.

::

Prologue

"Potter?" he exclaimed. "You can't be serious."

His boss, Amelia Smith, a witch who seemed strangely young for a Department Head, looked at him severely and Blaise knew he'd gone too far. "Zabini. Now is not the time for that old Gryffindor/Slytherin nonsense. You're working with him and that's it."

"But, ma'am -" Blaise began, pleadingly.

"Not a word, Zabini. Set a date with him today or I'll make you do the debugging for the rest of the Department for a month."

Blaise loved his job at the Department of Magical Development, but a month of debugging rune structures would drive even him insane. "Yes, ma'am," he muttered, defeatedly.

In order to vent his frustrations, he went to seek out Daphne. She'd been one of his best friends during their time at Hogwarts, and their group still frequently hung out.

"I take it you're not thrilled with your partner," Daphne commented, as he literally stormed into her cubicle at the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

"You won't believe this," Blaise seethed, stalking through the rather confined space of Daphne's cubicle before finally moodily flopping down onto the chair opposite her.

Her eyes widened slightly. "Potter?"

"Bingo. Just my luck," he muttered darkly. "Of all Aurors! Even Weasley would've been better! Well, no, not really," he amended after a second's thought. "Weasley would probably try to kill me."

"Have you spoken with him at all, since..." she began tentatively, trailing off.

He scoffed. "Ha. You clearly underestimate my avoidance skills."

Daphne tried to stifle a chuckle, but didn't completely succeed. "So what now?"

"I have to 'go to Harry and set a date'," Blaise quoted his boss. "Today. Or she'll make me do the debugging for the rest of the department for a month."

"You still call him Harry," she observed, looking at him.

His eyes shot up from the piece of paper he'd been staring at and met her steady gaze, before he looked away uncomfortably. "Old habits die hard," he said, shrugging in what he hoped looked like a natural way.

"Want to go out with me and Theo tonight? My mum's babysitting Cas," Daphne asked, changing the subject. She seemed to have decided not to press the matter any further, for which Blaise was grateful. His feelings towards Harry were confusing enough as they were.

Like many pure-bloods, Daphne and Theo—also one of his best friends—had married young and they had a one-year old son called Cassander. Blaise hesitated, not wanting to intrude on what must be one of Daphne and Theo's only kid-free evenings, but Daphne, obviously guessing what he was thinking, added, "Tracey'll be there, too. She might even bring her latest conquest."

He smiled. "Okay, then."

::

Blaise took a deep breath before finally crossing the remaining distance to Harry's cubicle at the Auror Headquarters at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He hated this. He hated having to work with Harry and most of all he hated not hating Harry and the feeling of nervous, almost giddy, anticipation at seeing Harry again, despite everything that had happened. He was over him, dammit. He was going to walk in there, pretend nothing had happened and just do his job. Yes.

But then Harry looked up, his eyes shooting up until they fixed on Blaise's. "Blaise."

He made a valiant attempt at being stoic and professional. "My spell's just reached the next testing phase. We're supposed to work together," he said, resolutely keeping his eyes at a point somewhat to Harry's right. "Believe me, if I had anything to say about it -"

"Yeah, Robards told me," Harry said, still staring at him.

They looked at each other. Blaise started to feel a bit uncomfortable under Harry's intense gaze, but then, he wasn't exactly succeeding in keeping his eyes off Harry, either.

Eventually it was Harry who broke the silence. "I uh... was just about to get something to eat. Maybe we can talk about this over lunch?"

What Blaise should have done, of course, was say no, set a date and get the hell out of there. What he actually did, however, was more along the lines of saying "Sure, I'll get my lunch", cursing himself all the way to his room—Spell Developers had small rooms, usually shared with one or two others, instead of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's cubicles—and then to the Ministry's cafeteria and, upon arriving there, making a stupid remark about Harry's glasses. Or rather, the lack thereof.

"I see you've got rid of the glasses," he commented.

"Yeah." Harry flashed him a grin that didn't entirely hide how uncomfortable he, too, was feeling. "Trying to get rid of my Chosen One image. I thought about having the scar removed, but apparently the Wizarding World isn't all that good at plastic surgery."

At Blaise's vacant expression, Harry shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Muggle reference."

They ate in silence for a while, every now and then glancing at the other surreptitiously.

"You look good," Harry said eventually.

"You, too," he replied after a pause. "The Muggle clothes suit you."

"Hmm. Job requirement. We can't really go around chasing—well, whatever we're chasing, in colourful, swishy robes."

Blaise laughed. "Whereas we Spell Developers can just lock ourselves up with our work all day."

"Is that why I never see you around at lunch?" Harry said, clearly aiming at—but completely missing—a joking manner.

Blaise, thinking the answer was quite self-evident, didn't answer.

Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Um. Okay. So what sort of spell is it we're going to be testing?"

"It's a transport spell. It's less uncomfortable than Apparition or Portkeying, plus you can use it to jump to people, or to places you've never been to. My boss thought the 'jumping to people' part might be useful for Aurors," Blaise explained, feeling a lot more at ease now he was talking about his work.

Harry considered this. "Hmm. How does it work?"

Blaise raised an eyebrow. "The technical details or just how to use it?" Harry was notoriously useless with regard to Magical Theory. Or at least, he had been when— No, not going there.

Harry cocked his head. "Would I understand the technical details?" At Blaise's dubious expression, he added, "Thought not. Just how to use it, then."

"Well, that's easy. I got permission to upload the spell, so we won't have to bother with the underlying rune structure. You just focus on your destination, use the incantation, draw the circle and step through it."

"I still didn't understand half of it," Harry admitted with a laugh.

"Don't they teach you Aurors anything?" Blaise sighed theatrically. "For someone who saved the world, you can be ridiculously clueless sometimes."

"Hey! At least I know how to use Expelliarmus!" Harry exclaimed, mock-affronted.

They both laughed and Blaise worried for a fleeting moment just how easy it was to fall back into their old banter...

To be continued...