Karma

So here's the thing: Harry has always been aware he's not allowed to have nice things. Well, not even nice things. Harry has always been quite aware he's not allowed to have things he wants.

He reckons it's the karmic balance making up for his parents dying in the crash to protect him. The car spinning out of control on that wet road- how his father purposefully kept the car skidding its loop so that the driver's window made first impact with the truck instead of the passengers – how his mother curled her frail body around his as a human shield. Their sacrifice something he can never repay, thus he doesn't get things he wants. Makes sense.

Anyway to put it plainly, if Harry really likes something? It goes away.

So Harry pretty much just doesn't like anything. Problem solved.

However, he's sort of found out how to get around that problem, after years of practice with thanks to his loving cousin, aunt and uncle. A solution of sorts. If he really likes something, he doesn't try to get it. If he can look at it and know it's there, and think about how nice it would be to have, it's almost as good as having it to himself. Almost as if the hugs, affection and love showered onto Dudley Dursley was his own.

It's fucked up, Harry isn't stupid enough to not realise that.

He also doesn't really care about it logically, however. It works.

Even when he grows up, even when he leaves four privet drive for the last time scholarship letter clutched to his chest, even as he makes his way throughout life as a young adult, he carries this fact with him.

It's okay though. He meets Ron, Hermione, Draco, Ginny, Neville- the list goes on. He gets shit done, carefully never wishes for something too much, and is nearly finished his law degree when someone calls his out on his 'bullshit'.

You see, every weekday morning he will go to work and politely ignore the fact his deadly but handsome merciless boss exists in more than an abstract sense mixed with a 'wouldn't it be nice?' daydream or two.

Everything begins to slide steadily downhill from Harry's solid plan of 'look-but-never-touch-because-it-will-break' at a 'blah 4 blah' charity gala.

Yes, later on he doesn't even remember what charity it was for. The essential facts are:

He goes to a gala. Tom Riddle, his sort of best friend, marginally older boss who he also has a hopeless teenage-like crush on, is also at said gala. Said boss hates mandatory charity galas. Then to make matters better, a work colleague is an idiot and loses the firm a promising client. A promising rich client. Tom hates incompetent fools even more than charity galas. In fact it is widely believed that Tom Riddle's most furious state of being is charity-gala-with-incompetent-fool-from-my-company-making-a-scene.

Although, Harry now knows this myth to be incorrect.

Anyhow, the shit hits the fan around then, because it also happens that one of Harry's good friends, Draco Malfoy, is also at the gala. Harry doesn't see Draco as he is preoccupied, subtly attempting to position himself between a steak knife and his fuming boss. The way Goyle is whimpering suggests Riddle may not even need the knife, however Harry at least has the comfort that he tried to prevent a murder trial and a jobless future.

Anyway, as this is happening, Draco obviously sees Harry and approaches the tense situation blissfully unaware.

Draco then gives Harry a one-armed hug.

Tom is no longer just cold, he is ice at zero degrees Kelvin. Which is impossible for two reasons. Firstly you cannot simply create an absolute zero environment, the laws of thermodynamics say no, and secondly Tom Riddle cannot become more furious than the most-furious-state mentioned above.

But it turns out although creating a zero Kelvin environment is out of the realms of possibility, Tom Riddle can indeed get angrier.

Who knew?

Now Harry knows that Tom's most furious state of being, based off recent inconclusive data, appears to be: charity-gala-with-incompetent-fool-from-my-company-making-a-scene-and-Draco-Malfoy-hugging-Harry-Potter.

Harry sees the instigator of all his woes two days later, as they sit down for their weekly coffee catch-up. The last two days have been awful. Tom is ignoring him, not even being subtle about it- which is bad because Tom always subtle when he's irritated with him. And if the Lawyer's not subtle- meaning he's intentionally doing it to mess with Harry, which means-

"You're a fuckwit." Draco calmly tells him, interrupting his thoughts.

"Draco-"

"You are a total fuckwit." It's pretty amusing to hear Draco swear, his posh upbringing brings out the vowels in a fairly comedic manner, nothing like when Tom- bad brain. Harry can tell Draco is considering smacking him over the back of the head with casual, irritated affection similar to mother cat with a retarded kitten. "I am deeply ashamed to be good friends with such a boneheaded asshole. Why the fuck are you not nailing him through a bed?"

"You know-"

"Or vice versa, but I suppose the matter of who is nailing whom doesn't really matter awfully much." Draco adds, a thoughtful crease to his brow.

Harry just knows he resembles a tomato and presses on regardless. "You know, I hear some people talk to their best friends, and it's not traumatising or profane at all." The curl down of Draco's lips says everything he thinks about that plebeian idea. "Also I think Dr. Taylor told me this technically counts as bad touch, talking to me like this."

"Your old therapist who you fired two years ago? A fascinatingly awful attempt to change the conversation, even for you." Malfoy waves a hand regally, dismissing him.

Harry accepts the dismissal as an opportunity to drags his face through his hands as his appalling choice of a friend continues. "I want you to be happy. If this includes kicking your ass until you hook your scary lawyer boss, then so much the better."

There was a little pause. "Although he's already hooked. That's the most senseless part of this whole absurd matter. This is why you're a fuckwit." Draco practically hisses at him.

Harry reels back a little.

"He is rich, intelligent, handsome and tried to murder me with his brain when I gave you a one arm hug!" says the blond, obviously straining to maintain a dignified Malfoy air.

Harry instantly began opening his mouth at that- because that is not wha-Telephone by Lady Gaga starts rings out over the table.

Draco holds up a single finger and answers his mobile. "This better be important." He says in his best 'I am Lucius Malfoy fear me' impression. It's getting rather good by now, by the time he finishes university it should be ready to help him take over the world, or whatever the Malfoy Empire actually does.

"I'll be in shortly."

Harry blinks away from images of Draco slouching in a throne as a finger is pointed between his eyes. "You are still a moronic fuckwit. And I will deal with this matter as soon I stop my minions from burning bridges with major stakeholders."

His mind finally moves past minions onto bloody-hell what does 'deal with this matter' even mean as the back of Draco's armani suit slips out the chiming café door.

He finds out what it means just under a week later.

"Hey Harry!" familiar pretentious vowels roll out over the bullpen. Green eyes cautiously peer out over the edge of a cubicle, across the room at the far door.

"You forgot we had lunch today. Really?" The twat shakes his head shines sad wide puppy dog eyes at Harry as he navigates his way through the now silent room.

Lunch? Harry mouths, baffled into silence as Draco approaches.

"We agreed at coffee, remember? One catch up a week is really lacking."

"Funny. All I remember is you calling me a fuckw-"

"-Oh honey please, don't bring that up."

Honey? Harry mouths silently again. About this moment is when the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. And a quick dart of his eyes to the reflection of his computer screen shows Tom Riddle leaning directly behind him narrowed eyed, against the second door to the bullpen, opposing first door which Draco took. He looks like he does when he is first meeting the opposition to a difficult case. Plotting which way to tear them down into sobbing little peices of self-hatred.

Oh. Oh. Oh shit.

Draco obliviously continues on, unaware of the possible danger. "Anyway all is forgiven, I could never stay angry with you. Let's go to our favourite sushi place around the corner from Mac Donald's." he practically chirps, manhandling Harry out of his chair and across the room while prattling on.

Harry moves slowly, waiting for Tom to say something about "limited time frames" or "paralegals don't get breaks". Dark eyes just follow him silently out of the office, and that is even more terrifying.

At first, the game plan is just to stop this frankly ridiculous plan of Draco's after a few days. He lets it go for that long only because somehow this situation means Harry is having lunches. Like actual solid food at lunch time. Every day.

The rest of the bullpen officially hates him. Nobody else gets lunch breaks, they do not exist.

But after day five he finds himself beginning to hates the lunches, because they have replaced something Harry had unknowingly held close to his heart.

Now the silent treatment from Riddle has risen to a whole new level. There is no lively banter, no comradery and no half smiles. No pulling all-nighters document hunting. No invitations to watch Tom unrelentingly destroy his opposition in court. No perfect cappuccino mysteriously on his desk on Friday morning. The lawyer doesn't even look up from his desk when Harry delivers a file.

He misses Riddle's voice, his humour, his ruthlessness, his intelligence and his eyes.

His fucking eyes.

And then from some unknown crevice, Harry Potter is pissed off. Both at himself for missing someone's eyes, of all things, and Tom Riddle. Because Tom Riddle is never petty, but now he is and how dare the bastard be petty after they have been sort-of best friends for a good two years.

Tom either hates him for his supposed sexuality, or... or Draco may be onto something. Either way, stopping the experiment is meaningless now. At least this way he gets lunch.

And so the lunches continue, week after week. The tension grows. Riddle and Potter are never just silent at the office, it just doesn't happen. There are constant quips, insults, verbal banter. However now there is silence, until it gets to the point where Harry is holding back shivers every time he feels dark fathomless eyes on his back.

Stubbornness is a trait honed to a level of stupidity by the Potter family, Snape once told him.

Harry couldn't agree more.

A rumour began to circulate the building about a fearless Paralegal-Who-Lived after quarrelling with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Apparently, not only were they still alive, they still had a job and they still received the annual end-of-year bonus.

Just baseless rumours, scoffed any lucky soul whose office did not reside on floor seven.

The end of it all happens on a mundane Tuesday morning.

Harry wearily stumbles into the lift, presses the buttons for floors seven, eight and nine by accident, shrugs to an empty elevator and collapses against the wall wearily rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses.

"Do you know what happened to me last week at the video conference with our American branch?" A calm question break the silence, in the tone of voice one would usually use when discussing the weather. Not say when breaking three months of silent arguing.

He jumps a good two feet in the air, bashes his head back against the elevator wall, but these are all minor as he stares at Tom, casually looming from the other side of the lift. Only Tom could casually loom, he thinks a tad hysterically.

Calculating eyes scanned him like an x-ray machine. Upon finding, what Harry assumed was a dishevelled university student who had been up until four o'clock finishing an essay he obviously decides to take pity and elaborate. "The California branch manager enquired to how the 'Paralegal-Who-Lived' was fairing."

"Excuse me?"

"That's supposed to be you, Harry."

"I'm sorry?"

Tom pushed himself off the wall and glided – across a bloody elevator – until he was looming directly in front of Harry. Lovely.

"Draco Malfoy and his blatant, weak, childish attempts at playing mind games have nothing to do with this, are we clear? It was going to happen anyway, I just had to adjust the timeframe."

"What-" He was being kissed. Tom Riddle was kissing him and pressing him up against the wall and oh excellent, a smug little part of Harry's brain chuckled away. Option two it was, bingo, he owed Draco a drink. And then Tom was tilting his head just right, and a hand was moving up to hold the back of his neck, the other gripping his wrist and thoughts more coherent than yes yes finally vanished.

Twelve months later Draco is still smug, and perhaps will be forevermore.

Harry is still aware he generally is not allowed to have nice things, karma and all. But then again, Tom isn't really a nice person, so maybe he doesn't count.

Either way, maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter can have one thing he wants.

A/N: I know very little about practicing law past a few friends that study it and a bit of the tv show Suits. Lawyer just seemed to match sane muggle Tom Riddle.

I really don't even know what this is. *Waves hands about expressively* I honestly just wanted to write a muggle Draco being sassy at Harry. There may be more in the future, let me know if you would be interested in more of this silly stuff. :L

How you all enjoyed a bit of OOC AU! :)

(Unbetaed. 3am, I'm going to proof read it in the morning, the proper morning. So many hyphens. I'm so sorry.)

To any followers of Death, Life and Green - An update is on the horizon, thank you for being so patient.