[Should have been posted MUCH earlier...]


It was early at the Ministry, the level of noise usually filling the Atrium absent as the first sunrays of the day peeked through the charmed windows. Harry didn't notice the light cascading across the floor as he made his way to the lifts, oblivious to the scarce people and the quietness surrounding him.

He'd been functioning on a very base level for weeks now. Wake up. Shower. Work early, stay late. Home and into bed, only to roll out after a few hours to repeat it all again. Sometimes there was food interspersed, but it was only enough to keep him moving. When things got bad, when he was too far in his own head, Harry tended to throw himself into things at a dangerous level. Sometimes this came in the form of productive things, like the DA in his fifth year. Others, it was doing anything to take up his time, steal the ability for him to think on things.

Even the silence of the lift was almost too much, and Harry found his thoughts wandering in an unwanted direction. Shaking away the feeling of failure that had hovered over him like a dark, gray raincloud for weeks, he exited the lift when the doors pulled open.

The MLE was quiet, though he knew there were people just behind the doors to his right and left, working. He'd snapped at so many of them recently that they seemed to know better than to approach him, instead choosing to correspond by internal memo or through the secondary-nature of his secretary.

A hand waved over his nameplate on the outer door to his office dropped the nightly wards that had been put in place, and he moved silently past Mira's desk. He'd left only six hours earlier, when the moon had been heavy in the sky and most of the ministry employees had already gone home, but there was work to do. There was always work to do, and for the past few weeks, that had been something he'd finally begun to appreciate, if only for the escape it afforded him from his own head and the dark thoughts swirling there.

There was a game today, Chelsea versus Manchester United - a huge game for so early in the season - and Mira was excited, very much so, but just now she was on a mission.

It wasn't the first time she'd made an attempt to make it to the office before Harry, but these days her boss was so early she'd been trying for over a week, coming in fifteen minutes earlier every morning, in an attempt to head him off.

Even as she padded through the maze of halls towards the office she shared with Harry, Mira knew he was there already. It was five in the bloody morning, and she knew with certainty that he was in the building already.

Irritation buzzing across her skin, Mira picked up her pace until she was trotting through the mostly empty MLE, and just as she came around the corner, she saw a dark head of hair disappear through the door of their shared space. Small furrow pulling between her brow, she quickened until she came to a skidding halt at the door, very glad she was in denims and her blue tennies.

Breathing just a bit quick as she wasn't used to the exertion, Mira marched in right behind him. "Mr. Potter. It's five in the morning. You come in at five in the morning?" She eyed him critically, blue eyes sparking. "Have you eaten yet?"

She didn't know what was wrong, but he'd been quiet and moody for weeks, alternately moping about or yelling at anyone who approached him at the wrong time. She'd tried to make sure he ate, tried doing whatever she could to make his life easier, but it just didn't seem like it was going to let up and she was sick and tired of it. He obviously wasn't taking care of himself, and apparently no one else was.

She was just tired of it, from the past month, but from all the time she'd been with him as his secretary, and her foot stomped at her indignant thoughts. "Have you?"

"As you said," he began, glancing at her as he moved around his desk, "it's five in the morning. It's a little early to have already eaten, Mira."

"Do you remember the last time you ate something?" she asked pointedly, more aware than he obviously was that the sandwich she'd brought him the night prior was still sitting untouched on his desk. She blinked then when she really looked at him, blue eyes widening a bit.

He was in ... he wasn't even in a button up and trousers today. He'd forgone the tie for weeks, the jacket, but ... he was in an old fitted shirt with a flannel pulled over it. And now that she looked closer at him, it was obvious that he'd just rolled out of bed, his hair sticking out everywhere.

She blinked again and felt heat touch her cheeks, but as he looked at her passively, her temper flared again and she scowled at him.

"Does it look like I'm dying of starvation?" he asked, a tad more bite to his words than he'd intended, though that had been happening quite frequently in recent weeks. "I don't need you to take care of me, Mira. I've gotten by perfectly fine on my own for most of my life. Lasted eleven years and several summers on scraps of food."

The heat in his voice only added kindling to her already heated temper. It'd been building for weeks. She'd tried to be nice, and she'd tried to be the silent, helpful shadow, but she was damn done with just watching him be like this.

Stepping around the desk, each step it's own mini stomp, she glared down at him in his chair, glad for the height advantage with him sitting. "Congratulations, Harry. I don't feel sorry for you in the slightest, and I still don't, but I'm getting tired of being ignored, and I'm getting tired of having to reschedule all your meetings because you're not emotionally fit for public consumption."

Poking him in the chest, her blue eyes flared hot with what he'd provoked in her with his last words. "I'm getting tired of fretting about whether you're sleeping enough and if you actually eat besides the food I try to force down you. And you know what? Everyone around here needs you to be in full color, not a bloody shadow skulking around and sniping at everyone."

Breathing hard, her scowl deepened. Reaching for the uneaten sandwich, she grabbed the plate and forcefully pushed it at him until he took it. "Eat it," she said before spinning about and stalking towards the door, turning around to look at him once she was half way through. "I'm going to the Chelsea/Man U game today, and you're coming with me," she added irritably before slamming the door closed behind her.

Staring down at the sandwich that had all been thrown at him in Mira's angry tirade, the last words filtered through his surprise as the door was slammed shut. He blinked behind his glasses. "What?"

He stood, setting the plate on his desk as he flew to the door, pulling it open. "What?"

Mira raised a brow at him from behind her desk, pointedly adjusting her scarf - wearing Chelsea colors proudly. If she took a moment to realize what she'd just done, that she'd lost her temper on her boss, she might have been a bit appalled, but as it was, she was just severely piqued at him. "Can I help you, Mr. Potter?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I've got work to do." The look on her face only made him scowl harder. He didn't need someone to look after him, yet that's exactly what task Mira had attempted to take on, despite his obvious annoyance at the idea. Her food had been ignored unless his stomach made it impossible to do so, and he had never once asked her to cancel an appointment, she'd made those decisions on her own.

Some part of him knew it was probably for the best, as all he'd been able to do in the past few weeks was piss people off. Mira was a prime example of that, if her words and glare meant anything. However, he couldn't seem to find it in him to care.

"I already cleared your schedule to go," she said, meeting his scowl with a peek of her own. "I stayed even later than you did last night and finished all the remedial work that would need to be done today. You are officially done for the day, Mr. Potter. Tea?"

"I'm done for the day before I started," he said, arms crossing over his chest as he looked at her, arms straining against the threadbare shirt.

"Excellent powers of deduction," she replied, folding her hands demurely on her desk as she looked up at him, blue eyes bright. "Boss."

Harry's green eyes were confused as she peered down at her. "What if I'd rather just go home and sleep?"

She raised a brow. With heated irritation buzzing along her skin, Mira didn't have any lid at all on her mouth, but just now she didn't much care. "Do you want to go home and sleep?"

He wasn't sure that he liked the defiant look in her eyes. "What if I did?" he repeated.

"Then go. Whatever you want to do that's not here. I got a ticket from someone I know for you, but it's a big game. I'll be able to find someone who wants it when I get there," she said reasonably though her eyes were still sparking defiantly. He was not going to be in the office today. "If you try to sneak back in here while I'm gone, I'll know though. This place is bugged."

"You can't go alone," Harry said, lips curling downward into a frown. He'd heard how crazy soccer game crowds could get, and Mira was small. Petite. Easy to be thrown to the ground and trampled if there was a riot.

He knew the fact that his brain had automatically gone to a riot situation was not a good thing, spoke to the darkness in his brain currently.

"And the entire office is bugged, not just mine." He knew about the stash of blood pops in her bottom drawer, but not why she thought she needed to hide them.

"I'm quite aware of that, but I added a few elementary ones of my own. If you come back here today, I'll know." Rising from behind her desk, Mira was finally beginning to simmer down a bit. She didn't feel sorry for anything she'd said, but as she looked back at the last several minutes, she thought perhaps the delivery could have been better.

Once pricked she never had been able to control her temper, and it still held true, even now in her early twenties. Striding past him through his door, she walked around to his desk and pulled open the second drawer on the left side and began to rummage for something she'd placed there several weeks ago.

"And I can go alone," she insisted as she rooted around. "I do all the time. Sometimes Cass goes with me, or even Alex, but she's no fun at all. Quidditch snob," she explained.

Harry followed her, watching with furrowed eyebrows as she rifled through his desk. Arms crossed over his chest, he frowned as she continued to search for what she was looking for. "You have charms on the office for the specific purpose of knowing when I come in and when I leave?"

"I suppose I could do that if I wanted," Mira mused, mind putting together and discarding the proper charm combinations that would be needed to circumvent what was already in place. The Ministry, and especially the MLE was full of magic, deep, old magic, but just because a lot of it didn't play well, didn't mean there wasn't something out there that wouldn't make it sing. She'd been able to get away with simple charms because they were so elementary that they flew beneath the radar, as it were.

"Mother always did say there's a charm for everything," she added distantly, brow furrowing. She'd only put it in here a few weeks ago, but Harry really was that disheveled and he'd been worse of late. "But in practice, that's a bit creepy. What I put in place has a very short shelf life, so to speak."

Making a noise of triumph, Mira straightened as she pulled a wrinkled blue package tied with what used to be neat silver ribbon. Pulling her wand, she murmured he spell that had it enlarging to its original size, a little more than a handful with a tiny card attached, and then proceeded back around the desk towards Harry.

Looking up at him, blue eyes ticked over his stance - the crossed arms, the undershirt straining at the muscles she'd never noticed he'd even had, and then the shock of still-untamed dark hair. Pink tinted her cheeks again as she handed him the package. "If you'd rather not go home and back to bed, there's this, and you can come with me. You're more dressed to be out in downtown London than in the office anyways," she pointed out.

Harry grabbed the package, looking down at his shirt. It was true that he'd stopped caring what he wore to work several weeks ago. He'd not had many meetings, apparently with Mira's help, and sitting in his office pouring over files didn't really require a suit and tie.

"What is it?" he asked, eyebrows furrowing. It'd been hiding in his desk for how long, judging from its rumpled appearance, and he'd never even seen it.

"It's a gift," Mira pointed out dryly, "there's wrapping and ribbons concealing something within. There's also a card. Perhaps you should investigate this mystery." Her cheeks tinted again at her attitude, but she was fed up with him.

"For what?"

She'd made it very clear that she had not particularly enjoyed being around him for weeks, not that he could blame her, so the idea that she'd gotten him a gift did not make any sense. He'd almost never seen Mira angry, unless an Auror had once again not respected her position just outside his office, but he could tell she was.

Her blue eyes shifted away from him at the question. "It was for your birthday, but I didn't realize how .. much stuff you'd have to go through, so I just stuck it in your drawer for a rainy day."

He'd always been moody, head always somewhere else - a place that never seemed very happy - and when she'd gotten him the gift, it'd still been in hope that maybe it was something she could help through sheer determination. For some reason or the other, though, since that day, he'd been worse than ever and she hadn't a clue why.

Mira had at least been able to surprise a smile out of him every once and again before, but nowadays, he looked right through her.

Turning her gaze back to him, she added, "it's nothing much, but if you'd like to come with me today, you might want to use it."

Still unsure, his green eyes looked at her for a moment longer, idly noting the pink tint to her cheeks, before his fingers dipped under the tape holding the wrapping together. It didn't take long to reveal the blue scarf it'd been hiding, and Harry spread it out, curious gaze flicking back up to her. "Chelsea?"

"Always," she said, the first smile of the day lighting her features brilliantly. Despite her irritation at Harry and determination to get him to wake up, she was really excited about the afternoon's game. The season had just started and today's match was the first one at Chelsea's home field, against Manchester United, no less.

She didn't mention any of the specifics to Harry though. Most wizards didn't know anything about football. Like her eldest sister, they were mostly all infatuated with Quidditch. "Today's the first home match."

"And you have two tickets," he repeated, knowing the answer but still not understanding why she wanted to take someone that apparently made her angry enough to use charms to keep them from coming into the office. She didn't want him here badly enough to resort to magical means to keep him away. She didn't make any sense to him right then, what so ever.

"Generally I have two tickets, but today's a big game. I decided you were coming and called someone up I know that always has an extra," she replied, tipping her chin up just a bit. He was looking at her oddly and she refused to squirm.

"Why?"

"Because."

Her answer didn't help him understand any better, and his hands ran over the soft blue scarf as he dropped his gaze. "I don't have any meetings?"

"No, you really don't," she replied, small smile peeking out as her chin came down from its tilt. Maybe he would go with her after all.

Harry wanted to ask why, again, she wanted him to go with when he hadn't been fun for anyone to be around for weeks now. Or, perhaps, why she'd even thought about taking him, as they hadn't really spent any time outside of the office they were currently standing in as friends or anything other than boss and employee.

However, the idea of getting out of his office did fill him with a slight thrill. Not because he was interested in the game, so much as he'd heard of the crowds at those games. A mass of people, enough that you could get lost, almost. Forget who you were for a little bit, the things that had happened, the responsibilities you had.

And he wanted to forget the mistakes he'd made, continued to make.

"Okay."

She was a little disbelieving, but thrilled just the same despite the fact she'd all but yelled at him only ten minutes before.

"Okay." Another bright smile lit her features and Mira nodded.


SUMMARY: Harry shows up to work with bedhead and Mira speaks her mind.