Repost: Fic: Working Class Hero.
Y'all have read this already; this is just a repost so it can be rec'd. :D



Working Class Hero.
[for acciojosh.]


Look. It's fairly simple as subterranean mazes go. You go down the elevator, off the corridor to the left, along past the framed copy of the Declaration of Wizarding Rights, through the atrium dedicated to yet another old white wizard who made the law better for old white wizards, take a sharp right, a left, a right, another left, two rights, along the middle passageway and pass on by the official hall and court rooms, the examination rooms, and evidence halls before you take three successive rights and come to the cubbyhole the clerks call home. It's paper, paper and parchment everywhere, the musty smell of books and age and ink hang heavy in the air - probably from the books and compendiums that do in fact line the walls, and the door the leads inwards to further research rooms and study halls. Zach's desk - if you can call it that - is lined up near the back of the room, close to the connecting door. Makes research rather handy, but makes him rather hard to find. If you can find him amongst all the paper, anyway, sitting at his desk in suit and tie and looking ready to rip the tie off at any moment, but then he always does. Scribbling furiously away on some documentation doesn't seem to be doing him any good, either, and the frenzied muttering doesn't help. Most of his colleagues avoid him for fear of getting a lecture on who'll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. Still, if you want help with inheritance or contract law, he is the man to talk to.

There's someone hanging slightly behind him to one side, and they might have been standing there for half an hour or half the week, not that Zach would notice. His fervour is regarded as part absent mindedness and part obsession, and ever so slightly scary by his workmates, who joke about the time someone left a ham sandwich for him on his desk, and by the time Zach found it it probably had to be declared a new species of fungus by the Royal Society.

Zach laughed at the joke, and told them all it was complete and utter pants.

Still, whoever it is - and it's not that Zach hasn't noticed there's someone, he's not stupid, he has senses and reflexes and other things he doesn't use as half as well as he should, but there's always something else to do - hasn't been driven off by the scribbling in red ink that's nearly torn the sheet in two, or the muttering, and finally Harry Potter decides to use some of that canny decision making that's made him so fearsome in the annals of history, and clears his throat.

Zach doesn't even bother looking up. There's a certain determination cast to his face, blond hair hanging over his eyes as he writes away like someone on the verge of a great discovery, near covering over the actual original text. "If you're here with the documents for the Trantis case, you can put them here," he says, without much politeness, and plonks his hand down on a bit of desk that's all manila folders and case notes. "If you're here for something else...um," he says, and looks up. "Oh. Potter. You've caught me in a bit of a rush, I'm afraid."

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can take them back, or even gasp - Potter is smiling gamely, in a rather crass and confident kind of manner that only someone who is a complete wanker and self-aggrandising tool can manage, but Zach can recognise that even though Potter is a tool, he's a pretty one. Messy black hair, green open eyes and a complexion that's as creamy and pale as milk or the tits on a nineteen year old nun who's never been out of her convent. It's not that Potter hasn't got scars - for he has, beyond the obvious one, little nicks and cuts that war has left upon him, and he's scrawny and stunted from all that malnourishment as a child, but all the more beautiful for it, it seems. This is the face that stares from monuments, murals, and museums across wizarding Britain. This is the smile and stance that opens public hospitals every so often with the quick snip of a ribbon and a few well chosen words. The wizarding world may have tucked away its gods a long time ago and sent them packing, but the human need is still there, and when someone comes along to do the very impossible, and save everyone's arse in the process, they tend to put him up on a pedestal.

"It's six o'clock, Smith," Harry tells him, and doesn't bother to explain why he's here. Not that he needs to, of course. Zach recognises that, even as it rankles. Zach blinks instead, pausing before he turns to the clock on the wall opposite, and sure enough it reads 'Go home you fucking obsessive workaholic'.

"Right," Zach says, and swivels back to start tidying up, or at least putting things away, as his desk will never be tidy.

"Thought you might like to come out for a pint," Potter tells him, like it doesn't matter they fought as cat and dog back at school, or over rain-swept battlefields. Not that Zach ever disagreed with his ideology (not exactly) or his ultimate goals - enforced slavery and regimented discrimination were of course not things that would lead the merry band of brothers into the socialist paradise, but Potter was a little fascist in the making, and most of his friends were worst. But then, he is a God now, and Gods need no excuses or explanations. They must also have really fucking boring lives, Zach reflects, to go and find someone who's not quite their worst opponent and ask them out for a drink.

"Right," Zach says again, nodding, and stands, shrugging into his tan jacket. It's a tan day today, really; tan slacks, tan jacket, black t-shirt. He has fashion sense, although it's always mystified him as to the how and what of such things. Potter is just wearing faded jeans and what looks like a ripped t-shirt with the Anarchy symbol on it. Zach considers giving him a lecture on the rise of punk rock and the formation of the Angry Brigade, but decides against it. Not his fault if Potter has no class consciousness, after all, and besides, Gods are the opium of the people - his time will come.

"Leaky, then?"

"Sure," and Zach leads them back through corridor and tunnel and elevator like he actually knows what's going on. Sure, he's not exactly quoting Marx correctly, but then the poor bloke never had to deal with wizards, You Know Who and Harry Potter, and the idea of telling people to put Harry Potter in their pipes and smoke him is an amusing one.

Zach isn't quite sure when he stopped having a life, but he's never let that little bit of self-awareness stop him yet, and soon enough he and Potter emerge out under a London night sky. The black haired young man is shivering without a jacket, and if he chooses to be a slave to middle class fashion and freeze his tits off, it's none of Zach's concern. Zach knows the way well enough, and he and Potter make good time amongst the backstreets of London, and the lights of the Leaky are in sight. Potter moves ahead to pull open the doors, and Zach suddenly realises that those faded jeans are quite tight around the arse area, and Potter does have quite the nice one. Arse that is, not jeans, tight and round and young, just begging to be groped and it's been a long while since Zach pulled anyone not his hand.

Potter smirks at him as he holds the door open, which probably means he caught Zach watching, and Zach is really tempted to smack him round the Leaky for a bit, except Potter would probably like it, the kinky bastard.

He sinks onto a bar stool instead and orders a beer.

***

Four pints later for Zach, and they haven't said much. Sure, they've chatted about work - Zach's, not Potter's, Potter doesn't work, Potter doesn't need the money - and Zach has told him what seems like several million times not to call him Zacharias, because that was his mother's idea and she always had ideas of belonging to a Better Class of People - presumably those types who thought you needed a daft four syllable Biblical name in case everyone else didn't get you were pretentious by having two different sets of china. After four pints, Potter still calls him Zacharias, though, stringing out the name like they were good, old pals, and the impulse to smack him silly is on the rise. Sadly, the impulse to fuck him silly is also rising, and other things with it, and Zach wonders absently if sex can make you a class traitor.

"Why did you get so cranky with me?" Potter finally asks, and his lips are foamy from the head on the pint. Zach notices these things because he is a master of anal detail, and nothing to do with fancying him at all.

"'Cause you were acting like a twat," Zach points out honestly, completely unaware of what someone else might call tact. "I mean, running the DA like that. Running everyone else into the ground, more like. All patriarchal and masculinist and based on the outdated notion of the 'leader.' You might as well run round the room telling everyone 'Look, I have a penis.'"

"I do have a penis," Potter points out quite calmly.

"Well, yes, you do, I've noticed-"

"-Oh, have you?"

"Shut it, Potter," Zach tells him, and takes another swig. "And if you say 'make me,' you are going to get to know my fist quite well."

"Fisting, eh?" Potter looks at him, one eyebrow raised, sipping on his pint. He's been drinking a lot more slowly than Zach, and eating beer nuts as well, so Zach couldn't eat them on principle cause that would mean he'd have to agree with Potter on something and that would never do. "Kinky."

"Shut it," Zach warns again, almost a growl, and looks at him levelly over his pint. There's a flush in Potter's skin now which is quite becoming, and yeah, bending over the bar is fast becoming an option. Not that this would be the first time the Leaky's had to deal with acts of public buggery - Zach's heard all about Justin Finch-Fletchley, the randy little sod.

"Anyway. Where were we? Right, you being the good little socialist and all. Is that why you disagreed with every order I made during the War, too?"

"What gave you the right to make those orders?" Zach asks, and there's a touch of a slur to his voice.

"Nasty fucking scar I could point to," Harry tells him, easily. "Besides that, I did get the Sword of Godric Gryffindor in second year. The founders meant for that to happen. There was a plan."

"There was a plan?"

"The founders had a plan. They must have anticipated Tom Riddle or something like him, and Godric placed his sword in the Sorting Hat to you know, combat him."

"How much good did that Sword do you come the final battle?"

"That's not the sodding point."

"What is the sodding point, then?"

"The fact I got the sodding sword." Harry manages to turn 'sword' into a three-syllable word; it's an ability reserved for the truly pissed. "There was a plan," he repeats again with the same dogged stubbornness that saw him win.

"The founders had a plan and you were it?"

"The founders had a plan and I was it."

"Should have known they were barmy. Look, you can't just claim overarching governmental power during a time of crisis just because some tattered piece of fabric tossed a sword at you."

"Don't blame me." Harry tells him, raising his hands palms out in a gesture of surrender. When he got to be Harry Zach isn't quite sure, but he's warm and comfy and everyone's his friend right now, including the drooling drunk way up the back, and the couple having very loud sex in the loo. Calling Potter Harry doesn't seem to be such a crime in comparison. "People needed a leader. People need a leader; I'm just glad it's not me right now."

"You still could have deferred responsibility, consulted other people," Zach tells him, leaning forward. "Just because you're cute doesn't give you the right to know what's best." Oh dear. He really is tipsy.

"Think I'm cute?" Harry murmurs, smiling. It's the first real smile he's had all night, and Zach suddenly remembers why he was willing to go through blood and rain and sweat and dirt for this man despite the fact he was a complete turd, and he begins to understand why people need their gods.

"'M drunk," Zach mumbles, but he's smiling as well. "Do anyone right now. Also happen to think the barmaid has a great set of knockers."

"She does have a great set of knockers," Harry admits, and they both turn to have a bit of a look. The barmaid is young and curvy and brunette, with curly hair that sinks in waves down the slope of her shoulders.

"I'd give her a go," Zach states to no-one in particular, and Harry agrees. "Lovely arse. Never underestimate the appeal of a nice arse on a woman."

"Nice piece of skirt all up, really."

The barmaid catches them staring, and blushes, in a way that's both annoyed and fond, giving them a brief, saucy grin, and she just happens to bend over to pick up a napkin in a way both men appreciate. They are young, they are bisexual, they are both readily on their way to being completely sloshed; the world is their oyster and neither man nor woman can resist them. "But that was just a ploy to distract me from criticising your old fashioned imperialist discourse."

Zach is quite proud he can manage to say that after five? six? pints, although he's not going to get too full of himself and attempt to wax poetic on third-world Marxist-Leninism, or the necessity of anarcho-syndicalism.

"Talk it up to Hermione, mate, she's in charge nowadays, not me." Harry polishes off his fifth pint, and his eyes are something near glassy from what Zach can tell. Zach, who's on his seventh, and a boozehound of old, doesn't want to have to get off his stool any time soon for fear he'll fall over or piss himself. He's not quite sure which would be worse.

"Still, she's trying to reform the system from within the system, isn't she?" Zach's voice is loud and boisterous and his hand gestures are more like whole body movements; sharp, subtle motions with his hands seem beyond him at this point, it's all flailing expansive arms and wild pointing. Someone might get smacked in the face if they get too close, but Harry seems content to hang just on the edge of a collision. "When the very inequalities inherent in the system are due to the nature of the system - the power discourses and access issues and dynamics, innit. You can't use the tools of the man to fight The Man, Harry - that's how they co-opt the desire for change of the proles and makes us all happy little consumers." His native East London sounds heavy on his tongue tonight, no matter how many elocution lessons his mum made him take.

"I understood...not much of that," Harry says finally, a perplexed look on his face. "But isn't that what you're doing, working at the Wizengamot? Fighting the system from inside."

"It's different," Zach says stubbornly, because he hasn't got much else left.

"How?"

Fortunately at this point any answer is evaded by Zach's sudden need to hurl, and he does all over the nice clean floor.

The bartender looks at them both, and orders them out with a stern look on his face before he goes and gets a mop and bucket.

***

The cold night air sobers them up by a little - not much, and not nearly enough. As sure as night follows day and Voldemort lacked fashion sense, so do alcohol and young men lead to singing. Not especially brilliant singing, but the sounds that echo across London's streets could be heard for ages in the crisp of the dark. One tenor, and one baritone, neither particularly in tune, but both belting out a more stirring rendition of Hogwarts' song than either could remember from their school days.

The end is somewhat haphazard and unpredictable; Harry stops Zach with a hand against his stomach and points out the young woman walking towards them down the pavement. Black hair, all straight and flowing, tied back with a headband and a reasonably dressy outfit - slacks, t-shirt, jacket, heels. She might be heading clubbing, but Zach's attention is elsewhere.

"She's got..."

"Yeah, I know," Harry rolls his eyes. There's something vaguely comforting about Zach's predictability. "Huge tracts of land, right?"

"What?" Zach is confused, and pissed enough to show it - although that doesn't change when he's sober.

"Never mind. Go and chat her up," Harry suggests, and pushes the poor helpless Huffle down the road a little, making him skid. "I need to take a slash." Then Harry ducks into the nearest alleyway, and there's the sound of a zipper and someone pissing - Zach doesn't need to look back into shadow to know what's going on, and the girl bears down on him like an army.

He's not sure why he's doing this, except Harry said so, and if that excuse has worked for the rest of the wizarding world so far, it can work for Zach. "Hey, love, fancy going out sometime?"

"Piss off." She walks right past him, and Zach follows for a few steps.

"Oh come on, why so down?"

The girl stops, turns sharply on a heel - Zach has a sudden image on what damage those heels could do if she stepped on a toe - and strides back at him. In the dappled light she seems to shimmer, and Zach isn't seeing too clearly anyway. Or being too steady on his feet.

"'Cause you're well out of it," she tells him off, one finger punching at his chest with each word, and Zach sways comically, arms cartwheeling before he regains his balance.

"Bet that's never stopped you before," he mutters, and she slaps him.

"Look, if you're one of those girls who only likes pussy, that's fine - I can watch."

Another slap, and Zach actually feels it this time, through drink and pride and a total lack of shame. "What did I say?"

The girl stares at him, her folded arms emphasising the curve of her breasts, and Zach suddenly wishes Harry were here. He'd know what to do. "You're a pig, you drunken twat."

Harry chooses that moment to amble out of the alleyway. "Zach didn't mean any offense, miss. Course, if you prefer to watch two agile young bucks in their prime do the nasty, we'd be more than happy to oblige." He slings an arm around Zach's waist and gropes his arse - Zach squirms a bit, because this was not in the script when it came to Things Harry Would Know To Do.

She looks at them both, equally mortified, and then glances down at Harry's fly. There's one final slap - to Zach's poor flaming face, and then she's stalking off into the night, heels going click-click-click.

"What did she do that for?"

"Forgot to zip myself up," Harry observes casually, and Zach looks down to see a cloth covered bulge sticking part way out of Harry's open trousers.

"Why'd she slap me then?"

"Dunno. Maybe she got used to it. Maybe she thought you liked being slapped."

"Do not!" Zach drags his eyes up to Harry's at that, and flinches when he finds him closer than he expected. Too close, really, especially considering Harry's cock is hidden by only one layer of cloth, and Harry's hand is still stroking his arse.

"Bet you're gagging for it."

"I'm not the one whose gagging for it, mate. Asking if she wanted to watch? That seemed pretty desperate."

"You can never be sure what gets someone going until you try. Thought we were in with a chance there." He looks over at Zach almost slyly. "You wouldn't have done her yourself, then?"

"Good looker. But she was a peasant. They all are, far as I can see. Trapped in their little gender roles and class definitions- no-one's got any vision any more."

Harry starts at laugh at that, great big heaving sobs that makes his shoulders shake, and he has to lean against the wall to steady himself. "You're such a snob, Zach."

"Course I am. A good communist has to be. Besides, I don't really do sex. Or relationships. I mean, I think about sex - I think about it a lot - but all acts of consummation - if we can call them that-" and he's staggering over to lecture Harry now, one finger waggling in Harry's face "-whether it be ones titled love or ones titled sex are essentially all ploys used to get someone to compromise their standards, make someone else happy, oppress themselves for them. Love is a tool of The Man."

"The Man sure has a lot of tools," Harry considers.

"Well, he is one, so it makes sense."

There's a gentle pause, as if Harry's deciding whether it's fair of him to make this observation or not. "You must wank a lot."

"You have no idea," Zach breathes. Something seems to come to him. "You were just looking for an excuse to get us to fuck."

Harry nods, smiling like a wolf, and takes Zach's hand, placing it directly on his still undone fly, and Zach feels how hard Harry is through the fabric despite the cold of the air and the alcohol in his blood. He takes a few moments to appreciate the warmth radiating from his cock, the heavy feel of the flesh and the soft touch of the fabric.

"Not going to fuck you."

"You want to, though."

"Didn't say I didn't. Just said I wasn't going to."

Their conversation is belaboured, a little slow. Both are slurring and unsure whether to fall down giggling or not.

"Chicken," Harry breathes in Zach's ear and kisses him softly on the mouth.

Harry's lips are a bit dry and chapped, but they feel good against his own, and Zach is full of sound and fury from being called a chicken. The possibilities of cowardice send him reeling, and he isn't sure how he manages to stand still.

There's one thing he's certain of though - Zacharias Alistair Smith is no chicken. His hand moves firmer, bolder, stroking over the fleshy head of Harry's cock through his boxers, and his other hand reaches across to cup Harry's shoulder as he pushes him back into the alleyway from whence he came. He doesn't kiss him back - just steers him lightly, enjoying Harry's soft moans against his mouth as he finally presses him up against the wall, and starts to rub his fingers up and down the outline of Harry's cock.

"Chicken, eh?" Zach tells him, eyes glinting in the shadows. They can't be seen due to the overhang of a nearby roof, but they can be heard. Zach decides to do something about that, and moves his right hand to Harry's face as he pushes his boxers down and over his balls with his left. As Harry watches, he leans over his hand and licks a wet trail up his palm, and drags the wet trail up the underside of Harry's dick before he takes him in hand and strokes him oh so slowly. Like the predictable type he is, Harry opens his lips to moan, and Zach just effortlessly pushes his thumb into that mouth, silencing anything Harry has to say. There's a brief moment of surprise in Harry's face, and then his tongue starts to tease Zach's thumb.

For his own part, Zach is enjoying himself, but he thought Harry might show a little anger at being silenced. He feels as though he's been outfoxed again, and the idea that this entire night was in and of itself a seduction is beginning to permeate his drink-addled brain, but he's gone too far to step back now. Stroking faster, he begins to work his thumb in and out a bit, all but gently fucking Harry's mouth with it, and enjoys the light shiver that creeps across Harry's skin, the unfocussed state of his eyes. "Greedy little slut," he murmurs into Harry's ear almost fondly, and can't help but grin when Harry arches against him at the words, or that might just be the play of a nail teasingly across the head of Harry's cock.

"Gagging for it?" Zach mutters, getting a little more angry now as he kisses down the greedy little slut's neck, the gentility of his kisses acting in an odd counterpoint to his words. It's as if that body is too sacred to be violated by anything but impotent noise, or maybe Zach just can't bring himself to do it. Zach feels oddly betrayed by this impulse, by his own inability to rend and bite and hurt; he's too far drunk to remember that all communists are romantics at heart, and that this eager bundle of bones, blood and flesh used to be his hero, too. But then, Zach does remember all the talk of kink; and he's determined not to give in too much to those desires. They smack of compromise, entrapment, a loss of volition and oppression. No, Zach's going to get this bloke off in the way he least wants to, and ha ha bloody ha to that.

"I'll show you gagging for it," he continues, voice heady with barely suppressed savagery and falls to his knees amongst the rubbish and refuse to lean forward in a surprisingly graceful manoeuvre and sweep that cock into his mouth. It's been a while, it has, since Zach Smith has gotten his lips around a nice dick - and the memory of it pales in comparison to the reality. There's the salty sweet taste of precome on his tongue, and it makes his mouth water despite any alcohol dehydration. It's bitter and tart and nothing all at once; hints more than an actual taste - a tang maybe. Words can't describe moments like these; words would spoil it, Zach decides, like the way all porn just makes you ache for what you can't get, and decides he probably has too much experience with porn and the texture of his own hand. Can't oppress himself, after all. The feel of it is like nothing else; fleshy and hard and soft and firm, thick and eager against his tongue, and his tongue is eager and thick against it, almost swollen with sensation and desire, and he's struck by the sudden fear that his tongue - or lips or mouth - aren't good enough to do what he wants them to do.

It seems that the greedy little slut got the message at any rate, and muffles his moans with one hand, biting down on the knuckles. Zach approves with the flick of his tongue boldly across the cockhead he's been sliding his lips up and down, and gets what could have been a keen out of it. Chuckling to himself, he pulls off and drags his lips lightly down the underside, slick with saliva and precome and plant moist kisses across Potter's balls. It seems that sucking cock is like riding a broom, or a bike - you never quite get rusty, and Zach takes a few moments to just enjoy himself in the smell and taste of musk, before he traces a rather prominent vein back up, and takes that dick between his lips, sucking hard.

Only a few moments, and Zach's acting as if he's never heard of the gag reflex, all but fucking his own throat on Potter - Harry - the slut's cock, enjoying the steady stream of whimpers that pour from behind the white strained skin of his hands, and soon enough he swallows down thick come like it actually has a taste or quality worth remembering besides his capacity to get someone off.

The exhilaration is better than Pepper-Up, and Zach doesn't bother to lick his lips clean as he stands and kisses Harry clumsily. For his part, Harry is all tongue and teeth and eager desperation, hands everywhere as he attempts to devour his own taste in Zach's mouth, and Zach lets him go at it because it's nice for someone else to do all the work for a change.

When the kiss is broken - by Zach, who realises that anticipation makes it all the better, and the practical application of power is a head rush, he smiles at Harry, who smiles back. Harry's smile is pretty, and open, rather like him. Zach's smile is not, and he gently turns Harry round against the cool, rough brick of the building, reaching his hands slowly along Harry's arms to place the palms face out against the wall, and once he's braced there Harry seems to get the idea and willingly sticks his arse out a little so Zach can more easily slide trousers and briefs down over the curve of hip, pooling on the ground.

They're not Gryffindor red, those boxers, and Zach feels strangely disappointed again, but just in time to revive his flagging spirits, he reaches out with a tentative hand and drags his thumb over the swell of a buttock as he cups it with his fingers. After all, Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived, with the Prick That Just Got Sucked and a Lovely Piece of Arse, and it's been so long since Zach has touched anyone but himself he almost doesn't know how he can stand it.

But now he is touching someone, touching them with the caress of his thumb and fingers, touching them with his breath as he spreads Harry's cheeks and just exhales softly over the puckered ring of muscle that lies between them. Touching him with his tongue, and drawing another soft whimper, the shudder that runs through the arch of Harry's spine and the shape of his arse, Zach begins to understand the appeal of power and the power of heroism. It's Zach who's greedily sucking at Harry's hole, Zach eating him out with the kind of abandon he used to reserve for getting shitfaced and screaming at Quidditch matches, Zach who's pulling back to slide two fingers into him at once, and Zach's who's standing with a broad grin on his face like he's not really the one gagging for it here. It's Zach who's still tasting Harry on his lips, bitter and tart and salt and sweet combined, and it's Zach who presses into him none too gently with his cock, and the slow burn that results makes them both groan.

Zach takes his time, not that they have any, not that he has the power here, here where he's the one thrusting lightly into Harry, so lightly he barely rolls his hips and there's hardly a slap of balls against arse. Zach's a tease and he knows it; Harry doesn't seem to mind, either, writhing and groaning like some two knut whore down Knockturn Alley, and the fact he knows how to compare Harry to a Knockturn Alley whore says more about him than most other things.

"Faster," Harry begs him, neck arched just so that Zach can lean forward and lick the sweat off that creamy skin as if it's the most natural action in the world, all one smooth motion punctuated by the thrust of hips down below. Zach nips at his ear for that, not hard but not gentle, and starts to do as Harry asks, harder and faster - not that Harry has any power over him, not at all, and Zach tries to show this with every restrained pant and silent sigh and aching moan his body wants to release. These absences speak louder than any words Zach could say, not that Zach's ever been a wordsmith, and when he finally comes inside Harry - inside Harry - and sinks against him, Harry leans forward against the grotty wall to support both of them. Zach feels helpless for a moment, and angry, but dispels it as he pulls out with a slick sound, just to prove he can.

He turns and leans against the wall on his back, hand pushing sweat-plastered hair off his forehead, and thinks he probably should get it cut. That's a good thought, a non-sex thought, a non-Harry thought. Just goes to show who's in charge, after all.

"What do you think about sex and relationships now?" Harry asks him, with those wide green eyes that have seen dictators fall and changed the world. His voice is raspy and charged still with desire and need, as if he was the one giving the blowjob, as if he hadn't just been fucked in a back alleyway two blocks away from the Leaky Cauldron and liked it, as if he wants to do it all again.

Zach Smith begins to realise that he doesn't have a chance and never did. He's the servant of the state - simply doing his job. After all, Harry Potter is hero and fool, pawn and posterboy and standard. Opium of the people as Marx suggested, and it's up to someone like Zach to make sure they don't get too addicted. If that means he has to take all of that heavy burden onto himself, so be it.

"I think," he begins, taking his time because it's only delaying the inevitable, and that's the only power he has left. "I think some people deserve to be oppressed. Long, rigorously and often." He takes a breath then, shakes himself down a bit, and doesn't let himself smile. His East London accent makes the whole thing sound a lot more seedy than it should, but Harry seems interested and Zach doesn't mind. "Probably with the liberal use of ties."

Harry's answering groan lets Zach know all he needs to; it's comforting to know that even gods have their weaknesses. Everyone can be exploited, it seems, and that possibly implies that Zach has been turned to the winsome ways of capitalism through sexual capitulation, but that's something to worry about for another time. Right now he's got someone to cart home, clean up and bugger five ways from Sunday.

Nobody could ever accuse Zacharias Smith of ignoring his civic duty, and he likes it that way. This is what working class heroes are for.