I OWN NOTHING (except for the OC, Malcolm). ALL CREDIT GOES TO JK ROWLING AND HER FANTASTIC BRAIN.

THIS FANFIC TAKES PLACE POST- HOGWARTS. EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE BOOKS IS AN ACCURATE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IN WHICH THIS STORY TAKES PLACE. ANY MISTAKES WITHIN THIS STORY ARE PURELY THE RESULT OF MY FAULTY MEMORY. THERE IS A *tiny* REFERENCE TO TWILIGHT BUT ONLY BECAUSE I'M POKING FUN (apologies... kind of)- IT IS NOT A CROSSOVER FIC. ALSO, PLEASE DISREGARD THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.

Warning: Could be plans in the works for a slashy-good-time. Try and stop me, I dare you. This is a work of humor mainly, but I fly by the seat of my pants when I write so even *I* don't know where this is going. But I can promise chuckles in each chapter. /UPDATE/ Definitely slash with main characters but everyone else is het, keeping in line with original characterizations.

Reviews are always appreciated. It definitely gives me motivation to continue writing this. (Thanks all! You know who you are)

Have fun, readers!

UPDATE (November 2015): So I haven't updated in a century and a half. I'm probably lucky I live thousands of miles away from most people following this story. I am soooooo sorry! I haven't wanted to stop writing this but I stopped writing in general for a long time because 1) I met the love of my life 2) got married 3) had a baby and 4) she's only a few months old so I literally can only write in the dead of night for, like, an hour before I pass out. Basically it sucks to be you guys, hahahahaha-wait...

I added a few details, a scene or two here and there and have been generally cleaning this piece up a bit so it's not so choppy and raw. It's the most I can accomplish at the moment.

Once upon a time-

Wait a minute! Don't click the back button! Just… just hear me out! *Ahem* Right, where was I?

So once upon a time, a strange man walked into a strange pub. Yes, I am being serious. It isn't the beginning of a bad joke, I swear. That strange man's name was Malcolm Jackson and the strange pub was the Leaky Cauldron.

Would I better catch your attention, dear reader, if I mention that Malcolm was not a wizard?

…Yeah. I thought you might find that tidbit of information intriguing. So stop giving me attitude and read the damn story.

(Since when did muggles get so uppity? Sheesh!)

With a few pounds in his pocket, Malcolm Jackson decided to take a mid-afternoon walk in search of a pint. Being alone in London was fine, he supposed. But he was getting bored and thought to find a pub with a television showing the football game. It wasn't that he was particularly invested in the match but a match meant people and people meant shenanigans. Malcolm invested copious amounts of time to shenanigans as he had been born with a natural talent for it. Shenanigans worked best with strangers (his parents were so used to his whimsy they no longer were the best subjects for his amusement).

He could see a pub at the corner, brightly lit with a sign that said The Froggy Dog with a picture of a Shetland sheep dog with amphibious feet protruding from its jaws. Malcolm thought it was a little amusing and promised to be a popular place. Several patrons he could see through the large front window were gathered at the telly and clearly having a decent time. He knew someone there would talk to him.

Just as Malcolm made up his mind to bother into the pub with all of its loud music and people trickling in in the hopes of a wind-up for the evening, he saw something that caught his attention: a fellow, about his father's age, wearing a long red cloak with a great big brown barn owl perched on the floppy straw- hat on his head.

What.

So Malcolm ditched thoughts of patronizing The Froggy Dog in pursuit across the street of the odd gentleman, knowing that wherever he was going had to be loads more interesting than an everyday pub. At least he hoped so (realizing full well that it was a good chance that he was following Mr. Crazy- Trousers-Who-Lives-In-A-Cardboard-Box rather than the dapper eccentric gentleman he hoped he was following).

Staying a few yards behind and trying to look as though he wasn't following the cloaked man with a barn owl on his head, Malcolm ended up at the corner on Charing Cross Road. Almost as if he sensed eyes on the back of his head, the odd gentleman halted smartly under a very non-descript stoop and turned his head accusingly.

Malcolm jerked back around the corner so quickly he missed his footing and staggered into a group of middle-aged women and their shopping totes.

"Oy! Watch it!" one of them cried and they skittered around him with angry squinty faces and disappeared around the corner.

He took a deep breath and poked his head around the corner to see how far down the side walk the odd man had managed… only to find nothing. Well, not nothing. There was actually a whole lot of something- all of London really. But London was one red-cloaked-floppy-straw hat-owl wearing man short, it seemed.

"Pervert!"

The group of ladies he had banged into were still ogling over their shoulders at him. The lady who insulted him had her nose wrinkled up. They thought he was trying to leer at them and scurried quickly away.

He wanted to shout after them that he wasn't tempted in the slightest but that would defeat the purpose of being sneaky so he let three middle-aged women continue their lives under the impression that Malcolm was an opportunistic scum bag.

Lovely. So where on earth did Mr. Owl-Head disappear to?

He saw the sign for The Leaky Cauldron before he noticed the small weathered door accompanying it. That had to be where Malcolm would find the odd gentleman considering that the location itself was… out of place. It was nestled between a fancy music store and an equally well-lighted book shop. It was the only conceivable place, at the moment, that any man wearing a floppy straw hat with an owl perched on it would be the most welcome.

Thank goodness it was a pub. Malcolm needed a drink. Maybe the man he followed would be kind enough to let Malcolm pet his owl (so long as the man didn't recognize him as a stalker). Malcolm had never pet an owl, let alone been allowed near one thanks to his dear ol' ornithaphobic mum.

He opened the door and had to let his eyes adjust for a few moments from the brightness outside to the darkness of the room. The hub and bub of chatter, clinking of glasses, smells of burning pipes and the occasional croak of what had to be a gigantic bull frog meant that his arrival was unnoticed.

That would not do.

Finally he was able to make out a few things; the room was lit by candle light, for one. Another that robes seemed to be a peculiar fashion in this bar. There was no television but appeared to be a heated discussion at one corner of the room. Malcolm took a seat on a stool at the bar and looked around for Mr. Owl-Head.

"Excuse me, but did you happen to notice someone with a barn owl sitting on his head? Short fellow, pudgy-like?" he inquired of the man next to him with his back turned.

"Eh?! Speak up, boy!" the man yelled back, revealing himself to be at least two hundred years old with a trumpet for an ear. Malcolm jumped in his seat, startled. He rallied quickly.

"A MAN! WITH AN OWL ON HIS HEAD! DID YOU SEE HIM?!" he shouted back into the trumpet. He flapped his hands around his head to mime what he imagined an owl would look like if mimed. Half the room turned to stare at him.

Malcolm saw quite accidently (almost didn't register) a cup of what appeared to be ale floating from the bar into a young man's hand by the fireplace. He nearly let that little impossibility escape the rational side of his brain. But he brought it front and center to his attention. He forgot about Mr. Owl-Head because he very suddenly ceased to be as interesting as a floating cup of ale.

"I'm blind as a bat!" his neighbor shouted at him with a toothless grin. "Not seein' much o' anything, am I?!"

"I suppose you didn't see that cup floating in the air then?!" he shouted back.

The old man blinked his rheumy eyes at Malcolm and cocked his head. Obviously he hadn't seen anything, being blind. Malcolm could have kicked himself for being daft. A lady at the end of the bar stopped drinking from her flagon and stared at him.

"Like magic, eh?" Malcolm confided to her since she appeared to be listening in on his conversation.

Several people around him laughed. She rolled her eyes. Malcolm managed a charming smile though he had not the faintest idea why what he said was funny.

"What'll it be, lad?" the bar-man asked.

Malcolm looked around but didn't see a list of beverages anywhere.

"Erm, surprise me," he said and pulled out a few pounds from his jeans pocket. He laid the money on the counter, sure that it would cover a pint of whatever he was given.

The bar man furrowed his brow.

"More?" Malcolm asked and pulled out a few more coins and bills. His first thought was that drinks must be very expensive in London. His next thought was that he had done something horribly horribly wrong.

Several chairs scrapped across the floor as multiple people stood up.

"Do you think you're funny? You have to get that exchanged," the bar man pointed at his meager pile of money on the counter top.

"Into what, exactly? Gold?" Malcolm asked sarcastically.

"Pfft! For that? Rather a few Knuts, ha!" someone shouted and guffawed.

"Bleedin' pranksters tryn'a pay wit' muggle money," someone else growled, unimpressed.

"What's muggle money?" he asked the bar man. The bar man responded by raising his eyebrows and giving a sharp nod to someone across the room.

A hand gripped his shoulder from behind. Malcolm looked around to see a very tall man in a dark suit staring him down.

"On behalf of the Ministry of Magic, please state your business here," the suited gentleman demanded gruffly. He pointed a thin strip of wood at Malcolm as he spoke rather threateningly.

Malcolm started to grin. Surely this was a joke. He was a object of some joke he had stumbled into in pursuit of a man with an owl on his head. He chuckled and winked at his other neighbor at the bar, a very young woman in grey robes with a pleasant face.

"Well everyone knows magic isn't real, heh heh," he said.

Malcolm didn't know what he was expecting. The people in the pub to laugh with him? The young woman to smile back? It definitely wasn't being jerked to his feet off the stool and having a stick jammed in his throat, that was certain.

So he did the only thing he knew how to do when it came down to encounters like this: he ran.

As he ran, things began exploding. For instance, several clean mugs on the counter as he leapt behind it. There was a small dirty mirror behind the bar and he could see the suited gentleman being joined immediately by other robed and suited persons. He watched one of them point his stick (a wand, Malcolm was now tentatively calling it in his head) at Malcolm's reflection.

None of this was making any sense. Nothing at all, Malcolm knew in his brain. But his heart knew he was having a very interesting day to say the least and whatever happened to him now was totally worth it… and also super scary.

"Stupefy!" he shouted. Malcolm's reflection shattered in red sparks.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?!" he shouted.

There were various shouts of "muggle" and "catch him" and the general clamor of people jumping and leaping out of harm's way.

Malcolm crawled frantically toward the back of the pub, using the bar as a cover. A few sharp seconds later three of the (warlocks! witches! what the fuck!) people were now behind the bar and aiming their sticks at him. He managed to avoid being blasted apart as he scrambled on all fours to the rubbish bins in the back, hoping there would be some way out through the back of the pub.

All he saw was an old lady in a pink pointed hat standing expectantly in front of a brick wall bins in front. His first thought was to hide behind the bins for temporary cover… until he witnessed the bricks in the wall move apart on their own to reveal an exit.

"Excuse me! So sorry!" he yelled behind him at the little old lady (who hadn't expected to be interrupted by a mid-afternoon exploding rubbish bin). She squawked as the suited men and women rushed passed her shouting "Stupify!" and shooting red sparks at Malcolm.

Oh my god, why can't it be nighttime?! Malcolm thought as he flew through the streets in broad daylight, pushing people out of his way. An owl swooped low over his head and he swatted at it. He jumped over a pile of broken broomsticks and nearly ran headlong into a portly gentleman in a deep purple gown.

"Oy! Watch it, lad!"

Malcolm dodged around him, looking back over his shoulder frantically. They were still after him! Two women and three men were pointing sticks at him and shouting at passerby to get out of the way so they could "Stun!" him. But it was too crowded along the street and Malcolm knew they didn't want to shoot any more sparks at him for fear of hitting innocent people. Suddenly they all disappeared as a large crowd of people began crossing the street, laughing and giggling. There was shouting and several of the young women in the crowd screamed.

"MOVE!" one of the men chasing him bellowed but it didn't do him any good. The crowds were too thick in the street.

A tall man with white blonde hair was watching the spectacle with curiosity and as Malcolm was darting past, he reached out a pale hand.

"Merlin's beard, get your arse in here," the blonde man hissed and jerked Malcolm into a shadowy alcove.

Malcolm tripped and grabbed hold of the man's robes causing them both to stagger and slam into the mossy covered stone wall.

"Mmph! Watch it!" he huffed and pushed Malcolm to the side.

"Good lord, I didn't think I'd cause this much trouble," Malcolm panted.

"What are you thinking? How did you get here?" the blonde man interrogated him. Several men and women rushed past the entrance to the alcove, huffing and puffing.

"Where'd 'eh go? Damn it, how'd a Muggle get through the Leaky Cauldron? Bernard! The other way, tha's where he went!"

"Are you really a Muggle?" the blonde man hissed at him again, glaring at Malcolm as if he were a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe.

"Er… what?" he answered.

The blonde man grimaced. Apparently that was not the answer he wanted to hear.

"Great. Just bloody great," the blonde man groaned and swept his hair out of his eyes.

Malcolm shouldered as much pride as he could before answering.

"I would never have stopped in for a drink if I'd have known it would get me in this mess."

The shouting, which had faded before, was getting closer again.

"You aren't even supposed to see the Leaky Cauldron, much less stop for a drink, you imbecile," the blonde man snarled.

"Well fuck me then, I couldn't help it!" His panic was beginning to rise again and backed against the wall again, waiting for the strange men and women to find him hiding in the shadows.

"Oh come on!" the blonde man said and yanked at Malcolm's wrist.

The next thing he knew, everything was a blur. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. He thought he was going to die. Bands of pressure squeezed his lungs shut so tightly, he couldn't move or think. Then suddenly, he found himself crouched on hands and knees over cold marble gasping for air and thanking the gods above that he hadn't bitten the dust.

"What… in… the bloody… hell-"

His vision was coming back into focus and he stared upward at the blonde man who was making a very nasty face as he studied him. He hadn't noticed before that he was wearing a similar gown-like robe as the other strangers; the only difference was how much more refined his were. There was a hint of silver sewn into the stitching.

"How did you get into Diagon Alley?"

"I told you, I just walked into the pub for a drink. Bloody Christ. How many times do I have to explain myself? They all started coming after me so I ran. Are they some sort of magical policemen or something?" Malcolm asked, still wheezing to catch his breath.

"Those are Aurors. How did you manage to get out of there without being Stunned?" the man asked. Something in his pompous voice was intrigued and accusatory.

Malcolm staggered to his feet and looked around. He was, amazingly, no longer hunkered down in a dank alcove. He was in a foyer. A very expansive foyer and it was blissfully free of Aurors and other mad people shouting and chasing him. A fireplace roared to his right and a grandfather clock ticked away the time. He saw the couch and immediately crossed the rug, sinking thankfully into the soft cushions. He sighed as his aching body relaxed and melted into the fabric.

"Excuse me, I didn't offer you to sit anywhere you want-"

"What's your name, buddy?" Malcolm asked and kicked off his shoes. There was a strangled sound of disgust behind him.

"Draco Malfoy and get off my couch," he demanded. His voice reverberated throughout the quiet house and Malcolm listened to Draco marching smartly toward him.

"After what I've just been through? No thank you. But yeah, thanks for pulling my arse out of the fire back there," Malcolm replied.

At that exact moment, they both spoke.

"Is it cool if I crash here for a bit?"-"You are not staying in my house."

They both stared at each other and Malcolm couldn't help but laugh at the look of horror he was receiving.

"What's your name, muggle?"

"Malcolm Jackson," he answered and put his hands behind his head. Draco was standing resolutely in front of the fireplace looking unsure of what to do. His hands twitched toward the piece of elongated wood strapped to his side.

"Is that really a weapon?" Malcolm asked. Draco glanced down and then back at him, squinting his grey eyes.

"Usually," he responded.

"Can I have one? I mean, if you have a spare one. I don't want those people to come after me again," Malcolm asked.

Draco sneered.

"What are you going to do? Poke them in the eye? You're not a wizard. You're a muggle," he answered. Then he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Malcolm to himself in the unfamiliar, if expensively cozy, room.

"What in the bloody hell is a muggle?" he mumbled to himself and hunkered down, determined to catch a nap before trying to find his way back to the London hotel he had been staying at.

Magic really does exist. How about that…

He had only left the muggle alone for a few moments on the bottom floor. And being a person of somewhat normal expectations, he was wholly unprepared for the sudden bellowing of lungs disturbing the blissful quiet of his home.

"Grrraaaahhhhh!"

Draco yelped at the sound of Malcolm's shouts (like a punch to the ear drums), lost his step and reached up to grab a dress robe for balance but his fingers scrambled futilely on the fabric. He tumbled to the floor in the most undignified manner with an "Oomph!" He shot back upward, heart in his throat and scrambled like a madman out of his closet, racing through his bedroom, down the long corridor and down the main staircase with his wand out.

"…so sorry. You're actually kind of cute," he heard as he got closer.

"Ye- yes, sir. Tibby is m-most grateful."

"What do you mean by it?!" Draco demanded. The auburn-haired muggle (he resisted rolling his eyes as he reminded himself the man's name was Malcolm) looked up at him pleasantly and patted his house elf on the head.

"Nothing. Got sort of freaked out. What is this thing? It's adorable," Malcolm answered and grinned down at the bug-eyed house elf. Tibby looked extremely uncomfortable and her ears twitched helplessly as Malcolm scratched her head like a dog. She looked up at Draco with a pleading expression.

Draco's eyes rolled to the ceiling.

He is scratching the elf's ears. My god, what have I gotten myself into?

"Can you please not do that?" Draco demanded, stowing his wand back in his pocket.

Malcolm slowly retracted his hand and shoved them both in his pockets.

"That, for your information, is my house elf. Kindly refrain from molesting the help from now on, thank you," Draco grimaced.

"Oh! No, I'm not attracted to, er, elves and such. He, ah, that is… She…erm. Well it woke me up to ask me if I wanted any tea and I might have overreacted a bit."

Draco sighed and rubbed his eyes. Malcolm shrugged his shoulders, still looking down at Tibby in curiosity and amazement.

"She."

Malcolm's expression was that of dawning comprehension... and some guilt.

"So sorry, miss," he told Tibby in a carrying whisper. Tibby twitched a bit, still determinedly staring up at Draco.

"Tibby, go down to the kitchens and ready dinner for the evening. We have a… guest," Draco shooed her away. The last word came out in a groan.

Malcolm grinned.