Title: Histories
Author: bronze_ribbons
Words: ~ 1750
Fandoms: Haru wo Daiteita and Harry Potter
Pairings: Dumbledore/Mochimune, with allusions to Filch/Pince, Dumbledore/Lupin, and others
Rating: PG-13? I want to rinse my brain with shochu regardless.
Beta: the super-fast and ever-precise aunty_marion *mwah!*
Notes: Stand-alone ficlet -- NOT a part of the "Encore" universe I seem to building in spite of myself. This isn't really snapelike's fault but I'm blaming her anyway, because it was a conversation related to "Hazard Cast" that spawned this bunny.


After seeing Katou Youji perform as a war photographer in Stand on Vessel, Director Mochimune knew he could not rest until he created a film that displayed in full the dark side of the actor's radiance. There had been hints of the darkness in Director Hida's story -- just enough to make the character interesting, but not enough to confuse mainstream audiences about the photographer's status as the hero of the movie.

Mochimune firmly believed that the line between heroes and monsters was razor-thin. He had managed to provoke Iwaki Kyosuke into crossing that line for Lost Heart, but he had sensed there was still more he could draw out of Iwaki -- and Iwaki had said as much after the movie's premiere. Studying Katou's range of stares in Stand on Vessel -- from hot fury to cool calculation -- Mochimune salivated at the thought of directing them in a movie where the two would portray equally powerful, dangerous men who repeatedly crossed that line and sliced each other with it at every opportunity.

First, though, he would need to create that script -- and his instinct told him that he needed to work first on a Katou-only project, the better to balance his immediate knowledge of Iwaki's abilities with his speculative assessment of Katou's talent. After a series of discreet inquiries, a screening of Katou's entire career (AV, TV, and all), and a carefully engineered lunch with Katou and his manager, Mochimune booked a flat in Edinburgh for a month.

Had it been a true vacation, he would have chosen Glasgow instead, as the Edinburgh scene was far too sedate for his taste. But Edinburgh and its environs was home to specific secret chapels and archives that rewarded him with fragments of a story of a renegade priest and his ring of spies; three weeks into his stay, Mochimune had drafted ninety pages of a film he was confident that Katou would not be able to resist.

One of the archivists who had assisted him had been a young woman named Mira Filch. She had a disconcerting resemblance to a baby vulture that had made him want to create a part for her; she had cheerfully accepted both his card and his invitation to dinner at the pub around the corner. When he asked the waiter for the check, however, the waiter had tilted his head toward Ms. Filch. "Already paid for, sir."

Mochimune had frowned at his companion. "I was the one who invited you."

Mira grinned back at him, apology nowhere in her expression. "They know me here."

Mochimune continued to frown. "That makes this a date instead of a business meeting."

"Not quite." Mira slid out of the booth, still smiling. "There's a story I've decided I want you to consider filming." She held up a hand as Mochimune's frown deepened. "Don't say no until you study what I send to you. And even if you do say no, I'll play whatever you write for me anyway. You can pick up the check then."

His mind still stumbling over the curve she'd surprised him with, Mochimune managed to croak out an "All right" as she lightly squeezed his outstretched hand. Murmuring "Brilliant. Have a great rest of the week!", Mira swiftly strode away before Mochimune could offer to see her to -- her home? her car? her bus stop? By the time he reached the sidewalk in front of the café, Mira was nowhere in sight.

* * *

The following morning, as Mochimune debated with himself over whether to return to the archive, two delivery women arrived at his flat bearing a large, rectangular crate.

"I didn't order anything," he said to them.

The women proceeded to dismantle the crate regardless. As the one with "Bulstrode" on her jersey carefully propped the portrait against the wall, the one labeled "Weasley" informed him, "It's a loan from Ms. Filch. Sign here, please."

Mochimune took the quill she offered and quickly skimmed the terms that had been neatly inscribed across the parchment on her clipboard. Archives are so pretentious! he thought, as he scrawled his signature into the "Received by:" field. There was a smirk on Ms. Weasley's face that suggested she knew what he was thinking, but before he could comment on it, she and Ms. Bulstrode were gone.

"Damn, I'm getting old and slow," Mochimune said to himself.

"Old does not mean slow, young man," the man in the portrait informed him.

"What the fuck--" Mochimune yelped, leaping backwards. "Mira, this is your idea of a joke?"

The man in the portrait twinkled at him. "She said you would say that."

"Oh?" Mochimune scooted up to the portrait and began to examine it closely. "You don't look like you're controlled from a remote--"

"She said you'd say that too," the portrait informed him. "And since you're going to ask, I don't actually understand Japanese. She cast a translation charm on the frame."

"She -- " To Mochimune, the frame looked like any other ordinary, tastelessly ornate rectangles he'd seen around other portraits. He shook his head, trying to settle his thoughts into some semblance of order. He stalked over to the table he had been using as his desk. "Gahh, where's a cigarette when you really need one?"

"I'd offer you a sherbet lemon," the man burbled in a helpful tone, "but sadly, that's not within my current powers."

Mochimune glared at the portrait. "Then what are you good for?" he demanded.

Instead of taking offense, the man continued beaming at him, although the twinkling of his eyes sharpened into a hard glittering. "Mira tells me I should tell you about the men I've known."

There was a faint accent on the word "known" that made Mochimune stand up straight. He narrowed his eyes at the portrait. "Mira told you about my current project?"

The man replied, "My name is Albus Dumbledore. The men whose files you requested from her yesterday? There are many stories that were never archived."

"How would Mira know about you knowing them?" Mochimune demanded.

"My dear boy, she's significantly older than you think. And it turns out that she was very good at spying on her father. And he was very good at helping me with, shall we say, various devices and devisings." Dumbledore smiled as Mochimune unconsciously licked his lips. "I flatter myself that you'll want to pull up a chair."

Mochimune snatched up a pen and notepad and all but threw himself onto the floor in front of the portrait. "The hell with chairs," he said, looking Dumbledore directly in the eyes. "What can you tell me about Ryoichi Montgomerie?"

"Well," Dumbledore began, "here he answered to 'Richard,' of course. The ladies thought of him as strong and silent to a fault, but what a mouth he had…"

All day Dumbledore talked. All day Mochimune frantically took notes. Even when the sun set, Mochimune continued writing, not pausing even to turn on the lights. The room had become so dim that Dumbledore's image gleamed from its frame like a stage-lit demon, unnaturally vivid in the gloom.

As Dumbledore wrapped up his recollections of dungeon sex with a sly, seemingly unassuming werewolf, Mochimune luxuriated in the sensation of productive overstimulation, his mind now crowded with images of battlefield blowjobs, tales of nipple clamps and cockrings hidden in the crevices of mansions and castles, and a saga about a spell-enhanced libation that had driven a war-tested wizard straight into the arms of his destroyer. He was going to owe Mira more than a dinner for --

"You told Mira all of this?" he panted.

"Not quite as much as I've told you," the portrait said. "But by the time I found out she had been Polyjuicing herself into her father--"

"Polyjuicing"? I haven't heard that term before. Must brush up on my English kinks.... Mochimune looked at the portrait speculatively. "I wonder if she would let me keep you for a while."

Dumbledore's expression was regretful. "You wouldn't be able to get me past your Customs, or hers. In fact, I'm not actually hers to loan." The old wizard's eyes glittered once more. "As it happens, though, Mira's her parents' opposite when it comes to rules."

"I see," Mochimune said. He set the notepad aside and lurched to his feet, his limbs stiff from sitting so long. After touching his toes and swinging his arms back and forth, he put his hands on his hips and said to the portrait, "I assume she'll handle whatever you need once I leave?"

"Almost all of it," Dumbledore agreed.

Mochimune was no fool: he let Dumbledore's words completely fade into nothingness before he allowed himself to ask, "What's the 'almost'?"

Dumbledore nodded at the bulge in Mochimune's pants. "I want to watch you handle that."

Mochimune didn't move. "Is this something you plan to share with Mira?"

Dumbledore didn't flinch. "She paid for your dinner, didn't she?"

Mochimune retorted, "That doesn't mean she owns me."

Dumbledore said, his tone maddeningly reasonable, "Of course not. But since she shared me with you…"

Mochimune grimaced. Exposing himself to Dumbledore wasn't the problem: he'd played his share of sexual games over the years, and he'd enjoyed an assortment of temporary relationships as well. He didn't consider himself shy about either his body or his emotions, and he wouldn't have had suffered any qualms about masturbating himself in Mira's presence --

"Dear boy," Dumbledore continued, his voice taking on a tinge of steel, "I will tell stories about you whether you give me anything to work with or not. You might as well help me make them good."

Mochimune clenched his fists and then exhaled. "An excellent line, Dumbledore-san. I must remember it when it's time for my actors to tell your stories."

"Well, then." Dumbledore happily settled back into his chair with an expectant look.

Mochimune walked to the center of the room. Reaching up, he yanked on the cord dangling from the overhead light, turning it on. As he walked back to the portrait, he noted how the sudden brightness in the room made Dumbledore look far less majestic than he had seconds before.

He pulled his shirt over his head before he began to speak. "Let me tell you about the day Iwaki Kyosuke became a better actor. I have never been so hard in my life," he admitted, "not even as a teenager, and not even today." He pulled his belt out of its loops and flicked its tip at the portrait as he continued. "And yet I know he can give me even more, but I'm getting ahead of this story..."