Do You Want Fries With That?

Part 2

Harry plastered on the bright, false smile of a person deserving much more than minimum wage, and replied, "Orders must be placed at the counter, sir! Do you need some help finding it?"

Malfoy sneered and rolled his eyes. "Potter. You better get outside, my father isn't paying you to stay indoors," he smirked, "Make sure to wave and smile! Don't forget your sign!"

Harry gave a thumbs up, and as Malfoy walked past him, switched to two fingers. Hermione caught him.

"Harry, I know this isn't ideal, but you really do need to go outside. Riddle has started handing out ketchup packets to people walking by and somehow, it's attracting customers," she grimaced.

Harry hung his head with discouraged resignation. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going." He gave her visor a flick and walked to the soda fountain.

He filled a large beverage cup with ice, hoping it could be passed off as a prop, and gave one last wave to the other employees. Harry picked up the company licensed sign ( $1 Large Fry!), braced himself for the blast of hot air, and was sorely disappointed to find that it was somehow muggier than anticipated.

Even worse, Riddle was already staring at Harry. His white face paint was menacingly wrinkling his face, not quite dripping but definitely sweating in the heat. The red afro was wilting in the sun (which Harry did not know was a possible characteristic of a wig), and the sleeves of his clown suit were rolled up to his elbows. And, yes, he was holding a Happy Meal box filled to the top with ketchup packets. Harry was baffled on how hot packets of ketchup would entice patrons, but he suspected fear was a large factor.

Harry took in this horrifying image, and waved.

Riddle continued to stare at Harry, making no gesture of acknowledgement of the wave, which was honestly quite rude, considering they were both in similar situations, and having an ally would be really helpful.

As this gesture of goodwill was ignored, Harry propped up a box to stand on and began wiggling his sign. A few cars beeped. All was well.

Until he heard Riddle, and oh god, Harry thought those honks from the last few weeks had been the calls of local alley ducks, perhaps geese, but no. Oh, no.

Riddle had a clown horn, and he pressed the red ball once, and let the noise ring out ominously, until pressing again minutes later. He did this while maintaining his gaze in Harry's direction.

Was this how Riddle actually interacted with people? It wasn't even like they were strangers, and he could be creepy with the knowledge that he would never see Harry again. They had both started at their jobs around the same time a month ago, and passed by each other frequently at the bus stop. Harry wouldn't go as far as to say they were friends, especially since Tom would just swipe his bus card and then stare moodily out the window like he was in a music video, only occasionally grunting in acknowledgement to Harry. Harry wondered if perhaps he was that unrecognizable in his Wendy ensemble.

"Tom! Riddle! You know it's me, right? Harry Potter?" Harry called out to Tom across the street.

Riddle honked.

"Can you hear me?"

Honk.

Harry paused, and continued wiggling his sign while Riddle stared at him some more.

'Three more weeks' played like a mantra inside Harry's head.

Three more weeks until the trip.

Three more weeks until he could quit the worst job he's ever had, beating his jobs of cat sitting for Mrs Figg, mowing the lawns of the monotonous suburbia of Little Whinging, and assisting at Sirius's Taekwondo studio, all rolled into one and multiplied by a thousand.

Three more weeks until he would never have to ask, "do you want fries with that?" in his most enthusiastic tone, while his eyes betrayed how dead he truly was inside. They almost always wanted fries with 'that,' whether 'that' was a Frosty or a Baconator, or even an order of fries.

Some patrons of Wendy's wanted an order of fries with their fries, and every time it happened, Harry battled between a sense of deep horror, and pride.

A honk louder than any of the others pulled Harry from his inner chanting. He focused his gaze on Riddle.

"Yes, Riddle?" Harry asked, beginning to do a bit of a thrusting motion with the sign.

Riddle looked to both sides, then called out, "Potter!"

Harry exhaled a few times. "Yeah, I heard you, I'm the one that acknowledged you first. What's up?"

With an exaggerated (well, maybe not exaggerated for Riddle, that could just be how he functioned) straightening of his posture and a raised chin, he shouted, "Potter! No one wants your square shaped patties!"

Harry blinked. "...you're so fucking weird. You know you look like one of those forest clowns, right? Remember the creepy forest clowns?"

"That was five years ago, Harry, and how could you say that to an international icon? I am Ronald McDonald," Riddle said, and tossed a ketchup packet onto the windshield of a passing car, that luckily, was going slow enough that it just slid off, leaving a splatter of red.

"What the fuck?"

"...I think I may have heatstroke," Riddle said, and promptly fainted, his horn releasing a sad honk and his clown nose bouncing off.

Harry was speechless, and debated whether he should get help or continue thrusting his sign. With a sigh, he crossed the street and dumped half of his melting ice directly onto Riddle, and began gently hitting him.

Harry also decided to take off Riddle's clown wig, and unbuttoned the top half of the suit, which was actually fastened with buttons, not a zipper, because apparently McDonald's only had authentic clown apparel.

A few people who had been eating inside of the McDonald's came outside to see what the commotion was, including Slughorn.

He looked quite guilty, almost like how a manager would look if they put an employee in danger by having them dress in a full clown suit in the middle of summer, and stand outside in the heat for hours at a time, several days a week. He looked almost like said employee could file a negligence lawsuit against the company.

And with that thought racing through his head, Harry poured the rest of the icy water on Riddle, watched as his eyes fluttered open, leaned in, and whispered, "We're going to get fucking rich."