lomonaaeren

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Chapter Eighteen—Storm Breaking

The only bad thing about the storm of articles over the next few days, Harry thought, was that they mostly made the front page of the Daily Prophet, and that made it harder to keep them away from Jamie.

SCHOOL FOR PARSELMOUTHS HIRES FUTURE DARK LORD!

RITA SKEETER: SCANDAL AMONG THE PROPHET’S REPORTERS!

SHOULD WE BE ASKING MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT DRACO MALFOY?

WE SHOULD DEFINITELY BE ASKING MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT RITA SKEETER!

Harry laughed and shook his head, and just said that he was amused by funny stories in the paper when Jamie asked him. He went through the Floo with Jamie to the school, and taught the children more of the history about stereotypes around Parselmouths, and bonded more with Sela, and talked more often to Ron and Hermione and Molly and Arthur through the Floo as well as visiting them for dinner.

And he spent more time with Draco.

It seemed impossible, near the end of their third evening having dinner together, that both of them didn’t know where this was going, but Harry didn’t want to rush it. He’d never had this kind of quiet courtship, with eyes catching in significant ways when one of them talked about the future, and Draco telling stories of the past to him while the fire crackled in the background, and listening enthralled to Harry’s own stories when he felt like sharing them.

Draco walked him to the Floo that evening, and lingered there with his hands on Harry’s shoulders, staring into his eyes. Harry swallowed, told himself that courage had been one of his primary virtues during his years at Hogwarts and backing out now would just be cowardly, and leaned forwards to kiss Draco.

For a moment, Draco stiffened, and Harry feared that he’s misread the signals. Some of his old worries stirred back to life in him. They might both be Parselmouths, but Draco had been branded against his will, he hadn’t carried a piece of Voldemort’s soul with him for years—

Draco reached out and grasped his shoulders again, dragging him forwards. Harry went with the motion, giving a gasp of relief that got swallowed up by Draco’s eager kiss. Draco stepped back long enough to run his fingers through Harry’s hair. Harry thought about telling him that that wouldn’t help with the disorder, but he was too caught by the way Draco’s eyes shone.

“You don’t have to worry about your reception,” Draco said quietly. “I was just surprised you decided to do it so fast, that’s all.”

Harry laughed softly, and ignored the way that Sela hissed something about weeks from his shoulder. Edwina was watching him with an expression that was, so far as he could tell, somewhat cynical. He suspected she might not think he was the right choice for her human. But as long as she didn’t interfere, that was all right.

“I’m glad I got up the courage to do it at all.” Harry took another chance and trailed his own fingers through Draco’s hair, thinking that maybe he would enjoy the gesture since he’d been using it on Harry. Draco uttered a thick noise, his eyes unfocusing, and Harry grinned. “Good night,” he added teasingly, raking his fingers up and down one time each before he stepped back.

Draco opened his mouth and looked as if he might order Harry back to what he’d been doing. Then he shook his head sharply and muttered, “Next time, it won’t be so easy for you to escape,” as he floated the sleeping Scorpius and Jamie into the room. Sapphire came with James, poking his head out of the watery bag to study Harry.

“We were here for a very long time,” he said, one of the few times that he’d addressed Harry directly.

“And now we’re going home,” Harry hissed back, taking control of the spell from Draco and floating Jamie into his own arms. Sapphire’s bag hovered close to him as he turned back for a more serious farewell.

Draco’s eyes were brilliant and focused on him. Harry lost both control of his breathing and all desire to tease. He wanted—

He wanted to stay. But his own nervousness reared itself in prickling gooseflesh all over his skin at the mere notion, and he ended up blushing and averting his eyes.

Draco nodded, as if that had been an answer of sorts for him. “Good night, Harry,” he whispered.

That whisper held all sorts of promises for the future. Harry was sure, as he turned back to the Floo and cast in the powder, that his face was hotter than the flames they were traveling through.

Sela’s teasing about how she would have left them alone if she’d known what Harry was planning on didn’t help.

*

Draco rolled out of the bed and was on his feet before he came fully awake. For a moment, he blinked at the wall. His wand was in his hand, and that wasn’t something that had happened since the war, for him to wake up like this.

Then he got another twinge from the wards around the school, and knew that they’d captured something. Or someone. Someone in Animagus form.

Draco smiled fiercely as he wrapped a spare robe he usually kept for lounging in around himself and made his way towards the edge of the wards. He’d been hinting about Skeeter’s Animagus form in the articles he’d written, but he hadn’t revealed it yet. He had been hoping something like this would happen, that she would creep into the school and run afoul of the wards he and Harry had set up.

He was going to enjoy this.

When he walked around the edge of the school to the stone path that led up to the front doors, he could see a ward-line glowing red in the air several meters away. Skeeter had bypassed the ones that would have warned her off and even one that had tried to bounce her away; perhaps she was a faster flyer in beetle form than Draco had known. So now she was captured, the beetle madly struggling in the air on the red ward-line.

Draco walked up to her, shaking his head. “You just couldn’t learn, could you?” he asked idly, conjuring a glass jar. “You had to keep up the pressure on Harry and decide that you could sneak in without being spotted.”

He held up the jar and Summoned her in a way that broke the grip of the ward, while also not allowing her the freedom to fly more than a few inches. In seconds, she was inside the jar, and Draco screwed the lid on. After a moment’s consideration, he poked a few holes in the lid with his wand, although he didn’t know if she would need more air than what was in the jar.

The beetle reared up, fluttering her wings furiously, and for a moment, Draco saw a ripple of magic move around her.

“I wouldn’t,” he told her with a nasty smile. “You might break the jar, but there are wards, like the one you got caught in, that would do something worse than simply capture you if they found you inside them.”

Skeeter dropped back onto six legs, staring at him and buzzing.

“Yes, well, if you’d been less greedy, you wouldn’t be in this position,” Draco pointed out, and cast an Unbreakable Charm on the jar despite his words about the wards, followed by ones that would keep any sound from getting in or out. He didn’t want Skeeter spying on any secrets that someone might accidentally let slip around her or even listening to the chatter of the children.

“Let’s see how long it takes Harry to decide what his ideal vengeance on you would be,” he murmured, and although Skeeter couldn’t hear him, her legs scrabbled more frantically than ever at the sides of the jar. Draco smiled, tucked the jar away into a darkened corner of an empty room when he got back inside, and went to bed.

His dreams were excessively pleasant, and could only have been better if Harry had actually been there with him to enact some of the things Draco dreamed of.

*

“Harry.”

Harry could tell from the way that Draco’s smile curved around the edge of his lips that he was pleased about something, but since Draco immediately leaned forwards for a kiss, he didn’t ask about it. This kiss was enthusiastic enough that Harry ended up leaning against the fireplace mantel and Edwina dropped to the floor with a disgusted thump, although Sela stayed on Harry’s shoulder and laughed.

“Daddy, why are you kissing Jamie’s daddy?”

Right. The children are in the room. Harry cleared his throat and stood up, feeling the flare of heat across his cheeks, although Draco only looked smug. He winked at Harry and curved an arm around his shoulders, turning to face Scorpius and Jamie and their snakes.

“Sometimes people do that when they’re dating,” Draco said. “And Mr. Harry and I are dating now.”

“Okay.” Scorpius seemed to lose interest, maybe because Charlie was talking to him, but Jamie’s eyes darted back and forth between Harry and Draco. His face was solemn.

“Will Mr. Draco leave, Daddy?”

Harry blinked. “What do you mean, Jamie?”

“Mum left,” James said, with so much sadness in his voice that Harry stepped away from Draco to pick him up. “Will Mr. Draco leave?”

Harry gazed helplessly at Draco. He didn’t know how to handle this, given that he hadn’t dated anyone since Ginny had walked away. He hadn’t even realized that Jamie was aware enough to know that Ginny had left instead of just not living with them anymore. Maybe Ginny had said something to Jamie at Bill’s birthday party the other day.

“No,” Draco said calmly. “Your father will teach here for as long as he wants to, and we’ll date for as long as we want to.”

“Oh.” Jamie didn’t look perfectly reassured, but he settled back enough to tug at Harry’s arms, indicating he wanted to be let down. Harry let him down and watched as he ran back to Scorpius with Sapphire bobbing beside him.

“It’s all right,” Draco said softly, stepping up next to him. “It can be hard to explain the first person you’re dating after a divorce. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be together. Just that we’ll need to be careful. But you knew that already.” He ran his fingers through Harry’s hair as he spoke, his smile gentle.

Harry nodded. And he knew that this might not work out between him and Draco. It certainly wouldn’t be perfect. They wouldn’t argue about Jamie being able to speak Parseltongue, but they might well argue about something else. He would have to remind himself that Jamie needed to be treated tenderly and carefully, but not lied to.

“Now,” Draco said. “I think you’re here for work, not pleasure. But I do have something to show you first.”

The look he shot over his shoulder sent Harry’s mind to filthy places, but he shook his head, took a deep breath, cleared his mind as much as he could when he’d always been pants at Occlumency, and followed Draco towards his office.

*

“She was arrogant enough to come in her Animagus form?”

Draco grinned, enjoying the expression on Harry’s face as he stalked around the table where Draco had the jar standing. The beetle in it crouched, as if she thought she might be able to vanish in a plain glass environment. Harry stepped back with a shake of his head and glanced at Draco. “Why, I wonder?”

“Her form is a lot smaller and faster than some anti-Animagus wards were designed to combat,” Draco said. “Most of the time, a mouse or a rat is about as small as someone gets.” He watched Harry’s face darken and wondered why, but that was the kind of question he could ask later. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d found her way past some of them before. And she did get past one of the outer wards that should have bounced her.”

“Are you sure—”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s her, and I’m sure that she can’t escape,” Draco said firmly. Harry nodded, even if he did it with more doubt in his face than Draco wanted to see. “But we do have to decide what to do with her now. We could turn her over to the Ministry, or we could try blackmail, but I’m not sure that I’d trust her to stay threatened. She might decide to go out in a blaze of glory.”

“Turn her in.”

“Are you sure? I thought you might have wanted more revenge than that.”

“Believe me, Draco, being in Azkaban, surrounded by Dementors, is more than enough revenge for anyone.” Harry stared at the glass jar with an expression that made Draco wonder if he truly believed that, or was only saying it to convince himself. “And I think I remember something from my Auror training. The longer you’ve gone without revealing your Animagus training, and the more you’ve used it to profit yourself or escape from justice, the longer the sentence. Isn’t that right?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t remember all the specifics of the law.”

Harry smiled at Skeeter. Draco knew she hadn’t heard anything about what they were saying, but Harry’s smile made her legs scrabble faster still. “It’s going to be such a pleasure to know that she’s shut away for at least a year, if not longer,” Harry said softly.

“And when she gets out, we’ll have other defenses ready and waiting,” Draco said.

Harry shot him a doubtful look. “We will? That’s the only downside I can see to turning her in, that she might serve her Azkaban sentence and get out when Jamie and Scorpius are still too young for Hogwarts.”

Part of Draco’s heart warmed, knowing that Harry was thinking about protecting Scorpius, too.

“We’ll have the anti-Animagus wards up, of course. And we’ll have spent that year or five years or however long it is carefully destroying Skeeter’s reputation.”

Harry’s eyes lit up, and he laughed. “You’re magnificent, Draco.”

Draco stared at him, his heart pounding, feeling the same way that he had when Harry had praised him through the Floo, but now in the same room with him. And Harry didn’t have a fireplace between them, either, and could see Draco’s reaction.

Harry acquired a faint, persistent smile. He stepped towards Draco, who found that he couldn’t move.

“You are,” Harry repeated. “You’ve changed my life, and not just because you’ve taught me to be proud of my Parseltongue or hired me to teach at the school. You’ve helped Jamie, and you’ve helped me get revenge, and you’ve made sure that the next generation of Parselmouths is safe, and you’ve been my friend, and—I don’t know what I can do to repay you.”

“I can think of lots of things. But there’s one I want right now. No, two.”

“A kiss,” Harry said, his eyes darkening until Draco couldn’t imagine how Weasley could have walked away from him. “And the other one?”

“Your permission to go after and get revenge on Bandler, too. I won’t relax until we do that. What he did to you is at least the equivalent of what Skeeter did, if not worse.”

Harry swallowed. “As long as you can make sure that any backlash doesn’t fall on Jamie, then, yes.”

“Or on you, either. Of course.”

Harry nodded slowly. “It’s not that I don’t hate him, you know. Or hate what he did. It was just—people accepted it. He was still employed at St. Mungo’s. People were more eager to hear about my dark secrets from him than they were outraged about what he did.”

“Hush. I know.” Draco reached out and drew Harry nearer, then thought of something and cast a Darkening Charm over the glass jar. Skeeter didn’t need to witness this. “You thought you couldn’t do anything because you were up against the whole force of a society that hated you, hated Parselmouths and supposed Dark Lords, not just him.”

Harry swallowed and nodded. “That’s exactly it. I—can I kiss you now?”

Despite knowing that Harry was in a sense using Draco to run away from facing his emotions, Draco smiled and nodded. “I’d like that very much.”

The kiss this time was possessive, searching, desperate. Draco didn’t care. He wound his arms around Harry’s shoulders and dragged him closer, closer, closer still. Harry was practically bending Draco backwards over his desk by the time he staggered back with a gasp. Draco was glad that he hadn’t put Skeeter’s jar on the desk itself.

Harry blinked and cleared his throat, sweeping his hand over his hair. “You have—you’ve changed my life. Did I already say that? Well, even if I did, you deserve to hear it again.” He reached up and cupped Draco’s cheek.

Draco closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side so that his face rested more firmly in Harry’s hold. He didn’t want to say anything else right now. He didn’t want to think about Skeeter, or Bandler, or the fact that he had obtained some vengeance for Harry, or the fact that there was more still to come.

He just wanted to stand here and have something he’d never known he wanted holding and cradling him.