lomonaaeren

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Chapter Nine—Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

Finally! I was worried about you.

Harry smiled a little as he sat back in the chair in Malfoy’s office. Of course Malfoy had decided to return there, ignoring the shattered window and the curious looks of the people who passed by on the street, and finish working on the designs for Keller’s house. He had emphasized to Harry that he expected no more clients, so he should be in less danger. Harry had politely refrained from expressing his opinion that with an enemy who could cause such breaches in his wards, there was no way he could be absolutely safe.

It did make it easier to have a conversation with Hermione even as he fulfilled his bodyguard duties, though. Watching the back of Malfoy’s head as he crouched over a set of plans was much less fascinating than watching as Malfoy engaged one of his clients in conversation.

I wasn’t gone all that long, Hermione, he answered. What, twelve hours altogether that I had the ring off?

But it sounds like plenty happened in those twelve hours, Hermione said at once. She paused, and Harry could practically hear her rearranging her robes as she tried to keep herself from saying something about how stupid he had been. Harry grinned and studied the way Malfoy’s foot thumped on the floor as he scribed particularly hard over a stubborn line. He didn’t mind a lecture or two, but far funnier was listening to the ways in which Hermione tried to avoid them. And has being in close contact with Malfoy destroyed your illusions?

He’s not everything I thought he was. A wisp of crackling magic from the broken wards drifted towards Malfoy’s hair; he sent it away with a wave of his hand, not looking up. Harry couldn’t have done that. He was so sensitive to magic that he would have to either move or banish the stray spell with his wand. He handles his clients by insulting them, at least the important ones, and making it clear how much more he knows than they do. I thought he was always polite and charming.

I could have told you he wasn’t. Hermione sniffed. After all, I’ve heard those reports about him.

Harry grunted. Supposedly, Hermione had been witness to many people starting to bring cases against Malfoy for public insults, suspected crimes, or bad-luck spells that had plagued them for weeks before abruptly ceasing. There was never enough proof to arrest him, and frankly Harry thought the cause of those complaints was more likely to be envy than anything substantial. Malfoy had poured so much time and money into his architecture business that Harry couldn’t see him risking his good name for a tiny bit of vengeance.

Ron mentioned something about your flirting with him, too.

Ron should keep his nose in his own bloody business, Harry said irritably, and shifted so that he could concentrate on something other than the memory of how Malfoy had looked in Kingsley’s office.

Ron is your friend. Hermione’s voice softened instead of sharpened, which Harry thought would have been the next logical course for it to take. Harry, we’re your friends, and we’re worried about you, that’s all. I really do believe that Malfoy’s no good. He may not have staged this imposter’s attacks—

Is that what you think? Harry shook his head. You didn’t see his dismay when this last attack smashed an expensive window in his office. I don’t think he would sacrifice things he finds beautiful to some elaborate plan that doesn’t even have a defined goal.

I had to give up on the notion when I realized I had no idea what his goal would be, either, Hermione said. But maybe Auror notice, or your notice, was what he was after in the first place. He’s not the man attacking him, no, but couldn’t he be in league with him? Paying him, maybe? It would explain how that man knows how to get past the Malfoy bloodline wards and the wards on his office.

Harry sighed gustily. He hadn’t considered that possibility, and he really should have. It was simpler than many of the other explanations Harry had come up with in the privacy of his mind, which involved surviving Time-Turners and extensive conspiracies.

But Hermione hadn’t been with Malfoy during the attacks. She hadn’t seen the sincere terror on his face when the imposter went after him, or the bruises of fingers on his throat.

Think about it, Hermione said. That’s all I ask. I want you to be happy, Harry, and I don’t think Malfoy can make you so. If he could, I would be one of the first to support you. A sensation traveled down Harry’s arm as if she were gently squeezing his hand.

I’ll think about it, Harry said. I just can’t promise an ending that you like, that’s all. And he raised his head and watched Malfoy working again, his hair fluffed and shining around him.

*

Draco stood with a long stretch of his arms at last. He’d spent several hours in the office, working on the Keller house and on two other projects he’d promised himself he would get to this week. He thought he deserved this break, since neither he nor Potter had eaten lunch, and in fact he didn’t plan to return to the office today.

When he looked up, he discovered Potter studying the broken window and the edges of the drifting wards with speculative eyes. “You still haven’t figured out how he broke in?” he asked, adding a challenging tone to his voice. It wouldn’t do to have Potter think that Draco would yield and be gentler simply because Potter had discovered Draco’s attraction to him.

“I thought I would leave that to you, since it’s your window and your wards.” Potter turned to him with a gentle smile. Then he winced, as though someone had stung him, but when Draco cast a subtle spell to test the office for insects, he found nothing. It seemed the repellent spells were still working, then. “Did you want to eat in Diagon Alley, or go back to the Manor? Your house-elves’ cooking is better than that in most restaurants I’ve eaten at, to be honest.”

Draco laughed. “Don’t let Granger hear you say that.”

“Oh, she would admit it’s the truth.” Potter leaned forwards, his eyes shining as if he wanted to make a point about Granger with the next words, though Draco had no idea what it would be. “She would just insist they should be paid.”

Draco shuddered. “That really is a revolting idea, Potter, and for reasons you don’t understand,” he murmured, as they stepped out of the office. Draco made a point of locking the wards behind him, although the window would provide a point of entrance. Experienced thieves would notice the tracking spells that would latch onto their clothing, though, and probably leave well enough alone, especially when word spread that Harry Potter was protecting Draco.

“Why? Tell me.”

Draco narrowed his eyes, but Potter looked genuinely interested. It was an expression Draco had seen in photographs and from other impossible distances, and had wanted directed at him since he realized the best way to defeat Potter was to lure him close. It made his groin tighten. He inclined his head slowly.

“House-elves are service, the best standard for it,” he said. “They’re not slaves because they aren’t human. It would be like saying that the Hogwarts Express is a slave because it’s driven to the school several times a year instead of being left to rust. They’re for cooking and cleaning and other menial tasks. You insult a thousand years of wizarding tradition when you offer to pay them.”

“I notice that you don’t say you insult them,” Potter said softly. Gazes followed them, of course, the famous architect and the even more famous Auror, but Potter appeared to ignore them effortlessly. “Hermione would say that.”

“You can’t insult a machine,” said Draco. “But you can spit on the culture and heritage of the people who surround you, and that’s what your Mu—Muggleborn friend is doing.”

“I can’t think of them as machines,” Potter said. He had his head bowed, and a tiny breeze stroked a curl of his dark hair away from his forehead, revealing the scar. Even more people turned to stare at them. Draco felt a different kind of tightness invade his chest. Potter had arranged to display his scar that way, of course, but still, did everyone have to look? “They feel pain. They make their own choices. Dobby, one of your old house-elves, saved my life during the war, and before that he acted to try and make sure I didn’t go to Hogwarts when he thought I was in danger. If he had that independence, other house-elves might.”

Draco dug his fingernails into the skin above his wrist. Dobby, yes. I remember that, and Father’s absolutely blank expression when he came back to the Manor and told me that we’d lost one of our elves. Yet another debt I have to repay Potter for.

“Occasionally you get a mad elf, the same way you occasionally get a machine that breaks,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you should coddle every elf on the off-chance that it’ll turn out like Dobby.”

“What about because it would make them work for you more willingly?” Potter looked up at him again. His eyes hit Draco like a Bludger to the gut. There was so much in them, so much emotion to absorb and twist and break.

“Will has nothing to do with it,” said Draco, trying not to sound as if he were startled that Potter could be rational. “House-elves have no will, by the terms of their servitude.”

“And yet, Dobby did.” Potter cocked his head as he swept sideways into a small alcove in the wall of Diagon Alley, and Draco blinked, realizing just then that they never had actually settled whether they were eating at a restaurant or going back to the Manor for a meal. And here was Potter simply escorting him into a restaurant, as if it weren’t a matter of importance at all. He tried to be angry about that, but Potter’s words demanded his attention insistently, naggingly, the way that Potter had always demanded it. “Long before I had any chance to give him clothes or intervene with his servitude in any way. What do you make of that?”

“He was defective, I told you,” Draco said.

“But you said that no house-elf could have free will, and he did. There’s a chance that other elves can as well, but because you won’t listen to them—“

“Are we actually going somewhere?” Draco locked his feet, because the smaller alley before them had run out into a dead end, a blank wall towering above a grime-covered expanse of cobblestones.

“What?” Potter glanced up and then grinned sheepishly. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot that you can’t see it yet because you haven’t been here before.” He held out his hand to Draco and wriggled it impatiently when Draco only stared. “Come on. Take it.”

Biting back a retort and several images of exactly what he would like to take, Draco asked, “What?”

“The restaurant isn’t visible unless you’re invited or enter with someone who has been.” Potter ginned at him, not seeming at all intimidated by the thundercloud Draco could feel gathering on his brow. “I don’t think Faustine would ever invite you of her own free will, so that leaves this way.”

This time, Draco bit back a sigh and put his hand in Potter’s. Potter, like the overgrown schoolboy he was, moved his fingers back and forth across Draco’s palm for a moment, despite his having been the one to put a definite time to when they could have sex. Draco shivered in distaste.

He really is an overgrown schoolboy. It will be a positive pleasure to break him.

The air in front of them flashed blue and gold, and Draco couldn’t help stepping back and making a startled noise in his throat. He hadn’t seen wards that brilliant in some time. Potter clasped an arm around his waist and whispered into his ear, “It’s all right. Faustine has some rather impressive defenses, but they won’t attack anyone with me.”

The wards still surged and sang around them, clanging like swords, for long moments before they settled, and Draco found himself standing on the threshold of a restaurant with large stone doors, inset with glass, and silvery lettering above them that proclaimed the restaurant was called the Imperatrix.

“Come on,” Potter said, and surged forwards, an eager smile distending his mouth. Draco rolled his eyes and followed with a face as blank and neutral as possible.

Of course, he could hardly show the new determination that had arisen in him. If the food here really was better than the food at the Manor, then he would need to learn how long Potter had been coming here. His desire to eat good food in such a private place might be a sign that he took advantage of his fame after all.

And Draco would need to learn what food he ate here, and what his relationship with the owner was, and why Draco had never noticed that Potter was vanishing at a certain spot in Diagon Alley before…

All eventual ways to defeat him. Any detail could be the key I need.

*

“Harry.”

Faustine sailed to meet him across the enormous flagstone floor of the Imperatrix, more like a courtyard than anything that belonged inside. The enchanted ceiling supported the illusion, just as it did in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, projecting a vision of a glittering blue Mediterranean sky. The walls were as purely white as the old Roman ruins must have been when they were new.

Harry kissed Faustine’s cheek, and she smiled at him. They were of a height and had hair the same dark shade, though Faustine had such a pointed face, such narrow dark eyes, and such a collection of scars on her hands that no one would ever mistake them for cousins. She wore a carefully folded and draped set of strips of cloth approximating the dress of a Roman matron and sandals that showed golden paint flashing on her toenails. A golden choker clasped her throat in the shape of a snake biting its own tail, which Harry knew was keyed to Apparate her to safety in the case of hostile magic manifesting inside the restaurant. He had never learned her last name.

“Faustine, allow me to introduce Draco Malfoy,” he said, and stepped back to stand between them. Malfoy looked ahead with murderously hard gray eyes, which Harry blinked at. Surely he couldn’t be that angry that he’d never been invited to the restaurant before? Harry had never been sure of Faustine’s stance on blood politics—it was one of those things they didn’t discuss—but he knew she made all her own decisions about who to invite. He’d seen people on both sides of the war there.

No former Death Eaters, though.

But if Faustine was getting ready to throw Malfoy out of the Imperatrix in the next moment, she did not look it. She simply held out her hand to him and nodded as if in response to unheard music. “You have been brought through the wards by an invited guest, and you will now be able to find this place again,” she said. Another woman had appeared behind her, wearing similar dress, although she had blonde hair braided with flowers and probably looked more like the ideal of a Roman maiden. Faustine made a sharp movement with her head in Malfoy’s direction. “Quinta, if you will take our newest guest to a table? I have something to speak about with Mr. Potter.”

Harry felt his shoulders tense. He knew what that meant. Faustine was one of the people he had met through charity functions who had turned out to be impressed by more than his Galleons and the power of his name. She watched the happenings in social circles Harry had no easy access to and reported them to him when she thought they concerned either him or the Aurors. It was an informal spy network—and Harry hated referring to it as a “spy” network anyway—but it had provided information that had saved his life several times, and Ron more times than he knew.

Be careful, Harry, Hermione said, the way she always did when he went to the Imperatrix. She didn’t trust Faustine.

Harry sent back wordless thoughts of reassurance and followed Faustine into a back room behind one of the pillars standing in front of the walls. Faustine turned around and leaned her hands on a blocky desk of black stone, staring him in the eyes. Her fingernails were dusted with gold paint, too, Harry noted absently.

“What is it?” he demanded, as he realized that Faustine’s eyes hadn’t wavered. She had looked like that when there was an assassination plot against him, but at no other time.

“You’re protecting Draco Malfoy,” she said quietly. “Someone’s already noticed. One of my girls heard two patrons discussing it today, and not in complimentary tones. Already people are starting to speculate why, since you were known enemies during the war.”

Harry blinked. This didn’t sound dangerous to him. “What were the speculations? And the real reason is that Malfoy only trusts me to guard his back because I saved his life at Palliser’s party last night.”

“Thank you,” said Faustine. “I’ll introduce that reason into conversation as soon as I can. But you should be more careful.” She cocked her head and gave him the kindest look that her fox-like face was capable of giving. “I’m not the only one who’s seen you standing outside Malfoy’s office and watching, Harry.”

Harry felt his spine stiffen. The ring on his finger warmed for a moment, and Hermione whispered, Oh, Harry, I’m sorry, into his mind.

“I have observed him, that’s true,” Harry said, determined to face this out if he could. “The man impersonating him has committed several crimes, and it was natural that we should suspect Mr. Malfoy as well.”

Faustine shook her head, eyes fastened on his face. “The expression you wear and the amount of time you spend there is too much for an Auror who has other investigates to tend to. And your observation started before the crimes did, though I might be the only one who would notice that.” She looked away for a moment and waited, as though she wanted to give Harry time to collect his wits. Then she said, “I’ve noticed it before, how you stare at the Prophet longer than normal when they do an article on one of Malfoy’s houses, how your gaze is drawn to anyone entering the Imperatrix who has the same hair he does, and how you turn your head at any mention of his name in conversation. Tell me. Is the attraction sheer physicality, or does it go deeper than that?”

Well, this is what you get for spending so much time around an intelligent and observant woman, Harry told himself wryly when he’d caught his breath. And if she wasn’t so good, then you’d lack half the information she contributes to your cause. “It’s deeper,” he said aloud. He wouldn’t lie about his attraction to Malfoy when he was confronted over it, though he could wish Faustine had remained oblivious some time longer. “I’d like to spend time in bed with him, sure, but more than that I’d like to hear him talk about houses and how he builds them, have arguments with him over house-elf rights and watch the way he behaves at parties.”

Faustine’s gaze was steady and emotionless; Harry couldn’t tell if she disapproved of what he’d just confessed. “Some might term that obsession.”

“I do term it that,” said Harry. “And so do my best friends.”

You do? Hermione asked, sounding startled. It’s news to me that you’d admit to it.

Faustine’s eyebrows rose. She stared at him for another few moments, then nodded. “I suspect you have wondered why I never invited him here.”

“For the same reason you never invited his father, or Severus Snape, or Walden Macnair, I thought,” Harry said. He could meet her gaze now. She wasn’t about to storm into the next room and throw Malfoy out, or tell Harry he couldn’t return because of his obsession. That was good enough for now.

“Ah, but he has a fame and a social acceptability that the others do not.” Faustine made a quick gesture over her breast that Harry hadn’t seen before. It reminded him uneasily of someone plucking a heart from a chest. “I wished to remind myself, always, of what he was and had been. I could see myself succumbing too easily to his charm if I was in close quarters with hm.” She blinked once. “I sometimes wondered if I was being paranoid. And then I realized when I saw your face as you looked at him that no, I was not.”

“I hope you’ll accept him as much as you can.” Harry didn’t dare ask for more than that. He and Faustine were friends, but not close friends, in the way he was with Hermione and Ron.

I should hope that someone who runs a restaurant like hers isn’t someone you would consider a close friend, Hermione muttered.

Harry ignored her. The rumors of the business that Faustine ran out of the back of the Imperatrix were only rumors, and until he was compelled to investigate them, he wouldn’t. He could offer that much safety and security to his friends.

“It may be difficult.” Faustine stared at him. “Do remember that people will always gossip about the man who saved the world they live in, but that some kinds of gossip are more damaging than others. And the hurt someone like Draco Malfoy could do to you is greater than the hurt I could.”

Harry nodded. He didn’t think Malfoy was a good person, not particularly. On the other hand, his fascination with the man wasn’t about to depart.

“Now.” Faustine waved her wand, and pieces of parchment came flying from all over the room to assemble into a neat pile in the middle of her desk. “This is the news I’ve collected for you in the past fortnight. You might be especially interested in the rumors of what the Notts are doing to reestablish themselves…”

*

Draco looked around again and again as he sat at the table that the young woman had guided him to, and tried to hide that he was doing so. Luckily, he was very good at sneaking glances from beneath eyelids that anyone else would think were lowered in utter boredom.

The architecture of the Imperatrix hummed with magic, even around the ornamental pillars that Draco would have banished from the restaurant as useless—unnecessary for support and not adding greatly to the ambience. The mosaics and murals and frescoes on the walls shone with delicate, unusual colors, forcing Draco’s eye to try and read meaning into what at many points looked like abstract designs. He could hear the sea when he listened, a good approximation of the waves rushing and hissing in the distance.

And all of this was a place that he had had no idea existed. All of this was a place where Potter spent his time, enough time, at least, to have made a dear friend of the owner.

Draco tried to fold his arms and breathe out carefully, but he was trembling. He wanted nothing so much as to knock down several of the pillars with a blast of wandless magic—though he was not powerful enough for that—or to otherwise scratch and mar the restaurant’s beauty. Jealousy and anger bit him with sharp teeth.

Because of this place, there was a hole in his understanding of Potter. He should have known about this, and he didn’t. Potter wasn’t sneaky, so it was the restaurant’s wards and the owner’s secrecy that were to blame. Potter could have done unusual things here, showed unusual emotions, and Draco never would have known.

Draco’s resolve hardened. No matter what happened in the next few weeks whilst the Auror remained with him, he would make sure he understood Potter inside and out, that he knew exactly what kind of person he was shattering.

And he would have to have a concrete plan to achieve that.

As Potter appeared again from behind a pillar and walked towards him, smiling, Draco put that plan into motion.

Chapter 10.