lomonaaeren

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Chapter Ten—Therefore To Be Won

Malfoy lifted his head and smiled at him when Harry came towards his table. Harry paused, arrested. The smile wasn’t the most brilliant or dazzling that he’d ever seen Malfoy give, but it was only to be expected that he would smile at his clients and at a man he’d kissed in different ways.

“Will you forgive me?” Malfoy asked, barely parting his lips.

“For what?” Harry sat down across from him, eyes never leaving him. One of Faustine’s girls brought them a delicately etched tablet of beaten gold that served as the menu. Harry pushed it aside. At the moment, he had no real appetite, and wouldn’t until he’d figured out what Malfoy was playing at.

So all your friends warn you, and your allies warn you, and you don’t take the warning seriously until Malfoy himself does something? Hermione released a sound rather like a horse’s snort in his head. That would fit with his presence at the center of your world.

Malfoy reached across the table to him. Harry let the other man take his hand, but kept an uneasy eye on the way those fingers curved around his own. They looked strong and gentle at the same time, as if Malfoy knew exactly what would be required to maintain a hold on Harry. Harry clenched his own fingers to keep from reaching back or drawing away, both of which would probably be unfortunate moves at this point.

“I haven’t behaved as graciously as I could have since you saved my life at Palliser’s party.” Malfoy bowed his head, the movement as slow and dream-like as the movement of reeds underwater. His hair tumbled past his cheeks, leaving Harry to watch his brow and the shape of the bones around his eyes. “I’ve insulted you and argued with you and not thanked you often enough.” He lifted his head and gave Harry a tense little smile. “I deal badly with my life being in danger, even though I should have expected it. The past never really leaves you alone.”

“So you suspect this imposter is hunting you because of something that happened during the war?” Harry asked. His voice sounded loud and jarring after Malfoy’s polished, soft tones. He didn’t care. Something had changed, something had gone wrong, and if he didn’t know what it was, then he couldn’t protect Malfoy, or possibly himself, against it when it exploded.

“Probably,” Malfoy said. “Or he could have been hired by a disappointed client, though I think most of the people I’ve worked for would avoid something so—crass.” His fingers slid up and down the lines in Harry’s palm, as if admiring them. “The point is that this place has made me realize you exist as more than a glorified bodyguard to me, and I’ve been ignoring that in my determination to resent your presence. Why should I resent it? You’re giving up your time and ordinary life to protect me.”

“Why would this place make you realize it?” Harry glanced around, but scolding moral lessons carved in gilt letters failed to emerge on the Imperatrix’s walls and ceiling.

Malfoy spoke slowly. He had let go of Harry’s hand and now folded his own hands on the table in front of him, staring at his knuckles. Perhaps the moral message that had convinced him was written there, Harry thought. His own breath was far too short, his limbs liable to tremble. He crossed his legs and stuck his hands beneath the table so that Malfoy would be less likely to notice.

“I didn’t know a restaurant like this existed,” Malfoy said. “I didn’t know you would have access to it if it did, and yet you took the owner’s hands as if you were at home here.”

“I’ve been here many times, and Faustine is fond of me,” said Harry shortly. His temper was rising. He didn’t understand why. Was it only because he suspected Malfoy of lying? Surely he’d lied before, about many things. One more deception shouldn’t make that much difference. And he’d wanted Malfoy to be friendly, hadn’t he?

That’s what it is, he decided suddenly. I want this too much. I want to believe this is real, but I can’t.

“But it showed a different side of you.” Malfoy lifted his head with the same slowness he’d used to bow it earlier, and his eyes shone with a pale, wary light. Perhaps he was as afraid of rejection as Harry was of this being a trap, Harry decided. “Someone who’s comfortable in the places of the great, someone who’s learned to live with his name if not to like it. You have friendships with people I didn’t know about, people who aren’t Weasley and Granger.” His voice twisted on their names, and Harry frowned. Did Malfoy still retain that mad hatred for his friends? Maybe the feud between the Weasley and Malfoy families accounted for it, but Harry had never understood why he hated Hermione so much.

“You’re bigger than my mind can encompass, at least in one aspect.” Malfoy moved his hands helplessly, as if he were trying to shape an outline of Harry in the air. He’s more skilled at building houses than he is at building people, Harry thought. “That means that I might have been wrong in others. I’ve been treating you, and thinking of you, at least in part as if you were the boy I knew.” He bit his lip. “Maybe you’re a man.”

“I certainly hope you think of me as a man for one reason,” said Harry, unable to help himself.

Malfoy’s eyes lowered demurely. “And that, too,” he said. “I was thinking of it as a trick when you claimed you wanted to kiss me, and then as pure lust and desire. There are people who look at me that way.” It was said without a trace of bragging, and Harry nodded. Of course Malfoy would know how handsome he was. “But—it’s sincere, isn’t it?” He looked at Harry with the caution in his eyes increased.

“Of course it is,” Harry said. “Did you think I was lying?”

“Let’s say,” Malfoy said, his own fingers tapping the menu in front of Harry, “that I couldn’t believe you weren’t lying, before. Or I didn’t dare to believe it.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. He could believe that, but at the same time, he didn’t know if he should.

Of course you shouldn’t, Hermione hissed in his head, sounding agitated. For God’s sake, Harry, do you really think this sudden change in personality is sincere? This is Malfoy. He’s talented and charming, I’ll give him that, but he only uses both of those to get what he wants.

Is it really so impossible that he could want me? Harry asked, abruptly tired of Hermione’s perspective. She was probably right, but did she have to be right all the time? He touched the copper ring, wondering if it was time to take it off again. And that he’d treat me well once he had me?

The second, yes. Hermione’s voice grew gentle. I’m sorry if you think I’m nagging, Harry, but I’ve seen the way you look at him. He has the power to hurt you in a way that even Penelope didn’t, because Penelope never filled your dreams as he does. If I can remind you of what he’s really like and stop you from walking blindly off a cliff, then that’s what I’ll do.

Harry nodded, resigned to his fate. For now, he would leave the ring on. His friends cared for him.

It was just that Hermione’s way of doing it was bloody annoying.

But Malfoy had begun to speak again. Now he was looking at the Imperatrix’s ornamental pillars. Harry wondered what he thought of them, since they served no important architectural purpose. “There have been plenty of people after me in the last few years who only wanted to say they’d slept with me for the thrill of sleeping with a Malfoy, or a former Death Eater.” He laughed darkly for a moment. “You wouldn’t believe how many of them wanted to touch the Dark Mark, or asked me breathless questions about my mother’s death. Several of them I threw out of bed the moment that happened and cast a charm that prevented them from having sex comfortably for weeks.”

Harry felt a stirring of sympathy that seemed to make both his bones and his blood vibrate at once. Yes, he knew all about lovers who turned out to want him only for his fame, even if they were often kinder than it sounded like Draco’s lovers were to Draco.

“None of them have ever appreciated the art of my profession like you have.” Draco looked up at him, and his eyes had acquired a gentle, vulnerable shine that made Harry’s hands twitch with the urge to comfort him. “None of them have ever made an effort to look into my soul in the same way you have. And I simply can’t suspect you of seduction for the sake of sex, not when I make myself look at my assumptions.” He licked his lips. “It’s a risk to trust you like this, but I think I will.”

Harry took a deep breath. “You can wait to make the decision,” he said. “We won’t be having sex until the case is done, remember?”

But his heart was beating with wild joy, in a way he thought might have leaked through his calm words. Part of him is what I always wanted him to be, always suspected he was: capable of more tender feelings and open affection than the façade he shows the world. And I was the one to discover that. I’m honored.

*

Draco snarled, but the snarl was buried so far back in his mind that he knew no trace of it showed in his expression. He bowed his head again and murmured, “Of course. I do keep forgetting that, especially when you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”

For the first time since they’d entered the restaurant, Potter reached out for him. His hand took Draco’s hesitantly, as if he imagined Draco would pull away at any moment, even after his humiliating confession. Draco held still and let his hand be turned around and examined. He even managed a faint smile, though the real source of his amusement was no more visible than the snarl. Potter was not good enough at Divination to read the truth from the lines on Draco’s palm.

“I’ll try to stop looking at you with desire, if it makes you uncomfortable.” Potter’s voice was low, his eyes wide and utterly sincere.

Draco fought to keep from closing his fingers and crushing Potter’s hand in his fist like someone crushing a butterfly. Instead, he allowed his grip to start out tentative and slowly grow firm. “You don’t have to,” he whispered. “In fact, it gives me something to look forwards to, once the imposter is stopped. I’ve been alone for too long. I need sex with a lover who I know won’t betray me at the first chance.”

He dared to look up at last and found Potter watching him with adoration softening the edges of his mouth. More important, though, was the belief written on his face, which Draco reveled in. If Potter accepted his story, especially after the shaky beginning when Draco had said it was Potter’s friendship with the Imperatrix’s owner that convinced him, then Draco’s plan had begun to unfold.

Keeping Potter at a distance wouldn’t work, not when Draco’s own desires were playing into the situation. Treating him in a merely friendly manner would probably encourage Potter to think he had the upper hand and could take advantage of Draco—which was not conducive to making him realize, as Draco did eventually mean to make him realize, that he was Draco’s utter inferior. But seducing him with confessions and soft hesitations and apparent vulnerability would draw Potter close and make him gentle. It would also make Draco seem helpless, or at least that was the effect Draco hoped it would have.

And the effect would be all the more devastating when “soft, helpless” Draco turned on Potter like a serpent and stung him.

Potter might feel a certain fascination for him, but Draco needed more than that. He needed belief, acceptance, and the desire to protect him without its becoming the desire to dominate. He would have all of that in the end, because he would keep showing Potter things to admire about him and reeling him in closer and closer, rather like a spider drawing a fly on the end of its string.

For now, Potter nodded and whispered, “I’ve dreamed of sex with a lover who won’t betray me, either.”

Draco bit his tongue sharply to keep from laughing, and planted a shy kiss on Potter’s knuckles. That made his face light up as if someone had placed a sun behind it. Draco stroked his hand and leaned back in his chair.

“What’s the best meal to eat here?” he murmured, which gave Potter a chance to show off his knowledge of the Imperatrix.

Draco watched Potter throughout the meal with a smug knowledge growing inside him, heavy as a weight of chocolate biscuits eaten all at once.

He’ll think he’s seducing me, but the seduction works the other way. He’ll chase me until I catch him.

*

Lucius reached out and brushed the cover of the book with trembling fingers. He barely controlled the instinct to snatch his hand back and cradle it against his stomach when the spark of a ward leaped from the leather and stung him. The protections Narcissa had put on her diaries lingered still.

But years after her death, and years after the first time Lucius had broken the wards in his desperation to understand his wife’s final decisions, they were so weak that a spark was the best they could give off. Lucius could have removed the magic entirely, but he didn’t want to. A bit of pain was his penance for reading these books in the first place.

He flipped the cover open. It was leather rendered soft with a potion before being wrapped around the book. Lucius knew it wasn’t human skin, and that it wasn’t softened dragonhide, both of which he would have recognized. However, no expert he’d shown the cover to had been able to tell him more than that. One did say that it looked like treated unicorn hide to him, but Lucius had rejected the idea. Not even those who wanted to make an enormous profit would take the risk of killing a unicorn and incurring the curse that came from doing so, and it was unlikely that someone would have come upon a unicorn safely dead but with the skin still intact enough to use.

The pages inside the book were made of thick, creamy paper, with frilled blue edges stained with an ink that Lucius hadn’t managed to identify either. They looked like new shadows on snow. Lucius touched the edges once, as usual, before bowing his head and reading the dark words that he had memorized by now but kept returning to as someone might prod at a loose tooth with his tongue.

I sometimes wonder what I am doing here, locked in the Manor with a Dark Lord I never chose to follow, in the company of a husband I learned to despise years ago.

Lucius swallowed and closed his eyes for long moments. The pages of the book bent beneath his clutching fingers, and he released his hold and once again ran a hand up the cover of the book, wishing now that the ward was still active to spark and give him some physical pain to counteract the mental one. He had read these words many times, and yet with each reading they made his throat dry and his stomach clench and twist within him.

Why did you start despising me? he thought, as he opened his eyes. There were several possible answers he’d discovered through his reading of the other books, but none in this diary.

I know the answer, of course. Duty. It is the iron goddess I have followed all my life, from the first moment that my mother sat down with me and told me what it meant to bear the last name of Black. The clutch only grew firmer when Walburga’s sons turned out to be such disappointments, one of them wild and rebellious, the other weak. My sisters and I were the only generation left alive to bear children who would redeem the family. Our own name might be lost in marriage, but our blood could never be, and we would do that blood proud.

The chains grew heaviest on me when my mother told me I would marry Lucius Malfoy, a boy I had looked at with indifference all throughout Hogwarts. He was handsome, yes, but looks never mattered to me. I told my mother that, and she took my hands, and looked earnestly into my face and told me that it was my duty, that she had been to a Seer and learned the Black blood would mingle best with the Malfoy. I was the only chance to bear a child who would be a worthy heir. Bellatrix would be childless, and Andromeda had already run away with the Mudblood. Even if she came to her senses and returned without having borne a child, her womb was defiled by the spilling of his seed inside her.

I sat alone among the ironwood trees in my favorite garden and communed with the silence a long time, wondering if I was making the best decision. I could run away, as Andromeda had. I might take poison, as some maidens did in the old days when they would not defy the will of their families but could not marry the men chosen for them. That death would earn me honor at my funeral from Bellatrix, at least, although she would probably scorn me for not having the strength to live.

More than that, I would scorn myself for not having the strength to live. I rose from that garden and came away knowing the truth, that my life was devoted to duty and there was no room for love.

When love grew, when I bore the son my mother and the Seer had foreseen and saw the Black blood mingled with the Malfoy, then I tied it in its proper place, under duty. My son must live not because I loved him but because he was an heir to two powerful families, and because my womb was so damaged with the difficult birth that he would have no siblings. And, too, he was beautiful from birth, magically powerful and pure-blooded. There are not so many children like that in our world that we can afford to be careless with them.

And it is duty that drives me, now, towards the only possible end. I have listened carefully to the Dark Lord’s words. I know that he has not truly forgiven Draco for his failure to kill Dumbledore, and that Severus Snape’s quiet intercession for Draco’s life is not enough now that Snape spends most of his time on missions. However this war ends, it is likely that our Lord will kill my son the next time he summons him into his presence.

That cannot happen. Duty forbids it. The heavy chain clasped around my soul rattles and drags me around to look towards the future, where live the children who will never be born if I do not save Draco. And, too, there is that love, that tendril of ivy winding around the ironwood tree, which tells me I will not be able to live with myself if I do not do all in my power to save him.

I know my power. Not magic; the Dark Lord is much stronger than I am. Not family connections; Bellatrix has made it clear that she despises Draco and thinks our mother wrong in claiming he would be a fitting heir for both of the bloods he carries, and I cannot depend on Lucius.

“Why couldn’t you?” Lucius whispered to his dead wife. “What did I say, what did I do, that drove you away from me? You know how much I love Draco. You know that I would have cooperated in any plan to protect him.”

Not the power of words; Snape is not often here, and I cannot bind him to another Unbreakable Vow. There is only one power that is still mine, one devotion I can lay on the stern goddess’s altar and hope she accepts.

The diary ended there. It was the last entry Narcissa had ever made, though the rest of the pages waited, white and blue and shining, for ink and words that would never come. Lucius closed the diary and sat back, shutting his eyes.

He could picture his wife as she must have looked when she laid the diary down on the desk in this library, her eyes fixed on the far wall, her hair loose about her, a shining glory. She would have risen to her feet slowly and deliberately. She would have laid the quill beside the dairy and stood a moment gazing at it before she cast the spell that sealed the cover shut and protected her words from the sight of anyone else.

And then she had turned around and left the library for the last time.

Narcissa, Narcissa, why did you do it? Lucius thought, opening his eyes with tears on his cheeks. Yes, I know the answers: to protect Draco, to fulfill your duty, because you thought it was your last chance. But none of that should have overridden your common sense, and that common sense would have reminded you that your sister was dangerous.

He came here so often because he thought it possible that he would gain some sense of his wife’s mind by sitting where she had sat, looking at what she had looked at—the dim wood-paneled walls of this library, blankness relieved only by the presence of a tapestry that depicted a winter forest—and tracing the words she had written. He needed more than those bare words. He needed to know the emotions that had driven her, the emotions that had turned her away from him and thought the ultimate dishonor was a good idea.

So far, he had not discovered them.

Lucius sighed and opened his eyes. He could at least make one promise to the shade of the wife who had despised him, whatever her reasons. She had died because she loved Draco, and it was just possible that her death had helped their son make it through the war. Lucius could protect Draco from the consequences of his own folly, and make sure the obsession with Potter didn’t damage him.

“I promise, Narcissa,” he said aloud. “I promise that I’ll defend him. You’ll have no reason to complain of me as a father, whatever you might think of me as a husband.”

A rustle to the side sent him spinning around, staring in hope, but the portrait frame on the wall was empty, save for a blue shred to the side that might have been a silken gown darting out of it—

And might as easily have been Lucius’s imagination.

Chapter 11.