Chapter Ten of 'For Their Unconquerable Souls'- Outmaneuvering

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Ten—Outmaneuvering

“You will not convince me otherwise, Narcissa.”

For a moment, Narcissa let her eyes fall shut. She stood with her back to her husband, facing the door of his room, in case someone should try to come through it. She had said that she could not stand the poor manners that his weakness had conferred on him, but they both knew the real reason. Since Draco was not with him right now, and he was still not competent to guard himself, his wife had to take on that role.

That did not mean necessity did not convey its own graces—in this case, an excuse to keep her face turned away from her husband, so that he would not see her expression.

“I ask you only to think of the future,” she said, when she was certain she had the control not to snap at him. Her voice came out as utterly uninterested. She was proud of herself. “Not the immediate future, but the one beyond that, when you are well again and people began to think of other things where you are concerned. What will they say, then, of Lucius Malfoy having Harry Potter in his home?”

“They will reckon it a wise move.” Lucius sounded supremely satisfied with himself, and as if he had a bit of chicken stuck in the corner of his mouth. Narcissa’s wand twitched. Ordinarily, she would have cast the spell to remove it, but she was not feeling that generous at the moment. “They’ll know, soon enough, what he did for me. They would talk more if we excluded a member of our family from the home, when he has a claim to our hospitality.”

Narcissa had to acknowledge the justice of that, but she still hoped that Potter’s own nature would keep him from accepting the invitation Lucius wanted to tender. “I cannot so highly appreciate the qualities you see in him,” she said instead. “Yes, he is honest. Yes, he seems to care for your recovery. But after that? When you are well again, and not a patient, but someone who has hurt his treasured friends in the past?”

“The bonds of blood—“

“Are something he does not understand.” Narcissa turned around and faced her husband then. She could accept, intellectually, that Lucius and Draco both thought Potter understood more about blood and the importance of the Heart’s Blessing spell than he really did; she revolted against their putting the notion into practice outside their heads. “He never will, without an explanation, and you were the one who told me once that you had tried to explain it to several half-bloods and never encountered comprehension.”

Lucius’s eyelids flickered and his fork scraped a bit more heavily at his plate than normal, the only signs that her dart had gone home. “Potter is different,” he said instead. “We will bring him into our home, and by the time that the bond between patient and mediwizard begins to fade, we will have encouraged him to love us.” He looked back up at her, his smirk already growing again. “He has encountered little enough true love and loyalty in his life. A few minor encouragements, and he will be ours.”

Narcissa held back an impatient sigh by setting her lips. Lucius was many things, but he was not patient, and he had never been as capable of seduction as he thought he was. If his marrying Narcissa had been predicated on his ability to win hearts alone, they would have been standing there twenty years later whilst Lucius tried to figure out what had gone wrong with his earnest assurances that “The House of Black is good enough for the House of Malfoy, barely.”

“He will suspect the source of what you offer him,” she snapped. “He will remember that you gave the Horcrux to Ginevra Weasley. He will remember that you once were a Death Eater and tried sincerely to kill him. Tell me that you can win your way past that in the few days that it will likely take him to solve the puzzle of the curse.”

“You sound as if you didn’t want me to try.” Lucius widened his eyes at her, showing off the deep blue flecks in the middle of the gray to his advantage.

Narcissa withstood it. He was trying to change the ground of the argument, and she would not allow that any more than she would allow him to win. “I would see you use this alliance for all our sakes, and that means respecting Potter’s true character,” she said. “He will be suspicious, Lucius. We must plan for that. Instead, you simply rely on winning past all his suspicions with a few smiles and pretty words.”

“He can’t deny what he is,” said Lucius. Complacent, so complacent. It made Narcissa want to strike the smirk off his face. Ordinarily, she might not have hesitated, but this curse had weakened him. She let a trace of her pity show in her expression, and Lucius looked away, flushing. “Someone who responds to kindness,” he continued, stubbornly. “He won’t look for traps under every smile, because he doesn’t know how to find them in the first place. And everything will be all right in the end, and we’ll have a strong ally—“

“Or someone who distrusts us all the more for not being brisk with him, in the middle of our home, and knowing at least a few secrets about our defenses,” Narcissa retorted.

Lucius licked his lips. Narcissa inclined her head and moved back towards the bed again; she could feel her eyes glinting with amusement. Pure-blood homes were sacred, the last bastion of defense. She had thought she would make Lucius reconsider by reminding him of what would happen if Potter entered Malfoy Manor and was less than perfectly theirs in heart.

“Narcissa—“

They both heard the firm footsteps at the same time, and recognized the cadence of them. Narcissa at once moved to sit in the chair beside the bed, with her hand on Lucius’s shoulder, and faced the doorway. Lucius reclined and picked up his fork as if he were finishing his meal and chatting gently to her at the same time. It was a practiced deception, one that would certainly forbid Potter from discerning that they had been talking about him.

Do you see what we are? Narcissa asked her husband silently, resting her hand a little more heavily on his shoulder for emphasis. We plot to fool him even now.

Potter burst into the room, his eyes wide, his demeanor disheveled. Narcissa gave a minor shake of her head, more in amusement than anything else. Someday she would have to make him tell her how he managed to make his entire being, and not only his hair, seem ragged.

“Mr. Potter,” Lucius said, and showed his displeasure clearly when Draco did not follow him through the door; Potter would need such unsubtle signals if he was to become accustomed to reading them as they read each other. Narcissa knew she was the only person in existence who would realize that Lucius was also anxious lest some harm might have befallen Draco. “Where is my son?”

“Back at my house,” Potter said, and raked a hand through his hair. “There was a bit of excitement and he had to think over whether he really wanted this position, after all.” He turned around and began to pace, all the while jerking the words out of his throat as if they were small fish on hooks. “I was ambushed by someone through my wards—undoubtedly one of my ex-lovers—but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Healer Virgo Emptyweed has informed me I’ll be pulled off your case and replaced by someone else who’ll act as your official Healer.”

Lucius flicked a glance at Narcissa. Narcissa inclined her head. Yes, she agreed. They had no choice. They must remove at once to the safety of Malfoy Manor. When danger like this threatened, the pure-blood family made the home their last line of defense.

And Potter would have to come with them after all, Narcissa thought, letting her gaze linger on the young man. They could not risk a member of their family remaining in the open where enemies could threaten him.

It was not that she truly disliked or distrusted him. But he would require patient coaxing and taming, and she was not sure that they could afford the time for that, not when Lucius had to be tended to and any possible information on the curse teased out from the families of former Death Eaters and hospital administrators. Draco might also occupy himself more with Potter’s safety or seduction than was wise.

But she would have to put up with it, and as usual in situations when she was the only wise head in the family, she would simply have to do her best to ensure that the cost was not high.

“He wouldn’t inform me who’ll be replacing me.” Potter was still pacing, of course. He was a whirlwind, Narcissa thought; he would never be still. Since she was condemned to his company in any case, she might as well try and enjoy his contrast with her cool, still son, who more often resembled a frozen pond. “I’m afraid it won’t be anyone. They want me out of the way because I’m too powerful and I have a political reputation that will probably back me up against anyone who tries to attack me. And, of course, they can do whatever they want to you, if they have a compliant Healer attending you.” He turned a haggard look on Lucius. “It’ll be easier to kill you.”

Lucius nodded. “It is utterly clear what we must do.”

“Do you know a way to find out who your enemies in St. Mungo’s are?” Potter ran a hand through his hair, again, and began to pace, again. Narcissa wondered idly for a moment if house-elves’ magic would be able to tame that hair. Looks were not the only thing the reputation of a family might hinge on, but it would be pleasant if Potter could appear in public looking like something other than a deformed hedgehog. “I don’t have contacts among anyone who really runs the hospital, just a few ordinary Healers and mediwizards trying to do their jobs. I don’t know how to guarantee your safety.”

“Mr. Potter.” Narcissa pitched her voice faint and low, so that Potter would have to stop pacing like a madman and listen to her. It worked. Her tactics usually did. “My husband is no longer safe here. We will be removing him from St. Mungo’s.”

Potter looked startled, then grim, and gave an accepting nod. Really, Draco, have you tried to explain the importance of pure-blood homes to him at all, that he must look so surprised? Narcissa addressed her absent son. “I know the names of a few Healers who left the hospital when Emptyweed and idiots like him started becoming prominent,” he said. “I can give you their names. Two of them will attend anyone, and won’t care about your past. One of them will do anything if you give him enough money, although—“

“I intend to retain your services,” Lucius said. “Competence is not easily discovered, and I would be a fool to surrender someone as dedicated as you are.” He leaned back against his pillows and bobbed his head in comfortable motions.

That was not enough for Potter, as Narcissa had foreseen that it would not be. He was blinking at them like a startled deer. Retreat would be anathema to him, and stranger still the notion of accompanying them in that retreat. Indeed, his next words showed that he had not even thought of that. “I don’t think I could Floo or Apparate out to Malfoy Manor every evening,” he whispered. “You wouldn’t be getting the best of me when I’d dealt with other patients all day.”

“I was not thinking of that,” Lucius said.

Narcissa wanted to snap at Lucius for not getting to the point, but Lucius thought he knew best right now, and she would not dispute with him in front of Potter. Their newest son needed reassurance, and a great deal of that reassurance would come from seeing his parents united.

Potter cocked his head. “You want me to consult from a distance? I don’t think any of the Healers I mentioned would like a mere mediwizard taking on so much of their work.”

“The Heart’s Blessing spell, and others like it, are valued for the same reason a friend’s surrender of his money to another to pay debts is valued,” Lucius said. “Imagine a man who was willing to beggar himself so that a friend might not go to jail. That is true friendship. The friend might not ever be able to pay back the money. And yet, knowledge of the debt remains between them, unforgotten but honored, and thus the money is shared, in the truest sense. The Heart’s Blessing spell is not an action performed once and forgotten, but a shared drawing on the same life force. My heart beats because yours does.” Lucius laid a hand over his chest. “Your blood, in essence, flows in my veins. That explains the color of the red light when you first cast the spell. Some small portion of your blood passed into mine.”

Narcissa controlled the urge to roll her eyes. No, she could not interfere, but there was no way to stop her from thinking that Lucius had chosen a bad way to explain the significance of the tie that now connected Potter and their family. The talk of shared money would make him think of life-debts, instead of the sharing of blood and affection.

Then again, even if Lucius thinks of seducing Potter with affection, he is rubbish at speaking with it.

“And?” Potter was pressing his teeth down on his lip, so that Narcissa was slightly impressed he managed to speak without cutting it and beginning to bleed. Lucius’s tactic was working even less well than he had hoped. Not that her husband noticed, of course.

“If the person given such a gift does have the means to repay the debt,” Lucius said, “he always does. Or—and this was more common in the age when such spells also were—he shares something else. His home, perhaps; the friend who shared his money would have free right of access there. There is no simple cancellation of such a spell, Mr. Potter, but only a building of more bindings, more links. You are welcome into my home, and I will pay you all the money you could desire to continue attending me.” He bowed his head with the false humility Narcissa had once checked him sharply for using when he courted her. Potter, the poor man, had no one to tell him it was false. “I hope the connection may continue into the future.”

Potter’s jaw hung slightly open. Well, really, Narcissa thought. There’s no need for him to make himself unattractive and vulnerable both at once. She made a slight motion.

Luckily, Potter understood her and shut his mouth. “I—surely too much lies between us in the past for that to happen?”

I told Lucius that this would be a concern for him. Indeed, if Potter had ties to the Weasley family that were anything like as deep as Narcissa had heard reported, he might forgive the insults and assassination attempts against himself, only to balk at forgiving Lucius for the insults against and attempts to kill the Weasleys. They had been his family first.

Lucius and Draco would both disregard that because of their universal contempt for the Weasleys. Narcissa, as usual the intelligent one when it came to matters of the head against the heart, did not mean to forget.

Lucius shook his head. His gaze was burning. From the way Potter flinched, he found it hard to meet. “Not at all,” he said, gently. “You have proven yourself a person with great honor. That is not the impression of you I had before. I thought you more lucky than anything else. It has been, traditionally, pure-blood wizards and witches who achieved such sharing, not half-bloods.”

Potter glared. Lucius ignored him. Narcissa let her tongue fall against her teeth and the inside of her mouth without making a sound. She could have told Lucius not to say anything like that, not if he really wanted to win Potter’s good regard. Potter might feel concern for Lucius as a patient, but that was a far cry from abandoning the prejudices in favor of Mudbloods that he had grown up with.

“Now you have shared yourself with my family outside the bounds of war, and in spite of our being on opposite sides then. I would welcome you among the Malfoys.” He bared his teeth. Narcissa eyed him critically. She knew that for a sign of dangerous excitement, with him. “And hopefully I can cure that disgraceful lack of ambition you seem to have, to lift you to a position more deserving of your talents.”

Narcissa narrowed her eyes as she watched Potter twitch a little. He would have heard words like that before, from those meaning to use him. Truly, Lucius had no sense of subtlety when he became emotionally involved.

And then Potter seemed to come to some kind of decision, because his face smoothed out. “I’ll stay with you in the Manor until we find a cure,” he said. “Then I’ll ask you for enough money to set myself up in private practice.”

Lucius nodded and smiled, in that way that said he was sure he could change the speaker’s mind.

Narcissa did not put a hand over her face. Yes, Lucius’s analogies had given Potter entirely the wrong idea. He thought of it as a debt, to be repaid with some sort of equal exchange.

Narcissa might have called him stupid, but it was Lucius’s fault, for not considering his words more carefully.

And of course the onus would fall on her, to repair the wound before it could gape wide between them and to make Potter feel not only safe in the Manor but truly welcome in the family.

Sometimes, she did have to lament that she had not married into a family more worthy of her talents and her endless exertions on their behalf.

*

When he heard the flare of the Floo, Draco hurriedly climbed to his feet and got into character, casting a small enchantment that would make his face red and then clenching his fists at his sides. No matter how much he understood Harry now, and no matter how productive their time apart had been, the git was not allowed to think he could get away with simply dashing into danger unprotected.

“Stay there for a moment,” he snapped, when he spotted Harry ducking out of the fireplace.

Harry raised an eyebrow and paused, but then said, as if he could not bear the thought of obeying Draco in any way, “Don’t tell me you’re a painter and you need me to model for you.” He tilted his head back and strained his neck in what he probably imagined was the way models posed. “I haven’t seen any sort of a palette or eye for color. Mind you, you’ve got the air of pretentious importance down pat.”

Draco clenched his teeth. It wasn’t so hard, after all, to summon irritation with the prat. “I want you to stay there,” he said, “because then I might not kill you. Do you have any idea how stupid that was, running off to hospital without a bodyguard when someone just threatened your life?” Harry would understand that Draco took his safety seriously. It was the area of common sense he was most deficient in, though Draco could name one or two others contending for the title.

“I thought I explained about the Beetle’s Bite.” Harry stretched in a way that made Draco flinch inwardly, thinking of what it would do to his wound. “And can I be blamed when my ‘bodyguard’ refuses to come with me?”

Draco flushed in spite of himself. Yes, he had needed the distance from Harry to think; when he was near him, his emotions got tangled up in coils of fury and he found himself reacting more than he acted. Still, that was no reason he couldn’t have cast a bodyguard spell before Harry left that would have warded him nearly as well. Merlin knew the hospital was crawling with enemies. “You act as if you despise your own life,” he whispered. “What would you tell a patient of yours in the same situation who insisted on climbing out of his bed and rushing off to do emotionally intense work, no matter what the spell he’d been hit with was?”

Harry hesitated for a moment, then turned away, but not before Draco had seen the incipient scowl creeping across his face. He hoped he had made some impression. Harry must see the parallels between that imaginary case and his own even if he refused to admit it to himself.

And sure enough, he was trying to change the subject. “We have more important things to talk about.”

“We don’t—“ Draco began, utterly certain that Harry would not allow the conversation to come back to his injury if once he had the chance to turn it.

“Someone tried to remove me from your father’s case,” Harry said, practically running towards the library door, like the coward he could sometimes be. “I informed him of this, and he’s decided that St. Mungo’s isn’t safe for him anymore. He’s going home to Malfoy Manor. I’m to follow him, and stay there until I’ve cured him.”

Draco’s muscles locked with astonishment, and he actually let Harry get out of the room and to the top of that disreputable flight of stairs before he went after him.

Panting, he shouted, “What?” partially in order to exorcise his shock and partially to disguise the emotions tumbling through him. Oh, Father, well played. No doubt that he would never have agreed to come to the Manor otherwise.

Harry turned around to look at him, and his eyes widened slightly. Draco wondered for a moment if it was from Draco’s sheer nearness or the way he looked. Harry’s face had softened, and something tugged the corner of his mouth that could have been the start of a smile, or else a frown at his own emotions.

The next moment, he had turned away, opened his bedroom door, and gestured with his wand for his bag to pack itself. Draco hid his own smile by casting his eyes down. Yes, Harry was more affected than he liked, and of course he wasn’t about to own up to it.

“I’ll stay in the Manor with you for a few weeks,” Harry went on, leaning against the wall in a way he probably hoped came off as casual. “Your father has agreed to set me up in a private practice as soon as I’ve cured him.”

Draco fought hard to keep from raising an eyebrow; he was sure his father had promised no such thing, given that he would want to keep Harry safe with the rest of the family behind the wards. And if he had promised it, well. Malfoys had been known to lie, at times.

Harry grinned suddenly. “Just because you were in the House of the Snake doesn’t mean you have to forget you possess eyelids,” he said.

Draco felt this give and take of innuendo and teasing had gone far enough, at least without a response from him. He leaned nearer still, until his brow almost touched Harry’s, and planted his hands on either side of Harry’s head. Harry tensed and shivered like a startled deer, but, most interestingly, the hairs on his arms were rising from what was excitement instead of fear or startlement, or Draco didn’t know his prey. He leaned close and let the exhalations of his words act on Harry as well as deliberate puffs of air might.

“Good,” he whispered. “I know what went wrong, now.”

“What went wrong?” Harry frowned, his eyes regaining a bit of their alertness. “With your father, you mean? You have some idea about the linked curses? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Not about that.” Draco laughed, because showing his true irritation would make him a spectacle of absurdity. Of course Harry had Lucius on his mind instead of the discussion they’d had before he disappeared to hospital. Of course he did. “Why would I know about healing when I’ve never seriously studied it? Besides, I have absolute faith in your skills, and I know you’ll return my father to normal without help. No. I meant I know why my attempt to seduce you went wrong.”

“I should hope you would,” Harry said, even as his eyes softened, “after I told you in great detail.”

The next moment, he was shoving at Draco’s shoulders, as if he thought that they needed distance between them now that Draco had made a generous admission. Irritated, Draco set his feet and resisted the shove, leaning down to breathe on Harry’s ear. That earned him a shiver and a half-turn of the head; Draco found himself gazing at a flushed face and slightly parted lips, as though Harry were readying himself for a kiss.

“It’s a challenge,” Draco said. “I haven’t had to seduce anyone the way I’ll have to seduce you.” He couldn’t blame himself for sounding delighted, not when he had just seen how responsive to his blandishments Harry was. “It’ll involve more self-control than I’ve had to use before. But I’ll have you in my bed at last.”

And that’s a promise, Harry.

“You wouldn’t like me in bed,” said Harry, his eyes acquiring a hard and disagreeable sheen again.

And then he put an ankle behind Draco’s leg and twisted. Draco staggered, flailed, waved his hands in the air in a graceless way that would make him blush to remember, and nearly fell. That he didn’t was more due to his own innate balance than to any kindness Harry had given him. He caught himself at last a breath from tumbling down the stairs—

And a breath from grabbing Harry’s shoulders, shaking him, and asking him what his problem was. Draco slowed his breathing deliberately and then swallowed back the bile gathering in his throat. No. He had to cling to his precious advance, the advice Harry had given him without meaning to do so. Harry needed to like him before he’d let Draco do everything Draco wanted to do, including, probably, keeping Harry away from danger. An ill-natured snap would set everything backwards now. Go with a compliment instead.

“I can’t imagine you being anything but graceful and passionate in bed,” he breathed.

Harry picked up the bag his spell had been packing, and did it with a look of bored loathing that made Draco’s face sting. “I’m very boring. Just ask Francis.”

“Francis?” Draco demanded, and then smoothed his own breathing again with an effort. No, I won’t be angry that he insists on talking about old lovers, and that they insist on showing up. I won’t. It’s something, isn’t it, to note that he’s stooped to deriding his bed skills? He’s trying to defend himself from me, and that means he’s at least partially interested, and knows it.

“The fifth person I dated,” said Harry, and then snapped his fingers, summoning the house-elf to play distraction. Draco half-curled his lip as he studied the dirty hair projecting from the ears of—Kreacher, he thought Harry had said the elf’s name was. Or perhaps Draco remembered it from hearing his mother talk about it during the war. “Would you make sure Ron and Hermione learn I’m gone to Malfoy Manor and that I’m perfectly safe?” he asked.

“I don’t know about perfectly,” Draco said. Perhaps he should not have, but it irked him to be dismissed from a conversation as if he didn’t exist, and in favor of a house-elf, of all things.

“Shut up,” Harry snapped, and for just a moment, his eyes flashed a hard green that caused Draco’s breath to catch. Amusement, competence, anger—it seemed there was no mood that didn’t look good on Harry. Of course, if Draco had been allowed to use his tongue to appreciate those moods more, and in a way that didn’t only involve talking about them, things would have been better still.

“Good,” Harry said to the elf, and then turned to Draco again. “What Floo address do you use for the Manor? Just ‘Malfoy Manor?’”

Draco opened his mouth to respond, and then Harry’s words caught up with him.

The trust they conveyed.

God, he hadn’t thought Harry was ready for anything of the kind. He had expected to endure several pointed insults and reminders of the things Harry had suffered when held prisoner in the Manor during the war before they could get him behind the wards. And then he turned blindly to Draco and offered an equally blind gift of trust.

“Is it under the Fidelius?” Harry asked, apparently coming up with his own interpretation of Draco’s silence. “Your father didn’t mention that.”

“No,” Draco said, in a voice he was startled sounded so calm. “It’s Malfoy Manor, as you surmised. I need to go ahead to open the connection for you, though. It automatically responds to someone of the blood, but it would simply bounce you out if you tried to enter it without an invitation.”

And he turned and trotted out of the room, before Harry could decide the expression on his face referred to the setting of a trap. His blood was humming along his veins, and he found himself swallowing multiple times before he could get his emotions under control.

Harry was exasperating, furiously stupid about his own life and his own safety, dedicated to pouring his great gifts into nothingness—

And he would share his blood with the Malfoys without a thought, and as thoughtlessly offer a trust Draco had not looked to earn until weeks had gone past.

If only we can teach him to use the qualities he has and ignores right now, whilst retaining the ones favorable to us! I hardly dare to think of what he could become, then.

Draco tried to envision a future in which Harry stood at his side, his respected and trusted and trusting partner, as well as his lover and a member of the Malfoy family, towards whom he no longer had any reservations.

His mind sheered away from the vision. It was too brilliant.

I will have it, though. I won’t settle for less. The problem will be making sure that he doesn’t, either.

Chapter 11.

Comments

[ravenqueen55.livejournal.com]

Malfoys had been known to lie, at times. LOL! Indeed!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!