Part 2 of 'Company Manners'

[lomonaaeren]

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“And if the Cannons win tomorrow,” Ron said, pointing an unsteady finger at Harry, “then you have to get up on the table in nothing but those poncey green pants that I know you have, and dance a jig.”

“All right,” Harry agreed, grinning both because he knew it would never happen and because he could just imagine what all his high-society contacts would make of him if they saw him honoring that bet. He tilted back his head and let the butterbeer run down his throat. Pleasant as it was when he drank it at home after all those posh wines with names he couldn’t even pronounce—well, he knew how to pronounce them now, he just didn’t care—it couldn’t compare to a drink in the company of his mates.

“Harry, I want to know something.” Dean leaned forwards over the table, his forehead wrinkled as if he were contemplating the purpose of the universe. “How in the world did you end up owning poncey green pants? Why did you let the Ministry groom you the way they did? It’s like you’re some fine racehorse in their stables.”

“Worse than that,” Harry muttered. “A racehorse is at least allowed to get sweaty every once in a while.” He felt Ron clap him on the back, and smiled at him. His training wasn’t a complete loss of time if it made him able to tell better jokes, Harry thought.

“But why?” Dean persisted.

Harry leaned back in his chair, staring thoughtfully at Dean. It was a long time since he’d felt comfortable enough to join Harry, Ron, and the rest of them at the Dog and Horn; he’d married Ginny after a whirlwind courtship and seemed to think that Harry blamed him for that. Harry didn’t, but, on the other hand, he wasn’t about to encourage Dean to come and talk to him if it would only distress him.

Now, though, the easy slouch of Dean’s body and that wrinkle in his forehead indicated he was deep in the perplexed philosophy of drunkenness, and Harry’s former romance with Ginny was the furthest thing from his mind.

Stop noticing his posture, Harry scolded himself. Your obligation to the Ministry ends at the front doors of the pure-bloods. You don’t have to keep noticing people and acting intelligent when you’re out with your mates. He leaned forwards and said seriously, “Well, you see, they pay me quite a lot of money.”

Ron laughed, incidentally scattering bubbles across the table. Harry muttered a wandless Cleaning Charm; that was one he’d become very good at in the past five years.

“But it has to be something more than that,” Dean said, with all the stubbornness of someone ramming his head into a stone wall and expecting the wall to crumble. “After all, you could do other things, even if you can’t be an Auror. Why change yourself around to suit the Ministry?”

Harry sighed. There was no way to explain his job without sounding pretentious. He just hoped that Dean would be able to forgive him that. Harry sometimes found it difficult to forgive himself that.

“Because I want to keep the wizarding world from going to war again,” he said quietly. Ron turned and looked at him in concern. Harry caught his eye and shook his head with a small, wry smile. I’m all right. “What good is saving it from Voldemort, if people just turn around and destroy it on their own?”

“But people wouldn’t do that,” Dean said, sounding more confident now. “They know how bad the last war was. They wouldn’t…” He trailed off, probably because Harry couldn’t keep a cynical smile from slipping across his face.

“There are still stubborn pure-bloods who think people like you and me are shite,” Harry said. “Except that they can’t say that to our faces, given the political temper of the times. And there are Muggleborns who think all the pure-bloods should be eliminated, because that way there couldn’t be another war based on blood purity.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dean said flatly.

“I know that,” Harry said. He took another drink of butterbeer, relishing the way it buzzed in his throat. He would need to go to another party tomorrow night, one he was emphatically not looking forwards to, which made the bubbling sensation all the more precious. “But people think a good deal of ridiculous rubbish. If I can go around and talk to individual pure-bloods and Muggleborns, people with enough money and influence to get others thinking the way they do, and persuade them back to a path of calm reason instead, then the sacrifice of flattening my hair and so on is worth it.”

Dean was quiet for long moments. Then he shook his head. “But wouldn’t your natural image work just as well? After all, the pure-bloods must know that this isn’t the real you, and they’d be more likely to distrust you.”

Harry snorted in genuine amusement. “I can see that you haven’t met many pure-bloods devoted to the maintaining of their traditions,” he said. “There’s no one blinder or more culturally proud on this green earth. They think that, if I adopt some of their ways of dressing and eating and being, it must be because I admire them. Even the ones who suspect or know it’s an act admire the act itself, because that’s the kind of mental labyrinth they trap themselves in.”

“That’s why we need to be here,” Ron said, and flung an arm around his neck. “To remind Harry of what real life is like.” Solemnly, he tipped most of his butterbeer down Harry’s back.

Harry punched him in the neck, and then they were down and scrabbling under the table, Harry laughing and Ron cursing while Dean and the rest cheered them on.

This is the real me, Harry thought, as he crawled out from under the table and brushed dust and foam from his hair. And wouldn’t people like Malfoy shriek and faint if they saw?

At least he knew he had an easy escape from polite society if it ever became absolutely intolerable: reveal who he really was, and watch them back away.

*

“And you’re sure that Potter will be here?”

Astoria turned and looked at him tolerantly. Draco smoothed a hand down his chest in consequence and gave her a faint smile. “I sound like a begging child, don’t I?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say that, having no experience with children at the moment,” Astoria murmured, and stepped skillfully around one of the tiny tables that had been sat up to contain food, games, and conversation pieces for her guests. The house-elves were still arranging several near the outer edge of the sunburst pattern. Astoria surveyed them for a moment, then tapped one elf’s shoulder and made her move a table. Ignoring the elf’s attempts to punish herself and obey at the same time, Astoria turned back to Draco. “More like the squalling Kneazle kitten that my sister owned.”

Draco sketched a small bow in acknowledgment and sat down on a chair behind him. Astoria was going to feel amusement at him no matter what happened and she was an acquaintance of the inner circle, being his best friend’s wife, so he resigned himself to being that object of amusement. “I can’t believe that someone hasn’t captured Potter yet.”

“Oh, plenty of people have tried.” Astoria moved several steps backwards and then ran a hand through her blonde hair, trying out several different styles at the same moment as she considered the wizarding chess pieces on the nearest table. Draco gazed at her in admiration. Had he ever taken a wife, he would have wanted one like her. “But Potter smiles at them, and dances with them, and flirts, and promises nothing.”

“Yes, I had that impression.” Draco thought of the way he had tried to impress and corner Potter at the Ministry function, and the way Potter had slipped out of all the traps while scarcely seeming to notice them. “Is there anything that seems to attract his attention or hold it?”

Astoria glanced archly at him. “Are you asking me to help you with your flirtation?” She left the rest of the words unsaid: that that would amount to admitting Draco’s own qualities were insufficient to attract Potter’s attention.

“Of course not,” Draco said, and smiled at her in a way that she would be unable to see emotion in. “Only wondering what the competition had done in the past.”

Astoria laughed softly. Even her laughter was polished to the point of shining. Draco had to wonder how Blaise, who had his moments of crudity, had managed to capture her. Doubtless the answer was buried somewhere in the monologue that Blaise had favored him with at the Ministry party. “There’s been little competition. Potter hasn’t dated anyone, so far as I’ve heard, since he became the Ministry’s little boy-toy.”

Draco smiled at her more broadly. “But, of course, what you’ve heard is not all you know.”

Astoria twisted her head to the side and peered at him from beneath golden eyelashes. “Well. That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

“Imagine,” Draco said, rising to his feet and stepping up so that he could trail his fingers across her elbow, “what entertainment we could provide for you if you let me know a little more about Potter. The irresistible force against the immovable object. I leave it up to you to choose who would have what part in this little drama,” he added generously.

Astoria laughed. “I do think that, if he was going to choose someone from the upper ranks of society, he would choose someone like you. Cleverness holds his attention, and makes his duties less wearisome for him.”

“Someone from the upper ranks of society,” Draco said slowly, and leaned his elbow on a chair and gave her a hard stare as invitation to go on.

Luckily, Astoria was not someone who played with a serious flirtation. She gave him an open glance and said, “Yes. For a time, he was dating Ginny Weasley, or at least that was the rumor. They separated quite some time back, of course. She’s married to some Mudblood or other these days. I think he’s an artist. And there have been rumors of other lovers. Always among people that he would be ashamed to introduce to us.”

Draco frowned. “I could have sworn that he was perfectly adapted to our way of life. Why would he want to sully himself with someone beneath him?”

“He’s adopted our manners,” said Astoria, “and he’s perfect at them, he really is. A pleasure to have at any party, including this one.” She got a little self-satisfied smile on her face that Blaise also had when he mentioned this particular party, which was to celebrate their marriage anniversary. Draco rolled his eyes slightly. “But I don’t think he’s let our standards into his brain and heart. He works for goals. The beauty and the regularity of our traditions isn’t a goal in and of itself.”

Draco shut his eyes and let a single sweet shiver slide through him.

“What was that about?” Astoria asked, thus proving how comfortable she was with him; she could admit that she hadn’t understood his body language at one glance. “You looked the way Blaise does when he realizes that someone’s left a loophole in their appropriations report.”

Draco opened his eyes and gave her his most dazzling smile. “Seat us together for dinner at this party,” he said. “You won’t regret it.”

“I would if you disrupted the festivities in any way, such as by reminding Potter of the tension between you at school.” Astoria’s voice was mild, but her eyes were like green steel. Draco’s mother couldn’t have threatened him more effectively—and hadn’t when she quizzed him about Paul at dinner last night.

“Of course not,” Draco said. “I’m simply going to show Potter the attraction of falling into compliance with our standards after all, and choosing a truly elegant lover.”

He didn’t say the rest, knowing Astoria would be able to sense it without his speaking: that there was a deep attraction in capturing the attention of someone who had reasons to shy away from him, and even more in doing what no other pure-blood had managed to do and making Potter’s inner world as well as his outer appearance conform to their aesthetic standards.

“You and a thousand others,” Astoria said, but her eyes were gently sharp again. “You forget how many people have had reasons to court him, Draco.”

“But I do not think that many other people want him quite as badly as I do, simply for himself,” Draco said, and captured and kissed her hand before she could withdraw it. “And I am not without charms of my own that can give him beauty in return for beauty.”

Astoria’s raised eyebrow implied whole silent worlds of doubt. Draco stood with a laugh and squeezed her shoulder. “Seat us together at dinner. You’ll have plenty of entertainment.”

“And if I choose not to?” Astoria tilted her head haughtily.

Draco bowed. “Then I must resign myself to the wishes of the hostess, of course—who will not be able to see some of my more daring moves in this chess game.”

Astoria looked at him thoughtfully, then moved away. Draco watched as she plucked his card from the table next to Blaise and switched it with that of the Wizengamot member who had been seated opposite Potter, and felt equal measures of deep relaxation and eager anticipation surge through him.

Oh, Potter. You won’t be watching for sincere compliments, which means I can take you on your blind side.

*

“Hullo, Potter. Fancy meeting you here.”

Harry offered one of his expert smiles back to Malfoy and sat down on the other side of the table from him, draping his napkin across his lap. “It is indeed a surprise,” he said, though of course it wasn’t. He had known that Zabini and Malfoy were friends in school, and it made sense that he should expect to see Malfoy here. Nor was it coincidence that they were across from each other, or isolated at a tiny table. If Malfoy thought that Harry would allow that to disconcert him, however, he should think again. “I reckon that you haven’t been back in England long enough for us to meet twice by sheer chance.” He picked up his glass of wine, sipped at it, and then looked inquiringly at Malfoy.

Malfoy blinked once, then recovered and leaned across the table as if he would brush Harry’s wrist with his fingers again. Harry coincidentally moved his hand away so that he could balance the plate of venison being handed to him, murmuring thanks to the server. She blushed prettily. Harry approved. Sometimes it was good to be reminded that not every single action in pure-blood society was the product of forethought and careful maneuvering.

Just most of them.

“Not long enough for that,” Malfoy murmured as he cut apart his own venison. He watched Harry’s fork with narrowed eyes. Harry used it perfectly to spite him. For some reason, Malfoy smiled. “But long enough for me to have lost my head quite hopelessly to your charms.” He looked up into Harry’s face.

Harry solemnly lifted an invisible head on his fork and knife to hand back to Malfoy. “Here it is again. What use would I have for it?”

“My hostess tells me that you’ve received more than your fair share of compliments,” Malfoy said. His voice was low, unaffected by Harry’s gesture, but a faint flush touched his cheeks. Harry noticed it with satisfaction. “One would think you would be more gracious about accepting them.”

Harry gave Malfoy a half-bow. “My natural modesty means I grow anxious about the ‘more than my fair share’ part,” he said. “Surely you should have some. Do you want me to conjure a mirror so that you can begin addressing the deficit?” He lifted his wand politely.

Malfoy closed his eyes and took a long breath. Harry seized the opportunity to take a few bites. If Malfoy was this much of a talker throughout the meal, Harry wouldn’t get a chance to eat, and fainting from hunger was embarrassing.

“Your beauty is unrivaled in this room,” Malfoy said at last, opening his eyes. “You have perfect manners; I haven’t seen you make a mistake yet.” Harry looked thoughtfully at him and considered making one, if it would deflect Malfoy’s absurd interest in him, but no, this was too public a place and would entail too much of a sacrifice of his reputation. “You parry my words well. Have you considered for a moment that my yearning for you might be genuine?”

“Of course not,” Harry said. “We’re all practiced in games, aren’t we? And what could be a better game than convincing me that you mean something you don’t?” He took another bite and smiled blandly at Malfoy, automatically keeping his lips shut so that he wouldn’t show any food stuck between his teeth, despite the temptation to frighten Malfoy. “It’s too bad for you that I’ve played this game too many times to enjoy being either loser or victor.”

*

Damn. Of course. Draco could not believe that he’d failed to make the connection in his own mind. He’d assumed that, since Potter appeared to reject pure-blood values even as he aped them, he would appreciate genuine compliments and be drawn to Draco because of them.

He’d forgotten that Potter was practiced enough in those values to assume that any apparently genuine compliment was a ploy to win something else from him. He had no reason to differentiate Draco’s words from any of the others he received.

And he doesn’t appreciate the acting for itself, either, as a performance or an art. This could be problematic.

But Potter finished his latest bite and looked straight at him, green eyes bright and challenging, and Draco realized that he didn’t care. He’d never been so drawn to anyone. He wanted Potter, and he could climb over problems in the way. Yes, Potter had met plenty of people who wanted to flirt with him, but none with the real motivation Draco had. And that real motivation remained in spite of all the doubts Potter had. He could not actually reach into Draco’s skull and change Draco’s mind.

Draco relaxed and smiled at Potter, and he raised an eyebrow back. “Have you reclaimed your head?” he asked politely.

“I’m going to take a risk,” Draco said. “I’m going to tell you why I left England and what I’ve been doing for the last five years. Then you might understand what the sight of you means to me.”

Potter tapped his glasses. “I’ve never been that accomplished at seeing through someone else’s eyes. Myopia and all that.”

Draco surprised himself by reaching across the table and grabbing Potter’s wrist. “Listen to me,” he said. “And don’t make judgments until you’ve heard all I have to say. Please.”

Potter let his eyes travel slowly from Draco’s gripping fingers up to his face. Draco flinched, feeling properly scathed, but didn’t let him go. In fact, he rubbed his fingers in place and saw Potter flush a bit in response.

Abruptly, Potter relaxed and gave Draco a small smile. “It’s been a while since anyone used a tactic like that to gain my attention,” he said. He tugged gently at the wrist Draco still held prisoner. “All right. Talk.”

“I do like touching you, you know,” Draco whispered back, but released him, because he could already feel curious eyes on their table. He sat back, picked up his fork, ate a few bites, and considered. Potter sat calmly across the table from him, his eyes fixed on Draco’s face with gratifying attention.

“I met Paul when he came to England to attend a Potioneers’ Convention,” Draco began. “I found him charming, open in a way that no one I knew at the time was, and interestingly brilliant on the subject of potions.” He cocked his head at Potter. “If I had known you at the time, I wouldn’t have been so tempted.”

Potter gave him an elusive smile. “Paul—was his last name Breaker, by any chance? The one who first used dandelion fluff as the cure delivery in Burn-Relieving Potion?”

Draco caught his breath. Here was his first proof that Potter was actually knowledgeable on the subjects he talked to other guests about, not simply skilled at making them laugh. “That’s the one,” he said.

Potter’s smile grew a bit brighter. “I don’t blame you for being interested in him. What I could understand of his technical papers proves that he’s both original and creative. I’ve noticed a lot of Potions brewers are only one or the other.”

Draco blinked. The distinction between originality and creativity was one that Professor Snape had made, and no one else since. And he had done it only in private sessions with Draco when he was showing him techniques and tactics that he would never get a chance to teach in class—hardly a time or place that Potter could have spied them out.

“He was that,” he said. “Alas, he was also creative with insults.”

“Why?” Potter’s eyes widened with what looked like honest interest. “If you were willing to leave your own country to live with him, that argues that your interest should be repaid with interest.” He allowed Draco a moment to enjoy the mild pun before he continued, gently but persistently. “What did he have to insult you about?”

“My heritage,” Draco said. “My accent. Everything that was British. He claimed to love it when we were in this country, and the moment he had me trapped in the States, he started heaping rubbish on me.” He was quiet a moment, remembering the way Paul used to sneer when he’d successfully landed another blow on Draco’s pride.

Potter reached across the table and touched his elbow. Like the pat that Draco had seen him give to Hartley two days ago, this was not condescending. Draco remembered the cruel meanings that Paul could instill into the slightest gesture, and decided that Potter was Paul’s opposite in more ways than one.

“I can’t imagine that you’re a man to take that for long,” said Potter, in just the warm, comforting tone Draco had wished somebody would talk to him in when his relations with Paul were at their worst. “What kept you there?”

“Because I’d already invested so much effort in moving,” Draco said. “I also had a futile hope that he’d change if I remained with him long enough, and he could see how much I loved him. Most foolish of all, I couldn’t bear to admit that I’d been wrong, the way I’d have to if I went back home. It was rather a whirlwind affair; he was here for two weeks for the Potioneers’ Convention, and then he stayed another month or so to get to know me. Several of my friends said I was mad when I followed him home. I didn’t want to prove them right.”

“How well I understand that impulse,” Potter said with a rueful smile. “It ruins some of our best actions.” He reached out and grasped his glass to take a sip of wine without removing his eyes from Draco’s face. “What made you finally change your mind?”

“Little by little, the evidence piled up,” Draco said. “When I finally asked whether Paul loved me, he laughed and told me that of course he didn’t, but he didn’t mind me and I was convenient.”

He closed his eyes. He could still see Paul’s face, alight with mischievous mirth. His voice was full of scorn as he said, “You’re a good fuck, Draco. You do your part like a good little housewife to clean up the place. Why should I complain?”

Draco had stood there and seen five years of his assumptions clatter to pieces around his feet.

Such a waste. Such a bloody, fucking waste of time when I could have been doing so many other things instead.

He didn’t think he could bring himself to tell Potter that. But, under the influence of a compassionate gaze and an intense, listening silence, he told him something like it, in halting words. Potter never encouraged him to hurry. He never, as his parents had done, puckered his lips in disapproval that something so common and nonsensical had taken in a Malfoy. He nodded in the appropriate places, hummed sympathetically, and asked appropriate questions.

Draco took a deep breath at the end of it and blinked at his mostly full plate. He didn’t feel hungry; he felt purged, as though he’d finally dumped a large load of poison he’d been carrying around for months.

He gazed at Potter in wonder. It’s no surprise that he’s managed to make the relations between pure-bloods and Muggleborns so cordial, if that’s an example of what he does.

Potter swallowed the last of his wine and gave him a small smile. “That was a more pleasant conversation than I’ve had in months,” he said. “I hope it was beneficial to you as well.” He stood up, shook Draco’s hand, and started to turn away.

Draco blinked again and stood up, too, reaching out to lay a hand on Potter’s shoulder. He felt suddenly so panicked that he hardly cared who saw him do it. “Wait. You can’t—you’ll stay and have a piece of chocolate with me?” Astoria’s house-elves were laying out neat plates of delicious-looking desserts on every table. “A bit of talk?”

Potter gave him that elusive smile he’d used when they began the conversation. “Why would I? You wanted to talk about what made you leave Britain, and I’ve listened. I doubt any other subject could absorb us as much.”

Draco stared at him and tightened the hold of his fingers on Potter’s shoulder. He felt inexplicably scorned, though there was no insult in what Potter had just said. Draco had become used to spotting hidden insults when he was with Paul. “But we’ve hardly said anything. About that date—”

“I have a very full social calendar, I’m afraid,” Potter said lightly, and stripped Draco’s fingers off with a neat sideways step. “I hope that you find someone who can do you a greater service than I can in healing your heart.” He gave Draco an amiable nod and worked his way to the far side of the room, collecting his cloak from the house-elves with a smile that made them look as if they’d like to melt on the spot. He was gone before Draco could take a step after him.

Draco stood there staring, until it would have become too obvious. Then he turned to fetch dessert. But his heart was thumping angrily.

I assumed that showing him my real, vulnerable self would provoke him to show his real self in turn.

He didn’t mock me. He didn’t betray me. But he didn’t respond the way I wanted him to.

“I did tell you he was skilled in countering the offers he receives,” Astoria murmured as she floated past him.

That she was right did Draco’s temper no good at all.

*

Harry took a deep breath and shook his head as he stepped out of the Zabinis’ house. The front porch was in the shadow of a stone portico—convenient, as it was raining. He took a moment to tuck his cloak firmly around him and think over the evening’s accomplishments. True, he hadn’t done much once he sat down at Malfoy’s table, but he’d spoken to two possible agitators before then and convinced them to come and talk to the Ministry about their concerns.

He didn’t always enjoy his job. He wished that Kingsley, in particular, was a bit less strict about demanding perfection from him. On the other hand, he knew that the pure-bloods would forgive no lapse from perfection, so the strictness was understandable.

And perhaps it was premature to say that he hadn’t done much while he was sitting with Malfoy.

Harry smiled and silently toasted himself. He’d learned early on in his training that there was no subject people enjoyed talking about so much as themselves, and many of the pure-bloods had to repress their personal interests and histories lest someone use their weaknesses against them. Harry could turn an annoying or uncomfortable conversation to their pet subjects with a bit of knowledge, and on they would prattle. It spared him a lot of effort, they almost never noticed what he’d done in the sheer absorbing relief of talking about themselves, and they didn’t ask questions about him that might have proven problematic.

It also didn’t harm anyone, since Harry didn’t use the knowledge he gained that way against them—unless they started talking about blood purity or conspiring against the Ministry. Then he lost his mercy.

But it seemed as though Malfoy was about as far as possible from someone in either of those two categories. The poor bastard just wanted to talk, and his tale of thwarted pride was familiar enough to Harry.

Paul Breaker needs punching, Harry decided as he stood there, staring idly at the rain and waiting for a small pause so that he could run to the Apparition point. He could have used an Impervious Charm, but he was tired from playing his part today and didn’t want to make a mistake in the spell in front of pure-bloods.

The conversation with Malfoy had even done something for Harry himself, since it had looked, just before he left, as though Malfoy was one of the rare people who’d figured out his tactic. He’d been angry about it, too. Probably offended enough to give up this ridiculous business of asking Harry for a date.

Harry chuckled as he saw the raindrops stop falling quite as hard and dodged out across the flagstones surrounding the Zabini manor house. Let’s hope he’ll find a nice Potions expert to fall in love with, because sympathy’s all he’s getting from me.

Part 3.