Knowing the Price and the Value, 2/3- for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
irrevokable
Oct. 26th, 2007 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenPart 2 of 3, once again sorry for spammage.
“And you’re sure about this, Harry?” Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice all but begged Potter to say this was a joke.
“I trust Malfoy in a way that I don’t trust other people.” Potter’s arms were folded, but his face was blank with boredom and his voice was low and calm. Draco, who knew exactly what had caused that, wondered for a moment if this was why Potter’s friends had been desperate enough to approach him, because they had heard him talk like that. “I know that he isn’t going to betray me unless a better offer comes along, for example. And I’m fairly sure it won’t.”
The Minister sighed and pressed a hand against his brow, as if he had his own curse scar that ached there. Draco cocked his head to the side, interested to see if he did, but his hand fell away from the place, showing clear, unmarked dark skin.
“If you insist, Harry,” Shacklebolt said. “But you know there’s still no evidence that Ideala was a traitor.”
Potter merely smiled, the smile of someone who wasn’t interested in discussing the matter any longer. Draco had seen that expression enough from his father to know exactly what it meant.
“Very well,” said the Minister, and then signed the request form that Potter had brought to him, which made Draco’s transfer of status official. “But you have to know that many people in the Department will think badly of you for it. There are other Aurors, even trainees, who need the experience more.” He gave Draco a long stare. Draco, who had more practice now than he had ever wanted in being gazed at with disrespect instead of envy, returned it with equanimity.
“Yes, well, I don’t trust them,” said Potter, and snatched the request form, and turned away.
Draco made sure to walk along at his side, because that was what a good partner would do.
“Do you want to keep your office, or should we have you move into mine?” Potter asked when they were in the corridors and other people could hear. Draco saw more than one head turn, more than one jaw fall open.
Draco knew this was Potter’s way of letting others know that he and Draco shared more than just friendship, but he was surprised that Potter was offering him the choice. “You don’t care?” he asked.
Potter shrugged and shook his head.
Well, all right, then. Time to test how serious he is about this. “Move into mine,” Draco said. “It’s more comfortable, and I’m not moving everything I want to keep with me into your cramped little space if I don’t have to.”
Potter laughed, that deep and resonant laugh that Draco had heard the day before yesterday when he insulted him. That got even more stares. Draco raised his eyebrows slightly and paced along at Potter’s side like someone, he thought, walking beside a very expensive dog.
Everyone who might think his recent behavior makes the Boy Who Lived less of a status symbol is deluded.
*
“I don’t understand, Malfoy.”
Draco rolled his eyes and turned around. Trust Granger to catch him right in the middle of studying Potter’s Muggle chair and collection of photographs and maps and Orders of Merlin, trying to decide how they would all fit into his office. Potter was still in his own room, Summoning some of his possessions off the walls. “I’m getting close to him,” he said. “I thought that was what you wanted. If I can insinuate myself into his life, then I can bring him back to normal, yes?”
“You were supposed to insult him and bring him back to normal that way.” But Granger looked uneasy, as if she suspected there was a joke here she didn’t understand, and Draco reveled in it.
“Right now, he’s still too damaged,” Draco said. Yes, let’s call it that, since it’s the only way she’ll be able to make sense of matters. “He laughs at my insults. That’s not a normal reaction from Potter, in case you haven’t noticed. But at least I can make him react, which is more than you succeeded in doing, from what he tells me.” He had laughed himself sick this morning at Potter’s rendition of the way Weasley and Granger questioned him, “subtly” trying to find out what was “wrong” with him. “In time, I can work him back around to the way he used to be. He’s like an oyster. I’m like a grain of sand. By being constantly in his company, I’ll remind him of the much better and stronger friendships he used to have with you lot. I’ll irritate him so much in the end that he should come begging you to take him back.”
Granger looked unconvinced. She pulled out her wand and tapped it against her lips. Draco watched her warily. While she was a Mudblood, he had never denied her facility with a curse or a hex.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Oysters make pearls out of grains of sand, too.”
“Tell me,” Draco said, permitting a bit of humor to creep into his voice, “what exactly do you think the chances are of friendship happening between Potter and me? Let alone becoming a pearl.”
Granger smiled reluctantly. “All right,” she said. “But just don’t get too comfortable in your new position, Malfoy. You aren’t here to be his friend, remember?”
“I remember,” Draco said softly as he watched her depart. Potter came around the corner a moment later, his shrunken desk floating behind him. He tossed his head in the direction of the Mudblood and raised his eyebrows.
“What did she want?”
“Just to remind me that we aren’t friends,” Draco said, and then waved his wand and Vanished half the Orders of Merlin. Potter didn’t object. Considering that those were awards given him by the Ministry, Draco thought he knew why.
“Oh, well, as if she knows what friendship is these days,” Potter said, edging past Draco and then returning his desk slowly to normal size, continually estimating the distance between Draco’s desk and the walls with his eyes to see how big he should make it.
“You think we’re friends?” Draco asked, because that would be amusing.
Potter glanced at him with that diamond-edged smile he never gave anyone else. “Of course not, Malfoy. Just suggesting that she’s so determined to have me ‘back to normal’ that she never considered whether she’s acting like one.”
Draco nodded in contentment and Vanished another Order of Merlin. Then he tried with the photographs, but Potter noticed and gave him a glare. Draco waited a moment—he rather enjoyed the look of anger and the color it turned Potter’s eyes—but gave in and brought it back. As fun as petty amusement was, he stood to get something worth much more out of this arrangement.
*
“Right!”
Draco plunged right.
“Left!”
And then he turned left, pivoting neatly as the hex sped past his leg.
His heart pounded madly. Sweat pricked him under his arms and stood in the corners of his eyes. He was panting so hard that he knew their enemies could hear him, but then again, their enemies had been alerted already when Potter’s hex had battered the door down. And now they were spread around the edges of the central dining hall in the large, abandoned manor that seemed to be the natural choice of headquarters for those groups trying to become the next Death Eaters, wands in their hands.
That could have been dangerous, but their curses were, for the most part, pitiful against two trained Aurors.
Draco caught a deep breath and plunged to the floor, rolling past someone who tried to kick him in the ribs and someone else who tried to singe his hair with Incendio. He felt like laughing. This was the first time he had realized how true the words of his instructors in Auror training had been: that most adult wizards, despite a Hogwarts education, really could not manage many of the complicated spells Draco and other Ministry workers took for granted.
He Body-Bound a witch who seemed to be trying to take down the wards so she could Apparate, but then someone Petrified him. Draco screamed in his head as a wizard in a white cloak bent over him, breathing hard himself but all smiles at having stopped an Auror.
“Reducto!” someone yelled just above him, and the wizard in the white cloak went flying away. One moment Potter was kneeling next to Draco, ending the Petrifying hex and helping him back to his feet; the next moment he was charging towards the front of the hall, his wand spinning circles that sent out rays of yellow light, which chained most of the wizards who were still free.
Draco caught his breath with an effort, and then followed Potter, cleaning up the mess he’d left and taking wands from those enemies who still had them. Now and then his gaze went to his partner, who was dueling with the recovered white-cloaked wizard. Potter was dodging the curses with quick, neat expertise, and though his face was flushed, he showed no other sign of strain. Draco knew he would win easily.
He had never realized Potter could be so handsome.
Draco smiled a little. His first payment of Galleons from Potter had come through this morning, and his first day on the job as a field wizard was everything he had hoped it would be (save for his partner having to rescue him, perhaps). Potter had even shown him the spell that made one’s glasses stay firmly on one’s nose instead of flying away when one was wheeling through the midst of battle.
Given how Potter looked at this moment, another part of the promised payment would be no trouble at all.
*
“And you think that’s the place to start?” Potter’s eyes were intent as he rubbed the parchment with the name Draco had given him between thumb and forefinger. “With this Dyers?”
Draco nodded. “It took me a long time to coax my mother into revealing he was one of the people who accepted my father’s bribes; it was almost as though she thought I was too young to know.” He actually thought Narcissa had been as reluctant to give up the name as she was because she didn’t want to see Draco treading down his father’s path and repeating Lucius’s mistakes, but he wasn’t about to tell Potter that. “He’s still susceptible, by all accounts.”
Potter’s eyes darkened in that way they had. “Then my enemies might already have bribed him into accepting their load of bollocks.”
“Ah.” Draco smiled and leaned back in his chair. They were in their office, with the door heavily warded and the corridor outside covered with charms that were triggered to ring or sing out if specific people came by. “There’s one fact about Dyers that was never very relevant to my father, but probably is to your…enemies. Dyers hates werewolves. One killed his sister and infected his niece, and she committed suicide rather than live with it. He would be more likely to betray anyone who tried to enlist him in that plan you mentioned than go along with it, no matter how large the bribe they offered. And he’ll help you—not out of the goodness of his heart, but more willingly than he would have otherwise.”
Potter’s face shone. Draco couldn’t lie to himself; it was rather flattering to be the cause of a brightening like that, no matter why.
“You seem to believe me when I tell you there’s a conspiracy to use werewolves like that in the Ministry,” Potter murmured. His eyes grew darker again, but Draco didn’t think it was with anger this time—not the way he was rising to his feet, not with the look he was giving Draco. “Even Ron and Hermione didn’t. Why?”
Draco shrugged. “I’m less surprised by any corruption in the Ministry, Potter. My father helped cause a good part of it, after all.”
He wondered a moment later if he had opened himself up to a taunt about his past—he and Potter got around most of their potential arguments by simply not discussing that—but Potter didn’t respond in words. He took a few steps nearer, crossing most of the space left between their desks, and then sank to his knees. Draco felt his breath speed up, and he parted his legs without really meaning to do so.
“This is where the next payment comes in, I reckon?” He wished his voice wasn’t so breathless. On the other hand, Potter had never been the most observant of people.
“It is,” said Potter, and began to unbutton Draco’s robes.
By coincidence—or maybe he really was more observant than Draco wanted to give him credit for—Potter opened Draco’s robes and lowered his trousers and reached into his pants at just the right speed. He wasn’t hurrying, furtive, afraid he’d be caught. On the other hand, he wasn’t going slow and trying to act seductive, which didn’t really fit the mood between them. He simply took his time, as if this were normal in every way. Draco had no problem at all getting hard.
Potter smiled when he saw that, but the smile wasn’t mocking. He leaned down and slid his lips gently around the head, then moved his tongue in a zigzag pattern that Draco couldn’t remember feeling before. Or maybe no one else had ever done it so brilliantly, he thought, his brain dissolving in haze as his head sagged back against the chair.
Potter never let a tooth through. He sucked at the perfect pace, too, thoughtfully applying a bit of tongue there, turning his head so that he could suck from the side there. Draco had never experienced anything like it. He wasn’t desperate to come. Instead, the need and the pressure built up slowly, like some accumulation of lava underground, and then the pleasure came soaring along and took him by surprise.
Given that he did everything else so perfectly, Potter’s precise swallowing shouldn’t have taken him by surprise, but for some reason it did. Potter pulled back, did a cleaning charm, fastened Draco up again, and stood with a nod.
“I’m going to talk to Dyers,” he said.
And then he was gone, leaving Draco to stare after him in a mixture of confusion and wonder.
*
“I don’t see you making much progress.”
“Because judging from the outside gives you such an accurate picture, Granger.” Draco kept his back turned to the witch, arms folded, his gaze on the far side of the corridor. He was standing outside Minister Shacklebolt’s office, where Potter had been called for another of those “conversations” that Draco knew essentially amounted to the Minister asking Potter what the hell he thought he was doing. Draco had seen no reason not to come along on the journey, even if he wasn’t invited to the destination.
“You—you have to do better than this!” Granger said, and circled around Draco, so that he was forced to look into her ugly face. “Harry’s still acting abnormal. He won’t give me the time of day, unless I promise not to talk about his mad crashing around inside the Ministry. He spends most of his time with you, or alone, or talking to people whom I know he’s never been friendly with. He doesn’t date—“
He had better not, Draco thought. I don’t want to pick up any diseases.
“He doesn’t want to play Quidditch with Ron anymore, he almost never visits the Burrow unless it’s a special occasion! I want to know what the fuck you’re doing with him, and I want to know now.” Granger had her wand leveled at his face again.
Draco was, for a moment, tempted to tell her, just to watch the way her expression would change. But he had to sigh and shake his head. “These things take time, Granger. You might have noticed he has a dark scowl on his face most of the time now. I don’t relax him. I’m needling him in private, where other people won’t hear me and wonder why we remain partners when we irritate each other so much. As for the people he’s talking to…surely you didn’t think I could convince him to give up his quest for vengeance so quickly?” He was curious, though he hadn’t yet admitted that to Potter, what Granger and the Weasleys really thought of Harry’s werewolf conspiracy plot.
“It’s revenge,” Granger said. “Not justice. That’s the reason why it can’t be allowed to go on.”
Draco snorted. “Then you think the Ministry really is clean, Granger? When the Dark Lord’s followers were able to invade it so easily? When there was no large change in its composition when Minister Shacklebolt took office?”
“Even if it isn’t,” said Granger, and his eyes hardened, “it isn’t Harry’s place to go thrashing about like this. We all have to make compromises to work here. If we wanted to act like the idealistic children we were once, then we wouldn’t have chosen careers in the Ministry. I know that I want to make a difference for other people. I’m not as obsessed with the office politics that go on around me as Harry is.”
Draco peered at her. “Are you sure that Potter’s the one acting abnormally, and not you? At the very least, he’s acting more Gryffindor.”
Granger hissed under her breath. “Listen, Malfoy,” she said. “It’s true that Harry has caused a little less trouble since he’s been with you. Or maybe he just hasn’t been as obvious about it,” she added darkly. “But either way, it’s not like him to be this obsessed with just one thing. He should know that sometimes you just have to let things go, and wait for a better day.”
Draco rolled his eyes. “I seem to remember that Potter spent a good portion of sixth year following me around.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Granger exclaimed, as he’d known she would. “Besides, Malfoy, you were up to something.”
Draco controlled his response. Snapping would do him no good at all. “And has it occurred to you that, just maybe, the people Potter’s trying to trail are ‘up to something?’” he asked, mimicking her tone as accurately as possible. “Have you listened to his story?”
“I think—“ Granger shook her head. “Listen, Malfoy, there’s no evidence for any of it. Harry’s been under a lot of stress—stress that you’re adding to, by the way—and—“
“I think you’re adding more to it than he is, Hermione.”
Draco had seen the door of Shacklebolt’s office open from the corner of his eye, but Granger evidently hadn’t. She started immediately when Potter stepped up behind her and spoke into the corner of her ear. She whirled around with her wand out, in fact, leaving Draco to blink and wonder just what Potter’s friends were thinking of him.
“Harry,” Granger muttered, and swallowed thickly. Then she rallied. “That’s not funny, you know.”
“I didn’t do it for laughs.” And indeed, Potter’s face was as bereft of humor as Draco had ever seen it, close competition, at least, for the morning he had told Draco about the werewolf pack. He glanced at Draco. “I don’t think either of us thinks this is amusing, unless Draco has a perspective on this that he hasn’t told me about yet.”
Hiding his surprise to hear himself addressed by his first name, Draco simply shook his head.
“See? No one’s laughing. You don’t have to feel left out, Hermione.” Potter cocked his head. “Now, I know that you’re done interrogating my partner, because lately you can’t stand to be in the same corridor I am, so if you would kindly leave us alone? Draco and I have a great deal to do.” He turned and started striding away before Granger could react. Draco decided he might as well follow, though he lingered enough behind Potter’s steps to get a good look at what Granger might decide to do in the meantime.
Granger closed one hand hard about her wand. Draco shook his from his sleeve. But in the end, it seemed Granger couldn’t bring herself to shoot a hex at her former friend’s back, or that of his chosen partner, either.
She contented herself with a sulky call of, “You’ve changed, Harry.”
Potter turned back to face her. There was humor in his eyes now. Briefly, Draco felt sorry for Granger.
“You’ve missed the part where you convince me that’s a bad thing,” Potter said lightly, and then tilted his head at Draco. “Perhaps you’d care for a blowjob when we arrive back at the office?” he asked, in a slightly lowered voice.
Draco nodded at once. He couldn’t think of a mood where he wouldn’t care for a blowjob from Harry Potter.
Really, the man was a treasure. He was ready to pay fourfold for a few simple favors that Draco could easily do him. And he was no longer so arrogant as he’d been in school, which, Draco found, made him much better company.
Draco had always known the prices of most of the people around him. For the first time, he thought he might be learning to appreciate the value of something, too.
*
Draco dropped into a defensive crouch the moment he nudged the door to his office open. There was blood everywhere, sprawling in long, lazy streams along the floor and extending from Potter’s chair behind the desk. A moment later, a groan announced that the culprit was still inside the room. Draco narrowed his eyes and felt his hand twitch. A curse just this side of Dark settled on his tongue.
“It’s only me, Draco,” Potter’s hoarse voice said. Then he hauled himself upright and leaned on his desk, ostentatiously ignoring the bleeding wound on his right shoulder, which, Draco deduced, had been the source of most of the redness on the floor. “You’re jumpy,” he added, when he spotted the drawn wand. “I was only trying to find some towels that might stop this bleeding for a while until I can cast a healing spell, but I’ve been all over the damn room and can’t find any. I don’t suppose you know where one might be?”
Draco, never taking his eyes from Potter, Transfigured one of the pieces of parchment spread over his desk and held the resulting towel out. Potter looked only mildly embarrassed as he pressed it against his injury. He shrugged, then hissed under his breath and muttered, “I should remember not to do that.” He raised his voice. “Sorry. I’ll clean this mess up in just a moment.”
The door shut behind him with a satisfying bang as he passed inside the office. Draco was sure that no one would care and come to check. Half the Aurors had bets on when Potter and Malfoy would return to their disputes and break their partnership apart in noisy recrimination. They wouldn’t want to interrupt a fight that could be the decisive moment. Draco kept his voice as flat and precise as the wand movements he’d used to Transfigure the towel. “What happened to you?”
“I went to speak with Dyers this morning.” Potter sat down in his chair. Now that Draco had time to pay attention to something other than his own defensive instincts, he saw how pale the other man was, and that he favored his right leg, too, although no blood was seeping through his robes or trousers there.
“Let me guess.” Draco steepled his fingers in front of him to prevent himself from lashing out. He’d had no idea that Potter intended to act so soon. A few days of reconnaissance would have been Draco’s style, followed by at least a week more to learn Dyers’s routine. Instead, Potter had gone in only four days after Draco gave him the man’s name. “He wasn’t sympathetic.”
Potter laughed softly. “He was fine. But I was attacked on my way back to the Apparition point.” He pressed the towel more firmly against the wound, and shifted over to pick up his wand, which lay on the desk. “Don’t worry,” he added. “I already checked, and even though it was full moon last night, this isn’t a werewolf bite. They were using some kind of spell, I think. Hermione’s told me about a few that conjure a vicious dog for as long as you need it, then Vanish them again.”
Draco shook his head. “You’re an idiot,” he said at last, because those were the only words that would take care of what he was feeling adequately. “Why didn’t you contact me and ask me to go along?”
Potter raised his eyebrows, then waved his wand and murmured something. Draco tried to sway sideways from the yellow bolt of light that came towards him, but it struck him anyway and surrounded his face with a faint golden glow. He sat up straighter, glaring. He was tempted to hex Potter. Getting blood all over the office floor deserved at least that much.
“What did you do to me?” he demanded.
“Checked that you were the real Draco Malfoy.” Potter made a sharp gesture with his right hand, then winced and hissed as his wound reminded him it was there. “Why didn’t I contact you and ask you to go along? Draco. This has never been reciprocal, remember? Or, at least, not past the first exchange of favors. I give you blowjobs and money and help you advance in the Ministry. I’m not going to ask you to risk your hide in a fight not your own, any more than I would ask you to give me a blowjob in return.”
Draco opened his mouth, and then realized he didn’t have anything to say in response to that. After all, the nature of his bargain with Potter was indeed just that: they did things for each other, but not on a continuous basis. Even the trust they’d developed together in the field was only that natural for Auror partners who needed to watch each other’s back, and no more. Draco knew they would never have the friendship that partners often had, and which he knew Potter had had with Ideala Grand before she betrayed him.
He shut his mouth and glared. “If you die,” he said, “what happens to my chances for advancement in the Ministry?”
Potter smiled ruefully. “That’s true, Draco. I’ll think about it in a little more depth next time.” He brightened. Draco bit his lip, telling himself that he was not jealous of anyone else for putting that look on Potter’s face. It was a ridiculous thing to be jealous of. And how could he be jealous in any case, when he was a young man who would do brilliant things in another few years? “At the very least, Dyers gave me my next name. He knows a few people who would be willing to work with us, and pull down the people who engineered this disaster.”
“Who are they?” Draco asked, trying to pretend no more than casual interest.
Potter shook his head. “Sorry, Draco. Dyers made me swear an Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone else.”
Draco turned back to his paperwork. He had more of it now that Potter had become his partner, but he still cleared his desk with the same efficiency.
And why should he care what mad things Potter did in pursuit of his vengeance? He would probably manage to survive. He was Harry Potter, and that helped.
Draco should only want to be at the side of someone who had helped him for years, because that person’s value would outweigh the risk he was taking. And as interesting and worthwhile a companion as Potter had proven himself to be—as much of a shame as it would be to have that talented mouth slack forever—he hadn’t crossed that line yet.
Part 3.
“And you’re sure about this, Harry?” Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice all but begged Potter to say this was a joke.
“I trust Malfoy in a way that I don’t trust other people.” Potter’s arms were folded, but his face was blank with boredom and his voice was low and calm. Draco, who knew exactly what had caused that, wondered for a moment if this was why Potter’s friends had been desperate enough to approach him, because they had heard him talk like that. “I know that he isn’t going to betray me unless a better offer comes along, for example. And I’m fairly sure it won’t.”
The Minister sighed and pressed a hand against his brow, as if he had his own curse scar that ached there. Draco cocked his head to the side, interested to see if he did, but his hand fell away from the place, showing clear, unmarked dark skin.
“If you insist, Harry,” Shacklebolt said. “But you know there’s still no evidence that Ideala was a traitor.”
Potter merely smiled, the smile of someone who wasn’t interested in discussing the matter any longer. Draco had seen that expression enough from his father to know exactly what it meant.
“Very well,” said the Minister, and then signed the request form that Potter had brought to him, which made Draco’s transfer of status official. “But you have to know that many people in the Department will think badly of you for it. There are other Aurors, even trainees, who need the experience more.” He gave Draco a long stare. Draco, who had more practice now than he had ever wanted in being gazed at with disrespect instead of envy, returned it with equanimity.
“Yes, well, I don’t trust them,” said Potter, and snatched the request form, and turned away.
Draco made sure to walk along at his side, because that was what a good partner would do.
“Do you want to keep your office, or should we have you move into mine?” Potter asked when they were in the corridors and other people could hear. Draco saw more than one head turn, more than one jaw fall open.
Draco knew this was Potter’s way of letting others know that he and Draco shared more than just friendship, but he was surprised that Potter was offering him the choice. “You don’t care?” he asked.
Potter shrugged and shook his head.
Well, all right, then. Time to test how serious he is about this. “Move into mine,” Draco said. “It’s more comfortable, and I’m not moving everything I want to keep with me into your cramped little space if I don’t have to.”
Potter laughed, that deep and resonant laugh that Draco had heard the day before yesterday when he insulted him. That got even more stares. Draco raised his eyebrows slightly and paced along at Potter’s side like someone, he thought, walking beside a very expensive dog.
Everyone who might think his recent behavior makes the Boy Who Lived less of a status symbol is deluded.
*
“I don’t understand, Malfoy.”
Draco rolled his eyes and turned around. Trust Granger to catch him right in the middle of studying Potter’s Muggle chair and collection of photographs and maps and Orders of Merlin, trying to decide how they would all fit into his office. Potter was still in his own room, Summoning some of his possessions off the walls. “I’m getting close to him,” he said. “I thought that was what you wanted. If I can insinuate myself into his life, then I can bring him back to normal, yes?”
“You were supposed to insult him and bring him back to normal that way.” But Granger looked uneasy, as if she suspected there was a joke here she didn’t understand, and Draco reveled in it.
“Right now, he’s still too damaged,” Draco said. Yes, let’s call it that, since it’s the only way she’ll be able to make sense of matters. “He laughs at my insults. That’s not a normal reaction from Potter, in case you haven’t noticed. But at least I can make him react, which is more than you succeeded in doing, from what he tells me.” He had laughed himself sick this morning at Potter’s rendition of the way Weasley and Granger questioned him, “subtly” trying to find out what was “wrong” with him. “In time, I can work him back around to the way he used to be. He’s like an oyster. I’m like a grain of sand. By being constantly in his company, I’ll remind him of the much better and stronger friendships he used to have with you lot. I’ll irritate him so much in the end that he should come begging you to take him back.”
Granger looked unconvinced. She pulled out her wand and tapped it against her lips. Draco watched her warily. While she was a Mudblood, he had never denied her facility with a curse or a hex.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Oysters make pearls out of grains of sand, too.”
“Tell me,” Draco said, permitting a bit of humor to creep into his voice, “what exactly do you think the chances are of friendship happening between Potter and me? Let alone becoming a pearl.”
Granger smiled reluctantly. “All right,” she said. “But just don’t get too comfortable in your new position, Malfoy. You aren’t here to be his friend, remember?”
“I remember,” Draco said softly as he watched her depart. Potter came around the corner a moment later, his shrunken desk floating behind him. He tossed his head in the direction of the Mudblood and raised his eyebrows.
“What did she want?”
“Just to remind me that we aren’t friends,” Draco said, and then waved his wand and Vanished half the Orders of Merlin. Potter didn’t object. Considering that those were awards given him by the Ministry, Draco thought he knew why.
“Oh, well, as if she knows what friendship is these days,” Potter said, edging past Draco and then returning his desk slowly to normal size, continually estimating the distance between Draco’s desk and the walls with his eyes to see how big he should make it.
“You think we’re friends?” Draco asked, because that would be amusing.
Potter glanced at him with that diamond-edged smile he never gave anyone else. “Of course not, Malfoy. Just suggesting that she’s so determined to have me ‘back to normal’ that she never considered whether she’s acting like one.”
Draco nodded in contentment and Vanished another Order of Merlin. Then he tried with the photographs, but Potter noticed and gave him a glare. Draco waited a moment—he rather enjoyed the look of anger and the color it turned Potter’s eyes—but gave in and brought it back. As fun as petty amusement was, he stood to get something worth much more out of this arrangement.
*
“Right!”
Draco plunged right.
“Left!”
And then he turned left, pivoting neatly as the hex sped past his leg.
His heart pounded madly. Sweat pricked him under his arms and stood in the corners of his eyes. He was panting so hard that he knew their enemies could hear him, but then again, their enemies had been alerted already when Potter’s hex had battered the door down. And now they were spread around the edges of the central dining hall in the large, abandoned manor that seemed to be the natural choice of headquarters for those groups trying to become the next Death Eaters, wands in their hands.
That could have been dangerous, but their curses were, for the most part, pitiful against two trained Aurors.
Draco caught a deep breath and plunged to the floor, rolling past someone who tried to kick him in the ribs and someone else who tried to singe his hair with Incendio. He felt like laughing. This was the first time he had realized how true the words of his instructors in Auror training had been: that most adult wizards, despite a Hogwarts education, really could not manage many of the complicated spells Draco and other Ministry workers took for granted.
He Body-Bound a witch who seemed to be trying to take down the wards so she could Apparate, but then someone Petrified him. Draco screamed in his head as a wizard in a white cloak bent over him, breathing hard himself but all smiles at having stopped an Auror.
“Reducto!” someone yelled just above him, and the wizard in the white cloak went flying away. One moment Potter was kneeling next to Draco, ending the Petrifying hex and helping him back to his feet; the next moment he was charging towards the front of the hall, his wand spinning circles that sent out rays of yellow light, which chained most of the wizards who were still free.
Draco caught his breath with an effort, and then followed Potter, cleaning up the mess he’d left and taking wands from those enemies who still had them. Now and then his gaze went to his partner, who was dueling with the recovered white-cloaked wizard. Potter was dodging the curses with quick, neat expertise, and though his face was flushed, he showed no other sign of strain. Draco knew he would win easily.
He had never realized Potter could be so handsome.
Draco smiled a little. His first payment of Galleons from Potter had come through this morning, and his first day on the job as a field wizard was everything he had hoped it would be (save for his partner having to rescue him, perhaps). Potter had even shown him the spell that made one’s glasses stay firmly on one’s nose instead of flying away when one was wheeling through the midst of battle.
Given how Potter looked at this moment, another part of the promised payment would be no trouble at all.
*
“And you think that’s the place to start?” Potter’s eyes were intent as he rubbed the parchment with the name Draco had given him between thumb and forefinger. “With this Dyers?”
Draco nodded. “It took me a long time to coax my mother into revealing he was one of the people who accepted my father’s bribes; it was almost as though she thought I was too young to know.” He actually thought Narcissa had been as reluctant to give up the name as she was because she didn’t want to see Draco treading down his father’s path and repeating Lucius’s mistakes, but he wasn’t about to tell Potter that. “He’s still susceptible, by all accounts.”
Potter’s eyes darkened in that way they had. “Then my enemies might already have bribed him into accepting their load of bollocks.”
“Ah.” Draco smiled and leaned back in his chair. They were in their office, with the door heavily warded and the corridor outside covered with charms that were triggered to ring or sing out if specific people came by. “There’s one fact about Dyers that was never very relevant to my father, but probably is to your…enemies. Dyers hates werewolves. One killed his sister and infected his niece, and she committed suicide rather than live with it. He would be more likely to betray anyone who tried to enlist him in that plan you mentioned than go along with it, no matter how large the bribe they offered. And he’ll help you—not out of the goodness of his heart, but more willingly than he would have otherwise.”
Potter’s face shone. Draco couldn’t lie to himself; it was rather flattering to be the cause of a brightening like that, no matter why.
“You seem to believe me when I tell you there’s a conspiracy to use werewolves like that in the Ministry,” Potter murmured. His eyes grew darker again, but Draco didn’t think it was with anger this time—not the way he was rising to his feet, not with the look he was giving Draco. “Even Ron and Hermione didn’t. Why?”
Draco shrugged. “I’m less surprised by any corruption in the Ministry, Potter. My father helped cause a good part of it, after all.”
He wondered a moment later if he had opened himself up to a taunt about his past—he and Potter got around most of their potential arguments by simply not discussing that—but Potter didn’t respond in words. He took a few steps nearer, crossing most of the space left between their desks, and then sank to his knees. Draco felt his breath speed up, and he parted his legs without really meaning to do so.
“This is where the next payment comes in, I reckon?” He wished his voice wasn’t so breathless. On the other hand, Potter had never been the most observant of people.
“It is,” said Potter, and began to unbutton Draco’s robes.
By coincidence—or maybe he really was more observant than Draco wanted to give him credit for—Potter opened Draco’s robes and lowered his trousers and reached into his pants at just the right speed. He wasn’t hurrying, furtive, afraid he’d be caught. On the other hand, he wasn’t going slow and trying to act seductive, which didn’t really fit the mood between them. He simply took his time, as if this were normal in every way. Draco had no problem at all getting hard.
Potter smiled when he saw that, but the smile wasn’t mocking. He leaned down and slid his lips gently around the head, then moved his tongue in a zigzag pattern that Draco couldn’t remember feeling before. Or maybe no one else had ever done it so brilliantly, he thought, his brain dissolving in haze as his head sagged back against the chair.
Potter never let a tooth through. He sucked at the perfect pace, too, thoughtfully applying a bit of tongue there, turning his head so that he could suck from the side there. Draco had never experienced anything like it. He wasn’t desperate to come. Instead, the need and the pressure built up slowly, like some accumulation of lava underground, and then the pleasure came soaring along and took him by surprise.
Given that he did everything else so perfectly, Potter’s precise swallowing shouldn’t have taken him by surprise, but for some reason it did. Potter pulled back, did a cleaning charm, fastened Draco up again, and stood with a nod.
“I’m going to talk to Dyers,” he said.
And then he was gone, leaving Draco to stare after him in a mixture of confusion and wonder.
*
“I don’t see you making much progress.”
“Because judging from the outside gives you such an accurate picture, Granger.” Draco kept his back turned to the witch, arms folded, his gaze on the far side of the corridor. He was standing outside Minister Shacklebolt’s office, where Potter had been called for another of those “conversations” that Draco knew essentially amounted to the Minister asking Potter what the hell he thought he was doing. Draco had seen no reason not to come along on the journey, even if he wasn’t invited to the destination.
“You—you have to do better than this!” Granger said, and circled around Draco, so that he was forced to look into her ugly face. “Harry’s still acting abnormal. He won’t give me the time of day, unless I promise not to talk about his mad crashing around inside the Ministry. He spends most of his time with you, or alone, or talking to people whom I know he’s never been friendly with. He doesn’t date—“
He had better not, Draco thought. I don’t want to pick up any diseases.
“He doesn’t want to play Quidditch with Ron anymore, he almost never visits the Burrow unless it’s a special occasion! I want to know what the fuck you’re doing with him, and I want to know now.” Granger had her wand leveled at his face again.
Draco was, for a moment, tempted to tell her, just to watch the way her expression would change. But he had to sigh and shake his head. “These things take time, Granger. You might have noticed he has a dark scowl on his face most of the time now. I don’t relax him. I’m needling him in private, where other people won’t hear me and wonder why we remain partners when we irritate each other so much. As for the people he’s talking to…surely you didn’t think I could convince him to give up his quest for vengeance so quickly?” He was curious, though he hadn’t yet admitted that to Potter, what Granger and the Weasleys really thought of Harry’s werewolf conspiracy plot.
“It’s revenge,” Granger said. “Not justice. That’s the reason why it can’t be allowed to go on.”
Draco snorted. “Then you think the Ministry really is clean, Granger? When the Dark Lord’s followers were able to invade it so easily? When there was no large change in its composition when Minister Shacklebolt took office?”
“Even if it isn’t,” said Granger, and his eyes hardened, “it isn’t Harry’s place to go thrashing about like this. We all have to make compromises to work here. If we wanted to act like the idealistic children we were once, then we wouldn’t have chosen careers in the Ministry. I know that I want to make a difference for other people. I’m not as obsessed with the office politics that go on around me as Harry is.”
Draco peered at her. “Are you sure that Potter’s the one acting abnormally, and not you? At the very least, he’s acting more Gryffindor.”
Granger hissed under her breath. “Listen, Malfoy,” she said. “It’s true that Harry has caused a little less trouble since he’s been with you. Or maybe he just hasn’t been as obvious about it,” she added darkly. “But either way, it’s not like him to be this obsessed with just one thing. He should know that sometimes you just have to let things go, and wait for a better day.”
Draco rolled his eyes. “I seem to remember that Potter spent a good portion of sixth year following me around.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Granger exclaimed, as he’d known she would. “Besides, Malfoy, you were up to something.”
Draco controlled his response. Snapping would do him no good at all. “And has it occurred to you that, just maybe, the people Potter’s trying to trail are ‘up to something?’” he asked, mimicking her tone as accurately as possible. “Have you listened to his story?”
“I think—“ Granger shook her head. “Listen, Malfoy, there’s no evidence for any of it. Harry’s been under a lot of stress—stress that you’re adding to, by the way—and—“
“I think you’re adding more to it than he is, Hermione.”
Draco had seen the door of Shacklebolt’s office open from the corner of his eye, but Granger evidently hadn’t. She started immediately when Potter stepped up behind her and spoke into the corner of her ear. She whirled around with her wand out, in fact, leaving Draco to blink and wonder just what Potter’s friends were thinking of him.
“Harry,” Granger muttered, and swallowed thickly. Then she rallied. “That’s not funny, you know.”
“I didn’t do it for laughs.” And indeed, Potter’s face was as bereft of humor as Draco had ever seen it, close competition, at least, for the morning he had told Draco about the werewolf pack. He glanced at Draco. “I don’t think either of us thinks this is amusing, unless Draco has a perspective on this that he hasn’t told me about yet.”
Hiding his surprise to hear himself addressed by his first name, Draco simply shook his head.
“See? No one’s laughing. You don’t have to feel left out, Hermione.” Potter cocked his head. “Now, I know that you’re done interrogating my partner, because lately you can’t stand to be in the same corridor I am, so if you would kindly leave us alone? Draco and I have a great deal to do.” He turned and started striding away before Granger could react. Draco decided he might as well follow, though he lingered enough behind Potter’s steps to get a good look at what Granger might decide to do in the meantime.
Granger closed one hand hard about her wand. Draco shook his from his sleeve. But in the end, it seemed Granger couldn’t bring herself to shoot a hex at her former friend’s back, or that of his chosen partner, either.
She contented herself with a sulky call of, “You’ve changed, Harry.”
Potter turned back to face her. There was humor in his eyes now. Briefly, Draco felt sorry for Granger.
“You’ve missed the part where you convince me that’s a bad thing,” Potter said lightly, and then tilted his head at Draco. “Perhaps you’d care for a blowjob when we arrive back at the office?” he asked, in a slightly lowered voice.
Draco nodded at once. He couldn’t think of a mood where he wouldn’t care for a blowjob from Harry Potter.
Really, the man was a treasure. He was ready to pay fourfold for a few simple favors that Draco could easily do him. And he was no longer so arrogant as he’d been in school, which, Draco found, made him much better company.
Draco had always known the prices of most of the people around him. For the first time, he thought he might be learning to appreciate the value of something, too.
*
Draco dropped into a defensive crouch the moment he nudged the door to his office open. There was blood everywhere, sprawling in long, lazy streams along the floor and extending from Potter’s chair behind the desk. A moment later, a groan announced that the culprit was still inside the room. Draco narrowed his eyes and felt his hand twitch. A curse just this side of Dark settled on his tongue.
“It’s only me, Draco,” Potter’s hoarse voice said. Then he hauled himself upright and leaned on his desk, ostentatiously ignoring the bleeding wound on his right shoulder, which, Draco deduced, had been the source of most of the redness on the floor. “You’re jumpy,” he added, when he spotted the drawn wand. “I was only trying to find some towels that might stop this bleeding for a while until I can cast a healing spell, but I’ve been all over the damn room and can’t find any. I don’t suppose you know where one might be?”
Draco, never taking his eyes from Potter, Transfigured one of the pieces of parchment spread over his desk and held the resulting towel out. Potter looked only mildly embarrassed as he pressed it against his injury. He shrugged, then hissed under his breath and muttered, “I should remember not to do that.” He raised his voice. “Sorry. I’ll clean this mess up in just a moment.”
The door shut behind him with a satisfying bang as he passed inside the office. Draco was sure that no one would care and come to check. Half the Aurors had bets on when Potter and Malfoy would return to their disputes and break their partnership apart in noisy recrimination. They wouldn’t want to interrupt a fight that could be the decisive moment. Draco kept his voice as flat and precise as the wand movements he’d used to Transfigure the towel. “What happened to you?”
“I went to speak with Dyers this morning.” Potter sat down in his chair. Now that Draco had time to pay attention to something other than his own defensive instincts, he saw how pale the other man was, and that he favored his right leg, too, although no blood was seeping through his robes or trousers there.
“Let me guess.” Draco steepled his fingers in front of him to prevent himself from lashing out. He’d had no idea that Potter intended to act so soon. A few days of reconnaissance would have been Draco’s style, followed by at least a week more to learn Dyers’s routine. Instead, Potter had gone in only four days after Draco gave him the man’s name. “He wasn’t sympathetic.”
Potter laughed softly. “He was fine. But I was attacked on my way back to the Apparition point.” He pressed the towel more firmly against the wound, and shifted over to pick up his wand, which lay on the desk. “Don’t worry,” he added. “I already checked, and even though it was full moon last night, this isn’t a werewolf bite. They were using some kind of spell, I think. Hermione’s told me about a few that conjure a vicious dog for as long as you need it, then Vanish them again.”
Draco shook his head. “You’re an idiot,” he said at last, because those were the only words that would take care of what he was feeling adequately. “Why didn’t you contact me and ask me to go along?”
Potter raised his eyebrows, then waved his wand and murmured something. Draco tried to sway sideways from the yellow bolt of light that came towards him, but it struck him anyway and surrounded his face with a faint golden glow. He sat up straighter, glaring. He was tempted to hex Potter. Getting blood all over the office floor deserved at least that much.
“What did you do to me?” he demanded.
“Checked that you were the real Draco Malfoy.” Potter made a sharp gesture with his right hand, then winced and hissed as his wound reminded him it was there. “Why didn’t I contact you and ask you to go along? Draco. This has never been reciprocal, remember? Or, at least, not past the first exchange of favors. I give you blowjobs and money and help you advance in the Ministry. I’m not going to ask you to risk your hide in a fight not your own, any more than I would ask you to give me a blowjob in return.”
Draco opened his mouth, and then realized he didn’t have anything to say in response to that. After all, the nature of his bargain with Potter was indeed just that: they did things for each other, but not on a continuous basis. Even the trust they’d developed together in the field was only that natural for Auror partners who needed to watch each other’s back, and no more. Draco knew they would never have the friendship that partners often had, and which he knew Potter had had with Ideala Grand before she betrayed him.
He shut his mouth and glared. “If you die,” he said, “what happens to my chances for advancement in the Ministry?”
Potter smiled ruefully. “That’s true, Draco. I’ll think about it in a little more depth next time.” He brightened. Draco bit his lip, telling himself that he was not jealous of anyone else for putting that look on Potter’s face. It was a ridiculous thing to be jealous of. And how could he be jealous in any case, when he was a young man who would do brilliant things in another few years? “At the very least, Dyers gave me my next name. He knows a few people who would be willing to work with us, and pull down the people who engineered this disaster.”
“Who are they?” Draco asked, trying to pretend no more than casual interest.
Potter shook his head. “Sorry, Draco. Dyers made me swear an Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone else.”
Draco turned back to his paperwork. He had more of it now that Potter had become his partner, but he still cleared his desk with the same efficiency.
And why should he care what mad things Potter did in pursuit of his vengeance? He would probably manage to survive. He was Harry Potter, and that helped.
Draco should only want to be at the side of someone who had helped him for years, because that person’s value would outweigh the risk he was taking. And as interesting and worthwhile a companion as Potter had proven himself to be—as much of a shame as it would be to have that talented mouth slack forever—he hadn’t crossed that line yet.
Part 3.
