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lomonaaeren) wrote2007-10-26 06:50 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2007-10-26 06:50 pm
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Knowing the Price and the Value, 1/3- for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
irrevokable
Title: Knowing the Price and the Value
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own the characters appearing in this fic. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco.
Rating: R/M.
Warnings: Follows the last chapter of Deathly Hallows, therefore SPOILERS, but disregards the epilogue. Language, sex, and some violence.
Summary: Draco knew Potter had changed, but never how much, until he was approached by Potter’s friends in a desperate attempt to get him back to normal.
Notes: Written forirrevokable’s one-shot request; both of them Aurors, Draco wearing glasses, Draco getting jealous and then getting mad about getting jealous, Harry doing something that completely threatens Draco's image of Harry (it can be anything from a small gesture to saving his life or something), them having sex in a place that isn't a couch, bed, or shower (sort of, anyway), aaand at least one brilliant and massive fight (involving magic (wandless is even better!) and overturned furniture -- you know, the works) between the two of them that turns into one of them being thrown against a wall and they proceed to snog the life out of each other.
The title is adapted from the Oscar Wilde quote: “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Knowing the Price and the Value
Draco waited until he knew Granger was on the verge of squirming—biting her lip, casting him vexed glances and in the next moment trying to make it seem as if she’d never looked at him—before he smiled slowly at her. Granger relaxed, but she really shouldn’t have.
“You’ll do it, then?” she asked, sitting up on the seat and smiling at him in return.
“We haven’t discussed price yet,” Draco murmured. “What do I get for, in your words, making Potter act more like himself again?”
Granger clenched her hands in front of her. “I’d think it would be self-preservation, too!” she exclaimed. “After all, do you like walking into a Ministry with loose magic afloat around everyone’s heads?”
Draco gave a shrug that he knew was small and graceful, because he’d worked hard to make it so. “It’s not my preferred environment,” he said. “But I can live with it. I would find it harder to associate with Potter for any length of time.”
“Then you won’t do it?” Granger looked near to spitting with frustration.
“I didn’t say that.” Draco cocked his head. “I just need you to make it worth my while, that’s all.”
Granger sighed. “I know that you still have enough Galleons of your own that any offer of money is useless. What do you want, exactly?”
She had yielded with less fight than Draco would have expected. So the Mudblood can learn a new trick. But Draco kept that insulting word behind his lips, because, in the new Ministry under Shacklebolt, Granger wasn’t the only one who would leap down his throat for using it.
Pure-bloods can learn new tricks too, of course.
“Your voice in the right ears,” he said. “I know that you have some untoward influence with Shacklebolt—“
“I’m a brilliant researcher,” Granger said, sitting upright and shooting him a deadly look. “And he acknowledges that. That’s all.”
Draco laughed openly. “I didn’t mean it in that way, Granger,” he said. “Just that you knew him during the war.” He waited for a moment, enjoying her embarrassed flush, then continued, “I know that you can talk to him about getting me transferred from the desk to field work more often.”
“Why do you want to be out in the field, Malfoy?” Granger squinted at him. “I thought that you preferred to keep your pasty white arse out of danger.”
Draco said nothing. He had had five years to improve upon and train his self-control. He no longer thought his comebacks were as witty as he had in school, but he had learned the value of silence. He just looked at her now until she remembered that she had asked him to do her a favor, and then shrugged and leaned back in his chair. It was comfortable, he had to admit that. But still, Aurors who sat at desks and shoved parchment around didn’t get promoted, though people like that were the Heads of other Departments. Minister Shacklebolt valued Aurors who risked their lives. To have more than just a comfortable office and a mentally slow “partner” who put in an appearance at that office every few weeks, Draco would have to go into danger. “That’s my price,” he said. “Accept it, or find someone else to coax your little strayed sheep back into the fold.”
Granger swore under her breath. Draco wondered idly if her husband had taught her those words, or Potter.
“All right,” she said finally. “But only because I’m at my wits’ end and I think you’re the only one he might respond to like a rational human being.”
Draco grinned. “Why, Granger, I’m touched.” He put a hand over his heart, and watched her fume some more, which was nearly as much fun as having her blessing to taunt Potter. “Go on, then,” he added. “Talk with Shacklebolt at your leisure. I’ll visit Potter this morning.” He turned back to his paperwork. As long as he was still here, he would show willing; he was determined never to fail at any task he accepted ever again.
Granger glared at his back for a while longer, but eventually went. Draco finished signing off on the report in front of him, which calculated the number of Auror trainees currently ready to become full-fledged Aurors—exciting stuff, that—and then stood and strode out of his office. He usually stretched his legs around eleven or so. No one would think it odd to see him meander down the corridors in the direction of Potter’s office. It wasn’t as though he had any more pressing business right now.
Besides, he could use the walk to remember what he knew of the case that had “dramatically changed” Potter, enough so that his friends were worried about him and his superiors were keeping a suspicious eye out.
*
Draco had been there, the morning that Harry Potter returned to the Ministry. He had dropped the cup of tea, made and enchanted to resist spillage by Malfoy house-elves, which he usually carried from the Manor to work each morning.
At that point, most of them had given up Potter for dead. He’d been sent towards a “rogue werewolf” who turned out to be a whole pack, after all, and one of the five Aurors who’d been sent with him had returned wounded and infected, babbling that he’d seen the rest of them pulled down. No one had seen any reason to doubt that testimony.
But there was Potter standing in the middle of the Auror section of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, alive and quite obviously angry. He glared at everyone in front of him indiscriminately. Draco had the odd experience of feeling those green eyes pass over him and not scorch him. He was beneath notice, part of the general scum of people that Harry Potter was enraged at.
He wasn’t sure that he liked the feeling. On the other hand, he had survived Voldemort as a houseguest. He was no longer stupid enough to open his mouth and let his thoughts tumble out through it without thinking first.
Potter had given his head a little impatient toss that was to become familiar in the next few months and stalked into the Head’s office. Draco busied himself with penning an owl to his mother so that she could send another house-elf with more tea, while at the same time trying to hear exactly what was going on behind a particular tightly-shut door.
He didn’t have to listen that hard, as it turned out.
“Fuck you!” Potter’s voice spat. “We were betrayed, and you knew there was a possibility of that with the inappropriate measures you’ve taken towards the werewolves, and yet you did nothing!”
He flung open the door and stalked out again. This time, he didn’t bother to glance around. His eyes were fixed ahead of him, and Draco had never seen such rage. It was dangerous, free-floating, without a target. He hadn’t bothered sending an owl after all, but had discreetly taken to his office and stayed there for the remainder of the morning. Since his partner, Horwich, hadn’t come in that day, as usual, there was no chance that someone would open the door and expose him to Potter’s wrath.
And since then—
Well, Granger was right about one thing, at least. Potter hadn’t acted like his normal self.
He spent most of his time in a bad mood, or at least a mood with a sarcastic curl to the left side of his mouth and a casual insult for anyone who even suggested that he might have exaggerated his claim of the Ministry betraying him. He did his casework well and efficiently, but he refused all the partners that were offered him. Office rumors, of course, said that it had been his partner who betrayed Potter, either by running away when the werewolves attacked or actually leading him into a trap.
And that partner, Ideala Grand, hadn’t come back alive from the journey, either.
Potter spent his free time digging through the Ministry, apparently intent on rooting out any and all people who had given up hope on the expedition and decided not to send any help. He had already effectively destroyed the careers of three of the suspects. One had been rather suddenly outed to the Daily Prophet, and thus most of the British wizarding world, as an abuser of Muggle children. The second, a pure-blood witch of the kind Narcissa might have picked for Draco to marry before he sat down and told her certain truths of the world, didn’t come in to work one day, and the next day sent her resignation. And the third tried to hex Potter in the back as he walked past, and spent the next seven weeks in St. Mungo’s from the spell that Potter cast in response.
It was no wonder his friends were worried. Draco was only surprised, now that he thought about it, that it had taken them so long to come to him.
After all, he had always been able to get a rise out of Potter when no one else could.
*
A good hunter always observed his prey. Draco did that by taking up a post just outside Potter’s office. There were wards swarming across the door, of course, but Draco had made a study of wards as part of his process of qualifying for Auror training, and picked up other certain, esoteric knowledge from books in Malfoy Manor. The Pigeon Pryer, a spell originally meant for plucking the eggs right from under sitting birds, worked, with a slight modification, to slide through those wards and give Draco a free observation point past them.
He supposed that he would look rather silly bent over and peering through the peephole to anyone who came down the corridor, but a simple Repelling Charm took care of that. Then he bent and looked. His glasses—which he had worn almost constantly since the war, due to the way the Fiendfyre in the Room of Hidden Things had irritated his eyes—teetered and threatened to slide down. Draco caught and held them in place.
Potter was reading a card of some sort. It was made of blue paper, Draco thought, and had a moving Quidditch game on the front. The team, of course, was clad in the Gryffindor colors of red and gold. Draco didn’t think such cards were usually sold in shops; ones that had the colors of various teams in the league were far more popular. Someone had probably spent time hand-making this card.
Potter just stared at it. Draco wondered idly if his experience with the werewolves had damaged his intellect, and he needed time to figure out what it was. Regardless, he would probably smile in a moment and set it on his desk, where it would have a place of honor—
Potter curled his lip, snorted, and ripped the card very deliberately down the middle. Then he ripped the halves into quarters, and the quarters into smaller pieces still, and cast them into the air. A flick of his wand lit them on fire, a quick-burning spell that Draco hadn’t seen before, and which reduced them to ash long before they fluttered down.
Draco felt a lurch in his belly. If was one of Potter’s little friends, it might have been sickness. Because he was himself, it was something more like wonder.
And then Potter faced his office door and said, “You might as well come in, Malfoy.”
Draco blinked once, but he had learned that one couldn’t hesitate in the Ministry if one wanted to take advantage of an opportunity. He withdrew the Pigeon Pryer, ended his Repelling Charm with a wave of his wand, and then looked at Potter’s door. The wards were withdrawn, as he had expected. Still, it was always best to make sure.
He had not expected—
Well, he had expected many things of Potter, but not that.
Draco couldn’t even say why the simple gesture, of Potter discarding a gift that one of his admirers or friends had created for him, hit him so hard. After all, a man might tear up a card in any one of many fits of fury or disgust. It didn’t have to say anything deep about Potter’s personality, especially since he might have torn up the card for Draco’s benefit, once he sensed him watching.
But sometimes the simplest gestures told the most about a person. Draco had learned that after watching the casual way that the Dark Lord commanded his snake to devour prisoners. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
He shut the door of Potter’s office behind him and gave a little nod. Potter stared back at him with devouring eyes that had gone the color of an undersea forest. Draco cocked his head and waited. Even though he had been the one caught spying, he saw no need to be the one to begin the conversation.
Potter could ask him the obvious question or not, as he pleased.
The other man sighed at last, and turned his chair more fully around from the desk. Draco preferred an ornate seat not much different from the ones in his bedroom at the Manor; they were most comfortable. Potter, it seemed, had had his fitted with a Muggle contraption that allowed it to swivel. His desk, Draco couldn’t help noticing, was completely free of paperwork, with several burn marks on it, and there was still a faint smell of smoke lingering in the air, more than could possibly have come from the relatively simple burning spell he’d cast on the card.
“When did you start wearing glasses, Malfoy?” Potter asked.
Draco blinked, and then lifted his finger to push the glasses away from the bridge of his nose. “You get caught in Fiendfyre,” he said shortly, “find out that you’re allergic to it, and then tell me that you won’t need glasses. Of course,” he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “as freakish as you are, I’m surprised it didn’t cure your eyesight.”
Then he wondered what he was doing. He never snapped like that at anyone anymore; he put up a cool wall of silence and watched them exhaust themselves snarling against it.
But, well, Granger had hired him to insult Potter and put a dent in his surly mood. This would do it as well as anything could.
Potter laughed.
Draco tried not to stare. Potter had cast his head back in absolute carefree abandon as he laughed, and the sound was dark, and resonant, and seemed to flow straight up his throat from his belly. It was a chuckle that Draco would have suspected could come from an acquaintance of his, but never someone so wholesome as Potter.
He was beginning to see why his friends were worried that Potter was acting a bit strange.
“Really,” Potter said, wiping at his cheeks as if to get rid of tears of mirth, “whatever Hermione’s paying you, it’s not enough.”
Draco was determined not to jump. He simply raised his eyebrows and said, “And what would I want with money from Granger’s vault?”
“Oh, well, I used the word pay loosely.” Potter shrugged and stood, bringing his face closer to Draco’s than Draco felt comfortable with. He stood still, of course, and Potter grinned and turned away after a moment to pick up his wand, which still lay on the chair. “Strange,” he continued in a light voice, facing away, “that you aren’t denying you’re in Hermione’s employ.”
“You seem to know everything already.” Draco shrugged. “What would be the point of denying it?”
“It wasn’t really hard, you know.” Potter turned to face him, spinning the wand meditatively between his fingers. “Ron and Hermione have been talking about trying to do something to get me back to ‘normal’ for weeks, and they’ve tried everything from making me visit with Ron’s brothers to locking me in a room with his sister.” He grimaced a little. “Ginny understood, oddly enough, which wasn’t what they wanted. I thought they would have to turn to you sooner or later.”
“Really, Potter,” Draco said, tapping his finger against his chin, “this is problematic. How am I supposed to keep my bargain with Granger if you know everything already? I don’t think you’d play along and pretend to be insulted so that she would still put a word in for me with the people who need to hear it. You don’t strike me as that kind of bloke.”
He felt so odd, he realized, as he waited for Potter to speak. He seemed to be taking deeper breaths, and pulling in more air each time, than he had since he’d become an Auror. Being in the same room with Potter didn’t relax him—he would have been mad to think it could—but it energized him and made him feel as if he were flying. That was worth something.
How much, he didn’t know yet.
“I might be willing to play along with you, at that,” said Potter, and his voice had descended a few notches.
Draco met his gaze, and smiled slightly. “What do you want, then?”
“Not here,” Potter said, and waved his wand in a complex pattern. Several motes of light appeared in the middle of the office, coalesced, and formed an image of him. The secondary Potter sank into the chair and picked up a piece of parchment that had whirled out of nothingness next to him. Then he picked up a gleaming quill and began to write on the parchment.
“I see,” Draco murmured. “So the reports of you being industrious in the office aren’t true after all.”
“It all depends on which version of me you think is here.” Potter held open the office door and gave him a smile with teeth. “I’ll show you the spell, so that you can convince whoever looks in on you that you’re still hard at work, too. Now, come on. There’s a pub a few streets away from here where people have learned not to be curious about me.”
“I hardly think—“
“You’re not the only one with Galleons, Malfoy.” Potter sauntered a few steps down the corridor and then put his head back around the edge of the door. “Coming?”
*
“You need—“ Draco shook his head. And to think I thought Granger’s request odd. “You need me to tell you how to find out information on your enemies, when you’ve already done such a good job of it so far?”
“That’s the problem.” Potter sat back and stared at the bottle of butterbeer he’d ordered and which sat on the table in front of him, untouched except for three sips. “I’ve gone as far as I can. I’ve discovered the most obvious people who were party to my betrayal. But the people who were protecting them are hiding behind layers of paperwork and favors. I need you to show me how to crack that layer, get beyond it and bring down enemies who are too hard for me to reach right now.”
Draco shot one more look around the pub. Incredible as it seemed, the people in it actually fit Potter’s description and studiously kept from looking towards him, though Draco could sense the curiosity crimping the edges of their faces. Of course, the dim lighting and the generally dingy atmosphere of the place probably helped.
“I might still have a few contacts that I could use,” he said. “But it’s dangerous, Potter. You ought to know that. Your fame might have protected you so far, but it won’t if they think that you’ll seriously challenge the structure of the Ministry, not just threaten a few disposable people. Why don’t you tell me exactly why you want to do this?”
He expected Potter to snap back and bluster his way out of the situation, but instead Potter gave him a single intense glare from under his fringe, and then nodded, once. “I suppose that I can’t blame you for wanting to know,” he murmured. “All right, Malfoy, this is what happened.”
But even though he had said he would start the story, still he hesitated, his fingers resting against and tapping on the cool glass of his drink, until Draco gave an impatient little cough. Then Potter began in such a low voice that Draco had to lean forwards to hear it, which put him uncomfortably into Potter’s space.
“They told us that there was a werewolf who had started attacking Muggles whenever he was transformed in Scotland.” Potter’s hands tightened on the bottle of butterbeer. “It was personal for Ideala, because she had known the werewolf before he was infected. Or, at least, that was what she told me.
“Just before we were due to go, we received word that the werewolf had managed to transform without the aid of the full moon. If that was true…” Potter gave a small shrug.
Draco shivered. The fear that werewolves might someday discover a way to do exactly that had been a prevalent one in the wizarding community for generations, even though his mother had assured him from the time he was five that it could never happen. It was only the involuntary nature of the transformation and the fact that it happened once a month which enabled wizards to confine werewolves at all.
“They sent us four other people.” Potter snarled under his breath, his gaze becoming distant. “We were told that they had expertise in hunting not only lycanthropes but criminals of all kinds.
“They didn’t.”
Draco frowned. “But why did they want to send them along?”
“Because,” said Potter, staring at Draco, “this particular pack was under Ministry protection. They were using them as threats against anyone they didn’t like, and collecting their saliva so that they could infect especially troublesome people later.”
Draco blinked in startlement. Again, it was something that had been hinted at as a threat in the past, but his parents had told him that it never actually happened.
“Come on, Potter.”
Potter pulled his lips back from his teeth, as though he were a werewolf himself. “After what I saw in those caves, Malfoy…call me many things, but never a liar. The pack was never meant to attract attention. When it did, though, the Ministry had to pretend to take the threat seriously, and send enough people along on the mission that the public wouldn’t clamor they should do more. They never intended, of course, that anyone who could cause trouble would come back from the mission alive.
“Ideala betrayed us almost as soon as we arrived. The werewolves took me and three of the others captive. The one who could be intimidated, the weakest of the other teams they’d sent along, was convinced to wait until after the full moon, then return to the Ministry claiming that he was infected and that he’d seen the rest of us die.”
“He wasn’t infected?”
Potter shook his head. “If Ideala had let the pack bite him, he wouldn’t really have any reason to cooperate. Instead, she made sure he was safe when the full moon came.” Potter’s gaze grew darker. “She let the werewolves tear the other three captives—besides me—apart. She wanted to keep me alive and infect me, so that I could continue to be ‘useful to the Ministry,’ her words. At that time, the pack had no Wolfsbane, and so she couldn’t be sure that they would only bite me and not kill me when they transformed. She hid me when the moon came rising, and left the others to be torn apart and appease the savagery of the animals. She was already planning to procure some Wolfsbane for the next full moon. She would have worked with the pack leader then to make me into one of them.”
“They didn’t succeed,” Draco said quietly, drawn into the story despite himself.
Potter shook his head again, eyes so dark now that Draco shivered when they brushed across his face. “No. I killed her a few nights later and escaped. But I had to listen to the sounds of my comrades dying before I could reach them. And, of course, with Ideala dead, there was no one I could force into corroborating the story when I returned to the Ministry.”
“The pack?”
“Already scattered when I next returned.” Potter stretched restlessly. “And the evidence of Ministry involvement had gone with them, of course.”
“What about the wizard who pretended to escape?”
“He’s gone, Malfoy, or haven’t you noticed?” Potter’s lip curled slightly when he smiled. “He vanished out of the country before I could reach him. And I haven’t yet reached the people who protected him, either.” He leaned forwards intently. “That’s where you come in. I want the people who tried to make me a werewolf, who corrupted my partner, and who betrayed Woodborn, Carlson, and Jones to their deaths. You’re the person who can give me entrance into that guarded world.”
Draco exhaled noisily. “I told you, Potter, not easily,” he said. “Besides, I want to advance in that world. It sounds like you want to smash it. Our goals are incompatible. What I would want from you—“
“I could give you several things,” Potter said instantly, “not just one.”
“This should be good,” said Draco, and folded his arms.
“First,” said Potter, “I can get you field work as an Auror for the time being, while I work on doing more.”
Draco blinked at him. “How?”
“I’m one of the most successful field Aurors, Malfoy.” Potter cocked his head slightly. “And you might have noticed that I’m minus a partner.”
Draco smiled in spite of himself. “Very well. What else can you give me?”
“When I do create holes in the old Ministry,” said Potter, finishing his butterbeer and tossing the glass bottle casually from one hand to the other, “I don’t plan to just leave it a power vacuum that will collapse in on itself. Someone needs to fill those holes. You could be one of those people.
“Third, I know that you didn’t come out of the war as well-off as everyone thinks you are. I can give you some money. We’ll negotiate for as much as we both think is fair.
“And fourth,” Potter said, leaning across the table and lowering his voice, “I have it on good authority that I give magnificent head.”
Draco caught his breath. “You’re gay?”
“Bisexual.” Potter flicked his fingers, his gaze never wavering from Draco’s face. “And as long as you aren’t going to say that bisexuality doesn’t exist, your opinion of my orientation doesn’t really matter to me.”
Draco nodded slowly. He knew it was a much better bargain than anyone else in the Ministry could offer him, and that alone ensured he would accept it. He did feel the need to say something else first, though.
“You certainly have changed, Potter,” he murmured.
Potter shrugged and snagged Draco’s own Firewhiskey to take a drink. “I don’t think I have,” he said. “Before, I acted exactly the same way when someone threatened me or my friends. I just didn’t acknowledge to myself what I was doing, and how many moral compromises I was willing to make.” He caught and held Draco’s eye. “Or maybe the change occurred during the war, when I found out that I am willing to use Unforgivables to make things happen.”
Draco took that as the warning it was meant for, and stretched his hand across the table. “I think we might conclude a profitable bargain, then, Potter.”
“I knew you’d think the price was worth what you’re getting,” Potter said, and clasped his wrist tightly, once.
Then he bowed his head and let his tongue run over Draco’s knuckles. Draco caught his breath and tried not to let his eyes cross with visions of where else he wanted that tongue, and as soon as possible.
*
Part 2.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own the characters appearing in this fic. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco.
Rating: R/M.
Warnings: Follows the last chapter of Deathly Hallows, therefore SPOILERS, but disregards the epilogue. Language, sex, and some violence.
Summary: Draco knew Potter had changed, but never how much, until he was approached by Potter’s friends in a desperate attempt to get him back to normal.
Notes: Written for
irrevokable’s one-shot request; both of them Aurors, Draco wearing glasses, Draco getting jealous and then getting mad about getting jealous, Harry doing something that completely threatens Draco's image of Harry (it can be anything from a small gesture to saving his life or something), them having sex in a place that isn't a couch, bed, or shower (sort of, anyway), aaand at least one brilliant and massive fight (involving magic (wandless is even better!) and overturned furniture -- you know, the works) between the two of them that turns into one of them being thrown against a wall and they proceed to snog the life out of each other. The title is adapted from the Oscar Wilde quote: “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Knowing the Price and the Value
Draco waited until he knew Granger was on the verge of squirming—biting her lip, casting him vexed glances and in the next moment trying to make it seem as if she’d never looked at him—before he smiled slowly at her. Granger relaxed, but she really shouldn’t have.
“You’ll do it, then?” she asked, sitting up on the seat and smiling at him in return.
“We haven’t discussed price yet,” Draco murmured. “What do I get for, in your words, making Potter act more like himself again?”
Granger clenched her hands in front of her. “I’d think it would be self-preservation, too!” she exclaimed. “After all, do you like walking into a Ministry with loose magic afloat around everyone’s heads?”
Draco gave a shrug that he knew was small and graceful, because he’d worked hard to make it so. “It’s not my preferred environment,” he said. “But I can live with it. I would find it harder to associate with Potter for any length of time.”
“Then you won’t do it?” Granger looked near to spitting with frustration.
“I didn’t say that.” Draco cocked his head. “I just need you to make it worth my while, that’s all.”
Granger sighed. “I know that you still have enough Galleons of your own that any offer of money is useless. What do you want, exactly?”
She had yielded with less fight than Draco would have expected. So the Mudblood can learn a new trick. But Draco kept that insulting word behind his lips, because, in the new Ministry under Shacklebolt, Granger wasn’t the only one who would leap down his throat for using it.
Pure-bloods can learn new tricks too, of course.
“Your voice in the right ears,” he said. “I know that you have some untoward influence with Shacklebolt—“
“I’m a brilliant researcher,” Granger said, sitting upright and shooting him a deadly look. “And he acknowledges that. That’s all.”
Draco laughed openly. “I didn’t mean it in that way, Granger,” he said. “Just that you knew him during the war.” He waited for a moment, enjoying her embarrassed flush, then continued, “I know that you can talk to him about getting me transferred from the desk to field work more often.”
“Why do you want to be out in the field, Malfoy?” Granger squinted at him. “I thought that you preferred to keep your pasty white arse out of danger.”
Draco said nothing. He had had five years to improve upon and train his self-control. He no longer thought his comebacks were as witty as he had in school, but he had learned the value of silence. He just looked at her now until she remembered that she had asked him to do her a favor, and then shrugged and leaned back in his chair. It was comfortable, he had to admit that. But still, Aurors who sat at desks and shoved parchment around didn’t get promoted, though people like that were the Heads of other Departments. Minister Shacklebolt valued Aurors who risked their lives. To have more than just a comfortable office and a mentally slow “partner” who put in an appearance at that office every few weeks, Draco would have to go into danger. “That’s my price,” he said. “Accept it, or find someone else to coax your little strayed sheep back into the fold.”
Granger swore under her breath. Draco wondered idly if her husband had taught her those words, or Potter.
“All right,” she said finally. “But only because I’m at my wits’ end and I think you’re the only one he might respond to like a rational human being.”
Draco grinned. “Why, Granger, I’m touched.” He put a hand over his heart, and watched her fume some more, which was nearly as much fun as having her blessing to taunt Potter. “Go on, then,” he added. “Talk with Shacklebolt at your leisure. I’ll visit Potter this morning.” He turned back to his paperwork. As long as he was still here, he would show willing; he was determined never to fail at any task he accepted ever again.
Granger glared at his back for a while longer, but eventually went. Draco finished signing off on the report in front of him, which calculated the number of Auror trainees currently ready to become full-fledged Aurors—exciting stuff, that—and then stood and strode out of his office. He usually stretched his legs around eleven or so. No one would think it odd to see him meander down the corridors in the direction of Potter’s office. It wasn’t as though he had any more pressing business right now.
Besides, he could use the walk to remember what he knew of the case that had “dramatically changed” Potter, enough so that his friends were worried about him and his superiors were keeping a suspicious eye out.
*
Draco had been there, the morning that Harry Potter returned to the Ministry. He had dropped the cup of tea, made and enchanted to resist spillage by Malfoy house-elves, which he usually carried from the Manor to work each morning.
At that point, most of them had given up Potter for dead. He’d been sent towards a “rogue werewolf” who turned out to be a whole pack, after all, and one of the five Aurors who’d been sent with him had returned wounded and infected, babbling that he’d seen the rest of them pulled down. No one had seen any reason to doubt that testimony.
But there was Potter standing in the middle of the Auror section of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, alive and quite obviously angry. He glared at everyone in front of him indiscriminately. Draco had the odd experience of feeling those green eyes pass over him and not scorch him. He was beneath notice, part of the general scum of people that Harry Potter was enraged at.
He wasn’t sure that he liked the feeling. On the other hand, he had survived Voldemort as a houseguest. He was no longer stupid enough to open his mouth and let his thoughts tumble out through it without thinking first.
Potter had given his head a little impatient toss that was to become familiar in the next few months and stalked into the Head’s office. Draco busied himself with penning an owl to his mother so that she could send another house-elf with more tea, while at the same time trying to hear exactly what was going on behind a particular tightly-shut door.
He didn’t have to listen that hard, as it turned out.
“Fuck you!” Potter’s voice spat. “We were betrayed, and you knew there was a possibility of that with the inappropriate measures you’ve taken towards the werewolves, and yet you did nothing!”
He flung open the door and stalked out again. This time, he didn’t bother to glance around. His eyes were fixed ahead of him, and Draco had never seen such rage. It was dangerous, free-floating, without a target. He hadn’t bothered sending an owl after all, but had discreetly taken to his office and stayed there for the remainder of the morning. Since his partner, Horwich, hadn’t come in that day, as usual, there was no chance that someone would open the door and expose him to Potter’s wrath.
And since then—
Well, Granger was right about one thing, at least. Potter hadn’t acted like his normal self.
He spent most of his time in a bad mood, or at least a mood with a sarcastic curl to the left side of his mouth and a casual insult for anyone who even suggested that he might have exaggerated his claim of the Ministry betraying him. He did his casework well and efficiently, but he refused all the partners that were offered him. Office rumors, of course, said that it had been his partner who betrayed Potter, either by running away when the werewolves attacked or actually leading him into a trap.
And that partner, Ideala Grand, hadn’t come back alive from the journey, either.
Potter spent his free time digging through the Ministry, apparently intent on rooting out any and all people who had given up hope on the expedition and decided not to send any help. He had already effectively destroyed the careers of three of the suspects. One had been rather suddenly outed to the Daily Prophet, and thus most of the British wizarding world, as an abuser of Muggle children. The second, a pure-blood witch of the kind Narcissa might have picked for Draco to marry before he sat down and told her certain truths of the world, didn’t come in to work one day, and the next day sent her resignation. And the third tried to hex Potter in the back as he walked past, and spent the next seven weeks in St. Mungo’s from the spell that Potter cast in response.
It was no wonder his friends were worried. Draco was only surprised, now that he thought about it, that it had taken them so long to come to him.
After all, he had always been able to get a rise out of Potter when no one else could.
*
A good hunter always observed his prey. Draco did that by taking up a post just outside Potter’s office. There were wards swarming across the door, of course, but Draco had made a study of wards as part of his process of qualifying for Auror training, and picked up other certain, esoteric knowledge from books in Malfoy Manor. The Pigeon Pryer, a spell originally meant for plucking the eggs right from under sitting birds, worked, with a slight modification, to slide through those wards and give Draco a free observation point past them.
He supposed that he would look rather silly bent over and peering through the peephole to anyone who came down the corridor, but a simple Repelling Charm took care of that. Then he bent and looked. His glasses—which he had worn almost constantly since the war, due to the way the Fiendfyre in the Room of Hidden Things had irritated his eyes—teetered and threatened to slide down. Draco caught and held them in place.
Potter was reading a card of some sort. It was made of blue paper, Draco thought, and had a moving Quidditch game on the front. The team, of course, was clad in the Gryffindor colors of red and gold. Draco didn’t think such cards were usually sold in shops; ones that had the colors of various teams in the league were far more popular. Someone had probably spent time hand-making this card.
Potter just stared at it. Draco wondered idly if his experience with the werewolves had damaged his intellect, and he needed time to figure out what it was. Regardless, he would probably smile in a moment and set it on his desk, where it would have a place of honor—
Potter curled his lip, snorted, and ripped the card very deliberately down the middle. Then he ripped the halves into quarters, and the quarters into smaller pieces still, and cast them into the air. A flick of his wand lit them on fire, a quick-burning spell that Draco hadn’t seen before, and which reduced them to ash long before they fluttered down.
Draco felt a lurch in his belly. If was one of Potter’s little friends, it might have been sickness. Because he was himself, it was something more like wonder.
And then Potter faced his office door and said, “You might as well come in, Malfoy.”
Draco blinked once, but he had learned that one couldn’t hesitate in the Ministry if one wanted to take advantage of an opportunity. He withdrew the Pigeon Pryer, ended his Repelling Charm with a wave of his wand, and then looked at Potter’s door. The wards were withdrawn, as he had expected. Still, it was always best to make sure.
He had not expected—
Well, he had expected many things of Potter, but not that.
Draco couldn’t even say why the simple gesture, of Potter discarding a gift that one of his admirers or friends had created for him, hit him so hard. After all, a man might tear up a card in any one of many fits of fury or disgust. It didn’t have to say anything deep about Potter’s personality, especially since he might have torn up the card for Draco’s benefit, once he sensed him watching.
But sometimes the simplest gestures told the most about a person. Draco had learned that after watching the casual way that the Dark Lord commanded his snake to devour prisoners. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
He shut the door of Potter’s office behind him and gave a little nod. Potter stared back at him with devouring eyes that had gone the color of an undersea forest. Draco cocked his head and waited. Even though he had been the one caught spying, he saw no need to be the one to begin the conversation.
Potter could ask him the obvious question or not, as he pleased.
The other man sighed at last, and turned his chair more fully around from the desk. Draco preferred an ornate seat not much different from the ones in his bedroom at the Manor; they were most comfortable. Potter, it seemed, had had his fitted with a Muggle contraption that allowed it to swivel. His desk, Draco couldn’t help noticing, was completely free of paperwork, with several burn marks on it, and there was still a faint smell of smoke lingering in the air, more than could possibly have come from the relatively simple burning spell he’d cast on the card.
“When did you start wearing glasses, Malfoy?” Potter asked.
Draco blinked, and then lifted his finger to push the glasses away from the bridge of his nose. “You get caught in Fiendfyre,” he said shortly, “find out that you’re allergic to it, and then tell me that you won’t need glasses. Of course,” he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “as freakish as you are, I’m surprised it didn’t cure your eyesight.”
Then he wondered what he was doing. He never snapped like that at anyone anymore; he put up a cool wall of silence and watched them exhaust themselves snarling against it.
But, well, Granger had hired him to insult Potter and put a dent in his surly mood. This would do it as well as anything could.
Potter laughed.
Draco tried not to stare. Potter had cast his head back in absolute carefree abandon as he laughed, and the sound was dark, and resonant, and seemed to flow straight up his throat from his belly. It was a chuckle that Draco would have suspected could come from an acquaintance of his, but never someone so wholesome as Potter.
He was beginning to see why his friends were worried that Potter was acting a bit strange.
“Really,” Potter said, wiping at his cheeks as if to get rid of tears of mirth, “whatever Hermione’s paying you, it’s not enough.”
Draco was determined not to jump. He simply raised his eyebrows and said, “And what would I want with money from Granger’s vault?”
“Oh, well, I used the word pay loosely.” Potter shrugged and stood, bringing his face closer to Draco’s than Draco felt comfortable with. He stood still, of course, and Potter grinned and turned away after a moment to pick up his wand, which still lay on the chair. “Strange,” he continued in a light voice, facing away, “that you aren’t denying you’re in Hermione’s employ.”
“You seem to know everything already.” Draco shrugged. “What would be the point of denying it?”
“It wasn’t really hard, you know.” Potter turned to face him, spinning the wand meditatively between his fingers. “Ron and Hermione have been talking about trying to do something to get me back to ‘normal’ for weeks, and they’ve tried everything from making me visit with Ron’s brothers to locking me in a room with his sister.” He grimaced a little. “Ginny understood, oddly enough, which wasn’t what they wanted. I thought they would have to turn to you sooner or later.”
“Really, Potter,” Draco said, tapping his finger against his chin, “this is problematic. How am I supposed to keep my bargain with Granger if you know everything already? I don’t think you’d play along and pretend to be insulted so that she would still put a word in for me with the people who need to hear it. You don’t strike me as that kind of bloke.”
He felt so odd, he realized, as he waited for Potter to speak. He seemed to be taking deeper breaths, and pulling in more air each time, than he had since he’d become an Auror. Being in the same room with Potter didn’t relax him—he would have been mad to think it could—but it energized him and made him feel as if he were flying. That was worth something.
How much, he didn’t know yet.
“I might be willing to play along with you, at that,” said Potter, and his voice had descended a few notches.
Draco met his gaze, and smiled slightly. “What do you want, then?”
“Not here,” Potter said, and waved his wand in a complex pattern. Several motes of light appeared in the middle of the office, coalesced, and formed an image of him. The secondary Potter sank into the chair and picked up a piece of parchment that had whirled out of nothingness next to him. Then he picked up a gleaming quill and began to write on the parchment.
“I see,” Draco murmured. “So the reports of you being industrious in the office aren’t true after all.”
“It all depends on which version of me you think is here.” Potter held open the office door and gave him a smile with teeth. “I’ll show you the spell, so that you can convince whoever looks in on you that you’re still hard at work, too. Now, come on. There’s a pub a few streets away from here where people have learned not to be curious about me.”
“I hardly think—“
“You’re not the only one with Galleons, Malfoy.” Potter sauntered a few steps down the corridor and then put his head back around the edge of the door. “Coming?”
*
“You need—“ Draco shook his head. And to think I thought Granger’s request odd. “You need me to tell you how to find out information on your enemies, when you’ve already done such a good job of it so far?”
“That’s the problem.” Potter sat back and stared at the bottle of butterbeer he’d ordered and which sat on the table in front of him, untouched except for three sips. “I’ve gone as far as I can. I’ve discovered the most obvious people who were party to my betrayal. But the people who were protecting them are hiding behind layers of paperwork and favors. I need you to show me how to crack that layer, get beyond it and bring down enemies who are too hard for me to reach right now.”
Draco shot one more look around the pub. Incredible as it seemed, the people in it actually fit Potter’s description and studiously kept from looking towards him, though Draco could sense the curiosity crimping the edges of their faces. Of course, the dim lighting and the generally dingy atmosphere of the place probably helped.
“I might still have a few contacts that I could use,” he said. “But it’s dangerous, Potter. You ought to know that. Your fame might have protected you so far, but it won’t if they think that you’ll seriously challenge the structure of the Ministry, not just threaten a few disposable people. Why don’t you tell me exactly why you want to do this?”
He expected Potter to snap back and bluster his way out of the situation, but instead Potter gave him a single intense glare from under his fringe, and then nodded, once. “I suppose that I can’t blame you for wanting to know,” he murmured. “All right, Malfoy, this is what happened.”
But even though he had said he would start the story, still he hesitated, his fingers resting against and tapping on the cool glass of his drink, until Draco gave an impatient little cough. Then Potter began in such a low voice that Draco had to lean forwards to hear it, which put him uncomfortably into Potter’s space.
“They told us that there was a werewolf who had started attacking Muggles whenever he was transformed in Scotland.” Potter’s hands tightened on the bottle of butterbeer. “It was personal for Ideala, because she had known the werewolf before he was infected. Or, at least, that was what she told me.
“Just before we were due to go, we received word that the werewolf had managed to transform without the aid of the full moon. If that was true…” Potter gave a small shrug.
Draco shivered. The fear that werewolves might someday discover a way to do exactly that had been a prevalent one in the wizarding community for generations, even though his mother had assured him from the time he was five that it could never happen. It was only the involuntary nature of the transformation and the fact that it happened once a month which enabled wizards to confine werewolves at all.
“They sent us four other people.” Potter snarled under his breath, his gaze becoming distant. “We were told that they had expertise in hunting not only lycanthropes but criminals of all kinds.
“They didn’t.”
Draco frowned. “But why did they want to send them along?”
“Because,” said Potter, staring at Draco, “this particular pack was under Ministry protection. They were using them as threats against anyone they didn’t like, and collecting their saliva so that they could infect especially troublesome people later.”
Draco blinked in startlement. Again, it was something that had been hinted at as a threat in the past, but his parents had told him that it never actually happened.
“Come on, Potter.”
Potter pulled his lips back from his teeth, as though he were a werewolf himself. “After what I saw in those caves, Malfoy…call me many things, but never a liar. The pack was never meant to attract attention. When it did, though, the Ministry had to pretend to take the threat seriously, and send enough people along on the mission that the public wouldn’t clamor they should do more. They never intended, of course, that anyone who could cause trouble would come back from the mission alive.
“Ideala betrayed us almost as soon as we arrived. The werewolves took me and three of the others captive. The one who could be intimidated, the weakest of the other teams they’d sent along, was convinced to wait until after the full moon, then return to the Ministry claiming that he was infected and that he’d seen the rest of us die.”
“He wasn’t infected?”
Potter shook his head. “If Ideala had let the pack bite him, he wouldn’t really have any reason to cooperate. Instead, she made sure he was safe when the full moon came.” Potter’s gaze grew darker. “She let the werewolves tear the other three captives—besides me—apart. She wanted to keep me alive and infect me, so that I could continue to be ‘useful to the Ministry,’ her words. At that time, the pack had no Wolfsbane, and so she couldn’t be sure that they would only bite me and not kill me when they transformed. She hid me when the moon came rising, and left the others to be torn apart and appease the savagery of the animals. She was already planning to procure some Wolfsbane for the next full moon. She would have worked with the pack leader then to make me into one of them.”
“They didn’t succeed,” Draco said quietly, drawn into the story despite himself.
Potter shook his head again, eyes so dark now that Draco shivered when they brushed across his face. “No. I killed her a few nights later and escaped. But I had to listen to the sounds of my comrades dying before I could reach them. And, of course, with Ideala dead, there was no one I could force into corroborating the story when I returned to the Ministry.”
“The pack?”
“Already scattered when I next returned.” Potter stretched restlessly. “And the evidence of Ministry involvement had gone with them, of course.”
“What about the wizard who pretended to escape?”
“He’s gone, Malfoy, or haven’t you noticed?” Potter’s lip curled slightly when he smiled. “He vanished out of the country before I could reach him. And I haven’t yet reached the people who protected him, either.” He leaned forwards intently. “That’s where you come in. I want the people who tried to make me a werewolf, who corrupted my partner, and who betrayed Woodborn, Carlson, and Jones to their deaths. You’re the person who can give me entrance into that guarded world.”
Draco exhaled noisily. “I told you, Potter, not easily,” he said. “Besides, I want to advance in that world. It sounds like you want to smash it. Our goals are incompatible. What I would want from you—“
“I could give you several things,” Potter said instantly, “not just one.”
“This should be good,” said Draco, and folded his arms.
“First,” said Potter, “I can get you field work as an Auror for the time being, while I work on doing more.”
Draco blinked at him. “How?”
“I’m one of the most successful field Aurors, Malfoy.” Potter cocked his head slightly. “And you might have noticed that I’m minus a partner.”
Draco smiled in spite of himself. “Very well. What else can you give me?”
“When I do create holes in the old Ministry,” said Potter, finishing his butterbeer and tossing the glass bottle casually from one hand to the other, “I don’t plan to just leave it a power vacuum that will collapse in on itself. Someone needs to fill those holes. You could be one of those people.
“Third, I know that you didn’t come out of the war as well-off as everyone thinks you are. I can give you some money. We’ll negotiate for as much as we both think is fair.
“And fourth,” Potter said, leaning across the table and lowering his voice, “I have it on good authority that I give magnificent head.”
Draco caught his breath. “You’re gay?”
“Bisexual.” Potter flicked his fingers, his gaze never wavering from Draco’s face. “And as long as you aren’t going to say that bisexuality doesn’t exist, your opinion of my orientation doesn’t really matter to me.”
Draco nodded slowly. He knew it was a much better bargain than anyone else in the Ministry could offer him, and that alone ensured he would accept it. He did feel the need to say something else first, though.
“You certainly have changed, Potter,” he murmured.
Potter shrugged and snagged Draco’s own Firewhiskey to take a drink. “I don’t think I have,” he said. “Before, I acted exactly the same way when someone threatened me or my friends. I just didn’t acknowledge to myself what I was doing, and how many moral compromises I was willing to make.” He caught and held Draco’s eye. “Or maybe the change occurred during the war, when I found out that I am willing to use Unforgivables to make things happen.”
Draco took that as the warning it was meant for, and stretched his hand across the table. “I think we might conclude a profitable bargain, then, Potter.”
“I knew you’d think the price was worth what you’re getting,” Potter said, and clasped his wrist tightly, once.
Then he bowed his head and let his tongue run over Draco’s knuckles. Draco caught his breath and tried not to let his eyes cross with visions of where else he wanted that tongue, and as soon as possible.
*
Part 2.
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*flees to next part*
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Just finished reading the entire thing...
I liked how Draco and Harry have both changed, and I think it is quite possible for Harry to turn into someone like that given his earlier fate and experiences, and how the world around him must have attended to that.
I kind of wonder, though, why Ron isn’t with Hermione when she’s bothering Draco. And I agree with everyone, she has been quite unreasonably annoying.
Any how, it was a nice read. :D
Re: Just finished reading the entire thing...
I envision the problem with the werewolves as the final straw for Harry. There are still corrupt elements in the Ministry, and he finally understood he wasn't going to make any headway against them acting like "normal." And this time it was personal, with the betrayal of his partner, plus the fact that he had to listen to three helpless people die screaming.
Ron was left out of the story because I think I have less of a handle on how to write him than I do on how to write Hermione.
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If was one of Potter’s little friends, it might have been sickness. Because he was himself, it was something more like wonder.
A missing 'he'?
I'm rushing off to read the other parts!