Chapter Four of 'How Noble In Reason'- Hermione Granger Is Expectedly Smart

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Three.

Title: How Noble In Reason (4/9)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, background Ron/Hermione
Warnings: Flangst, a bit of sex, profanity. Ignores the epilogue.
Rating: mild R
Summary: The Head Auror thinks that there’s Voldemort-like magic in the cellars of Malfoy Manor. Harry agrees to investigate. The Head Auror thinks Harry should formally Court Draco Malfoy to get close enough. Harry doesn’t agree with this, but he doesn’t have a lot of choice.
Author’s Notes: This will be a short story, eight or nine chapters. In some chapters the angst is stronger than others, but it’s a light story for the most part. The title is a line from Hamlet.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Four—Hermione Granger Is Expectedly Smart

“I don’t see why you don’t simply make up an excuse for him to take you into the Manor’s dungeons, or cellars, and then cast spells that would let you identify the location of that magic.” Hermione spoke as if the whole situation was simple and easily settled.

Harry glared at her, and then yawned. He hadn’t got much sleep last night. He had lain awake fighting battle after mental battle about whether it would be unforgivable if he stopped investigating Malfoy now, and to whom—Malfoy, or the people who would be hurt if Voldemort managed to return to life. “Because we’re meeting in public today, not in the Manor,” he said. Another yawn interrupted him as he spoke and made his words less impressive than he wanted them to be. It didn’t help to look at Hermione after that and see her smothering a smile. “Besides, what excuse could I give? ‘I’ve always been fascinated by dungeons, Malfoy, could you let me see yours?’”

Hermione laughed. “Do you know what gift you’re going to get him today?” she asked, instead of responding to his serious objection. Harry rolled his eyes.

“Of course,” he said dismissively. “The gifts are the easiest part of this. Now, do you have any actual advice for me?”

Hermione simply stared at him. Harry tolerated that for a few minutes, then leaned forwards and snapped his fingers in front of her eyes.

“Harry!” Hermione jerked her head back, making the chair she sat in rock. She seemed to prefer the chairs in his office, unlike Ron, who would perch on the corner of Harry’s desk no matter how ungraceful it made him look. “What was that for?”

“I’m here so that you can tell me what to do, rather than entertaining your fetish for staring off into space,” Harry snapped, and then got up and prowled back and forth behind his desk. There was a file open on it, waiting for him, but he knew he wouldn’t do a good job if he did try to settle down and read it. The Malfoy case was occupying his mind too much. “I have to break off the Courting soon if I’m not to hurt him, but that will hurt him, too, if in a minor way, I can’t do that by the rules, and it will deprive me of a chance to investigate. I have to continue investigating, but that means hurting him more in the future and potentially not being able to discover anything much by the rules of the Courtship. Tell me what I should do.”

“Why do you want my advice so badly?” Hermione still looked angry about the fingers-snapping thing.

“Because I’ve asked myself what I should do again and again,” Harry said frankly, “and there’s no way around it. Both sides are too strong. I hope that someone who stands outside the situation will be able to see something that I can’t, some option that I’ve overlooked.”

Hermione smoothed a hand down her robes, but she didn’t fool Harry. He could see the pleasure in her eyes. “I see,” she said. “Well, that’s very adult of you, Harry.”

Harry snorted, and waited. He had found lately that Hermione really did react better if she was flattered, but he didn’t want to overdo it in case she suspected. And ordinarily he wouldn’t have tried to manipulate his best friends at all, just asked for their help, but this case was making him snappish and tired, and he didn’t think he could take the lecture or the teasing that had been building up behind Hermione’s stare.

Hermione folded her hands in her lap and gave him a direct look. “I was just thinking that the gifts weren’t the easiest part of the Courting for Ron. He agonized over them. He sometimes delayed our meetings for days or weeks just so he could find the perfect one. And even then, there was a gift or two that didn’t go over well,” she added, with a reminiscent smile.

Harry envied that smile. He would like to be on the other side of this Courting, standing alone or by Malfoy’s side—

Right. That thought is impossible, and it’ll only make me sour if I entertain impossible dreams or fantasies. Harry shook his head and said, “That’s only because Ron and I are different people. I’m sure that he probably found spending time with you the easiest part, whereas it makes me feel like I’m walking on nails.”

“I only have a theory,” Hermione said. “If you can find him gifts that please him so easily, then perhaps you’re more in tune with his mind than you think. It shouldn’t be that hard to gain his confidence, and find an excuse to investigate the magic you can feel in the Manor, if you apply the same amount of thought to it that you do to the gifts. Think about it. What would he like? What would he believe?”

Harry stopped pacing. Then he said, “That’s very simple, Hermione, but very smart. I should have thought of that, but I’m not surprised that I didn’t.”

Hermione smiled at him and stood up to squeeze his arm. “Don’t spend your entire Saturday in the office, please? Come by and see us tonight. It’ll give you a break from worrying about Malfoy.”

Harry kissed her on the cheek and watched her leave, but his mind was already busy churning away at another problem.

He had avoided manipulating Malfoy as far as possible because he wasn’t good at lying. But perhaps he’d also avoided it because he knew he could be good at it, if he tried, and there were others ways to make Malfoy do what he wanted that didn’t involve lying.

It’s as if I think I’m not really hurting him as long as all we do is speak to each other and kiss and eat meals together, he thought, closing his eyes. And that’s false.

He had to go further, for the sake of all the people who would be hurt if Malfoy really was trying to raise Voldemort, even without knowing what he was doing.

He hated to go further because that empathy Hermione was talking about made him more reluctant to hurt Malfoy than he would be if he was stumbling around trying to find the right gifts and making a mess of the Courtship.

This is such an idiotic plan. I should never have agreed.

Harry spent a moment thinking about curses he could use on Binks that wouldn’t be noticed until a few years had passed, giving Harry the satisfaction of seeing them build and the satisfaction of not being caught. He would never do that, of course, but at least it gave him a different topic to spend his thoughts on.

*

“Ah, Potter. I was beginning to think that you wouldn’t show up.”

Harry grunted in response and didn’t meet Malfoy’s eyes as he held out the next gift, wrapped in a shimmering layer of silver paper. He was beginning his manipulation, and that was the best Hermione or Binks could ask of him, he thought. “I thought about not doing it,” he said. “Being in public isn’t really fun for me.”

Malfoy’s smile was sharp as he accepted the gift. “Do you think that everyone is delighted to see me, either, with my last name?” he asked. “I would trade my infamy for yours.”

Harry glanced at him. “I don’t see anyone casting you out of this particular celebration,” he said. They stood on the steps of the new library that was to be dedicated in Hogsmeade, the first British wizarding library to be established outside the control of some particular family or institution like Hogwarts or the Ministry. People milled everywhere and spoke to each other, or stood in place, posing stiffly for photographs, or smiled into space as though waiting for someone to come up and ask them what they were smiling at. It worked, too. “They all care more about their reputations than yours.”

Malfoy said nothing. Harry turned back to him and saw his eyes narrowed, his hands hovering over the gift as if suddenly afraid of what he might find inside the package.

Good. Harry was trying to act as if he were indifferent, or at least cooler, to Malfoy so that he would reveal more of himself. It hadn’t taken him long to come up with the plan once he really thought about it, like Hermione said. Malfoy had never been able to stand being ignored, especially not by Harry, and he rejoiced in the power to make Harry react in ways he hadn’t chosen, as he’d said two days ago. Apparent indifference would make him lunge past it and try to smash the walls so that he could make Harry react again.

It would work. It was the perfect plan.

It also made Harry feel like a tool, but he couldn’t have everything.

Malfoy seemed to pause for long moments as if he was considering speaking words that would end the Courtship. Harry held his breath. Let him. Please. It would be better for him in the long run. It would hurt him, but it would hurt him less.

As if he had heard the thought, Malfoy shook his head and opened the package.

He stared at it for some time, fingers cradling the frame, and then glanced up at Harry with another shake of his head. “Where did you find this?” he asked quietly. “Why did you choose to give it to me?”

Harry leaned over so that he could look at the photograph, doing his best to keep a calm expression on his face. He was going to stick to the plan if it killed him, and sometimes he thought it might, if only with anxiety.

The photograph showed Malfoy leaning against a wall near a window, staring at the window as if he were examining the shutters. The light in the room wasn’t bright, but enough to reveal a wistful expression around his lips, although he wasn’t smiling. The pictured Malfoy shivered and hugged himself tighter, and then bowed his head. Harry could see his lips moving as if he were reciting a prayer or a strengthening litany to himself.

“It’s a picture that was taken by a Daily Prophet photographer and given to the Auror Department because he thought you must be up to something,” Harry said, with a little shrug. “Planning an assault on Gringotts was his favorite theory, for some reason. I bought it from him to hush him up and then kept it for a few years. I found it and had it framed when you demanded a gift today.”

Malfoy stared at him. “That doesn’t answer the question about why you gave it to me.”

“Think of what the fourth gift is supposed to be,” Harry said, and he actually managed a drawl that would have stunned Ron, Hermione, and almost anyone else who knew him. “Something that matched my taste, my sense of what’s beautiful. Well?”

Malfoy passed his tongue across his lips once, hesitated, and then seemed to gather his courage and spring straight into what he wanted to say. “You chose this picture,” he said, and tapped his fingers against the frame again. Harry wondered if it had been the wrong frame to buy. It was a simple silver square, and he hadn’t thought the curlicue pattern along the top ostentatious. Malfoy would probably think it wasn’t ostentatious enough, if anything. “And yet, you came here today and acted as though I was dirt you would scrape off your boots without a second glance.”

Harry hesitated. He hadn’t counted on a direct confrontation about his attitude.

And he still couldn’t lie. But maybe he could discourage Malfoy by speaking the truth.

He shrugged. “I don’t think I want to be married to you,” he said. “I have to continue the Courtship as long as you say I do, but that gives you all the power and me none at all. I’m cursing because I put myself into this position.”

Malfoy reached out and laid a hand on his arm, tracing one finger down the edges of Harry’s muscles the same way Harry had traced the frame. Harry gritted his teeth and told himself not to react. It had to be as simple as showing up with a disdainful expression on his face in the first place, right? Even more simple, because the disdainful expression required some effort. This was not doing something.

“I wouldn’t continue this Courtship if I didn’t think we could be happy together.” Malfoy’s voice was quietly forceful. “I have no desire to be married to someone who hates me, either. Why would you think I did?”

Harry relaxed a bit. Malfoy’s voice had taken on a familiar petulant tone. God forbid that someone think less of him than he wanted them to think, even if that estimation was based solidly on his own behavior.

“You bragged about the power the Courtship gave you,” he retorted. “Excuse me for thinking you might want to go on exercising that power even if it would put you at a disadvantage. For you, the disadvantage might be small enough not to matter, but it’s the other way around for me.”

Malfoy was silent again. Harry waited for the expected reaction: a stiffening in his muscles, a stepping away, a cold expression on his face. Who would want to stay near someone who’d just made a bunch of impolite accusations about them? And wasn’t Malfoy supposed to be focusing more on the curious glances they were getting, from all the people who wondered why Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were together?

But nothing Malfoy did made any sense, as he proved by moving closer. “You chose this picture of me looking vulnerable as your most beautiful thing,” he murmured. “I could take that as you wanting to see me broken-down. I could fling the picture from me, pouting, and declare that I never wanted to see you again. The Courting matches strength to strength. Your preference for my weakness is a bad sign.”

Harry held his breath, and not just because Malfoy was leaning close. Yes. That’s it. Let him keep thinking in exactly that way, and I’ll be well out of this mess.

“But I can also take it a different way,” Malfoy said, and he had a sudden, brilliant smile that dominated his face like a comet the sky. “I can take it as you saying that you dislike my walls of dazzling, brittle strength. You see beneath them in a way that none of my ‘friends’ at my parties do, because you’re looking at what’s really there, not what will best accommodate you.” He leaned against Harry’s shoulder now and breathed gently into his ear, which made Harry fight hard not to shudder. “I told you the other day that I found someone attractive and honest the most powerful draw I could imagine. Add to that someone who doesn’t despise me for looking weak, someone who wants to see more of me as I am. Well. Can you imagine, Harry, what that particular combination does to me?”

It was all going wrong, because Malfoy and the universe were sheerly backwards from what they were supposed to be. Harry cleared his throat and made a desperate attempt to salvage the situation. “I—you know I find you attractive, Malfoy. You know that I’d like to know more about you.” That was all true, even if “wanting to know more about you” was mostly in the context of “wanting to know why the fuck my scar flares around you.”

Malfoy nodded, calmly, his eyes fastened on Harry’s face.

“I don’t find your declarations of loving power attractive,” Harry said bluntly. “I don’t like the notion that you’re the only one who can end the Courtship, and because of that, I’m doomed to follow along. If I decide that I don’t want to be married in the end, what do I do? There doesn’t seem to be a choice.”

“Oh, but there is,” Malfoy said. “Simply don’t bring me the next gift. Turn your back on me. That’s easy, isn’t it?”

Harry stared. “But there isn’t a provision in the Courtship for that,” he said at last. “I read the books that Ron used. I’d know.”

“It’s a provision outside the brackets of the Courtship,” Malfoy agreed in a strangely soft voice, lowering his eyes in what might be an attempt at being demure. “It means that you’ll have to be rude and ignore the rules. The books were written with the notion of people who want to follow the rules in mind.”

Harry stared at him some more. Malfoy had a faint, amused smile, and his eyes lingered on Harry, unmoving. Harry took a deep breath and tried again. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would you want me to Court you when I could break it off at any time?”

“For all the other reasons,” Malfoy said without hesitation. “Someone who likes me, who wants to know what I’m really like, outweighs the potential pain of someone who breaks the rules. I value the Courting tradition, yes, but it’s not the only part of me. I am more than what my parents raised me to be.” He paused and tilted his head. “Would you like to know what I am?”

Harry’s head nodded without consulting the rest of him.

“I’m someone who decided that the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff ideal of being in love might apply to me,” Malfoy said, his hand pressing more heavily on Harry’s arm. “I wanted that ideal to be true so strongly that I lay awake some nights staring at the ceiling and wondering what I would do if it wasn’t. I made up fantasies about the perfect romantic hero who would find me and guarantee me a good life of endless sex, spoiling and pampering, and reading my mind when it came to what I wanted and needed.”

Harry cleared his throat with an effort. “Not the perfect romantic heroine?”

Malfoy smiled again, and if it had a hint of the twist that Harry had seen in his other smiles, it was a charming one. “I may have set my sights on unattainable people in the past, but that aspect of what I wanted has never changed.”

Harry shifted his weight and tried not to show that even that intrigued him. He had assumed, without thinking about it, that Malfoy couldn’t seriously mean to finish the Courting because that would keep him from marrying a woman and having children. But if there was no chance of that… “Go on.”

“You’re a good listener,” Malfoy said, his voice no more than a whisper of breath. Harry shrugged self-consciously, but Malfoy either didn’t notice or ignored it. “Then I changed my mind. I realized that I would be bored if I conferred with someone whose only subject was me. I receive endless admiration and flattery from myself, and by that time, I was receiving it from people outside myself. There are other topics in life. Don’t worry,” he added, after a glance at Harry’s face. “I assure you that I still adore myself regularly at the altar of my mirror every morning.”

Harry laughed and then wished he hadn’t. Malfoy’s fingers tightened lightly, possessively, around his wrist.

“I wanted someone who would be like me, whose mind would follow mine in the paths of thought, who was good at potions and shared much the same background in Slytherin House.”

Harry tugged at his wrist. “You know that I can’t give you that,” he snapped.

“And then there are times that you aren’t such a good listener,” said Malfoy, with a shake of his head. “I told you that I did want that. Not that I want that now. I changed my mind again, because the only two people I could find who might have matched me were Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott, and attempts to date both of them were disasters. I started to think that a small amount of difference might be a good thing.

“The people I meet at my parties aren’t different from me in anything except preoccupations. All pure-bloods, all brought up in the same code of disdaining honesty and ethics because they might become weapons that are used against you, all interested mostly in the shallow concerns of pure-blood life: manners, scandals, clothing, children. And parties, of course. I want more than that. I haven’t ever had a sustained conversation about honesty or ethics with anyone,” Malfoy added, “but I can imagine that it would be interesting.

“Everywhere I turned, my fantasies crumbled, because I could find no exact replica of the person I sought in the world around me. I continued hosting the parties, and continue now, because I think I might still have a chance of meeting someone there who would suit me if I reduced my standards enough, and because it at least means that I go to bed with my mind full of noise and light and color.”

“You’re lonely,” Harry whispered. He would never have guessed it from the way Malfoy had received him that first night and moved among the crowds, but it seemed the only solution that made sense now. And it matched with the vaguer impressions he had received from Malfoy’s behavior earlier.

“Yes, of course I am,” Malfoy said, meeting his eyes. “Even after I lowered my standards to the few that actually mattered—honesty, attractiveness, the willingness to listen and to accept me as I am—I met no one like that. And then you came hunting. Someone who knows me, who accepts my vulnerability, who must be lonely himself because so few people would date him honestly.” He leaned in further, until Harry thought he was probably supporting more of Malfoy’s weight than Malfoy was doing himself. “My perfect partner.”

Harry wrapped his arms around Malfoy’s waist and shut his eyes. He had no idea what to say. He only knew that his job had become harder, because Malfoy had taken the chance to trust him and would be wounded far more deeply now if Harry tried to back away. He might not even care that the Courtship was a sham, next to the loss of Harry’s company and what it would mean to him.

I wish we could have met outside the form of this ritual and got to know each other in some other way. I do wish that.

But it probably never would have happened, since Harry had assumed Malfoy must be shallow because of his parties and Malfoy wouldn’t have shown this much of himself without some reassurance that Harry would respect him and care.

Harry sniffed Malfoy’s hair once, and kissed his cheek before he realized what he was doing. Malfoy lifted his head, eyes intense, and kissed him back, but on the lips.

For a single moment, Harry wondered what the crowd surrounding them would think, and dreaded the click of cameras. Then he realized that Malfoy must have thought more about that than he had, simply because he cared more about the publicity, and if he wanted to take the chance, how was Harry to refuse?

He once again allowed his instincts to lead the way, kissing Malfoy as if this was his free, unconstrained choice, pressing hard enough to make Malfoy sway on his feet, and trying not to feel the honey-like weakness that ran down his limbs. He didn’t know any other way to do this. And he vaguely thought that Malfoy deserved this much reward for what he had shared of himself, not because he had to, but because he wanted to.

It was only when the kiss ended and Harry’s mind was his own again that he started worrying. He had tricked Malfoy into showing so much because of his pretended indifference. It had been Hermione’s suggestion, sure, but he was the one who had put that plan into action, not her and not Binks.

It was going to be his fault if Malfoy ended up falling in love with him, or something even worse.

Malfoy took his arm. “Fuck the opening,” he said, loud enough that heads turned politely away promptly turned back. “I want to take you home.”

Harry licked lips that felt papery. “Don’t you—I mean, I thought there was supposed to be a properly set-up meeting and a fifth gift?”

“I haven’t played by the rules yet,” said Malfoy, twisting Harry’s collar in one hand. “And what I want most to do, I can’t in front of anyone. I’ve spent the past few years being an upstanding little pure-blood citizen, hiding my desires for the sake of making other people comfortable. Come with me.”

Harry took a deep breath, told himself that entering Malfoy Manor again might give him more of a chance to examine Voldemort’s magic, and nodded.

He just hoped that he could keep his head, excuses aside, when Malfoy smiled at him like that, shy and wild and glittering like a second sun released into the midst of the world.