lomonaaeren | Chapter Four of 'Keep It Simple, Stupid'- Prince's Mighty Attempt

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Chapter Four—Prince’s Mighty Attempt

“So Jugson and Avery were arrested?” Rodolphus gave a pathetic little gulp immediately afterwards, and then flinched, as if he thought Aurors would break down the door any moment and drag his arse away to Azkaban.

“Yes,” Draco confirmed, and shifted in annoyance. Today had been oddly hot, and there was sweat rolling down behind his mask and collecting in the corners of his dark robe. He wished, not for the first time, that the Death Eaters hadn’t kept up the costume choices the Dark Lord introduced. They all knew each other’s names and faces anyway, so why should it matter what they wore? “I was there. I saw it.”

“Why were you there, when our Lord told you to keep away?” Dolohov leaned triumphantly forwards, fingers twitching over his wand as if he were having a stroke, his voice eager as a hound’s.

Draco rolled his eyes, not caring if that was visible or not. “Because Potter pressured me into going along,” he snapped. “I thought that I might be able to aid Jugson and Avery if I were there. Stupid me. I had forgotten how well Potter fought.”

Yes, even drunk, said a small and suspicious voice in the back of his head, which Draco had been listening to more and more often since he watched Potter carried triumphantly into the Ministry on the shoulders of his drinking buddies. He had tried to insist that Draco should be honored, too, but Draco had been content to trail behind and observe. Potter certainly flushed and burbled as if he was drunk, but his words didn’t slur, and his actions in the pub, everything from the kiss to sending the chain into Avery’s chest, seemed too precise.

On the other hand, Draco had not the slightest idea what he would gain from the pretense. It was not as though so many enemies were lurking to attack Potter that he would regularly pretend to be inebriated, just to fool them.

“I believe Mr. Malfoy’s story.”

Draco turned with a start, for a moment thinking that Prince must be Scrimgeour, so similar was the way he said Draco’s name to the way the Minister did. But Prince walked to the front of the room with an air of calm command Draco had never seen in the Minister, and folded his hands, staring down his nose at the Death Eaters, who scrambled into place.

“Two of our number are gone,” Prince said. “They sacrificed themselves bravely for the duty of taking down a man all of us have reason to hate. I have another plan, one that will result in fewer sacrifices.”

“Really,” Draco muttered, not thinking anyone could hear him. Prince cast him a swift glance, but didn’t draw attention to Draco’s slip, if he had ever intended to. He just shrugged and turned to face Rodolphus and Dolohov.

“This plan calls for some more initiative and strength,” he said. “Malfoy will remain in place as our spy at the Ministry, and pass along information on the next time that Potter can be found alone. When that time comes, no matter where you are or what you’re doing at the time, I want you to Apparate to him and kill him.”

“But how will we do that?” Rodolphus asked. He could be cautious, even cunning, where his own skin was concerned. “What if he’s in a location protected by anti-Apparition wards or surrounded by his bodyguards? My lord,” he added hastily, when Prince gave him a remote, cool gaze through the eyeholes in his mask.

“I have the solution to that,” said Prince, and pulled something out of his robe pocket. Draco squinted, but he could see only brilliant, sparkling chips, painful to look at, like glass windows flashing on a sunny day. “Do you actually think that I would send you into battle unprepared?”

Yes, Draco thought, and then hoped again the bastard wasn’t a Legilimens. He watched carefully as Prince held out the objects to Rodolphus and Dolohov. Potter’s life would probably depend on what Draco learned now, since he didn’t have the sense to protect himself, and his enormous tribe of bodyguards didn’t go into his bedroom with him or on missions where he and Draco partnered.

“These are rings enchanted to focus on Potter’s body heat,” Prince explained. “Each is twined with a single strand of his hair—“

“How did you get these, my lord?” Draco interrupted. It would probably sound petulant, and it was reckless in that Prince could punish him for speaking out of turn, but he had to know. Prince had some contact close to Potter, that was obvious, to know his plans for going to the pub and now getting this.

Prince snorted at him. “Not all his bodyguards are incorruptible, Mr. Malfoy. One of them is infatuated with me and provided me access to Potter’s home and hairbrush.”

“Then why not kill him right then?” Draco demanded. “Sir, we have the opportunity to rid ourselves of Potter, finally. Why are we playing games?”

“Because it must be a public death!”

Draco flinched back from Prince’s shout, realizing that he had not known how much the man hated Potter before now. Prince was gripping the sides of the table, the outline of the ring under one glove standing out visibly, his breath gusting hot and slightly sour across Draco’s face as he ranted.

“He engineered my public downfall and humiliation! He laughed at me when I came to him for help, saying that I should have thought of the consequences of my actions before I performed them! He deserves nothing more than to suffer the same himself, and dying in his bed privately is not enough! I want the whole wizarding world to see the fear and the humiliation on his face before we destroy him!”

Draco winced. There were trickles of spittle on his face to join with the sweat now, and he wasn’t sure which was more disgusting.

“You should understand, Draco,” Bellatrix joined in, her croaking voice a surprise. “After all, you have almost as much reason to hate Potter as our lord does. He was your enemy throughout your schooling, and you admitted that he’s been embarrassing you more and more often at work.”

Draco glared at her. She was giving him a lopsided smile, not seeing to realize what she had just done: given Prince something to be suspicious about.

“Yes,” said Prince, his voice slow and thoughtful. “Why are you arguing and whinging about destroying Potter, Mr. Malfoy? I thought you would rejoice at anything that would kill him without requiring you to get in the way and risk your own hide.”

Draco had to act very fast, now. He allowed his eyes to fall, and studied the pattern of carvings and glamours on the tabletop until Prince shifted impatiently and took a deep breath. Then he began to speak, rendering his voice so small that all the others had to lean in and listen hard if they wanted to hear it.

“I—I reckon that—that I never realized how much of my life revolves around him,” he whispered. “He’s always been there. He was always taunting me, always defeating me in Quidditch, always showing that he was better than me. He even made an attempt to rescue me when I didn’t need rescuing.” Draco didn’t need to feign the venom in his voice this time. Potter had rescued him during the war with the same careless ease that he had done everything. Draco’s half-nurtured daydreams that this would become something more had faded when he realized he was nothing more or less than another charity case for Potter, certainly not someone who stood out in his mind. “When I went into the Ministry, there he was. I had expected him, even though I didn’t know for certain he would become an Auror. It just—won’t be the same without him, I reckon. And I want to be there when he dies.” So I can save his life, the ungrateful prat. “So that I can reconcile myself to knowing he’s really gone.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence when that was done. Draco scowled at his hands like the child he had just portrayed and didn’t dare lift his eyes to Prince’s face yet. He had to make his act seem real.

And never betray how much of it was real, of course. Never show how much the yearning ran through him like blood when Potter glanced in his direction. Never show how disappointing it was that Potter had turned out the way he had, the idiot hero reveling in his heroism instead of the man that Draco would have been proud to call friend.

And lover, even.

Draco shoved at the thought, but it was big and solid and didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so, reluctantly, he let it stay. Potter was attractive, there was no denying that. And Draco had felt the almost magnetic pull behind the kiss the other night. It was almost a pity that Potter’s personality was too obnoxious to ever let it happen.

“Well,” said Prince at last, his voice so soft and thoughtful that Draco glanced up at him warily from beneath his fringe. But the man was staring at the two rings in his hand, not at Draco. He gave a slight nod, as though listening to someone else’s voice, and then took out his wand and waved it over the rings. Draco squinted, but the room was too dim—damn Jugson and his torches, anyway—to make out what kind of wood the wand was made of. He could only see that it was dark.

“I’ve altered the rings,” Prince said, and then handed one to Dolohov and one to Rodolphus with a solemn expression. “They’ll bring you to Potter’s side when he’s alone or when only Mr. Malfoy is with him.” He gave Draco a little nod. “Hearing that speech, almost as strong as my own, has convinced me that we should let Mr. Malfoy be present to watch Potter die, and realize that he doesn’t control his life. He can never control anyone’s life, unless the fool is stupid enough to believe him a ‘good’ person, as so many of those he saved in the war do.”

Draco bowed his head. It was the most he could get, he knew.

And, in the meantime, he might have a little extra time to search through records at the Ministry and discover strong enemies Potter had overthrown but who currently weren’t in Azkaban. There had to be a clue to Prince’s identity somewhere.

*

“Draco!”

Potter burst into his office so suddenly that Draco started and dropped the inkwell he was holding on the floor. He cursed as it broke and black liquid leaked everywhere. Someone else would probably follow Potter into the office in a moment and comment snidely, later, on how Malfoy couldn’t even keep his own space clean.

“What do you want, Potter?” he asked, striving for a tone of bored disdain as he Vanished the ink and repaired the bottle. Then he glanced back at his list of possible names for Prince, and shook his head a little. From the grip Potter had taken on his arm, he wasn’t going to get back to it any time soon.

“There’s been Death Eater activity noted in Wiltshire, and—“

Potter stopped speaking. Draco glanced at him, curious, and not because he wanted to look at those green eyes and that messy dark hair. Of course not. Potter was likely to ruin the portrait that he made by being obnoxious in a moment, anyway.

“You’re looking up the bastards I pulled down after the war?” Potter asked, his voice softer than Draco had ever heard it. “Why?”

Draco felt a sudden surge of hope. Potter had recognized the names, and just from one quick glimpse. Maybe he was smarter than he acted, or just in a serious mood right now. Maybe Draco could tell him about Prince, and he would listen, and then give Draco a clue that would enable him to track down and stop Prince in time.

“You’re studying them,” said Potter, before Draco could get a word in edgewise. “You’re studying me.”

And he turned around with a growing smile and smoldering eyes, and lifted a hand to cup Draco’s cheek. “If you ever want to hear about those battles,” he purred, “you can hear them in all the detail you’d like. But none of them was ever half so grand as the battle to win your heart, you know.” He leaned nearer, his stubble and his breath combining to make Draco shut his eyes for a moment before he remembered where they were.

He shoved Potter away from him. “This is serious, you prat!” he snapped. “The new leader of the Death Eaters—“

“Yes, there was Death Eater activity in Wiltshire,” Potter said, as if Draco was answering a question. “And we must away, my gallant and faithful companion.” He seized Draco’s arm and dragged him effortlessly out of the office. “Or, at least, indescribably gallant. I don’t know about faithful. Have you been whoring yourself out to office sluts, Draco?”

“Potter, I swear to God—“ Draco yanked hard, but his arm remained imprisoned in Potter’s grasp. “Let me go!”

“No need to be so dramatic, Draco, honestly,” Potter said. “It was just a question about how clean you were. I like to know how many protective charms I’m going to have to cast before I have sex with someone, that’s all.” He paused thoughtfully, at least in words; he hadn’t ceased to haul Draco along. “But on the other hand, you’re so cold to me that I’m certain you can’t have slept with many people.”

Draco decided he didn’t care that they were in the Ministry, or how many people were watching. He was going to hex Potter. As soon as he could get his right hand out of his grasp and on his wand, at least.

He cursed himself a moment later, because he hadn’t paid attention to their progress, and now Potter stuffed him head-first into a Floo connection. Draco struggled, shouting, thinking that he might at least manage to get back to the Ministry if he called out the right destination, but Potter stepped in beside him and wrapped his arms around his waist, and they were whirled away.

*

Draco came out of the fireplace as angry as a wet cat, and whipped about, his hand on his wand. Potter popped out beside him, beaming, and then drew his own wand.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “A little dueling as foreplay first. You do seem to be fond of that, even though you ran away from me after that Death Eater attack before I could persuade you to come to bed.”

“I won’t have it,” Draco snarled. He knew his face was dangerously near to purple, and he was aware that they were standing in a dusty, badly-furnished room that no Malfoy should be seen in. But at the moment, nothing mattered so much as impressing Potter with the seriousness of his hatred. Prince had the right idea, after all. “You’ve treated me like your own personal whore for weeks now, Potter, and I hate it.”

Potter grinned. “You’re so cute when you’re angry. All you need is for your hair to stand on end and you’d look exactly like a kitten confronting a big dog.”

Draco screamed and launched a hex at him. He could never remember later which one he chose—something to do with large, bleeding sores on the groin, perhaps. But Potter countered it, and then they were moving opposite each other, raging around the room, Draco hurling jinxes and curses just on the edge of Dark Arts, Potter deflecting them easily and laughing merrily all the while, as if this were a game.

To him, it is, Draco remembered bitterly. He wondered how he could end the contest and walk away, gathering up the tattered scraps of his dignity, without having Potter hex him in return.

Then he realized Potter hadn’t fired one single spell at him. He’d used Shield Charms and Finite Incantantem and a variety of complicated protections Draco had never seen before, but he seemed content to watch Draco react to him.

Draco dropped his wand to test his theory. Potter stopped moving to watch him, his eyes bright and his breath rapid. The flush in his cheeks and the mussed hair only rendered him more handsome, but Draco turned his back before that could affect him.

“I don’t want what you’re offering me,” Draco told him plainly. “You’ll never bed me. You’ll never make me love you.”

“Oh,” said Potter, and his voice turned soft, “I knew that.”

Draco stared at him in silence. The green eyes watched him calmly now, with laughter burned out in them. And then Potter shook his head and slipped his wand back up his sleeve, turning away from Draco.

“That was never what this was about,” he added over his shoulder.

Draco started forwards, intent on getting some answers this time. If he had been able to make Potter stop tormenting him for one moment, then he ought to be able to force him to provide some answers, too.

And then two loud pops sounded from across the room, and Draco was reminded of what Prince had said the rings he had given Rodolphus and Dolohov would do, the moment Potter was alone—or alone with Draco.

He swung around, his wand already in position, and then checked himself sharply as he remembered that fighting the Death Eaters would make him look suspicious to them. Dolohov was already covering him, anyway. Rodolphus had started forwards, his body quivering with eagerness. Potter had been responsible for the death of his brother, Draco remembered. Or at least he’d done something that meant Rabastan didn’t survive to go to trial.

“Good work, Malfoy,” Rodolphus said. “We have him just where we want him, now.”

Draco took another quick look around the room. Potter had brought him into what looked like a deserted house, except what deserted house would have a bowl of Floo powder on the mantle? The furniture was broken, the walls were heavy with dust, the door that led outside was shut and barred and too far away for them to dash through in any case—

And Potter was facing his two enemies with a calm, resolute expression, his hand on his wand. But he hadn’t lifted it yet, and he didn’t seem inclined to dodge, as if he believed this would be as simple as winning a staring contest.

“Potter,” Draco hissed, and hoped the others would take it for an exclamation of hatred and not the warning it was.

Potter’s mouth quirked into a smile, but he didn’t reply. Dolohov had apparently given up suspecting Draco of treachery in favor of stalking Potter. He walked straight past Draco, drawing in great rasping breaths. A cloud of dark purple light that promised no one any good had formed at the end of his wand.

“Potter,” Draco said again. The other wizard still didn’t respond, other than a slight tilt of the head to show he was listening.

The moment was perfect, hanging, balanced. Rodolphus or Dolohov, or both of them at once, would grow tired of the silence at any moment and strike. And Potter just stood there as if he were already wounded or dying and couldn’t stop them.

Draco ground his teeth together. It seemed that it was his responsibility, after all, to defend Potter. And he had to do it in such a way that neither Death Eater could escape, because then Draco’s life would be worth less than nothing to Prince.

Once more, he snapped a quick glance around. Barred door. Single bowl of Floo powder, which had to remain unharmed so he and Potter could leave. Broken furniture. Dust on the walls.

Dust on the walls.

“Procellae pulvis!” he roared.

A screaming gale rose around him, a tight cone of traveling wind that whipped out like the seeking tendrils of a carnivorous plant. In moments, the dust was off the walls and being herded around Rodolphus and Dolohov in blinding spirals. They coughed and choked and tried to cast, but dust was in their lungs. They aimed random nonverbal curses, but Rodolphus cried out in pain a moment later, and Draco knew that Dolohov must have hit him instead.

He moved towards Potter, intent on dragging him out of the storm and to safety, only to stop when he heard Potter’s voice calling out a spell to clear the air in front of him, and then Expelliarmus, twice, to disarm the Death Eaters. His words were strong and steady. When Draco could catch a glimpse of him through the thick golden-brown air, he saw Potter moving his wand as if he hadn’t ever frozen and let his enemies approach him for no good reason.

Dolohov tried to surge forwards and attack Potter. But he tripped over Rodolphus, and then tried to pummel and kick him, apparently thinking that this was Potter, despite Rodolphus’s shouts for him to stop. Potter gave a sigh that sounded almost bored to Draco and Stupefied them both, then came forwards to stoop over them.

Draco ended the storm, frowning. Potter had brown hair, now, from the thick coating of dust it had received. His face was streaked with visible sweat trails. He glanced at Draco, and Draco jerked his head and looked away. Merlin, how could Potter be good-looking even through that?

“Good thinking,” Potter said, and then he launched himself at Draco.

Draco lifted his wand, ready to fend off a curse or an attack, but Potter simply wrapped his arms around his waist and kissed him soundly on the cheek.

“My hero!” he proclaimed loudly. “I froze and didn’t know what to do—terror takes me like that sometimes—but you came up with a clever spell that saved us both! And you were so heroic, wanting to rescue me instead of just taking the Floo powder and running out of the room yourself! That ought to put paid to rumors of your cowardice at the Ministry! Just wait until I tell them!” He pulled away, his eyes dancing.

“Potter—“ Draco began, and then stopped. Now it seemed as if Potter had skipped to outright lying about things other than his attraction to Draco, which was even more inexplicable and infuriating. Draco shook his head and tried again. “You didn’t freeze up. I saw you. You were waiting for them to attack.”

“I froze up,” Potter disagreed, folding his arms and pouting at Draco like a petulant child. “I’m not as much of a hero as everyone thinks I am. But you’re as much of a hero as I always thought you were.”

“No one is going to believe you,” Draco said flatly.

“Yes, they will.” Potter floated both Dolohov and Rodolphus into the air and beamed angelically at Draco. “Because that’s what happened.”

“You and your bloody games.”

“Oh, yes,” Potter said. “It is a game.” He winked and went to throw more Floo powder on the small flames in the fireplace.

“Wait,” Draco said suddenly, remembering what had brought them here in the first place. “Death Eater activity in Wiltshire—“

“Oh.” Potter paused and looked back at him with large, innocent eyes. “There wasn’t any, actually. I just wanted to get you here so we could kiss.”

“Potter!”

But the flames had turned green, and Potter shouted, “Auror Department, Ministry!” before he vanished with their captives.

Draco tore after him, grimly determined that he would get answers, this time.