Chapter Six of 'Changing of the Guard'- Handling

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Six—Handling

Narcissa twirled Harry to a stop with a slight tug of their joined hands and a bow. “Excuse me for acting like this,” she murmured; the music was still playing. “But my husband is coming to separate us. I think he’s jealous.”

She had just the right mixture of amusement and anxiety in her tone, Harry thought in admiration. He knew that part of the reason the Malfoys had maintained respectability in recent years was because no one had ever found enough evidence to charge them with crimes that would stick. But Narcissa’s social cleverness must also have an awful lot to do with it.

“Oh, dear, I hope not,” was all Brian would say, so it was all Harry said, and he turned to watch the advance of Lucius.

Lucius, of course, was angry about his son, and not his wife. That was shown by the way he stared into Harry’s eyes, and the absolutely blank expression of his face. He would have moved in with a half-smile and glancing, teasing insults if he really suspected Harry of trying to steal Narcissa away. Or he would simply have cut into the dance and humiliated Harry in silence by showing him how to really win a pure-blood witch’s heart in a waltz.

Harry waited, wondering if he was supposed to be intimidated or impressed by Lucius. Neither, he decided. Draco had told him his father would try to bribe Brian, and Brian shouldn’t react. Fair enough. Harry would play the brash adventurer all the way through and refuse to back down from threats, either.

So he yawned just as Lucius opened his mouth to speak, making sure it looked accidental. Lucius halted, literally seeming to stop between one stride and the next. Harry raised his eyebrows and bowed a little. “Mr. Malfoy? Is something wrong? Mrs. Malfoy told me you might be jealous of the time I’ve spent in her lovely presence. I hope she wasn’t right.”

Lucius’s left cheek bent inwards, as if he were chewing on it.

Harry gave him a hopeful, irritating smile.

*

It was hard to keep his eyes on Marigold and Alice Moonstone, Draco found. He constantly wanted to look over their shoulders, towards the small, tight tangle of people in the center of the dance floor, and see what was happening between his parents and Brian. He had certainly experienced similar desires before, but he’d never had such trouble in suppressing them.

Brian brings out the childish, the impulsive, in me. That may or may not be a good thing.

Marigold abruptly got his attention by giggling at her sister and then putting a hand casually on his arm. Draco glanced down at her fingers and then up her arm at her.

“You’re very brave, Miss Moonstone,” he said.

“Brave?” Marigold fluttered her eyelashes at him. She was practicing to become the sort of woman Narcissa was, Draco thought critically, mostly because she wasn’t particularly strong in magic or wit and so would need to rely on her beauty. His mother, though, had a mind behind the looks. Marigold hadn’t so far displayed evidence of that. “I don’t know what you mean. Every woman in this room wants to do that. I’m just the one who got to.” Some more giggling. Behind her, Alice, whom Draco suspected to be the intelligent one of the family, looked stranded somewhere between boredom and disgust.

“Brave to touch a man that everyone else has decided is defiled by the touch of a male lover.” Draco leaned towards her and lowered his voice. “Doesn’t my entrance with Brian make you wonder what we do together? How much passion I’ve found with him, passion that I won’t find in a woman’s arms ever again?”

Marigold’s face paled, and she let go of his arm before she thought about it. Alice didn’t move forwards to take her place, but Draco saw the way her mouth twitched with trying to suppress a smile.

“I—“ Marigold coughed, and then bravely launched into a recitation of facts her father had probably whispered to her just before Lucius motioned the family over to keep Draco busy. Despite his mockery, Draco had to admit her courage really wasn’t bad at all. She would have made a fine Chaser in Quidditch. “I’ve heard of such things happening among Muggles. Some men just have to find out what—sex—with men—is like…” Her voice trailed off in spite of herself at the forbidden words, but she rallied quickly. “But they come back to their wives, because there’s an emotional connection between men and women that there never is with the same sex. Men and women complement each other. The differences are exciting. You don’t get those differences with someone who’s like you.” She looked defiantly up at Draco, as if challenging him to prove how much of a pervert he was by disagreeing with her.

Draco smiled. The smile probably struck Marigold as reassuring, because she sagged a little. Alice bit down on her own smile.

It was for her sake, more than her sister’s, that Draco began his explanation.

*

“A good evening, Mr. Montgomery.” Lucius obviously saw no reason to take the falsely conciliating road of using Brian’s first name. “I suppose that you know what I have come over here to speak to you about?”

“Your son,” Brian said innocently. “I can’t imagine what else we would have in common.” He brightened. “Unless you like Muggle theater, of course. I’m quite fond of it. I’ve acted in several plays.”

Lucius’s mouth curved with fury. “Yes, quite,” he said. “What you must have realized is that this is a rather different stage from any you’ve entered before.”

“Well, no.” Brian gave the room a distinct, appraising glance, and surprised several people looking at them into looking hastily away. “When Draco told me that he wanted to come out at his birthday party, I studied the guest list and did learn who would be here. I’ve faced hostile audiences before. And of course I’ve studied pure-blood manners to within an inch of my life.”

Lucius flicked a glance at Narcissa. Narcissa gave a minute shake of her head back. Lucius half-closed his eyes. Brian thought he could read their signals, though he wasn’t sure of the precise meaning. Lucius had asked if Brian was a pure-blood; Narcissa had replied that he was not; Lucius had despaired of the disgrace their son had brought on them.

Now, Lucius said in a tight voice. “A hostile audience does not begin to describe it. This is not a play, Mr. Montgomery. This is Draco’s life.”

Brian thought of the way Draco had looked when describing how his father and mother would act, and smiled a little. Draco knows that very well. “I know that,” he chose to say instead, so he wouldn’t betray the pride in his voice, “and so does Draco.”

“You can do great things for him, to make up for so nearly ruining him tonight,” Lucius said. He had apparently decided to be oblivious to small nuances of voice, Brian thought. That was probably the result of an unchallenged reign in his social circles for far too long. He no longer thought someone could seriously bother him, so he did not have to notice the small cues that indicated they could. He reminded Brian of his manager on a small play called The Sunflowers; she’d had the same trick of ignoring signs of illness or real distress, because she thought all actors only wanted lead parts and would do anything to get out of playing minor characters. “And you can have—well, let us say a reward for those things? A gesture of understanding between two people.”

“Ah,” Brian said. “You’re trying to bribe me.”

Lucius’s nostrils flared in spite of himself, and then he shook his head with a charming smile. Brian had to admire the smile. “I would not put it that way,” Lucius said. “You are a man of gestures. I saw that when you were dancing with Draco. I would not extend my hand in friendship to you—“

“With a Galleon clasped in it,” Brian said helpfully.

“If I thought it would simply be rejected.” Was Lucius grinding his back teeth together? It certainly sounded like it. “You made so many graceful turns in that dance. You looked like you would have been the perfect partner for Draco, if only you were female. Will you give us a chance to find that partner for Draco, by backing out now? I admit your persistence. I admit your fitness for accompanying him, save in two respects only.”

“My sex and my blood.” Brian made the words a challenge.

Lucius hesitated, then gave a small shrug. “Yes, Mr. Montgomery.” He wore a slight self-deprecating smile, and he cast a wry glance towards Draco, as if to place the blame where it belonged. “If our son did not tell you we are very traditional in terms of marriage and courtship, then he did you a disservice.”

“Oh, I’m not going to marry him,” Brian said.

“Really?” Narcissa blurted, and then looked ashamed of herself for doing so. Brian felt a bit indulgent towards her, though it was her own blindness that had landed her in this situation. It was her love for Draco that made her snatch at any chance to “free” him from scandal.

“Of course not. There’s no such thing as marriage between two wizards.” Brian leaned an arm on nothing, a gesture he’d stolen wholesale from one of the Muggles cast opposite him in The Sunflowers, and grinned. “We’ll just have to compensate by having lots and lots of passionate sex.”

Lucius actually looked as if he would fall over. Brian cheered inside, but noted to himself that it would not be this easy in the future. Lucius had not expected a challenge like this at all, and thus he was reacting badly. In the next few days, he would have the time to recover his balance and think of other tactics.

“You will—you will not—“ Lucius was choking.

Narcissa came leaping to his rescue, her voice swift and soft as a leopard. “What he means, Brian,” she said, “is that we cannot stand to hear talk of such disgusting acts in this house.”

“But you would be happy to listen to blow-by-blow accounts of Draco’s involvement with a young woman?” Brian cocked his head, politely baffled. “Pure-bloods are even stranger than I realized.”

“Mr. Montgomery.” Lucius was capable of making his name sound like invective. Brian had to appreciate that, too. “Speak to me plainly. Will you take the gesture of goodwill I offer you—which amounts to several hundred thousand Galleons—and leave my son alone, agreeing to never come near him again?”

Brian flung him a scornful glance. “Really. You can’t put a price on love for people like me and Draco. You should know that.”

Lucius turned and stalked away. Narcissa remained, her hands twining around each other. The gesture looked anxious, but Brian knew she was bracing herself for a war.

“You should have taken the money,” Narcissa said quietly. “This was your last chance to get out unscathed.”

“You assume scarring bothers me,” Brian said, and briefly brushed his fingers along the line on his forehead. “I earned this saving a life. How much more would I not risk for the man I love?”

Narcissa regarded him with clear, disarmingly intelligent eyes for a long moment. Then she turned and walked in her husband’s wake.

Harry surfaced with a gasp. He’d become Brian for those few minutes, submerging himself completely in the created personality. Narcissa was observant, and she had been close to Harry Potter, once, in the Forbidden Forest. He could not take the chance of reminding her of him.

But Brian was so close to his own personality, his own impulses and his own answers to questions like that—if he had ever had the opportunity to answer them—that it had felt oddly as if Harry was there all the time, behind the thin mask. It had been a deep drowning, but not as deep as it should have felt.

Let Brian take over, Harry counseled himself. He’s the one Draco hired, not you.

He glanced around for a moment, and then went in search of Draco. The party was already dissipating, with people drifting out the doors, as if the sight of Brian not running from the room or at least writhing in shame disgusted them. Harry thought it a good time to retreat and plan their strategy. Draco’s parents had already done unexpected things.

Draco materialized beside him, so suddenly that Harry started in spite of himself. He turned around and managed to smile. Draco gave him a single, intense look in response, then smiled, too. His arm shot out and curved around Harry’s waist.

“Come up to my room, and you can tell me all about it,” he said. “I’ve already done my part in disillusioning one young woman for this evening.”

Harry followed the path of his gaze, and saw a young witch weeping hysterically into the shoulder of a slightly taller one who was probably her sister. The sister patted the sobbing girl soothingly, but she was watching them speculatively. She winked when she caught Brian’s eye, and then grinned at Draco.

“That one has some sense,” Draco commented approvingly. Then he turned and faced Harry. Harry blinked at the heat shining openly in his gaze, the same heat that had burned between them in the dance. His body was reacting to it, and Harry thought a moment, then decided not to prevent it from doing so. Draco was far from blind to the tension between him and Brian. He would expect Brian to be aroused.

“It occurs to me,” Draco said, his voice soft and heavy as smoke, “that you haven’t given me a birthday gift yet.”

“I did bring one,” Harry said, recovering his wits a little. He had an ivory statue of a siren that he’d used as a prop in another Metamorphosis case eight years ago, a statue that actually came to life and sang bewitchingly, to charm anyone who listened except the owner. Harry had refurnished and resculpted the statue a little; even those who had seen it in action eight years ago should not think it was the same one. “Would you like to see it?”

“Oh,” Draco whispered, bowing his head so that his lips brushed Brian’s as he spoke, “very much so.”

*

Amazingly, Brian didn’t seem to realize what the invitation to Draco’s room implied, much less the asking for a gift. Draco had known witches as dim as Marigold who would have responded to that.

But then, Brian was probably more conscious of the distance between them, the fact that they were united only in purpose and didn’t know each other that well yet. He had been in a House like Gryffindor, after all. And Gryffindors tended to only have sex with people they knew and trusted well.

Draco knew enough. He felt—bold was the only word for it. He was certain that sex would not become a disaster area between them, because nothing where they worked together and agreed could be a disaster area. It would not entangle Draco’s heart further; he was an expert at separating his heart and his bed. And it would leach out some of the tension that at the moment crackled between them like leashed lightning and might make Draco do something stupid.

If Brian began to fall in love because of this, that would just ensure Draco had more control and more latitude to choose his own path.

But—it felt oddly as if he didn’t have to choose. As if he could leap off a cliff and trust Brian to catch him.

That was the impression Brian’s acting was meant to create, of course. But Draco trusted himself as a reader of character. He read a great deal of truth in Brian; he was having to use himself, and not his acting skills, to answer the demands of this assignment, because it was such an important and difficult one.

This once, Draco thought he could take the risk. Now the difficulty was in engaging Brian’s impulsive nature and disengaging that Gryffindor-like generosity that would only get in the way.

“Your room is beautiful,” Brian said, openly staring at the tapestries that fringed Draco’s walls. They depicted hunting scenes for the most part, hunts where the quarry and pursuers changed from scene to scene; in the one nearest the bed, stags rode on the backs of people, hunting some slender golden creature that was a mixture of cat and bird.

The bed wasn’t bad, either, if Draco did say so himself: a basin-shaped confection of green cloth and silver curtains—not House affiliation; he just liked the colors—with so many charms for warming and softening and comfort worked into the covers that Draco couldn’t remember all their names or the order of their casting. He stepped around in front of Brian, directing his gaze towards the bed with the motion of his body.

“So are you,” Draco said softly, and moved in for another kiss, wondering if this one would be as exciting without an audience.

It was better. Though surprised, Brian seemed to have realized at last what Draco wanted, and he opened his mouth eagerly, his tongue plunging forwards.

Draco groaned. There was so much wetness building between them, and so much heat, the way that Draco was used to feeling only when he was naked and lying on top of someone else. His hands tightened, and he realized he was gripping curls of Brian’s savage hair, so tightly it must hurt. But Brian only leaned, pushed, shoved into him, and grasped Draco’s neck and hips in return, and the delicate touch of erection on erection contrasted wonderfully with the fierce joining of their mouths. Draco sighed.

Brian pulled back. His eyes were ablaze, his voice rough as he whispered, “On the bed. Now.”

Draco went, well-pleased with himself. He had no objection to being made love to, unlike the foolish men he had sometimes dated who thought they had to be absolutely in control to prove their masculinity. Draco knew he was very masculine. No one else’s opinion mattered.

Brian stripped with a flap of his hands and a snap of his wand that made Draco blink. He felt a moment’s regret—he would rather have liked seeing that slender, visibly muscled body emerge slowly—but then he lost himself in the contemplation of tight, flushed skin, and straight legs and arms that pointed directly to the erect cock in a glory of dark hair.

Brian stripped him the same way, and spent a moment just staring. Draco arched his back and stretched his arms over his head, showing how unself-conscious he was. “Are you coming?” he asked.

“Not quite yet, I hope,” Brian said, and then he strode over to the bed and fastened their mouths together once more.

*

Harry had written Brian’s lovemaking skills into his biography. The reason he had felt confident doing that was not that he had thought Draco would test them so soon, but because Brian was so close to him, and that was the way Harry made love.

He focused all his attention on his partner, always, and so that was the way he looked at Draco now. He let his fingers touch every small line of muscle, both nipples, the line of Draco’s jaw, the curve of his neck, and expressed his wonder and delight in what he found openly on his face. Draco, lying back on the pillows and staring at him, gradually became more and more rapt, his eyes glazing, as he seemed to lose awareness of anything that went on outside the bed.

Good. Harry wanted him to. Everyone should have a chance to feel like the center of the universe once in their lives. Harry hoped he gave his partners an experience like that in his lovemaking.

He followed the path of his fingers with the fingers of his other hand, and then with his tongue. By the time he was kneeling on the bedspread, applying his tongue gently to the prominence of Draco’s hip, Draco was bucking gently but steadily. Only his immense self-control held him back from going faster, Harry thought.

His object was to give pleasure, not to torment and tease, so he passed his tongue one final time along the ticklish skin over Draco’s ribs and then swept it over Draco’s balls, up to the tip of his cock, and then down the other side. Draco gasped. Harry knew he heard satisfaction in the sound, so he repeated the movement, light and fast, and then held the head of Draco’s cock in his mouth and sucked lightly, using only tongue and lips. Then he let Draco butt against his covered teeth, and against the sticky and wet ridges of his gums, and against the roof of his mouth, until Draco’s face showed his passion at white heat.

Then Harry pulled away, turned Draco gently but inexorably onto his knees, and applied his tongue to Draco’s flanks and his fingers to Draco’s arse. Lubricant was easy enough to conjure with a tap of his wand. Harry used some that would make the experience more pleasant for Draco: warm and sticky, not the cool rubbery stuff that some gay males of Harry’s experience unfortunately used. He skirted the edge that would have made Draco desperate, touching his prostate only once or twice, using three fingers and pumping steadily, soothing and encouraging with his tongue on Draco’s outer skin.

When he slid himself in, it was slowly, with soft broken words that didn’t mean anything and which Draco didn’t need to mean anything; the point was that Draco could hear them, and know he was causing them. Then Harry smiled, drew back, took a moment to revel in his own warmth and pleasure, and plunged forwards.

*

Draco could not remember feeling like this. The pleasure had risen slowly, steadily, an enveloping wave, never becoming uncomfortable. The point of this was not to come; Draco didn’t long for his orgasm and only his orgasm like he usually did. He could have stayed like this literally forever.

Then he felt the powerful thrusts of Brian’s hips, and the flexing and bunching of his own muscles as he accepted the thrusts, and he shivered. The warmth was changing, spiraling higher, but still not painful. Draco shook his head in wonder and buried his head in his arms, folded in front of him.

“Draco. Look at me.” Brian’s voice was a husky gasp. He didn’t try to hide how affected he was.

Draco turned and looked back over his shoulder, though it was difficult to convince himself to shift that much. Brian was thrusting with the strength of his hips and his back alone. His arms were crossed behind his neck, his eyes half-shut, his head tossed back so Draco could see the entire gleaming expanse of his body.

“Look,” Brian whispered. “No hands.”

And he rolled his hips in a precise movement he must have practiced, and Draco came, just like that.

He was gasping as the warmth surged through him, as golden sparks burst behind his eyes, as he drifted down softly and slowly. Brian froze behind him for a moment, and his hips thrust one more time, not punishing but simply hard, inexorable.

Then he drew out of Draco, turned him over, and peppered his face with kisses, as if Draco were the one who had done all the work. He dipped one hand down, scooped up some of Draco’s come from the bed, and stuck his finger into his mouth.

“Have you been eating chocolate?” he asked.

Draco, sated, enthralled, pleased as he had never imagined he could be, reached Brian up and drew him down into a kiss as the only fit answer to that question.

Chapter 7.