Chapter Twenty-Nine of 'Changing of the Guard'- Loss of Control

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Chapter Twenty-Nine—Loss of Control

Harry had to fight to keep his face placid as he examined the man clinging to Draco’s shoulders and beaming at him—only because there was no one else in the room he could beam at, Harry was certain. Blaise Zabini looked as if he had spent most of the past twelve years playing Quidditch and then relaxing beside crystal-blue lakes, or whatever other activities might have given him both lithe muscles and a smooth, unlined face.

Probably hasn’t known a day’s worry since he left Hogwarts, Harry thought in disgust. Of course, I did hear that he had left England, so that’s probably true, particularly if he’s gay.

With the casual way Draco kept his hands on Zabini’s arms above the wrists, Harry also found himself wanting to know exactly what their relationship had been like before Zabini left the country. He nearly opened his mouth to ask.

But the personality of Horace Longbottom surged and shook in him like a piece of beaten tin, and he contented himself with coughing politely and tapping his cane on the floor. “Perhaps not the wisest thing to do in the Ministry, with Aurors looking for an excuse to arrest any man who kisses another,” he murmured. He shot a swift glance around the Atrium, but few people were paying attention to them, and of those who did, even fewer were likely to know the clause of the Public Statute of Sexual Decency and Morality that mandated the Aurors capture both participants in the act of flagrant public homosexuality. Still, it was better not to take a chance. He glanced back at Zabini and said, “Are you a stranger to our backwards country, Mr.--?” And he raised his eyebrows with a restraint that he thought even Horace could be proud of.

“Blaise Zabini,” said the other man, and smiled at him. Harry could grudgingly concede that he was handsome, with smooth dark skin, dark curls that hung to his shoulders, and brown eyes too innocent to be real. It would have been an ungrudging concession if only Zabini hadn’t continued to hang on Draco, turning his head to the side so that they shared the smile like a secret joke. “And no, I actually grew up with Draco, but I long ago left the shores of England for a place that actually respects the choices people make about their own bodies.” He ran a coaxing hand over Draco’s right shoulder. Harry concealed a deeper breath than usual with another cough. “He won’t listen to me about emigrating so far, though.”

Draco shook his head. “Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, Blaise, but what are you doing here? And was it necessary to kiss me quite so violently? That’s material for the front page of the Prophet here, and the few encounters we had were a long time ago, now.” He smiled into Zabini’s eyes.

Zabini fluttered a kiss over the side of Draco’s neck, his eyes closing languorously for a moment. Harry was vaguely grateful that the gryphon on the top of Horace’s cane wasn’t real gold, or his tight grip would have stood a chance of denting it.

And then he told himself he was being ridiculous. Draco had every reason to rejoice in the touch of an old lover if he wanted to. He wouldn’t have done it in front of Brian, or Harry, but neither one of them were here right now. He was standing with Blaise in front of Horace Longbottom, who had no sexual relationship with Draco, nothing but a distant, compassionate interest in him for being the victim of irrational bigotry.

Harry had been Horace for a long time, regularly assuming his cool, detached persona to argue reasonably with unreasonable people. He shuffled gratefully into the older man’s thoughts like a favorite robe, and dredged up a smile from somewhere as Zabini nudged Draco in the ribs with an elbow and snorted. “Pansy told me what was really happening. Did you think I could let you start a revolution without me?”

Horace coughed again. “Perhaps not the wisest idea to speak about this in the Ministry, either?” he said.

Zabini gave him a more calculating glance. Horace smiled and held out his right hand, though it took effort to uncurl the fingers, given the direct blast of dragonfire he’d taken to it decades ago. “My mistake. I’m Horace Longbottom, and I’ve just helped to ease Mr. Malfoy out of a most—uncomfortable situation.”

“It couldn’t be anything else, in this Ministry and with this country,” Zabini retorted, but he shook Horace’s burned hand with nothing more than a small smirk. “So. You’re one of the leaders of Draco’s little revolution?”

Horace shuddered, remembering the stint he had served in a ‘revolution’ in his youth. “I am not,” he said. “But I am someone who can be of help to him, perhaps, if he is discreet enough.” He caught Draco’s eye and jerked his head at the Floo.

Draco smiled at him, but took a long moment to stroke Zabini’s hand and shoulder before he separated from him, and murmur a few low words that Horace didn’t catch. The follies of the young, Horace thought, and did not let them see him rolling his eyes. When he had been thirty, he had also thought the height of defiance was showing how little he respected his elders.

“I’m ready,” Draco said, and followed Horace with a faint, mysterious smile lingering on his lips. Horace ignored it as he cast a handful of powder into the flames and chose a public fireplace in Diagon Alley. If the Minister sent anyone to follow them—which was quite possible—Horace had no intention of leading them straight to his mansion.

*

Draco had been watching intently. And Longbottom/Harry turned to face him quite frequently as they made their way down the middle of Diagon Alley, gesturing to the shops and telling him the histories of odd events that had happened there.

It didn’t matter how long Draco stared, however; he never again caught the little twitch of jealousy around Harry’s eyes that he so wanted to see.

In fact, it seemed now as if it were Horace Longbottom who walked in front of him, and not Harry at all. He spoke of Diagon Alley with the fondness of someone raised in the wizarding world, and who had spent so much time around the shops that he knew them better than their current owners. Decades, perhaps a century, of experience flowed from his mouth, from his gestures, from the expressions on his face.

It was unnerving. Draco narrowed his eyes in thought, though he remembered to smile at one of Harry’s stories about a criminal running from the Aurors who had tripped himself on the stoop of Madam Malkin’s shop.

I was thinking that he was a good actor who believes in his characters, and remains conscious of himself at all times, and what he has to do to fool his audience. But it goes even deeper than that, doesn’t it? He submerges himself not just for the sake of creating the character, the persona, the play, but for the sake of being that person. He’s running from something, not employing a skill for the pleasure he gets from it.

Draco nodded slowly. There would have to be some limits set to Harry’s playing and assumption of other names and faces, that was certain. He had no wish to make Harry give up Metamorphosis altogether; the concept was too beautiful and fascinating, and Harry too obviously reveled in it. But neither did Draco want only to cling to whatever fragment of himself Harry chose to show at any given moment.

I want to be the one who has the ability to see beyond the mask. There’s a problem if I can’t do that.

Finally, Harry guided them to a secluded spot under the overhang of an apothecary, and held out an arm for Draco’s, his gesture heavy with ancient, formal courtesy. Draco deliberately stepped too close to him and took his elbow with familiar hands, moving his fingers in the caressing motions he had used on Blaise.

Harry cocked his head to the side, and manifested a faint frown of disapproval clearly patterned after Dumbledore’s. “Really, Mr. Malfoy, whilst I understand your devotion to your cause, you do not need to express physical affection with every man you meet.”

Spoken as if he isn’t gay too, Draco thought incredulously, and then remembered, I don’t think he is, when he’s like this.

And that led to an uncomfortable consideration he couldn’t believe hadn’t occurred to him before: how often did Harry assume a persona that had sex with someone else? Could he flow between sexualities as he flowed between faces? Would he consider faithfulness to Draco imperative only when he was in his own skin, and otherwise disregard the idea, because it was someone else, a person who might not have a partner, entering the bed?

Draco tightened his hold, and hissed, “This is more than devotion to the cause. Now, I would appreciate it if you would Apparate us home.”

The blue eyes narrowed. Draco thought he saw Harry’s calculating glance fill them for a moment, and was glad.

The next moment, the blackness of Apparition squeezed them, and then they stood on the doorstep of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Harry tried to gesture Draco ahead of him, the way someone as old and formal as Longbottom would have, but Draco tightened his grip and stepped forwards at the same time, forcing them to enter the house together.

Harry moved away from him as soon as he could, once the door had closed behind them. His face had a slight pink cast, and his eyes were direct and disappointed. “Please, Mr. Malfoy, do not mistake my avoidance of casual contact with you for a prejudice against your sexuality,” he said. “In my youth, I endured several uncomfortable years that left me with great distaste for anyone touching me, not simply—“

“Bollocks,” Draco said, without raising his voice, but with a sharpness of tone that made Harry’s mouth sag open. “We’re not in public right now. You’re not playing Longbottom. You’re Harry. I want you to pick up your real identity and wear your real face right now. We have to talk.”

*

To be pulled back so suddenly from Horace to Harry was a physical shock. Harry wheezed for a moment, his heart jumping. When his body remembered that he didn’t actually have the beginnings of heart trouble, as Horace Longbottom did, he raised his wand and cast the spells that would reverse his Transfiguration. He hesitated when that was done, and then Transfigured his clothes as well. He was never comfortable with his own face in the robes that any of his personas wore, Brian excepted.

“That’s better,” Draco said, his voice still sharp. He stepped forwards and ended up standing a few feet from Harry, giving him the same intent gaze he had before he left that morning. “I need to know a few things before we discuss what you’ve told Nusante, and what the Minister asked me.”

“I think those things are more important.” Harry stiffened his spine so he wouldn’t step away. He waited, but the inside of his head was silent. At the time when he most could have used the support of the merciless voice, of course it would vanish, he thought irritably. “After all, innocent people are—“

“I have to be able to trust you,” Draco said. His voice still had not increased in volume, but Harry flinched anyway. He wondered idly if Snape had taught Draco to speak like this, so that the very sound of the words hurt. “I have to be able to know you. When I left this house this morning, I trusted I would. Now I am not so certain. Your performance as Longbottom was too perfect.”

Harry frowned. That had not been what he thought Draco would complain about. My skill can serve us in protecting the revolution and getting our point across. What more does Draco want of it, or me? “I don’t know what you mean by that,” he said, and folded his arms, leaning against the wall behind him. His magic burned in his chest; he banished it with a hiss. No matter what Draco said, Harry wouldn’t complicate this encounter by lashing out with his power the way he had before. “If it had been less perfect, we wouldn’t have escaped without Kingsley becoming suspicious.”

“I mean that you didn’t seem like Harry anymore,” Draco said. His voice bubbled for a moment as if he were fighting back anger. Once again, Harry had no idea why, and couldn’t until he spoke at least a few more words. “I had trouble thinking of you as Harry.”

Harry blinked. “But that’s good. That’s what I strive for when I assume a persona. Metamorphosis wouldn’t have flourished at all if my clients stood a chance of connecting the strangers they hired to Harry Potter.”

“I’m not a client,” Draco said, the cool tone of his voice cracking a little now. Harry bit his tongue to avoid reminding the other man of the seven hundred Galleons he had paid Harry. “I’m your partner. I want to know who you are at all times.”

Harry snorted softly, but he thought he understood what Draco was aiming for. “Do you want me to arrange a signal?” he asked. Draco stared at him, and he clarified, “A signal—a word, a wink, a gesture I can use when I’m in disguise, so you can be reassured that I’m still under the surface?”

Draco said what sounded like the name of a disgusting sexual act, and then hurried one before Harry could ask about it. “No. I want more than that.”

“What, then?” Harry asked warily. He didn’t like the trend of this conversation at all. He wondered what the merciless voice would say about it. Probably tell me to shut up and let Draco talk.

“How common is it for you to have sex with your clients?”

Harry blinked and stared at him incredulously, then shrugged. “Not common at all. One of my most common pursuits is bodyguard, and much of the rest of the time I’m playing a man or woman to a gay woman or man, to convince my client’s parents that she or he’s straight. Sex is rather counterproductive in either case.”

“But you’ve done it sometimes,” Draco said.

“You’re the living proof,” Harry retorted, and then wondered why he’d said that, and in such a sharp, bristling tone. This wasn’t diplomatic or calm and honest, both courses he was sure the merciless voice would have recommended. He fidgeted from foot to foot, hating the feeling of exposure like cold fingers of oil creeping across his skin. Telling the truth was no longer something that came naturally to him.

“I don’t want you to do it anymore,” Draco said.

Harry’s mouth fell slightly open. “I—what?” he said, when he could breathe. “Draco, for the love of God. That’s such a silly thing to demand. No one would know me for your partner when I’m properly disguised. It won’t get back to you or reflect on your reputation, even after we announce that we’re dating in public. You don’t—“

“Those people are still having sex with you,” Draco said, and every muscle in his body had gone tense. “They would still be sharing your body. And your personas aren’t completely separate from you. You animate them. I don’t want other people to hear what you sound like when you come. I don’t want other people to touch you the way I do. I want some exclusive rights, Harry, some things you wouldn’t share with a friend or a client.” His hands were clenched in front of him now, and still Harry, flooded with astonishment, could not understand why.

“But my personas are separate people,” Harry said, as gently as he could. “Having sex with them isn’t like having sex with me. Why do you think our situation is so unusual? I couldn’t help reacting to you the way I would, instead of the way Brian would. So you don’t have to worry. I’ll share everything I am with you, but I won’t be sharing everything I am with them.” Surely that ought to satisfy Draco.

*

The words hit Draco like blows. His mouth was dry, and he licked his lips several times before he could respond.

“Harry,” he murmured, “those personas are you. Memories you dreamed up, masks you animate. Without you, they would be nothing but idle dreams on scraps of parchment and a few photographs in which you dressed up. You dressed up, Harry,” he said, feeling he had to repeat it, given the odd closed expression that had taken over Harry’s face. “And you would still be fucking other people if you didn’t stay loyal to me. I want you, exclusively.”

“I—“ Harry shook his head. “But I’m not Harry Potter when I play them. Why do you think I try to adopt their emotions and their gestures and their histories, Draco? Why were you disturbed by my Horace Longbottom disguise? Because I’m not Harry Potter then, and you were expecting him.” He shook his head several times more, as if struggling to find his footing on treacherous ground.

“And why not?” Draco said, hurling the question so quickly that he hoped Harry would answer it without thinking.

“Why would I want to be Harry Potter?”

The answer to that question was unthinking, all right, but because of innocence, not surprise, Draco thought grimly. He wondered for a moment if the task he saw unfolding before him really was too massive, if he shouldn’t cut his losses and walk away.

And then he thought of Harry fading back into a separate life from his, or, worse, becoming possessed by someone else who did have the patience and love to deal with him, and was promptly so—so many things he could barely breathe. Furious, and jealous, and lonely.

No. I want him. It’s more than just sex. And he wants me, too. I have to have some faith that he’ll reach out to me and make the task less difficult. And will it really be that much of a task? I love his deceptions. I can spend some time working my way through the ones he lays in even my path. It’s the ultimate challenge. And Draco felt himself harden as he had in the moments when he first really understood what Metamorphosis meant.

“You are Harry Potter to me,” he said, and took a step nearer. Harry frowned at him, but didn’t try to back away, which Draco chose to take as a positive sign. “And your body is still the same body, no matter how you Transfigure it or add features to it—“

“If that’s the truth, then why did you want to see me with green eyes when you fucked me?” Harry demanded. “You wanted to change the way I looked—“

“Yes, to see the way you really look—“

“But this—“ Harry gestured at his face “—it isn’t any more real than any other mask I wear, Draco.”

“To me, it is,” said Draco, and he supposed he would have to tell the truth before he could convince Harry to do so. “This is the center of who you are, the Harry who plans and plots and animates the other disguises. This is the Harry I want to know most of all, even though the other personas are also part of you. And that means I want to see the appearance of this Harry, as well.”

Harry stared at him, shaking his head slightly. Draco hoped the motion came from a lack of understanding and not a refusal to share.

“I could be anything you wanted,” Harry whispered. “Anything at all. I did try to be that with Brian, but my own complacency in my skill tripped me up. And this—this is what you want?”

“I do think it’s the best of you,” Draco said, keeping his voice low. He moved another step nearer.

“You haven’t met all my other personas.” Harry stared at him, eyes wide and bright now, as if Draco himself wore a disguise and he was trying to see through it. “There are brilliant people among them, fascinating people, people who could make you laugh for hours or fuck you as skillfully as courtesans. Don’t you want to meet them?”His voice held an undertone of eagerness that Draco couldn’t decipher. “They can give you what you need—“

“Even if that were true,” said Draco, and he put his arms out, landing with his hands on either side of Harry’s head, “they can’t give me what I want. What I want is you, the person who makes me laugh and exhale in frustration at the same time, the one who fucks me and lets himself be fucked with that exquisite lack of control.”

He fought the temptation to lean down and kiss Harry, though already the air around them was shivering with red and silver sparks as the magical bond sparked by sex tried to form. He wanted Harry’s mouth free so he could answer honestly.

For long moments, Harry showed no inclination to answer. He stared at Draco, his eyes probing. Draco remained still, and tried to show that he’d meant every word he said. He was more than a bundle of needs for Harry to fulfill, the way the clients who came to Metamorphosis were to him, perhaps inevitably. He was someone who could rise above those needs, or fulfill Harry’s, or demand what he wanted, even if it was difficult for Harry to give.

Harry closed his eyes at last. Draco didn’t insist he open them; it was the only way Harry could retreat when they were this close, and perhaps he needed to retreat right now. But he remained quiet, waiting.

Finally, Harry murmured, rubbing at the back of his neck as if something had stung him, “I—I could give you so much. But what you want is something I’ve never given anyone. I—there’s not much call for the sort of thing you’re asking for. I’m not Harry Potter often, and never for long if I can help it.”

Draco took those words and stored them in the back of his head. They were another clue to the dreadful puzzle of what he thought might be Harry’s darkest secret, this contempt he seemed to have for himself.

“But I’d like to,” Harry continued, his voice slow and stumbling but not reluctant. “I’d like to be what I can around you. I’ve never felt as good as I did when we had sex, and that was more than the magic joining us. And it’s more than that. I found myself thinking about you when you were gone today, even though it was only for a few hours. I knew I had to come for you as soon as I heard you’d been arrested.” He opened his eyes at last, and Draco thought he could never know how much courage it took for Harry to look at him directly. “And if it’s important to you that I don’t have sex with other people even when I’m playing other personas, then—then I don’t want to have it.”

He sounded surprised at himself. Draco didn’t care. His heart was thudding as it had the first time he rode a horse over an obstacle and realized he had come down successfully on the other side.

He leaned forwards and kissed Harry, softly but insistently, and Harry made a soft sound of pleasure and kissed him back.

*

Harry was shaking. He had spent so many years cultivating understanding of emotions: the ones his clients expressed, the ones his enemies and his friends showed, the ones it was permissible and expected for his personas to display, the ones he could never acknowledge for fear of disappointing others. And now he didn’t understand the joy or the wonder or the fear he felt, the desire to please Draco not just because Draco was someone who needed something from him, but because pleasing him made Harry happy.

Eventually, you will understand them, the merciless voice said. If it frightens you to speak the name of love yet, then so be it.

I could have used some support from you earlier, Harry thought grumpily at his newest persona.

If the voice had spoken aloud, it would have been smug. What need did you have of my support, when you were being me?

Harry might have experienced worse than the startlement he felt at those words, except that it was rather hard to panic when Draco was kissing him and stroking his face like this. He settled for rolling his eyes inwardly and enjoying himself without letting their magic join them and hurry them into bed. They had things to talk about before they next fucked.

Perhaps, said the merciless voice, you will even speak some of my words to him.

Chapter 30.

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