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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Ten--Dancing with the Consequences

            "There is something I do not understand in all this," McGonagall said quietly, when the chaos of their conflicting stories had died out, and even Malfoy had found something to say to the Headmistress. "Why were you in the Forbidden Forest in the first place, Mr. Potter?"

            Harry lifted his head and straightened his shoulders. He had known he would have to account for that, and he had used the time while Klein was telling her story--and insisting that Harry and Malfoy be punished--and Malfoy was telling his--and insisting he had done nothing wrong--to prepare the confession that he thought would serve his purposes best.

            "I wanted to go there to get away from it for a little while," he said quietly. "All the staring, all the gasping, all the fucking attention." He lowered his head and stared bitterly at his feet.

            "Language!" Klein and McGonagall said at the same time, like twin echoes, but only the Headmistress went on, and her voice was more sympathetic than it had been. "The attention, Mr. Potter?"

            Harry let his head bob up and down, and gritted his teeth in his jaw as though he was fighting back a wave of--something. Let them mistake it for panic, or tears, or something else. They would be close to right, anyway. Harry was tired of that side to his life at the moment, although he had managed to ignore it with so many more pressing things to think about.

            "Why should there have to be stronger wards on the school to keep reporters from coming in, just because of me?" he whispered. "Why should all the other students have to report strangers on the grounds, just because one of them might want my autograph, or to talk to me, or something like that? Why should so many first-years be terrified with stories of what I'll do to them?" He looked up, at Klein. "Why should Professor Klein be harassed with rumors about how I could teach Defense better than she could, when there's no proof that's true?"

            The way Klein's jaw set let Harry know his guess had been right, although he hadn't personally heard anyone complaining about that, except for little mutters from Ron over his essays. He turned away and stared at the far wall.

            Malfoy shifted in the chair beside him, but made no comment. He probably doesn't believe that I'd rather be without the attention, Harry thought, counting the books on the shelves in the moments before McGonagall answered. He won't believe that trouble just finds me.

            "I--apologize, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said stiffly. "I had not realized the atmosphere at Hogwarts was so stifling for you."

            Malfoy snorted, and Harry half-nodded to himself. Yes, that would be the sound Malfoy made right before he unleashed a torrent of criticism and doubt. There was no way that he would ever believe Harry hated the attention unless Harry talked to him long and earnestly about it, and then he would probably still think it was some maneuver or long-range plot of Harry's.

            To do what? Harry thought, frustrated, in the git's direction. There's nothing I want enough to set up that kind of plot, and I wouldn't be good at it if I tried, anyway.

            "But you are a hero, and you killed the monster." McGonagall leaned forwards until Harry reluctantly turned his eyes away from the shelves and fastened them on her face. Her eyes had a soft shine behind her glasses, and she reached out as if she would take his hand. Then, at the last minute, she seemed to remember she was a professor and he was a student in trouble, and pulled the hand back. "That always entails a certain amount of consequences." Her voice cooled. "And not enough to excuse you venturing into the Forest by yourself at night, I'm afraid."

            Harry sighed. At least he had managed to convince her, and that meant she might ignore anything Malfoy said about Potions ingredients or Klein hinted at about Darker reasons.

            "So she really is an Auror?" he asked, staring at Klein. "She said she was, but after the amount of weird things that have happened around this place, I wasn't sure I should trust her."

            Klein's face looked as though she was eating a squirming mouthful of squid. McGonagall hesitated, and Harry felt briefly sorry for her. She was trying to figure out how to deal with a bunch of students who were also war heroes. He knew they didn't make it easy for her.

            But he was tired of making it easy for people to ignore him and keep him in ignorance, too. They wanted him to be a hero, fine. Heroes had to know about threats so they could protect people from them. Just sitting back and letting other people take care of it, even Aurors, wasn't what he did.

            "Yes, Professor Klein is an Auror," McGonagall said, in a tone of voice that let Harry know he'd better not forget the title again. "And she has graciously agreed to donate some of her time to the school so that you will be protected."

            "From Death Eaters?" Harry asked. "I didn't know they were in the Forest at all."

            "From Death Eaters, yes," Klein broke in, apparently tired of being ignored. "And from some of the people you were talking about, the ones who might try to breach the wards and come to you. To duel you, for vengeance, to duel you and prove who is the better--I have heard all those reasons and more when I was studying the documents the Ministry has gathered."

            She fell silent abruptly, and Harry saw the swish of McGonagall's sleeve around her arm. He didn't care. He had heard enough to ask the question that hovered behind his lips a moment later.

            "What documents?"

            McGonagall closed her eyes. Klein lifted her head. "It does not matter," she said, and her voice was one that Harry thought she might have used several times before to make suspects or trainee Aurors shut up and stop asking questions.

            But Harry was neither of those right now, and it was seeming extremely unlikely to him that he would ever be a trainee Auror. He didn't want to be like Klein. He bared his teeth and asked again, "What documents?"

            "The documents that made me decide to take this case." Klein glared at him. "You needed protection."

            "But that doesn't sound like documents you recovered from the Death Eaters," Harry insisted. "Unless they're writing letters to the Ministry talking about how much they'd like to kill me and stuff like that." Come to think of it, he knew some of the Death Eaters were probably crazy enough to do things like that, but he also knew that most of them, such as Bellatrix, were dead or captured.

            "Interviews," McGonagall bit out. "The observations of Aurors on the streets, who have listened to rumors and written down what they heard. Pensieve memories from some of the captured Death Eaters. Mr. Potter, you are severely out of line."

            Harry winced. That had been the tone she would use with him when he turned in an essay late as a sixth-year.

            Then he reminded himself of what he was again, and sat up. They wanted him to excuse being a hero, or accept it. Fine, he would, but that would mean accepting everything, including the things they tried to shield him from. "I'm sorry, Headmistress. But I've killed someone tonight, and captured others, and apparently that makes me an adult. I want to know more about what kind of danger I'm in, and what kind of danger my friends are in, and what I can do to stop it."

            "Nothing," Klein said. "You are still a child."

            "Oh, bollocks," said Malfoy.

            "Mr. Malfoy!" McGonagall said, apparently less conflicted about how to treat someone who might be of age but wasn't a war hero. "You, also, are severely out of line, and are not being punished only on sufferance--"

            "Really?" Malfoy snorted and stood up. He had been sitting for so long that Harry had thought he had no objections to what was happening to them, that he would willingly go through any amount of scolding and upset just to avoid angering McGonagall and Klein further. He ought to have remembered that Malfoy had never really been interested in compromising, unless doing so could make someone more likely to do what he wanted most of all. "We're of age, Potter and I, and the others you invited back this year." Harry hid a smile. He knew from Malfoy's disgusted tone that he was only including the other eighth-years because doing so would deflect a little bit of the criticism from him and Harry. "We just survived a battle against the Death Eaters. What right do you have to keep us out of this?"

            "Legal right," Klein said. "You have no legal right to sit in on the interrogations of prisoners I captured."

            "I captured two of them," Harry pointed out. "I killed one. By that logic, you ought to release the body and those two prisoners, including Macnair, to me, because I'm the only one who can examine or question them."

            Klein gave him a look that would have cut him to the bone not long ago. But this summer had happened, and last year had happened. Harry raised his eyebrows and returned the glance, and Klein turned back to McGonagall.

            "Minerva," she said quietly, "I am sorry, but I cannot work under these conditions. Not if the boy I am supposed to be protecting refuses my instructions and goes against my orders."

            McGonagall hesitated. Harry watched wheels spinning in her head, and then she nodded. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I hired you as a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor first and a bodyguard for Mr. Potter second. You signed a contract that you would retain the post as Defense teacher for at least a year."

            Klein blinked and opened her mouth, but didn't say a word. Harry watched her. She's kind of like Dudley, he thought. She isn't used to the rules applying to her instead of other people.

            "I--can't do that," she said. "Madam, Headmistress, the Head Auror still holds the right to command my movements, and--"

            "He commands you to stay here for right now."

            Harry turned around, his eyebrows rising, as the door to the office opened. He had to admit that whoever had said that had a magnificent sense of timing, even though he was afraid they also might be someone he needed to oppose in order to take control of his own life back.

            The man who stepped inside was one Harry had seen at a few trials this summer, but he hadn't known his name. He had a long grey beard that he wore tucked inside his belt, and Auror robes that had patches and darns on them in more than a few places. His eyes were green, and when he glanced at Harry, Harry thought he was amused. Well, that was better than some of the other things he could have looked at the moment, even if Harry probably would still need to fight him.

            "Head Auror Olversvald," Klein said stiffly. "I assure you I cannot work like this."

            "I did always think this arrangement should have been public," Olversvald remarked to the air, and turned to Harry. "Mr. Potter, now that you know who Professor Klein really is, can you work with her so as not to make her job impossible?"

            "What, like wandering off into the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night?" Harry asked. He was studying Olversvald, and he had decided he might not need to fight him after all. He looked more like Dumbledore than anyone Harry had met since Dumbledore died.

            "Yes, like that," Olversvald agreed. "And in the meantime, she'll do things like let you sit in on the interrogation of Death Eaters, if you want to, or she can give you extra training. None of us wants you to die."

            "I'd disagree with that," Malfoy said next to his ear, more breath than words. Harry knew without looking that he was staring at Klein.

            "Well," Harry said, "I'll think about it. But there are times I do just need to be alone, and I can't always think about the Auror who might be trailing me, you know?" No way was he letting Klein interfere with his taking care of Malfoy or the wolfwere or Snape. These were people who had asked for his help, and he could give it and he wanted to give it. There was really nothing in the world more important than that.

            "Now that you know about her, can you take her into account?" Olversvald leaned against the wall and ignored the way that Klein was glaring back and forth between him and Harry. "She will, of course, fulfill the terms of her contract to teach, too, Headmistress McGonagall."

            "That would be acceptable," McGonagall admitted in what sounded like a grudging tone. Well, Harry couldn't really blame her.

            "I'll try," Harry said. "Like I said, I just don't know if I can all the time. Can I go into the Forest during the day?" That might be a way to see the wolfwere and talk to him about his pups if he needed to.

            "You can tell someone," said Olversvald. "And stay away from the part of the Forest where you helped locate Death Eaters." At least he's acknowledging that I helped, Harry thought. "Otherwise, giving permission for a tracking spell might mean the difference between arriving in time to help you and only getting there in time to see you fall."

            "We do not ask permission for tracking spells," Klein began in a low but furious voice.

            "Sometimes I forget how young you are as an Auror, Matilda," Olversvald said, and only looked at her once.

            Harry saw Klein's face go white. But she didn't say anything else, which was good enough for him for right now. He would figure out later whether having someone who hated his guts guarding his back was a good thing.

            "Permission for tracking spells granted, sir," he said. He paused, then added, "I just want a normal life. Really. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I want to be able to be alone and go where I like and do what I like without anyone caring."

            Malfoy shifted again next to him. This time, Harry didn't know which expression he would be wearing, but he didn't look, either.

            "For the moment, we have to care," Olversvald said quietly, and his smile was gone, and he was looking earnestly at Harry, the way Harry thought he would probably look at another adult, so that was all right. "I hope, someday, you have the life you crave. At the moment, it is not possible. Do you understand why?"

            Harry nodded. Reluctantly, but he nodded. Because he did know. McGonagall was right. He was the hero who had killed the monster, and that victory wasn't old enough for people to forget about it yet. They still cared, so he had to play the part of willing hero, or stay behind wards and privacy spells if he didn't want to.

            And remember that there were people hunting him. He could forget when he was in the castle. Hogwarts was so safe. But he probably would have to venture outside the castle some of the time, so he could remember.

            "All right, sir," he said. "I'll try to work with Professor Klein if she'll work with me." He sneaked a glance at Klein, but since her face was absolutely set and she wasn't looking at him, he didn't know what she was feeling.

            "And we will get to learn about the people who want to kill us simply for being in the Forest at the wrong time?" Malfoy demanded, a sharp tone in his voice that Harry wouldn't have dared to use right now. Then again, thinking about it, why not? He had power at his fingertips if he chose to use it, the power of his name and the scar on his forehead.

            He simply never wanted to use it.

            "No one tried to kill you, Malfoy," Klein said. "You were with us, that was all. Who would care enough about you to want to kill you?"

            Harry would have thought that was truth a few minutes ago. An hour ago. A year ago. But it wasn't the truth or falsehood of the statement that made his chest burn, it was the way Malfoy's eyes dulled. He looked like he did when he was taunting Harry in Charms class, not the strong and clear-eyed bloke he'd been in the Forest.

            "Don't talk to him like that," Harry said.

            He thought he'd yelled it, childishly. But his voice came out deeper than he meant it to, and calmer. And he thought that was what made Klein sit back in her chair and rest her hand on her wand, and Olversvald's smile disappear completely for the first time since he'd stepped into the office.

            The clear look came back into Malfoy's eyes, though. And next to that, it was really hard to care about anything else.

            "Why should I not?" Klein asked, after a moment of rigid silence when Harry had thought someone else, like McGonagall, would interrupt, and she never did. "Why shouldn't I ask what use Malfoy is to us, when he was the one who came after you into the Forest?"

            "And I was the one who was in the Forest in the first place, making things hard for you," Harry said. "Don't yell at him for my mistake."

            "Gentlemen. Lady." McGonagall clapped her hands sharply. "I think that we have spent quite enough time awake for one night, don't you? We've made a bargain I think should hold. Mr. Potter has agreed to let the Aurors use tracking spells on him and follow him about as necessary. He's agreed to be more cautious." She gave Harry a look that said she would see to the reinforcement of that part of the bargain herself if necessary. Harry just nodded back. "In return, Mr. Potter won't be persecuted for the killing in self-defense he performed tonight, or for going into the Forest, and neither will Mr. Malfoy. And he will be allowed to sit in on the interrogations of the Death Eaters."

            "Both of us."

            Again, his voice was calmer than Harry had thought it would be, so calm that for a moment he thought Malfoy had said those words. But no, he was the one who was standing up in front of McGonagall and daring her with his eyes to do something about it, and she was the one who bit her lips and turned away and looked unhappy.

            "You're not going to allow this, Headmistress, surely?" Klein had no emotion in her voice now, either. But Harry thought it was fair if he reckoned that she was upset. She probably was.

            "I don't see that we have a choice," McGonagall said, staring at the far wall. "This is an unusual situation. No, Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy should not have been in the Forest." She glanced frowningly over her shoulder at them again. "But what's done is done. They assisted in the capture and felling of several Death Eaters tonight. We owe them for that."

            "But," Klein said, and then Olversvald caught her eye and motioned with one lazy hand. She immediately shut up. Harry wondered if he had something more on Klein than just being her boss. If he did, and it was something other people could learn, Harry thought he'd like to have it. There were several times in the past day that he'd found himself wanting to shut Klein up.

            "All is settled," McGonagall said, voice firm enough now that Harry thought she'd talked herself into it. She turned around and stared down her nose at Klein. "Unless you wish to object to something about it, of course, Matilda."

            Klein didn't need the motion of Olversvald's hand to shut her up this time. She raised her head and shook back her long braid. "No, Headmistress."

            "Excellent." McGonagall gestured them towards her office door. "Then let's go to bed, please. I feel the need of some good sleep before I meditate any more on the terms of this bargain."

            They trooped down the stairs. Olversvald and Klein went in front of them, and although Harry was curious to hear what they'd say to each other, he lingered behind. Malfoy had caught his eye and held it for too long a pause of time for him to do otherwise.

            "You fought for me," Malfoy said, when they were riding the moving staircase down.

            "Well, yeah," Harry said, catching his eye and frowning at him. Malfoy was looking still clear and not dull and prattish the way he had been most of the time they were in class. That stupid statement was one Harry would have expected to hear from him if he had started looking that way again. "I thought it wouldn't surprise you. We're allies, aren't we?"

            "I haven't done anything for you yet," Malfoy said, frowning as the staircase deposited them at the bottom door. Harry looked around, almost hoping to catch a glimpse of robe where Klein and Olversvald were vanishing, but didn't see it. Well, I should probably stay away from them, anyway. "And yet you're fighting for me all the time." His voice turned sharp. "I need to do something about that. Yes, we're allies, but I never wanted to owe you such a massive debt."

            Harry snorted. "I don't think you owe me a massive debt, if that helps."

            "Of course you wouldn't think that," Malfoy said. "But I'm different. I'm a Malfoy. I know what's owed to someone who fights for you and isn't related to you by blood or bound by a debt already."

            "Don't you have any friends to teach you what friendship means?" Harry demanded, and remembered too late.

            Malfoy's mouth twisted for a second. Then he said, "I think we'd better talk in the morning, Potter. The Headmistress is right that we need to sleep on this." And he stalked away with his arse waggling. If he'd been a cat, Harry thought, his tail would have stood up, all puffed-out fur and offended pride.

            Well, he had put his foot right in it.

            He sighed and walked back to the portrait hole to the Gryffindor common room. He'd felt tired when they were coming back through the Forest with their prisoners, but now he recognized the tight, scratching itchiness at the corners of his eyes and knew he wouldn't sleep. He might as well do something useful, like sit up and compose a letter to Snape asking if he would let Harry tell Draco about him.

            Malfoy. His name is still Malfoy, at least until you understand what's going on with him.

            And then he might take his Invisibility Cloak and the list of details about the day the spell had been cast that Malfoy'd given him, and see what he could find out about curses that made your friends turn against you.

*

            unneeded: Yes, I think Klein is being a bit naive to think of Harry as someone who would never have killed or needed to kill if he hadn't killed this particular Death Eater. If nothing else, he's going to be an Auror, and that's not a profession you can get away with a guarantee that you won't kill someone.

            If Snape would let Harry tell Malfoy, yes...

            SP777: I know what I've got planned for the story as far as individual scenes, but the follow-through plot is a little less strongly connected.
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Parsimony