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A More Worldly Man	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10960 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter Eleven—Manipulations

            Granger seemed to know where she was going; Draco would give her that. She led them into the Atrium of the Ministry, straight to the lifts, and then punched the button for the fourth floor with a determined set to her jaw.

            Draco frowned over her shoulder. “The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?” he muttered. “Why are we going there? Visiting the Aurors would be more useful.”

            “I have contacts there.” Granger had her arms folded, her elbows projecting in a way that managed to look as threatening as a drawn wand. “Someone who I think will be very interested in what we have to say to him.” Her elbow twitched, and Draco moved out of the way to avoid getting jabbed in the ribs.

            “Who?” Millicent asked, in the bright tone of someone who simply wanted knowledge.

            Granger ignored her, instead watching the lift buttons. Draco wondered if she expected someone to suddenly call the lift to a stop and demand to know where they were going. Of course, Harry had once mentioned something about sneaking into the Ministry during the war. Perhaps Granger was having a flashback.

            The lift stopped with an abrupt jerk that made Draco frown—if he owned this building, he would have specified better equipment—and Granger stepped out into the middle of a corridor that curved sharply to the left but ran straight to the right. She took the left turn, her back so straight it must have hurt. Draco hurried after, and heard Millicent walking softly behind.

            “It would help if you would tell us who this contact was,” he muttered into Granger’s hair, “or at least what you think he can do to help Harry.”

            “You’ll learn his name in just a moment.” Granger stepped over a large spot on the floor that looked uncomfortably like a bloody pawprint. “And what he can do to help Harry is less important than the reason that he’ll have to do just what we tell him.”

            Draco approved of the harshness in her voice, too. He pinched his nose against a sudden smell of chickens coming from a side corridor and watched as Granger pushed open a door that was all over dust to reveal a small office crammed with cabinets and shelves. Most of the shelves were empty. A man seated behind the single desk looked up at them with small, dull eyes, barely blinking when he saw Draco, though Draco fancied he must have recognized the Malfoy hair and face.

            “Yes?” he asked, his voice without inflection. Perhaps he’d been handsome once, with his blue eyes and dark hair, but now his features were a match for his voice: unanimated, without spark. “This is the Centaur Liaison Office. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

            Draco concealed an incredulous snort. No centaurs ever petitioned the Ministry for help, making the Centaur Office a joke. It was traditionally where wizards went right before they were sacked. Did Granger really think that someone who worked here could help them?

            Granger smiled with all her teeth and leaned in towards the man. “You’re Hunter Littlesmith,” she said. “That means we are.”

            Draco caught his breath. The man was one he’d told Granger about himself, as someone who worked in a sub-Department of the Ministry.

            And who was one of Daphne’s former lovers.

            Draco began to smile.

*

            Harry found the holding cell boring. There was only a cot, a very small loo, and an enchanted window steadily turned to a picture of a forest in a rainstorm. He had nothing to read, no one to speak to, and no form of entertainment in his head. Ron had once claimed he would play mental chess games during boring meetings and Quidditch practices, but Harry had never mastered chess enough for the tactic to be useful to him.

            Ron. Harry could still feel an ache when he concentrated on his friend’s loss, though it had been more than a year—and what a year—and so he no longer thought about him every day. What would you say now? Commiserate with me and plan to knock down the Malfoys? Or would you be disgusted with me for dating a Malfoy in the first place and causing all this fuss?

            Harry was fairly sure Ron would have got over the shock, though, especially if he’d had the time to see Harry and Draco growing closer together the way Hermione had. He was worst with surprises, and plans he hadn’t been told about. Harry thought now that their split in fourth year, still the worst argument he’d ever had with Ron, came less from jealousy and more from the fact that he thought Harry had lied to him about sneaking his name into the Goblet of Fire.

            On the other hand, if Ron hadn’t died, it was extremely unlikely that Harry and Draco would have become closer at all. Harry knew how to brew his own potion extremely well, and he hadn’t wanted to sell it. He’d have had no reason to contact Draco.

            Does that mean I had to lose one of them for the other to come into my life? Would I always have had to make that choice?

            Harry shook his head and sat up firmly. He was getting morbid, and brooding on thoughts of death and loss would get him nowhere. He should be thinking, instead, about what would happen when the time for his trial came—if it got that far—or when Aurors arrived to ask him questions.

            What if they bring Ginny?

            Harry sighed into his fingers. He wasn’t looking forwards to that, especially when she realized he had gone off the potion. But he wouldn’t get back on it just to please her, either. They were still friends, and Harry hoped to retain her friendship. He had made a promise to Draco, though, and that was more important.

            And that is still not a plan to help you decide what you’re going to do.

            Harry nodded. He thought his best course was to be as calm as he had this evening, going with the Aurors without trouble and then allowing Kingsley to ask him any question he liked. But he would need to be candid as well, or there was a chance his enemies would manage to make it look as if he were lying about the important details as well as the unimportant ones.

            That means I’ll have to reveal in more detail how Daphne tortured Draco. Harry scratched the back of his head, where an itch was starting. He won’t like it. He may refuse to talk about it himself. But then it’ll have to be my account of what I saw in his head with the mind-reading potion, or his Pensieve memories. Either way, we’ve got to prove that I had some sort of cause for breaking into her house and attacking her.

            He wondered briefly if they would want to bring her back from the Muggle world, then shrugged to himself. Wizarding prejudice against Squibs might work in his favor there. If Daphne was physically unharmed and living under the delusion that she had never been a wizard in the first place, why disturb her?

            A month ago, you wouldn’t have depended on things like the wizarding prejudice against Squibs. You would have thought them horrible; you would have scorned to depend on them.

            Even his conscience sounded like Draco now, Harry thought, when it didn’t sound like Hermione. He lay down on the cot and fixed his gaze on the gloomy enchanted window, watching the drops of gray water plop into the dark green needles and leaves of the imaginary forest.

            And, well, he had come to accept much that he never would have accepted a month ago. That he could use his magic-devouring power for good purposes on occasion. That doing it was better than leaving someone he loved to suffer. That he could use his name and reputation for good purposes, or try; Lucius Malfoy had rather ambushed his attempt to do so. That he could work with a Slytherin and learn their code of behavior.

            That he could love Draco Malfoy.

            Harry smiled and turned his eyes to the ceiling. That was the core revelation, the one that made all the others worth it. He had eaten Daphne’s magic to protect Draco. He had decided to wield the power of his name to protect Draco as well, and to give him back his business and his free and independent life, if he could. He had chosen to work with Millicent because the chances were good that she could help him secure Draco’s freedom.

            He wanted other things—to make love to him as slowly as possible on a large bed, for instance, and with all the time in the world, and to help him with the Desire potion but otherwise trust him to manage his apothecary by himself. But those were all dependent on Draco getting his old life back.

            Not quite his old life. It will have me in it, too. And someday soon, I’m certain, he’ll tell me that he loves me.

            Harry let his head fall back on the pillows and his eyes slip closed. He would be candid in the morning and offer his questioners any information they wanted. Those were still the ways he fought best, even if he had learned to be a little Slytherin. In the meantime, the best thing he could do was sleep and make sure he’d had enough rest to be alert for any trick question they might throw at him.

            The handle of his door began to turn. Harry sat up immediately. His hand groped instinctively for his wand, and then he rolled his eyes and dropped it to his side. He did concentrate on the wandless magic that had once almost stopped Daphne’s heart. If he had to, he would use it to defend himself, though he rather suspected his control over it had changed since he stopped drinking the potion.

            If it’s a choice between dying and getting back to Draco alive by using it, though, that’s no choice at all.

            He was expecting anyone, he thought, from Willowberry to Kingsley to Draco. But his surprise was still great when Narcissa Malfoy stepped into the room and closed the door quietly behind her.

*

            Littlesmith leaned away from Granger, cringing as though she had already drawn her wand and pointed it at him. Intelligent man, Draco thought. He could sense the danger she carried with her and how little it would be worth his while to balk her.

            Then Draco glanced around the dim little office and sniffed. Well, intelligent in some senses. He must have done something relatively stupid to be sent to the Centaur Office.

            “What do you want with me?” Littlesmith whispered. “I don’t owe you any debts. I’ve never seen you before in my life. I never—I didn’t hurt you.” He leaned around Granger to look at Draco and Millicent. “And I certainly don’t know who they are! The Ministry’s already about to sack me. Why do you want to make it worse?”

            His face had more animation now; the indifferent mask he’d assumed before must be a defense against the colleagues who would laugh at him otherwise, Draco thought. He had a fineness to his jawline and chin that might have attracted a woman like Daphne. He was pushing his chair slowly back from the desk, his fingers so tight on the edge of what looked like a drawer that Draco could hear his knuckles popping under the strain.

            “You once slept with Daphne Greengrass,” Granger said, her voice cold and implacable. Behind Draco, Millicent made a faint sound of what might have been either amusement or approval. “And we’re here to make sure that you come with us and tell several other people about that.”

            Littlesmith blinked and shook his head once. “About what?” Then he seemed to decide he should be outraged. “And in any case, that’s private! You have no right to blackmail me about it.”



            “The way you think things should be is often not the way the world works,” Draco drawled.

            Granger held up a hand that Draco supposed was meant to subdue him, though he didn’t feel at all subdued. He glared at Littlesmith over Granger’s shoulder, in fact, and Littlesmith avoided Draco’s eyes as best he could, though now and then he would roll one of his own towards Draco in fascinated horror.

            “About what she did when you slept with her,” Granger said softly. “What techniques she used, and which ones you might have persuaded her not to use on you.” Draco relaxed; he had been wondering if Granger would remember that there were some differences between the way Daphne had treated Draco and the way she had treated her other lovers. Simply demanding that Littlesmith recount his own torture would not have worked, because in all likelihood it had not been as bad. “Explain her use of magic.”

            Littlesmith now looked more and more bewildered. “Why should I?” he asked. “Daphne and I haven’t had contact since she decided that I bored her.” He paused and looked at them with a sudden sharp alertness that made Draco decide again he had not faded as much as he could have. “Is she in trouble? Do you need me to explain that her magic wasn’t evil?”

            Granger smiled, and it was such a soft and sympathetic smile Draco blinked. “The context isn’t as bad as you think,” she said. “What I mostly need you to do is tell the truth in front of a room of people who might include Aurors, the Minister, members of the Wizengamot, and possibly some pure-blood wizards. Will you do that?”

            “Well, I.” Littlesmith fidgeted and looked at his hands.

            Draco nodded slowly. Yes, he thought he was a good judge of this type of man, the one who had once been on heights of glory where he scarcely believed he belonged and then sunk from them. Once, he had had a career in the Ministry. Once, he had been the lover of a witch as beautiful and accomplished as Daphne Greengrass. Nothing else in his life could stand up to those memories. And if he was at all similar to those other men Draco had known, brewed potions for, and charged dozens or even hundreds of Galleons, he would want to relive those moments. Doing it in front of an audience would embarrass him, but cause him a sneaking sort of pride also.

            Now it only remains to be seen if the pride is stronger than the embarrassment. Draco changed his grip on his wand, preparing to cast a slight softening spell, if necessary, which would nudge Littlesmith’s thoughts in the right direction.

            But Littlesmith coughed after a moment, and nodded. “Who else is involved in this case?” he asked. “Why are my memories so important?” He made a gesture around the Centaur Office, his face suddenly bright red, and kept his eyes on his desk. “I mean, I’m no one important in and of myself.”

            Granger gave him another one of those soft smiles. “But this is a time when you could be,” she said. “It’s a case involving Harry Potter—“

            “Really?” Littlesmith’s head had risen again, and a desperate hopefulness sparkled in his eyes.

            Draco controlled the impulse to spit with contempt, but it was difficult. Star-chaser. The wizarding world had few celebrities compared to the Muggle world, and Harry was hardly a celebrity for the ordinary reasons. Draco had long since become resigned to the effect that the Potter name would have on even those who had never seen him and had not a hope of catching his attention. Before this year, though, he hadn’t had a reason to feel a personal resentment and jealousy. He didn’t want random people chasing every little mention of Harry and trying to use it to enhance their reputations. It was distasteful. They were taking away distinction that should have belonged to Draco.

            Not that he would really use that distinction, of course, because it would hurt Harry. But still. It was his.

            Luckily, Littlesmith was looking at Granger, whom he seemed to have accepted as their leader, and not at Draco when his face went through its spasm of revulsion. “Harry Potter,” he whispered in a dreamy tone. Then he nodded. “I’ll do it. Just tell me when I need to go to the—the Minister and I’ll do it.”

            “Now would be a fine time,” said Granger briskly, and reached for his arm.

            “What?” Littlesmith blinked again, which seemed to be his defining gesture. “But it’s the evening.”

            “I have the Minister’s personal Floo address,” said Granger, making Littlesmith stare hard at her. Then he pointed a finger, which trembled. He let his hand fall, maybe because he had just realized that pointing a finger at a war heroine wasn’t a good idea.

            “You’re Hermione Granger,” he said, voice only a little less awed. Draco rolled his eyes. Good. Maybe he’ll go after Granger instead and leave Harry alone.

            “Yes, I am,” said Granger. She leaned towards Littlesmith and poured a passion into her voice Draco frankly hadn’t known she had in her. “And I would like to rescue my friend. Are you going to help me do that?”

            Littlesmith nodded, face dazed with happiness. Granger pulled on his arm, and this time he rose to his feet and paraded past her towards the door of the Centaur Office, glancing over his shoulder now and then as if to verify that Granger was there and this wasn’t a dream.

            Millicent gripped Draco’s shoulder. Draco leaned back towards her, and Millicent murmured into his ear, “I approve of her tactics. I suppose there’s something to be said for friendships with Gryffindors after all.”

            “These Gryffindors, at least,” said Draco, and Millicent chuckled. They followed Granger and the enraptured Littlesmith towards the lifts, and though Draco kept a sharp look-out for anyone who might be approaching them, for once they seemed to have stolen a march on their enemies. They reached a fireplace unmolested, and soon Granger was speaking to a sleepy Shacklebolt whilst Draco tried to keep himself from imagining how close to Harry he must be right now.

            He hoped he wasn’t being mistreated.

*

            “Mr. Potter,” said Narcissa, in the same cold, emotionless voice she had used that afternoon.

            Once again, Harry didn’t intend to play games. “How did you get into my cell?” he demanded. “The only ones who could come in had written permission from the Minister, and I don’t think it’s advisable for the people who brought the charges to meet with the accused criminal.”

            “The right people are convinced that I did indeed have written permission from the Minister,” said Narcissa, with a flicker of a smile that reminded Harry of the way an adder might have grinned, if it could. She conjured a chair with a flicker of her wand. Harry kept a sharp eye on it. That she had a wand and he didn’t wasn’t the only important factor in this conversation, but it was one of the most important. She sat down in the chair, arranged her robes around her, and stared at him.

            Harry wasn’t in the mood to play staring games, either. “That’s interesting,” he said. “And it doesn’t tell me why you wanted to go to the trouble of casting the Imperius Curse in the Ministry simply to see me.”

            “There are worse spells than the Imperius Curse.” Narcissa was looking at him with a face so distant and pale, like the half-moon, that Harry found it hard to remember the tone of voice with which she had whispered to him in the Forbidden Forest, asking him where Draco was. Is she so different now just because Draco is in danger from me, and not Voldemort? Or did something else happen in the last few years to convince her that she’ll never that desperate again? “Never doubt, Mr. Potter, that I will use them on you if I must.” She leveled her wand at him, but her voice didn’t change, making the threat more eerie. “I came to extract a promise from you. Stay away from Draco.”

            Harry bared his teeth. “No.”

            “We will give Draco a laboratory,” said Narcissa. “We will give him the ability to buy the ingredients he needs, even to sell Desire potion if he wishes. It is not such a bad potion for someone who carries a pure-blood heritage and a reputation to sell. We will shelter him, protect him from Charlemagne Diggory, and see that he is in good standing with the Ministry when this affair is finished. But you will not be part of his life.”

            “Do you really think he’ll want to become a flunkey just to avoid having Diggory after him?” Harry asked incredulously.

            “A distasteful word to apply to a Malfoy.” Narcissa hadn’t blinked since she sat down, Harry thought, and if it weren’t for the words she spoke, he wouldn’t have been willing to swear she drew breath, either. “Draco is not and never will be one. And you will not be part of his life. His lover—“ her face changed, but returned to its normal cold calm too fast for Harry to be sure what the emotion was “—will be someone else, someone we have chosen and acknowledged as fit for our son.”

            “Do you know what Daphne Greengrass did to him?” Harry demanded. “Do you know why I devoured her magic?”

            “The reason hardly matters,” said Narcissa. “We cannot allow someone who would take his magic to be near Draco. You will not be part of his life.”

            “Saying that over and over again won’t get me to believe it,” Harry said crossly. “Daphne tortured him. She raped him. She used Legilimency and Memory Charms to force him to be uncertain what he’d done in bed with her, whether he had agreed to the way she violated him or not. She used curses that made it impossible for him to describe the problem or tell me who she was. He nearly died when some of those curses activated. He nearly died when his shop collapsed. He nearly died when Daphne captured him again. And you have the gall to tell me that I’m worse than that?” He had risen to his feet by now, though he didn’t try to come closer to Narcissa. There was the wand leveled at his chest, after all. “Let Draco make his own decisions. You certainly didn’t care about his life when he was in danger before.”

            “That was his life,” Narcissa said. “This is his magic.”

            Harry stared at her, unable to find his voice for long moments. “You’re insane,” he said finally.

            “I do not expect you to understand. Those who come from Mudblood backgrounds often do not.” Narcissa shifted so that she was aiming the wand at Harry’s head before he had time to react to the insult to his mother. “We can give him a happy life with his magic at full strength. You never can, not when you might drain him for the sake of some petty argument.”

            “I would never hurt Draco—“

            “One more chance, Potter,” Narcissa whispered. “If lovers care more about each other’s happiness than anything else, you ought to take this one.”

            Harry drew a deep breath and put all the force of his conviction into the words he said next. “Fuck you.”

            Narcissa’s face drained of color, down to her lips. Then she lifted her wand higher. It was level with his temple now.

            “I think I should tell you I can resist the Imperius Curse,” Harry said cheerfully.

            Narcissa ignored him. “Duco aeternum,” she said.

            Harry’s world became unreal for just a moment before it folded, gently, into the worst pain he had ever known.

*

            Lilith: Thank you! The Malfoys as well as Draco, Hermione, and Millicent are beginning to handle things, unfortunately.

            Graballz: Thank you! For what it’s worth, one reason the two situations are easy to keep separate is because Draco’s arguments with his parents here run so much deeper.

            SP777: Millicent is bringing her money and her political support. Besides, she has some knowledge of potions and the Muggle world that could be useful.

            avihenda: In this case, I don’t think Harry’s ability is inherited or anything like that. It’s simply a development of his magic under extreme stress. He can’t just decide to do it.

            Thrnbrooke: The Malfoys are spinning things to their advantage, that’s for certain.

            Mangacat: Hermione and Millicent will interact more openly later, and in front of Harry.

            Yume111: I think Kingsley did try to make sure he got Harry, not only because he’s Harry’s friend but because of the potential for the whole situation to blow up.

            Willowberry is just a random name I made up off the top of my head, don’t worry.

            I’m glad you like Harry and Draco’s tactics. This is the first story where I’ve written them both acting more Gryffindor.

            And thanks for reviewing!
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A More Worldly Man