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Sleepless	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16095 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter Eleven—Decisions Lightly Made

            “What do you want?” The dream-Ron’s voice wasn’t exactly hostile, but he glanced at Harry from the corner of his eye and then turned away with an ostentatious air that said he had plenty of better things to do.

            Harry sighed and reached for a Galleon in his pocket. Through methods that he didn’t entirely understand—if Lucius could arrange for money to flow to him, Harry was surprised that he hadn’t used it for bribes—he had access to Malfoy money now, and Lucius had commanded him to use it for “whatever you might need it for.” Given the stare and smirk that accompanied that, Harry knew that Lucius was probably imagining much more perverted uses than Harry actually intended to put it to.

            “A moment of your time,” he said. “And I’ll pay you.” He held out the Galleon.

            Ron went all stiff and prideful at once, canting his nose back so that he could look at Harry down it like he was adopting a Malfoy tradition. “What makes you think that I would accept your money?”

            “Because it’s not a bribe,” Harry said. They stood in the lobby of the lodging-house for the Ministry witnesses, and anyone who walked past could have glanced over and seen them. Not that anyone was walking past. This was the quietest building Harry had ever visited. “It’s just a compensation for your time.”

            “Compensation,” Ron scoffed, but he looked a bit more interested.

            “It is,” Harry said. “I have to understand what made the Malfoys so different from the rest of the pure-bloods. Why did they wait until the very end of the trials to make a spectacle of them? And I could use a few tips about how to contact Rita Skeeter, too, and someone named Woburn that the Malfoys want me to contact.” Lucius had given him only the name Woburn and refused anything more, just smiling slightly. Harry had the infuriating impression that this was a test of sorts, that Lucius expected him to discover Woburn’s first name on his own.

            Ron snorted. “Then you’re paying me for the wrong thing. I can give you the directions to Skeeter’s office, but you’d have a better chance trying to find Snape than Woburn.”

            “Is he dead?” Harry demanded. That would be like the Lucius of this world, he thought, to pretend that he was giving in and would cooperate, but then send Harry off on a hunt that would waste his time. Every time he seemed ready to do something to save his own life, it turned out to be a ruse.

            Ron shook his head. “No, but his Manor’s Unplottable. He’s legendary, actually. The few times that he’s appeared in public during my lifetime, he’s already looked ancient. Some people say that he’s older than Dumbledore. Some say that he’s the secret head of the Wizengamot. Some people say that he never really existed at all, and he’s just a glamour that bored pure-bloods use when they feel like gaining more respect than usual.” Ron had a faint smile on his face, and Harry thought that he might privately enjoy the stories, or at least sympathize with someone who would disguise themselves for the purpose of causing false reactions in others. “But you won’t find him.”

            Harry sighed and pushed the Galleon across the counter. “Fine. Do you have directions to Skeeter’s office, and can you tell me something about the Malfoys?”

            Ron scooped up the coin and nodded. “I’ll draw you a map to find Skeeter. As for why they kept the Malfoys until last, that’s easy. They’d been powerful in the Ministry. No one would have believed that they were on trial for their lives until they saw it happening. And even when the first rumors came down that they’d all been arrested, rather than simply being held overnight, most people didn’t believe it. I didn’t. Malfoy was always a ponce in school, but he was a ponce who didn’t get in trouble. Why should this be different?”

            Harry opened his mouth, hotly, to defend Draco, and then shut it again. Ron wouldn’t understand either the reasons that Harry wanted to perform the defense or why Harry objected so strongly to that particular insult.

            “Anyway,” Ron went on, staring up at the ceiling, “there’s not much more to tell than that. They wanted to make a show of it, to show people that the Malfoys actually were going to die and all their money and blood and status couldn’t save them.” He gave Harry a quick look. “Then you came along and messed it up.”

            Harry licked his lips. “What kind of evidence do they have against them?”

            Ron laughed, a sharp sound like a seal’s bark that Harry couldn’t connect with the man he knew back in his waking world. “You mean, besides the bloody Dark Marks, and all those people who saw Lucius Malfoy torturing Muggleborns and fighting at You-Know-Who’s side? Besides that?”

            Harry felt his heart pound. The situation was worse than he had imagined. But he kept his gaze on Ron’s face and nodded. “Yeah, besides that,” he said. He was glad that his voice was cool and collected.

            Ron studied him, eyes narrowing. Then he clapped his hands together and pointed one finger at Harry. “You’re going to argue that the eyewitness testimony is unreliable,” he said. “Masks, darkness, people getting hysterical, grudges against Lucius Malfoy for other reasons. Right?”

            Harry blinked a bit. While this Ron wasn’t the polite, happy, cheerful person he was used to, he was smart in other ways. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

            “Because that’s what other people tried to argue.” Ron turned his hands over. “They let them get away with it, if their barristers were good and they paid the right bribes to the Ministry.”

            Harry looked at the place on the counter where he’d put the Galleon. “I know no one wanted to defend the Malfoys, but their money—”

            “I don’t know.” Ron raised his eyebrows and smirked a bit at Harry. “That’s unusual, isn’t it? Here are these pure-blood Death Eaters who should have been able to walk away exactly like the others, but something stopped them from it.”

            Harry frowned and drummed his fingers on the counter. “You wouldn’t know what that was, would you?” he asked without much hope.

            Ron spread his hands out and shook his head. “If I knew, I would have volunteered as barrister to the Malfoys myself,” he said. “It would make a strong, convincing argument if you could point out the differences in their treatment from the other pure-bloods’ and demand to know the reason. But without proof of the reason, it probably won’t help much.”

            Harry paused, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “I might not need the reason after all,” he muttered.

*

            “I want you to study these books today, Harry.” A stack of large tomes cascaded onto the table beside him.

            Harry muttered something under his breath that he was glad Hermione didn’t stay to hear. He already had five books that he had to get through today, taking notes as he went. He didn’t understand why Hermione thought that he could do another seven. She had faith in his powers of concentration, he knew, but the faith needed to be a little smaller.

            Then he sighed and rubbed his eyes. He knew the source of his irritation. He hadn’t got to see Draco in his dreams last night before he woke up; the whole time in the dream world had been spent in conversation with Ron. It had given him ideas, and Harry was nearly as pleased with the revelation that Ron either liked him well enough to help him, or else wasn’t nearly as hostile to the Malfoys as he had acted at first.

            But he had wanted to see Draco.

            Harry shook his head. I’m sure that real barristers don’t fall in love with their clients, he told himself. Hermione would have stern words to say to you about that. At least Malfoy is real.

            And annoying as fuck, Harry decided, a few minutes later, when a familiar owl swooped through the window and landed right in the middle of his books, hooting softly and insistently as it held out its foot. Harry broke the letter free with a savage jerk that he could have made more gentle, or so said the offended glare of the owl before it hopped away from him with stiff dignity.

            The letter contained the same list of experts on dream magic that Harry had received last night. It also contained a small, neat paragraph in Malfoy’s handwriting. You should choose one of them soon. Personally, I’m biased towards de Vecchio, but he’s said to charge a large fee to come to Britain; you might want to choose someone closer.

            He’d signed it with his first name only this time. Harry put the letter down and pressed his fingers into his eyes until yellow stars exploded across his vision.

            I should have replied before this. He has to know that I won’t be part of this crazy experiment anymore, whatever it means. And he’ll just have to make his mind up to date someone else.

            Harry smiled faintly as he reached for ink and parchment. In one sense, he thought, he was doing Malfoy a favor: helping him to resolve his confused feelings for Harry. He wouldn’t have to waver back and forth for months between dating Harry and walking away from him; it would all be over by the time the owl returned with Harry’s message.

            I don’t think this can continue, Harry scrawled across the parchment, either the Quidditch games or your attempts to care for me and run my life. (He’d debated between those two phrases and finally decided to use them both, so that Malfoy could see he was aware that Malfoy really cared about him but also show what these attempts felt like to him). We’regoing in circles, and I’m resenting you when I should be grateful. I hope you find someone who will appreciate you and respect you the way you deserve to be, and I hope that you become so good at Quidditch that no team manager in his right mind would sack you.

            Harry snorted as he blobbed his signature at the bottom of the page. They hadn’t actually practiced Quidditch in several days, and when they were on the pitch, they’d spent more time talking than anything else. Malfoy had probably used the games as a cover to get close to him. Harry could cut this out of his heart without regret. If Malfoy really wanted or needed a practice partner, then he would find someone else—perhaps even someone else he could romance. His taste might run to Quidditch players.

            Does Draco’s?

            Harry shook his head and watched the owl out of sight before he buried himself in his law books again. He had to free Draco and his family from their fate before he could consider what kind of person Draco might fancy. He was Draco’s barrister first, his lover or boyfriend second.

            But his hero first, too.

*

            “Why did you tell me to find someone named Woburn when you know perfectly well that he can’t be found and doesn’t exist?”

            Lucius lifted an eyebrow and gave Harry a superior smile, saying nothing. Narcissa, who was seated between him and Draco as they ate small, hard sandwiches from a tray, narrowed her eyes and looked concerned. Draco rose to his feet and came towards Harry, keeping one anxious eye cocked backwards to his father.

            “What do you mean?” he whispered when he was close enough. “There’s someone named Woburn. I’ve met him myself.”

            Harry shook his head, allowing himself one swift glance into those trusting grey eyes before he looked back at Lucius. “He’s a glamour or a disguise for many people,” he said. “Or perhaps one person playing a long-running joke. His Manor’s Unplottable, and he only shows up when he wants to show up.”

            “Then perhaps he will show up once he knows that I have decided to fight for my life.” Lucius delicately popped a slice of apple into his mouth.

            Harry buried his head in his hands. Then he picked himself up and tried again, because heroes didn’t simply give up when someone opposed them, and there was no one else who would defend the Malfoys if he didn’t. “Is there anything we can do that would make him appear faster?”

            Lucius smiled at him. He didn’t respond, but from the slight shake of her head that Narcissa gave before she could stop herself, Harry could guess the answer.

            “Fine.” Harry tried not to sound curt, but it was difficult. He took out the sheet of parchment that he was using lately for notes on the trial. “Do you happen to know why your trial was left until the very end? Most of the other pure-bloods have been tried already, and either executed or imprisoned or released. Why did they want to wait and see you put on such display?”

            “Because they knew that we would make a better display than the rest,” Lucius said, frowning at Harry as if he didn’t understand the question. “Discipula has always wanted to enthrall the masses, and has always depended on spectacular shows to do it for her. Frankly, I’m only surprised that she hasn’t done something else, such as initiated an argument over your right to defend us in the papers.”

            Contact Skeeter. Harry underlined that on the parchment in front of him. “But what other reason? I know that you weren’t the one who did the worst shit in the war. Some of those who did already are dead.” Or so he thought, relying on Ron’s information. He would have to find some time to read the back issues of the Daily Prophet himself. “Why wait?”

            “That’s something I hadn’t thought about,” Draco said in a subdued voice. “Yes, why did she put it off until the end? You remember those guards were overheard talking one day a month ago, Father. They said that we were supposed to be tried near the beginning of November, but Discipula made them wait. Why?”

            “The matter is resolved.” Lucius dusted his hands free of bread crumbs and looked between them with a frown, as if their fascination with the question was beyond his understanding. “Because she knows that we are the proudest, the purest, and the best. Of course, in her quest to destroy and undermine the pure-blood power structure, she would do this, because she wishes her last conquest to be the hardest.”

            Harry restrained a sarcastic comment about how hard it was to conquer someone who was already in prison. Lucius’s words had made something else occur to him. “How many of the pure-bloods are actually left? I know from Granger’s words that Muggleborn and pure-blood criminals were treated differently—”

            “Of course they were,” Narcissa said, joining her husband in his curious peering at Harry. Draco’s eyes remained grimly fastened on Harry, and, if the dawning of emotions on his face was any guide, his brain in operation.

            “How much of the power structure is left?” Harry demanded. “Has she destroyed most of it with these trials?”

            “I do not know,” Lucius said. “We have had no recent news.”

            “No recent news that you paid attention to, you mean,” Draco snapped at his father, and turned to face Harry as if he was shutting his parents out of the conversation. “I’ve listened,” he said. “To the guards and to Discipula, when I can. They’ve said all sorts of different things, to taunt me, but I think some of the information that slipped through was real.”

            Harry drew in the sight of him, trying so hard to be powerful and self-assured, even as he had to fear for his life. “What—” His voice came out unexpectedly husky. He cleared his throat. “What have you heard? What information do you think is most likely to be real?”

            “Several pure-blood families are likely to be gone altogether,” Draco said. He had folded his hands in front of him as if that would mean that he was holding the truth he spoke back from him, making himself less vulnerable. “Most of the others lost at least one member. A lot of them lost their money in bribes to keep their lives or their property. That’ll break a lot of the power that they had, because they won’t be able to keep bribing the people who matter in the Ministry without their vaults.”

            “We did not earn the majority of our power by bribes to the Ministry,” said Lucius stiffly. “It was our blood and our grace and our preservation of wizarding culture that won us the allegiance of others.”

            Draco might not have heard him, and his desperate, bitter monologue cut short the sarcastic response Harry wanted to make to Lucius. “She’s cowed some of those who might have been charged with crimes into acting like good little citizens—doing exactly as she says. And she’s won lots of property for the Ministry, because they administer it until a direct heir can be found. They probably won’t look for those direct heirs with any quickness.”

            Harry gave Draco a warm smile and reached out to brush a strand of hair back from his forehead, before he became aware of what he was doing and pulled his hand back with a clearing of his throat. Draco stared at him with a slight rose flush coming into his cheeks, and Lucius smirked at him. “That’s wonderful,” Harry said. “That will help us when we plan a strategy. I think that we’re going to have to go head to head with Discipula, more than the Ministry itself—”

*

            “Potter, wake the fuck up!”

            Harry’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up so fast that he heard books fall to the ground. His first thought was that Hermione would make him pay for every bent page and cracked spine, and his second thought was that he should bend down and make sure that none of them had been actually damaged, as opposed to sounding that way.

            His third and fourth thoughts was that it didn’t make sense for him to have awakened with books around him instead of in his bed, and what the fuck was Malfoy doing here, anyway?

            He turned and found Malfoy looming over him, his face blank with worry, his eyes dark with it. He had both his hands resting on Harry’s shoulders, but pulled them back when Harry stared at him. He rubbed one hand down his chest and cleared his throat.

            “You were asleep here,” he said. “I came in response to your ridiculous letter. And you were asleep.”

            “You said that already,” Harry said, using the most scalding tone he could, while he bent down to gather up the books. He hadn’t expected—he really hadn’t—Malfoy to follow this up. Why should he? Either he was proud enough that Harry’s dismissal would make him recoil in indignation, or he would understand that Harry wasn’t going to fulfill his genuine need and hire someone else.

            “I couldn’t wake you up,” Malfoy said. “I called your name, shook you, and called your name in your ear. It was only when I combined the shaking with the yelling that I got a response, and even then, your hands and your eyes didn’t stop moving for several seconds.” He loomed closer, so that, when Harry stood back up with his arms full of books, he couldn’t move anywhere. “You idiot. You were having one of those dreams again, weren’t you?”

            Harry turned his head away to avoid answering and to avoid comparing Malfoy with how Draco had looked in his dream—Malfoy’s cheeks were flushed, too, but it was a more vivid red, as everything about him seemed to be harder and brighter—and put his armful of books on the table. “Think what you want, Malfoy. I told you that we were done, and that means you don’t have to be concerned about me anymore.”

            “Fuck you,” Malfoy said, raggedly, sounding hurt and angry at the same time. “You might not care about these dreams and the way they affect your health, but I sure as fuck do, whether you date me or not.”

            Harry moved his shoulders back and forth. He could shrug off a touch on his skin, he thought; why couldn’t he shrug off emotions in the same way? “You don’t understand, Malfoy,” he said. “I fell asleep in the middle of the day. So what? I’ve been doing a lot of studying lately, and that’s not unusual.”

            “In the middle of the day when you had a full night’s sleep the night before, or probably did?” Malfoy asked grimly. “When you took a nap in the middle of the afternoon a day ago? Yes, it is.”

            “So you’ve never wanted to rest your eyes, and fallen asleep accidentally?” Harry glared at him again.

            “This wasn’t an accident.” Malfoy’s voice had gone deep and soft, but Harry knew better than to think that meant no danger. His hands were flexing open, and his eyes were so steadily fixed that Harry didn’t think he had blinked yet. “The dreams are taking over. I shouldn’t have been able to put you to sleep so easily, but I did. Do you remember what you were doing when you fell asleep?”

            “Reading,” Harry said. “Wanting to rest my eyes.”

            “You’re lying about that last,” Malfoy said. “I bet that you fell asleep in the middle of reading, and that you don’t remember exactly what you were doing, because it happened so suddenly that you had no chance to resist.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “You make it sound as though these dreams are—are animals stalking me or something.”

            “There are dream curses that behave exactly like that,” Malfoy said. “I’ve been studying them in the last few days.”

            “Even after I made it clear that I didn’t want to see a dream magic expert, and even after I sent you the letter implying that you should find someone else to train with you for your bloody Quidditch games?” Harry demanded.

            “Yes,” Malfoy said peacefully. “You don’t know what would be best for you, that’s clear. And you have no idea what I want.”

            “Someone to train with you,” Harry said. “Someone to date. You don’t need to find either of those things in me.”

            Malfoy gave him a charming smile. “But I want to. Or might want to, on the second one.”

            Harry gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Did I tell you, Malfoy, that the version of you in my dreams actually needs me? He doesn’t make all these confusing demands and change his mind five times a second. I want to help people who need me, not someone who just might want me, or might want me tomorrow.” He started to push past Malfoy. It looked, from the slant of the light, like late afternoon, and he should take his books and go home.

            Malfoy grabbed his hand again. They were locked face-to-face, their breaths puffing against each other’s lips. Harry was dismayed to feel a shudder of excitement run down his spine. His body got excited at the most inappropriate times.

            “Listen to yourself sometime,” Malfoy whispered. “You’re changing into the hero caricature that the papers like to make you into. I’m going to prevent that from happening, because I want to. I don’t need any better reason. Unlike you,” he added, in a voice of withering contempt, and dropped Harry’s hand.

            “What does it say about you, that you’re chasing someone who doesn’t want anything to do with you?” Harry asked his back.

            Malfoy walked out of the office with a magnificent swagger that reminded Harry of dream-Lucius. He swiped his hand out in frustration, and then swore as he knocked a new lot of books to the floor.

            Today is not my day.

*

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Sleepless