Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Anarchy as Art	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 12617 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
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Chapter Twelve--This Is The End
"Oh, Harry."
Hermione's voice was no more than a breath. Harry lifted his head and stared at her. They were sitting at a table behind Ron and Hermione's house. Hermione had constructed a huge glassed-in area there, during the time when she was most enthusiastic about ancient wizarding architecture, and it was pleasant most of the time, being able to watch the weather around them without getting soaked by rain or touched by wind. Now, though, it seemed coldness beat out from the glass, and even the sympathetic hand Hermione laid on his arm. Harry shivered.
"You're disappointed," he said, then paused and told himself that his voice did not sound dull in his own ears. That things still had color after his latest collision with Malfoy. That he was acting like a child to think lots of things had changed.
But then, if he was, what was the difference? He had been acting like a child all along, to hear Malfoy and Ron and Hermione tell it.
"Only because you're so disappointed in yourself," Hermione said gently. She shifted on the small round stools that she'd insisted the glass room had to be furnished with because ancient wizards would have done it that way, and frowned. "If you had chosen to date Malfoy on your own, sleep with him on your own, then, well, it would be strange to me, but I would respect that it was your decision. But this way...you're not doing anything but getting yourself trapped further in activities that you have to deny to the Auror Department."
Harry grunted and nodded, and, at her nudge, finished the glass of cold water she'd put in front of him. He wondered if some of the harsh grit at the corners of his eyes came from lack of sleep. He had been all up night, seducing Malfoy, or allowing himself to be seduced, and then creeping around Malfoy's house.
But once he could have done that and felt nothing but fresh and righteous in the morning. He reckoned that that had been when he was pursuing criminals who were actually criminals.
Or people he didn't sleep with. He could feel his face burning now when he thought about that, and took a large swallow of water in the vain hope that that would cool things down.
Hermione sighed and rubbed his arm, apparently able to sense what he was thinking. "All right. So you have to decide what you're going to do from here. And it has to be something new. Reporting to Thorin doesn't work. Ignoring Malfoy doesn't work, not if he's going to destroy other people's property and get other Aurors in trouble when you do. Sleeping with him and hoping that he'll be dazed and dazzled enough to accept anything you do after that doesn't work."
Harry smiled briefly at her. He really did like the way that Hermione's voice only faltered a little on the words "sleeping with him." He nodded and drank the rest of his water. "I have to find something else," he said. "You're right. The problem is that I don't really know what it should be. And it's hard enough coming up with ways to justify sleeping with him, never mind pursuing the case."
Hermione bit her lip. "How sure are you that he's guilty?"
Harry stared at her, then snorted. "He gave me a stolen opal that the French Aurors had turned themselves inside out trying to find. He's admitted that he trains other people in the Dark Arts. That's without the illegal Potions ingredients that he's also admitted to having. Yeah, I'm sure that he's guilty. The problem is convincing Thorin of it without some kind of direct evidence. Even the opal he gave me could have come, as Thorin insists, from someone else. He could say that he bought it from someone else without knowing it was stolen."
"Then Thorin won't really accept anything, it sounds like," Hermione said. "Not if stolen property he gave you from his own hands wasn't good enough."
"You're probably right about that," Harry said, and thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Unfortunately, I don't really see that it changes anything. If I try to take myself off the case, well, we know what will happen."
"Then try to negotiate with him outside the strictures of the Ministry," Hermione said, eyes shining as she leaned forwards. Harry remembered that she had tried negotiation with several members of her own Departments in the Ministry, and had splendid results. Of course, he didn't know that any of them had had the sheer pig-headedness of Thorin or Malfoy's slipperiness. "Tell him that you're coming to a meeting with him in good faith."
"He won't maintain it," Harry said. "Hermione, this is someone who destroyed Flowing's evidence and broke into my home to redecorate it just because he could. I can't trust anything he tells me."
"You've trusted most everything he's said about himself so far," Hermione pointed out dryly. "That he's a renowned thief, that he wants you, that he trains other thieves. You can trust him this far."
"Fine, fair," Harry said, shifting in place. "But what would I tell him that I wanted to negotiate about? There's nothing I can offer him except, well, what I already did." He became aware that his face was all one fiery blush, and began to wish he had taken the time to change out of his fine dress robes before he came over to Hermione's. Fine, he had been a whore, there was no need to flaunt it in front of his best friends. "And everything else...I've tried everything I can think of."
"Except that," Hermione pointed out again. "As for what you'll negotiate about, why don't you leave that up to him for once? Just tell him that you want to speak to him about it, and I think he'll come up with plenty of things to discuss on his own."
Harry gave a wavering snort as he imagined the kinds of things that Malfoy might want to discuss--
And then thought again of that moment in the corridor when Malfoy had looked at him and told him that he needed lessons in bravery, and the tumult of gold and courage that had poured through him when he walked out the door of his house. No one was going to put wards on him that would watch and restrict his movements, he had sworn. He didn't like the idea of someone dragging him into a negotiation, either.
But if he set the terms and the time, and perhaps let Malfoy pick the place, then he would be choosing it, as Hermione said. Even if Malfoy did end up controlling the conversation, in some ways.
"All right," he said, "I'll try that." I'll show him that I'm not afraid of anything he might say to me. I'll go to him, and try to get this settled once and for all. At this point, I'd accept leaving the case up to someone else as long as he promises not to attack the other Aurors.
I'll try anything once. Especially if I can get rid of this shame and this--irritation.
*
Harry leaned back against the smooth, white wooden back of the chair behind him, and then cringed and leaned forwards again. Although he wore a perfectly clean set of ordinary robes, not fancy ones and not Auror robes either, he still had the impression that he might dirty or smudge something somehow.
Malfoy had demanded that they meet in a restaurant called the Three Blossoms that had been built on the edge of Hogsmeade shortly after the war. Harry had never been inside it, and had agreed without much thought. He only knew it was expensive, and so pretty much the sort of place that Malfoy, by definition, would pick.
But inside, it had turned out to be as delicate and quiet as a library, with everything done in white: windows of frosted glass, pale wrought iron railings around gardens full of lilies and white roses, marble steps, birch-wood chairs, tables that glittered like diamonds and which Harry wasn't prepared to swear weren't carved diamonds. And the three-flowers motif was everywhere, thorns pricking Harry's back if he did forget and try to relax.
This wasn't the sort of place he belonged. A high-class thief, though, would fit in nicely. Harry was caught between wincing and fuming every time he moved.
And then, of course, Malfoy was late, even though he had agreed in his return owl that two-thirty was a perfectly good time for a meeting. Harry was already busy enduring the stares of several restaurant patrons because he sat alone at a table and because, he assumed, his ordinary clothing and his tangled black hair weren't fancy enough.
The fuming was starting to win out over the wincing. Ten more minutes, Harry thought, and then he was standing up and walking out of here like a--
A jilted lover?
No, not like that, Harry decided, very coldly and very patiently, and looked up when footsteps sounded in front of him.
Malfoy was walking towards him, in pale robes that of course matched everything in the place (and made him look more than a little like a ghost, but Harry doubted he would care about that). He wore a white flower in his fucking hair, even, which he took out with one smooth motion and placed on the table in front of Harry. Harry picked it up and held it. He had thought of tearing it up, petal by petal, and throwing it away, but, well. He hadn't.
Malfoy sat down in the chair across from him and smiled at the woman in glistening silver robes who immediately hastened towards them. He said something in flawless--well, Harry didn't know what language it was, maybe Latin or Russian, but it sounded as though he could speak it without a trace of an accent. The woman bowed her pale head back, replied in the same language, and waved her wand. Silver plates laden with fresh fruit and fresh meat appeared in front of them.
That was one reason Malfoy had chosen the place, Harry reckoned. If they couldn't do anything else with their hands, at least they could eat. He reached for the plate, only to have it skitter away across the table.
Because he would scream if he opened his mouth, Harry folded his hands in his lap and looked patiently at Malfoy, who was smiling at him with half-shut eyes.
"Like this, Harry," he murmured, and picked up a slice of peeled orange that glimmered in front of him as if it was made of jewels. He held it out towards Harry's mouth.
Harry felt his jaw lock. He didn't want to do this. Once again, he hadn't planned for this negotiation with Malfoy to go this way, but he knew that he didn't want it going any way that resembled this, not in the slightest.
But what were his alternatives? Malfoy sat there with his eyes glowing and sparking at Harry, much like the fruit, and the slice dangling in his fingers, also glowing. Harry could sit there and look like a right prat by keeping his mouth shut, or he could get up and storm out of there. He was sure that Malfoy would sit still for as long as he had to, holding that damn orange until it melted in his fingers.
Glaring, Harry opened his mouth. Malfoy immediately and delicately placed the slice of fruit on his tongue. Harry clamped his teeth shut over it and swallowed. It didn't help that it was probably the sweetest thing he'd had in a long time, Honeydukes chocolate that he'd occasionally bought himself as a treat included.
And when was the last time that you bought yourself chocolate, anyway? He couldn't remember.
"There you go," Malfoy complimented him in a faint purr. "And very graceful you look doing it, too."
Harry clamped his lips down harder around the juice and used his teeth on his bottom lip. "You know why I've called you here?" he asked finally, sitting back in the chair and feeling his fingers itch to punch the smug smile off Malfoy's face.
"A negotiation in good faith, you called it." When Malfoy let his eyelids fall far enough, he looked rather like a cat contemplating a bird with a broken wing. Harry wondered if he should tell him, and then decided it would give him too much satisfaction if he said it right now. "And yet you left it up to me to choose the subject. Curious, that. Could it be that it always goes badly for you when you try to initiate the conversation?" He tilted his head to the side and added in a whisper that Harry honestly didn't think could be heard at the next table, "Or the sex."
Harry bit back the words he wanted to say again, and saw Malfoy frown. "I didn't mean you to stifle yourself around me," Malfoy murmured, leaning forwards. "If anything, the opposite."
Harry closed his eyes and tried to speak honestly again. It hadn't worked for him in the past, but neither had lying, and he was tired of the lying. "I want to find out what will make you back away from me and also from anyone else who takes your case. I don't want someone else to suffer for my poor decisions."
Silence. Absolute silence. Harry found himself thinking that Malfoy might have stood up and walked away from the table--at least until he opened his eyes and found Malfoy leaning forwards, his fingers splayed out across the tabletop and white-knuckled. Harry almost laughed. He did things he thought would be proactive and he couldn't even irritate Malfoy, never mind anything else. And he said something simple and silly and Malfoy reacted like this.
Merry, light-hearted for no reason except with the giddiness that he had sometimes found on the other side of absolute despair, he reached down and picked up a thin, shining slice of meat from the further plate, holding it out towards Malfoy with his fingers. "Open up," he added, when Malfoy continued to keep his mouth stubbornly shut. "What's the matter? Don't you like beef?" He thought it was beef, from the faint pink color, although to be fair, it was nearly translucent and he didn't know for certain.
Malfoy shut his eyes, and a faint wave of color touched his cheeks. Then he parted his lips, murmured something that sounded like, "Forgive me," and stuck out his tongue to lap at Harry's fingers and the food.
Harry ignored the wet sensation and let go of the meat only when he was sure that Malfoy had it firmly in his jaws. He was sure that the rest of the crowd in the Three Blossoms was staring at them, but he didn't care. He kept his eyes on Malfoy's face. If he did that, it was surprisingly easy to ignore the thought of those others.
"Forgive me," Malfoy repeated, after closing his mouth and opening his eyes, and then looking as if he might have preferred to do that in reverse order. "I never meant to stifle you. I saw you dying, and wanted to wake you up."
"Yes, well, you don't usually want to do that with dead people," Harry said, and leaned back, and laughed aloud. Now he knew the people in the other chairs were staring. Well, let them. "I should know."
Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "I never knew how many of the rumors about you and the Deathly Hallows were true, you know."
Harry only shook his head. He might lose his job, he might fall victim to Malfoy and lose his reputation, but he refused to talk more about the Hallows. That was a different and special kind of dangerous than anything he and Malfoy had done so far.
"So this is it," he said. "I wanted to capture you because you were a thief and good at making everyone think you weren't one. And because I felt disappointed that you hadn't done more with your life after the war, I admit it. And you want to prove that you aren't a coward, and you want me, and you want to wake me up, and you thought I was dying. Nothing makes sense, Malfoy, including what you want us to do together. That's the end of it. That's it. I want to get off the case, since I'm in danger of losing my job as it is, and I don't want you to attack other Aurors. So. How do we go about it?"
Malfoy's face and eyes drained of both color and life, and he sat there, looking at Harry. Then he picked up a slice of something bright pink and yellow, perhaps peach, and offered it. Harry ate it, while looking steadily at him all the while.
It was strange, he thought, when some time had passed and Malfoy hadn't said anything. He had thought Malfoy more at home with truth than he was, but now that he was confronted with the truth of what Harry wanted, he didn't seem to know what to do with it.
"I want to be with you," Malfoy whispered at last. "I wanted you to leave the Ministry of your own free will, and come to me. I wanted to steal your heart."
So there it was, Harry thought, and let the truth flutter to a death between them like an autumn leaf. He began to breathe more easily at once, deeper breaths that also seemed to let more air into his lungs. He didn't understand that, but, well, perhaps he wasn't required to understand.
"That's not going to happen," he said. "It wasn't going to happen from the time that you destroyed Flowing's evidence. Anything you do to me, I can forgive, or tell myself that I deserve it anyway for being stupid. But not her. Not what you did to her."
"That was only to get your attention," Malfoy whispered. "I didn't mean anything by it. It wasn't really meant to hurt her."
"But it did," Harry said, standing up. "Emotionally and her standing in the Department. What will it take to make you let me go and not hurt anyone else?"
Malfoy looked up at him and shook his head wordlessly.
Nothing, Harry thought. There is no price.
He half-inclined his head to Malfoy. "All right, then," he said, and walked away, not turning a hair when the woman in the silver robe tried to edge in front of him. He knew he hadn't left anything behind.
"Harry!" Malfoy yelled after him, with a real and dangerous tone in his voice.
Harry still didn't look back. He was going to do what he should have done in the first place, when his obsession with Malfoy started getting personal and he realized how far Malfoy would go to attract his attention. He was going to confess everything to Thorin, show him what had happened and make a final attempt to warn him how crooked and twisted Malfoy was. Then no one could say that he hadn't done his duty.
And then he was going to leave the Aurors.
It's time, he thought, as he stepped outside the Three Blossoms and squinted at the sky, from which a light rain was falling. I can't be professional, I can't be objective, and I need to do something else about Malfoy, if he won't negotiate.
He thought he heard running footsteps behind him, but it could as easily be the light patter of the raindrops, and in any case, he saw nothing for certain before he Apparated.

*

            SP777: The vault is inside the mirror, so it would have been too small. In that instance. ;)

            Makoto_Sagara: Sorry to hear about your shoulder! I hope that your injury feels better now.

            Harry does know the truth. But he doesn’t want what Draco wants, which apparently entails him falling at Draco’s feet. So he’s not disposed to simply yield himself up.

            unneeded: Pretty much, yep. And prove that he wasn’t a coward so Harry would stop thinking he was, if he ever had.

            I think he went overboard.
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