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Contracted	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18657 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Fourteen—What a Morning

            When Harry stepped into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement the next morning, he heard the snickers.

            He paused and assumed his ice armor, the mask that went thickest and deepest into his divided soul. Then he walked smoothly down the corridor to his office, ignoring the stares that followed him, the half-hidden gestures that he saw easily from the corner of his eye, the stifled grins. He would find out what was going on soon enough. It was probably an announcement in the Daily Prophet, which of course he had not read before coming in. His home was a place for his third soul, and never more so than this morning, when he was struggling with the effects of what Rettern had told him.

            She told you nothing important. Nothing special.

            Harry narrowed his eyes as though against strong sunlight. That was simply untrue, and one thing he had tried never to do was lie to himself. It was why he had acknowledged last night that he had the impulse to flee from his friends and Malfoy and start over again somewhere else, no matter how ignoble it was.

            And he should not be thinking such things here, not when someone could use them to take him off-guard. He opened the door of his office and stepped inside.

            “Mate, is it true?”

            Ron came to meet him with an ashen face and the paper clutched in his hand, as expected. Harry nodded to him while he hung off his cloak, and summoned his second soul. “Morning, Ron. Is what true? I haven’t had a chance to look at the papers yet.”

            “You haven’t?” Ron gaped at him for a second, then shook his head. “Of course. I should have realized. I was wrong about that bitch all along, and you were right. You were the one who said that you felt bad about committing to her, right? We all should have known that we could trust your instincts.”

            Callia. Harry was able to take the paper with steady hands, because he now suspected what he would see in the lead article.

            Yes. Callia was standing tragically in front of a building that Harry recognized after a few moments’ squinting as the division of the nearest library that held information on pure-blood history. She held up a chart that might have been a genealogical one, at least if the lines traced on it were any indication. The headline and the caption beneath the photo, as well as the way that Callia bravely blinked her eyes, announced that she had heard the information about the Potter family’s female children and wives dying, and she wanted to be sure of the cure for such things before she married him.

            “I never heard of that,” Ron was voicing indignantly when Harry could pay attention to him again. “Whoever had? I think you should confront her, mate! Tell her that she has it wrong and that someone’s been lying about you!”

            Someone’s been lying about me, all right. Harry folded the paper down—ramming a crease through the middle of the photograph, which made the Callia in it start and glare at him—and handed it back to Ron. His heart was beating faster than he was accustomed to, and his head was light, his mouth was sour. I know who it is. I have to decide whether I want to play along with the Slytherins after all, or if their hurting Callia is enough to piss me off too much.

            He weighed Rettern’s offer in his mind again. Peace and quiet, the chance that he would never have to tell his friends about the contract, and freedom from Sandborn’s demands. Speaking up for Callia, or allowing Parkinson’s challenge to go ahead unhindered, were both choices that would lead to a lot of shouting in the end, a lot of pain—the pain that he had spent years avoiding and concealing.

            But in the end, there was never really any choice, especially because Rettern hadn’t told him what she wanted from him in return for her tempting offer. He leaned back and smiled at Ron. “I don’t know what she’s thinking,” he said. “I have to speak with her.”

            Someone knocked on the office door. Harry turned, and was unsurprised to see another of Sandborn’s flunkies standing there, ready to summon him. This wouldn’t be about a speaking engagement, he surmised. Sandborn would want to know what in the world he had told Callia, or refrained from telling Callia, that would make her turn on him like this, and he would expect to hear something about how Harry intended to repair the breach. After all, promising to marry Callia was one of the prices that he had paid Sandborn with.

            Harry settled his shoulders and went into battle.

*

            “You could have told me that it would be today.” Draco knew that he was pouting at Pansy, but really. He hadn’t anticipated the news that would fall like a boulder into the calm, flowing stream of his attempts to control Sandborn and court Potter.

            “I didn’t know it would be.” Pansy, lounging on the chair closest to the hearth in a robe that opened far too far down the front, smirked at him and picked up another slice of cream-covered apple from her plate. She ate it delicately enough, Draco reckoned, but he could have done with less splashing about of cream in general and licking of her fingers. “I gave her the information. I knew she would use it in this way. She thinks Potter lied to her, and she doesn’t take to being manipulated with grace. She doesn’t think of it as a game,” Pansy added, and her tone said how grieved and shocked she was to find a pure-blood like that. “But I never knew that she would choose this morning. I thought she would wait longer, actually.”

            Draco sighed. “Do you know how Potter’s going to react?”

            “No,” Pansy said happily. “I don’t. And neither do you. I think you know him less than you think you do.”

            Draco let his eyes narrow, because Pansy ought to know that she was going a bit far in questioning his judgment. “Really.”

            “Yes.”

            Astoria moved into view. Pansy had kept her from appearing in front of the fire so far and hadn’t revealed to Draco that she was there, the bitch. Draco would have shot Pansy an indignant look, but that was too much like telling her she had won, so he settled for letting his eyes linger on the cloud of fuzzy golden curls around Astoria’s ears.

            “Breathtaking, as always,” he murmured, when he had waited long enough to make Astoria’s face turn lightly pink.

            “Draco.” Astoria clasped her hands in front of her as thought she intended to go to a Muggle prayer convention and leaned forwards. “How attached are you to this plan of courting Potter?”

            “As a plan? Very. It’s caused the most interesting expressions to appear on Sandborn’s face, and his, already, and it entertains me.” Draco leaned back on his own pile of cushions in front of the fireplace, absently noting that he should get a chair, like Pansy. It would make him appear more impressive. “I can change what it means, of course. At the moment, I don’t think Potter has any idea of the level of my sincerity.”

            “Don’t be sincere,” Astoria said. “Potter is…weak. He reacted to Rettern’s offer last night visibly, and it was an offer to let him go away and abandon everything, including the contract, including his friends, including his power base.”

            Draco lifted his eyebrows. “I think you should tell me more about the context.” He would have needed to know that in any case, of course, but right now he still thought that his estimate of Potter was more accurate than Astoria’s, and more accurate than she could possibly know. She hadn’t been there to see Potter’s face change color.

            Astoria did, dwelling with emphasis on every gesture that Potter had made. Draco listened and smiled now and then, sucking his teeth at other points, so that she would think that his most important objective was listening. In reality, though, his mind sped behind the mask, and he revisited several gestures Potter had made that he had misunderstood and adjusted his comprehension in light of this new information.

            Yes, he could see it now. Potter had changed, as one could not help but do when one was under the necessity—as Potter would see it—of a deep, long-lasting, vivid deception. He was no longer the man Draco had known in Hogwarts or even right after the war, impulsive and wild and, most important of all, fearless.

            He was afraid to confront the challenges that streamed around him. He didn’t want Draco to antagonize Sandborn. He jumped when Draco stroked him with verbal caresses, and stared at him with eyes that bulged with near-panic. No wonder he wanted to think that Rettern could offer him the perfect solution to all his problems, including a way to slip around the chains of concern from his friends that were waiting for him if he walked openly.

            Draco smiled a bit when Astoria was done, which made her slam the heels of her hands together. “Draco, did you listen to a word that I said?” she asked impatiently.

            “Of course,” Draco said, and smiled blandly at her. “But I still think I know him better than you do. Shall I tell you why?”

            Astoria folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “By all means. You would gratify me if you would tell me why you still think that you can get something worthwhile out of him.”

            Draco laughed aloud then. “I remember the other times that you fumed at me like that,” he explained, when he saw Pansy’s curious, glittering eyes peering over Astoria’s shoulder. “I always managed to soothe you in the end, didn’t I?” He lowered his voice into a flowing murmur, and Astoria had to tuck her hair behind her ears before she could continue. Draco saw Pansy smile, and he smiled back. It was payback for Astoria lurking out of sight and not announcing her presence in Pansy’s house at once.

            “Do,” Astoria said. “At the moment, I can’t help thinking that you’re being incredibly stupid. Excuse me for thinking that when your behavior reflects the incredibly stupid hypothesis better than any other,” she added tartly, as if she thought that Draco already agreed with her and she could be that insulting.

            Draco forgave her, because he was magnanimous like that. “Potter is afraid,” he said. “And depressed. And confused, because he doesn’t know how much of my flirting I mean.”

            “None of it,” Astoria said, and then her eyelids fluttered with uncertainty as Draco let some moments pass in silence. “Draco. Tell me that you don’t mean it.”

            “Jealous?” Draco cooed. “I told you once, I would be glad to take you for another tumble whenever you get tired of Blaise.”

            Pansy flung her head back, her laughter rich as plum brandy. Astoria’s shoulders tensed. “Draco,” she said, doing what she should have done from the beginning and simply ignoring his insinuations. “You are far more stupid than I thought you were if you let Potter drag you down into the depths of his muddled mind.”

            “His confusion and his depression and his fear are all temporary things,” Draco said. “He is less courageous than he was, yes, and a less good actor than I thought he was, or he would never have let those signals show.” Astoria folded her arms, unused to the concession to her intelligence. Draco flicked his fingers at her. “But he will bounce back. And he’ll have more strength soon, when I get to him and reassure him that he has a strong ally in me, whether or not we ever go to bed together.”

            “You’re considering it seriously, then.” Pansy nodded and picked up another apple slice. “I thought you would. Potter has the kind of fire that you would like, but hidden, and you want to be the one to bring it out.”

            “Why did we never work out?” Draco asked her. “You know me better than anyone else.” He gave Astoria a sharp look and a sniff. “Certainly better than some other people do.”

            “We never worked out because I love Theodore and you love yourself.” Pansy finished her apple slices and stood, tugging her robe closed. “If I were you, I would contact Potter soon, Draco. He won’t like being left alone the way he has been, and he can’t turn to any of his friends without revealing more than he wants to.” She departed the kitchen, leaving the bowl behind her. A house-elf claimed it a moment later.

            “I may not be able to answer your last question, but at the moment, I remember all the reasons that I didn’t stay with you perfectly,” Astoria said, and her look could have flayed him if Draco had allowed himself to be troubled by things like that.

            “Don’t blame yourself, darling,” Draco said, and shut the Floo connection before she could get in the last word. It was a failing of Astoria’s that she wanted to have it so often.

            Draco turned to comb his hair and decide which set of formal robes he would wear today. He might not be able to venture into the Ministry again without Sandborn finding him and throwing him out, but it would take him the time until Potter got off work to decide on the perfect appearance, anyway.

            Looking good was work. Which explained why Potter’s fiancée hadn’t managed it, and Pansy had decided to learn the secret of it without spending a lot of time on it, something that Draco thought harder than the work was in the first place. People like them were morally opposed to hard labor.

            Well, good. That’ll make it all the easier to counter Callia’s little schemes.

*

            Sandborn had, so far, stood with his back turned to Harry, although he had dipped his head in response to Harry’s greeting. He knows I’m here, at least.

            Harry had waited longer than this before and in more difficult circumstances. He folded his hands behind his back and stared at the far wall, meanwhile going over old case notes in his head. He still wasn’t completely satisfied with the arrest on the Anderson case. That was years ago, but sometimes Aurors discovered evidence that had eluded them at the time, and a guilty person who had escaped could be retried. Or an innocent person could be freed. Harry had to admit that those were his favorites. Freeing innocents had been the reason that he’d entered into the contract in the first place.

            “You are going to confront Callia?”

            Sandborn’s voice was odd. Harry didn’t pause in any way that would let the bastard realized he had noticed, but simply said, “I will have to. If she doesn’t want to marry me because of the taint in my blood, then of course our betrothal will break off. But I don’t want to do that. There has to be a mistake here somewhere.”

            “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Sandborn whirled around to face him, staring hard. “Or had yourself tested?”

            Harry shook his head. “I never heard of it, and no one mentioned it to me,” he said. “It was the kind of material that would have made good gossip in the days when Rita Skeeter made it her mission to find out or make up unsavory facts about me. If it’s true, then I’m surprised it hasn’t emerged before now.”

            Sandborn nodded, but he looked distracted. He pressed one fist to his stomach and one to his mouth. Harry blinked and focused harder on him. “Are you sick, sir?” he asked, when some minutes had passed and Sandborn hadn’t moved.

            “You’d like that,” Sandborn said, snapping around and fixing hard eyes on him. “If I was sick and you could take over the office.”

            Harry was glad that his hands were behind his back at the moment, or Sandborn might have seen the way Harry’s fingers stretched instinctively for his wand. He couldn’t reach it from this angle, though, so he calmed himself and watched Sandborn with as much dispassion as he could muster. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. You know as well as I that there’s too much between us for me to run for Minister. You could ruin me in a moment.”

            Sandborn blinked several times, his eyes moving oddly, as though he was fighting against weights pressed on the lids. Then he shook his head. “You don’t—I had forgotten that,” he said.

            Forgotten the contract? Harry was more sure than ever now that something had gone wrong. Perhaps someone had tried to read Sandborn’s mind, or someone had poisoned him. He had acted this way only once before that Harry could remember, when someone had tried to give him the Draught of Living Death and he had been snappish and paranoid instead of sinking into sleep. He had told Harry then that he often had strange reactions to potions, as he was allergic to a variety of common ingredients.

            And then Harry’s mind locked on the purple potion that Malfoy had set up in Sandborn’s office, with a mechanism that ensured half of it boiled away into a gas before it was found. How long had Sandborn breathed it in?

            “Sir.” He tried to keep his voice gentle as he stepped towards the door of the office. His thoughts were speeding fast enough that he knew he no longer had his first soul behind his eyes. He had agreed to fight free of Sandborn, yes. He had never told Malfoy that he could kill Sandborn—anymore than he had told the git that his friends could harass Callia. If he preserves my freedom by hurting others, then I won’t be able to join him after all. “Let me summon some of the Potions masters. They can check the office for traces of poison.”

            “You told me that you have no friends among the Potions masters, Potter.” Sandborn smiled, and Harry saw blood staining his teeth. He tensed. Whether the Minister had bitten his tongue or done something else that made the blood come up from his lungs, Harry didn’t know, but he knew that he had no intention of letting it go untreated. “Was that a lie, like so much else, like the idea that you were content to exist under the contract and do nothing to free yourself?”

            Harry’s heart bounded, but he forced himself to stand still. He thought again of the way that Sandborn had behaved under the influence of the Draught of Living Death, that he had seen shadows that weren’t there. Harry doubted that he had guessed the true nature of the Slytherins’ plan and that they knew about the contract. Rather, his mind had fastened on the worst suspicion it could think of and he was turning against Harry because of that.

            “No, sir,” he said. “But I’ll overcome my distaste for them so that you can have the help you need.”

            “I don’t need help.” Sandborn staggered, one hand gripping his desk as if he would fall over without it. “I’m fine.”

            “I don’t think you are, sir.”

            Sandborn whirled around, and Harry’s Auror instincts betrayed him. If Sandborn had had a wand in hand, he would have lifted his own in time to get a shield between them. But Sandborn was unarmed, and Harry hesitated a fatal instant in responding.

            By the time he did, he was on the floor, and Sandborn was kneeling on his chest, his hands locked around Harry’s throat. Harry sucked in a sharp breath and slammed his knees into Sandborn’s back. Sandborn rocked forwards, but the tightness of his clutch never varied.

            Harry closed his eyes. He could deal with something like this, though he had always preferred not to do it. It wouldn’t do to let stories of his prowess get out, both because people would fear him and because Sandborn might start thinking that he should use his magic in different ways under the contract.

            But he reached down now, to his magical core, and envisioned it in front of him, the glowing golden hourglass that he had pictured since he started learning from Hermione, and imagined that it pulsed, once.

            The pulse of warmth spread through his skin, energy that flung him to his feet and tossed Sandborn from him. Harry landed in a crouch, and ground his teeth so that he wouldn’t simply fly up and out of the office. He knew that he could leap from a window at the moment and soar the way he had seen Snape and Voldemort doing. But he had to stay here and deal with Sandborn. No matter what Malfoy thought, getting him out of the contract wasn’t as easy as blindly resisting anything the Minister demanded of him.

            “Sir,” he said, his voice as low and gentle as possible. “You’re not making sense. I think you might be under the influence of a curse or a spell. Let me call a Healer if you don’t want to see the Potions masters, at least.”

            Sandborn sat with his arms around himself, as though trying to hold in warmth, and laughed. Harry shuddered and watched the blood curl up and creep around the edges of his teeth. “You would like that, too,” Sandborn whispered. “Like as not, you would try to have me declared mad and stuck on the Janus Thickey ward. It’s not as though I haven’t seen the resentment in your eyes, Potter. The way you look at me, as if you can’t believe that you sold yourself to me.”

            You have to act now better than you ever have, Harry told himself, as he watched Sandborn’s hand creeping towards his wand again. Otherwise, you might easily betray everything that the Slytherins have achieved for you so far.

            “Sir,” he said. “What would happen if I tried to get free of you, or break the contract?”

            “I would destroy you.” Sandborn said it so casually, it pushed the breath out of Harry’s lungs. He had to remind himself that Sandborn was on the potion and wouldn’t have acted like this normally.

            “Besides that,” Harry said. “Everyone would laugh at me. The only way I have any power now is through you. There’s no way that they would let me just challenge you.” He thought about the way that people looked at him in Ministry galas and when he spoke at public functions such as the opening of libraries, and nodded. It was true. He was Sandborn’s pawn now, and the ones who didn’t admire him for being “adult” and compromising with the Ministry despised him for it. “I’m still yours, sir. I’m still your obedient servant. And that’s going to be true no matter what.”

            Sandborn held his eyes for long, motionless moments. Harry had to hope that this particular potion and his allergic reaction to it didn’t make him more perceptive than normal, only more paranoid. He didn’t move, and in a few minutes Sandborn snarled reluctantly and turned his head away.

            “You’re right,” he muttered, as though saying the words pained him. “Go and tell me undersecretary that I want my appointments for the rest of the day canceled.”

            Harry nodded and stood up, though his back prickled when he turned it on Sandborn. His mind raced like his feet as he hurried out of the office.

            Sure, Malfoy had said that they needed to free Harry from the contract. But he’d never said anything about this. Harry didn’t think it had been deliberate, given Sandborn’s allergies and how much of common knowledge they weren’t, but the fact remained that this could have damaged everything by making Sandborn appear demented and out of control in front of other people. Harry didn’t want the Ministry to collapse, or even for Sandborn to fall from power, because he was an effective politician. Whoever took his place would probably be worse.

            I’m going to have to support him for now, and tell Malfoy that we need a different plan.

*

            Night Owl: Thank you! I hope you continue to enjoy the rest of the fic.

            SP777: He might appreciate it even more if someone goes with him…
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