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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 Fifteen—The Ticking Seconds

            “Is he going to be all right?”

            Harry knew his question annoyed the Potions master, who watched him for only a second before she snorted and looked back down at Sandborn. The Minister was asleep on the bed in front of her, the one where Aurors who needed healing potions usually rested. Sara Click stepped back and cocked her head as though estimating his color and the rate of his breathing. Harry tried to do the same thing, but he didn’t know enough about potions allergies. He had only ever seen the side-effects he was already familiar with, like the press of Sandborn’s fingers around his neck.

            “He will be,” Click said. “It’ll take a while, but once he awakens, then we can decide how much longer the potion will affect his mind.” She turned, and her long braid of silver-blonde hair twitched behind her like a tail while she stared at Harry. “And you still don’t know how he ended up like this?”

            “I saw a potion that he discovered in the office the other day,” Harry said. “There was a trap set on it to make the potion boil away into gas and affect him.” He didn’t think this counted as betraying Malfoy, since Sandborn would have told her the same thing if he was awake. “But I don’t know what it did, and until today he seemed fine.”

            “Describe it.”

            Harry did, but he could tell from the way Click’s spine stiffened that he was making a hash of it. Well, his descriptive skills and his eyes were adapted to crime scene details, and usually that meant spilled potions or cracked glass, not potions that were still active and dangerous. The only things he could really remember were that it was viscous and purple.

            “All right,” she said, cutting him off, and confirming Harry’s suspicion that his description didn’t help. “Fine. What I need you to do now is a bit complicated.”

            “All right,” Harry said obediently, and then stood still while she ran one more critical eye over him before snorting and turning to a stack of parchment that stood nearby. She didn’t bother going to get a quill; she flicked her fingers and it appeared in her hand, as fast as some of the Aurors could shake out their wands. Harry blinked, impressed in spite of himself.

            “You need to take this to one of my colleagues down the corridor,” Click said, writing fast. “Her name’s Flora, and it’s on the door. Then you’ll need to take this second list I’ll give you to the nearest apothecaries and start asking around for who sold the ingredients recently. I suspect what the potion is, but I can’t be sure, and I won’t know until I have the report that you can bring me as well as Flora’s analysis.”

            “That doesn’t sound complicated,” Harry ventured.

            Click gave him a flat glance. “It is when you know as little as you apparently do about potions.”

            “Tell me, were you trained by Snape?” Harry asked, because apparently he couldn’t help himself. “You have a lot in common with him.”

            “I know that you mean that as an insult, but I am going to take it as a compliment, therefore defusing whatever insult you may have intended to give me with it.” Click handed him a single brilliant smile that she switched off like a Muggle light as she held out two sheets of parchment. “The top one’s for Flora, the second one for the investigation that I want you to start into apothecaries. Stick to London and Hogsmeade. Most small village apothecaries aren’t going to have them.”

            “You were,” Harry concluded, taking the sheets.

            “Get out, now,” Click said, and turned over to pace back to Sandborn, resting two fingers on his throat. After a moment, she frowned and reached towards the notes that she’d already made, studying something on Sandborn’s face that could be the way his eyes flickered or the visible beats of his pulse or how many eyelashes he had, for all Harry knew.

            Harry rolled his eyes and stepped out of the room, looking at both parchments and finding that the ingredients were unfamiliar to him for the most part—

            And then he stopped dead.

            When he was in his right mind—his first soul, the one he should have been in as long as he was consulting with Ministry Potions masters, all of whom would have far more reason to be loyal to Sandborn than to him—he didn’t joke like that. He didn’t make stupid remarks. He didn’t act as though he was anything other than Sandborn’s blindly obedient and loyal slave.

            What was wrong with him?

            Harry licked his lips. He didn’t know.

Of course he would go to Malfoy and consult with him about these ingredients, although he didn’t think he could escape giving Flora the first parchment; Click could check up on that too easily. And he had to explain to Malfoy what had happened and that his ploy with the potion, whatever it was, had failed. Also, that he wouldn’t be a party to murder, and that if Malfoy was trying to change Sandborn’s mind, that was different from killing him.

Those were cold, practical, rational decisions. Harry nodded and lengthened his stride down the corridor, looking for Flora’s office.

            But the joking, the changes that seemed to be creeping up on him, the change that had been there, the last time he spoke with Malfoy, flirted with him, let himself be affected by Malfoy’s flirting, and in front of Sandborn, no less…

            Harry knew that he would have to do something about that as well, or the anxiety would overwhelm him and he would lose control of a situation that he absolutely had to have control of at the worst possible time.

            But he didn’t know what in the world he would do yet. And he could almost wish that he didn’t have to see Malfoy, despite the part of him that sang for joy at an excuse, because he knew, he knew, that it would muck everything up.

*

            Draco leaned back in his chair and studied his reflection. The mirror bounced silently up and down in the gilded wooden frame. Draco had been forced to remove the enchantment that let it speak, because it would inevitably start praising him, and he needed to consider his face without any extra encouragement.

            He knew that he would get extra encouragement from his own appreciation of his looks, of course, but that would make up for the lack of compliments that Potter would give him.

            He had done his hair in a deceptively casual style that he couldn’t mess up by running a hand through it, or at least through the outer strands of it. It shone, the result of carefully placed glamour charms, and it would shine even in a dim room of the kind that Potter would probably insist on meeting in. He wore formal grey robes, but without the lace and careful tailoring that would reveal them as formal. He had bright black boots, and around his neck was a golden medallion that Pansy had made for him in jest some years back. Being Pansy, she had done it well, because what was the point of a joke if it looked cheap? The chain it hung on was a replica of the silver ones that held the Orders of Merlin people like Potter received.

            Draco wondered if Potter would notice that, or if he had chosen the decoration for no good reason. Then he smiled and shook his head, watching as his reflection did the same thing. No, he might have overestimated how good an actor Potter was, but he was more observant than the boy whom Draco used to know. He would notice, and he would probably bite his lip and hold back some comment, but his eyes would snap and flash.

            It surprised Draco, to realize how much he was looking forward to that.

            He had started to turn away from the mirror when an owl rapped on the window. Draco raised an eyebrow as he crossed to it. He had already told his friends that he expected to be out or busy most of the day.

            Which meant this probably didn’t come from a friend.

            Draco kept his wand in hand as he watched the black owl flutter into the room, but it made no move to attack him. It settled on his arm as though it was sure of a welcome, in fact, and held out the letter insistently. Draco still checked it for hexes and curses before he took it, but that was just common sense.

            The angular hand on the envelope told him who it was from. Draco took his time to hold the letter, trying to see if he could feel the familiar subtle energy that surrounded Potter from it, before he shook his head and surrendered to the owl’s anxiety that he open it, and his own.

            The letters seemed to slash across the page.

            Malfoy, your potion caused an allergic reaction in Sandborn. If you’d asked me before you did that, I could have told you that he’s allergic to a lot of common potions ingredients. He went crazy and paranoid and tried to choke me. I managed to calm him down and make him go to a Potions master, but she suspects something and she gave me a list of ingredients that she wants me to search out in apothecaries. I need to meet you in a secure place and talk to you about this.

            Not a wasted word, Draco thought. And he hadn’t signed it, either. In some things, at least, Potter had learned some elementary caution.

            “Very well, then,” Draco murmured, nodding as he accepted his own mistake. He knew that allergies to common ingredients existed, although from what he knew, they were much rarer than Muggle food allergies. Just another way that we’re better than they are. He should have planned for that, or at least asked Potter about it before he decided to use that particular potion on Sandborn. It was true that it contained a lot of the ingredients that sparked the allergies, when they did exist.

            And he would have to make sure that Potter wasn’t concealing worse wounds than the bland words in the letter hinted at. Tried to choke him? And Potter had still taken him to the Potions masters rather than delegating some other Auror to do it, as he could have? Of course, perhaps he didn’t care that much about his life being in danger.

            Draco accepted the anger that shone in him with the thought, examined it curiously, and then put it away for later.

            “All right,” he said, to the owl, and bent down to write his own response. He would have to choose a place that Potter could reach soon, but also one where they were unlikely to be spied upon. And with Potter’s notoriety and the attention that Draco attracted everywhere he went because of his grace and beauty, they weren’t spoiled for choices.

            He made one, of course, and without much fuss or thought. He was quick like that, his mind spitting and springing like lightning.

            As he watched the black owl fly away with his letter, he hoped that Potter would learn to appreciate it.

*

            Harry stepped into the small pub and turned around, staring over his shoulder. The door he’d spotted from the street had already vanished. Given the small tug he had felt when he stepped through it, it was most likely a disguised Portkey, anyway.

            But he’d never had such a smooth journey by Portkey, or one that didn’t leave him violently disoriented because of the colors swirling around his head. Harry reckoned that was what money could buy you.

            The restaurant in front of him was calm and quiet and bright, with white candles blazing in every direction and mirrors on the walls. It didn’t take Harry long to notice that the mirrors reflected only the light, not the people who walked through them. The walls were soft, cool grey, covered with what looked like honest-to-God fur, and the fireplaces blazed everywhere. It should have been hot, but either the marble or the magic in the room kept it cool. Harry made his way towards the table where Malfoy already sat, giving his cloak to a silent attendant on the way.

            Malfoy turned around and smiled at him slowly. Harry found himself coming to a stop as though someone had stabbed a lance straight through his guts, biting his tongue as he stared at Malfoy.

            God, he was beautiful.

            Harry had known that before, seeing him challenge and flirt all at once in the conversation with Sandborn, but this was more than that. He looked like a creature of shadow and shine now, grey in his robes, bright everywhere else, a child of flaring light. Harry had dreamed of figures like that. Rescuing angels. Bright women he danced with in his dreams, somewhere and someplace that he could still marry someone he loved like a normal person.

            Dumbledore. Dumbledore and King’s Cross Station in his vision shone like that.

            That thought helped calm Harry down. He took a deep breath and crossed the remaining floor between them. Malfoy was smiling at him, deep and quiet, like the restaurant’s décor, as if he knew the effect he had and wanted to savor it.

            “I received your letter,” he said, when Harry sat and before the server could reach them, “and I’m afraid that you still don’t understand.”

            “I know that I won’t be a party to murder.” Harry had learned how to keep his tone and face neutral when he was working with Sandborn, and to lower his voice on the important words without seeming to do so. He smiled at the server and took the wine list as if he had a notion of ordering anything. His appetite had vanished the moment he received Malfoy’s note and directions to this place, this—Locus Lucis he thought was the name. “I won’t let you brew a potion that kills him.”

            Malfoy had a glass of some pale wine. He sipped it solemnly and studied Harry. Harry stared back, and wished for a second that the mirrors did reflect the people who passed through here. He could have used the sight of his own determined face to strengthen his resolve.

            “The potion wasn’t meant to kill him,” Malfoy said at last.

            Harry could have sagged with relief, but he managed to keep himself from doing that. At least he hadn’t allied himself with someone who wanted to kill Sandborn on purpose. “Good,” he said, voice crackling. “Then what was it meant to do?”

            “Soften his mind,” Malfoy said, with a little nod, as though he was impressed that Harry knew the potion had to have some effect. “Make his perceptions malleable, and make him respond to suggestions I gave him as though he was hearing the promptings of his own brain. Eventually, it would have formed a telepathic connection between us.”

            Harry tapped something he didn’t even see on the wine list and handed it back so that the hovering, patient, but still annoying server would go away. “Wow,” he said. “You really are insane.”

            Malfoy’s eyes narrowed in what looked like amusement. “And why is that, Harry?”

            “You don’t get to do that,” Harry snapped, startled by the flare of anger through him. At least it burned away the inappropriate thoughts about Malfoy that he was having, and that was all to the good. “You don’t get to call me by my first name when you didn’t tell me about this, when Sandborn could have died.”

            Malfoy put down his wineglass and leaned forwards to smooth his hand down the back of Harry’s wrist. Harry started like a nervous horse. He hadn’t realized he would do that until Malfoy touched him, but then again, he hadn’t expected Malfoy to touch him, either.

            “You don’t understand, Harry,” Malfoy said softly. “I didn’t intend to kill Sandborn. I didn’t know about his potions allergies, I swear to you that I didn’t. You know they’re rare, and that he has reason for keeping that piece of information quiet.”

            Harry tried to remove his hand. Malfoy pinned it effortlessly to the glass top of the table, smiling slightly. Harry brought up his other hand under the table and pinched hard at a specific place on the bottom of Malfoy’s arm. Malfoy let him go with a slight gasp and a wince. Harry shoved his chair back so that he could get a grip on the wand.

            “You are the hardest man to help that I’ve ever met,” Malfoy said, and there was mingled pity and exasperation in his tone. “What did you think the potion would do? Did you really believe that I only intended to insinuate to Sandborn that I believed him your lover and wanted to incapacitate him that way?”

            “I didn’t,” Harry said, and closed his eyes. Because what had he thought would happen? Had he believed that nothing could change, that nothing would change, that he could do and say whatever he wanted and Sandborn would topple away from him but remain standing like a wooden table with one support removed but three remaining?

            No, he hadn’t thought that. But he hadn’t bargained on the harm that would come to other people. He was willing to withdraw his power from Sandborn’s hold and leave him to flounder in whatever political chaos resulted. But he hadn’t envisioned Sandborn lying still and pale on the Potions master’s table like that. He hadn’t envisioned the tears on Callia’s cheeks, the bleakness in her eyes.

            “Listen to me.”

            Harry forced his eyes open and did. Malfoy leaned across the table towards him, and this time, when he pinned one of Harry’s hands to the table and stroked the delicate bones there, Harry didn’t try to move it. He just watched, and waited.

            “This is the price for Slytherin aid,” Malfoy said. His voice was stripped of all pretense, and Harry didn’t think he would hear any amusement or any flirtation in it any time soon. “No one of us cares about Sandborn, Potter, or your fiancée. You’re the only one who does. If you wanted them unhurt, you should have stayed with the contract.”

            “Will you say the same thing about my friends?” Harry murmured, unable to stop himself.

            Malfoy cocked his head to the side, and the flirtation was back, sliding like shadow along his smile. “Oh, no. You’re free to hurt them all you want. And you will, when they learn that you’ve lied to them for years.”

            Harry ground his teeth. This was stupid. This wasn’t what he’d come here to talk about, and though he knew it was probably all connected—he wasn’t that stupid—he dragged the conversation back to the track it should have pursued in the first place. “All right. Can you at least promise me that the next potion, or trick, you use won’t kill Sandborn?”

            “After this?” Malfoy shrugged, his eyes calm and steady. “I don’t know. He’s aware of us now, because of the way that you reacted and because of carelessness on my part, so we may need to remove him completely.”

            Harry shook his head. “You’re talking about another human being.”

            “So what?” Malfoy said. His eyes were smooth and cold and hard as the marble walls probably were, behind the mirrors and the grey furs. “I don’t want to kill him, no. I will, if I have no other choice. But what I’m saying is that no, I can’t guarantee anything. If Sandborn attacked me in the middle of my warded Manor, for example, the wards would kill hm. And if he had to die to free you so that I could repay my debt, then that’s what would happen.”

            Harry shook his head, at a loss for words. He was used to exactly one person taking risks for him and talking about laying his life down for Harry, and Malfoy was manifestly not Ron.

            “Why would you do this?” he finally settled for whispering. “Why do you think your debt to me requires this?”

*

            This was the moment when Draco could have leered at him and pretended that he felt more for Potter than he did. Or he could have turned the question away with a light jest. Potter, he thought, would be just as glad to have that happen. Then he could go back to pretending that Draco didn’t feel any recognizable emotions and that he was the noble, righteous one because the death of Sandborn—for some reason—would keep him up at night.

            But Draco didn’t think dishonesty would serve him right now. It was likely to make Potter more nervous, if anything. And he didn’t feel like confirming Potter’s illusions.

            “Because I’ve decided that it does,” he said, and gave Potter a smile with sweet, sharp edges. “How does it feel, to have someone else make decisions for you that affect your life and not give you a part in them?”

            Potter’s breath came harshly out of his teeth. “If you hate that and think I did it,” he began, then fell silent.

            Draco laughed and rubbed his thumb along the underside of Potter’s wrist. “Yes, the empathy argument works on Gryffindors,” he said. “You would think that inflicting something you hate on someone else is horrible. But we’re Slytherins. This is revenge.”

            “I don’t think of you primarily by your House affiliation.”

            Draco raised an eyebrow. Well. Isn’t that interesting. “How do you think of me, then?” he murmured, and let his voice lower and his touch become lighter and more intimate on Potter’s wrist, both at once.

            It took Potter a long time to answer. The words came slowly out of his mouth, his brow furrowed, and Draco could see why Sandborn didn’t trust him to give his own speeches.

            “I think that you’re infuriating,” he said. “And humorous, which I need right now. And too attractive for your own good. And set on repaying this debt because of the way it troubles me as much as anything else.” He jerked his head up and eyed Draco grimly, as if he’d said something that he should despise. “And someone I need to work with and who I really, really hope doesn’t kill anyone. Whether I care about them or not.”

            “Why not?” Draco whispered. He didn’t reach for his wine, because that would have shown Potter how dry his throat was. Trust Gryffindors to go for the jugular.

            “Because you’re not a killer,” Potter said. “And you don’t need to be, to get what you want.” He touched Draco’s hand in return, one hard squeeze, and let go, leaning back. “So, what are we going to tell Click—that’s the name of this Potions master, by the way—about the ingredients for the potion?”

            For the first time, Draco was the one who had to shake his head and fight his way back to the current conversation. Even then, he felt half-drunk in a way no wine could make him, basking in the attention and the intelligent questions that flowed from Potter.

            This was what Potter could offer, perhaps. Intensity, focus. Draco wouldn’t want it every day, but…

            But he might want it, yes.

*

            SP777: Harry would respond that there are some costs too high to pay for freedom, and at that point, he really did think that Draco’s plan might to be to murder Sandborn.

            unneeded: Harry will have a confrontation with Callia in Chapter 16. As for Sandborn, he only acted insane because of the potions ingredients.
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