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Anarchy as Art	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 12617 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
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Chapter Fifteen—Doing His Duty

            Harry opened one eye and sighed. By the sound of the tapping at his window, there was one persistent owl out there, and it wasn’t about to go away.

            He stood up, wrapped a robe around himself, and walked into the front room. Yesterday, after several intense hours of study, he’d finally managed to charm the photograph of Malfoy off his wall, and he’d wrapped it up in a layer of Muggle plastic so that he couldn’t be distracted by the bloody winking. The colors that Malfoy had inflicted on his home were still the same, though. They seemed to have received more permanent application spells. Harry shook his head as he stared at them. There was a real chance that if he let them remain, he would get used to them, and—

            The owl hammered on the window again. Harry started and crossed the space that remained, opening the window before he thought about whether the message it held might come from Malfoy.

            As it turned out, it didn’t. Harry raised his eyebrows as he noted the official Ministry seal and the size of the owl, its strength and powerful wings. He would usually never receive one of these, and he ran the possibilities over in his mind as he opened the letter. Had the Wizengamot discovered some new irregularity in the Death Eater trials’ documentation? The last time he had got a letter like this, four years ago, that had been the cause.

            No, he realized after he read a few paragraphs. No, instead the Ministry was summoning him to question him about the Stunning of Head Auror Thorin.

            Harry opened his mouth. He thought he might scream at the owl, honestly, because it was there and it was the only one who could hear him.

            Instead, he started to laugh.

            The owl jumped at the first note of the sound, and then jumped further when Harry waved the arm it was sitting on around. It ended up fluttering to his mantle, from which it watched him with a parted beak and claws scraping up and down on the stone. That was as much as Harry saw, though, before he sagged forwards and continued laughing hard enough to hurt his stomach.

            Of course. Of course this would be something that happened. Thorin couldn’t leave well enough alone, and Harry no longer thought he was in Malfoy’s pay, because Malfoy would know better than to use someone so stupid as an informant. What did Thorin think he was going to gain from this?

            That made Harry stop laughing and think about it a little, because as stupid as Thorin was, he had smarter superiors. They wouldn’t have started the investigation in the first place, no matter how much Thorin whinged, unless they thought they would gain something from it later. So. Think about it. Use those Auror instincts for what he was supposedly so famous. What made this worth the effort?

            Humiliation, maybe. Harry had deliberately not paid attention to the Prophet, but he reckoned someone would have found out that he wasn’t working for the Aurors anymore and gleefully started spinning a story. Maybe the Ministry just wanted to pay him back for the inevitable rumors.

            Or maybe they had something else in mind. Maybe they did expect him to play the political game, to come in and be contrite and apologetic, so they could hire him back. That was even more likely. The Ministry was full of people who couldn’t imagine someone quitting over a matter of principle, or even just pique. They would think that Harry had done this to get some kind of concession from them.

            Harry paused, and grinned. Well. They would sit around on the small investigative committee they had called up to deal with this, and expect him to come in and play the high-handed bastard for a short time before giving in and agreeing to take his job back.

            Why not make them think that, and do something else entirely?

            After all, the chaos that Malfoy had introduced into Harry’s life could do with some spreading around.

*

            “Mr. Potter. Thank you for coming.”

            Harry smiled and shook the hand of Gabrielle Meadsome. She was one of the people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who played so many games, from so many different directions, that Harry was never sure whose side she was on, but he actually liked her. She never pretended to be anything other than what she was, and she was always gracious and polite at the same time. As she had explained it once to Harry, when they had been political opponents over one particular case, she never saw the point in making enemies. People who struggled against her could make good allies if she admired their ability to struggle instead of taking it personally.

            She didn’t emphasize his lack of an Auror title, either, which everyone else who had greeted him as he walked through the corridors had done. Harry nodded to her. “Where should I sit, Madam Meadsome?”

            “Oh, take the chair in front of the desk,” Meadsome said, and spun out one of her long-boned hands in its direction. Harry nodded and sat there. It looked as if it would be a smaller meeting than he had anticipated, with only three other chairs. Meadsome took the center one, fussing with the hem of her robe as she sat.

            “Mr. Potter.”

            There was the sneering emphasis on his lack of title that Harry had got used to hearing as he came through the corridors. He looked up and forced a happy smile onto his face, because he knew that particular voice, and that expression would irritate him more than any other. “Mr. Thompson!” he said, his voice strong and hearty. “So nice to see you again!”

            Thomas Thompson, Deputy Head of the Department, stiffened and walked warily to the chair on Meadsome’s right, checking Harry from the corner of his eye all the while as though to ensure that he wouldn’t get up and try to shake his hand. That left the woman who had come in behind him to stand and study Harry in silence.

            Harry bowed stiffly back to her. Out of all the people in the room, this was the only one he thought would be dangerous: Jennifer Kendricks, Head of the Department.

            She shared Thorin’s opinion of Harry as an Auror who was dangerously undisciplined, but she was intelligent, and knew the ins and outs of the paperwork she filed instead of valuing it for itself, and knew how to use people as well as signatures. Harry sat still and let her observe him, and then smiled.

            He didn’t have to be afraid of her anymore, did he? What could she do to hurt him, other than spread rumors? The Ministry had no power to discipline someone who wasn’t in its ranks, as long as they didn’t actually break any laws. And with Meadsome on the committee who would make the decision, Harry thought his Pensieve memory would convince them, as it ought, that Thorin had Stunned himself more than anything.

            He wasn’t vulnerable. So he might as well have some fun.

            “Head Kendricks,” he said, with a nod to her, and then leaned back on his chair and looked around. “Do you have a Pensieve ready? I should have one if I’m going to put the memory in it to show you.”



            “We’ve decided that we won’t need a Pensieve,” Kendricks said, as she took the chair on Meadsome’s left. She had given Meadsome a brief look, as though expecting her to yield the central one, but Meadsome smiled innocently back, and in the end, Kendricks turned her head away with her hair spilling down her neck and sniffed. “The trial should be short and easy. We have heard Head Auror Thorin’s story. Why did you attack him?”

            “He was the one who attacked me,” Harry said easily. “He cast a Stunner at my back, and my Shield Charm reflected the spell back on him.” He knew that he didn’t imagine the way that Meadsome’s lips quivered when she heard that.

            “That’s ridiculous,” Kendricks said sharply, and then settled back and took the invisible reins of her self-control in hand again. “That does not match at all with the story we have heard from Head Auror Thorin.”

            Harry smiled at them, and let some of the ropes that he was always clutching to prevent a fall go. “I’m willing to take Veritaserum.”

            Meadsome sat up. Even Thompson’s eyes widened. Harry knew why. The Ministry had wanted to get him under Veritaserum for a long time, to interrogate him about the war and what the limitations of his powers really were. Harry had always made sure that he took it, when he did, in carefully controlled situations where people would only ask him questions about the case. He wondered what the hell was going to happen to their questions this time.

            Then he dismissed the worry. The point was that he wasn’t afraid of anything they could ask him. And it was such fun to watch Kendricks’s face turn different colors.

            “We are not using Veritaserum, either,” Kendricks said sharply. “Bringing it up, Mr. Potter, is a distraction, and—”

            Meadsome raised her hand like a schoolgirl. Kendricks turned and glared at her, even as Meadsome said meekly, “I don’t understand why we aren’t using Veritaserum and a Pensieve, Head Kendricks. It would be for the best, to ascertain the truth, which, after all, we are here to do.” Honeydukes chocolate wouldn’t have melted in her mouth.

            “I agree,” Thompson said. “And I am glad that Mr. Potter is so willing and anxious to tell us the truth.” He smiled at Harry, which was definitely the first time that had ever happened. Harry felt his stomach begin to hurt the way it had yesterday, this time from holding the laughter in rather than letting it out.

            “There is nothing about this case that requires the use of any extraordinary measures.” Kendricks was trying to hold onto her temper, Harry thought, and doing a miserable job. She stared back and forth between faces as though she could control what went on in their minds that way, and then turned back to Harry with the kind of immense dignity that had always made Umbridge look ridiculous. “Now. Mr. Potter.”

            “Head,” Harry said, and grinned at her.

            Kendricks closed her eyes for a moment as though she was praying for patience to continue, and then opened them and shook her head. “What you stated happened cannot have happened,” she said. “Do you have a way to prove it to us by a non-magical means?”

            “Such as telling the truth?” Harry could feel the grin simply overwhelming him. He let it. Kendricks had acted like a bully more than once, telling younger Aurors—at least, the ones Harry was aware of—that they had to obey every tiny rule of the Department or be sacked. He was going to take the chance to humiliate her while he could. “The way that you’re convinced Thorin did?”

            “It is because Head Auror Thorin told us the truth that we must cast doubt on your story, as much as it pains us to do so,” Kendricks began.

            “Oh, do let it go, Jennifer,” Meadsome interrupted. “Anyone would think that you and Thorin had been lovers for years, the way you go on about him.” She seemed not to notice the horrified stare that Kendricks gave her. “Mr. Potter, I’m more interested in why Thorin attempted to Stun you.”

            “I told him what I really thought of him,” Harry said, and arranged his robes around himself in a way that would let him move quickly if he had to get off the chair and out of the room in a hurry. “I told him that he’s the worst Head Auror we’ve had at least since the war, and that there’s no reason he should have been chosen, and that there’s no reason for me to stay here and obey him anymore.”

            Meadsome immediately sat up straight and assumed a pious expression. “Mr. Potter, would you say that Head Auror Thorin’s attitude is a large part of the suffering you have endured in this Department?”

            “Suffering?” said Kendricks, turning around to look at Meadsome as though the woman had literally stabbed her in the back. Meadsome smiled innocently and let the smile fade as she glanced back at Harry.

            Glad of the help even if it was for her own private reasons, Harry inclined his head. “Yes. He trusts paperwork more than people, and he has insanely high standards of evidence for cases. I even thought that he might be bribed, at one point.”

            “By Malfoy?” interrupted Kendricks, before Meadsome could say anything. “Yes, Mr. Potter, we’ve heard all about your insane theories, but really. You’re claiming that Mr. Malfoy is an international jewel thief among other things?”

            Harry met her eyes and smiled at her. “I never claimed any such thing,” he said. “Except in the private memos that I sent to Thorin. So you must have seen them, Head Kendricks, or he must have been allowed to submit them as evidence. I’m not allowed to do the same thing, though?”

            Kendricks sat up straighter in her chair. “You have been allowed to speak, and your story is unconvincing.”

            “Only to you,” Meadsome said. “And based on some of the things that I’ve heard you saying about our Mr. Potter before this, you wouldn’t believe him if he said that he could walk on the floor.”

            “She is right about that, you know,” Thompson said, to Harry’s utter shock. He blinked at Thompson. The man blushed, but kept on. Perhaps there were things he believed in enough to stand up for them, after all. “I think you’re being a bit unfair, Jennifer, not allowing him to submit magical evidence and not allowing him to submit documents. Thorin was allowed the latter, at least. Why not the former?”

            “This is an investigation,” Kendricks said, and apparently expected the words, or the glare with which she said them, to produce some effect.

            They only made Meadsome chuckle and Harry grin. Thompson looked sterner. “Then we should conduct it like one, and not like a dummy trial,” he said, and turned to Harry. “Mr. Potter, is there any evidence that you would like to offer?”

            “I’d still like a Pensieve,” Harry said. “That way, you could see the memories of my conversations with Thorin as well as my memory of the moment when I Stunned him.”

            “That sounds reasonable,” Thompson began, nodding.

            “Have you forgotten what we are here to do?” Kendricks turned around on her chair again, though part of the problem with her trying to intimidate Thompson was that there was a chair between them. Harry was starting to think that Meadsome had probably put herself there on purpose. “We are here to find out why Mr. Potter Stunned Head Auror Thorin, and what retribution he should pay.”

            “And to find out the first,” Meadsome said in a drawl that was so like Malfoy’s Harry smiled in spite of himself, “we have to talk to him about it, and allow him the right to express himself freely.” She looked at Harry and tilted her head to the side with a slight smirk. “I must admit I have no interest in discovering the second.”

            Kendricks started to interrupt, but Meadsome had already Summoned a Pensieve that she sent floating towards Harry. He nodded his thanks and touched his wand to his temple, recalling the memories of his last conversation with Thorin and the one where he had complained about Thorin’s reprimand of Auror Flowing.

            He was very careful not to concentrate on the memories of the times they had talked about other aspects of the Malfoy case. There was letting out a little chaos into the Ministry and there was upending his entire life. No, thank you. Quitting the Ministry was supposed to reduce his stress.

            When the memories were in the Pensieve, he floated the whole bowl over to the table, and Meadsome bent and plunged her head in immediately. Thompson followed her just a second later, which left Kendricks to strum her fingers on her wand and glare at Harry. “I hope you know what you’ve done,” she hissed.

            Harry smiled innocently at her.

            Kendricks did some more glaring, and finally seemed to realize that she couldn’t actually intimidate him. With one final disgusted shake, she lowered her head, too, and there were a few moments of silence. Harry drummed his foot on the floor and whistled slightly.

            A movement by the door caught his attention. He looked over, wondering if it had been long enough that Kendricks’s secretary had come to summon her to lunch.

            Instead, he saw Malfoy standing there, his hand on the door. He wore dress robes, complete with a shimmering, gorgeous tie that made Harry certain it would be silken-soft. He was staring at the three officials with their heads buried, his own eyebrows raised, his mouth open in a faint gape.

            Then he looked at Harry, and a smile that looked involuntary broke out over his face, much the same as the smiles that Harry had been producing throughout his trial. He stepped back and let the door fall shut.

            That left Harry blinking. Malfoy hadn’t come in to try and mess things up? Why was he here, then?

            He had to look forwards again as Meadsome surfaced from the Pensieve, though. She nodded and looked Harry in the eye.

            “A loss,” she said. “While I can understand that you wanted to leave the Ministry, and why, you would have made a fine addition to our Diplomatic Corps.”

            “That is not funny even as a joke, Gabrielle,” Kendricks said as she surfaced in turn, and shook her head as though to make sure that none of the memories were clinging to her hair. She stared at Harry. “Were it not that none of the memories show signs of tampering, Mr. Potter, I would certainly detain you on charges of perjury.”



            “And me not even sworn in,” Harry said dryly.

            “Things happened just as you said.” Thompson looked pleased as he sat back in his chair, and Harry knew why. Things had gone according to procedure and there was a single, simple, clearcut answer; that was all that was really needed to make Thompson happy. “You are free to go as far as I am concerned, Mr. Potter.”

            “Thank you,” Harry said, and looked at Kendricks.

            She visibly ground her teeth for a moment, and then jerked her head down with her mouth working into a line of distaste. “If you must, Mr. Potter, then you must. I saw the memory along with everyone else. While I disagree that you had sufficient cause to say everything you have said, it is true that you did not mean to Stun Head Auror Thorin, and that is the crime we brought you here to investigate. You may go.”

            Harry bowed his head to her, and then stood and walked in the direction of the door where he had seen Malfoy, internally sighing in relief. Meadsome and Kednricks had already begun to argue behind him, but he would only form a small piece of their dispute with each other, he fervently hoped, not the whole thing.

            “Harry?”

            It took Harry a moment to recognize the soft voice that whispered his name after he slipped out of the interrogation room. He looked towards the alcove where it came from, and Malfoy stepped out of it. Harry had to physically grasp his own wrist so that he wouldn’t reach out and touch Malfoy’s tie.

            After years of suppressing my impulsive behavior, I reckon it is going to come out all at once, he thought wryly.

            “I’m fine,” he said, since he reckoned that would be Malfoy’s question. “They wanted to try me for Stunning Thorin, but I gave them my memories, and they had to admit that the spell bounced off my Shield Charm and hit him.”

            Malfoy smiled openly and nodded. “I was here in case you needed help,” he said.

            Harry stared at him for a moment. “I don’t know what to say,” he said. “How—how could that have helped, when what Thorin and I were arguing about was you? How did you hear about this, anyway?”

            “I have my sources,” Malfoy said, in a lofty tone, as though he hadn’t just admitted to bribing someone in the Ministry. “And they mean that I can come to protect you, though I suppose you don’t always need it.” He studied Harry as though he was hoping to find some sign of neediness in his face after all.

            Harry sighed. “But how could you help? That’s what I don’t get.”

            Malfoy leaned closer to him. Harry was still dimly aware of the arguing voices in the room behind him, which seemed to have risen into a row, and of footsteps in other parts of the Ministry, down different corridors, but he and Malfoy seemed alone, in an enchanted little bubble of silence.

            “I have a reputation as a rather powerful philanthropist, interested in the doing of good works,” Malfoy murmured. “It’s not just a cover. I do provide aid to those in need, and it’s something I can do for you, too, shielding you under the power of my character.”

            Harry blinked, and then blinked again. He hated to admit it, but given that he was almost the only one in the Ministry who knew, or believed, that Malfoy was actually a thief, it might just have worked.

            “I—thank you,” he said at last, because that was appropriate for Malfoy’s good intentions, if not his past actions.

            “You’re in trouble because of me,” Malfoy said, his eyes lingering on Harry’s face as though he wanted to memorize the contours. “It was the least I could offer.”

            He was the one who turned and walked away this time, leaving Harry to blink at his back. In the end, he shook his head and turned down the corridor that led out of the Ministry, his step firm.

            He’d had enough unleashing of anarchy for one day, both in his life and in other people’s.

*

            Makoto_Sagara: Now that other people realize Thorin is a bad Auror, the Department might get something better.

            And yes, Harry and Draco still have that obsession. It’s just calmed down a bit.

            SP777: Oh, it’s not a big deal. Your reaction was just a pleasant surprise, that was all.

            And last chapter was actually longer than normal for this story!

            unneeded: Draco may discover that doing legal things to help Harry is more fun, if he does it right.
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