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Acts of Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21189 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Fifteen—Using
            Don’t think of Draco! Thinking of Draco right now would be bad, Harry scolded himself as he adjusted the hang of his formal robes, again. He was going to make a speech in a few minutes about recruitment for the Aurors. There were certain things which were going to make it hard for him to walk if they showed up.
            And did I really have to think the word “hard”?
            He had, apparently. Harry grimaced, and then tried to swat away Hermione’s hand as it approached the side of his collar. She adjusted it anyway and studied him with a faint frown.
            “Are you all right, Harry? You’re not usually this jumpy before a speech.”
            “Sorry,” Harry said, and leaned back against the wall with a sigh. They were in one of the upper rooms at the Leaky Cauldron. It was the best place to be close to Diagon Alley, where he would make the speech, but out of sight of the crowds for the moment. “The feeling that I’m going to embarrass myself never goes away, you know? The sensation of looking out at those faces and feeling, Who made the mistake of thinking I’m a good speaker?”
            Hermione smiled, but her eyes were troubled. “You chose this career, though,” she said. “That’s what you told Ginny.”
            Other than the birthday party at the Burrow, where Harry and Ginny had been exquisitely polite and smiling to each other, and where Harry hadn’t had much chance to talk to his friends alone anyway, this was the first time Hermione had really mentioned Ginny’s name since Harry broke up with her. Harry nodded. “I did.”
            “Then why so jumpy?”
            “Wow,” said Harry. “I suppose I must have imagined that time you Flooed me last week ranting because no one in the entire Wizengamot has enough common sense to fill a thimble when it comes to house-elf rights.”
            Hermione turned as red as Harry’s robes. Harry smiled at her, and she calmed down with a loud sniff. “Well, all right. I can see your point.”
            “I’m so glad,” Harry told her earnestly.
            Hermione chose to ignore this. “But you ought to be more comfortable around them by now. They really are here to see you and talk to you, and that means you can do even more good than if you were just someone like Celestina Warbeck who’s not famous for doing anything good for the wizarding world.”
            “I don’t know, some of her music is very—”
            Hermione adjusted his robe collar one more time and pushed him out the door. Harry chuckled all the way down the stairs.
*
            Draco stepped into the edges of the crowd with an anticipatory wince. Surely at least one person would turn around, see him there, and decide that a “criminal” didn’t belong in the group waiting to hear Harry Potter speak.
            But most of them seemed focused on the entrance of St. Mungo’s, where Harry was going to stand. Draco found that he could drift off to the side and past people who seemed to be more engaged in gossip or bets, and not attract attention. He ended up in a place that wasn’t perfect but, because it was off to the side, meant he could see. He would just have to crane his neck a little.
            Harry appeared suddenly enough that Draco jumped. At least he wasn’t the only one. And Harry was moving briskly, striding towards the hospital entrance before the crack of his Apparition had worn off.
            The excited screaming began a second later, of course. Harry faced them and raised an eyebrow. Draco thought the sounds had already begun to quiet, but Harry enforced that a moment later with a lazy gesture of his wand.
            The Silencing Charm that washed over the crowd was so powerful Draco found himself choking a little. Then he chuckled. It was all right, because no one would hear him anyway, and he was impressed at how well Harry had chosen to deal with the cheering and applause.
            He had told Draco last week that he’d lost almost an hour of time to crowds who wouldn’t shut up, and had decided to do something about it. It was just luck that Draco got to see it for himself, though, because Harry hadn’t mentioned what it was.
            “Thank you.” Harry rested both hands at his sides and smiled out around the crowd, ignoring the way that a few people were trying to wave their wands and cast Finite. Draco thought they wouldn’t have much luck, anyway. Nonverbal magic was rare outside Hogwarts and some specialists. “Now. I want to speak to you about something very important. Aurors.”
            Open mouths probably signaled questions. Harry looked out serenely over their heads and continued. “During the first war with Voldemort—”
            This time, Draco was proud of himself for not being part of the collective flinch.
            “The Aurors were empowered to use the Unforgivable Curses. Some of them used them…too enthusiastically.” Harry shook his head. “It damaged the Aurors’ reputation. And of course, during this last war, a lot of the Aurors were serving Voldemort—” people tried to jump past Draco “—without knowing it. I wouldn’t blame them for that, since they weren’t the only ones, but that undermined the trust of the community further.”
            Harry paused and stared straight at someone in the front row who Draco thought was trying to interrupt the most assiduously. “And the Aurors can’t do their jobs without the trust of the community.”
            They also can’t do it with corruption in their ranks and the tendency to arrest people who’ve done nothing wrong, Draco thought, but he knew Harry was at least pressuring Shacklebolt to deal with that problem. It would have to be enough for now.
            “I’m here today to explain why an Auror’s job is important, and why you should try to train as one if justice matters to you.” Harry smiled. “Now, it’s true that I didn’t become an Auror myself, and according to some people, that’s a strike against them.
            “But I really didn’t want to, at the end of the war. I’d chased down more Dark wizards than any three Aurors have to in a year, and younger, too! And I’d had to go into a battle I knew would be kill or get killed.” For a second, Harry’s eyes went distant, and Draco wondered why he’d never talked about Voldemort with Draco. Maybe he assumed it would hit too close to home, or that Draco would rather spend the time talking about other things.
            Well, that’s pretty true.
            “But just because I didn’t want to be an Auror is no reason for other people to discard it as a career, if they want to.” Harry paused and scanned the crowd, probably looking for something that wouldn’t make sense to Draco even if he saw it. But Harry’s eyes did pass over him, and he paused in surprise.
            Draco grinned and waved back. Harry smiled and looked around again before anyone could track the direction of his gaze and decide that Draco shouldn’t be there. Then Harry pointed at a waving hand in the second row of spectators and canceled the Silencing Charm on him.
            “Yes?”
            “Why would anyone want to be an Auror?” The voice was whiny in a way Draco thought familiar, but he couldn’t see anything about the person other than the fact that they had brown hair. “I mean, the training’s so hard, and you have to have so many NEWT’s, and they have hard jobs and get cursed all the time! Isn’t the reason you’re speaking in front of St. Mungo’s because Aurors are treated all the time in there?”
            “Yes, it’s true the training is hard,” Harry said, with a judicious nod that Draco liked to think was one he had trained Harry to use. “But you don’t want someone to become an Auror if they don’t have the skills and trustworthiness to use them, do you? That’s why they make the training last three years and have certain requirements, to wash out the ones who wouldn’t make good Aurors.”
            Someone else waved, and Harry ended the Silencing Charm on them, too. Draco licked his lips.
            He admired Harry’s precision and control, really he did. He just couldn’t keep from thinking about where else Harry could use that precision and control.
            “I think it says a lot that you won’t become an Auror.” This person was standing at an angle to Draco, and he could see her better. She had her arms stubbornly folded and a crease between her eyebrows. “We need someone in their ranks that we could trust never to have served You-Know-Who. And you won’t join them.”
            “Did you ever serve You-Know-Who?” Harry fired back at her.
            “What? No! Of course not.”
            Harry smiled and spread his hands. Another person waved her hand, but when Harry ended the Silencing Charm and she started to spout some conspiracy theory about how the Aurors were probably part of the Dark Lord’s forces even now, Harry shook his head and replaced the spell.
            He knew how to handle a crowd, Draco thought, watching him work. Some of it was Draco’s training. Well, a lot of it probably was. Harry had never been timid, but he had been impatient. Draco opening his eyes to some of the political realities of their world had made Harry realize that he couldn’t just burst through the doors of the wizarding world and reorder things to his liking. He had to work within the constraints that were already there.
            But he did a wonderful job of that.
            Then, suddenly, Harry’s eyes were connecting with his, and he ended the spell on Draco. Draco framed a terrified, “Me?” with his mouth. It wasn’t like he was one of the thousands that were dying to ask Harry a question.
            But Harry said calmly, “Yes, the blond gentleman,” and Draco realized that he would have to come up with something or embarrass them both.
            “Uh.” Draco cleared his throat, glad now that the crowd was so packed into their small space that not that many people could turn and see who he really was. “Uh—I wondered why the Aurors need so many more members. Did lots of them die or leave during the war?”
            Harry smiled at him, and Draco smiled back, glad that he hadn’t utterly embarrassed either of them.
            “A lot of them died,” Harry said, and his voice was solemn now. His eyes swept the crowd as if he was looking for disagreement, but considering how silent most of them were, he didn’t get it. “It took them a long time to realize they were working for a Ministry Voldemort had taken over, but when they did realize it, they turned against their masters. Some died then. Others came to help out with the End of the Battle of Hogwarts, and died. Others fought the Snatchers and protected people where they found them. They died, too.”
            He leaned forwards with his hands stretched out in appeal. Draco hoped that no one else found him as profoundly attractive as Draco did at that moment, though. Otherwise, Draco might end up fighting a lot of duels he really didn’t want to.
            “I don’t think everyone should become an Auror,” Harry said into the silence. “But it is a career to consider for people who want to improve the wizarding world. And who want to improve the Aurors. I’m not saying they’re all good or the Ministry is a paradise, either. But one of the major ways to make a difference in our world is to work through them.” He paused, then bowed. “Much like I’m trying.”
            As he retreated into St. Mungo’s, he canceled the Silencing Charm. People began to chat among themselves, and Draco finally felt free to retreat, shaking his head in wonder.
            It didn’t seem Harry had said that much. Certainly not enough to change all the minds that were behind the criticism of Aurors in the papers, or at least so Draco assumed.
            But Draco still felt as though he was more sympathetic to the Aurors than he had been before, and for someone who’d been badly treated by them after the war, that was quite an accomplishment for Harry.
            From the chatter around him, he might not be the only one who felt that way. Draco pursed his lips thoughtfully as he made his way to the end of the crowd and started to walk down the middle of Diagon Alley. Harry consistently made impacts bigger than the ones Draco had thought he would make.
            Or than other politicians had thought he would make.
            That was probably one secret of his success, honestly.
            Draco walked with his head bowed and his mind on the speech more than on his surroundings, which was why someone could take him by surprise. One second Draco was just in the middle of the alley like a normal person, the next there was a hand on his collar and swinging him around into a small secluded area where Death Eater spells had utterly destroyed a shop during the war.
            Draco had just opened his mouth to shout when the other person closed his mouth over Draco’s in a passionate kiss, and Draco recognized Harry’s breathing.
            Draco grunted and gripped Harry’s shoulders punishingly in order to make up for that at least a little, and Harry grunted back and shifted them further away from the open air. Draco went with that, letting his head fall back. As he had thought would happen, Harry’s hand shot behind his skull and cradled it against contact with the wall. Draco smiled and closed his eyes completely, arching his neck.
            This time, he thought, there would be no interruptions.
            There weren’t. There was Harry, kissing and kissing him, and his hand working and working at Draco, and Draco opening his mouth to gasp encouragement and finding it full of tongue, and the swift darts of Harry’s hands up and down his sides, and then on his cock. Draco almost came from sheer excitement when he felt that.
            He held it in long enough to get his own hands past cloth and ties, though, and reveled in Harry’s gasp when he heard it.
            It wasn’t even a race after that. It was a dizzying, heated blur, with the heat springing up around them so intensely that Draco began to cough and pant. His head ached. His tongue ached. His lips hurt from the kiss that wouldn’t stop and his wrists throbbed with a dull pain.
            It didn’t matter, not with the pleasure mounting through him and Harry jerking against him.
            When Draco came, he felt as if he had fallen from a great height and landed on a cloud. It was that good, and he leaned against Harry and kept stroking until Harry joined him in bliss, slumping down until only the wall was supporting them.
            In the aftermath, Draco forgot the little speech he had wanted to make about how risky that was, and how mental Harry was to be doing this at all, and simply stood there smugly with his body buzzing sweetly at him.
            Yeah. That was more than worth it.
*
ChaosLady: Thank you!
starr: Thanks! I think they’re both more satisfied with this, though.
Jan: Thanks!
SP777: Both of them really were too shy to go further right then. But it seems Harry likes a bit of danger, so…
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Acts of Life