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A Series of Malfoy Events	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11220 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Fifteen—Where to Find Harry Potter
            “We have Jessica Cassel in one of the interrogation rooms now, if you’d like to speak with her, Auror Potter.”
            Harry nodded and stood up. “I would like to.” I’d like to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. And if her act of sanity when she was telling me the “rules” of dating Malfoy was really just an act, or what.
            The younger Auror who had come to fetch him kept casting glances of awe at Harry as they traveled down the corridor. Harry finally curled his tongue back and wriggled it when she turned back to look at him. The Auror trainee blushed and muttered something about having a boyfriend.
            Harry grinned. “It has nothing to do with wanting to flirt with you. I just want you to stop looking at me like I’m a demigod.” He would have said “like a god” a fortnight ago, but the glances she used were nothing like the praise Malfoy demanded.
            “Oh! Oh, sorry.” The girl flushed brilliantly and scurried ahead. Harry thought she was in her mid-twenties at least; not a whole lot of people got to be Aurors earlier. So maybe she wasn’t really a girl.
            But she’s acting like one.
            On that auspicious note, Harry didn’t think the interview with Cassel would go that well, and he was right. She was sitting back behind the table as if it was her choice to be here, looking around. Harry half-expected her to criticize the decorating scheme, or rather the lack of one, on the interrogation room’s walls.
            She glanced at him and nodded. “Auror Potter. When do you think they’ll let me out of here?”
            “When they have some understanding of what it means that I received a ring that could have burned my finger off.” Harry sat down in the chair across from her and gave her a sympathetic smile that he thought outdid hers in falseness. “So not for a while, unless you plan to confess.”
            Cassel sat up. “They said something about that when they arrested me, but strangely, it seemed as though they were reluctant to provide proof.”
            Harry shrugged and said, “It was a spell used in the Department of Magical Theory to pull out names of people who have been involved in the preparation of certain curses. Your name was there. If you consent to actually answer questions, we’ll get a Pensieve and I’ll show you the memory. In the meantime, you can take my word for it, the word of someone who was there.”
            Cassel’s face had begun to turn grey. Harry thought he knew what that meant, but he still wanted to hear an explanation of her motives. For a moment, he regretted that he didn’t have a house-elf called Guilty here to take dictation.
            Ah, well. Pensieve memories work as evidence of confessions, too.
            “I never did anything to you.” Cassel whispered it without the force of any breath behind the words, but she was already lifting her head and recovering her poise a little. “Other than try to warn you away from Draco Malfoy, the way he breaks people.”
            “You also said that if he claimed to be dating me, there was nothing I could do about it.”
            Cassel gave him a glance that said clearly she hadn’t expected Harry to remember her words, and thought it unfair that he did. Harry grinned back unrepentantly. He could see the first glimmerings of true anger in her face. Push her to the edge, let the anger dance, and she might tell him something. It was a tactic he had used more times than he could count in extracting confessions.
            And even if it didn’t work as well as he thought it might right now, it was still fun to wind people up.
            “You didn’t need to get as close to him as fast as you did,” Cassel whispered with a hiss between her teeth. “No one else ever did that. He never proposed to anyone else.”
            Ah. That sounds like the beginning of a confession. “What can I say?” Harry placed a hand on his chest and fluttered his eyelashes a little, turning his head. “I’m so irresistible that he wanted to make a life with me even though he knew I’m straight.”
            “Less straight than you said you were!”
            Cassel sounded weirdly angry about that. Then again, she had sounded the same way when she told Harry that Malfoy was bisexual and asked if he had a problem with it. Harry seized on something else he could play with. “You don’t get to define what he and I were. Your time with him was over.”
            Cassel actually lunged forwards enough to tug at the ropes that bound her. Harry clucked his tongue. “You’ll want to watch that expression when you get ready to testify in court,” he told her.
            It would sound in the Pensieve memories as if he was warning her, but his tone was a knife designed to slip under her ribs, and Cassel went berserk. “You could never be what he wanted!” she hissed, and tossed her hair as if she wanted to show something off. Harry had no idea what it was, but he was getting impressed with how crazy she was. “You played him. He wanted obedience! You kept challenging him and trying to return his ring. He wanted someone who would wear it with honor! With pride!”
            “That all may be true,” Harry said, nodding slowly. “It doesn’t give you the right to try and murder me.”
            Goaded, Cassel sneered, “The others were already poised to try when they heard about the ring. I merely gave them the ideas.” Then she slammed her mouth shut and stared around as if trying to find the location of the monitoring spells that she must know were on the room.
            “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she whispered.
            “How did you mean it, sweetheart?” Harry draped his chin over the back of his chair and fluttered his eyelashes at her.
            “You’re impossible.” Cassel glanced over at the corner of the room and seemed to believe that pretending to be a statue would save her. “I want someone else to talk to.”
            “Certainly, that’s your right,” Harry said, and stood up.
            “Wait. If that’s the case, then why did you come and talk to me first of all?” Cassel was staring at him with a betrayed look, as if Harry had been the one to try to murder her instead.
            Harry gave her a slow wink. “Because I was told that you’d been asking for me and wanted an explanation as to why you’d been arrested. Was that wrong? I mean, the others could have explained the charge to you, but certainly in nothing like the detail I was able to give you.” He swanned his way to the door, watching over his shoulder for a moment.
            Cassel was straightening with a lost look on her face. “This—isn’t fair.”
            “If you want to take Veritaserum,” Harry said calmly, “or give someone Pensieve memories, or outright change your story, that’s also your right. What I did was give you the chance to speak freely. We have enough suspicions to be going on with. Unless you’re going to tell me that you didn’t mean all that stuff you said about Malfoy and who dates him and what you feel about my relationship with him.” He paused with a hand on the door, smiling winsomely at her.
            It seemed Cassel had finally learned how to shut her mouth, although maybe too late, because she turned her head away and pinched the insides of her cheeks firmly with her teeth. Harry laughed a little and went out.
            Two other Aurors met him right outside the door, and Harry nodded to them. “She’s asking for someone else to talk to, but she’s admitted a few incriminating things. Handle her as gently as you want to.”
            He strolled off down the corridor, chuckling. It did look like Cassel was the one who had come up with the more violent plans to attack Harry. She might have an explanation yet for the way the Magical Theory Department’s spell had shown her name attached to the ring and the package, but Harry politely doubted it at the moment.
            He could leave the questioning of her to other people. He probably should, since he’d come right up to the border of what was acceptable for an Auror who was questioning a criminal. And he could go home and relax and wait for the reports on this case to come in, or until someone needed him to confirm Cassel’s story, or until he was assigned another case.
            He could.
            But he could also go write a letter and see what happened, and that was the course Harry chose to pursue right then.
            As the owl went winging on its way, heavy letter clutched in one heavy talon, Harry pictured Malfoy reading it, and grinned.
*
            The owl that flew through the window did so with a screech. It wasn’t the one Harry had sent with Malfoy’s letter.
            Harry lowered the paper and raised his eyebrows. He had gone to the Daily Prophet and asked for all their back gossip pages, the ones that discussed Malfoy and his love affairs. The keepers of the papers’ archives had been overwhelmed by the request, and Harry thought it showed in the untidiness of the piles they’d handed him.
            He’d stuffed his head full of unsubstantiated wedding dates and speculations on how much Malfoy made a year and whether it was sufficient to keep one of his lovers in clothes, and was glad to turn his mind to something more explosive. He held out his hand.
            The owl circled above him. Harry watched it a second, then nodded. When the owl swerved towards one corner of the expansive kitchen, Harry tapped his wand against the table and muttered a short trigger word.
            The owl passed through the corner, and squawked abruptly as it found its wings caught. It chopped and cut the air with them, and screamed in Harry’s face when he walked over to retrieve the letter it carried. Harry simply shook his head. He had to dodge a few talon swipes, but in the end, he got the letter and walked back to the table.
            Malfoy’s letter had no hexes on it that would make Harry’s fingers melt off, but honestly, he’d forgotten to check for them anyway. When he recognized the handwriting on the envelope, he smiled and tore it open effortlessly.
            The letter started with his name only, a stark reminder that Malfoy was probably writing as fast as he could.
            Harry,
            You may have been right about Jessica going further than she should have by attacking my other lovers. And maybe you’re right that I took unnecessary risks by telling her to hex my broom and the others not to rescue me.
            But you’re wrong that I have nothing to offer you. I have lots to offer. You already said I was teaching you how to handle the press better than you’d been doing up until that point. You could use humor. I know I appeal to your sense of humor.
            You don’t need my wealth. But you could enjoy the fruits of it, like the restaurant I’ve already taken you to. I never see reports in the papers about you visiting places like that. I know you could afford it. Is it just because you want to work all the time and never take any holidays for yourself?
            I could teach you how to relax. Or at least how to pull back from work, because you would spend so much time chasing after me and countering my plans that you would have to think about something besides work some of the time.
            And I do want you. I’m attracted to you. I meant what I said about you being the right mix of strangeness and familiarity to challenge me. If…
            There was a strand of ink blots after that that took up half the page. Harry skipped calmly downwards and found the place where the words started again.
            If you really mean that you don’t want me, but how can you, then I’ll go away and I won’t bother you anymore. But I think I could give you what you need.
            Draco.
            Harry shook his head and laid the letter down. He let the wildly screeching owl out of the trap, and it fell halfway to the table before it caught itself and promptly flew through the window. Harry grinned after it, and then stood up with a thoughtful smile for the letter.
            He wasn’t going to write back. For honesty and incomprehension of this magnitude, Harry thought Draco deserved at least a Floo call.
*
            “Harry?”
            The note in Draco’s voice tugged at Harry’s heartstrings. The problem was, it was probably designed to tug at heartstrings. Harry made his voice and face both gentle and stern as he nodded. “Yes.”
            “Forgive me,” Draco said, as he ran a hand through his hair. It was wet and stuck up a little in the back. “I haven’t had time to dry it.”
            “I like it better this way.”
            Draco dropped his hand and gaped at Harry as if that was absolutely incomprehensible to him. Much like the other things he’d written about in the letter, Harry thought. He sort of wanted to shake Draco, but that wouldn’t help him get through to him. He kept patiently gazing instead, and Draco finally cleared his throat awkwardly and turned around.
            “I—could invite you in and give you some refreshment.”
            “We can talk here.”
            Draco finally scowled and turned around to sit down next to the Floo. “Are you being this uncooperative because I irritated you? I’m sorry. But I don’t know what to do with you. You’re too—different from all the rest.”
            “And I think you’re different from pretty much any other person I’ve ever dated, too,” Harry said, leaning his elbows on the hearth and studying Draco thoughtfully. “I mean, besides being male.”
            Draco snorted a little. “That really isn’t as big a deal as you’re making it out to be.”
            Harry shrugged. “Maybe not.” He was less concerned about it than he’d expected to be. “Listen. I want to know how you were planning to use that test to pick between your lovers. If all of them held back and let Cassel hex your broom—which all of them did—then how would you know which one was most worthy?”
            “I would come up with some other test.”
            Harry nodded, sort of having expected that answer. “That’s part of the problem, then. I don’t want someone who tests me constantly. And I’m afraid that’s what I’m going to get if I become your lover.”
            “Fiancé,” Draco corrected instantly.
            “We’re talking about lovers first.”
            “We’re talking about the whole thing.” Draco lay down as if he thought he would get more of what he wanted by staring into Harry’s eyes. “Because that’s what I want you for. A more permanent and lasting commitment than any lover I’ve ever dated.”
            “You proposed marriage to me after knowing me half an hour—”
            “I’ve known you for sixteen years,” Draco corrected, and his smile was gone. “Did you think that you were the only one who could be serious, Harry? Because that’s not the truth. Of course I would prefer it if I could get someone who perfectly fits my specifications the first time out. And maybe it would have been better for me to wait before I proposed. But all I could think of at the moment was that you fit me better than anyone else did—you already did—and I needed to keep hold of you somehow.”
            “All?” Harry raised an eyebrow at him and waited.
            It took almost a minute to happen, but Draco did turn a little pink. “All right, and I wanted to impress the people who were watching,” he muttered.
            “Thank you,” Harry said happily. If Draco hadn’t been able to acknowledge that much, then Harry would have had to close the door on this thing between them, even as unexpectedly attractive as he was finding the whole prospect.
            “I need to know if you can make a commitment to me,” Draco said. “We’ve already acknowledged all the differences that lie between us, right? So there should be no trouble in you coming back to me?” His gaze was roaming up and down Harry hopefully.
            “Oh, no,” Harry said. “There are a few barriers. Like the fact that we’ve only been on one date together, and that was somewhere you picked.”
            “Two dates,” Draco corrected, and when Harry felt his face twitch, he added, “I count you touching yourself under your Quidditch robes at my game a date.”
            “Fine,” Harry said, while he tried to deal with the flush in his own cheeks. “But I want you to come on a date with me, to a place I choose.”
            “Where?”
            “The Leaky Cauldron.”
            Draco was the one who twitched his time, like someone under an Uncontrollable Dancing Jinx. “But they probably haven’t cleaned their stools in ten years,” he whispered.
            “Oh, I think you’re underestimating them,” said Harry cheerfully. “It’s been much longer than that.”
            “The mugs,” Draco whispered, in what sounded like a trance of horror.
            “Seven-o’clock on Friday,” Harry said. “The Leaky Cauldron. You’ll be there?”
            “You could be with me eating off golden plates at any one of half a dozen restaurants I know,” Draco said, firing up. “You could—”
            “I’m allergic to the taste of gold unless it’s your hair against my lips,” Harry cut in, and had the pleasure of seeing Draco stare at him in a stunned way. “So. We’re on?”
            “This should show you the depth of my commitment to you.”
            “It should,” Harry agreed. “If it actually happens. Is it going to or not?”
            Draco gave a sigh that Harry thought would have been better employed by someone who was standing on the edge of an enormous cliff. “All right. Seven-o’clock on Friday. I must be mad.”
            “Just mad about me,” Harry said, and winked, and cut the Floo connection. Then he rolled over and laughed for at least a minute.
            He didn’t know if this would work out. He hoped it did, but Draco was by no means predictable.
            But either way, he couldn’t wait for the sight of Draco Malfoy walking into the Leaky Cauldron.
*
            Severus1snape: Harry thinks his patience might finally be going to pay off.
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A Series of Malfoy Events