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A Determined Frame of Mind	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16811 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Um. Do not kill me for this chapter.

Chapter Seventeen—Obstacles

            Dear Draco,

            I think that what you propose would be acceptable.

            Draco drew a soft breath of relief and sat down to write the reply. It had taken nearly a week of delicate negotiations to get around Eugenie’s initial demands—which were for power and prestige that not even Harry in all his restored glory could have granted her—and down to something Harry was willing to do and which Eugenie wanted. But now things were settled, and if all went well they would meet her later this afternoon. Draco had already chosen the place, a field halfway between Wiltshire and the Ministry where a wizarding home had once stood, but which had been abandoned years ago, with just enough wards remaining in place to keep it from the sight of Muggles. It was a neutral ground that Eugenie should feel comfortable on. Just in case, though, he would let her choose the time.

            “Hmmm….Draco?”

            Draco turned with a fond smile. Harry was lying in bed still—he regularly shared Draco’s now, with no need to retreat to his own wing—and had sprawled over on his side, one hand patting the blankets in a fruitless search for him. Of course, he might have had more success in seeing his target if he had opened his eyes, Draco thought.

            “Right here, love,” Draco murmured, and took just a few moments more to sign the letter, seal it in its envelope, and cast a spell that let one of his several owls know he had a parchment that wanted delivery. The eagle-owl who responded was a handsome creature his mother had named Hippolyta, and Draco saw no reason to change it. He stroked her beak for a moment before he gave her Eugenie’s name. Hippolyta leaped and soared out the window. By that time, Harry had roused himself enough to creep across the bed and drape his arm around Draco’s shoulders.

            “You’re finished now,” he whispered, halfway between a seductive lover and a sulky child. “Come back to bed now.”

            Draco laughed and let himself tumble backwards, turning over in a moment so that he was lying on top of Harry. His legs sprawled, his hair went in every direction, and he knew his elbows were digging into the mattress in a fashion that wouldn’t make him look attractive from many angles.

            And still, he didn’t care.

            “What you do to me,” he murmured to Harry, dipping his head so that he could nuzzle his face into the dark hair. The scent he had grown used to in the past few days—slightly musky, the scent of a sleeping Harry—rose up and surrounded him. “Even if you’re not ready to let me make love to you fully yet.”

            It was the question he asked, in that certain way, every morning. And, as always, Harry tensed for a moment before he answered with the same playful lightness. “I may not be ready for that, but I can’t tell you how ready I am to be sucked, if you’re in the mood.”

            Draco was. He satisfied himself first, however, by turning Harry over and licking and nipping the back of his neck. Harry indulged him, even softly sighing in enjoyment. He didn’t understand Draco’s fascination with marking him that way, and had even asked what good it did, when no one would see it anyway, because Harry went nowhere outside the Manor and his hair hung over his nape all the time. Draco had said it was the principle of the thing. Anyone who came close enough would know that Harry could not possibly have reached that part of his body to put the mark there for himself, and that was all Draco required.

            He pulled Harry back over when he was done. Harry was already breathing fast, his eyes half-shut and his face flushed. He tried to touch Draco’s chest, but his hand was trembling so badly his fingers skidded off his muscles. Draco caught the hand and kissed the shaking fingers one by one.

            Little by little, Harry’s resistance was breaking down. He no longer seemed embarrassed by most of the things he was learning about himself, the sexual responses that he had never suspected existed until Draco coaxed them out of him. It wouldn’t be long, Draco was confident, before Harry wanted to be fucked, or wanted to fuck Draco.

            And sometime soon after that, he might even admit that he wasn’t straight.

            An impatient shove on his chest reminded him of where they were. Draco kissed Harry’s hand one more time and then slid down his chest, eager to see what new noises he could pull from his lover this morning.

*

            Harry was happy in a way he had never thought he would be.

            He still wished the Cassandra Curse hadn’t been cast, of course. How could he wish otherwise, when he knew it had caused many people pain and not just him, and when he had come close to dying several times? But he was more inclined than he had been to regard it as a test, a trial by molten iron to forge him into the man who was Draco’s lover.

            Draco’s eagle-owl descended while they ate breakfast, and after Harry had spent more time absently admiring Draco’s laughter and the way his jaw moved when he spoke than eating. Draco opened the letter at once. His eyes sped along the words, and crinkled at the edges.

            “Pleasing news?” Harry asked, trying to drag his mind away from the bedroom and into the serious business of politics. He would probably never be as good at them as Draco was, but this was his future they were discussing. The least he owed it was a bit of attention.

            “Yes.” Draco nodded. “Eugenie chose to meet us in the place I suggested, and at two.” He peered critically over the top of the letter at Harry. “I reckon we can do something about your hair by then.”



            Harry laughed. Everything seemed so much easier now that he had accepted Draco loved him—even if he wasn’t always sure about the reasons why, even if it didn’t seem sometimes that he would ever be ready for more than the blowjobs and handjobs and frotting they shared right now—and stopped looking for conspiracies and desires to hurt him where they were none. He shrugged. “Since you managed to tame the mess that’s your own, you must have interesting techniques in your repertoire somewhere. Or did the house-elves manage that the way they manage everything else for you?”

            Draco flipped a spoonful of cereal at him. Harry ducked that, and retaliated with a handful of marmalade. Draco cried out in true distress as it landed in his hair and dripped down his face. Harry lost his self-control then, and started laughing—

            Hard enough that he didn’t manage to duck in time when Draco flung a piece of buttered toast at him, so it caught him in the face. He was still trying to lick the butter away when Draco leaned around the curve of the table, caught his shoulders, and descended on him.

            Because they were still mostly naked, the wrestling match that followed was pleasurable in unexpected ways, causing Harry to gasp and grunt and spread his legs in surrender as he never would have to a determined enemy.

            But, thank Merlin, he thought, staring up at Draco’s half-pained, half-pleased face above him, while the carpet made the mark on the back of his neck prickle and sting, I’ve got over believing that Draco is one now.

*

            The field where they were to meet Eugenie wasn’t very impressive. Draco, who hadn’t chosen it for its impressive qualities, didn’t care. He swished his wand idly through the nettles and tall grasses as he walked. He had already cast a spell to ensure that none of the plants could get a grip on his cloak. Though the house-elves would be able to remove all such nuisances the moment he returned to the Manor, Draco would not look less than impressive while he met Eugenie.

            Harry had already quartered the field twice, checking on the piled stones of the tumbledown house and the sparking, hissing remnants of the wards. He had rolled his eyes when Draco accused him of fussiness and paranoia, and returned to the task each time, silent and intent. In truth, Draco appreciated Harry’s Auror instincts. There was no one and nothing to challenge them here, but there was always the small off-chance that another group of wizards might have chosen to enter the field for some other purpose this afternoon, and it gave Harry a place to put his energy.

            Both of them heard the muffled crack that signified Apparition coming from the other side of the field. Harry wheeled around at once and leveled his wand in that direction. Draco stepped up beside him, close enough that he could hear his lover’s steady breathing. “Patience,” he whispered into Harry’s ear, curving an arm around his waist.

            “I’m plenty patient,” Harry whispered back, but he did relax, leaning against Draco.

            A swirl of lavender robes announced Eugenie. Draco had never thought her unintelligent, and she proved it by coming into view with her hands in the air, almost ostentatiously devoid of weapons. Harry muttered several sensing spells anyway, which would presumably tell him if she had turned her wand invisible. He gave a low grunt of satisfaction when it was done. Draco caressed the back of his neck, letting his fingertips linger in the marks of his own teeth, and then stepped away from him.

            “Greetings, Madam Figg-Warwick,” he called.

            “Oh, call me Eugenie, Draco.” Eugenie smiled wearily at him as she stepped over a clump of weeds and came to a halt with most of the field still between them. “You do it in the letters. No need to vary this meeting much from those, is there?”

            Draco nodded, pleased again. Eugenie was a woman of business. He had no objection to the same tone prevailing here. Eugenie was powerfully placed in the Ministry, a trusted confidant of Scrimgeour. For what she could offer them, a brisk bargaining was fine.

            “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “This is Harry Potter.” He gestured at Harry, though Eugenie had already turned in that direction, and she would have to have been blind not to recognize Harry, as many times as his face had appeared on the front page of the Daily Prophet.

            “Hello,” Harry said. His voice was clipped, and he had his head lifted high and held stiffly to the side, the way he did when he was nervous. Draco understood. This was his first time in weeks willingly showing himself as himself to someone else.

            “Hello,” said Eugenie. There was no malice in her tone, and only open curiosity and a little sadness in her face. Draco relaxed. The Cassandra Curse hadn’t renewed its grip, then, and he had done a good enough job smashing the truth into her mind that Eugenie hadn’t looked for alternative explanations, either. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Potter. I hope that we can enjoy working together closely in the future.”

            Harry made a little motion with his head. It might have meant almost anything. Draco decided to step into the breach before one of them could say something unfortunate. He was really the only one present who could act as a bridge between the two worlds represented.

            “You said that you were willing to help us in return for some considerations at a future date, Eugenie,” he said. “Why don’t you detail them for Harry, just so that he can express his level of comfort with them?”

            It was a formality, since Harry and Draco had already spent hours in discussion over the letters, and Draco would never have promised her anything that Harry was truly uncomfortable with. It was best to be as honest as possible from the beginning, though. And talking by letter was truly no substitute for a face-to-face conversation.

            “Very well.” Eugenie locked her hands together in front of her like a child told to recite at school. “I asked for Mr. Potter to speak for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in future meetings planning the course of the Ministry. We have received little funding compared to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the past several years. Since Minister Scrimgeour was the Head of the Auror Office before he took Fudge’s place, he tends to favor his own people.”

            Harry nodded at once. “I have no trouble with that,” he said, and a small, bitter smile touched his lips. “Even if I return to the Ministry, it will never be in the same capacity that I once enjoyed.”

            Eugenie smiled. The smile looked a bit frayed about the edges, Draco thought, as if she didn’t believe Harry would keep his promise. Well, she’ll learn the truth soon enough.

            “I would also ask that you safeguard several of my people who need to travel out of the country on dangerous missions during the next year.” Eugenie wrinkled her nose. “We have a consistent success rate in stopping those who would smuggle in forbidden magical creatures, but then we’re faced with the problem of getting those creatures back to their native lands.”

            “Will one guard make that much of a difference?” Harry asked. Draco smothered his proud smile as best he could. He hadn’t even needed to nudge Harry in the ribs to remind him to ask that question.

            “When he’s Harry Potter, he will.” Eugenie waved a hand. “My people receive training, Mr. Potter, but nothing can keep up their morale all the time. Knowing that I was able to hire the best Auror in the Ministry to travel with them…they’re likely to fight better just from having you around.”

            Harry grimaced, but nodded. Draco knew he disliked the idea that people would value him so much more than an ordinary fighting wizard, however true it was. “And the final consideration?”

            “That you’ll spend a few afternoons coming to talk to me.” Eugenie’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “We don’t have to have lengthy conversations. Once again, the appearance of friendship with Harry Potter is just as valuable as the actual thing, which I have no reason to anticipate receiving.”

            Harry hissed between his teeth, but managed to bend his stiff neck enough to approximate a bow. “I agree.”

            “In return for that,” said Eugenie, and clapped her hands with an echoing sound, “I’ll help spread the truth in whatever capacity I can, back you against your enemies, and do research on the Cassandra Curse. The wizards who invented it probably experimented on magical creatures first, as was the normal practice at that period of history. There may be something in the records of my Department that can help us.”

            “More than good enough,” said Harry. He glanced at Draco, asking without words if Draco would tell her who their enemy was now.

            Draco nodded. He had held that information back from Eugenie, not sure how she would react to it, but they were in deep enough now that continuing to do so would hinder more than help her. “The person we suspect of being our enemy, and of casting the Cassandra Curse on Harry, is—“

            “Minister Scrimgeour,” Eugenie said softly. “I know.”

            Draco blinked. “How—“

            And then Apparitions sounded from every corner of the field, and Draco whirled around, reaching for his wand, cursing himself for not linking the sadness in Eugenie’s eyes to how long the negotiation with her had taken. Eugenie would have had no reason to hold back and be so fussy, unless someone else was courting her at the same time.

            “I’m sorry about this, Draco,” Eugenie said from behind him, somehow loud enough to cut through the sound of Aurors appearing and shouts for Harry and Draco to surrender. “But he offered me a better price.”

            She was gone by the time Draco whirled on her. Beside him, he heard Harry make a roaring sound, halfway between pain and anger, at the same moment as three voices called, “Expelliarmus!” and their wands shot away from their hands.

            Draco turned around again, and was just in time to tackle Harry as he tried to surge away from him and towards their enemies. Harry measured his full length in the dirt, and Draco sprawled on top of him. He whispered fiercely into his lover’s ear, “No, I won’t let you do something that could hurt you!”

            “You might as well let him up, Mr. Malfoy.”

            Draco climbed to his feet with his own slow dignity, making sure to offer his hand to Harry and keep it there, on his arm. Harry was shaking, but Draco couldn’t tell if it was with fear or fury. Scrimgeour strode across the field to meet them. He stopped walking a moment later, however, and shook his head.

            “You really aren’t as clever as you think you are, you know,” he murmured.

            That conversation we had in his office. Draco’s heart was beating so fast it left streaks of color across his vision. I mentioned the Cassandra Curse. He must have chosen the simplest explanation, and decided that I heard about it from Harry—and after the fact, or I would have dismissed it as a story.

            Yes, he had not been as clever as he thought he was. He wanted to blame the headache from Legilimizing Eugenie, but he really had nothing to blame but his own foolishness.

            “How did you remember casting the curse, since you did it?” he asked calmly. He didn’t bother trying to raise his voice enough to reach the Aurors. Scrimgeour had no doubt prepared them to hear all sorts of wild things from both Draco and Harry.

            Scrimgeour shrugged slightly. “It had to be done,” he said, his face like iron. “I don’t regret it. And though some casters forget their part in the spell the moment it’s cast, that’s only in cases when there’s a danger of their changing their minds later and deciding the curse was not necessary. I know it was.”

            “Bastard,” Draco whispered, in a tone he had last used to his father.

            Scrimgeour lowered his eyelids and sighed. “Mr. Malfoy, I find this hostility troublesome. You should thank me for removing an obstacle from your life. You would have found nothing but pain and difficulty if you had stayed with Mr. Potter. That is what he brings to everyone around him.” He faced Harry. Draco had never seen such pure hatred on any human face. “Mr. Potter. How…pleasant…to see you again.”

            Draco glanced at Harry. He was standing too still, his eyes never wavering from Scrimgeour. Draco recognized that stillness. He’d seen it when Harry was controlling himself in hospital, preventing the natural reactions that would only have made Draco dislike him more.

            It made Draco burn to see him falling back into it now, so soon after Draco had promised him that he would never need it again.

            He stepped forwards. Scrimgeour lifted his wand warningly.

            “If you believe that I’ll abandon Harry for any consideration you can offer me, you’ll need to think again,” Draco said lightly. His fear had fallen silent now. Instead, plans divided in his head like fertilized eggs, his mind racing after something he could use to get out of this situation.

            “Oh, I never intended to court you out of this,” said Scrimgeour. “Some people are susceptible to such offers, Madam Figg-Warwick being one of them. Malfoys are not. My solution is simpler, and, I think, in the end more elegant. Obliviate!”

*

            Harry watched as Draco’s features fell slack, the rage and calculation draining away like yolk through a hole in the bottom of a dragon’s egg. He closed his eyes.

            And then Scrimgeour was on him.

            A hand closed around his wrist, squeezing hard enough to press tendon to bone. Harry went to his knees with the pain, but refused to scream. He would maintain his silence from now on.

            He thought it was the only way he could be expected to survive.

            Scrimgeour squeezed one more time, then bent over him. Harry could feel the loathing that shook his body, as well as hear the words whispered in his ear. “Did you really think that you could escape forever? Well, yes, perhaps you were arrogant enough to think that.” The hands moved to his shoulders now, and pressed down. Harry wondered, through the haze of pain, if his bones would fracture. “You have always been arrogant. It is not the thing I dislike most about you, Potter, but it comes close.

            “You couldn’t simply enjoy the glory that you were given. You had to want more. This is your fault, you know. If you had rested content in your place, if you had not aspired to political power that you were never fit to wield, then I would not have been forced to come between you and your friends. There would never have been a suicide attempt, or a hunt.”

            One of the hands on his shoulders let go, cupped his chin, and wrenched his head around so hard that Harry’s eyes sparked with tears. Scrimgeour pointed his face at Draco, who was swaying slightly on his feet and blinking. Harry knew the Memory Charm must have been a powerful one if it was directed to wipe out the weeks of Draco’s association with Harry. He only hoped that Draco would not be affected by it in the same way he had seen Lockhart affected.

            On cue, Scrimgeour whispered, “And there would never have been an innocent man pulled into this. I don’t like Malfoy, but he’s done some good and no evil to the wizarding community in the past nine years. But you couldn’t leave that uncomplicated life the way it was, could you, Potter? Oh, no, you had to ensure that he would be dragged down with you, that you—“

            Harry had been waiting for the moment when Scrimgeour would have sunk so far into tormenting him that his grip would relax. It was a fleeting moment, signaled only by the way Scrimgeour’s fingers fluttered, but that was enough.

            He kicked out, hitting Scrimgeour’s bad leg, and then rolled over when the Minister cried out and fell to the ground. He was on his feet in the next moment, hand extended, drawing on the wandless magic that he hadn’t used since St. Mungo’s, trying with all his might to call his wand back from the Auror who had it—

            And Scrimgeour hit him with a Blasting Curse in the small of his back.

            Harry went down with a cry. He knew something was broken, though he wasn’t sure what; he only knew that when he tried to move, pain like a cascade of hot water filled him. He lay still, tears running down his face, and listened to Scrimgeour say, “Try that again, and Malfoy is dead.”

            Harry tilted his head back in surrender. It was so easy. Despair was already descending on him, familiar iron claws, black wings, breath of frost, like a dragon in reverse. He didn’t resist when the Aurors came forwards, roughly dragged him to his feet, and Apparated away from Draco.

            He was so cold.

*

            Draco came back to himself slowly. He was standing in the middle of a field, halfway between the Manor and the Ministry, that he recognized from the negotiations he’d seen done there during the war. His wand was at his feet. No one else was in sight.

            He couldn’t remember what he was doing there.

            Draco bent over slowly and picked up his wand. His head hurt. He touched it, and recognized the cutting pain that came in from his temple along with the slight haze fluttering at the corners of his vision. He’d been Obliviated.

            Some bargain gone sour, I would imagine, he thought, and shrugged. He always kept multiple copies of every less-than-legal transaction he engaged in. He would know who it had been, and take care never to deal with them again.

            Of course he had the nagging feeling that it had been more than that, that he had something important to do, but that was the usual side-effect of a Memory Charm and Draco had learned not to mind it. His attackers had been gentlemen, at least, to leave him unhurt and with his wand nearby. They could have tossed it into the weeds and grass, and Draco would have spent hours trying to locate it.

            Moving slowly in consideration of his aching head, he Apparated back home, wondering absently why it seemed as if someone should have come with him, and why the Manor echoed so emptily when he did finally enter it.

*

            thrnbrooke, Chris: Thanks for reviewing!

            Bthatcher2002: Thanks! The story will most likely have 24 chapters.

            Well, the only reason Draco figured this out at all is that Psyche-Diving wasn’t invented when the curse was, and so there was no way for those ancient wizards to build in a protection against it. If one of Harry’s friends had been a Psyche-Diver, they could have done the same thing.

            Mangacat: Well, these are some of the consequences for being in love. Um. I think you might want to kill me now. Please don’t, or you won’t know how the story ends!

            McAbacus: We’ll see if Draco can remember to do anything for Harry.

            I’m very glad you like the story.

            Purple-er: Thanks! I promise to keep updating, especially since I know how long it will be now.
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A Determined Frame of Mind

Chapter Seventeen—Obstacles