Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Anarchy as Art	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 12617 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 16
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Seventeen—Paths Through the Archives

            “And how long have you had this here?”

            Harry thought he kept his voice kind and friendly, he really did. But it must not have been enough, if the way that Malfoy flashed him a sly glance was any indication.

            “What, Potter, still so protective of the Ministry?” he murmured, lifting his modified lantern high. It burned like a torch, flickering blue flame on the end of a handle that looked like driftwood, but the flame was capped with a small structure of glass that Malfoy said would never shatter. Well, he knew best, Harry reckoned, but he still could have used a Lumos with less fuss. He glared at the torch as he replied.

            “Not so much protective of them as wondering how the fuck you fooled so many people,” he muttered.

            “Oh, I have my ways,” Malfoy said, and Harry didn’t miss the smile that sparked and curled around the corner of his mouth as he made the door that led into the Ministry Archives—the secret door, the one that Harry would have been prepared to swear didn’t exist—swing open. Harry had to muffle a snort. Malfoy was grinning not so much at his own cleverness as at the way Harry responded to it, Harry was suddenly sure. “And an enormous fortune to use to bribe people is rather good as well. I’m sure you’ll agree.” He turned the torch downwards, and the path of pale blue light cut into the darkness, illuminating the stone steps.

            Harry waited for Malfoy to go first, instinct when he was following someone he still only half-trusted, and shook his head. “Did you do so much stealing in order to add to your fortune?”

            “For the purposes of bribery? Sometimes.” Malfoy turned on the largest step to look up at him. “But most of all, it was a way to please myself, and a way to keep your attention. You don’t know how much of the evidence you found about me I planted, to make sure that you wouldn’t look elsewhere.”

            Harry wanted to pause in the middle of a step, but that would have made him fall over, so he just stood still and shook his head instead, staring at Malfoy. “Sometimes, the more I find out about you, the less I think I like you,” he muttered.

            “This is the way I am,” Malfoy said, his voice as deep and soft as the dust that drifted through the air. “And I don’t need to do things like that anymore, not if I have you honestly at my side.”

            Harry chose not to answer that, but pressed forwards. Malfoy took the hint and kept walking, his legs moving in small elegant steps as the stairs corkscrewed under him.

            Harry watched his back, and watched the walls, and wondered when Malfoy had first found the passage, when he had decided to use it for this purpose, and why the person he bribed hadn’t taken more precautions. Of course, if the way Malfoy had discussed this person was correct, their own greed might have outweighed it.

            They reached the bottom of the stairs a few minutes later. Harry did glance over his shoulder as Malfoy swept the torch towards the door in front of them, but saw nothing. The door at the top of the flight must have fallen shut.

            Malfoy bent down to the door in front of him, and there were a few clicks and scrapes and complicated noises that made Harry want to flinch. He grasped control by grinding his teeth and locking his hands in front of him. The door trembled, flinched, and then fell open. Malfoy stepped forwards without a sound. Harry drew on his Auror training to follow.

            “There’s a wand trained on you,” said a voice from the darkness ahead of them.

            “Herbert.” Malfoy came to a stop, but from the evidence in his voice, there was a smile on his face. “Did you really think that anyone else would be coming out the door? Who else could you have sold the secret to? Be honest now,” he added, in a coaxing way. “You know that what I admire about you is your honesty.”

            There was nothing from the man in front of them for some moments, and then the wand trained on them lit with a Lumos. Harry stepped to the side. He had already used a small glamour on his face, one that would only affect people who didn’t know who he was. There was no reason Herbert should react to him violently, the way he might an Auror who he thought had come to spy on him, but Harry wanted to have room to move.

            Herbert turned out to be a small Archivist with his robes permanently bunched up around him as though he was cold. He had bright brown eyes, and he glared at Malfoy out of them like a mole while folding his arms and giving a violent shiver. His wand shook.

            “You’re not the only one who could have found it,” he mumbled. “I’m not the only one who could have seen you.”

            Malfoy clucked his tongue, but didn’t give a verbal response other than that. “Come, come, Herbert,” he said. “You know what we’ve come for, and what I promised you in return.”

            For a moment more, Harry thought Herbert might still protest, but the noise lost itself in another shiver. With a sniff, he turned away from them and threaded his way back through an open door into a room with a large table, several desks, and innumerable cabinets all strewn with paper. Harry had no idea how he would ever find anything in such a mess, but Herbert must have had a system. He snatched up a slim red folder and brought it back to them.

            Malfoy took it, but held it out to Harry at once. “Would you do the honors?”

            Harry opened the folder and skimmed down the center of the papers, feeling his mouth harden. Yes, there were Flowing’s files, with her loopy, scribbling scrawl at the bottom, and the slightly neater hand of her partner beside it. Just one copy of every single page instead of the multiple ones Thorin would have demanded, which was why the file was so slender, but still more than enough to replace the papers she’d lost.

            “How did you get these?” he asked, shutting the folder and holding it close to his chest in case Herbert tried to take it back. He was eyeing it, between bouts of trembling.

            Herbert started a little as though he hadn’t expected Harry to speak to him, and then said, “Oh. Well, of course most files are delivered as memos these days, and not by hand. It was a simple matter to place a spell on the papers that the memos were made from, so that they diverted to me and I could make a copy before sending them on to the offices they were supposed to go to.”

            Harry nodded. “And the ones that were hand-delivered?”

            “I marked the offices of the Aurors that did that and ensured that they used paper that came from charmed, linked stacks,” Herbert said simply. “That way, whatever they wrote on a piece of parchment from one stack would appear on a piece of parchment from the other—which was always in my possession.”

            Harry had to smile. “And why did you do it?”

            Herbert stared at him with his mouth slightly open, then shook his head. “Everything must be recorded,” he said, in the voice of someone describing a religious ceremony. “Only think what a mess we would be in, otherwise!”

            Harry looked at Malfoy, but he only got a bland look in return. Malfoy either didn’t understand Herbert’s packrat instinct or wasn’t about to admit he did. What mattered was that he had found and taken advantage of it, Harry reckoned.

            He watched as Malfoy reached into his pocket and took out something small and round and shiny, faceted like some of the more expensive crystal balls Trelawney had had them use in Divination. Malfoy extended the globe with his palm flat, and Herbert took a single step forwards, his own hand clawing for it.

            Malfoy folded his fingers over the globe, and Herbert groaned, his hands twitching. Harry told himself sternly that he didn’t have the right to think that was strange; he had probably done the same thing with some of the evidence Malfoy had planted at his crimes.

            Which I’m a great deal angrier about.

            “You know what this is, Herbert,” Malfoy said, in the stern tones of someone speaking to a small child who kept having an accident on the floor. “You know what trouble I went through to get it. What are you going to do for me in return? These files are only part of the price.” He nodded to the folder Harry held.

            Herbert licked his lips, and appeared to be thinking deeply for a moment. Then he mumbled, “Not to tell anyone else about the passage into the Archive.”

            “And what else?” Malfoy circled his hand for a moment as though he would drop the globe. Herbert waved his arms frantically, and Malfoy obediently stopped his hand, although his fingers still crooked as though the crystal would slip through them any minute. “Come, come, Herbert, I want to know.”

            Herbert took a deep breath, and said, “Not to tell anyone else that I make copies of the memos.”

            “Right,” Malfoy said, nodding, and then paused.

            Herbert gave a sigh that seemed fetched up from deep inside him, and said, “And not to tell anyone else that I have all these copies down here in the first place. The official Ministry copies in the main part of the Archive are the only ones that anyone else should know about. I must never give the existence of my trove away in my eagerness to acquire new treasures.” He sounded as if it was a catechism that Malfoy had made him recite many times, Harry thought.

            “Good boy,” Malfoy said, a tone in his voice that would have made Harry bristle if it was directed to him, but Herbert didn’t seem to notice. Malfoy tossed the globe at him, and Herbert caught it and cradled it close to his chest, an awed expression on his face that Harry would have thought appropriate for a man holding his first child.

            “What is it?” Harry muttered out of the side of his mouth.

            “A globe that will permit him to record himself reading his files, all of them,” Malfoy whispered back. “Another way to keep the information backed-up, and safe. They’re new devices, from Finland, not very common here yet.”

            Harry couldn’t help raising his eyebrows. “And you stole one, of course?”

            Malfoy gave him a serene smile, and then turned to address Herbert again. “And of course you’ll keep our coming here a secret, Herbert.”

            Herbert nodded, and then stepped towards the office overflowing with paper, the globe held firmly in his hands. Harry wondered if he would be able to choose what priceless copy to record first. It seemed likely he’d be stuck for at least a few hours.

            Malfoy seemed satisfied, even if he hadn’t got a verbal promise from Herbert about keeping their presence secret, and turned away. Harry followed him, shaking his head. “And is he really going to keep it quiet?” he asked, as Malfoy swung the door of the secret passage behind them again.

            Malfoy glanced back once from the stairs to nod. “Herbert is really only concerned about his files. Like your Thorin, I suppose, but he isn’t in a position of authority over people. As long as no one threatens his papers, he’s happy, and discreet.”

            “If someone else does?” Harry asked, jogging to keep up. Malfoy was taking the staircase to the surface much faster than he’d gone down it. “I mean, if someone else figures out they can control him with a threat to them?”

            Malfoy gave a thin smile. “Then I have other measures in place to deal with what he might betray.”

            Harry thought of the other uses Malfoy had probably put his “vast fortune” to, and decided that was true. They climbed in silence for a few minutes until he cleared his throat. “How much of the evidence that I collected did you plant?” he asked.

            “I can hear the weight in your voice,” Malfoy said, without turning around and without faltering in the way he climbed. “If that was your best attempt at a casual tone, it was a miserable failure.”

            Harry ground his teeth, and counted to twenty. That didn’t usually work for him, but when he had physical exertion, like climbing narrow stairs, to concentrate on, it was better. “Answer the question,” he said at last.

            “I don’t know, now,” Malfoy said, and turned around to look back at Harry, the light of the torch he had made reappear throwing his face into stark relief. He bent towards Harry and stared at him. “Is that what you want to hear? That I did it so often and so automatically, as part of the effort to keep your attention bent on me, that I’ve lost track of the numbers and the cases? Because that’s the truth.”

            Harry closed his eyes and forced himself to remember Thorin, the endless cases he had worked on without any hope of return, the way that Thorin had admired the neat edge of a pile of parchments more than any work Harry and Ron had put in. He could have spent more and more intense labor in the Ministry, he could have produced the evidence that would convict Malfoy, in fact, and Thorin would have ignored it.

            Being angry at Malfoy for planting fake evidence in straits like that was, really, like being angry at him for pissing in the ocean.

            Harry finally shook his head and opened his eyes. “Are you going to do the same thing with my new career?” he asked.

            Malfoy blinked and lowered his torch, which he had raised, Harry noted now for the first time, like a weapon. “You’re not going to kill me?” he asked.

            “Not right now, anyway,” Harry said. “It’s an option I’m keeping in mind for later.” He inched past Malfoy to go on up the stairs. He didn’t think he had anything to fear from having Malfoy at his back, now that he knew the staircase and he had the reassurance that Malfoy wasn’t into necrophilia.

            “What’s your new career?” Malfoy asked his back. “As long as you’re not intending to ignore me or date someone else, then I think I can accept it.”

            “Setting up a school that will teach Muggleborn children magic before they would get into Hogwarts,” Harry said, and kept walking.

            Malfoy breathed in the darkness, and then scrambled after him. “You’re insane,” he told Harry’s back this time. “Do you know how many different people you would have to work with to establish something like that?”

            “Yes,” Harry said. “Hogwarts, because they’re the ones who have access to the records of which children are born magical. The Ministry, to get some of the faction that’s tired of blood prejudice on my side. Parents of Muggleborn children, who would be suspicious at first. The parents of pure-blood children who might not want their precious darlings attending school with people who aren’t up to standard. Teachers, to learn who would teach there. I could do some flying and some elementary defensive spellwork, maybe, but I don’t know anything about teaching anyone younger than teenagers. Hermione, so she can tell me—”

            “It wouldn’t work.” Malfoy released those words in a triumphant pant; he had caught up with Harry and they were climbing side-by-side now. “You have no idea what’s involved in something like this. You don’t know.”

            “Then I’ll learn.” Harry faced Malfoy, and nearly made him step back off the edge of the stair they stood on. Harry shot a hand out and caught Malfoy’s elbow so he wouldn’t fall, then leaned in so close that Malfoy’s eyes crossed. “That’s the part of it that you don’t understand, Malfoy. I am willing to learn new things. I learned that I was obsessed with you, and I learned that as long as Thorin’s Head Auror, I was never going to be happy in the Ministry. I’ll learn what I need to about founding a school, too. It might take a long time, but what the fuck else do I have to occupy my time?”

            “That’s a horrible reason for doing something like this.” In the light of the torch, Malfoy’s face was pale, set, stubborn. “Because you want to avoid being bored, or because you quit your job and you’re looking for excitement.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Endless meetings and learning to keep quiet and contending with prejudice. That’s exciting, all right.”

            “Then why do it?” Malfoy pressed up close to him again, their chests touching through their robes. “Do something else.”

            “I don’t want to,” Harry hissed, and controlled the urge to shove him away again. “This is what I thought of. Something that will let me make a difference, that’ll give me a goal to work for, that no one else is doing.”

            “Is that your desire for attention, again?” Malfoy’s face twisted into a sneer.

            And then Harry burst out laughing, because he couldn’t take it anymore. He leaned against the wall and whooped; he turned his head up towards the door that would lead them out of the Ministry and laughed out loud. He went on laughing with tears coming from his eyes until Malfoy reached out, formed his hand into a fist, and knocked against his shoulder.

            Then Harry mopped the tears out of his eyes and grinned at him. “Sorry,” he said. “But who’s the one who sacrificed everything for attention around here?”

            Malfoy flushed, then shook his head. “All right,” he said. “But why do something like this?”

            “Because I don’t want to be an Auror, or a Healer, or sit around home for the rest of my life,” Harry said simply. “And because it’ll let me use my name for something useful, for once, instead of trying to run away from it the way I have since the war.” He looked Malfoy in the eye. “And since my obsession with you won’t go away, I think it’ll let me see you more than once in a while. Unless you’re going to remove yourself from my life?”

            Malfoy kissed him, hard and angry, his hands closing down on Harry’s cheeks, his tongue practically forcing its way in. Harry moaned in approval and ran his hands up and down and around Malfoy’s arse, letting them rest lightly there, in contrast to the squeeze on his face.

            Malfoy drew back and stared at him. “Just try and get away without seeing me,” he said.

            Harry smiled at him, savage and slow. “Good.”

*

            SP777: A mixture of fluff and angst.

            Thanks! I can’t promise that all the details on how Harry organizes the school will be in this fic, but some will be there.

            unneeded: Harry will certainly hope that some of those he trains up can be important figures in the future! He has no idea how long that will take, but he does hope to influence some people, and not in the creepy way that others might think of when they hear that word.
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