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Keep This Wolf	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20229 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 17
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Eighteen—Take the Lead
            “Stay beside me, and keep your head bowed,” Draco told Potter, while he stepped back so that he could see him fully.
            Potter said nothing, but simply crouched there with his head bowed. Draco had draped him with one of the light chains that he had brought with him from the Department. It went around Potter’s neck and shoulders, dangling down to a single point on both chest and back, like a shawl. But it was made of golden beads that sang softly with magic, and by touching a particular pair of them, Draco could create a powerful glamour.
            The glamour couldn’t hide the fact that Potter was a werewolf; it hadn’t been made to conceal the glow in his eyes or the strength of his muscles and arms. On the other hand, Draco was rather glad of that. They wanted to show off the werewolf that Draco was bringing into the Department of Mysteries. The supposed traitor to Potter’s pack was going to be the justification for Draco’s return.
            He had thought of sneaking in, but in the end, the same scruples prevailed that had made him decide to base the maze in the crystal cube on the Forbidden Forest. He could not be sure that Invisible Heldeson and whoever was on her side in this wouldn’t have artifacts that could reveal any of his disguises. If he’d had more recent access to his own workspace, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but he was limited to the artifacts he had brought with him originally.
            And surely they must suspect that his loyalty was wavering now.
            “All right, you can stand up now,” Draco said, and Potter rose to his feet, a brown-eyed werewolf. Draco snapped out the chain and collar they had agreed on, and stepped up to Potter.
            Who, unexpectedly, let his lip curl back from his teeth, and growled softly.
            “You know we have to do this,” Draco said, not moving. He didn’t think this was Potter’s problem, precisely. It came from the instincts of a savage creature that didn’t want to be caged. Draco could agree with that, could appreciate the instincts, but had to tame them anyway. He met Potter stare for stare. “And why.”
            Potter visibly battled himself for a second, then jerked his head down and looked away. Draco was gentle when he clipped the chain to the collar, and made sure not to pull on it as they began to walk in the direction of the Forest’s Apparition point.
            “I know you don’t like this,” Draco said, in the same calm, running tone he would use to talk to a thestral he had to approach. “But we’ll get revenge in the end that’s much more satisfying than running into the Ministry and tearing someone’s head off.”
            “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m an animal, Malfoy.”
            Draco started. He had to admit that he had rather forgotten there was an intelligent being who could respond at the end of the lead.
            He would do well to remember. Underestimating werewolves and thinking they were always mindless had cost the Ministry a lot where Potter was concerned, not least in the inefficiency of competing agendas when it came to Draco’s selection as a diplomat.
            “I promise that we’ll get the revenge,” he corrected himself smoothly. “And I wouldn’t be talking about revenge to an animal, would I?”
            “No.”
            Potter was silent then, dropping behind him almost to the end of the lead and walking with his head bowed submissively. Draco tensed a little. He had to admit this was the part of the charade he was most nervous about. He didn’t know if Potter could convincingly play the part of a subdued werewolf instead of a pack leader.
            But Potter had insisted he could, and Draco trusted in his own artifacts and skills. So they would take the risk.
*
            The Ministry smelled like stone. The Department of Mysteries smelled like death.
            Harry walked with his eyes on the floor and his nose working. It actually wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it be, even after years of looking whoever he wanted in the eye. The looks of disgust on most people’s faces weren’t ones he cared to peer too closely at.
            And his nose could tell him a lot. He hadn’t been in the Department of Mysteries often when he was an Auror, usually only when an Unspeakable or one of their artifacts was somehow involved in a crime. Then, the shifting rooms and the memories of Sirius’s death had made him so uncomfortable that he didn’t notice much about it.
            Now, he saw much more. Or sensed, really. A werewolf’s sense of smell revealed something powerful and rotting under it all. When the rooms spun around them and they stepped through a door that should have led into an eastward room only to find that it was the one they’d already left, Harry’s nostrils quivered with a sudden upsurge of the rotting smell. There were tendons down there, or something like them, pieces of carrion that spun and strained in the right direction. Subtle illusions on the walls had to be responsible for making the human eye think that they were in a completely different place or one they’d left, not reality.
            It was interesting. Harry stored the information in the back of his mind, although he didn’t know if he’d ever get the chance to use it.
            “Unspeakable Malfoy.”
            Malfoy bowed from the waist, precisely enough and with enough real feeling that Harry was tempted to growl again. But he reckoned that wouldn’t get him anywhere, and so he studied the woman in silence instead. This must be Invisible Heldeson. Harry thought that only from Malfoy’s reaction to her, though. He knew nothing about Unspeakable robes or ranks.
            Malfoy, though, confirmed a second later who she was. “Invisible,” he said softly, his eyes on the floor as if he was playing Harry’s pretense along with him. “I brought a werewolf who was willing to turn traitor on Potter with me.”
            Invisible Heldeson took a crystal from her belt and held it up in front of her. It was shaped like a diamond, with a single hole in the center for an eye to look through. Harry tried not to react, although his heart was pounding hard and crazily. He reckoned that Malfoy must have thought ahead. That would be why an artifact and not an ordinary glamour gave Harry the appearance of someone else.
            Whatever the Invisible saw, she either accepted it or didn’t see the necessity of drawing attention to it. She turned to Malfoy with a small, regal nod. “Then you think you are near to solving the mystery of Potter’s unusual power?”
            It’s not a mystery, Harry thought in exasperation. We’ve only ever told you fuckers the truth, not that you want to acknowledge it.
            “I think a werewolf could explain it better than I could,” Malfoy said, with another bow. “Someone who has run with the power, felt it in his blood and bone…”
            Oh, so you haven’t told them that you have? Harry had to clench his teeth to keep his tongue from lolling out in laughter, a gesture that had become natural over the past few years. Naughty Malfoy.
            “That’s true,” said Heldeson. “What did he promise you?” These words were addressed to Harry, with her bending down as if she was granting him a great favor by looking him in the eye.
            Harry glanced away, hard though it was to muster that particular instinct when he had been a leader for so long. “He promised that I would be free,” he whispered.
            “Of what?”
            “That power,” said Harry, and shivered. “It’s like slavery. He doesn’t obey any of the rules that would make it okay for him to use it. He—”
            “We should continue this discussion in my office,” interrupted Heldeson, putting out one hand and letting it hover in the air above Harry’s head as if that would cut him off. It did, but only because Harry let it. He bowed his head further and hoped that would be enough to conceal the showing of teeth that had happened before he could stop it. What sort of people did this woman command, that she thought a simple gesture was enough to tame a werewolf?
            Then he thought it through, and grimaced. People like Malfoy was when he first came to us. People so cowed that they will do whatever she tells them.
            “I agree, Invisible,” said Malfoy, in that uninflected voice Harry had hated when he first heard it, and they walked down the corridor. Harry kept his head bowed because he had to, but he sniffed a little, and let the delicate traces of Malfoy’s scent, and his powerful ears, tell him whether Malfoy was afraid.
            Not exactly, he decided after a moment. Malfoy’s heart was beating faster than normal, but he walked with solid, heavy steps, and his scent was only a little thorny.
            Don’t turn back into the mindless slave that I’m only pretending to be, Harry mentally snapped at Malfoy. You mustn’t. You can’t. I command you not to.
*
            Being back in the Department of Mysteries was harder than Draco had thought it would be.
            Granted, he was virtually sure that Heldeson hadn’t seen through Potter’s disguise even with her seeing-eye gem. She would have commanded other people to fall on them if she had. Confronting obvious intruders in her office alone wasn’t her style.
            But he could feel the shape of the corridors, the very air, bending itself around him. He could feel the intangible urging to yield, the desire to bow his head and give in because Invisible Heldeson knew best and she would find some place for him, some plan for him. He shuddered.
            “Are you all right, Unspeakable Malfoy?”
            It was Minister Hinsley, coming up on the other side of him. Draco stared dully at him—he thought that would only benefit his position, no matter what happened—and then he nodded jerkily. “I am. It’s only that I took a few wounds in a struggle with Potter, and I’m worried about whether I’ll be infected or not.”
            He and Potter had discussed that lie, about whether to use it or not, but he was astonished at the way it came to his lips. So easy, as if he wasn’t affected by the memories around him at all.
            Maybe he wasn’t, or less than he’d thought. Draco wouldn’t let his spine straighten or his head lift in too proud a way, because that would betray the game, but he was now confident that he could make the decisions he needed to make when he needed to make them.
            “They suspect you, then?”
            “Not the whole pack,” said Draco, and bowed his head further. “Potter told me to get out and not come back. But that was before this particular werewolf came to me and said that he didn’t like his leader’s magic.” He jerked his head at Potter, who cringed and snarled.
            Draco silently applauded. He had thought Potter couldn’t pull off that act so convincingly, especially once he had spent some years enjoying himself at the head of a werewolf pack.
            But he’d been wrong, and Draco was glad to be so. This was the crawling semblance of a defeated and battered creature. Nothing like the graceful and strong-eyed Potter Draco had grown used to.
            And if I don’t think that again, I will be pleased.
            “How deep are the wounds?” Invisible Heldeson was asking it as if she had forgotten that she had wanted them go to her office. “Can they be monitored? We have a unique chance here to study the progress of the disease through the perspective of a trained mind.”
            Draco flinched a little. That was all right, too, though. They probably would expect him to be disgusted and horrified by their treating him like a study project.
            “They’re not deep, Invisible,” he whispered, avoiding her eyes. “Should—should we talk about them in public?” He reached for his sleeve as though he was willing to pull it back and show them the wounds if they wanted to see them.
            “Privacy would be a nice asset,” said the Minister, coming oddly to his rescue. “Come, Unspeakable Malfoy.” He glanced at Potter with a greed in his eyes that Draco understood only after a moment of thinking. He probably thought this was a way to get revenge on at least one werewolf. “And what is this one’s name?”
            “Ian Jackson,” Draco said. That had been arranged, too. Potter had told him that Jackson was a werewolf who had spent time in his pack last year, but had left amicably when it became clear that he didn’t respond well to Potter’s magic. The chances of the Ministry knowing the details of Jackson’s movements were small.
            “Very well,” said the Minister. “Yes, we should be in private for what we mean to discuss.” Once again, he and Invisible Heldeson exchanged significant glances.
            I do wonder what you will say, Draco thought to himself, and gathered up Potter’s lead. He would have to do some of the talking in the office, to distract from what Potter was doing.
            He doubted that would be a problem. Heldeson and Hinsley thought, at least, that he was still loyal enough they would question him. Draco could bear the questions, even a bombardment of them. He would do as he had to do.
            For revenge.
*
            Harry had begun sniffing, in a way that would make it look as though he was wrinkling his nose or snarling from the side, almost the moment they met the Minister and the Invisible.
            And what he could tell Malfoy—well, could have told him, if they could speak freely to each other—was that both of them had spiking heartbeats and scents mixing into their sweat as it came out their pores. They bristled with emotions. Harry couldn’t always track one scent to one emotion; that was much easier with people he knew or had at least spent some time around. But he did know what the combination of those scents plus their heartbeats meant.
            They’re frightened.
            They hadn’t expected to see Malfoy here again, and probably not at all with a captive werewolf. They were wary, interested to see what they could get out of this affair, and probably interested in his reports. But they were frightened, too.
            Why, I wonder? Just of my power? Of what they would find out? Or what someone else would find out about them, and the fucked-up way they sent Malfoy to “negotiate” with me?
            Harry was willing to wager it was the last one, although he would have liked more time to be sure.
            They were in the Invisible’s office, which seemed to be a mass of crystal and silver artifacts. Harry felt their magic touch him and tingle, but no alarm blared, and he decided to ignore them. He had destroyed one office full of silver instruments before, when he was only fifteen years old. He could do it again if he had to.
            When Malfoy pushed him to sit at his feet instead of in a chair, Harry wanted to rebel. They hadn’t agreed on this part of the charade, and it would be harder for him to watch faces from a position on the floor.
            But the minute he sat down beside the chair, he understood. This way, he was closer to the swirling scents that tracked through the air near the floor. He could watch the shuffling motions of arms and legs that might be less guarded than faces. And if he had to, he could look up at them without them noticing.
            “Unspeakable Malfoy,” Invisible Heldeson said. From the sound of the slight rasp of papery skin, she was linking her fingers together. “Do you have any idea why we sent you to negotiate with Potter?”
            “I thought I did,” Malfoy said, in an unsteady voice. “I thought it was what you told me.”
            “The situation is more complicated than we originally thought,” said Heldeson. Harry heard her shifting around in her chair, too, and a second later, a new emotion began to bleed slowly through her scent. He breathed in and moved his head in a little nod, the only form of communication with Malfoy he could risk right now. Malfoy seemed to notice, if the sudden tight grip of his hand on the lead was any indication.
            “More complicated? But how could that be about a decision that you made in the past?”
            Harry relaxed. Yes, he thought Malfoy would keep them baffled. He sounded innocently puzzled, maybe a little frightened. Harry found it hard to keep the emotions he was projecting in mind when his scent so clearly said something else. He had a passing thought that the Department of Mysteries should really hire werewolves, and then told himself sternly not to think of that until they were out of the Ministry.
            “There is someone else who happened to make part of the decision,” said Heldeson, “and is responsible for your—message not reaching us when it should.” She turned her head to a door on the opposite side of the room. Harry had noted it, but other than making out more of the rotting smell behind it, he hadn’t paid much attention. There didn’t seem to be a point.
            Now, it opened. Now a giggling, girlish voice said, “I hope Mr. Malfoy can forgive me. I hope we’re all friends here!”
            Malfoy’s hand on the lead grew brutal. Harry leaned against his legs, in silent reassurance that he wasn’t about to leap up and attack Umbridge.
            Now, he just had to hope the same was true of Malfoy.
*
Tommy-Lane: Harry thinks Sarah and Draco will keep an eye on each other, basically.
SP777: They can send Muggleborn members of the pack abroad more easily than famous ones like Harry, and especially to Muggle parts of Britain. They also grow and hunt some of their own food and use some spells to Transfigure other things into clothes and furniture.
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