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A More Worldly Man	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10960 -:- 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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Chapter Two—Narcissa Malfoy and Other Complications

Draco found himself scanning his mother raptly, searching for some sign that she might have changed from the last time he’d seen her, in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor two years ago. She had rushed in sounding as if she were ready to defend his honor. She must have changed, mustn’t she? She had changed her mind about her son deserving his disinheriting because he had chosen to brew potions, and so come to rescue him.

But her mouth was still thin-lipped and her eyes still narrow, and Draco saw the way her gaze darted to him and then away again. His chest tightened for a moment. Then he shook his head impatiently. Daphne had affected him more than he realized, if he was looking for sympathy from his mother.

“Tell me why Harry should get away from me, Mother,” he said, making sure his voice sounded perfectly calm and composed, rather like a guest at the Three Broomsticks who’d just had someone burst into the pub and dash his drink to the floor. “As far as I can see, he’s done a better job of protecting me in the last little while than you have in the last seven years.”

Harry stepped back and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder, as if giving and receiving support at the same time. Draco sneaked a quick glance at his face and was surprised at the naked relief there.

Did he really think I would turn my back on him because my mother demanded it? Draco captured Harry’s hand and gave it a tense squeeze, hoping that would tell the other man the truth. She lost the right to control my actions the moment I stopped being a child, and she lost the right to give me advice when she told me it would be better if I gave up all my money and my shop rather than disgrace the family name by working.

“I know the truth about him.” Narcissa’s voice was dangerous, at the pitch Draco remembered hearing it when she argued with Lucius about Draco taking the Mark. “He can consume magic. I won’t have you near him, Draco, using you as a convenient source of power now and then.”

Draco sat up sharply. Daphne sent the memories to her. Maybe she just wanted my parents to see me humiliated. Maybe she wanted them to feel powerless to help me. But, of course, my mother’s reaction is to assume that Harry would destroy me in the same way he did Daphne.

“It’s not what you think,” Harry was saying, with such earnestness that Draco wanted to punch him. Yes, it was like Harry to be desperately pleasant to Draco’s parents, but really. “I only hurt Greengrass that way to save Draco. I would never—“

“I saw your magic,” Narcissa said, and she was almost vibrating now, though the wand in her hand never varied from pointing at Harry’s chest. “It was Dark Arts. I’ve already seen my son controlled for a large portion of his life by a Dark wizard, or by the fear of him. What would happen if he wanted to leave you, or charge more for the Desire potion? You hold the ultimate threat over his head. No wizard or witch can really survive losing their magic. I will have Draco free. Move away from him, now.”

Harry lifted his head, and Draco was glad to see anger traveling across his face like a heat shimmer.

“I don’t plan on leaving Draco alone for a good long time,” Harry said coolly. “We’re business partners, and we’re friends, and we’ll be—“

Draco stuck an elbow into his ribs. He just knew Harry was going to say something like “We’ll be more than that, if he lets me.” But he wasn’t ready just yet for his mother to know that his desire for Harry Potter extended to sharing a bed with him.

Harry flushed very red, and choked. Narcissa narrowed her eyes until Draco was surprised she could see out of them, and then said, “You were warned, Mr. Potter, and chose not to heed me. Abi—“

“No!” Draco snapped, so forcefully he interrupted his mother’s incantation. He had recognized it immediately: a curse that would break several of the more vital synaptic connections in Harry’s brain, and leave him a vegetable in a way not distinguishable from a sudden stroke. Draco had heard his father use it more than once, mostly on old and ailing enemies. It shocked him that his mother would even think of using it on Harry, and in the one place in the British wizarding world where the Healers were most likely to realize Harry’s condition wasn’t an accident.

Narcissa spun to face him, her wand lowering and her face working through several different expressions. Draco blinked. His mother hadn’t left her wits at home, or become such a confident and reckless witch in the last few years that she thought she could get away with any piece of magic she pleased. She was simply desperate.

“Draco,” she whispered. “You don’t understand, son. You’re free to come home now. We need you there, when we realized how close we came to losing you. All’s forgiven. We can care for you better than they can here, and certainly better than Potter can.” She gave Harry a look of loathing that made Draco automatically cuddle closer to the other man. Harry’s grip on his shoulder became almost crushing in response. “Lucius agreed that I should be the one to come, because he didn’t think he could control himself if he saw Potter touching you.”

“I am touching him,” Harry said, and his voice was low and ugly. The hair on Draco’s arms rose with the gathering of powerful magic. “I intend to stay right here. If Draco wants to go with you, that’s one thing, but I won’t let him be coerced.” He turned and stared at Draco, raising his eyebrows.

“No,” Draco whispered. His own anger was unfreezing at last, overcoming him in a great cold wave like snowmelt. His mother might have put Harry into a permanent coma, and all because of her own unfounded reactions. “I want to stay with you.”

Harry turned back to Narcissa, smirking. Draco wondered for a moment where he’d picked up the expression, then snorted. From me, of course.

*

Harry found it hard to face Mrs. Malfoy without guilt. He had endangered Draco when he consumed Greengrass’s magic, though he doubted Draco had realized that yet. He’d had so much certain damage to recover from, potential or future danger was banished to the lowest recesses of his thoughts.

But the notion would come back. He would realize that he could easily have been a victim along with Greengrass. And on the day Draco turned and looked up at him with a pale and frightened face, what would Harry do?

Fight. Fight to stay with him. Swear I’ll never hurt him. And do my best to make that true.

Perhaps a variant of the Desire potion could help, Harry thought, and then swept the thoughts into his own lowest recess of the mind. The immediate threat was Narcissa Malfoy, who might yet convince Draco to abandon him. Draco had grown up with his parents, their beloved only child. They must share bonds of affection that Harry, who knew his mother had loved him but could remember only one moment of it, would barely understand.

For the moment, it would be fatal to show any of his doubts or hesitations. He simply kept his hand on Draco’s shoulder, ready to support him and his decisions whatever came.

Narcissa had lowered her wand. She had a contemplative expression on her face, as if she remembered they stood in hospital and therefore use of a complicated curse might not be her best choice. She looked once into Harry’s eyes, then focused back on Draco, seeming to have decided to ignore Harry completely. Her voice was low and reasonable. “You know that we all said things in anger we did not mean, Draco. But your father and I are willing to offer you another chance. You are still our son, our blood. The years have not changed the meaning of that. You have a home in the Manor.”

Draco had gone very still beneath Harry’s hand. Harry was not sure what had happened between him and his parents, but given the chilly response when Harry had tried to inform the Malfoys of the loss of Draco’s shop, he knew it must have been something crippling. It took a great deal of effort to stand where he was and allow Draco to meet his mother’s sally, without stepping forwards to bear the brunt for him.

“I will never make my home in a place where people do not support my ambitions,” Draco said, “where I was told that my talent and my art were worse than loving Muggleborns because loving Muggleborns was progressive now.” He was shaking, very slightly, but Harry knew it was the tremor of anger and not of fear or distress, so he did nothing to prevent it. He shook a little with his own pride, and let Narcissa take that for weakness if she willed. “Only after I left did I find out how very repressed the life you lead is, Mother. Anything is more acceptable than passion. Even sex without love and for money is more acceptable than that, because it doesn’t endanger your self-control as much as passion does. And you wanted me to stop brewing potions.” He laughed sharply, as if he had shards of metal in his throat. “Well, maybe I wanted you to wake the fuck up.”

Narcissa stepped back, as if the epithet had been a slap in the face. But all color almost instantly fled her cheeks, and her lips had become the same thin line she’d entered the room with. Repressed, indeed, Harry thought, frowning at her. I can see why my use of the potion drove Draco so mad.

“We have been granted a true opportunity to reunite,” Narcissa said, speaking with an audible strain in her voice now, “without a loss of dignity on either side. We will take you back without reproaches, Draco. Your shop could not last. We always said so—“ She checked herself and shook her head. “But there will be no reminders of that. Only come to us, and we will support you the way we always have.”

“And will you accept that I’d sell potions out of your home? Including the Desire potion?” Draco leaned back and into Harry. “Will you accept Harry, who is going to be my lover soon?”

Once again Narcissa turned paler, though Harry had thought that wasn’t possible. She looked like bone china now, and she stared at Harry as if he had given the slap. Her eyes darted away almost instantly, the revulsion in them fathoms deep.

Then she looked at Draco, and Harry felt a twinge of pity for her. He saw a woman who loved her son but had not a hope in the world of understanding him.

“Without a loss of dignity on either side, Draco,” she repeated. The strain was louder, but still she masked it with a courteous tone and a steady look. “That would mean we would ask you not to taunt us with our mistakes, and we would not taunt you for yours.”

Draco’s breath rushed nosily in the next few moments of silence. Harry increased the pressure of his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

Then Draco laughed, a sound which made it clear something was breaking within him, and said, “The only mistake I’ve made recently was not telling the Healers that Harry and his friends should be my only visitors.”

Narcissa shut her eyes. When she turned and walked towards the door, it was with steady steps. She did pause in the doorway to add, not looking back over her shoulder, “This will not be over so easily, Draco. Nothing is stronger than blood.”

And then she left.

Harry bit his lip and stroked Draco’s collarbone for a moment, wondering if Narcissa were right. Generally, many wizards did think there was nothing stronger than blood, and were not shy about saying so at every opportunity they got. Draco didn’t think like that exclusively, because he was living on his own in the “common” world and running a business to boot. But might Narcissa’s words make him reconsider? Harry couldn’t even blame him if he did. Narcissa was his mother, and—

“Harry.”

Draco’s voice was so calm that Harry was convinced he was about to announce bad news. He braced himself and hoped Draco didn’t feel the inevitable tension in Harry’s touch. “Yes?”

“Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking,” Draco hissed. “I’m not going to abandon you in favor of my parents. I’m not going to suddenly shake my head and break some spell you’ve cast on me.” He reared back and glared into Harry’s eyes. “I am here, damn it. And I’ll be here until I don’t want to any more. My family can’t come in and flatter me with pretty words, not after what they said the last time we spoke.”

“And what was that?” Harry asked, his voice weak with relief.

“I don’t want to talk about it yet.” Draco caught Harry’s hand and nearly crushed it with the force of his squeeze. Harry bent over him, proud again of Draco’s strength and wondering at the promise implied in that yet. Draco tilted his head back, and his blond hair slid over skin that looked almost as pale.

“Don’t let any other visitors come in today,” Draco murmured as he closed his eyes. “I don’t think I could handle it.”

Harry kissed his forehead, and eased him back onto the pillows. Then he went to make sure the door was secure. “Any other visitors” presumably included Healers and mediwitches. Harry was more than happy to deal with them by himself, if that would spare Draco some trouble.

*

Draco looked out the enchanted window that he had insisted on having placed in his room the moment he saw the Mind-Healer that morning. She had obliged, and then spoken to him quietly about his nightmares and his memories and the effects on him of multiple Memory Charms and uses of Legilimency.

Draco had no doubt that he would overcome most of the possible negative consequences of Daphne playing with his mind. He was resilient, had the will to survive, and had lived through stress before. It took far more than stress to break him.

Still, he could have done without the memories rustled up and stirring through his head now, and without his mother’s visit yesterday.

Someone knocked perfunctorily on the door, then opened it. Draco turned warily, already knowing that it wasn’t Harry—he knocked carefully, preserving Draco’s fiction of independence here—or a Healer. They didn’t bother to knock at all, obviously considering the entire hospital their territory.

Charlemagne Diggory stepped in, gave Draco a smile that looked almost apologetic, and dropped into the chair next to his bed where Harry usually sat. “Good morning, Malfoy,” he said evenly. “Not quite as lovely as that view you’ve got out your window, but not half bad.”

Draco was very glad that Harry had not gone far—just to his flat to fetch clean robes, he said—and that he had his wand tucked under his pillow. He managed a smile that should chill Diggory to just above freezing. It had been his father’s. “Charlemagne,” he said, with patently false courtesy, and watched the other man’s lips twitch in annoyance. “Did you want something?”

“I wanted to ask,” said Diggory, giving Draco a smile that wasn’t fooling anybody, “if you would consider stopping your sale of the Desire potion. You’ve had a bit of a shock, after all, and anyone would understand you might want to concentrate more on your recovery than your business at the moment.”

Draco’s fingers played with the edge of the blanket. “And this break from business might last four months?” Four months almost exactly from that day, the Ministerial election would take place.

Diggory smiled. “I am impressed with your perceptiveness, Malfoy. I haven’t always been, you understand, but just at the moment, it’s staggering.”

Draco shook his head. “I fail to see why you should be so concerned with our potion, Diggory,” he said. Honesty could sometimes catch an opponent off-guard, and Draco felt like being honest just then. “We’re not deliberately trying to sabotage your campaign. I don’t owe you money. Harry doesn’t really care that you’re trying to become Minister; he just doesn’t want you pissing him off. Why do you still care about Desire?”

“You have the potential to muck up my campaign, whether or not you mean to.” Diggory spoke calmly, brown eyes fastened on the far wall as if a view even more fascinating than Draco’s window occupied it. “I would prefer to get rid of that potential. When I’m Minister, of course I’ll be able to regulate the potion as I see fit—“

Draco bared his teeth. “Will you?”

“Must you? Challenges like this are tiresome.” Diggory’s gaze switched back to Draco’s face. “We both know that a Minister actively opposed to you in office is a bad thing. I’m offering my hand in friendship.” He held it out to Draco, palm up. “That could be of much more use to you than your opposition.”

“You must not have heard of the lengths I’ve gone to to preserve my freedom, along with my life.” Draco clasped his hands in front of him.

“Or the lengths I’ve gone to, to rescue him,” said Harry’s angry voice from the doorway.

Draco lifted his eyes with a sigh of relief he hoped Diggory didn’t hear, and caught Harry’s glance. He shook his head slightly when he saw the glow of rage in those green eyes. Yes, Diggory had troubled him, but they didn’t need Harry becoming murderously angry as he had at Daphne.

Harry perhaps understood even without Draco’s speaking; given their closeness so far, Draco wouldn’t have put it past him. He nodded back and stalked to the edge of Draco’s bed, but he went out of his way to avoid Diggory on the short journey. He stood at Draco’s shoulder almost exactly as he had when Narcissa burst through the door, and said, “Funny. When I left the room, I could have sworn that the stink of politician was nowhere in St. Mungo’s.”

Diggory smiled, though it seemed to strain the skin of his face somewhat to do so. “My name opens doors,” he said. “Rather like yours could, Potter, if you only applied yourself to the lessons you should have learned already.”

“Excuse me for preferring real smiles and real friendships,” Harry said, but he had calmed down. His time on his variant of the Desire potion might have done him some good, after all, Draco thought, as he felt the other man’s fingers flexing up and down on his shoulder. He knew the good reasons for suppressing his temper, and that led to making an effort to suppress it. “But why are you here? You should know by now that we have very little to say to you.”

“That is true, certainly.” Diggory gave Harry the edge of a polished smile and held out his hands as if warming them before a fire. “But I may have something to offer you. Stay out of politics for four months. Do not sell the Desire potion, even under the regulations that the Potions Committee approved for you. Give no opinion on the Ministerial race. Do this, and I swear, you will be richly rewarded.”

“You can’t bribe either of us with money,” Harry said quietly, as if it weren’t even an option and he was surprised Diggory was trying. He might be able to bribe me with a lot of money, Draco thought of protesting, but sensed it wasn’t the time for the comment, and held his tongue. “And you should know we don’t want promises from you.”

“Not even with the money that it would take to rebuild Malfoy’s shop?” Diggory murmured, voice barely audible. “Not even with the promise that I won’t release what I know about your breaking into a certain manor house over the weekend, which was followed by the disappearance of a prominent former Slytherin?”

Draco was glad he’d found the hospital food too unappetizing to eat that morning. He thought he might throw up.

Harry didn’t waste time asking useless questions, such as how Diggory had found out, which cheered Draco. He’d gained some sense. “And perhaps we’d release some secrets of your own,” he said.

Diggory arched an eyebrow. “Really? I’m not aware of having given any away to you.”

Harry grinned and folded his arms. Draco eyed him sideways, but didn’t dare look too closely. He might give away that he had no idea what game they were playing. “You didn’t. You dance to a subtle tune. But you might consider what other former Slytherin we’ve recently confronted, and who’s now disappeared. Not from the wizarding world altogether, of course, but from the political race.”

Cordelia. Draco doubted that Cordelia had really betrayed anything to Granger and Harry, but with the Unbreakable Vows they’d made her swear, she would have had to cut off contact with Diggory. And surely she would have been too proud to tell him why.

It was enough to make Diggory suspicious, at least. His nostrils flared as he rose slowly to his feet. “I think you’ll find that Gryffindors are unsuited to the blackmail game, Potter,” he said. He wasn’t smiling any more. Draco thought he liked him better this way. His resemblance to a hungry wolf was more pronounced.

Harry only smiled blandly back at Diggory and tilted his head a little. Yes, the potion gave him a lot of practice, Draco thought, slightly in awe. He wouldn’t have believed the furious man who’d entered the room could go calm in so little time, with so little effort. “Just tell yourself that. And then remind yourself of what might emerge if you should release our little secret.”

Diggory sighed, and draped his bland mask back over his face. “So many crises could be avoided if people saw sense more often,” he murmured.

“And if they did, we would be out of reasons to sell Desire potion and you would be out of a job,” Harry snapped back. “Spare me your lament.”

Diggory turned and walked out of the room as Narcissa had, without looking back. Harry immediately hissed and shut the door with a wave of his wand. “I’ll make the Healers keep people out of your room, if I have to strangle them,” he said.

“Do you think he’ll really keep mum?” Draco whispered.

“Yes.” Harry sat down in front of him and took his hands. “He doesn’t know what secrets we possess.”

“He may gamble and decide we don’t know any at all.” Draco leaned his head on Harry’s shoulder, amazed once more that he had someone who wouldn’t think him weak for doing so.

“Actually, we do.”

Draco lifted his head and blinked. “Cordelia?” he asked. “Or Granger?”

Harry shook his head slightly and looked away for a moment. “Let’s just say,” he murmured, “that I’ve become worldly enough to learn the value of weapons. Even those you most want to avoid using.”

And as persistently as Draco questioned him, that was all he would say on the matter for the rest of the day.

*

Graballz: Thanks very much! Glad you enjoyed that first scene.

Thrnbrooke, SP777, paigeey07, Pendragon6644: Thanks for reviewing!

Nomdeplume: I can promise that this will be updated every few days—roughly twice every week. And yes, some of the chapters will include remembered torture scenes.

Mangacat: Plenty of Narcissa’s facial expressions in this chapter, I think!

Yume111: Daphne dumped all the blocked memories back into his mind a few chapters from the end of ‘An Alchemical Discontent,’ just to torment him. Those memories are surfacing now as nightmares.

Draco and Hermione are definitely not completely trusting, and may never be.

The Coven: At the moment, the major thing Narcissa wants is to get Harry away from Draco—and then to get Draco back under her thumb.
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A More Worldly Man