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Incandescence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13843 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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Chapter Two�Immovable
Object

�� Draco
dressed carefully for his dinner with Potter, by not dressing carefully. He thought that Potter would appreciate a
bit of fuzz and disorder.

�� Accordingly,
he combed most of his hair but not the ends, which had a tendency to curl up
when not straightened, and chose a pair of robes he�d worn half a dozen times
to the less elite literary lunches. They were blue, and Draco studied himself
critically in the mirror, because they were really made for someone with bright
golden hair and his mother�s blue eyes. But in the end, he decided to leave
them. The whole goal was to get Potter to relax. He wouldn�t do that if Draco
looked too perfect.

�� He glanced
at the clock. Still ten minutes before he had to leave, and he couldn�t resist
the temptation to let more people than the Aurors who�d been witness to the
altercation know about his triumph. He knelt down and cast a handful of Floo
powder into the fire. �Angela Ellback�s office,� he called.

�� Angela took
a long moment to come to the fire, and when she did, she looked harassed, her
hands covered with ink and feathers in her hair from what must have been
several broken quills. She had a habit of snapping them and casting them over
her shoulder when she was angry, Draco knew. �What is it, Draco?� she demanded
when she saw him. �Did the proofs of Golden
Stories not arrive on time?�

�� They did,
and I�ve been working on them all day,� Draco reassured her. Golden Stories was a book of short tales
he�d released based on people who either had a minor role in the war or hadn�t
given him permission to publish everything. �But I had something else to tell
you. I�m having dinner with Potter tonight.�

�� Angela
folded her arms and gave him an unimpressed look. �Lots of people can say the
same thing. What makes you so special?�

�� Well, for
one thing,� Draco said, rubbing his fingers up his arm and peering coyly at her
from under his lashes, �he refused at first, and then gave in. Does that sound
as if he intends to keep his secrets all to himself?�

�� Angela
blinked a bit. �Well, it�s unusual,� she conceded. �But that doesn�t mean you�ll
get anything out of him. I�ll be more impressed when you have evidence of what
happened to him before he walked into that Forest.�

�� I�ll get
it, don�t worry,� Draco said. He felt stung for a moment, and then he felt the
urge to laugh. This was why he liked Angela, after all�because to her he was a
writer and not a celebrity, and thus the editor�s lawful prey to be chivvied
along, slapped, and bitten back into place. �Maybe not tonight, but how many
interviews has it taken me in the past?�

�� Five,�
Angela said instantly. �That was with Ollivander.�

�� And my
family held Ollivander prisoner. I never personally did anything to Potter
during the war.� Draco cast a glance at the clock and stood quickly. He would
have to leave now if he didn�t want to run late.

�� He might
remember the time before the war,
when it sounds as if you did nothing but go after him personally,� Angela
pointed out.

�� Draco gave
her a small smile. �Then I�ll just have to see to it that he has reason to
admire the strides I�ve made since then, won�t I?�

�� He shut
down the Floo call before Angela could retort. There were certain times the
editor�s lawful prey needed a bit of revenge.

*

�� Malfoy.�
Potter inclined his head to him, not smiling. �Welcome. Where do you want to go
for dinner?�

�� Draco
paused to study Potter. His face was stern, as if he had told all possible
smiles and grins to go home for the evening, he wouldn�t require them. His eyes
looked almost hunted. Someone had been hiring shadows to plague him, Draco
thought�or maybe that was only the normal way for an Auror to look. He did know
that Potter was hideously overworked, even by the standards of the Department
of Magical Law Enforcement, if half the stories about what he�d accomplished in
the last few years were true.

�� I want to
go to a place where you�ll relax,� Draco said bluntly. I�ll never get anything out of him if he�s like this. �I don�t know
which kind of place that would be, because I don�t know much about you. I hope
to change that, of course, but for now, why don�t you choose?�

�� That earned
him an instant suspicious look. Draco withstood it easily, and studied Potter
right back. Yes, he held his shoulders tense and now and then darted glances
into the corners. Draco thought that was more than the simple paranoia of
Aurors; he�d interviewed a few other war heroes whose fears had remained with
them, and some of them had acted like this.

�� Potter
spent a minute more peering at him. Then his mouth curved up into a smile, and
he nodded. �Charming little bastard, aren�t you, Malfoy?�

�� I do try
to suit my behavior to my client�s mood,� Draco said, and extended an arm.
Potter looked at him again, but this time as if he didn�t understand what the
arm was for, and Draco smiled a bit. �You look as though you could use some
support.�

�� Again
Potter froze as if Draco had somehow scored a conversational point off him, and
spent some time twitching. Draco gazed back at him with his blandest
expression, but inwardly he snarled at himself. What will get him to open up to me? It�s all very well surprising him,
but I don�t know how I�m doing that!

�� I could, but
not that way.� Potter shook his head and flicked his fringe from his eyes with
a snap of his fingers. It looked like a habitual gesture. Draco wondered why he
simply didn�t get the fringe cut, but it wasn�t his business to ask that�right
now. �All right. Let�s go to the Fire-Room.�

�� Draco
blinked. The Fire-Room was one of the more expensive new restaurants in
Hogsmeade, and a place he usually took friends rather than subjects.

�� But Potter
looked as if he meant it, so Draco nodded and stepped up to walk
shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Potter strode quickly across the Ministry
Atrium, his head up and his steps short and tense. Draco matched him with
hardly a thought, and then spent the walk studying his profile.

�� Usually, he
began his notes with a description of the war hero he was interviewing, so that
he could start thinking about how he would describe the fictional character
based on that person. He�d never had to idealize someone as distinct as Potter,
though. How could one leave any of the details out? The sharp green eyes had to be there, the angled jaw-line,
the messy dark hair, the lightning bolt scar.

�� Well, that
didn�t mean he couldn�t combine reality and idealization. He�d done it,
especially for Selene in The Hope-Well. What
if his hero had messy hair, but blond? What if he had a scar that was a
different shape, and in a different place, perhaps on his cheek? Then he could
earn some readerly sympathy and interest from the beginning, as they wondered
about how that scar had affected his chances of being considered handsome.

�� Draco
constructed the picture in his mind and laid it carefully over the face of the
striding Potter.

�� Something
strange happened. The mask melted away completely instead of adjusting itself.
Draco blinked. It was as if Potter�s face were some kind of magnifying lens
that focused sunlight to burn his harmless fantasy.

�� Or maybe the reality is simply too intense,
and my experience with it too extensive, to permit me to transform it so
easily.

�� Potter paused
and turned to stare at him as they reached one of the fireplaces. �Do you always
look at everyone you try to interview as though you wanted to devour them?� he
asked.

�� Draco
smiled gently. Many people didn�t notice the way he looked at them, and he was
especially out of practice because Luna Lovegood didn�t notice most stares. He
would have to remember that Potter was a trained Auror, though.

�� Not
everyone,� he admitted. �Some people have the oddest bones that would stick in
my throat, and you can�t imagine what
the taste of someone who doesn�t bathe is like, even going in through the
eyes.� He gave a theatrical shiver.

�� Potter went
on staring at him for a few moments. Draco looked back, retaining his faint
smile. How Potter responded to this, one of his first sallies, would determine
a lot about how Draco tried to relate to him at the dinner.

�� Then Potter
smiled in return. It was a small expression, so fleeting Draco might have
missed it if he�d been looking the other way and had to turn back to Potter.
And Potter did whirl around and cast Floo powder into the fire in the next
instant as if he wanted to conceal it.

�� But no
matter. Draco had seen it.

�� Score another victory for the Malfoy charm, he
thought happily as Potter shouted out �The Fire-Room!� and Draco followed right
behind him. Is there anyone it can�t
convert?

*

�� Potter with
good food inside him and the promise of more to come was a different person
entirely.

�� Of course,
Draco did wonder if part of that was because they were sitting at a table where
Potter could have his back to the wall, and so he felt able to relax and stop looking around for danger as he didn�t in a
more open area. But he could be generous when he wanted, and so he simply put
the reflection in his mental file of notes for the character based on Potter,
instead of speaking it aloud.

�� Potter ate
with more gusto than Draco had seen in a long time; he sometimes wondered if
there was a rule that said editors, writers, and war survivors weren�t allowed
to enjoy food anymore. Potter would take a bite of the chicken smothered in
orange sauce that the server brought them and sit with it in his mouth for a
time before he swallowed it and sighed luxuriously around it. Then he would
begin on the plate of honey and bread, followed by the plate of mixed fruits
and vegetables and a swallow of the decidedly Muggle beer he�d asked for and
which the Fire-Room turned out to be able to provide, before he worked his way
back around to the chicken.

�� He never licked
his fingers, and not often his lips�apparently the Aurors had taught him that
much�but he might as well have. He couldn�t have shown his pleasure in stronger
terms.

�� Draco
picked at his own meal, wishing to have his mouth free to ask Potter questions.
But since Potter�s mouth was never free to answer them, in the end he gave up
and ate his own salmon with more attention than he�d given a dinner in months.

�� When he
finished, which was well before Potter, he leaned back in his chair and looked
around. The Fire-Room had the appearance almost of a cave, if caves could be
paneled in wood so highly polished it gave forth blurred reflections. The
ceiling was low and also made entirely of wood, the fireplace ringed with rough
stones, lanterns and lamps hanging so far down in many places that the taller
patrons regularly had to duck. Bronze mirrors enclosed the doors to the
kitchen, supposedly the only touch of luxury in the place.

�� Draco knew
better. It was the Fire-Room�s boast that it knew how to make roughness
comfortable and beautiful, and it did that well.

�� Draco had
assumed Potter would be more comfortable in a pub, though, and he directed his
gaze back to his dining companion curiously. Potter was leaning back in his
chair, shoulders pressed securely to the wood, swallowing the last of his beer
from a heavy pewter tankard. When he put it down and closed his eyes, arching
his neck, the last of the shadows seemed to melt from his face.

�� And a pulse
of attraction rang through Draco like someone had banged on a drum located in
his chest.

�� He shifted
in surprise and cleared his throat without meaning to. At once Potter�s eyes
flickered open, but they were softly hazy with relaxation, and he smiled and
nodded at Draco as if they were friends who regularly ate together.

�� So have
you decided what kind of meal I�d make for you yet?� Potter asked, lifting his
tankard. One of the servers on the other side of the room noticed and nodded.
Potter set the tankard back down and stretched again, thus proving that he�d
also learned some patience since Hogwarts. �Bony or sharp or smooth?�

�� It took
Draco a moment to remember his own joke back at the Ministry, since his mind
had taken the notions of Potter and eating in a rather different direction. He
cleared his throat again. �A difficult meal,� he said. �Difficult to judge, I
mean.�

�� Potter
laced his fingers together beneath his chin and snorted slightly, his eyes
bright. �Not many people have said that.
Most of them know what they think of me even before they meet me.�

�� Draco
seized the chance that those words offered, and leaned confidently forwards. �I
might have thought that,� he whispered. �I did
think that. But I had to reconsider when I saw you yesterday, and then
again today.�

�� Potter
tensed a little, probably because he was remembering why Draco had wanted to
talk to him in the first place, but then cocked his head curiously. �So how did
I change your mind? I don�t like acting, so I�m not trying to charm you.�

�� Draco
restrained his amusement at the notion that acting and charming someone were
the same thing, and at the idea that Potter could ever be charming. He had some
proof that the last was true, after all.

�� I saw some
intelligence in your eyes that I hadn�t expected to see there,� he said. He
needed the truth for right now, because he thought the truth was important to
Potter, and this was a man who might well detect him in a lie.

�� Potter
threw back his head and laughed. Small crinkles appeared at the corners of his
eyes when he did so. Draco stared, fascinated. That wasn�t something he had anticipated either, probably because
Potter had been sniggering into his hand over some stupid joke on Slytherin
most of the times that Draco had seen him laugh.

�� You should have grown beyond Hogwarts, he
reminded himself. You�ve been aware of
Potter as someone other than a student for years, even if most of what you were
aware of was lies made up to sell newspapers.

�� He found
himself aware of Potter in other
ways, too, as the man lowered his head and looked at him with brilliant
amusement. His face made every emotion appear more vivid than usual, Draco
thought absently. It must be those eyes. �Well, come to think of that, you
surprised me too, Malfoy,� Potter drawled. �You don�t look as rat-like as I
expected someone who feeds on other people�s lives to look.�

�� Let me
guess,� Draco said, keeping his voice amused so that Potter couldn�t see his
bristling. �You don�t like newspaper reporters, either.�

�� Not
especially,� Potter admitted. �I�ve learned not to read what they say about me.
It only makes me upset. But there�s a freedom in the press that I can�t squelch
unless they actually libel me, and I know that. Whereas your books are a different matter.� He nodded in thanks as the
server filled his tankard with beer again and leaned back in his chair, staring
at Draco from under lowered lashes. �Tell me, Malfoy, why did you want to write
these kinds of books in the first place?�

�� Because
it�s what I�m good at,� Draco said simply. �Why did you want to be an Auror?�

�� Potter�s
lips curved up in a small, sly smile. �Somehow, I don�t think talk of a driving
moral purpose to protect the wizarding world would make much sense to you.�

�� But it has
to make sense,� Draco said. An opening at
last. He turned his hands upwards on the table, a classic gesture of
innocence that Selene had used in The
Hope-Well and which he hoped would appeal to Potter. �How else am I going
to write a character based on you, if I don�t understand your deepest
principles?�

�� Potter
rolled his eyes. �And that�s what I
don�t understand, Malfoy. Why do you have to base your characters on real
people? Is it a failure of imagination? Why not just make up people out of a
conglomeration of details from different ones?�

�� Because
that�s not the way my creativity works,� Draco said. �I might as well ask you
why you didn�t become a private dueling instructor, the way so many people
clamored for you to be, or Defense professor at Hogwarts. I know that
Longbottom offered the position to you.�

�� Potter
paused and gave him another thoughtful glance. Draco relaxed a bit. It wasn�t
often that he was so open to his clients. Most of the time, he tried to present
an abject front, particularly if they were ones he had wronged personally, or
simply a sympathetic one, portraying himself as a safe way to tell their
stories to the world without going through the trouble and danger of public
appearances. But in Potter�s case, being honest and stressing the similarities
between them seemed most effective.

�� I can
understand that,� Potter murmured. �Still, I think you�ll be best served by
making up the details, or getting them from biographies, because you won�t get
them from me.� He said it with such a gentle smile that Draco might have been
fooled by how absolute a rejection it was, except that he had learned to pay
attention to tone.

�� I don�t
want to go around you,� Draco said. �I want to get inside you��

�� Potter
choked on his beer. Then he put the tankard down on the table and leaned back
to give a long, whistling bark of laughter, loud enough to cause some of the
people in the Fire-Room to look around. �Well,� Potter said, when he could get
his breath under control, �that�s definitely the most direct proposition I�ve
ever received.�

�� Draco
managed to laugh himself. He really should have been more careful with his
words, since he made a living with them. That one wasn�t Potter�s fault.

�� Though other things will be, if he doesn�t
start letting me a little more into his head. He�s so opaque at the moment that
I might as well be trying to write a story about that bloke Lovegood dated for
a while.

�� I meant,�
Draco said, when he thought enough time had passed and Potter�s merriment had
subsided, �that of course I wouldn�t write the book without your permission,
and without your compliance. Several interviews are often necessary to work out
all the details. In your case, I�ll need a lot of them. I might even write two
books.�

�� This was
the part of the conversation where people often started darting him fascinated
looks, intoxicated despite themselves with the thought of being the subject of
a book. Potter only sighed. Of course, he would have appeared in many books,
Draco reminded himself, to counter his immediate offense at the sound.

�� Malfoy,�
Potter said, �I�ll be willing to give you the same details that I�ve given
everyone else. From there, you could work out quite a bit and create a good
story, I suppose. But I won�t give you what I haven�t given everybody else.� He
raised a hand when Draco opened his mouth. �It�s nothing personal. I just
decided that there were boundary lines of privacy I wasn�t willing to go beyond
quite some time ago, that�s all.�

�� But I
still want to know why,� Draco breathed, leaning forwards and attempting to
make himself look both attractive and pathetic. What do I care if he regards me with some pity and more contempt? I
would still have what I want from him, and that�s what�s important. �Why
keep part of your life all to yourself? Of course, you wouldn�t want someone
like Skeeter to take over the task of reporting it, but if you had someone you
could trust, someone who would give it its fairest form in a book��

�� Why wouldn�t I want to keep it all to myself?�
Potter blinked at him. �Sharing the life I�ve lived isn�t my most important
goal, Malfoy.�

�� Draco
swallowed before he could let out the words he wanted to let out. But silence is death. He couldn�t expect
Potter to see it that way. Potter was an Auror, living in the Ministry, home of
government secrets. Of course he would assume that there were some
circumstances where communication wasn�t essential.

�� But I
would only use the details that you give me permission to use,� he murmured at
last. Perhaps it was time to use the same card he had used with Lovegood and
other people reluctant to hand their stories over to the public because it
would have meant effort for them. �Think of how much it would improve the
public�s understanding of you. And all without your having to make speeches or
give more interviews! Really, if these books do as well as I think they will,
then you shouldn�t have to give an interview ever again.�

�� Potter
stared at him with softened eyes. Draco held his breath, certain he was about
to get the truth at last.

�� Then Potter
shook his head. �You�re eloquent,� he said. �Of course, you would have to be,
wouldn�t you? But no, Malfoy, I�m still not convinced. There�s no reason for it.

�� I�m
essentially a private person. I don�t want to broadcast every detail of my life
to the public because they�ve taken so much from me already. There are things
I�d like to keep to myself.� He looked calmly at Draco, his eyes bright.
�Surely you can understand that. Surely you wouldn�t want someone to turn your
head inside out, either, and expose others to all your darkest secrets.�

�� Draco
leaned his head in his hand and looked for a long time at Potter. He had
learned something important about him with that last admission, which he didn�t
think was one Potter made to every random person wanting to profit from his
image, but it still wasn�t enough.

�� I�m
sorry,� he said at last. �I want everything. That doesn�t mean I�ll publicize everything,� he added quickly,
when Potter�s face darkened. �But I have to know everything so I can decide
what�s important and what�s not.�

�� Potter
sighed. �Then I�m sorry for you. You won�t get what you want.� He turned and
started to look about for a server again.

�� Draco
leaned back in his chair. There had to be a way to work through the cracks in
Potter�s defenses�and there had to be cracks because no defense was perfect. He
just had to find them. At the moment, though, he couldn�t think of any, because
Potter had what sounded like reasonable reasons to refuse Draco, which meant
that he wouldn�t be fighting against a conviction of his own irrationality.

�� His
thoughts were distracted by a bright golden owl which swooped through one of
the Fire-Room�s windows and straight towards Potter. Potter�s face went ashen,
but he lifted a hand to receive it. When he opened the letter inside and read
it�a single sheet of paper, Draco noted�he closed his eyes and bowed his head.
The look on his face was terrible, as if he�d just heard news of a friend
dying.

�� That was why he reacted the way he did
yesterday and agreed to this dinner, Draco realized suddenly. Because I mentioned something about his
correspondence.

�� Potter,
are you all right?� Draco asked. His curiosity was vibrating. Was Potter
getting threatening letters? It would make sense, given his position in the
Ministry, but that didn�t explain his look. That wasn�t fear on his face. It
was horror.

�� Potter
started and then looked up at him. His eyes were hard suddenly, remote.

�� Malfoy,�
he said, �you�ll do me the greatest kindness you can by going away and
forgetting that you saw this.�

�� Draco rose
at once to his feet and leaned across the table to squeeze Potter�s shoulder.
Potter had already folded the letter, so that he couldn�t see the contents.
Draco didn�t try to look, instead keeping his eyes firmly locked on Potter�s
face.

�� You�re
asking me for something impossible,� he said. �But I�ll try to be as gentle as
I can.�

�� He turned
and made his way out of the Fire-Room, only glancing back once, when he was
near the door. Potter was staring at him, a look of mixed anger and dislike and
irritation on his face.

�� That look, Draco thought. Begin with that look. If I can fashion a
character who can look like that, it won�t matter if his face is different.

*

�� sophiebelle:
Thanks for reviewing.

�� yaoiObsessed:
Thanks! Yes, in a way this is a contest to see who has the most determination.

�� Tree: As
Draco sees in this chapter, Harry�s desire to talk to Draco really has nothing
to do with Draco at all.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thank you!

�� Black
Padfoot: Thanks!

�� Annony: I
doubt it. Harry and Draco have to get to know each other first.

�� Lunamaru;
Thanks!

�� butterpie: There
will be moments of comedy, but mostly for Draco, as Harry doesn�t feel a lot
like laughing at the moment.
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Incandescence