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Contracted	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18657 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Two--Quiet Hours at Home

            "I'll see you tomorrow, of course, Harry?"

            Callia's voice was as flawless and soft as a snowflake. Harry leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, which was much the same way. "Of course. We need to start planning the wedding."

            Callia leaned forwards, bracing herself with a hand on his arm as she stared into his eyes. Harry hid a sigh. He was used to this mannerism of hers by now, this obsessive need to look at his face. She seemed to think that she would catch him lying if she did that, or at least be able to tell more easily when he did it.

            Harry's lies ran so deep that he would be surprised if any of them surfaced in his eyes by now. But Callia smiled as if satisfied and stepped back, leaving only her fingers in place to stroke his arm. "Good. I'm so glad that we've finally taken this step, Harry." Her voice dipped. "So happy. You've no idea."

            She turned and walked up the path that led from the front door to the wall around his house before he could respond. Harry sighed and waited until she was beyond the wards and had safely Apparated, then shut the door.

            More wards sprang into place when he did that, with a click softer than the sound of the lock snapping into place. Harry turned around and pressed his back against the wood, letting his head drop into his hands. His magic stretched around him, thrummed, and then relaxed, the way it never could in the outside world.

            Another day of playing nice for the Ministry ended, another chance to be himself again for a few hours.

            Harry raised his head and moved towards the bathroom. He kept three different kinds of soap there, including a sharp lye that reminded him of the sort Aunt Petunia had thought would be good for scrubbing his mouth out. It was good at removing the traces of ink from his hands. He washed until his skin was bright red and then turned towards the kitchen. He hadn't eaten anything at the Ministry gala, he never did. His stomach churned too much. He and Sandborn had a separate deal that covered the way he had to eat at banquets as well as payment for the anti-nausea potions.

            The kitchen had three cabinets filled with preservation charms and the sort of food that it was easy to preserve with those particular spells: bread, cheese, crackers, rice, curry. Harry made himself a cheese sandwich and sat down at the table, forcing himself to chew carefully. He'd been at the Ministry all day before the gala, though, and his stomach ached.

            When he'd finished, he leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes.

            He should have known that Sandborn would find some way to force him into the marriage with Callia.

            Harry shrugged with one shoulder. Well. He had made the bargain he wanted to, in return, and Sandborn was a fool if he thought the job for Mr. Weasley--nice as that would be to ensure that Mrs. Weasley and George, who lived with her, stayed out of poverty--was the real reason. Harry had achieved what he wanted.

            He waited to feel some sort of triumph, but he had just had too many victories down the years. What he felt was more like the sensation he got when knocking on a piece of brass instead. It sent up the right echoes and made a durable impression on his knuckles. That was good enough.

            He yawned, and went about the business of kicking off his shoes and Transfiguring his robes into pyjamas. He never bothered to keep any sets of the ridiculously expensive robes he went to the parties and galas in. Sandborn would always buy him new ones, and this way, he didn't have to look at any of them hanging in his home.

            His bedroom was the biggest room in the house, and Harry had paid a lot for the enchantment that made it seem as if his window was always open, with a cool breeze blowing in on him. No bars, not ever again. He had enough of those elsewhere in his life.

            He lay down on top of the sheets and felt his eyelids droop. Falling asleep so soon? Well. That was nice.

            Confused images of Callia's face and Malfoy's tried to come back to him, but Harry banished them with the ease of long efficiency. He'd made his bargains and his deals with the devil. The important thing was that he had chosen freely to do this, and one of those choices included keeping business out of his home. Not even his friends came here. Harry found it hard to look at them against the plain walls and few photographs without remembering what he'd done for them.

            A few moments more, and he was asleep.

*

            "Blaise!" Draco called as he came through the Floo connection. "I need to talk to you."

            His voice echoed into what sounded like an empty room, and Draco stopped with a blink. He wouldn't have expected that from Blaise and Astoria, whose home sometimes seemed like the Slytherin common room transplanted into another building and given new decorations. He turned around slowly, looking up the twisting steel staircase in one corner--Astoria'd had that installed to keep people from climbing to the first floor easily, since what went on up there didn't belong to their guests--and then at the closed doors in the far wall.

            "Blaise?" he called again.

            A muffled giggle sounded. Draco rolled his eyes. Yes, all right, so Blaise and Astoria had a life together. That didn't mean that they had to let it take over the house.

            Sure enough, an extremely chubby nine-month-old squirmed out from beneath the staircase a moment later. She crawled on her feet and hands towards him, arching her stomach so that it came off the tiled floor. Draco bent down and swooped her up, turning her around so that she had to face his disapproving scowl. She squirmed in his grip, too; it seemed to be her natural state of being. She had pretty dark skin, but her hair and her eyes both couldn't decide what color they wanted to be, though brown was mixed in them somewhere, and traces of Astoria's blonde and dark green.

            "Tell me where your parents are," Draco told her, deadly serious. "Or I may be forced to take hostages, and no one wants that."

            "Least of all Aurora," said Astoria's voice from behind him, and Blaise's arms reached over Draco's shoulder to pick up their daughter. Draco remained standing where he was for a moment, examining his empty hands with a grave expression, before he turned around and shook his head at his friends.

            "I see," he said. "You're not good enough to show up when I call, but one threat to your precious daughter and you come out of hiding."

            Astoria's eyes laughed at him. Blaise handed her Aurora and leaned forwards to shake Draco's hand and pound his shoulder, once.

            "Is that sufficient?" he asked. "We heard you, but we were--occupied."

            "Ah, thank you for informing me of the latest polite circumlocution for it," Draco said, eyeing Astoria's disheveled hair and the crooked way that Blaise had buttoned his shirt.

            "Really, we were," Astoria said, and swept Aurora up to her shoulder, leading the way further into the house. "We'd left Aurora with one of the elves, but Mizzy takes orders from her now, if you can believe it. When she tosses one of her toys in the opposite direction and then reaches for it, Mizzy goes to fetch it, and then to clean it--because it can't be good for the baby's mouth if it rolled on the floor, of course--and Aurora can crawl away." She tapped the baby's back with one finger and tried to look stern. "We'll have to break her of that habit as soon as we can."

            On cue, Mizzy appeared, giving that particularly heart-broken wail of a house-elf. Draco plugged his ears and turned aside with Blaise into the dining room, leaving Astoria to deal with both Mizzy and Aurora for the moment.

            Blaise waved him to a seat at the gleaming, scarred oak table, and came back with a tumbler of the lemon-flavored water that he knew Draco preferred. He didn't have anything to drink, which Draco thought was a mistake. He would have wanted something if he'd had any inkling of the nature of Draco's news. On the other hand, this way meant Draco would be able to surprise him.

            "Well?" Blaise asked. "It must be pretty urgent to bring you out here on a Saturday."

            Draco raised his eyebrows. "I was unaware that I needed permission to visit my best friend and my former girlfriend any day of the week."

            "Yes, but Saturdays you usually sleep in and then let the house-elves do your hair, which takes longer," Blaise said matter-of-factly. "This is before noon, though I can see how you might have confused the sunlight with the shine off your hair."

            Draco sighed. "Your jealousy of my natural coloring grows tiresome, Blaise. I think you already have all the blonde hair spread on your pillow that you could want."

            Blaise grinned and leaned back in his chair. "Right. So. What is it?"

            Draco looked towards the door of the kitchen as Astoria came through, brushing house-elf tears off her hands and looking as though she could use a drink. She Summoned the materials for one before Draco could offer to get it for her, and sat down at the table to pour her whisky. "Mizzy grows more importunate by the day," she muttered. "I've told her not to take orders from Aurora until she at least starts talking." She caught Draco's eye and Blaise's, then, and straightened up. "What is it?" she asked.

            "Yes, what is it?" Blaise asked, more softly. He would have known by now that Draco had paused because this concerned Astoria, rather than because he didn't want her to hear.

            Draco had considered several times this morning how to phrase things, and had decided bluntly would be best. The situation was so incredible, so outside even the suspicions of him and his friends, that he didn't see how he could make it known with gentle hints. "We owe Potter a debt," he said. "All of us. I'd believed the Wizengamot exonerated us and gave us our houses and money back because of his testimony."

            "They didn't," Blaise said, eyes not moving from Draco's face. Astoria leaned forwards, cradling the whisky.

            "No," Draco agreed. "Potter made bargains with Minister Sandborn. He's the Ministry's little slave-boy for the sake of our freedom, and then--for the sake of other things. He makes speeches, we walk free. He smiles for them and gives interviews, we get our apologies. And so on." He picked up his glass and took a deep swallow, doubly glad that he didn't have alcohol at the moment. It would be a crime to waste the kind of alcohol that Blaise had on hand this way.

            "How?" Astoria asked softly. "I'll be honest, I could never see Potter simply sacrificing himself to save people he didn't know personally."

            "But that's what he did at Hogwarts," Blaise said, with a tone of long-suffering that Draco hadn't heard before. Still, it made sense that they would only discuss Potter when he wasn't around. It was a subject he had a tendency to react...unfortunately to. "I'll admit I didn't suspect this, but it makes sense." He turned back to Draco. "How did the Minister convince him?"

            "A contract--"

            "Magically binding?" Blaise's eyes were cold, and his fingers had tightened on the table to the extent that Draco thought he might break something.

            "No," Draco said. "Not from what he told me. I saw him and Sandborn signing it, a new bargain. Potter knew I was watching, and told me that much when he caught me."

            "Does Sandborn know you know?" Astoria's voice was deeper and cooler.

            Draco shook his head. "I'm virtually sure that he doesn't. Potter waited until he was gone to say anything to me."

            "What was Potter's latest bargain?"

            Draco knew he showed his teeth when he grinned. "A new job for Arthur Weasley," he said. "And that Sandborn retire in twelve years."

            Astoria's glass slipped from her hand, and she barely caught it in time. "What could he have offered Sandborn to make it worth that?"

            "His own marriage," Draco said. "As well as an oath to remain in his 'position'--which would be slave to the Ministry and impeccable Auror, I would assume--as long as Sandborn wants, even after he's retired."

            Blaise and Astoria locked eyes. Draco patiently waited out their silent conversation. They were much better at this than he and Astoria had been, one of the reasons that Astoria had decided that she would be more comfortable with Blaise. Draco had been agreeable by then; watching two people try not to flirt in front of him for a fortnight always had a softening effect on his reservations.

            "But that doesn't make sense," Astoria whispered.

            "Tell me about it." Draco finished his water and held out the glass in a silent demand. Blaise went to fetch it, leaving Astoria to look earnestly at Draco and scrape a fingernail down the table.

            "Potter would have no reason to make such sacrifices," she said. "He might know us better now, but he didn't at the time. And he's always been a believer in true love and the rest of that rot. He wouldn't make a marriage purely at the Ministry's urging. Perhaps he loves Callia and doesn't want to acknowledge that to Sandborn, because he wants the Minister to believe he has him over a barrel?"

            Draco leaned closer. "Callia is your cousin?"

            "Distant cousin," Astoria said, drawing herself up like a Kneazle asked to play fetch. "And believe me when I say that she is a traditionalist. She'll demand a big wedding from Potter, the happy marriage in public no matter what they say to each other in private, the perfect children, the gifts of money. Potter must know what he's getting into by marrying her."

            "That part genuinely didn't seem to matter to him," Draco said, reaching out and accepting the glass of water that Blaise handed him as he came back to the table. "Only what he could gain by going through with the marriage."

            "Do you think he's mad?" Blaise asked, sitting down again. A sharp wail broke out in the distance and both he and Astoria started to rise, but sat back down when it ended in a flurry of patting and crooned house-elf words.

            "No," Draco said. "Not by any conventional meaning of the word, at least. It's as if--he's lived this way so long that he can't comprehend any other way to live."

            Blaise nodded slightly. "Then he won't do anything to change his situation."

            "I can't imagine it."

            "Then we must," Astoria said, and once again she and Blaise looked at each other. "While making sure that we retain what Potter has won for us."

            "Yes," Draco said. It was the conclusion that he had wanted them to come to, but it wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't reached it on their own. This wasn't the sort of action that a friend could lead friends to. It would take too much work and require too much commitment to someone who, until today, they hadn't realized was committed to them. "And at the moment, I confess, I have no idea how to do that."

            A small smile worked its way across Astoria's lips. Blaise picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. "My lady of battles," he said. "What idea do you have?"

            "One that you and I can work on," she said. She cast a glance at Draco. "Your task will be keeping Potter off-balance and occupied with you so that he can't interfere with our business."

            "As long as it's not the kind of business that occupied you when I got here," Draco said gravely, "I have no objections."

*

            "Mate, you want a cuppa?"

            Harry smiled at Ron and waved him away. He had a report to finish and another file to look at "as a favor"--one of those times when another pair of Aurors had solved a case but wanted Harry to look over the evidence because they had a nagging suspicion that someone had escaped or they'd missed something. Harry only found something on about fifty percent of those cases, but that was a high enough number to always make him look. "I'm busy. You go enjoy."

            "You're not human, sometimes," Ron muttered, slipping out the office door. "The way that you enjoy the paperwork."

            Harry grunted. Ron had no idea. Enjoyment and investment in every aspect of his job, at least in public, was what Sandborn had demanded in exchange for the law that forbade owners to physically abuse house-elves. Ron's baffled and concerned looks when Harry spent all day in the office writing a report were nothing compared to the expression of joy on Hermione's face the day she heard.

            Ron was gone, and Harry sank back into the report. He changed "much less hard" to "substantially less difficult"--Hermione was always after him to improve his vocabulary--and signed his name, then cast the report aside with a sigh.

            "Good. I see that I'm not interrupting you."

            The voice went through Harry like an arrow, but he kept his gaze mildly inquiring as he looked up at Malfoy. "Good morning. Are you lost? I can direct you to the Head Auror's office if you need to see him."

            "You don't need to sound like a fool," Malfoy said, stepping further into the office and tugging the door shut behind him. "Just because you are one."

            Harry sighed and sat back in his chair. Sometimes things like this happened, where someone thought he'd figured out what lay between Harry and Sandborn. Few of them had as direct a proof as Malfoy did, having witnessed them signing the contract with his own eyes, but Harry had always managed to persuade them to give up. Acting the polished arsehole worked well.

            "There's nothing I can help you with, unless you need an audience for your insults," he said. "And you should know that my partner will be back soon. I don't think he'll like finding you here."

            "Your partner is Weasley?" Malfoy asked, as if he couldn't have picked that up from the papers. He sat on Ron's desk, kicking his legs back and forth as he looked slowly around the office. Harry saw his eyes track the framed photographs on the walls, the multiple Orders of Merlin, the more specialized Ministry awards and Auror awards. They filled the room with a daze of light. Harry had more or less got used to them, but knew they would impress someone who came in unexpectedly.

            "Yeah," Harry said, folding his hands behind his head. "And I remember that you didn't get along at school."

            Malfoy gave him a look like steel nails. "Neither did you and I, but we seem to be doing fine right now."

            Harry sighed again. "If you can call an exchange of hostilities a civil conversation. Seriously, what did you want? You must know there's no point in renewing the subject you raised the last time we talked."

            "Why not?" Malfoy gripped the edge of the desk with one hand. Harry blinked in pleasure. "You would want some way out from under Sandborn if someone offered it to you, wouldn't you?"

            Harry felt hope starting to life. He burned it and rolled his eyes. "Please. I entered into the contract of my own free will. There's no--counterspell, or whatever you were thinking you could find, for something like that."

            "I was talking about a method that would keep what you've fought for safe, while getting you out from under his thumb."

            "There's no reason for you to do that," Harry said. He tried to remember if Malfoy had been this stubborn in school. When he wanted to get Harry in trouble, maybe. Harry relaxed as he remembered that. Malfoy was probably thinking about the way Harry's friends would react if they found out, and how the press would call him weak. Well, he should think about that again. One good thing about Harry's position of strength was that his friends and the public would believe in him implicitly, rather than whatever pathetic fiction Malfoy devised.

            "There is," Malfoy said. "I owe you. So does Blaise. So do Astoria and her sister Daphne. Gregory. Theo. Pansy. All of us you fought to free."

            "As you reminded me on Friday," Harry said smoothly, "I didn't fight for it any more than a whore fights when she spreads her legs. But if you really want to repay me, fine. There's this necklace I've had my eye on for Callia, but I can't justify spending that much money--"

            Malfoy surged to his feet. Harry gripped his wand. It turned out the wanker didn't actually cross the distance between the desks, though, because he sagged back. "Have you thought about what it would do to her if she found out the real reason you're marrying her?" he asked. "What it would do to your friends if they found out what you'd sacrificed for them?"

            "They won't ever know," Harry said. "For them, it'll be as if it never happened."

            Malfoy stared at him. His eyelashes glittered around his eyes, Harry thought, and knew the idiot must have cast a charm on them to make them do that. Who was he trying to impress? "I never thought I would hear the embodiment of Gryffindor chivalry and courtesy say something like that," he muttered.

            Harry gave a hard little smile. "I'll give you some advice, Malfoy. For free. The way the real world works is that you set out with your high hopes of changing things and then get crushed by the forces of power and money. I learned that the hard way, so I made my bargain, and now I'm part of those forces. You might as well repay the debt, if it exists, the way I asked you to. It would inconvenience you too much to try the other way."

            Malfoy stared at him. Harry looked back, but there was something in those grey eyes he hadn't seen in years, either in Sandborn's knowing gaze or the trusting and adoring faces of his friends. He found himself glancing down, away.

            "Cynicism isn't reality," Malfoy whispered. "It's a shallow pose that you use to hold back pain."

            Harry didn't know whether he meant the personal or the general "you," and he didn't care to learn. He cast a spell that made Malfoy stagger and put a hand to his head. "Right now your breath is starting to stink of alcohol, and in about five minutes you're going to need to vomit," Harry said evenly. "Anyone who sees you will assume that you've drunk too much--isn't that what you decadent Slytherin types do all day?--and need to visit the loo. That you're here because you don't know what you're doing. I'm offering you a door out, Malfoy. Take it."

            Malfoy managed to remain upright all the way to the door, which Harry had to admit was a better track record than most people managed with that spell. He braced himself with a hand on the wall near the door and looked over his shoulder. "You have no idea what I'll do to get out of owing a debt, Potter."

            Harry looked at him and let the empty soul he used when he conversed with Sandborn, Callia, and most of the Ministry officials show in his eyes. He had three souls now: one for the public, one for his friends, and one for himself. Malfoy had seen a glimpse of the one Harry showed his friends the other night, and hadn't had the good sense to retreat. He might, now. "I can embarrass you in ways that you can't imagine right now," Harry said softly. "I have access to information and allies more powerful than any your father possessed. Get out, Malfoy."

            The door opened then, and Ron stepped in with his tea. "They didn't have--" he began, and stared at Malfoy, his face shifting to red in an instant.

            "I'll be going," Malfoy said. "But you'll need to think about what I said." He staggered out.

            Ron laughed, but not as if he found it funny. "Drinking? Him? And he just had to harass you, I reckon." He held out the cup of tea. "I got you some anyway."

            Harry took it with a smile and his second soul showing. "Thanks. Yeah, I reckon that's what he was here for."

            Meanwhile, he hoped that his silent thoughts could reach Malfoy, who would be head-down in a toilet right about now.

            I didn't ask for rescue. I've only asked one person for things since the war, and I've always paid him off with interest.

            I'll never ask anyone for anything again.

*

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