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Business Meetings	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21371 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Two—Strong in the Darkness

            Harry sighed as he walked into Malfoy’s throne room and saw him sitting upright like some Egyptian decoration. He didn’t really want to be here, not when he had already put in a long day of tracking, fighting, recovering from a few of his injuries in hospital, and filing paperwork related to the case.

            But it was the third of the month, and the Ministry flunkey assigned to convey messages had been apologetic with wet eyes. Harry knew what that meant. The Ministry was capable of deciding that they had been too tolerant and killing Malfoy’s flock despite their promises, because one of the privileges the Ministry reserved to itself was the ability to change its mind.

            And you’re thinking about it like it’s a particularly bitchy person instead of the organization you work for, Harry thought with a shake of his head, and flopped gracelessly into his chair. A moment later, he winced. He’d banged his hip against the side of the seat, and that made the wounds low on his back, along his spine, flare up. The Healers would take him apart if he had torn them open again, but when Harry paused and concentrated on his skin, he couldn’t feel the trickle of blood.

            And it was a stony expression Malfoy faced him with, not the hunting dog’s eagerness that Harry knew blood gave to vampires. He nodded once when he looked at Harry and then went back to staring above his head.

            “Here I am,” Harry said. If he leaned to the side and crossed his legs, the wounds hurt less. He still wished he could cast a Cushioning Charm, but he would only draw his wand here if he meant it. “Was there anything you wanted to say to me?”

            “What was your opinion of the new anti-vampire legislation passed in the Wizengamot yesterday?” Malfoy had mastered letting his voice boom out from different directions, without moving his lips. That must be the height of ambition with him, Harry thought. After all, he did so wish to resemble a marble statue, and now he doesn’t have to look like he’s speaking, either.

            “Is that what your spies told you it was?” Harry laughed and leaned even a little more to the side. Malfoy’s eyes fixed on him, but nothing else moved. Well, it wasn’t like a vampire needed to breathe, was it. “It’s not. It doesn’t tighten the registry restrictions or target flocks like yours that don’t live right next to humans. It does say that the parents of any child caught in a relationship with a vampire will be fined, and sent to Azkaban if it can be proven that they sold their child to the vampire.”

            Malfoy showed his fangs then. Harry shook his head as he looked at them. Slender and deadly, bright ivory needles, but still not as white as Malfoy would need them to be to complete the marble statue impersonation. Then again, neither was his hair.

            “It restricts the willing choices of young bloods,” Malfoy said. “Both vampire and wizard.”

            Harry snorted. “It seems pretty bloody simple to me. Don’t let your flock bite children, and report any parents who try to sell them to you to the Ministry.”

            “It is the first wall imposed on our will,” Malfoy said, or the ceiling appeared to say with his voice. “There will come more. We will run into them, and our people will mourn and lament.”

            “Maybe you should have been an actor instead of a vampire,” Harry said, and leaned back in his chair, conjuring a stool with his wand in his pocket. Malfoy whipped one arm around in front of his body as the stool appeared, then subsided. Harry chuckled and put his feet on it. It was good to see that Malfoy’s statue impersonation was even less successful than he thought it was. “Then you could make your ridiculous declamations and have people stand a chance of believing them.”

            Malfoy leaned forwards now, apparently having decided that as long as he had broken his stillness, he might as well break it in style. “Did you know,” he murmured, “that it would cost me less than two seconds to snap your neck, Potter?”

            Harry grinned at him. “Why so long?”

            Malfoy went still again, then resumed his posture with his arms on the arms of the throne. “I have counted,” he said. “It is always better to understand your own abilities than to overestimate them, especially when you have enemies who would be happy to see you do so.”

            “That’s true,” Harry said, “and the first good sense I’ve heard you speak.” He yawned, and didn’t miss the way Malfoy tensed. “I ought to let you know,” he murmured, closing his eyes and tilting his head back so that his throat deliberately showed, “that I can burn a vampire’s eyes out in less than two seconds.”

            “And you have often had occasion to test this?”

            Harry opened one eye. Well. That was the first time he had heard that particular throbbing snarl in his voice, as though Malfoy could care about vampires other than himself. Harry wondered idly if he knew that it made him more attractive than all the posing and imitation of stone in the world could possibly have done.

            Not that he would care about being attractive to a human. Not when he thinks mostly about snapping their necks and drinking their blood.

            “I killed two vampires who came after me,” Harry answered, “and one that was threatening someone else.”

            “How do you know it was threatening someone else?” Malfoy coiled to the edge of the throne. Harry blinked as he watched him, more in fascination than anything else. He moved like a cross between a snake and a cat. “It could have been a consensual blood contract, like the kind that the Ministry professes to value and refuses to honor.”

            “Backing up to the edge of the cliff and threatening to throw her off if she didn’t get the blood she wanted from her was pretty convincing,” Harry said.

            Malfoy tilted his head to the side, reminding Harry right now of a curious dog. He decided Malfoy would hate the comparison, which meant he needed to use it someday. “You still could have misunderstood something. You know nothing of the niceties of vampire behavior.”

            “No, nothing beyond what I learned in my Auror courses,” Harry admitted. “Which were mostly what you looked like and how to defeat you.”

            Malfoy’s lips slid back from his fangs again.

            “On the other hand,” Harry added, “when the choice is possibly watch a murder happen myself because the vampire facing me might not understand I’m a sodding Auror and it needs to put the victim down, or get the vampires a bit upset, then I know which one I’m going to choose.”

            Malfoy let his eyelids fall over his eyes as he peered at Harry. Harry cocked his head back in response. Hey, if Malfoy can do it, so can I.

            “What?” he asked.

            “You don’t consider killing a vampire murder,” Malfoy said. “But you intervened to protect my flock from the Ministry.”

            Harry sighed. “Not this again,” he complained. “I’ve already dealt with enough people today who think that any time we have to kill a Dark wizard is murder. We’d already warned him, and I already warned this vampire. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do if the choice comes down to the killer and the innocent victim. I hate killing, I don’t like it, but I’ll do it. If I didn’t, I think you’d despise me more for it.”

            “Then you treat vampires like humans,” Malfoy said.

            Harry shrugged. “Not exactly. That would be stupid, when you’re stronger and faster than we are. But morally alike, yeah.”

            Malfoy turned his head to the side, and a weird noise emerged from his throat. The only sound Harry could compare it to was a burbling purr.

            He blinked, shook his head, and stood. He knew he had spent too much time around vampires when he started thinking of Malfoy as a big, cuddly kitty-cat, which meant it was time to leave his presence. “So. Same day next month?”

            “It is rare to find an Auror who will treat us like that,” Malfoy said, still staring at him.

            “I know,” Harry said shortly. “But I’ve never done things just because other people will approve of me for them, you know that.”

            “Mmm.” Malfoy closed his eyes. “But we could still use an Auror who would understand the social niceties of vampire interaction and when they might be interrupting a consensual contract.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “When you find one, let me know. I’d like to be relieved of this duty.” He turned to leave the room, making sure not to limp. God alone knew what Malfoy would do if he saw that.

            “Potter.”

            As far as Harry knew, the enchantments that vampires could use on their victims by looking them in their eyes or singing their names to them didn’t work on him, the same way the Imperius Curse didn’t. But he paused and looked back when he heard that word in that voice, and he didn’t have to.

            Malfoy stared at him, eyes sparking like hematite.

            “Until we find an Auror who understands everything important about us,” Malfoy said precisely, “one like you will do very well.”

            Harry knew that statement didn’t deserve a grin and a wave of his hand, as though Malfoy was an ordinary friend he was saying good-bye to. But he gave it anyway, because he wanted to.

            “See you next month,” he murmured, but at least he said that to himself and not Malfoy.

            A chuckle followed him anyway, riding the edge of hearing, peculiarly suited to the dim magnificence Harry glimpsed on the edge of the firelight.

*

            Yami Bakura: Thank you!

            kit: If Harry is something more than a human, he doesn’t know it. He’s a very good Auror, though.

            yaoirin89: Glad you were anticipating it.

            paigeey07: Thank you! And, well, a good fighter.

            SP777: Thanks.

            AlterEquis: Thanks! I promise they will both stay powerful all through the story, though they won’t always both win.

            unneeded: He would hate to hear it, but yes, he does.

            Eve: Thank you! That’s a compliment, believe me.
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Business Meetings