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Anarchy as Art	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 12617 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for the reviews!

Chapter Two—Begin at the Beginning

The first thing he would have to do to satisfy his critics, Harry knew, was find some evidence that Malfoy knew the Dark Arts he had trained other wizards like Linton in, and knew the techniques of thievery. Though some people like the Weasleys might mutter about what thieves the Malfoys always had been, they didn’t mean it literally, and others would ask why someone who stole money always had so much to give away in charitable excess.

Harry knocked smartly on the door in front of him, and then waited, listening in some amusement to the shuffling of papers behind it. Some junior Aurors treated him as if he were Thorin and had strict standards he’d enforce on others. Harry had discovered that time, and nothing else, was the cure for that. They never believed him if he tried to reassure them that he didn’t care about sharp corners to paper stacks or whether everyone’s collars were buttoned properly.

Finally, a flushed face appeared around the door, and the young Auror it belonged to cleared her throat. “Um, sorry, Auror Potter,” she said. “Do come in.”

Harry nodded, smiled, and accepted the invitation, saying over his shoulder, “Auror Margaret Flowing, wasn’t it?” He glanced at her partner, searched his memory, and was grateful when it came to him, although the dark-haired man gripping his robes in front of Harry now didn’t much resemble the pimple-faced trainee Harry had worked with three years ago. “And Auror Philip Wing. Congratulations on making it through the training program.”

Wing flushed deeply himself and stared at the ground. “I know that you didn’t think I would,” he murmured. “But—”

“It was never your talent I doubted,” Harry said firmly. “Just your dedication.” He considered Wing, decided that he could risk the joke, and smiled. “To something other than drinking endless bottles of Firewhisky, I mean.”

Wing opened his mouth, then recognized the humor and grinned. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I think that you’ll find all the notes on the prisoner in order.” He nodded at the table, and sure enough, the sheets of parchment all had their edges aligned with each other.

“And there’s a cup of tea waiting for you, sir,” Flowing said anxiously, gesturing at the other corner of the table, where it steamed. “We weren’t sure how you liked it, so we left—oh, everything for you, sir.”

Indeed, Harry could make out containers of sugar, cream, milk, and several things that he was sure no one sane put in their tea, like poppy seeds. But it would be ill-natured to make fun of people who had tried so hard to attend to his comfort, so he just nodded to Flowing. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Flowing looked around then, as if counting the air molecules in the room, and Harry raised his eyebrows, wondering what troubled her. But then Flowing took a deep breath and faced him, and said, “Sir, regulations say that your partner is supposed to be here with you.”

Oh. Harry did hope that his own presence was causing this all by itself, and that Thorin’s stiffness wasn’t beginning to affect the people who should be best-prepared to resist it. “I know that, Auror Flowing, but Auror Weasley will not be helping me on this case, by explicit orders of the Head Auror.”

Flowing frowned at him, ignoring the way that Wing made shushing motions at her. Harry could see a gleam of Hermione back in her eyes. “He didn’t inform us of this, sir. And surely you should speak to Linton with your partner there, since you captured her together?”

Harry let his smile shift a shade, to colder than he would use to anyone except most Dark wizards. “Feel free to go to Head Auror Thorin and ask him for the truth if you don’t trust me, Auror.”

Finally, Flowing seemed to realize that doubting Harry Potter’s word might not be the best route to peace and harmony among her colleagues. Her face turned so crimson that Harry thought he might have to leap forwards and catch her for a second; then she turned away and said softly, “I’m sorry, Auror.”

“You show a strong devotion to the rules,” Harry said, and waved them out of the room. They went, Wing with his hand low on Flowing’s back in a way that made Harry pause and think of another reason it might have taken them some time to open the door.

Left alone, he skimmed through the notes, but they were all either things he knew already or unimportant confessions to small thefts from Linton. She seemed cooperative now, as she hadn’t been yesterday—to a point. Then again, no one had yet asked her in any detail about Malfoy.

Harry took a moment to close his eyes and think, settling his memory and his expectations into place for the coming interrogation. He had ruined some early ones with his impatience to demand confessions and his eagerness to accept everything that he wanted to hear at face value. But truth was more important than someone’s prejudices or perceptions. And to catch Malfoy, he would need the truth, or his own prejudices would cloud the verdict for most people who knew about his grudge.

His senses sharpened to the point that he could smell the spices in the tea and feel the ridges and cracks in the table under his fingers. Harry opened his eyes and nodded. He was ready.

*

When he stepped into the interview room that contained Linton, sitting on a comfortable high-backed chair with her arms linked together in front of her with unbreakable bonds, she smiled at him and said, “So they’re sending Harry Potter to interview me. I’m honored.”

Harry smiled back at her and took the time to pull up his own chair, turning it around so he could squat over the seat and fold his arms on the back. By the time he sat down, Linton’s lip had begun to curl, and she was sitting up to focus on him.

Harry grinned at her and launched the blow that would seize on the weakness of her contempt and use it to crack the lies she might have prepared. “How long have you been corresponding with Draco Malfoy?”

Linton’s mouth shook open, and then she clamped her lips shut and said, “I’m not. You don’t have any proof that I am.” But her face had gone pale, and Harry knew that, in a Pensieve memory he could present to the Wizengamot, wouldn’t be convincing as a demonstration of complete innocence.

Harry reached down and slowly produced, moving his hand as if reluctant to show anyone else the signature, one of Linton’s letters with the flourishing name clearly visible.

Linton shut her eyes and took a deep breath, which she seemed to think might help her regain her mental balance. She hadn’t succeeded; there were still too many lines in her face when she looked at him again. “It’s true that I wrote to someone who used that name,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that it was him. I never saw his face.”

“What reasons do you have for thinking that it wasn’t him?” Harry let hope leak into his voice and sat up straight.

Linton responded, giving him the faint, superior smile she had worn when he first entered the room. “What need would a philanthropist have to instruct other people in brewing illegal potions, or stealing exotic ingredients, or whatever else you’re going to specifically charge me with? He had money of his own. Nothing he needed that I could provide.”

“The interesting thing,” Harry said, tapping his fingers against the letter and staring at the far wall, “the interesting thing, is that we found out the same things about your family, when we investigated them. Wealthy, able to purchase their own potions and ingredients for anything they wanted, or at least contract the services of others instead of taking the risks themselves. One might say that you and whoever you wrote to are kindred spirits.” He turned his head and locked eyes with Linton.

Linton’s hands clamped on the arms of the chair. Harry watched her mind ticking over, and nodded a little in confirmation of the question she hadn’t asked him yet. Yes, it is that bad. We found everything. Everything.

“I’m not—you’re mistaken,” Linton said, but her voice cracked. “It’s a common mistake, to think that I’m related to the wealthy pure-blood Lintons, when the name is common—I mean, it’s shared—I’m not who you think I am.”

“Miss Linton,” Harry said, and let his voice sink into the chiding tone that he’d heard so many times from McGonagall, “the Ministry has records of your birth, your education, your training, and your licensing as an apprentice to a Potions master a few months before you abruptly disappeared and the thefts started to happen. We know you are who we say you are. The Ministry records glowed in your presence, which wouldn’t have happened if we were dealing with someone who happened to be—a cousin, would you say? That’s a deception that must have been useful to you several times, but we know you. One learns so much about someone else from reading their personal letters.”

Linton stared at him, as still as the glamours of stone walls and fathomless pools that she had created more than once to hide herself.

Harry sighed and unfolded the next letter. “This is the letter that Mr. Malfoy wrote to you, telling you that he understood and sympathized with your boredom. The war wasn’t an opportunity for either of you; you were too young for it, and he was on the wrong side, and helpless in the face of events. But you don’t want the perfect, boring life that living within the law seemed to promise, either. So you chose to do something that would give you exposure to the Dark Arts, and the excitement that you’d been craving, and the attention of others, if not the approval. It’s all there. I can understand it. I don’t approve of it, of course, but I understand.” This time, he made sure his smile was gentle. “There are times that I’ve been tempted to escape the trap I was born into myself, though preferably with a glamour instead of thefts.”

Linton closed her eyes and shook her head. “That’s still no proof that he is who you think he is,” she whispered.

“Really? When he writes details about the Malfoy family and properties that only a Malfoy should know?” Harry raised his eyebrows in polite disbelief. “If it isn’t him, then he has a spy within his house, someone who can come and go through the wards at will, and we should tell Mr. Malfoy at once so he can better guard his home.”

The only sound was Linton’s breath hissing steadily through her tightly clenched teeth. Harry waited. He had little natural patience, but for something like this, for something that might ultimately lead to Malfoy reconsidering his stupid little games and behaving as he should have done all along? Harry could have waited two days for her to say something.

“You don’t know,” Linton whispered. “The letters could be false.”

“To cast doubt on Mr. Malfoy’s reputation?” Harry leaned back in his chair and pretended to consider that. “Perhaps. But what is the purpose of the details, then? The letter could have been much less intimate and personal and still been enough to interest us in Mr. Malfoy’s….pristine reputation.”

Unexpectedly, Linton laughed, and her eyes snapped open. “You should have seen the ones that burned,” she gasped. “The way he would talk about how there were so few friends or enemies or apprentices worth having in this world, and you would know when you found the one that would complement you. You might need to spend a long time working until that person acknowledged your existence, but that was fine. You could never give up, though.”

“So, he mentored you in the selection of your enemies as well as your Potions ingredients?” Harry asked, because he didn’t know what other question to begin with.

Linton leaned forwards as much as she could with the binding spells that hovered around her and prevented sudden movements. “He chose you. He talked about you. He was content with your distant attention for a long time, but someday, he said, he’d lure you closer, and focus on you, and turn you.”

Harry stared at her for long moments. Then he shook his head and said, “If he said that to you, then you’re admitting that he was Mr. Malfoy, or that you had reason to think so. You think he was talking about a rivalry that some people believe us to have possessed in the past?”

Linton sighed and let her head fall back against the chair. “I can’t lie that well if you have all the evidence,” she muttered. “So I might as well tell you. It would be different if the letters had burned.”

“Yes,” Harry said, watching her. “It would be.”

Linton rolled one shoulder up, then looked at Harry with an intensity that made him feel as though she would have liked to bind him up and ask him much the same questions he was asking her. “I hope he wins,” she said. “I hope that he destroys you and leaves you yearning after him the same way that—that you leave me yearning to be free right now. It would be a fitting revenge for me.”

“Considering that you can’t go anywhere at the moment, I don’t blame you for exercising the only freedom left to you, in wishing,” Harry said, calm and polite, attentive.

Linton’s smile crept across her face like poison. “Yes, I can see why he hates you so much,” she murmured. “Or used to. You’re enough to make someone want to force you to engage, instead of retreating behind a mask of distance.”

Harry held her eyes, and smiled, and waited. Silence had worked once before, and she had just revealed that she hated it when he responded to her like a mature adult. Why in the world wouldn’t he use that tactic against her?

Linton looked away and began to speak. Harry scribbled industrious notes. They related only to the letters that she had received from Malfoy, and told him nothing that they wouldn’t have been able to prove with the correspondence itself, but a willing confession meant a great deal, and was the start of any firm investigation into someone like Malfoy, who corrupted others as a first line of defense.

When Harry stood, Linton watched him with eyes that had as much peace in them as Nagini’s and said, “I hope he wins.”

“Don’t all students wish the same thing for their mentors?” Harry asked, still peaceful as always, and turned away to compare the notes to the ones that lay on the table in the other room, ignoring the curse that Linton spat at his back.

*

“Potter. I should have known you favored places so ordinary.”

Harry kept his eyes on the notes spread out over the table in front of him, ignoring the way that his heart was suddenly bounding, and trying to drive him out of his seat. So he would react like that when Malfoy appeared. It couldn’t be helped—at the moment—but he could control the reactions that came further down the chain. “Yes, you should have, when I’ve been coming here ever since the war,” he said, and sipped at a cup of butterbeer in front of him. Tom didn’t care about Harry taking up a table in the Leaky Cauldron at all hours; he paid well for the privilege and his presence discouraged some of the wilder sort who might otherwise have been tempted to make the pub a frequent base.

Malfoy dropped into the seat across from him, never glancing at the notes, though of course he might have done it without Harry noticing. His eyes had the color of silver this morning, echoing the robes he once again wore, though they were a shade or two paler than the flashy ones of the other day. He flicked his fingers, and a knife appeared between them for a moment. Then it vanished.

Harry watched him, and ignored the flush in his own face. So Malfoy might have tried to stab him. He could have hexed him before that happened. Malfoy might have heard rumors about Harry’s speed, but no one who hadn’t actually seen him in battle could understand the consequences of it.

“An extraordinary man in ordinary places,” Malfoy said, as if he was quoting something. He leaned back in the chair and let the knife walk along his knuckles. His smile was lazy, languid, leopard-like. “That could be the motto of your life, couldn’t it?”

“Hogwarts isn’t what I’d call ordinary, even for our world.” Harry looked back at his notes and drew a small star next to the information that Malfoy was arrogant even for someone who had been getting away with crimes under a façade of normality.

“Compared to you? It is.”

“Well, if you think about the sum total of the students who have been through its doors,” Harry said, looking up and preventing himself from flinching or turning away as Malfoy’s eyes met his, “perhaps you’re right. Dumbledore was a student there. Snape. Tom Riddle.” Malfoy’s smile dimmed the smallest amount. Right. Voldemort can still cow him. “You.”

“You think I’m extraordinary?” Malfoy let out a long sigh with a little, whistling, indignant huff at the end of it. “I’m not. Once you understand everything about me, you can predict my every move. I’m complicated, perhaps, in the same way that a good chess game is. But when you sit down and try to figure it out, you can. While you…a man with fame who doesn’t take advantage of it, a man with power who isn’t Head Auror, a rule-breaker who obeys those he wants to. A man with magic breathing around him, who’s content to go into an office every day and earn the same measly amount of Galleons they pay every other Auror. That’s what I call a conundrum.”

Harry gave him a thin smile, and said nothing. Malfoy had fallen into the same trap so many others did, despite Linton’s claims about his intellect and Malfoy’s own overestimation of his powers. Harry didn’t have more magic than anyone else. He was just good at the flashier kinds, like Defense and some curses. He hadn’t mastered half the household charms that Hermione and Ron knew, or the useful little things that could dry your hair or heal a scrape or lift a stack of heavy objects without unbalancing them. He was good at being an Auror, and maybe obsessing about Malfoy, and that was all.

Malfoy caught his eye and leaned forwards across the table, his hand clamping down on Harry’s. His face seemed to blaze, with a still, settled fire that Harry thought might be more dangerous than the flickering kind.

“You’ll believe me, before the end,” he said. “I’ll make you see.”

“I’m sure,” Harry said, bucking his wrist free with a hard little shake, “that you wouldn’t want to be guilty of assault on an Auror.” He could feel something small and hard between his fingers, falling to the table with a flick. His hand still covered it in the position he’d assumed, but he stared at Malfoy, willing some reaction.

The flickering fire had come back, the lazy smile. Malfoy bowed his head, murmured a response that had no consonants in it, and left the pub with an easy stride that caused heads to turn as he passed.

Harry shook his own and stared down at the table.

There lay a small stone, shaped like an arrowhead, and alive with shifting bands of red and yellow and purple. Harry recognized it at once: one of the Brindled Centaur Opals, stolen last year in a spectacular and still mysterious fashion from one of the central glass cases in France’s Wizards’ Museum.

Of course, by the time that Harry bolted to his feet and out the door, and looked wildly around in search of Malfoy, the bastard was already gone. Harry clutched at the opal, his hand flexing so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised to crush the stone.

Bastard. So he wants to make this a game, does he? Then it’s checkmate, and no quarter given until he’s taken.

And he’ll be the one it happens to. Not me.

*

            Unneeded: Harry is beginning to think it’s bait as well, though he can’t believe that Malfoy really wants to catch what he claims he does.

            And thank you!

            nicola: Thank you!

            SP777: Hope it will be.
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