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Nothing Like the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 35182 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Two--Prudence

             "I just think it's strange, that's all."

             Draco sighed and laid down the Daily Prophet. He read it at all only as a diversion while his potions finished brewing, but this morning, it was unusually inarticulate about contemporary scandals. Apparently only one new witness had come forwards about that little affair between Head Auror Dawlish and his undersecretary, and he had turned out not to have any new gossip, although the paper was trying to spin out the fumes of what there was. "What do you think is strange, Daphne?"

             As he had suspected, pretending he hadn't paid any attention made Daphne narrow her eyes at him and reach for the heavy green vase on his desk that Draco kept the results of failed potions in, to see what color they would turn when the next substance was added. Draco raised his eyebrows and waited. The wards around the vase gathered into a crackling cloud of energy and Daphne snatched her hand back just in time.

             "Fine, you don't need something thrown at you," she sniffed, folding her hands on her knee and smoothing her green silk robe. "But I was talking about Harry Potter." She laughed softly as Draco sat up. "You still listen to everything that involves him, you know."

             Draco said nothing as he smoothed his own hand over the paper he had laid down on his desk. Perhaps it had begun to seem boring to him when it stopped carrying regular stories about Potter, that was true. And perhaps he had hoped for some more acknowledgment than Potter's nod in the corridors, for the respectable citizen he had become and the high position he had achieved in the Ministry, if not the boy he had been.

             But he would not let Daphne make it into a vehicle to tease him. So he looked at her and said, "I imagine that Astoria would be as interested in learning about who was behind her swollen lips last month as she would be in learning about what I think of Potter."

             Daphne shifted to the side. "There's no need to be hasty, at all. And no need to make this a public conversation."

             Draco smiled, all teeth. "I'm glad you think so. Now. What's strange?"

             "This oath they say Potter has taken, to never date wizards." Daphne leaned towards him, her eyes taking on that sparkle they always did when talking about someone else. Daphne was one of the few people Draco knew who seemed more interested in what other people did than she was in herself. "Only Muggles, although no one's ever seen him with one. But given that he hasn't exploded with sexual frustration, he must have a Muggle lover. The Prophet and Witch Weekly have both tied themselves in knots trying to figure out who."

             Draco blinked. "I never heard that about an oath. And I know he dates witches, too." The last interesting story he remembered about Potter was from some time ago, when he'd broken up with that Tobley woman he met at a Ministry function.

             "I didn't mean that," Daphne said, shaking her head. "No dates for a year. He was all over the papers before that, and he couldn't go a month without someone new in his bed. Aren't you slightly curious about who he's sleeping with now?"

             Draco considered for a moment, and then nodded. "But I still think the oath story is nonsense. Perhaps no one has offered himself or herself up to his Gryffindor high standards since Veronica Tobley."

             Daphne rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Draco. I know that no decent person would look twice at her, but that doesn't mean Tobley wasn't the Gryffindor ideal. All honest and forthright and true and steadfast. There's no reason that he would cast her aside unless there was some kind of problem there. And even if she didn't match up to his standards, the Ministry swarms with that type now. He'd find someone."

             A year? Was it that long? Draco felt the wings of his curiosity stretch themselves. Yes, he had noted the disappearance of stories, but he hadn't thought much about it. If Potter became less interesting to the public, then that meant Draco's desire for acknowledgment from him, and interest in him, also lessened. It wasn't like Draco would learn about Potter's daily activities from anything other than gossip.

             "Where did you get this nonsense about a promise, though?" Draco asked. He propped up his boots on his desk and checked the Tempus Charm that would give him an idea of how long was left on his potion. Still half the sand in the bottom bulb, better than he had expected. "Say it was a problem between him and Tobley. That wouldn't make it a promise never to date wizards again."

            Daphne frowned a little. "Well, it was from Theo."

            Draco sighed. "Daphne, when has Theo ever been trustworthy about anything in this new era?"

            Daphne laughed and repeated the Ministry's other name for the time since the war back to him in a delicate, excited voice, like the one that Minister Louisa Henley tended to use. "This exciting time for wizarding kind has seen him make a terrible lapse of taste, true, but you know his little Hufflepuff works in the Leaky Cauldron. All sorts of people come through there, and leave tidbits behind. Some of them even try to pay for their drinks with information."

            Draco tilted his head to the side and tucked a finger beneath his chin. "I'm trying to calculate the distance between Potter and Theo's Hufflepuff," he said. "I'm afraid it's too great for even my sophisticated mind to encompass."

            Daphne rolled her eyes at him. "No, it's not substantial, but it makes the most sense of anything we've heard so far. And Potter has been less maudlin of late, you note. No outbursts of the kind that the Prophet likes to report on. Maybe he's come to terms with the fact that no wizard will ever want to do anything other than lick his boots or spit on them, and he's taken a Muggle lover."

            "All right, so I might care," Draco pointed out. "But why do you?"

            Daphne grinned. "Do you know how much the information would be worth if I could find out and take it directly to Skeeter? And I could use a new broom. That last one got crippled in my race with Pansy. Absolutely useless, half the bristles gone."

            Draco hesitated. The money didn't tempt him as much as it did Daphne. He would never be as rich as he had been before this new and exciting era, but he still had plenty of money, and the coin of reputation had always been more important.

            On the other hand, knowledge was power. And knowledge about Potter seemed to be in rare supply these days.

            Of course, his reputation meant he couldn't be seen to be actively looking, either. So he settled back in his chair and flapped his hand at Daphne. "Enjoy the hunt, if you like. I have other things to do."

            Daphne sniffed at him and swept out of his office. Draco looked slowly around at the few framed pictures of his family he'd placed, one on each wall, and the framed awards for his competency since he'd joined the Potions Division.

            So. He had part of what he wanted, but not all. And a burning glare from Potter for digging into his secrets would be better than the nonexistent acknowledgment he was getting now.

            Why not at least try?

*

             "But you must know something."

             Edmund Thatcher shook his head and belched, wiping his mouth with one hand. "No, sorry, Malfoy. I would tell you if I could, you know? You're offering me money that's good enough." He eyed Draco for a moment, and then leered. "And that isn't the only attraction."

             Draco held himself rigid in his seat. He would sooner sleep with a house-elf than a man who bit his nails ragged, but he knew better than to show that. Otherwise, he wouldn't find out what Thatcher, who had been Potter's Auror partner for six months, ending four months ago, already knew.

             Thatcher cleared his throat, as though he realized he had crossed the line, and sipped self-consciously at his Firewhisky again. They were behind several privacy wards at a table in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron. Draco wouldn't have said it was the ideal place for privacy, but it was the one place he and Thatcher could probably meet without being remarked on. Thatcher had left Potter behind a whole change of partners ago, and he was known to have some Potions knowledge because his father had been a brewer. Who would care if he and Potions master Draco Malfoy wanted to meet for a quiet chat?

             "No," Thatcher continued, "I left before that nonsense about an oath got out. I don't think there ever was one, though. One day he was dating wizards, and the next day he wasn't. I started working with him after he stopped dating Veronica."

             "Veronica," Draco murmured. "Have you dated her yourself? You seem to know her quite well."

             Thatcher gave what could be called a bashful blush on anyone who wanted to lie, and dropped his eyes to the table. "A time or two," he said. "Too much woman for me, though. Not surprised she was too much woman for Potter."

             Draco stood up to go and get another Firewhisky--the wards were designed so only someone leaving them from inside could part them--and returned with it soon enough that Thatcher hadn't even finished his last mug. Draco plopped the drink on the table and took his own chair, eyes lowered as he traced figure eights in the rings of moisture on the wood. It wouldn't do to let Thatcher suspect that his last words had sent fire through Draco's veins. "Too much woman for Potter? I shouldn't have thought he was the type to let himself be intimidated by anything."

             Thacher combined a belch and a sneer, in a way that Draco didn't entirely understand but knew better than to inquire about. "Then you don't know him that well. Working with him taught me things." He gave a nod that would have been more impressive three drinks ago, and continued after a long guzzle from the latest Firewhisky. "Taught me that he's more scared than he lets on. That he's less than he lets on."

             Draco blinked, and wondered for a moment if Thatcher had been a Slytherin at Hogwarts. His former Housemates were the only ones he was accustomed to hearing speak of Potter with that lack of respect in their voices. "Less? How? More--more base?" It was somehow hard to think of Potter with secret vices. Petty vices, anyway. There had been a time Draco could have imagined him doing something grand and desperate as payback for the wizarding world's constant suspicions of him.

             "No," Thatcher said, stretching the word out as he gulped again. Draco drew his hands back from the splatters of spit and whisky combined that flew in his direction, but didn't take his eyes from Thatcher's muddy blue ones. "He's just more scared, that's all. More ordinary. More quiet. Doesn't like to talk about the war."

             Draco stared at Thatcher in silence. He wondered for a moment why Thatcher had thought Potter would like talking about the war.

             Then he remembered the way Daphne, and Pansy, and Theo, and Blaise, when the talk drifted around to Potter, all assumed he would spend every minute of the day bragging about his fame. He frowned and settled further back in his seat, this time for a different reason than because he wanted to avoid Thatcher's spluttering. "Why would he?" he asked, trying a direct question to see what happened to Thatcher when he was confronted with it.

             Thatcher rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. All the heroic things he did? The Prophet doesn't talk about then anymore except on the anniversaries." He pronounced the last word carefully, thought about it, then nodded, satisfied. "Uh course he'd want to keep it in front of people."

             Draco said nothing for a bit, thinking, while Thatcher finished most of the next mug. Then he said, "And Tobley?"

             "She's all flash and fire," Thatcher said, and his eyes shone. "A real woman. I think she got fed up when Potter wouldn't talk about a single good thing he did. And didja know he tries to keep what he does now hushed up?"

             "He's an Auror, not an Unspeakable."

             "Ha!" Thatcher slapped the table hard enough to make his mug leap into the air. Draco enchanted it quickly not to spill. "Good one, Malfoy. Good one. I'll have to remember that." Once again Thatcher paused to moisten his mouth, and Draco strangled his impatience. "But, I mean, I mean..."

             His voice trailed off, and Draco concealed a sigh and prompted him, "He tries to hush up something he does now?"

             "Right, right," Thatcher said, head bobbing as he focused on Draco again. "He doesn't care who brings 'em down, him or someone else. He doesn't keep track of the people he arrests. He doesn't care if he gets credit. Is that weird or what?"

             Draco sighed to himself, a breath of air so quiet that he knew Thatcher was likely to mistake it for something else. It would have been strange to a Slytherin like Daphne, yes. "Maybe he's done enough in his lifetime that he doesn't care about credit anymore," he had to suggest, because Thatcher looked as if he might wave his hand in front of Draco's eyes to get a response to his words.

             "I don't think so," Thatcher said, with a broad wink that made Draco's skin crawl. "I think that he has some secrets, and he doesn't want to make a big deal of himself anymore. In case s-someone pries." He coughed and nodded and took another drink.

             After that, as Draco had suspected it would be, the interrogation was a waste of time. Thatcher was good at sounding mysterious enough that people would buy him Firewhisky, but nothing else. Draco eventually left him slumped over the table in the Leaky Cauldron and stepped out into the night, filling his lungs with clean and cold air, and his eyes with the sight of the stars.

             Well. It seemed that he would have to try another route to Potter's secrets. Some of the obvious ones were closed to him. Weasley and Granger undoubtedly knew all about it, but it wasn't like they would welcome Draco's asking.

             Draco smiled. Good thing that he had repaired some of the problems with cleverness and courage he'd had when he was a child.

*

             "I haven't heard of you before. Why should I trust you?"

             Draco gave a smile at Veronica Tobley that he knew was melting and winsome, because he had practiced it in a mirror until it should be so. The glamour just above his skin wavered and danced like water, covering his features and body and clothes, but letting expressions through. "You don't have to trust me with anything deep the first time," he whispered, and held up the notebook he'd brought along. "But I'm just a young reporter trying to establish an alternative to Rita Skeeter for the people, our people, the ones who saw what she did during the war and don't want to read her anymore. It comes down to a question of who you'd rather trust, I suppose."

             Tobley studied him for a short time. Draco smiled back again, confident of what she would see: a young witch with long brown hair, lavender silk robes, and deep blue eyes. Because the glamour was so different from what Draco normally looked like, it had actually been easier than if he had wanted to match the glamours to his body. But he had established a job in "Tracy Nettle's" name at the Daily Prophet. If Tobley firecalled them, she would learn that Nettle was a very junior reporter indeed, but a real one.

             Finally, Tobley snorted and turned her back, leading Draco deeper into the house. "Fine. Come on."

             Draco rolled his eyes as he followed her. What a gracious welcome. I think the reasons Potter didn't stay with her are simpler than Thatcher thinks.

             Tobley's house was all wood on the inside, from the furniture to the walls. Draco exclaimed, a genuine exclamation as well as part of his persona, over the delicate wooden horses prancing along the mantle. They represented a carving skill that Draco wasn't familiar with. "I simply must get the name of the artist who made these for you," he said, turning around and directing another vacuous beam at Tobley.

             Tobley smiled back at him, taking a rocking chair not far from the fireplace. "I made them myself, actually."

             Draco let his voice babble on about his admiration, while he examined Tobley closely. She was pretty enough, he supposed. She might have a sense of humor. She had some courage, or perhaps some foolish trust, in allowing a reporter into her house this soon, before she had firecalled to see if the reporter was real. Of course, Draco's deception would have taken care of her suspicions even if she had called first, because Draco was cleverer than she was. But it was the principle of the thing.

             But, again, he thought he could see why Potter mightn't have stayed with her for long.

             "I wanted to ask you about your activities in the Ministry," Draco said, taking another rocking chair opposite from Tobley's, and acting as though he was enjoying having his feet suddenly swept off the floor. "Specifically, whether it actually works, dating other Ministry employees."

             Tobley rolled her eyes. "You might as well just say that you came about my affair with Harry Potter. Lots of other people have."

             "But have you let any of them into your house?" Draco asked, and tried the sly smile this time, although since Nettle wasn't supposed to be all that smart, he hadn't practiced it as much as the open ones. "I think something about me appeals to you."

             It was a risk, but it worked. After a few frozen seconds staring at him, Tobley nodded, seemingly against her will. "You do seem as though you care about other things than gossip," she muttered. "But I could be wrong."

             "You're not wrong." Draco sat up, hating the rocking chair that made him look less serious, and aimed his quill at her. "I want to start a series of articles on real working conditions in the Ministry. And I heard--well, they seemed like ridiculous rumors, but some of the most ridiculous things turn out to be the truth, don't they? Someone told me that they're sacrificing people at the Ministry to Harry Potter's appetite, coercing them to date him. I think nearly everyone he's spent time with is from the Ministry, right?"

             Tobley's eyes widened a little. Draco smiled at her, and said nothing of his contempt. Right after being told that Nettle didn't gossip, Tobley heard her gossip, and of course fell for the trap rather than noting the hypocrisy.

             "It's true that all of us except for Ginny Weasley were Ministry employees," Tobley whispered, brushing her hand down her own long hair. "She plays Quidditch now. But...there's no evil reason for it," she said, bringing her gaze up to Draco's again. "It's just that he spends a lot of time in the Ministry as an Auror, and he meets most people he could date there. He couldn't date suspects. I think he would probably be most comfortable with his best friends, if they hadn't already found each other. Merlin knows they might be the only ones who can tolerate him."

             Draco sat up and smoothed down his robes. "He has bad habits in bed?" he murmured, in a voice meant to induce a confession.



Tobley hesitated for a long second, looking out her window. Draco obediently looked with her, but saw nothing save a sun-stained garden. He supposed it was pretty enough, for someone who didn't seem to have house-elves to tend to her needs. Draco had already seen more dust than he would expect to encounter in an elf-tended household.



"I've done enough, I think," Tobley said.

            Draco tightened his hold on his quill and notebook, fearing for a moment that Tobley meant she had betrayed Potter enough and would cast him out. But Tobley turned towards him instead, her face set and her eyes so dark that Draco thought he could see some of the depths that might have attracted Potter to her.

             "I've kept quiet about it," Tobley said. "I haven't betrayed him. And I still won't give you any details that could hurt him," she added, maybe because she had seen Draco sit up and thought he would require some. "But it's been a year now. He seems to have stopped dating altogether. Maybe--maybe if I tell you something about what happened, then he can find someone else he can get along with. He deserves to be happy."

             Draco kept from bouncing in his chair and cackling with glee only with a strong effort. He never would have imagined something like this. It was better than any lie he could have come up with tell her, especially because she was convincing herself. He waited, though, only licking his lips a little to show Nettle's eagerness.

             Tobley looked straight at Draco. "Did you know he uses glamours on his scars?" she asked.

             Draco blinked and scribbled that down. "No, I didn't. But not on the lightning bolt scar, surely? So many people know that's there."

             Tobley shrugged a little. "Sometimes he used it there when we went out in public and he didn't want to be mobbed. But mostly, it's these scars on his body that he got from the war. And before that, I suppose." Her mouth twisted. "There's a scar on the back of his hand that I know is from a Blood Quill. Words that spell out I must not tell lies."

             Draco stared with his mouth open. For once, his reaction and his persona's were the same. Of course he had known about Umbridge inflicting the punishment of a Blood Quill on Potter, but it had never occurred to him that the scar could still be present. Wouldn't Potter have gone to a Healer and had it removed? Or, well, that wouldn't be an option with repeated carving, but there must have been more punishments than Draco knew if the scars were permanent.

             He wrote that down, too, and recorded a few of the other scars that Tobley told him about: a round circle on Potter's chest, a scar on his throat, marks that Tobley thought came from snake fangs. Tobley described each of them with precision, and then leaned forwards and said, "You should know--he's skinny, too, skinnier than he should be. There were rumors of mistreatment by his Muggle family, but I don't know for sure. He never trusted me enough to tell me for sure."

             Draco wrote this down, too. Then he said, "You should know--some of this information is so important and so inflammatory that they might not let me publish my article."

             "Then you should get the information out by some other means," Tobley muttered at him, reaching out to clutch his hand. "Because someone who doesn't care about looks or who's attracted to scars could make him happy, but they have to know, first. I couldn't do it."

             Draco didn't roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. Wasn't it only shallow Slytherins who were supposed to care about things like scars? Tobley wasn't making a very good representation for her side, the people who weren't Slytherins and had nice, proper, upright jobs without a bit of bribery and supposedly only cared about a person's inner beauty.

             Perhaps reading his mood if not his mind, Tobley folded her arms and snapped, "I really did think that I didn't care about things like that. But what happened to him is so extreme...and he has lots of nightmares, too. It got to the point where we slept separately no matter what we'd been doing before. I just couldn't stand being woken up by him, and he couldn't stand waking me up."

            Draco bowed his head so that he would look very serious and dedicated as he wrote that down, but in truth, it only confirmed his impression that Tobley was less impressive than she thought she was. She couldn’t stand Potter’s nightmares. Had she stood up to him and told him that? Had she procured Dreamless Sleep Potion for Potter? No. She had simply walked away, and now tried to justify it in her cringing way.

            Draco was starting to believe that Potter’s refusing to date wizards had nothing to do with a vow, but just with bad experiences with the lot of them.

            Tobley called his attention back with a long sigh. “I know you probably don’t believe me,” she murmured, staring at Draco. “You think I’m exaggerating, or that the benefits of living with such a great hero outweigh the disadvantages. But it really wasn’t all that fun. The constant striving, the constant decision about whether to tell him that he was horrible in bed when I knew that would hurt his feelings, and the way I flinched when I looked at him. It wasn’t easy for me, either.”

            Draco smiled. “I’m sure it wasn’t,” he said in Nettle’s voice. “What made him so horrible in bed?”

            Tobley flushed. “I don’t know if that’s the sort of thing that could go in a newspaper article,” she muttered.

            Draco laid aside his notebook and quill and stared so intently at Tobley that she stared back as if compelled by a snake. “But it might fit in a book,” Draco said. “I should tell you frankly, I want to publish these articles, but I think the Prophet will be too afraid of the public taste to risk it. But I do think the truth should be told about the greatest hero of our time. The unpolished truth. Who knows him, really? All we know are the half-truths and the assumptions. Like the way that you said most people would assume being with Auror Potter would be full of benefits. That’s so true. But if it isn’t really true, then people ought to know it. Don’t you think?”

            Tobley blinked a little, and then said, “Did he give you permission to write this? Because he said that he always hated biographies and the people who wanted to write biographies of him.”

            “It wouldn’t be a biography,” Draco said, flinging his hands up in Nettle’s dismay. “It would be the truth, that’s all, the words spoken by the people who know him best. I’m planning to interview his Gryffindor friends, too.”

            He saw the moment when those words convinced Tobley, the way she relaxed and the smile of amused contempt she gave him. She knew, screamed her whole posture, that Potter’s friends would never talk about him, and Nettle’s project was doomed before it started.

            But that did its part, the reason Draco had chosen that particular lie. It convinced her that she could unburden herself and tell someone about it, because the article or the book would never go to press. The only people who would hear her say it were Nettle and herself.

            “Well,” Tobley said. “He never seemed to get how hard he should be. You know,” she added, casting Draco a look under her eyelashes that Draco took a moment to interpret. He finally realized that it was the way he had seen Pansy look at Daphne sometimes, when they were discussing “woman things” that they thought no man could understand. That amused him so much he almost missed Tobley’s next words. “How hard he should push. He hurt me several times.”

            “You didn’t correct him?” Draco put a hand to his mouth as though to hide horrified astonishment.

            “It was so hard,” Tobley said, ducking her head. “He always asked me all the time if it was good for me. He wanted to make me come. He was good with his mouth, I’ll give him that. I don’t know why he learned to be good at that and he was so horrible at all the other things. Sometimes he would hold his breath in the middle of having sex, and never realize it at the time. Or he would—you know, come early himself, and then be horrified. It was a little overwhelming, having all that anxiety directed at you.”

            “It must have been,” Draco said, nodding with wide eyes, while in his head he wanted to howl and cackle. Potter’s premature?

            “Or he would try to flirt, and he didn’t know how to do it well,” Tobley continued, sighing. “He would say these horrible lines, and then smile at you like you were supposed to swoon in his arms. Or he would tell you these truths that just weren’t appropriate. You could tell that kind of thing to someone you’d dated for years, but not two months.”

            “Like the stories of his times in the war?” Draco asked, trying to look as sympathetic as he could.

            “Or the way people talked to him at the Ministry.” Tobley nodded, curling her arms around her knees. “I know that he needs to talk to someone about that, but it should have been a Healer, not me. I didn’t know how to respond. And then he would get upset because he distressed me. And the only way he knows how to kiss is wet. Not good with his mouth at that particular thing, he bloody isn’t.” She shook her head and hid behind her hair. “And all the time, I’m trying not to upset him,” she said in a muffled voice, “and that just made things worse.”

            Draco sighed with her, letting her think that Nettle was the most sympathetic woman she had ever met, not just a witch looking for a story. Then Draco shook his head and settled back in his chair. “Do you think that someone could be with him who knew exactly what was going on with him?”

            “I hope so,” Tobley said. “As I mentioned at the beginning of the interview.” She gave Draco a harsh look, and Draco ducked his head and murmured apologies. “I do hope that whatever you write gets published. He deserves happiness.”

            And he stands a chance of finding it, perhaps, if you aren’t involved, Draco thought.

            They talked for a half an hour more, but Tobley mostly repeated what she had already said and hinted coyly around at the edges of bigger mysteries, things that Draco wasn’t interested in learning about unless she stated them outright. When he stood up to leave, Tobley reached out and pressed his hand.

            “Give him some peace, if you can,” she murmured.

            Draco held back the semi-hysterical laughter that wanted to escape—that was the kind of wish Tobley had for Potter after she had just betrayed him?—and contented himself with nodding. “I will,” he promised.

            If only by providing a contrast with all the rottenness he’s endured.

*

            Draco sighed as he leaned back and propped his feet up on the second chair before the fireplace. One of his friends would usually occupy it, but Draco found himself alone more often than usual this week, given the complicated potions he was brewing and his pursuit of the secret truths about Potter.

            Those truths seemed more mundane and stranger the longer he considered them. Rejection of Potter for poor kissing skills and scars?

            Of course, he had no particular reason to think that Tobley was lying, and there were rumors circulating that Potter was a poor lover. As always, no one could say exactly who had spread the rumors, and there was no reason to believe them over others, but Draco had started to accept them. He might as well...

            What?

            Unlike Daphne, he had no real need of the reward money for finding out the truth about Potter’s Muggle lover. And he had no intention of publishing the material he had collected from Tobley. That was a convenient lie, no more.

            What he did want was Potter’s acknowledgment, as always. And although he had never considered it before, he had to admit now that Potter’s admiration for his Potions skills was unlikely. Why? Potter had never understood the art of Potions in any form, or he would have done better in Professor Snape’s class. And he had shown that he wasn’t susceptible to Draco’s charm or good looks alone. Nor did Draco, although he had stayed out of trouble since the war, have an exemplary life of Gryffindor-like virtue to present to him.

            He might as well see if he could get Potter’s acknowledgment for being a better lover than the rubbish he’d dealt with so far.

            “So it’s decided,” Draco said, and toasted the air, because there was no understanding friend there to listen at the moment but he needed to say something aloud, to mark the extraordinary change. “Tomorrow, I ask Harry Potter on a date.”

*

            “I think Malfoy’s aiming for you, mate.”

            Ron’s voice was low, but Harry had long since perfected the art of listening for the truth behind it, and he had to tense and roll his shoulders. Ron used a certain tone when he meant someone was coming over with the intention of asking him out.

            Please, no. The proposals had faltered in the last few months, and Harry had enjoyed the peace. Besides, what could Malfoy want with him?

            A challenge.

            Harry grunted. Of course. One of the more ridiculous rumors about why Harry didn’t date in the wizarding world had probably reached Malfoy’s ears, and he had decided that he was the perfect one to try to attack that barrier and break it down.

            At least he was prepared, and could look up with the kind of bright, false smile he reserved for people stupid enough to try and date him as Malfoy came to a height beside his desk and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute, Harry?”

            Not even Auror Potter? Harry stood up and shrugged. Malfoy was being more direct than he had thought he would, but then, even Malfoys changed over the years. He probably thought Harry was still the sort of naïve person who wouldn’t understand an invitation to dinner unless he was hit over the head with it. “Of course, Malfoy,” he said, and walked away from the desk as Malfoy motioned him towards a little-frequented corner of the Auror office.

            He could feel Ron’s stare locked on his back. Harry didn’t turn around and make an obscene gesture at him, but it was hard. For fuck’s sake, Ron knew where they were going, and who Harry was with. If Malfoy tried to dismember Harry and use him in some obscure Dark ritual in the next ten minutes, Ron knew enough to stop it in time.

            When they were in the corner formed by two desks and a cubicle, Malfoy turned around and faced him, casting a Privacy Ward. Harry lounged against the wall and watched him. He wondered who Malfoy thought he was facing, and guessed, from the intense look on his face, that it was the Gryffindor child. The one he could easily conquer.

            Well, he couldn’t. Because Harry knew what he himself was really like now, thanks to Frank and Veronica and the others. Not a beautiful person; not a graceful person; not a particularly good person. Malfoy could try to flatter Harry or dangle a mysterious bait in front of him or offer the chance for Harry to redeem him, but all of those tactics depended on Harry still being prone to believe flattery and jump at the first chance to do something virtuous.

            Not now. I know myself.

            Wearing all his weaknesses on the surface was its own kind of armor, Harry thought. So he waited patiently for Malfoy to get to the point, and Malfoy opened his mouth and surprised him.

            “I wondered if you wanted to go on a date.”

            Harry blinked. Huh. So it had been that direct proposal he had first envisioned, after all. He wondered why Malfoy was bothering.

            He opened his mouth to ask, but Malfoy spoke, slow and intent and so close that Harry could feel the words more than he could hear them. “I know a little about why your last lovers were so unsatisfactory. I want to show you that not all wizards are rubbish, and someone can actually be good in the bedroom.” He pulled back enough to stare at Harry, probably the same stare he gave everyone he was trying to seduce.

            Harry stood there and hoped that he looked as if he was contemplating Malfoy’s ridiculous offer, when really, shock kept him still. That was it? Malfoy was fighting for the honor of the wizarding community to be in Harry’s bed?

            Then understanding came along, and softened Harry’s muscles. No, of course not. This was personal, as it always was, because what did Malfoy understand about belonging to the larger wizarding community and tending to other people’s perceptions of you, the way Harry did? Malfoy wanted to be acknowledged for his skills as a lover. Maybe by Harry, maybe by Harry and also by other people in the Ministry who would think him skilled indeed to seduce the withdrawn Harry Potter.

            Figuring it out, Harry cocked his head. He actually wasn’t tempted to cancel the Privacy Ward and cast Malfoy out of the corner, as he thought he would have been.

            He had fun with Muggles, but none of them could know who he really was. Not the scar, but the magic, was what Harry couldn’t tell them about. And he had to admit, the one-night stands where he used his mouth on someone else, wanked, and then retreated before they could find out how terrible he was with other things had started to get repetitive.

            At least if he went out with Malfoy, they could go somewhere in the wizarding world and Harry would have a different view of things for a little while. He smiled as he decided that he would get Malfoy to pay for the dinner.

            And giving Malfoy blowjobs wouldn’t be that unacceptable. Harry eyed him. Malfoy wasn’t as tall as his father, but that was all to the good, as far as Harry was concerned; he didn’t want to think of Lucius when he was blowing Malfoy. He had loose golden hair, and grey eyes it wouldn’t be a hardship to look into. Besides, Harry had got good at judging people, and he thought Malfoy was probably the kind of person who would close his eyes during sex.

            A bit of variety, a casual sort of thing. The chance to use magic to clean up and prepare his mouth, and if Malfoy gossiped…how could the casual gossip be worse than the truths Harry had already endured? And if Malfoy became obnoxious in his desire for Harry to tell him what a great lover he was, Harry thought he could lie a few times and stop seeing him if he became more bothersome than entertaining.

            Besides, there was the chance to take a bit of wind out of his sails now.

            “Okay,” he said.

            Malfoy reeled back a step from him. Harry grinned. He didn’t expect me to agree.

            “What?” Malfoy breathed.

            Harry ran a hand down his cheek. “You’re cute when you’re startled. And I said yes. I’ll meet you in the Leaky Cauldron at seven tonight. We can decide where we want to go from there. But I expect you to pay for whatever expensive pure-blood-catering restaurant you’ll insist we attend,” he added, and turned his back on Malfoy. He still gaped at Harry as Harry walked back to his desk and his work.

            “What did you do?” Ron insisted, before Harry could do so much as pick up a sheet of parchment.

            “I said yes,” Harry said, and then had to roll his eyes. Ron was not cute when he was startled, mainly because Harry could see his tonsils.

            “Mate, what,” Ron began, when he had recovered breath and teeth enough to speak.

            Harry shook his head at him, and Ron shut up, although he continued to peer at Harry worriedly. “I don’t want to hear it,” Harry said, quietly, firmly. “I did it because I thought it might be fun, to foil his expectations if nothing else.” If Malfoy had really heard about Harry’s past experiences and it was the truth rather than rumor, then he would be expecting Harry to be a nervous, hesitant idiot grateful for the slightest bit of sexual attention. Harry was going to change that perception right quick. “And he can’t hurt me, Ron. I’m beyond him now.”

            He began to work, aware of Ron still staring worriedly at the back of his neck. Well, so be it. Harry didn’t blame his friends. He knew they just wanted for everything to work out for him, and for him to be as happy as they were.

            But it wasn’t going to happen, not in the sexual arena. Harry was just built differently. This liaison with Malfoy was a bit of newness, which he was doing for himself, not Malfoy.

            He looked up as Malfoy came out of the corner. He gave Harry a single intense look before he spun on his heel and stalked back into the corridors that led towards the Potions Division.

            Harry snorted and bent over his papers again. Well, if it wasn’t what Malfoy anticipated, then he could dump Harry, and Harry would be no worse off than he had been.

            Either way, I win.

*

            SP777: Yes. Maybe Draco can make it better. Eventually.

            Bickymonster: Thanks! This is the first time I’ve written about it, so I hope I handle it gracefully.

            delia cerrano: Thanks! Their relationship, at least in emotional intimacy, isn’t going to advance right away, but it will eventually.

            qwerty: Thank you!

            alexkdp: Thanks! Oddly enough, Harry would now say he is not insecure, just honest with himself.

            thalia: Thanks for the compliment! I hope you’ll enjoy this story.

            kidleo: Thanks. I hope you continue to enjoy it.
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Nothing Like the Sun