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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 Twenty--Judgment Day

            Harry leaned back against the wall of his office, during a moment when Ron had run out to the loo, and closed his eyes. The deception was working. More and more people were picking up on the fact that something had happened between him and Sandborn, if not what. Whispers followed Harry when he moved through the corridors, and the Minister's name was prominent in them. Now and then Harry saw someone staring at him, and while they looked away, they stayed looking long enough for him to identify the emotion in their eyes as pity. They felt sorry for him, supposedly the pawn of Sandborn, the noble Auror oppressed by the politics-playing Minister.

            Was it just, what he was doing to Sandborn? Perhaps not entirely. On the other hand, Harry thought, Sandborn was never going to let him go willingly. If Harry wanted to have a life and freedom beyond the limits of the contract, then he would need to be willing to punish Sandborn.

            And he wanted them. A lot.

            He heard the door open as Ron returned, and took a moment to make sure his second soul was in position when he opened his eyes. Yet he still ended up blinking, wrongfooted, when he realized that it was Hermione instead of Ron who'd entered the office. She faced him, heart in eyes, trembling fists locked at her sides.

            Harry licked his lips and tried not to feel that he was staring at a wall that was about to fall on his head. "Hermione? What's the matter?"

            "I know," she said, and then broke off, choking. She turned her head away. Harry watched her, pulling out the chair behind his desk, but she didn't sit down. In fact, she turned and paced to the other side of the office, as though she was reconsidering her decision to come here.

            "Hermione?" Harry repeated quietly. He wanted to say something, he wanted to tell her that it was all right, he wanted to reassure her. But he couldn't if she wouldn't tell him what the problem was.

            "I should have known," Hermione said dully. "I knew the kind of people standing against me. They would never have freed house-elves on their own. Not without some kind of outside force to convince them to lay down their opposition. But I was so happy when the laws started passing that I just didn't care."

            Harry knew, then, too.

            His heartbeat filled his ears with dim thunder. He wanted to sway, but the chair was right there, and he held himself upright with an effort. He swallowed several times, then managed to meet Hermione's eyes and said, "So you know. About the contract."

            "What?"

            She was staring at him now, her tears suspended, her one clenched fist held still as though someone had grabbed her arm. And Harry realized then that she didn't know. Not everything. Not all of it. She had found out that he'd interfered on her behalf to get the laws she'd been so proud of passed, but she didn't know about the contract, or that other things, perhaps, were connected to it.

            That was it. That was the moment when Harry could have pulled back and lied again, or he could have said that the contract was only for a single concession, to get the legislation passed, and that everything else they'd done since then, everything else he'd done, had been genuine.

            His back pressed to the wall, Harry thought of Malfoy, for some reason, and his dangerous, stupid honesty. He didn't have grand passionate love affairs, he was only in things for a bit of fun, but he told the truth, and he had given Harry the chance to walk away from him if that wasn't what he wanted.

            Harry couldn't have honesty that was less than that.

            "The contract," he said, and sealed his fate, sitting down on the desk. It might be an admission of weakness, but he really didn't think his legs could hold him right now. "I--a long time ago I agreed to do certain things for Sandborn, political things like appearing at public functions and making speeches and so on, if he would agree to do certain things for me. I used it first to get the Death Eater children freed. Then I used it to get your laws passed, and get George out of trouble once, and other things. I don't know if I can remember all of them now. But in return, I did things like agreeing to date Callia and be an Auror and--"

            "That can't be true."

            Harry blinked. He hadn't expected denial. More like a punch in the face. "Why not?"

            "B-because. It can't." Hermione faltered, took a step towards him, took a step back, and then seemed to find her ground after all and gallop forwards. "Because you're not that good a liar. We would have known something was off. You persuaded people, right? Because that's what you do? But you didn't do everything. We thought it was strange that you wanted to marry Callia, but--"

            "No," Harry said softly. "I could get my hands on a copy of the contract, if that would convince you." Malfoy had mentioned that he'd had one stolen. "I made the decision, came up with the agreement. Some of the things Sandborn wanted me to do were repugnant, but I agreed to them because there were other things I wanted more."

            Hermione shivered. "Harry. No. You couldn't have hidden that from us. You can't act that well."

            "I was more worried about what you would say if you found out that I was about the effort involved in acting," Harry said quietly. "Believe me, you learn pretty quickly how to lie when faced with a challenge like that."

            Hermione put one hand to her mouth. The tears were spilling down her cheeks now. Harry held himself rigidly back. He'd have liked to go to her, put his arms around her and comfort her, but she looked as though that was pretty much the last thing she'd want.

            "Everything was a lie about these last few years?" she whispered. "Everything?"

            Harry opened his mouth, tempted to say that the affection he bore them never had been--

            And then he thought about his second soul, and how it was different from his third, which he had felt he couldn't share with anyone, and how his friendships had seemed nothing more than the dim reflections of Malfoy's. Which bothered him, because how could Slytherins have more profound and meaningful relationships than Gryffindors did?

            He sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I told myself that I lied to you out of love of you, but you can judge how sincere that love is for yourself, when I never actually told you the truth."

            Hermione closed her eyes. Her hand was trembling as she locked it around her stomach and bent over as though this information had given her a bad case of food poisoning. She sobbed once, and then bit her lip viciously and silenced it. Harry waited, his heart and his blood beating away in his head.

            "I can't believe it," she whispered. "Do you know--I was so proud of myself for passing that legislation that convinced the Wizengamot? I actually thought that it was great for someone so young to achieve that. And now I know it was only you. I'll have to distrust everything that followed that. How many people were only convinced because of you? How many people were impressed with me for something that wasn't mine?"

            Harry bowed his head. He had known she would feel like this, but there was a difference between knowing it and seeing it. "I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

            "Sorry isn't enough." Hermione was focused on him, and he could only take one glimpse of what was in her face before it made him look down again. "You have no idea--you don't know what it's like to think you're good at something and then have it snatched away--you don't know--"

            Harry just nodded or shook his head as seemed appropriate, and let it rain down on him. He had nothing to contradict her with, nothing to say. It was as bad as he'd always thought it would be, but it was worse for her than for him.

            "Mate?"

            And that was Ron, coming back, and looking from the crying Hermione to him with the hurt, puzzled expression of someone who had been left out of a row between his two best friends. He was carrying a cuppa, which explained what had taken him so long. He put it down on Harry's desk and edged around Hermione to cup her cheeks in his hands, shooting a look over his shoulder at Harry.

            "What happened?" he asked.

            "Oh, yes, do tell him," Hermione said at once, before Harry could figure out if she would want him to lie, eyes wide and empty of everything except pain. "I can't wait to see what you did for him."

            "What's she talking about?" Ron's gaze darted back and forth, his forehead bending down until Harry thought his eyebrows would meet in the middle. "Harry?"

            Harry took a deep breath. "I sold myself to Sandborn with a contract that meant he had the right to ask things of me--like speaking for the Ministry, speaking to the Wizengamot, who I dated and who I married--as long as he did things for me in return. He got legislation passed for Hermione and charges dropped against George and you into the Auror program."

            Ron closed his eyes, and opened them. Harry had half-hoped that Ron would think he was lying now instead of all the years prior to this, but something, maybe Hermione's tears, had convinced him it was true. "I wouldn't have got into the program on my own?" he asked in a leaden voice.

            Harry shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe. But maybe not. This way, I made sure they would take you."

            Ron clenched his hand. His neck was flushed red, but, for some reason, not the rest of his face. The freckles stood out like drops of spaghetti sauce, still visible. "You son of a bitch," he said. There might have been a bit of awe in his voice. "You bastard."

            "Yeah," Harry said. "I'm sorry."

            Ron wheeled around and came for him with a swinging punch that could easily have broken Harry's teeth if he allowed it to connect. Harry ducked, not trying to hurt Ron but making sure that Ron couldn't corner him against the desk or the wall, and blocking the blows that tried to land on his face. He could take a few strikes to the body and to the stomach. He hoped Ron wouldn't go for his wand.

            Or Hermione, for that matter.

            He didn't think he would have got through it--he thought he would have stood still and allowed Ron to take the shots at him, unimpeded--if it hadn't been for his three souls. He was just too used to standing back and allowing things that hurt to slide off him, because the alternative was living in pain all the time. So he felt he deserved this, but not too much, not too long. Blows to the face were hard for him to heal without allowing someone else to do it, and he couldn't count on that kind of help with all his friends falling away from him. And he didn't want to let on to Sandborn that he'd had this kind of argument with Ron and Hermione.

            When Ron's punches were starting to slow, Harry stood back and looked him in the face. He knew their friendship was either dying or mortally wounded from the look that Ron gave him. He wanted to weep, to scream, to fall over and beg forgiveness, but he didn't think Ron or Hermione should have to offer it if they didn't want to. And he just couldn't afford to weep or scream right now.

            "How long?" Ron asked him, in a voice that stretched, taut and hoarse, until it snapped.

            "Since the war," Harry answered. He would give them all the answers they wanted. Honesty was the only thing he had to offer right now.

            Ron closed his eyes, apparently not expecting that. Hermione touched his shoulder and stepped past him, staring at Harry as if she expected him to explode in front of her eyes. "Why did you do it?"

            "Because I thought it was the only way I could get everything I wanted, for you and everybody else," Harry said quietly. "The first bargain I ever made was to get the Slytherins who were being tried just for being the children of Death Eaters off the hook. In return, I helped Sandborn become Minister. And did--other things."

            Hermione shook her head. Harry wasn't sure what emotion was on her face now, helpless wonder or hurt or anger. He told himself that it didn't matter. He hadn't known the truth about his friends for quite a while, although he'd been lying in a far more direct way. He hadn't wanted to know.

            This was all he wanted, or needed, or deserved, or would get.

            "Did you ever sleep with him?" Hermione demanded in a whisper.

            Harry blinked. "Who? Sandborn? No, I didn't. He wasn't interested, and he never asked it of me. But I did agree to date and marry Callia when he asked me to, in return for large concessions that limited his power."

            Ron said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." He did something Harry thought wanted to be a raised fist, but his shaking hand fell back to his side again, and Harry really couldn't blame him. "You--you got my father that new job he was offered, didn't you? I remember that a few people mentioned seeing you slip off with Sandborn one night a few weeks ago."

            Harry saw no point in denying it when Ron already seemed to know all about it, so he just nodded silently.

            Ron closed his eyes. "He was so proud of that, you know," he whispered. "And now I have to tell him that it was all due to you."

            Hermione fixed Harry with a bleak, bewildered gaze. "Harry, why in the world did you do it?" she whispered. "You ought to have known--you ought to have known that we wouldn't have wanted this, that you didn't have to do this to be our friend and someone we love."

            "I know," Harry said quietly. "A lot more of it had to do with the fear I saw in the Wizengamot's eyes, and the fact that there were some things I really wanted to accomplish that I couldn't, like keeping Narcissa Malfoy unharmed and free. She only saved my bloody life, and they didn't care. All this power that everyone kept telling me I had was only an illusion, if it couldn't save her. That was when I decided that I would have some real power, and I sold myself because it was the only thing I had."

            He'd never expected that story to impress them, but he hadn't thought it would make them flinch, either. Hermione's eyes boiled over with tears again, and she bowed her head. Ron whispered, "We would never--we would never ask that of you. Never. You're sick for thinking of it."

            "I know," Harry said. "It was for me. Not you."

            Something finally changed in the atmosphere between them, maybe because of the tone of voice he used to say that. Ron's face rippled and twisted, and he flashed Harry a sharp sneer. "Right. Get out."

            Harry nodded and walked around his desk to get his things. But Ron banged his hand on the desk, his arm blocking Harry's way. "I'll send you all the things you have in here," he said. "But I don't want to be your partner anymore, I don't want to stand in the same room and breathe the same air as you. Get out."

            Harry had expected that, too.

            Which didn't make it hurt less.

            He was losing control of the pain, he thought, his three souls blending into one, his body beginning to feel randomly weak and dizzy. Well, he'd been dismissed. He nodded to Ron and Hermione one more time, said, "I'm sorry. I hope I didn't hurt you too badly for you to recover from," and then turned and walked out.

            The few Aurors in the corridor paused and stared at him. Harry had some idea of what his face looked like, simply from seeing it reflected in their expressions.

            He straightened his shoulders and went on his way amid a spreading pool of gossip. He held on until he was in his house and could shut his door behind him and raise his very strongest wards.

            Then he bowed his head, and let go.

            Despite Callia's intrusion the other night, despite the time the Slytherins had sat on his couch and talked strategy, this was still his place, the one where he could come when his second soul had burned itself out and his first soul no longer sustained him and he needed privacy. And he used it, sitting against the door and bowing his head until the storm blew through him, and over, and left him weak and shaky.

            He did think, once, about seeking Malfoy out the way he had after the confrontation with Callia the other night. He would at least have to write to the bastard to make sure that whatever informant had alerted Hermione to the existence of the contract wasn't going to slip out and tell Sandborn they knew.

            But Malfoy would say something bracing and mocking about what he felt right now, and that wasn't what Harry needed. He curled up with his forehead resting on his knees and sat there until he fell asleep.

*

            "Malfoy."

            "This is an unexpected surprise, Granger," Draco said, and smiled at the face hovering in the flames, while inwardly crowing. Obviously, Daphne had not been as careful as she thought she'd been in delivering her warning, and Granger had been impelled to go on an investigation to see what she meant. That would be one Draco could hold over Daphne for the rest of their lives. "I won't say pleasure, since your countenance doesn't look made to give me pleasure in any way." He paused, then added, "That was your cue to say something cutting."

            "I hope you're happy."

            Draco paused, studying in more detail the marks of tears on her face, her clenched fists, her red cheeks and the panting way she spoke. "Ah," he said. "So you found out about the contract and what Potter did for you."

            "I found out about Harry's arrogance, yes," Granger snapped. "And I found out that you're responsible for it."

            Draco smiled and adjusted himself to a more comfortable position in front of the fire. "He told you who first started urging him to break free, then?" That was more gracious than he had thought Potter would be. If he tried to take all the responsibility for his friends' happiness on himself, it seemed only logical that he would try to do it with their newfound happiness to come, as well.

            Granger sneered. "He only confessed because we cornered him and he had no choice. No, I'm talking about the way that he said he sacrificed himself to get you Death Eaters off the hook."

            "We didn't ask for that any more than you did," Draco said. "The difference is that we found out about the debt and we've been working to settle it. That's the reason my associate came and gave you that warning. We thought that you'd want to know your political opposition might rise again." He paused and gave Granger a severe look. "There was no reason for you to do as much research as you did in response."

            Granger only gaped at him. Draco cocked his head again, and finally found the meaning of that look in searching his own memory of what Potter had said and done in the past. He sighed. "He didn't tell you about that, did he?" he asked. "He didn't tell you that we found out about the contract, and it was that which flushed him into the open. He wanted all your anger at him to fall on him alone, or he thought that he would betray us by talking about it, or something." Draco sighed again, feeling the heavy burden settle on him. Potter, Potter, what am I going to do with you? "Even when he has to bare his soul, he does it by protecting someone else."

            "You're an idiot, Malfoy," Granger whispered. "You don't know what you're talking about."

            "No, on this score I'm pretty bloody sure that I'm right," Draco said dryly. "I think Potter would have gone on marching happily to his little self-sacrificial drum if I hadn't witnessed him signing the contract with Sandborn one evening. He had to tell me what was going on then. His first mistake was in thinking that I'd be content to leave it there, instead of working to repay the debt."

            "We don't owe him anything."

            "No, I don't think you do," Draco assured her, anxious to be of service. "He did what he did for you multiple times, and for different reasons. But the business between us was going to be just a chain hanging around our necks if we didn't shed it. And it's not as if I had to repay it alone. He saved most of my friends, too. We began to pay it back, and while the debt isn't even yet, it's getting close. It'll be repaid when Potter's free and we've figured out a way to keep the gains that he made for us under the contract, as well."

            "What?" Granger drew herself up. "We don't want to keep what we gained under the contract, Malfoy! Jobs that Harry sold himself for, legislation that only passed because he bribed the Wizengamot, advances that Sandborn fought for...I think that I'd rather die."

            "Another difference between Slytherins and Gryffindors," Draco said. He kept from rolling his eyes with a great effort, because then Granger would continue with her tirade for half an hour and he would lose valuable time. It was obvious what he had to do now, though he doubted Granger would agree. "You can do what you like--although I'll warn you, if you try to publicize the contract now, you'll regret it." Daphne hadn't broken into Granger's office to steal something, but to leave something behind. "But we like our freedom and our money and our lives, thank you. We'll be fighting to keep them."

            "We're not like you," Granger whispered.

            "Yes," Draco said. "Exactly." He was pleased that at least one reasonable Gryffindor--beside Potter--seemed to exist.

            "We don't respond well to threats," Granger continued.

            Oh. So that's what she meant. Well, I reckon that she probably wouldn't respond well to reason, either. Draco sighed. "Yes, but you might consider who else could be harmed if you try to harm us, or reveal the news of the contract too soon. Potter. Your friends. Your family."

            Granger's face went very pale, and Draco knew she was going to say something pathetic and stereotypical. He waved his hand and shut the Floo connection. Then he tossed in a puff of powder and said, "Potter's residence."

            No connection opened. Potter had raised his wards, and by the dark blankness of the fireplace staring at him, he had no intention of lowering them again.

            Draco snorted and settled down. He knew several tricks to make keeping a Floo connection closed more annoying than opening it, and he intended to use them all if he needed to. No use in what had happened and what they'd done so far if they let Potter brood himself to death.

*

            Wölkchen: We get to see whether he's stable enough here and in the next chapter, definitely.

            Technically, Daphne isn't an OC, since she is mentioned in the books, but thank you!

            SP777: Do you mean that the sarcasm is stuff I make up? For the most part, although I do have plenty of lines that resemble jokes I've heard before somewhere.

            Anna: Thank you! I hope to keep up a regular updating schedule on this (though it's not always as fast as I would like).

            Nubia: Yes, although the game has now just changed in unexpected ways because he didn't think Hermione would find out.
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