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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-Two--The Heartbeat as a Measure of Time

            "Minister, I need to speak with you."

            Harry had spent a long time discussing with Malfoy what his voice should sound like, not to mention practicing it. It had to be just right, a hollow shell of confidence over a tremulous undertone. He wanted Sandborn to think that he was working up his courage to fool people, but a careful listener would detect the hollowness and suspect his fear.

            Sandborn prided himself on being a careful listener.

            "Of course, Harry," Sandborn said, opening the door of his office himself rather than having a flunky do it. Harry started just slightly, and then put his hands behind his back as if to hide their trembling. He had deliberately timed his trip to the office because he had thought that Sandborn's secretary would be with him. Well, there were ways to recover from a mistake of that kind.

            "I am always open to you," Sandborn continued, and his eyes fastened on Harry's face as if he could force him to believe that by how hard he stared.

            Harry swept past him into the office, head bowed, forcing him to open the door wider. Then he turned and pinned the Minister with a sharp gaze. "I want to know what rumors you've heard about the row I had with Ron yesterday."

            Sandborn gave a slow, delighted smile. Not because of the rumors, Harry knew, but because of the "trust" implied by Harry coming to him. "Not much," he said. "A few of the Aurors said that he had thrown you out of the office, but they didn't know why. And they didn't seem interested in speculating after I was through with them," he added in a casual, chill tone.

            Trying to imply that he would quash the rumors for me, and that I should be grateful. Of course. Harry fixed a brittle smile on his face and bowed a little to Sandborn. "That's good," he said. "I want the rumors not to spread." It meant that they would only spread further and faster, of course, but thinking he had the power to make people stop talking about him and Harry had always been one of Sandborn's weaknesses. For him, "don't say that in front of the Minister" was functionally equivalent to "no one says that behind the Minister's back, either."

            "What was the argument really about?" Sandborn leaned forwards, one hand reaching out yearningly. "You know that you can tell me."

            Harry paused, and his eyes darted sideways. Look as if you're weighing him up for a confidence, Malfoy had said. He has to trust you more than anyone or anything else, even his own common sense. "I really can't have this go any further," he said stiffly.

            "It will never leave this office." Sandborn's face smoothed down into something close to neutrality, as close as Harry thought he could come at the moment, while his eyes never left Harry's face, either. "I know that your secrets are often state secrets."

            Because you made them so. Showing resentment like that would have made Sandborn question too much, though, and Harry had had many reasons down the years to strangle resentment before he killed any other emotion. "It's like this," he said. "It began when I first noticed that I was spending too much time with Hermione..."

            And so he spun the tale, a sordid affair of falling in love with his best friend's wife. The nice thing about the story, as Malfoy had noted, was that it provided a solid explanation for breaking up with Callia as well as the row with Ron, at least as far as Sandborn was concerned.

            The nasty thing about the story was everything else. But Harry would rather that people thought he was the kind of person who would become infatuated with one of his best friends, and flirt with her in front of his other best friend, her husband, than that they found out about the contract.

            At least until he was at the point where he could break free, and leave Sandborn to stand or fall in the midst of his own flaming ruins.

            By the time he finished, Sandborn was smiling at him with a touch of amusement that Harry knew he was displaying unconsciously, because at the moment, the last thing Sandborn wanted to show him was any emotion that might send Harry off in a huff. That was good, though. If Sandborn thought him the kind of man who fell prey to his lusts, even after all this time when he had seen that Harry was perfectly content to stay at Callia's side and look passionless, then he would underestimate him on everything else.

            "Love," Sandborn sighed. "It finds us and trickles through even the cracks that we had thought we sealed."

            Harry tried to look indignant, but he knew it was a losing battle, if not for the reason that Sandborn thought it was. He turned away and folded his arms instead.

            "Harry, I'm sorry," Sandborn murmured, solicitous at once. Weirdly solicitous, Harry would have said once, but that was before he woke up--or before Malfoy woke him up--and realized that Sandborn really did crave his friendship for more than political reasons. "To have something like this happen to you is upsetting. Is there any way that you will be able to recover the friendship of Auror Weasley and his wife?"

            "I don't know," Harry mumbled, staring at the ground. "I just have to avoid them for right now, and hope that it's something that comes right in time."

            "Indeed, time can renew many things," Sandborn said, and stepped forwards, reaching out for Harry's shoulder. Harry saw the motion from the corner of his eye, and let his defensive instincts react the way they wanted to, making him spin to face the threat, his wand lifted.

            Sandborn stopped, his lips creasing. Then he stepped back, shrugging stiffly as he lowered his hand. "I'm sorry, Harry."

            "So am I." Harry let weariness roll into his voice as he lowered his head and rubbed it. "I--I don't want to act this way, Jared. But the fear isn't something I can master and make go away."

            Sandborn nodded, and instantly his face was filled with sympathy again. That only proved that he didn't know Harry at all; he'd been watching for the better part of a decade as Harry faked his emotions, adjusted his smiles for the watching cameras and amiably shook the hands of people he knew had acted as political rivals against his friends. Or did Sandborn--

            Did he think it was all real?

            It made sense out of most of the disparate pieces of Sandborn's behavior that had been senseless so far, but it also meant that he was a much worse politician than Harry thought he was, less observant for one thing. He would have to rethink his regret at disrupting the political stability of the wizarding world by tearing himself loose, if that was the case. Sandborn's stability might only have endured because he had luck on his side.

            And me.

            Huh. That put a new spin on things, and one that Harry found himself wanting to discuss with Malfoy. That was only natural, of course, since Malfoy had essentially taken over as his political adviser, but it made Harry want to shake his head all the same.

            "I'll keep that in mind, Harry," Sandborn said quietly. "Why don't you leave now? Go and take some time to relax. I'll spread the official word that Auror Weasley can't work field cases until he has a new partner, which will involve keeping him buried in paperwork. And you're on a much-needed holiday."

            "But it wasn't Ron's fault," Harry said, anxious that the story wouldn't make Sandborn punish his friend.

            "I understand that," Sandborn said, though his crocodile's display of a smile said he didn't, not exactly. "Still, you deserve a holiday, and this is the best way to cover any mistakes that we may make. I don't think anyone will question it."

            That, at least, was true. Harry ended up bowing his head in obedience and leaving, taking a moment outside the office for a few deep breaths until an Auror "just happened" to loiter into sight. Then he left at a near-run, pausing to flash a few glances over his shoulder, as though he was terrified of what would happen if Sandborn opened the door and called him back.

            He was feeling quietly triumphant when he got home, a feeling undercut immediately by the owl waiting for him.

            Ginny and Luna wanted to see him.

*

            "You did," Draco said, and leaned back on the couch, eating a peach while he watched Daphne. It was a good way to taunt her, he thought, given that he could see a window over her shoulder in the Floo connection, filled with palm fronds. She was located somewhere tropical and luxurious, but it was Draco who had fresh fruit as well as the tactical advantage. Daphne looked properly vexed.

            "I didn't," she said. "I couldn't have been that careless." She folded her hands in her lap. She was wearing a bright red robe. Draco was tempted to tell her that it didn't go well with her hair or her coloring, but nobly refrained. He had enough to tease her with. "Granger received a warning from me that should have made her investigate her political cohorts and wonder who wasn't really supporting her, not suspect that Potter had anything to do with it."

            Draco sucked a piece of the fruit dry of its juice behind his teeth, solely for the obnoxious noises he could make with it. "Well, you underestimated Granger. She read everything, or, what I suspect is more likely, went back to the earliest days of debate over her legislation instead of contenting herself with the more recent loads of bollocks. And she discovered Potter's interference. Although not the contract," he felt compelled to add, because Daphne looked so acutely miserable. "Potter told her about that himself."

            "Then you can't fairly blame me for anything else." Daphne had the audacity to sit up, as though her horrible robe was anything to look at. "Granger wouldn't have broken with Potter if it was over a mere matter of arranging the legislation."

            "I think she would have," Draco said, remembering the stubborn, angry woman he'd spoken to yesterday. "It's a matter of principle to her, and Gryffindors care more about principles than people."

            Daphne sniffed. "Still not something you can blame me for."

            "That part, no," Draco had to concede. "But you went into that situation thinking you knew the right things to say to your target, and you didn't. You owe me."

            "You don't get your Galleons back," Daphne said at once. "I have a moral objection to giving people's Galleons back."

            "Besides, you've already spent the money on your holiday," Draco surmised.

            Daphne nodded without a trace of shame. Draco was glad. He would have had to worry about her health if the shame had been there. "But I'm not opposed to working out a favor for you. What did you have in mind?"

            "I want you to steal Callia Greengrass's diary," Draco said, and then laughed despite himself at the expression on Daphne's face. That was the real reward, he decided, not the fact that she owed him a favor or the taunts he'd been able to give her. He had never seen her so discomposed.

            "You know she has one?" Daphne asked.

            Draco bowed to her. "I don't. I leave you to find that out. Since you are so good at finding out information. Most of the time," he had to add, so that the color that was leaving her face would come flooding back.

            "Why do you want it?" Daphne shook her head, staring at him.

            "Worried about your cousin's honor?" Draco smirked at her.

            "Don't be ridiculous. She's from a branch of the family too distant for that."

            Draco nodded, accepting that he owed her the reason. She would doubtless do better work if she had it. "I want to know what she might have said about Potter in the diary. I've been bringing out his fire, and he's more attractive than I expected. But I want to know whether his pretense in front of the Ministry means that he was such a cold fish with her in private, too."

            Daphne's stare intensified. Then she shook her head and said, "You don't want to do that, Draco."

            "It's always comforting when one of my friends who's let slip information that could endanger us all tells me that," Draco said. "I always have such confidence in her judgment."

            "This has nothing to do with what I may have let slip," Daphne said. "And everything to do with that light I see in your eyes when you're talking about someone you've wanted to conquer for a long time. What will Potter think if he knows that you've read Callia's words about him? Or if you use the knowledge?"

            "I thought we'd read the diary together."

            Daphne put her head in her hands. "You didn't think that," she said, voice muffled. "That's a face-saving maneuver you just came up with."

            "You'll never know if you don't go and get me the diary like I asked," Draco said, and looked at her with a bright expression that he hoped was convincing. On the other hand, he thought Daphne had gone a bit mad, because she was seeing things in his face that he had never put there.

            "I'm not sure I want to know," Daphne said. "But a debt is a debt. Fine. I'll bring the diary to you, if it exists, and what you do with it after that is your business."

            Draco closed the Floo connection and sat back to finish his peach. He imagined the juice dripping over Potter's skin and cock, which led to a healthy wanking session, which made him lean back with his eyes closed and lie spent and pleasantly exhausted on the floor of the drawing room.

            He hoped that Potter was having a day half as pleasant.

*

            "Why don't you sit down, Harry?"

            Ginny's voice was all sweetness to set the teeth on edge, which made Harry's heart pound with the kind of speed that would usually result in him backing out of the room. This time, though, he had no particular choice but to obey. He sat down on the chair that Ginny offered him and watched her cautiously.

            Ginny retreated to the wall, which she leaned against as she put her arm around Luna. Luna leaned her head on Ginny's shoulder. Her eyes were wide as she studied Harry, and Harry tried not to wince. Hurting Luna was somehow even worse than hurting Ron and Hermione, even though she hadn't been his friend as long. She wouldn't understand, on a fundamental level, why he'd done it.

            "Ron and Hermione told us about the contract," Ginny said quietly, "but not everything, because they didn't know everything. And now a rumor's reached us that you argued with them because you fancy Hermione. I want to know what's true, and I want to know now."

            Her arm that wasn't wrapped around Luna dangled straight down by her side. Harry tried not to obviously look it, but he suspected that he would know the moment her elbow bent and she went for her wand. His instincts were all humming now, and he would have tried to leave if it were about anything less important, for anyone less important.

            Like Malfoy, for example.

            But a muscle in his belly tightened when he thought about that, and he wasn't sure that he would have fled Malfoy's anger, or refused to explain to him. He hesitated, and Ginny spoke into the pause.

            "Well? Are you going to tell us or not? Because if you want to throw away years of friendship, that's perfectly fine with me."

            Her voice shook, and Harry caught the quick gleam of tears on her eyelashes. He grimaced and said, "The rumor that I fancy Hermione is just that, a rumor. We're spreading it because I can't have anyone else figure out the truth of the contract right now, and I didn't know what Ron and Hermione might tell anyone else."

            "You're still choosing, then," Ginny said, her voice dropping. "You're still choosing what they can do, trying to influence them."

            "Yes," Harry said. "Because if they decide that they're not my friends, then I have to protect myself, and I can't have people talking about the contract as if it were a real thing right now. The rumor is going to make most people discount what they say if they do talk about their argument with me."

            "Selfish," Ginny said.

            Harry nodded.

            "Not so selfish as I believed him," Luna murmured, but she didn't explain what she meant by that. She reached up instead, and a tiny hummingbird landed on her palm. She spent a moment cupping her fingers around it, scratching its belly feathers, and then placed it solemnly on her shoulder. It watched Harry like a judge. Maybe it was meant to be. "You think there is a chance that none of us will ever forgive you?"

            "I'd like to think you would," Harry said. "But I'm through dictating your reactions to me. You can be upset about the rumor, decide not to forgive me about the contract, or whatever else you want. What I can't allow is for you to destroy the freedom I'm trying to win from the contract right now. And that means that Sandborn can't know you know."

            "Who's helping you get free from the contract, if not us?" Ginny frowned at him.

            "The Slytherins. They think they owe me a debt for creating the contract in the first place to get them out of Azkaban."

            "Then--they're the ones who taught you how to do this." Ginny sounded cautiously pleased. "To deny your friends and to come up with rumors like this. They're the ones who taught you how to be selfish."

            Harry sighed. At one point in time, it would have been unbelievably tempting to agree that that was the case, and the Slytherins were the villains here instead of the saviors, but it wasn't true. "No. I was selfish on my own for a long time before that. They would have discouraged me from the contract if they knew about it, because it created a debt between us that they felt they had to repay."

            Ginny closed her eyes. "Tell us what you did for us."

            Harry did, keeping it in quiet, simple words. It wasn't as much as he had done for Ron and Hermione, after all. Ginny and Luna had seemed more independent, more content, less in need of achieving goals that Harry would have to wrestle the Ministry for. He had made sure that their licensing as a legitimate business went easily, and that a few officials who had got interested in whether they were violating the Experimental Breeding Ban were "persuaded" to look elsewhere. A few other, minor things. Ginny and Luna listened silently, and then exchanged looks when it was done.

            "So, without you, we wouldn't have a business." Ginny's voice was flat. Whatever she had seen in Luna's eyes hadn't reassured her. Luna smiled at Harry, still stroking her hummingbird, but then, Luna smiled often even in the middle of calamity. Her greatest gift was her faith that everything would work itself out. "No one would have bought our products."

            "I don't know," Harry said simply. "The same thing I told Ron and Hermione. I don't know if Ron would have become an Auror if I hadn't helped him. He could have, maybe, but I took everything--his struggle, his victory, his chance to prove himself--away from him, even if he never knew it at the time. And your business could have soared, or could have faltered, or could have been refused permission to operate in the first place because people were too concerned about you breeding these tiny animals." He nodded to the hummingbird. "I don't know. That's the problem. That's the hell of it."

            Ginny watched him with eyes that had a steady glow of anger. But she hadn't yet cast a hex. Harry let out a breath of temporary relief. He could remember the time when her temper had been so strong that she would have, no matter what he told her or how much he apologized. He was just as glad that he wouldn't have to try to get bats out of his nose or snakes out of his pants. No, wait, Ginny knew he could talk to snakes. She would probably use beetles instead.

            "When Hermione came to talk to me yesterday," Ginny said, "she was talking about giving up all the gains from the contract. Approaching our political enemies to tell them what had happened. Ron quitting the Aurors. Hermione quitting her own position. Leaking details that would let George be arrested for whatever you protected him from."

            "That's her choice as far as the things that concern just her and Ron," Harry said softly. "If she tries to do anything else--like insist that the Slytherins I freed be tried again--then I'll fight her. That was still unjust, to try them for the crimes of their parents, and she won't satisfy anything except her own sense of justice by taking away their property and money now."

            "I agree." Ginny showed him teeth as sharp as a fox's. "I told her that she would have to decide what was right for her, and so would Ron, but I wouldn't be joining her. I'm going to keep the business running, and so is Luna. We're going to make our success our own this time, and ignore the foundation that it's built on. If some of our clients listen to the rumors enough to stop buying from us, so be it. We're too good to let this just collapse as a matter of principle."

            "And we have lives depending on us," Luna said, in her soft, dreamy tone. "And lives waiting for us to find and embody them. Such as the Three-Eyed Sooner."

            Harry nodded. "Good. If my approval matters at all, I think that's a good idea."

            Ginny stared at him, then laughed in a frustrated way. "God, you bastard. I want to hate you, but I just can't. I know why you did it, and it's stupid and noble and self-sacrificing and you all over. I don't want to forgive you right now, but I know I will." Then her face hardened again. "As long as you don't do something like this ever again. If you do, I won't be responsible for my reaction."

            Harry bowed to her. "That's entirely fair."

            "I also think spreading that rumor about fancying Hermione is a stupid idea," Ginny added. "They'll be more hurt than ever."

            Harry spread his hands. "Should I wait for them to forgive me? I don't know if they will. I'd like to wait until they've made a decision one way or the other, but I have a life to lead in the meantime. And if they tell other people about the contract as a reason why they're giving up the things I negotiated for them...it'll come to Sandborn's ears. He'll react. What I want more than anything right now is my freedom. I deserve that. I won't deserve their forgiveness unless it's a free gift."

            Ginny leaned forwards and kissed him softly. "Fine. Go and do what you need to do. Just make sure that you can face the fallout."

            "Don't worry." Harry smiled at her and stood up. "I have Slytherins on my side."

            "At least they've taught you to be productively selfish," Ginny said.

            Harry raised a hand to her in response and left, his muscles shaking with reaction the minute he was outside their house. He waited a few minutes to Apparate, head bowed, mind whirling.

            He needed to go home, take a few hours off, think. The next crisis could come along at anytime, including Ron and Hermione's reaction to the rumor, Sandborn contacting him, or Sandborn finding out the truth. Harry knew that he needed rest and some planning time. It was the mature decision, so he made it and Apparated home.

            Funny, though. The immature decision, the selfish one, would have had him Apparating to Malfoy Manor instead.

*

            polka dot: I don't think either Harry or Draco would describe it as love just yet.

            SP777: Draco did get angry earlier in the story when Harry got all pissy about him possibly bribing people. But in general, no, he finds it a waste of time.

            I thought I had described the three souls earlier in the story? Basically, Harry uses one personality for engaging with the public, one for his friends, and one for himself.
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