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The Name I'll Give to Thee	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 42129 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Twenty-Three—Unclandestine

            “How do you want to play this?”

            Harry’s voice was soft in his ear. Draco studied the corridor in front of them instead of answering. It was one of those places the Ministry had left behind as it grew, moving its employees into larger offices and half-thinking it would use the empty rooms for storage. Some of them did have furniture in them, or dusty piles of paper, but none of them ever quite ascended to the majesty that the name of “storage room” would imply. Lucius had told Draco about them when he was young, saying they were a closely-guarded secret of the Malfoy family, but like so much else his father had told Draco, that had turned out to be a load of bollocks.

            “Draco?”

            Draco jerked himself back to the present and nodded at Harry. “I told Blaise I would meet him here. I think it might be best for me to go in first, so that he thinks I’ve genuinely come alone.”

            Harry turned his head to the side, biting his lip. Draco had once hated the openness of his face; it had seemed to him that someone who was a public figure should have better control of his emotions. Just now, he blessed it. It let him see concern in Harry’s eyes he would never have found out otherwise. “All right, but be careful.”

            Draco smiled. “Blaise wants to fuck me, not hurt me.”

            “Are you sure about that?” Harry’s eyes looked as they had when he’d first told Draco about Blaise’s visit. “It seems to me that his desire, assuming it’s real, could turn into the desire to hurt you if you refuse him.”

            Draco shook his head briskly. “Of course it’s not real. There’s no reason for him to want me. He would have hinted at it before now, if he meant it.”

            Then he paused. Some memories of those chess games at Hogwarts came back to him, and the way that Blaise had sometimes sat by the fire with his arms folded, watching Draco as if he was the center of the room. Well, at the time, he had been, with his father the richest and most influential of the pure-bloods. It only made sense that Blaise would watch him if he wanted to keep up on Slytherin gossip.

            “Remembered something?” Harry’s voice was gentle.

            Draco glared at him. “You needn’t sound patronizing.”

            Harry snorted. “I was trying to speak with a voice of understanding. There are some people I found out later worshipped and adored me who I thought at the time were only a bit awkward and bumbling about saying thanks.”

            Draco paused. He hadn’t heard any rumors about fallings-out with any of Harry’s friends, and in fact, it was probably someone outside the Weasleys, which made it less fascinating, but also more likely that it was someone Draco might currently know. “Who?”

            Harry blushed. “I don’t intend to name names,” he said, and abruptly his attention snapped down the corridor, over Draco’s shoulder. “It looks like it’s your chance to act in front of a friend. Here he comes.”

            Draco was glad of the Disillusionment Charm that Harry immediately cast over himself. It was fast and skillful, and that made Blaise considerably less likely to notice it. He stepped out in front of Harry with his chin lifted, just in case.

            Blaise stood in the middle of the corridor, considering the closed offices as if he wondered which one of them was most likely to house Draco. He turned around and smiled when he saw him. “Draco,” he whispered.

            Draco had to pause again. Blaise was doing a better job of acting himself than Draco had prophesied he would. Blaise’s eyes had a gentle shine behind them, and he smiled the way Draco had only seen him smile before at victories, or the news that his mother was taking a new husband.

            He might have inherited some of her tendencies.

            It had never been a concern before, since Blaise showed no sign of wanting to get married. Now, Draco resisted the temptation to check Blaise’s hands for signs of poison and nodded politely to him. “I understand that you recently had a conversation with my demi-husband and requested permission to address me yourself, Blaise.”

            “I wouldn’t say that it was so much requesting permission as being denied anything else,” Blaise said, and shook his head. “I don’t understand Potter. I thought he would leap at the chance to have someone else entertain you, and he reacted as though I’d tried to kill his best friends.”

            No, he didn’t, Draco thought, remembering a bit of the war, and some of what had come before it. His reaction would have been much more violent if you had.

            But Blaise had known some of the ways that Harry behaved before, by rumor if he hadn’t interacted with Harry directly. Perhaps he had made the comparison wisely. Draco wished now he could have been present at that conversation.

            “Potter doesn’t understand a lot of the way demi-marriages work,” Draco said. He kept his voice low and conciliatory. “But I’m sure that he didn’t exactly tell me the truth about what you said, either. Half of our kind of truth is contained in nuance, and if he doesn’t understand the proprieties, why should we think that he would understand that?”

            Blaise’s eyes shone again. “Well said, Draco. Very well said.” He nodded. “I can’t recreate the exact set of nuances I used, not for someone who understands, but I assume Potter told you some of the truth if you agreed to meet me here. He’s too terminally honest not to, and I know he doesn’t want you for himself. So?” He held out his hands. “Shall we make this as simple as Potter thought it was? Your choice? Do you want me?”

            Draco watched him, and waited for the trap. But it was nothing obvious, only Blaise poising there, and his gaze holding Draco’s in a way that made Draco’s cheeks heat up.

            That’s not all it is. It can’t be. But maybe there is some genuine desire mixed into whatever else it is he wants me for.

            Draco cleared his throat. “It’s not that simple, and I counted on you to understand that, Blaise.”

            Blaise sighed and dropped his hands, flowing back into a more normal position. “I thought I did. But I would like to hear you make the choice to take me as your lover, Draco. There’s too many other people who would never say it.”

            Draco smirked, while his mind worked furiously. “So I’m third or fourth choice, am I? You expected that to flatter me?”

            Blaise sighed again and made a single, graceful, complicated motion of his hands. “You’re the one who can give me what I want. Say that I considered others, but none of them had as worthy a combination of traits as you did. Is that still unflattering?”

            “Ah, now we come to it,” Draco said, and thought he heard a sound behind him as Harry tensed. Good. It was possible that Blaise would react more violently once Draco had discovered his true motivations. “What else do you want besides a lover, Blaise?”

            Blaise looked at him long and steadily. Draco waited, and finally Blaise said, “You know that my mother’s reputation isn’t the best.”

            Draco laughed before he could help it, which made Blaise’s mouth warp a little. But in the end, he shook his head and said, “You want someone to marry you?”

            “Why, yes,” Blaise said. “That would be it.”

            The words dried up in Draco’s mouth, and he stared at Blaise. So, it was more complicated than Harry had thought, but not as deep as Draco had envisioned, either. Blaise wanted to occupy the position Harry did, and he had thought becoming Draco’s lover was the first step to achieving that.

            “Why?” Draco whispered.

            Blaise shook his head. “You ought to know better than to ask that, Draco,” he said, as if scolding a student who had asked a stupid question. “Really, you should. My mother has left me with no real reputation, and my father is long dead. If he has family that might claim me, I’ve never met them. The war damaged everyone’s reputation. Slytherins are still looked down on in many of the professions I might have applied to, the ones that would have enhanced my status or at least guaranteed me a comfortable living. I don’t have the skills that you do in potions to fall back on. And I prefer a life of more luxury than that, anyway.” He grinned and moved closer. “I have admired you in the past, you know. The way you play chess, the way you accepted the Ministry’s sentence over your father instead of trying to challenge it. There are other things I don’t like as much, but we can work on those.”

            Draco fell back a step, and told himself it was all right to do that. Not only did he have Harry nearby to charge to his rescue if he needed it, but it would convince Blaise that he was scared of him, and continue the pretense until Draco had all the information he needed. “What about whether I like it?”

            Blaise paused and looked at him. “I know some of what you went through when you spoke to Potter about demi-marriage,” he said quietly. “I know that you’re weakened right now, or at least not as strong as you were. I can provide a strong right arm as well as Potter can. And I can give you a much better time in bed, and a spouse who already knows all the etiquette that you need me to know. Come on, Draco. Can you say that you’d rather stay married to Potter than marry someone like me, someone you’ve always known?”

            “I have always known you,” Draco said, while he shook his head to dispel the visions that Blaise’s words had conjured. “And that’s the problem.”

            Blaise sighed. “You think I would marry you and then betray you? I wouldn’t, Draco. The demi-marriage would add greatly to my own power and consequence, and I’m not stupid enough to do anything to jeopardize that over a pretty face. If I wanted to take another lover, or you did, I’d hope we could discuss the matter like mature adults.”

            Draco shook his head. “I think you would marry me and continue to live exactly the way you just told me you would like to, using the marriage for the protection and the status it would give you. You wouldn’t care for the family the way that Malfoy demi-spouses have to do. You wouldn’t think that you owed me anything.”

            Blaise stared at him for a moment, then said, “I’m willing to give up my own name to take the Malfoy name. I know demi-spouses have to do that.”

            “But would you consider yourself a Malfoy?” Draco looked Blaise over deliberately from top to toe. He had settled now, and although, yes, he could remind himself that Harry was just around the corner, he found that he didn’t need to. He was thinking over Blaise’s proposed offer, and turning it around in his head, wondering what would have happened if he had gone to Blaise first, or one of his other Slytherin friends.

            But he wouldn’t trade what he had now with Harry for what Blaise could have given him, even if Blaise did do an eloquent job of explaining the advantages there. Because Blaise wouldn’t have tried to enter a working marriage with Draco the way Harry had. Harry was stubborn and absurdly self-sacrificing sometimes, but he was willing to adjust. It sounded as though Blaise simply meant to live the kind of life he’d always been accustomed to, the life he wanted, the life he thought he should have.

            Draco wanted to give Harry things to make up for never knowing his family and never having luxury. It sounded as though Blaise wanted only to take.

            “I know how marriages of convenience work,” Blaise was saying. “I would never say a word against you in public, never act against you. I know how to present a united façade.”

            The way I was doing with Harry. But Draco knew the difference, now, between what Blaise offered and what Harry did, and he would choose Harry’s gift unhesitatingly.

            “You would never speak against me,” Draco said. “But you would never speak for me, either. You would never offer me more than you absolutely had to. I have someone in my life who will give me more than that.”

            Blaise stared at him, mouth slightly agape. Then he said, “Does that mean that you’re choosing him over me?”

            Draco shrugged, ignoring the way Blaise’s eyes widened. Yes, it was satisfying, but he had other things to worry about right now. “I’m saying that I’ve already chosen, and there’s nothing you can do to change my decision, Blaise. Thank you for the offer.” He smiled, taking vicious pleasure in saying it. “But no thanks.”

            He turned his back.

            Blaise said nothing for long seconds, long enough for Draco to reach the corner behind which he knew Harry stood. Then he said, “You’re depriving yourself of my strength, which could have benefited you in more than one way.”

            Draco glanced back at him. He thought he felt a brush on his arm from Harry, and he appreciated it, but he wouldn’t risk revealing Harry to Blaise if he didn’t have to. “What do you mean?”

            “People still talk to me who won’t talk to you now that you’re married to a Potter.” Blaise’s eyes flashed. “And that means I know certain things about who’s hunting you, bits of gossip you have to hear if you’re going to live.”

            Harry’s hand tightened on Draco’s arm. Draco gave no sign that he had noticed it. “How interesting,” he said. “I can’t give you the demi-marriage, but perhaps we can arrange another trade for those bits of gossip?”

            Blaise shook his head. “It’s becoming obvious that you’re not someone I can deal with, after all,” he said. “Not if you prefer wedding a Gryffindor to living the way you should.” He paused, and his face shifted in several different expressions before he settled on one that Draco could tell he had tried hard to make look pitying. “You’re not the man I thought you were, and that lessens my desire. You needn’t think I’ll lose sleep from this, or regret not marrying you.”

            “I already told you the same,” Draco said. “If you want to comfort yourself this way, then go ahead.”

            And he walked around the corner, and kept going when he felt the weight and warmth of Harry against his side. He heard Blaise curse, once, and then depart. His footsteps didn’t run, didn’t sound worried. Draco half-sighed. He would have given much to know he had inflicted the same level of worry on Blaise that Blaise had on him.

            “Are you all right? You’re shaking.”

            Draco blinked and looked to the side. Harry had removed part of the Disillusionment Charm, showing his face. Draco sighed. “I wish that could have gone better. Once, I would have managed to trick and charm the information I wanted out of Blaise.”

            “You’ve changed,” Harry said gently. “In who you are and what you have and what you want.”

            Draco raised his eyebrows at him. “So being married to you has changed who I am? So fast?”

            Harry shook his head. “I didn’t mean that.” They continued walking in silence for a moment, and Draco took the chance to settle his breathing and remind himself that he was a Malfoy, and all of them—except Harry—presented an implacable face to the world. Then Harry said, “I was thinking more—since the war. And since I destroyed some of what you were by tugging on the life-debts. Zabini knows that you’re not as rich as your father, or able to give him as much. So he felt more able to bargain as an equal.”

            Draco nudged Harry hard in the ribs with his elbow. Harry grunted and then said, “And that was for?”

            “You have a good political brain when you want to use it,” Draco said distantly, looking ahead down the corridor so he didn’t have to see the expression on Harry’s face. “So don’t tell me that the politics of former Slytherins are too complicated for you to understand, again. Understand?”

*

            Harry smiled. It said something about the way his own attitude had changed that he didn’t immediately want to murder Draco for the insult, and that he could feel the fondness behind it.

            “Fine,” he said. “I won’t. But in this case, I don’t think I know Zabini better than you. Just that I understand some of the things he might want because they’re similar to things the criminals I’ve arrested want.”

            Draco said something uncomplimentary under his breath, and then they rounded a corner and were back in the more public area of the Ministry. Harry immediately lengthened his stride so that they were close together and offered his arm. Draco’s mouth quirked as he accepted it, but Harry never knew what he would have said.

            They had an audience.

            Eliot had gone and told other Aurors, it seemed, who had told still others. A solid wall of scarlet robes faced Harry and Draco as they stopped. Eliot was in front with her wand held between her hands as if it was a wall all by itself, but others crowded forwards around her, eager to know what would happen.

            “Fellow Aurors,” Harry said, and felt a tremor run through Draco. Well, if he was afraid, Harry wouldn’t hesitate to protect him. “Did you want something?”

            Eliot looked around, as though waiting for someone else to step forwards, and then sighed and spoke when no one else would take up the mantle. “We’re worried about you, Auror Potter—”

            “Malfoy,” Harry interrupted, because Draco seemed to have stopped breathing against his side, and that was never a good thing. “My name is Malfoy now.”

            Eliot stared at him, then said, “If we have to. Auror Malfoy, we worry that you will place your loyalty to your new family above your work. You’ve already taken weeks off work, when you never took this long a holiday before. Are you coming back? Can we depend on you?”

            “How many of you are members of prominent pure-blood families?” Harry asked, looking around in interest. “Greengrass, yes, and Moonsweep, and I think you’re at least related to the Rosiers, right, Candlebright? And none of them are accused of putting loyalties to their families over their jobs.” He stabbed Eliot with his eyes, and had the satisfaction of seeing her take a step back. “I’m not going to be fucking bloody condescended to by you, Auror Eliot. I’ll come back in my own time, when I’ve settled into my new family, and you don’t get to dictate my feelings or worry about what I’ll do in regards to my job until you actually see me do it.”

            “Will you really come back, then?” Eliot’s eyes were shadowed. “Because when you talk about that, your dearest demi-husband looks as if he’s bitten into a sour apple.”

            Harry turned and narrowed his eyes at Draco. Draco narrowed them right back, and leaned harder on Harry’s arm, as if to remind him that they didn’t want to quarrel in front of others. But over something like this, Harry was willing to quarrel.

            “You want me to come back to my job eventually,” he said. “You know that it won’t be good to keep me cooped up in the Manor.” He hoped that Draco understood both the warning and the friendliness in his voice, and how both of them could exist without comprising the other.

            Draco stared at him and then up into his face, and said, “You know that you’re my heir.”

            “Yes, that is rather covered under the tenets of the demi-marriage,” Harry said, and reached to produce the scroll that they had come into the Ministry to copy. He thought this the prime time to display it. But Draco seized his arm and held him still until Harry reluctantly turned his attention back to him.

            “And the Malfoy heir shouldn’t be putting his life in danger,” Draco said.

            Harry snarled before he thought about it. His lips pulled back from his teeth, he put an impressive amount of sound behind it, and Draco cowered a little before it. But Harry reminded himself an instant later that this was his spouse he was dealing with, not a criminal, and making him cower would be bad in the long run. Harry tried to smile instead. “The Malfoy heir puts his life in danger all the time,” he said. “With political intrigues, and attacks from enemies, it’s a wonder most of your ancestors ever lived to an old age.”

            “Our ancestors.” Draco wouldn’t stop looking at him. “You might want to consider some career other than as an Auror anyway, Harry. It gives your own enemies a chance to strike at you, and more people than ever will hate you now that you’re married to me. You ought to come with me and accept another kind of job. I’m sure the Ministry would find something for you if you said you wanted it.”

            Harry wanted to choke with rage, was what he wanted. But he had not only Draco but the fascinated, worried eyes of the other Aurors to contend with. He shook his head. “It would be a sinecure, and that would be using the prestige I no longer possess, besides. There’s a lot of people who won’t give me the time of day now that I’m a Malfoy, or at least they distrust me.” This time, his glance sent Eliot and some of the nearer Aurors scurrying backwards.

            “I want you to look for something.”

            Harry’s fingers clenched once. He would give up a lot for Draco, he had given up a lot for Draco, and his family’s box was only the newest reminder. And now Draco wanted him to give up his job, too, which Harry loved, which he had only left for a temporary period of time to become settled into his new family?

            The world was going back to normal after the war with the Dementors’ ghosts. And Harry was going back to normal with it, as much as he could.

            “I disagree,” he said. “I disagree that I need to look, not to mention with everything else related to this,” he added, because Draco had opened his mouth.

            Draco gave him a small, smooth look, and then he inclined his head. “As you wish, Harry.”

            The coldness behind the words, the way that he stood back up from Harry until their arm and hand were only in the mildest contact, spoke worlds. Harry found that he couldn’t care, right now. He looked back at Eliot and the other Aurors, and smiled a little. “That’s settled, I hope,” he said. “If I defy my new family to stay an Auror, then you can’t ask for any greater proof of my loyalty.”

            They wanted to detain him, but he and Draco swept past towards the entrance. Draco walked completely differently, though, for all that no one else could have told so. His face was blank, cold, and his lips looked as if they would never smile again.

            We’ve got another battle ahead.

            Harry wished they could have fought it side by side, instead of against each other.

*

            delia cerrano: This is going to be a very long story.

            Lynx44: Thanks! What really prevented Harry from opening the box was not his blood, but the fact that he has the Malfoy name. Anyone who has the name of Malfoy is prevented from getting into the box because of something a Malfoy ancestor did to a Potter ancestor. Draco didn’t know about those extra wards and did think Harry should still be able to get in.

            unneeded: Let’s hope that Draco and Narcissa do.

            moodysavage: Well, it has now.

            Nightlo: If he looked for them, he could probably find them.

            Seiren: Yes, he’s more interested in his family now, but it’s really the marriage that prompted that; it has been years since the war when he could have looked into the box.
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The Name I'll Give to Thee