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A More Worldly Man	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10960 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Four—Lucius’s Humiliation

            Draco did, after all, sit down to write a letter to his father the morning after Skeeter’s article had come out and skewered all of Diggory’s precious ambitions.

            Like the potion he had brewed, the letter was a work of art, and depended on an intimate knowledge of Lucius that no one else could have had. Draco had been there to watch his father’s mouth tighten when he was disappointed, to see the half-convulsive gesture he made when he saw the Dark Lord fall in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Lucius had surely known by then that the side he’d chosen had lost, and that his Lord would have punished his family if he had lived. And yet he’d made that gesture anyway, clutching after the power and the influence that he saw sliding away from him.

            Draco made the letter brag and boast, reflecting the person Lucius still thought he was: the Slytherin son who would always value power and conquest more than anything else. And here and there he placed hints—a word scored out; a trembling phrase; slightly too much insistence on the fact of his victory—that would make Lucius think he wavered, and even on the glittering height of his triumph still feared that he might fall.

            Such bait would be irresistible to his father. The silliest contortions Draco had ever seen him go through had come about when he realized one of his Ministry opponents wasn’t so confident that he could get legislation passed to protect Muggles after all. Lucius had gone to extremes of effort to punish that hesitation and win the battle that Draco had watched with an open mouth. But in the end, the law had failed, the uncertain enemy had fallen back into the ranks of ordinary Ministry flunkies, and Lucius was satisfied. He had actually smiled as he sipped wine the next night.

            So now Draco offered him the vision of a son he could still reclaim, if he chose to press hard on that uncertainty. The young man in his words was one emerged from the shadow of his father, but not ready to attack the world as he found it. He lingered, glancing back at what he’d escaped from, taunting loudly enough to prove that he was “strong” to all the world but softly enough not to attract the monster’s attention.

            As Draco watched the owl winging away to Malfoy Manor with his letter attached to its foot, he experienced a sense of deep peace. Lucius would read the letter and show up at the party Harry and Draco were attending in a few days, as he never would have if Draco had sent him an actual invitation. He would come because he thought he wasn’t wanted there, because he believed he would cripple them simply by showing up.

            Draco glanced sideways at the stoppered vial of potion that lay on the table beside him. Of course glass and cork could convey no living impression and have no opinion, but he thought they waited as patiently as he did, and as menacingly, for Lucius to walk into their trap.

*

            “I suppose you want me to wear very formal robes to this party, too,” Harry complained to Draco as he shut the front door behind him. He’d spent several hours with Hermione and Millicent, listening as they planned out the trap that would catch Lucius and informed Harry on how he would be expected to act. Millicent was convinced Harry would give it all away if he came close to Lucius, so he was to stay away as if he feared being cornered by the man. Harry found that more insulting to his pride than he’d expected. But even that, and the discussion that followed—as if Hermione thought Harry wouldn’t understand without having the instructions repeated and rephrased forty different times—was better than the discussion about his clothes. Millicent felt they were disgraceful on, Harry was certain, no more evidence than that of his tattered Muggle clothes in Hogwarts. Since then, he wore perfectly nice robes. But those weren’t fancy enough for their little party, apparently.

            “The party is going to be at the Gathering Circle, Harry,” Hermione had informed him impressively, leaning forwards across the table in her flat. It was covered with maps and lists of potions ingredients. Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to know why she had those. “The dress robes you could buy in Madam Malkin’s would just get you sneered at it if you wore them. Millicent has contacts in the clothing industry who can help you.”

            “What is the Gathering Circle?” Harry demanded.

            Millicent cocked her head and gave him a cross-eyed look of hopeless despair. Hermione looked disapproving and started to stand, going to the bookshelf where heavy leather tomes waited, muttering, “You would think that after all these years you might have made a start on wizarding history…”

            “Just tell me a name I might know it by,” Harry said. The last time Hermione had pulled out a history book, he’d been involved in a conversation that lasted five hours and somehow ended up ranging from the witch trials to the proper composition of Wolfsbane Potion. Hermione really should have been a history teacher, not a Ministry worker. “Or describe it. In less than five hundred words,” he added, seeing the gleam in Hermione’s eye.

            “Stonehenge,” Hermione said, and sighed. “Muggles call it Stonehenge.”

            “And why don’t wizards call it that?” Harry asked, thinking he might finally have understood something about the difference between wizards and Muggles that Hermione didn’t herself. “It sounds like a more poetic name than the Gathering Circle.”

            “There’s only one Gathering Circle in Britain, when you capitalize it like that.” Millicent looked at him in pity now. “And the Muggles named it after the features they can see. We name it after the features that appear only a few times a year. Luckily, one of those times is coming up soon, and even without Draco’s letter, I think it might be perfect bait for Lucius.”

            Harry scowled at them. That was another thing that was driving him mad. No one would tell him what they had planned for Lucius, only that it would be grand and humiliating. Since they’d been forced to bring Draco into the plan so he could brew the potion—whatever it was—Hermione and Millicent seemed determined to leave Harry out so they would still have the thrill of surprising someone.

            Millicent had smiled. Then she had brought out several sets of dress robes that she said she’d had waiting around because she’d already suspected that Harry would be a difficult person to fit.

            And so Harry spent the rest of the afternoon walking in and out of cupboards, displaying numerous dress robes that had no differences of color he could see. Millicent criticized him for not standing straight or walking so that the hem dragged on the floor all the same, and Hermione shook her head and said, “Honestly, Harry, I’m not Parvati or Lavender, and I can see how unsuitable some of these would be on you. You’re just not paying attention.”

            Harry had escaped to his own flat with the vague excuse that Draco expected him home for dinner. Hermione nodded, but Millicent gave him a dragon’s smile over Hermione’s shoulder, implying she knew exactly why he’d fled. Then she picked up the robe he’d liked least, because it had the most lace and buttons, and announced, “I think this will just do.”

            If Draco wanted him to try on robes, Harry promised himself, he was going to devour his own magic like a snake swallowing its tail, and give them all something else to think about.

            Draco clucked his tongue as he stood up from the table he’d been sitting at, with the vial of potion beside him, and hugged Harry. “Did they torment my poor baby with details he’s too thick-brained to understand?” he asked, digging his hands into the back of Harry’s neck and massaging hard.

            Harry tilted his head, groaning, until his mind caught up with the words Draco had spoken. He opened one eye and glared. “It’s hard to understand anything when you won’t tell me anything,” he said.

            “The expression on your face will be worth it,” Draco said, and grinned at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll conjure you a mirror so you can see it too. And Millicent will make sure you look wonderful. She’s surprisingly good at that, because she can match people to their surroundings.”

            Harry shook his head and then dropped it forwards as Draco dug into his neck again. “I don’t like it when I have nothing to do,” he murmured.

            Draco’s lips brushed the stubble on his neck immediately below his hair. “I can give you something to do,” he suggested, low-voiced.

            “Of course you can,” Harry said, and let Draco take his hand and lead him to bed. Dinner could wait.

            Draco woke sobbing a few hours later, one of the nightmares that Daphne was responsible for lashing and uncoiling in him. Harry held him with steady but gentle hands through the thrashing, and then soothed him back to sleep again curled up on top of his chest, so that only Draco’s feet and elbows touched the bed, and cradled him until nine-o’clock, when they both woke ravenously hungry.

            “You don’t,” Draco said when they sat at the table, “ever have to worry that you don’t do anything for me.”

            Harry reached out and squeezed his hand in silence, feeling it better if he didn’t speak.

*

            Harry was grumbling beside him and adjusting the collar of his dress robes for the sixth time. Draco did what he could to ignore him. They stood on the outskirts of the plain that contained Stonehenge, waiting for the moment when the full moon would ascend high enough into the sky to transform it into the Gathering Circle.

            Muggles had tried to prevent them from approaching, of course. They were Confounded or Obliviated. Draco had seen Harry wince a little when he applied his own spells, but he didn’t see why. Harry had left the Muggle world behind when he became part of the wizarding one. And to survive, they had to stay hidden. Not even Granger pushed for full integration of the Muggle and wizarding worlds, only for better treatment of the people from the first who might accidentally stray into the latter.

            Draco shook his head and grinned a little. He didn’t know why he was feeling so defensive, letting his mind run on thoughts that might have occupied his father’s. Because so few moments made him feel as much like a wizard as this one did, he supposed, though he had seen the Gathering Circle appear only a few times.

            The low murmur of voices around them died as the moon ascended into its proper place. Draco, staring upwards, thought he heard a high, chiming note like six wineglasses breaking at once.

            Then threads of silver light spiraled out from the moon, forming a hazy corona around it that the Muggles would take to be a natural weather phenomenon. It took eyes born to magic to see the way the threads came together, forming several great cradles that broadened and thickened as they swung towards the ground. A final swing, and they landed around the circle of stones. The air blazed and swam, so thick with magic that Draco could draw the scent into his nostrils, the smell of burned milk or sugar. Then the silver surged away, and he was gazing at solid constructions that never existed except on nights like this.

            Harry gasped. Draco put a steadying hand on his arm and smiled, hoping he would see it, without taking his eyes from the beauty in front of him. It was always easier to appreciate in these first moments, when no people had trampled into it yet.

            New circles of stone surrounded the ones normally visible on the plain, circles that in reality had fallen long ago, but had escaped death by being written in the moonlight. They could only appear at limited times, but that was far better, Draco thought, than never being able to appear at all.

            The new stones shone and flashed silver-gray, as though they were made of granite with flakes of quartz embedded. The pillars seemed lighter and more slender than was possible to support the weight of the lintels laid across them; the lintels had sharp, polished edges. Beneath them ran twisting spiral paths that mimicked the patterns in which the light had come down from the moon. Draco could not shed the conviction, even now, that he would coat his feet with moondust if he walked there. He shivered and stepped forwards, and then he was part of a massive movement surging towards the moon-spun stones from every corner of the plain.

            Harry walked slowly beside him. When Draco looked up, he saw an expression of mystified wonder on his face. Draco smiled a little. It was an expression he remembered from a robe shop seventeen years ago. He was glad to be part of an experience that would give Harry back that sense of magic untouched and unsullied, even if it was only for a few hours.

            In among the stones, the beauty was more intense, and the air sharp and cool with a scent like sea-spray. Harry reached out a hand that trembled to touch the nearest stone. He seemed startled when it brushed solidly against his fingers.

            “They’re real for now,” Draco murmured into his ear, and pulled him further in. “My mother said that was long enough.”

            “This isn’t really our party, is it?” Harry asked as they stepped onto the first spiral path. Silver sparks rose up around them, brushing like wet pebbles against their skin and then subsiding. “I can’t imagine a way that we could have fed all these people, or invited them in just a week, for that matter.”

            Draco smiled and shook his head. “The Ministry tells the public when the Gathering Circle will appear and collects announcements of the various celebrations that people want to hold there. Some of these guests will be here to enjoy the beauty, and others to celebrate a new job or a marriage, and others to forget their mourning for the dead for a time. But others,” he added, as they turned a spiral and ended up close to one of the largest boulders, “are here to celebrate your release from prison.”

            Granger rose to her feet, smiling, from a table that existed only for tonight. Millicent stood not far behind her, and behind them were the Weasels. Draco rolled his eyes when they chorused “Surprise!” but grinned whole-heartedly at the look of absolute astonishment on Harry’s face.

            Harry was busy then for a time, going from Weasel to Weasel, hugging them and asking them what they were doing and how they were and how they’d come to be here, with so few pauses for breath in between that Draco wondered in amusement how he expected to get answers to all his questions. The Weasley matriarch rubbed her eyes on a handkerchief several times, and once blubbered openly on his shoulder. The tall brother married to the part-Veela—Draco tried to avoid seeing the scars on his face—hugged Harry until Draco could hear his bones creak. Even the dragon-taming brother from Romania was there, which Draco knew was a rare occurrence, and he said something to Harry, involving someone named “Norberta,” which made Harry explode in laughter.

            And then there was the girl-Weasel, whose magic Harry had almost devoured. She stood next to her boyfriend, Thomas, on the far edge of the crowd, her hands twisting anxiously into each other and her eyes on Harry’s face.

            Draco remained politely back and didn’t attempt to catch her gaze. He understood that Harry probably would feel some guilt over his decision to stop taking the potion, which would make her fear him more. He was prepared to let him feel that if he needed to, and he wouldn’t intervene in any conversation Harry might have with her. But he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry that Harry had nearly eaten her magic. If he hadn’t, then Draco never would have had a chance to meet and fall in love with him.

            When the moment came that Harry had engaged with all the other Weasleys he could, she stepped forwards. She had a bright, fake smile on her face—surely even her other family members had to be able to tell it was fake?—and held out her hands to Harry. Harry clasped them both and stood gazing down into her eyes with a tenderness that made Draco’s insides squirm uncomfortably. Certainly it could not be jealousy. He’s done what Weasley couldn’t and borne the revelation of Harry’s real strength without screaming and running away. And Harry already felt enough guilt over the most bizarre and minor things. Draco preferred the way Harry related to him most of the time, which combined exasperation and irritation with the love and gentleness.

            Weasley said something Draco couldn’t hear and probably wouldn’t have cared to, and lifted a hand to touch Harry’s cheek. Draco stiffened in spite of himself. But Harry caught her fingers before they could reach his face, squeezed them, and then cradled them in his other hand whilst he talked to her, with his eyes turning to Draco now and then. Weasley parted her lips in what might have been a sigh and nodded. She never made another movement to touch him that Draco could see from several minutes of watching.

            Satisfied, Draco turned away—

            And caught a glimpse of pale hair moving through the crowd, at the gliding speed Lucius often used when he wanted to watch for a familiar face without betraying that he was doing so.

            Draco smiled and rose to his feet, touching the vial of potion in his pocket. Then he assumed a determined expression fraying at the edges and moved towards the hair, casting out small showers of green sparks to draw the attention of Granger and Millicent. Millicent turned towards him at once, face ablaze with excitement, and shook Granger’s shoulder when she remained deep in conversation with Shacklebolt instead of looking up. Granger snapped at her, but Millicent said one word and she began to grin.

            Draco shuddered lightly. He still wasn’t convinced he had done the wizarding world a favor by introducing the two of them. God knew what they would do when this evening was over and they didn’t have Millicent’s vengeance to occupy them, but Draco feared for the future.

            He fixed his gaze on his prey, then, and dived in for the kill.

*

            “And I can accept that,” Ginny said with a small sigh. “I don’t—I don’t think I can ever forget what you did to me, but I’m happy now, and you’re happy, and that’s what really matters, doesn’t it?”

            Her lower lip was trembling, and Harry wasn’t sure she believed her own declaration. But he nodded at her, smiled, and had just opened his mouth to speak another reassuring sentiment when he felt a sensation like a tap on his shoulder.

            No one stood behind him, and a moment later he realized it must be a spell that Hermione had developed to attract his attention when he was in the middle of an intense situation she didn’t feel comfortable approaching. He whispered to Ginny, “Something’s happening centered around Lucius Malfoy tonight, and I think Hermione and Draco want me to be there. If you’ll excuse me?”

            Ginny stared at him for a moment, then nodded. Harry didn’t know if it was his announcement that had made her look like that, or the notion that the man who had tormented her with Riddle’s diary was there—or perhaps simply the casual way he had called Draco by his first name. But she let him go, and Dean put an arm around her waist and said something into her ear that made her lean back against him trustingly.

            She’ll be fine, Harry decided as he wound carefully through the crowd in the direction of Draco’s bright head. And Dean loves her in a different way than I did, probably a way that she needs more than she needed what I could offer her.

            Even if that wasn’t the truth, though, Harry knew he couldn’t feel much guilt about his decision to be with Draco, or to give up the potion. He was in love again for the first time in six years, and there was simply no backing away from what that meant for him.

            He stepped into a small but widening circle of people, and saw Draco standing in front of Lucius, his head bowed. Harry burned to step forwards, and had to fight hard to hold his tongue and his body both still. Hermione and Millicent had warned him something like this would happen. They had also told him not to interfere. But Harry hated seeing Draco look so broken, even if he was only playacting. He’d had enough of that during the days in hospital when he first got to see exactly what Daphne had done to him.

            “Father,” Draco whispered, “I—you must believe that I would never attempt to poison you.” He held a glass of water in one hand, Harry saw then. He was bobbing it nervously back and forth between them, as if he wished he didn’t have to hold it.

            “Draco,” said Lucius, and his nostrils flared and his eyes glowed and his hair fluttered and he was the picture of a man in triumph, “you would try to poison me. I saw through your pathetic trick the moment you offered me the drink.”

            Draco flinched and drew himself inwards. Then he turned as if he had made up his mind to walk away from his father. Lucius reached out and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.

            Harry was the one who flinched this time. He could see the way the hand held too tightly, probably causing Draco pain in his shoulder blade. But Draco turned around and stared at Lucius as if he were utterly used to it.

            “You’re right,” he whispered, his voice filled with a sludge of bitterness. “I never should have tried to trick you. You always win.” He turned to pour the water out on the floor. Harry tensed in surprise. He knew Draco had brewed some kind of potion, and he suspected the potion was in the water.

            Lucius deftly plucked the glass from Draco’s hand and held it aloft. Seeing the flush in his cheeks deepen and the way he carefully collected the eyes of everyone around him, Harry suspected the moment of public confrontation had caught up with him. He might have acted more cautiously around his son in private, but he had challenged him and made Draco seemingly back down. Now he wanted to break him completely, and he could do that only by showing that he wasn’t afraid of whatever potion or poison Draco might have infected the glass with.

            Lucius proceeded to cast a series of impressive spells on the water, checking for poisons that Harry hadn’t even heard of and for every potion included on the Hogwarts potions curriculum and many that weren’t, including Desire. The silence deepened and the attention from the crowd grew more intense the more time passed. Lucius’s eyes, on the other hand, tightened at the corners.

            Harry knew why. He had expected to identify the poison long before now. When he couldn’t, he had to face the possibility that Draco had been too clever for him. But once again, he couldn’t back away, because everyone was watching.

            Draco kept every expression off his face as he watched. Still, Harry could see the quivering expectation in his shoulders. He had a right to be proud of himself, he thought. He had twisted his father’s pride, which Lucius had depended on to hold himself up as a Malfoy and separate himself from Muggleborns, into a net to catch him.

            Finally, Lucius looked up with a light laugh. “You are a fool, then, Draco,” he said, “to try and bluff me with rumors of poison. Did you not think I would find out?” And because he probably didn’t have any faith in the potions skills Draco had been cast out of Malfoy Manor for making his living by, because he had probably always thought that Draco was exaggerating how much of an artist he was, or perhaps only because he was more afraid of being thought weak by the public than anything else, he put the glass to his lips and swallowed the water.

            Murmurs exploded from the crowd around them. Most of them would have decided it was ordinary water and that Lucius had won this victory. Others might be wondering if Draco was such a good brewer after all, if he didn’t trust himself to invent a new potion and place it undetectably into water.

            Draco let his mouth part in a shark’s grin that Harry suspected only Lucius fully understood the import of, and then Millicent and Hermione leaned around the people they’d been hiding behind and likewise smiled at him. Because it seemed expected, Harry rose to his toes and grinned over the shoulder of the person in front of him, even though he didn’t know what the potion did.

            Lucius put a hand to his throat, slowly. Then his eyes went wide and blank. He folded his arms and began to declaim.

            “Now that I am Minister, I will pass laws changing the way we live. Mudblood children are to be drained of their magic immediately when they begin to exhibit it, and they and their families Obliviated. Mudblood adults will be put to work doing the menial labor that is the only thing they are fit for. Perhaps some of them can replace house-elves, whose plight I understand they complain about.” Lucius gave a nasty little laugh. “And of course we must do something about the goblins. They have been granted the pretense of equal rights for far too long. They will—“

            The roar of noise drowned out Lucius’s speech by then, but Harry had felt a riffle past his neck, and was sure Skeeter was present to report it for posterity. He stepped forwards in the meanwhile and wrapped his arms around Draco’s waist. Draco grinned at him.

            “What was that potion?” Harry whispered.

            “A variant of Desire, attuned to Lucius.” Draco was smiling viciously now, in a way that made Harry hope they would never break up badly if they did break up. “A variant of Desire, understand, only mimicking that potion in a few small details. He’s always wanted powerful political position, but thought he had to give up that dream after the second war. This gives him what he desires—by making him think he’s already attained the position, and destroying what prevented him from achieving it, his caution and sense of reality.”

            Harry laughed aloud. A few people looked at him curiously, but most were listening to Lucius in fascination, or shouting questions that he answered with careless ease, leaning forwards and winking occasionally. Harry hardly thought the answers pleasant to listen to, but at least they really let everyone present know what Lucius Malfoy thought, to the very depths of his perverted soul.

            “We might be in danger from him, too,” he did have to say. “He might try to take vengeance, the way Diggory might.”

            Draco shook his head, not looking away from his father. “No. Father, in his right mind at least, is different—which is why he didn’t make the run at Minister himself in the first place. He’ll have to change his mind now, because he will have realized I can indeed trick him and best him, which he never believed before. He’ll have to see that I remained strong even though I rejected his beliefs, and that my new state of mind is better suited to living in this world than his old one is. That will mean he reevaluates himself for a long time before he attacks anyone else.”

            He grinned at Harry again. “And who knows? In the end, this may even be the means of reconciliation between me and my father. If he has to admit I’m right and start believing the same things I do…” Draco let his voice trail off suggestively.

            Harry shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand you, but I love you anyway.”

            Draco leaned back on his shoulder with a little sigh “I could say the same of you,” he said. “Romantic declarations with good seats for watching Lucius Malfoy make a fool of himself…what could be better?”

*

            bunnicle: Thanks for reviewing!

            Mangacat: You’ll see the fallout of Rita’s article from a distance, in Chapter 25. Harry and Draco are done with politics for the moment. They won’t retreat completely, but they also won’t be participating in the election for Minister anymore than they already have.

            broomrider949: Thank you! I have trouble trying to capture Rita’s “voice.” Glad you liked the article.

            SP777: Thank you! At the moment I think a sequel is unlikely, but I’ll keep the idea in mind if I do decide to do one. And I’m very glad you like the story. There were times the plotline faltered and it didn’t seem as fun to write as my others, which made me worry I was writing it less well than I could have.

            Both this story and ‘Changing of the Guard’ are drawing to a close, yes.

            Glad you thought Rita’s article was objective! I don’t know that it would pass the standards of real-world journalism, but the wizarding world has different standards anyway. ;)
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A More Worldly Man