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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.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

This is the very last chapter of the Intellectual Love Affair trilogy. I certainly never expected most of the plot twists that sprang up in the second and third installment, and I didn’t expect the series to last so long, either. Here’s hoping that everyone who came with me on the journey enjoyed it as much as I did.

Epilogue—Their Happy Ever After

            “And you claim that Narcissa Malfoy had the power to break into Mr. Potter’s cell and cast a spell that would have made him her puppet?” The member of the Wizengamot, whose first name Draco didn’t know, but whose surname was Gregorian, spoke in a voice edged with polite disbelief.

            Draco took a deep breath. He had already made his choice between his mother and his lover, months ago, when he told Narcissa that he was walking away from her for attacking Harry. And the real decision had come before he ever loved Harry, when he realized he could make his living by his art and the beliefs he now knew were real, or turn back into the glass house his parents lived in and pull the door shut behind him.

            But it was still not an easy thing, to speak the words that might condemn his mother to a year in Azkaban. Though less so with the Dementors gone, it was not a pleasant place, and she would not come out unchanged.

            Draco tossed a quick glance at the chair for condemned criminals where his mother sat, as Harry had sat recently. Narcissa met his gaze with blank, proud eyes. Even if they had still been speaking, she would not have looked at him any other way, not in public.

            Always that pride, Draco thought. It matters more to her than love, or freedom, or life, or me.

            That made it easier to face the Wizengamot and say stolidly, “Yes. You’ve heard the evidence from the other witnesses. Narcissa Malfoy did not act alone. She had contacts in the Ministry who bribed the Aurors into standing aside for her, or made sure they were removed.” Draco didn’t want to speak Charlemagne Diggory’s name. He’d already heard too much of it for his own liking today. And if anyone in the Wizengamot didn’t realize who he meant by “contacts,” they weren’t going to vote to send Narcissa to prison in any case. “And she took the risk of casting such a Dark spell in the Ministry because she expected glorious returns. Not once did she think I would enter the cell in time to stop her, or that Harry Potter had the mental strength to resist.”

            Harry leaned against his back, not touching him more than that—the Wizengamot had already objected to the kisses and touches Harry had given Draco earlier—but reassuring and settling Draco with his solid strength. Draco leaned into him. Harry had described his experience under Narcissa’s spell already. Draco had stood frozen with horror and recognition. For a short time only, Harry had experienced the same thing that Draco had when he writhed in Daphne’s embrace.

            Draco was going to take Harry home tonight and make love to him until he forgot everything else. Another experience they shared too much of was giving testimony about intimate processes of their minds in courtrooms.

            Gregorian leaned back in his seat and sighed. “No more questions.”

            Draco nodded and looked around at the rest of the Wizengamot. They all shook their heads. It was a relief to be allowed to fade into the background beside Harry, his arm around his partner’s neck, and listen to the buzz of the courtroom as they began to decide Narcissa’s fate.

            Harry, Minister Shacklebolt, Granger, several Aurors, and Draco himself had testified on the side condemning Narcissa. Narcissa had not deigned to call a single witness of her own. When Gregorian had asked her if she didn’t want to summon her husband or Charlemagne Diggory to speak to her character, Narcissa had given him a single withering look and not spoken aloud.

            Pride, Draco thought, watching her back. Pride was keeping Narcissa upright—and caging her. She won’t plead like anyone else, because she doesn’t think she’s like anyone else and she shouldn’t have to. How many stupid things have she and Lucius done simply because they can’t grasp that they live in the same world with the rest of us?

            The Wizengamot retreated into a private room once they had determined that they had no more questions to ask the witnesses and no more clarifications to demand. The courtroom was too silent with them gone. Draco blinked watering eyes and felt Harry’s arms clasp him strongly, as if he thought Draco might slump over at any moment.

            “You look exhausted,” Harry whispered tenderly into his ear. “I’m going to take you home and make love you to until you can’t move.”

            Draco choked and tipped back his head to glare at Harry. “I’m not the one who had to tell them what it was like to lose my emotions and my freedom to think!” he said incredulously.

            “But you had to testify against your own mother.” Harry frowned, a troubled light sifting through the back of his eyes as he rubbed his knuckles comfortingly against Draco’s cheek. “I think that’s worse.”

            “I felt worse when I revealed my memories of my torture at Daphne’s hands to the court,” Draco said. “So you should feel worse now.”

            “That doesn’t make any sense. I didn’t suffer as long as you did.”

            “It was the public testifying that hurt more.”

            Harry shrugged ruefully. “Maybe I’m more used to it. Someone has always wanted to know what I was thinking, for years now.” He smiled, and Draco supposed he was thinking of Skeeter’s award-winning series of newspaper articles on the “Conspiracy Against Harry Potter.” Skeeter had started with Diggory’s fall in front of the Wizengamot and Lucius’s speech, and gone on to reveal the names of the corrupt Aurors and exactly how many people in the Ministry had pushed for Diggory to get elected solely because he hated Harry Potter, and so did they. “At least their thoughts are generally in accord with mine right now.”

            “Listen to us,” Draco murmured into Harry’s ear. “We’re competing to care for one another. Next moment everyone will think we were in Hufflepuff.”

            Harry laughed. Because he was looking at Draco, he didn’t see what Draco did: that his mother had turned around in the chair to stare at them with eyes like an icy sea. One hand she had laid on the arm of the chair shook. She hated, Draco knew, to see her son make such a disgusting spectacle of himself. No one but children and Mudbloods showed so much emotion in public.

            Keeping his stare locked with hers, Draco nuzzled Harry’s neck and said in a clear voice, “But I still think I should be the one to make love to you.”

            Narcissa whipped around to face the front again, her face losing all animation, so she came to look like a glass doll. Draco was content. This was the moment she realized she had lost, just as Lucius had realized he had when the potion wore off and he stopped making his speech about what he would do with the Minister’s position. And because his parents had framed the conflict between them in the terms of a war, she had to lose.

            Draco felt a gentle murmur of loss, but he had lived without his parents’ love or approval for two years before this. And his love for Harry, his growing friendship with Granger—all right, Hermione, he thought as her scolding voice popped up in his head—and Millicent, and even the few times he’d received invitations to the Weasleys’ house for dinner provided him with the affection he needed.

            The Wizengamot came marching back into the courtroom a few minutes later and announced that Narcissa Malfoy was sentenced to six months in Azkaban and to monitoring for two years after that, subject to return to Azkaban if she used any Dark magic in that time.

            Narcissa didn’t react in any way, of course. With his arm around Harry, who flinched and moved and breathed and laughed like a human being instead of a doll, Draco hoped that whatever that motionless pose earned for her was worth it.

            Then he took Harry home and made love to him. Touch Harry in a certain way on the arse and he begged to have Draco inside him every bit as prettily as Draco begged for Harry to do it to him.

            Draco was glad they were such good matches for each other.

*

            Harry paused for long moments at the door of Hermione’s flat. Then he told himself he was being an arsehole and stupid to boot, and knocked firmly.

            A shuffling motion came from inside. Harry waited tensely, trying to reckon Hermione’s emotional state from the way she moved. Did she stumble? Did she walk stiffly, as if she had spent a long night awake and crying? Did she pause on the way to the door, as if she needed courage to face whoever was there?

            But then she opened the door, and Harry found himself gazing into a pale, drained, but calm face.

            He hugged her before he knew what he was doing.

            “It worked, didn’t it?” he murmured into her ear. “You got off the Desire potion and—and the depression didn’t come back.” Those words were so much less eloquent than the ones he had planned, but most of the ones he had planned had come from his fear that Hermione would lose the will to live again when the potion was gone.

            “No,” Hermione said in a tiny voice, clinging to his neck. “It didn’t. Harry, I don’t know how I can thank you for what you did for me. Going for Malfoy—“

            “Draco,” Harry corrected, drawing back and frowning at her. “If he has to call you by your first name, you have to call him by his.”

            Hermione went on without deigning to notice this, though a faint smile touched her lips. “Brewing the Desire potion for me, taking care of me until it was ready, and—“ She took a deep breath and shook her head, then said, “Giving me enemies to fight.” Harry had the distinct impression that those weren’t the first words she had meant to speak.

            “You’re my friend,” Harry said, baffled. “What else should I have done?”

            Hermione smiled at him, but her eyes were shadowed. “I still miss him, you know.”

            Harry took her hand. “We always will,” he said softly. Now that the rush of trying to survive Diggory’s attacks and avoid Azkaban was over, he found himself turning more frequently to tell a joke to Ron and suffering a little jolt when he found his best friend wasn’t there, or thinking that Ron would be amused by Draco’s latest antics and then realizing he would never get the chance to tell him. “No one who shared experiences like he did with us can ever be replaced.”

            “But it’s all right to live,” Hermione whispered. “It’s all right to go on.”

            Harry nodded. “Draco isn’t a replacement for Ron, any more than he is for Ginny. This is new.”

            “That’s right.” Hermione nodded several times and then fiddled with the collar of her robe, which she normally never did unless she was nervous.

            “Hermione?” Harry asked. “Is something wrong?”

            The door to Hermione’s bedroom opened and Millicent leaned out. “Oh, is he here?” she asked. “Tell him that I have two more prominent patrons who want to buy Desire but don’t want to come into the shop publicly. He’ll find the names on that parchment next to the window.” She shut the door firmly and yelled the next words through it. “And now tell him to go away, because I need some sleep after last night!”

            Harry blinked at Hermione. She was blushing, but Harry didn’t see why. She had known that coming off the Desire potion would be difficult, and if she had let Millicent remain with her in the first place, she had to have known that Millicent would see her tears and suddenly released emotions.

            “Is something wrong?” he repeated.

            “Nothing, nothing,” Hermione said hastily. She grabbed the parchment, stuffed it into his hand, and pushed him towards the door. “Millicent is right, she really needs some sleep. She’s tired. So am I. You must have noticed how tired I look?” She quickly let loose a yawn, and then several more, which she must have been suppressing.

            “Of course,” Harry said. “And I wouldn’t have come over, except that I just wanted to see how you were—“

            “Fine, fine,” Hermione said hurriedly. “I appreciate your coming over. What else would a friend do? But I’m really tired now. Thanks, Harry. Goodbye!”

            She shut the door of the flat behind him. Harry stared at it, baffled. He was sure something specific was bothering Hermione, but he had no idea what it was.

            When he went home and told Draco, Draco laughed so hard he fell out of his chair, then fell over again when he tried to get back up. But he wouldn’t tell Harry what he thought the matter was, saying only that Hermione would have to tell him herself in good time.

            That irritated Harry. “I know you’re not exactly best friends with Hermione yet, but I thought you would be more concerned about her than this,” he said.

            Draco snorted into his cauldron and ruined an expensive potion, which gave them both something else to think about.

*

            “I do hope you’re satisfied,” one of the waiting customers muttered as Draco strode into his shop. “I’ve been waiting here two hours.”

            “Is it my fault that you can’t remember I never open before ten?” Draco asked mildly as he gestured the wizards and witches outside the door towards the counter in the middle of the shop. The inside of this new building was beginning to look nearly as organized and comfortable as his old shop in Diagon Alley had. Cauldrons were stacked neatly along the far wall, beside empty vials, new corks, and unused stirring rods. Beside them were the barrels of less expensive ingredients, like beetle eyes and bat tongues. In locked cabinets behind Draco’s counter were the stocks of brewed potions, including Desire, and the more expensive ingredients such as bicorn horn. Of course, he couldn’t watch every single one of them at all times when he was also dealing with customers, but cameras of Harry’s devising kept careful watch and snapped a picture of every single wizard who ventured near the cabinets. The same cameras bore an alarm spell that would shrill unless the wizards they photographed went up to the counter and paid for what they might have taken. Draco had had no thefts so far. The brewing area was at the very back of the shop, shut away from the rest by a carved and painted screen. Draco turned around and smiled at the man who had complained, and now stood at the front of the queue. “I don’t have to open earlier than that if I don’t want to.”

            The man, who had a thin face and a big belly, scowled, but said, “Two vials of Desire, please.”

            As Draco bent down to pick up the vials, he tapped his wand against a corner of the counter that trigged a special eavesdropping ward. It let him listen to what the customers further back in the queue, nearer the door, were saying, and this morning they were muttering to one another so excitedly that he wanted to hear.

            “—Shacklebolt was elected by an overwhelming margin, they say.”

            “Well, of course.” A sniff. “Diggory was the only viable candidate for challenging him, and look at what he did to himself.”

            “But they said Shacklebolt had vowed to instigate sweeping reforms in the Wizengamot, and he was still re-elected—“

            Draco smiled and let his attention to the ward lapse for now. He wanted to concentrate on handing over the Desire vials to the big-bellied wizard just slowly enough to be annoying. The man’s hand twitched, as though he wanted to snatch the potion away, but he kept it still. He had doubtless heard about what happened to those who pushed or hurried Draco.

            Abruptly, the air around Draco heated, and a flash of green flames exploded past his face, snapping at the counter. His customer jumped back. Draco quelled the small fires with a swish of his wand and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, the explosion had occurred behind the screen that protected the brewing station from the rest of the shop. “All right there, Harry?” he called.

            Harry hurried out towards him, his face covered with soot and his eyes brilliant with excitement. “I isolated the difference between—“ he began, and then, seeing Draco wasn’t alone, he changed the words to, “I analyzed that difference we talked about.”

            Draco grinned in delight. The techniques for brewing Desire that would work with anyone and for brewing a variant potion attuned to a particular person had remained substantially different, because to brew the attuned potion required intimate knowledge of the person in question and extremes of magic that sometimes even Harry couldn’t manage. If Harry really had discovered the source of that difference, then he and Draco might be able to brew attuned potions for anyone at all, with only basic information in their possession.

            And that would increase the already great profits of the shop—now that Desire was legal and regarded as a “normal” potion by a large portion of the wizarding public—to an absurd amount. Draco approved of absurdity when it was connected to amounts of money.

            He stepped up to Harry, swabbed away the soot around his mouth, and then kissed him on the lips. Harry kissed back eagerly, though he made no move to touch Draco. He had learned the lesson that no one was to mess up Draco Malfoy’s robes in the middle of a work day.

            “We’ll make a brewer of you yet,” Draco murmured to him. “Now, go back there and figure out how to analyze that difference without causing an explosion.”

            “The explosion was supposed to happen,” Harry said, looking affronted.

            Draco raised an eyebrow. “Even if that’s true, I want you to find a more elegant method of achieving the same thing.”

            “Why?”

            Draco lifted his head haughtily. “Because I want it.”

            And Harry nodded and turned his back, walking obediently behind the screen again.

            Because Draco wanted him to.

            Draco closed his eyes for a moment. He had triumphed over his enemies. He had his career back again. He had received a letter the other day that indicated his father might be thinking about possibly, at some distant time in the future, meeting with him in a fashion that might start to lead to a reconciliation.

            And he had a man who challenged him, loved him greatly, and was becoming steadily better at potions.

            Life wasn’t perfect, but it was damn close.

            The End.

*

            Mangacat: Thank you! Lucius may learn better than Narcissa; at least, I hope so.

            Thrnbrooke: Here it is! The epilogue.
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A More Worldly Man