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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-Five--Avalanche Season

            Harry checked the report he was working on again and shook his head. The misspellings that people would come up with the second they were tired or not thinking straight about their English defied belief. He'd spent five minutes squinting at one handwritten word before he could make out that it was privacy. Apparently Auror Carum thought it was spelled with an e, and then had added two more to make sure that the point really got across.

            "Potter."

            Harry looked up, unsurprised to find an Auror he didn't know well standing there. People had been stopping by all day, rather unsubtly trying to tempt him into gossip about his fight with Ron and Hermione. It surprised Harry, a bit, that they were so interested. He and Ron had had fights before, and Hermione had made plenty of people angry working towards the legislation she wanted to pass on house-elf rights.

            The legislation you ensured would pass for her.

            Harry hid the little wince he wanted to give. The Auror in front of him wouldn't understand. With some thought, he managed to dredge up her name. "Auror Allen?" He gave her a polite, meaningless smile of the sort that his first soul had raised to an artform. "What's the matter?"

            Allen, a ghostly blonde who in some ways reminded him of Malfoy, gave him a pitying look. "You've got Minister Sandborn angry at you somehow, Potter," she said. "I just thought I would stop by and warn you that he'll probably be sending a flunky for you soon."

            Harry blinked. "Thanks," he said. "Do you know what he's angry about?"

            "I was passing by his office, and heard him shouting your name strongly enough to overcome what seemed to be an army of silencing spells." Allen paused for effect. "Not to mention that I was hearing thumps and crashes, like vases splintering apart against the walls."

            Harry took a slow, deep breath. It was true that Sandborn kept a set of ornamental vases in his office that were specifically designed to break apart on impact, but Harry had never made him angry enough to throw them. Instead, he had spent afternoons in Sandborn's office watching him pace back and forth and snarl about the stupid people who defied his rule.

            "Thanks," he said again. Then he hesitated. He had dealt well enough with curiosity by assigning it to his third soul and doing private research projects in Muggle libraries, he thought, but he couldn't help trying to gratify it now. "Why are you telling me this?"

            "You saved my life on that fucked-up case last year where the murderer was transforming into a bird to escape." Allen gave him a nod. "You gave me the advice that let me spot him hiding among a flock of sparrows before he could kill me. I don't forget."

            Harry saluted back and watched her leave, glad that he had at least one ally among the inquisitive Auror ranks. He reckoned a few good relationships had come out of the things he did himself, not because they were part of the contract.

            Not many, though. He wanted those thoughts to remind himself of what he had really been like, just in case he ever started thinking that the contract had been a good, or forgivable, thing.

            He stood up and spent a few moments raking coals onto the subtle, flicking flame of his first soul. He had to make sure that he showed nothing but that when he went in to face Sandborn, or he would get in worse trouble than he already was.

            He left the office at last with a quietly careless air, hardly bothering to close the door behind him. If someone wanted to break in and steal the reports he was correcting and filing, they were more than welcome to do so.

*

            Draco lay back on his couch with a glass of lemonade in one hand, marvelously iced such as only his house-elves knew how to make, and the copy of Potter's contract that Daphne had stolen for him in the other. He sipped from the one and read the second with the same laziness. There was, at the moment, nothing urgent that he needed to protect Potter from.

            The money and properties that he and the other Slytherins had gained because of Potter seemed, to him, to be safe. His endeavors to give people reasons not to testify against him had continued. Daphne was safer than the rest of them, given her lifestyle. Blaise's mother had promised her protection if someone struck against Blaise and Astoria's family, and Pansy and Theo had flown farther under public notice than the rest accused. It was still possible that Sandborn would attempt to stir up trouble against them when he discovered Potter was leaving his service, but unlikely that he would succeed. And they were forewarned. That could mean everything, in a game like this.

            He didn't care about the things Potter had fought for that concerned his friends. More than likely, they would give those up out of excessive nobleness, and Potter would find some other way to press them on the hapless Gryffindors. Either way, they had nothing to do with Draco.

            Potter was free of the marriage to Callia. Draco lifted his glass in a silent toast to Pansy.

            Rettern was attacking Sandborn on the money front, and she was an extra line of defense and assurance that Draco and his friends would not be tried again.

            Almost everything else that Potter had fought for concerned someone Draco didn't care about, or for gains that had already been spent. Draco read to the end of the list and leaned thoughtfully back on the couch.

            There was one interesting omission from the list: Potter had never asked for anything like a house or extra money, and Sandborn had never pressed them on him in return for doing something for Potter. Draco permitted himself a smile as he imagined Sandborn trying, and Potter's undoubtedly furious reaction.

            That meant Potter would more than likely be able to keep his house, his money in his vaults, and his personal possessions. As long as Sandborn didn't try to destroy them or take them away, of course, and having met the man in person once now and several times at a distance, Draco wouldn't put that past him.

            But it also meant something else, something more personally significant for Draco. It meant that Potter wouldn't have tainted memories if Draco wanted to offer him certain gifts. Luxury foods, for example, or new clothes.

            He was idly planning out what he would give Potter first, and the outraged, spluttering reaction he would probably get, and the ways around it, when his Floo flared. Draco rolled over and raised an eyebrow. Usually, no one would call him in the middle of the day. Potter was at work, his friends busy with their lives. If Draco wanted to see them, he had to go over to their houses and bother them.

            Perhaps a sad commentary on the lack of busyness in his life, now that he thought about it.

            Pansy's face appeared in the flames. She looked grim. "One of our Ministry contacts just said that Potter went to Sandborn's office a few minutes ago," she said, without pausing for pleasantries.

            Draco rolled to his feet and reached for his cloak. It might mean nothing, or it might mean that Sandborn wanted to discuss a course of strategy with Potter that would give them valuable insights into what the man was thinking.

            But either way, he wanted to be there.

*

            "Shut the door behind you, Auror."

            Harry did that, quietly. Sandborn's voice had taken on an unfamiliar tone. He wouldn't make such a simple request in such a loaded way, not least because it could reveal his mood, and Sandborn took pride in keeping that hidden. He had told Harry that if he could keep his enemies confused about what he really felt, they would have to remain wary.

            Sandborn faced away from him, sitting in his chair with the back turned. Harry stopped five feet away from the desk, with plenty of room to fight or dodge if necessary, and waited.

            "I discovered something today," Sandborn said.

            Harry checked to make sure that his wand was free for a hand-drop and nodded. "Yes, sir?" he asked, when he realized that Sandborn wouldn't take the silence as a sign of assent and continue on his own.

            "I discovered," Sandborn said, "that certain key documents were missing, documents related to the witnesses who would have testified against Draco Malfoy and others at their trials if they had gone ahead. And I discovered a second thing." He turned around, eyelids heavy. "I discovered the level of Potions mastery necessary to brew a potion like the one that affected me."

            Harry held his tongue. At the moment, anything he could say would make things worse, either as an obvious lie or a useless statement of innocence.

            Sandborn spent a few minutes watching him, as if he assumed the silence would make Harry crack. Harry just stood there. He didn't know yet how much Sandborn knew, or exactly how he would react. He would be an idiot if he let Sandborn intimidate him into showing more than he wanted to reveal, though.

            At last, the Minister stood and came around his desk. He looked like he had the day Harry first brought the contract to him and asked him to agree to it: proud, haughty, and sorrowful that the rest of the world didn't listen to him and run the way he wanted it to run.

            "You could have told me," he whispered, laying his hands on Harry's shoulders. "If you were tired of service to me, you could have said so."

            "I did," Harry said, looking into his eyes and seeing nothing but sincere sorrow and weariness there. "I told you that I wanted you to retire in twelve years. And what I promised you, that I would marry Callia, is the biggest sacrifice I was capable of giving. That trade for Mr. Weasley's job was the last time that I would ever have asked you for anything. You must have sensed that."

            Sandborn's hands tightened. Since Harry could duck out from under them and be on the other side of the room in seconds, he wasn't necessarily frightened at that, but he did keep a sharp eye out so that he would know when he had to move. "You didn't say so. If you implied it, it was not strongly enough for me to know it." Sandborn's voice dropped again, this time to something lower than a whisper. "You should have said so."

            "I'm sure," Harry said, "that you wouldn't have wanted me to do it. You only think so now because you can see the consequences of letting me go."

            Sandborn shook his head. "I am asking you to reconsider," he murmured, in a calm, quiet tone that Harry didn't trust. Of course, he had trusted little about Sandborn for years. "The consequences will be as severe for you as for me. Loss of political influence. Loss of affluence. Loss of the public's trust. Loss of your job. The wheels that I helped spin grinding to a halt. Are you really ready to lose all of that?"

            Which was Sandborn's greasy way of threatening him. Harry took a long, slow breath. Then he twitched, and stepped away and free, so that he was once again standing five feet from the desk. Sandborn lowered his hands to his sides, watching Harry intently.

            "If all you do is try to hurt me," Harry said, "then I don't have an objection. I broke the contract. I expect to suffer the loss of my job and public influence because of that. But if you hurt my friends or someone else in your frustration, then I'll interfere. I won't have a choice. Your grudge is against me, not them."

            Sandborn looked as though he was in the grip of a passion, and also as though he wished he could make Harry feel it. His face was turning red, and he had clasped his hands behind his back, something he normally never did unless he wanted to hide how badly they were shaking. His voice came out so low and ugly that Harry was tempted to check over his shoulder to make sure that there was no one else hearing this who shouldn't have been. They didn't deserve to hear that tone from Sandborn's mouth.

            "Your friends. Is that what you call the Slytherins who drove your bride away from you, who tried to convince you that I was your enemy, who are undoubtedly behind these efforts to incite Rettern to attack me?"

            Now that he knows about the removal of those documents, the whole house of cards is falling. Either that, or Sandborn was making some shrewd guesses. Harry wouldn't let that rattle him into spilling more than Sandborn already knew, though. He met his gaze and said simply, "You're mistaken about the source of their influence over me and my relationship with them. But that doesn't matter. I've already told you the important thing, that I'm leaving your service. Or you stated it to me," he had to add, because in all honesty, that was what had happened. "Despite the consequences."

            Sandborn closed his eyes, but not before Harry saw how deeply that wound struck into him. Well, he couldn't help that. Sandborn had always wanted to be more his friend than Harry thought appropriate between petitioner and politician.

            Then Sandborn lunged at him.

            Harry was already braced, and he was the better fighter in anything purely physical. He whirled to the side, then grabbed Sandborn's arm and threw him further along the path of his lunge, using his own momentum against him. Sandborn stumbled, groping for him and trying to pull him to the floor, but Harry smoothly ducked his grasp and came up to plant a foot in the back of his knee. Sandborn fell, the air that could have been used in a dangerous spell rushing out of his mouth in a whoof. Harry saw his hand scrambling for his wand, but he hadn't found it yet.

            Harry drew his wand. He could Obliviate Sandborn, but he doubted it would help. There was too much that would change when Harry left his service, and the slightest suspicion that someone had blocked memories meant that he could dig them out from behind the block. Or a Healer could.

            Besides, Harry could be fairly arrested and put in Azkaban for using a Memory Charm on the Minister. So far, he'd done nothing that Sandborn could seize him for without revealing his own part in the contract, only defending himself when Sandborn attacked.

            But I need to make sure that he's out of the game for at least a short time, so I can reach Malfoy and we can find out how this slip-up happened and discuss what to do.

            That decided him on his action as well as giving him a convenient cover story. After all, it wasn't long ago that "someone" had used a potion against the Minister, and as far as most people knew, the result had been that he went to sleep and didn't wake up for a few days. Harry held his wand against Sandborn's temple and half-closed his eyes, breathing out, "Somnium."

            The Minister shuddered, and he managed to turn his head so that he could look at Harry. Harry flinched a little from the betrayed look in his eyes, but it was nothing compared to what he had endured from Ron and Hermione. Then the magic took effect, and Sandborn's eyes fell shut, the lashes fluttering a little in the wind from his suddenly gusting breath.

            Harry stood up and shut his eyes, arranging the details of the story in his mind. It had to be substantial enough to stand up to questions, but not so overloaded with details that someone could catch Harry in a lie.

            Someone knocked on the Minister's door.

            Harry walked over, feeling as though his step was springier than usual, full of possibilities. It would depend on who stood at the door: another Auror, a flunky, someone come for an appointment with Sandborn, or someone else. That would affect the shape of the story he told, but not its essential nature.

            Some of the political instincts Sandborn had taught him could come in handy, he was finding, as long as he was using them in the service of fighting for his own freedom.

            But when he opened the door, he ended up staring and standing still. In front of him was Malfoy, standing with his cloak slung over his arm as though he assumed Harry would need it wrapped around his shoulders for a brisk walk in the cold.

            "Malfoy?" Harry asked, and then stared up and down the corridor, wondering why it wasn't already swarming with interested people. If one of Sandborn's clues had been the potion, Harry would have expected him to pass the message to arrest Malfoy on sight.

            "Already handled him, have you?" Malfoy stepped past Harry and bent down to examine the sleeping Minister. He straightened up with a thin smile. "Ah, so the potion I brought won't be an essential part of the equation at all, but a useful distraction." He pulled a vial out of his pocket, uncorked it, and spoke a quiet spell that Vanished half the liquid, then tossed the vial down by Sandborn's hand.

            "What the fuck are you doing here?" Harry asked, since he was now over his surprise drying his mouth out.

            Malfoy flashed him a bright smile. "You don't think that we're completely out of contacts in the Ministry, do you? They're just not as prevalent as they used to be. So we knew that you'd gone to him, and I came to perform a daring rescue." He considered Sandborn. "I reckon now I didn't need to." He turned his head to look at Harry again, and Harry found himself standing taller under that glance with no idea why. "It's good to know that you can be ruthless when you need to be."

            Harry grimaced. "When someone attacks me, then I stop being nice."

            Malfoy's eyes flared with a heat that went so deep Harry flinched back a little. "Really?" Malfoy was practically whispering. "I'll have to remember that."

            "Don't get any ideas," Harry said, but Malfoy was looking at him with such amusement that he ended up giving that part of the conversation up as a lost cause. "What are we going to tell others?"

            "That you found Sandborn abusing a potion." Malfoy nodded at the half-vanished vial that lay next to Sandborn's hand. "I've made sure that every trace of my magical signature is gone from this one," he added. "I'm sure that he grew suspicious of you because someone discovered something."

            Harry nodded. "He said something about the level of potions skill visible in that potion that you left to turn into gas, and the fact that they had protections on the list of witnesses prepared to testify against you. He didn't seem to know who stole it, but he knew it was gone."

            "That's two to hold over her head," Malfoy said, and then waved a hand grandly. "Ah, well. No matter. Of course one can't be expected to pay attention to all developments in magical theory at all times." He turned and glanced at Sandborn. "How many people heard him summon you?"

            "He didn't summon me," Harry said. "A friend warned me that he was angry, and I went to him because I thought it best to get the confrontation over as soon as possible." He glanced down at Sandborn, and tried to feel some pity. It wasn't easy. "But depending on who she told, or who else overheard him ranting, others might know, too."

            Malfoy nodded, face rigid. "Then there's nothing we can do about the rumors that might spread," he said. "But the sleep spell that you cast on Sandborn should keep him asleep for a few days, and the potion adds to the cover story. This will damage him more than it did you."

            "Except for the people who might have seen me coming in here," Harry muttered, mind already trying to cover all the angles, from all the directions that he suspected someone like Malfoy would see the attack coming.

            Malfoy shook his head wisely. "If they did see you, that just adds credibility to the story. He attacked you once before when he was having an allergic reaction to a potion, and then he slumped down into sleep the same way." He paused, and the rigid expression became an open, flowing one, alive with possibilities. "That might make this very easy to spin, in fact. If we can convince others that Sandborn is abusing potions, and that you're a convenient target..."

            "Not everyone will believe that," Harry protested, thinking of the Ministry Potions masters. They had to be the ones who had told Sandborn that the potion that had affected him, Malfoy's potion, took a high level of skill to brew.

            "But enough people to slow him down," Malfoy said. "And in the meantime, there are other stories we can spin." He looked pleased with himself.

            "None of which deals with the problem of Sandborn's actual knowledge," Harry pointed out. "He knows that that list is missing, and that you're the one who brewed that potion. Or, at least, he suspects it strongly. He only agreed not to prosecute you for your supposed crimes during the war, not for anything you may have done since then."

            Malfoy gave him a lazy smile. "But what would happen if he tried to spread the story, and the Ministry Archives turned out to have the list back in place? What would happen if he tried to say something about the potion that turned to gas and how I must have left it, and I demonstrated that I didn't have the skill required to brew it?"

            "More people would be on his side than yours," Harry said, but he hesitated. If someone had stolen the list in the first place using Harry's blood, he reckoned the same thief could put it back. And unless Sandborn placed Malfoy under Veritaserum, then he wouldn't have any absolute proof that Malfoy could really brew such a potion.

            "At first," Malfoy said, looping his arm through Harry's. "And then when the news comes out that he attacked the Savior, people will desert his side in droves." He trailed a finger down the side of Harry's face. "He created, or helped you create, a reputation for being politically involved and on the right side during the last seven years. You might as well use it."

            Harry hesitated a moment longer. "That power always depended on him," he said. "I don't know that I could use it without his support."

            Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Of course you can. If you don't wait until he wakes up, but start spreading the rumors and giving the interviews right now, always with the caveat that you don't really intend to hurt Minister Sandborn, you just want people to know the truth is out there so they don't mistake you and think he did something worse than he actually did."

            Harry shook his head in spite of himself. "You're devious, you know that?"

            "Only devious?" Malfoy pressed his hand to his heart and fluttered his eyelashes.

            "And clever," Harry said, and gave in to the temptation to kiss him.

            Malfoy would have hung on and deepened the kiss, but Harry broke free and turned to the office door. "Let's go."

            Malfoy followed him, and when Harry glanced back, he looked like he was walking on air. Harry shook his head in amusement. He really thinks that he can walk like that just from kissing me?

            A stray thought crept into his head, sent down roots, and grew.

            Maybe he does.
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