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The Descent of Magic	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18803 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Five—Entertaining Highfeather

            “This is a very—old house, Mr. Potter.”

            Harry hid a grin as he leaned back and waved Highfeather in through the front door. He could imagine all the things that her words hid, all the emotions, but they were being polite and pure-blood and not showing them.

            “It is,” he said, as Highfeather sat down in his drawing room and stared in several different directions at the wallpaper, at the old portrait of a man Harry had found upstairs and hung here—Harry thought he was a Black ancestor, but he never spoke, and there was no name on the back of the portrait—and at the cheery fire on the hearth. “I know that my godfather, Sirius Black, never liked it, but it’s been a source of comfort to me.”

            “Because it afforded you privacy after your—accident?” Highfeather crossed her legs under the formal robe and focused on him.

            We also aren’t calling things by their real names, Harry thought, but he nodded to her. “Exactly. No one could reach me here, behind the wards, unless I wanted them to. And it was acknowledged that reporters wouldn’t harass me for an interview.” He paused and pretended to think about that, although in reality much of what he would say was scripted and he and Draco had practiced it the evening before. “Well. Acknowledged by me and my family, at least. The reporters took a few stings from the wards before they learned.”

            Highfeather laughed, her voice deep and warm. Harry watched her and wondered how many different shades of emotion she could command, how many ways she had of saying the same thing. She looked very different from the sulky woman who had challenged them at that first public meeting.

            There was a soft chime from the direction of the door. Harry glanced at it. “That’ll be the tea,” he said.

            And stood up.

            He knew that Highfeather had leaned subtly forwards, not because he saw it—she was too delicate for that—but because she would want to see how well he had recovered after the disaster at her house. Harry didn’t look back at her. He simply walked over to the door, his knee a distant pain, and bent down to pick up the tray of steaming tea and biscuits that Kreacher had left there. He heard a soft grinding noise, but nothing more than that. Draco was a miracle-worker.

            He turned around, only to find that Highfeather had bowed her head to him. “You could have spent the rest of your life hiding here,” she murmured. “These are very powerful wards. But you chose to venture out and help others, instead. I admire you, Mr. Potter.”

            Harry blinked, thrown. He had known that Highfeather would be anxious to puff up his consequence now that they were allies, but he actually hadn’t expected this private show of support. He came slowly back to the couch, less because of the knee than because he was afraid of spilling something and because he wanted to know what her game was.

            But Highfeather only held out her hand and accepted her cup of tea as though nothing had happened, then selected a delicate biscuit with marzipan flowers from the tray and took a bite. Her eyes rolled back for a moment before she shut them. “Delicious,” she whispered. “Might I inquire who makes them for you, Mr. Potter?”

            It was time to toss the script out the window, Harry knew. They hadn’t anticipated this question, either. “My house-elf,” he said, and sat down on his couch and picked up a chocolate biscuit. The marzipan ones tended to make him sick with too much sugar. “Kreacher. I inherited him from my godfather.”

            Highfeather peered at him through one eye. “And you can trust him to stay out of the room if you ask him to?”

            “Yes,” Harry said, meeting her eyes. “Because I ask him to.”

            Highfeather sat there on the point of the needle for a moment as though she was contemplating leaping off, but then she nodded back to him and finished her biscuit, starting in on her tea. “And you have three children,” she murmured.

            “I do,” Harry said. “All born within a few years of each other.” He knew that many pure-blood families had multiple children only through dint of trying and many miscarriages. “And all perfectly healthy.”

            Highfeather smiled, leaning forwards. “I know many who would give much for such abundance. Who would give everything, perhaps.”

            Harry leaned back and let a little smile play around his lips, one that he hoped would unite him with Highfeather against the world. “Well,” he said softly, “then shall we see what they’re willing to pay?”

            That was a sentence he didn’t need any of Draco’s coaching for, and from the way that Highfeather smiled at him, all her teeth and all her joy, she recognized the difference in the way he was now handling her, too. “My pleasure to help you plan such a coup, Mr. Potter,” she said softly.

            Harry let his smile widen, and they got down to business.

*

            Draco clucked his tongue sharply against the roof of his mouth. He could see through the enchanted eyes of the portrait that Potter had hung on the wall; the spell to send its inhabitant to another frame and cast a shadow of him in the home picture instead, one that would be a motionless puppet for the wizard to look through, was technically Dark, but Potter had given him permission to practice it. They were behind some of the most powerful wards Draco had ever seen on a pure-blood house, anyway, as Highfeather had noted.

            He understood why Potter had decided to throw the script out the window and rely on his instincts alone for dealing with Highfeather. She had been more emotionally open than Draco had thought she would be during the conversation, taken more risks, offered a higher gamble.

            But Draco still wished there was some way he could be in the room without Highfeather assuming he was controlling Potter. She would want to challenge him for that position more than she would mind a pure-blood in charge of the Savior, but Draco wanted to encourage neither interpretation.

            Neither does Potter.

            Draco shifted, and forced himself to listen. Potter and Highfeather were talking about ways that they might make it more possible for pure-bloods to donate to magical creature sanctuaries under assumed names. Some of them would never want their names on display to the public as supporters of these mad ideas, although they would want the benefits, and most of their circles would know they had donated anyway.

            Draco paused. For the first time, probably because he’d spent so many hours around Potter and his breathtaking honesty, the system seemed silly to him. Why go through so many convolutions when everyone would know the truth, and you spent time and energy covering it up that you could have spent doing something else?

            He laid the thought aside. Whether or not he liked it, it was the way that pure-bloods for the most part operated, and they had to invest in the techniques that would make magical creatures, and thus the magic that guided them and influenced the lives of wizards, happy.

            Highfeather and Potter came to an agreement about allowing wizards to donate under Highfeather’s aegis—which would also give her a better reputation, making Muggleborns think that she was giving up more of her personal fortune than she actually was—and Highfeather rose to her feet, holding out her hand. Potter clasped it. He didn’t seem to expect Highfeather to pull him to his feet. He stood there in front of her, looking up, fearless as always, but off-balance in a way that had nothing to do with his knee.

            For that matter, Draco could feel his heart reeling in a dizzy pattern and his vision exploding with flashes of light. He shook his head and tried to concentrate. Was something wrong with him? Had he not eaten enough that morning?

            “I’ve long thought,” Highfeather said in a low voice, “that the high rate of divorce among pure-bloods needs a remedy. And, of course, many of us might begin to have more children, into our last decades, because of the long lifespans that wizards enjoy. What do you think, Mr. Potter? Don’t you agree that the birth of several new children, especially for those who have successfully raised one family, is a necessity?”

            Potter stood there looking up at Highfeather, and at least the expression on his face said that her announcement had taken him by as much surprise as it had Draco. If that hadn’t been the case, Draco would have—

            He would have done something. Something that no one could mistake, something that would leave Highfeather no doubt that he was eavesdropping on her little proposition.

            And that means that you would ruin the trap you went to such great lengths to set up, as if the politics of the moment, the greatest political struggle you’ve ever been invested in, should be sacrificed to the emotions of the instant.

            Draco held his breath and his silence until he was sure the dangerous time had passed, and in those few heartbeats, Potter had already reached up and pried Highfeather’s hand off his arm, although he never lost his smile.

            “It’s a thought,” Potter said. “But we should also be encouraging our children to choose their goals wisely, and their behavior. It would be disastrous if our generations treated house-elves gently and our children lost the chance to benefit because they continued to order them around the way they always thought they should be able to.”

            Highfeather smiled and stepped away from Potter, bowing. “That is true, and wisely spoken. I think that you are much wiser than you appear, Mr. Potter. I think you know good sense when you hear it.”

            There were more courtesies after that, and protestations of being obliged, and insistence by Potter on escorting Highfeather out, but Draco had to admit that he didn’t really hear them. He was concentrating on the deep whoosh of air in his own lungs instead, the way that they filled his chest when they expanded, and the way that all of this made his whirling mind slow to a stop.

            He knew what Highfeather had suggested to Potter. And even Potter, inexperienced as he was, couldn’t mistake a marriage proposal that unsubtle for anything else.

            But Draco had had no right to react as he did. He and Potter were both divorced, and they were allies, and Potter was wounded and Draco was helping him, and they both had adult or nearly adult children. It was worthless to think that Draco should have the right to be jealous over a marriage proposal of any kind.

            I am not jealous.

            Draco stepped back from the eyes of the portrait and made his way towards the drawing room, schooling his face and his breathing and his voice. When Potter saw him, he should have no reason to think that Draco had nearly exploded.

            But when he opened the door and Potter looked keenly at him, the first thing he said was, “What’s wrong?”

            Draco found himself pinned to the spot, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and no answer at the ready.

*

Harry, with his head high and his heart pounding furiously, thought he knew what was wrong with Draco. But he didn’t want to make a guess and presume, especially when it could be wishful thinking. Or, at the very least, he could be reading more into Draco’s behavior than was there because he wanted Draco to be jealous over him, fight over him.

Draco shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, in a croak.

“If you could see your face and the way it looks right now, you wouldn’t say that.” Harry remained against his couch, rubbing his leg above the knee in a slow circle. He wouldn’t come nearer; he didn’t want to pressure Draco. But he couldn’t help the yearning that rang through him like a bell, and he pushed with a few more words. “Did you think of something I should have said to Highfeather?”

Draco closed his eyes and touched his eyes, his forehead, the bridge of his nose. “No,” he said coldly. “You know that she didn’t do what we expected her to do, but nevertheless, you performed perfectly.”

            Harry sighed. He wished that Draco wasn’t taking this tack, but if he had chosen it, Harry would be cruel to flush him out. “Thank you,” he said. “There isn’t much that needs to be done for the next few days. Hermione is already preparing the next public meeting for the Ministry—”

            “Why there?” Draco’s eyes flared open.

            Harry smiled. “It shows how central we’ve become, going from the furthest edge of the wizarding world and meeting in front of my secluded home to meeting in the center of wizarding power. And she knows a lot of people we can plant in the audience to ask the right questions, and people who can help make sure the meeting is safe. I’ll answer any questions she has, but I don’t think she’ll have a lot; she’s pretty experienced at this kind of thing. Why don’t you take a few days off and speak to Scorpius?”

            Draco’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

            “I know that he came here the other day, and left abruptly,” Harry said. “Kreacher told me. I don’t know what you talked about, and I won’t ask.” He spoke as quickly as he could, since Draco’s brow was bending and furrowing and he knew that Draco would probably try to interrupt. “I just know that it was something serious. Would it help if you contacted him the way I contacted Hugo and asked him to come and talk to you? But in your house, or somewhere else. Or even here. You could have a room, and I promise that I wouldn’t try to listen in, the way that you let me have privacy to deal with Hugo.”

            “Stupidity,” Draco whispered. “When he could have hurt you.”

            Harry shook his head. “We’re talking about you and Scorpius right now, not me and Hugo.” Draco’s mouth trembled open, and then he shut it, but Harry imagined that he knew what Draco would have said. He paused, licked his lips, and said, “Unless you want to talk about me and Hugo. Or don’t want to talk about you and Scorpius. You know that I don’t want to force you into talking about something you aren’t comfortable with.”

            “Really?” Draco leaned closer, his nose pointed straight at Harry like the end of a muzzle. “Because it sure didn’t seem that way to me.”

            Harry kept his face calm and his leg straight, he thought, although he couldn’t help rubbing his leg again. “I am sorry for interfering between you and Scorpius the way I did by sending Teddy to talk to him—”

            “Your nephew could have hurt you,” Draco hissed. “You let him walk into the room with you when you had no idea what he would do. You deliberately got him as angry as you could when you knew he could lash out.”

            “Could isn’t the same as would,” Harry said. He was getting dizzy from the leaps and turns of the conversation, but he faithfully tried to follow the track that Draco was choosing. “And I got him angry, yeah, but it was the only way to be sure that he wouldn’t interrupt or run away like he has all the times before.”

            “You want me to approve of that,” Draco said, stalking closer to him. “You want me to stay out of the way. You probably feel the same way about Highfeather and her little offer today. Tell me, if I wasn’t behind the portrait watching, would you have accepted her offer?”

            Ah. Harry could feel a shrill, desperate tightening in his ears, but he didn’t even lick his lips, because that might scare Draco away.

            “Never,” he said. “I’m not interested in her.”

            Draco froze. But either he had come too far to retreat, or he thought retreating would be worse, because he got closer, until he and Harry were breathing into each other’s nostrils and Harry thought he would die of hope.

            “Her offer would never work, you know,” Draco whispered, confidential as a lover. “She’s proud of her family, but they don’t have as good a bloodline as the Potters. And they’ve struggled with children for the last ten generations. You would never get along with the way she treats her house-elves.”

            “Glad to hear it,” Harry said, and managed a faint smile. “Since I’m not interested, you know.”

            Draco seized his hand and dragged him closer. Harry stumbled, and cursed his knee. If Draco paid attention to that now, then it could be weeks before they got back to this point, or never.

            But instead, Draco leaned in closer and closer, and Harry held his breath and waited, and then Draco froze and stood there waiting.

            Harry had been wanting this moment for so long that he could do nothing but throw back his head and curl his hands around Draco’s neck so as not to fall. The dazzle of fireworks behind his eyes, the hope for a kiss, was that great.

            And still the moment hung between them, and hung.

*

            moodysavage: Thanks! I hope you enjoy this chapter when you read it.

            Scorpius and Draco are both receiving their swift kicks in these chapters, I think.

            ChaosLady: Thank you for saying so.

            SP777: Thank you. I think Harry feels a lot better, too. Among other things, he can focus on Highfeather and Draco in this chapter without worrying about Hugo.

            unneeded: Draco feels less than Slytherin at the moment.
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The Descent of Magic