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The Long Defeat	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 30612 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Six—All the Tricks
            “I think that’s the last of it,” Harry said, as he took delivery of a delicate crystal vial with something deep green and liquid floating in it from one of the owls. “Maybe not,” he added, as another line of owls came flying over the gates of the Manor.
            “What are half these things?” Draco was peering at the chests and trunks and scrolls and books and ledgers and mirrors and scepters and wands and portraits and general dust-covered paraphernalia on the grass with astonishment.
            “If you recognize even half, you’re doing better than me,” Harry told him wryly, and then had to duck as an owl carrying a small oval package tried to land on top of his head. “Perches are over there, wait your turn.”
            The owl gave him a chill look, but turned to the perches. Harry snorted a little. Goblin owls didn’t like him any better than the goblins themselves.
            “This is your heritage, dears.”
            Harry turned around, blinking. He had thought Draco’s parents were still asleep, but maybe that had only lasted until the delivery of the Black vaults’ contents began. Narcissa stood in the middle of the front doors, her eyes half-closed, her nostrils vibrating as if she was sniffing up a delicious scent.
            Well, she was born a Black, Harry remembered a moment later. To her, there probably are lots of familiar things here.
            Narcissa ran lightly down the steps and held up a hand. The owl that had tried to land on Harry’s head swooped over to her and landed on her arm. It was a handsome black bird with silver edges to its feathers, without the least resemblance to Hedwig, and Harry would have liked it fine if not for it deciding that his head was a reasonable perch. Narcissa took the package from it, and the owl was gone a moment later, flying with determination towards the trees over which yet more owls soared.
            There was a long moment when Narcissa undid the gilded wrapping of the package with exquisite care—Harry never could have unwrapped it like that, his fingers were too clumsy without a wand or a Snitch in them—and then she drew her head back and gave a long, satisfied sigh. “Yes, I thought so.” She turned towards them with a smile. “Come here, Draco. You should see this. You too, Harry.”
            Harry walked over willingly enough. He considered Draco and Narcissa the rightful owners of most of these things, anyway; while he would like to keep some of it in memory of Sirius, Sirius had never got to use these vaults when he was alive, and had probably hated a lot of things his family treasured. They should go to someone who would appreciate them.
            The thing Narcissa held would have made it hard for Harry to decide if he wanted to keep it or not, though. It looked like a flat, square box, sort of like the plastic boxes that Muggles kept to store food in. Inside was what looked like honey at first, and then it shifted as Narcissa tenderly lifted the lid and Harry saw a glimmering red color to its general gold.
            “What is it?” Draco asked, making Harry feel better about the questions bubbling up in his throat that he’d thought were stupid.
            “The possible answer to a dilemma that your father has spent more time and thought on than I have,” said Narcissa. “This is Finder’s Blood Honey. It happens, of course, that there are times a couple cannot conceive an heir.”
            She gave Draco and Harry a knowing look. Draco’s face turned almost as dark as the owl’s feathers. Harry just rolled his eyes. He had never fooled himself that Narcissa, at least, didn’t know what was going on between him and Draco. For that matter, Lucius probably did, too, he just didn’t think that much about it.
            “This honey, if consumed by both members of the couple at the same time, allows them to find a child who can become an heir. If enough is taken, and the honey is old enough, it can work even on the unborn, and let them find a child currently in the womb that will fit their line’s artifacts in personality.” Narcissa’s hand smoothed reverently over the top of the box. “If we hadn’t had you, Draco, I would have found a way to remove this from the Black vaults so we could go searching for an heir early on.”
            Draco blinked rapidly and looked at the honey with an entirely new light in his eyes. Harry cocked his head. He wouldn’t mind having children, although he wouldn’t want to cheat on his current partner to do so. He just hoped that Draco would think of their child as a child first and an heir second.
            If I stay here. If I’m even Draco’s partner by the time the question of children becomes relevant.
            But Harry knew this was the wrong time to bring up his uncertainty about staying in the wizarding world. So he waited as Narcissa stared at the honey for some time with mist in her eyes, and then carefully closed the box.
He was utterly stunned when she handed it to him, though, and had to juggle it to make sure he didn’t drop it. Narcissa raised an eyebrow and murmured, “It’s not like you to be clumsy, Harry,” and she was the woman he knew again, which helped Harry steady his hands.
“I—look, I’d like a child, too,” said Harry a little awkwardly, and looked at her instead of Draco. “But I don’t know if I’m the right one to have custody of this. You’re both Blacks by blood.” He stepped back so he was looking at Draco. “You should have it.”
“Cousin Sirius made you his heir,” said Narcissa, and now there was a faint smile dancing on her mouth. “The goblins accepted his will. Far be it from me to contest something that goblins have decided.”
That was such shit that Harry was afraid he was going to say something intemperate in a moment. Instead, he stared at her flatly for the same moment, and then shook his head and turned to Draco.
“You think that this is a good idea?” he asked, and he wasn’t even sure what exactly he was asking about, the box or the honey or the fact that Narcissa had given it to him. Or maybe Narcissa’s outrageous pronouncement.
Draco looked at him, and there was a soft light in his eyes and around his mouth that Harry had last seen after they made love. “I think that it’s a good idea for you to consider a lot of these things yours,” he said. “We’re only storing them in our house and sharing them at all because you chose to share them. You could have given them up to the goblins, and we wouldn’t have had any say in that.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Harry responded, a little disturbed that Draco would think he could. “Sirius left them to me, and I don’t really want them for themselves, but I couldn’t dishonor his memory like that.”
“He left them to you,” said Draco, and his smile was the twin of Narcissa’s.
Like mother, like son, Harry thought incredulously, and didn’t throw the box at Draco only because he agreed with Narcissa that it was precious. He thought they might have different evaluations of the reason why, though. “Fine,” he said. “But I want you to know that I consider the two of you have just as much right to these treasures as I do.”
“Not my husband?” Narcissa asked, and placed her hand over her mouth to muffle what Harry was sure was a laugh when Harry glared at her.
“You know the answer to that,” was what Harry chose to say instead, and he turned away and walked to the front doors of the Manor instead. He would find a safe place to put the honey, and then he would come back and spend some more time sorting through the ridiculous amount of things they’d received by owl.
Like he had told Draco, there were a few things he’d like to keep in memory of Sirius, the same way he hadn’t wanted to give away the entire fortune to the goblins because of his memory. But those things were worth nothing against what he would have given if he’d been able to see his godfather again, touch him.
Hug him goodbye.
Harry sighed and shook off his mood. He would go back to looking through treasures, remembering the past, later. For now, he had part of a possible future to keep safe.
Not that he knew, even now, if he should stay in the wizarding world. It would depend, in part, on what would happen the first time he and Draco went to Diagon Alley or elsewhere as a normal couple, and the wizarding world found out they had been tricked.
Harry smiled. Now that was a part of the future he could look forward to indeed, and a part of the past that he wouldn’t be at all sad to banish.
*
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
Draco hunched his shoulders a little, and checked the hang of his robes one more time. But Harry reached out and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder, and it was impossible to feign interest in busyness alone when Harry was doing that for him.
“Hey,” Harry whispered. “I have my wand and I have my magic, always at the ready to defend you. You don’t have to worry about yourself. I promise you that.” He leaned in and kissed Draco softly on the cheek. “But I know that it might not reassure you much until we get out into the alley, and you see the ways I can defend us.”
Draco looked him right in the eye. “You really don’t feel awkward going out in front of everyone after we’ve told them that you’re my sex slave and barely controlled and mad, and—and all the rest of it?”
Harry’s smile turned soft and reflective. “If this was the first time that someone had ever written things like that about me? It would be as awkward as hell.” He leaned forwards and smoothed Draco’s robes himself, and Draco found that he couldn’t take his eyes off him. There was no question that Harry was, for Draco at least, the most brilliant thing he had found in his life.
“But you’re forgetting that the papers have called me mad before. Evil. A Dark Lord. The Heir of Slytherin. An attention-seeker. A liar. The person who had to die to save the world, and then the person who had to become a slave to save them all.” Harry looked up from Draco’s robes, and his eyes were meltingly direct. “I know that I’m none of those things. At least this will be different. This will be me forcing them to write certain things, cope with certain things, because there’s a truth staring them in the face and they can’t ignore it.”
“Someone might attack us and try to force you back inside because they think that you walking around outside the wards is a violation of the bargain we made with the goblins,” Draco murmured. “And they might panic that the goblins will destroy the economy after all.”
Harry gave him a sharp smile. “I was studying for the Auror program most of this year, you know, before the goblins started making noise. I learned lots of spells that aren’t lethal and don’t even hurt that much, but they’re really embarrassing. I know the incantations and the wand movements perfectly.”
Draco leaned against him and kissed him, long and lingering. Harry totally gave into it and let Draco kiss him until their mouths felt numb. Then Harry stepped back and put his hands on Draco’s shoulders, shaking him a little, staring into his eyes.
“I won’t give you up, and I won’t let them hurt you, and I won’t give this freedom up,” Harry whispered. “Don’t suggest it again.”
Draco shook his head, and reached up to clasp one of Harry’s hands. He squeezed hard enough that Harry had to wring that hand when he let go, but Draco thought that was okay; he knew he’d made his point.
*
People really did turn to stare at them as they walked through Diagon Alley.
Well, of course they do, Harry thought, and shook his head against irritation with himself. I’m the famous Harry Potter, and the last they knew I was just someone who might destroy the wizarding world. Like I was when I was resisting going into Gringotts to be a plaything for the goblins, and like fifth year, and like second year.
Harry wondered idly whether even Voldemort had been accused of trying to destroy the wizarding world more often. Voldemort had probably had more fun, though, because he had been trying to accomplish that goal.
Maybe I ought to have tried it once, just for the novelty.
“What are you doing out?”
That was a tall, thin witch with a nose like a pickax, who seemed to have decided that she was going to be the one brave enough to speak if no one else was. Harry turned so he was walking backwards, keeping her in view. Draco was right beside his elbow; Harry could feel the reassuring brush of his robes.
He tried to make the smile he gave the witch at least as reassuring, although from the way her eyes narrowed at him, she didn’t think it was. “I don’t have the madness we told the papers about,” he answered. “That was a trick to make sure that the goblins were satisfied I was really a slave and left us alone instead of checking on the Malfoys every five minutes. But I’ve made a new bargain with the goblins now, and I can be free and walking around the streets just like anyone else. Isn’t that nice?”
The woman’s body stiffened like a stork about to peck somebody. She took her wand out and aimed it at him.
Harry shot out one hand and closed it around her wand, smiling nastily. He didn’t use his magic yet, but the fearless look on his face seemed to freeze the woman as effectively as if he had.
“One thing we didn’t lie about,” he said. “There’s no way that we could have lied about it. The grass that I blackened beneath my hands? I really do have that magic. I can destroy stone and marble and money, too, if I want. But my specialty is organic things.” He jerked his head at the wand he held. “Do you want to find out what my power does to wood?”
Draco stood beside him. Harry could feel the small twitches that came up his arm through Draco’s motions, and knew that Draco was subduing wild, impatient laughter. He probably did want to tell Harry to use his power, but they had agreed that they wouldn’t do anything to give the impression that Draco was Harry’s “master.” That deception might be the hardest to put to rest.
“Well?” Harry asked, when the witch stood there staring at him. She hadn’t even made a motion to take her wand back from him. “I asked you a question. Do you want to find out what kind of ash I can make your wand crumble into?”
“No,” she whispered. She was shaking her head hard enough that Harry thought he could see her earlobes trembling.
Harry eased off a little on the menace, and tried to make his smile merely dismissive. He didn’t release the wand, though. “Then step away slowly, and I’ll let go of the wand when you’re at the full extent of your arm. That will give you enough time to free it without pointing it at me again—which I really advise you not to do.”
The witch nodded, after a second when she seemed to realize that Harry was still waiting for an answer. Harry slowly relaxed the hold of his fingers, loosening the grip until she was a meter from him and he really couldn’t stretch anymore. He let it go, and the witch immediately tucked her wand back into her sleeve and walked away as fast as she could go.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Harry called at her back.
The flash of a curse from the side caught his attention, and Harry immediately flicked his own wand and raised a Shield Charm in front of him and Draco. That one really was a spell he could do as fast as thought. The curse collided with the shield and splattered down on the cobblestones, making one flicker and blacken in a way Harry recognized.
He followed the line of the curse back to the wizard who had cast it, and clucked his tongue. “The Bone-Melting Curse? That’s an interesting study of the Dark Arts you’ve done there, stranger.”
“You can’t destroy all our wands!” someone yelled from a short distance away. “The Ministry won’t allow it!”
“The Ministry won’t allow you to cast that curse, either, but someone did,” Harry said. He didn’t look away from the shaking wizard who had cast the curse, and he didn’t think it would be a good idea to do so. The wizard was probably their most dangerous opponent right now. He might try and kill them out of sheer panic. “Before that, someone pulled their wand on us. I’m allowed to defend myself, and that’s what I’ve done. With plenty of warning.”
There was a confused response at that, the crowd calling out with a series of hisses and insults and yells. Harry merely listened. The curse-casting wizard put down his wand and scurried away in the midst of the distraction.
No one else cast a spell at them. There were a lot of threats, though. Harry finally shrugged and said, “You could go and ask the goblins for their side of the story, if you’re that interested. Or ask the Ministry what they intend to do about me.”
For some reason, that struck a lot of people as a good idea. Off they marched towards the Ministry, and the others backed off and found themselves focused on their own business. Harry laughed softly and turned to walk towards Flourish and Blotts with Draco, their intended destination all along.
“Aren’t you worried?” Draco asked him softly.
“That someone might hurt us with a stray curse I couldn’t stop? Sure.” Harry looked at him. “That I’ll get arrested for this? No.”
Draco shook his head in wonder. “It must be a side-effect of living in danger all your life,” he muttered, as if he was talking to himself. “You must get used to it and not worry as much about the possible consequences.”
Harry leaned his hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Part of it’s that. And part of it’s just being confident to handle myself. And I know there are no laws that cover this situation. Because I looked it up,” he added, seeing Draco’s mouth open.
There was a small silence, and then Draco smiled again and faced forwards. Harry didn’t think he was meant to hear the next, softly murmured words. “That means that you’re thinking about staying in the wizarding world.”
Harry thought of talking about what a large and complex decision that was, what kinds of factors would play into it, the sort of things that he would like to say and which he couldn’t say.
At least, not in the middle of a public street.
So he leaned a little harder on Draco’s shoulder, and they continued walking, in the middle of the delicious fresh air and the sunlight.
*
staar: Lucius isn’t the happiest, no, but the Blood Finder’s Honey will help a bit.
delia cerrano: Thanks! Harry wouldn’t feel himself at a disadvantage, but it’s true other people might see it that way.
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The Long Defeat