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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-Seven--The Time of the Shedding of the Skin

            Harry sat on his bed--"his" bed--in the room that Malfoy had lent him and closed his eyes. The Silencing Charms that Malfoy had cast on the magic mirror still held, and Malfoy had taken one look at him after they'd come inside from the report to the press and said that he wouldn't disturb him for a while, so he could count on being alone.

            It was over.

            He had dirtied himself for no reason, in the end, since his friends might give up what he had gained for them and the stories the reporters wrote would destroy most of the reputation Sandborn had left along with Harry's. But it still felt wonderful. He had reached into his heart and pulled out everything that had bothered him over the years or that should have bothered him, the thoughts that had ached in his third soul, the actions he had taken that were far from noble. He had exposed them to the world's sight now, and they would be judged by that sight, for good or ill.

            He knew it would make a lot of people think of him differently. He'd probably suffer from it.

            But there were some things no one could take from him. His home, which he owned outright. Some of his money, since the Ministry generally only seized Gringotts vaults as compensation for war crimes (although Harry had to accept that he'd probably lose a lot of Galleons as legal fees). His resolve to do something good and new with the rest of his life, since he wasn't about to be drawn back into politics again.

            That doesn't tell you what you should do.

            Harry shrugged a little. He was all right with not having a plan for the rest of his life. The attempt to make one, and let the contract control everything from his marriage to his career, had been a scared little boy's plan, and one that had interfered with the freedom and decisions of other people in a way he'd had no right to try. He could hope that the next phase of his life would turn out differently, in a way.

            He had no idea when his thoughts passed into quietly-breathing sleep as he lay there on the bed, but at some point, they did.

*

            Daphne paused and eyed the doors to the Archive with a smile. They had improved their defensive wards. This time, a dog made out of silvery smoke stalked back and forth before the doors, with immense dignity. She could imagine that it was intended to rush out and bite anyone who disturbed its track.

            She cast a spell and nodded in approval. Yes, it was meant to react even to the imposition of a stranger's magical signature in the form of any charm that might send it to sleep, or anyone who approached without an escort from a wizard it knew. The Ministry had become cleverer and warier.

            Too bad for them that she was better.

            She retreated a short distance down the corridor and cast a small alarm spell of her own, one that manifested as a golden Siamese cat which scampered up the wall and watched behind her. Then she took a flask of oil out of her cloak and sniffed it gingerly. Yes, it still smelled like crushed peppermint, so strongly that she flinched back from it before she could stop herself.

            Out came a small brazier, and a handful of white powder that she'd paid dearly for in Italy. She scattered the white powder into a cup that waited over the brazier, and then dumped the oil in. It bubbled fiercely in seconds, the white powder grains tumbling and rising and rolling, clinging to the oil as though they were eating them. They were, in a way. Daphne glanced up at her cat and then down the corridor at the dog, still relentlessly patrolling, and squatted on her haunches. Really, waiting without something to study was the most tedious portion of her job.

            At last the mixture in the brazier stopped bubbling, and more or less circled there, a smoke as thin as the smoke that made the dog. Daphne smiled and flicked her wand. The smoke flew up and surrounded her head in a corona. She directed it down the corridor towards the dog with another flick.

            Of course, normal peppermint was unlikely to affect a magical guardian. But the powder Daphne had paid for--which its maker claimed came from boiled vampire bones--changed normal oil into its spiritual essence.

            As she watched, the smoke slid into the guardian dog's nostrils, and it leaped straight off the ground. Then it began to shake its head and sneeze, but the smoke clung stubbornly to it, no more prone to disappearing than a normal scent would be because someone sneezed. The dog whimpered, whined, and lifted one insubstantial paw to slide over its nose. Daphne smiled, and thought she heard the cat she'd cast laughing behind her.

            The dog rolled on the floor, buried its nose in the carpets, leaped up and down, and rammed its head into the wall in an attempt to get rid of the peppermint. Finally, it fled down the corridor, whimpering. Daphne suspected that it would either fade out of existence when it left its post or go and find its caster in an attempt to make him deal with the problem.

            Meanwhile, she walked casually over the doors and got through them the way she had once before, pausing only to charm the cat out of existence and pack up the brazier and the empty oil flask.

            The Ministry Archives could still use a good dusting, Daphne thought critically as she made her way towards the aisle where she'd got that list of witnesses. And they could use a good picking-over by someone like her, who would reassure the anxious custodians how many of their contents were actually valuable.

            With an effort, she restrained her fingers. She had given herself away somehow last time, so that they had noted the list was gone. She owed it to Draco--and to her own professional pride, much the more important thing--to get in and out this time with no mistakes, and make the Minister seem lying or delusional, or both at once, when he claimed that such an important document was gone.

            This time, she used another freely-given drop of Potter's blood, but the protections around the array of scrolls stayed intact. Daphne leaned back and looked thoughtfully at them, drumming one hand against her leg.

            Then she smiled. Of course. That would appeal to them, to reverse the protections. Never underestimate the attraction of symbolic thinking.

            She had come prepared with other drops of blood, partially because she had thought the wards might have been changed and partially because that was what she always did. She took out a vial now that she carefully extracted the blood from, waiting until it fell onto the dish she held even though it took long minutes to inch out of the crystal. One didn't tamper with unicorn blood that carried no curse, it was so expensive and difficult to obtain.

            Once the drop lay there, shimmering and silvery, Daphne pricked her finger and crossed it with a drop of her own.

            The wards hissed and vanished. Daphne nodded. The Ministry had used Potter's blood last time, thinking he was such an enemy of the accused Death Eaters he must be their complete opposite, but when that didn't work, it made sense that they would have turned to a ward that couldn't be dissipated except by the blood of a complete innocent.

            Except that even the friends of complete innocents get desperate for money.

            She placed the scroll she'd originally stolen back in place and spent a few more leisurely hours looking around the Archives. The guardian dog spirit hadn't managed to find anyone to free it from the peppermint oil, not surprising since it was the middle of the night.

            And though she'd had to do this since she had made the mistake in the first place, there was no reason not to pick up as much extra payment as possible.

*

            Draco sat in front of his fire in the largest bedroom and glanced down, now and then, at the sleeves of his bright green robe. They looked exactly as they always had--shone exactly as they always had, since they were bright with golden embroidery. There was nothing new about them, no reason that he should feel foreign in his own body.

            He came back, soon enough, to the thought he had been avoiding. It was Potter who made him feel foreign in his body, not his clothes or even the comments the magical mirror had made that morning, before Draco hushed it.

            Potter was changing, moving on in a new direction that could easily leave Draco behind, if he was stupid enough to let that happen.

            He didn't want to be. But he also didn't want to go crawling after Potter on his hands and knees. He had given as much as he had to repay the debt and to reawaken Potter from the soulless state he had drifted into, and that was right and proper. But to give so much more...to ask Potter to stay with him, or be his lover...

            Draco shook his head and stood up with a snap, determining that he was going to go change out of these robes and into some that were more flattering. Then he would read for a time, or get on his broom and play Quidditch, or call up Pansy and torment her.

            Anything but stay here and brood over a man that he was increasingly coming to suspect he couldn't have.

*

            Harry woke shortly after noon, and stifled his yawn before he remembered that there was no one else in the room with him to be offended. He probably wasn't going to have that many public appearances in the near future, either. He could spill food on his robes and yawn openly and sprawl in chairs instead of sitting up neatly if that was what he wanted to do.

            He smiled only long enough for some of the thoughts that he'd had before he slept to come back to him. What would he do now? So he didn't have an immediate plan for his future, and could live with that; he still had to do something other than sit around in his house and wait for the reporters to lay siege.

            Well, first he could go find Malfoy and see about getting something to eat. Harry shed his Auror robes, removed the attention-attracting charms, and wandered out into the main corridors of Malfoy Manor.

            They were confusing enough that he at last called a house-elf to guide him, hoping it would take him to the kitchen or the dining room.

            Instead, the house-elf led him out into the gardens. Harry had so far only seen them from the house, and hadn't realized that the back part of them was a private Quidditch pitch. Malfoy was speeding along on his broom above it, pivoting and diving with the skill of a trained Seeker. Harry found himself halting and his mouth going dry in admiration.

            That had not been part of what he wanted to do.

            Malfoy had two Bludgers whirring through the air after him, apparently bouncing off the Keeper's hoop and three strategically planted trees the way they ordinarily would off Beaters' bats. The Quaffle also bounced up and down distractingly in the background, and now and then crossed his path as if its life's mission was to put him off the chase.

            Malfoy never faltered. His eyes stayed locked on the Snitch, no more than a tiny gleam of gold from this distance even to Harry's charmed sight, and he zipped and ducked and flew down and circled in perfect time. He held it up in less than two minutes from the time the elf had led Harry outside and whipped back around, waving the Snitch above his head and bowing to an imaginary cheering crowd.

            Harry had to smile. Even when he thought he was alone, Malfoy was flamboyant and obviously played to the public. Well, maybe that was simply what he was really like. Once again, Harry couldn't fault his honesty.

            Malfoy saw him and smiled, or Harry thought he did; if he couldn't actually see the Snitch from this distance, he wasn't about to trust other things that his eyes were telling him. He arrowed his broom towards Harry and landed neatly on the grass in front of him. Harry blinked. He knew that one minute Malfoy had been above him and the next he was in front, but that had been too fast for his eyes to follow.

            Probably a good thing. That means that I didn't have the chance to lash out at him because of those stupid Auror instincts.

            "Pretty good, huh?" Malfoy opened his hand and then caught the Snitch with the other before it could flutter away. "Though not my fastest time ever. I think I only achieve those when I'm playing with an opponent." He cast Harry a sly glance, so the words were probably meant to evoke the memories that they did.

            "I didn't know you still played." Harry leaned closer, and tried to pretend it was for some other reason than a chance to breathe the familiar scents of sweat and leather. Malfoy's smile became a bit more private, and he turned to the side, staring at the Snitch as if it was the one who'd asked him the question.

            Or implied question. Harry didn't think he'd actually asked one. Then again, his head was getting a little hazy, standing this close to a relaxed Malfoy and in the increasing realization that he really was free.

            "I do it with Blaise sometimes, and Theo, and Pansy," Malfoy said. "Like I said, I don't think I can keep my hand in unless I have an opponent."

            Harry shuddered, not at all theatrically. "I'd be scared to play Parkinson," he said. "If she's half as clever with the Beater's bat as she is with her words, at any rate. Or does she play Chaser?" He couldn't imagine Malfoy joining in a game with someone else who played Seeker.

            At least, not someone who isn't me.

            Harry paused. And what a weird time to feel possessive of Malfoy, of all people.

            "Beater," Malfoy said. "At heart, Pansy is a simple soul. She likes to hit things. She just varies her weapon with her choice of target, that's all."

            Harry smiled and then ducked as one of the Bludgers came down behind him. The other balls landed not far away, and Malfoy nodded and waved his wand to summon forth a trunk with places for them, much like the one Madam Hooch had had in Hogwarts. Harry hesitated, then moved to help him. He reached out to take the Snitch, and found Malfoy watching him with a faint smile, his fingers still locked on the madly fluttering wings.

            "You still can't wait to take the Snitch from me," Malfoy said. "I'm glad to see that aspect of you didn't change, even though so much else about you is different from the time I knew you first. I'd hate to think that my old enemy was gone forever." His hand came to rest on the back of Harry's neck, casually imperious.

            "That's not all I can't wait to take from you," Harry said, ignoring his rapid heartbeat while trying to remind himself that it was all right, and he was allowed to make mistakes, and that even if this didn't work out it was still something he wanted to do, which made it different from the contract, and leaned forwards.

            Malfoy remained in place this time, blinking as if he was unclear on the concept or didn't believe Harry would really do it. Harry showed him. He linked his hands together behind Malfoy's neck and tugged him into the kiss.

            Then the bastard was enthusiastic enough, opening his mouth with a moan as if he thought that Harry wouldn't learn without the right instruction, and rubbing against Harry's leg hard enough to topple them both over. Harry went, sprawling in the short, soft grass of the Quidditch pitch, absurdly happy to be where he was and doing what he was doing, right now.

            Malfoy reared above him, licked saliva from the corner of his mouth, and dived right back in. Harry felt gloved hands running under his shirt and stopped only long enough to tug the gloves off. Then he shuddered, because Malfoy's hands were still chilled from the air of the heights he'd flown at, gloves or not.

            Malfoy laughed into his ear. "Time to see what you're made of," he said, and tweaked a nipple hard enough to make Harry jolt.

            Harry hardly remembered how they'd got their clothes off; it was full of laughter and Malfoy telling him jokes that weren't funny--except that he was laughing, so at least some of them must have been--and unexpected places on his body firing to life as Malfoy touched them. He'd done well enough not expressing passion for Callia and not cheating on her for years, so Harry was a little surprised about the excitement that flooded him, made him ache, made him reach for Malfoy and keep snogging him to the point that it was hard for him to do anything else.

            But perhaps his body remembered it the same way he could remember the Quidditch moves despite not having played in years. And perhaps it was just Malfoy.

            Malfoy grinned at him and held up a tube of lube that he'd got who knew where. Harry wondered if he'd been carrying it in his pocket against this chance, and would have been upset, but he was smiling too much for that.

            "How do you want to do this?" Malfoy bent down, breathless, and kissed Harry's cheek. "I could fuck you, or you could fuck me, or I could suck you..."

            "For the first time, let me fuck you," Harry said, clenching his teeth against a longing that threatened to sweep him away like a flood.

            Malfoy grinned and nodded, as if impressed that he could actually say the word, and reached casually behind himself, fingers coated, to probe into his arse. Harry realized that he was holding his breath as he watched and released it with an explosive grunt.

            "Don't die of suffocation before we get to the best part," Malfoy said, and then paused, a thoughtful expression on his face, getting only a little strained as his fingers worked inside himself. "Well, the best part for you. Whether it's going to be the best one for me depends on how skillful you are with that wand of yours."

            Harry rolled his eyes and started to say something about how anyone who could make a wand joke at this stage in the game was too immature to have sex with him, but then Malfoy reached out and rubbed his fingers gently up and down Harry's own cock, and all his breath left him in a grunt again.

            Malfoy grinned at him. "Ah, you're very expressive," he said, and lined himself up, while Harry lay on his back and stared at him with a dazed expression. "I enjoy that in a lover. I wonder if you'll say anything else when you're done, or if I'll have to guess from the particular way that you moan." Then he let himself drop straight down before Harry could say anything, including "Are you sure you want to do this?" or "I thought you were supposed to be the one lying on your back."

            Harry arched up as he felt the tight squeeze, the almost painful slide, of his cock into Malfoy's body. Malfoy paused above him and shook his head. "What did I say about dying of suffocation?" he asked, and gave the side of Harry's face a little slap.

            Harry grunted and gasped and finally managed to work his eyes open. "You--you can start now, I reckon," he whispered shakily.

            "I thought you'd never say," Malfoy said. He was rocking back and forth, sometimes bracing his hands on Harry's shoulders, sometimes on his chest. Harry thought he was enjoying himself, but that particular brightness on his face made it hard to tell. It was the same brightness that he used when making fun of someone, Harry thought. "And you can fuck back, you know."

            Harry shuddered as the word seemed to strike him somewhere under the breastbone. He was fucking Malfoy. He was having sex with Malfoy. Well, technically he already had, but this felt as if it counted more, somehow.

            He began to thrust up, and Malfoy laughed at him, a welcoming laugh, not a mocking one, and Harry began to get lost in thoughts that consisted of little more than "hot" and "tight" and the small noises that emerged from Malfoy's mouth and the brilliance of his eyes, and there was little more than that.

*

            As Draco had suspected, Potter was actually a good fuck once you worked past the layers of self-blame and self-denial and self-sacrifice.

            Of course, as Pansy would probably say, why would you want to put in all that effort? But Pansy wasn't the one feeling the way that Potter plowed into him, or the fire that was fully there, sparking in Potter's eyes.

            Or the helpless little way that his hands groped for Draco's hips. Draco liked that.

            Potter began to pant as his climax drew closer--or at least Draco hoped it was drawing closer, because he really was annoyingly non-verbal and Draco's hips were getting tired. He rose up a little, wriggled himself closer to Potter, and then came down again.

            And that time, Potter finally hit his prostate. Draco arched his neck, hissing, and began to ride Potter in earnest. Potter was finally crying out, too, miracle of miracles; the way he snapped his neck back and worked his hips as though he would fuck Draco right off him and onto the grass was particularly gratifying.

            Harry--Draco should call someone he permitted into his body by his first name, probably--came with a great shout and a splatter of wetness inside Draco that made Draco feel as if he would fall off the bastard's cock. Draco bowed his head, clenched his inner muscles, and came hard enough to make the world spin around him. He fell off and sprawled beside Potter immediately, because he had never liked the sensation of a softening cock stuck inside him. His body hummed with pleasure, and he closed his eyes and hummed aloud in response, running a hand lazily over Potter's chest.

            Potter--Harry--caught his hand. Draco opened his eyes and looked at him. Harry was appropriately dazed.

            "I thought it wouldn't be that strong," he said at last, and then stopped and swallowed. Draco waited patiently, stroking his nipples and throat.

            "What are we doing?" Harry asked helplessly. "Now that I'm free, and Sandborn's falling, and your debt's repaid...what's next?"

            "More fucking," Draco said at once, hoping, again, that Pansy and Daphne weren't right. He would hate to fall in love with someone this stupid. "And then figuring out what comes next. I don't know. Does it have to be more than that? Do you have to have your future planned out for you the way your past was?"

            A slow smile worked its way over Harry's face, and he began to shake his head. "No," he whispered, and bent down to kiss Draco, which made him breathless. "No, I don't. You're absolutely right."

            The kiss got more intense, and by the time that they were fucking again, Harry rearing above him and buried between his thighs this time, Draco was satisfied that he had chosen a partner of at least moderate intelligence after all.



*

            SP777: You're welcome! The consequences were delayed for a chapter, because after all Sandborn is still asleep.

            dust in the wind: Thank you so much! This story is going to be finished soon, but I hope you continue to enjoy the rest.
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