Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

19 Years and 5 Minutes Later	By : TheMightyFlynn Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 58416 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any characters related to that series; they are JK Rowling's. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 1-19 Years and 5 Minutes Later
- 2-Ch. 2
- 3-Ch. 3
- 4-Ch. 4
- 5-Ch. 5
- 6-Ch. 6
- 7-Ch. 7
- 8-Ch. 8
- 9-Ch. 9
- 10-Ch. 10
- 11-Ch. 11
- 12-Ch. 12
- 13-Ch. 13
- 14-Ch. 14
- 15-Ch. 15
- 16-Ch. 16
- 17-Ch. 17
- 18-Ch. 18
- 19-Ch. 19
- 20-Ch. 20
- 21-Ch. 21
- 22-Ch. 22
- 23-Ch. 23
- 24-Ch. 24
- 25-Ch. 25
- 26-Ch. 26
- 27-Ch. 27
- 28-Ch. 28
- 29-Ch. 29
- 30-Ch. 30
- 31-Ch. 31
- 32-Ch. 32
- 33-Ch. 33
- 34-Ch. 34
- 35-Ch. 35
- 36-Ch. 36
- 37-Ch. 37
- 38-Ch. 38
- 39-Ch. 39
- 40-Ch. 40
- 41-Ch. 41
- 42-Ch. 42
- 43-Ch. 43
- 44-Ch. 44
- 45-Ch. 45
- 46-Ch. 46
- 47-Ch. 47
- 48-Ch. 48
- 49-Ch. 49
- 50-Ch. 50
- 51-Epilogue
- 26
- 27
- 28
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys!
BAFan: Holy shit, I have literally been reading her name wrong since the books came out! Thanks for pointing it out and it's been changed :)
There is mention of blood towards the end of the chapter. It's not too graphic, but I figured I'd warn anyway.
The realisation that he really didn’t want to go to the Ball that night had hit Draco early on in the morning on Friday; 5am, to be exact. He had risen to tend to his herb garden and had been hit by the strongest surge of reluctance that he had felt since the War. The feeling had followed him the entire day and now that he was standing on the hearthrug at Grimmauld, having just arrived, it had grown so strong that he was beginning to worry that there was actually something wrong with him. Moving through the house, he headed for Harry’s bedroom, thinking that once he was there, some of the nerves would dissipate.
“Harry?”
“Bathroom.”
Draco smiled as he entered the en suite attached to Harry’s bedroom: Harry was standing in front of the full-length mirror, yanking at the collar of his midnight blue formal robes. The sight caused warmth to flood through Draco’s chest, relieving some of the worry that had built up over the course of the day. Stepping forward silently, he replaced Harry’s hands with his own.
“Allow me.”
He kept his voice low and felt the shiver that ran through Harry in response. Adjusting the collar of Harry’s robes should have only taken a few seconds, but Draco lingered over it, enjoying the feeling of having him in his arms. Harry’s oaky aftershave drifted up from his collar and Draco breathed deeply, savouring the feeling of security he got from the scent.
“Draco?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to go.”
Draco chuckled as he finished adjusting the collar. “We could always stay here. I’m sure I could come up with a way to occupy your time instead.” He met Harry’s eyes in the mirror and smiled at the groan Harry let out. “I may even discover multiple things to keep you busy...”
“I hate you,” Harry muttered as he pushed away from Draco’s chest to continue getting ready.
Unwilling to allow Harry to leave that soon, Draco stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist. He buried his nose in behind Harry’s left ear and placed a soft kiss on the sensitive skin. Harry took a slightly shaky breath before leaning back into the embrace.
“Draco...”
The drawn-out vowels sent a shiver down Draco’s spine and he smiled in response. “If you manage to make it through the night, I promise to follow through on that threat.”
He would have continued, but Harry spun around and drew him into a heated kiss. His eyes slid closed and he sighed in pleasure as Harry’s mouth opened so he could slide his tongue in and over his teeth. The very faint taste of chamomile tea sent Draco’s senses spinning and he tightened his grip, pulling Harry flush up against his chest. He was having trouble breathing normally when they finally broke apart.
“Promise me you’ll be careful tonight.”
Draco raised his eyebrows at the request. “Coming from the man who catches bad guys for a living?”
“That’s different and you know it.” He pulled back and gave Draco a stern look. “If Ginny wants to hurt you, she will, so I need you to promise me you’ll be careful. Just... Look, just remember what I showed you and avoid her as much as possible. Please?”
Staring into Harry’s eyes – wide and crinkled with concern – Draco knew that he wouldn’t be able to deny him, not when he knew he had so much else to worry about at the same time. He nodded silently and leant in to brush their lips together again.
“I promise.”
Harry let out a pleased-sounding hum. “Thank you. Now go on; you’re distracting me.”
Draco grinned and stepped backwards. He ran his eyes over Harry one last time before moving back down through the house. They had decided that it would be best if they arrived separately, because they both knew that the press would go insane if they arrived together. It wasn’t going to be an easy night to navigate, but Draco knew, somehow, that it would be alright.
*~*
Scanning the crowd as it grew, Harry watched out for a flash of either pale blond or bright red hair. His nerves had never really left him, but Draco had managed to take some of them away before they had separated and now he was awaiting his arrival in the stuffy ballroom. He had been against arriving separately to the Ball, but had been able to see the logic. The amount of press that had been waiting outside the ballroom for his arrival that night was the most he had seen in the same place in a long time and he knew that if he and Draco had arrived together, then they would have caused something close to a riot to be the first to get pictures of the two of them together.
“You might want to be a little less obvious, Harry.”
Harry jumped at the sound of Kingsley’s voice behind him. He fought back against a blush as he turned around to see that Kingsley was shooting him a knowing smile. Ducking his head, he ran a hand along the back of his neck and shifted his weight onto his other leg as his stomach flipped with anxiety.
“Sorry, Kingsley, I just...” He sighed. “She’s got me so worried that someone’s going to be injured somehow just because we can’t get along anymore and it’s driving me insane. Every time someone new enters the room, I have to check to see whether it’s her or not and each time I’m disappointed because I know that if I can just keep an eye on her then I’ll be able to relieve some of the nerves.”
Kingsley eyed him for a few seconds before indicating that Harry should follow him. Frowning, Harry moved off after him, unsure if he wanted to leave the ballroom in case he missed either Ginny or Draco’s arrival. Thankfully, Kingsley didn’t want to take him far. He turned to face the crowd again when he reached the side of the stage and pulled Harry to his side.
“How many entries into this room can you see?”
Harry blinked, wondering why he was being tested like a first-year trainee. “Three doors, all of the windows and the trapdoor in the ceiling. Kingsley, I don’t see why–”
Kingsley held up a hand for silence and Harry obeyed immediately. His years of training had had him following Kingsley’s commands for many years and he knew it would take a while for him to get out of the habit.
“How many guards do you see at these entries?”
“There are two at each door, which is why–”
Kingsley stopped him with a raised hand again and Harry had to hold back an impatient sigh. “Is there?” He offered Harry a wide smile when he glanced up at him in confusion. “Look closer.”
Taking a deep breath, Harry closed his eyes for a few seconds, pushing as much of the worry and nerves to the back of his mind as he could. This allowed him to slip comfortably into his old role of field Auror so he could assess the situation properly. Focussing solely on the windows at first, he scanned carefully around them, trying to discern any kind of movement or distortion that would indicate someone using a Disillusionment Charm. He was quite tempted to cast a few charms in the direction of the windows just to see whether anything happened, but he knew that exposing anyone who happened to be up there would be a bad idea. When he couldn’t see anything there, he glanced up towards the trapdoor that led into the ceiling. Again he ran his eyes over the area, but again, he saw nothing. Frowning, he turned back to Kingsley.
“Sorry, Kingsley, but I can’t see anything out of place. If there’s someone up there, I can’t tell.”
“Good.” Harry’s eyebrows rose up into his hairline at the decisive tone to Kingsley’s voice. “If you can’t tell where they are, then a quick glance by someone less trained than you won’t bring them up at all.”
Harry watched as Kingsley brought out a small coin and pressed the centre. He recognised this as the same coin method of communication that Hermione had developed during their time in Dumbledore’s Army. The coin glowed a little before Kingsley stored it safely back in a pocket that was almost invisible in his formal robes.
“Watch up there by the first set of windows.”
Harry obeyed, focussing on a set of windows just above him and to his left. A slight shimmer near the edge of the sill that surrounded the window caught his attention before it vanished again.
“Was that a person?” He turned to Kingsley, who was smiling wide at him again. “How did you manage that?”
“The boys in Research have been busy adapting a few of the usual charms to be used for reconnaissance missions. They’ve only managed to modify the Disillusionment Charm so that the user is completely invisible when standing still, but I’d say it’s a vast improvement to seeing the slight distortion that occurred with the original charm. It might help to save a few more of our Aurors from having to take up beds in St. Mungo’s.”
Harry glanced back up toward the windows when Kingsley left him with a small nod, but the slight distortion had disappeared completely again. The thought passed through his mind that Kingsley had managed to give him something else to occupy his mind for a few minutes at least and he had to wonder whether it had been done on purpose. A slight movement out of the corner of his eye brought his attention back to the present and it took all of his will power to not react to it the way he had been trained to.
“Sorry, I should have thought.”
Harry didn’t even try to fight the relieved smile that spread across his face at the quiet sound of Draco’s voice coming from the shadows beside the stage. Of course Draco would have noticed his instinctive reaction to being startled when he had been in that mindset and it sent warmth spiralling through him. That warm feeling was helped along by the fact that Draco had obviously tracked him down the second he had entered the room, because he hadn’t been there when Harry had been watching for him. Glancing over to his left, he caught a glimpse of blond hair and blue-grey robes reflected by the candlelight when Draco moved further back into the shadows. A quick look over his shoulder told Harry that they weren’t being watched just yet and he followed.
“How are you? You made it through the scrum out there alright?” He ran his eyes over Draco critically, checking to make sure he was fine.
“Hello to you, too,” Draco responded, the amused-sounding tone to his voice matching the quirk of an eyebrow he offered up.
Harry held back from moving to scoop Draco into his arms and kiss him senseless, as he knew Draco wouldn’t thank him for it, but that didn’t stop him from stepping closer and running a thumb across Draco’s lips. He knew no one was watching them and that they could probably get away with nearly anything they wanted to there in that dark corner, but he was determined to respect the boundaries Draco set in public. Staring at Draco’s lips as he was, Harry missed the quick movement of Draco’s hands as he slipped them around Harry’s waist and pulled him close. Their lips connected briefly before Draco stepped back completely.
“I will make you follow through on that look later on.”
Standing frozen in the dark corner after Draco left to presumably mingle with the crowd, Harry’s mind could only focus on one thing: Draco had broken his own strict rules of how to conduct himself in public. He had broken them willingly and he had broken them for Harry. His heart raced and his skin tingled everywhere Draco had touched. What this meant would have to be examined later on, but for the time being, Harry was content to simply wallow in the blissful knowledge that Draco was willing to loosen up in public for him. It was a nice change from the seemingly constant stress he was under these days, but he knew it couldn’t last. He estimated that it was only two or so minutes after Draco had left that he emerged from the shadows himself.
He found Draco in the crowd immediately and wandered over to speak to a couple of elderly Wizengamot members, keeping Draco in his line of sight the whole time. It seemed to him that the instincts that Kingsley had caused him to call upon hadn’t been diluted a single bit since his years as a field Auror and it was these he called on to scan the crowd as well as keeping up with the conversation going on around him. He still couldn’t see Ginny anywhere, but he knew that that didn’t necessarily mean that she wasn’t going to show up. It surprised him, but the mingling part of the evening seemed to go quite quickly, considering how distracted he was with trying to both keep track of Draco and try to find Ginny.
The noise level in the room changed when people started to move off towards where the tables had been set up, close to the stage. Harry’s nerves kicked up a notch when he realised that he wasn’t going to be able to keep an eye on the door to see when Ginny arrived, but he soon realised that it would become obvious if a newcomer entered and had to take their seat while everyone watched. Moving off towards the tables, he kept an eye on Draco as well as the Wizengamot member he had been speaking to, making sure the old man got to his seat fine. Harry was fairly certain the man hadn’t heard a word he had said the entire night and he was quite thankful for that, because it meant that he hadn’t had to say much. He moved off towards the front of the room where he knew he was seated when he had deposited the man at his own table. The level of chattering rose again for a few seconds and Harry glanced up, wondering what had happened. It was then that he saw that Kingsley had seated him and Draco together.
The other members of his table were already seated when Harry took his place next to Draco and he had to smile: Kingsley had seated them with senior members of the Auror team that Harry knew wouldn’t cause them any trouble. He risked a glance over to where Kingsley sat at the next table and received a smirk in response. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Harry greeted the rest of the members of his table and settled in to listen to the introductory speeches. One of the senior members of the Ministry greeted them all, another explained why they were all there and which charity they had chosen to support that year and a third tried to amuse them all with stories of Kingsley and some of the other senior Ministry members when they had been juniors in the Ministry. This was all met with polite laughs, but Harry was beginning to fidget by the time the third man sat down again. He jumped when he felt Draco’s hand come to rest lightly on top of his under the table. It was a small touch and would have meant nothing if it were anyone else, but it caused the same kind of warmth to spread through Harry that the kiss had earlier. He bit down on his tongue and breathed shallowly in an attempt to not react at all, knowing that this was so much more than Draco would have offered under any other circumstances.
“...I present as your Head Auror for the final time, Harry Potter.”
The sharp sound of applause jolted Harry out of his warm bubble and he shoved back from the table, nearly knocking his chair over in the process. He was absolutely certain that he caught the flash of a smirk on Draco’s face, but it was hidden quickly. Breathing regularly seemed to be a bit of a difficulty when Harry was faced with the prospect of standing up in front of this amount of people – enough to fill half the ballroom – but he ignored his renewed nerves as best he could as he made his way up onto the stage.
He stood before the lectern that had been set up and glanced out over the crowd. They were still applauding and setting off camera flashes, causing Harry to blink his eyes rapidly in response. There was still no sign of Ginny and Harry had no idea if that was a good thing or not, but he couldn’t worry about that now. From now on in, she was the security guard’s problem.
“Thank you, thank you. I – er –” He paused to clear his throat and fumble the sheet of paper he had written everything down on out of his pocket. Taking a proper look out over the crowd as his eyes cleared, he could make out many faces he had gotten to know quite well over the years and he smiled, managing to relax just a little. “It’s good to see so many people here I have gotten to know over the years I spent with the Auror Corps. There have been so many times over the years that I have imagined this moment and wondered just how it was going to happen; whether I was going to be forced into retirement or if it would come about as my own choice. I am actually quite proud to be able to tell you that this has actually been all my own choice. I have loved working with such a close-knit group of dedicated people for the past nineteen years, but it’s time to move on, to pass the torch to the next generation.” A slight movement off to his right made Harry pause and glance over, but he could see nothing there. Clearing his throat again, he continued. “I have learned many things over the past nineteen years from many different people I have worked with, but I believe the most important thing that anyone here has ever told me came from my old boss, Gawain Robards. The very first day I was promoted to Head Auror, he told me to only stay as long as I was getting something out of the job. He said that to choose to leave a job like this on my own terms and under my own power was one of the greatest achievements an Auror could boast and I find that he was right. It has been an absolute privilege to have been able to stand as your Head Auror for the past ten years and I am happy to say that I am leaving the Department in some very capable hands...”
A loud shriek interrupted him, followed by some of the foulest language he had ever heard. The fact that the female voice that was screaming the obscenities was familiar turned Harry’s blood cold in his veins. Spinning around and sprinting backstage where the screams were coming from, he nearly collided with Kingsley and the group of Aurors who had been seated at his and Draco’s table. They raced through the curtain and were met by three Aurors: one with his arms wrapped around Ginny’s torso, pinning her arms to her sides; a second who was trying to restrain her flailing legs and a third, who appeared to be carrying a vial of potion at arm’s length. A rushing sound filled Harry’s ears and it took him a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t actually in his ears, but the sound of a few hundred voices all speaking at once back in the ballroom. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath to calm himself a little before allowing his professional side to take him over.
“Thatcher,” he barked at one of the juniors who had followed them in from the ballroom. “Contact whoever is on tonight and tell them they’ll have incoming shortly. Simmons, Fletcher: check the rest of the backstage area to make sure she was alone. Paulson, clear one of the rooms here; we’ll need to keep her somewhere until we can transport her.”
The four Aurors that Harry really shouldn’t have been bossing around anymore all scattered to do his bidding and he turned to face Ginny. Her face was bright red from the combination of the exertion and anger that was clearly written there. Pacing in front of her, Harry couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He knew that since he was technically still the most senior Auror present, he was the one who was supposed to take control over the situation, but the combination of shock, betrayal and absolute disgust running through him was choking him into silence.
“My darling husband has nothing to say to me? No words of wisdom to impart?” The hatred clear in Ginny’s voice cut straight through Harry and he paused in his pacing to simply stare down at the woman he had once been convinced that he loved. “Does everyone in there know exactly who it is they are worshipping? Do they know that you’re nothing but a pathetic, weak little f–” She stopped with a muffled cry as the hand of the Auror holding her slipped up and covered her mouth for a few seconds.
“Sorry about that, boss, I should have Silenced her long before now,” Gould stated matter-of-factly as he slid his hand back down to hold her shoulders. “Won’t happen again.”
Harry swallowed hard and nodded. He knew exactly what Ginny had been going to say – as did everyone else who had heard her – but it seemed that not one of them was agreeing with her. He glanced quickly around the small hall they were in, but what he saw only seemed to confirm what he suspected: the small group of Aurors was working quickly to carry out Harry’s orders and not one of them had paused to give Ginny’s words even the slightest bit of credence. He turned back to look at Ginny again and found it difficult to recognise any part of her. She had been so sweet, so comforting when they had first gotten together, but he hardly recognised the woman before him now. Pain shot through his chest as she kicked out at him, snarling in a manner he had only seen from people he had locked up over the years. The pain blossomed into an unwilling sympathy when she met his eyes. He knew he had contributed to the emotions that prompted this insane behaviour, but he really couldn’t see any of the girl he had first married in the woman before him. He frowned when she began to struggle even more.
“You fucking cu–”
Ginny was cut off again by Gould’s hand slipping over her mouth, but he dropped her when she bit down on his hand. Scrambling around on the floor, Ginny managed to grab hold of Gould’s wand and cast a spell towards the ballroom, out of Harry’s line of sight. She was quickly tackled to the ground, but the damage had apparently been done. A groan sounded from the direction of the ballroom followed quickly by the sound of someone’s knees connecting with the wooden floor. Harry raced around the corner the second he recognised the voice.
“Draco!”
Blood poured from Draco’s nose, splattering the front of his robes, his hands and the floor in front of him in the matter of a few seconds. Harry knelt down, scooping him into his arms and carrying him into what appeared to be a small dressing room. He placed him carefully on the lounge that sat against the wall to his right and knelt down in front of him. Draco was panting through his mouth, unable to breathe through his nose due to the stream of blood pouring out of him.
“It’s alright, hold still, I’ve got you,” Harry murmured as he drew his wand. “Episkey.”
Draco groaned as his nose cracked back into position where Ginny had broken it. Harry caught him as he leant forward, his forehead landing on Harry’s shoulder.
“Harry...”
Draco’s voice was weak and Harry felt an icy fear clenching his insides. He scooped Draco up into his arms again and moved to the doorway so he could yell instructions to the nearest Auror. When he realised that they had everything under control, he Apparated away, taking Draco directly to St. Mungo’s.
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19 Years and 5 Minutes Later