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Acts of Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21189 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Eight—Succeeding
            “What is it, Kingsley?”
            Harry had obviously surprised Kingsley in the middle of doing something else. He was scowling intently at two pieces of parchment in front of him. Harry could distantly make out the lines of some kind of diagram, or maybe architectural plan.
            “Harry.” Kingsley picked up his jaw after a second and looked at him curiously. “Is something wrong?”
            “That’s what I wondered.” Harry held the cryptic owl he’d got that morning up so Kingsley could see it through the flames. “This seemed to hint that Ginny’s group was acting up again, and I wondered why they would. I thought they’d got everything they wanted.”
            “No, it’s not that.” Kingsley leaned back in his chair and pulled another piece of parchment over the two in front of him. Harry accepted that easily enough. He thought that if it was something that really concerned him, then Kingsley would let him know. “I can see why it sounded that way, though.”
            Harry nodded. The owl had said, There is a mess of the highest priority.
            But now silence went by, until Harry finally raised his eyebrows and prompted, “Mind telling me what the mess is?”
            “All right.” Kingsley tilted forwards a little. “There are factions in the Ministry pushing for some sort of Christmas gala to mark the defeat of You-Know-Who. I think they would have done more pushing in May, but too many of them still had children at Hogwarts then.”
            “Technically, Voldemort’s defeat had nothing to do with Christmas,” Harry pointed out, just to be difficult.
            “Harry.”
            “Yes, fine, it’s a silly dance and dinner. I’ve done several of those since I entered politics,” Harry reminded Kingsley. He wondered why Kingsley was acting as if he didn’t remember those. “What about it?”
            “This is a formal occasion.”
            Harry started to ask again what the difference was, and then groaned a little. Yes, he did know, based off some of the reading Draco had had him do. It meant he had to bring a date.
            “If you wanted to know if it was Ginny, it’s not going to be.”
            “I know it’s not.” Kingsley didn’t move, though, and his gaze was both mild and heavy. “Who will it be, Harry?”
            “Draco Malfoy.”
            “As much as I like to think the Ministry is a civilized environment, I know the truth. There’s going to be trouble if you bring him, Harry.”
            Harry shook his head. “I don’t care. I’m not going to deny the man I love because it might please some of the traditionalists, or people who hate me, or people who think I should settle down with a nice woman and start having kids as soon as possible.” He paused and thought about it again. “Come to think of it, why would I want to please the people who hate me?”
            “I didn’t mean trouble for you. I meant trouble for young Mr. Malfoy.”
            “Really? Someone might try to hex him, that kind of thing?”
            Kingsley nodded, which Harry could only conclude meant he hadn’t heard the undertone to Harry’s voice. “Yes. And I don’t want either of you to have to deal with that all evening.”
            “We wouldn’t.”
            Kingsley eyed him with a faint frown. “Well, you don’t have the complete guest list. You don’t know that all the people there are ones you can intimidate or bribe to stay out of the way—and I have to admit, there are some important people at the Ministry who have more standing than the Malfoys now.”
            “Do they have more standing than me?”
            “What exactly are you planning?”
            Harry smiled a little. It seemed Kingsley had finally paid attention to his eyes and voice. “Making sure everyone understands that Draco Malfoy is off-limits to hex.”
            “Harry…”
            “What good is my status if I can’t use it?” Harry interrupted. “This is just an extension of the same things I’ve been doing since the war. Making sure that someone can’t hurt magical creatures just because they want to—and the only way I can make sure of that is because people listen to the Boy-Who-Lived. And lessening prison terms for Death Eaters who didn’t cause as much trouble. And giving the dead their due recognition. And arranging compensation for the families of those who died or got tortured. This is no different.”
            “Those were larger matters, though. I don’t think people will listen to you as well if you have to make it personal.”
            Harry snorted a little. “Ginny’s group was a small thing, which only made as much news as it did because some of the protesters were war heroes. And the compensation is personal. Do you really think that I’m going to back down because of a Ministry gala?”
            Kingsley opened his mouth, then closed it again and smiled a little. “Now that you put it that way, I suppose a gala isn’t as big as some of the other things you’ve handled.”
            “No. The safety of the centaurs matters a lot more.” Harry refrained from saying that it might not matter as much to Draco as his own personal safety. But Harry intended to guarantee both. “In the meantime, sir, maybe you could refrain from discouraging me?”
            “I only wanted to warn you about some of the probable consequences, Harry.”
            “Thank you for that.” Harry gentled his voice when he saw the anxious way Kingsley was staring at him. Well, it probably did seem like a bigger deal to Kingsley, especially since he was still a new Minister. “But I’m going to bring Draco with me—assuming he wants to come—and anyone who doesn’t like it can deal with it later.”
            “Or there?”
            “Or there. I’ll make an announcement at the gala if I have to.”
            After a stunned moment, Kingsley chuckled. “Well, that would liven things up at one of those deadly dull dances.”
            Harry smiled and bowed a little to Kingsley. “Thanks, sir. For the warning and everything else. I’m going to Floo Draco now and ask if he actually wants to come with me.” There was a difference, he knew, between Draco accompanying him to a private meeting with the Headmistress of Hogwarts and dancing with Harry in front of the kinds of people who would come to a Ministry gala.
            “Very well,” said Kingsley, and waved his hand at Harry a second before the Floo closed. Harry spent a moment calming himself down and looking for the right words. He really wanted to take Draco with him and dance with him in the face of everyone who might disapprove, but Draco’s comfort was the most important thing.
            Then just tell him that.
            Harry smiled. There was that. He probably didn’t need any right words with Draco. Draco came first, and Harry could put up with a lot that might otherwise irritate him because of that.
            Besides, he thought as he reached for the Floo powder and scattered it into the fire, if Draco doesn’t want to go, I’m not going, either. And that’s going to be fodder for talk at least as interesting as showing up to dance with Draco at the gala would be.
*
            Draco pushed his sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes and turned to glare at the Floo. Of course someone would call him now, when he’d been alone in his shop most of the day and only recently made it home. He had thought he could relax with some brewing, but it had turned out he was missing most of the ingredients he would have needed for a Calming Draught—they were still at the shop, of course—and searching through dusty boxes wasn’t his idea of fun. He scowled and asked sharply as Harry’s face appeared in the fire, “What?”
            Harry raised his eyebrows a little, but then nodded as though Draco had confirmed some private suspicion of his. “Would you like to go with me to the Ministry Christmas gala?”
            Draco stared at him. “What, dress robes and everything?”
            “And dancing.” Harry’s eyes glinted a little as he tilted his head. “Yes.”
            “In front of everyone?”
            “Yes.”
            Draco remained silent, because it was the only thing he could think of right now, and checked Harry’s face. Harry hummed to himself and said nothing. It really seemed to be Draco’s decision to make.
            He’s not ashamed of me. He wants to be seen in public with me. Those were the only things Draco could divine for certain, and they made a certain pride bubble up in his throat. Harry Potter wasn’t ashamed of him, and that meant no one else had to be, either.
            But Draco wanted to make certain of some things first. “Are there going to be political guests there?”
            “It’s a formal affair, and Kingsley told me that they’re using it both to celebrate Christmas and to celebrate the end of the war with Voldemort.”
            “Oh, Merlin,” said Draco, cringing a little. Then he drew himself up and asked the question he had to ask, because Harry was the sort who wouldn’t think to ask it. “Are you sure you want to take a former Death Eater with you?”
            “Yes.”
            Draco paused again. Harry sounded utterly serene and certain, and as if maybe he had considered this after all. Either that, or he thought of all objections in the same way, as something he simply needed to knock down.
            “What will happen if someone comes up and tries to hex me? Or you? Or spreads malicious gossip about you? Or me? Or us? What happens if your political reputation is in danger because of me? I don’t want to cause you to lose support because people are worried about who your boyfriend is.”
            Draco knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to help it. As it was, Harry simply drew his head back and studied Draco for a second. Then he nodded and held out a hand. Draco stared at it. Had Harry forgotten that they couldn’t clasp hands through the fire?
            “Listen to me,” Harry whispered. “I am not ashamed of you. Anyone who tries to start something with you, or me, or us, is going to break the formal rules of Ministry gala etiquette. I’ll do to them exactly what I would to someone trying to interrogate me about defeating Voldemort or all the rest of it.”
            Draco swallowed. He wished he had Harry’s courage, but he simply didn’t.
            He had the courage to admit he didn’t, though, which might be all Harry was looking for. “Can you—it’s not going to diminish the pain of the hex to have you embarrass them, later.”
            “And what do you think will happen to someone else hexing a guest in a Ministry gathering full of Aurors?” Harry grinned at him. “I can promise you that anyone doing that is going to a holding cell for an evening at the minimum. And the day after that, I’ll be smearing their name all over the papers.”
            “You’d—do that? For me?”
            Harry bobbed his head, his eyes taking on a challenging glint. “And I think the papers would cooperate. For an exclusive story on the Boy-Who-Lived, they’d probably do a lot worse.”
            Draco breathed a little easier. He’d been focused, for the moment, on all the disadvantages of having a public lover who was high up the Ministry food chain, but now that he thought about it, he could also see the advantages.
            “I’ll come, Harry. I’d love to dance with you and rub the fact that we’re together in everyone’s faces. It was only the dangers that made me hesitate.”
            Harry’s eyes shone, and once again he held out a hand as though he was going to touch Draco through the fire. “Thank you, Draco. In the meantime, I think some dancing lessons might be in order. They’ve hammered a few into me, but not many. Formal dances mostly haven’t come up in the last few years as something I might want to attend.”
            Draco found himself laughing. “We’ll have to remedy that.”
            “Right away.”
            Draco was smiling now. The thought of practicing a dance with Harry, his arms tight around Harry’s shoulders and waist, his head on Harry’s shoulder during a slower song…
            Yes. Let’s show them what it means when Harry decides to commit to someone who’s equally committed to him.
*
Green-Extreme-Ninjetti13: If Ginny tries to be a problem, then Harry is going to deal with her the same way he discusses dealing with the people here. He’s not going to let anyone get in the way of his relationship with Draco.
Anon: I’m not sure what you mean.
SP777: It was actually longer than several of my other chapters for this story.
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Acts of Life