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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-Nine--Even a Stopped Clock

            Allen and Dusk brought him in by a back entrance. Harry raised his eyebrows. That interested him. It suggested that Sandborn wanted to make less of a public fuss than Harry had assumed he did. Harry had accepted that Sandborn was his enemy now, arresting him of all things. Why not make a spectacle of it, and try to disparage the rumors that Harry had started about him by those means?

            Well, perhaps he might fear the people who would disbelieve him. Harry nodded. That was probably it. This way gave Sandborn more options to control the rumors. The problem with spectacles, as he had told Harry several times, was that there was always some contrarian who would take against it on the grounds of either money or resentment that they weren't the ones being honored.

            "You're smiling."

            Allen had spoken in a murmur, as if fearful of attracting Dusk's attention. Harry nodded to her. "Just wondering about the quiet arrest. You take me out of my home, and then you don't parade me through the corridors?"

            "Orders," Allen said, with a shrug that might have been designed to convey insouciance. But she watched Harry out of the corner of one eye, and Harry nodded. Yes, he understood the message she was giving him. This had been Sandborn's idea. The arrest, the entrance, all of it.

            By the time they reached the Minister's office, Harry had settled himself for the confrontation. It wouldn't be pleasant, but Sandborn was probably anticipating a paper defiance he could blow away. Harry had Draco on his side now, and the realization that he might get his friends back, and the freedom he had tasted. He wouldn't fall under the domination of the contract again simply because Sandborn wanted him to.

            The door swung slowly open, Sandborn seeking to intimidate, impress. Harry stood in place and looked around alertly as Allen and Dusk guided him in. They had taken his wand, of course. Harry flexed his hands in the light ropes that gripped them and wondered if he would have to defend himself from Sandborn a third time.

            Sandborn sat behind his desk. One glance at his reddened eyes and pale cheeks, and Harry's suspicions began to decay. Sandborn had too obviously not recovered from the two days of enchanted sleep Harry had imposed on him. Fine. He probably wouldn't need to defend himself with his hands, then.

            "Leave him." Sandborn's voice had a subdued bite that made Dusk wince and step back. Allen lingered for a moment.

            "Sir?" she murmured. "Surely you want guards to stay with you and ward you from such a dangerous man?"

            Harry kept himself from reacting, but he felt a faint shimmer of warmth. So her support of him went deeper than he had known. That mattered. It suggested not all the Aurors had turned against him.

            "No." Sandborn stood and then swayed, grimacing. He slammed his hands into the desk, hiding his need for support in the emphatic gesture. "Leave now, Auror Allen, before I decide that you are obstructing me in the pursuit of my duties."

            The expression on Allen's face didn't change. She bowed to Sandborn and turned away, accompanying Dusk out the door. As far as Harry knew. they also took his wand. Well. He had summoned it wandlessly before.

            The door shut, and they stood there in silence, staring at each other. Sandborn still breathed too fast. Harry didn't know which emotion it came from, anger or weariness, but it didn't matter. He didn't have either. He waited, and finally Sandborn broke and leaned forwards with a desperate face.

            "Why did you leave me?" he whispered. "I fulfilled my promises. I did what you asked. There was no reason for you to destroy me. If you had wanted a new contract, we could have negotiated one."

            Harry winced. He knew that he hadn't been entirely fair in blaming Sandborn for what the contract had become, an iron cage that had writhed around his life and shut out the sunlight.

            But he had lived through the guilt, he had acknowledged it, and surrendering to it now wouldn't make what he had done any better. "If the contract had been limited to the initial promises, or not included anything illegal, then it would have been all right," Harry answered. "But you had me corrupting people, adding to the corruption in the Ministry, and acting our your personal grudges for you. That soured me early on. I knew that it was a tool of political control to you, not the kind of bargain two friends would strike. It always was, or you would have refused the contract I first brought to you and worked to free the accused children of Death Eater parents because it was the right thing to do."

            "Some of what you asked me to do was also illegal," Sandborn said, a dust-dry whisper.

            Harry nodded. "I'm ashamed of myself for that. But I asked for fewer things than you did, always. In return for two deeds at first--that you would pardon the accused like Draco Malfoy and have their money and properties returned to them--you asked for four: that I would become an Auror, that I would support you in your bid for election, that I would become the Ministry's star speaker and voice, and that I would give autographs and photos to any official press reporter who asked me. Your deeds were one-time things. What I did dominated my life."

            "You could have refused."

            "I was a stupid, scared kid," Harry said. "You were far older than me, with years of political experience. Don't tell me that you didn't see the ramifications of the contract, what it would mean to you and what to me, far more clearly than I did. And yet, you accepted it anyway, instead of discouraging me." He stopped. His voice was shaking, and he blinked. I didn't realize I still felt that strongly about it. I didn't realize I felt that way at all. "You were a politician. Fine, if you don't want me to blame you for that, I won't. But then you can't claim that this was about some fucked-up friendship and that I've betrayed you personally."

            "For me, it was always both personal and political." Sandborn stepped around the desk. "I admired what you had done in the war with You-Know-Who. I knew that you needed a mentor--"

            Harry sneered at him. "You were never that. You ordered me to do things, you didn't teach me. Admit it, you thought I needed a master, and when I came to you with the chain and collar already in my hands, you were more than happy to put them around my neck."

            Sandborn flushed. "You should know better, Harry," he whispered. "How much did I give you? How much would it hurt your friends, how much would it damage your life, to have it all taken away?"

            "My friends already know, and they're taking their own steps to get rid of what I won for them," Harry said. He didn't know that was completely true, since Ron was still an Auror and he didn't think Hermione had given up her position or argued against her own legislation, yet, but why would he owe Sandborn the complete truth? "And since you arrested me today, I think it's safe to say that I'm not an Auror anymore."

            "I could reveal the contract," Sandborn whispered. "I could make them despise you."

            Harry shrugged. "I've already done more than enough to make them despise me. There are people who are never going to trust me again. If I bowed my head and let you put me under the yoke again, it wouldn't matter. I've broken the best tool in your armory, and it won't work again."

            Sandborn's face turned purple, but he closed his eyes as though to control his temper or his voice. "You have to understand," he said. "I've had you arrested for treason. You'll go on trial for attempted murder if you don't cooperate."

            "And in the trial, I'll request Veritaserum and Pensieves, as is my legal right," Harry said coldly. He didn't understand why Sandborn didn't understand. The man had political instincts. It wasn't like him to let personal passions rule the day. "Who do you think will look worse when the truth comes out?"

            Sandborn shook his head, the purple fading as he opened his eyes to stare at Harry. "Don't you know how bad that will make you look?"

            "Yes," Harry said. "Of course I do. What I don't understand is why you think that I care about that anymore. I've destroyed my own reputation. I came along with your Aurors to the arrest even though I could have resisted and run. I'm telling you that I'd take Veritaserum during the trial, even though I know that some people would probably take the chance to ask me questions that I'd prefer they didn't." He did laugh this time, because Sandborn looked stupefied.

            And he understood.

            "You were thinking it was all a ploy, weren't you?" Harry asked Sandborn softly. "That I was only pretending not to care about the destruction of my reputation until you offered me a better deal?" He shook his head, and his joy leaped up to new heights when Sandborn clenched down on the edge of the desk with a grip that looked hard enough to break it. "No. I really do mean this. I'm sacrificing everything, giving everything up, that I gained from the contract. I know there's no other way to do it."

            "If I tell them about the contract..."

            "If you do, in detail," Harry said, "then you'll suffer as much as I do. More. I told you what I think you should have done, since you were the adult and I was the teenager when I offered you that contract. There will be others who'll think that, too. Give it up, Minister. It's over. There's nothing you can take away from me that I haven't already taken away from myself."

            Sandborn turned his back for a minute, and stared out the window. Then he said, without turning back, "If I harm your friends..."

            "Take away their gains from the contract, and they'll be prepared for it," Harry said. "Hurt them more than that, and they'll have the legal reasons and resources to defend themselves. Besides, you're already under investigation from Madam Rettern's direction. Do you really want to draw more attention down on yourself just now?"

            "You planned that as well."

            "I had nothing to do with the beginning of that investigation," Harry said, truthfully, "although it's true that she called me in to talk to me, and tried to promise me things I didn't want to betray you."

            "No, you didn't need payment for that, did you?" Sandborn turned back, and this time his face was remote, and he seemed to have shoved all his emotions down so far into the back of his mind that Harry was faintly impressed. It would do him no good, of course, but at least it might make their final parting marked by a little less shouting and spittle. "You're so much less than I ever thought you."

            Harry winced. This was the point when he flushed with embarrassment for the Minister rather than himself. "You wanted to think we were friends," he said. "Despite the way you used me. And you still wanted to think of me as--what? A hero? Someone noble? Despite what I did for you?"

            "There is no way to explain what you have done to me, or excuse it," Sandborn whispered hoarsely. "And you are wrong in saying that there is nothing I can take from you. Your freedom. You can spend years in a holding cell, waiting for trial."

            Harry rolled his eyes. "And Rettern and your other critics on the Wizengamot will let that pass without a challenge? Do you really believe that, or are you only pretending to be that stupid? Of course they won't."

            Sandborn paced back and forth in front of his desk. He looked, Harry thought, like a rat scratching at the bars of his cage, desperate to find a way that he could break free of the purposes he knew he would be put to.

            Maybe he could, at that. Harry didn't really care what would happen to Sandborn from the moment that he walked out of the Ministry and left the man behind. Perhaps he would manage to recover and continue in the Minister's office for the twelve years Harry had wanted as a requirement of the contract, or even longer. It didn't trouble Harry. Whatever world he lived in after this, it wasn't going to be a political one.

            A knock on the door interrupted their staring contest. At least, it did for Sandborn. Harry kept watching him, because Sandborn was so obviously on the edge of desperation that Harry wouldn't put it past him to strike the moment Harry's back was turned.

            "Yes?" Sandborn snarled.

            Allen opened the door. Her eyes darted once to Harry before focusing on the Minister. "Draco Malfoy is here and demanding to see you, sir," she said flatly. "Along with two Prophet reports and Madam Rettern."

            Sandborn looked as if he might bite something. "Malfoy is an associate of a known traitor," he said. "He is to be detained. Tell the reporters and Madam Rettern that I will be along to talk to them in a moment--"

            "Associating with someone is enough for an arrest now? Not simply for the Ministry to taken an interest in and question one? Jared. I am disappointed in you."

            Rettern sailed through the office door, nodding and smiling at Allen as if they were confederates. Harry didn't think so, though. Allen would simply have stood aside, and if someone questioned her about it later, she could always say that she was following the Auror Code of Conduct, which mandated not arresting someone unless you had a reasonable suspicion of their guilt. Having the Minister command it, especially a Minister who was known to have grudges against someone he was ordering the arrest of, wasn't enough.

            Harry wondered idly why, if she planned to use that as a defense, she had arrested him. Well, perhaps she had thought she was doing him a favor to be one of the arresting Aurors. Dusk would probably have gone ahead and done it without hesitation, but Allen could make herself a witness.

            From the moment Rettern stepped into the office, Sandborn focused on her. Harry worked his way back towards the door with a little quiet footwork, and nodded to the Prophet reporters leaning around the door with their Quick-Quotes Quills and their cameras on their shoulders. Draco was behind them, giving Harry an expansive smile and reaching out with one arm.

            Harry quickly joined him, feeling that arm settle around his shoulders like an immovable bar. "You went for the reporters and Rettern when my friends told you what had happened?" he murmured into his ear.

            "Yes." Draco was looking at Sandborn, and there was a fixed quality to his smile that worried Harry. The last thing he needed was Draco deciding that he had a grudge against Sandborn. He waved his hand up and down in front of Draco's eyes, and Draco blinked and then smiled at him. "Stop that. I did what I did because I wanted you safe. And they were only too happy to come along."

            Harry looked back at Rettern and Sandborn. Rettern had her hands braced on her hips, and was speaking to Sandborn in a rapid murmur, too low for Harry to hear what they were saying. He shook his head. The reporters were leaning nearer, straining to make it out, and Harry wished them welcome to it. "Can we leave?"

*

            Draco would have liked to stay. Watching Sandborn's face when his eyes met Draco's, and mouthing threats to him that he could have denied since no one else was watching his lips that closely, sounded like a fine morning to him.

            But Harry looked weary and, worse, bored. In deep sympathy with that frame of mind, Draco gave him something new to think about. "I thought you were under arrest?"

            "Shit, you're right," Harry muttered, and turned around, craning his neck as though he expected to find someone who could dismiss the charges behind him. Draco tightened his grip on his arm, so that he wouldn't run off and do something stupid, and shook his head.

            "The Aurors who brought you in?" he asked. "They might know what you need to do." And it wouldn't hurt to have extra witnesses to Sandborn's mental degradation. The insults he and Rettern were barking at each other had already begun to filter through the open door, and they were attracting an audience. Draco caught the eye of a tall, blonde Auror who beckoned to them expressively.

            "Allen," Harry said, seeming to see her at the same time. He pulled on Draco's arm, and Draco began to squirm through the crowd towards her. More than one person gave them a second glance, but most of them seemed too interested in the Minister, and in the burning question as to whether they should listen in silent horror or attack or defend him, to care. Soon they were at the tall Auror's side, and she nodded at them both with something like sympathy.

            "I've spoken to Dusk," she told Harry. The other arresting Auror, Draco presumed, and was silently impressed with his own brilliance. "He's agreed not to remember it if you don't." She gave Harry a thin, sudden smile. "He owes me a favor."

            "Thank you," Harry said, and gave her a smile and a squeeze of her arm that was too friendly for Draco's peace of mind. He gave her a smile, too, and flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. Allen rolled her eyes and walked away. Draco sniffed at her back. He had never got along with self-possessed, haughty blonds. They should spend more time looking in the mirror and considering why.

            "So that's it, then," Harry said three minutes later, as they waited in the Ministry Atrium for a free fireplace. He looked a little dazed, and kept tugging his hair down by his fringe to hide his scar. Draco reached up and stopped him with one hand on his wrist. Jagged movements like that would draw more attention, in the end, than simply standing there. Harry gave him a grateful look and stopped. "Did Ron and Hermione tell you what happened?"

            "Yes." Draco frowned at the memory of them almost climbing out of the fireplace in their haste to reach him. They would never have been able to contact him if they hadn't used Harry's Floo, of course. He wouldn't put up with soot on his carpets. "And I must say, Weasley is prone to panic in a crisis. It causes me to wonder about our Ministry's Auror program. Another reason why your contract wasn't a good idea."

            Harry stared at him, opened his mouth, and then shut it and looked away, shaking his head. The motion was one of such despair that Draco reached out and turned his face back, cupping his cheek so that Harry could read it as a tender gesture rather than an imperious one, if he was so inclined.

            "What?" he demanded.

            "I don't know if this is going to work," Harry murmured, looking anywhere but at him. "You just--Draco, you don't get along with my friends. You despise them, in fact. You say things like that, and I realize it. But you also helped me, and you came and got me--and brought Rettern--"

            "That was a simple means of contacting her and offering her the chance to humiliate Sandborn," Draco began, thinking it might be a good idea at the moment to emphasize his modesty.

            "You're a hero for me," Harry said. "But I also don't know how this will fucking work. Not when you despise my friends. Not when yours only had a reason to help me because of the debt. How will they feel about me now?"

            "That you're stupider than they are and more trouble than you're worth," Draco said. "But honestly, they feel like that about most of my lovers who aren't one of them." He increased the pressure of his hand on Harry's face and turned it up until Harry didn't really have a choice about meeting his eyes. "I don't feel inclined to give up on this because Weasley's a poor Auror."

            "That you think things like that is the problem," Harry said. His brow was furrowed, disguising the scar further. Draco glanced at the front of the line and estimated that they were three people away from being able to take the Floo. Good. "And you'll say them."

            "Not around them," Draco said, seeing the problem now, and feeling a stir of indignation beneath his breastbone that Harry would accuse him of something like that. "I would never do that. It would be impolite."

            Harry stared at him, then snorted. "You had no block against saying things much more impolite to me when you were first telling me about the debt and convincing me to accept your help."

            Draco arched an eyebrow. "But I don't owe Weasley a debt. I'll treat him, and Granger, like unpleasant people I meet at a party. I'll nod and murmur and not say what I'm really thinking. I'll keep the insults for Pansy, who appreciates them, or for you if I can't hold them back anymore."

            Harry fell silent, scowling at nothing. Then he shook his head. "I don't think that should be enough," he said. "But I'll let it be. For now."

            "How bloody generous of you," Draco said, restraining the impulse to shake or pinch him. They were almost at the front of the line now, and they would be there when this thin witch made up her mind about how to pronounce Diagon Alley. "What makes you think that you'll always behave politely in front of my friends?"

            Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. Draco was glad. He knew Harry would have said that they were really unpleasant, condescending people, while his friends were angels of light and tenderness who didn't deserve to be treated the way Draco was going to treat them. And Draco really would have had to pinch him, in a place that would leave a permanent bruise, if he did that. "Sorry," Harry said at last. "I'm still new at this. And this is why I wonder--"

            "If it's going to last, I know." Draco did his best to soften his voice when Harry glanced up at him, glints of nervousness dancing in his eyes. "But right now, we're going to go ahead and try."

            Harry nodded. "We still need to stop by my house," he added, stepping up next to the Floo and ignoring the way the witch gaped at them. Luckily, she had finally settled on the way to pronounce Diagon Alley, and whirled away into the green, obviating the need on Draco's part to come up with a good insult. "I need my clothes."

            "Of course," Draco said. "But let's go home first, so that we can get something to eat."

            Harry grunted. That apparently sounded fine to him, probably because of the food, but Draco noted smugly that he hadn't objected to the word "home" either. He was beside Draco as Draco cast the Floo powder in and shouted, "Malfoy Manor!"

            That was all he could ask for right now.

*

            SP777: Well, Draco doesn't really care for them, either. But they are going to have a part in the last chapter, along with Astoria, although it probably won't be that large of one.

            polka dot: Sandborn really did think that Harry would come crawling back if he could just worry him enough. He didn't realize Harry wasn't serious.
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