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Starfire Nights	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3526 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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�But you can�t tell me what he ultimately wants?� Harry
leaned back in his seat and pouted. He had adopted the persona of another
woman, Jackie Sheldon, who only existed when he needed to gather information.
She was small enough, with wide eyes and a timid face, that skittish people
didn�t feel threatened by her. She could ask questions that would get other
people looked at suspiciously, and most of her listeners would simply assume
that she didn�t know better. �That�s too bad.�

�� What does
any Malfoy want?� The wizard she was speaking to, who had only given his first
name�Leon�lowered his head and peered at her sideways. Jackie gave her very
best flirtatious smile in return. �Power, of course,� Leon finished, seeming to
have concluded that she really didn�t know. �And money. I suspect that he�s
going to get as much of both out of Malfoy�s Machineries as he can, and then
abandon it and go do something else.�

�� But there
are easier ways,� Jackie said, rising to her feet as if she�d leave the table.
�And if you can�t tell me why he didn�t take them��

�� Wait,�
Leon said, reaching out a hand to detain her. Jackie eyed his hand, but he
didn�t actually touch her, and so she sat back down and tossed her black hair
over one shoulder, watching him expectantly. Leon licked his lips and seemed to
consider what he could tell her. �It�s his father, I think,� he said at last.
�Malfoy�the younger one, I mean, the one we were talking about��

�� I remember that, considering you spoke the
words less than a minute ago, Harry thought, while he smiled behind
Jackie�s mask of blissful stupidity. You
must have a poorer opinion of her intelligence than I thought.

�� Malfoy
wants his father�s respect,� Leon said. �Or maybe he just wants to inherit.
Doesn�t everyone who�s pure-blood want that?� For a
moment, he looked wistful. Then he sighed and seemed to let it go. �If he
offends his father badly enough, then his father will disown him. I think
that�s one reason he�s so careful. He�s trying to do what he can to retain his
father�s good opinion while he also builds his own fortune. Maybe there�ll be a
final confrontation at the end, whenever he has enough to content him, or maybe
he�ll decide that it�s enough as long as his father acknowledges that he�s
clever. I really don�t know. But if you want to know why he hasn�t broken free
yet, that�s most likely why.�

�� Jackie
thanked the man by flirting with him some more, and then turned and made her
way out of the Leaky Cauldron. Admiring eyes followed her all the way. She was
aware of them, and she could have used them if she wanted. But she had all the
information she needed for tonight.

�� When she
reached the street, she took a moment to check that no one was following her.
She�d got very good at that when she first ran away from her parents, who would
have given a lot to track her down. Then she stepped into the shadows and
Apparated home.

�� Harry
landed on the doorstep of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and let Jackie melt
away from him like a mask of rainwater. He opened the door with a tap of his
wand and stepped inside, closing it behind him. Then he made his way towards
the small sitting room on the first floor. He wanted to sit and think,
preferably with a glass of something warm in his hand.

�� Kreacher
appeared beside him and bowed. �Does Master Harry want a glass of mulled wine?�
he asked.

�� Harry
smiled at him. �I�m not in the mood for that tonight, Kreacher. Warm pumpkin
juice will do just as well.�

�� Kreacher
looked at him with something like disapproval, but bowed again and vanished. He
evidently thought that warmed pumpkin juice wasn�t posh enough for someone
living in the life and house that Harry was.

�� Ten minutes
later, Harry pulled off the wig that he had used to imitate Jackie�s long hair
and settled back against the couch. He had already removed the glamours, the
Transfiguration that gave him breasts and a shorter figure, and the charms that
rendered his scar invisible for the duration of the evening (a hard process,
and one that he didn�t want to use except when he had to, for a persona who
emphatically had an unmarked forehead). He had left the wig for last because it
was the least difficult thing he had to do.

�� He shut his
eyes and basked in the warmth of his fire and drink for long moments before he
began to think.

�� Leon was
the sixth person he�d asked about Malfoy, and all the answers were similar.
Malfoy had never made a move to challenge his parents, but everyone assumed
that he would, someday, once he had either enough money or enough political
power to be a threat on his own. That no one could name a single political
contact of his wasn�t enough to prevent them from having theories. After all,
he knew a lot of pure-bloods, including those who were still powerful in the Ministry,
and he was working himself into a position where he could do favors for people.
That added up to �politics,� in a lot of people�s minds.

�� Harry shook
his head. They didn�t know as much as they thought they did. Politics were
deeper and stronger and stranger than that. Only a few of his personas were
political powers, because setting up the contacts and the exchange of letters
and the credit that would make the contacts trust him took so much time. If Malfoy had had a fraction of
the power that people believed he did, he wouldn�t have needed Harry�s help to
promote his business. He could have asked one of his allies to make his
machines popular, and that would have happened.

�� So Harry
distrusted the answers he�d received so far, though he had little except his
intuition to make him do so. But his intuition was powerful, and had saved him
from far more scrapes than reason and logic had. (Of course, it was best when
the two of them could work together, instead of opposed). Therefore, he was
sure that there had to be something wrong with the answers he had received.

�� Not
deliberate untruths. He knew how to spot lies. But it seemed as though people
were taking the default state pure-bloods in general, or the Malfoys in
particular, occupied in their minds and projecting it onto Malfoy. He wasn�t as
strong as they thought he was, or as devious. And Harry didn�t think he wanted
the same thing they did, either.

�� Harry
wanted to understand the git so that he would be sure of slipping free of Malfoy�s net when he was done with him. Yes,
probably the worst that would happen was him having to retire some of his
personas for a while, but Malfoy�s learning about Miranda and Harry�s acting
skills came too close to exposing the whole secret of Metamorphosis. Harry
would do anything to protect that, including selective Memory Charms.

�� But it was
much better to know a prevention rather than a cure
for the danger. Know Malfoy well enough, and Harry could fend this off and
ensure that it never happened again.

�� What does he want?

�� Harry bit
his lip and shut his eyes. Lovely as the patterns of the firelight were, he
needed to think without distractions.

�� Malfoy was moving slowly, taking a lot of
trouble, and building a power base that wasn�t the same as the established
channels. He could have got what he wanted from an exchange of favors. He could
have relied on his father. Instead, it seemed that he hadn�t done anything like
that. Why was that? What did he want that couldn�t be got through those ordinary
channels?

�� Well, who do you know who�s pursued a
similar path to him? What was their goal? It might be his goal.

�� Harry
gasped softly and opened his eyes when the answer came to him, simply and
brutally clear.

�� It sounds like me.

�� Harry had
taken the unusual step of going through Metamorphosis to realize his desires,
instead of taking advantage of his name and its power. He could have been an
Auror. He could have been the political powerhouse Lucius Malfoy had once been.
He might even have made the Wizengamot or become Minister of Magic, if he had
been determined enough.

�� Instead, he
chose the path of art, secrets that he couldn�t tell people,
and actions that wouldn�t really make sense from the outside. Malfoy had done
at least two of those; Harry could only say that the second didn�t fit because
he didn�t understand what all of Malfoy�s secrets were.

�� Harry had
done it because he wanted freedom, a small and secret set of lives in the
middle of the wizarding world that were just his own, since his ordinary life
was lent to any wizard who wanted to live it in imagination.

�� If Malfoy wants the same thing�

�� Harry
firmed his grip on the cup of pumpkin juice so he wouldn�t drop it and stared
at the fire with wide, unseeing eyes. The images tumbled through his mind, and
he became more certain of his conclusion the longer he sat there.

�� That�s it. That has to be it. It really is.

�� Malfoy had
moved through those parties like an animal in a cage, now that Harry thought of
it. He was always turning his head from side to side as if seeking someone or
something that wasn�t there. He hadn�t asked for favors, although he could
have. He had wanted to dance with someone he had never seen before, and he had
attended the parties with reluctance, as if despising the traditions that said
such things were mandatory.

�� It seemed
so like his own activities that Harry promptly had to caution himself. Maybe he
was seeing similarities where none existed. Maybe Malfoy just happened to want
a different kind of power, and Harry couldn�t see that because he didn�t know
how the inner minds of pure-bloods worked.

�� But he
didn�t think so. He thought his conclusion was the right one.

�� His options are more limited than mine. He
can�t vanish into art like I can because his family would want to know where he
was going�and maybe he doesn�t have an artistic talent. He wants his family to
respect him, I do believe that, but he�s willing to push the boundaries because
they would see making a living by business as vulgar. He�s trying to find his
way out of the trap that circumstances cast him in, but he needs help to do it.

�� Harry
swallowed and opened his eyes to look at the fire again. One set of sparks was
leaping out to almost char the carpet like a flame trying to escape from the
rest. Kreacher appeared, mopped up the sparks before they could cause damage,
and then vanished.

�� If that�s the case, I want to help him.

�� That didn�t
reduce Harry�s embarrassment or resentment that Malfoy had blackmailed him. It
didn�t mean that Harry was about to tell him the secret of Metamorphosis, how
the actors hired at the parties and Ministry receptions and other social
functions over the years had all been him. He didn�t want to go up and hug him
and offer sympathy, either, in case it turned out that he was wrong or Malfoy
didn�t want his secret known.

�� But I can help him anyway. Yes, I think I
can.

*

�� Draco
relaxed the moment he stepped inside Greater Kingdom, the Haggertons� manor
house. They reached the level of elegance and comfort that a place like
Unruffled could only achieve in cheap imitation.

�� A house-elf
appeared next to him, glamoured like one of the tall elves that Talleyrand�s
magic had created in the bushes three nights ago at Unruffled. �Will you come
with me, sir?� it murmured, and accepted his cloak. �A table is waiting for
you, and for your friend.�

�� Draco
bristled for a moment, wondering why Blaise or Pansy or whoever else it was
hadn�t informed him of their intention to attend the party, and then remembered
Potter. Yvonne Haggerton had been at Unruffled the other night, and would
undoubtedly have seen Potter�s �Truth� disguise and decided that a close
relationship must exist between them.

The thought of sitting next to
Potter part of the night was strangely heartening. Draco inclined his head to
the elf and walked into the next room.

If it was a room.
The Haggertons had done such a careful job of glamour and Transfiguration that
Draco was genuinely uncertain whether he was in the large dining room that he
thought lay in this direction or outside, under a canopy of leaves. He glanced
behind him and saw a large silver tree, leaning over the lawn where the tables
stood and shading it. Around the trunk of the tree ran garlands of vines that
he knew had never existed, with large nodding flowers that looked like morning
glories except for their size and their color, purple striped with black. A
silver bird spread its wings in the tree and sang fit to break the heart. The sounds of others, their wings opening and closing like silk
fans, drifted down from the leaves.

At the least, they must have Transfigured the birds from nightingales or
canaries, Draco thought as he strolled further into the eating area. But I don�t know if that tree is real.

The tables were shaped like
half-moons, the chairs placed a reasonable distance apart. Perhaps it was his
family�s legacy of placing a small number of people in a large space, but Draco
hated to be crowded when he sat down to dinner. Low music that sounded like a
flute version of the silver birds� songs drifted around the seats. Draco
located the chair that glowed softly when he approached and sat down. The chair
promptly molded itself to him, shifting gracefully, the wooden arms growing
shorter and the cushions thicker.

�� Next to him
was Potter, of course, in the Lionel Truth guise. He nodded to Draco and
reached over to lay a hand on his arm. �I realize that you sent Zabini to me
with a tale,� he whispered. �But I�m not angry at you.�

�� Draco
blinked at him, uncertain what to say. He would have thought the words the
prelude to a mocking comment, except that Potter�s voice was low and warm, and
he wasn�t speaking in the hissing stage-whisper that would have attracted
attention. At least the insult, if it came, would be private.

�� You see,�
Potter said, tightening his fingers on Draco�s arm and rubbing back and forth,
�I realize that you want the same thing I do.�

�� I do
admire deception and acting skill,� Draco said. �But I�m not dying to do all
that you can do.�

�� Potter
shook his head. �I want freedom. So do you.�

�� Draco
stared at him. Someone must have�

�� And then he
remembered that no one knew that much of the desires of his heart, not even
Blaise, and certainly not his parents, who wouldn�t have a reason to speak to
Potter anyway. Potter must have seen it somehow in Draco�s actions or demeanor,
the way that Draco had recognized the fighting move from �Miranda� that
confirmed Potter�s presence in his mind.

�� Who told
you that?� he did still ask, on the faint hope that Potter wasn�t as clever as
Draco might have to admit he was.

�� Oh, no
one,� Potter said, mildly startled. The expression looked as though it belonged
on Truth�s face, and Draco wondered how much he changed the minor things when
he dressed up as someone else. �Miranda� had been very different, or so Draco
thought, but then, he hadn�t had the chance to see many expressions from her.

�� Figured it
out on your own, did you?� Draco kept his tone mildly acid as the salad
appeared in a silver bowl in front of him. He kept one eye on Potter as he
began to eat, but Potter used the correct utensils in the correct manner. Draco
wondered who had taught him that. Of course, there were schools one could
attend�mostly down-on-their-luck pure-bloods teaching Muggleborns who aspired
to the finer things in life�but even more than the money and time, he wouldn�t
have thought Potter had the interest.

�� If he wants to imitate a pure-blood, he
probably has to.

�� Yes, I
did,� Potter said, sounding pleased with himself. His
voice deepened and became Lionel Truth�s selling voice. �I thought you might
enjoy a dance tonight, as an experience of freedom. I�ll dance with others, of
course. I want to show that I can sell your machines subtly as well as with the
open entrance. But the first dance is yours, if you want it.�

�� Draco
swallowed a piece of lettuce once and fought hard to control his coughing as he
reached for the glass of water. �Potter,� he said at last, �you do know what pure-blood society will
assume about two men dancing together, don�t you?�

�� Of
course,� Potter said.

�� There was a courage in his eyes that Draco had never seen in anyone
else�s when the topic came up. As if he had simply accepted the notion that he was
gay, or could be considered gay, and had resolved not to be disturbed by it any
more than he was by the color of the sky.

�� Draco toyed
with his fork for a moment, and then asked, �Why would you assume that I want
that kind of taint to follow me?�

�� Potter�s
smile was small and bright and secret. �Because it�s another
kind of freedom. They can�t touch you, not if you�re trying to build
your own method of gaining power and money outside their structure. The only
thing that might happen to you is your parents� disowning
you, and I don�t think that will happen, since you�re their only child and they
have no close relatives to leave the money to.�

�� Draco
carefully pushed the salad aside and sat there in silence, thinking, until the
first course appeared. It was fish glowing too brightly to be natural, and
covered with a glazed sauce that made it appear golden. Potter, meanwhile, sat
there as if he hadn�t a care in the world. He used the cutlery correctly on the
fish, too.

�� Draco said,
�If I offend too many people, there�s a good chance they won�t buy the machines
I want to sell them.�

�� That�s
true,� Potter said. �And certainly an argument against
dancing with me.�

�� Draco took
a quick glance at him, but Potter had his eyes shut as he savored the steam rising
from the fish, and Draco could not actually tell his thoughts. �But you don�t
think that�s an argument against it,� he ventured.

�� No,�
Potter said, opening his eyes, �I don�t. Not if you spin this the right way.�

�� A tainted, social-climbing tradesman who doesn�t care what other
people think of his sexuality?� Draco snorted. �I�m sure that will make
them flock to buy from me. Let alone
invite me to their parties.�

�� No,�
Potter said patiently. �You can make them
accept this. You can make them fascinated with you, and think of you as someone
clever and daring and original, rather than harmful to their morals or to their
notion of what raising a proper family is like.� Some tart bitterness on those
last few words, which made Draco think he was hearing the real Potter for an
instant. Then Potter turned his head, and it was Lionel Truth who looked at
him. �Or do you think that you aren�t up to the challenge?�

�� Draco�s
cheeks burned. He was remembering the way Potter had ridden into Unruffled on a
glamoured unicorn, using obvious cheap tricks, and still had people dancing
attendance around him, and Urania Talleyrand herself interested.

�� No one�s ever going to say that I can�t do
something Potter can do. Even if we�re the only two who would
know.

�� Show me,�
he said.

*

�� Harry liked
the Haggertons� Midsummer�s Eve party the best of any he attended. They always
provided beautiful open spaces for dancing and plenty of good food, and he was
as fond of one as of the other.

�� But it was not
often he had a perfect partner to dance with, especially since he had mostly
attended the party in the guise of a date to someone who wanted to fool the
world into believing they were perfectly heterosexual.

�� This time,
as he walked out onto the smooth, velvet-soft lawn of the dancing area, with
Malfoy a step behind him, he was conscious of a thrill that worked its way down
to his stomach from his throat. He had a worthy partner, and he was going to
show everyone what two men dancing together could do.

�� More to the
point, he was going to make them
applaud a spectacle they would ordinarily turn away from in disgust.

�� He faced
Malfoy and dipped his head in a graceful bow. They were attracting attention,
curious little squinted sideways glances. Malfoy nodded back, and Harry could
practically hear the indrawn breath as a few people began to suspect what was
coming. The rest of the party, of course, thought they had concluded some
business matter and would part now.

�� Harry
raised his hands and held them out to Malfoy. Malfoy clasped them, looking at
Harry in confusion. The music playing at the moment was a waltz, and he must
wonder how they could make that dance original.

�� Harry
snapped his fingers.

�� The glamour
spell he�d prepared during dinner, in the breaks between courses, took effect.
With a sharp little twang, the waltz music dropped and swung into the
half-loping, half-galloping tune of the Arctica.

�� Harry
waited a moment to see Malfoy�s eyes widen before he smiled, released the git�s
hands, and swung away into the turn that demanded he put his back to his
partner. He could only hope Malfoy would have figured out, or decided, what he
should do before Harry turned round again.

�� The Arctica
was a dance of first love, a dance between people who declared that they were
going to marry at the end of the evening. Of course, most of the time, it was
no such thing, and it had acquired a different social significance when its
original meaning so rarely applied. It was a dance in which anything was possible.
Enemies could dance together, or people who had been forbidden by the
Wizengamot to ever speak to each other again, or people who had once been
lovers and were now married to others. For as long as the music wailed and
pivoted around the ballroom, the ordinary rules were suspended.

�� It was the
only dance during which Malfoy could possibly get away with dancing with a man.

�� When Harry
faced him again, he saw that Malfoy had recognized that and, from the sharp
glitter in his eyes, that the prat intended to play his part.

�� He stepped
forwards, bowing to Harry as if they had shared dances like this before, as if
they had planned all this, as if he were an actor of equal strength and skill.
Harry laughed in his heart at the deception of the deception, but he
appreciated the spirit that had inspired it. He stretched out his hand, and
Malfoy gracefully took it.

�� Grace
wasn�t required by the dance, but speed was, and Malfoy�s training seemed to
have included both. They leaped around each other, hooking arms now and then,
feet often leaving the ground for a few minutes, either because they were just that enthusiastic or because the
Arctica called for lifted kicks. Malfoy was panting after a few minutes, which
made Harry feel smug. I must get more exercise
than he does.

�� They broke
apart as the music stuttered, and then practically charged each other as it
flared up again. Harry worried whether someone was disrupting his glamour, but
then remembered that breaking of the music was a normal feature of the Arctica.
He had danced to this music more recently than he�d listened to it.

�� Malfoy
clasped his arms around Harry�s waist and swung him in a circle. It was one of
several possible interpretations, the boldest, and Harry found himself glad,
once again, that it was Malfoy, someone so like himself�

�� (Well, in essentials.)

�� --who had
been the one to catch him. Harry locked his feet on the ground and swung Malfoy
in turn. Malfoy went with it, his eyes half-shut and dreaming, his hair flying behind him like the mane of a wild horse.

�� I was right, Harry thought as he dropped
his arms from around Malfoy�s waist and then dropped into a kneeling position
at his feet, extending his arms towards him. What he wants most is freedom, and this is a tiny piece of freedom in a
world far too crowded and mad for him most of the time.

�� Malfoy came a single, delicate step forwards, hesitated like a
courting peacock, and then laid his hands on Harry�s shoulders. Harry smiled up
at him and folded his hands over Malfoy�s, lightly clasping his wrists. Malfoy
shut his eyes, his lashes fluttering delicately. Harry rose to his feet,
drawing Malfoy�s arms along with him, as the Arctica turned slow and cold,
fitting its name for the first time so far this evening.

�� Together,
they swayed, as mindlessly as if they had been long-time lovers. Harry could
feel the length of Malfoy�s body along his. If he was out of shape, it didn�t
show in the firmness of his muscles or the strength of his arms. He was warm, and
almost as tall as Harry, and if he was still sharp of feature,
that was no worse than some of the other pure-bloods Harry dealt with,
and imitated, on a daily basis.

�� I could do worse for a partner, for a lover.

�� That was a
true statement. Harry isolated it in crystal because of that. It was true, and so there was no need to think
about it further.

�� The Arctica
dropped even lower, to a throb that Harry could feel in his wrists and the soles
of his feet. Malfoy opened his eyes and tilted his head towards him, bringing
his mouth close to Harry�s ear.

�� I think
we�ve given them enough of a show,� he whispered. �How are we going to avoid
sending them away in disgust?�

�� Harry
smiled and slipped back into the persona of Lionel Truth, who loved spectacle
and being the center of attention.

�� I bear the
burden,� he murmured. �Of course. I don�t really
exist, do I? I�m going to do something in a few minutes. When I do, all you
have to do is leap away and look disgusted. And that�ll do the rest.�

*

�� Draco
thought he knew, from the devilish smile glinting on Potter�s face and in the
disguised eyes, what he meant to do.

�� What
surprised him was his own impulse to protest.

�� He shook
his head�mentally, because Potter and the people watching him would notice if
he did it physically�and let his head droop so that it touched Potter�s
shoulder. The plan would work, would become perfect, because what Potter said
was true. Lionel Truth didn�t really exist, and neither did Potter, when he
wore a costume like this. He couldn�t be damaged by this, and he would ensure
that Draco wasn�t.

�� Draco
simply wished there was a way to keep both the publicity that he would gain
from this and the warm feeling of Potter�s body swaying in his arms, the soft
breath echoing next to his ear.

�� Potter made
a protesting mumble, and Draco opened his eyes. The Arctica was finishing, in a
cascade of notes that sounded as if they might have dropped from the trees.

�� And Potter
was leaning towards him, eyes brimful of trembling hope, his lips parted.

�� That was it. Potter would pretend to kiss
him, and all Draco needed to do was shove him away and act disgusted. He could
have figured that out even if Potter hadn�t given him his advice.

�� And then
Potter would find a way to spin things so that Draco would seem the hero of the
hour and not a fool who had almost been seduced.

�� Draco
fought back his own strange reluctance and did it.

�� He used a
stiff arm to propel Potter away from him, so suddenly that Potter�s arms
flailed and he landed on his back. The Arctica stopped, probably because Potter
had canceled the auditory glamour that produced it. Loudly enough that people
on all sides of the party could hear him, Draco announced in icy tones, �That�s
rather far to go for a dare, isn�t it, Truth?�

�� Potter
picked up on the thread of his plan at once, and gave him a faint, answering
smile before he arranged his face in an expression of hurt. The smile made
Draco�s throat want to close up, and it was a struggle to maintain his cold,
closed expression.

�� It wasn�t
a dare,� Potter said. His voice was perfect, the
quiver in it so subdued that you could almost pretend it wasn�t there�except
that every pure-blood would be listening intently for it. �I wanted to�to touch
you. Hold you. Kiss you.� He lowered his voice, as though he had forgotten the
watching audience. Most people probably wouldn�t have believed that, except
that it was the kind of thing someone in the throes of intense passion might
do, and it had to be intense passion that would make one man try to kiss
another in public. Draco�s admiration of Potter�s skills was growing. �I
thought you knew that, or why would you agree to dance with me?�

�� Burden on my shoulders now. Draco was
simultaneously irritated that Potter expected him to come up with the words for
this and happy that he trusted him to do so.

�� I am growing softer than I used to be. Draco
straightened his shoulders and stared into Potter�s eyes. Truth�s
eyes. He would have to think of them that way if he didn�t want to
forget himself in the middle of this speech.

`�� The
Arctica is a dance where anything might happen,� he said. �And you�ve been a
good enough friend to me in the past few days that I didn�t want to refuse what
seemed a small favor. But when I realized what you wanted it for?� He curled
his lip. He didn�t need to speak any more words. That gesture would be enough.

�� Potter
bowed his head. Just by that movement, and by hunching
his shoulders a bit, he became more hopeless than anyone Draco had ever looked
at. His control over his body was astonishing.

�� I wonder what else he can control? Draco�s
mind wandered in the last direction anyone around him would think it should go,
so once again he had to work hard to control his expression.

�� There�s
nothing I can do, is there?�

�� The despair
in Potter�s tone was utterly real, or so it seemed. It was an effort for Draco
to keep his jaw from falling open. Luckily, the expression of cold disdain this
situation required was the one he had practiced most often in the last few
months, because dealing with his father required it of him.

�� No,� Draco
said. He turned away and walked towards the nearest table covered with wine,
acting as if he could use a cup more than usual.

�� From the
muffled snorts and jeers behind him, he knew that Potter had risen and stumbled
away. There was even a moment when it sounded as if he�d scraped against a
doorway. He was leaving the party, alone and friendless, without the slightest
chance that he would regain the friendship he had forfeited.

�� Or so
anyone would think.

�� Draco
hadn�t managed many steps before they were swarming around him, the pure-blood
witches and wizards he had wanted to impress, talking of their sympathy in low
tones and asking about his machines. Potter had been right. There was a certain
cachet in being near someone who had come close to a scandal but escaped with a
few cutting words.

�� And the
aspiring half-bloods and Muggleborns Draco expected to make up his best
customers would buy the things they saw the pure-bloods buying, whether or not
they heard about Draco�s social triumph or cared. Perhaps they would hear. It was the sort of story the
Daily Prophet liked to print, telling
the wizarding world of the �champions of tradition,� those wizards or witches
who turned against �mere pleasure� for the �perpetuation of the race.�

�� Draco knew
the rhetoric. He had looked at article after article and spoken the words
aloud, though he had slept with men as well as women before. It was what one
expected. In reality, some of the younger pure-bloods, who had lost their faith
in their parents� generation and the old traditions, had lovers of the same
sex, but the watchword there was discretion.
Something like Lionel Truth had tried tonight would turn everyone against
him.

�� Not that
that mattered, since Lionel Truth didn�t actually exist.

�� That�s it. That�s why I don�t have to care. Potter
will slide into another disguise and go back to whatever he does when he
doesn�t work at Metamorphosis. Or he�ll play someone else, and I probably won�t
even recognize him the next time I see him.

�� Is
something wrong, Mr. Malfoy?� The witch in front of him, whom Draco vaguely
recognized as belonging to the Patterson family, looked at him with concern.

�� Draco,
looking down, realized that he had caused a crack in his wineglass with the
force of his grip. He took a deep breath and relaxed his hand. �I am thinking
of consequences,� he said. �The specific and the general.�

�� Oh?� Her
smile invited him to continue, but Draco didn�t want to. He smiled back and
left her to consider his comment in whatever cryptic way she wanted to.

�� Yes, Potter
could leave anything behind. He could slip from one persona to another, one
setting to another. Draco wouldn�t be surprised if he knew how to act right
around people who were of a lower social class as well as pure-bloods. In fact,
he was probably more at home with them, given his background.

�� His attempt
to translate his bitterness into anger about their past didn�t work. Again and
again, his mind returned to that image of Potter walking away from the party,
dropping Lionel Truth�s hair and eyes and cloak on the ground like a mask, and
then Apparating into the company of friends who wouldn�t know what he had just
been doing.

�� Potter was
free.

*

�� Harry
smiled as he sat down beside his fire that night. He had rarely pulled off a
more satisfying deception. It was true Malfoy hadn�t paid him, and Harry had
lost some time that he would ordinarily have been devoting to choosing among
the requests sent to Metamorphosis for his next case, but this had been so different.

�� I do hope that Malfoy decides to use some
other method than blackmail if he wants to hire me in the future, though, Harry
thought, and sipped his warmed pumpkin juice.

�� It was rare
that he got to feel this kind of contentment. Most of the time, he felt the
dazzling rush of excitement that came from inventing a persona or existing
inside one, or the sick fear that someone would discover his connection to
Metamorphosis and talk about it, or the dull boredom that came from being Harry
Potter. Harry would have liked to feel this more often.

�� Not at the price of more blackmail, though.

�� Harry
silently toasted the absent Malfoy, and hoped that he was enjoying himself as
much at the moment as Harry was.

*

�� I heard
about what you did at the Haggertons� party, Draco.�

�� Strange. Draco had
been expecting a subtler first approach to the subject. He lifted his attention
from his plate so that he could contemplate his father.

�� Sir?� he
asked, when more moments passed and Lucius seemed to have settled for a frozen
stare.

�� No amount
of respect will remove this onus from you.� Lucius�s voice lowered further into
disapproval. �You danced with a man, who then tried to kiss you.�

�� It was a
dare,� Draco said patiently. He had lain awake last night rehearing his story
until he could almost have believed it himself. �Yes, he challenged me to dance
with him, thinking I would back away. I could hardly let him have the
appearance of triumph over me. But then I refused to submit to his scandalous
advances, and that gave me a victory over him.
I don�t see why you should be concerned about this, Father,� he added casually.
�Everyone at the party was entirely on my side, when they saw how it was.�

�� Lucius
leaned forwards. Draco studied him from the corner of his eye, because direct
attention would cause too much suspicion at this point. His father�s face had a
tinge of hard passion that he didn�t understand. If Lucius had brought the
Haggertons� party up at all, Draco had thought he would be angry that Draco was
acquiring a reputation for selling machines like a Muggle tradesman.

�� His mother
sat at the end of the table and looked back and forth between them.

�� But you
should not have entered such a situation in the first place,� Lucius said. �Why
did you accept the dare? Who is this Lionel Truth person to you?�

�� Someone I
used to know,� Draco said, with such perfect honesty that his father narrowed
his eyes. �Someone who had also agreed to promote my products
during the Starfire Nights. I thought I owed him the pleasure of a
challenge.� He turned his head half away and managed a delicate shudder that he
was proud of himself for raising. �I didn�t know what
kind of pleasure he intended to take from it.�

�� Why should you be angry, Lucius?� Narcissa murmured. �Our
son has achieved a certain reputation from this incident, as someone who can be
trusted to uphold wizarding traditions. And he did not succumb to the clasp of
a man who only wished to use him. I do not understand what about this incident
places our name into disrepute.�

�� Draco would
have gaped at her if he dared. She had never taken his side before. But he
thought it best to nod in mild agreement and look at his father, waiting for an
answer.

�� It does
not matter,� Lucius said. �I will not have you encouraging such childish
notions as dares, Draco.� His hands
had relaxed on the table, but Draco knew better than to think their
conversation was finished because of that. �Do you think it likely that you
will see this Truth man again?�

�� This time,
it was Draco�s turn to clench his hands, though he was polite it enough to do
it in his lap, out of sight.

�� In truth,
there was no reason for Potter to come near him again, even for the Kellisons�
party, the climax of the Starfire Nights and the most prominent and
well-respected party held for the last few years. Why should he? He had done
what Draco had demanded of him. Orders for Malfoy�s Machineries were pouring
in. People had seen Lionel Truth humiliated in a very public way. Potter
wouldn�t want to use that persona again, because he must suspect that no one
would listen to him if he tried to speak. He had sacrificed it in order to help
Draco.

�� But Draco wanted to see him again.

�� And if
Potter was the master of a dozen different faces and personalities, there was
no reason that he could not dress up as someone else and come again.
Particularly since the Kellisons� party was a masked one.

�� Still, that
had little bearing on the answer to his father�s question, as, Draco told himself, he should have figured out given the wording. He
would not see Truth again, although
he was determined to see Potter. So he looked up and shook his head. �His
reign, if he had one, is at an end. And I would certainly never trust anything
he says again.�

�� Lucius took
a shallow breath. �Good. Then I need not disown you.�

�� Draco kept
his face serene, but his soul screamed inside him. This is what Potter has that I don�t. He might not have parents, but he
has so much more freedom, and he has respect from the people who hire him and
the people who know him as Potter, even me. He doesn�t have to worry about a
father who can�t admit he made mistakes, who is involved in trying to live his
life through me because he managed to screw it up the first time.

�� We never
considered such a thing,� Narcissa said, surprising Draco again. �Accepting a
dare is not a heinous crime.�

�� Lucius
looked at her this time, along with Draco, as if he could not imagine what he
had done to bring about his wife�s opposition. Then he turned back to Draco and
seemed to settle on ignoring Narcissa. �I expect you to uphold the family name
with more honor from now on, Draco,� he said. �Is that clear?�

�� Draco
looked at him in silence. He had waited for so long to have some freedom from
his father, freedom that he had won,
that he had earned, rather than
simply tricked from Lucius. That was one reason Draco had never spread rumors
that Lucius was weak, or tried to disassociate himself from the family. He
could have done that, yes, but he preferred to make Lucius acknowledge that
he�d been wrong. That was the only way he could see the gleam of respect in his
father�s eyes.

�� Now, he
wondered why he had been so intent on that respect. It was one thing to have
esteem from people who mattered, who had ideals that you admired or power that
you looked up to, but Lucius wasn�t one of those people.

�� Not anymore.

�� Did you
hear me, Draco?� Lucius repeated.

�� I know now that I don�t have to win respect
from him, Draco thought. But I wish I
could have learned that before I put so much effort into trying to gain it.

�� Perfectly,
sir,� he answered, and then left the table as soon as possible after that
without making it look as if he was running away. If he no longer wanted his
father to look at him in pride and some recognition of Draco�s true,
independent worth, he at least didn�t want him to despise him, either.

�� Once he was
back in his room, he reached for ink and parchment.

*

�� Harry
considered the request in front of him with a dubious eye. On the surface, it
was the same kind of work he had often done: acting as an escort to someone who
had a lover of the same sex but needed his pure-blood parents to think he was
straight, so that they wouldn�t deprive him of the money he should rightfully
inherit.

�� But there
was a trick of wording in the message that displeased Harry. It sounded as
though the young pure-blood man requesting a woman in this instance didn�t plan
to treat the woman well. She would be only a temporary replacement for his real
lover, the letter said three times, and she shouldn�t expect to do more than
dance with him and perhaps eat one meal. She certainly wouldn�t be sharing a bed with him, though she would have to work
hard to convince his parents, who were already suspicious of his true preferences, that she was.

�� As if someone from Metamorphosis would find
a client so desirable that she would throw herself away on him, Harry
thought, and rolled his eyes, and set the letter aside. He had plenty of other
requests, and he always shut Metamorphosis down when he was working on a case,
so that he wouldn�t be distracted (or tempted) by the idea of taking on two at
once. There was no need to spend so much time preparing for a role he found
disagreeable.

�� Then
another owl flew through the window of the small office that he used as the
headquarters for Metamorphosis and alighted on the edge of the table. Harry
sighed. From the size and beauty of the bird, it came from a pure-blood Owlery,
and from the unfriendly stare it gave him, it blamed him for having to
undertake the errand at all.

�� Hullo,� he
said. �Deposit the letter there.�

�� The owl�s
stare grew more hostile.

�� Oh, of course.� Harry sighed again and dug into the drawer
of his desk, pulling out a handful of owl treats. He placed them on the table
in front of the bird and then picked up the next letter.

�� Now this
looked promising. This was a request for someone to act as a companion and
source of amusement to the writer�s mother, a role that Harry hadn�t played in
a while. He smiled. He had a persona in a file that would suit this perfectly,
someone whom he�d never been.

�� There was a
hoot and a screech, and then the owl, suddenly hovering over Harry�s head,
dropped the letter it held right in front of him. Harry reared back, swatting
at it and trying to keep it from scattering the neat pile of good prospects
he�d built up, but the owl immediately flew back to the table and started
eating the treats as if nothing had happened.

�� Harry
scowled at it. He�d had many letters that
presumed nothing could be more important to the owner of Metamorphosis than
helping them, but this was the first time the writers had started training
their birds to be rude.

�� He started
to throw the letter on the bottom of the pile, for spite, but two things
happened at once that prevented that. The owl hooted warningly, and Harry
realized it must have been told to wait for a response. The last thing he
wanted was for it to tear his office apart because it thought that he wasn�t
showing sufficient respect.

�� And he
recognized Malfoy�s writing on the envelope.

�� Harry
hesitated for long seconds, telling himself he was
stupid to let Malfoy affect him like this. Then he gave in to temptation and tore
the letter open.

�� Potter, it began, without the least word
in front of his name to soften the blow. Harry clenched the edge of the table
and took a long, hissing breath. This didn�t mean Malfoy knew he ran
Metamorphosis, he told himself. It only meant that Malfoy had assumed a letter
sent to this office would reach him.

�� I need to see you again.

�� Harry
blinked and frowned. That was unexpected. Had some kind of trouble come up with
Malfoy�s Machineries? He was already thinking about refusing the request,
though. He wasn�t going to let Malfoy blackmail him forever, and that was what
would happen if he came running every time the idiot was in trouble.

�� I�ve finally learned something I should have
realized long ago. There�s nothing I can do to make my family give me what I need from them: their acknowledgment that I�m
something more than the way to carry the Malfoy name into the future. I need
more than that, but I�ll have to win it by some other route. And in the
meantime, as so you so astutely guessed, freedom is more important to me than
living by the rules.

�� What the
fuck do I have to do with this?�
Harry mumbled, and read on.

�� You�ve managed to achieve a level of freedom
that I never thought you could, given how interested everyone in the wizarding world
still is in you. You�ve done what you wanted, and you�ve got a job that makes
you happy, and you probably still have your friends to cling as close to you
and give you as much devotion as ever.

�� Harry
rolled his eyes. �Not helping me to make up my mind to help you, Malfoy.� The
owl lifted its head from the edge of the table to glare at him, as if it had
heard and resented that.

�� I want you to show me how to do that.

�� Harry
blinked. �Become part of Metamorphosis? That won�t be happening. Besides, I doubt
that you�re good enough with glamours to do something like that.�

�� I want to see you one more time, at the
Kellisons� party. It�s a masked party. Come as you like; it ought to be easy
for you to fit in without anyone recognizing either Harry Potter or Lionel
Truth. But I want you to dance with me, and I want you to look at me with your
eyes that have gazed so long on freedom and help me learn how to live a life
like that.

��

�� Draco Malfoy.

�� Harry put
the letter down and stared at it.

�� It was the
only request he had ever got that he didn�t know how to answer. That was part
of the reason he ran Metamorphosis instead of trusting someone else to handle
the paperwork and office work for him (besides the fact that there was no one
he could trust with a secret like
this one). He had a set of skills that most of his clients got to see, even if
they never knew it was Harry Potter behind them: skill in glamours,
Transfigurations, changes of voice and growth of breasts that didn�t belong to
him by nature. But he had a skill in knowing what the right persona for a given
situation would be, too, and that was who he sent even if the clients initially
thought they needed someone quite different.

�� This time,
though, Malfoy needed�what?

�� Someone to
give him lessons in freedom, he said. But Harry couldn�t teach Malfoy how to
become someone who hid in plain sight when he didn�t want to share more of his
secret than he already had. Besides, he didn�t think Malfoy needed those
lessons, not when he had grown up around parents who had trained him to hide
his emotions.

�� Someone to give him the courage to stand up to his parents?
But Harry didn�t know how in the world he was supposed to do that. If Malfoy�s
business and Malfoy�s own cleverness and knowledge of his right to respect
couldn�t do that for him, no one could.

�� So Harry
simply turned the letter over, wrote on the back, I would be willing, but I don�t know what you want, and gave the
letter to the owl. It flew out the window without looking at him again.

�� Harry shook
his head and turned back to his messages.

�� Ten minutes
later, he realized he was reading the same sentence over and over again, and
tapping his fingers like a drumroll on the table, a gesture that belonged to
Harry Potter, not the owner of Metamorphosis.
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Starfire Nights