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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 Three--A Week of Altering Arrangements

            "What do you have for me?" Draco motioned Astoria through the Floo. It was still open to her without his having to take any special precautions, but he didn't think it would be a good idea to tell her that. She would only start to think about the past, and Draco didn't want her to regret what she'd given up when she went to be with Blaise.

            Astoria gave him a sharp-edged smile and slapped a thick sheaf of parchment down on the edge of the kitchen table. Draco picked it up and turned it to the light. He could see the words scribbled all over it at once, but the photographs that clung to the upper right-hand corners of most of the pages were his main targets of interest.

            "A plan," she said. "You wouldn't believe how easy it is to find corruption-worthy material on the Wizengamot members when you look."

            Draco blinked at her over the top of the parchment. "Yes, I would. That's because they're false leads planted by Sandborn. I'd already looked into the possibility of blackmail, and dismissed it. He owns the ones that we would need to blackmail, the way he owns Potter. Perhaps even the same way," he added, thinking about it now. He hadn't suspected the existence of multiple contracts, but it would make more sense than the idea that the Wizengamot members all had multiple innocent explanations for their every move.

            "You didn't look as hard as I did."

            Draco laid down the parchments again and gave Astoria a gentle look. "Dear, we've discussed talking about our sex life outside of bed."

            Astoria rolled her eyes at him, a sadly inelegant gesture that Draco had never managed to rid her of. "We all know that you can't keep your attention on anything for long, Draco," she said. "Except sex."

            "And paying Potter back," Draco said. He had paid back every monetary debt he'd contracted after the war, and several of the ones that had been meant as simple favors. Astoria inclined her head enough to let her hair brush the edge of the table, then sat back again and crossed her legs neatly.

            "Yes," she said. "But you didn't look enough into the Wizengamot members. My main target for blackmail is on page three."

            Draco flipped there and found himself staring at a picture of a tall woman with an emerald necklace gleaming at her throat that temporarily stole his attention from her short dark hair, her pale coloring, and her large teeth that all but screamed Muggle blood. "This is Jenna-Jane Rettern," he said.

            Astoria touched her fingertips together in applause. "Well done, Draco, recognizing people by their faces instead of their bloodlines! Yes, it is. And I happen to know that Sandborn turned her daughter down for a position as his secretary six years ago. Rettern won't forget that."

            Draco frowned. "It doesn't seem like Sandborn would leave himself open to opposition from that quarter. Surely he'll have defused it by now. Given the girl a position somewhere else in the Ministry."

            Astoria chuckled richly. "He did offer her one. When she arrived for the interview, it turned out that it wasn't open to people related to Wizengamot members, and she'd been made to look like a greedy idiot. Sandborn was there, of course, to express his apologies and talk about how they needed a better information network in the Ministry to spread news of the requirements." Astoria leaned forwards. "Sandborn is a good Minister, but he isn't always wise. He has to demonstrate that he has control, more than once, or the upper hand where complete control isn't possible. He went too far this time. I think Rettern will cooperate with us."

            Draco nodded. That would explain some of what he'd seen about Sandborn's behavior with Potter last Friday, too, wanting more when he ought to have known the terms of the business and the contracts by now and accepted them more gracefully than the coerced Potter. "Very well. Which part of the gains Potter won for us do you think she would help us preserve?"

            "The most important," Astoria said. "Our money. Rettern's made a career out of tracking corruption and graft. She'll find a weak link in the chain of the people who would benefit if we had our money taken away--or, more to the point--"

            "The people who would have benefitted seven years ago," Draco finished, nodding. Then he sighed and fluttered his eyelashes at Astoria. "We can finish each other's sentences. That's a sign of compatibility, according to Celestina Warbeck's latest song. What a pity that we didn't stay together."

            "What a pity that we both had a weakness for someone of the more masculine persuasion," Astoria said sweetly, and stood. "My mother's second cousin once removed is one of the Hit Wizards assigned to take care of Rettern. He can get me a meeting. I'll let you know what I've learned in no more than a day."

            She strode to the fireplace, while Draco saluted her back with his glass for the sake of the fast work she'd managed, and not for the sake of the insult she'd fired. If Blaise was more masculine than Peter, Draco would be surprised. Then again, he'd never seen Blaise naked.

            He entertained a wistful thought about that, but Astoria would kill him and Blaise would be laughing too hard to stop her from doing it. He turned his attention to the next part of his task. Astoria and Blaise had good plans, but they were only two people. He needed more help.

            Luckily, he hadn't been kidding when he detailed the list of all the people who would owe Potter to the captive Golden Boy himself. He checked the time, smiled, and tossed a handful of Floo powder into the fire. "Nott's Nest," he called out.

            As he suspected, given the hour, that earned him a lot of indignant scrambling and curses from Pansy, who never had learned how to clean her language up the way a lady should. Draco arranged himself in a languid pose and watched Pansy and Theo attempt to do up their robes.

            "You owe Potter a debt for saving your house and your arses," he told them, and enjoyed the artistic effect of one kind of surprise piled on top of another.

*

            "Mate!"

            Harry appreciated Ron's half-yelp. It gave him notice enough to dive to the floor, which meant the spell went over his head, which meant it lit the far wall of the room on fire instead of his hair. He paused to toss a quick thanks to Ron, then rolled to the side and cast a rope spell. It coiled around the calf of the witch who was currently doing her best to kill both of them. Harry rolled again, tugging, and heard her shriek and crash.

            That didn't mean she was any less dangerous, of course, unless he'd managed to make her hit her head. She would be vicious until they could bind her hands and gag her mouth. Harry came back to one knee and whirled around.

            The witch, torn blue robes sprawled around her along with tangled blonde hair that reminded him far too much of Callia's, had her wand aimed at Ron. Ron was busy battling one of the shadow-creatures she'd conjured, all beaks and horns and tentacles, and didn't see.

            Harry chanted the spells that came to mind almost casually. Although he tried to keep alert to unusual elements during the latest Dark wizard crisis, it really was casual by now, much easier than it had been back when he first started. "Expelliarmus. Stupefy. Incarcerous. Protego."

            The witch's wand soared towards him, and Harry caught it. Although he hadn't gone in for Seeker after the war, those reflexes still came in handy. He watched calmly as her eyes rolled back in her head from the Stunner and the ropes coiled around her, and then turned to watch the shield form behind Ron's back and before his chest.

            The shadow-creature roared in frustration, and a second cry came from the corner that the witch had lit on fire with her missed curse. Harry whirled that way and lifted his wand, calling, "Ignis!"

            The fire that roared into the air between them was hotter than that conjured by a normal fire spell, and, more to the point, brighter. Spiraling points of light struck the shadow-creature like searchbeams. The creature screamed and rocked back on its heels, or whatever it was currently using in place of them. Harry moved forwards, bringing the fire with him, and the walls gleamed as if bathed by sunlight. The creature slumped to the floor, long necks stretching out for the cool shadows, melting hands reaching up as if to create a sunscreen for the sensitive eyes.

            Harry halted in front of it, looked down, and waited until the coal-colored gaze caught his. Then he said pleasantly, "Ignis magnopere."

            The flames lifted above his head and bloomed gently outwards, or at least as gently as a fireball was capable of. The heat that came down made Harry's hair sizzle, and he cast the protective charm that Ron would yell at him later for having forgotten. Ron already had the Shield Charm in place defending him, which caused Harry to think he'd made up for the mistake with himself.

            Both shadow-creatures swayed back and forth, dripping like wax in the face of that intense light, and the fire moved forwards and consumed them. Harry stepped back and kept a close eye on the corners of the flames. Whenever a tentacle or something that wanted to be one tried to escape, he would kick it hard with one foot, launching it back into destruction.

            "I think they're dead, mate."

            Harry blinked and turned away from the fire somewhat reluctantly as it burned itself out at Ron's Finite. He liked seeing flames like that. It was so easy to picture Sandborn's face in the middle of them. "I think you're right," he said, and summoned his second soul to life behind his eyes. "Fancy spellwork there, throwing her off-balance."

            Ron ducked his head. "You were the one who took her out," he muttered. "I didn't even see her aiming at me."

            Harry grinned at him. "No reason you should, when you were busy battling what I thought was the last of her little toys," he said cheerfully. "Now, come on. I think that we'd better get her and our memories back to the Ministry as soon as possible. I haven't seen anything like those before." He let his voice dip, and Ron's face went grey as he thought about the possible implications.

            "You don't think she was alone," he muttered, casting a Lightening Charm on the witch and lifting her.

            Harry shook his head. "I could feel the magic in the second one before I roasted it. It didn't seem like her magical signature. Someone made them for her, or strengthened them after she made them. And I still don't know whether she summoned them, or constructed them, or wove shadows to take advantage of the fear in a victim's mind, or what. We need to find out."

            "Oh, we will," Ron said grimly, and clutched a little harder at the witch's legs, as if she might tear herself away from them even though she was unconscious. Well, Harry had seen that happen, though usually only when the criminal had an ally hiding somewhere nearby. He didn't sense someone nearby, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen.

            They stepped out of the room and into the half-destroyed front of the building, which a few minutes ago had been a nice little pub where wizarding families gathered before diving into Diagon Alley. Harry scanned the area around him by reflex, but sensed neither blood nor the magical signatures of the wounded. He relaxed. The other Aurors had got potential victims out of the way quickly, then.

            No, wait...there was one magical signature. Harry turned towards it and lifted his wand just as Malfoy stepped around the cracked shards of wood that were the only remnants of the wall.

            Ron had his wand aimed in Malfoy's direction sooner than Harry did, a nice demonstration of his ability to recover from surprise faster than Harry could. Harry grinned at him, a small expression that Ron acknowledged with a flicker of one eyelid, and then pointed his wand at Malfoy, as well. His mind was sorting and cataloguing details--the half-lounging way Malfoy stood, the position of his wand, the way he looked at Harry--trying to estimate how long he must have been here and whether he would have been helping the witch. She had mentioned backers in one of her taunting monologues, before Harry and Ron had rendered her too busy to talk. Could Malfoy be one of them?

            "What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron asked in some disgust finally, when long moments had passed and Malfoy had just stood there, staring at them. No, Harry realized then. Staring at him.

            Malfoy gave Ron a meaningless smile. "I had a message for Potter. I thought I might as well deliver it while you were both in a good mood." He turned to face Harry more fully. Harry toned down his smile and lifted his eyebrows to mimic the expression that Malfoy would have seen if he'd intruded on Harry in the Ministry.

            "What's the message?" he asked. "If you want me to attend a party at your Manor, I'm afraid that I'm booked for the next month." He usually was. Sandborn's secretaries made the arrangements for that, and then sent him the schedule of functions he had to attend.

            "I wanted to say that you should check the papers when you get home," Malfoy said. "It would do you good to see a story that wasn't about you for once." He turned, flicking his hair over his shoulder, and Disapparated. Ron made a disgusted sound. Harry nodded back at him.

            Meanwhile, his mind raced quietly through the details of the last time he had seen Malfoy, looking for threats. Then he shook his head. The Prophet and its lesser rivals had been pleased with Harry since he'd started following Sandborn's schedule all those years ago. They wouldn't print a nasty rumor about him with the same relish that they would have when he was in Hogwarts.

            "What was that all about?" Ron muttered.

            "Nothing," Harry said resolutely, and reached out to take Ron's arm so he could Side-Along them. "Do you remember how many tentacles the beast you were fighting had? It could be important, but I can't remember if it was eight or nine."

            Ron shook his head. "It kept changing. And I think it was mucking about with my head, too, or at least my senses. One time I was certain it was forty-nine, even though I know that I didn't have time to count, but..."

            Harry let the soothing flow of Ron's words wash over him and erase the grimy lines it seemed Malfoy had etched on his skin. He began collecting the words of his next report together in his head, as well as the questions that he would suggest the Ministry officials ask the witch. He came up with a few more questions that he could take to the archives when he began to search for information on the shadow-creatures.

            He distracted himself so thoroughly and efficiently that the headline about Jenna-Jane Rettern later that evening took him entirely by surprise.

*

            "How can he be so stupid?"

            Draco shook his head and let his legs relax against the high stool that Pansy inevitably gave him as a seat when he entered her kitchen. Pansy had her back to him, chopping furiously at the garlic on the cutting board in front of her. Draco shook his head again, but this time, it was his private Pansy-shake. She had house-elves to do that for her. Her insistence on attending to the finer details of cooking had never made sense to Draco.

            She has house-elves thanks to Potter.

            For that matter, so did he. Draco studied his friend's back thoughtfully as she dropped the chopper and reached for a bowl to scrape the garlic into. Perhaps her reason for wanting to do the cooking tonight made more sense than usual.

            "I don't know," Draco said. "But Astoria worked fast with Rettern. He ought to know now that we're serious."

            Pansy turned around, absently casting Cleaning Charms on her hands to dry the juice. "He may think it's a coincidence. Seriously, Draco, I can't accept that anyone that stupid is an Auror."

            "You know as well as I do that there are different kinds of intelligence," Draco murmured, caught up in studying her face. Pansy had been unfortunate-looking as a child, and then plain as an adolescent. Draco would never have predicted that she would grow into that most unusual sort of beauty as she aged: a tall woman with large dark eyes, an upturned nose instead of a snub one, blonde curls that required forceful taming, and an edge to her features that made him admire her while doing nothing for him sexually.

            He had enjoyed his time with Astoria, no question, but the memories sometimes distracted him when they were talking. He was glad he had a female friend with whom that didn't happen.

            "And none of them are the kind that let someone like Potter survive." Pansy planted her hands on her hips and spun more fully to face him, eyes so bright that Draco thought of the light glinting off Potter's spectacles. "Tell me, Draco. Why should I aid him? Yes, we owe him a debt, but I could let the rest of you pay that off, and it would still be just as gone. I don't know that I want to tarnish my good name by helping someone who's stubborn and won't recognize the truth when we hand it to him."

            "I warned him, in the case of Rettern," Draco murmured, but he was thinking. Yes, he had forgotten that. Pansy had the same standards that the rest of them did, but she was more ruthless in her practicality. She would ignore the debt for years and then swoop in and rescue Potter from some embarrassing social transaction at the last moment or volunteer her house for the christening of his first child, then consider herself done. Draco wanted everyone involved because he thought he would need that much ballast to pull against Potter's unwilling weight.

            And yet, if the weight was totally unwilling...

            Why did he want to do it?

            Draco smiled. Pansy took a step forwards, bracing her arms on either side of the stool, caging him. "You have something."

            "Why, yes," Draco said, and blinked at her. "How do you think Potter has managed to keep this contract from everyone for years?"

            Pansy nibbled on a curl and studied him. Draco preserved his "totally-not-tormenting-the-house-elves" stare that had worked so well from childhood, and Pansy said at last, "It was coincidence you found out. He must have defended it with lies for years."

            "Exactly," Draco said, and nodded, and waited for her mind to catch up.

            "Bloody fuck," Pansy said, which was another of the unladylike things she did, and which Draco had too much consideration for her to call her on. "He's a good liar. He has cunning." She looked into the distance, eyes so large that Draco wanted to press them shut. "He's a Slytherin kind of intelligent, without the standards of honor that we have."

            "Exactly," Draco repeated, and smiled at her. "I should have known that you would recognize a kindred spirit in him when you thought about it long enough."

            Pansy pushed him casually off the stool. Draco ducked to avoid banging his head on the table and stood up, smoothing out his shirt, which Pansy had nearly wrinkled. He watched Pansy, who was scowling into the distance and tapping one foot on the floor with a pace that would grow more frenzied as the minutes passed.

            "So," she said at last.

            "So?" Draco asked back, and raised his eyebrows.

            "Astoria should have been the one to handle Callia, since the bitch is her cousin," Pansy said, wheeling around in place and pinning him with a bright glance. "Why did she go after Rettern instead?"

            "Because we're concentrating on methods to preserve our own gains first, not stop Potter's marriage," Draco said. He let his confusion show. It mattered less when Pansy had just knocked him off the stool. She would probably think he had bumped his head after all.

            "That's bollocks," said Pansy. "Attack from all directions at once, or Potter and Sandborn will find a way to stop it. Potter must have faced down dozens of smaller crises, each time his friends came close to finding out the truth. And he has nosy friends. They would have done it. Sandborn has his ways of defending information, too. I'll handle Callia."

            "Not very well, if you call her a bitch to her face," Draco murmured. He would have been less doubtful, but he knew Pansy's tactics too well.

            "I know her," Pansy said. "That means I know whereof I speak."

            Draco nodded and let it go. He had come here to secure Pansy's help. How she chose to give it was up to her.

            And anticipating a pleasant surprise would at least make a difference from the unpleasant one floating in his fireplace when he came home.

*

            Harry read the article with a sharp disbelief that had no place in his home. He should have looked at the Prophet in the office, and ordinarily would have, but Ron had tossed the paper, along with his cloak, at him before herding him out the door to get some sleep, and he hadn't had the chance until now.

            Scattered phrases jumped out at him. Along with the photo--a hard-smiling one of Jenna-Jane Rettern, no surprise since she looked like that in every picture Harry had ever seen of her--they were the important things.

            ...convening the Wizengamot to look again into the chains of influence set up around the fall of You-Know-Who...

            ...forged records of non-existent pure-bloods supposedly related to the Malfoys...

            ....testimony of various high-ranking Ministry officials...

            ..."I'm afraid the papers I uncovered today show that there was a great deal more corruption around the beginning of Minister Sandborn's administration than was ever noticed," Rettern said in a conference with your reporter this afternoon, at which she announced the beginning of the investigation...

            Harry would have rolled his eyes without Malfoy's appearance this afternoon. Or, rather, he would have marked the article carefully for the political implications and then put it aside, neatly folded, and gone home, because his home was not a place where he thought about such things.

            But now, he had to think about them.

            His third soul was within him, surging hotly upwards before he could reconsider his actions, and he found the Floo powder between his fingertips without knowing how it got there. He shook his head, debated holding back and being sensible, and then threw it anyway. It landed in the fire with a sizzle, and he said, "Malfoy Manor," already tense with the knowledge that the call would be refused--why should Malfoy let him through?--and thus save him from his own stupidity.

            The call resulted in a nervous, bowing house-elf rather than the blank wall image that it should have. Harry clenched his fists and whipped away from the fire. He had to pace off his energy. This was stupid.

            "Potter. Hullo."

            The sound of Malfoy's voice brought Harry back around, and once again seemed to leap through his nerves to his voice without involving his brain, rather as the article had. "What do you think you're doing?" he snarled.

            Malfoy's smile grew more languid, and he sat down in front of the fireplace. He looked as though he was settling down to a long conversation.

            And Harry was without the carefully-prepared mask of indifference and political knowledge that he had had the last times they'd talked.

            His heartbeat clanged doom, but Malfoy had already said, "Yes, let's talk about that, shall we?" and the conversation began.

*

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