Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Leopardspaw	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21311 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Three—Contacts and Contact

            “Careful, Malfoy. Remember that you’ll be bringing me with you before you Apparate anywhere.”

            Malfoy paused and tilted his head at Harry in a way that made him seem like the grey owl who had borne his letter: graceful, aggressive, but a kind of poised aggression. Harry snorted to himself as he realized the comparison he was making. And I’m sure the mice his owl kills are grateful that it’s a beautiful predator killing them.

            “Why would I need to be careful about that in particular, Potter?” Malfoy asked quietly.

            Harry sighed and stifled the temptation to bury his head in his hands. Still no lies, and still no sign that Malfoy had even been tempted to tell one. He was going to shame Harry into respecting him in the end, wasn’t he?

            “I mean,” he said, “that your father’s contacts might hang around places where I would be required to—react to what’s in front of me. I’m still an Auror. I don’t want to lose you people who matter to your business because I have to charge into the middle of their illegal blackmail or trading and arrest them.”

            Malfoy watched him in silence some more. Part of the reason he could tell the truth, Harry thought, matching him stare for stare, was that he was so slow to react to anything. He didn’t leap to deny Harry’s words, or laugh at them, or find an excuse for them. He simply absorbed, and weighed, and measured.

            Harry pictured him with a pair of invisible scales, and snickered.

            “You’re not an Auror for right now,” Malfoy said.

            True because he believes it, Harry noted. His curse didn’t pick up lies that people believed were true, no matter how stupid they self-evidently were. Harry knew that because the magic hadn’t made the Unspeakables glow red when they pronounced confidently that they would have Harry’s problem solved in a day.

            “What am I, then?” Harry asked.

            “You’re my paid investigator,” Malfoy said, and still the air around him was clear and not red with the force of his belief.

            Harry had to smile. He hadn’t realized until now how much he’d lacked confident people in his life. Yes, fine, Malfoy was arrogant and still swaggered and had had some kind of training to make him move like that that Harry might end up regretting later, if Malfoy used it to get the jump on him and hold a wand to Harry’s throat. But still, he was magnificent in the simplicity of his arrogance, in the way that he made assumptions without apology.

            It made Harry wonder if he’d have responded to some of those pleas for his help and time, or Ron’s suggestion that he help with the orange powder test, if those people had showed up and commanded him to aid them.

            No. He knew the answer, ringing in his bones. For whatever reason, this reaction is Malfoy’s alone.

            “I see.” Harry let his voice match Malfoy’s, go into the softness and secrecy that seemed appropriate for this hidden alley behind the Leaky Cauldron. Water plashed and dripped here, and shadows crept along the walls. Harry could see strange-smelling pieces of rubbish that he didn’t want to investigate more closely piled in those shadows. Strange how different even the most ordinary places could seem when he was looking at them with eyes that didn’t belong to an Auror. “So you’ll expect me to let someone with dragon’s eggs on him go?”

            “If he brings out the dragon’s eggs, someone else will steal them,” Malfoy said. “You don’t need to worry about honor among thieves.”

            “You speak such good sense,” Harry said, unable to help himself. “The Ministry ought to hire you as an advisor.”

            Malfoy paused to study him again. Then he shook his head. “I’d prefer that you not insult me,” he said, and extended his arm for Harry to take. Harry did, and thrilled this time to the muscles that bunched beneath his touch, the way Malfoy seemed to hiss in and out when Harry touched him.

            “Most people don’t find it insulting to be told they’d be good at something,” Harry said, tilting his head at Malfoy until his mouth was by Malfoy’s ear. “Or did you learn how to take compliments from Snape?”

            Malfoy looked at him and said, “Don’t speak that name around me.”

            “I went through a period like that, too,” Harry said, having to smile at the memory of how very guilt-ridden he had been. “All right, I won’t.”

            Malfoy frowned.

            “You’re the boss,” Harry said. He joggled Malfoy’s arm when Malfoy didn’t move. “You were going to Side-Along Apparate me,” he reminded the git helpfully. And if he couldn’t do any investigating or reacting to what he saw right now, well, he would do his best to remember the Apparition coordinates. There was a difference between not making trouble for Malfoy and letting a murder or rape or kidnapping go unpunished.

            “I’m insulted because I would never work for the Ministry,” Malfoy said abruptly.

            Harry smiled again. “Oh, well,” he said. “That’s another reason for you to want your father back in prison, I suppose. There must be people out there who assumed you’d carry right on from where you father left, and make yourself useful as a blackmailer and contact in the Ministry.”

            Malfoy was very still now, even the flesh beneath Harry’s arm seeming to go cold and glass-like and retreat. Harry stroked his arm in apology and murmured, “Sorry. I’ll be quiet if you want. I just can’t lose the mind and the instincts of an Auror, even if I lose the habits of one.”

            He thought he heard Malfoy sigh quietly before they vanished, but he was standing very close, and no breath ruffled his hair. Perhaps he simply wished to feel it.

*

            They appeared in a dense and densely green patch of trees, with rain dripping around them. Harry muttered and turned up his collar to keep the water from sliding down his neck. Next to him, Malfoy’s hand glided out and landed on the middle of his back for a moment.

            “I’m going to use a glamour to disguise your appearance,” he murmured. “Do not start. It ruins my aim.”

            Harry raised his eyebrows. “You ought to know that no glamour sticks to that bloody scar of mine.”

            “I ought to have known?” Malfoy’s arm came up in a slow sweep that made Harry lick his lips, and his wand ended up at the level of Harry’s heart. “Do you imagine that I keep tabs on you at all times, that you are the center of my life in the way that you look at me as if I were the center of yours?”

            “Am I being that obvious?” Harry shrugged, deciding that he could talk about it if Malfoy had noticed it. “Sorry. I do find you attractive, but I wouldn’t try to touch you without your permission. I did like touching you when you Apparated me, though,” he added, because there was the chance Malfoy would do it again if he knew Harry liked it.

            Malfoy watched him still, and then dropped his wand and said, “You meant that I should know because otherwise I would try a glamour on the scar and be frustrated when it didn’t work.”

            Harry smiled at him. “Exactly.”

            Malfoy carried on watching him, as though he assumed that would unnerve Harry. Harry just looked back. He could stare at Malfoy forever, admire the curve of his jaw and neck and the way he held his wand in those long, lovely, gentle fingers.

            Then Malfoy said, “Very well. I’ll grow your hair longer, and that should help keep the scar concealed.”

            Harry nodded, and watched as Malfoy made the gesture, his arm unfolding and then springing back in towards his side as if he had cast a net at Harry. That motion was natural, too, unaffected, or at least only affected by the long practice he had undergone, and what Harry thought must be training by a dance master. The Auror training program had included the most common dance steps, both because the Aurors thought it would be useful for their trainees at parties and to give them some more balance and grace.

            But you’re not an Auror right now, remember?

            Harry closed his eyes and smiled as he felt the glamour settle over him. That was right. He was free of the expectations that the Ministry placed on him, the duties and burdens. He only had to do what Malfoy said.

            The glamour tightened around his magic, and then a second spell followed, intricately interwoven with the first. Harry felt his fringe grow longer and flop down his forehead like a shaggy dog’s. The tickling sensation made him laugh and shake his head, growing used to the weight after a moment.

            “You are nothing like I expected,” Malfoy said.

            Harry snapped his head up, thinking he must have caught a lie at last, but the air around Malfoy was still unstained by scarlet. “I don’t see how,” he said. “You’ve told the truth so far, even about the things that made you sneer. I must fit your expectations somehow, or you would have lied more often.”

            “You think I would lie out of surprise?” Malfoy’s body flowed into a dreadfully still pose, his head uplifted as though he’d set up steel poles running from his chin to his shoulder. Harry preferred the grace he’d shown before, but this was nice, too. He reached out and touched Malfoy’s hand, playing with his fingers, making him start and shy and drop back into that motion.

            “No,” he said. “I just thought that last statement couldn’t be true, combined with the others that you were making earlier.”

            “Hm.” Malfoy spent some more time looking at him, and then nodded and turned to walk out of the grove. “Let’s go. We’re probably late.”

            Harry smiled as he trod softly after Malfoy. He suspected the adverb was the only word that kept that last statement from being a lie, but, well, it was truth as it stood, and a worthier gift than most people around him had offered him in the last fortnight.

            The rain continued to whisper and drip around him, and Harry caught the sound of voices beyond it for the first time. He shifted his wand casually to his hand. Malfoy could order him not to use certain curses, and Harry had to agree that tying someone’s legs around their heads or breaking their teeth might be a bit extreme for a first strike. But letting someone else curse him because his wand was tangled up in his sleeve would be stupid enough that he would die of embarrassment, and then Malfoy would have no help.

            He promised to pay me. I want to make sure that he sees no reason to skimp on the price.

            That wasn’t his real motive, of course, but Harry sometimes enjoyed lying to himself.

*

            The trees ran out gradually, dribbling out in an area that looked like the grounds around Hogwarts, minus the lake. Harry saw a few crude houses here and there, with wooden walls that needed repairs and thatch that needed burning. The center of the meadow glowed with a bonfire, and Harry narrowed his eyes. There were edges to the dancing shadows, edges that burned as green as the Killing Curse and then vanished.

            “Follow me,” Malfoy said, not looking over his shoulder as he walked towards the fire. “You aren’t to say anything.”

            Harry nodded at Malfoy’s back, decided that spells wouldn’t fall under that ban, and followed. The shadows swept over him, and the glamour tingled and rebounded against his hands and face, but seemed to hold. At least, none of the roughly-cloaked wizards who turned and stared at them seemed inclined to start screaming about Harry Potter in their midst.

            The figures included both wizards and witches, Harry saw, but almost no children. There was one woman holding a little boy by the hand, but when the boy turned and looked at Harry, Harry saw a blank, porcelain-smooth face with a fixed smile and hair like black wires. He shuddered and sped up. Technically, the magic that made those child-figures wasn’t illegal; they were only objects and couldn’t feel or experience anything. He found them creepy anyway.

            He could smell it now, the heavy fumes of potions made with dragon scales and skins and eggs. It was always distinctive around the homes of the Potions brewers he hunted. Harry snorted softly and kept his eyes straight ahead. If the Potions masters who wanted those materials could find some way to get them without hurting dragons, he wouldn’t care so much. He preferred more exciting cases than the smuggling ones.

            There was a wizard standing next to a smaller fire and stroking the neck of a unicorn. Well, what would have been a unicorn. It had a sleek black coat, the color and consistency of metal, and the horn that rose above its brow was subdivided into three sections, red and white and black. The hooves had edges as sharp as flechettes, and when it snorted, literal steam rolled out of its nostrils. The witch in front of its handler pried the creature’s mouth open and examined the long, slender, vampire-like fangs that were its only teeth. Harry shook his head. Defiances of the Experimental Breeding Ban were alive and well, he saw.

            He could never bring Hagrid here. He would want to rescue all the poor abused creatures and bring them home, totally ignoring the fact that most of them would kill him and burn down the Forbidden Forest.

            Another witch bent over a cauldron and threw small pieces of glass, triangular and glittering red with a soaking of blood, into the potion. The wizard who had donated them stood next to her, bandages wrapping around his slashed palms. The witch murmured something and held her hand up high, and the smoke rising from the cauldron turned red. Dull images began to move in it. Harry stared, already knowing that he would see nothing in particular there. The visions the Seers willing to work for pay conjured always related to the death of an enemy, and could only be seen by the one who had contributed blood to make that death happen. Still, he wouldn’t be Harry Potter if he didn’t look.

            Malfoy’s arm abruptly slammed into his chest. Harry grunted and stopped walking, looking forwards. Had they arrived next to the bonfire?

            No. Malfoy was gazing at him with his eyes narrowed and his chin thrust out. If he had been a cat, Harry thought, his ears would have been flattened straight back to his skull.

            “You’re here as my bodyguard and to tell me if someone lies to me,” Malfoy whispered. “Not to interfere.”

            And that, Harry thought, was only the truth because he was so determined to make it be. He held up a hand in response and nodded. “Of course I am.”

            Malfoy spent some more time staring, then snorted and turned away. They had slowed considerably from his earlier quick pace through the camp, Harry saw, and in fact, a group of brown-cloaked wizards in front of them had stirred and turned towards them as though they were waiting for Malfoy.

            All of them wore white, blank masks, like the masks of Death Eaters.

            Harry controlled his reaction with a vicious jerk. If they were Lucius Malfoy’s contacts, it made sense that they would dress like what they still wanted to be. That did not mean that he had Malfoy’s license to curse them. Or his own, either.

            The nearest wizard, a brute of a figure who could probably crush skulls between his thighs if he wanted to, moved forwards. (Personally, Harry figured he had better things to do with someone whose skull was between his thighs than crush it, but to each his own). For a moment, he stood there glaring into Malfoy’s eyes. Harry could make out oily black hair just visible beneath the edges of his hood, but nothing else of his face.

            Then the man grunted and nodded. “Malfoy,” he said.

            Harry controlled his start. He knew that voice. Not like he could forget it when he’d spent years hearing it yell vicious instructions to hurt him across a Quidditch pitch.

            Marcus Flint.

            Who had not been a Death Eater. Who was only a few years older than Harry and Malfoy, and had no reason to know where Lucius had gone to ground.

            Harry set himself to listen carefully to and remember every word. Malfoy might not be lying, but someone here was.

*

            js: It wouldn’t lead to Draco getting what he wants, and this Draco is very smart at getting what he wants.

            Tesgura: Harry sees no reason to lie himself here, since everyone knows he can detect the truth.

            ayla: Thank you!

            cinder1013: Harry at least is picturing them in bed together! Draco, maybe not.

            disgruntledfairy: Thank you! Hope this one pleases.

            unneeded: The Ministry officials still think they can cover their arses.

            And Harry sees no reason to conceal his likes and dislikes. It doesn’t mean that he sleeps with everyone he finds attractive, though. Right now, he can’t really think of any reason Malfoy would want to sleep with him.

            No difference, really. Part of the point. ;)
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