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Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
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Chapter Thirty-One--Non-Acceptance
            Harry grunted and rolled over. There was someone shaking his shoulder, but he didn't know why. He could sleep in, he didn't have a job to go to anymore, Jamie was all right, Lily was all right, Al was angry with him but all right, Draco was here--
            "Master Harry Potter is being awake!"
            But Kreacher might have a problem, Harry concluded, and came fully awake, sitting up and blinking at Kreacher, so that he would stop shaking him. "Fine," he said, aware that his voice was thick with sleep, and not caring. "What is it?"
            Kreacher stepped back from the bed and folded his hands, playing the part of sweet innocent house-elf now that Harry was awake. Right, Harry thought, eyeing him. He's as innocent as he wants to be when there's no one around to see him. "Kreacher is thinking that Master Harry Potter is wanting to know about the Head Auror being in the fireplace," he said. "Sir."
            Harry groaned and rubbed his hand down the middle of his face. Luckily, he wasn't wearing his glasses at the moment, so that did less damage than it could have. "Tell him that I need to shower," he said.
            Kreacher's ears flicked at him, but he didn't move, instead staring intently at Harry. "Head Auror in the fireplace is being quite insistent, Master Harry," he said.
            Harry opened his mouth to say fine, he would take five minutes to dress and then be right down, but a second later he paused, and smiled. Why should he do anything Robards wanted him to do, the instant Robards wanted him to do it? Why not, instead, let him deal with the person Harry really was, the person who had thought of sharp comments down all these years and then suppressed them? There was nothing he could really do to Harry when he'd resigned.
            "All right," he said, and stood up to fetch his glasses and make sure that the ratty green robes he'd worn to bed were tied tightly in the front. He wanted to make a certain kind of impression on Robards, but not by showing him his groin. That was only for Draco to see, no one else. "After all, I need to talk to him right away, don't I?"
            Kreacher bowed his head and clasped his hands, grinning more fiendishly than Harry was used to seeing since the war. "Master Harry is understanding," he said, and marched away in front of Harry, breaking into dance-steps near the door.
            Harry grinned at his back. Sometimes, although not often, he was surprised by just how much of a sense of humor Kreacher had.
*
            "Could you not at least put some clothes on, Potter?"
            Harry grinned as he slumped into the seat across from the fireplace, planting his feet on the ground and stretching his legs wide. He knew that he had stubble on his chin, and sleep at the corners of his eyes. Actually, though, Robards seemed to be glaring most at the stubbornly spiky hair on Harry's head. By the time he usually saw Harry, of course, it was most often the victim of several attempts at flattening.
            When it wasn't covered with blood and stickier things.
            "I don't see why I need to put some clothes on, Auror Robards," Harry said, and saw with intense satisfaction the way the corners of Robards's eyes tightened. "After all, I don't work for you anymore. I'm just a private citizen receiving a call from the Head Auror. What makes you think that I regard you as anyone special?" He crossed his legs, but slouched in his chair, and heard Robards's teeth grind. He had to work hard to keep from breaking out into either a grin or a cheer. "Why don't you tell me what you want?"
            "You are still an Auror, Potter." Robards bent forwards threateningly. "I haven't accepted your resignation."
            Harry blinked guilelessly. "I hadn't thought there was any nonsense about you accepting. I submitted the letter. That means I resign."
            "Not if I don't accept it."
            Harry yawned and waved a hand. "Do you need a certain amount of Galleons? My signature on a document of some kind? A ritual complete with wine and sword?" He knew that Robards would be flushing now. There had been a private ceremony of that kind when Harry and Ron and others of their class were inducted into the Aurors, but Harry had toppled the whole scaffold of pure-blood nonsense by laughing. "Whatever you need to accept it, here it is."
            "I haven't accepted it, and I shan't accept it," Robards said stiffly. "You are still on the case with the Spiders. What's more," he pressed ahead before Harry could say anything, "I'm not the only one who thinks so. Or are the reports I received that the Spiders had attacked your house inaccurate?"
            "No," Harry said. "They used some neat tricks to do it, too. But I'm really not working the case, Auror Robards. They can think whatever they want. It wouldn't be the first time I've had people intent on attacking me for something that isn't true. Think of all those former Death Eaters who are convinced that they're owed revenge for the way I destroyed Lord Voldemort."
            A shadow moved near the doorway that led back into the house. Harry didn't turn around, but he was sure that Draco now stood there, listening. He half-smiled. Robards wouldn't notice, and it felt good to have company and support, even silent company like this.
            "You won't have any peace until you come back and finish the case," Robards whispered. He sounded badly shaken that his first argument hadn't worked. "You know that. They'll keep attacking you."
            "And I'll defend myself, the way I did then." Harry shook his head, and let the smile collapse off his face. "You're not offering me Auror protection, Robards, and we both know it. Why don't you tell me what this is really about?"
            Robards ground his teeth again, and said, "Fine. The Spiders have taken several hostages. They're willing to trade them for an appearance by you."
            Harry felt the impulse to smile disappear. He clenched his hands in his lap, and could see from the satisfied narrowing of Robards's eyes that he knew he had Harry. There was an intake of breath behind him at the door, but assuming that Robards was telling the truth, Harry couldn't care for Draco's opinion of him right now. There were lives at stake, and that was always going to be more important than the silly games Harry wanted to play with Robards, no matter how satisfying.
            "All right," he said. "Where?"
            "The Department of Mysteries." Robards's mouth tightened. "They can travel through darkness and shadows where most people would use light and flame at the Floo connections." Harry nodded. Yes, this was real, he was sure of it, because how would Robards know that otherwise? "They used that to force an entrance to the Department, and to one of the fireplaces that no one checked on, because it was permanently closed to Floo travelers. But this isn't the ordinary kind of Floo traveler."
            Harry nodded absently again, already thinking about what he would need to take with him, besides his wand. "Did their negotiator come up out of the Department of Mysteries?"
            "He stood on the stairs, and shouted up." Robards sounded disgusted. "He was the one who made it clear what they had done, and how, and enough details to convince us that it was real. He was the one who told us their price, too." He stared at Harry.
            "I'm coming," Harry said, his voice a snarl. Robards flinched a little, which Harry knew was the only satisfaction he would get from this. "I'm not self-centered enough to let innocent people die. Where did they say that they would meet with me?"
            "On the staircase," Robards said. "There's no other place, and they didn't trust anyone enough to escort you down. You'll have to go alone."
            "That is enough."
            Harry started. He really had forgotten that Draco was standing behind him, so rapt was he in the contemplation of what he would have to do to rescue the hostages, and what words he could say. He had never been a good speaker, but better at action. Now he turned around and stared as Draco stalked forwards. He wore old robes of course, but on him they looked impeccable, and only knowing that Draco wouldn't wear new robes to bed told Harry what they were. They were thick, and made of white fur, and looked comfortable.
            Draco halted next to him and spoke to Robards with a curl of his lip. "This situation is not real. Could it be more transparent? You want Harry back in the Ministry, and back working on this case, and you make this up, something calculated to pull at his conscience. But I know how the Ministry handles negotiations with those who've taken hostages, and it has nothing to do with idiocy like the kind you're proposing."
            "You wouldn't know anything about how the Ministry works, young Malfoy." Robards seemed to have decided that the best tone to adopt was one of robust condescension, and despite everything, Harry had to grin to himself about that. "You've never worked inside it, never had much influence--"
            "I have more than you think." Draco's stance had altered, his voice dipping down so soft that Harry looked doubtfully at him. Robards only seemed to take raised voices seriously. "I have enough friends in the Ministry to know basic procedure. And this isn't it."
            "You don't know how Aurors handle cases," snapped Robards, and turned back to Harry as if that should settle the matter. "You'll come, Potter?"
            Harry almost nodded, but found Draco's hands on chin and neck, holding his head still. He glared at him and tried to talk, but the position of Draco's hand also "accidentally" made it hard to move his jaw.
            "There is no way that you would be simply calling Harry in and handing him over to people who took hostages," Draco told Robards, and his eyes were brilliant and angry enough that Harry squirmed. He couldn't remember the last time someone had got that angry over him. At him, sure, but even Ron and Hermione seemed to have accepted that Harry just wanted to take up other people's work and make sacrifices for them, and that meant they wouldn't be able to talk him out of it. "There would be other Aurors standing ready to bolster him, Unspeakables working to break into the Department of Mysteries, arguments over what to do next. It takes more decision-making power than this."
            "You not only don't know how things work, you don't understand about the importance of keeping secrets, either." Robards's mouth had twisted to the point that Harry wondered how he was ever going to get it untwisted. "We don't want the public to know about the hostages and all the rest of it. So yes, we are doing this with Potter alone. It doesn't mean that we don't value his life. We do, and we are prepared to help him."
            "How?" Draco asked. "With what?"
            Harry cleared his throat and moved his head out of Draco's grasp. "I would like to know more about this," he told Robards. "If what you said is true and they won't move until they talk to me--"
            "You know how hostile this kind of situation can get, and how quickly." Robards stared at him. "Are you really willing to take the chance that they might get bored or angry and start taking lives? I thought better of you than that, Potter."
            Harry could feel himself flushing, brilliantly. He didn't mean to put lives at risk. It was like taking a long time to solve a case that had already resulted in a large number of deaths. And taking hostages would fit with attacking his house and trying to set a trap in Knockturn Alley that had almost destroyed him.
            "I have to go," he whispered to Draco.
            "I'm coming with you," Draco said, in much the same manner, except that he didn't bother lowering his voice.
            "You are not," snarled Robards, sounding so offended and disturbed that another smile worked its way over Harry's face without his permission.
            "He is, sir," he told Robards. "He can stay with the other Aurors that you have standing ready to support me. Because there are some, aren't there? You didn't expect me to walk onto those stairs without any support at all and risk being taken prisoner myself?"
            Robards squinted at him. "I don't know where this new attitude of yours has come from, Potter, but I don't like it."
            "It comes from someone reminding me that I'm as valuable as the people whose slack I'm taking up, sir." Harry smiled at Robards and pushed away from the fireplace. "Let me get dressed. I don't think the Spiders will be overjoyed at seeing the vaunted Harry Potter show up in his ratty old robes. Where should I Floo in, sir?"
            "The Atrium," said Robards, and squinted at Draco in turn. "I hope that you'll see sense and not bring Malfoy with you." And he vanished from the fire.
*
            "Do you think that he's telling the truth?"
            Harry paused and cocked an eyebrow at Draco. He knew he looked ridiculous, with the collar of his robes caught around his neck and his head only half-out of them, but that was part of the point. Draco had been pale since he had agreed to go, and knowing Draco's dislike of battle, Harry could guess why. If he laughed, he might lose some of the tension. "Yes. He might want me back on the case, but he would try to guilt me into it if it was just that, not make up this elaborate story."
            Draco closed his eyes and nodded. Harry didn't think he meant to do it, but his breath came faster and faster.
            "Hey." Harry settled his Auror robes firmly over his chest and shoulders, and came over to put an arm around Draco's waist. "It'll be okay. This isn't the first time I've handled a situation like this." It was the first time in the Ministry and with dangerous people in possession of the Department of Mysteries, but Harry saw no reason to tell Draco about that particular aspect of it.
            Draco's eyes opened, the color in them flaring strangely. "They make you do things like this all the time? I wouldn't have pegged you for it. You don't have much diplomacy."
            Harry shook his head. "Circumstances make me do it. There are plenty of people who only want to confess or surrender or talk to the Great Harry Potter, you know." Absently, he made sure that his wand was in his pocket, and then began walking towards the fireplace that Robards had been in earlier, pulling Draco along.
            Draco followed, frowning. "But that's not fair, either. Why should you be singled out?"
            Harry looked over his shoulder and managed not to roll his eyes, but it was hard. "I suppose I shouldn't have killed that Dark Lord and saved that wizarding world, then," he said. "Darn. And it was going so well."
            Draco didn't smile. His eyes were still burning with a feral intensity. "You understand why I'm objecting to this? Robards didn't even sound as though he was considering an alternative. Just throwing you at the Spiders and hoping for the best." He clattered down the stairs behind Harry, keeping his hands perfectly positioned on the banisters. "How many problems has he solved that way?"
            "More than the wizarding world would be comfortable knowing about," Harry said dryly, and reached the end of the staircase. He reached for the Floo powder in almost the same motion, and handed some to Draco. "Please stay as safe as you can," he added, letting his fingers linger to caress Draco's wrist.
            "I don't like this at all," Draco said, but followed him through the Floo and into the Atrium.
            Harry glanced around as they came out, his last suspicions relaxing as he registered how many Aurors were in the room, checking their wands, discussing things in low voices with each other, and watching the fireplaces while trying not to be obvious about it. They straightened their shoulders and nodded at each other when Harry Flooed in. Most of them didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to Draco behind him. Why should they? Most people weren't like Robards and didn't think Harry should be disciplined for who he was dating.
            "Potter!"
            Harry rolled his eyes and turned, slowly, as though on Dumbledore's revolving staircase, to face Robards. Robards strode towards them in a determined way that made Harry grind his teeth. It looked as though it was his idea to bring Harry in, and it gave him credit for everything and more control over the situation than Harry was comfortable with.
            But while he had learned not to discount what Draco told him, about how he was an important person in his own right, it was still true that the lives of people the Spiders were holding hostage were most important than his own individual life or safety. He had made that particular choice when he became an Auror, and he didn't regret it.
            "Potter," Robards repeated as he neared, and lowered his voice. "The Spiders want to talk to you now. They'd started a countdown."
            "And threatened to kill all the hostages at the end of it?" Harry asked, ignoring Draco's anxious shuffling behind him. "Or just one at a time?" It would tell him a little about how the Spiders had operated, to know.
            "They didn't specify." Robards's face was grim. "You'll come with me now?"
            "I want to know that other Aurors will be behind me, supporting me," Harry said, and didn't roll his eyes or snort as he watched Robards's face purpling, which he thought was big of him.
            "They will," said Robards, and nodded to a detachment of Aurors, mingled with Hit Wizards, standing near the lifts. "Let's go."
            Harry reached back once to touch Draco's shoulder, and squeezed hard as he felt him trembling. There were battlefields Draco was more competent on, the way Harry had already seen, and then there was this.
            Was his.
            "Come on," he said, as gently as he could, and followed Robards to the lifts in a billow of robes. Hearing Draco walking at his back was a comfort.
*
            delia cerrano: Is it a good thing or a bad thing that you're confused?
            BAFan: Thank you!
            Sephla: Thanks! And Draco did suffer, but so did Astoria, and they're both mostly over it now.
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Marathon