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The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55083 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Thirty-Five--United in the War

            As they came into the Ministry, Harry realized that his body was braced as tended to happen to him when he was going into a raid, or other battle. He shook his head, more than mildly annoyed with himself, and tried to lengthen and loosen his stride at the same time. If he looked that tense, then someone would think he was more vulnerable than he really was.

            Or than he wanted to project, at least.

            Beside him, Draco stalked along like the dragon he was named for, returning the glances that people gave them with more than necessary force. Harry reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, smoothing slowly up and down. Draco started and stared at him, narrowing his eyes as though Harry had done something wrong instead of just unexpected.

            "Harry, don't you care?"

            "Yes," Harry said. "But you're looking as though you think the whole world hates us, and that'll show our enemies that we're bothered. We just have to bear up through it, not fight it. We don't have enough strength to fight everyone," he added, thinking of the furious way he had ripped up the papers delivered to him with articles that speculated, right after the war, that he must have been really allied with Voldemort, to have killed him so easily. Except the articles never called him Voldemort, of course.

            "What do you mean?" Draco's voice was low, wary. Yes, Harry was definitely not acting in the proper Malfoy-Approved Way.

            Since when have I ever?

            Harry glanced around. The people that looked at them now smiled or smirked more often, and that was something he didn't think Draco would tolerate. He sighed and drew Draco into a small supply cupboard that was usually used for storing parchment and ink. It was empty right now, and Harry hoped it would remain that way. The last thing they needed was someone coming along to accuse Harry of snogging Draco on Ministry property. They would spin it as him being so insatiable that he couldn't wait until they were properly home and in bed.

            After those long years of watching them at work, Harry understood how the reporters and budding reporters thought.

            "You--well, remember that we only have Pansy to hate," Harry said.

            "And the writers at the Daily Prophet," Draco said, and bared his teeth as though he was looking forward to ripping out throats.

            Harry barely held back the flinch. He didn't think Draco would attack him, but he might get out of control and do something that would hurt him badly, either financially or physically or legally.

            And Harry didn't want Draco hurt.

            "Not random people in the corridors," Harry continued firmly. "Even if they did enjoy the articles. Even if they sneer at you and me, or make jokes. They're not the ones who caused this. We would only get in trouble if we tried to start something with them and my superiors saw it, anyway."

            Draco stared at him searchingly. Then he said, "Do you really want never to hurt anyone, even your enemies? How do you survive as an Auror when you have to arrest people, or tell victims bad news?"

            Harry frowned at him. "It's not like that."

            "Then what's it like?" Draco leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Because, to me, it comes across as though you think I shouldn't strike out at anyone, but they're free to strike at me. And you."

            Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "It's like--pure-blood principles," he said, deciding to appeal to something that might convince Draco. "Do you strike out at everyone who insults you? Or business. Do you get upset every time someone takes over a business you wanted? Or do you smile at them and make promises to yourself to get back at them later?"

            "That's less personal than this is," Draco protested. "Pansy wanted to hurt me--and you."

            "Why?" Harry asked, thinking that he might get some insight into Parkinson if Draco talked about her. He hadn't met any of Draco's other friends so far, and he didn't know if they were the sort to appreciate Parkinson's prank, or despise it, or make sympathetic noises aloud while sneering behind their hands. "Did she have some hopes of marrying you herself?"

            "I hope not," Draco said. "She knows I would demand standards of my wife that she would find it hard to meet."

            "You sound like you're breathing pure hauteur when you say that," Harry informed him, and Draco blinked, satisfyingly. Harry shook his head. "So she did this for a lark, and you'll need to keep a tight leash on your anger when we're talking to other people."

            "Why?" Draco asked. "If they taunt us?"

            Harry nodded. He had thought it would be hard to make Draco understand, and here was the evidence. "Yes, that's the difficult part. But I've been dealing with the press for years, Draco, and they only bite harder when they have the taste of blood. It's for the best if you can smile at them, and smile harder when they try to accuse you of something or bait you into attacking. If you can quip back at them, then you'll get a laugh and be the darling of the other papers for a time." He hadn't managed that very often. He could make Ron laugh, and Hermione, but that was different from using the kind of wit that made people flock to him. In a lot of ways, his life would have been easier if he'd had it.

            Draco might. Assuming his sense of humor has improved since his Hogwarts years.

            "But that doesn't make sense," Draco said, one eyebrow rising. "You did nothing wrong. Why shouldn't we try to turn the blame and the rumors back on Pansy, where they both belong?"

            Harry made a frustrated grasping motion with one hand at the air, knowing he probably looked ridiculous. But Draco was less experienced at this game than Harry had realized, if he was suggesting things like that. "It's--Draco, they won't take it that way. We can't say something that will absolutely convince them I didn't have sex with all those people and animals and beings, because it's too good a story. Surely you've worked with the papers before, after the trials and with some of your Muggle business deals?" he added, a bit desperately.

            "I gave them what they wanted to hear," Draco said. "Which was always something that wasn't the truth. And I smiled for them, and winked at them, and now and then pretended that they were getting something from me that no one else was getting. It's always worked well enough."

            Harry nodded, relieved that they would have the means to come to a common understanding after all. "Exactly. But it's not that simple this time. Pansy was the one who gave them everything, everything they would have wanted to hear. We can only ride the tide that results, not control it."

            "That's the root of your conflict, then," Draco breathed. "You care enough about your public reputation, and mine, to want to control it, but you won't use the methods that would ensure that."

            Harry eyed the grin that was appearing on his face. "Should I be worried?" he asked, trying to make it into a joke. It fell a little flat, especially when Draco leaned near and kissed him through the grin, slowly, smoothly, as though that would make his knees melt and reassure him. The infuriating thing was how close it came to working.

            "Leave it to me," Draco said softly into his mouth. "You should have hired someone who could manage your public image for you a long time ago, because that would leave you free to attend to those things that are truly important. But this is what we have, and I would rather do that for you than recommend someone to you."



            "Thanks," Harry said, still a little dazed from the kiss and trying to work out whether Draco was insulting or complimenting him, or just stating the truth as he saw it. "I think."

            Draco laughed just as softly as he'd kissed Harry and stepped back with his arm tucked around Harry's shoulders. "Come with me. I'll show you what we mean."

            A fortnight ago, Harry reflected as he stepped out of the small cupboard with Draco firmly at his side, hearing those words would have terrified me. And maybe I should still be terrified now.

            But it felt too good at the moment to have someone to lean on, no matter how much he might scold himself later for such weakness. So he leaned his head on Draco's shoulder and suffered himself to be carried.

*

            "Mate, did you hear about...oh..."

            Draco did have to smile at the way Weasley's voice trailed off when he and Harry walked into the office together. Weasley dropped back to his desk and gaped at Draco, as though his best-friend outrage couldn't outcompete his best-friend shock at seeing Harry together with his husband. Draco eased Harry gently into his seat and then turned and faced Weasley, making sure his face was sufficiently serious.

            "We know about what Parkinson did, because she was kind enough to send all the pictures straight to us," he said. "But we didn't have a chance to read the papers this morning, and we don't know exactly what they've chosen to report. How bad is it?"

            Weasley subjected him to another stare, this time of the kind that Draco would have expected to accompany a clenched wand. But then he seemed to decide that the way Harry leaned forwards and smiled at him was enough of a signal that he could trust Draco, and he nodded and snatched up a paper that had been laid face-down on his desk as though that would get rid of the filth on it.

            "This," he said, handing it over.

            Draco scanned it. The headline was less hideous than he'd expected; there were certain things the Prophet couldn't say as long as they wanted to continue to be the newspaper of choice for prim witch matrons, so they had settled on HARRY POTTER: HERO OR MENACE? Most of the pictures of Harry kissing men or women had been published, and one where he clearly had his hand beneath a witch's robe, though not so clearly that the Prophet couldn't deny it if someone complained. Draco didn't see any of the animal ones or the one where Harry was staring at a centaur's cock or in a passionate embrace with a mermaid. He presumed that they would be published in the Prophet's more tawdry relatives, of course. He nodded and handed the paper back.

            "What's the reaction been so far?"

            "Subdued." Ron shook his head. "No one's quite sure how to react. There have been rumors for years, but if there are pictures, no one knows why they haven't surfaced before now, from someone trying to blackmail Harry at the very least. There are a few Aurors crowing about it, of course, but they're being shunned. Most of us consider them unfortunately obsessed with Harry, anyway."

            Draco nodded thoughtfully. That made sense to him as a beginning response. Unfortunately, that said nothing to what the response would be outside the Auror Department, where most of the people knew Harry well and had worked with him.

            "Harry? Are you all right? I came as soon as I heard."

            Draco had shifted to place his body between Harry and the door as soon as he heard the words and before he heard who was speaking; it sounded so much like the sort of obnoxious treacley thing that some of the people who pretended they were friends would say. But he had to change his mind when he saw Shelborn standing in the door, staring at Harry.

            Great. Wonderful. I forgot about him. That's going to make this all more complicated, that Harry is married and dating at the same time. His own courtship with Laura would play into the picture, as well, but then again, it had been quieter than Harry's approach to Shelborn, and Pansy hadn't spread pictures that implicated Draco in all sorts of sexual scandals.

            But Shelborn was pure-blood, which Draco knew was one of the reasons that Harry had chosen him, because a pure-blood was likely to understand the great, twisting mess that was his and Harry's marriage and the complications that resulted from it. Perhaps Draco could recruit him as an ally. At the very least, it was worth a try. He took a deep breath and deliberately relaxed his stance, tried to make himself seem a little more welcoming, a little less threatening. Shelborn peered at him as if he didn't know what to make of that.

            Well, if he didn't know, then Draco would tell him. "You saw the article the paper published about Harry?"

            Shelborn snorted. "Yes. And as tempting as it was to think that you were behind it at first, I know that you would never have damaged your own social standing like that."

            Draco fought hard against the temptation to snap. Harry was more important than the stupid feud he wanted to have with Shelborn, and he had to remember that. "All right," he said. "Thank you for your flattering confidence in me." Shelborn grinned despite himself at that. "But can you help convince other people that Harry didn't do what they implied?"

            "Of course." Shelborn's smile vanished, replaced by a scowl so dark that Draco momentarily felt sorry for the criminals he captured--but only momentarily. "Anyone could see those photographs were made with clumsy, crude magic, patterned off other pictures but with the alterations obvious to anyone who looks."

            Draco felt his senses go into high alert, and smiled broadly enough that Shelborn eyed him with what seemed to be distrust. "You can tell that?" he asked. "I didn't know that was a common talent among Aurors." It might account for some of the subdued reaction Weasley had described.

            Shelborn shook his head. "I don't think it is. But my family works constantly with magical artifacts to improve them, and it's obvious to us when the enchantment on something has been altered. On some of those pictures, you can even see a moment when the moving figures revert back to their positions in the original photograph, like Harry manacling someone. It's just a flash, but it's there."

            Draco nodded, thinking rapidly. "And you would be willing to say that in public? And point out instances of evidence like that the photographs have been tampered with?"

            "Of course!" Shelborn looked as though Draco had asked him whether he shat in toilets or on the ground. "There's little I wouldn't do for Harry." He looked past Draco with a tenderness that, Draco hastily reassured himself, didn't come from being in love; it just meant that Shelborn had more kindness in him than Draco had realized, and that Harry had chosen better than he'd ever realized.

            Draco couldn't resist turning back to see how Harry took that. He found his husband on his feet, staring at Shelborn. His finger was rubbing the wedding ring on his left hand.

            He didn't seem aware that he was doing it. But seeing it still calmed some of the fears and jealousies that had risen in Draco like a glittering wave.

            Then Harry smiled, and Draco decided that he would have to keep a tighter hold on his emotions, after all. And remember that Shelborn had a useful skill, and that he'd offered to help. That was more important than being the only man who had ever touched or kissed Harry.

            Although, it sometimes seemed to Draco when he thought about it, not that much more important.

            "Thank you, Ian," Harry said quietly. He hesitated, then added, "Are you sure the firestorm that's about to come down doesn't make you want to withdraw? You know they'll say that you're only my latest victim, that I've seduced you and turned you into someone else who's dependent on me for sex."

            "They'll say that," Shelborn agreed, and his hand drifted to his wand. "For about two seconds."

            Draco nodded agreement. Shelborn would do.

            The expression on Harry's face was complex. He really hates people fighting for him, or over him, Draco decided, in a sudden flash of insight. He can just about accept this because Shelborn will be defending himself, and I'll be doing the same with the reputation of our family. But it still bothers him. He still sees it, in some ways, as a cheat.

            If only I could convince him otherwise...

            But he would have his chance later. For now, they had to plan their strategy. Draco sat down on the edge of Harry's desk and motioned for Shelborn to close the door. "What should we do first?"

*

            He seemed to have a habit of making friends--and lovers--who were good strategists, Harry realized slowly as he listened. Ron hammered in suggestions, while Ian contributed details about the technical means of recognizing altered magical pictures and Draco organized everything and decided which order the steps of their plan should go on. They were already producing something so smooth and organized that it dazed Harry a bit when he thought about it.

            And dismayed him. He had to admit that part.

            Although, really, it was hard to understand why it would. His friends and his husband were stepping in to save him. Harry had done the same thing more times than he could count, whether it was helping Mrs. Weasley with her grief or talking to George about Fred or saving Ron's life when they went up against a threat together as Aurors. He never thought twice about it. It was just the sort of thing friends did, at least when they were as close to someone as he was to the Weasleys.

            So it was kind of irrational to be upset or bewildered that other people were willing to do the same thing for him, and he would do his best not to think about it anymore. He shook his head and paid closer attention.

            "I don't think we'll need to worry about that," Draco was saying, in response to a question from Ron about whether they would need to watch out for another action on Pansy's part. "She's...unlikely to have any time in the near future. Or to be hiding from questions from reporters herself." His smirk was small, and someone not trained to reading faces--or suspecting Slytherins--might have missed it, but Harry knew Ron wouldn't.

            "What are you going to do?" Ron asked suspiciously. "You have to understand, I hate what happened to Harry, but I can't know about anything illegal, or it'll cost me my job."

            "I know that," Draco said, though he looked down his nose as he said it. Harry rolled his eyes at Draco's back. Haughty, superior git. Ron was scowling, but at least he held his tongue as Draco continued. "What I meant is that my mother will do something to keep Parkinson's mind occupied. We've already discussed with Harry that we don't intend to kill her." He gave Harry a tolerant glance. "This will be something physical, but it will only hurt her as much as an itch. In fact, exactly as much as that." His smirk was widening.

            Ian seemed to understand on a level Harry didn't, because he choked. Harry shook his head. Maybe it was a pure-blood thing.

            "You brewed it that fast?" Ian asked. He was standing close to Harry, now and then reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Harry was trying not to think about how much it comforted him, or about all the subtle differences he had noted between it and Draco's touch.

            "Yes, of course," Draco said, his eyes bright and lazy as he leaned back on the desk and looked at Ian. If he was bothered by the way Ian touched Harry, he honestly didn't show it. He had a faint, smug smile on his face, as though he and not Narcissa was responsible for this. Harry tried to catch his eye, but he blandly looked away. "We have such potions on hand for when we need them."

            "Is that often?" Harry had to ask. "You sounded when you told me about what she'd done that someone offending a member of your family didn't happen very often."

            "Oh, of course not," Draco said. "People stopped because they learned how much offending a Malfoy would cost them in blood and pain. But I think too much time has gone past, and we need to remind people of that lesson. Or else, Pansy thinks being a friend of the family is going to protect her. Which it won't." His gaze remained mild, but this time, he reached behind him and picked up a piece of paper, which he crushed in his fist.

            Harry shook his head. "You said that you weren't going to kill her."

            "And I meant that," Draco said. "There can still be blood and pain. It's just blood and pain that people inflict on themselves, and which leaves them alive."

            "I can't hear this," Ron said pointedly, putting his hands over his ears. "The marriage bond might mean that Harry can, but if you used some type of illegal potion, Malfoy--"

            "No one ever bothered to ban it," Draco said. "It's uncommon. And it's not--entirely illegal, or bothersome in effect. Just very, very inconvenient to someone who's offended." His eyes were shining in a way that made Harry think he was going to burst out singing.

            Ron shook his head. "Then it could still be something morally repugnant," he said. "Can we get back to talking about the strategy we'll use against the papers? I find that a lot easier to understand and support."

            "Just for you, Weasley," Draco said coolly, and they went back to it. Ian stepped away from Harry, caught up in the discussion, and Harry was able to fold his arms behind his head and give everything up to them.

            If he wanted to.

            Well, he was trying to learn to be more comfortable when other people took care of him. That could potentially happen right here.

            Draco, still nodding in response to something Ian had said about the photographs, stood up and sauntered behind Harry. He trailed a hand along his shoulder, in the same place Ian had touched before.

            It was casually done, in such a way that Harry didn't think Ian had even noticed, but it wasn't casually meant, or Draco would have done it later, Harry was sure, and on the other shoulder. Although even then, he might have suspected Draco of doing it on purpose.

            He turned his head and lowered his chin, pinning Draco's hand for a moment.

            Draco froze, blinking at him. Harry looked back, and tried to let everything shine through his eyes, though as always he wasn't sure he succeeded.

            For a moment, he knew he had, because it was there in Draco's eyes, shining back at him. And then Draco turned away again as Ron and Ian looked at them, and his voice continued the thought their shared look had interrupted.

            But Harry had a name for it now, and he thought the same word applied to Draco, even if he would deny it aloud.

            Love.

*

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The Marriage of True Minds