Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

A More Worldly Man	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10960 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews! Sorry I’ve waited on this one.

Chapter Four—The Malfoys’ Party

            “What do you think?” Harry asked, turning around slowly in front of the mirror that Hermione had conjured and attached to the far wall. Harry had conjured one for himself, but Draco had snapped that wasn’t good enough and created one that Harry knew was far too flattering. Hermione had been the one to create a floor-length glass of sufficient clarity that Draco had grudgingly admitted Harry could use it.

            Draco didn’t say anything. Harry shot an uneasy glance over his shoulder. Draco had been very quiet since he had read his father’s letter. He’d agreed at once that they would attend the party at Malfoy Manor, and that they would baffle and dazzle and humble his parents and their guests, but most of the time, he stared at the far wall with his eyes burning. Half of Harry’s attempts to draw him out of himself fell flat; he didn’t respond to jokes, and barely to reminders to eat. He had insisted that Harry’s clothes would be the absolute best Galleons could purchase, however, so Harry had hoped that the activity might keep his mind on the present.

            Once again, Draco was staring at the far wall. This time, though, he snapped out of it before Harry could shout at him. He smiled and stepped forwards, laying his hands on Harry’s shoulders. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Wonderful. Perfect. They aren’t going to know who you are without a glance at your face, but they’re going to know you’re beautifully dressed.”

            Harry looked at himself doubtfully in the mirror again. Draco had chosen a set of deep red robes, glittering like the inside of a glass of wine, from the samples on display at Madam Malkin’s. Harry thought they were much too close to Gryffindor colors to really fit Draco’s own taste, but if he had to, then he would wear them. “If you’re sure,” he said, and shifted his shoulders. One set of robes didn’t look different from most others to him, except in the most obvious ways.

            “I’m sure.” Draco clapped him on the back and stepped away, casting off his own ordinary robes. Harry’s breath caught. He had had to undress in the privacy of his bedroom, and here Draco had such confidence in his body that he could get naked in an instant.

            Well, it was a good body, Harry thought, striving to keep an objective perspective so that he wouldn’t stare or drool or do something else embarrassing. Draco’s pallor, so startling if you only looked at his face or hands, seemed natural displayed like this, when Harry could make out expanse after expanse of white skin. He was perhaps a little too slender, his skin lying very tight across his ribs, but that could be explained away as a result of recent stress. And his hair curled shining down his shoulders in baby wisps of blond, and he stood with one hand on his hip as he surveyed himself in the mirror, and—

            “Harry? My robes, please?”

            So you managed to do something embarrassing after all. Harry flushed, glad that Draco sounded amused instead of upset. They had kissed and made it clear they mattered to each other, but other than that, their relationship hovered between one pole of love and the other of friendship, unsettled.

            Harry quickly fetched the set of robes Draco had chosen, smoothing the cloth nervously once before he handed it over. But Draco just extended his arms to the sides and murmured, “Dress me?”

            Was it the tone of his voice or the thought of being allowed access to so many vulnerable places of Draco’s body that made Harry shiver? He nodded, then realized Draco couldn’t see him with his back turned and cleared his throat. “Yes. I will.” And that was probably another affirmation, he thought, biting back the urge to add more words.

            He knelt down in front of Draco and folded back the upper half of the robes, leaving the lower half open for Draco to step into. Draco did, one neat, precise step at a time, pale feet rising and then falling. Harry’s face burned and he fought the wild temptation to look up at Draco’s cock, swinging right above his head.

            “Harry.”

            Had he managed to do something wrong after all? Apprehensively, Harry glanced up, by a miracle keeping his eyes from Draco’s groin. Draco had reached out a hand, perhaps to take up part of the robes, but he rested his palm on Harry’s head now and smiled.

            “You can look,” he murmured. “I don’t mind.” He leaned back, extending his arms languidly, like a swimmer resting in a large pool. “I rather encourage it, in fact.”

            Harry swallowed and let his eyes rest where they wanted to. And Draco’s penis was just a penis, after all, not excessively special. Of course, the fact that it belonged to Draco made Harry unable to view it neutrally.

            And then it twitched, as if his gaze was exciting it.

            Harry swallowed again and pulled hastily back into a half-standing position so that he could tug the robes up Draco’s sides. “Undergarments?” he murmured, his breath stirring Draco’s hair.

            Draco tilted back again, until his head was resting on Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t need them with these robes,” he breathed. “The groin is enchanted to adapt to my groin according to my wishes—to be soft so there’s no chafing, and to reveal exactly as much or as little as I want to show.”

            “Oh,” Harry whispered. Since he bought half his clothing in Muggle shops, he was still unfamiliar with the special magic worked into most robes.

            Draco extended his arms, and Harry slipped the sleeves over them. Then he settled the back and shoulders into place, and had to move in front of Draco to do up the buttons. Draco had lightly flushed, lending a faint pink tone to that pale chest, and Harry found himself staring, then trying not to stare.

            “I told you,” Draco murmured, “I don’t mind if you look.”

            “Yes,” Harry said, and his voice was hoarse, “but I would do more than look at this point, and then we would never get to your parents’ party.”

            Draco sighed, letting his arms drape briefly around Harry’s neck. Then he dropped them again and said, “I wish we did have time. I wish it didn’t matter. I wish we didn’t have to care about what they thought.”

            Harry kissed him gently and began to button the robes shut. “So do I,” he said. “But that time hasn’t come yet, and I’d rather not test the limits of Lucius’s tolerance.”

            “You’re not going to talk to him that politely, are you?” Draco glanced at him curiously. “I remembered your being good with sarcasm in school. You could trade a few barbs with him. He’ll probably expect you to.”

            Harry snorted, remembering the letter they’d received. “I doubt I could keep up with him. I think the strategy we discussed earlier is the one we should stick with.”

            A small smile curved Draco’s mouth. “To act stubborn and close to each other, you mean?”

            “That’s right.” Harry finished the last button and turned Draco’s wrist over to kiss the pulse point, suddenly more confident than before. The thought of Draco potentially in danger increased his determination to protect Draco from that danger, he thought. “To show them reality.”

*

            Draco looked around the front entrance hall of Malfoy Manor and tried to pretend he was unimpressed. It was difficult. In the years since he’d last seen his parents, either Narcissa had become even more skilled in decorating, she had finally taught the house-elves how to use their ornamental and illusion magic to her satisfaction, or she had hired a professional.

            The hall had always been an overwhelming place in its own right, with enormous curving walls that tapered to delicate arches studded with many small windows, but this was more than that. The white marble glittered with an inner light, which had to have been achieved by spells, but spells that Draco wasn’t familiar with. Another spell, a subtle one, flickered up and down the arches, emphasizing just how delicate they were, and yet how they somehow managed to support tons of stone. The illusions of trees that sprouted up from the bottoms of the walls, spreading imaginary branches to break up equally imaginary sunlight and stain it green, complemented rather than obscured the beauty of the marble. Narcissa had never been interested in disguising her home; she wanted to remind people that they were in a highly artificial environment, and that she was the one who had created it. If there was one thing his mother tended to despise more than others, it was naturalness.

            The windows themselves flashed in random patterns, as bright as sunlight on lakes and as difficult to look directly at, and ran ripples of yellow and gold and white up and down the walls. The effect was something like being underwater, but nothing of blue appeared, or green except where the trees stood. The floor likewise sometimes flashed back an answer to the windows, but its colors were richer, deeper, stranger: geode-purple, sunset-orange, radiant red like melted rubies.

            Draco understood the message the moment he stepped through the doors, of course, and had to compress his lips to keep from uttering a deep, bitter chuckle. Harry glanced at him, then stared around the hall and actually shivered. Draco nudged him a little with an elbow. He hoped his mother hadn’t seen that, but considering how observant his parents were and how their luck seemed destined to run tonight, she probably had.

            “I don’t understand,” Harry said a moment later. “It’s beautiful, but I expected it to have some central theme, and it doesn’t.”

            “The sun,” Draco replied, making a sharp up-and-down motion with his right hand. Then he winced as stings of old pain spread up his arm from his spine, but the gesture had accomplished what it was meant to: a house-elf appeared with a low bow and a tray containing a wine made from grapes harvested in the sight of a phoenix’s pyre. Draco took a glass with a nod. “The light on the water. The colors everywhere. It’s the light, Harry. They’re declaring allegiance to the side of the war they never served.”

            Harry frowned a little. “But the light was never the official symbol of anything, not even the Order of the Phoenix,” he said.

            Draco barely kept from rolling his eyes. He cared for Harry, he really did, but there were times Harry’s lack of not just political knowledge but symbolic thinking in general hindered him enormously. “Right, but it’s the opposite of the Dark, which is the official symbol of the magic the Ministry fought against and mostly banned,” he said. “This is a comment on how Mother and Father have labored to change. Sarcastic and earnest at once, and beyond either of those.”

            He looked around the hall, regretting, for a moment, that he had ever left. The one part of his relationship with his parents he had really enjoyed was sitting at the table with them and listening to them planning another party, another attendance at a Ministry function, another social coup. He could follow the suggestions they made, the logic behind them, and add his own. His suggestions were often accepted, because he was closer to the hearts of the young, whom Lucius also wanted to win, than they were. Sometimes Narcissa would give him a single cold smile, or touch his hand. Those were the signs that she still loved him.

            But affections here were so restrained that sometimes you couldn’t be certain of them at all. Do you really want to go back to that?

            Draco shrugged. He didn’t think he did. He put his arm through Harry’s and drew him closer to his side as the first group of guests, standing beside a table that looked like a natural outgrowth of a tree root, turned towards them.

            “Follow my lead,” he whispered. “Don’t speak unless someone asks you a direct question, or until my parents approach.”

            “I don’t think we’ll have much longer to wait,” Harry muttered.

            Turning his head, Draco saw Lucius cleaving through the crowd like a dolphin through water, his eyes brilliant and deadly and focused right on them.

*

            Harry had thought the meeting between Draco and his father would show at least a little passion. They were angry at each other, but they were still father and son, and that meant they would be angry about their estrangement, too. He had imagined longing glances mingled with the rage, flushed cheeks, clenched fists. On Draco’s part, anyway, even if Lucius was too “civilized” to show any of that.

He got none of that.

Lucius might as well have been a diamond statue, for all the personal reaction he showed to them. He halted in front of Draco and flicked a glance up and down his body. That glance told him everything he needed to know, Harry supposed. Then he looked at Harry in an identical manner. Someone he hadn’t seen in almost a decade and someone he hadn’t seen in at least two years seemed to need the same amount of judging.

            His eyes showed nothing. His mouth showed nothing. He said nothing, either, but the silence was not expressive. It was merely there.

            Harry looked at Draco. His face and eyes, to Harry’s considerable shock, had taken on the exact same sheen. He had locked all his emotions down, and his silence conveyed no frustration with the turn that events had taken. There was no trace left of the man who had joked and flirted with Harry as they dressed, or the one who had briefly looked nervous when they Apparated from outside Harry’s building.

            He had chosen the pale blue robes he wore for a reason, Harry decided then. They sucked color out of his face, made him look colder. And that was what he wanted when facing his father, a master of coldness.

            What happened to sticking to reality and showing them how much we mean to each other? Harry thought fretfully. I suppose this is an instinctive defense when he’s around his parents, but it’s one I really can’t imitate.

            “Welcome,” Lucius said at last. Harry listened for traces of sarcasm in the word, and found none. That frightened him more than anything else so far, save Draco’s transformation. “I see that you chose to heed my invitation.” His eyes shifted to Harry. “I do have a few people you might like to meet, Mr. Potter, so you can begin your prostitution.” This time, he appeared to be looking at Harry’s clothes. “I must say, most whores dress more revealingly.”

            The words were so casual that it took Harry a long moment to realize what he had actually said. And then he decided that he didn’t care that Lucius, and Draco, both wanted to play it icy. That wasn’t his game.

            “And there was a time I thought every murderer and torturer was very clearly marked with little squinty eyes, but what do I know?” Harry said, and shrugged.

            “Ah,” said Lucius. “You are referring to the minor unpleasantness that happened during the war.”

            Harry saw the trap just before he rushed into it. Lucius wanted him to bluster and look loud and angry and bullish, like a Gryffindor. That would draw attention, and of course the people here would think Lucius looked better in comparison, and those who might give Harry and Draco help in exchange for associating Harry Potter with their causes would be less likely to do so.

            “Yes, I am,” he said cheerfully. “The Unforgivable Curses that you cast at teenagers. The way you simply handed your wand over to Voldemort when he wanted it.” Draco had told him about that, almost casually, and how his father had had to get a new wand after the war. “The way you begged and whimpered and cried at his feet by the end. All that unpleasantness, and the way you took it out on other people.”

            Lucius looked at him. Still no line of his face bent, no light in his eyes changed, but the silence had. It was cold now. Harry chose to regard that as progress.

            Draco’s fingers were lightly digging into his arm, maybe to restrain him, maybe to congratulate him. Harry ignored him, not looking away from Lucius. Draco would have to break the mask on his own. Harry was sticking to the strategy they had devised.

            “Mr. Potter,” Lucius said gravely. “I fear that I might have made a mistake in inviting you here. This party is for adults only.”

            Harry widened his eyes with what he knew was a comical effect. “I’m sorry. I thought there was a similarity between being adult and accepting responsibility for your actions. Instead, you’re one and not the other.” He glanced around the room at the people who were trying to watch them surreptitiously. “And most of these would be more of the same, I suppose? A wide range of contacts.” He was only pretending to recognize many of the people who filled the room, but nevertheless, some of them shifted uneasily. “What are you trying to do, Lucius, become Minister?”

            And he looked back in time to see Lucius’s mask break.

*

            I can’t believe he did that, Draco thought dazedly as he watched his father’s face briefly contort, frustration and anger breaking through to shine in his eyes. It was only for a moment, and then his façade was perfect once more, but that Harry had done it at all was amazing.

            And it told Draco at least part of his parents’ strategy. Lucius wanted to be Minister, yes, but he had to know that would not be possible in the next few decades; the Malfoy name was simply too tarnished, and their allies were not willing to lose their own positions of power by speaking up for them. Therefore, Lucius wanted to have his influence in the Ministry back.

            And who better to attach himself to than the rich pure-blood candidate who seemed most likely to win at the moment, Charlemagne Diggory?

            It was only a supposition, of course. It might not be true. But Draco knew his father would have some interest in the Ministerial elections at any time, and this was the first time since the war that someone stood a decent chance of beating Shacklebolt, and Diggory was the candidate closest to his father’s heart along with being an enemy of Lucius’s son.

            He half-wanted to curl up and scream that it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair that their major enemies might be united against them. He half-wanted to resume the cold mask he’d been wearing, because that at least would meet his father on his own ground.

            But Harry had achieved his best results so far by acting exactly like himself. And what had Draco fought his war with his parents for, if not to be himself?

            “Now, Harry,” he said, stepping up beside Harry and taking his arm more openly. “What did I tell you before the party about betraying the family secrets? Someone could have heard that.” A few of the people watching them flinched and immediately paid a great amount of apparent attention to their drinks and food. Most of them didn’t care about being observed in return to that extent, but Draco heard numerous choruses of whispers spring up in far corners of the room.

            Harry could at least take a cue, even though the chances were slim that he had figured out the probable association between the Malfoys and Diggory. He bowed his head and looked contrite. “I’m sorry, Draco. I just thought that one was obvious, so it didn’t really count as a secret.”

            Draco kissed him softly on the cheek. He could feel his father recoil, though of course Lucius would show nothing. The son he and Narcissa had raised would have done anything before he would have kissed a lover in public. Showing so much emotion was a declaration of vulnerability akin to writing one’s weakness on a wall in blazing green letters ten feet high. “I know, Harry. But try to remember in the future.”

            He turned to Lucius and smiled. It took an enormous amount of effort, given what his instincts were screaming about the best way of handling his parents. If he had been really daring, he would have reached out and tried to clasp his father’s hand, but of course Lucius would refuse to meet him hand-to-hand, and Draco still had no desire to look silly.

            “Harry’s my lover, Father,” he said, conveying a lot in those few words, from the semi-affectionate address to the fact that he had used Harry’s first name. “What do you think?”

            Lucius simply stared. Then he stepped back a little, and Narcissa appeared beside him as if she had Apparated in. She probably had, Draco thought. His mother had long been a master of making as little noise as possible with Apparition, and Lucius could choose to relax the anti-Apparition wards in the house in small areas.

            His father was not hiding behind his mother, only recovering from his own shock enough to choose a strategy. Meanwhile, Narcissa would take the offensive.

            She wore blue robes in the same shade as his own, which made Draco’s heart give an odd little lurch. He ignored it, and focused on his breathing. Of course they had chosen the same robes, and for the same reason. What he couldn’t let it do was matter to him.

            “Draco,” Narcissa said, soft, cold, and he knew suddenly that she was about to try a direct attack, which she had never done before in public. “I know what this man means to you. I know also that you will sacrifice your heritage, your life, and a great deal more if you try to live with him and love him.”

            The “a great deal more” would refer to his magic, Draco thought. Strange. He had never fully realized before that his parents thought of his magic as more important than his life.

            “Mother,” he said, with a little tip of his head, “I know you’ve seen—certain things.” Narcissa’s eyes flickered at the reference to the memories Daphne had sent her. “Didn’t you see the part where Harry rescued me from torture? That was the reason, and the only reason, for the other unpleasantness you saw. I was suffering, and he came for me.”

            Narcissa’s lip curled, just the slightest bit. “Draco,” she said, “please refrain from innuendo in front of me, however justified you find it.”

            Draco took a deep breath, not caring who saw it—he was being open, wasn’t he?—because this was the reason his mother, and not his father, had finally managed to goad him into breaking with them. She would ignore reality, of course, and speak needling little phrases. That was a common tactic of everyone in their circle. But she had a tendency to ignore exactly the things most important to Draco, and treat them as if he was just playing games and everyone in sight knew it. And no matter what happened, she would not give up the pretense.

            This time, he held his temper captive, helped by the warmth of Harry against his side. “It’s true,” he said. “Everything I’ve said here tonight is true, Mother. Harry is my lover, and you will have to live with it.”

            “That,” said Narcissa, “is where you are mistaken. I offer you one more chance, Draco. And to you, Mr. Potter.” An inconspicuous turn of her neck included Harry in the discussion. “Break from our son now. Encourage him to reconcile with us. Agree that you will renounce him.”

            “No,” Harry said, so immobile and unhesitating that Draco felt a moment’s staunch pride in him.

            Narcissa sighed. “And this is why we will not have to live with it,” she said.

            The lights in the hall dimmed, or rather, coalesced into shining panels on the walls. Draco realized, then, that his father had not been preparing for a reentry into the conversation at all, but casting several complicated spells. Everyone in the hall turned to look at the lighted panels curiously.

            And on them appeared the images from Daphne’s memories, of Harry becoming a shadow that glowed with blue flame and devoured magic.

*

            Thrnbrooke, avihenda: Thanks for reviewing!

            Mangacat: Oh, Lucius did have a strategy; it’s just not one either Harry or Draco thought of.

            Lilith: Sorry it’s been so long again! I was feeling very bad and didn’t really want to work on any story but ‘Changing of the Guard.’ I’m feeling much better now, though.

            Yume111: Yep. Harry doesn’t hold back when he sees a good thing—even when it costs him a lot.

            Draco is reacting this way partially because his parents have told him feeling is a weakness, and even though he doesn’t live by their laws anymore, he’s retreating into that shell when he fights them; he thinks it’s the only way.

            Thanks for reviewing.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A More Worldly Man