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Sympathy for the Predators	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Lucius Views: 14907 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Sympathy for the Predators
- 2-Tiger
- 3-Cheetah
- 4-Wolf
- 5-Fox
- 6-Falcon
- 7-Jaguar
- 8-Killer Whale
- 9-Lion
- 10-Dolphin
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part IV. Wolf.

Endurance, stamina, the constant trot.

            “But all I want is to take you on one date!”

            Harry hunched his shoulders and walked faster. He had known it was a mistake to try and see Ron in the Ministry, but Ron had pleaded so hard for a visit from someone who stood outside the insanity that Harry had agreed. And they’d had a great time, talking and laughing over sandwiches from one of the many small shops mixing Muggle and wizarding food that had sprung up after the war.

            But then he had stepped outside Ron’s office. And Cale Willowwand was waiting for him.

            “I promise you’ll love it,” Willowwand whispered, so close to Harry’s ear that his breath felt like a fly buzzing there. “If you don’t, then I’ll take you home right away and leave you. How can you resist an offer like that?” His voice was a whine that put Harry’s teeth on edge.

            Harry became aware of the amused glances they were attracting, and lengthened his stride. Ron’s office wasn’t that far into the Auror Department. Soon he would be to the lifts, and then he could escape from this clinging nuisance.

            Then Willowwand stepped in front of him and stuck out an arm that barred his progress to the lifts.

            Harry slammed to a halt and gave Willowwand a slow, careful look. Anyone who was close to him would have known what that meant and immediately backed up, babbling apologies. But Willowwand only hoped to become close to him, and his face adopted a round, stupid look.

            “One evening,” Willowwand said. “Two hours. Two of us.”

            “Three of us,” Harry muttered, “to complete the sequence.”

            Willowwand blinked at him. “I didn’t know that you were into that,” he said, but with rising satisfaction, as if he thought he’d finally found the explanation for Harry’s lack of interest in him. “But sure, if you want, I can find someone who I’m sure would be interested in a threesome—”

            “You, me, and your ego,” Harry finished. He watched, hoping Willowwand’s face would turn red, but he only tipped his head back and laughed as if Harry had told the best joke ever. He always made a point of showing off his throat, as if he assumed it was irresistible and Harry would like to kiss it. Harry was dreaming of applying his teeth to it, but in a far different way.

            “I like a man who can tell jokes.” Willowwand laid his fingers on Harry’s elbow and stroked once before Harry jerked his arm back. Harry glanced around for their audience and found it was made up of eager Aurors who edged forwards, as if they assumed that Harry was about to do something spectacular and they should get to watch. “And does this man who can tell jokes like me?” Willowwand’s voice was lower now, his breath a reek, so close did he stand.

            I warned him, Harry thought. I spoke the clearest language I could. I’m sure that no one who has a grain of sense in his head will think I was unfair.

            He flicked his wand, and Willowwand left the floor and flew upwards, flipping over several times on the way. When he slammed against the ceiling, he hung like the world’s largest fly in a spiderweb, flopping and twitching. Harry made a few more passes with his wand, all of which tightened the invisible bonds and ensured that anyone who tried to get Willowwand down would have to cut through reversed and inverted layers of spells. Ron had taught him that trick, admitting that he didn’t have the talent for it Harry did but that it was quite hard for most people to cut through.

            “Am I done?” Harry asked aloud, pausing and considering the spectacle Willowwand made. Another invisible bond tied his mouth shut, so he couldn’t add his opinion to the proceedings. “No, I don’t think I’m quite done,” Harry decided.

            He waved his wand again, canceling the gag, and then pulled Willowwand’s tongue out of his mouth and tied it to his chin. Then he conjured a small banner and hung it around the tongue. Because he was merciful, the banner was made of light cloth instead of the heavy cloth Harry could have used.

            When he walked away, he heard a ripple of laughter follow him. Harry smiled tightly. He had hoped that would be amusing.

            Property of Anyone Who Wants Him, the banner said.

            All the way down, Harry was listening tensely for some sign that the Head Auror had taken his prank the wrong way, but no alarms sounded. He finally relaxed when he reached the Atrium and made his way towards one of the fireplaces.

            “Mr. Potter.”

            A new kind of tension flooded Harry as he saw Lucius Malfoy step out from behind the restored statues. Malfoy bowed to him and then finished drawing on a long, silken grey glove, which he had evidently been doing when Harry walked by. Harry concealed laughter with an effort. Is the Ministry so sullied with the steps of commoners that he doesn’t dare touch anything in it?

            “I wanted to ask your opinion about this particular piece of art.” Malfoy flicked his head at the restored statues in a way that implied they were interesting in the same way that a sore on one’s arm was interesting. Harry bit his lip, wondering if he should feel more contempt for Malfoy that he had such gestures or for himself that he had learned to read them in such a short time. “This is a piece made, if anything was, to command admiration. What do you think?”

            Harry turned and studied the statues, though he had no reason to do so; he knew the pieces by heart, he’d seen them so often. The wizard and witch stood in the middle of the other creatures, who danced around them in a ring of joined hands. There was a centaur, a house-elf, a goblin, a mermaid—who danced on her upright tail—and a ghost. Beyond the confines of the ring waited other creatures, including a unicorn and a dragon, who watched with benevolent eyes, much the same expression on the faces of the wizard and witch as they extended their hands as if in blessing above the dancing creatures’ heads. They were done in what Harry had reason to know wasn’t real gold, just iron enchanted to look like it.

            “I think it is a piece made to command admiration,” Harry said. He let no inflection through into his voice, and arched an eyebrow when he saw the intense look that Malfoy gave him in response.

            “I had hoped for more than that from you,” Malfoy murmured.

            “For more than agreement? I’m surprised.” Harry cocked his head and let polite shock appear. He wasn’t equally good at acting every emotion, but that was one he’d had a lot of cause to use when it came to discussions like this with people who thought they were smarter than he was. “Many people would say that it is the most priceless treasures in debate, because it cannot be won, only given.”

            “If it were true agreement,” Malfoy said, clasping his gloved hands before him in an oddly demure gesture, “the result of taking my words into your mind and sifting them over and over again through the fall of truth and memory until they emerged as golden in your mouth as they were in mine, then I would agree, and rejoice. But you merely repeat what I say, and in such a manner that tells me this trick has allowed you to escape many an unpleasant confrontation.”

            “You shouldn’t use so many big words,” Harry muttered. He didn’t understand the atmosphere that Malfoy seemed to be trying to establish. It crackled and surged around him, but it wasn’t one of chilly superiority—used by those who saw Harry as a newcomer to the art world and someone to catch off-guard or embarrass if they could—or one of hero-worship—used by those who wanted him to offer opinions they could agree with. Being around Malfoy was like being around a leopard that Harry thought was caged but might possess its own magic to turn the bars to illusion. “After all, there’s no saying that I would understand them.”

            “And that is another trick to evade those who would pursue you,” Malfoy said. He took a step closer, but it was an odd step, flowing rather than striding, and he stopped the moment he noticed Harry staring at him. “You understood everything I just said. Those who think you have not are the fools, the ones who do not understand what a treasure they are giving up the chance to be given.”

            “I won’t give myself to anyone,” Harry snapped, and wished he could feel less like taffeta was sliding past his skin when Malfoy spoke. It was unsettling and exciting and demanding and Harry didn’t like it. Malfoy was at the bottom of the list of people who had the right to demand something of him.

            “Did I say anything about yourself?” Malfoy turned his head to the side and examined him with curious, bright eyes. “Though I might have meant it, if only in the sense that all our words contain part of ourselves. I meant your agreement, of course. You did not truly agree with me, and I cannot imagine you agreeing with many of the people you try that trick with.”

            Harry paused. The words didn’t actually sound dangerous, put like that. And Malfoy was right, in a way that made Harry want to smile reluctant approval of his intelligence.

            Then why do I feel so endangered?

            “I wasn’t honest,” he said. “Except that, yes, this piece was meant to command admiration, to make everyone think the Ministry is like the wizard and witch in the center of the ring.” He nodded to the statues, grateful, among other things, for the way it took his eyes away from Malfoy.

            “And how would you describe that wizard and witch?” Malfoy’s voice was gentle, soft, but probing, as though he was trying to flay Harry with a knife of silk.

            “Concerned,” Harry said. “Magnanimous.” He paused, then added a mental shrug to his own hesitation. What exactly can my words tell him that’s new? It’s not like my attitude to the Ministry is a secret. “Paternalistic. Possessed of too much time on their hands.”

            “Fascinating,” Malfoy said. “As you said, this is an opus meant to drag the minds of its beholders unwilling into respect.” Harry opened his mouth to say that it was Malfoy and not he who had used that phrasing in the first place, but Malfoy was continuing. “I have talked with many people who see the expressions they wear as purely kind, disinterested and able to offer a complete, complex solution to the problems of our kind and the magical creatures’ species alike.”

            Harry laughed before he could think better of it. He wondered if he should be more disturbed at the fact that Malfoy had amused him or at the way Malfoy stood still for longer than necessary, as if listening more intently to the laughter than it was worth.

*

            Listen to him. How often has he laughed since his lover’s death?

            Lucius did not know, but he found himself hungry for more of the sound. This was angry and upset, scornful, but not bitter. Potter had not surrendered his sense of nobility in his struggle against the Ministry; he had not sunk into cynicism. He might well cause Lucius to feel as if he stood unarmed in the midst of lightning, because he had retained the right to intensity.

            At that moment, Lucius could have said that he would challenge the Ministry, if Potter wished it. Potter saw to the heart of what was, what the statue meant, with piercing clarity. Someone who could see like that also saw the Ministry’s promises for the shams they were.

            “How unexpected to hear that sound from your throat,” Lucius said. Potter eyed him with prompt suspicion, which was rather encouraging than otherwise. It showed that he could recognize and listen for nuance, that he had not deafened himself to them entirely when he lost his girlfriend or flung himself into this unusual direction for a Gryffindor. “Did you not once believe that such kindness was possible?”

            “Once,” Potter said. “But once is not now.” He gave a thin smile that seemed to want to suggest self-deprecation, but Lucius saw it in a different light. It was another of those tactics designed to make someone talking to Potter back off and reconsider whether he wanted to pursue him. “And I must warn you, I’m quite boring on politics. My friends say that I only ever sound one note.”

            “One note might have dozens of sounds hidden within it, as you would know if you knew more about music,” Lucius responded. For that he won a reluctant smile in spite of Potter’s tight control, and he paused to savor it before he continued. “Politics may contain art, or encircle it, and you must know that art often does the same thing for politics.”

            “Yes, but it isn’t my favorite kind of art.” Potter jerked his head at the fountain. “I hate those statues, for example.”

            Moving back to safer territory, Mr. Potter? But I think not. “If the Ministry had commissioned statues that more accurately reflected the fractured state of our world as we find it,” Lucius asked softly, “would you hate them less?”

            Potter stood still, eyeing him. Lucius waited. Potter was sensitive enough to realize that he didn’t know exactly who “them” referred to. Lucius thought he was simply deciding now whether the bait was poisoned or not.

            “I don’t know,” Potter said at last, with a heaviness in his voice that Lucius hoped came from ponderous thought and not distrust. “I don’t—no, I think I probably wouldn’t, because commissioning the statue implies clear vision, but clear vision can be lost at any time. And I think I might hate the fountain more if it was a representation of hypocrisy instead of pure ruthlessness.”

            “You like things that are pure?” Lucius asked softly, taking a step nearer. “Things that are unadulterated?”

            Potter gave a smile so quick it appeared to hurt him, drew himself up, and answered back with pride sparking and dancing below the surface. “That would be hypocritical of me, wouldn’t it? After all, I’m not pure myself.”

            Lucius admired the way that Potter was trying to disarm him before he could begin to use the weapons of blood politics. No way to show Potter that he would rather leave those weapons where they lay, other than to not to use them at all.

            “There are many ways of judging purity,” Lucius said. “I have heard about those who accused you because you were a murderer, or they considered it so. I have not heard that any of them ever proposed another solution to the war with the Dark Lord.”

            Potter glanced at him swiftly from the corner of an eye. “Let’s not talk about me, instead of art,” he said in an arctic voice.

            Lucius merely raised one eyebrow that he knew was sculptured more carefully than any of the Ministry’s statues. “You began it.”

            Potter looked as if he came close to biting his lip in vexation, but only shook his head and said, “Yes, I did. Please accept my apology. I think this conversation has wandered into uninteresting territory.”



            Lucius bowed. “Then I have been a thoughtless guide. Pray, let me give you a map.” He continued while Potter seemed indecisive whether to object to the metaphor or the control of the conversation the metaphor implied. “The Ministry has chosen to represent itself as a set of parents overseeing the magical creatures of the world. Of course, a fundamental flaw in such symbolism is that it unequivocally chooses too small a number of images. Where, do you think, are the other wizards in this equation, the ones who are not magical creatures but not part of the Ministry, either?”

            Potter’s nostrils flared, and the temptation to pride or to talk about himself made him answer, his voice deep with passion. “I don’t think they’re anywhere in that vision. But when I can, I’ve tried to move them out of the ring, to show them that life beyond the Ministry isn’t a wasteland.”

            “And not all unicorns, either,” Lucius said, nodding to that section of the statue. In truth, he did not object to the unicorn as much as he did to other parts of the decoration. Someone had sculpted that who had actually seen the beast. “Or dragons. You will teach them to walk the path between absolute purity and absolute destruction?”

            Potter had had a chance to recover himself, though Lucius caught a fugitive curl of his lips at Lucius’s phrasing. “I don’t think I’m the only one teaching them that,” he said, pleasantly but firmly. “And I think there are other lessons to learn.”

            “How much have you taught them to do without?” Lucius asked.

            “Plenty,” Potter said without hesitation, his hands relaxing. Perhaps this reminded him of discussions he had had before. Lucius hoped not, but, at the same time, a calm Potter was one less likely to run away, and Lucius would have him for a short time longer. “Without patronage from the Ministry, or easy money, or guaranteed sales of their work. Without belief in some sort of central authority for their world that can set everything right.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course, then I have to teach them not to make me into a substitute for that kind of authority. Without certainty, and sometimes without beauty or shelter, for a time.”

            “Without love?” Lucius asked, making his voice the merest whisper.

            “Of course not,” Potter said. “The artists who choose the path I can offer them have the passion for their work. They would probably never venture outside the Ministry’s clutches if they didn’t.”

            Lucius smiled. He judged that the misunderstanding this time was genuine, rather than Potter trying to avoid the implications of the question he’d asked. He paused until he could be sure that Potter was looking at him and wouldn’t turn away in an instant’s time, then said, in an even gentler whisper than before, “That is not the kind of love I meant.”

            “Of course I don’t cut them off from their families!” Potter stepped forwards, his neck arched and his face flushing as if he were prepared to fight for his honor, or perhaps the honor of the people he guided and protected. Lucius had wondered if he would find Potter’s face attractive when it turned red, but he need not have worried; the brilliant green of Potter’s eyes made them sparkle so brightly that he could easily ignore the background color if he wanted. Potter controlled himself with a small shake of his head and a growl that Lucius wished he could feel against his own skin. “Anyone who disagrees with their families over politics or because they see them as abandoning a promising career would have done that anyway, without my interference,” Potter finished. “I don’t try to persuade people who seem reluctant.”

            “Interesting,” Lucius said. “But I have heard it said that you’ve caused the ending of at least one engagement. One of your protégés had a fiancé who refused to stay with her when she left what he believed to be a secure, if boring, position executing portraits for the Ministry officials who could afford them.”

            “That old accusation. Yes.” Potter touched his chin in a weary gesture that Lucius would like him to avoid in the future. “Actually, you’ve got the story wrong,” Potter continued, and shook his head as though lead weights were attached to the back of his neck. “He accused her of sleeping with me. And of course the papers picked that up, and people started asking how she was supposed to resist a rich patron who could withdraw his funding for her projects at any time he liked, and they hardly listened to me or to her when we both said that nothing of the sort had happened.”

            “It was caused by the fiancé’s own stupidity, then,” Lucius said. He saw no hidden shadow of slyness or hypocrisy in Potter’s open declaration. Indeed, even if he had, Lucius would have thought that his hearing of Potter’s words to his friends, in what he had believed was a private setting, outweighed the gossip. “Not your fault.”

            Potter peered at him curiously from beneath a fringe like a thicket, then shrugged and said, “It’s been pleasant talking to you, Malfoy. Much more pleasant than I would have suspected.” He muttered the last words to himself in such a manner that Lucius knew he had not been meant to hear them. “But I do have certain matters awaiting my attention at home.” He gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel.

            Lucius studied his departing back for a moment, wondering if he should allow Potter to control the conversation like that, and then drew in a deep breath. Because that breath contained the tainted air of the Ministry, it did not soothe him as much as a turn in his own garden would have, but the action was useful in reminding him of why he was here.

            Patience. No wolf is tamed in a day.

            He bowed to Potter’s back, for his own satisfaction and to court the curiosity of anyone passing by, and then chose the path that would take him out of the Ministry to the front door. He preferred to Apparate rather than Floo when he could, for the sake of his robes.

*

            “It’s more open than anything they’ve done in years.” Hermione’s face was distressed, and she wasn’t even out of Harry’s fireplace before she started trying to open the satchel she carried over her shoulder. Harry went to help her when she stumbled, showering soot and pieces of paper on his carpet. Harry glanced quickly at the nearest one and nodded grimly.

            PROPOSED HOUSE-ELF CONTROL LAW #324, it said in brilliant lettering.

            “Sit down and tell me about it,” Harry said, escorting Hermione to the couch. He’d been sitting in the library and reading up on Ministry werewolf law when Hermione Flooed him, and it was easiest to have her take his seat, arrange her paper on the table beside the couch, and then call Kreacher to prepare a glass of warm pumpkin juice for her, which she liked better than anything else when she was upset.

            Kreacher bowed and squeaked when Harry gave him the commission, and vanished again. Hermione leaned her elbow on the ancient, tapestry-like cloth of the couch and gave Harry a pointed look.

            “Can’t help it,” Harry said mildly. “You know he would be miserable if he was free.”

            Hermione seemed to recover herself with a physical jerk. “Yes, but there are others that aren’t,” she said darkly, and then handed him the stack of parchment that she’d brought along.

            Harry read quickly through it in the way he’d learned to scan legal documents and contracts demanding his signature, letting his eyes pick out the key phrases and the sense of the paragraphs rather than worrying himself with what every word meant. The intent of the law tried to mask itself with delicate legal language, but it was all too clear: the Ministry wanted to ensure that no house-elf could legally be freed without penalty. If it happened accidentally, the owner could still be fined. Free house-elves who worked for pay at the moment would have to find another owner as soon as possible who would give them nothing more than food.

            The language was full of jargon about “threats to our traditional way of life” and “the need to have the voices of a minority who feel attacked listened to,” but Harry knew it might as well be a bolt aimed at the heart of Hermione’s mission to educate people about treating house-elves better.

            “If they can do this,” Hermione said, sipping at the juice Kreacher had brought her, “then they can do anything. They can persuade anyone that it might be dangerous to free house-elves, or even to treat them with something like kindness.” Her mouth firmed and her eyes flashed. Harry was glad to see that. At least it proved that she wasn’t completely discouraged. “And who knows what happens from there?” Hermione continued, her voice softening until it sounded like leaves falling to the ground. “They could decide that we’re being too ‘kind’ to werewolves by having Wolfsbane on the market, or anything else they like.”

            Harry nodded. “Yes, they could. And it’s absolutely heinous, Hermione, and we’re not going to have it.”

            Hermione shook her hair out of her eyes with a little sniff and studied him. “We’re not?”

            “Of course not.” Harry refrained from pointing out that Hermione would have been stupid to come to him if she thought he could do nothing. She wasn’t stupid; she was simply distraught. He stood and handed her back the stack of parchment. Hermione straightened it with quick, neat fingers, staring at him all the while.

            “Harry,” she said at last, as if she was referring to a bit of food he didn’t know he had in his teeth, “you’re grinning.”

            Harry raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you usually grin when your enemy hands you a perfect opportunity to prove your point?”

            “I suppose I do,” Hermione said. “But I really don’t see how this is it. You don’t know how many people have contacted me and complained, more or less politely, about free house-elves. Even when they don’t live anywhere near them. Even when they don’t have house-elves! They’ll jump on this law with glad little cries. And there will be others who get braver when they realize how many people are supporting them.”

            “That’s true, of course,” Harry said, and strode to his fireplace, taking a bit of Floo powder from the dish on the mantle. “But they’ve finally crossed a visible line. This is something that has no purpose except to ease pure-blood fears. No one can make any excuse for it. The Ministry isn’t really even trying. And that will persuade some people who have been uneasy about the Ministry, but never agreed with me, that it’s time to act.” He cast the powder into the flames.

            “Harry, I don’t really see how artists can do anything to help this.” From the sound of it, Hermione was wearily wiping sweat from her face and trying to prepare herself to oppose him. “It takes time to paint a portrait or make a sculpture, and then, a lot of people won’t see it or respond to it.”

            “Did you think painters and sculptors were the only kinds of artists I knew?” Harry grinned at her over his shoulder. “What a lot you have to learn.” He leaned forwards and whispered the name into the fireplace. “Catham’s Nest.”

            Behind him, there was silence at first, and then Hermione began to chuckle.

*

            Lucius paused. He allowed himself to stand still for one whole minute, ignoring the way that other people brushed past him like elk past a unicorn, and then strode to the display that had caught his attention.

            Since the war, the Lovegoods’ Quibbler was a more popular paper, but Lucius still rarely saw it competing with the Prophet for space on stands outside the Diagon Alley shops. Those who wanted it knew where to find it, and the Lovegoods and the Prophet’s publishers alike seemed perfectly satisfied with that relationship.

            But this time, Madam Malkin had made an exception, and Lucius could see why. The front page of the Quibbler was entirely dominated by a cruel, hilarious caricature of the Wizengamot, every nose and beard exaggerated, sitting around a table and staring menacingly down at a cowering house-elf in chains, much smaller than they were. Behind them, wizards stabbed each other with daggers, used what was recognizably the Cruciatus Curse, and lobbed the Dark Mark into the air. (Lucius stroked his left arm appreciatively; he had no doubt that the caricaturist had worked from life). Under the house-elf were the large words, THE GREATEST THREAT TO OUR SOCIETY.

            Lucius laughed aloud. He did not care who heard him. Of course, it was a small, still chuckle like the laughter of water in a desert. He was not one to toss his head back and make a spectacle of his amusement.

            But he did slide a Sickle into the small slot on the stand that released the defensive spells protecting the papers from the top one, and pick it up, and take it with him. He carried it so that anyone who might not have seen the cartoon so far could make it out.

            There was no need for the signature dashed into the corner of the painting. Lucius knew it would read Frances Catham.

            Catham specialized in creating political cartoons and caricatures that skewered the powerful and wealthy, and then wriggling out of the consequences thanks to a sister who was a well-trained lawyer. She’d had to vanish into hiding a short time back, as there had been serious threats against her life, but of course Potter would know where she had been hiding and would have persuaded her to do this.

            Lucius had no doubt at all that it was Potter’s doing, though the breathless Quibbler article on the proposed law to restrict the freedom of house-elves (and their owners, as the writer had carefully slanted it) never mentioned him. He knew only one individual with that interest in opposing the Ministry and that amount of power in the art world.

            Congratulations, Mr. Potter, Lucius thought as he reached the edge of the alley and prepared to Apparate. You have managed to interest a second in your quest.

*

            Harry narrowed his eyes and looked skeptically at Frances, whose face floated in the fire. It was a thin face, a rat’s face, used to dodging around corners. Harry couldn’t really judge her for that. If the Ministry had done its best to destroy him, then he would have dodged around corners, too. He had a protection of sorts in his fame and popularity, no matter how many unpleasant things he said about the Ministry.

            “You’re sure?” he demanded.

            “Sure, sir.” Frances ducked her head and squeaked, her bright orange hair, tied in a tight braid, swinging forwards and hitting her in the forehead. Harry had to roll his eyes. Frances acted as if she was dandelion fluff about to blow away in a strong wind, but Harry knew she was probably collecting materials for her next caricature as they spoke. He certainly wasn’t above being a victim in her drawings, as Frances had been careful to let him know the moment they met. “The donation was made anonymously, but no special effort was taken to hide the name. The goblins were sure. Lucius Malfoy made it.”

            Harry leaned back, linking his hands together behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. He had completely redone Grimmauld Place, and Kreacher had gone on an enthusiastic cleaning mission the moment he moved back in after the war, but he thought he could still see the remnants of ancient cobwebs clinging to the rafters. Maybe they were ancient, he thought. Spun by giant spiders. Spiders that were sentient and descendants of Aragog.

            Yes, his brain made no sense. But a donation into the private fund that he kept to support Catham and artists like her who were persecuted by the Ministry made even less sense, at least when it came from the Malfoy vaults.

            A new thought occurred to him, and he lowered his head and found himself able to smile at Catham again. “Perhaps some kind of condition was attached to it?” he suggested hopefully. “Some kind of curse?” He didn’t want there to be, but at least that would mean it made some kind of sense.

            Catham shook her head, eyes wide and alarmed now, as if she had caught the hope and was wondering if he was mad. “No, sir. Just that Lucius Malfoy had made the donation, and it was in ordinary Galleons, transferred from his own vault to ours. The goblins couldn’t tell them from any other Galleons a moment after they had poured them inside the vault, sir.”

            Harry leaned his elbow on the wall and stared out the window. At the moment, it showed a brilliant blue sky that didn’t actually exist above London and the tossing branches of a pair of trees that didn’t exist, either. Harry watched the sunlight wash through the leaves and wished his mind could pick up serenity from them.

            But no matter how long he thought about it, he couldn’t fathom Malfoy’s motives. Of course he might have wanted to gain Harry’s goodwill and use the money to seduce him, but wouldn’t he have let Harry know he intended to hand over the Galleons when he did it? And surely he would have hinted something at the Ministry the other day.

            Besides, thinking he could buy Harry with money seemed too…

            Harry rolled his eyes over the word, but it insisted on rising to the surface of his thoughts.

            Too crude for Lucius Malfoy.

            Harry shook his head and turned back to Catham, who, after all, hadn’t caused any trouble and was still waiting for an answer. “You can accept and use the money,” he said. “And tell anyone else who has a key to the vault that they can, too.” He’d given keys to several of his friends who were in the same situation as Catham, because he didn’t want too much money under the control of one person. “By the way,” he added, suddenly realizing he had never asked in his shock over the mere fact of Malfoy’s donation, “how much did he give?”

            “Ten thousand Galleons, sir.”

            Harry swallowed, then carefully reached up and tilted his jaw shut. The gesture was as much for Catham as him, and she smiled hesitantly and stopped looking as if she wanted to crawl inside her own mouth. Harry shook his head.

            “It’s a generous gift,” he said. It was the only thing he could trust himself to say at the moment that was both safe and true. “Well. Yes. As long as the goblins think there’s no curse on the money, it’s probably safe.”

            “Thank you, sir,” Catham murmured, and then vanished as she pulled back from the Floo connection. Harry stared into the flames and realized that, once again, he had neglected to stop Catham from calling him “sir.” She always looked so timid when he confronted her that one more order seemed like too great an imposition.

            But someone who can survive on the run from the Ministry as long as she has isn’t really timid, Harry thought, as he rose to his feet.

            And someone who can do what Malfoy did, while at the same time speaking to me about art the way he did, is playing a deeper game than it appears on the surface.

            Harry narrowed his eyes. He had confounded several of his enemies before by resorting to directness instead of intrigue. He wanted to know why Malfoy had made such a donation.

            And, when in doubt, ask.

*

            Lucius set his glass of water blessed by the horns of unicorns down precisely on the table beside him, and then leaned forwards to study the image the wards had cast into his enchanted mirror more carefully.

            It did not change, however he stared. It was Harry Potter outside his gates, arms folded, scowling, kicking the stones like a sullen schoolboy, but real.

            Lucius inhaled, and then released the breath and his smile at the same time.

            Well. This is an unexpected gift.

            And he would receive his gift with all due courtesy.

            “Bell,” he said, calling to his favorite house-elf, the only one who was trusted to clean among his private papers, because the others would throw important letters away if left to work by themselves.

            There was a subdued crack beside him, and Bell appeared with a neat bow. Everything about him was neat; even the hairs in his ears, such a source of grotesquerie with most house-elves, were trimmed and formed a fan pattern instead of the scraggly mess that Lucius, and, he knew, other house-elf owners were accustomed to seeing.

            “Master wishes something,” Bell said. It wasn’t a question. He folded his hands in front of him and waited.

            “Yes. Master Harry Potter is standing at my gates at the moment.” Bell’s eyes widened. He knew what it meant when Lucius called someone by the title of “Master,” implying that he wanted Bell to as well, which was a rare honor. “Escort him within and make sure he is quite comfortable.”

            “Master,” Bell said, with a bow and something like a reverent breath.

            He was gone in the next instant, and Lucius stood and traveled down the grand staircase to the room he was certain Bell would choose.

            It was impossible for him to enter this room without feeling a sense of relaxation. It was crowded with furniture, chairs carved in a pattern of dragons and phoenixes so elaborate there was hardly any space on the chair arms for the human arms to rest. The same carvings entwined most of the legs, though with dragon heads on phoenix bodies and the other way around as well. The size of the room combined with the chairs lent it a comfortably labyrinthine feel. There were bookshelves, standing well back from the great fireplace, and enchanted windows with a double layer of insulation, so that there was no chance of the snowy scene they usually showed making anyone feel chill. The dominant colors were brown, fawn, and a pale, subdued yellow that Lucius knew was made to resemble sunlight.

            He thought it would appeal to Potter. He sat in a chair placed directly before the fire and waited.

            Potter appeared a moment later, escorted by Bell as if he had always been a welcome guest. He walked stiffly, Lucius noted, like a wolf challenging the leader of the pack while not sure if he was ready for the fight.

            Lucius smiled. He could overlook the implied challenge in the magnificence of the fact that Potter had come to him at all. He had not thought that he would receive this gift. He had pictured their liaisons taking place in the old Black family home, and not even sentimental memories associated with his wife could cause him to demonstrate more enthusiasm than a grimace at the idea.

            Potter sat down in the other chair before the fireplace and immediately turned it so that they were facing each other more directly. The gesture told Lucius more than any words could have what sort of mood his compatriot was in.

            Very well, Lucius thought, and sat up with an intelligent, listening expression on his face. It was the sort that made it less easy to be shocked by whatever Potter had to tell him.

            “I want to know what you mean,” Potter said in a low hiss, “by making a donation to the fund that I control for artists who are persecuted by the Ministry.”

            “What have you construed it to mean?” Lucius asked, genuinely interested.

            Potter swept one hand in front of him at throat height. “That doesn’t matter. Tell me the truth.”

            “Oh, it does matter, very much,” Lucius said. These were the sort of remarks that he would ordinarily have kept to himself, but he suspected that Potter would like to hear them. Or perhaps needs to, he added silently as he watched Potter’s eyes widen with shock. “At the moment, there is nothing that matters more to me in the world than what you think.”

            “Speak the truth.” Potter’s voice was an impressively deep tone now that resounded from the center of his chest. Lucius held back his impulse to laugh. He doubted that Potter would take that the right way. “That is all I ask.”

            “I did it because I saw Catham’s cartoon,” Lucius said, with a shrug that he knew made him look like a cobra flaring its hood. “And that made me into an admirer of your work, an acceptor of your crusade.”

            “One drawing did that,” Potter said, regarding him with such open skepticism that Lucius would have liked to lean over and touch his cheek. Yes, he was beautiful, but there were some expressions that his face should never wear, and this could have used a bit of shock to sweeten the mix. “Right.”

            “Why, Mr. Potter, what have we been discussing since we met again but the power of art?” Lucius placed his hand on his chest, fingers splayed wide, but on the right side, so that it could not possibly have been covering his heart. He saw Potter note the wrongness of the gesture. His eyes went flinty. That is well, Lucius thought. I dread only to see them indifferent, bored, blank. “What artists do you shelter but those who will move the public by the power of their work, those with enough independent spirit to survive outside the Ministry’s system of patronage? Do you deny that this particular drawing could have moved me?”

            They sat in comfortable silence—well, at least it was comfortable for Lucius—marred only by the grinding of Potter’s teeth. Then Potter said, as if throwing a piece of meat to a dangerous dog to see what it would do, “You’re only interested because of me. Not because of what the art could mean for the future of the wizarding world.”

            “Well,” Lucius said, stretching his words to delay the arrival of the one that would infuriate Potter, “yes. Of course.”

            Potter gave him a glare that seemed intended to fuse him to his chair. Lucius looked calmly back. “Do you intimidate many people with that look?” he asked, when Potter showed no inclination to give it up. “It would do you good to realize that not everyone reacts the same way.”

            Potter crossed his arms. “I don’t want people to be on my side because of me,” he said. “I want them to be on my side because of what I stand for, the principles that I fight for.”

            Lucius laughed. “Do all your artists really agree with that? Do you imagine that they all oppose the Ministry as fervently as you do? Is that something you require? Or do you allow them to exercise their own genius instead of demanding that they bow to something other than beauty?”

            A sharp flash crossed Potter’s face, as if he stood in the shadow of lightning, but it was gone before Lucius could be sure that it was the doubt that would have been most pleasant to him. “Put it this way,” Potter said slowly after another interval of silence. “Yes, the people I support usually aren’t going against the Ministry for the same reason I have. But none of them are doing it for me. They have passions. They have principles.” His gaze rested on Lucius, deep and acrimonious as a poisoned sea. “You don’t.”

            “I would not be so sure that you can sound the utmost depths of my soul without even an anchor,” Lucius murmured. A deep, pleased flush wanted to steal over his skin. He repressed it, but it was a difficulty. No matter what he might think of me at the moment—and I can hardly ask for a good opinion immediately—Potter is still thinking of me. Two weeks ago, I did not even exist for him. I call this progress.

            “Fine,” Potter said, bringing one hand down on the arm of his chair as if he assumed that it would stand up and hurt him next. “Maybe you have passions and principles related to art. Fine. I don’t care. But you’re not allowed to have them related to me. You’re not allowed to make a donation just because of me. I’ll return the money before I let you do that.”

            “That seems rather petty,” Lucius said, “giving back Galleons that your artists desperately need, and that you could use to do more good and spread more power outside the Ministry, simply because you resent what you think is an insult applied to you.”

            Potter’s eyes went as dark as those of a panther on the hunt. Lucius leaned back and waited for the show.

*

            Words tangled together behind Harry’s teeth, so many things he wanted to say at once that he didn’t know which one to let out first.

            That’s not the point.

            I don’t want anything to do with you, no matter why you’re doing it.

            I can do enough good without you.

            I’m tired of being worshipped.

            The last statement was the first to die, because, of course, Malfoy wasn’t worshipping him, no matter what happened. Harry still couldn’t quite credit any of the motives that he came up with, at least as they applied to Lucius Malfoy, but he knew it wasn’t the disgusting self-abnegation that someone like Willowwand or so many of his “fans” since the war indulged in.

            At least he drew in a breath and said, “I’ll keep the money. But whatever credit you were hoping to establish with me is shot.”

            “I would not seek to establish credit with you, Mr. Potter,” Malfoy said smoothly. “You are not a bank.”

            “Look,” Harry said, leaning forwards, “I know you want to fuck me.”

            It was a stab in the dark, but Malfoy could not hide the way his eyes flickered with greed.

            “None of this will get you any closer to doing it,” Harry said flatly. “You don’t know it, but I made a vow when Ginny Weasley died. I will never take another lover. What heart I had for things like that was hers, and she carried it into the grave.”

            Malfoy looked at him carefully. Then he bowed his head and said, “I can respect such things. I have heard of them, though I believe most pure-bloods no longer make those sorts of vows. Our ancestors had a higher regard for principle than for passion, to return to your description of those glories I am not allowed to have.”

            Lucius Malfoy thinks principles a glory? But Harry wasn’t going to allow himself to be distracted. “I didn’t make that vow because it was a pure-blood tradition,” he said. “I made it for me.”

            Malfoy smiled. His face had more flexibility than Harry had been willing to attribute to him, once. His smiles were deeper and richer in meaning than the sunlight that Harry imagined him avoiding, given how pale his skin was. “I know that,” he said, voice still soft and intimate. “But I was giving you the context of my respect. I do not think you would have believed me if you had not heard the reason.”

            Probably not, Harry thought, and scowled harder.

            “I do know more of you than to think that you would sleep with someone for money.” Malfoy was the one to break the silence this time, his hands moving as gracefully as the branches of young aspens. “I have heard how you served that unfortunate young man at the Ministry who thought his exploits were enough to entitle you to his favor.”

            Harry couldn’t help a half-smile. It was the way Malfoy pronounced unfortunate, as if it were a less noxious substitute for many other words.

            “Accept the money as a gift,” Malfoy said. “And accept my truth as well. I did make the donation the same day that the drawing came out. It was that which convinced me you have power on your side and some chance of changing the Ministry, instead of burning out as so many other would-be revolutionaries have done.”

            “This isn’t a revolution,” Harry murmured, uncomfortable with the words for some reason. Perhaps because he still seems to think I’m doing this alone, and he doesn’t think about the artists who really do the work. “It’s just—a change. Giving people more options.”

            Malfoy gave him a long smile, as if to say that he knew better, and said nothing.

            Harry sighed and stood. “I reckon there’s nothing else I can say that will change your mind or make the situation any clearer for me,” he said.

            “No,” Malfoy responded simply. “But you might do as your reputation claims you do, and take my words at face value. They are the truth.”

            Harry looked at him. “If I took every word at face value, do you think I would have lasted as long as I have as an art patron? Sometimes, Malfoy, you think you’re complimenting me, and it ends up as a much worse insult.”

            Malfoy rose to his feet, and Harry instinctively moved to the side, so that they would have more distance between them but he wouldn’t seem to be backing off. Malfoy’s eyebrows twitched, but he said only, “I think you distrust me for the wrong reasons. Someone might be as interested in your—change—because of you as others are for the art, just as many people might choose to challenge the Ministry and not have your reasons. Will you demand ideological fidelity from everyone who offers himself as an ally?”

            This, at least, Harry had the counter to. “No,” he said clearly, meeting Malfoy’s eyes. “Only the people who once tried to kill me.”

            He waited, but Malfoy stood still, and Harry turned and followed the elf that had already appeared to lead him out of the Manor, satisfied that Malfoy would trouble him no more for the future.

            Once he returned to Grimmauld Place, he was forced to put such unimportant matters out of his head. Hermione was waiting with news that threw them into shadow, as they should be.

*

            Perhaps I deserved that.

            Lucius was aware as he sat down again and summoned Bell to give him a plate of food that he should not have been so struck by the words. He was an expert at finding light conversation that would parry the accusations of former enemies. Potter’s attitude and facial expressions already mattered to him too much, if they made him feel as if he should have run after the boy and explained.

            No. A boy no longer. If he was, this situation would never have arisen.

            Lucius bit into the soft, fine cheese, one of six kinds that Bell had selected for him, and admitted the truth to himself. Or at least another truth, since his conversations with Potter so often offered him new ones.

            This will take longer than I thought. I will need patience and stamina to hunt him, and I should be prepared for him to turn on me often with nasty surprises.

            Am I sure I wish to do this? To expose myself to such wounds because I cannot help granting him some measure of power over me?

            Then he thought of the way that Potter had faced him today, when Lucius had seen something better than beauty in the clear green eyes: strength as flexible and patient as the ocean.

            Yes. I am sure.

*

            Cassis Black: Thanks! So far, it seems to be working out to a chapter a week, though it depends on how long the chapter is.

            Sharkoon: Thanks! Lucius has quite a few things to learn about Harry, still, just as Harry does about Lucius, so their relationship is going to change and change again, I promise.

            Selene: Thanks! I certainly hope you’ll continue to think so.
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Sympathy for the Predators