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Intoxicate the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18051 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Four--Double Agents

            The knock on the door of the Manor resounded through dim chambers and stern wards and barred windows to fall on an ear that heard, although its owner had sometimes wished it no longer did.

            Draco rolled over in his bed and wondered why the Ministry bothered knocking. They were the only ones who had license to pass through the wards and enter the house, and they did so all the time, "inspecting" for signs of Dark artifacts that Draco no longer had the money to buy even if he'd wanted to. Draco had given up on any notion of privacy or honor the day his parents went to prison.

            A knock, though, did mean something different. That sufficed to make Draco stand up, cast Cleaning Charms on himself, and throw open the pair of shutters in his rooms that faced the front doors, leaning out.

            Three Aurors stood on his front step. Two of them faced outwards, into the gardens, with drawn wands. The third one looked only at the door, although she had her wand out, too, and wavered it up and down as if dowsing for water. As Draco watched, she knocked again.

            Draco thought for a moment. Then he stepped away from the window, cast more spells to remove dust and cobwebs--he had no house-elves anymore, thanks to that cunt Granger--and made his way down to the front door.

            It could do no harm to see what they wanted.

*

            "But you haven't told me when you first noticed the change in Auror Potter," Desang said, with a friendly smile that Hermione thought genuine. The woman wasn't a bad sort, only hopelessly mired in Ministry politics. Hermione had decided that subtle recruitment was one of the best things she could do to aid Harry, but she had also decided that she knew better than to try such methods on Desang. "I mean, if he was going mad for some time, there must have been signs long before the final break."

            Hermione watched her own hands toying with the glass full of butterbeer and wondered what Desang wanted, or meant, for her to say. "You'd think so," she said. "But I'd known him for so long. Something strange would happen, and I would think that it was strange for, oh, an hour. And then I would think, 'Oh, that was only Harry, being Harry.'"

            "Can you give me an example?" Someone a few inches away still might have missed the eager, hunting undertone that had crept into Desang's voice.

            Hermione gave her a faint smile and leaned back in her seat. They were in the Leaky Cauldron, unusually deserted for this time of day. Then again, since Harry had left, Hermione found it always either deserted or crowded, as if people decided at various times that there was safety in numbers or solitude. "As long as you don't tell it to Rita Skeeter. She is saying the most ridiculous shite about him. I don't know why people bother to still read her articles."

            "I wouldn't read them, except that they make good gossip." Desang smiled and took a sip of her own Firewhisky. She didn't seem to worry about becoming drunk, but then again, Hermione thought, she wouldn't, not when she apparently had an unlimited capacity for alcohol.

            "And, of course," Desang added a moment later, her face clouding, "it's always worth knowing what stupid people believe."

            Hermione blinked. She hadn't thought before that she and Desang shared so much of a common perspective.

            "Where do you think it comes from?" she asked, as this was something she was interested in herself and didn't have to pretend a false emotion for, which was more exhausting than she'd counted on. "Most of the wizarding world's children go to Hogwarts, which is an excellent school. Plenty of people get lots of NEWTs. I know the Aurors aren't stupid. Why do so many people seem so collectively idiots?"

            Desang leaned one elbow on the table and thought about that. A few more people came into the pub, but they glanced sideways at Desang's Auror robes, hesitated, and went out again. Tom banged a mug viciously on the counter as he cleaned. Hermione wondered if Desang had noticed. Probably. She saw a lot more than Hermione had thought she did at first, even though she seemed so easy to fool.

            "I think," Desang said at last, "that it has to do with the nature of groups. Have you ever tried to track the progress and birth of a rumor? I have, and it's much harder than you'd think. All right; this group of people believes this thing. So you ought to find someone who knows who told the original story. But no one does. They pluck it out of the air. Then newspapers and people like Skeeter pick it up, and that's the end of a clear trail. They can add new elements in just for the fun of it, but they might also believe those elements, and other people will accept them as part of the story. Environment, tendency to panic over minor problems or accept them in their stride because they're similar to what you're familiar with, or different--I've seen people at the Ministry scream at the mere mention of a snowstorm that someone from Russia would laugh at as too small to think about--and who you listen to all affect it."

            Hermione blinked again. "I haven't heard that clear and cogent an explanation from anyone except myself," she said.

            "And I mostly don't have someone to share it with." Desang leaned forwards earnestly. "But you can trust me, if you dare to."

            At least she acknowledges that it might be difficult. Hermione took another swallow of butterbeer so she could avoid having to answer.

            But this time, Desang didn't want to let it go. "Can you tell me one example of a time that Potter acted strange?" she asked. "The Ministry can't always track rumors to their source, but at times they can track down the behavior of one person. And you knew him better than anyone."

            "Except my husband," Hermione said, and let bitterness creep into her voice. She was setting up another story, with Ron's reluctant consent: that they'd argued violently, and that was the reason he had gone to follow Harry, rather than that being the place where he could do the most good. "I'd wager that he knows a lot more about what Harry does and intends right now than I do."

            "Except your husband, of course," Desang said, smoothly adapting herself to the change in circumstances. "But you could still tell me something interesting, if you wanted to."

            It was too obvious a challenge to let pass. Up until now, Hermione had pretended not to notice Desang's information-prying attempts, but play stupid too long and your enemies would catch on. She gave Desang a hard stare and shoved her chair back from the table. "You're trying to get me to betray a friend," she said, voice wavering.

            Desang shook her head furiously, heavy hair whipping around her face. "Not at all," she said. "Not at all. You don't understand. I don't think he's your friend anymore. I like you as a person, Hermione, and I do think that you would work for the best principles and the best reasons if you went over to the Ministry, but I also don't think you need to worry about betraying him. This is the person who tried to take you hostage. Why would you put up with that kind of treatment?"

            Either she's a better liar than I thought she was, or she really does believe that. And, Hermione had to admit, she would probably believe that about someone who had really been taken hostage, if she continued to defend her captor. She let her fingers play with her mug again. "You're the one who doesn't understand," she said, and her voice dripped out slowly this time. "I can't give up long years of friendship just like that."

            "But he already gave it up with you," Desang said at once, fingers knotting together as though she was tying up the strand of her argument. She paused, perhaps caught by something in Hermione's face, and added, "The only thing I'm asking you to do is think about it. You would probably resent someone who had done this to another friend, such as your husband. Why don't you resent him? Is there any friendship in the world that can survive strain like that?"

            Hermione shrugged, still playing with her drink. Then she picked it up and took a long swallow as though she wanted to drown her thoughts.

            "I know it's hard," Desang whispered. "But if he endangers your life and the lives of everyone else in the wizarding world, you have to start thinking whether he's worth everyone else, whether he's more important than masses of innocent people who have never been obliged to him."

            "I'll think about it," Hermione said, shoving her chair back abruptly, dropping a few Galleons on the table, and leaving the pub. She heard Desang behind her paying for her own drink and calling on her to wait, since she was supposed to "protect" Hermione from all the nasty lurking dangers of the revolution.

            By the time Desang caught up with her, Hermione was calm and could listen to her words and parry them with what Desang would read as growing reluctance. But she'd had to have a moment to herself, to giggle hysterically, when she realized what the Ministry was offering: a chance to spy on her friends.

            The chance to become a double agent.

            I can become too involved in the deceits to think my way through them, if I'm not careful.

*

            Draco sat on the couch in his parents' largest drawing room and winced. A couch that had been the victim of a few merciless household charms never felt as clean as one actually dusted. But then again, he was the one sitting there; the three Aurors all occupied chairs across from him. They hadn't come to talk about dusting. Instead, they stared at him. They had been there for ten minutes, and other than accepting a cup of tea from him, they hadn't said a word.

            They also didn't drink the tea, Draco noticed, but that was too common for him to care. He moved on to what was more important instead. "What have you come to speak with me about?"

            The Auror who had knocked on his door looked at the other two. They both bowed their heads and sighed noiselessly, so she was the one who spoke. She had a lovely pale face, Draco noticed, and dark hair curled high on her head in a way that bespoke pure-blood heritage. "You've heard of Harry Potter and his revolution."

            Draco shrugged, already uninterested. He didn't care what Potter did. "I would call it by the title of rebellion, so as not to dignify it beyond what it deserves."

            The Auror who'd spoken smiled slightly. "Yes. Well. Call it what you want. We badly need to place a spy in Potter's ranks who can tell us what he intends, and who can give us information about his attacks. He's done nothing concrete so far, but so many Hit Wizards and Aurors have fled to join him that we must assume our secrets have been compromised."

            Draco burst out laughing. It was a raucous sound that would have made his parents flinch and certainly made his "visitors" stare, but he didn't care about that, either.

            "You've come to the wrong person," he said, when the laughter had played itself out. It didn't take long; he only had to listen to the silence to quell himself. "Potter and I were never friends. I can't play your spy because he won't trust me. Show yourselves out, please. And do finish the tea," he added, with a polished malice that he thought would have done his father proud. "I'm told it's quite good."

            He had set his foot on the bottom of the stairs before the speaker said, as if spitting out the words, "I've been authorized to offer you your parents' release if you accept this duty."

            Draco's whole world froze.

            He stood there encased in silver ice, staring up the stairs and noting the dust that had collected in the crannies of the banisters. Then he turned around. The spokeswoman had worn a faint smile on her face, but it disappeared at the sight of his expression.

            "The Wizengamot said they would never be released," Draco whispered. He heard gongs pounding in the back of his head, and wished that he had a bit of his mind free to listen to them. "That it was a life sentence, no matter how many more years they might live, no matter that the evidence of my mother's crimes didn't exist to match my father's."

            "Things change," said the Auror woman.

            "The Ministry can't change the Wizengamot's decisions," Draco said. That was the first ash-tasting fruit of his long search in the years immediately after the war, when he had tried to call on his father's old political contacts to save him and discovered why no one had wanted to risk his neck to spare Lucius Malfoy trouble.

            "Of course not," the Auror said, in a pompous voice that made Draco want to memorize her face and grab a strand of her hair. "But the Minister can offer certain...pieces of advice. Certain messages. The Wizengamot might consider them. Slowly, perhaps, but a slow process can have a quick ending."

            Draco knew what he would see if he turned around: the image of his parents, standing behind him hand in hand, the way he had seen them for the last time before they went to prison. The last time before they went to prison, and the last time, because the Ministry always found a reason to deny his petitions to visit Azkaban. He became aware that he was trembling with rage and hunger, and wrapped his hands in his robes behind his back, so that they at least would not betray him.

            "You cannot make that promise," he said. "I'm nothing. My name means nothing. I have no money to offer you. You have no reason to think that I would make a better spy on Potter than any of the other six dozen Gryffindors he must have known and would trust."

            One of the Aurors behind the leader shifted and leaned forwards to whisper something into her ear. The woman flapped her hand, dismissing the words as though they had been flies. She never took her eyes from Draco while she did it. "We need someone who hates Potter," she said. "We can't trust anyone who has positive or neutral feelings for him. Too many of them have abandoned our side for his."

            "Judith!" hissed the man who had tried to speak to her before.

            "Someone who hates him, but has the acting skills necessary to pretend that he doesn't, while holding that hatred constant in his heart..." Judith shrugged and spread her palms as though displaying a completed potion. "They're rare. And we can offer you your parents." She waited, then, both hands dropping to her lap as she looked at him.

            Draco could feel his heartbeat quickening, and he didn't bother trying to hide the lust on his face. They would need it, to think him easily manipulated, as he wanted them to, even if he ended up not taking their "generous" offer.

            For his parents to know sunlight, to know air, to know him...

            The terms were such that he would have accepted them immediately had his father not drilled caution into him until Draco breathed it. This could as easily be a plot to rid the Ministry of the last Malfoy as to rid themselves of Potter. Or they wanted to hit both birds with the same stone. Someone in the Ministry was occasionally that clever.

            "What makes you think that I have the necessary skills?" he asked.

            "I've talked to those who remember what you did during your sixth year at Hogwarts," Judith said. "Despite the stress you were under, not many people seem to have noticed your plans. And this time, we're not holding a wand to your parents' throats. You can have my word on my magic that if you fail, their situation will not change."

            A more effective threat than any she could have made against their lives, Draco thought, and resisted the temptation to clench his fingers shut. He only nodded, as though considering Judith's words, and then leaned closer.

            "I'll want details," he said. "What you want me to accomplish, how to contact you, what sort of information you want me to pass on. And minor guarantees along the way. I believe a visit with my parents might be in order."

            "I thought you would ask that," Judith said with calm pleasure. "And I have the Minister's dispensation to tell you that..."

            Draco remembered every word that Judith--Summers, the Head Auror, as he learned soon enough--said that day, and the ones that she didn't say, including the darker implications behind her words. He knew as clearly as moonlight that he wasn't her only tool to bring down Potter, and that she wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice him if he became more liability than help. Then again, they were better and more honest terms than anyone at the Ministry had offered him since the end of the war.

            And for the first time since the war, he would have something other than dust to look at.

*

            "Take a look at this."

            Harry leaned forwards to study the device that George had placed on the table in front of him. It had a long, slender pole in the middle of it that blossomed at one end into what looked like an orange lily. An orange lily made of rubber, Harry deduced, after a quick brush of his finger along the edge of one petal. At the other end was a clear silver basin.

            "Interesting," Harry said. "What is it?" He'd had to ask that question a lot since they picked up George. Things that were intuitively obvious to him didn't seem so to anyone else.

            As always, George gave Harry a quick, wondering glance, as though he was feigning incomprehension, before his face grew vague and he nodded. "Good point, Fred," he murmured.

            Harry winced. He hated it when George "talked" to Fred like that; it made him wonder whether he had done the right thing after all by bringing George into the war rather than leaving him quietly at home. But it hadn't caused any harm so far, and most of the time George returned from these little spells with all sense of the present fully intact, so Harry would ignore it.

            For right now.

            "It's a device that Summons certain objects," George said, stroking the lily with his own finger. The lily's petals moved, curling around the finger. With an amused smile, George pulled it out again. "Or classes of objects. Belonging to certain people. No matter what the distance." He stared at Harry.

            Harry decided that he might as well laugh, since no one was with them right now to overhear. "Such as wands?" he asked. "The wands of all the Aurors who haven't joined up with us?"

            George looked at him in what seemed to be genuine surprise. "How did you know I was going to suggest that?" he asked.

            Harry laughed again. He felt giddy, and as if he could dance around the room without his feet touching the floor. "Because that's the first of the embarrassing things I thought of," he said. "It'll inconvenience the Ministry more than anything else, having to match their Aurors to new wands, but it'll also terrify them, since it shows that we can reach into the heart of their power and do something that shouldn't be possible by current magical theory."

            "How did you know that it shouldn't be possible by current magical theory?" George demanded.

            "I've been doing a bit of reading," Harry said with his own vague tone, and then moved on to other subjects before George could demand a better answer. "How soon can you have it ready?"

            George nodded and touched the edges of the lily's petals as though that would give Harry an answer. "I'll have to test it first, of course," he said. "To make sure that we're not Summoning the wands of anyone who simply happened to be an Auror, and orient the Houndstooth to what makes an Auror in the employ of the Ministry. But it should be ready no later than tomorrow."

            Harry shook his head and punched George in the shoulder. "Are we paying you enough?" he asked.

            George had already lost himself somewhere in the design of the Houndstooth, prying apart the basin with what looked like a cross between a hammer and a wrench. "Just keep the materials flowing, that's all I ask for," he muttered. "Well, that and the time and freedom to work."

            Harry nodded and left him alone, furiously tinkering. As he stepped out of what other people had already started calling "George's design room" and shut the door, he heard shouts from further down the corridor.

            He approached that richly carved oaken door quietly. They had arrived at an Unplottable Manor that the Ministry had declared "lost" centuries ago when the last of its pure-blood owners died in an unsuccessful revolution, but which Jerome had read the files on and preserved a method of finding. Some of the old traps set by the original owners still lingered around the edges of doorframes. Harry checked twice for them before he peered through the crack along the edge of the door.

            Ron was drilling several men and women who in some cases wore the robes of Aurors or Hit Wizards, but who had mostly adopted the "uniform" modeled on what Harry and Ron were wearing: brown robes that had lots of pockets and restricted movements less than the Ministry-issued costumes did, with convenient hoods and belts designed to carry potions vials. Auror Calliope Youngblood had brought along a store of dragonhide boots from her family, who owned a shop that made them, and a pair of them flashed beneath Ron's robes as he strode up and down across the front of the room.

            He shouted. His students shouted back at him, but for the most part their voices weren't as strong, and Harry could make out Ron's instructions clearly.

            "I don't want to hear about any blood rivalries. You'll work with people your families had feuds with, and you'll work with someone who's pure-blood if you're Muggleborn, and Muggleborn if you're pure-blood! Those little cliques that you want to form destroyed the Ministry--Youngblood, straighten your wand out--and made it into a place where no one can trust anyone else thanks to the factionalism--Catchers, do you call that a Shield Charm?--and murders are excused while innocents are condemned to Azkaban just based on who their parents were--Kindred, defensive means defensive--and that isn't going to happen to us. Understood?"

            "I don't see why we have to learn all this defensive magic," said Olivia Kindred sulkily. Harry had worked with her several times, and remembered her as a good Auror with a tendency to attack before she did anything else.

            "Because we're training you to work in groups of four--Weatherby, eyes front--rather than with partners--"

            Harry smiled and stepped away from the door. Ron had come up with that idea, reasoning that groups of four who knew each other well and were encouraged to trust one another with less than the sometimes dangerous intimacy partners achieved would do well against the Ministry's tendency to form pairs in everything.

            Everyone else was busy, and it was time for him to do what he'd come up with, to go back to his studies.

            Harry swallowed and clenched one fist. What he wanted to do was still risky, and would depend a lot on what George could tell him and help him with.

            But if he was right...

            If I'm right, the Ministry's Obliviators will be out of work entirely.

*



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Intoxicate the Sun