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Sister Healer	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2860 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Four—A Quarter of the Trust

            “Good morning, Potter.”

            Harry kept his head down, and only grunted when Malfoy spoke to him. He realized that he was probably being childish, but, well, that was fine with him. This was the second time in as many days, practically, that Malfoy had left him with all the paperwork, because God forbid that he do anything but talk to Healer Alto.

            But it’s not like you need him, as a partner, to figure out what’s going on. You could investigate Healer Alto’s background by yourself, and you know you will. Malfoy’s unlikely to help, as obsessed with her as he is.

            Harry ground his teeth. Yes, he could do this by himself. He would have to do this by himself. But he wasn’t supposed to have to. He was supposed to be able to rely on his partner, who should quit being a selfish berk and attend to the duties that he was supposed to have as an Auror of the Socrates Corps.

            There’s no reason for you to think that it would be any better if he was paying attention. Remember how much he distrusted you during the Larkin case, and especially how much he distrusted your visions? He’s probably still like that. You’d be better off if you went to your superiors and requested a new partner.

            Harry shuddered and rejected that idea. The last thing he wanted was to make his superiors pay attention to him so soon after the disastrous Larkin case. No, he would keep on with his quiet, steady searching, and hope that he wouldn’t have to face another twisted soon who would try to kill him before Malfoy could arrive.

            Something slammed into the middle of his desk. Harry had a hand on his wand and was leaping away before he thought about it. His eyes narrowed on Malfoy, who had a large book of Irish wizarding laws in his hand and a death glare that Harry reluctantly had to admit more than matched his own best effort.

            “Will you listen to me?” Malfoy demanded. “I have information about Healer Alto and the twisted who were attacking her that I’m sure you’ll find valuable.”

            “This ought to be good,” Harry said, sitting back down behind the desk but tilting his chair at an angle that he knew would annoy the prim and proper Malfoy. “Considering that I wrote down all the information we needed to construct a report yesterday, and you did nothing but talk and drink.”

            Malfoy started to snap, then blinked at him. “How do you know what I was doing with Healer Alto? Considering that you’d already left by the time I returned—”

            “You weren’t back at six-o’clock,” Harry pointed out, with what he thought was a restrained amount of quiet anger. “I wasn’t waiting around for you any longer. Have a nice conversation, whatever. I can smell the Firewhisky on you, by the way, which is how I knew what you were doing.” He paused and pretended to consider something. “Although I reckon that I only thought you’d talked, while you might have been doing something else.”

            Malfoy’s eyes fired, and he looked as if he might shoot spells at Harry over the desk. “Don’t imply that,” he hissed. “Healer Alto is a lady.”

            Harry raised one eyebrow. That hadn’t been at all what he expected. Something about blood prejudice, something about how Malfoy was more delicate or had better sense than to sleep with a witness, sure. But calling Alto by a title Harry was most accustomed to hearing from Aunt Petunia when she talked about a female neighbor who didn’t live up to her standards was unexpected.

            “Right,” he said a moment later, aware that he’d lost his momentum and he’d have to work harder to dent Malfoy’s contempt now. “Anyway, you’ve been skiving off for the last few cases and I’m sick of it.”

            “Who killed Jerome?” Malfoy retorted, though a moment later he flushed. “Not that I should have done that.”

            Harry’s chair thumped into the floor before he could stop himself. He wondered if Healer Alto had drugged Malfoy’s Firewhisky. Surely such a thing was possible, given all the potions and ingredients she would have access to.

            “Malfoy,” he said a moment later, and he knew that his voice was absurdly soft, but he couldn’t exactly help it. “Have you considered that you’re acting oddly? Defending Healer Alto, doubting that you were right to kill a twisted who would have killed her and probably a lot of other people if we hadn’t intervened—”

            “We could have captured him,” Malfoy interrupted.

            Harry rolled his eyes. “Because that worked so well when you went after Larkin,” he snapped. One of the few other Aurors in the Socrates Corps, Eric Latham, had died that day, afflicted by one of Latham’s terrifying visions. “You idiot, we couldn’t have captured him unless no one was in danger, and even if you think we were both strong enough to fight him and there was no danger to us, what about Healer Alto? You know, your ‘lady’ that he had a knife to?”

            Malfoy blinked and turned away. “It was something she said that gave me the idea,” he murmured in a distracted voice. “If we can use Dark Arts for purposes other than just killing, if we can use them in the pursuit of our jobs, then surely we can’t tax the twisted for using them for their own purposes?”

            “Yes,” Harry said, when he could get his breath back from the sheer stupidity of that thought. I can’t believe I ever thought he was attractive. No one that dumb could possibly conceal it forever. “I—Malfoy, there’s a huge difference between using them for healing and protection, and using them to kill people. Not to mention that twisted are incapable of Healing people anyway.”

            “Jerome was a Healer before he went insane,” Malfoy said stubbornly. “So was Holinshead. There’s something there.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It made more sense when she said it.”

            Harry shook his head. He would have been more worried about Malfoy, but apparently he was so infatuated that anything his idol said came across to him as genius. Possibly, too, given his behavior lately, he didn’t like being part of the Socrates Corps. Not being able to make the true nature of his occupation public to other people probably irritated him.

            Frankly, though, that wasn’t Harry’s bloody problem. “You’ve got two choices,” he told Malfoy, picking up his quill. “Quit, or ask to be assigned a different partner. Because I’m not about to stay with one who doesn’t do any of the work and wants me to slow down when a twisted is trying to kill me.”

            “I never asked that of you.” Malfoy gave him a fiery look. “I would have helped with Holinshead yesterday. I killed Jerome.”

            “You would have helped,” Harry said flatly. “Well, that’s a great comfort to me, when she’s trying to stick me with a sword and you’re up there staring at Healer Alto’s face and obsessing over the smart things she says.”

            Malfoy drew his wand. Harry stared at him in silence, not impressed. For one thing, he already had his wand out; he’d had it half-drawn ever since Malfoy had slammed the book down. For another, Malfoy was an idiot if he thought Harry would hold still long enough for Malfoy to curse him.

            “I told you not to make fun of her,” Malfoy whispered. “She’s my lady. The first human being who’s tried to understand me since my parents cast me out. The first comfort I’ve had since Daphne went to prison. You couldn’t be comforting if you tried.”

            Harry rolled his eyes again. “I can understand that. What I don’t understand is you letting it interfere in your work. She’s a witness and a victim. Talking to her the way you are, defending her, could mean you’ve compromised your professionalism.”

            “Because, of course,” Malfoy said in a high, falsetto tone, “one must never talk to witnesses! You must get everything you mean to gain from them by telepathy! Talking compromises the pure and trusting relationship between them and an Auror.” He snapped his head around so that Harry, presumably, would get the full force of his sneer. “Come off it.”

            “This is an example of how childish she makes you act,” Harry told him, deliberately turning so that his eyes were filled with paperwork instead of Malfoy. He actually thought he might hit him if he didn’t look away, and that was unusual for him. His blood seemed to be racing more and more the more he thought about this, and the desire to stand up and walk out of the room was as nothing before his desire to strike. He didn’t understand this. Even when he was fighting with Hale, who had been the one of his partners who understood him least, he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

            “She doesn’t make me do anything,” Malfoy said, with a strange, brittle little laugh. “She’s perfectly capable of defending herself, too, but since she’s not here, she can’t hear the awful things that you’re saying about her. I want to defend her because of what she’s said to me, not because she makes me—she doesn’t make me act childish.”

            Harry’s emotions were fleeting, a good portion of the time, since Lionel died, and the intense desire to defend himself was gone now. Harry privately thought that he had more room for grief and quiet anger, not enough for irritation and fear and all the other, lesser ones. He looked back at Malfoy, who continued to stand in the center of the room, so sure he was right, so committed to defending his “lady”—and that was a fucking strange way for him to talk, too—that he couldn’t look back on the last few days with the jaundiced eye Harry was casting over them.

            “Fine,” he said quietly. He was impressed with himself for the quietness. “There are a few more reports that need both our signatures. Then I’m going to go to Okazes and ask to be reassigned to a different partner.”

            Malfoy reeled back as though Harry had punched him the way he had thought about doing. “What?” he asked, his breath coming short. “Why?”

            “Because you drew your wand on me just now,” Harry said. “I could put up with the rest, the crazy obsession with a witness. I know your history, I know why that would happen. And I could put up with having to do a little of the heavier work when, as you say, you did kill Jerome. But not this. Not with a gesture of mistrust so fundamental that I don’t have the words to describe it. You don’t get to do that to me. No.”

            Malfoy blinked and cleared his throat, glancing down at his wand as though it had betrayed him and jumped into his hand of its own accord. “That wasn’t—I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

            Harry sneered at him and turned around to continue writing. “Obviously. You didn’t want me to know how deep your obsession ran, and you didn’t want to scare me away. But it’s happened. Congratulations.”

            “Potter, listen.”

            Harry did, although he didn’t look up from the report, but Malfoy said nothing after that. He continued shifting in place, as though his mouth couldn’t move without eye contact. Only when Harry signed his name and leaned back to give him a hard stare did Malfoy sigh in relief and begin speaking, quickly.

            “I know this looks bad. I know it looks as though I’m spending too much time with Healer Alto and leaving you with all the work. But it really was just that she overwhelmed me by trying to understand me, and no one’s done that in months.”

            Harry grunted, thinking of the time he and Malfoy had shared together at Latham’s funeral. But if Malfoy wasn’t going to talk about that or didn’t remember it, then it would be stupid for Harry to bring it up. “Fine. Go on.”

            “She even offered to treat you, when I reminded her that they’d banned you from St. Mungo’s.” Malfoy took a step closer, then stopped. “That’s generous. Considering the way Healers normally react to you, and that she’s one of them, you can’t say that that’s not generous.”

            “Someone can be generous and still compromise an Auror’s professionalism,” Harry pointed out. “If you go to interview her again, then I want to come with you.”

            “Of course,” Malfoy said, and gave Harry a smile that seemed to have a light shining behind it. When Harry looked back down at his desk this time, it was for a different reason. Fuck, he’s attractive. I wish he wasn’t. “Unless a twisted attacking at the time needs both of us to defeat it.”

            Harry nodded, and then waited. Malfoy seemed to think everything was settled, because he started back to his desk.

            “No apology for drawing your wand on me, your own partner?” Harry called after him.

            Malfoy turned around with a curled lip that was, Harry had to admit, impressive, unless one considered what sneers Harry had seen in the past, especially from such masters of the art as Snape. “I gave as much of an apology as I’m going to,” he said. “I said I didn’t mean to. Which is true. Nothing else would be.”

            Harry cracked a smile despite himself, and turned back to his paperwork. This time, Malfoy worked beside him uncomplainingly, and had the report on Alto’s words finished before Harry had completed his next form to fill out. When he handed it to Harry, Harry skimmed it, but could see no trace of obsession. Malfoy had retreated back to “coolly professional,” or at least it seemed like it.

            He signed his name and tossed it to Malfoy. “Do you want to take that to Okazes? I’m going to get some lunch.”

            Malfoy opened his mouth as though to object that he was being sent about the dirty work, but then visibly paused and considered whether being sent to fetch lunch would be any better. Harry grinned at him, and Malfoy gave a small but visible smile back.

            “Of course,” he said, and unfolded from his chair like a striking snake, striding to the door. He added over his shoulder, “Bring me a cup of tea and a salad, if you can find any shop within reach of the Ministry that does a decent one.”

            Harry started to reply, but Malfoy was gone. He shrugged and set out into Diagon Alley, mentally running the places one could get food through his head and wondering which one would have the best salad. Up until this point, it had been a purely academic question for him. He got enough salad when he ate over at Ron and Hermione’s house; he didn’t need it when he was trying to keep from falling asleep over paperwork.

            Do you want to impress him?

            Harry cringed at the sound of the sharp hiss in the back of his head. “Not really,” he muttered at it. “No. I just—I want to bring back something he’ll like. Something to keep the peace between partners.”

            There were sneers and laughter in response to that, or there would have been if the voice was real. Then came silence. Harry shivered and walked faster, his head bowed and his eyes aimed straight ahead. He didn’t know why an attempt to get along with his partner should make him feel so awful, but apparently, it did.

            But he would much rather get along with Malfoy then not get along with him, so a cup of tea and a salad it was.

*

            “Auror Malfoy! I am glad to see you.”

            Draco found himself turning before he consciously recognized the voice, but then he did, and his mouth filled with water. He shook his head, disgusted with himself, and walked towards Healer Alto with a gentle nod, feeling as if she was a deer whom he might scare off if he moved too suddenly.

            “What are you doing here, my lady?” he asked. He noticed that she held herself as if she was cold, and her constant, darted glances at the walls of the Ministry corridor weren’t giving the impression she wanted to be here, either.

            “I wanted to apologize, of course!” She smiled up at him, and Draco’s breath came short as he realized he had forgotten how bright her eyes were. “We had such an interesting conversation the other day, one that revealed to me the depths of my own prejudices.”

            “It did?” Draco arched an eyebrow. He could remember things changing for him that day, but he didn’t think he’d argued particularly eloquently for an opposite side from the one that Healer Alto had championed. He couldn’t remember arguing at all. He thought he had mostly sat there and raised points for the pleasure of hearing her talk, while he drank in her beauty.

            Healer Alto laughed at him and shook her hair back, so that it foamed and danced down her back in long, loose curls. He didn’t remember seeing it like that the last time he had seen her, either.

            Only yesterday.

            But it seemed farther away than that.

            “You underrate your own persuasiveness,” Alto was saying, with such fervor Draco was almost sure he did. “You are an excellent reminder to me that I have some prejudice against Aurors and—others—who kill for a living. I might think of myself as a soldier in the war against death, but does that give me the ability to despise someone else who is fighting the same enemy in a different way? Or even a different war in a different way? We’re both soldiers. I can’t get angry with you for destroying the twisted when I destroy disease and sometimes the work of people who were only trying to survive.”

            Draco glanced around quickly, and then pulled her towards a room which he knew the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had set aside for victims of Dark wizards to rest in. He didn’t know whether anyone would actually be interested in what Alto was saying, but he didn’t think mentioning the twisted in the open was a good idea.

            At least you have that much sense, hissed a voice in the back of his mind, a voice that certainly sounded like Potter.

            Draco shook his head. He had to stop thinking about things like that. Next thing he would be talking to Potter as though they were friends, and he didn’t want that. It would be better if he was mooning over Healer Alto.

            That thought stung him into straightening up and turning around to speak to her in a cooler tone, as was appropriate for someone he didn’t really know. “I didn’t mean to make you change your mind,” he said. “I understand what you said. It may be possible to capture the twisted, to study them, and that means that we wouldn’t have to kill them.”

            She stared at him, her mouth wide, and a harsh emotion twisted Draco’s chest. He wanted her to approve, he wanted her to be proud of him. He swallowed. It felt less now like he was looking for a substitute for Daphne. Perhaps he was looking for someone who could replace his mother, instead?

            But when he looked at her bright grey eyes and the way she held out a finely-shaped hand to him, the response he felt was not at all son-like.

            “I didn’t mean to make you condemn yourself,” Alto said, and her voice was as low and glorious as a wind sweeping through a field of starflowers. “If that happened—oh, I knew I should have been more careful about how I spoke to you!” She dropped her hand and backed away, looking upset. “It’s one thing to decide on your own that you’d rather study the twisted, the way I dream of doing, and another thing to blame yourself because of what you’ve done with the noble motive of freeing others from a threat.”

            Draco shook his head, throat clogged with words that he couldn’t voice, for once. It was the way he had felt when he stood with his parents’ last letter in his hands and read what they demanded. It was the way he sometimes felt around Potter since they had become partners, though, thank Merlin, not very often.

            “Listen,” he said at last. “You did make me rethink some of what I do, but I value that. What I did would mean nothing if I did it mindlessly. I was promoted into the Socrates Corps because of—things I did and saw, but what if what’s most important is how I think? I shouldn’t shut down my brain just because I would like to go about my duties untroubled.”

            Healer Alto watched him with emotions flickering and dancing behind her eyes like restless lightning for some moments. At last, she nodded. Draco felt something that was tense snap in his chest, back to calmness, as he watched that. That he be able to convince her and spend time with her was almost more important than protecting her.

            Almost. Because when he heard the howl behind him, he whirled around and lifted his wand without a second thought, although they were in the Ministry and the most logical explanation would have been that it was a howl of laughter at catching Draco Malfoy and a pretty woman alone.

            But the man who shut the door of the holding room behind him and began to move towards them was not someone who belonged in the Ministry. The tattered robes he wore were still Healer’s green; the flickering foxes that paced alongside him, made of light and fire only, casting no shadows, were creatures Draco had never seen before. The man lifted his hand to his forehead, shading his brilliant blue eyes and squinting at them as though his sight was weak. On the back of his hand, Draco saw, his chest winding up tighter than ever before, was the tattoo of a cage.

            And the stink of Dark magic around him made the Mark on Draco’s arm, which warned him when he encountered particularly powerful spells such as this one, tingle and ache to the point of burning.

            “Another one?” Draco asked, but his voice was hollow and he didn’t know who he was asking. The soft moan Healer Alto gave behind him meant that she probably couldn’t answer.

            The man smiled, and gestured to one of the foxes. The fox spoke in a perfectly normal human voice. Draco noticed the man’s lips were moving along, mouthing the words, but he was apparently unable to say them for himself. “I am the last one you will ever need to face. Do not fear.”

            “Your name?” Draco asked, stepping to the side so he could absolutely sure his body was between the man and Healer Alto. The air in the room felt stiffer, as though it was becoming water. That still didn’t prepare him for it when a silver cage suddenly shimmered and formed around him, any more than the howl of laughter had prepared him to see a twisted facing him.

            Draco lunged at the bars of the cage immediately. For a moment, they parted as if he would be too strong for them, and then snapped back into place. This time, when he pounded on them, the bars refused to part.

            The man stared at him with his mouth open. Then he shook his head and the fox said, “Interesting. Well. I intervened just in time.” He turned to face Healer Alto, drawing his wand as he did. Another cage appeared around her, holding her in place. She lifted her chin, eyes bright and vulnerable and fearless.

            The cage is his flaw, Draco thought frantically, and began casting at the bars again. They absorbed the heat and cold of his first few furious spells without changing, while the man moved steadily and slowly towards Healer Alto, murmuring words at her through the mouth of his fox that Draco was too occupied to hear.

            That doesn’t help. I can’t stop him—

            Potter! Get your arse back here!

*

            SP777: But she’s so gentle! As Draco would say.

            unneeded: Well, among other things, twisted can’t use Healing magic, so since she’s a Healer, that might be a clue against it. But Harry doesn’t like what she’s doing, either.
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Sister Healer