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The Auror Method	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7771 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Four—Displays of Vengeance
            “A quiet night,” said Mytherian, his attention on the breakfast in front of him.
            Draco curled his lip a little behind the protection of his cup. He knew that the breakfast his house-elves served was excellent, consisting as it did of hot chocolate, scones smothered in butter and more chocolate, fresh fruit with chocolate ready at hand to dip it in, and bangers that had, for once, no chocolate, but it still seemed unprofessional for an Auror never to look around once in five minutes.
            “Yes, it was,” said Draco, because one had to say something, and Potter was out of the way. He looked at the Prophet again, flicking idly through the pages. Stories on Quidditch, stories on music, stories on the latest scandal to break out in the Ministry—a secret marriage between a member of the Wizengamot and another member’s much-younger daughter. Draco read that with some amusement. At least the paper wasn’t a complete loss.
            “Malfoy.”
            Draco started a little and then looked up. Mytherian was leaning forwards, his hands braced on the table as if he was going to leap over it and come at Draco that way. Draco catalogued at least seven escape routes in the first three seconds, and then made himself relax and listen instead of reacting with paranoia.
            “Yes?” he asked, picking up a cup of hot chocolate both to have something to do with his hands and to have a hot weapon in case Mytherian did come at him.
            “You have to know that I’m a better Auror than Potter, right?” Mytherian whispered, and swayed towards him with feral intensity.
            Draco’s sense of danger passed away in a flash and scattering of sparks, leaving laughter in its wake. He did his best to keep that off his face, of course. If Mytherian knew he was an object of mirth, he’d probably attack.
            “I don’t know that,” he mumbled into his cup. “Everyone always talks about what a great Auror Potter is.”
            “They don’t know him at all.” Mytherian climbed to his feet now and stalked back and forth a little in front of the table. “They don’t know how many of his victories rely on luck or other people helping him.”
            “I thought Potter gave plenty of credit to other people helping him,” said Draco. It let him sound innocent and bemused, and as far as he knew, it was actually the truth. Potter was forever bleating about the way that Weasley and Granger had helped him defeat the Dark Lord.
            To Draco, that was an example of Potter going too far. They might have helped him with spells and fighting individual Death Eaters, but had they walked into the Forbidden Forest with him, or helped in the final duel with the Elder Wand? No, they had not.
            But Potter’s arse was stuffed up with modesty. It was probably no surprise that he would deny his own contributions so that his friends could have some crumbs. And if Potter was actually the attention-seeker Draco had once believed him to be, it was also a brilliant strategy. Modest disclaimers made people praise you more.
            Draco ought to know.
            “He might give credit to his friends,” said Mytherian, with an impatient motion of one hand that nearly upset Draco’s chocolate cup. Draco decided to keep his opinion on clumsy Aurors to himself for now, and see what transpired. “But he doesn’t give credit to the other Aurors who help him with arrests.”
            And here we get to the heart of the grudge, Draco thought, while maintaining an elaborate befuddled look. “Did you do that?” he whispered.
            “Of course I did,” said Mytherian, with a snort that said what he thought of Draco’s intelligence. “If you knew the number of cases I’ve helped him with, only to see him getting away with denying that anyone had helped him at all…” His voice trailed off, and he turned away and kicked the wall. “And this one will be just the same. The press will say that he did all the work.”
            Draco raised one eyebrow, now that Mytherian was facing away. The press saying that Potter was the sole one responsible for these cases wasn’t the same as Potter saying it. And Draco knew that Potter had actually begged the press not to say such things, and they kept on doing it anyway.
            But why he should want to bring Mytherian to his senses? There was the chance that this could fall out well for Draco himself, and he was all for encouraging that.
            Mytherian scowled at the wall he’d kicked, and then turned around and studied Draco intently again. “The same thing’s going to happen again,” he said, “unless you help me.”
            “Me?” Draco looked at his cane, leaning against the chair, and then into the cup, as if an answer would be there.
            “Don’t play coy. You may not be much, but you have a respected voice now that most people think you’re redeemed.” Mytherian snapped his fingers insistently. “If you give an interview to the paper about how much I helped you when I was your guard, then that would be all you needed to do. One little interview. Consider it?”
            When you’re so charming, how can one resist? But Draco had a lot of practice at keeping sarcasm inside now, especially sarcasm that would destroy his persona at once. He looked away modestly instead. “Do you really think they would believe me over Potter? That would be the only problem.”
            “If you put it well enough, and give details, then they will.” Mytherian nodded. “I just want my work recognized for once.”
            Then work harder. But Draco would be the last one to suggest that now. He folded his hands and murmured, “All right. I just hope that no one attacks me in the meantime.”
            “You don’t trust me to protect you?” Mytherian sounded offended all over again. He turned in a slow circle around the dining room, apparently studying the windows. “I can recommend several wards and enchantments I could put up that would make your house impregnable.”
            Which just means that he’s not very good at wards, if he can’t recognize the quality of the ones on the Manor that my enemy already got past. But Draco nodded enthusiastically again. There was the chance that he could learn about special Auror spells from Mytherian in the way that Potter was so far proving himself reluctant to teach. “All right.”
            Mytherian smiled, pleased, and lifted his wand.
            “Jordan! I asked you not to add any enchantments until we made the tests that we talked about earlier, remember? It’ll prejudice them too much if we’re working against our own spells.”
            Perfect timing, Potter, Draco thought, as Potter strode into the dining room and went over to help himself to some of the strawberries and the one scone on the table that had butter instead of chocolate on it. I suppose he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth.
            “I remember,” said Mytherian, and lowered his wand.
            The look he flashed at Potter was utter murder. Draco raised an eyebrow and leaned back. It looks like we have a case of hatred here, a strong grudge, not just resentment of Potter’s fame. Interesting. I wonder how I can exploit it?
            “Good, then don’t try it again.” Potter turned to Draco. “I can’t shake the idea that maybe your enemy is using your own wards against you. That means that I want to take care of some tests before we add anything to the protections.”
            Draco squinted at Potter, his persona’s face and his own instincts colluding for once. “What does that mean? How could someone use my own wards against me?”
            Potter paused with a strawberry on the way to his mouth, narrowing his eyes at Draco, and Draco wondered, too late, if he had perhaps sounded certain and strong, things that his persona wasn’t. He fidgeted and dropped his eyes to his plate. “If you don’t mind telling me,” he whispered.
            He thought Mytherian snorted in disgust off to the side, but he ignored that. Mytherian wasn’t the one it was important to fool right now.
            Potter put the strawberry into his mouth and chewed a little. Then he said, “The magical theory behind it is too complex for a quick summary, but basically, he sends an owl—let’s use that example. The owl is normal, or perhaps only enhanced by the spell that will take advantage of your wards, until it actually encounters the protections that are supposed to defend you. Then it reaches out and sucks power from them, turning the defensive charms into offensive ones. That’s the only way it can work. We’ve never found a case where defensive charms for one person can be turned defensive for another. He can make a normal message explode, but he can’t put armor on his owl.”
            That’s dead clever. Contrary to Potter’s expectations, Draco did indeed know about the magical theory. He ate his own scone in silence, and then faltered, “But you can protect me from things like that?”
            “If he’s even doing it.” Potter flashed him a quick, unexpected smile. “I’ve been told more than once that I shouldn’t set up my own ideas as the end-all and be-all of explanations. He might be doing something entirely different. But it would give some clues as to why he was able to send you such a deadly threat that the wards didn’t stop.”
            Yes, it would. Draco intended to do some research on his own. He leaned back and waved a hand that he hoped looked limp. “Then go ahead and do what you need to do.”
            Potter left the dining room without, so far as Draco was able to determine, having eaten more than three bites. Mytherian lingered a moment, stare burning into the side of Draco’s head.
            Draco stared back. “You were about to do something that might have made me less safe,” he said, and hunched in on himself. “I’m not sure that I trust you to protect me.”
            “Potter could be wrong.” This time, Mytherian’s look of utter loathing chased Potter up the corridor. “He has been, you know. In the past. Often.”
            “Is he going to be wrong about protecting me?” Draco blinked anxious eyes.
            Mytherian bit his lip in response, and charged up the corridor as if he thought that Potter might be confronting Draco’s enemy right now and didn’t want to be left out of the action. Draco laughed into his mind and continued eating, placidly.
            So many tacks he could take, he thought. There was Mytherian’s hatred of Potter to exploit. There was the information he had on one possible tactic of his enemy’s, and how he might fight it himself. There was Potter’s undeniable attraction to Draco. And there was the way that Draco had seen Potter go without eating or sleeping now, for over twelve hours. All sorts of interesting weaknesses appeared when someone did that.
            Draco smiled, and finished his breakfast.
*
            “Nothing.”
            Draco looked up from the pages of a book that would appear, to anyone who glanced at the cover, as a history of heroic Malfoy ancestors, while the pages inside it actually contained some of the complicated magical theory one would need to modify long-standing wards. “My enemy isn’t interfering with my protections?” he asked, marking his place in the book with one finger.
            It was Potter alone who came into the library, and he moved in an intent way that told Draco what would happen, even before he took a seat across the table from Draco and looked into his eyes.
            “Are you sure that you can’t think of anyone who would want to harm you?” Potter was almost wistful, but Draco didn’t think that came from past nostalgia when he’d wanted to harm Draco himself. He took one of Draco’s hands and held it securely. The warmth was nice, but Draco was too old a deceiver to be overcome merely because of physical pleasure. Potter was clever to think of it, though. “This is sophisticated work. Most of the time, we have at least a suspicion by now, but here, we don’t have a clue.”
            Time to use the second plan, Draco decided. He’d devised several plans during the hours that Potter and Mytherian had left him alone, with Monitoring Charms in place to alert them the instant anyone or anything—letter, animal, other human being—appeared next to Draco. They’d only had one false alarm with the house-elves, which they’d forgotten to make an exception in the charms for. Now, Draco traced a finger over the grain of the table and said, “Well.”
            “Yes?” Potter tightened his fingers a little, and stroked the back of Draco’s hand with his thumb.
            I still want to know what my spies were thinking, to decide that he was stupid. Draco would have to do some shaking-up of his spies in the Ministry when this was over, he decided. Idiots, the lot of them.
            “There was someone who contacted me a short time ago,” Draco whispered. “I didn’t think anything of it. There are still people who won’t surrender the idea that I’m evil, that my family is doing something wrong simply by continuing to exist. No matter how much I insist that seeing your Muggle Studies teacher get eaten in front of you is enough of a conversion moment.”
            Potter was silent, his eyes appealing.
            “I dismissed him when he said that he had a plan to make me rich again. I said that I had enough money.” Draco swallowed. “Usually, people take that as a dismissal and go find someone else to help them in their little illegal projects. This person, however, sent me an angry owl the next day. It’s possible that he could be the one who’s sending me these threats and letters now. Although I hate to involve you…” Again, he looked nervously at the tabletop, and could practically feel the jolt that ran through Potter.
            “You hate to involve us? But that’s what we’re here for!” Potter gripped the side of the table as though he would rise to his feet. “You should have told us this right away!”
            Draco flinched and cowered, pulling his hand away from Potter. It was possible that someone with his experience could tell through a touch when Draco was lying. “Sorry, sorry. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal when he was dismissed.”
            “What are you talking about?”
            Draco blinked guilelessly at Potter. “He was Elian Greengrass-Rosier. I thought you knew. I thought that you brought him here as a test or something. Or maybe that someone in the Auror Department is suspicious of me and thinks that I’m still Dark. So they sent him to see what I would do.”
            Potter’s lips pinched shut. He looked as if he would like to take the heads off several of Draco’s ancestors in the portraits grouped around the library. Draco’s breath came shallowly. I can tell him where to start if he’d like instructions.
            “There is no way that we could have known that.” Potter’s words rang like dropped Galleons. He leaned towards Draco. “Are you sure it was him?”
            “If it wasn’t him, it was someone using his name.” Draco reared back in his chair as though doing his best to distance himself from what Potter was saying. “I don’t know. It was confusing. Maybe I’m wrong.”
            “It’s possible that he would do something like this,” Potter muttered, half to himself. “He has a standing grudge against you. And I know that he was a last-minute substitution on the team. I objected. Maybe he did manage to get himself invited on when he heard where we were going.”
            Draco said nothing, but smiled under his eyelids at the table. He’d had no idea that Greengrass-Rosier was a last-minute substitute for another Auror, but he loved these moments, when a victim’s mind would pick up coincidences and use them to weave an explanation he didn’t even have to prompt them with.
            “We don’t have any proof, though,” Potter concluded, and spun around to face Draco. “Please don’t say anything to Auror Mytherian about your suspicions. Not until we’re sure.”
            Draco inclined his head, contented in a way that was difficult to understand. So he’s smart enough to know that Mytherian isn’t happy with him. And that last “we” refers to me and him, I think, not to him and Mytherian. “Of course.”
            Potter hesitated, one more time, then nodded and said, “I’ll have to send out owls. I don’t dare leave you alone now, not until we know for sure.”
            “You said that already,” said Draco, and stared at him with big eyes. “You’re not worried about your ability to overpower him, are you? You did it once before!”
            Potter abruptly leaned over the table and took Draco’s shoulders in his hands. Draco flinched before he could stop himself. Potter moved quickly when he was excited, it appeared. Draco would have to keep that in mind should things come to a fight, and hope that he could experience it soon in more pleasant circumstances.
            “Finding him is the problem, not overpowering him, although if he used that scroll spell on you and removed all the traces of magic from the owl, he’s more skilled than I realized,” Potter said. His voice was almost hypnotic, he was so close. “But I promise you, I will protect you no matter what else happens.” His hands tightened, in the way that Draco had sometimes had enemies hold him to force an answer. “Do you believe me?”
            Draco nodded. He had to nod.
            Potter broke away and gave him a strained smile. “Good. I’ll go and find Mytherian, and we’ll begin a new search. First, we need to find out where he went when he left the Ministry.” And he broke into a run out of the library, pausing only to raise some more protections and Monitoring Charms at the door.
            Draco sank back into his chair, eyes closed. He felt less satisfaction than he would have thought at managing to trick Potter so that all that strength and ferocity would be committed to defending Draco alone.
            He would have liked…
            Well, it was impossible, but he would have liked that strength and ferocity dedicated to him honestly.
Draco sighed. Really, he had already learned not to wish for things he couldn’t have. And all the money he was going to take from Gringotts should be enough of a reward.
*
moodysavage: Maybe he’s a little better in this chapter?
delia cerrano: Well, to a certain extent, Harry uses manipulation, too.
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The Auror Method