Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

A Series of Malfoy Events	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11225 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Four—What You Can Do With a Diamond Ring
            Harry grinned to himself as they finally left the Crocodiles’ party. He had quipped and nibbled his way through dinner, and threw more imaginary stories at the people who asked him questions about his supposed relationship with Malfoy, and had a great time.
            I should have started lying and acting like I’m even more mysterious and wonderful than they expect me to be years ago.
            A hand clamped strongly on his elbow brought his flying thoughts back to earth. They were well outside the party by now, even past the Apparition points that the Crocodiles had established on the grounds. A small stand of pale trees, glowing luminous white even in the darkness with the reflection from the party’s lights, separated them from anyone else.
            “You need to make a decision now,” Malfoy said, and leaned towards Harry as if he thought he could intimidate him. Given how signally he had failed so far, Harry wondered in pity what he thought had changed. Perhaps Malfoy still had delusions in his head that his having a large house and being a famous Quidditch player mattered to Harry. “You need to come home with me, or not.”
            “Not,” said Harry at once. “You should ask me easy questions more often.”
            This time, Malfoy’s raised eyebrows reminded Harry irresistibly of a small Crup puppy he had seen in Diagon Alley, staring at a tumbling kitten in the window of the Magical Menagerie. Its own had pulled on the leash and hurried it on, or it would probably have stood there staring all afternoon.
            Harry wondered for a second what kind of leash Malfoy would demand if he was a Crup puppy. Probably one made of woven unicorn hair and studded with diamonds. And then he would go home and drink cream from a definitely-not-silver platter while lying on his definitely-grey sheets.
            Probably because he was thinking of him as a Crup puppy, Harry’s thoughts about Malfoy were kinder than they would have been otherwise. He reached out and patted Malfoy on the head. “Thanks for the evening’s entertainment,” he said. “It taught me a whole new way to deal with the press.”
            “As my fiancé.”
            Harry chose to overlook the absence of the question mark that Malfoy had probably misplaced somewhere in his whatever-color-they-were robes. “No,” he said. “Lying. But thanks anyway,” he added, and reached for the diamond ring that glittered on his finger.
            Malfoy took a step back and clasped his hands behind his back. “You can’t take that off,” he said. “I would be humiliated in the press.”
            “Because that’s an unfamiliar situation.”
            “You would be humiliated in the press.”
            Harry cocked his head, not seeing the need to repeat the exact same words he had just used, and smiled.
            “You went to the party as my fiancé,” Malfoy continued, and now he sounded a little breathless. “How would you explain backing out now?”
            “Oh, that’s easy,” said Harry, and gave his head a mournful shake. “We went home and started reminiscing. It was an evening for reminiscences, right? Like the story of how we met, when you rescued me from the Masked Avenger.” Malfoy opened his mouth, but Harry barreled right on. He had found it was much easier to deal with Malfoy when he didn’t give him the chance to get a word in edgewise. “But we quarreled, because you thought that story put me in your debt, and I disagreed. It ended with me storming out of the house in high dudgeon. Returning the ring, of course, because that’s what you should always do. Or so I’m informed by the many people who thought we were engaged because they owled me one.” Harry beamed at Malfoy. “I have it all figured out. You can attach all the blame to me. I don’t mind.”
            Malfoy was still. Harry couldn’t see his face very well now in the shifting light, and squinted to make it out. He thought Malfoy’s eyebrows were permanently glued to his forehead. Poor little Crup.
            “I would still be humiliated,” Malfoy finally said. “To lose my fiancé on the very evening when I found him.”
            “But no one else would know about that,” Harry explained patiently. “They think we have a very long history together. And that’s thanks to me, you know,” he added. He thought Malfoy might need some reminding of that, since he was so focused on himself.
            “Of course it is.” Malfoy bent forwards and surveyed Harry. Harry thought he was doing it from a height on purpose, to intimidate Harry, and taught him a nice lesson by standing still and not turning a hair. Malfoy would need to lose some of his arrogance some time. “But I would know. And I referred to a different kind of finding.”
            “Not the proposal kind?” Harry had taken off the diamond ring and was studying it. If Malfoy really insisted on this pretense going longer, then there were things Harry could do that didn’t involve wearing the ring.
            “Not at all,” said Malfoy, and reached out and placed his right hand on Harry’s arm like a clamp. “The kind that involves me finally finding someone who can keep up with me.”
            Harry shook his head. “I wish you luck in really finding someone like that,” he said. “It’s a wonderful dream. But I can’t keep up with you.”
            “Your quick tongue argues otherwise.” Malfoy had moved back so his face was in shadow again. Harry didn’t point out, because he was still being nice, that it didn’t disguise how much his face looked like a Crup’s. “I wish to maintain you as my fiancé beyond this evening. I will, of course, keep you in the style to which you’re accustomed.”
            Harry grinned; he couldn’t help it. “I mean that I can’t keep up with you because I’m not gay.”
            “Neither am I,” said Malfoy smoothly. “I’m bisexual.”
            “But to date you, I would have to be gay.”
            “No. Bisexual.”
            Harry snorted. “Fine, but I’m not. I can’t keep up with what you need your fiancé to do because of that.”
            “You seemed to do well enough with the kiss.” Malfoy looked pleased with himself. “I have, of course, converted straight men before.”
            “They must have wanted to be converted,” said Harry, shaking his head. “I don’t.”
            Malfoy moved another step closer. “Even knowing what I could do for you?” he whispered. Harry didn’t know what he meant until he nodded to the diamond ring. “Even knowing that you could have my gifts like that, and my undivided attention, for as long as I was interested in you?”
            Harry chuckled. He would have found Malfoy’s attitude infuriating if he was chasing him as a criminal or confronting him in a courtroom, but he could almost appreciate it here. “I don’t consider either diamond rings or your undivided attention as desirable.”
            Malfoy recoiled a step from him. Harry took the chance to flip the ring back to him, and added, “I’ve studied this well enough that I’m confident I can keep rumors from spreading without actually wearing the ring.” He raised his wand and cast an illusion spell that made a duplicate of the shiny ring appear on his finger. Harry flexed his finger, pleased. Among the many advantages of an illusion was its lesser weight.
            Malfoy was silent. Harry glanced at him, wondering if he would try to come up with an excuse for why he couldn’t offer the ring back, or if he would insist on Harry wearing it again anyway.
            He did neither. He was peering at the sparkling illusory ring on Harry’s finger, and after a moment, he gave a quick glance up. “That’s a wonderful glamour,” he said.
            “Isn’t it?” Harry grinned, and thought it might be his first grin of the evening that wasn’t at Malfoy’s expense. “I rather like it. And this way, you don’t have to worry about anyone suddenly deciding we’re not engaged.”
            Malfoy shook his head, but even though Harry waited patiently, he didn’t bring up why he disagreed with Harry’s assumption. Instead, he murmured, “Why would you care so much about sparing me opprobrium in the papers?”
            “Because I’ve known what it’s like to have their—er—opprobrium myself.” Harry wondered if Malfoy had a contract with the Falcons to use a certain number of multi-syllable words a day. More likely, a contract with his ancestors. “I’ll spare you what I can. Just not forever. You have to come up with some really spectacular send-off, mind.”
            “Maybe I do not wish to.”
            “Then I will,” said Harry, obscurely disappointed. It seemed strange to him that he cared more about Malfoy’s reputation at the moment than Malfoy did. “See you around, I suppose.”
            Malfoy didn’t say anything else, and that left Harry to walk away, shaking his head. He knew that Malfoy could do whatever he wanted, including concocting stories. It would certainly be of a piece for someone who tricked people into dating him.
            But it did seem an abrupt and sort of damp ending to a satisfying party.
*
            Harry wished for damp the next morning. And maybe an ending. He had abrupt.
            “Let me go through this again,” he said, slowly, giving Kingsley time to resume being the sensible man Harry knew him to be.
            Kingsley smiled at him and nodded. “Of course, Harry. I wouldn’t want you to feel as though I was trying to hurry you into making a decision.”
            “Ha-bloody-ha-ha,” Harry muttered, and then began to muse as if he was thinking aloud, although it was really to allow Kingsley to jump in at any time and return them to reality. “So. I appeared at the Crocodiles’ party least night as Malfoy’s fiancé.”
            “I’m delighted you can remember back that far.”
            Harry flashed Kingsley a certain hand gesture, but did so under the table. With as strange as Kingsley was acting today, Harry wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that he was on thin ice with Kingsley even though he never had been before. “And then I decided to come in with the glamour of the ring on my finger today, to spare Malfoy from having to explain a few embarrassing things.”
            “It’s a glamour?” Kingsley opened his eyes wide and twisted his head.
            Since he was the one who had taught Harry to be that good at illusions, Harry wasn’t actually amused. “And you called me in and told me that you need someone to figure out who tried to hex Malfoy at the game, because an ordinary sweep for Dark magic revealed something much more powerful and dangerous than you thought it would be.”
            “All correct,” Kingsley murmured. “You really are a marvelous Auror.”
            Harry didn’t roll his eyes again because he would sprain them if he did, given how many times he’d rolled them during Kingsley’s initial explanation. “I can’t be officially on the case because I’m Malfoy’s fiancé and I would be considered too close to the subject.”
            “All reasoning faculties in top form.”
            Harry gave in and rolled his eyes. They probably had at least two more rolls in them. “But you want me unofficially on the case and to stick close to Malfoy so I can figure out why and how he’s attracting such powerful enemies.”
            Kingsley broke into applause that would have been spontaneous to a trainee. “You’ve put it with admirable clarity and in fewer words than I did.”
            “There’s this thing,” Harry confessed, leaning forwards. “Where I’m not actually his fiancé? Remember it?”
            “But he made an announcement that you are. He won’t give that up easily.”
            Harry indulged in one more precious eye-roll. “He also won’t be compelled to stick with me for a long period of time. He seems to drop people and pick them up exactly as he likes. I might put a lot of effort into this investigation and then find that he’d invalidated it all by deciding to announce he’s dating a woman instead, or something.”
            “We’ll deal with that if it happens.” Kingsley leaned forwards and tried this smile he seemed to assume was appealing or something, because he repeated it when Harry sat there and stared flatly at him. “Please, Harry? Right now, we have an unprecedented opportunity to conduct an overt investigation and a covert one. We won’t have all the problems that we usually would by placing you undercover.”
            “How long did it take you to come up with those words?”
            “Unlike some people, I’m not stubborn to the point of imbecility.”
            Harry shook his head. “He knows I’m straight. He’s not going to go along with this, especially because he’s not stupid. The instant I have to save his life again or do something that involves meeting up with other Aurors, he’ll know, and then he’ll probably dump me because he wants to be a pretty corpse.”
            “What?”
            Harry reminded himself forcefully that Kingsley hadn’t been there when he and Malfoy had their discussion about pretty corpses. “I’m just saying that this probably isn’t going to work. I think I could keep myself concealed from his enemies, but not from Malfoy himself. And Malfoy isn’t going to do what we want.”
            Kingsley applauded again. “Concise,” he said admiringly. “You could have been a politician if you’d wanted to.”
            “I don’t want to,” Harry said. “And I don’t want to act the part of Malfoy’s fiancé, either.”
            “Too bad,” said Kingsley, in that tone which meant Harry had reached the limits of the complaints Kingsley would tolerate. “You know how to fascinate and challenge him, or at least you did when you were in school. I’ve read your file,” he added, when Harry opened his mouth to object. “It’s your responsibility to keep him close enough for the case to go on.”
            About to object that he’d already told Malfoy he didn’t want to be his fiancé and reversing himself would be suspicious, Harry got a sudden idea. “Does it matter how I do it?”
            Kingsley leaned slowly back and regarded him between one equally slow blink and another. Harry gave him the innocent face that Kingsley knew wasn’t really innocent, but which he hadn’t yet learned how to read behind.
            “What are you planning?” Kingsley demanded in a low voice.
            “Do I have to be planning something?” Harry touched his heart with a flat hand. “Well, yes, of course I do. I’m only planning to keep him close and do what you asked in an efficient way.”
            “No Dark Arts, of course,” said Kingsley.
            Harry gave him a real injured look this time, and Kingsley sighed and shook his head. “I don’t want you to do something that could even be construed as Dark Arts,” he said. “The papers are already full of news about your ‘romantic’ rescue of Malfoy. I don’t think you want to do anything to give their musings a darker tone.”
            Harry grinned. “But I can manipulate public opinion all I want? And annoy Malfoy, as long as I keep him close?”
            “What is it?”
            Harry winked at Kingsley and stood up. “You’ll just have to be surprised like everyone else by the love story of the century, sir.”
*
            Harry arrived at the gates of Malfoy Manor this time with an impressive clearing of his throat that he added to with Sonorus. Then he glanced down at the bundle of flowers in his hand. He thought a trip to most of the florist shops in Diagon Alley had prepared him for this moment, but he wasn’t sure.
            Harry shrugged. Faint heart never won fair…man. Maiden. Whatever. Then he began to sing.
            He had looked up a ballad that Hermione said was ancient in the wizarding world. Harry didn’t know about ancient, but he knew that the words were all about how the singer had a pure heart and was in love with someone who secretly despised him, but when he left, then he learned his mistake. Meanwhile, the person he was in love with had learned to stop despising him and love him better.
            Harry had had to do some careful editing of the pronouns, but he didn’t think it was too bad, really.
            The doors flew open by the time he got to the second stanza. Harry smiled at Malfoy and went on singing until he reached the end of the song, and then he slid to his knees outside the gates, bowed his head, and extended the bunch of flowers, lilies and snowdrops and anything else white he’d been able to find. Then he waited.
            After a bit, he heard the crunching noise of Malfoy’s footsteps as he came closer. He took the flowers from Harry, and it sounded as though he breathed deeply of their scent. Then he looked down at Harry and shook his head. Harry knew that much even though he’d never dared to look up.
            “What was that for?” Malfoy finally asked.
            Harry looked back up, and made his glance as timid and shy and appealing as he possibly could. “I was wrong,” he said. “Please take me back? And give me back the ring?”
            From the spark in Malfoy’s eyes, Harry had done what he’d promised Kingsley. He doubted Malfoy believed him, but he would keep him close and watch him suspiciously to see exactly what was going to happen next.
            And if I have to pretend to be gay for a little while, that’s okay. It’s not like I’m pretending to be Dark.
*
Curious Kitten: Thank you! At the moment, I can’t tell you how long it will be. But I can promise that it will be funny all the way through. Even the investigation isn’t going to be productive of serious angst.
moodysavage: I can’t tell you what exactly Draco wants, because that would spoil the surprise! But I promise that you’ll find out before the end.
SP777: Oh, Harry thinks he’s a match for Draco. He’s just politely uninterested in actually dating him.
starr: Harry thinks he always will. Which might be a problem.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Series of Malfoy Events