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His Actium	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9606 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Five--Obstacles Negotiated

            Harry spent a few minutes blinking up at Draco. Then he nodded, wincing as the tightly-coiled rope pulled against his neck. "All right. You've caught me. You've figured it out. What do you want to know?"

            Draco moved a step back from the bed, his nostrils flaring, as though he thought an admission like that was sure to be another trap. Harry winced again as he thought about it. Given what I've put him through, and what Zabini did, I can't blame him.

            "Why did you sleep with me?" Draco asked. His wand never wavered, even as he paced back and forth. His eyes were locked on Harry's face most of the time, but he did glance away and blink at times, his hands curling around the wand in random patterns. Or "random" patterns, Harry thought. He knew they would tell him a great deal about Draco if he wanted to check.

            "Partially for the same reason that you did," Harry said. His mind was working furiously, picking out the details that he would reveal about his purpose in pursuing Draco and the ones he wouldn't. Either way, his case here was spoiled. There was no lie he could come up with about who he really worked for that Draco would believe. There had always been rumors circulating that Harry worked for the Ministry in some undisclosed capacity. If Draco had seen through Harry's seduction, he wouldn't buy that Harry was working for rival Potions masters or for someone who wanted to punish Draco for his past transgressions. "I wanted to see what it was like to sleep with you. You're handsome, and you've changed a lot from what you were in school. Besides, I felt sympathetic with you after reading the reports about you."

            "Reports." Draco had conjured a thin whip in his hand, made of no natural material, as Harry learned when he tried to get a fix on it. The whip simply traveled back and forth too fast. Sometimes it seemed to be made of fire, sometimes of steel, sometimes of shadow. Harry swallowed. A spell he didn't recognize was bad news.

            "The reports from spies," Harry explained. He had chosen his tactic now, and his muscles relaxed. He could tell Draco most of the truth, and so get out of here with his skin and hopefully Draco's pride, intact, without betraying exactly what the Ministry had wanted him to look for. "They were certain that you were selling illegal potions or ingredients on the side, and so I gathered a series of reports from the papers and people who know you."

            Draco paused, a faint flush springing into being and then dying along his throat. "Like Blaise," he said.

            Harry nodded.

            Draco flicked the whip. It descended on Harry's side, and he hissed and flinched as the pain chewed into him. At least it didn't feel worse than an ordinary burn.

            And this was the sort of thing he had signed up for when he became the Ministry's Whore. If he got out of here scarred, he would consider himself lucky. Getting out alive was the priority at the time.

            Although I'll have to make sure that I don't bleed out in the meantime. At least Draco's weapon would probably take care of that, since it seemed to cauterize the wounds the instant it caused them.

            "You're working for the Ministry," Draco said casually, as if he'd never hit Harry. "They're jealous of my success. Why did they send you, instead of an Auror who would have been able to legally raid my shops and storehouses?"

            At least he sounded sane. Harry drew in a ragged breath, to make himself sound weaker than he really was, and answered, "Because they didn't have any legal pretext to do a raid. You hid yourself too well. But they thought that I might be able to get close enough to you. Because of that fascination I had with you, and because, when we were rivals during school, you held various things over my head and hinted at them. They thought you might do the same thing this time, if only from hatred instead of lust."

            Draco laughed sharply. "You think you're that irresistible?"

            Harry shook his head. "I thought it might work. That's all." Subtly, he tested his bonds, and they promptly grew tighter. Harry suppressed his sigh as best he could. Yes, if Malfoy was going to know how to cast a variation on the Incarcerous spell, of course it would be that one. "What are you going to do with me now?"

            Draco didn't answer, though at least he didn't pull out one of those "I'm the one who asks questions" lines. He continued to circle the bed, holding his whip and watching Harry thoughtfully. Harry looked him in the eye when he could, but some of the time Draco was behind him and he couldn't. He had started to flex his hands in random patterns. There were ways to defeat even a binding spell that tightened when you tried to escape. Harry should know. He'd invented some of them on the fly, in the middle of a burning house or other occupational hazard.

            "You don't seem afraid," Draco said abruptly.

            Harry tilted his head back and smiled at him, knowing it was more like a baring of teeth. "Would it gain me anything if I was? I know that you can do whatever you like to me, and there's not much I can do to prevent it."

            "The staff of the restaurant where I took you is famous for their discretion," Draco murmured, sitting down on the bed. "But I suspect even they would talk if it was a matter of the famous Harry Potter having disappeared." He reached out and gripped Harry's hair, pulling on it hard enough to make Harry's eyes water. "Meanwhile, there are other things that I can do to prevent the information you've discovered from leaving here. I could Obliviate you."

            Harry said nothing. There didn't seem much point in noting that he was protected against that, too.

            "Someone might look," Draco breathed. "But it would still be the safest course." He swayed that whip towards Harry's eyes, and Harry held his breathing still, refusing to let himself relax. "After I've learned more about what you know, of course."

            Harry shrugged, and then winced as the bonds once again tightened, clamping down. That undid some of the work he'd done to get out of them, and he worked his fingers with more slowness, more grace, as he answered. "The Ministry doesn't tell me much of anything other than the very basic information I need for my cases. They don't trust me, ever since I refused to be the perfect little Auror that they wanted me to be." He shaded his voice with bitterness. Of course he had been dangerous to other people when he'd tried to work as a normal Auror, but Ron had been willing to share the danger beside him. That wasn't good enough for the Ministry, though. He had to be exactly the way they wanted him to be, or he wasn't doing the right thing, he wasn't good enough. "That's all I know. You can go and question people in the Ministry who fed information to me, but I can't give you all their names."

            Draco stared down at him, the whip swaying back and forth in his hands. Harry kept his eyes on his face. This was what had drawn him to Draco in the first place, the sense of something beneath the surface. He had sensed that Draco had changed since their days at Hogwarts, but not exactly how. He wanted to know more.

            Well, and he'd wanted to fuck him. But thinking with his dick had only got him so far.

            "I don't believe that," Draco said.

            Harry sighed, a long, rattling sound that he thought used up most of the air in his lungs. "I don't know what else I can tell you," he snapped. He'd given Draco everything except Robards's name and the specific reason the Ministry had for thinking he was smuggling dragons' eggs. "If you want to go and ask someone whether I could work as an Auror or not, they can confirm--"

            Draco leaned in and drew the whip down the side of Harry's face. He shut up, watching it warily. If he had to, he would draw in all his wandless magic at once and release it in an uncoordinated blast rather than let Draco blind him. But he would prefer not to. He didn't know what effect it would have on him, and he had no idea what effect it would have on Draco.

            "I don't believe," Draco breathed, less than three inches away, his eyes large and bright and unblinking in the reflected moonlight, "that you couldn't have whatever you wanted. The Ministry would have found some way to fit you in."

            Harry bared his teeth at him. No one had ever conquered him permanently in all the years he'd been doing this job, although some people had slipped away from him before he got all the information he wanted, and he wasn't going to let Draco be the first. "They probably would have. But I have two qualities that are unfamiliar to them, and perhaps also to you."

            "Those would be?" Draco swayed the whip closer again, but otherwise didn't react to the insult.

            "A conscience," Harry said. "I didn't want to endanger the other people who would have worked with me, and who might get caught up in a Death Eater's mindless need for revenge." Draco jerked, but didn't hit him. Good. Harry would remember that he was still vulnerable to insults about his Death Eater past, and use that to his advantage. "And standards. I didn't want the job they would have offered me, picking up medals for doing more than making speeches and sitting behind my desk."

            "Because you prefer to be flat on your back in someone's bed," Draco murmured.

            Harry raised his eyebrows. "Does that mean that I have no standards?" He thought he could raise his clasped hands in a moment, as he worked them slowly and steadily free of the ropes, and hit Draco in the back of the neck. That wouldn't improve his position as far as proving that Draco was guilty or innocent, but it would give him a means to escape, and he thought he could do his work better from that position.

            "No," Draco said, and he gave a sharp smile for no reason that Harry could name. "What I think it means is that you've changed a great deal, and in ways that you haven't accounted for to yourself. The Potter I knew would have done anything rather than this. He would have gone through the torments of hell rather than end up sleeping with me."

            Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever I do in my personal life, or for my job, do you think I would do something actively repugnant to me? You saw through my lies. You know when I'm telling the truth and when I'm really not. Was I lying with my body when I slept with you?"

            Draco laughed. "You'd like to know the answer to that, wouldn't you."

            Harry didn't see that it was worth his while to respond to that. After all, Draco was the one who had started this line of questioning. He started to, slowly, tense the muscles in his legs. He would bring them up to his chest and kick out. He would hit Draco and knock him off-balance, but do less damage than either swinging his arms or using wandless magic would.

            At least, that was the plan. Some twitch in his face must have alerted Draco, or else he saw Harry's legs move. He shook his head, said, "I don't think that's a good idea," and cast another binding charm. This time, Harry's whole body switched around as his feet were tied to the posts at the foot of the bed.

            Harry blinked and looked up at Draco, who stared back down at him and spun his wand through his fingers as though he was thinking of new and effective ways to stick it into Harry's body. Harry swallowed and breathed out. All right, this is still possible to get out of. If I try. It's bad, but not as bad as it could have been. I just need to remember that.

            Draco seemed to think it was worse than that, and that Harry couldn't possibly escape, because he was more cheerful than Harry had ever seen him. He leaned nearer, smiling at him, and rested his wand against Harry's chest. "Do you know," he whispered, "that I could read your mind right now, and all your deepest dreams and intentions would be revealed to me?"

            Harry just blinked at him. Draco hadn't gagged him, but pretending that he had might be the safest course right now. He had given away as much information as he could, especially with nothing but his instincts to tell him that Draco was innocent.

            They were excellent instincts. But tonight was an equally excellent demonstration of why he could be wrong.

            "I could do that," Draco said. "But frankly, not all of your dreams and intentions matter to me. And of the ones that do, I think I know more about them than you do. So I'll share them with you instead. That's what sleeping together is about, isn't it? Sharing, not taking?" He held up his wand and passed it back and forth in front of Harry's eyes, as though he assumed Harry needed to see the exact sheen of the wood to feel threatened. "Somnium carpo."

            The world danced so fast in front of Harry that he couldn't keep up with it, and felt his stomach heave. But it promptly slowed down again, and he was blinking and peering at an image of himself, sitting at the table in Venezia's and toasting Draco the other night.

            His first reaction was contempt. Does he assume that I don't know what I look like? Of course I do, and I chose my robes and my position for that reason.

            Then the image seemed to turn inside out, and he was seeing himself from a new angle, from a distance that was filled with sharp laughter and hissing breath.

            This is the career that you chose. This is the way that you bring in criminals for the Ministry? This is the flavor of ashes that your dreams turned to, the dreams that you had about a family and a single, faithful partner?

            Harry shook his head and tried to ignore the sensation that he was suffocating. He knew that was only caused by the particular spell Malfoy had chosen, which he wasn't familiar with but was bloody well going to become familiar with--



            He had settled his own doubts. He had argued everything out with Ron and Hermione. He was healthy. He had made his choices for the right reasons. As for his old dreams, well, he had learned when he was betrayed again and again by people who wanted to sell his secrets to the papers that he would never have a normal life. He would, instead, have a life where he wore his secrets on the surface, in playful, dancing colors, and challenged anyone to find out something hidden and report it. The papers would become uninterested in him, because what they could tell was only what everyone else knew.

            Not that, the hissing voice said. But why did you allow yourself to be debased by the Ministry? You could have chosen to date your partners openly without doing it for the Ministry's sake. Why do you allow them to pay you for your troubles if you're doing this only as a result of a personal choice? And if you're really unashamed, why do they call you the Ministry's Whore?

            That had nothing to do with the way he felt. It was the way idiots such as Robards did, unable to cope with the fact that Harry enjoyed sex and didn't go out of his way to keep his affairs private. The name was one foisted on him, not one Harry had chosen, and he had only ever flinched from it during the date with Malfoy.

            You're still making a mockery of love and trust, the things that you once said were more precious to you than any amount of gold. People fall in love with you, or lust, and you betray them. You pride yourself on being scrupulously honest in finding out whether someone is guilty or innocent, but where is your honesty when it comes to lying to your lovers?

            Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That was a problem, yes. But he had dealt with it in his own way, because he had chosen his job, and there was no way that he could help the public in an Auror-like capacity if he gave this up.

            Really? You don't think the Ministry wouldn't make a place for you in some capacity that didn't involve sitting beyond a desk if you asked? When they would do almost anything to indulge their Golden Child?

            I didn't want to use my name to do that--

            But you use your name to get good seats at restaurants and to charm people who don't want to let you into businesses. How is this different? That's the point. I want to know how it's different.

            Harry shivered and swallowed. The voice was relentless, hammering at him until he wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep it off. He didn't know what spell Malfoy had used, but clearly he would have to learn it, and how to defend against it.

            You're only doing this because you have no respect for other people, and no respect for yourself. You don't think you deserve more than this. You would have found some other way to support yourself and help people if you did.

            At that, Harry opened his eyes and shook his head. No. He had lied to himself about how harmful this was to other people, absolutely, and he should have pressed harder to find some Auror work that didn't involve him being a paid whore. But the other things the voice said were untrue.

            He knew what he deserved: no more and no less than anyone else. He hadn't become what he had because he hated himself or because he wanted to punish himself for imagined sins. It was becoming clear to him that his motives had been confused. But the spell wasn't telling the whole truth.

            The voice snarled at him and drummed against him, scraping claws down his brainstem. Harry managed to smile in spite of the pain. Trust a Malfoy to choose a truth-telling spell that was as Dark and painful as possible. Malfoy wouldn't appreciate that if he did say so, of course.

            Then Harry sighed. Draco. He's still Draco. And for some reason, he did reveal the truth to you, even if he did it in the belief that you'd curl up and crawl at his feet in response. He deserves some acknowledgment for that.

            The spell was fading. Harry could still hear the voice speaking, but the words had become largely inaudible. And there were no more images, nothing to argue with. He swallowed and opened his eyes.

            Draco loomed above him, lip curled back as though he was trying to intimidate Harry with the length of his teeth. Harry had looked at them carefully earlier, though, and was sure that Draco was no vampire. He cleared his throat. "You were right about some things," he said. "I'm sorry."

            Draco stared at him. His eyes had widened to the point that Harry wouldn't have been surprised to see his brain through them.

            "Could you let me go, now?" Harry wriggled his hands helpfully at Draco. "As you said, someone will notice if I vanish."

            "You have nothing more than that to say to me?" Draco's voice had lowered, and his hands had clamped his wand as though he assumed he would have to hold it up in front of him as a shield, rather than casting a Shield Charm.

            "I'm sorry for what I did to you," Harry said steadily. "I'll have to reconsider some of what I've done. But I'm not the kind of person I was after the war anymore." He paused to see if Draco was really interested in the story, but he kept staring, so Harry went ahead. "I was easy prey for anyone then. Mention the war and I'd be consumed with guilt. Sleep with me, and I'd cling to you, because I was so convinced that it had to be true love each and every time. That's one thing my job did manage to cure me of, and it's more unhealthy than sleeping with people for money."

            "This is the most ridiculous confession I've ever heard," Draco said, shaking his head as though that would dispel the image in front of him.

            Harry grinned ruefully at him. "Because I should have caught on years earlier, right? I really didn't consider how my behavior would appear to other people, except to dismiss their opinions as wrong. So I'll think about it and find something else to do. But the spell wasn't right about everything. I'm not a horrible, depraved person. Thinking of myself that way won't do any good or help anything else." He shook his roped wrists at Draco. "What do you want to free me? I can promise some money, if it'll help."

            Draco looked as if he wanted to bite him. "I want your promise that you'll say nothing of this to anyone," he ground out at last. "Not to your masters in the Ministry who sent you, not to your friends, not to those who ask why you're abandoning your path of whoredom."

            Harry nodded. "Agreed."

            Draco cast a spell that sliced through the ropes on his wrists and ankles. Harry sat up and began to get dressed, watching Draco from the corner of one eye. Draco didn't seem sure of what he was going to do, attack Harry or bolt from the room or let him go. He flushed when he noticed Harry looking at him, but didn't move to cover his nakedness, which improved Harry's opinion of his pride.

            "I did enjoy sleeping with you," Harry told him. "I'm sorry I did it under false pretenses. But I meant--everything else. You are beautiful, you know." He paused, because Draco stared at him without responding, and that wasn't what he would have expected. "Zabini should be hanged."

            Draco transformed in seconds, blossoming from simple, blank-faced observation to snarling at Harry like a tiger. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he said in a savage voice, one hand inching forwards with fingers crooked as if he was going to dig into Harry's throat. "You have no idea what it was like between Blaise and me."

            Actually, Harry was fairly certain he did, since he'd read that report from Zabini, but it was true that he didn't know Draco's side of the story and how deeply it had affected him. He nodded. "Sorry," he said. "I hope you find someone else, someone who can mark you as deeply as he did, but in the best way."

            Draco did some more staring, and Harry figured that it was best to be gone. He was fully dressed now, anyway. He picked up his wand, balancing it thoughtfully in his fingers. He would have to go home and do some hard thinking. What else could he do that would help him help people and still let him use his name for good purposes, instead of the way the Ministry would like him to use it? He'd have to find out.

            "You're not sorry."

            "Yes, I am," Harry said, startled, looking up from his wand. "But I told you, I don't believe in wallowing in guilt anymore. Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you? Not money, but recommend someone to you, tell you about someone you could talk to--"

            "Did you do that?"

            Harry had to smile. "Yeah, but it didn't help."

            "Get out."

            Harry nodded and left. He hoped he could see Draco again, but he doubted it would happen. And now he would have to make sure that he came up with some sort of satisfactory story for Robards while also making sure that the Head Auror didn't have a good reason to continue hunting Draco.

            Outside, the world smelled of rain. Harry checked the wards as they shut behind him with a sharp click, and then Apparated. Fovea would be waiting.

            And so would a glass of wine, and his couch, and a hard think.



*

            Erin_49: He didn't get out of it, not completely, but it helped that he responded so differently from what Draco expected.

            Yami Bakura: Thank you! Of course, Draco doesn't enjoy it as much because he has no idea how open Harry really was with him.

            Zip: Thank you!

            unneeded: I don't think Harry wouldn't have thought differently about his job without Draco's intervention. But he doesn't think about himself the same way, because he's already fought that battle.

            SP777: I will get to thinking on the game, but so far I'm stuck.

            An Actium is a battle that changes everything. I think you can see how that applies with this chapter.
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His Actium