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Business Meetings	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21371 -:- 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 Five—Turning and Turnings

            Draco lay back on the throne with his eyes closed. His senses curled through the air, seeking and finding, bringing and dragging closer.

            The thick scent of fire. Dust. Something like rainwater, something that had taken Draco longer than it should have to connect with the appearance of wetness on someone’s cheeks. And a swirling wind to stir it all.

            Potter was not coming quietly.

            He sat up and leaned forwards as Potter stepped into the room, then froze where he was. Potter smelled no different, his emotions still dancing around him in currents so thick they were practically visible. But when he looked up and saw Draco, those emotions intensified until Draco regretted the breath he would have to draw in to speak.

            And not only because, breathing made it harder for him to smell the blood that thrummed beneath Potter’s skin.

            “You have come here for more reasons than because it is the third of the month,” he said.

            Potter nodded. “Yes.” He strode over to his chair without taking his eyes off Draco. Draco watched the roll of the muscles in his leg, the way that his stride accomplished exactly what it was meant to as far as the length of the steps was concerned, and felt his muscles smooth down in response. Potter had used the comfrey as he was told to.

            That he would take orders was another point in his favor, and Draco saw no reason to speak to the Ministry about a more highly-trained Auror.

            “Tell me, then,” Draco said. He had sharpened his voice until the command emerged like a flint arrowhead, and it appeared to strike Potter as hard. He closed his eyes for a moment before he sat down, and the invisible storm around him—invisible to all but a vampire’s senses, that was—rose higher, until it towered over him like a cloud with lightning at its heart.

            Draco twisted his head to the side. Someone who could take orders was an asset, yes, but Draco did not wish it to go too far. There was no Potter-leash quivering in his mind that bound him to the man as his others bound him to his flock, and he did not wish there to be. Potter’s yielding was worthless if done out of sheer languor, irritation, or anything but the most willing fixation on Draco.

            “All right,” Potter whispered. “I did something that was—probably stupid. No, I know it was stupid. But I executed every step of the plan knowing that. And I know that you’ll want someone to replace me as negotiator.”

            “No one can,” Draco said. “The Ministry won’t waste anyone in a position they think as worthless as this one.” He did not bother to point out the other reason: that the Ministry had created this position in the first place as a punishment for Potter.

            “If you ask for someone else?” Potter forced his eyes open and met his gaze in the moment before his face slanted away.

            Last month, that would have pleased Draco. Now, the thought that Potter would look away for some other reason than because Draco’s eyes and will were too much for him made his chest cramp with the pressure of his rage.

            He kept still. He had learned how to keep still early on, when it meant the difference between blood and hunger. This might be a difference that mattered as much, in the end. “Tell me what you did,” he said.

            Potter sighed and crossed his legs. Still no difference in the pull of the muscles when he did that, Draco noted. Good. He had given Potter his advice for a reason. “I—looked up records,” he said. “From the war.”

            “The Ministry Archives have no information on me or my flock.” Draco had made sure of that in the time he sent Orton, the youngest of his vampires, to seduce the current Archivist.

            “Not now,” Potter admitted. “They have older records on some of you, if you know where to look for the information.” He hesitated, then added, “Such as records from approximately eight years ago, when the war was, everyone thought, over and people were traveling back home.”

            Draco stood. He didn’t rush down from the throne, because he had done that before, and Potter would now expect the motion. He looked, and Potter glanced aside again. The emotion that swirled around him this time was the choking hot dust Draco had already sniffed once before. Shame. He had rarely smelled it so strong.

            Draco came down the steps of the throne, but slowly. He could be a leopard, springing after his prey. He could also be a wolf, tracking it with endurance. Potter drew himself up and ducked his head.

            “Tell me what you did,” Draco said, for the third time, and held the demand out on the air like a noose.

            Potter walked into it. The sound of his gulp cut through the room, and then he was hanging, his shame suspended enough to obey. It was not such a first taste of his obedience as Draco had promised himself, but there were other first tastes to come. He stood at the bottom of the steps and watched Potter.

            “I found the vampire who turned you,” Potter said. “Older vampire, called himself Yacinth at that point. He kept you for three months, didn’t he? Enough time to break you, he thought, and then you managed to get away when one of his meals turned out to be harder to subdue than he thought. He won, but by that point, he was weakened and had lost control of you. And you found your wand and became a wizard again.”

            Draco moved a step closer. If Potter had brought the vampire in, subjected him to trial, and others would learn the circumstances of those three months and the cold and the rush of dark waters closing over his head and the hunger—

            “I killed him,” Potter said. “I locked him in a box and starved him for three nights, and then I tied him out under the sunrise.”

            Draco paused. The words swayed through him like a breeze swaying through leaves. He stepped back.

            Potter turned to him, and now the fire was visible in his eyes as well as his scent, and he had no trouble meeting Draco’s eyes, or holding his will, or obeying the order to speak the truth. “I knew that you’d hate me for it. If you left him alive this long, either you wanted him alive, or you wanted to find him and kill him yourself one day. But I did it. I read the records, and I talked to—someone who knew what it would probably be like for a new vampire that just got turned for a lark, and then I killed him.”

            Draco took a step nearer again.

            Potter drew his wand.

            Draco let his hiss build slowly, wavering up and down the scale before it became a croon. He moved nearer again, and Potter jerked his wand into fighting stance. Draco raised his hand slowly, making sure every movement could be seen, and laid his fingers along Potter’s wrist.

            The pulse rebounding under his touch nearly broke his concentration.

            “What?” Potter demanded, and pulled him back.

            Draco let his nostrils flare open in an obvious sniff, but with his head this far away from Potter’s throat, he didn’t smell everything that he wanted to. That was no hardship, not when Potter’s emotions and sweat once again carried him high, not when the sound of Potter’s heartbeat filled Draco with dizzying, dancing joy.

            “You did that for me,” Draco said. “Not because it would place you higher in the Ministry. Not because Yacinth was a personal enemy. Not because it would give you some standing with the flock. You thought it wouldn’t. You thought I would hate you forever, and you still did it.”



            Potter sneered this time. He should know better than that, Draco thought. He had no fang to display. “Yes. That’s the reason I know you’re going to turn your back on me.” He reached into his pocket, and as he already had his wand out, Draco let him. “Here’s a list of Aurors you could ask the Ministry to replace me and have a chance of getting. Most of them are good.”

            He fell silent as Draco came closer, never pressing in more than a pace or two. He didn’t need to. He could feel Potter’s emotions on his skin, taste the warmth, see the pulse fluttering in his throat, hear it in his wrist, smell the blood. Potter turned with him as Draco trod a circle around him, and still his heart beat and his blood crooned back and his skin called Draco.

            “You did that for me,” Draco said.

            Potter’s mouth crimped, ending the sneer. “Yeah. Are you saying that—you’re not angry?”

            “I forgot Yacinth,” Draco said. “I would have remembered him someday and paid the debt, but you did it.” He paused then, and bent his head towards Potter without moving his body. “For me.”

            Potter nodded, once, mouth crimping even more, eyes dark.

            “You will do other things,” Draco breathed, voice stroking Potter as his hands and fangs could not. “For me. When you want to do them.”

            He stepped back and watched Potter. This time, Potter could not meet his eyes again, but this time, it was not shame.

            “You want me to stay on as negotiator,” Potter said. He tried to make it a question, but he couldn’t, not when he could read, in his own way, what thrummed between them as well as Draco could.

            “I want you to,” Draco said. “And you will.”

            Potter stared at him, then shook his head. “I didn’t know vampires cared that much about—wanting.”

            Draco said nothing. Surely Potter would figure it out, the rarity of a vampire taking a victim who was completely willing rather than in need of money or hypnotized by their eyes, and remember what value rarity added.

            “I,” Potter said, and ran his hand through his hair. “Was there anything else you wanted to discuss, Malfoy?”

            “No,” Draco said, and watched him.

            Potter did not flee the room, because he was not stupid. He did not turn his head back to watch Draco, either, because he was not afraid. But the air around him smelled of straining wire, this time, and sweat, and blood, and his back was stiff.

            But not his leg, Draco noticed.

            He stood there when Potter was gone, tasting blood in the air, and fire, and vengeance.

            And desire.

*

            AlterEquis: Harry would probably have punched him if that happened.

            Yami Bakura: Sorry about that! I do hope that you were in time to catch the update of this chapter.

            addiena saffir: Afraid that’s true, for me as well as you.

            unneeded: The touch of grey in the vampire’s eyes was meant as a clue that Draco was controlling him, so he wouldn’t attack Harry.

            Thanks. Glad you’re enjoying it.

            SP777: Neither. He ordered Harry to use the comfrey so that his leg wouldn’t stiffen up.
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Business Meetings