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Providence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 15841 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Six�What
Astoria Greengrass Wrote

�� Draco stood
in front of his closet, head cocked to the side. He had to wonder what sort of
robes would attract a male lover. He was experienced in dressing to the taste
of women, but he had never done this before.

�� Then he
shook his head and snorted. He would not put more thought into the matter than
it deserved. It was entirely possible that he would find this man a bore in
person, and nothing more would come of the meeting than a mutual distaste.

�� More to the
point, the man had conceived an attraction to him when he was wearing nothing
more than ordinary robes. He would be a fool to try to dress himself
differently and probably have his writer guess
why he looked different.

�� In the end,
Draco chose a pair of charcoal-grey robes that he knew made his eyes shine, and
then stood in front of the mirror admiring himself for some minutes. When he
smiled, the expression was brilliant and devastating, sparkling with an edge
that could cut.

�� And now, he thought, as he turned and
noted that the clock said six-thirty, I
am going to conquer the man who thinks he can conquer me.

*

�� Are you
sure it�s all right?� Astoria glanced over her shoulder, as if she could see
the drape of the gown over her own arse without the mirror.

�� It�s
perfect.� Harry stepped back and studied her for a moment. Yes, it worked. The
gown was white and shone with silver trimming. It floated around Astoria and
made her look like an angel when she descended the stairs. He smiled and met
Astoria�s nervous gaze with a reassuring look of his own. �It�s perfect,� he
whispered again.

�� Astoria
swallowed and licked her lips. �I�m just trying to imagine what he�ll think
when he sees me,� she said. �It�s so hard to know.�

�� He�ll be
surprised, no doubt,� Harry said calmly. He knew from Draco�s conversation with
Ron that Draco suspected someone who worked in the Ministry. But what did that
matter? When he saw Astoria write the letter, he would have to believe. �But he�ll accept you. Why wouldn�t he? You�re
beautiful, pure-blooded, and capable of caring for him.�

�� Astoria
looked at him somberly in the mirror. �Many other women who aimed to capture
him have been the same way,� she said. �And they
were all ignominiously refused.�

�� But you
won�t be,� said Harry. �You have the Veritaserum?�

�� Astoria
held up the small vial of clear liquid.

�� Good.�
Harry touched his wand to her temple, coaxed her until her wand was at his temple, and then whispered the words
of the spell that would construct the limited telepathic bond between them.
Astoria gasped and shivered as it formed. Harry controlled the impulse to do
the same. Suddenly it felt as if an echo chamber had opened inside his skull,
and he could hear Astoria�s thoughts like a distant buzz, wordless as the
undifferentiated sound of a Muggle telly unless he concentrated.

�� Can you hear me?

�� He could.
Harry smiled at her and replied, Yes.
What about you?

�� Astoria�s second
gasp made him smile again. He was glad that he could at least be the means of
showing her something new, in the midst of all the (necessarily) never-racking
procedures of Draco�s seduction. He offered her his arm.

�� Remember that I�ll be just to the right of
your table, under an Invisibility Cloak. The spell wasn�t meant to work over
long distances, and I�d rather not test it that way.

�� Astoria
nodded. Already the pallor had begun to fade from her cheeks, and a lovely
determination replaced it. Harry swirled the Invisibility Cloak over his head,
led her out the door, and Apparated them to Merlin�s Tor.

*

�� A
silver-cloaked attendant met Draco when he entered, bowing. Draco stood
patiently as the attendant took his cloak off. Granted, the man wasn�t quite as delicate or deferential as a
house-elf, but Draco had put up with worse.

�� Draco
looked around Merlin�s Tor as the man escorted him to one of the shapeless
tables. It was an open building, with marble and glass walls that spiraled
outwards from a single center and had unexpected gaps to admit the wind and the
scent of jasmine and more exotic flowers, though the rain was kept out by
common agreement. The panels of the walls rotated slowly on a predetermined
round, showing various scenes out of Arthurian legend, and image after image of
hills by night. On the whole, it was a silver, subdued place, looking haunted
by moonlight even on a night like this, when the sun hadn�t quite set.

�� Draco
smiled, a little. So his writer had a calm side to him as well as a flamboyant
one. That was good. Draco was not sure how well they would have got on if his
writer always had to be dramatic and
straining against the barriers. But a place like Merlin�s Tor argued some
appreciation for the finer things in life.

�� A place
should already have been arranged for me,� he told the attendant, because he
could not believe his writer crass enough to forget something like that. �My
name is Draco Malfoy.�

�� Ah, Mr.
Malfoy, of course, sir,� the attendant said, and bowed him through the room,
away from one shapeless table towards another. Above them, the stars spun, and
Draco tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of his birth constellation. �I
wish you a fine meal. May it be one half as good as the companionship.�

�� Draco
looked curiously at the man. Was he gay, then? Or was his writer so stunning
that other men simply had to comment on his brilliance and beauty?

�� Well. Draco took a moment to preen, but
subtly. Of course the most brilliant and
beautiful would choose me.

�� Here is
your table, sir,� the attendant murmured.

�� Draco
turned around, a faint smile on his face, his heart leaping. He had no idea who
he would see sitting there, and the excitement was doing him even more good
than he�d realized.

�� And he saw
Astoria Greengrass sitting there, and he had to freeze for long moments before
he felt fit to move forwards.

�� When he
did, of course, he had already decided on what he intended to do.

*

�� He looks angry. Astoria�s voice
skittered like an insect over the surface of Harry�s mind, agitated and trying
to spread her agitation further.

�� He was surprised at seeing you, and that�s
all it is, Harry answered firmly. Astoria paused, then relaxed visibly in
her seat and leaned forwards to extend a hand to Draco. Harry wondered if it
was his voice that had reassured her or the remembrance that he sat in a chair
at the next table, carefully hidden under his Invisibility Cloak. He was right
there. She couldn�t be in danger.

�� If anyone�s in danger, it�s me, Harry
thought. One look at Draco�s face and his heartbeat and breathing had
quickened. Of course, that wasn�t enough to ruffle the cloak or anything like
that, so he was still in no danger of being seen, but it was inconvenient. If
he was swept up in the way Draco looked, then he might make a mistake.

�� And that
just proved to him, once more, that he wasn�t right for Draco. Would someone
who really loved Draco be infatuated with his looks? Wouldn�t someone who
really loved him probe deeper into his faults, or learn to live with them?
Harry hadn�t done either. He vibrated between thinking that Draco�s faults,
like his refusal to surrender his pure-blood prejudices, were excusable and
thinking that Draco needed to wake up and realize there were other people in
the world besides him. But he couldn�t criticize them consistently, except in
the letters.

�� Astoria grew up in the same kind of world
Draco did, Harry thought, as he watched Draco kiss Astoria�s hand with a
graceful bow of his head and then sink down into the chair across from her. She wouldn�t even see them as faults. They�ll
be far more suited to each other than he and I could ever be.

*

�� Draco had
hidden his anger and his desire for vengeance�for the moment. He wanted Astoria
to confess the deception to him of her own free will. She was an integral part
of it, and had been from the beginning. If Draco had enough patience and showed
enough charm, he might manage to extract the information with less effort than
it would take him otherwise.

�� One thing
he was sure of, even when she showed him the Veritaserum and challenged him,
eyes sparkling, to hand her the charmed parchment. She was not his writer.

�� It was not
merely that he trusted his mother�s perceptions above the �obvious� conclusion
that his writer and Astoria were trying to push him towards. It was also that
he simply did not think Astoria�s body hid a conqueror�s soul.

�� She was
lovely enough when she smiled. She managed to score several conversational
points off him in the first few minutes. But Draco had pictured his writer
striving against him, and his simplest movement showed that he could enchant
her, if he wished. Her pupils dilated when he moved his sleeve back from his
wrist.

�� No, she was
not his writer, but she might lead Draco to him, even if unwillingly.

�� When she
offered to write the letter, though, Draco stilled. One can�t fool charmed parchment. I want to see this. Besides, she
hasn�t made me take the Veritaserum first, as I would have done if I�d been in
her place. I lose nothing by agreeing.

�� Certainly.�
Draco propped his chin up on one palm and stared steadily at her. �Write down
your thoughts at seeing me like this, as if you weren�t in the restaurant. Tell
me what you want from me, or would want
from me if we were going home together.�

�� Astoria�s
pupils dilated even more, but the proud lift of her chin showed that she had
accepted the challenge. �Are you so sure, even now, that we aren�t?� she asked.

�� Draco felt
a faint tinge of disgust. He knew he would have been tempted by that just a few
days ago, convinced or at least shaken by Astoria�s willingness to accept the
test of the parchment. If his mother had not found the letter and opened his
eyes�

�� My writer is clever. But not clever enough
to escape me.

�� This
letter will take a leading role in convincing me,� he said, and Astoria lowered
her eyes and smiled at him from underneath the lashes.

�� Of course
it will,� she murmured, and then picked up a quill she must have carried with
her and began to write.

*

�� I think he�s seeing through it. Astoria�s
voice chattered like an anxious squirrel in Harry�s head.

�� He isn�t. Harry could see the suspicious
frown at the corners of Draco�s lips, but he wasn�t striding away from the
table or throwing the parchment in Astoria�s face the way he would have if he
had some kind of proof. He wouldn�t have minded making a scene in Merlin�s Tor,
since no one here knew him well, and it would have been worth it to him to
humiliate poor Astoria. Harry frowned then, the conviction that Draco�s faults
were deep surging uppermost in his mind once more. Now, write what I tell you to write, and remember the incantation for
the spell afterwards.

�� Astoria set
her quill in the middle of the parchment and began to write in obedience to
Harry�s words.

�� Imbecile to put all others to shame,

�� I know your thoughts. I saw them when you
let your eyes run around the restaurant as you stepped through the door. You
estimated the value of everything in sight and then relaxed when you realized
that none of it can challenge the luxuries that you already have in your Manor.
If something had, you would have insisted on buying it and conveying it home.

�� You can�t bear a challenge.

�� And that is, in the end, your most grievous
fault and the reason I cannot understand my own love for you.

�� Astoria�s
hand faltered when she wrote those words, and her eyes darted towards him.
Harry held still and projected calm reassurance through their telepathic bond.
Let her have doubts about him if that was what she needed to do, but Harry
understood his own deeper emotions, if not the surface that altered in response
to Draco�s actions. He had the kind of love that could give Draco up to someone
who would do him good. He knew that.

�� So
Astoria�s eyes went back to the parchment, and she wrote steadily on, staring
as if she were fascinated by the words that emerged.

�� Why should I want to be with someone who
will only try to subdue me? I could enjoy a competition, but not a dogged
struggle that I know would make you bitter because you couldn�t make me submit
to you. And if I submitted just to see what it would be like, then I�d grow
bitter in turn and walk away from you. And I don�t want you to submit to me.

�� This is an impasse.

�� This is why we both need to change. I need
to understand you better, and you need to give up this idea that you�re better
than anyone else, more deserving of thought and consideration. You need to
realize that other people have their own inner worlds that have nothing to do
with you. Even more than that, though, you need to derive the willingness to pay
attention to those inner worlds from�somewhere. I don�t know where to advise
you to get it. I�ve loved other people and paid attention to them all my life.
If I don�t know the origin of my own virtues, how can I help you gain them?

�� Impossible. Madness. I tell myself that
whenever I think of living with you, of loving you. We wouldn�t suit.

�� But I thought I would offer anyway, because
it�s possible that I�m still wrong. I
know you because I�ve watched you, but that doesn�t mean I can predict your
every move, especially since you hide so many of your motives and real emotions
behind a mask. That mask could have fooled me the way it fools the public,
although not as well. Maybe you can learn to accept an eternal opponent. Maybe
I can enjoy submitting sometimes.

�� I don�t think I�ll ever know, because I�m
only half the answer to the problem. The other half lies in you, and what you
decide to do�if you�re willing to overcome your faults, if you�re willing to
meet me on the battlefield armed with only your native strength and cunning.

�� This is what I offer you, Draco, simply and
fairly and without pretenses: someone who will never run away, someone who will
never back down, someone who will always be there to grip you by the neck and
try to throw you.

�� Yours truly,

�� A sincere friend (who hopes to become more).

�� Astoria was
shivering as she wrote the last words. Harry reached out mentally and caressed
the back of her neck.

�� Just keep the spell in mind, he told
her. I know that he�ll wonder about the
handwriting not being the same, but the spell will take care of that. And now,
hand him the letter.

�� All right. Astoria�s voice was subdued,
not as frantic as it had been earlier, and her hand didn�t shake as she held
out the letter to Draco. Draco took it and read it in devouring silence. Harry
smiled his approval.

�� This will work. It has to work, he said
in his mind, but he wasn�t sure if he was comforting Astoria or himself.

*

�� Draco
looked carefully at the letter. He would keep from pointing out the obvious
until he had no choice; at the moment, he wanted to see the words.

�� And yes,
they were words such as his writer would have written. Astoria, though he was
sure she was not his writer, had managed to imitate that. The boldness was
there, the half-disdain for Draco�s faults, the laughter and the longing. Draco
shifted, because the words had affected him in a way inappropriate for a public
restaurant.

�� But, with
Astoria staring at him over the table, her eyes shining, he couldn�t keep the
obvious to himself any longer.

�� Your
handwriting isn�t the same as it is on the letters I received,� he said. His
voice was temperate. Someone would have to know him very well indeed to realize
how angry he was. I expected intelligent
enemies, not one who would try to take me in with this pathetic stratagem.

�� Astoria
raised a brow and her wand at the same time. She cast the spell nonverbally, so
Draco couldn�t tell which it was, but the letters on the parchment swirled
about just as they had when Granger was casting charms that would disguise her
writing for him. In moments, they had assumed new shapes, and Astoria tapped
the letter with one of her nails.

�� I think
you should look again,� she said.

�� Draco
looked down�and yes, now the writing was the same as it was on all the letters
he had received.

�� He
pretended to engage in an intense study of those words whilst silently scanning
Astoria from beneath lowered eyelids. He watched until he�d seen it happen
twice, which was evidence enough for him. Astoria�s eye flicked to the right,
towards another table. It could have been the telltale sign of a lie, but
Draco, when he risked his own slight sideways glance, saw a shimmer that
suggested someone sat there under a Disillusionment Charm or complicated
glamour. He worked to keep his mouth from widening in a hungry snarl.

�� My writer is here. Astoria is getting advice
from him. They worked out some way to fool the charmed parchment, some way to
transform her writing into his. I still don�t understand the motive, but I will
no longer allow them to treat me as if I were stupid.

�� Draco at
last looked up. Astoria leaned towards him with a confiding smile. Draco
uttered a bark of a laugh, and she promptly paused. She was too well-bred to
exclaim aloud, but a faint pallor worked its way across her face.

�� I am not
stupid,� Draco said. �I do not appreciate being lied to. I do not appreciate
being handled as if I were a child, incapable of making my own decisions about
who is best for me.� He didn�t raise his voice, but he didn�t need to; he saw
the increased force of his words tear into Astoria like arrows. �You�re not the
one who wrote these words.�

�� Astoria had
the courage to flutter her eyes at him in confusion. �I don�t know what you
mean, Draco. You saw me write them��

�� The writer
is a man.� Draco lowered his voice still further. It would force them to pay
attention: both Astoria, and his writer, who was resisting his destined meeting
with Draco for some reason unknown. �I know that. Where is he?�

�� Astoria
went a little paler, but she inclined her head with the grace of someone who
knew she was beaten. �Perhaps we should have consulted you,� she said, and once
again her eye twitched sideways, towards the shimmer in the chair.

�� Draco stood
and whirled around in the same smooth motion.

*

�� No! Harry couldn�t believe she would
give him away like this. Astoria! What
are you doing?

�� I know what he wants, Astoria�s voice
said softly, resignedly, in his head. And
it�s not me. I still hoped�I still thought I might be able to convince him, and
if I could, then he would be in a fair way to being happy with me�but I can�t,
and that means an illusion won�t do. He needs and chooses�Harry, watch out!

�� Harry
snapped his head back towards Draco, and realized he was on his feet, wand
aimed directly at Harry�s chair. His lips were already moving in the first
words of a spell, and Harry recognized a Latin word used at the beginning of
many binding incantations.

�� Utter panic
seized him, and convulsing grief. He had made a mistake in trying to impose on
and lie to Draco. He did need to make
his own choices. But it was better that he should believe the writer was too
cowardly to meet him�which might actually be the truth�than that he should
realize the whole ploy had been the plan of someone he must still despise. This
way, at least Draco could have his pride and think of it as a failed romance
instead of a deception that had fooled him for a while. Hurt pride would cut
him more deeply than anything else.

�� Harry
twisted to his feet, paused a moment so the Invisibility Cloak could flow about
him, and then began to run. Draco�s spell struck the chair behind him, and he
heard a complicated grinding of wood that must be its legs twisting up into a
bound position.

�� Not even
one full heartbeat later, Draco�s feet pounded the floor as he ran after Harry.

�� Harry
gasped curses under his breath as he skidded out the front door and leaped one
of the magical engines that drove the rotating panels surrounding the
restaurant. Merlin�s Tor had anti-Apparition wards everywhere; you were
supposed to walk up a long road to the restaurant and admire the sights on the
way. Harry had at least a thousand feet to cover before he would be free to get
away.

�� And you won�t run it hesitating here, he
scolded himself, as Draco fired another binding spell past his shoulder, and
began to run again.

*

�� Draco had
no idea why matters had worked out this way. His writer should have stood up to
him when he realized all his plans had failed. He should have pulled off the
glamour or the charm or whatever it was and explained himself. He should have
acceded to Draco�s tight clasp on his wrist and come back to the Manor for a
few hours of talk.

�� He should
not have run away.

�� But Draco
couldn�t deny that he was enjoying the chase. He had used binding spells at
first, but then he remembered that the anti-Apparition wards would keep his
writer from escaping immediately, and that he had always been able to run
silently.

�� And that
there was another way he would prefer to capture his writer.

�� He followed
that shimmer as closely as he could without making enough noise to cause it to turn
around, and counted steps under his breath. Soon, they were near the edge of
the anti-Apparition wards, and the shimmer slowed down. His writer was probably
fumbling for his wand.

�� But he
wasn�t paying enough attention to the world around him whilst he was at it.

�� Draco
pounced. He grabbed his writer around his waist and bore him to the ground,
twisting at the same moment so that he was straddling his writer�s hips, legs
firmly gripping the other man�s knees. He laid his hands on his writer�s
shoulders and stared down into the invisible face, grinding slightly with groin
and arse. He was already intensely excited from the chase and his anger before
that; he could feel his writer responding, which made him stiffer with
satisfaction.

�� Why did
you run?� Draco whispered, wishing he could lower his head and breathe into his
writer�s face, but too cautious to bring his mouth within range of teeth yet.
�You�ve already practically said that you belong to me.� He shifted from side
to side, trying to gauge his writer�s strength and physique as well as tell
what sort of spell shielded him from sight. It felt oddly silky, whatever it
was. Perhaps it was an Invisibility Cloak rather than a spell after all.

�� The man was nicely muscled, at least, and there
was no problem with the erection pressing against him. Not that Draco was a
good judge of other men�s erections. But he would learn to be, he thought, and
ground down again.

�� Who are
you?� he whispered. �Mine, at the very least.� And he reached down to tear the
Invisibility Cloak from the stubborn arse�s face.

�� The bastard
slipped to the side, brought his knee up into Draco�s chin, and practically
dislocated his shoulders squirming free. Draco fell back, reeling, and heard a
quick, roughly chanted spell. He gasped before a whirling sequence of lights
descended in front of his eyes, disorienting him and keeping him from getting a
firm grip on his wand so that he could mutter a Finite.

�� When he
could see again, the air still resounded with the crack of an Apparition and
there was a note on the ground beside him, in his writer�s hand. Draco snatched
it up and read it immediately despite the pounding in his head.

�� I was wrong. I see that now. I shouldn�t
have tried to deceive you, and I acted far worse than you ever have. Accept my
apologies, both for trying to foist Astoria on you and for writing in the first
place. You deserve to make your own choices. I won�t come near you again.

�� Draco
crumpled the letter in his hand with a snarl.

�� I do deserve to make my own choices,� he
whispered. �And you don�t get to withdraw so easily from the contest.�

�� He did have
a second thought and hastily turned back to the restaurant then, but by the
time he reached their table again, Astoria was also gone. Draco closed his eyes
and composed himself, knowing he would have to give explanations of some kind
to the owner of Merlin�s Tor.

�� But that
was on the surface of his mind only. Every other thought was full of his writer,
full of pointed fury and cool appreciation and angry hunger, intent on tracking
him down.

�� You don�t get to offer me something like
that and then draw the hook back when I snap at the bait. I�ll find you, I�ll
know you, and I�ll fight with you.

�� Draco felt
a small smile widen into a large one across his face.

�� And whether I end up taming you or you tame
me, I will deeply enjoy this, my
writer.

*

�� MewMew2:
Thanks for reviewing.

�� yaoiObsessed:
Thanks! In this case, I think Draco might always have been bisexual; it�s just
not something that occurred to him.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Harry wants to be happy, too, but now he�s more convinced than ever he can�t
be, because of what he did to Draco.

�� butterpie: Don�t
worry; this won�t be a tragedy. I think some aspects of the story will be
unexpected, though.

�� lockheart:
Thanks for reviewing.

�� Yami
Bakura: Harry is still determined to make him think it�s Astoria. And there are
spells for the handwriting.

�� DHnotHD:
No, in this case I am planning on a top!Draco story, at least for the one anal sex
scene I plan.

�� Harry
planned this on the spur of the moment, so he didn�t have access to any
Polyjuice (it needs a month to brew). Besides, Draco would demand proof that
Astoria could write letters like that on more than one occasion, so it�s best
if �she� does it.

�� And, well,
Draco really has no reason to think Harry is interested in him. But now he has
more clues.

�� bella black:
Thanks! The contest is still to come, and it�s Draco�s cleverness against Harry�s.
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Providence