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His Actium	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9606 -:- 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 Six--Thoughts Thought

            Harry had fed Fovea first, because he wouldn't get anything done if he didn't feed her. When she was appropriately full of fruits, nuts, and, because she insisted, the toast that Harry had had as a late-night snack, she sat on his knee and closed her eyes. Like that, Harry thought, scratching the back of her neck, she could probably sit on the ice and sneak up on seals. Didn't polar bears blend into the ice like that? Some old story he'd read about them covering up their black noses with their paws flashed through his head. He'd done his share of picking up random knowledge after the war, during the times when he'd flung himself into books to ignore what was happening around him in the real world.

            He was putting off what he had to do.

            Harry glanced down at the sleepy Fovea, and decided that he might as well talk it out. No one was there to forbid him, and he generally thought better when he heard his thoughts than when they swirled and boiled in the confines of his skull.

            "I honestly thought I was done with this," he said softly. Fovea twitched her crest at him, but didn't wake up. "Questioning myself, I mean. Thinking and re-thinking what I did, having second thoughts, because I couldn't possibly mean what I just said.

            "But obviously not."

            Harry did fall silent, thinking about Draco's words. He felt as though he would be sharing them by speaking them aloud, and that would break the promise he'd made. It was stupid, since Fovea would hardly repeat them to anyone, but...

            On the other hand, she did sometimes burst out with embarrassing parts of his late-night reports and ranting. And he felt protective of Draco, unwilling to share anything about him with anyone unless he had to.

            "It makes no sense," he told Fovea. Again she twitched her crest, but then turned and buried her head beneath her wing. That was all right. Her feathers remained warm beneath Harry's fingers, and he could still think about the things he said. "Why should I reconsider who I am and what I do just on Malfoy's say-so? No, he's Draco really, not Malfoy. And that's the problem."

            Harry shut his eyes. "If I knew why he hit me so much more deeply than anyone's done in years," he muttered, "then maybe I would know. What is it about him that makes me want him? What is it about him that means I want to defend him from Zabini, even though he's capable of doing that on his own?"

            The words rang in his head and rattled down like coins emptied into a hole. Harry reached out and picked up the glass of whisky he'd poured earlier, swallowing fast enough to make himself choke. Well, good. Maybe he deserved to, if he couldn't figure out why Draco mattered so much to him.

            "Well, he's pretty," Harry told Fovea, who shoved her head a little further under her wing in her usual refusal to listen to praise of anyone else's physical appearance. "There's that. And he's fit. And he was braver than I expected, to go hand-to-hand with me and to go on a date with me and to let me fuck him when he knew all the while what was happening. Sure, he wanted answers, but he could have got them some other way. And he could have been a lot rougher with me once he had them than he was." He touched the burn next to his eye, and shook his head. It would linger for a few weeks--he'd checked it in the mirror when he arrived back home--but that didn't mean it would permanently scar him. Yes, Draco had been gentle. Patient.

            Even when he was clutching the whip and eyeing Harry as if he'd like to beat the answers out of him, patient.

            "That's it," Harry said aloud. "I find him intriguing. I don't know exactly why, but there it is. None of the others I slept with...I didn't have history with them in the same way. That might be the only reason."

            Fovea slept on his knee with sublime tiredness. Harry smiled down at her. He sometimes wished he was a bird, himself. They were so innocent, somehow, so unconcerned. Well, he would see concern from her if he paid too much attention to someone else, but he didn't have the same innocence.

            "The war stole it," he murmured. "And the people who betrayed me after the war."

            He let himself think about it, for the first time in years: the way that he'd stood frozen in the doorway and listened to the man he'd lost his virginity to whisper through the fireplace to Rita Skeeter; the man who had listened to that story, and pressed Harry's hand and promised him that he would never be alone again, and a fortnight later had run away with the tale that the Wizarding World's Precious Savior (phrased just like that) liked a cock up his arse; the woman who had smiled at him up until the point that she tried to plunge a dagger through his throat for failing to save her brother during the war.

            "War makes everyone irrational," he told Fovea, and toasted the walls in celebration of this great truth. Still, she slept on. Harry glared at her for a second, then laughed. "Except you," he said, and scratched her again. "I think you would come through a war still demanding scraps of orange and flinging the peel at the people who gave it to you.

            "But Draco was wrong about one thing. I moved all my secrets onto the surface and started trading on my name because I was trying to protect myself, sure. But not because I hate myself. I'm going to stop being the Ministry's Whore, because of the way it affects other people, and because there are other ways I could contribute to the world without inflicting the same pain. But it doesn't make me want to curl up and flick myself with a whip of self-loathing."

            He fell silent again, thinking about Draco and wondering if he would understand that if Harry explained it. He'd spent an awful late of time being self-loathing after the war, blaming himself for not saving people, blaming himself for not noticing the supposedly "obvious" signs of fakery in the people he dated (only later did he think about it and wonder why, if someone else thought his dates were fake, they hadn't pointed it out before they betrayed Harry), blaming himself for not being able to fit into the role the Ministry demanded of him. And he had emerged from the shell of that guilt with two convictions: guilt was useless to actually making a change in the world or atone for anything, and it was boring.

            So he wanted to do something to make up for his mistakes in the past, but that couldn't involve tugging a hair shirt over his head and then rolling around until it scratched the skin off his back. It would have to be something else.

            "I think I know what," he told Fovea, who was searching for previously unknown lands under her wing with the tip of her beak. "The hard part is putting it into practice."

            Fovea didn't move.

            "The kind of thing I would have wanted someone to do for me, when I was suffering from betrayal and thought nothing would ever get better," Harry said quietly, and reached down to scratch her tail feathers. "I'll send Draco the names of people he can talk to. He can rip them up or throw them away or send them back--or use them. I have to admit I hope he uses them. But I can't control that. I'll send him one or two presents. Things he might like, things that he wouldn't buy for himself." God knew he'd had a bad case of that, when he was going through the useless self-blame period; he'd thought he didn't "deserve" the things he sometimes wanted, as if buying gifts for himself connected at all to how worthless and used he felt. "I'll make sure that he sees some tangible proof of my quitting my job."

            And after that?

            Harry shrugged. "At some point, he has to take care of himself, and I have to let him," he told Fovea.

            Fovea's back told the world how unimpressed she was, not just with Harry, but with the universe in general. Harry smiled. He didn't mind being part of that universe, not really.

*

            Robards was no problem. The good thing about him was that his perceptions of the world were simplistic and he couldn't imagine that someone might not agree with him. All Harry had to do was widen his eyes and put enough hushed wonder into his voice, and Robards ate it up like chocolate cake.

            "You were right," he said. "How long have I been like this, not paying attention to the ways that I sold myself and debased myself?" Although Robards had once again firecalled him early, Harry had made sure that he was wearing a set of modest Auror robes and not a towel when he came out to the fireplace. He hadn't missed the way that Robards gave a sort of little nod, unable to stop himself from approving. So easy to manipulate. Nothing like Draco. "So I've decided that I would rather not whore my body any longer. The wizarding world deserves better." He stared at his hands and conjured up a blush. "My fans deserve better."

            It was the same thing Robards had been saying for years, and Harry had long since discovered that there was nothing people were more eager to believe. He waited until Robards cleared his throat and then looked up with a small smile. "Sorry, sir," he said. "If I went--overboard. I need some time to consider, to decide what I'm going to do next." And find the weak points in the Ministry I can leverage into a new career.

            "That's perfectly fine," Robards said. "You were seen leaving with Malfoy last night. What did you discover?"

            Harry cringed a little. "Sir," he whispered. "I can't--I didn't discover anything."

            "What?" Robards's voice sank.

            Harry shook his head and put his hands over his face. He was probably overacting it a little, but Robards wasn't the subtlest of people and was unlikely to pick up on that. "Malfoy went to take off his clothes, and I saw the Dark Mark," he whispered. "I remembered who he was. Who I was. And that was when the shame overwhelmed me. I couldn't fuck someone like that." Through the gaps in his fingers, he saw Robards wince at the word fuck, but Harry wasn't worried about that, because it was still the most appropriate one to use. Robards would think the whole thing obscene, after all. "I couldn't take it. I fled."

            "Does he suspect?" Robards's voice had roughened. Harry dropped his hands and shook his head with an innocent, wide-eyed expression, all the while watching Robards's face.

            Yes. He thought he understood now, from the way that Robards's eyes darted and his cheeks flushed. This is personal, not a purely Ministry manner. I'll find out how and make sure that Draco doesn't have to worry about him again.

            "No," Harry said. "He was out of the room. I left a note telling him that it was my fault, that I couldn't sleep with someone I felt revolted by, and ignored him when he called my name. He's going to think it was all personal, all of it, from the beginning to the end."

            He sharpened the last sentence a bit, and watched it go into Robards like a dart. He actually flinched before he caught himself. Harry looked down and shrugged to keep from laughing.

            "And he would be right," he said. "About everything but the initial assignment. I never realized how personal this was, how I was debasing sex and myself by spending time with people I didn't care for."

            He had repeated his initial words, but Robards didn't seem to notice, instead nodding with an absorbed expression. "Perhaps I should have not assigned this to you, Potter," he muttered. Harry blinked, because that was the closest Robards had come to admitting a mistake, but he continued on and Harry understood. "Perhaps then, you would still be working for us."

            "Sir?" Harry asked, and poured polite confusion into his voice. "Are you saying that I shouldn't stop being a whore?"

            Robards snapped his attention back to the conversation. "No, of course not!" he exclaimed. "But you must know that we'll consider you on unofficial holiday until such a time as you can come up with some way of helping the Ministry. You know that you can't be in the field, and we can hardly pay you to sit around and do nothing, after all!" He tried to be jocular on the last words. He was bad at it.

            Harry acknowledged later that he shouldn't even have tried what he had in mind, because it needed a more open mind--and ears--than he would find in Robards, but at least this way no one could say that he hadn't tried. "I've already thought of a way that I can help, sir. One thing I did prove while I sold myself is that a lot of people will do anything for a bit of consideration from the Chosen One. I thought I could work with a different Ministry Department, perhaps visit people who don't need to be seduced but would give up information if I flattered them? Or visit new dedications and war memorials and monuments, and show..."

            He trailed off, because Robards was staring at him, his eyes grown hard and suspicious. "You never wanted to do such work before, when it would have done us a bloody bit of good," he said, voice tight. "Why now?"

            Harry shook his head impatiently. "No, I didn't want to go to Ministry functions and make political speeches, because I'm no good at them," he said. "One-to-one interactions with people and learning what they need and what they'll accept from me, yes." Though not as good as I should have been. Sorry, Draco. "But not speeches. They all sound insincere to me when I read them, and that means that they sound insincere to others when I recite them."

            Robards drew himself up. "So you wish to help the Ministry in your own way, not as you're told," he said.

            Harry felt his eyes glitter. "I've done as I was told for the past few years," he said mildly. "I've gone after who I've been told to go after, and if you were disgusted by me, still, you never missed a chance to use my skills. Why are you objecting now, when I've proposed a different solution that would be less disgusting?"

            "Because you still see yourself as more important than the Ministry, Potter!" Robards's face flushed as he bent in towards the fire, and Harry was glad that no one in another Department had ever suspected Robards of corruption and approached Harry to do something about it, because he could never have pulled off a convincing seduction on someone that ugly. "Because being an Auror requires a lifetime of dedicated, selfless service, but you see it as nothing more than a chance to do what you want! Whether that's sleep with ten thousand men or speak to people you want to talk to--light work, that--you care more about your own convictions than those of the people you're working for!"

            Harry waited until he was sure that Robards was done and had no more hot air to blow. Then he leaned forwards and whispered, "And your lifetime of service is selfless and without spots, sir? Really? You care more for the Ministry's convictions than your own? When you made your disgust for what I did clear and plain to me every day?"

            Robards's eyes widened, and then the fire went out as he vanished abruptly from the fireplace in his office. Harry leaned his head back on the wall and sighed, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling to ask the world to pity him.

            Robards was an arse, and at the moment, Harry didn't know whether he still had a job. Luckily, there were people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement he could talk to who had the power to give him work over Robards's head. And if he was no longer an Auror, then Robards didn't have command of him, anyway.

            That last reaction, though...

            It was too violent if he really had no personal stake in bringing down Malfoy. And his earlier reactions, too.

            Harry sat up with a snap, his robes flying around him. He had another project now, and one that would require his attention and skill and cunning, although he would more verbally seduce people than sexually do it.

            Fovea hopped over to him along the floor and bobbed her head at his feet. Harry laughed and scooped her up on one arm. She spread her wings and turned her head back and forth, glorying in the sunlight that sprawled through Harry's large windows.

            "Shall I go and find out what Robards wants, and do a favor for Draco in the meantime?" he asked her, and she crooned at him. "I think I shall."

*

            "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but we can't really let you have that kind of information."

            Harry smiled at the overanxious young librarian in front of him, a woman named Catherine Gedney who blushed and avoided his eyes in a way that said she didn't think she was worthy of anyone's attention. Harry felt sorry for her. She had done her work more than competently so far, bringing him the public records pertaining to Draco's business and other, competing Potions businesses, but acted as though that wasn't enough.

            "I can find it elsewhere, but I would actually rather look at it here," Harry said, and leaned forwards to bring his voice down to a murmur. "You see, I have reason to suspect that a man I'd been charged with investigating was wrongfully accused. But the wizard who accused him has more power than he does. I can hopefully search for the information needed to clear my friend's name. He can't."

            As he had suspected, the words, which were no more than the truth, carefully applied, made Gedney's face brighten and her interest charge back to the forefront like a cresting wave. "You mean that?" she whispered. "Someone needs my help, and I can give it?"

            Harry nodded to her. There were sometimes things more seductive than a moment of his time. In Gedney's case, she wanted self-confidence and a sign that her task and her labor were important in more than an incidental way. He thought that looking up the information that might drive Robards to focus on Malfoy could give her that. "Can you help me, then?"

            "I will."

            They spent the rest of the morning sorting through the files that Potions ingredients companies and apothecaries were required to keep on file with the Ministry, allegedly so that the Aurors could pull them if any suspicious activity showed up. (In reality, Harry thought the Ministry mostly needed the stacks and stacks of parchment to prop up the ceilings that would collapse otherwise). The file that contained Malfoy's documents was suspiciously well-thumbed, and Harry shook his head over it. You've been in power too long, Robards, and grown careless with it. If you'd had more opposition in your life, then you would have known that it's a bad thing to leave traces of your obsessions behind.

            Near the middle of the afternoon, Harry finally found what he was looking for. Gedney was starting to close a slender file that consisted of little more than the relevant date of founding and the inventory of the company in question, when Harry caught sight of a list of names. He reached out and deftly plucked it forth, studying it.

            It was a list of the company's founders, investors, and part-time workers, otherwise known as the ones who actually ran the apothecaries selling their stock. The name that had leaped out at him was in the center.

            Yes. It was Robards.

            "What is it?" Gedney was craning her neck to see. Harry let her look at it, though since he hadn't told her the name he was looking for, the chances that she would zero in on the appropriate one were small. He shook his head.

            It had been that simple, after all. Robards had invested his money in a different company that sold Potions ingredients. Younger and smaller than Draco's, it couldn't compete with his. So Robards had obviously sought information on Draco's suppliers and how he got some of his ingredients, and when that didn't work, he had framed him.

            Or picked up on one of the loose ends that Draco left dangling, Harry cautioned himself a minute later. He couldn't yet say, not for certain, that Draco was innocent of the smuggling charges, just that Robards's motivation in asking Harry to investigate the case was highly suspect. Now that he had the proof from one side, he would go at it from the other and find out whether there had ever been an arrest of a dragon's eggs smuggler who had confessed to also being linked to Draco.

            "Mr. Potter?"

            Gedney's voice was soft. Harry blinked at her and found that she had taken a step away from him, her precious file carefully tucked in her arms. "Ms. Gedney?" he asked, as courteous as she had been in addressing him.

            "You looked--frightening," she said, and then flushed. "Sorry. But you did."

            "No, you're perfectly right," Harry said, and relaxed his muscles one by one. The last thing he needed to do was inspire fear in people who helped him. Among many other things, it ensured that no one else would want to help him again. "Thank you, Ms. Gedney," he said formally, and extended his hand to her. She shook it, looking a bit confused. "You've prevented harm coming to an innocent man." He hesitated. He didn't think it would come to this, because both Draco and Robards would surely prefer to have the matter handled privately, but... "Would you be willing to testify, if you had to?"

            "Could I do it by Pensieve memory?" Gedney ducked her head, her brown fringe swinging in front of her eyes. "I think I'd faint if I had to get up in front of the Wizengamot and say things like--like you probably want me to say."

            Harry felt his eyes softening. "Of course," he said quietly.

            "Then I will."

            Harry kissed her hand, not trying to make it romantic this time, not the way he would have for Draco. "Thank you," he said. "Your courage is the kind that makes the world better."

            She blinked at him. "But...you're the one..."

            "There's more than one kind of courage," Harry said, thinking of the way that Draco had confronted him with staring eyes and readied wand when he had a motivation for wanting Harry to be innocent, when his muscles were still slack from their fucking. "Believe me, I know."

            She stared at him, and then wandered away to stand behind her desk again, her expression distant. Harry smiled at the back of her head and left the library, turning his steps towards the nearest Ministry entrance. They might well have released their "informant" against Draco by now, if he had ever existed, but Harry would at the very least have arrest records to draw on.

            Someone seized his arm and tugged on it. Harry had a glimpse of a cloaked figure with flying blond hair beneath the hood.

            It was the hair that kept him from twisting free and kicking his captor's legs out from beneath him as he could have. He went with the forced Side-Along Apparition a moment later, and found himself standing in Draco's inner office, his back to the chair that changed its shape, his face to the desk, and his heart pounding erratically.

            Draco pulled back his hood and stared at him. Then he took a step closer, near enough for Harry to smell his scent.

            "We're not done," he said. "Not yet."

            Harry had to close his eyes to deal with the momentary flare of sweetness that passed through him.

            And the warning. Don't fuck this up.

*

            unneeded: As you can see, most of your speculations were right!

            SP777: His skills by now mostly rely on talking to people, but he does have plenty of ideas for other things he could do.

            Aerobabe9268: Thank you! Good to see you.

            Harry does intend to give it up, but he doesn't really know whether Draco wants to be with him or not. It's the sort of thing where Harry would hesitate to take the initiative, knowing he already hurt Draco once.
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