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Sanctum Sanctorum	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 28253 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Six—In the Ministry Archives

            “I don’t understand how you think that you’ll break into someone’s office and simply find the papers we need that way.”

            Harry smiled, but kept his back turned. Malfoy might think the smile mocking, and Harry had no wish to spend time explaining that he found lots of things in the world right now amusing, but Malfoy wasn’t one of them. He continued working steadily on the lock in front of him, which was keyed to another member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement but which he could usually persuade to do his will with a judicious combination of simple charms and more powerful spells. “Because it’s late, and most of those people will have gone home,” he replied. “Ron’s still busy with Campion for the next little while, so he won’t stop us, either.”

            He could hear the sound of Malfoy settling heavily against the wall behind him, but he didn’t know why until Malfoy spoke again, with an odd tone in his voice. “You really don’t care about the laws, do you? You break them at will.”

            Harry couldn’t help a sharp glance backwards at that, but Malfoy’s face was even less judgmental than his tone; he simply stared. Harry shrugged and faced the lock again. One more tap from his wand, and the ward on it broke with a low, sweet, ringing sound. “Not the exact point,” Harry said. “Of course I want to obey the laws, and see other people obey them. I don’t like torture or murder or rape or theft. I want those things to be punished, especially if the people who commit those crimes hurt others later.”

            “But you can live without knowing that the criminals were fairly treated,” Malfoy muttered.

            “Not true,” Harry said, and nodded to him as he slid the door open. “We’re in now. When I think there’s a strong presumption of innocence, the way I did with your case, then I’ll certainly interfere.”

            “But everything depends on your own perceptions of the case,” Malfoy said, reaching out to the side as if he thought that he should touch more of the office wall than he absolutely had to. Harry shook his head and caught his hand, feeling the thunder of Malfoy’s pulse under his thumb for a moment before Malfoy let his eyebrow raise and his hand fall. “As you will. So you don’t acknowledge any force greater than your own sense of righteousness.”

            “That’s right,” Harry said, and cast a gentle Lumos, the kind that shouldn’t send any telltale light from under the door or through the window in it. He nodded at Malfoy to stay behind him and not touch anything, and then began to move his wand along the top of the sheets of parchment on the desk, looking for the arrest order. He would only change the shape of the piles if he had to, since some people were so paranoid they even had wards on those.

            “Then I was wrong,” Malfoy said, his voice taking on an odd shape in Harry’s ears. “You haven’t changed at all. You still hold the opinion that you did at Hogwarts, that no one else can teach you anything. You still believe your own principles are the most important things in the world.” He snorted bitterly. “I can’t believe that I thought otherwise for even a short time.”

            Harry asked the ceiling with a loud sigh why he had to rescue people who behaved like this, and then reached the end of the desk. No, there was nothing about the arrest order on the top of the piles. He waved his wand and murmured another spell, and the top sheet of parchment on each pile rose straight up in the air, preserving the shape but allowing Harry to read the words written on the sheets beneath them. “That righteousness saved you this time,” he said.

            “From what? For how long?” Malfoy stepped up beside him, and Harry could feel the tight storm brewing in circles beneath his skin, though at least he didn’t try to relieve it either by touching something he shouldn’t or punching Harry, which Harry thought would have been his first choice. “If I had gone along with the arrest, at least I wouldn’t have to become a fugitive, the way I have to now.”

            Harry paused, then turned and glanced at him. “Seriously,” he said. “That’s seriously what you think is going to happen.”

            Malfoy glared at him through narrowed eyes, his fingers rapping nervously on his leg. “Yes,” he said. “Why shouldn’t it? When morning comes, if not sooner, Schroeder and Moonstone will have to figure out what happened, and they’ll send someone else for me. Or simply inform the public that I’m dangerous because I escaped from the Ministry, and that’ll be the end of my business.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “I understand why you live in terror of the Wizengamot,” he began, meaning to soothe him.

            “I do not live in terror,” Malfoy said, and the spirit in his eyes shone like steel. “Of no one and nothing. I can build up my business again in another country. But I do resent the necessity to flee.”

            Harry grinned in spite of himself. Malfoy, predictably, snapped his head back and his wand up, assuming Harry would make fun of him. Harry made a little, weary motion with one hand that he hoped would reassure the enormous git, and forged ahead. “No, listen. Why do you think Schroeder and Moonstone sent those two prats at night, and not in front of an audience? They could have done that if they wanted everyone to know that you weren’t to be trusted. Imagine what kind of impact that would have on your assistants, and any clients who happened to be in the shop at the time. But they didn’t do that. Why?”

            Malfoy paused, his head tilted. “I don’t know. But I don’t believe you, if you say that you do. You hadn’t even heard of Moonstone until I explained him to you.”

            Harry shrugged, and watched Malfoy’s lips thin. Apparently, he hated that gesture. Harry would have to wait and see whether Malfoy was a valuable enough ally for him to stop doing it or not. He didn’t think so, at the moment. “But I know his type. He doesn’t want to cause a clash, a confrontation. Whatever he’s doing with these captured Muggle children, he fears interference. He might be as powerful and ruthless and cunning as you say, but why draw attention he doesn’t have to? And an arrest order for you, an insistence that you be captured, would draw attention like nothing else.”

            “He might want me arrested so I couldn’t tell anyone about Campion,” Malfoy said, but his face had creased.

            Harry nodded, answering the doubts that had inspired the crease, because they were the same ones that had occurred to him. “What do you really know? Not much, or you wouldn’t have permitted me to arrest Campion in the first place, knowing what trouble it could cause you. Or you wouldn’t have agreed to teach him. This was a means of revenge, I think, and perhaps something else. But either way, Moonstone gains nothing by thrashing around in public and making some people start to think that it has something to do with Campion’s arrest. The relatives of Wizengamot members receive sinecures and special treatment all the time, of course they do. But making that obvious would be a bit stupid, don’t you think?”

            Malfoy looked at him as though he had never considered Harry might be wise enough to come up with an interpretation like that on his own. Then he closed his eyes and drew one long, slender hand across his forehead, as though wiping away the sweat of a fever.

            “Forgive me,” he said. “I ought to have thought of that on my own.”

            “Some of it, you should have, yes,” Harry said calmly, and went back to sorting through the paper in front of him. Arrest orders, yes, but none with the name Malfoy, or even a reasonable approximation. Harry shook his head and began to look for things that might mention Potions masters or shops in Diagon Alley. They could have disguised Malfoy’s name, perhaps, but Wilding and Kinzie must have known where they were going.

*

            He’s strange.

            That was the first thought that came to Draco as he watched Potter’s bent back and the neat motions of his wand, but it was hardly a fair one. Of course Potter would be strange, when the years and years that had passed since Draco had seen him had changed and redefined him. If he said that aloud, it would be an obvious thought, and Draco had had enough of uttering obvious thoughts for the moment. If he went the rest of his life without seeing the incredulous look Potter had just directed at him, he could be content.

            But it was more than that. Yes, Potter had changed. Draco had seen the increasing reports in the Daily Prophet about Potter’s compliance with the Ministry’s edicts, how he spoke when he was told to and went where he was ordered to. He would not have imagined for a moment that that was a mask for Potter’s use of the Dark Arts and the way he managed to see and do things—like break into offices—that the Ministry didn’t want him to.

            But standing around contemplating Potter’s backside (even if it was exceptional, which Draco didn’t think it was) got them no closer to solving the mystery of why Schroeder and Moonstone might want him arrested. Draco cleared his throat. “What do you want me to look for?”

            “The files there.” Potter nodded to a cabinet that stood against the wall, with drawer handles projecting out of it that Draco could see at once were subtly warded. He had brought a potion with him which would disrupt such wards—he had gone with the Aurors because he felt he had no choice, but of course he would never go unarmed—and he nodded, taking the vial from his pocket.

            “For my name?” he asked over his shoulder, as he moved towards the cabinet and spent another minute studying the handles. The wards were woven around each other, thin lines inside of thick ones, and thick ones spiraling back on themselves so that they formed a pattern like some webs Draco used as ingredients. Quite intricate work. He would be sorry to disrupt them, but then, the disruption would only last as long as the drawers were open. It would be pointless to leave clues behind.

            “Yes. Or the address of your shop.” Potter stepped back and jerked his wand up. The second piece of parchment in each pile joined the first, hovering in the air. “They had to have a destination.”

            “What if the order was entirely verbal?” Draco murmured, measuring a careful drop beneath the stopper of the vial into the middle of the nearest ward-web. The potion sparked green, the web sparked blue, and then the web spiraled back to the side, retracting into the handle like a cat’s claw into the sheath. Draco smiled and corked the vial again, grasping the drawer to pull it open. When he shut it once more, then the ward would resume as though nothing had ever touched it—and according to the ward, if someone used magic to check, nothing ever would have.

            “They wouldn’t have brought you to the Ministry, like as not,” Potter answered, bending over to study what looked like a thick piece of parchment with an official golden seal affixed to the bottom. From his scowl, it might be something relevant. “They would still need the paperwork to arrange a holding cell.”

            Draco nodded, again impressed despite himself. Well, if he had to enter this predicament at all, at least he had an expert on his side.

            The first files he examined were not only unimportant, but boring; arrest orders from years ago, probably kept because the owner of the office had a tidy mind insisting they must be. Draco rolled his eyes as he used his wand to create a small wind that riffled past them. He saw no need to keep such ancient records unless there was precedent for them being needed again, rather than fear.

            He paused near the back, when his wind stirred a thin folder that simply fell against the back of the drawer, instead of moving forwards with the others, the way it should have if it was really as empty as it looked. When he reached for it, another ward appeared, brilliant white and shaped like a rune. Draco considered it. He had brought no potion that was meant to contend against this. Besides, he would probably get the folder wet if he tried.

            “What is it?”

            Potter was at his side, though Draco certainly couldn’t remember calling for him. He stiffened his shoulders and answered, “A rune. I don’t know what it means or why it’s above this particular folder.” He indicated the one he meant, careful not to move his finger so near that the rune would ignite on the nail.

            Potter’s eyes narrowed, and his hand, held low at his side, snapped open again. “I’ve seen that before,” he said. “And the wards on the cabinet should have been considerably more complicated if she had said something like that to protect.”

            Draco wanted to know what “that” was, but didn’t think it a good idea to ask at the moment. He watched instead as Potter murmured a long, flowing incantation that seemed to bend back on itself like the wards. The rune rose higher above the folder, blazing at him like a newly-hatched dragon.

            Potter hissed back at it, sounding unimpressed. Then the hissing continued, and Draco half-closed his eyes, feeling it in his body, feeling the Parseltongue tug at his guts and at his memories. The last time he had heard it spoken, it came from the lips of the Dark Lord.

            But the Dark Lord had been destroyed by the man at his side, and it was not in Draco’s nature to continually dwell on something he could not change. He stood listening again, and after a moment, Potter jerked his head down in what seemed like a final nod and finished the hisses with a neat little tying-off hiss.

            The rune sank back down, floating towards the bottom of the drawer. It vanished as it moved. Potter chuckled, and then reached out and picked up the thin folder that the rune had defended, turning it around so he could study it for any more magical defenses.

            Draco found his voice with difficulty. “Where did you learn to do that?”

            “Hmmm?” Potter had evidently not found any more defenses, since he opened the folder. “Oh, I was in a tight corner once, and I tried that because there wasn’t any reason not to, and—”

            Abruptly he stopped speaking. Draco craned his neck, wondering what in the world could be so shocking that Potter would be unable to say it.

            Then Potter snorted with laughter. The sound was louder and deeper than Draco would have anticipated, as though Potter was clenching his teeth against giving voice to it, but there was no doubt that that was what it was. He blinked and stared at Potter.

            “Look,” Potter said, and tossed the folder at him, nearly making Draco scramble to catch it. He was glad he hadn’t had to. That would have been too undignified for him to bear. “It seems as though even members of the Ministry don’t always hide official secrets.”

            Draco turned the folder to the side, and a rush of dazzling photographs tumbled into his hand. He blinked when he realized they were still Muggle photographs rather than wizarding pictures, again when he realized what they were of, and again when he realized what their presence here implied.

            “Women with dogs,” he said. “Men with dogs. Men with horses. I don’t—why would she keep her dirty pictures at work?”

            “Where better?” Potter was still grinning, shaking his head as if this made a wonderful joke. “She has access to stronger protections here, and most people aren’t going to be looking beneath those protections for something like this. Besides, she might have a prying husband.” He snorted again, hard enough to make his cheeks tremble. “And now that we have it, it makes incredible blackmail material.”

            “True,” Draco murmured a moment later, annoyed that it had taken Potter, rather than himself, to pick up on that truth. He would have been the first to see it, not long ago. He had not left his past so far behind as all that.

            But this Potter was so different, Draco was still spending a large portion of his mental energy on dealing with the fact of his existence rather than the implications of everything around him. He shook his head, and reassured himself that he would stop that. It would simply take getting used to Potter to do so.

            Potter carefully packed the photographs back in the folder and pushed it into place at the back of the drawer. Draco raised his eyebrows. “And you’re not going to bother resurrecting the rune?”

            Potter smiled, and the darkness in his eyes was like the darkness in the eyes of the Dark Lord’s snake when she ate Professor Burbage for dinner. “No. This way, when she finds it, she’ll know that someone knows, but not who. She’ll panic at first, and then waste half her time in terror. If we approach her after that time, she’ll help us with almost anything in order to get rid of the threat we represent.”

            Draco moved a step towards him before he could stop himself. Potter tilted his head, his eyes wide and innocent. “What? If you’re going to tell me it’s difficult to control someone you’ve blackmailed, I know that, but I’ve had plenty of practice.”

            Draco reached out and put his hand on the side of Potter’s neck. Potter’s eyes narrowed immediately, but he didn’t move for his wand, a confidence that made Draco eager to see what he could do to break it.

            “Not that,” Draco murmured. “I—respond when you speak like that. And maintain the mask of impulsive Gryffindor besides.”

            Potter studied him as if he was waiting for more, but Draco had said all he intended to say. He remained still, his eyes on Potter, and waited to see what the man would do.

            Potter snorted at last, and murmured, “So you want me to get rid of the mask and the voice so you can be more comfortable? I’m afraid I can’t do either. There’s not a great deal I would do to indulge you, you know.”

            “You’ve rescued me so far,” Draco pointed out. He felt the momentary urge to drop his hand from Potter’s neck, because the darkness in Potter’s eyes said he wished for it, but against that, Draco wasn’t in the habit of doing things simply because other people wanted him to. Otherwise, he would have shut down his shop in Diagon Alley a long time ago. He maintained his hand in place and saw the light catch and glow in Potter’s eyes, brightening them to the point that they were hard to look at.

            “Yes, I have,” Potter said. “And yet, that is different from indulging you. Call it indulging myself, if you like, because I hate seeing Aurors like Wilding and Kinzie get away with stupid shit.”

            “Indulge me,” Draco whispered. He surged close again, but stopped when he realized he would crash into Potter if he didn’t. He had expected Potter to step back. Of course they couldn’t have that, though, and Potter’s faint, contemptuous gaze said Draco had been a fool for expecting it.

            “Why should I?” Potter asked, speaking carefully, as if he wanted to watch the way his words would shatter Draco’s composure. “You realize we could be heading down the path towards Plumm’s vision if we don’t stop? Yes, this is unusual for both of us, but that’s no reason to declare that we have to listen to our dicks. Or our instincts, if you want me to dignify your behavior with that name.”

            Draco flushed and dropped his hand, moving away. “Fine,” he said in a clipped voice, turning his head to the side so he could be sure that he was watching the door into the office and not Potter. “If you insist on talking to me that way, we’ll continue. We have the evidence of one woman’s obsession, but nothing on me.”

            “No.” Potter shifted the drawer carefully closed and watched as the web on it sprang back into place. “Good work.”

            Draco ignored that, too. If Potter was afraid they might conjoin themselves because of a bloody vision, then he should stop complimenting him. Draco didn’t receive enough compliments from people who weren’t grateful clients to be accustomed to them. “Is it likely to be here, then?”

            Potter shook his head. “There would be no reason to conceal the arrest order too deeply in the piles. Yes, it might draw someone’s interest, but until it does, hiding it or making it seem as if it was special would only exacerbate interest. And we’re convinced that Moonstone and Schroeder want to avoid drawing attention, remember.”

            “You are,” Draco muttered. “I’m not so sure that that’s what they’re doing.”

            Potter eyed him sideways, but in the end, chose to say nothing. “So. We’ll go on. There are other offices we can try, and if we can’t find one, then we have an excellent case that this was only a political arrest, and not one that would be done for any good reason.” He looked as if he would step towards the door in the next instant, so Draco politely moved out of the way to give him more room.

            He was still looking at the door, though, which was why he saw the knob turn and the door begin to move.

            He snapped his hand out, and Potter seemed to take the movement as the warning Draco meant to give, because he reacted as though they’d been partnered for a long time. He snaked an arm around Draco’s waist and tugged him towards his chest. Draco managed not to go stiff and fight just in time. He really didn’t want to stand that close to someone who had just rejected the only intimacy he wanted to offer, but he knew he didn’t have a choice.

            He bowed his head as Potter held him and waved his wand over them. The wandwork was so complicated that Draco was surprised to hear no incantation. Apparently, Potter had practiced enough with this spell and could cast it silently.

            Let’s just hope that it’s not another Dark Arts spell to get me in trouble, he thought in resignation as the world around them flickered, winked, and disappeared.

*

            SP777: Well, not too flirtatious! He doesn’t want to get around to fulfilling that prophecy, after all.

            Yet.
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