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The Long Defeat	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 30612 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 7
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Chapter Seven—Ravens and Demonstrations
            Harry studied the raven that Lucius had rented for him, or bought for him, or something. He knew that it had made at least one successful trip to Ron and Hermione, because he could see the letter clutched in its beak.
            But it didn’t want to come to him. Instead, it preened its feathers and hopped about on the table in his rooms, and every time Harry made a move towards it, it would pick up the letter and move away. That included every time Harry raised his wand. The one time so far he’d tried to Summon it, the raven had gripped the corner of the envelope in its beak and the other corner in one claw, and looked as if it would tear it in half.
            Harry snorted. You would have been a damn stupid Auror if you’d let yourself be outsmarted by a bloody bird.
            That just reminded him that he would never go back to being an Auror or an Auror candidate, though, and then that he was a slave, and everyone thought they could lord it over him, even a raven.
            Not Draco.
            But his dueling lessons with Draco were one of the things he wanted to discuss with Ron and Hermione, so Harry focused on the bird and lifted his wand again. The raven tensed, but what he floated off the tray was a scrap of cheese left behind from lunch. Harry ate most of his meals with Narcissa now, but sometimes he still wanted something in his rooms. He’d eaten lunch up here today anticipating that the raven might come back.
            The glossy black bird tilted its head back hungrily, watching the cheese and fluffing its feathers out. Then it took off, winging towards the cheese while carrying the envelope along with it.
            Harry flicked his wand again, and the cheese looped back towards him. The raven flew in a circle just outside the point where he could have grabbed the letter, but Harry kept the food close enough to him that the raven couldn’t snatch it, either. They watched each other, the raven’s wingbeats the loudest sound in the room.
            “What about if we trade?” Harry offered. He felt a bit silly speaking to a bird that way, but on the other hand, post-owls were smart enough to find people just by being told their names, and the same thing seemed to be true of the raven. It had also known what his Summoning Charm meant. “On three. We toss.”
            The raven watched with a bright eye. Harry shook his head. But he was confident he was quick enough with spells to pull the cheese back in time if it turned out the raven absolutely wouldn’t surrender the letter.
            “One,” Harry said, and drifted the cheese above his head. The raven flew in another circle, but Harry thought he saw the claws loosen a little. “Two.” The raven flew higher, at the level of the cheese. “Three.” And Harry released his spell so that the cheese dropped towards the floor at his feet.
            The raven let go of the letter at the same time, and Harry had it safely in his hand before it could reach the cheese. When the raven touched the cheese, it took it to the table and began loftily nibbling it as if that had been its plan all along.
            Harry shook his head. “At least you’ll have me exercising spells outside the dueling room,” he muttered, and tore open the letter.
            Dear Harry,
            I’m so happy to hear what’s going on, and that you’re managing some semblance of a normal life with the Malfoys. Of course, it could never be the same thing as being free and with us, but if this is what it takes to keep you safe and away from what the goblins had planned for you, then I’m grateful to them.
            We’ll write you as often as we can, of course. Right now, the wizarding world seems pretty quiet. There are a few people who are upset that you weren’t given over to the goblins, but the goblins themselves report “satisfaction” with the way they saw you treated by the Malfoys and say they have no intention of closing the bank. I hope the Malfoys didn’t make you do anything too awful!
            Ron wants to add something to this letter, so I’ll end it right here. Just—keep safe, and I hope you’re happy, and tell us everything that’s going on. Love, Hermione.
            The writing switched to Ron’s rough scrawl. Harry felt the bed behind him and sat down. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
            Mate!
            I’m not happy that the Malfoys had to take you, either, but I’m glad that it’s worked out so far. If you need someone to curse them, when you’re not allowed to do it, then say the word. I’d half-like to see how my dueling skills measure up to someone like Lucius Malfoy. They say that he was one of the best Death Eaters, but I bet that I’m better. You were the one who trained me, after all.

            Harry paused. He would have to be careful about how much he revealed with the dueling lessons with Draco, he thought. He didn’t want Ron to feel like he was less special just because Harry was now giving lessons to someone else.
            How’s Malfoy’s mother? There were some people going around saying in the papers that she’s an even bigger bastard than Malfoy and his dad combined, and that she would come up with the best things to do to you to make sure you paid the debt.
            Harry snorted. He would tell the truth about Narcissa, for the sheer pleasure of imagining the look on Ron’s face when he did.
            And what kind of food are you getting there? Mum frets that they aren’t feeding you properly because they think you’re a slave. Say the word, and she’ll send over half a dozen cakes and all these hard sweets she’s been making.
            I hope you write back soon. It’s driving me mad not to know what you’re up to in there, and not to be with you and see you all the time. Love, Ron.
            Harry closed his eyes. He’d like to see Ron and Hermione. The longing made his teeth ache with it, as if his jaw was sore. He absently reached up and felt at them to make sure that wasn’t the case.
            But he just—wasn’t allowed, that was all. That was the way things were. That was the way things would have to remain for the moment.
            Someone knocked on his door. Harry stood up and made sure that his wand was in his hand. The raven called smugly and flew out the window, back to the private aerie that Lucius had apparently built for it. Harry shook his head. When the birds that delivered his post were getting better treatment than he was, he—
            The knock came again, and the impatient edge to it told Harry well enough who it was. He held his smile as he opened the door, because they didn’t need a quarrel just now. “Yes, Draco?” he asked.
            Draco walked into the room without seeming to notice the letter on the table behind Harry, which was more reprieve than Harry had thought he would have. “Get your imaginary chains on,” he said. “We’re going to Diagon Alley, and you’re going to try out bodyguard duty.”
*
            Draco kept a narrow eye on Potter as they moved through the crowds swirling around Diagon Alley. He hadn’t told Potter why they had come here so abruptly, because he didn’t know himself. Well, he didn’t know in the sense that he couldn’t have said for certain, and he would have testified as much under Veritaserum.
            But he knew it had something to do with his father’s contacts—in other realms than the Ministry, this time. The Ministry had taken his father’s independence and part of the Malfoy fortune, and Lucius intended to punish them by finding more wealth and power elsewhere. They were going to meet someone who could help him do that.
            And that person had probably asked to see Lucius’s heir and their family’s new slave, as well.
            So far, Draco had to admit, Potter was a better actor than he’d thought. He didn’t look quite as ill as he had when the goblins were around him, either. He kept his head up and slid through the people around them like a shark through waves, ignoring the way they usually turned to stare once they caught a glimpse of his scar. His hand was always on his wand. His field of vision always included both Draco and his father.
            Someone would probably think he was a trained bodyguard. It made Draco wonder just what they did teach during Auror training, and how many of the techniques they portrayed as special and secret and just for the trainees could be profitably applied elsewhere.
            Potter could do several things.
            If he intended to stay in the wizarding world.
            Draco frowned. Yes, that one was rather the sticking point. Every time he alluded to the future in their dueling lessons, Potter always spoke of the next year, and anything Draco ventured beyond that point met with silence. Potter didn’t want to tell Draco what he intended to do in the Muggle world, how he intended to live when he had no real credentials and his life and friends were here.
            I hate to see potential going to waste. That was the only way Draco could explain his interest, anyway. He didn’t want to see Potter kneel to anyone, and he didn’t want to watch him vanish into the Muggle world and lose every chance he might have to recover his freedom and prestige. Draco would like to see him rub the goblins’ noses, and the nose of anyone who hadn’t supported him, in the shine of his glittering new life.
            But Potter himself didn’t seem to care about that. And Draco could hardly take revenge for someone who didn’t want him to.
            He pondered, and watched, and stepped straight into someone in front of him, a tall wizard hurrying along with a wooden box under his arm. The end of the box came unhinged as Draco watched, and bright blue eggs slid to the ground, shattering on the cobblestones. Draco whisked his robes away from the spreading mess of yolk.
            The wizard turned around. His hand was on his wand already, but he went still and stared when he saw Draco. Perhaps it was his face, or perhaps it was his age; the next moment, the wizard had turned to his father, after all. Draco lifted his chin and strove to look unconcerned. Perhaps he was twining his hands together, but that didn’t mean that he was nervous. Only someone ignorant of who he was would conclude that.
            And it didn’t seem as though the man was ignorant of who they were, after all.
            “Are you going to pay for this, Malfoy?” he asked, heaving the box. A few last eggs slid out and smashed on the cobbles. Draco stiffened. If it was him, he would at least have tried to save his precious Potions ingredients, or whatever they were. But this particular man never took his eyes from Lucius’s face. “Or are you going to make your brat do it?”
            His father’s face went tight in a way that made Draco have trouble breathing. Then his father bowed his head, bowed in turn over the cane that he carried when they were in public, and opened his mouth to speak.
            He didn’t get the chance to.
            “Master.”
            It was Potter’s voice, far flatter and more servile, because devoid of emotion, than it had been in front of the goblins. Of course, Draco thought, as he watched people turn around at the sound of the word, they had a larger audience this time.
            “Yes, Potter?” Lucius sounded unconcerned, but the wizard started and stared at Potter for the first time, apparently seeking the scar under his fringe.
            Potter had knelt down next to the eggs, his chains clinking. He dipped his fingers into the yolk and held them up, dripping, with shards of shell twined among his fingers. “I recognize these eggs, Master,” he said. “They had a section on them in Auror training. They’re miniature dragon eggs.”
            Draco choked. Miniature dragons were a species so rare that most of them only existed in private collections now, where the wizards breeding them hoped to release them back into sanctuaries someday. He had heard that they would lay large numbers of eggs in captivity, but few of those eggs were fertile, although it was hard to tell which ones were infertile until they failed to hatch.
            “Illegal to trade?” Lucius asked as if he wasn’t sure, like Draco, that they were.
            Potter bowed his head. “Yes, Master. Except to registered breeders.”
            The sound of his voice, and the expression on his face, what little Draco could see of it, made Draco want to haul Potter to his feet and slap him. Yes, he needed to be respectful when he spoke to a Malfoy. That didn’t actually mean the Malfoy would hurt him forever if he wasn’t. Potter was being ridiculous.
            This charade is more for the audience than for us, and you know it.
            Draco didn’t know where his mind got off being reasonable at him. He scowled at Potter anyway, since everyone who saw would probably assume he just didn’t like Potter, or resented him for causing this kind of scene.
            Lucius turned back to the wizard with the box. “Did you know this fact?” he asked, all grave and courteous, making Draco want to swallow a laugh now. “I am more than willing to pay for them, but I want to know if it will be legal or black market value.”
            The wizard glanced sharply over Lucius’s head, in the direction of what Draco thought might well be scarlet Auror robes. Then he shook his head and said, “I’m inclined to let it go. This time,” he added quickly.
            Potter raised his head. His eyes seemed to memorize the wizard’s face. Then they moved downwards, and he was on his feet and between the wizard and Draco.
            Draco blinked. The movement had happened so fast he’d missed it. Of course, that was probably a good thing in a bodyguard. If Potter moved so fast that he surprised the people he was guarding, that meant he would probably surprise the ones attacking them, too.
            The wizard stumbled back a step and said, “Is this how you allow your slaves to treat free men, Malfoy?”
            “When you aim your wand elsewhere,” Potter said, voice like granite, “then I’ll go back to minding my master’s business. Sir.”
            Draco looked down. Yes, the wizard had held his wand pointed towards Draco. It was subtle, concealed within his sleeve. He had no idea how Potter had seen it.
            I need to learn what he knows. I don’t want to fail at protecting myself when he’s gone.
            The wizard stepped back. Then he shook his head and said, “Slaves should know their place.”
            “I know mine.” Potter didn’t seem as though he intended to let his gaze waver. “Between the Malfoys and danger.”
            Draco blinked at nothing. That was a more explicit answer than he had thought he would get, even given the charade. He wished he could lean forwards and look at Potter’s face right now without it being obvious, because he wanted to see what expression he was wearing and how genuine it was.
            The wizard backed further away, and Potter flexed his hand around his wand, then moved out in front of Draco again.
            Draco and his father exchanged glances. For one of the few times in his life, though, Draco discovered that he didn’t know what Lucius was thinking simply from the expression on his face. He had turned around to look at Potter again too quickly for that, at least when his expression was so complex.
            Draco nibbled his lip thoughtfully as he trailed after Potter. Maybe, if Potter meant anything of the sentiment he’d just expressed, then Draco would have an easier time persuading him to stay in the wizarding world.
*
            Harry pressed his forehead against the wall of the shower, and stood there until even the enchanted water sluicing over his back and hair threatened to turn cold. Then he straightened and pulled back, shaking his head as he turned off the shower and wrapped his towel around himself.
            He didn’t understand, no. He didn’t understand how everyone was fooled by the simple act he had put on. He didn’t understand why the people who had said they supported him hadn’t come up to in Diagon Alley or protested; there had been people who turned away, but that wasn’t the same thing. He didn’t understand the way Malfoy Father and Son had stared at him for the rest of that trip to Diagon Alley.
            He had played out the act. He had done as he had to.
            It still left him feeling as though someone had coated his skin with a thin film of slime.
            Harry dressed in the plain pyjamas that Ren had left him and sat down on the end of his bed. He could feel weariness weighing his eyelids down—it always did, when he’d spent hours with his nerves tuned to the pitch of alertness like that—but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he lay back now. His skin shuddered and shivered along his nerves, and he wanted to throw up and knew that he wouldn’t be able to work enough spit into his mouth to do so.
            He didn’t want this.
            But Malfoy probably hadn’t wanted to sacrifice a vault to rescue him, either, Harry thought, lying back after all. (Maybe it would be different in his slave bed than in his own). Harry hadn’t asked him to, but the deed was done, and they weren’t being horrible to him when things were in private.
            He had enough to eat, enough to wear, things to do to keep him from going mad with boredom. It was more than he had ever had at the Dursleys’. His memories of the past told him to shut up and be grateful.
            His sense of reality told him to be glad that he hadn’t turned the man in the Alley today into a pile of grey mush. His magic had risen to the surface in fury, and the man would have been an admirable target.
            Then Harry sighed. No, admirable only in the sense that it would have been a release for his fury. He knew that he couldn’t simply unleash his magic like that. If the wizarding world got wind of what he could really do to anyone with skin and flesh and bone, then they wouldn’t demand that he become a slave. They would demand that he be locked up, or used as a weapon, and his freedom would never be in sight again.
            Someone knocked on his door.
            Harry kept his head bowed as he laughed, because seriously, what was this, a day to repeat everything? Regrets, and words, and encounters with Malfoy?
            But he kept knocking, and wouldn’t go away, and after all, Harry was a slave in the Manor, with no real right to keep the door shut if Draco wanted to open it. So he got up and opened it. That much freedom, he could at least preserve.
            Draco stepped into the room. For once, though, he didn’t glare around as though wondering what each of the furnishings had cost and whether Harry was worthy of that cost, or shake him, or demand dueling lessons immediately. He just watched Harry thoughtfully. Harry threw his head back and folded his arms to encounter the gaze; he couldn’t pretend to be calm, so he would just be defiant instead. That ought to square with things.
            “Did you mean what you said?” Draco asked at last.
            “I said a lot of things,” Harry said. “And if you’re asking about all the master and sir business, then no.”
            Draco flinched from the lash of magic that followed the words. Harry held his breath for a second. He honestly hadn’t meant to send so much out. He wondered if Draco had felt the power eating for a moment at his skin and fingernails, tearing them apart, rending at him. It wouldn’t be his fault if he had. It would be Harry’s.
            Keep yourself under control. He told himself that, again and again, but it never seemed to work. He wondered if he would have had as much trouble if he was a slave of the actual goblins. Maybe they would have provided less pleasant surroundings to remind him, and that would have made him keep his temper in check.
            But perhaps it would have resulted in someone’s death instead, probably when he tried to make Harry lick his boots. He couldn’t know.
            “I meant—I meant that bit about standing between the Malfoys and danger.” Draco’s color was high, his eyes measuring the distance between Harry and the door.
            “What?” Harry stared at him. It seemed the strangest thing for Draco to pick up on.
            But the fear was real, so Harry turned and went back to the bed. He sat down, put his head between his hands, and thought of all the flying he would do when he was free of this world, at last. He would go up into the clouds, and he would never come down until he was ready to go to Muggle London and seek a new life. Maybe he would fly to Ireland, or to the Continent. The wind scrubbing his face, the sharp sting on his cheeks and in his ears, his hands gripping the broom while the silence sang to him.
            He filled his mind with the sensation, and finally looked up. Draco still stood in place, although he’d cocked a leg backwards. Harry recognized one of the dueling stances he’d taught him, and almost smiled.
            “I meant it at the time,” he said. “It was the sort of thing that someone would probably expect me to say, if I took the bodyguard duties seriously and agreed that I should be a slave.”
            Draco frowned. “Oh.”
            “Why that word?” Harry pulled his legs in close to him and thought of the way he would rise on the broom, spinning and dodging and not caring what anyone back on the ground said about it being dangerous. He would have survived something far more dangerous, at least to his spirit and soul, after passing through the slave ordeal.
            “Because I hoped if you meant it that it would be easier to persuade you to stay in the wizarding world,” Draco admitted. Harry blinked at him. “I don’t want you to go,” Draco said, and turned as red as if he’d made a love confession.
            “Why not?” Harry asked, mystified. “I’m sure you can find someone to help you continue your training after I leave.”
            Draco shook his head. “It’s not that,” he said. “I—want you to stay here. You shouldn’t let them drive you away.”
            Harry tried to control his laughter, but it came out anyway, gravel laughter, grave laughter, harsh and hard and high. Draco jumped and backed away another step, but Harry saw the look in his eyes. That was the way Voldemort would have laughed, it said.
            And Harry agreed, but he was too tired to hide what he thought anymore, or to let fear stop him.
            “You think they’re driving me away,” he whispered, bowing his head. “I hate this. I would have died before I agreed to become a slave, if it wasn’t that the goblins threatened everyone. And then no one spoke up except my friends when I agreed to put a collar on. They could have agreed with me that it had to be done and still said it was a shame. But they all kept quiet. They were afraid.
            “When I’ve done this, then the debt is paid. I’ll have done everything they could ask of me, all the people who think I owe them something for their adoration. I’ll go. That’s the only thing I can ask now, that’s the only thing I can think about, and the only thing I can live for.” He lifted his hands, watching Draco stare at the bones and the veins in the backs of them. “My magic can melt people’s flesh and bone when I get angry enough. That started when those former Death Eaters were attacking me right after the war. The Healers say my rage condensed and turned my magic into something else.” He took a deep breath, feeling again the way the Healers had backed away from him in fear and wonder, and the way he had carried his magic around like a nest of spiders about to hatch inside him. It wasn’t all his magic, but it was enough to taint his magic.
“I don’t ever want to be that angry again,” Harry finally continued. But as long as I stay in the wizarding world, I will be, because I’ll always run into someone who thinks that I owe them something. I need to break free. Going to the Muggle world is the only way I can.”
            He wound down. It hadn’t taken that long, after all, to say what had brewed in him, to spill the poison. Harry sighed and reached for the letter Ron and Hermione had sent him again. “Right now, I want to answer my post, and then I want to sleep,” he whispered. “Go away, Draco. Please.”
            The opening and shutting of the door said his wish had been granted.
*
Anon: He will, as you can see here.
CareLessLover: He isn’t comfortable with the bodyguard pretense, either. But he’ll do it if it means getting his freedom back.
Jester: Thanks! I appreciate it.
SP777: Harry is currently determined not to learn much, or at least not to interact that much with them beyond what’s necessary for the con. But Narcissa and Draco together are luring him out of his shell.
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The Long Defeat