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Business Meetings	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21371 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Eight—Defining Mastery

            Harry halted in front of the door to Malfoy’s mansion and closed his eyes. He pictured a cup of clear water held above the burning part of his mind. He pictured the water pouring out, dousing the flames. He pictured himself walking into the room to make a business report, the thing he was supposed to do here in any case. His breathing slowed, and he opened his eyes ready to do it.

            Until the door opened, and a female vampire standing in the doorway looked at him with dark eyes that held more than a touch of grey. Then Harry had to clench his teeth down and walk past her wondering what Malfoy would look like when he saw him again, if those eyes would be as calm and as bloody.

            It doesn’t matter. You know it doesn’t. You were the one who did something wrong. You forgot what he was, and encouraged him.

            Harry practiced the picture of cold water again as he walked through the corridors, the dim magnificence flashing at him here and there, light catching on an impossibly delicate vase holding a spray of lilies or the gilded frame of a mirror. He could do this. Of course he could. He wasn’t wounded this time, and he had cast a charm that would make any blood he spilled clot at once. He was taking the precautions he should have before.

            He had treated Malfoy like a…human. He had to remember he was a vampire, a dangerous magical creature. Anything less wasn’t paying Malfoy the respect he had earned, as a vampire Lord powerful enough to make the Ministry send a negotiator to him instead of trying to eliminate him right away.

            Harry shrugged with one shoulder as he moved through the door to the throne room. And he could think that, but he couldn’t completely change his instincts or his reactions. It was stupid to think he could.

            He would have to try, and hope he could do his best.

            Malfoy sat on the throne, his arms planted flat, his stare planted straight ahead. Harry let his shoulders drop from the hunch they had adopted without meaning to, and nodded to him. This might work out for the best, then. Malfoy looked as he had when they first began their meetings, months ago. That they might go back to something that had worked was better than Harry had expected.

            There was no adopting the joking tone he had come up with then, though. He kept his eyes on the floor instead as he murmured greetings and moved forwards to a position in front of the throne where Malfoy could easily see him. He watched his feet and counted the number of his boot laces twice before Malfoy spoke. His voice whispered and boomed and sighed from the walls and the floor and the roof, a thunderous hiss.

            “What do you have to report?”

            “That the Ministry has promised to leave the flock alone, and promised to catch the ones who attacked me the last time I was here,” Harry said at once. He made his voice smooth and light, like the tone he used to report to the Head Auror. But he had rarely respected the Head Auror. Here, he left politics behind and took up politeness instead. “They made the promises on air, and you know their words are a waste of breath. But that’s the official position. I thought you should know it.”

            “This, you could have sent me in a letter.” Malfoy’s voice narrowed down, now only seeming to come from the floor in front of Harry’s boots and one wall to the right.

            “My apologies, Lord Malfoy,” Harry said. “If you would have preferred an owl, I should have sent one.”

            “Submission does not suit you.”

            Harry twitched his head up before he could stop himself, and glared before he could consider the context. Malfoy leaned forwards in a half-crouching position that Harry had seen cats take when just out of the sight of birds. His eyes looked like obsidian buttons, no trace of grey, and his lips parted around perfect fangs.

            And knowing what he did, having broken the tips of those fangs last month, having told Malfoy that he could not take what Harry could only willingly offer…

            Still, Harry’s throat dried out, and his hand twitched, and he wanted to reach, wanted to touch that cold corded neck, wanted to feel how those shoulders arched, wanted to smooth those arms up and down and twist around while knowing that head was about to descend.

            He wanted many things, and he had learned that he could not have some of them. He bobbed his head and said, “No. I don’t think so, either, Lord Malfoy. That was why I said what I did last month.”

            Malfoy licked his right fang, then his left, and flowed to his feet. Harry became aware swiftly of the jut of his wand shaft against his elbow, became aware of the way Malfoy’s muscles flowed and draped loosely. He watched as Malfoy made his way down the throne, walking as though he really did have springs in his feet.

            Malfoy halted at the bottom step of the dais and nodded. “That is the man I want to bite.”

            For a moment, Harry thought he meant someone in the Ministry, or whoever had attacked him last month. Then he understood, and his eyes narrowed as he lifted his chin in an automatic response. That would lock Malfoy’s glance on his pulse, but he didn’t care. He would repeat the words, if he had to. The deference he had planned to show Malfoy when he arrived here felt, abruptly, like a useless and dangerous pretense. “I’m not yours to bite.”

            “If you gift yourself to me,” Malfoy said. “That is the only way. I didn’t understand that last month, but now I do. I can worry. I can circle. I can touch, perhaps. But bleeding you waits for permission.”

            Harry shook his head. “Vampires don’t ask for permission.”

            Malfoy laughed, a sound like a grave exhaling. He began to move around Harry in a circle, his footsteps silent, his unnecessary breath loud. Harry moved with him, keeping eyes on him, his hand resting on his wand. “Do you know what makes a dominant vampire different from others?”

            “You command a flock,” Harry said. “The eyes of your door guards reflect yours. You can use their senses. You can read their memories from their blood. You can make them wish that they hadn’t challenged you.”

            “The last, any vampire could do,” Malfoy said, his voice marble, his face intent. “But the others, yes. I am impressed that you noted the color of my eyes in Amelia’s. Not many mortals would look that hard.”

            “I’m used to noticing things,” Harry said shortly. He wondered when Malfoy would stop the circle. He wasn’t moving fast, as Harry knew he could, but he didn’t hold still the way he had on the throne, either. Harry shivered. He hadn’t realized how much he’d counted on Malfoy’s stillness. He was the one who moved, who reacted, who thrashed around like the hot-blooded little human he was, and Malfoy was the one who glided and then jerked to a stop. “It’s part of my training as an Auror.”

            “Aurors have missed that,” Malfoy said, and his voice dropped. Harry listened, but could hear no emotion in it, only coldness. “Hit Wizards have missed that. The negotiators the Ministry sent to me when I first created my flock missed that. You are different.”

            Harry snorted, finding familiar ground for a moment in the midst of this dizzy dance. “Many people tell me that.”

            “I am not your fan,” Malfoy said. “I am not your co-worker, your partner, your friend.”

            Harry nodded. “That was the mistake I made. I treated you like you were a human, and exposed you to unbearable temptation with my blood. I’m sorry.”

            “Not unbearable,” Malfoy said, and lifted his head so that the faint light from the torches could catch his fangs. They shimmered like prisms. Harry blinked. “A dominant vampire can subdue the hunger. Most of the time, we have no reason to. We must feed, and the hunger brings us closer to our flock and ensures we understand them. But we can.”

            “All right,” Harry said. “So—”

            “You tempt me,” Malfoy said. “Not unbearably. Never unbearably.” He turned his head to the side, and fuck, even the faint blue lines of his veins beneath his skin made Harry feel as if he needed a drink. “I let my instincts take me over. You said once that you treated vampires and humans the same unless they tried to kill.”

            “Yes,” Harry said. “Is it also a trait of dominant vampires that they leap madly from subject to subject instead of staying on one that makes sense?”

            Malfoy ducked his head, laughing softly, and let his hair fan forwards over his face. Harry watched it fall. Each strand shone from the inside like the fangs, and he wondered if it had turned transparent with Malfoy’s change. His hand started forwards, but fell back to his side before it had moved more than an inch. At least he had that much to be proud of. “You amuse me,” Malfoy breathed. “You thrill me. You soothe me. I should have known what you were as soon as I saw you.”

            “You did,” Harry said. “An Auror, your negotiator, and a pain in your royal vampire arse.”

            “My equal,” Malfoy said. “Not someone I can subdue. Not someone I would wish to subdue.” He flowed to a stop and gave Harry a bow, twisting his head to the side again. Harry wondered if he knew how attractive his veins were and wanted to show them off.

            The realization hit him like a burst of starlight.

            No. He’s showing me his throat.

            Harry licked his lips. He straightened and flung his head up, responding the only way he could, as a call to battle. His throat was parched, and his legs wobbled worse than they had when he was fighting off the effects of the Cruciatus last month, and his head ached with expanding ripples of wonder and desire, but he stared at Malfoy and let the vampire’s eyes linger on his jugular and showed no fear.

            Malfoy was offering Harry a gift of his own, one Harry did not want to refuse.

            “It is not a complete exchange,” Malfoy said, and reached out, his hand hovering short of Harry’s arm. “Not yet.”

            “No,” Harry said, and tucked his chin back down, and turned so his elbow grazed Malfoy’s palm. “Not yet.”

            Malfoy raised his eyelids high, and looked back at him, eyes the color of smoke on dark water, of hematite, of softened obsidian. Harry looked back at him, looked into his eyes and not at his fangs, and saw the way Malfoy’s eyelids fluttered when he absorbed the message.

            “You are right,” Malfoy said. “The gift will come—later.”

            “It will,” Harry said, and hesitated, and reached out, one finger grazing down the soft robe Malfoy wore. Malfoy tilted his head back and stood there, trembling as fiercely as though Harry held a cup of blood to his lips.

            And I know I didn’t make contact with the skin.

            When Malfoy looked back at him, it was at his eyes, and not at his throat.

            “Until the third of next month,” he said, words opening a cavern in front of Harry, one he could walk down if he chose.

            “Until the third,” he said, and turned away, because he did not choose, not yet. There were still steps in the dance he needed to learn, if only to be sure that Malfoy would not dance him to death like some underworld lord in legend.

            But he knew Malfoy watched him walk away, and he took pride in the easy roll of his hips, in the way he held his wand, in the defensive training that he knew made smooth lines out of his body.

            Even in the pulse of blood in his veins.

            Mine. And his.

            If I choose.

*

            unneeded: Yes, Malfoy might have more now if he hadn’t pressed so far right then. As for whether Harry wants to turn on the Ministry, he already does, but it would take a while to convince him that joining a vampire is better.

Rabia: Thank you! The setting is a deliberate choice; glad it’s working for you.

Do you mean Draco trusts Harry more? Probably true, after this chapter.

lividfire: Thanks for reviewing.

Yami Bakura; Sorry! I am trying!

thrnbrooke has been back and reviewing a few of my stories, but not much on AFF anymore.

SP777: Harry didn’t have much choice about going in there. Draco’s vampires would have brought him even if he didn’t consider it his duty to go.

AlterEquis: Draco would really like to know who did that, yes.

Amiyom: Thanks. That was the effect I was hoping to achieve, yes.
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Business Meetings