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Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3831 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Eight—Giving Up

            “It seems fantastic.”

            Draco shook his head and leaned back against his chair, then tilted the chair back down before its legs could leave the floor. He’d caught Kreacher’s eye, and suddenly it seemed like a much worse idea than it had to tilt the chair all the way back and rest his feet on the table. “I don’t think so,” he said. “What he told us is only a milder version of what I thought all along.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “That there was some grand conspiracy against us, and everyone was collecting evidence against us?”

            Draco calmly picked up one of the hard-boiled eggs Kreacher had made and peeled it, flaking the shell into neat little bits in a bowl that Kreacher had also provided. Harry watched him in envy. Draco smiled back and decided not to tell him that he had learned how to do that on his own and with lots of practice, rather than it being an innate skill or something he had learned in his pure-blood childhood.

            Not that I’m particularly proud of my childhood or my parents, anymore.

            “That they wanted to get rid of us, because you were more trouble than you were worth.” Draco used a spoon to slice off the top of the egg and popped it into his mouth. He sighed as the yolk crumbled exactly the way he wanted, and spent a moment neatly chewing before he continued. “As long as you were partnered with Weasley, they couldn’t do much. But then he left, and they gave you Hale, who was a worthless partner, and started assigning you to more dangerous cases.”

            Harry tilted his own chair back. Kreacher appeared beside him with a small pop and stared. Harry ignored him with the ease of what Draco suddenly felt sure was long practice, and broke his own hard-boiled egg open by tapping it hard against the side of the bowl and then unwinding the shell like a sheet. “Yes, I’m that important.”

            “Sometimes, you really are.”

            Harry jerked, and nearly sent his chair sprawling onto the floor. Kreacher grabbed the legs and set them back down, patting them and grumbling in a way that made it hard to tell if he was soothing the chair or swearing at Harry. Harry frowned at him, and then at Draco as if that would make more sense, somehow. “Now you sound as though you believe the nonsense that Montgomery was saying.”

            Draco sighed. “It’s true that we need to check it with Veritaserum.” He was less sure of that than he had been when Harry first approached Montgomery to make his threats, though. Montgomery’s eyes had the kind of light that said he believed Harry, and for whatever reason, he seemed to be frightened of what the Master of Death could do to an unhealthy degree. “But it’s what he believed, I think, even if it’s not true. Are you going to deny that the Ministry wanted to get rid of you almost the instant you became an Auror?”

            Harry closed his eyes. “It’s true that I caused trouble and broke the rules…”

            “And that you have this obsession with thinking that you’re not important enough to warrant any kind of attention,” Draco muttered for him, pouring tea from the pot into his cup. Kreacher appeared beside him, flicked his fingers, and steamed the tea for Draco. Then he patted the side of the pot as though it needed soothing, too, and gave Draco a significant look before disappearing.

            “Fine,” Harry said. “So they assigned me to Hale on purpose. But how does that work? How could they know that we wouldn’t work well together even before they paired us? I refuse to grant them the power of knowing the future.”

            Draco put down his teacup. “If you learn to read personalities and past histories well enough, you don’t need to know the future,” he said patiently. “She had the attitudes that she did about non-pure-bloods, and she was a stickler for the rules. Of course they knew that you would clash. Anyone reasonable could have guessed it.”

            Harry opened his eyes again and looked at him. “Fine. But she caused trouble for herself, too.”

            Draco snorted. “Weren’t you listening to what Montgomery said when he got to that part about the Ministry plotting against you?”

            “To be honest, I was trying not to listen.” Harry turned his face away and stared at the distant wall of the kitchen as though it would witness, for him, that he hadn’t been listening.

            Draco paused, then nodded. “I can understand that.” Harry still didn’t move, and Draco reached out and put his hand on his, gentling his voice as much as he could. “But you see, Hale got in less trouble than you did. She still has a responsible position and a good partner, or at least the option of one.” He couldn’t picture the cold woman he’d met taking kindly to any partner the Ministry asked her to work with, even one who had the pure blood she favored. “And then they put you with Vane.”

            Harry jerked a little, but stayed silent. Pleased that he wasn’t going to pull away immediately at the mention of his dead partner, Draco drew a breath and went on. “From what I could gather of Montgomery’s words, they didn’t plan for you and Hale to separate so soon and with so little damage to your reputation. Enough people believed in you that you stayed an Auror. But they were growing more and more frustrated and frightened because you were right in the heart of it all, with the ability to discover corruption and bribery. And you could use the power of your name to cause more scandals than six other Aurors put together.”

            It took a moment, but Harry nodded. Then he looked at Draco and said, “But they knew Hale and I wouldn’t get along. What was the big deal with Lionel? They couldn’t have assumed I would fall in love with him and cause problems with him that way. Or that we would run into a case that would kill him. Or even that he would stop trusting me instead of returning my feelings if I fell in love with him.”

            “No.” Draco hesitated again. Then he said, “How much do you know about what Vane did before he was your partner?”

            Harry shrugged. “Just that he was with people who treated him well, and people who liked him. He had more friends than I did after Ron left the Aurors. You should have seen the number of people who came to his funeral.” He stared wistfully into the distance for a minute.

            Draco bristled. Even though he knew it was natural that part of Harry wished things had worked out between him and Vane—at the very least, Vane might not have died on their last case together—he didn’t want Harry to go back and regret any part of the events that had led up to him being partnered with Draco instead. He squeezed Harry’s hand until Harry squeezed back, and then said, “Vane had a gambling problem.”

            “Huh.” Harry blinked at him, not seeming outraged. “What could he have gambled with? I know he didn’t get paid more than I did, because he claimed I should have been.”

            Draco nodded. “But he had a habit of borrowing money from his partners and then not paying it back. Because they were his friends, I don’t think most of them minded. But you weren’t his friend before you became partners.”

            “Did they think he would, what, drag me down into the world of corruption and compulsive spending?” Harry shook his head. “He didn’t. I never even knew that he gambled until you told me.”

            “Yes. Well.” Draco shifted his weight a little. This was the part that he now knew Harry hadn’t been listening to at all, or he would have more of an idea about what was coming next. “The—he was promised a steady source of income if he persuaded you to let him have access to your vaults.”

            Harry stared at him. Draco thought for a second he would get up and fling off Draco’s grip and stalk out of the room. But Harry breathed out instead, and then muttered, “Why would he need the steady income if he could get me to give him the vaults?”

            “The physical vaults,” Draco said. “Not the Galleons inside them.”

            Harry blinked. “So they could plant something in Gringotts. Something—illegal enough that even the Chosen One couldn’t get away with possessing it.”

            Draco had to smile. “You are a real Auror, however much they doubt it.”

*

            Harry sat there, and wondered what to feel.

            He knew what Draco would probably have preferred him to feel. Shock, outrage, and ultimate rejection of Lionel.

            But Harry could only see Lionel sanely now, not ultimately reject him. To do that would be to reject the part of him that fell in love with his partners, and that part had led him to Draco, so like hell would Harry throw it away.

            For Lionel…

            Harry had never sensed that his friendship was less than sincere. He had sensed that uneasiness and lack of trust after Harry had stupidly confessed his crush to Lionel. But Harry had always thought that came from Lionel’s fear that Harry had never liked him, only had a crush on him, and his not being able to return the feelings. It was annoying for both of them, but it wasn’t fatal.

            He must have been spectacularly bad at what they asked him to do, Harry decided. He and Lionel had worked together for months, and Lionel had never asked him a single question about the vaults or tried to nudge Harry into giving him access. Even thinking about it now, in hindsight and with the motivation laid stark and bare before him, Harry couldn’t see any motion Lionel had made that would lead him closer to his goal.

            He shook his head and looked up at Draco. “It’s good to know, I suppose,” he said quietly. “Since it’s about the Ministry’s pattern of mistreatment of its Aurors and the way they feared me even before I did anything. But it really doesn’t affect me, does it? I mean, he never succeeded.”

            Draco caught his breath, and his face turned stern. “But now you know what he was trying to do.”

            “Tried to do, not succeed,” Harry said, and kept his gaze on Draco’s eyes. He knew very well what Draco hoped he would get out of this, and that was a personal motivation different from recognizing that the Ministry had conspired against him. “I still think of Lionel as a partner. I’ll regret the way he died for a long time. It doesn’t mean that I love him more than you, or that I wish I could stop having you as a partner and have him instead. I would never wish that, especially not now that I know you.”

            Draco stared at him for a few minutes. Then he turned away and drove one fist into the table. Even Kreacher appearing and staring at him didn’t seem to affect him.

            “What,” Harry said, not making it a question, and picked up his cup. It was cold, but a quick flick of his wand started the warmth moving in the liquid again. Harry sipped it and watched Draco. Draco wasn’t stalking back and forth across the kitchen, but his body was as whipcord-tight as if he wanted to.

            “You always excuse everyone, no matter what they do,” Draco whispered harshly, his head still turned away. “Except your friends and me, who you hold to a higher standard. Why? Why do your enemies get a pass and we don’t?”

            Harry put down his teacup. “What do you think I haven’t forgiven you for that I should? Yes, we still have arguments, but—”

            “You were disgusted when I wanted to use that potion on Montgomery.” Draco turned around and looked at him again, both palms flat on the table now. He was shaking with the effort it took him not to slam down another fist, Harry thought. Well, he couldn’t do anything about that but listen. That was the important part, anyway, what he had asked Draco that Draco thought he hadn’t forgiven. “I saw you. Don’t deny it. You’re disgusted any time I make a move towards ridding the world of enemies that hurt us.”

            Oh. Harry sighed. “I wasn’t thinking of him being hurt when you used that potion,” he said. “I was thinking of you.”

            Draco’s eyes narrowed until their grey color was almost lost in his face and he looked frighteningly similar to Lucius. “I assure you, I had no plans to drink it.”

            “I know,” Harry said helplessly. Fuck, he hadn’t ever thought Draco could mistake his intentions this badly, enough to think that Harry valued Montgomery more than him, but it made perfect sense now that Draco was saying he thought Harry forgave his enemies too easily. “What I mean is, you had to torture people during the war. You’ve had to do it since, but never in ways that—I wanted to spare you from having bad memories. From having doubts later.”

            Draco stood still. “So even sparing your enemies, you say, is about making me feel better,” he said at last, in a colorless voice.

            “Not always,” Harry said. “But that time, it was.”

            “I would have been fine if I used the potion against him,” Draco said. “I’ll be fine after I use whatever curse I can come up with against Hannah. I haven’t thought of anything awful enough yet to pay her back for the Bone-Shifting Curse.”

            “I don’t want you to do that,” Harry said, and folded his hands on the table in front of him and studied his nails so that he wouldn’t have to study Draco’s increasingly furious face.

            “Why?” Draco said. His voice was low enough to sound like a sphinx’s growl. “If you try to tell me that she doesn’t deserve to be tortured—”

            “She doesn’t deserve to, in the same way no one does,” Harry snapped, looking up because he had to. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve punishment, but torture is useless for getting confessions, you know that.”

            “But not in making me feel better.”

            Harry sighed in relief. Draco had handed him the path he needed to take, though Harry doubted it had been on purpose. “I’m the one she hurt. Don’t you think that I’m the one who needs to feel better, and the one who should get to choose the vengeance we take on her?”

            Draco turned his back and folded his arms. Harry let his lips quirk into a smile because no one was looking except Kreacher, who wouldn’t tell on him, and once again picked up his tea and cast a Warming Charm on it.

            “You have no idea how she made me feel,” Draco said sullenly, without looking back.

            “That’s true,” Harry said. “But I know exactly how she made me feel, since I experienced the pain of the Bone-Shifting Curse from inside my body.” He let his voice harden as Draco just stood there looking mulish. “I think I should be able to choose my own punishment, Draco. Let me do it.”

            Draco turned around and looked at him with his heart in his eyes. Harry reached across the table, and Draco took his hand.

            “You just always give your enemies so much less than they deserve,” Draco said miserably. “I wanted to make her suffer.”

            “I’m going to make her suffer,” Harry said neutrally.

            “You can’t know that threatening her with the Master of Death thing will work the way it did for her cousin.”

            Harry nodded. “I know.” But there’s something else I can do.

*

            When they came into the room where Kreacher had chosen to put Hannah, Draco hung back. It made sense that Harry would be more interested in causing pain to someone who had actually hurt him, and for him to do that, he needed to take the lead from the beginning and show that he was serious, that he meant business.

            If it turned out that this was too serious for him, though, and he faltered, Draco would be there like a tidal wave to sweep everything else away and do what needed to be done. He touched his wand.

            Harry walked in normally enough. Hannah, in the middle of bindings like the ones that Kreacher had left on her cousin, paused and looked up at them. Her face was so smooth, so neutral, that Draco wanted to curse her just to hear her make a noise.

            Harry drew his wand. Draco remained where he was, raising his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected this, not so soon, but possibly Harry had come up with a spell that matched his morals and would still cause pain.

            It had better be enough pain, that was all.

            Harry touched the wand to his arm, and whispered a Cutting Charm. Draco blinked as blood sprang into being at the contact point. Harry took the blood into his hand and looked at it for a second, rather than at Hannah. She was leaning forwards as if she wanted to see better, but not showing fear.

            Not yet, Draco noted, as Harry looked up and fixed her with a freezing glare that made her sit up and pay attention.

            Harry flung the blood into the air, his wand flicking fast. He chanted, a spell that Draco didn’t recognize, and the blood slowed and began to loop instead of splattering. It landed in a circle around Hannah, and Harry smiled sweetly at her and gathered more blood from his arm.

            “I’ll have to cast charms to make it dry faster,” he said. “But that won’t be much of a problem, not when I think about what you wanted to do to me.”

            Hannah seemed to stop breathing. Draco wanted to rise on his toes, but that might make her look in his direction and think that he hadn’t expected this, which was an impression he must avoid making.

            Was Harry really going to put her in the middle of the ritual that would have disarmed him, that in turn would make her helpless? But he would need another person for that, and more knowledge of the dried blood swirls and runes than he had shown, and much more time—

            Hannah seemed to reach that conclusion at the same time, because she leaned back in her bonds and shook her head. “You cannot make me helpless,” she said.

            Harry lashed and spun out, launching a kick from the hip. It hit Hannah in the chest, knocking the breath out of her, if not wounding her, and she went sprawling. Her hair dipped into the blood Harry had shed, ruining the perfection of the circle. Draco couldn’t help clucking his tongue a little in distress.

            Harry stooped over Hannah, showed her the wet blood he had gathered, and made a stripe down the middle of her nose. “I don’t need to make you helpless that way,” he said. “You may have heard of something called the Puppet Ritual.”

            Hannah went still, staring at Harry. Then she said, “That’s only a legend.”

            If so, it was a legend that Draco had never heard. He was ransacking his memory when Harry spoke, a hard, gloating tone in his voice that Draco had never heard, either. “I discovered it in one of the books in the library here. Do you know where we are? The old Black family home.”

            Hannah’s face flushed, then turned pale. Harry nodded and painted a stripe of blood across the back of her left hand, flipping her over to do it, while he continued explaining in a calm voice. “Yes. Their library is infamous, and they have all sorts of Dark Arts books here. And in one of them is how to perform a blood ritual to make another person into your puppet.” His voice sank into a whisper. “Think of it. It means that you’ll be locked behind your eyes, unable to stop anything you do, fully conscious of it, unlike with the Imperius Curse, which lets you drift, but I will be in control. I can make you give yourself up. I can make you kill, rape, be raped, hurt others, be hurt, serve any cause I want, and you can do nothing.”

            “That doesn’t exist,” Hannah whispered. “A ritual like that would have been used by someone before now, I would know—”

            Harry dashed his hair back from his forehead and showed his scar. “And you know all about the magical power inherent in this, I suppose?” he asked. “And you’re a Parselmouth?” He fixed his eyes on Hannah’s, half-closed, and began to hiss. Draco, his back one prickling mass of gooseflesh, had no idea what he was saying, and he supposed that he didn’t really want to know, either.

            Hannah tensed in her bonds, but lay still, staring at Harry as if she might have a chance of impressing him if she kept still.

            Harry smiled at her, and leaped back, laughing quietly. He cast the circle around Hannah again, this time sprawling out in a loop that encompassed her hair, and dried it with a Drying Charm. Then he squeezed the heel of his palm to get more blood out.

            “You must want a price,” Hannah blurted. “Or you would have silenced me and blinded me and completed the ritual without telling me anything.”

            Harry shrugged and looked down at her with the kind of cold, calculating gaze that Draco had sometimes dreamed about him having, but, of course, not one that he would actually have most of the time. “I could find out what you know from the Puppet Ritual, but sometimes, memories are destroyed when the puppetmaster first enters the mind. There’s the slight chance that I would destroy your memories of stalking me, collecting information on me, and coming up with that ritual to disarm me, especially since they’re recent. I might take the chance on you telling them to me instead. Might. If I had some guarantee that you were telling the truth.”

            “You’ll have it,” Hannah said. Her wrists were flexing behind her back, Draco saw. He didn’t think she was actually in a panic, but Harry had convinced her, and she wanted to survive. She saw this as a trade she had to make in order to live. In that, she seemed more practical to Draco than her cousin, who had tried to spout Ministry doctrine until Harry broke him.

            “You will?” Harry asked. “And you’ll tell the truth? Of course we’ll check with Veritaserum later, but it would be tiresome to find out that you’d lied.”

            “I will tell the truth.”

            Harry backed away from her, face set in a sneer. “Very well. Tell me why the Ministry was so convinced from the beginning that I was a threat, because I caused minor trouble on a few cases. Other Aurors have done so and got away with it.”

            Hannah closed her eyes and swallowed, her throat bobbing. “You weren’t a threat until you developed that gift for visions,” she whispered. “Some people recognized that you had a flaw, and that meant you could become a twisted. With at least the face of the Boy-Who-Lived, you could become immensely powerful before someone moved against you. And what do we do with twisted? We put them down.”

            Harry’s face rippled, and then settled into a grim expression that Draco feared instinctively. He knelt down beside Hannah, his hand resting on her throat. “You had best tell me everything,” he whispered.

            And Hannah did.

*

            Sasunarufan13: Thank you! Glad that Harry’s threat came across as effective. I hope this one did, too. Draco still wishes that Harry would follow up the bluff with reality a bit more often, but hey, not doing so lets him save some energy, anyway!

            SP777: Draco is more irritated that Harry won’t punish his enemies as much as Draco wants him to.
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Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity