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Keep This Wolf	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20229 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Eight—Investigate the Mystery
            “I do not understand why you have returned.”
            Draco didn’t hunch his shoulders, because even a movement like that would reveal too much to Invisible Heldeson, but he wanted to at the remote, utterly cold tone in her voice.
            “I returned because I was doing no good for the Unspeakables by remaining in the forest,” he said, and his voice, at least, was perfect. Just being around people that he knew couldn’t smell his emotions was improving him, he thought, doing wonders for him. “I was reacting inappropriately to the pack leader. I had not subdued my ancient rivalry for him as much as I thought. I was revealing the existence of artifacts that we had intended to keep back as weapons. I had fallen into the trap of thinking that I needed to undermine Potter and dismiss him from being pack leader, when that wasn’t my purpose at all.”
            Heldeson stared at him. Draco had a brief stab of envy in the back of his mind. How did she do that without conveying any emotion? If he had done it, he would have shown impatience or eagerness or scorn, something.
            “You were indeed not there to fight with Potter or to make him lose his place as pack leader,” said Heldeson at last. “I wonder that you can admit that to me with a straight face.”
            Draco looked off to the side. He had wanted to hide his shame, but in doing so, he was letting down his Department in another way. An Unspeakable was dedicated to truth. He or she had to figure out what an artifact really did, not what its owner thought it did or lied about it doing, so that they could use or reshape it. Invisible Heldeson already knew something was wrong. Draco had failed to maintain the ice façade anyway. He might as well tell her and let her help him.
            “It was something else,” Draco whispered. “Potter could smell my emotions, and that unnerved me so much that I acted rashly.”
            Silence from the other side of the desk. Draco didn’t look up until Heldeson said, “You will look at me.”
            A simple order, at least, he knew how to obey. Draco turned his head and met her eyes.
            “Of course a werewolf can smell one’s emotions,” said Invisible Heldeson. “That should not have taken you so off-guard.”
            “Yes, Invisible,” said Draco. That was safe, both a response and a joining-in of her condemnation of himself. He knew no safer response to make than that, in fact.
            Heldeson gave him one searching glance, then continued. “In the meantime, we must deal with your flight. You wish to know why the Ministry chose you to use as liaison to Potter.”
            “Yes, Invisible.”
            “I have made inquiries,” said Heldeson. “It seemed strange to me as well, to take an Unspeakable away from the work that he is trained at and needed for. But I have satisfied myself that it was for a reasonable purpose. You are not to start or flush or protest if someone asks you about it. Is that understood?”
            “Yes, Invisible.”
            “You will return to the pack,” said Heldeson, standing. “Not right away, because we must give Potter time to recover from any offense he is feeling. But no later than the day after tomorrow. Do you promise this to me?”
            Draco nodded and rose. “Yes, Invisible.” He moved out of her office. He was always dismissed when Invisible Heldeson stood up in that particular way.
            In the meantime, he had other things that he should do. Such as looking at the artifacts that were being recently reshaped and tested by other Unspeakables like himself, and seeing if any of them were available to test.
            Especially any that would cover his scent.
*
            “Your Malfoy grows more interesting the more information I find on him.”
            Harry felt his muscles tense despite himself, but he only raised a hand when Ron drew his wand. His friends didn’t often visit the pack. When they did, they were always on edge—not from Harry, but because of the Forbidden Forest’s reputation. Harry had enough trouble keeping them from drawing their wands at every sound. It was probably going to be worse now, he thought.
            “It’s okay, Ron,” he said, standing up and moving away from the little table in front of his house that held the remains of biscuits and tea. “Paracelsus and I have an understanding.”
            “He’s a bloody vampire, mate,” Ron said, but put his wand down and picked up his tea. Next to him, Hermione had one hand on his wrist and a tolerant smile for Harry. She would react swiftly enough if Paracelsus came out of the shadows, though, Harry knew.
            He nodded back to them and went to stand at the edge of the trees. Paracelsus had concealed himself well enough that Harry couldn’t see him at first, not until the wind turned and told his nose where to look. Paracelsus was pressed against a tree with double trunks, elegantly slanted so that he took part in the shadows much more than he would otherwise.
            “Malfoy’s interesting?” Harry asked, lounging against the nearest trunk of the double tree himself and keeping an eye out for sticks and stones and dirt clods and all the other things that a vampire familiar with the Forbidden Forest could potentially turn into deadly weapons.
            “Yes,” said Paracelsus. He pressed one hand against his mouth as if to cover his fangs, as if he had never threatened to drink Harry’s blood. That was another bit of his playacting, and Harry stood there patiently until Paracelsus dropped his hand and gave it up. “The order to send him to the pack didn’t originate in the Department of Mysteries.”
            “Interesting, yes,” Harry said. He had learned a long time ago never to react too much to anything Paracelsus did, outside of an actual attempt to attack him. Too much eagerness only led Paracelsus to taunt and withhold information. Harry had decided that he couldn’t help it, because he was an idiot, and idiots were like that. “I wonder why a Department outside the Unspeakables would have such interest in Malfoy. Or perhaps I should be questioning why they want me stymied, or Thornsberry an outcast. Thank you for confirming that.”
            He took a step back, opening his mouth to call Ron. He must have hit the right note of disinterest to bring out Paracelsus’s irritation, because he snapped, “It came from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I would have told you if you had asked.”
            “Yes, yes,” said Harry, and gave Paracelsus a smile of his own that showed no teeth. Paracelsus had used smiles with teeth as an excuse to lunge at him in the past, explaining that he had thought Harry was being threatening. “I understand. But since you can’t have tracked the rumor to a specific person this fast, I’ll thank you for what you’ve done and put my people on it.”
            “The office of the Minister.”
            Harry couldn’t hide the way he turned back or his heartbeat accelerated at that. Minister Hinsley was someone he didn’t know very well, although he had been one of the Aurors who’d trained Harry, briefly. He’d barely become Minister when Thornsberry attacked his son and was imprisoned, and although the boy hadn’t died or turned, Hinsley had dealt with the ramifications of the bite and Thornsberry’s rushed trial, which some people had criticized. And then Harry had suffered his own bite, and had had other things to worry about.
            “Interesting, again,” he said, since he had already revealed enough intrigue to make Paracelsus look smug, and he might as well see if he could get more out of him. “I wouldn’t have thought Hinsley had any particular grudge against me.”
            Paracelsus chuckled, a noise like beetles chewing through wood. “Perhaps he finds your proposal to adopt the monster who ravaged his son distasteful.”
            “Thornsberry didn’t turn or kill him,” said Harry, and then gave up. He didn’t really want to defend Thornsberry. He just wanted to see if it was possible to make people stop saying all werewolves were horrible because of him. “Fine. Thank you.”
            Paracelsus tightened his hold on the branch and leaned towards him. “You said that you would give me your blood for finding that out,” he whispered.
            “Did I?” Harry pretended to think it over. “No, I didn’t. I’m sure that no words like that ever crossed my lips.”
            Paracelsus showed his fangs, and there was no doubt about what that meant when a vampire did it. Harry only looked him in the face and didn’t move, until Paracelsus huffed at him—an extravagant gesture, with the breath it required—and turned as if to flow back into the Forest.
            Harry was ready for it when Paracelsus leaped away from the double-trunked tree and the trunk he’d been clutching fell towards Harry.
            He side-stepped and gripped the trunk at a point where it would make a good weapon to swing if Paracelsus was stupid enough to think Harry helpless because his hands were occupied. Paracelsus stood watching him, but made no attempt to come nearer. Harry nodded and heaved the trunk back, letting it crash into the earth.
            “Thank you for your help,” he repeated pointedly, and waited until Paracelsus had made his fangs flash again and withdrawn. Then he sighed and shuffled back to his friends, not turning his back on the forest.
            “I think he’s mental,” said Ron, once Harry was sitting again. The look on his face said that he wasn’t far from thinking Harry was mental, too.
            “My relationship with him is weird,” Harry acknowledged, reaching out and scooping up the last cinnamon biscuit. Ron would eat it, otherwise. “I know he’d rejoice to drink my blood, and some of my pack would rejoice to see me fall to him.” He licked a few crumbs off his fingers, for the pleasure of seeing Hermione wince instead of lecture him. “But not all of them.”
            “I don’t think you should stay here.” Hermione put her elbows on the table, then flushed and took them off. Harry knew it was something that she’d probably get scolded for at home. “Too many people dislike you, and one of them is going to attack you some dark night.”
            Harry waved a hand. “No, if someone wants to take control of the pack from me, they need to do it in the open. Otherwise, too many people could claim credit for it.”
            “But you still have a lot of resentment brewing behind you.” Hermione ate her current biscuit slowly, apparently struggling to understand. “How can you stand living in an environment like that?”
            “I’ve always lived in environments like that,” Harry said, thinking of Privet Drive, Hogwarts, even to some extent the Ministry. There had been plenty of people in the Auror program who were neutral on him, or only hard while they suspected that favoritism had made him a trainee, or ready to be friendly, or worshipping, but also some people who would always hate him for taking away their “glory” in the war or not killing Voldemort soon enough or some other silly thing. “I know how to survive them.”
            “You shouldn’t have to, is what I think Hermione is saying,” Ron pointed out.
            Harry nodded. “I shouldn’t have to, but this is the pack that I chose to make my stand in. And it helps that it’s so close to Hogwarts. Hogwarts still feels like home.”
            Hermione and Ron exchanged a glance. Harry didn’t always understand their private communicating glances since they had become a couple, but he knew this one. Harry was crazy, but they wouldn’t argue about it with him any longer.
            Harry smiled at them and held out the plate of biscuits. “More?”
*
            Draco sighed and leaned back at his desk, staring at the uncoiled tube of glass in front of him. It ought to have been a simple thing to unravel. Glass held magic less well than many other items, perhaps because it broke so easily. There were only a limited set of uses the artifact could have been put to.
            Most of the time, he could crack these puzzles in the first five hours of having the artifact, although he didn’t always know immediately how to recreate it or beak it down and shape it to his use. But the cube that he used to light his way had been simple. This one, perhaps because of the way that its insides could reflect each other, was more complicated.
            The door to his office opened. Draco stilled and looked up, one hand still poised over the glass tube. It was unlikely that someone seeking to reclaim their “stolen” property would make it this far into the Department of Mysteries, but on the other hand, he had few surprises visitors.
            He recognized the man’s face, but vaguely. Then he recognized it fully, and stood up, bowing his head a little. “Minister Hinsley.”
            The man, his hair pale and his eyes paler, stood a moment looking around the office, not acknowledging Draco’s nod. Draco watched him in turn. He had a wand holster along his arm, but he showed no signs of drawing it. And he was alone.
            Then he turned back to Draco, and sighed, and drew up the chair that Draco kept for Unspeakables he was collaborating with. “May I talk to you, Unspeakable Malfoy?”
            “Yes, sir,” said Draco, and thought he succeeded in keeping the puzzlement from his voice. If Invisible Heldeson had learned there was a good reason for him being sent, something that had to do to with the Minister, he should have had no reason to visit Draco.
            The Minister sat down with another sigh and folded his hands on his belly, gazing at Draco. Draco just waited. Whether he was in trouble or only dealing with someone paranoid, he had come this far without showing much emotion. He would continue with a winning strategy.
            “I understand that you left the werewolf pack we had assigned you to spy on,” said Hinsley.
            “I understood that I was there as a negotiator, and not a spy,” Draco said. “I was not an effective negotiator. I was undermining the interests of my Department instead of furthering them. So I left.”
            “You will need to return,” said Hinsley. “There’s no one else so effective at getting under Potter’s skin. We know that. We need you to go there and rattle him, and learn what he thinks his secret is for taming Thornsberry.”
            “My report to Invisible Heldeson did contain that information, sir.” Draco looked at Hinsley’s left ear, since looking at his face would only confuse Draco further. “Potter showed me how he intended to hold Thornsberry, working with a packmate of his. He can use magic to calm and soothe them, and to make them feel a sense of belonging. I saw the packmate go from uncertain about participating in the demonstration in front of me to blushing and acting very—very aroused, sir.”
            He didn’t know how much Hinsley knew about his own arousal. He kept his mouth shut while Hinsley stared at him. Perhaps he hadn’t read the report after all, although Draco knew he had been mercilessly clear. One had to when one was a failure.
            “That cannot be the truth,” said Hinsley. “That is the same thing he told us in a letter he wrote to us. He was lying.”
            Draco blinked, once. “Why, sir?” Why did you send someone as negotiator when you already knew how Potter intended to do it?
            “Why would he tell us the truth?” Hinsley tapped one hand sharply on his knee. “I hope that you’re not going to argue Potter is a paragon and a truth-teller, the way that some of my own people did when I suggested we plant a spy in his pack.”
            “Never that, sir,” said Draco, eyes firmly on the lobe of Hinsley’s ear. “But it did seem as though his magic worked the way he said it did.”
            You didn’t tell me the previous information. You sent me in blind.
            And why did Potter have to be rattled and undermined by someone from the Ministry, anyway? The Ministry was easily expert enough in politics to exploit the tensions in Potter’s pack.
            Nothing about this made sense.
            Draco tried to swallow and tell himself that it didn’t need to make sense. If Invisible Heldeson had investigated it and discovered information that satisfied her, then Draco needed to accept her satisfaction and act on it. She wouldn’t sacrifice one of her Unspeakables because of a mistake in another Department. She had said that trained minds were valuable.
            “The magic worked on you, didn’t it?”
            And so perhaps Hinsley had read the report. Draco looked back into the man’s face, and managed to gain strength and confidence from that look, after all. He inclined his head. “Yes, sir. I felt as though I wanted Potter’s protection and comfort.”
            “That kind of magic wouldn’t work on non-werewolves if it was the kind of magic that Potter said it was.” Hinsley’s face was narrow with satisfaction. “All the experts we can find on werewolves assure us of that. Potter was using something else, and whether that something works on humans or not, it definitely can’t tame Thornsberry in the simple way he says it can. He was lying. We need another opinion.”
            Draco’s shoulders relaxed. He had thought something was wrong with him for reacting to Potter’s magic. But what if it was only that Potter was stronger than anyone thought, stranger than anyone thought? His magic had always been strange, from his survival of the Killing Curse. It would make sense that he wasn’t like other werewolves.
            Draco shouldn’t have doubted.
            “If you think that I can rattle Potter into providing that opinion, sir,” he said, “then I’ll try.”
*
delia cerrano: Well, Draco thinks he knows the explanation now. Whether that’s the real one…
CareLessLover: I think it’s harder for most people to smell themselves; you get used to it.
I update it every Tuesday.
BAFan: Not as much interested as you might think; he knew that the Unspeakables would be ashamed of him failing to perform as well as he should.
SP777: Yes, he’ll show up more in the story in the future.
Tommy-Lane: Thanks! I can promise that there is an explosion in the future, although not when.
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