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Bonded Consort	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 33015 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Eight—Some of the Perils of a Malfoy
Draco opened his eyes slowly, frowning. He had gone to sleep well-satisfied last night, because he had persuaded Harry to let him share the bed after all. There had been warmth at his back and a hesitant hand over his waist that he had caught and pulled close to him, to show that Harry was welcome.
It didn’t make sense, therefore, that he would have woken up with a chill in his stomach and at his back. But when he rolled over, he saw why. There was no would-be consort in bed with him.
Draco forced himself to use the little Muggle bathroom and even conjure a toothbrush and clean his teeth, to keep from stalking out straight away to the drawing room where he knew he would find Harry. But there was still a hint of a stalk in his stride when he walked out and stood with his arms folded between Harry and the grimy little window that was letting in light already.
Harry stirred quickly, more so than Draco would have thought he could when curled under a blanket as ratty as this one. Draco cocked his head. Blankets are on the list I’m making.
“Draco?” Harry tried to shield his eyes to see him and conceal a yawn at the same time. It didn’t work well. “Whass’ the matter?”
“Did you need to do that?”
Harry shot up and gave him a ruffled glance. “As a matter of fact, I did. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided that I wasn’t comfortable that close to someone else, and I was going to come out here—”
“It’s not that I’m angry about,” Draco interrupted, a little incredulous, and a little sad, and a lot inclined to blame the Potters. “I told you that you should feel free to express your discomfort if I was moving too fast.”
Harry paused. “Then what are you angry about?”
Draco knelt down next to the couch, so Harry was the one looming above him. He reached out and slid his hand gently down Harry’s cheek. “Why didn’t you wake me up and ask me to come out here, instead of doing it yourself? I could have Transfigured the couch and conjured myself blankets to be more comfortable.”
Harry frowned. “Um.”
“The truth, please, Harry.”
“It didn’t occur to me.”
Draco sighed. It probably hadn’t, and he would be hard put to it, or might, to make Harry understand. He sat back and eyed him. “I know that you’re used to taking last place.”
“What the hell does that mean, Malfoy?” Harry was sitting all the way up now, and Draco had to bite his lip, because his hair was standing out from his head like he’d been caught in a lightning storm and his shirt was ragged and rucked up on one side. “I’ll have you know I’m a very good animal Healer. Reptile Healer. Because I can understand them.”
“Not what I meant.” Draco held his hands up.
“Are you humoring me?”
“No, explaining to you,” Draco said, and hurried on before Harry could demand an explanation that he might not want to give. “What I mean is, you’ve been told all your life that you’re a Squib and therefore not worthy of basic consideration. You need to wait until last, and then you can do some things, if they don’t bother anyone else. Your family put you last behind all their own children. They—”
“I couldn’t do magic, Malfoy. Or they thought I couldn’t. Of course they were going to put me behind the education of their wizarding children.”
Draco caught his hand and kissed it. “My parents, as much as I disagree with them about some things, would never have done that.”
“Oh, yes, because a traditional family like the Malfoys would be so kind to a Squib born into their household.”
“Not what I meant,” Draco said again softly, tickling his fingers along Harry’s palm. At least Harry’s breathing was slowing down, and he looked interested, so Draco continued. “My parents would have made sure that you were a Squib, first. They would have found, like I did, that you weren’t.”
“As much as I want to believe you, Draco, I can’t. Because I’m sure they had the chance to examine me when I was a child. So why did they think I was a Squib?”
“I don’t know if they would have sensed the magic around you,” Draco said. “I didn’t sense it, not the way I usually do with powerful wizards. It might have soaked deep into your core and needed time to rise to the surface again. Or perhaps your parents were already using repressing and repelling spells.”
“They don’t use them here!”
“No, but they probably did there, if they were so concerned that your magic came from Voldemort.”
Harry paused a second, then shrugged and said, “I don’t want to discuss that right now, anyway. We won’t know the truth until we get to Britain and ask them, probably.”
Draco felt as if triumph had liquefied his bones. He’s considering it! He’s really, seriously considering it! He kissed Harry’s hand, a trace of lips above the central line in his palm, and Harry’s flush intensified.
“Anyway,” Harry repeated, looking aside. “All right. So I came out here to sleep instead of waking you up to do it. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, it does—”
“It doesn’t mean that I’ll always do things like that,” Harry said fiercely, and his fingers curled around Draco’s wrist. “But at the moment, I—well, I just haven’t lived the kind of deprived life that you think I have, Draco. With magic, yes, but I promise that I’ve treated myself well, and I eat well, and this place isn’t much but it’s better than it could be because I sometimes treat wizards’ pets.”
Draco looked steadily into his face and decided that he was right about at least one thing. Harry didn’t feel as though he had lived a deprived life. Maybe feeling that way would have made him so unhappy that he wouldn’t let himself.
Draco would work on that, but for now, there was nothing to be gained by challenging Harry over it. He linked his fingers around Harry’s again, and tugged on them. “Come on. You should know I won’t treat myself like this, however well it works for you.”
“So where are we going?”
“Out to eat.”
Harry grinned and shrugged and stood up, his Muggle sleeping trousers riding low on his hips. “I’ll have to get dressed, unless you want other people to see me like this.”
Draco’s throat was as dry as a bone instantly, and he stared at Harry. The sharp spark in his eyes confirmed something. He’s innocent, yes, in a way. But he knows exactly what he’s doing when he teases me like that.
“You have to,” Draco said, voice strangled, and refused to let himself regret the notion of going out to eat as he watched Harry saunter towards the bathroom.
*
Although Draco had never been in New York before, as far as Harry knew, he seemed to find his way to the wizarding section instinctively. And he led Harry down the main street, which was the only one he had been to before—it held some food shops he liked and some simple clothing places where he could find Muggle clothes with extra pockets spelled in—to the streets Harry had always been nervous walking before, because he was a Squib.
Harry stared like a tourist as he watched a revolving wheel of apples swoop in and out of various pots of honey, chocolate, and other dippings, depending on what the customer of that particular seller wanted. Other wizards were earnestly haggling over what Harry knew couldn’t be real unicorn horns and blood, because they were banned here as much as they were in Britain, but they looked like it. And there was an impromptu contest underway between a small, tough breed of bull Harry didn’t know, with lightning crackling between its horns, and a young child who kept skipping out of the way with a laugh.
“You’ve never been here before?”
Harry shook his head silently and followed Draco through an arched brick doorway that stirred vague memories of Diagon Alley when he’d gone there with his parents. It led into darkness, at least for a second, and then the darkness dissolved and sunlight beamed down on them—thicker, richer sunlight than Harry had experienced before. They stood in a quiet little courtyard with olive trees and rills of running water around the stones. A man dressed all in green expertly bowed to them and led them further inside, to a table on a tiny island in the midst of all that running water.
Draco pulled out Harry’s chair for him, and he sat down, smelling and hearing the moss scrape under the chair legs as Draco pushed it back in. “How did you know this was here?” he demanded, tilting his head as Draco moved around in front of the table.
“Oh, I consulted a few books about this place before I left Britain.” Draco arranged himself across from Harry, and draped a napkin over his lap.
Harry would have asked what kind of restaurant it was, that books in Britain were published about it, but the same man who had greeted them came back and said, “What is the desire of your heart?”
Harry stared at the man, confused stories playing in his head about something called the Mirror of Erised that Lily and James had seen at Hogwarts. But Draco didn’t miss a beat. “For something light and fluffy, sweet and filling,” he said, and then glanced at Harry.
Harry wanted to demand a menu, but he doubted he would get one. Instead, he shrugged and said, “I want something sweet and heavy.”
“It is our pleasure to serve you,” said the man, and clasped his hands, and vanished. It was Apparition, probably, but it was the most silent Apparition Harry had ever seen, if so. He blinked and turned back to Draco.
“Okay, what kind of place is this?”
“A place of pure magic that was brought with a wizard who emigrated from England,” Draco said, and spent a moment blotting his mouth even though he hadn’t eaten anything. Then Harry saw the glass of pure, cold-looking water that had appeared. He sighed and reached for his own. Draco leaned forwards. “He wanted exactly what he always desired to eat, and nothing else. And a place that was beautiful to him. He created an enchantment that would keep this garden—the place he thought most beautiful—always the same, and the people who came here to work after he died bound the magic to themselves. That lets them work to fulfill the tastes of anyone who comes here to eat.”
“Okay,” said Harry slowly. “But why ask about tastes instead of ideal food?”
“Because they can fulfill them more easily.”
Harry had no idea if that was true, but ten minutes ago he hadn’t known this place existed. “All right. What is this called?”
“Heart’s Desire.”
Of course, ask a stupid question, Harry said, and leaned back in his chair as a plate floated past him, landing in the center of the table. It bore the largest piece of chocolate cake he had ever seen, ornamented with sliced and dried fruit. Well, “heavy” and “sweet” fit what he’d asked for, Harry had to admit. “What are we going to do after this?”
Draco smiled at him. “I’m going to take you to the shops and buy you everything you want. A new blanket. Food for your snake. More furniture—a larger bed that we can both use.” Harry flushed as a plate holding a whip of cream and fruit and pieces of bread floated over in front of Draco, but there didn’t seem to be anyone holding it to react. “Clothes. You need clothes that befit your new status.”
“Status?” Harry took a cautious bite of the cake. It felt as though it melted in his mouth with no flavor for a second, and then suddenly grew so wonderful that he gasped with his tongue out. Draco smiled at him and sat back to eat his own cream.
“As a Malfoy consort.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“Why would you refuse me?”
Harry deliberately set down his fork. He knew he could make an impression on Draco by refusing his gifts. “You said that you would help me find my magic no matter what. Whether I agreed to be your consort or not. That’s the only reason I’ve trusted you with as much as I have.”
“I still mean that,” Draco said, and he smiled at Harry in a way Harry already knew he would find hard to resist if he ever had to. “And I was joking as much as I was serious about your consort status. What matters is that you have the right clothes and the right accoutrements for your status as a newly-discovered wizard.”
Harry flushed. “Who even says accoutrements anymore?” he muttered, and went back to eating his cake.
“Me. Have you thought about where you’d like to go?”
“You know wizarding New York better than I do,” Harry said stubbornly, determined to make Draco bear the brunt of this, since he wanted to do it anyway. “You pick.”
From the smile on Draco’s face, as devious as the shafts of sunlight that always sneaked through Harry’s carefully-closed curtains, that might not have been such a good idea.
*
Draco led Harry into the shop he knew, like Heart’s Desire, from descriptions published in Britain, and looked around curiously at the hanging curtains. They were of all shades, but strong blues and greens predominated. Draco wondered idly, for a moment, why a shop for clothes would advertise using curtains.
Then he wanted to hit himself. The “curtains” were silk and velvet and satin, when he looked more closely at them; there were even plebian ones made of wool and leather. This was as good a way to advertise fabric and color as any.
“You have enough money not to waste my time?”
Draco nodded to the woman who strode out from between two of the blue hangings and stood facing them. He had been warned to expect the blunt attitude, although the sharp American accent was a bit of a shock. “Yes. My name is Draco Malfoy and this is Harry Potter.”
The woman slowly raised her eyebrows. So she would keep up on news from England enough to recognize those last names, Draco thought. Then again, he had never known an unconnected fashion designer. “Very well. I’m Sarah, and you’ll listen to me and do what I say.”
“She doesn’t have to give her last name?” Harry muttered as Draco led him past the hangings into a dazzlingly bright corner of the shop, the light concentrated by mirrors and the flare of lamps.
“It wouldn’t matter to us, because we wouldn’t recognize it,” Draco said, and wondered for a moment whether Harry looked dazed because his name had been recognized. “What matters is her talent.”
“And I have plenty of that,” Sarah said, swooping back in at them. She was already carrying a heavy selection of deep-colored fabrics, and eyeing Harry as if she was a hawk and he was a limping rabbit. “No need to ask who you’re shopping for. Your robes look sharp enough to cut. He’ll want a whole new wardrobe, or only a few sets of clothes?” She made the fabric hang over them like a tent canopy with a swirl of her wand, and then flicked her wand at Harry in another spell.
“What the fuck,” Harry said, leaping as light swarmed all over his body under his clothes and then blew towards Sarah and formed numbers in the air. Draco snorted, recognizing the charm then. It would give perfect measurements in a moment, but no one used it in the shops he was familiar with. It was considered uncouth.
“No need to swear,” Sarah said. “At least, not at me. You should eat more, you know. I’ll have to tailor the robes so they don’t slump right off your skinny little shoulders.” She turned, straw-colored hair swaying behind her, and began to separate a skein of cloth from the rest, trimming it into a robe with much more dramatic gestures than Draco had ever seen Madam Malkin use.
“You don’t want to know what colors I like?” Harry demanded. He had his arms folded in a way that Draco thought he recognized already, despite not knowing Harry for very long. It made him step carefully out of the space between Harry and Sarah.
“No. You don’t have any taste, or you wouldn’t be wearing those tatters.”
“They’re Muggle clothes.”
They didn’t look terrible, Draco had to admit. They were worn, but clean, and he could appreciate the glimpse of Harry’s skin he sometimes got through a tear or an unraveling in the cloth. Still, they were nothing like robes, and he wasn’t sure how someone like Sarah would see them, with her eye for color and fabric.
“And you’ve outgrown them at least once, and used a Resizing Charm on them,” Sarah said, and gave Harry a glance that raked. “And cleaned them with charms, even though the fabric isn’t really built to stand up to such a harsh way of using magic.”
“You’re wrong. I’m a—”
“Wizard come late to his magic,” Draco interrupted smoothly. Harry wouldn’t get good service if referred to himself as a Squib. “That means he might have got someone else to cast the charms for him.”
“But they’ve still been used.” Sarah nodded and spun what at first looked like a simple thread out of the mass of cloth. Once Draco squinted at it, he could make out that it was a dark blue robe. “Try this.” She snapped her wand again, and Harry’s Muggle clothes simply disintegrated into a whirling cloud of sparks and dust.
“Hey!”
Draco craned his neck despite his own better self to see if he could get a glimpse of what lay beneath Harry’s robes, but the one Sarah had crafted settled over Harry before Draco could see anything. Draco shook his head, relegated his disappointment to the ether, and stared at Harry gleaming in dark blue silk and looking pissed-off.
Merlin, Draco didn’t know what looked better, the way the blue robes brought out colors in Harry’s skin and hair he hadn’t known were there, or the way his eyes shone with anger, brighter than the silk.
“We’ll take two identical to that one,” Draco said. “And one in velvet. And let’s try him in green, too.”
“Not a green too near the shade of his eyes,” Sarah disagreed, and her wand began snapping again. “Otherwise that will only look odd.”
“Perhaps so,” Draco said, not all that bothered with the fact. Green had only been a suggestion. Sarah was the expert.
“Don’t I get a say in this?”
“No,” Sarah said.
Draco settled for shaking his hand and reaching out to stroke his hand across both Harry’s arm and his sleeve. If Harry thought he wanted a touch of the silk alone, let him think that.
Better, though, was the fact that Draco glanced over during his next argument with Sarah and found Harry touching the sleeve himself, as if he hadn’t managed to absorb the fact that it existed yet.
Draco smiled, an ache in his chest as though someone had punched him there. I want to give him everything.
*
Jan: Yes, Draco may be unsatisfied for a while, but he's willing to wait.
SP777: They are calling each other by their first names most of the time, though? They only use last names when they want to be annoying.
I'm from the US.
Jester: Harry may or may not be a Horcrux.
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Bonded Consort