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How Noble In Reason	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11099 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last
chapter of How Noble In Reason. Thanks
for reading along.

Chapter Nine�Harry
Potter Is In Love

�� The letter
Harry sent came back with its envelope torn and charred and the owl hooting
softly in terror, checking over its shoulder as if whatever ward had caused the
burning would have pursued it from the Manor.

�� The
firecall Harry tried met barriers that he�d never encountered before, which
actually turned into the heads of a hydra and struck at him through the flames.
Harry wasted fifteen minutes chopping at the bloody things before he gave up
and simply shut down the Floo.

�� The
Apparition Harry risked bounced him back from the wards and landed him in a
meadow from which he couldn�t even see the Manor. Harry, his head aching, tried
one more time, and this time he was flung through the air and landed in a field
with a Muggle yelling at him and trying to break his leg. Harry stood up, used
a quick Memory Charm, and Apparated out of there before matters could get any
worse.

�� He tried stalking
Draco in Diagon Alley and at the expensive parties that he must occasionally go
to, but he never managed to find a time when he was shopping or visiting his
friends. Harry was starting to think that the library opening ceremony had been
an amazing exception, one Draco had made only for him. Most of the time, it
seemed, he was content to stay inside the Manor and party with the people who
came to him.

�� And how in the world am I going to get
inside there?

�� He�d even
tried riding his broom above, and that way got him closer. But the wards still
snapped tight and surrounded the Manor with a thick, turtle-like dome when
Harry tried to descend past the Owlery. He pulled up and sat there, hovering
disconsolately, until the white owl rose from its perch at the Owlery window
and chased him away.

�� There had
to be a way inside, Harry thought, while he obsessed over Draco and his Auror
work suffered and Ron and Hermione gave him odd looks. Harry had tried to
explain the situation, but they had no suggestions. Hermione�s eyes had clouded
over with distress, while Ron shook his head.

�� If he�s
that jealous of us, maybe he�s not worth it?� he suggested. �It�s not like
you�re going to drop us just to please him.� He hesitated. �You�re not, right?�

�� Harry
clapped his best friend on the shoulder. It surprised him that Ron was
sometimes so insecure about his place in Harry�s life, but then, Ron had said
that he still thought of the way he had left Harry and Hermione during the
Horcrux quest. That wasn�t something Harry ever dwelled on. �I�m not,� he said.
�I�m trying to come up with a way to show him that you�re all important to me,
without teaching him to have unrealistic expectations about what would happen
if he demanded that I get rid of you.�

�� Or getting
rid of your pride, I hope.� Ron eyed him carefully. �It feels like he doesn�t
want to be caught, mate, no matter how hard you run.�

�� I know,�
Harry said. �But I can�t be sure of that until I�ve really tried. I think he does want to be chased. If he doesn�t want me to
try at all, then he could have sent me a letter saying that, and I would have
given up.�

�� Really?�
Ron grinned. �Maybe he�s afraid you�d think the letter was a hopeful sign.�

�� Harry
shrugged. He couldn�t deny that, with as hard as he was trying to get through
Draco�s protections right now. �That could be, but as it is, silence doesn�t
tell me anything, whether he�s irritated or indifferent or hoping himself.�

�� Ron had to
agree about that, and he pressed Harry�s shoulder sympathetically with one hand
before he left the office. Still, he was snickering, and Harry heard that
before he got out the door. He called after him, �What�s so funny?�

�� Ron turned
back, grinning and shaking his head. �I told you that you would need someone
who presented a challenge!� he called. �God forbid that anyone you Court or
chase or fall in love with be easy.�

�� He managed
to vanish while Harry was still deciding what to throw.

*

�� Harry was
tired. There were lots of causes for that�he was beginning to think that he
would never reach Draco no matter what he did, and Binks was demanding his
first �report� on Ron, and Hermione had experienced a slight scare earlier that
day when she thought she was miscarrying, although she�d been fine�but still,
they all built up into the single fact of his exhaustion as he sat in front of
the fire that evening with his head in his hands.

�� No matter
how he thought about it, there was always a problem. He couldn�t give up his
friends, but it seemed like that was the only thing that would make Draco
happy. He could tell Draco that he�d thought about it and decided the Courting
was the real reason for him to
destroy Binks, but then he would be lying. He could tell Draco that Draco was
the most important person in the world to him and that might be true, but Draco seemed disinclined to believe it as
long as Harry was still worried about Ron.

�� Ron could
be right. Someone whom Harry was working so hard to please without success was
probably not worth it. Harry could empty his vaults in buying gifts and his
desk of parchment in sending letters, but Draco would never respond and never
look back. Maybe Harry should stop bothering him, too. That was what the
silence probably meant: Draco had withdrawn into his shell and was waiting for
Harry to get the message.

�� Their final
row had been so stupid. That was what
bothered Harry. If they�d fought for a real reason that proved they were
incompatible, like Draco wanting Harry to do illegal things for him, that would
be one thing. Harry could let him go then�with regret, yes, but not with any
desire to get back together with him.

�� Well,
without much desire, anyway.

�� Instead, it
was a stupid reason, a stupid problem, and one that Harry could think of no way
to solve.

�� You�d think what he wanted was to watch me
tell off Binks for his sake, and somehow make it clear that it wasn�t just
about Ron at the same time, Harry thought in irritation, leaning back in
his chair and trying to massage away the headache that had arisen in the front
of his skull. To give him an invitation
to the meeting I�m going to have with Binks when I tell him off�

�� Harry�s
eyes popped open.

�� Careful, careful, he told himself
immediately, as excitement bubbled through his mind. It might not be right. It might not be possible. It might not be the best gift you could give
him, or he might not want it if you did.

�� But the
longer Harry thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. Draco had
essentially complained that Harry wasn�t standing up for him the right way,
that he wanted some assurance Binks would be punished for the Courting as well
as for trying to make Harry spy on Ron. There was no way that Harry, having
admitted the one motive, could convince him the other was still
important�unless he showed him.

�� Of course,
getting Draco to see that would be a challenge, since he had so thoroughly cut
off communication and Harry couldn�t exactly abduct him and bring him to the
Ministry. But Harry thought he could handle the challenge. Ron was right. A
too-easy relationship filled him with worries, a too-hard one made him brood,
but hand him a difficult thing to do and his mind boiled with ways to get
around it.

�� The method we used in the Gauri case, he
told himself, with a smile. Yes. We
absolutely had to confront him with a scene that would cause him to crack, and
we managed it. And I already know that the wards above Malfoy Manor are weaker
than the others. I reckon Draco hardly thinks that someone�s going to attack
his Owlery.

�� Plus, the
plan Harry had just hatched gave him the chance for a little personal revenge,
which he was not about to turn down.

�� He spent
the rest of the evening planning, and only went to bed at midnight because he
knew he would be useless at casting the spells if he didn�t get some rest. But
then he was up again at three, staring at a book he hadn�t opened since the
Gauri case and practicing the incantations until they burned on his lips and
the back of his eyelids.

�� Then he
took his broom and flew to Malfoy Manor.

*

�� The white
owl might be smart, but it was still only a bird. When Harry hovered on his
broom beyond the Owlery and extended a hand with owl treats flavored like dead
mice in it, it barely hesitated before it flew out and perched on his arm.

�� Harry
promptly seized its neck and cast a spell on it that made it freeze in
position. Its eyes fixed on him indignantly, and Harry thought it probably
would have hooted, but the spell kept it from doing even that much.

�� Listen to
me,� Harry whispered. �We�re going to go on a little flight, and as long as you
behave, everything will be all right. Try to bite me, and I�m going to have
Quidditch gloves lined with owl feathers. I�ve heard that some people think
they�re good luck charms, and I doubt that anyone would object to the color.
Understand?�

�� The owl
might have tried to bite him, still, but it hunched down instead and sat there
mute when he released it from most of the binding spell. Harry smiled, cast one
more spell, and then slid down the broom and stared intently at the turtle-like
web of wards over the Manor.

�� He was
grateful for the years of experience he�d had in the Aurors, seeing and
locating wards. It would have been difficult to find the faint blue lines at
night otherwise. And he had to be aware of exactly
where they were, or he was going to mess up the most vital part of the
plan.

�� When he
thought he had a good grasp on the gentle curve of the ward-dome and the way it
rose, he began to fly. He was hanging from the broom, one arm curved around the
shaft�while his hand clutched his wand�and the other arm dangling the owl, with
its feet stuck firmly to his skin. Its wings hung free, which Harry needed them
to, because he needed them to dip into the wards as if into a pool of water.

�� As they
flew along, the owl�s wings made the wards briefly blaze and then relax. Like
all of Draco�s birds, after all, it had permission to fly in and out. The wards
weren�t going to react to its presence with violence.

�� The last
spell Harry had cast depended on that fact. The spell mixed with the wards,
very slightly altering them, not making them less protective but making them
capable of projecting the vision of a distant place when Harry called for it.
No matter where Draco was in the house, as long as it was anywhere near the
wards, he would see the vision.

�� And since
he never seemed to leave, Harry thought a confrontation with Binks in the
afternoon, projected to Draco through the wards so he could get an idea of what
Harry wanted to do for him, would be just fine.

�� Harry had
to fly all around the Manor and touch all the outer wards; the inner ones were
beyond his power. But given that the Manor had so many windows and so many
walls, it would be hard for Draco to be in a completely interior room. If he
was, Harry thought he would still run into an outer one when he heard the sound
of voices coming from the vision. Harry�s was going to be one of those voices,
and he would surely recognize it and want to know what Harry had done to pass
his wards.

�� Finally,
almost three hours later, Harry finished. He was near sunrise and also near
exhaustion, so that the broom wobbled beneath him as he flew back to the
Owlery. The white owl was beating its wings to get free now, and snapping its
beak near his head. Harry was glad that he had carefully held his arm away from
his body the whole way, and that he was such a good flyer, so that he didn�t
need two hands to control the broom.

�� I told you
that you would be Quidditch gloves if you moved,� he told the owl.

�� It stopped
moving. Harry laughed and cast the Finite
that would release its feet from his arm. It took off and lifted its tail.

�� Harry
managed to dodge the rain of shit that came down, but only because he had prior
experience. �Getting predictable!� he called jauntily after the owl, and then
flew in the direction of the Ministry. He could easily shrink the broom and
store it in his office.

�� Now that he
had the spell woven into Draco�s wards, he could also wait and stage a
confrontation with Binks later, if that was what he wanted, on a different day.
That would give him more time to gather information about the man and prove
that he was unfit for his post.

�� Harry
consulted the state of his nerves and then snorted. Like he was going to be
able to do that. And he was hardly
going to depend on facts to force Binks out, anyway. It would be much more fun,
and much more soothing to the excitement bouncing through his veins, if he
acted today.

�� So he did.

*

�� Sir? Can I
speak with you a minute?�

�� As he
stepped into the office, Harry moved his wand behind his back in the gesture of
the spell that would trigger Draco�s wards to start showing everything in
Binks�s office until he told them to stop. Binks didn�t notice, because he�d
had his head buried in papers when Harry stepped in. Harry had counted on that.
If Binks had noticed, his paranoid nature would have rendered Harry�s plan
useless.

�� Of
course,� Binks said, popping his head up and staring eagerly at him. �You have
the first report on Weasley for me?�

�� Harry
smiled, and knew it would look nasty. He�d counted on that, if not on the way
Binks blinked and seemed as if he�d like to retreat for a moment. That was a
bonus. �No, sir,� he said cheerfully. �I�ve come to tell you to shove it up
your arse, sir, all these stupid things that you�ve made me do.�

�� Binks�s
mouth hung open. Harry laughed. How easy it was to surprise him. He seemed
never to have considered that any of his subordinates might turn against him,
despite the excellent reasons he�d offered.

�� You will
not say such things,� Binks murmured when he had straightened up. �What stupid
things have I made you do? I�ve made it possible for you to practice your job, and you should remember that, Auror
Potter, if you don�t want to find yourself on trial in front of the
Wizengamot.�

�� Oh, this is too good. Harry liked those
words. They would make Draco see�or at least they should�that Harry was willing
to risk a lot for him, and didn�t care, that he would go ahead and do it
anyway.

�� Oh, let�s
see,� Harry said, and began to tick off the points on his fingers. �You made me
engage in a Courting when you knew that I would have to lie and Court Draco
Malfoy in bad faith. You encouraged me to continue with the Courting despite my
doubts. You told me that there was no other way I could do the work, even when
I offered alternative plans. You were anxious not to contact Mr. Malfoy
directly, feeling that there was no way that he would cooperate with the
Aurors, but you never offered him the choice.
You told me that the Auror Department would compensate me for the gifts I
bought, and you approved my letters, therefore assuring that it wasn�t a true
Courting, but only something initiated at your request.� Harry laid his hands
on Binks�s desk and leaned forwards to get into his face. �The fact that the
Courting also allowed me to find the man I love is beside the point. You were
still wrong.�

�� Are you listening, Draco? Harry thought
into the ringing silence that succeeded that. I hope you�re listening.

�� Binks
cleared his throat. �Malfoy had a piece of Voldemort in his house, Auror Potter��

�� But you
assumed bad faith from the start,� Harry cut in, this time loading his words
with quiet menace. �You assumed that he knew and was trying to hide it, not
that a parent or even a visitor was involved somehow. Hence why you forbade me
to contact him in an open and honest manner. I knew that using the Courting
like that was wrong. It�s a pure-blood rite, special and sacred to them. I
should have been stronger, yes, but that doesn�t lessen the wrong that you did
by demanding I perform it in the first place.�

�� Binks had
his hands on his chair now, leaning back from Harry and looking as though he
needed the support. �No one is going to believe you,� he said, rallying a bit.
�No one will think that I forced you to do this.�

�� Ron saw
the first letter,� Harry said calmly. �He warned me that I was getting too
deep, that I had too much emotion towards Draco already then, and I didn�t
listen. But he�ll testify that I wrote it, and wrote it at your instigation.�

�� Of course
your friend Weasley will say whatever you want him to say,� Binks said
bitterly. �You�re both traitors together, aren�t you?�

�� Neither of
us is a traitor to anything except your bigoted conception of the world,� Harry
said. His heart was pounding hard enough to make him sway in place, and it
looked as though the room was changing into a spinning smear of colors that
made him want to fall over. But he couldn�t faint yet. He wouldn�t faint. He
would keep on speaking, and make Binks understand, and offer the same chance to
Draco, though it was anyone�s guess if he would take it. �Ron has wished me
well in loving Draco, by the way.� There. That ought to give Draco something
else to think about.

�� You don�t
agree that Mr. Weasley is a traitor?� Binks had seized on that out of everything
Harry had said and seemed determined to worry it to death.

�� No, I
don�t,� Harry said. �And I don�t see how you came up with that conclusion just
because he�s cheerful.� Then he
paused and shook his head. �Ah, but wait. You�re the same one who came up with
the conclusion that Draco had to be just like his parents. I can see the
connection all too clearly now that I think about it.�

�� Binks�s
face turned red. �I could sack you, Potter,� he threatened.

�� Right,�
Harry said, nodding. �You could. But I would fight it, and what would you give
as a reason? That I found someone and fell in love because of a Courting that
shouldn�t have been done in the first place, but which you ordered me to do? That I refused to spy on my best friend because
you wanted me to? That I didn�t obey someone who�s nothing more than a
jumped-up little toad of a Wizengamot member�s family?�

�� Binks took
a step forwards, clutching his wand. Harry raised his wand and waited, although
he held it deliberately low enough that anyone viewing this as a Pensieve
memory in the future should be able to see he wouldn�t have actually hurt
Binks.

�� Get out!� Binks screamed. �You�re no longer
an Auror!�

�� Harry
grinned, bowed, and trotted out of the office, ducking the curse that sizzled
into the door near the back of his head. That would make excellent viewing for
the Wizengamot, too, or whoever actually ended up trying the case.

�� In the
meantime, he had accomplished what he wanted to. He had declared his love for
Draco publically�sort of�and he had showed Draco that wanting to protect him
was a reason for Harry to fight. And he�d admitted his tangled motives in the
Courting, all over again. He would stand by the declarations he had made here,
that he was in love with Draco, whether or not Draco wanted to reveal his own
feelings.

�� Whatever they are. What if this doesn�t
work?

�� Harry
tossed the notion away as soon as it entered his mind. He would find a way
around that obstacle, too, because he felt that, at the moment, he could fight
his way past anything.

*

�� This time,
when he Apparated to Malfoy Manor, the wards permitted him to land inside on
the lawn. Harry closed his eyes to savor that before he opened them and saw the
distant figure running madly towards him from the doors of the Manor.

�� Draco�s blond
hair blew around his face, which was pale and full of an emotion that Harry
knew very well. He clasped Draco in his arms as they came together and spun him
around, laughing, until the expression of fear and worry melted into irritation
and Draco dug his heels into the ground, bringing them to a forceful stop.

�� The fuck
is going on?� Draco screamed into his face. �How the fuck did you do that? Do
you know you just lost your job? Are you mental?�

�� Quite
possibly!� Harry yelled back. The wind seemed to pick up his words and toss
them away, but that was all right; Harry knew what he was saying, after all. �I
got past the wards with an Auror trick! But I�m not an Auror anymore! That�s
all right! I love you! I may possibly have had almost no sleep last night!�

�� Draco,
being Draco, focused on the last words and nothing else. He was kind of like
Binks that way, Harry thought hysterically. Draco would kill him if he said
that aloud. He probably shouldn�t. �So this is all the result of
sleep-deprivation?� Draco demanded, and started fighting to be free of Harry�s
embrace.

�� Harry
stepped back, releasing Draco, which put him off-balance, and then knelt on the
ground in front of him and grabbed his hands. No matter how much Draco
struggled, Harry refused to let him go, gazing soulfully up at him instead. He
knew it was soulful, and knew that Draco would have the right to despise him,
and didn�t care. The whirling smear of colors had become nothing but Draco�s
face.

�� Listen to
me!� Harry said. �I love you. I love you because you trusted me, and took a
chance despite all the chances in the world being against you. I love you
because you haven�t let yourself get into a rut when you could, with all those parties all the time, and no one would have
blamed you. I love you because you can control your emotions and let them go at
the same time, which is something I�ve always had trouble with. I love you
because you�re proud and touchy and you glow under your clothes. I love you
because you want me. I love you because you confront me sometimes and you
retreat sometimes and you�re contradictory, like a real person. I love you for
your stupid owl and your stupid sensitivity and your stupid clothes. I love
you.�

�� Draco
stared down at him with his mouth open. Harry looked back. �I�m going to keep
chasing you until you tell me to go away,� he finished. �If you don�t, then
I�ll just keep pushing forwards. Why not? Why not? I want you, I love you, and
there�s no reason that I should allow little things like wards to stand in the
way.�

�� Draco
swallowed. �But my word would be enough to stand in the way?� he asked
carefully.

�� Yes,�
Harry said. �Your unambiguous word, saying that you didn�t want me. Because
this is based on my desire for your desire. If you don�t want me, then the
deal�s off and I�ll walk away.� And at that moment, he thought he might be able
to, to rise to his feet in the clear day and walk off.

�� If Draco
would say that he didn�t want him. If Draco would only be this open and honest,
one last time.

�� Draco�s hands
fell to frame Harry�s face. Then he shook his head. �You don�t fight fair,� he
said.

�� I tried to
give you every chance to refuse,� Harry began indignantly.

�� No,� Draco
said, softly and fiercely enough to make Harry shut up. �Not that. I wouldn�t
say that unless I meant it,� he added
in a tone of disgust. �I mean that you�re my fantasy, and when your fantasy
comes after you and hunts you down and declares that you�re his fantasy in
front of the Head Auror and anyone who might have been listening at the door,
how are you supposed to refuse?�

�� And in
front of you,� Harry said. �That was the whole point.�

�� I know,�
Draco said, and dragged him to his feet. �I�m not going to be easy, you know.
I�ll probably still get jealous of Weasley sometimes.� His eyes flashed, and
then the line of his jaw softened a little. �Though I got the point of the
display in front of the Head Auror, and how Weasley wasn�t the only reason you
went up against him.�

�� I�m
yours,� Harry said. �For everything I can give you.�

�� You had
better not lie to me again,� Draco said softly, with no humor. �You had better
not fuck up in the same way again, by putting something else�the Ministry, your
friends, your job�in front of me without telling me. Now that I know more about
you, I�ll hurt you if you do that.�

�� Harry
nodded. �I know.� He waited, but Draco seemed content to gaze at his face.
Harry cleared his throat. �Um, can I have that kiss now?�

�� Draco
sighed and rolled his eyes, but did lean in. Harry seized his shoulders and
kissed as hard as he could, driving his tongue straight into Draco�s teeth, and
then into his tongue and his gums and
his cheeks. He might know a lot about Draco, but he didn�t know everything
there was to know, and that included his taste.

�� We�ll have
to try,� Draco said, when he pulled
back. �This isn�t settled or resolved.�

�� If it was,
one of us would be dead,� Harry said, and thought, There. That�s the reason he�s different from all the others, the reason
I�ll never grow bored with him. Because things are always changing, with him. I
can never be the same from day to day. I can never be safe.

�� Being safe
was overrated, Harry thought as he caressed Draco�s face and learned the shape
of his chin and his nose. He was Harry bloody Potter. Of course he couldn�t
have a safe love affair.

�� I do love
you, you know,� he felt compelled to whisper.

�� Draco
nodded and smiled. �I know. I�think I feel the same. It�s just a little too
confusing right now to tell.�

�� In time, he
would feel the same, completely, Harry knew. In time Harry would get his job
back, and maybe move into Malfoy Manor, and maybe even gain the white owl�s
liking and respect�on the same day that Draco and Ron got along without
jealousy. It would come in time.

�� So much
would.

�� The End.

*

�� myniephoenix:
Glad you liked it!

�� SP777: I
think Draco would resent the description, since he thinks Harry is the mental one.

�� No, the
professor at Hogwarts is Binns.

�� W�lkchen:
Harry refused to trust that he did that without more communication, and in the
end, he was right. But yeah, it will be a challenge for Harry during those
times when his friends and his lover are in conflict.
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How Noble In Reason