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This Enchanted Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3669 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Nine--Clash of Personalities

            While Draco waited for Yelton to answer his call, he turned his head in several directions, absorbing as much of Harry's flat as he could.

            There was a lot less there than he had expected. He had thought he would see multiple photographs of Vane on the walls, along with multiple photographs of Harry's friends, and perhaps case files on the tables. There would be more furniture, certainly. Harry would have a comfortable couch for sitting and far too many Gryffindor colors on said couch, the floor, and almost everything else Draco could imagine.

            Instead, the flat was subdued. The walls were nearly bare except for a few photographs--which did indeed show Harry's friends, but not Vane--and a landscape panting with trees that loomed near the canvas and were poorly done in general, in Draco's opinion: just crowded brushstrokes of green, instead of depicting the individual leaves. The two chairs in the drawing room both had dust on them. Draco couldn't see any sign that someone had cooked a substantial meal in the kitchen in a long time.

            In other words, it looked like a place no one spent much time in.

            Draco paused, then shrugged. He had no reason to assume that that said something deep or profound about Harry. Someone entering his own home might have assumed that he had no relatives except his great-aunt, and they would be wrong. Draco simply had no other relatives that he wished to acknowledge.

            But for now, he had to direct his attention elsewhere. Thomasina Yelton had finally deigned to answer her Floo, and she looked at Draco with the remote expression that had always made her face look too pinched and her silver-white hair resemble a helmet rather than a dignified sweep back from her temples.

            "I am surprised to see you, Draco Malfoy," she said. "I had assumed that you would not contact me again after your disowning."

            Draco smiled. Yelton was the record-keeper for a generation of pure-bloods, a compiler of genealogies and gossip, the sort who could recite a dozen different facts about anyone in the family tapestries she was aware of in instants. "I don't need to know anything about my family," he said, and then paused, the exact length of time necessary to intrigue someone like Yelton. "Well, perhaps that is not true, depending on how distant you consider the Rosier connection."

            "Five intermarriages in the last six generations," Yelton said at once. "I would not call that distant." She leaned back in her specialized rocking chair and spent a moment regarding Draco. "Which member of the family do you need to reach?"

            "Margolotta Rosier," Draco said. "I was told she had moved to France. Perhaps to escape the war. It does not matter if that is the case. I promise that the matter I wish to contact her about has nothing to do with that."

            Yelton raised an eyebrow. "And nothing to do with her daughter, either?"

            That confirmed a bit of uncertain information in the file, that Alexander had a sister. Draco raised an eyebrow and smiled and let the silence do the work for him. Yelton gave him a slow smile and a nod.

            "It is not the greatest of connections, for either of you," she said. "But there is something suitable about a half-blood Rosier daughter for a disgraced Malfoy heir. Perhaps you will bring each other back into the wizarding world as you should be." She rattled off a long name that made Draco have to refrain from rolling his eyes. The further pure-bloods came down in the world, apparently, the longer they decided their Floo addresses should be.

            "Thank you, Lady Yelton," Draco, and he knew that she knew that he knew she didn't deserve the title, but she smiled and tipped her head forwards, and then faded from the fire.

            Draco hesitated when he was on the point of calling out the address, and looked around the room one more time. Harry didn't appear to have ventured out of the kitchen where he was sitting with the files, which meant Draco had time to look at a few objects more closely, if he wanted.

            And there was one, sitting near him on the mantle, that he did want to look at. It was a small, slender book in a black leather cover, with a thin lock dangling from it on a chain. Draco reached for it, then hesitated and cast a spell that would tell him about any hexes or charms on it.

            A deep blue glow settled into the book's cover and lingered there. Then letters appeared, using the blue glow to form themselves, but looking as though someone had stabbed them into being rather than written them with a quill.

            MY BOOK. STAY OUT.

            Draco blinked and backed away, at the same moment as Harry ran out of the kitchen with his wand drawn. He skidded to a stop when he saw Draco there and looked around, apparently seeking the source of a ringing ward that Draco couldn't hear. He gave a small murmur that must have been the incantation to stop the ward and then glanced back at Draco.

            "No one came through the fireplace and then turned themselves invisible right after they did that?" he asked.

            Draco shook his head, glad he stood in such a way as to shield the cover of the book from Harry's eyes. He perhaps should admit what he had done, but as long as Harry didn't know where that specific ward had sounded--and how should he, with so many of them all over his flat?--then he would pretend ignorance. It was more important, in the middle of a difficult case, that nothing damage Harry's trust in him.

            And of course I would think that. But it doesn't make it less true.

            "Right," Harry said, and sighed, and turned back towards the kitchen.

            "Did you discover anything in the files?" Draco asked, because he hated for Harry to have come out here and then retreat with the most important part of the conversation undone, the questions unasked.

            Harry turned around again, one eyebrow rising as though he expected to compete with Draco in the world championships. "Er...no?" he asked, and made it sound less like a question than it should have. "I've only been looking at them for a few minutes. Did your contact tell you something that made you think I should?"

            "She confirmed that Alexander has a sister," Draco said. "Nothing more." He could have explained in detail about Yelton and the reasons she thought Draco was interested in Alexander's sister, but there was no reason to.

            Harry only nodded, with such a blank expression that he might have guessed at the whole story or none of it, and went back to his table and his files.

            Draco turned away from the tempting book and cast another handful of Floo powder into the fire, reciting the ridiculously long name that Yelton had mentioned. Honestly, it was good that he'd had some training in French pronunciation or he couldn't have said it. Never mind that part of it was Italian.

*

            Harry did his best to ignore the weird interlude in the drawing room with Draco as he sat down in front of the file and clasped his head in his hands. He was going to ignore thoughts of Lionel and thoughts of the dream-world Alexander had offered him, too. He could do that if he wanted to.

            The files continued to tell him nothing more than what he already knew. The strange, mild effects the globes had on a few of the people who touched them. The utter lack of effect on most people who did. Alexander's relatives having left the country, and his employment at Eleanor's Enchantments. The original theft, or entry into the shop. Nothing about the blood of twisted, of course, because that was something only Leah could have told them.

            Nothing about a symbol, or difficulty with Healing magic, or long study of the Dark Arts.

            Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. If he couldn't concentrate on Draco, it seemed his mind would circle back to the idea that twisted might simply be wizards with wandless magic and an affinity for the Dark Arts which Leah had introduced them to. He pushed his chair back and considered the matter.

            What would it mean, if the world was full of twisted, and the only ones that got arrested or killed were the ones who drew attention to themselves? Or the ones that weren't powerful enough to hide what they were and get attention deflected elsewhere? Larkin had been a minor man obsessed with Dark Lords, Healer Alto had been low in the hierarchy at St. Mungo's, and Alexander was nothing more than a Potions shop assistant. But if someone were to imply Harry Potter was twisted, then the Ministry would never act on the information. They might sack him, but killing him or arresting him would still cause enough outrage to be avoided.

            What about Draco?

            Harry clenched a hand in front of him on the table and grimaced. The problem, as he saw it, was that it really might fall either way, given Draco's heritage and connections and fate since the war. Some people would say that he was a good Auror, with an exemplary record, and a pure-blood whose family it wasn't worth angering. Other people would see his family's affiliation, or the fact that they'd rejected him, as enough reason to attack.

            Poor Draco. People who hate his family and people who like them would both have a reason to hate him. No wonder he doesn't have many friends outside the Aurors.

            Harry scratched at his ear. If they released this new definition of twisted, then what would happen?

            The Ministry would deny it, that was what. They had done the best they could to hush up even the Alto case, because it could have damaged the reputation of St. Mungo's. And that might be enough inducement for them to turn on the "Chosen One," come to think of it.

            Not to mention, there were some twisted who did need to be arrested, if not killed. Perhaps not Alexander, but Alto had turned the people around her into lunatics, and Larkin hadn't cared who he hurt as long as he could achieve his goals. Not to mention the creature Harry had hunted during the case that killed Lionel. That was either a twisted or something else so Dark that the Ministry had thrown resources at it Harry had never seen for a case with a single criminal.

            And there was the case Draco had worked on right before Socrates, and lost his partner over, that was still so sealed even Harry didn't have the right to see those files.

            So where did the middle ground lie, in between releasing every twisted because they might be harmless to the population at large and arresting them or killing them all? The Ministry had chosen its side. Harry had to choose his.

            He had killed one even before he took the Gina Hendricks case and watched that thing slaughter Lionel. Voldemort. That was the pattern the whole modern definition of twisted was based on, in fact. His companions had been the Death Eaters and Nagini, his symbol was the Dark Mark, and so on.

            But most twisted never got that far, never became Dark Lords and never aspired to take over the world, except perhaps for Larkin. So perhaps using Voldemort as the pattern was a stupid idea and Harry should propose a new one.

            Except that he had no idea where to start, and no idea if he owed it to the public to be open about what his visions of murders might mean. And did he have the right to tell everyone what Draco's talent to sense Dark magic meant, when he might not want the judging gaze of the public on him, either?

            If only I could talk to Alexander, Harry thought wistfully, his fingers digging into his hair and scratching at his scalp, and hear exactly what he intends to do, understand his motives and know.

            Then Harry raised his head and stared at the far wall.

            He did have a way to talk to Alexander. At least, he did if he thought Alexander had been in his last vision, controlling the version of Lionel he had met there.

            Draco might not like it. On the other hand, he might agree, because it would mean that they could finally settle the case and move on to something else, and he wouldn't have to make a decision that would involve telling anyone about his wandless magic.

            Harry smiled and stood up, slapping the table for emphasis. He almost didn't care if he and Draco had a row about this idea (probably Draco would feel that Harry was risking his life without regard for the consequences again). It was still doing something, instead of sitting back while his mind chased itself in circles regarding morality and decisions that he didn't think he had the right to make anyway.

            He had always had an itch to do things, and bad things happened when he thought too much, anyway. Look at the way his thinking about the similarities between Draco and Lionel had turned out. Now he thought he had a crush on Draco that was exactly the same as his crush on Lionel. And it couldn't be, or it was shallow if it was.

            He would do things about that, and he would do something about Alexander, too. Or at least have a good time yelling at Draco.

*

            "And you can't tell me anything about the nightmares he might have had as a child?" Draco kept his voice soft and lulling. "Please, Mrs. Alexander. I know I sound like an enemy, but if we know how to fight your son without wounding him, and if we know he's not actually dangerous, then we can bring him in more easily."

            Margolotta Alexander--who had been Rosier when she married--looked at him with a soft, bitter smile. It wasn't all that different from Yelton's, though in other respects she was very different, with long dark hair and eyes that seemed to linger in the borderland between blue and deep purple.

            "I know what you want," she said. She had said much the same thing in response to Draco's earlier, indirect attacks, which was what had made him risk the blunt words in the first place. "I know you've betrayed your own kind."

            "By becoming an Auror?" Draco folded his arms and tilted his head to the side, this time flavoring his words with a sigh that he let her hear. He also might be able to anger her to the point where she couldn't control her emotions well and would tell him something in spite of herself. "I assure you there are pure-bloods among the Aurors."

            "Our enemies control the Ministry," Margolotta said sharply. "Including those who want to see your family line end forever."

            "At the moment, my family line is far more likely to end forever because my father has disowned me and made no move towards acquiring another heir," Draco said dryly. Lucius would be furious if he knew Draco had discussed private family business this openly, but that was another advantage to the disclosure, as far as Draco was concerned. "And if we're going to speak about purity of blood, marrying someone who's Muggleborn?" He arched a polite eyebrow and waited.

            "My Richard is a half-blood, not a Muggleborn." But Margolotta's eyelashes trembled a bit, and she did look away.

            "It hardly matters," Draco said. "You can think of this as a conversation between two blood traitors instead of two pure-bloods, if you want, Mrs. Alexander. I still want to know about your son's nightmares."

            Margolotta spent a moment plaiting the fringe of the shawl draped around her shoulders. Draco wondered why she wore such a thing, when it was probably warmer in France than it was here, but did not intend to ask unless the answer seemed to matter. It could be for a sinister reason or a real one, and she was not the one he had contacted her to investigate.

            "Reynard never had strange nightmares, or a strange number of them," Margolotta said abruptly, and looked up at Draco. Perhaps she thought a direct gaze would make her seem more honest. Draco watched her face anyway, looking for the signs of a lie. "He had some bad dreams, the way that all children do, and a normal number of anxiety dreams about failing exams or suddenly turning into a Squib overnight. But he never envisioned doing harm to people, or torturing them. You're mistaken if you think he would turn to Dark Arts without a good reason."

            Draco checked a sigh. The more he investigated this, the more it seemed that Alexander might have good motives for becoming a twisted, and the less solid information he had.

            But on the other hand, Margolotta had good reasons to lie, if she thought her son might go to prison, and if she considered Draco a traitor because he had become an Auror. Draco chose a different tactic, and looked Margolotta full in the eye as he spoke the words, because they were honest, in a way. To a smaller part of him than they would have been honest to a short time ago.

            "Your son is a thief, at the moment. He broke into Eleanor's Enchantments to steal Potions ingredients. And he has cheated someone of his magic, and perhaps of his sanity, if he never wakes up from the coma he's in."

            Margolotta stared at him, her pupils shrinking to small points. "Alexander never wanted to take away anyone's magic," she breathed. "He wouldn't have done it to someone who--was this man pure-blood?"

            "His globes have affected half-bloods and pure-bloods and someone who might be Muggleborn alike," Draco said evenly. "He'll be arrested not for grand events, not even for overuse of the Dark Arts, but for petty and common crimes. Is that the kind of legacy you want for your family?"

            Margolotta turned her head away. Draco held back a sigh of relief this time. Margolotta was one of the old-fashioned pure-bloods who still thought family honor came before all else. And stealing magic, for someone like that, counted as a crime worse than murder, and to be arrested for doing something a Muggleborn might do was shame.

            For a moment, Draco thought he would get somewhere important. Margolotta gazed deeply into some recess of memory Draco couldn't see, and her hand plucked again at the fringe of the shawl.

            Then she lifted her head and stared at Draco, and said, "I cannot help you. My answer remains the same. Reynard had no unusual nightmares. He--he wished to do many things that I did not wish him to, hence why he had such an inglorious career as a Potions shop assistant." She bit her lip and sighed, and Draco resisted the temptation to say something about how inglorious such a career really was, compared to his later crimes. Harry would have said something like that just then, he knew, and lost her. "But he showed no inclination to make globes like the ones you describe. He wasn't an artistic person, in general. He showed no inclination to steal magic. I know nothing that can help you, and no reason he should have become a Dark wizard. Nor did he ever display wandless magic. He was an ordinary boy in so many ways, and the only reason he was special or important was as my son."

            Draco considered her face, her hands, her tone, her inflection. As far as he could tell, she was telling the truth.

            It was frustrating, because it destroyed the promise of secrets about Alexander that Draco had been sure they were going to gather, but honest.

            Draco half-closed his eyes and said with as much politeness as he could muster, "Thank you, Mrs. Alexander. That's all we can ask you for. Would you be willing to come back to England, if you had to, and testify in court that you had no idea your son could become such a monster?"

            "Yes."

            And some of the pure-bloods who might lie to protect a family member would have been unwilling to do even that, Draco thought. They would hesitate, then defend themselves first, and do only what they could do without risk. But Margolotta sounded as if she was exactly what she portrayed herself to be, a concerned mother who had offered up what little information that might give him an insight into her son.

            "Thank you," Draco said, and other necessary formalities, and concluded the Floo call feeling more helpless than ever.

            He turned around to find Harry behind him, beaming like a madman, and smiled despite the tightening in his stomach. There was always the hope, small though it was, that Harry had turned up something useful in his scan of the files.

            "Well?" Draco asked. "All his mother could tell me was that she didn't know of any nightmares that he had and no motive that he might have for behaving like this. She didn't even seem to think that he had any talent for creating globes that might have manifested as his flaw."

            "I heard that part," Harry said, waving his hand a little. Draco bristled, but held his peace for the moment. He would let Harry explain his idea first. "But I was thinking. The only one who could tell us everything we need to know is Alexander."

            Draco rolled his eyes. "Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that? Too bad that we can't persuade him to talk to us."

            "But perhaps we could," Harry said. "If I had one vision where I was speaking to him, or he was behind the Lionel that I thought I was speaking to, then I might have another. I might be able to contact him again that way, and ask him why under the guise of pretending to believe him, of needing just a bit more persuasion." He beamed again.

            Draco didn't have to think before he replied. "No."

            Harry bared his teeth at him. "Can you think of anything else? Everything turns up dead ends. Even Leah might not know more than she already told us, and it's still illegal to use Veritaserum on someone who refuses it. This is the best way to get our answers and stop him, or those globes, from hurting anyone else. Or keep him from vengeance by someone else, like Retror's family, if he really is innocent."

            Draco smiled at him. "Oh, I agree we need to do that. And we will, as soon as you come up with some plan that doesn't involve risking your life."

            "I risk my life every day I'm in the field," Harry said, more quietly than Draco had expected. "If you want to establish a Legilimency bond to my mind to watch over me while I do this, or perform it in Healer Estillo's office, or any other condition, I'm willing. But I think this is the only chance we have, Draco. Unless you can think of something better in the next five minutes."

            Draco gritted his teeth. He hated this. Harry was talking about putting his sanity, not just his life, at risk, and perhaps his magic, if Retror's case was any indication. Did he not care about that?

            No. He's just starting to care that you care, which is why he'll let you oversee it. But I don't think you can make him go back on this, and he'll just do it behind your back if you don't agree.

            It was a sign of trust that Harry had let him know. Draco reckoned, grudgingly, that he could extend that trust back and permit the plan.

            "We'll do it in Healer Estillo's office and with a Legilimency bond," he said. "If you're comfortable letting me into your mind."

            Harry's smile was sweet enough to steal his breath. "No one else I'd rather," he said, and for a moment, his hand arched out and touched Draco's.

            Draco tried not to let that touch influence him unduly as they made their plans, but suspected that he was failing.

*

            SP777: Yes, they're acting like partners now, and not just in the "potential romantic" sense. It'll be interesting to see if they can keep this up.
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This Enchanted Life