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Keep This Wolf	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20230 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Nine—Combat the Feeling
            Draco had assumed that his second entrance into the Forbidden Forest would be much the same as his first one. Perhaps he would be met by a different member of Potter’s pack, or he would remember part of the path and find his way there on his own. But he had no reason to think that much would change, and he walked towards the Forest filled with that kind of confidence.
            His steps faltered the instant Potter stepped out of the forest and nodded familiarly to him.
            Draco clenched down on the need to flee, though, and reminded himself of what he had decided before he left the Ministry. He could still show emotions and let Potter smell them without shaming himself or the Department of Mysteries, as long as he didn’t let them distract him from his goal. He had a purpose here, one that he had follow. That purpose was the important thing.
            Not how much shame and humiliation he might suffer in the work of fulfilling it.
            “Hullo,” said Potter, grinning at him. “I heard you were coming back, and I thought you might need a guide.”
            “You heard I was coming back?” Draco thought he could ask the question without giving too much away. After all, Invisible Heldeson and the Minister would probably want to know the answer, too. “From who?”
            “I have some people in the Ministry who still tell me things they think I need to know,” said Potter, with a wave of his hand, and he turned and walked beside Draco as they stepped onto the first of the paths that wound through the forest in the direction of the pack’s territory. Draco tried not to be hyper-conscious of the way that Potter breathed and shifted around, and the way his sweat smelled. “They were the ones who warned me about there being a Ministry negotiator in the first place, and then told me it would be you.”
            “So you had an advantage over me even before I arrived,” Draco noted, and nothing he could have done would prevent his voice from being tight.
            “What do you mean, advantage? Unless you’re going to tell me that you didn’t know who they were sending you to negotiate with.”
            Draco frowned and looked away. Criticism from Potter was something he’d assumed he’d have to deal with, but he’d also assumed that it wouldn’t make him uncomfortable. “No, of course I knew.”
            “Then what’s the problem?” Potter stopped in the middle of the path and stared at Draco.
            “The problem,” Draco said, picking his words so they would all come out as clear as ice, “is that you’ve been spying on the Ministry and distrusting their words all along. Of course you’re going to distrust me, too. You never meant to negotiate in good faith.”
            “If you think that you’re the same as the Ministry, you really should think again,” said Potter, and shook his head. “I don’t know how you would have thought that in the first place. And spying on the Ministry is pure self-protection when you’re a werewolf.”
            “I’m a representative of the Ministry. You need to trust me to trust them.”
            “Really.” Potter folded his arms and lounged against a tree nearby. “And here I thought that you really cared more about representing the Department of Mysteries than you did anything else. When did you take on the concerns of the whole Ministry? Do you know something about this case with Thornsberry that I don’t? If you think that he’s much more dangerous than was ever reported publicly, I’d like to know.”
            Draco really hated the feeling of the ground shifting under his feet every few seconds. “You must know more about him than I do, if you threatened to adopt him.”
            “I like the word ‘threatened’ there,” said Potter. His eyes had sharpened, but he didn’t move. “And no, the only sources I have are the reports on him that were publicly released by the Ministry and some old werewolf gossip that I doubt has roots in anything current. Please tell me if he’s dangerously insane. I’d like to know.”
            “He’s the Scion of Fenrir Greyback. Bitten by him out of personal choice, and then groomed and trained until he’s basically Greyback all over again. I don’t know what more you need to know.”
            “That would explain a bit.” The way Potter didn’t move was getting on Draco’s nerves. “If you think that’s what a Scion is.”
            Draco almost relaxed. It would explain a lot if the Ministry and Potter were working off different definitions of what a Scion was. “Then you tell me what the werewolf idea is.”
            “Someone you recognize a bit of yourself in. You want to pass along what you know, and the way you think, and what you learn, but werewolves rarely have normal families with children they can give that to.” Potter’s voice rang in a way that made Draco think this confession might be a weakness, but he couldn’t see a way to exploit it for right now, so he put it away for later. “Instead, you find another werewolf who can be trained in that way. It doesn’t have to be one you bit. Greyback might have bitten Thornsberry, but I can make him over again into my Scion. It just depends on the magic.”
            “The powerful magic you have that you demonstrated to me.” Draco wondered if he had found the answer the Ministry had sent him to seek already. A werewolf pack leader might have magic that could affect normal humans, and the Ministry wouldn’t know that because they had spoken more to low-ranking werewolves than pack leaders. And that would make Draco an innocent victim of something that happened often, not…
            Not what he had feared.
            “Yes, that power.” Potter turned his head again, and if his eyes were greener than Draco had remembered and his smile was secret and delightful, that didn’t matter. Draco was determined that it was not going to matter. “The power that I already explained to the Ministry, and which I don’t understand why they didn’t believe me about.”
            Draco held his eye, and lied as best he knew how. “I think they were reluctant to believe that your power could affect humans as well as werewolves.”
            Potter’s jaw dropped a little. Then he spread his hands and said, “If they think of us as non-human, that explains a lot about them.”
            It was Draco’s turn to halt. “Potter, you know that the Ministry doesn’t think of werewolves as human. Otherwise, they wouldn’t make them register or live apart from the rest of the wizarding world. You’ve been speaking in the same terms, what with saying that werewolves rarely get to have normal families. Why is this such a surprise?”
            If the fuck-ups that the Ministry is having with the werewolves are just a lack of communication…
            Draco wouldn’t consider himself an expert in diplomacy or anything, but that did sound like a problem he could potentially solve. Whether or not Potter would want him to was another matter.
*
            Less than human is different from not being human at all.
            But Harry doubted that he could make Malfoy see the difference when he had never been a werewolf. And he had confirmed, without blinking, that the Ministry knew about Harry’s power already.
            This conversation had gone strange places. Harry decided to push them a step further, to stranger places still. “Would you be willing to serve as our messenger back to the Ministry along with being their messenger to us?”
            Malfoy went as stiff as a deer scenting for danger, and watched him out of the corner of one eye. His scent was deep and rich, changing in a complex mixture of fear and anger. “I don’t know what you mean.”
            Harry stopped in the middle of the forest path and turned around. Malfoy’s fear scent increased when Harry blocked his way, and his hand strayed towards one of the artifacts on his belt. At least that was confirmation, again unblinking, that he never came into the forest without being armed, and that some of his artifacts might do nastier things than the two he had demonstrated so far to Harry.
            “Go and tell them the truth,” Harry whispered, holding his eyes. “That we’re still human, and that we want to be left alone. That I can tame Thornsberry because it doesn’t matter if he’s not a werewolf in my pack right now or my Scion; I can affect even you, a trained Unspeakable, so I’ll be able to affect him.” Harry reckoned a little flattery couldn’t hurt. “That this is all a simple misunderstanding. That they think we’re outside their ways and a danger to them, but we could be welcomed back inside those ways.”
            It was a long time before Malfoy answered. His scent didn’t provide the clues that Harry’s fluttering nose sought, as long as Harry concentrated. It seemed that Malfoy didn’t reveal everything of his feelings right away. Or maybe this was just the sort of feeling that Harry wasn’t as used to smelling as often, and didn’t recognize. Even though he had been a werewolf for a few years now, he still didn’t know everything his nose could do.
            “I think the Ministry would accept that solution. After all, Harry Potter is known for his openness and honesty.”
            “I can’t believe you said that with a straight face,” Harry interrupted. “Not where the Ministry is concerned.”
            Malfoy gave him the sort of haughty look that Harry had been missing, and which the younger version of himself would have been using from the beginning of this conversation. “You might think that everyone in the Ministry hates you, Potter. That’s not true.”
            Harry rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean hatred. I just mean that they don’t trust me. Even now, when the Prophet gets bored, they print articles about how I must be lying about this or that minor aspect of the war.”
            In truth, those articles didn’t bother Harry much, as long as people he liked or who mattered to him didn’t make judgments about him based on them. Of course he had lied about some things, like Horcruxes, and they were the sorts of lies he was going to continue to use. No one else needed to know how Voldemort had split his soul.
            “Perhaps not,” said Malfoy, his voice polished. “But I believe that I said the Ministry would trust that.”
            This time, Harry caught on. “So there’s some other condition keeping them from trusting me?”
            “Of course,” said Malfoy. His hand had left his belt, but hovered in the air somewhere between him and Harry, as if he thought that he might have to touch Harry’s arm. Harry knew that would be perfectly all right with him, but he didn’t know how to say it in a way that wouldn’t send Malfoy running. “But only if you have absolute openness and honesty in return, and tell them what they need to know.”
            “I have,” said Harry, blinking. Then he remembered Malfoy’s strange issues with authority and the Unspeakables again. “Do you need my permission to tell them what I said to you? Because it’s fine if you tell them whatever you like. You can show them Pensieve memories of this conversation for all I care, if that would help convince them.”
            Malfoy’s stare sharpened, and emotions drifted through his scent again. At least this time, Harry thought he recognized the spikiest one. It was frustration. He smelled it a lot from Ninian and Woolwine, too. He had to smile.
            “No,” said Malfoy, his voice brittle. “I mean all your secrets. The Ministry knows you can affect people in ways that other werewolf leaders can’t.”
            “What are they basing that on? I think we’ve established that they don’t know that much about werewolves, if they don’t know what a Scion really is.”
            Malfoy made a rough noise under his breath. “Because you’re Harry Potter, and stronger than any other werewolf leader they’ve encountered. So you need to tell us what makes you different, and show us what kind of advantage your power would give you in negotiations with humans.”
            Perhaps it was hearing Malfoy also refer to “humans” as if they were different from werewolves. Perhaps it was the persistent distrust when Harry thought he had succeeded in convincing him that Harry’s own magic wasn’t that strange. But either way, something snapped inside Harry, and he surged forwards.
            A second later, his hands were around Malfoy’s head, because Malfoy’s head was pinned against a tree, and Harry’s chest and legs rested against Malfoy’s chest and legs.
            “You want a demonstration?” Harry breathed. “How about I give you one?”
            He could feel the way that Malfoy’s heartbeat picked up even better than he could hear it. For a second, Malfoy’s hand was on his wrist, so still that Harry thought he would jerk it sideways and break it—if Malfoy could free himself from the strange trance holding him.
            Then Malfoy said, in a voice like a faraway teakettle, “You said that you would never use your power on anyone who’s not willing.”
            “I think you’d be willing,” Harry whispered. “Because that way, you could bear the exact tale to your superiors, and you could tell them exactly what it’s like to be under that power, and if you still believe there’s somehow a difference between me and everybody else, you would have first-hand experience to back you up.”
            There was silence between them then—at least on the scale of words. Harry could still easily hear the galloping of Malfoy’s heart, and the way he panted, and tried to control that panting, and shifted his hands in Harry’s grip. He was never going to break free that way, though. And Harry held his hands away from the artifacts on his belt. Malfoy would have to make a decision, and speak.
            “Yes,” Malfoy said finally.
            Harry smiled, and cupped his chin. “You want to experience it first-hand?” he whispered, just to make sure that Malfoy meant what Harry thought he did.
            Malfoy probably found it hard to nod with Harry holding his head like that, but he met Harry’s eyes and blinked, once.
            And Harry called his power, and focused it on calming Malfoy’s heartbeat and making his captivity in Harry’s arms warm and pleasant.
*
            Draco knew this had been a bad idea the moment he felt the small hairs on his arms rise. It wasn’t with cold, nor yet with fear. Potter’s magic prevented him from experiencing either one of those.
            It was with sheer, shivering warmth, the sort of awareness he had had the first time he wanted someone and they walked into a room.
            It was what he had feared to find out what he was. Not just a human who was affected by Potter’s strange powers, but someone drawn to Potter, compelled towards him.
            Attracted to a beast.
            Drawn to one of our enemies, who would damage us if he could. Someone who wants Thornsberry in his pack wouldn’t care about the pain innocent people would suffer in the pursuit of his obsession.
            Those thoughts and words whirled through Draco’s head and were gone. He drained into the heat that spread over him from the places where Potter’s hands gripped his shoulders, and his belly expanded, and he was breathing, concentrating on his breathing, for the first time in what felt like years.
            Potter still held him close. There was no way he could miss Draco’s reaction to all of this. Draco tried to tell himself that an erection was no more humiliating than the way his scent had probably changed, and the hairs on his arms, and all the rest of a bunch of signals that Potter couldn’t miss, as near to each other as they were.
            It did nothing to dismiss the stinging blush in his cheeks.
            Potter continued to hold him, but his face had altered. He was looking at Draco as though he had changed into someone else. Draco held back a comment that that would be Potter’s specialty, and not his, and listened to his breathing, and savored the warmth as best he could.
            Potter let him go. Draco backed a step away. There was some more silence between them, filled up with the sound of Draco’s breathing quickening again, until he shut his mouth and looked away.
            “It wasn’t supposed to humiliate you.”
            Draco shivered, and continued looking at the trunk of a nearby, heavy tree that couldn’t embarrass him. “But you did,” he said. “You must have smelled that you did when we were in those little guest quarters after the last time.”
            “I’m sorry.”
            So maybe the tree was less able to hold Draco’s attention than he’d thought. He blinked and turned his head. “What does that mean?”
            “I’m sorry for humiliating you.” Potter nodded to him, and his face was open and sincere in that way that Draco still thought of as natural for him, no matter how many times the Daily Prophet called him a liar. “I never meant to. I should have realized that it would do that, and not used the power.” He turned and started walking in the direction of the pack again.
            Draco followed him quickly. “Being aroused like that would humiliate anyone who wasn’t a werewolf,” he said.
            “No. Because it aroused Lisa, too. That’s why she was so uncomfortable with doing it in front of you, but she did it because I asked her. And you did it because I asked you to.” Potter paused and looked over his shoulder. “I did think that it might help break you out of that insane emotionless mask you’re trying to adopt, and which is never going to fit you. But if you need the mask for your job, I don’t have the right to shatter it.”
            Draco stood in place again, watching Potter walk around the trees. Potter didn’t seem inclined to wait for him or look back. Maybe he knew that Draco wouldn’t abandon the negotiations again, no matter what he said, because Draco didn’t want to humiliate his Department.
            That insane emotionless mask…it’s never going to fit you.
            Draco shook his head furiously. The emotionless mask was what the Unspeakables adopted, and had to adopt, by necessity. Because they dealt with people and artifacts that would pounce on a sliver of emotion and make it into a weakness.
            And what would Draco have if he had stayed with that emotion, let himself be open and feel all the pain that came along with losing his family’s place and prestige in the wizarding world? Nothing, of course. He’d sit in his emotions and stew and do nothing else.
            With the mask that Potter was talking about, he had prestige and a job that he was good at and a group of colleagues who would take risks for him. He had to do the same thing for them if they were going to respect him.
            If the mask didn’t fit, that came more from his own deficiencies in making it not a mask, but part of himself.
            He hardened his heart, because that was what an Unspeakable needed to do, and followed Potter.
*
CareLessLover: The Minister does have an understandable grudge against Thornsberry, I think, given that Thornsberry attacked his son.
But Harry plays the game with the vampire mainly for amusement, and because Paracelsus is a useful spy.
SP777: Harry wouldn’t care whether or not they did if they would just leave his pack alone. But they probably aren’t going to.
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