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The Long Defeat	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 30612 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Nine—Everything Changes
“Mr. Potter is looking well.”
            Harry kept his gaze focused straight ahead as he came down the stairs in his ornamental chains. Just breathe slowly, Draco had told him. Easier said than done, Harry would have claimed, but Draco had sat with him yesterday, breathing in and out, focusing on going slowly until Harry began to see the trick of it, and breathe with him.
            He could begin the plan they had talked about when he reached the bottom of the staircase. He focused his eyes on the steps before him, felt his feet brushing the planks of marble, felt the smooth wood of the bannister beneath his hands, and felt the breath brushing in and out of his lungs.
            “Very well,” said the goblin who had spoken before, and chuckled. Harry recognized the sound of that chuckle. It was Ripclaw, who had come often to Harry during the time he was staying in Gringotts while they negotiated his slavery and gloated over him. “I’m surprised to see him looking so natural.”
            “Oh, of course we wish our slaves to look natural in their chains,” said Lucius’s careless voice. “If they tripped over them and made nuisances of themselves, we would not wish to have them around. And that would be—unfortunate.”
            “Of course, of course,” Ripclaw said, while Harry counted the steps left in front of him and found they had narrowed down to one. “But you would be surprised how many people neglect the basic necessities, the—”
            There was one step left, and then there were none, and Harry hit the bottom and turned towards Draco, kneeling in his direction and looking up at him adoringly. His skin still prickled when he did it, but he told himself what would come in the future, and managed to hold the position.
            Draco looked down on him with a cool expression that Harry would have thought was real if he hadn’t seen the way Draco flinched in their practice sessions. Then he reached out and placed a steady hand on Harry’s forehead.
            “Draco, what is this?” Narcissa sounded remote, interested, and no more. Harry still felt Draco shudder a little.
            He wished he could mouth, You didn’t tell them? But there was too much chance the goblins would see, so he kept his eyes focused on Draco and his face absolutely blank. Draco’s hand stroked his hair again, as though to calm both Harry and himself.
            “I tried a small charm on Potter,” Draco said, so careless that Harry was afraid someone would suspect something. But he probably wouldn’t have before he got to know Draco as well as he did, so the goblins might not, either. “He was being disobedient and obnoxious, and I wanted nothing more than an hour of peace. But it affected him in a much deeper way.” His fingers curled in Harry’s hair, and he laughed. “Who knew that there was something inside him that longed to submit?”
            The words still made Harry want to spit. But he held his tongue, and replayed, over and over, in his head, Draco’s sick expression. If he didn’t want to submit, still less did Draco want to take his submission.
            “What an intriguing idea,” Ripclaw said, and he came nearer. Harry saw his thick toenails out of the corner of his eye. “Mr. Malfoy, could you—”
            Draco’s hand curled in Harry’s hair, and Harry recognized the signal they’d agreed on. He turned, drawing his wand smoothly, and held it at Ripclaw’s throat. Ripclaw stopped in place with a small squeak, staring at him. With Harry kneeling, their faces were almost on a level.
            Harry held his breathing still smooth and quiet, because if he panted with the hatred he really felt, they might suspect something was off. But yes, this was so much better than just lashing out with his magic and melting his bones. It was just the way Draco had promised it would be.
            Satisfying.
            That made him wonder if Draco knew what he was talking about on other topics, too. Such as the wisdom of staying in the wizarding world after his year was over.
            “Stop him, stop him!” Ripclaw’s hands were scrabbling at his throat, and his eyes were so wide that Harry thought they might tear through the sides of the sockets. “If he—if he hurts me—he can’t hurt me! It’s not allowed!”
            “You did something that I didn’t want you to,” Draco said, voice sharp as a splinter of bone. “Came near me, and asked to touch my slave. Harry’s now attuned to me so closely that he sensed that, and he can strike back to protect me.” He paused minutely. “Or did you not hear about the way that he defended me in Diagon Alley the other day?”
            “I heard.” Ripclaw backed cautiously away from Harry, watching his wand. Harry wanted to laugh, to cheer, and the hatred within him was changing now, veering away from the bile-like burn to a gentler flame. “I thought—I just thought he wasn’t allowed to do it to goblins, that’s all.”
            Draco shrugged with one shoulder. “I’ve made a more thorough slave of him than you ever could. Perhaps because I used caresses instead of threats.” His fingers tightened on Harry’s scalp again. “And he’s allowed to threaten anyone I want, given the price we paid for him.”
            “Certainly.” Ripclaw seemed to have recovered from his shock. He bowed to Draco and turned to Lucius. “Mr. Potter seems submissive enough to content us. Perhaps we can cut the visit shorter this time? Since the evidence is so much more prominent.”
            Harry leaned back on his heels when Draco signed to him that he should, sucking in a deep breath of air. It was over, and he had survived, and yes, this was much more fun than his first imposture had been.
            Not as much fun as being free would be, he had to admit. Not as much fun as being free of the need for imposture at all.
            But he had survived and enjoyed himself, and at the moment, he was inclined to think that was much more important than the continuing fact of his slavery.
            Draco stroked his hair, a silent reminder that the goblins were still here and Harry might do something to give himself away. With the way Harry felt at the moment, that would be deadly. It would crush all his enjoyment and make him more a slave than ever, because Draco would never dare try this again.
            Harry huddled nearer and put his face against Draco’s knees. They hadn’t discussed that, and for a second, Draco went so stiff that Harry was afraid he would shove him away. But then Draco chuckled and reached down to frame the sides of Harry’s face with his hands.
            “You just want to be nearer and nearer, little one, don’t you?” he whispered. “Well, I think I can gratify you in another way.”
            He urged Harry gently backwards and bent down. Harry saw the warning—and asking—shine in his eyes, and nodded. He heard Ripclaw chuckle. Of course the bastard would think that Harry was begging for what would happen next.
            When Draco kissed him, though, it was full of the delight that they both felt in tricking Ripclaw. And Harry would much rather kiss Draco’s mouth than Lucius’s shoes. He kissed back with interest, even slipping his tongue in when Draco’s lips parted a little.

            Draco went even stiffer at that, but wizarding robes were deep, and Harry didn’t think goblins were as adept at reading wizard body language as he had first thought they were. He stepped back a moment later and nodded, facing Ripclaw with a neutral face that Harry had to admit was impressive.
            “So,” he said. “I have a willing slave, something you never managed. Do you have anything else to say?”
            Ripclaw shook his head. He had his hands together, and was looking at Harry from under half-lidded eyes. Harry blinked, wondering what kinds of weird fantasies about wizards goblins might have.
            But Ripclaw said then, “It doesn’t matter as much to me that we couldn’t get him to submit, watching this. You were right, Mr. Malfoy. You made him your own with caresses and not threats.” He sighed. “Watching him crawl...”
            It was said in much the same tone as Voldemort might have spoken it. Harry felt his muscles coil and his magic rise as things that were almost separate from him, because there was no way he could refuse to respond to this.
            Draco touched his head, and Harry turned towards him in what felt like a dream, scraps of color and thought blowing past him, words making no more sense.
            Draco kissed him again, and this time, it was hard enough that Harry found Draco’s tongue in his mouth before he thought of it. He reached up with both hands and laid them on either side of Draco’s face the way Draco had done with him earlier.
            The magic buzzed beneath his fingers, the magic that could turn skin and muscle into grey sludge, and Harry thought it would come out. He knew that if it touched Draco, it would melt him as effectively as the goblin Harry had reason to be angry at.
            It wouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t be able to apologize later, he wouldn’t be able to bring Draco back. His body shook with the effort of restraining itself, and of responding at the same time to the harsh, insistent tongue that thrust at him.
            But if he could hold back, then he would have the chance later to speak about this with Draco, and especially to ask what the fuck he had been thinking.
            That thought, of opportunities that he could only have in the future if he controlled himself now, made Harry gasp and break free of the kiss to bow his head. Draco stroked his hair, in silence and what felt like sympathy, although Harry had no idea how Draco could know what he was feeling right now.
            Draco turned to face Ripclaw, although Harry only knew that from the way he watched his boots shuffle across the floor. “He’s calm now,” Draco said. “But I would leave him alone, if I were you.” He made his voice more threatening than Harry had probably looked when he was about to explode.
            Ripclaw muttered something, and then they were going towards the door, they were going out of the Manor, they were leaving. Harry repeated the words to himself until he relaxed, and no longer resented the floor under his knees.
            “You did very well.”
            That was Lucius, and it almost brought Harry’s magic screaming to the surface again. He looked up—
            But his view was blocked. Draco had stepped in between his father and Harry, and although Harry didn’t know what expression he had on his face, it was enough to make Lucius’s fingers clench around his cane and his face close.
            “I don’t want you to say anything that could be taken as praise for a slave right now,” Draco said, “no matter how sincerely you feel it. All right?”
            Lucius stood there, and then nodded and swept away. That still didn’t leave them alone, though, since Narcissa had come back from escorting the goblins to the door and was looking at them with a faint smile.
            Harry became aware that he was kneeling in front of her, and scrambled to his feet, face so hot that he was surprised he didn’t burst into flames. Narcissa held out her hand, and Harry looked around for a moment, wondering if she wanted his wand. He didn’t know if he could give that up right now.
            But she moved forwards, and Harry realized she wanted to shake his hand. He swallowed and clasped hers. Once again, she failed to turn into dust and ash.
            “Thank you, Harry,” she said. “I know that cannot have been easy for you.”
            And she turned and walked away with a step so calm that she might have been attending a polite little tea-party, or whatever pure-blood women did. Harry realized he had no idea, unless he could count on his experience of Molly and Ginny, and he really doubted that Narcissa spent mornings in the kitchen baking and casting household charms.
            “Are you all right?” Draco’s voice was so soft that Harry could have ignored it and walked upstairs if he wanted to. He almost did.
            But Draco was responsible, at least partially, for the fact that both of them, all of them including Ripclaw, had escaped from the consequences of Harry’s temper. He turned around, and found that Draco’s face was red, too.
            That made Harry relax his shoulders and roll them a little. “I’m all right,” he said, shaking his head when Draco peered at him. “I mean it. I would have gone after him at one point, but you spared all of us from that. Thank you,” he added.
            “Are you angry about the way I did it?”
            The kiss. Because he’d done it back, it took Harry a long moment to remember that it had been Draco’s idea in the first place. He blinked his eyes and touched the nape of his neck. “I don’t know,” he said.
            “That’s more encouraging than saying you’ll destroy me for the presumption, at least,” Draco said, and smiled.
            Harry smiled back, and, because it had been that kind of day, said, “Let’s go get something to eat, and then I think we have some things to talk about.”
*
            Draco couldn’t help crunching the biscuits that the house-elves brought them a little harder than usual, and licking his fingers free of crumbs—something he would never have done if he and Harry were eating with his parents. There were such things as manners, and, worse, there were such things as his mother’s frowns.
            But here, he could catch Harry’s attention, and he would blush and look away in the most delicious way. So Draco considered that he was doing something all right, and even laudable in its way. He was furthering Harry’s desire to stay in the wizarding world if he could give him someone to trust, someone he was attracted to.
            And someone I’m attracted to. It didn’t cost him as much embarrassment to admit it, now.
            Finally, Draco leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his bulging stomach, smiling at Harry, a little sleepily. Harry blinked as though stunned, and then smiled back. Draco nodded. They had taken the first step, and Harry wasn’t running away.
            “I suppose you want to know why I kissed you,” Draco said.
            “To calm me down and keep me from killing Ripclaw, I thought.” Harry hadn’t licked his fingers, even after he saw Draco do it, as though he assumed things a Malfoy could do were forbidden to a Malfoy slave. He just dried his fingers off on a napkin and gave Draco an even look. “And to put on a little show, so he wouldn’t think too hard about whether I was really submitting or not.”
            Draco blinked. He hadn’t thought Harry would lay it out so coolly like that. “Well, of course,” he said. “But also because I want you to stay.”
            “Kissing me like you wanted to suck my soul out through my tongue is supposed to make me think about that?” Harry asked blankly.
            Draco shivered a little at the description, and hoped Harry hadn’t noticed. “Not think about that. Just feel it. Don’t you want to stay in the wizarding world with someone who would take that sort of risk for you, someone who would touch you like that all the time if you wanted?” He made his voice as soft as he could, and saw Harry’s eyes widen a little.
            “Nothing makes sense,” Harry said, after a few seconds of what looked like deep consideration. “You’ve fallen in love with your slave?”
            Draco had to smile. “No one said anything about love. I just kissed you for the first time, and you kissed me. People do that all the time without being in love. And you’re not my slave, either. We both know that.”
            “You acted like I was.”
            “So did you,” Draco snapped, before he thought about it. Well, he had the right to say that. He wasn’t going to act as though he was the only one responsible for this deception. Harry had agreed, and he was the one who had helped Draco create a private world where they were teacher and student, or equals, not master and slave. “We only did it because we had to,” he went on, when he’d calmed himself down. “I know better than to think I could ever really take you over that way, Harry.”
            “If you don’t want to take me over, or just to make sure that your family didn’t give up a vault for nothing, what do you want?”
            “What I’ve already told you I want,” Draco said, but thinking back on it, he had to concede that it was possible he hadn’t come out and told Harry exactly what he wanted. “For you to stay, and—I don’t know how to say it so you won’t laugh. Be with me? That’s the best I can do right now.”
            “Because seeing me leave the wizarding world would mean you’d been less than a kind master?” Harry shoved his chair back from the table. “You don’t need to think I would say something like that, Draco. I don’t intend to ever tell anyone but my friends what goes on in the Manor.”
            “That isn’t it,” Draco said. “Merlin, Potter. I’ve kissed you, and I’ve suggested ways that you could avoid the goblins from destroying your spirit, and I’ve fought beside you. And you suggest that I just want to keep my good name?”
            “Your family’s good name.” Harry was staring at him, squinting at him really. “I think that matters more to you.”
            “You’re wrong,” Draco said, and then had to backtrack, because Harry’s squint got more skeptical than ever, and he would probably start breaking something in a minute. “I mean, not about my family’s good name being important to me. But it’s also important for me that you stay here, and that—I get to know you. I can’t get to know you if you go to the Muggle world.”
            Harry closed his eyes. “I felt my magic boiling up like it would destroy Ripclaw today. You have to wonder if I’m dangerous, after that.”
            “I stopped it by kissing you. That doesn’t make your magic sound very dangerous to me.”
            Harry choked on his laughter, and sat back, shaking his head and smiling at Draco with an expression that looked a lot better than that pale deaths-head of a mask Harry had been wearing so far. “I never tried that when I was looking for ways to calm my magic down. Being kissed by the son of an enemy, a former rival from school.”
            “I’m not that now,” Draco said. “I’m someone who’s trained with you.”
            “You could find someone else to train you,” Harry said, his eyes filled with a challenge that Draco understood. “Someone who makes a better dueling instructor than I do. I’m not an expert. I know spells you’ve never seen before, but I’ll run out of those soon.”
            “Imagine,” Draco said, not knowing the words that would come tumbling out of his mouth, or how ridiculous they might make him sound, until he began to speak, “imagine living with me for a year. The spells we’ll cast, the duels we’ll hold, and all the ways we’ll fool the goblins. Because I know you, Harry. You won’t be content with just the one kind of lie. You’ll want to try them all out sooner or later.”
            Harry blinked at him, but said nothing. He was listening, and for right now, that was enough.
            Draco stood up and spread his hands, trying to indicate the room they were in, and more than that, always more than that, the Manor and his parents’ money and the way of life he’d grown up with, which Harry wouldn’t have any idea about. “This isn’t life the way you know it, but it could be, for a little while. You could have the advantages and see if you liked it. And if you did, I would make it more than tolerable to you. I’d make it pleasant. Because otherwise you won’t stay, and I want you to.”
            “Still relating everything to your own desires, Malfoy?” Harry glared at him like a glittering statute. No one could beat him down, not Harry, and Draco found himself smiling agreeably at the revelation.
            “Of course not,” he said. “Unless I can persuade you, then I know my desires won’t become reality.”
            “But they’re still the reason you’re doing this.”
            Draco laughed. “It’s not like you would trust me if I said they weren’t. You know that I’m selfish, and that hasn’t altered.” He paused, then added softly, “We did this for life-debts, and yes, I think my father is thinking that we’ll gain some prestige when you’re free, to be known as the family who sheltered the Boy-Who-Lived. But I’m doing this now because I’m learning to like you, and I want you to like me back.”
            Harry’s face had gone mask-like. “What if I said the only way I would like you is if you left me alone?”
            Draco hesitated. But he reminded himself that Harry was still a slave, after everything, and that he shouldn’t press too hard. Because that would be the way to lose him forever.
            So Draco nodded and said, “I can do that. Do you want to be by yourself right now?” It was the only peace offering he could think of, even though he wanted to stay here and discuss the kiss some more, and what they were going to do the next time the goblins came.
            Harry looked at the chairs and the floors and the table, as though they could offer the answer for him. But in the end, he faced Draco, and took a slow, deep breath, and nodded. “I want to. I need to think.”
            Just because he said that didn’t mean he would end up deciding against Draco, Draco reminded himself sharply. He bowed his head and said politely, “All right. If you need me, I’ll be in my bedroom.” He added, as Harry’s mouth opened, of course to say that he didn’t know where it was, “Any of the house-elves will be happy to show you the way.”
            He walked to the door of the dining room, and turned around. “I know it’s not much, but you do have the freedom of the Manor,” he said. “If you want to go somewhere else.” He turned around once again, away from the piercing light in Harry’s eyes, and left.
*
SP777: If he had really been mocking, Harry probably would have beaten him up.
Jester: Harry mostly doesn’t want his money anymore, since it’s tainted by association with the goblins. His basic conviction is that he would survive somehow.
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The Long Defeat