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A More Worldly Man	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10959 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Title: A More Worldly Man

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco.

Warnings: DH Spoilers, not epilogue-compliant. Profanity, language, violence and torture (mostly remembered), sex.

Rating: R/M.

Summary: Sequel to An Alchemical Discontent. Harry and Draco are finally, slowly, coming together, but the aftermath of Draco’s freedom is nightmares, legal challenges, and dangerous political pressure in the form of Charlemagne Diggory.

Author’s Notes: Last story in a trilogy called the Intellectual Love Affair series. This story won’t make much sense if read without the first two. Also, there are certain parts of this story you may want to skim if you have a weak stomach—namely, those containing memories of Draco’s torture by Daphne Greengrass.

A More Worldly Man

Chapter One—Over the Edge

            He was lying still. He didn’t want to do so, but he couldn’t move. His muscles strained and flexed uselessly against invisible bonds. The sound of his breathing rushed in his ears, but outside of that, all was silence. Perhaps she had left. He wished he could think that, but the moment he began to seriously consider the possibility, the flat of a cold, sharp blade settled in the middle of his back.

            Draco shuddered and barely restrained himself from a miserable groan. Of course. Daphne was a Legilimens. She’d probably read the desire out of his head, even restrained herself until he started really believing in his solitude, and only then moved in. She did love to crumple hope like a piece of tissue.

            The knife trailed its way slowly across his back, denting and dimpling the skin but never causing more than slight pain. Draco opened his eyes wide—he’d had them shut until then, hoping he could make his suffering less real by refusing to see it—but only darkness answered his questing gaze. It might have been a blindfold or a blinding charm. Daphne was so good with both that Draco found it impossible to tell the difference.

            And he had been the one who had put himself into this situation, he remembered, bitterly and yet again, via his own overconfidence that he could make Daphne stop playing with him at any time. He should have remembered how eager she had been to treat him as a toy when they had their first affair. She was stronger magically than he was, and had a vital sexual interest in him; of course he could not put her off like a child who wanted to play with him.

            The knife rested at the top of his buttocks now. Draco knew what came next; in an odd way, he felt as if he had lived through this once already, though Daphne used Memory Charms to keep him from remembering the results of her little games. He shivered and tried as best he could to relax, frustrated that he could not make his muscles respond all the way with a simple command. Had she used magic to make them harder to relax, too?

            Then he told himself that she would love such uncertainty about how much control he had over his own body, and it would give her a greater hold on him. He must not succumb to it.

            The knife edged further down his arse now, still only dimpling the skin, still not quite making it bleed. Draco was shuddering so hard that he wondered if Daphne would cut him accidentally. But no, she probably had too much control of the blade for that.

            Oh, God, he didn’t like this.

            Of course you don’t, it’s not as though you chose it, Draco tried to reply scornfully to his own fears, but he couldn’t maintain the scorn. He was shaking too hard with revulsion. He’d been with men. It wasn’t as though he feared something going up his arse. But this, this was different—

            Daphne paused, and then drove the knife forward, hard, into his rectum, the blade slipping in with a speed that made the contrast with the gentle teasing that had come before all the worse. Draco forgot the multiple promises he had made himself when she first bound him to the bed, and opened his mouth, the scream leaving his body as the knife entered it.

*

            Harry woke with a jolt, hearing Draco’s voice rip across his ears like a sudden shout of Sectumsempra! He was on his feet with his wand drawn before his mind caught up with his body, and he realized that Draco lay shaking in his bed, tears pouring down his face, his mouth opening in another scream, this one soundless.

            Harry promptly dropped his wand and reached across the hospital bed to gather Draco up into his arms. He had nothing fastened to him, no tubes for feeding or giving blood or drugs the way there would have been in Muggle hospital. The Healers had examined him carefully, fed him a few potions, removed some spells and curses they’d found intertwined with his nervous system and his digestive system, and told Harry the major problem would be dealing with the trauma of the recovered memories. They would send a Mind-Healer to talk to Draco tomorrow.

            For now, Harry could do nothing but wish the nightmares away.

            Well, that’s not true, he thought, as he locked his arms around Draco’s chest and waist and kept his limbs from thrashing. I can hold him, give him my warmth, let him know the dreams aren’t real. I can be here for him, the way he was there for me right after Daphne got—eaten.

            “It’s all right,” he said, wishing he had better words to speak. Then again, the Healers had told him the tone of the voice, the sense of someone’s comforting presence, was often more important for a patient in Draco’s position than the words themselves. “Draco, I promise, I’m here, and it’s all right, and she’s gone, she’s a Squib, I won’t leave you. You’ll never be at her mercy again.” He used his right hand briefly to smooth some sweat-soaked hair from Draco’s brow, but had to bring it down again as Draco flexed helplessly the way he might in bonds and nearly tore away from Harry’s grip.

            Draco jolted once more, then came fully back to consciousness. Harry knew the moment he did. He could feel the sweep of Draco’s lashes against his cheek as Draco shut his eyes, and he said, in a low voice, “I fucking hate this.”

            “Waking up in my arms?” Harry kept his voice light and teasing, to show he took no offense. His right hand was moving up and down on Draco’s back, rucking up the hospital gown as he stroked his spine. The mediwitches had seemed a little shocked when Harry, no relative of Draco’s, had said he would stay with him during the night and provide warmth and comfort if he needed to be held, but it was none of their business. Until the Prophet breaks the story, anyway. “Or wearing clothes that display no sense of fashion?”

            “I hate screaming like that,” Draco whispered. “I’m weak. I sound weak. You must think I’m weak.”

            “Why don’t you let me think my own thoughts, and then tell you what they are?” Harry hummed into his ear. Draco tensed one more time, then released his breath across Harry’s ear with a great, shuddering sigh.

            “You’re about to say that you don’t think I’m weak, aren’t you,” he said, sounding more resigned than angry.

            “I don’t think that, because you aren’t.” Harry tightened his hold and rocked Draco a little. His back was beginning to hurt, leaning over the bed like this, but he felt he could keep it up for as long as Draco needed it. “You made a mistake, yes, but that makes you mistaken, not weak. And then you suffered, through no fault of your own. You didn’t choose this, Draco. It wasn’t your fault.” The Healers had told Harry some self-blame was usual after an experience like this—the one piece of their advice he’d been able to anticipate for certain beforehand. He knew all too well what it felt like to have something awful happen to you and be sure you could have prevented it if only you were stronger.

            “I want to think like that,” Draco whispered. “But then I remember not being able to stop her. She just—tied me down and did whatever she wanted to me.”

            “I know,” Harry whispered back. He didn’t ask for details of the nightmares. Those were Draco’s to share if he wished. Harry would demand them only if he thought they were poisoning Draco, with as much silence as he was preserving on the subject. “You didn’t choose this. This isn’t your fault.”

            Draco stayed silent for some time. Harry went on rocking him. The motion was soothing to him, too, and helped work out the aches he felt in his neck and shoulders; he’d fallen asleep in the chair beside Draco’s bed.

            “You’ll get tired of saying that soon,” Draco said, with an oddly tentative note in his voice. Harry was glad to hear it. Scorn or resignation, though understandable as defenses for Draco’s broken pride, would have hurt Harry in turn; it would have been harder to think they weren’t really the truth.

            “I won’t,” Harry said. “You might, and then I’ll change the words to something else, equally soothing.”

            “I won’t get tired of them,” Draco said, and then his arms clasped around Harry and squeezed with unexpected strength. “I don’t—change that easily. Not towards someone who’s done what you’ve done for me. Just—stay here and don’t go anywhere. Don’t change on me, all right?”

            “All right,” Harry breathed back.

            And so they stayed still, the whirling, bubbling cauldron of Harry’s mind paused, for just a few moments, by the presence of the man he was beginning to be certain he loved.

*

            Draco glanced up as the door opened, ready to complain to Harry about the fact that the mediwitch who’d brought his lunch tray actually expected him to eat watery soup and stringy vegetables. But instead of Harry, it was Granger who stepped into his room, her eyes hard and bright as nails.

            She shut the door carefully behind her, but, thankfully, cast no spell that would hold it shut or prevent anyone from entering. Draco didn’t feel up to being confined in small spaces alone with magically powerful women at the moment.

Even less did he want Granger to start knowing that, however, so he forced himself to pick up a forkful of chicken and eat it with something approaching resignation. The chicken crunched so hard in his mouth he nearly choked. It looked more appetizing than the rest of the food, but the skin stuck him in odd places on his gums and palate, and a baby house-elf could have cooked softer meat.

            Feeling stronger with the irritation running through him, Draco laid down his fork and faced Granger. “Well?” he asked. “I presume you’ve come to give me the details about Daphne. Harry said you’d taken care of her, but he wouldn’t tell me how.” Harry was being extraordinarily careful with his references to Daphne in front of Draco, and even, it seemed, with words that sounded like her name. Did he really think Draco would snap the moment he heard about her? But, on the other hand, Draco had to appreciate the concern Harry’s caution reflected.

            “I used a Memory Charm on her,” Granger said. “After using Legilimency on her first, to see how resistant she was and how powerful I’d need to make the spell.” A hard little smile played about Granger’s lips. “Not at all powerful, as it turned out. With the loss of her magic, she’d lost most of the protections on her mind.”

            See? Draco reminded himself yet again. Harry took her magic away from her, and that’s the reason she was able to hurt you. Not her money or her connections in the Muggle world. So the danger really is past, because she won’t ever be able to blindfold and gag you again. With a wand, you’re stronger than she is even cornered.

            “So we Obliviated her, and then I found the Muggle documents she had in her house and placed her safely with the people who know her in the Muggle world.” Granger shrugged a little. “They just think she’s had some kind of trauma and doesn’t want to talk about what happened to her. They always knew her as…” Granger appeared to hunt for the right word. “Eccentric, in any case. I made sure to cover only her memories of being a witch, not her memories of acting and living among people without magic. She’ll be all right. She has plenty of money, and she can make a life and a career there with the connections she’s forged.”

            Draco nodded. He was sure Granger had done what she’d done out of an intense, very Gryffindor need to do something for Daphne, since they could hardly haul her to Azkaban without revealing that Harry had eaten her magic and they’d broken into her manor house. Draco approached the problem from a different perspective, however. As long as Daphne had lost her memories and would think she’d always been powerless, there was no reason for her to seek him out. And there was no reason for any friend of hers to come looking specifically for Draco, Harry, and Granger, either.

            “But,” Granger said, and Draco felt his belly wind so tight he nearly vomited up the chicken he’d eaten, “there is one problem, one I didn’t know about until too late.”

            “What?” Draco rasped. He tightened his hands on the bedclothes. He was not about to have a panic attack. Harry wouldn’t think he was weak, but Harry was different—Draco’s friend and business partner and lover in all but name. Granger still looked at Draco as if he were fewmets on the bottom of her shoe sometimes.

            “Daphne had a spell in her house,” Granger said quietly, “one of her own design, or I would have sensed it when I examined the house’s magic before we left. It acts like a Muggle video camera—“ She paused, probably because Draco had narrowed his eyes, and then said, “Or a Pensieve, I suppose. It records the events that happen in front of it and stores them. If she doesn’t cast a certain other spell to erase the recording within a short period of time, the spell sends the images elsewhere.”

            “Where?” Draco barked, feeling his stomach tighten one more notch. “And how do you know this, anyway?”

            The door opened before Granger could answer. Harry took one look at Draco’s face and stepped across the space between them, opening his arms. Draco leaned against his chest and shut his eyes. He hadn’t realized before that Harry’s heartbeat was one of the most soothing sounds he’d ever heard. He’d let Harry face Granger, for the moment, and deal with the latest crisis.

            It wasn’t that Draco didn’t want to be strong again and able to handle things on his own. He wanted it as much as he wanted to lie down with Harry for the first time. But it was better to conserve his strength so that he could actually do so, rather than exhaust himself by making too much effort too soon.

*

            Harry controlled the urge to snap at Hermione. She had insisted Draco needed to know what had happened to, and after, Daphne. And of course it would affect him badly no matter what. She was not the reason Draco sagged against Harry as if all the bones had melted out of the upper part of his body.

            But the real reason was beyond Harry’s reach, as he reminded himself when rage rolled through his body like a cresting tide. He’d eaten her magic. That would have to be enough, though increasingly he didn’t feel as if it was.

            “We don’t know where the memories were sent,” he said softly, stroking Draco’s back. He’d heard the other man’s questions whilst he was still out in the corridor, and that had been one reason he decided to enter; he’d been dithering, wondering whether Draco and Hermione would benefit more from talking alone. “And Hermione only knows this much because she noticed something odd magically about Daphne’s house when she went to visit it yesterday.”

            “You went to visit?” Draco turned around in Harry’s arms, the strangeness of the news apparently making him decide to face Hermione. “Why?”

            Hermione flushed and looked at her hands. But she answered, which was more than Harry thought she would have done a few weeks ago, when she considered Draco solely in the light of the brewer of the Desire potion. “She has books there—rare, magical ones that I noticed when I examined the house for spells. And she isn’t using them any more.”

            Harry smiled in spite of himself. Hermione lifted her head a moment later and stared defiantly back at him. Draco, of course, just nodded. He probably found nothing at all strange about the idea of taking useful possessions from someone who had no need for them.

            “I felt the tingle of magic when I stepped through the door,” Hermione continued, sounding eager to have the story over with. Harry couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t pleasant—neither the story itself nor the consequences that might come from it. And Hermione still thought that missing the spell in the first place was her fault, though Harry had reassured her he didn’t blame her. How could he, when they’d had much more important things to worry about, such as getting Draco to hospital and Obliviating Daphne? “That was the spell’s sending the memories to whoever it sent them to. A friend or ally of Daphne’s would be the obvious choice. I took apart the spell then, and figured out what it did. But it was too late to retrieve the memories.” She looked directly at Draco, and Harry hoped the other man was able to see the compassion in her eyes. It could be hard when her voice was as clipped as it was right now. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how much it sent, what it saw, or where those images are, even now. And that’s why I think someone may still be hunting us, and why I need to know anyone who might have been important to—her, anyone she might have trusted to appreciate secrets like that rather than be disgusted.”

            Draco closed his eyes and said nothing at all. Harry held him closer, to make sure he hadn’t stopped breathing along with retreating into silence. His right hand again moved without his conscious volition, rucking the hospital gown up to touch Draco’s bare skin beneath. Draco gave one violent start when that happened, then leaned into Harry’s hand to show his touch was welcome.

            “So.” Draco’s voice was as clipped as Hermione’s, though Harry knew he was desperately trying to restrain a very different set of emotions. “Someone else knows every detail of the way I was humiliated and raped?”

            “We don’t know how many details—“ Hermione began, but stopped when Harry gave a warning shake of his head. Draco, at the moment, required reassurance, not logic.

            “We don’t know,” he simply said, and rubbed his cheek against Draco’s head. He could feel the thoughts racing under that blond hair, and whilst he knew their general tenor, he badly wished he could read every single one of them. He needed to know what Draco was thinking. “But if we start learning the names of Daphne’s friends and allies, we might be able to track them down.”

            Draco drew a deep breath. And then he opened his eyes and spoke almost normally. Harry felt a sunburst of pride gathering in his chest and hoped he was keeping the silly grin off his face. From the sidelong glance Hermione sneaked him, he might have shown it anyway.

            “She had fewer friends, and more ex-lovers,” Draco began. “People she managed to charm, or who shared a few of her proclivities, and so she didn’t feel the need to treat them as badly as she did me. I know the names of two men who were in her bed around the same time I first was: Tobias Morrison and Hunter Littlesmith. Morrison is a half-blood, I think, but one who’s chosen to live mostly in the Muggle world. Littlesmith works in some sub-Department of the Ministry. As for the rest…I’d suggest you look around her house again when you go to collect her books, Granger. Daphne was a trophy-keeper. It’s highly likely she’ll have a list of them somewhere, though perhaps behind another spell she invented.”

            Hermione rose to her feet in a rush of motion, her face brilliant. Harry could see how the thought of having something to do, some way to make up for her mistake, energized her. He smiled into Draco’s hair. Draco probably felt less comfortable around Hermione than she did around him, but he’d instinctively known how to drag her out of brooding about something she couldn’t change. They understood each other, and that could be more important than liking.

            “This time, I’ll find it,” Hermione said fiercely. “I can tear apart the house if I like; I’ve placed wards on it that will prevent anyone but me from entering, and charm most people who approach it, even if they’re wizards, into forgetting it exists. And she’s not there to stop me.” She gave a hasty nod to Draco, kissed Harry’s cheek, and hurried out of the room.

            Harry remained in silence with Draco a few moments more, stroking his back and letting him choose a time to talk about what he felt concerning Daphne’s memories of him escaping. Draco continued still and silent, though, with even the revealing sound of his breath hushed. Then he pulled back, looked Harry straight in the eye, and said, “I have something to confess.”

            Harry nodded encouragingly, hardly daring to exhale himself, lest he should scare Draco into backing off.

            “This,” Draco said, pointing to his tray, “is the absolute worst chicken I have ever tasted.”

            Harry laughed and hugged Draco harder. So he wanted to wait and choose his time and his words. That was all right. They had the rest of their lives to talk to each other about things like that, as far as Harry was concerned. The truth of Draco’s feelings would emerge some day, or week, or year.

            He had just leaned back when someone flung the door open. Harry turned sharply, instinctively putting his body between Draco and danger. Yes, Daphne herself was powerless to harm them now, but perhaps whichever of her allies had received the memories was ready to act on his information, and any mediwitch or Healer who entered like that should have their license revoked.

            The last person Harry expected to see stood in the doorway, and she wore one of the last expressions he expected to see on her face. It actually took him some moments to recognize her—her resemblance to Draco helped greatly—and by the time he had, he was staring at her wand.

            Narcissa Malfoy said tightly, “Get away from my son, as you value your life.”
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A More Worldly Man

A More Worldly Man

Chapter One—Over the Edge