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Three Times Harry Potter Prevented Draco Malfoy	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3392 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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- 1-Three Times Harry Potter Prevented Draco Malfoy
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Title: Three Times Harry Potter Prevented Draco Malfoy From Getting Revenge (And One Time He Didn’t)

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

Pairing: Harry/Draco (mostly preslash)

Rating: R

Warnings: Character death (not Harry or Draco), profanity, violence, murder.

Word Count: ~7000 words

Challenge: for doomedloves

Keywords: the Unforgivables, pillow, absinthe

Dialogue: "That's something Snape would say."

Summary: After his father dies in prison, Draco tries to get revenge. Harry Potter won’t let him, for some reason that makes no sense to Draco.

Author’s Notes: This is my June one-shot for the LJ hd_500 comm.

Three Times Harry Potter Prevented Draco Malfoy From Getting Revenge (And One Time He Didn’t)

            His father was dead.

            That fact filled Draco’s world.

            He knew, rationally, that kneeling next to his father’s corpse in the middle of Azkaban and staring into his eyes simply gave the prison guards and the Aurors who had escorted him here more ammunition to use against his family. His father would have told him to stand up, to lift his chin to a haughty angle no matter how much it hurt, and to turn his back on the body. He would do his grieving later, in private.

            But his father lay sprawled before him, eyes wide and throat slit open. With a common knife blade, no less, the guards had told Draco, not with one of the slicing curses. He had died in a Muggle way he would have hated, among commoners and filth.

            Draco ran his fingers down the wound and stared. He wanted to remember the exact dimensions and the ragged way the skin fluttered along the edges and the dark-rustiness of the blood that had worked its way down the side of Father’s neck. He wanted to remember all of this, so that he could use it to fuel his rage against the monster who had committed the crime.

            He was aware of raised voices, of a hand reaching out to grab his shoulder and steer him away from the body—

            And then there were more raised voices, including one he recognized. That one said, “No, leave him alone. He has a right to mourn.”

            Draco surged to his feet. There were some things that it was intolerable Potter should witness. He stepped in front of his father and folded his arms, using his own body to bar Potter’s line of sight.

            Potter came around the corner panting, as though he had run to reach the place. Of course he did, Draco thought bitterly. He probably can’t wait to see me in pain. When he saw Draco staring at him, he pushed his glasses up and advanced at a more cautious pace. His eyes were on Draco’s the entire time, which was probably brave of him.

            But how can I care about courage when my father has been murdered? How can I care about Potter?

            Draco felt bitterness curling through his throat until he wanted to vomit. He couldn’t, but Potter pushed himself into the situation anyway, and then jumped up and down so that Draco couldn’t ignore him.

            “What are you doing here?” he demanded of Potter.

            “Getting some answers,” Potter said, and turned to the taller Auror who had brought Draco into the prison when he received the letter about his father. “Who’s fled from the prison in the last few hours? You know that this had to be done by one of the guards, so you shouldn’t have far to look for suspects.”

            The Auror stiffened, and gave Draco the kind of hostile, hateful look he’d long since become used to receiving from people who weren’t his friends. Of course he didn’t want to say who he believed the murderer might have been, Draco thought, his heart pounding so hard that his vision blurred with red. Who cared about a single murdered Malfoy?

Probably deserved it, Draco could already hear the callous bastards muttering. Who knows what he would have done if we hadn’t arrested him? Who knows what kind of evils he was practicing in prison? It’s for the best.

“Mr. Potter,” said the Auror, “I really don’t think that that’s the kind of question it’s appropriate to answer in front of the—” He hesitated, caught without a suitable noun.

Potter pounced. “In front of the victim? The victim is dead and can’t hear you. The secondary victim at least deserves the name of the murderer.”

            “But you don’t know what will happen if we say it in his hearing,” said the Auror, in a loud whisper that he (ridiculously) imagined Draco couldn’t listen in on. “What if he tries to take revenge?”

            “What if I finally call in those favors that so many people are anxious to offer me and get you thrown out of the Ministry for being prejudiced against someone whose father had just been killed?” Potter didn’t raise his voice, but the Auror paled and swallowed. Draco watched with a distant kind of admiration from behind the wall of horror and hatred. That was the kind of influence that his family would have been able to exert once, and which they had lost from the moment that the Dark Lord moved into the Manor.

            “You can’t,” the Auror said, and then stopped. By the way Potter was looking up at him, he must have decided that, yes, Potter could, and would. He surrendered. “His name’s Andrew Maclaran. We discovered him missing about two hours before the—the prisoner’s body was found. He was a guard, and he volunteered to monitor these cells alone tonight. His partner was too relieved to get away and see her sick mother to question it.” Now that he had surrendered, he seemed to have decided that too much information was better than too little.

            “Andrew Maclaran,” Draco said. The calmness of his own voice surprised him.

            “Do you see?” the Auror appealed to Potter in an anguished voice, while the other Azkaban guards stirred uneasily. “He might try to kill Maclaran because he’s so upset about the murder.”

            “I’ll keep him from doing that,” Potter said, also in a calm voice. The dim light in the corridor flashed off his glasses.

            Draco laughed. The sound made the Aurors and the guards flinch, but Potter just went on looking at him intently. He looked ridiculous, Draco thought in disgust. His clothes were still too large for him, and his fringe dangled over the scar in the middle of his forehead, making his head into a shaggy pony’s. “Do you really believe that you can keep me from doing anything I want to do?”

            “Yes,” Potter said. He faced the Auror. “Why would Maclaran have wanted to kill Lucius?”

            “He lost relatives to Malfoy in the war.” The Auror lowered his voice, which would have touched off a fire of fury in Draco if he wasn’t already as angry as it was possible for him to get. Oh, yes, Maclaran’s grief deserves respect, but not mine. God knows that even though I didn’t kill anyone, because my father did is enough reason for you to hate us and for him to die.

            “That’s an explanation, not an excuse,” Potter said, and walked towards Draco. Draco watched him with narrowed eyes, ready to lash out if Potter tried to mock him by laying a hand on his shoulder in sympathy, but it seemed that Potter simply wanted to examine the body. Draco physically kept himself from turning around and stopping him. He had something better to do.

            He used Legilimency to dip into the mind of the Auror Potter had talked to, who was watching him in fascinated loathing and who had the most reason to have Maclaran in the forefront of his thoughts. Draco had become skilled at both Occlumency and Legilimency during his own trial before the Wizengamot, in which several people had tried to read his thoughts or conceal essential information that would keep him out of Azkaban. He pulled the image of Maclaran from the Auror without trouble.

            A tall, skinny man with red hair and a distinctive crook to his nose. Draco sneered. Of course it would make sense that the man who did this looked like the Weasleys. Those born with red hair didn’t seem to understand that the Malfoys would always be better than they were.

            “He’s sneering at me.” The Auror whose mind he had just probed raised his voice to a whinge. Draco laughed, and Potter, as he stood up from examining Lucius’s body, snorted.

            “And that’s worthy of a capital offense, is it?” Potter shook his head. “I’m willing to testify to the condition of the corpse, if you don’t want to look at it more closely. In the meantime, shouldn’t you start hunting for Maclaran?”

            One of the Azkaban guards spoke up then. “Why don’t we bring Malfoy along and have him testify about the condition of the corpse? No need to trouble you, sir.” Draco shuddered at the fawning tone addressed to someone who didn’t deserve it.

            “There’s every need to trouble me, particularly when it’s not trouble.” Potter rolled his eyes and stepped up beside Draco. “We should be leaving now.” He didn’t put a hand on Draco’s elbow or shoulder, still, but he remained there until Draco began to move forwards of his own free will.

            Draco could tell what was going to happen, from the way that the guards exchanged glances and the Aurors looked distrustfully at Draco out of the corners of their eyes. A hunt would be made for Maclaran, but it wouldn’t be a large or a motivated one. And when he was brought to trial, probably some of his fellow guards would make pleas about how much grief he was suffering and how he should be excused.

            That left revenge for Lucius’s death up to him.

            Draco had never expected anything less.

*

            It had taken less effort to trace Maclaran than Draco had feared it would. He’d learned after a few questions under an assumed name—it was the simplest thing in the world to persuade Maclaran’s relatives that he was a reporter who wanted to write about “their side of the story”—that Maclaran spoke French and had spent a lot of time in Paris when he was a boy. Draco discovered, after some casual questions in Paris’s wizarding community, that Maclaran had fled from there to a small wizarding village in Provence.

            Now Draco sat at a table in the main restaurant of the village, his face glamoured and the remains of an expensive meal spread out in front of him. As Draco had learned early in life, spend enough gold and most people did not care that you wanted to sit in a dark corner and scrutinize the other clients.

            Maclaran hadn’t bothered with a glamour. He sat at a table in the center of the room, holding court by buying all sorts of wines for anyone who asked and amusing them with a story that was obviously the story of Lucius’s murder, with the names changed. Draco snorted as he listened to Maclaran saying that he had fended off his attacker with a Muggle weapon after he’d had his wand taken from him. Yes. My father was weak with starvation and the cold of that bloody place, but he still managed to take your wand from you and then prance about posturing instead of striking you dead immediately. Your tale fits neither physical reality nor the spiritual reality of what my father was.

            The anger and grief tried to rise again, to leak out through his throat and ears. Draco gritted his teeth and sat still. He didn’t want to kill Maclaran in public, though he didn’t doubt that the news of his involvement with the fool’s death would emerge sooner rather than later.

            It is worth it to wait, Father, he thought, to soothe Lucius’s outraged spirit. Soon enough it won’t matter what he says about you, because his condition will be exactly the same as yours.

            Finally, Maclaran stood up, waved to everyone in sight—including Draco, which was irony that made Draco catch his breath—and staggered out the door. Draco waited some moments before he rose and followed. He had no doubt that someone would manage to connect him with Maclaran’s murder eventually, but he would rather that the connection happen in England and not in France. There was a difference between proudly facing down the Aurors who should have known this was going to happen and protected his father better, and surrendering to arrest by people who neither knew nor cared about the true circumstances.

            The tracking charm he had on Maclaran allowed Draco to find him without walking fast or loitering suspiciously. Draco strolled casually down the small path towards the house where Maclaran was staying, and then paused. Maclaran leaned against the wall of the house, gazing in drunken appreciation up at the stars. This was going to be even easier than Draco had thought. He aimed his wand carefully.

            “Avada—” he began.

            Someone knocked his wand out of his hand. Draco tried to snatch it, but the force with which it whirled away from him showed that someone had used a nonverbal Expelliarmus on it. He stared in disbelief, then turned back. Maclaran had gone inside the house, making Draco miss his chance, at least if he didn’t want to be arrested immediately.

            And then Potter stepped out of the shadows, holding Draco’s wand.

            His eyes were a brilliant green that Draco couldn’t look away from. They actually appeared to be glowing in the light of the dim torches on the street like a cat’s. He took a step towards Draco, shaking his head, and held up the wand as if he were about to hit Draco across the face with it. Draco instinctively tensed.

            Then Potter’s brain caught up with his body. He lowered his hand. “What were you doing?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

            “The sound of the word I pronounced, and which you stopped me from pronouncing, should answer that question for you,” Draco drawled. He looked at the house that Maclaran had entered and sighed. Wards shielded it tight, and breaking into it would be more trouble than he wanted to rouse at the moment. He would have to catch Maclaran on another night. “Trying to kill him to avenge my father.”

            “So,” Potter said, in a flat voice that commanded Draco’s attention just as his blazing eyes had done, “you’d commit a murder that splits your soul for the sake of revenge?”

            Draco snorted. “Concerned for my soul, now? How touching, Potter. I know that you only want to keep Maclaran alive—”

            “He’s not my concern!” Potter was shouting in a whisper; his eyes were as bright as absinthe set on fire. “You’re my concern! Two people sacrificed everything to keep you from committing murder! How in the world am I supposed to let you just go ahead and do it?”

            Professor Snape. Dumbledore. Draco’s throat was dry, and he put his hands in his pockets and turned away from Potter. Everyone is going to keep throwing them in my face for the rest of my life. “They’re dead, Potter. If I don’t care about splitting my soul, why don’t you just allow me to make the decision? More is at stake here than your moral perceptions.”

            “Yeah, that’s something Snape would say,” Potter muttered, with humor in his voice that Draco didn’t understand. He stepped forwards and held Draco’s shoulders, his eyes searching his face. Draco was too startled to move away from him. “And maybe you don’t care, but I do. For more reasons than because Snape and Dumbledore didn’t want it to happen, but that was what started it. So allow me to care, and know that I’m not going to stand by and watch you commit murder, all right?”

            Draco adopted the haughtiest glare he could, intended to make Potter step back and realize what an idiot he was being. Potter only intensified both his stare and his hold on Draco’s shoulders.

            “You had a raw deal in the war,” Potter whispered. “Your father has been murdered. You’ve suffered enough. I’m not going to allow anyone to add to that weight of suffering, even if you’re the one who’s trying to do it.”

            Draco wanted to swallow, but his throat was occupied by a hard lump and his eyes were wet. If he lingered, Potter would see him weep. He lowered his voice so that Potter at least might mistake the croak of weakness for hostility. “Give me my wand back.”



            “Not until you promise that you won’t use the Killing Curse again on Maclaran, or any other spell that would murder him and split your soul,” Potter said earnestly.

            Draco froze. He wanted to laugh. Did Potter realize how many loopholes that left open? Draco didn’t have to murder Maclaran. There were plenty of other things he could do that would avenge his father and make Maclaran suffer but wouldn’t make him die. Potter would realize that someday, and then he would have no one to blame but himself.

            “I promise,” he said.

            Potter stood there staring into his eyes for so long that Draco began to become nervous that he would require an Unbreakable Vow. But suddenly he smiled, nodded, and handed Draco’s wand back. Draco didn’t believe he was actually leaving until he waved and turned to stride down the path that led out of the village.

            “How did you find me?” Draco raised his voice to call.

            Potter paused and looked over his shoulder. “I told the Aurors that I would keep you from taking revenge,” he said. “And I promised myself that I wouldn’t allow you to commit murder and go to Azkaban for life. That involves a bit of following. No need to thank me.” He winked, shrugged, and vanished before Draco could treat him to some of the words he had in mind besides thanks.

*

            “And then I said…”

            Draco bared his teeth in an unamused smile as he edged closer to Maclaran. He stood on the top of a small, sunny hill now, discoursing to everyone who would listen about his “heroics” during the war. Considering that Draco knew, from his background study, that he’d spent most of the war huddling in shelter or fleeing from Snatchers, and considering that Draco had known real heroes, it gave him another reason to make Maclaran suffer.

            Yes, Potter will be sorry that he didn’t forbid me this one.

            He waited until Maclaran was almost nodding to sleep and most of the villagers who’d been listening to him had drifted away to the tables full of food perched precariously on the sides of the hill. It was a celebration of some great anniversary in the village; Draco hadn’t paid attention to the specifics because he had no reason to care.

            No one paid attention to Draco as he stepped out into the open and stared down at his drowsing prey. Maclaran had been in the village almost a fortnight now, and few people found him entertaining anymore. Draco could have avenged his father before this if he’d ever found Maclaran by himself or outside the tight protection of a nest of wards. But it seemed that Maclaran wasn’t entirely stupid, and he didn’t often leave himself open.

            Now, he had.

            Draco watched him in silence. The grass beneath Maclaran was thick and green, filled with softly blooming flowers and buzzing bees. As Draco observed, a grasshopper leaped onto Maclaran’s knee and twisted its head from side to side for a moment before it sprang and lost itself in the tangled foliage around the top of the hill. Life was continuing, for him.

            It would never continue for Lucius.

            Draco felt his lips pull back to expose his teeth. He was tempted to break his promise to Potter and use the Killing Curse. Why not? Maclaran had things that Lucius would never enjoy again. That was not just, and the ultimate equality would be to make them exactly the same, without allowing Maclaran the pleasures of sunlight and food, drink and company.

            But he had considered the matter in the past few days, and had reluctantly concluded that Potter was right. There was no sense in going to Azkaban for the rest of his days for murder. Someone had to remain alive and free to symbolize the Malfoy name to a degraded world.

            That did not preclude the use of a different spell and a Memory Charm, of course. That was the option Potter had forgotten to forbid him.

            Draco smiled down at Maclaran and checked in a few different directions. The villagers had wandered even further from the top of the hill, and their chatter was fading into the distance. Draco lifted his wand with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

            “Cruc—”

            “Expelliarmus!”

            Draco whirled around with an outraged cry as his wand flew out of his hand. It was not as though he had not expected it, on some level, but it was infuriating that Potter had let him get this far and then stolen his opportunity for revenge.

            Potter stepped out of what looked like a door in the air, holding both wands. His eyes, fixed on Draco’s, were somber. Then he glanced at the ground, rolled his eyes, and cast a spell so quickly that Draco didn’t know what had happened until he heard a cry and a thump. When he looked down, he realized that Maclaran had woken up, probably when Potter interrupted Draco, but that Potter’s spell had efficiently sent him to sleep again.

            “Now it’s pain spells?” Potter’s voice was soft and clogged with an emotion that sounded far too much like disappointment. “Draco, what is it going to take to keep you from using the Unforgivables?”

            Draco stood tall, tilting his chin up. “I don’t think it’s your responsibility to watch out for me,” he snapped. “I wasn’t about to split my soul. I kept that promise you had no right to have me make. Why should you care if I used the Cruciatus Curse on him?”

            “It’s still evil,” Potter said quietly, “and it could still make you evil, and it could still put you in Azkaban for life.”

            “I must say,” Draco said, choosing his words with as much calculated cruelty as he could, “I like this method of stopping me from casting the Cruciatus rather more than the one that you chose in our sixth year.”

            Potter didn’t move, but his eyes widened and his face paled as though Draco had struck him. Then he inclined his head. “You’re right,” he said, his voice stuffy. “I apologize for that.” He looked at Maclaran again. “But just because I did something wrong to you in the past doesn’t mean that I’m going to let you get away with doing something wrong yourself now.”

            “Why do you care?” Draco demanded in exasperation.

            Potter looked up at him. “Because I was in the courtroom when you gave your testimony,” he said. “And I could see visions of what Voldemort did. Including what he ordered you to do.”

            Draco’s face burned. He wanted to say something, to yell something at Potter, the way he had wanted to yell at the Aurors as they stood over his father’s corpse. But those simple words seared all his protests away from him.

            “I want you to promise,” Potter said quickly, quietly, “that you won’t use the Cruciatus Curse or any other spells that will cause Maclaran horrendous pain, just like you promised that you won’t use death curses.”

            Something occurred to Draco then, something that really should have occurred to him the first time Potter took his wand away. “You’re in training as an Auror,” he said. “You could just arrest me, and then I wouldn’t be able to use any spells on him. Or you could arrest Maclaran, now that you know where he is. Why don’t you?”

            A small smile curved Potter’s lips up. “I wondered when you would think to ask that question,” he said. “It only took you until the second time I confronted you. I’m impressed.”

            “I want an answer, not your approval,” Draco snapped, ignoring the way that part of him which had been asleep for a long time woke up at Potter’s words. “Why haven’t you arrested me?” He aimed a foot at the sleeping Maclaran, though in the end he didn’t kick him, because he didn’t want to wake him up and have to deal with that. “Or him? It would make the most sense to arrest him, if you want him to have justice and stay safe from me.”

            “The Azkaban guards are a tightly-knit group,” Potter said quietly. “The evidence that connects Maclaran to your father’s murder is still mainly circumstantial. He fled around the time it was committed, but no one knows if he had the Muggle knife that—that did it. He had a motive, but he didn’t talk to anyone about that motive. They haven’t been able to discover that he was anywhere near Lucius’s cell on the evening his partner was busy; no one saw him one way or the other. So the evidence stays circumstantial. If we took him back on this, the chances are good that Azkaban would have another escape, if he was tried at all.”

            “Potter, I’ve heard him brag about what he did several times since I’ve been here,” Draco said. He managed to keep his voice level and relatively polite with an effort. “I don’t need any more proof.”

            “He tells the stories using assumed names,” Potter said. “You and I know he did it, but there’s no one else who would believe without having a compelling reason to.” He stared at Draco after he was done speaking, as though he expected Draco to make some comment.

            “You’re saying there’s nothing that can be done.” Draco glared at Maclaran. He could have used Legilimency to invade the bastard’s mind if he had any doubt, but using Legilimency that way was illegal, and no evidence obtained from it was admissible before the Wizengamot. “This is the reason that I wanted to handle the revenge my own way. Justice is in the hands of a system that hates my family. I have to take it into my own.”

            “There are other ways.” Potter went on staring after he made that remark, his eyes growing a little wide and desperate now. But Draco still had no idea what he was supposed to pick up from that. He and Potter weren’t friends, to have practice in sending silent messages to each other through their expressions.

            “You’ve taken away death and pain,” Draco said in disgust. “What’s left?”

            Potter sighed, shook his head, and said, “Don’t harm him physically, Malfoy. It’s not worth your going to prison. As you say, the system hates your family, and who knows what the Azkaban guards would do to you if they could get hold of you?” He stepped away from Draco and made a short movement with his arm. This time, Draco, squinting, thought he made out a shadowy, silvery thing that Potter was ducking behind. Not a door in the air, but some kind of garment—

            An Invisibility Cloak. Of course. Draco leaped forwards, reaching out to snatch the edge of the cloak so that Potter would stay and talk to him. The cryptic git was going to explain himself if Draco had to force him.

            But his hand slipped on air, and Maclaran grunted and began to stir. Draco glared at him and made his way rapidly down the hill and out of sight. He was sure Maclaran would recognize him from his resemblance to his father, even though they’d never met.

            Potter was right about at least one thing. Draco couldn’t afford to go to prison, whether it was for murder or casting an Unforgivable or using Legilimency on a person who hadn’t agreed to it. He would have to find some other way to obtain undeniable proof of Maclaran’s guilt.

*

            The next route was obvious, but Draco needed to wait until the right people were in place. The villagers were used to Maclaran by now and ignored him most of the time. Draco wasn’t about to have him waste a confession on ears that would assume it was another one of his boasts.

            Accordingly, he sent a message to the French Aurors that there were strange goings-on in Provence, including a connection with Britain via a disgraced Azkaban guard that they might want to investigate. When two women with smooth blonde hair and shining smiles too frequent to be real reached the village, Draco knew he had the right audience’s attention.

            He watched in silent glee as the Aurors settled down at a table in the small restaurant where Maclaran spent most of his time bragging. Draco made sure to have thick glamours wrapped around himself and to sit at the table furthest away from the Aurors. He would need to cast the curse at exactly the right moment, when Maclaran was drunk enough to make a confession believable but not on the edge of sleep.

            The two Aurors watched Maclaran with a skill that impressed Draco; he thought the British Aurors, including the ones who had somehow managed to miss all the evidence linking Maclaran to his father’s murder, could have taken lessons from them. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to them beyond a few leers. At last he reached the point where he was swaying in his seat, and Draco lifted his wand under the table, tingling with the sweetness of revenge.

            “Imper—”

            Something that felt like a pillow materialized beneath his cheek, and an invisible hand gripped his wand, spoiling his aim and interrupting the spell. Draco hissed and turned his head to see Potter crouching beside him, Invisibility Cloak pulled back just enough to reveal his face. The bulk of the table sheltered most of him from the gaze of other patrons in the restaurant.

            “How many times do I have to try and get this across to you?” Potter whispered to him, with the angry edge to his words that Draco had been missing before. “Using Unforgivables in front of Aurors is simply stupid. Using them at all when they can be punished with a term in Azkaban is also stupid. There might be someone else at the prison who has a grudge against your family. Do you want to end up like your father?”

            Outrage and defensiveness tried to get out Draco’s mouth at the same time, and he ended up spluttering. Potter, meanwhile, shook his head, looking defeated.

            “You were going to do something to make him demonstrate evidence of his guilt, weren’t you?” he asked. “That’s a fine idea. Why not simply cast a spell that makes his thoughts audible, then, without using the Imperius Curse to force him to confess?”

            Draco closed his eyes and lowered his head until his hair touched the table. In truth, that thought had never occurred to him, and it should have. It was an elegant solution and one without risk to himself, since a spell that made someone else’s thoughts audible was a common prank at Hogwarts and not illegal.

            He should have thought of it, but he had been preoccupied with fury and frustration and determined to make Maclaran pay for the murder of his father by using Dark magic. Everyone agreed that the Unforgivables were the Darkest magic available, so Draco’s mind had naturally settled on them.

            But it didn’t have to, and he saw that now. He raised his wand without Potter’s urging, though he still kept it beneath the tabletop, and aimed it at Maclaran. A simple whispered, “Prodet se,” and the spell was complete.

            Maclaran sat up a little straighter and looked around suspiciously, as though he thought someone had tried to take his drink away. Then he snorted. Then he laughed. The French Aurors stiffened in their seats, though one of them went on talking to her nearest neighbor and the other was apparently busy with a plate of food.

            “It was easy, you know,” Maclaran said, apparently speaking in a normal tone of voice, though his mouth was closed and he was looking around for a server. “I wanted to kill Lucius Malfoy, so I did it without hesitation once I thought of it. Why shouldn’t I? My family suffered because of him. He could bloody well suffer because of me.”

            The words were in English, which was not a complication Draco had thought of, but the Auror who’d been paying attention to her food must have understood it, because she looked up, a grim expression on her face. Maclaran didn’t see her; he was busy sipping his drink with a smug smile.

            “It wasn’t hard to get a knife, not once my mother understood what I wanted it for. And then, even if someone did see me on my way to commit the murder, who would betray me? All of us hated that smug bastard, who was always demanding extra blankets and food. As if he deserved privileges that not everyone in Britain has!”

            Draco shut his eyes. He was starting to wonder if he should have left the room when the spell began. Hearing someone speak about his father with this amount of hatred, as if he’d had a right to murder him, was making Draco ill.

            “And after that…” There was the sound of snapping fingers, though Maclaran’s fingers hadn’t really snapped and that was obvious. “It was across the Channel and into a country I understand. The few trails that could have led someone to me are all covered, thanks to my friends.”

            Draco managed to smile through his pain. That implicated the Azkaban guards neatly, and now he had someone who would testify to it, someone distant enough from the troubles in England that he didn’t think she would automatically take the guards’ part. Indeed, the Auror was looking more than vaguely sick herself at the moment.

            “It was the simplest thing in the world,” Maclaran’s thoughts continued, though, as part of the spell, Maclaran couldn’t hear them any more than he could stop them, “and I would do it again if I had a chance. But one murder is all I need. That was the only one I really wanted to commit. I’m still a good person. I would still protect the other prisoners. Maybe someday I can return to Britain when this dies down and get my job back.”

            The Auror who’d understood the English rose to her feet and said a few quiet words to her companion. She stood, as well, and moved on Maclaran from the other side, drawing her wand. The villagers who had started watching when they heard Maclaran’s voice gave the Aurors a smattering of applause as they moved in to encircle him, though Maclaran only tossed them a faint irritated glance.

            “Come with me, sir,” said the one in front in softly accented English, her smile hard. “You are hereby arrested for the murder of Lucius Malfoy. I think the Wizengamot will be most interested in hearing what you did.”

            Maclaran opened his mouth, gaping at her, and then made some attempt to shake his head and laugh her off. The laugh was weak, Draco thought viciously, enjoying every moment of this as much as he could. Probably as weak as the gasp his father had made when the knife slit his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. A murder? I’m not a violent man.”

            “We sat here and listened to you confess it.” The Auror pressed her wand delicately against Maclaran’s throat. “Perhaps you did not realize that you were betraying your thoughts so freely, but that is what happened. Come with us now.”

            Maclaran made a dive for his wand, but the other Auror Stunned him, and together they floated him out of the room. Draco heard more than one person remark on the way that they were glad to see the last of him.

            Potter let out a little fluttering breath. Draco started. Somewhere, in the last short while, he had almost lost track of the fact that Potter was besides him. He had been too involved in watching his revenge play out. He cast a dubious eye over Potter.

            The other man gave him a faint smile, stood up, and whispered, “Come talk to me when you can get out.” He slipped the Invisibility Cloak around himself and melted away, getting a few puzzled looks from some of the people who’d been watching. Luckily for Draco, they shrugged and seemed to decide their minds had been playing tricks on them.

            Draco closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, letting the rough grain of the wood press into his back and tell him this was reality. His hunt for Maclaran was done, and he had avenged his father the way he had sworn he would.

            It was done.

            He stood up and made his way out of the restaurant as soon as he decently could. The sweep of a silky shadow around thin legs let him know what way he was supposed to go, and he followed Potter into a tiny alley.

            “Congratulations on your revenge,” Potter said, lowering the Cloak and giving his head a brisk shake. Draco wondered idly if a long time under the Cloak filled one’s brain with fabric. “I reckon that you’ll be coming back to Britain now?”

            Draco blinked and stared at him. There was hope in Potter’s voice on those last words, not resignation or purely neutral interest. He shot his hand out suddenly and caught Potter’s wrist, twisting it.

            Potter narrowed his eyes at him. “If that’s meant to make me drop my wand, you should know that I always have it somewhere else.” It jumped into his free hand, and he aimed it at Draco’s ribs.

            “It’s meant to bring you closer.” Draco dragged as he spoke, and Potter stumbled a little, but did come closer. Draco stared at him from a much smaller distance, unable to believe that he hadn’t noticed before now how Potter’s lips parted when he was near Draco, how his body moved in little uncontrolled jerks of breath.

            “What is this?” Draco asked. He knew what it looked like, but he was no longer content to trust his instincts where Potter was concerned. Potter had prevented him from going to prison and helped him get his revenge. He would probably also provide corroboration of Maclaran’s confession with Pensieve memories if Draco asked; it was the only reason he could think of that Potter would have been so intent on witnessing the revenge. That behavior was so strange in the first place that almost anything might happen now. “You—you’re attracted to me?”

            “I would phrase it as liking you,” Potter said, with an immense dignity that was puzzling and infuriating when Draco held him like this, “but yes, I am.”

            Draco spent some more time looking at him. Potter just looked back as though he had no idea why Draco would be upset, and then reached up and pulled on Draco’s hair with a solemn expression.

            Draco whipped his head away before he could stop himself. He also let Potter go in the process, but Potter didn’t run, just hovered near him and gave him a sweet, speculative smile.

            “I think I like you even more now that I’ve spent some time with you,” Potter said, and then leaned towards him and fastened his mouth on Draco’s with shocking suddenness. Draco gasped, and Potter forced his tongue into Draco’s mouth and licked across his gums.

            It was—not horrifying.

            Potter stepped away from him in the next minute, inclined his head, and said, “I thought you deserved to have a bit of revenge. But nothing that would destroy your soul or your chances of leading a free life in the future. You’re better than that, and Maclaran isn’t worth such a sacrifice.” He bowed, his eyes on Draco’s. “Now that I know you’re coming back to Britain, I can wait. I hope to see you soon.”

            He vanished so suddenly that Draco really wasn’t sure whether he’d gone under his Invisibility Cloak or Apparated.

            Draco stood still for a time, licking his teeth and wondering if he could taste Potter, or his own bitterness and nervousness.

            His brain felt full to bursting with questions. Why had Potter started to become attracted to him? Why in the world had he taken the chance that Draco might actually cast the Unforgivable Curses, if he was so intent on protecting him from them? Draco wasn’t imagining things; Potter had held back until the absolute last moment each time. There could be a reason for it, but if he’d been an instant slower, then the event he professed to dread so much would have happened. He could have sat Draco down at the beginning and explained things to him. Draco might even have agreed.

            It probably had to do with freedom and fairness and allowing him to make his own choices.

            Or allowing me to condemn myself, Draco decided. It so easily could have worked out that way.

            No matter how long he thought about it, Potter’s behavior only appeared more complicated, and other questions arose. Why declare himself now? Had he only done it because Draco had found out? How long would he have gone on admiring and “liking” in silence if Draco hadn’t seen the strangeness of his behavior?

            So many questions, and without answers of his own, Draco could think of only one recourse.

            Go back to England, find Potter, and ask him.

            End.
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Three Times Harry Potter Prevented Draco Malfoy