[July Celebration fics]: Partners Unpartnered, Harry/Draco, R, 1/3
Title: Partners Unpartnered
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Violence, angst
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 3600
Summary: Harry and Draco aren’t partners. Harry has Ron, Draco has Theodore. But sometimes titles take a while to catch up with reality.
Author’s Notes: This is the third of my July Celebration fics, and will be posted in three parts. It tries to envision a different way of Harry and Draco getting together as partners other than being assigned together by the Ministry.
Partners Unpartnered
“Down!”
Ron’s warning came too late. Harry saw the witch turn to fire the curse over her shoulder, but he didn’t have the time to duck or raise a Shield Charm with her this close-or any space, really, with the crush of Auror bodies around him, struggling in an all-out battle with the Dark wizards who had attacked the Ministry. He braced himself for the pain, trying to arrange his body so that at least Ron was shielded.
Someone cast from the side. The witch’s wand soared out of her hand as she was speaking the last syllable of the incantation, and although Harry felt the temptation to freeze with shock flooding him, his training took over. He made sure that she was Stunned in the next moment and caught up in a rope net against the ceiling with the rest of the sudden prisoners they had taken.
Harry didn’t have time to thank the person, but he did jerk his head to the side, so he could look, a moment before the next masked would-be Death Eater charged at him.
Malfoy.
Malfoy raised an eyebrow and then turned back to his own battle, three wizards pressing in around him and his trembling partner Nott, without saying anything. Harry shook the temptation to do so when Malfoy hadn’t out of his head and then began to duel the man in front of him. Ron was on his feet behind him, one hand in the middle of his back, and Harry at least knew he had the support he had come to count on most since the war.
*
“Thanks.”
Draco blinked and glanced up from tugging at the bandage on his hand. Trust his luck to have let him take only a minor wound in the very end of the battle, but one struck by an Anti-Clotting Curse a moment later. The Healers had charmed the cut closed and bandaged it, but not carefully enough, Draco thought, if the itch coming from beneath the wrapper was any indication-
His thoughts blew away when he realized Potter stood in his doorway. Draco turned slightly to the side so that he had better access to his wand, and was glad that the Anti-Clotting Curse hadn’t hit his wand hand.
Potter recognized the movement. Well, he would. They had the same training, after all. His lip curled, and he nodded. But he didn’t move away, and his eyes stayed clear; that wasn’t something Draco was used to, not when they tended to darken every time he so much as looked at someone who’d been a Death Eater. Draco had undertaken Auror training because he knew that nothing would make the press shut up about him, so they might as well print complimentary things-and for other, private reasons, too. That didn’t matter to Potter and his darkening eyes, though. They went the color of jade every time he saw Draco.
Now, though, they didn’t. Draco stood there, Potter stood there, and it seemed Potter was perfectly comfortable maintaining the silence. Draco was finally the one who sighed, shook his head, and said, “For saving your life?”
“Yeah,” Potter said. “Because that’s what you did.” He tossed Draco the tiniest of salutes and walked away.
Draco blinked at the empty doorway, and then his itching hand distracted him again. He undid the bandages with one flick and remade them with another. Much better.
*
Harry leaned his head back against the wall of his office and moaned. “Paperwork breeds when we’re not looking at it,” he announced. “Take some of this off my desk and home with you, Ron. Please.”
Ron grinned maliciously at him and shook his head. His own desk was clear, as it usually was, though Harry knew some of that was because he scraped paperwork he thought wouldn’t be missed into the bin. Or onto other Aurors’ desks, sometimes. “Sorry, mate, but I’ve earned my evening off with Hermione.”
He started to say something else, but broke off, staring out the office doorway and frowning. Harry twisted around to see what he was staring at. No good, though, just the trailing glimpse of another Auror’s cloak as he swept past.
“That’s Malfoy,” Ron said in a moment, shaking his head. “Striding around with his nose in the air, just exactly like his arm doesn’t stink and won’t as long as he lives. Wish they wouldn’t have let him in here. He’ll grow like a cancer-”
“Stop.”
Ron turned to face Harry, and then gaped at him before laughing a bit. “Mate? You look the way you did that time Earnshaw escaped.”
Harry tried to roll his lips back down over his teeth and relax his face. The newspaper photographs from the Earnshaw case were not among his most treasured possessions. “Right,” he said. “Of course. I told everyone that I wouldn’t look like that as long as they never let anyone else escape the cells. And we’ll be fine as long as you never say anything like that about Malfoy again.”
Ron stared at him. Then he said, “Why, Harry?” kindly and patiently, like he was trying to coax a Kneazle kitten down from a high tree. “You know it’s just Malfoy. It’s just the kind of things we always say. I think you were comparing him to gangrene at that party a fortnight back, weren’t you?”
“That was Mortimer,” Harry said, and folded his hands in his lap. “Malfoy saved my life, Ron. He didn’t have to, and he risked his own life to do it, because taking any attention away in that battle could have meant he died. I don’t want anyone to insult him anymore.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Like he is that kind of gangrene, or cancer. Like that Dark Mark he wears really is going to spread off his arm and corrupt us all. I’ve heard you say a lot worse things about him than I ever have.”
“Yeah, well, I was wrong,” Harry said in a clipped voice. “That’s all. Don’t say anything like that again.”
“Next thing, you’ll want me to apologize to him,” Ron said, and then shook his head like an otter shedding water. “You don’t want me to apologize to him, do you, mate?”
“No,” Harry said. “The past is the past. But he saved my life a week ago, and that changes things for me, Ron.” He thought about trying to explain the way that Ron’s words had seemed to punch him in the gut, and then decided that it was best not to try. “I don’t want anyone to abuse him.”
“Then you’re going to have a lot of people in the Department to correct, because almost everyone does,” Ron muttered, although he was nodding in the way that Harry knew meant he would change the way he did things. “Almost everyone agrees that he shouldn’t have been let in here. I don’t even think his partner likes him.”
Harry gave Ron another of the kind of smile that had not so much beamed as burnt off the front page of the Daily Prophet when Earnshaw escaped. “It’s good that I have a lot of energy to correct them, then.”
*
Draco licked his lips and stepped back from the door of Potter’s office. Even with Potter’s newfound commitment to defending him, Draco still didn’t think it would go very well for him if Potter found him eavesdropping.
And of course he’d listened, because he’d heard his name mentioned. But he hadn’t at all anticipated what he would hear next.
He doesn’t have to do that, he thought, fighting his way through to the conclusion that he thought was Potter’s. Of course, he didn’t have access to Potter’s mind and wouldn’t understand what he found there even if he did, so that wasn’t a guarantee that he knew Potter’s real motivation. I mean, I reckon I can see why he would want to do that, because I saved his life, but I didn’t ask for this in return.
That left the idea that Potter simply wanted to do it because-well, because he wanted to. Or because he had changed his own thinking about Draco in the wake of Draco saving his life, as unexpected as it had been.
Draco shook his head, and went his way. He didn’t even know if the way that Potter spoke and thought of him at the moment would last. He would have to wait and see to find out, as would the rest of the Auror Department.
Though he had to admit, fewer insulting references from everyone around him would be welcome.
*
“Can you explain yourself, Auror Potter?”
Harry smiled. He knew that it looked less impressive than usual because one of his front teeth was broken. Or, what the hell, he thought, as Kingsley visibly flinched before frowning at him, maybe that made it more impressive.
“No, sir,” Harry said. “I already did, and no one believed me.” He moved his tongue gingerly around the top of the tooth, and winced as the crack in it caught at his flesh. Well. He would just go to a Healer and have that taken care of as soon as possible, then.
“Try me.” Kingsley settled back behind his desk and gave Harry the kind of waiting look that made him such a good Head Auror, dealing with all the shit that Aurors came up with to excuse their attacks on prisoners or use of unnecessary force.
He probably thinks that last’s what I did, Harry thought, and nodded. “All right, sir. I know Auror Malfoy has had a spotless record since he joined the Department, and he hasn’t even insulted Muggleborns. But there are people who think it’s all right to insult him. Someone today speculated that his mother ‘whored herself out to half the Aurors to clear his father’s name.’ I wasn’t going to let that stand.”
Kingsley stared at him. Then he said, “But you were enemies in Hogwarts.”
“And now we’re not.” Harry looked at Kingsley with a calm expression on his face, and wondered how exasperating it probably was. Then he thought of the way that Hermione had tried to explain some of the Slytherins’ actions to him in the past, and winced.
All right, so I can imagine how exasperating it is. But that isn’t going to keep me from doing it.
“The insult was to his mother, and not Auror Malfoy himself,” Kingsley said, leaning back and rubbing his jaw as though he thought the feeling of stubble would make things clearer for him. “Why should he not be left to defend her honor?”
“That was the exact same kind of logic Professor Snape used, sir,” Harry said. “When Malfoy insulted my parents in Hogwarts, I mean. That it was somehow better because it was about them and not me. I admire a lot of things about Professor Snape, but not that.”
Kingsley sighed. “Well, now that you’ve explained it to me, I understand a bit better. But I do think that what you did is inexcusable. Auror Pollinac will have to have several teeth replaced. You’ll apologize to him tomorrow.”
Harry licked his teeth again. Here it came. “No, sir,” he said quietly.
Kingsley looked at him, and said nothing.
Harry knew that the silence was a way Kingsley used to trip unwary Aurors into explaining too much, but at the moment, Harry felt that he needed to fill it. Not because he was unwary, but because he needed Kingsley to know and understand what he was doing.
“Pollinac insulted a fellow Auror,” he said. “And everyone else laughed. No one else was going to stand up for him, even though I’ve told people that I don’t think Auror Malfoy should be insulted. So I went after Pollinac. And now he might hate me, but I don’t think he’ll say anything about Auror Malfoy again.” He smiled at Kingsley. “And you might say that his hatred will cause dissension and division in the Department.” He was quoting from one of Kingsley’s speeches about the unofficial dueling contests that had gone on among the Aurors for a while. “But the same thing was happening with their hatred towards Auror Malfoy. He saved my life once in battle. Would he do the same thing for someone like Pollinac? I think that they’re being stupid, taunting someone whose wand they might need to depend on.”
Kingsley stared at him. Harry stared back.
“All right,” Kingsley said abruptly. “Say that I accept your arguments. What is to stop someone else from doing the same thing?”
“To avenge an insult?” Harry smiled. “If Auror Malfoy is stupid enough to say something like that, then he’ll deserve what he gets in return. And I hope that I would never say something like that without retribution falling on me, swift and certain. Ron would do it if no one else did. He’s grown up a lot,” he added, to the expression on Kingsley’s face.
Kingsley shook his head. “I hope that your example doesn’t unleash a wave of people doing the same thing with less justification, Auror Potter.”
Harry stood up and half-bowed to Kingsley. “I hope not, too. We need Aurors who work together, and this is the best way to ensure they do. Draw out the poison from the wound and show that it’s not going to be tolerated.”
“Your metaphor leaves something to be desired, considering that your method is apparently to inflict a bigger wound in the first place,” Kingsley said dryly, and then waved him out. Harry half-bowed again and left the office.
He met Malfoy in the corridor outside. It was possible that Malfoy was simply on his way to Kingsley with a report of his own, but Harry doubted it, especially considering the long, slow, soft look Malfoy sent him.
“Going to be sacked?” Malfoy asked quietly.
“No,” Harry said, letting his shoulders rise and fall without ever letting go of Malfoy’s eyes.
“Pity,” Malfoy said, in the distant tone that was typical of the way he interacted with other Aurors, and stepped into the office. Harry smiled. He knew that anyone else watching them would only see the cold bastard that Malfoy normally portrayed, and that was doubtless the way Malfoy wanted it. He didn’t want to become popular or start looking as if he relied on Harry for protection.
But then, no one else would have seen his eyes.
*
“Spar with me.”
Potter started and looked over his shoulder. The far wall of the sparring room was a mass of cracks and pits and shallow holes, but he stared at Draco as though that didn’t matter, as though Draco wouldn’t have noticed. “What?”
“Spar with me.” Draco cast his cloak out of the way, because if he was going to duel Potter, then he would need every advantage he could get to make sure that he moved fast enough. He tossed his wand up in the air and caught it, smiling as he saw the way Potter’s eyes followed it. “Come on. Show me what you can do.”
Potter stood quite still a moment, body leaning on air. Draco took the moment to eye him. Potter had a strength that he didn’t often show when he was in Auror robes, as if they served the same purpose that his baggy Muggle clothes had in Hogwarts, to hide his body. But now he was stripped down to shirt and trousers, and his hair was disordered with sweat, and his eyes were dark.
Well, all right, Draco would have liked to see the last two things under less dangerous circumstances. But he would take what he could get, and at the moment, Potter’s grim little smile appealed to him, too.
“Seriously, Malfoy?” Potter began to shift to the side, his eyes on Draco’s, his body quivering with something that looked like tension, looked like eagerness, smelled like passion. “You want to take me on, right now, knowing what you know?”
Draco nodded. “Everyone knows that Weasley’s in hospital, and everyone knows that you’re tearing yourself up about it because you didn’t stop the hex in time,” he drawled, forcing the right amount of insouciance into his voice to make Potter quiver some more. He liked watching it. He liked a lot of things about Potter at the moment, and in general this year, if he was being honest with himself. “And I know that you’re in here hexing nothing and it isn’t working. Come and get me, then.”
He posed, and it nearly cost him the duel. Potter rushed at him, and over his shoulder came the curse, cast from behind him so that Draco’s attention would be on his charge and not the actual threat.
Draco ducked awkwardly and heard more stone tear out of the wall behind him. He Transfigured the floor beneath Potter’s feet to water, wondering if it would slow him at all.
It didn’t. Potter leaped, and somersaulted, and unfolded in front of Draco with a grace that made his mouth water even as Potter struck out with one hand full of shimmering, translucent oil. Draco judged the hand aimed neatly parallel with his eyes, and knew what it would do if it struck: cling to his eyes and mouth, blinding and suffocating him.
He lurched backwards again, and Potter laughed. “Always retreating, Malfoy, never attacking?” he asked, and created a handful of the oil that flew at Draco separately from his body.
Draco ducked that, too, and from his position flat on the floor called tiny rustling scarab beetles, which climbed straight up Potter’s legs. Potter’s face took on a distant expression until the first bite, invisible because they were under his trousers. Then he laughed aloud and cast the charm that dismissed them, saying, “Well done, Malfoy.”
Praise from Harry bloody Potter shouldn’t make Draco breathless and nearly hard. But it didn’t stop him, either, and that was the important thing. This time, he was the one to fling a handful of oil at Potter, the kind that would burn on contact. Potter pivoted, avoiding it, and turned that into his second attack on Draco, which became a handful of burning white dust, and crowded Draco’s eyes before he could evade.
Draco immediately slammed his eyes shut and cast Aguamenti, washing his face clean. He emerged with no greater damage than a few boils around the nose and ears filled with the snapping and burning sound of the miniature sparks embedded in the dust.
He was aware that he was grinning, so widely that the dangers of Potter launching something into his mouth were rather great, and that his heart and his erection were both throbbing. He only hoped that Potter wouldn’t notice the latter.
But he no longer feared his comments if he did, either.
He flung his own hand out, and almost felt Potter turn to look at it before he cast the spell around the other, a tiny storm complete with thunder and lightning that would grow as it neared the victim and fill their world with noise and light and danger. It flew, and Potter wouldn’t be able to dodge it in time. Draco watched breathlessly-
And Potter spread his hands, and a dragon unfolded from them, long-bodied and desert-colored, and opened its mouth. The storm flew down its dry throat, and the dragon spun in place on itself and disappeared.
Only then, when no more spells came at him, did Draco realize how tired he was. He watched Potter slump over, hands on his knees, and wished he could do the same thing himself. But they weren’t yet in that place.
The yet surprised him, and by the time he had finished dealing with his thoughts, Potter had straightened up and was staring at him speculatively. Draco inclined his head back and smiled slightly.
“Thanks, Malfoy,” Potter said, facing the wall he’d nearly destroyed and repairing the holes he’d left with a few well-placed charms.
Draco nodded, realizing with an unexpectedly fierce ache that he would have to wait until Potter left and then quell both his erection and his desire for a repeat of the fight. They had helped each other-well, he had helped Potter-but the moment was over, as quick and fleeting as the time that he had saved Potter’s life or Potter had attacked Pollinac for him. Nothing where they were concerned could last forever.
But Potter paused in front of him instead of moving out of the room. Draco blinked and looked at him.
Potter leaned in, balanced on the balls of his feet as though it was important that he not touch Draco otherwise, and brushed his lips in a long, slow line across Draco’s left cheek, to his lips, to his right cheek. Then he drew back and nodded, more to himself than Draco.
“See you, Malfoy,” he said, and strode out, leaving Draco to stare after him in wonder and try, unsuccessfully, not to touch his face.
Part Two.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/918676.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Violence, angst
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 3600
Summary: Harry and Draco aren’t partners. Harry has Ron, Draco has Theodore. But sometimes titles take a while to catch up with reality.
Author’s Notes: This is the third of my July Celebration fics, and will be posted in three parts. It tries to envision a different way of Harry and Draco getting together as partners other than being assigned together by the Ministry.
Partners Unpartnered
“Down!”
Ron’s warning came too late. Harry saw the witch turn to fire the curse over her shoulder, but he didn’t have the time to duck or raise a Shield Charm with her this close-or any space, really, with the crush of Auror bodies around him, struggling in an all-out battle with the Dark wizards who had attacked the Ministry. He braced himself for the pain, trying to arrange his body so that at least Ron was shielded.
Someone cast from the side. The witch’s wand soared out of her hand as she was speaking the last syllable of the incantation, and although Harry felt the temptation to freeze with shock flooding him, his training took over. He made sure that she was Stunned in the next moment and caught up in a rope net against the ceiling with the rest of the sudden prisoners they had taken.
Harry didn’t have time to thank the person, but he did jerk his head to the side, so he could look, a moment before the next masked would-be Death Eater charged at him.
Malfoy.
Malfoy raised an eyebrow and then turned back to his own battle, three wizards pressing in around him and his trembling partner Nott, without saying anything. Harry shook the temptation to do so when Malfoy hadn’t out of his head and then began to duel the man in front of him. Ron was on his feet behind him, one hand in the middle of his back, and Harry at least knew he had the support he had come to count on most since the war.
*
“Thanks.”
Draco blinked and glanced up from tugging at the bandage on his hand. Trust his luck to have let him take only a minor wound in the very end of the battle, but one struck by an Anti-Clotting Curse a moment later. The Healers had charmed the cut closed and bandaged it, but not carefully enough, Draco thought, if the itch coming from beneath the wrapper was any indication-
His thoughts blew away when he realized Potter stood in his doorway. Draco turned slightly to the side so that he had better access to his wand, and was glad that the Anti-Clotting Curse hadn’t hit his wand hand.
Potter recognized the movement. Well, he would. They had the same training, after all. His lip curled, and he nodded. But he didn’t move away, and his eyes stayed clear; that wasn’t something Draco was used to, not when they tended to darken every time he so much as looked at someone who’d been a Death Eater. Draco had undertaken Auror training because he knew that nothing would make the press shut up about him, so they might as well print complimentary things-and for other, private reasons, too. That didn’t matter to Potter and his darkening eyes, though. They went the color of jade every time he saw Draco.
Now, though, they didn’t. Draco stood there, Potter stood there, and it seemed Potter was perfectly comfortable maintaining the silence. Draco was finally the one who sighed, shook his head, and said, “For saving your life?”
“Yeah,” Potter said. “Because that’s what you did.” He tossed Draco the tiniest of salutes and walked away.
Draco blinked at the empty doorway, and then his itching hand distracted him again. He undid the bandages with one flick and remade them with another. Much better.
*
Harry leaned his head back against the wall of his office and moaned. “Paperwork breeds when we’re not looking at it,” he announced. “Take some of this off my desk and home with you, Ron. Please.”
Ron grinned maliciously at him and shook his head. His own desk was clear, as it usually was, though Harry knew some of that was because he scraped paperwork he thought wouldn’t be missed into the bin. Or onto other Aurors’ desks, sometimes. “Sorry, mate, but I’ve earned my evening off with Hermione.”
He started to say something else, but broke off, staring out the office doorway and frowning. Harry twisted around to see what he was staring at. No good, though, just the trailing glimpse of another Auror’s cloak as he swept past.
“That’s Malfoy,” Ron said in a moment, shaking his head. “Striding around with his nose in the air, just exactly like his arm doesn’t stink and won’t as long as he lives. Wish they wouldn’t have let him in here. He’ll grow like a cancer-”
“Stop.”
Ron turned to face Harry, and then gaped at him before laughing a bit. “Mate? You look the way you did that time Earnshaw escaped.”
Harry tried to roll his lips back down over his teeth and relax his face. The newspaper photographs from the Earnshaw case were not among his most treasured possessions. “Right,” he said. “Of course. I told everyone that I wouldn’t look like that as long as they never let anyone else escape the cells. And we’ll be fine as long as you never say anything like that about Malfoy again.”
Ron stared at him. Then he said, “Why, Harry?” kindly and patiently, like he was trying to coax a Kneazle kitten down from a high tree. “You know it’s just Malfoy. It’s just the kind of things we always say. I think you were comparing him to gangrene at that party a fortnight back, weren’t you?”
“That was Mortimer,” Harry said, and folded his hands in his lap. “Malfoy saved my life, Ron. He didn’t have to, and he risked his own life to do it, because taking any attention away in that battle could have meant he died. I don’t want anyone to insult him anymore.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Like he is that kind of gangrene, or cancer. Like that Dark Mark he wears really is going to spread off his arm and corrupt us all. I’ve heard you say a lot worse things about him than I ever have.”
“Yeah, well, I was wrong,” Harry said in a clipped voice. “That’s all. Don’t say anything like that again.”
“Next thing, you’ll want me to apologize to him,” Ron said, and then shook his head like an otter shedding water. “You don’t want me to apologize to him, do you, mate?”
“No,” Harry said. “The past is the past. But he saved my life a week ago, and that changes things for me, Ron.” He thought about trying to explain the way that Ron’s words had seemed to punch him in the gut, and then decided that it was best not to try. “I don’t want anyone to abuse him.”
“Then you’re going to have a lot of people in the Department to correct, because almost everyone does,” Ron muttered, although he was nodding in the way that Harry knew meant he would change the way he did things. “Almost everyone agrees that he shouldn’t have been let in here. I don’t even think his partner likes him.”
Harry gave Ron another of the kind of smile that had not so much beamed as burnt off the front page of the Daily Prophet when Earnshaw escaped. “It’s good that I have a lot of energy to correct them, then.”
*
Draco licked his lips and stepped back from the door of Potter’s office. Even with Potter’s newfound commitment to defending him, Draco still didn’t think it would go very well for him if Potter found him eavesdropping.
And of course he’d listened, because he’d heard his name mentioned. But he hadn’t at all anticipated what he would hear next.
He doesn’t have to do that, he thought, fighting his way through to the conclusion that he thought was Potter’s. Of course, he didn’t have access to Potter’s mind and wouldn’t understand what he found there even if he did, so that wasn’t a guarantee that he knew Potter’s real motivation. I mean, I reckon I can see why he would want to do that, because I saved his life, but I didn’t ask for this in return.
That left the idea that Potter simply wanted to do it because-well, because he wanted to. Or because he had changed his own thinking about Draco in the wake of Draco saving his life, as unexpected as it had been.
Draco shook his head, and went his way. He didn’t even know if the way that Potter spoke and thought of him at the moment would last. He would have to wait and see to find out, as would the rest of the Auror Department.
Though he had to admit, fewer insulting references from everyone around him would be welcome.
*
“Can you explain yourself, Auror Potter?”
Harry smiled. He knew that it looked less impressive than usual because one of his front teeth was broken. Or, what the hell, he thought, as Kingsley visibly flinched before frowning at him, maybe that made it more impressive.
“No, sir,” Harry said. “I already did, and no one believed me.” He moved his tongue gingerly around the top of the tooth, and winced as the crack in it caught at his flesh. Well. He would just go to a Healer and have that taken care of as soon as possible, then.
“Try me.” Kingsley settled back behind his desk and gave Harry the kind of waiting look that made him such a good Head Auror, dealing with all the shit that Aurors came up with to excuse their attacks on prisoners or use of unnecessary force.
He probably thinks that last’s what I did, Harry thought, and nodded. “All right, sir. I know Auror Malfoy has had a spotless record since he joined the Department, and he hasn’t even insulted Muggleborns. But there are people who think it’s all right to insult him. Someone today speculated that his mother ‘whored herself out to half the Aurors to clear his father’s name.’ I wasn’t going to let that stand.”
Kingsley stared at him. Then he said, “But you were enemies in Hogwarts.”
“And now we’re not.” Harry looked at Kingsley with a calm expression on his face, and wondered how exasperating it probably was. Then he thought of the way that Hermione had tried to explain some of the Slytherins’ actions to him in the past, and winced.
All right, so I can imagine how exasperating it is. But that isn’t going to keep me from doing it.
“The insult was to his mother, and not Auror Malfoy himself,” Kingsley said, leaning back and rubbing his jaw as though he thought the feeling of stubble would make things clearer for him. “Why should he not be left to defend her honor?”
“That was the exact same kind of logic Professor Snape used, sir,” Harry said. “When Malfoy insulted my parents in Hogwarts, I mean. That it was somehow better because it was about them and not me. I admire a lot of things about Professor Snape, but not that.”
Kingsley sighed. “Well, now that you’ve explained it to me, I understand a bit better. But I do think that what you did is inexcusable. Auror Pollinac will have to have several teeth replaced. You’ll apologize to him tomorrow.”
Harry licked his teeth again. Here it came. “No, sir,” he said quietly.
Kingsley looked at him, and said nothing.
Harry knew that the silence was a way Kingsley used to trip unwary Aurors into explaining too much, but at the moment, Harry felt that he needed to fill it. Not because he was unwary, but because he needed Kingsley to know and understand what he was doing.
“Pollinac insulted a fellow Auror,” he said. “And everyone else laughed. No one else was going to stand up for him, even though I’ve told people that I don’t think Auror Malfoy should be insulted. So I went after Pollinac. And now he might hate me, but I don’t think he’ll say anything about Auror Malfoy again.” He smiled at Kingsley. “And you might say that his hatred will cause dissension and division in the Department.” He was quoting from one of Kingsley’s speeches about the unofficial dueling contests that had gone on among the Aurors for a while. “But the same thing was happening with their hatred towards Auror Malfoy. He saved my life once in battle. Would he do the same thing for someone like Pollinac? I think that they’re being stupid, taunting someone whose wand they might need to depend on.”
Kingsley stared at him. Harry stared back.
“All right,” Kingsley said abruptly. “Say that I accept your arguments. What is to stop someone else from doing the same thing?”
“To avenge an insult?” Harry smiled. “If Auror Malfoy is stupid enough to say something like that, then he’ll deserve what he gets in return. And I hope that I would never say something like that without retribution falling on me, swift and certain. Ron would do it if no one else did. He’s grown up a lot,” he added, to the expression on Kingsley’s face.
Kingsley shook his head. “I hope that your example doesn’t unleash a wave of people doing the same thing with less justification, Auror Potter.”
Harry stood up and half-bowed to Kingsley. “I hope not, too. We need Aurors who work together, and this is the best way to ensure they do. Draw out the poison from the wound and show that it’s not going to be tolerated.”
“Your metaphor leaves something to be desired, considering that your method is apparently to inflict a bigger wound in the first place,” Kingsley said dryly, and then waved him out. Harry half-bowed again and left the office.
He met Malfoy in the corridor outside. It was possible that Malfoy was simply on his way to Kingsley with a report of his own, but Harry doubted it, especially considering the long, slow, soft look Malfoy sent him.
“Going to be sacked?” Malfoy asked quietly.
“No,” Harry said, letting his shoulders rise and fall without ever letting go of Malfoy’s eyes.
“Pity,” Malfoy said, in the distant tone that was typical of the way he interacted with other Aurors, and stepped into the office. Harry smiled. He knew that anyone else watching them would only see the cold bastard that Malfoy normally portrayed, and that was doubtless the way Malfoy wanted it. He didn’t want to become popular or start looking as if he relied on Harry for protection.
But then, no one else would have seen his eyes.
*
“Spar with me.”
Potter started and looked over his shoulder. The far wall of the sparring room was a mass of cracks and pits and shallow holes, but he stared at Draco as though that didn’t matter, as though Draco wouldn’t have noticed. “What?”
“Spar with me.” Draco cast his cloak out of the way, because if he was going to duel Potter, then he would need every advantage he could get to make sure that he moved fast enough. He tossed his wand up in the air and caught it, smiling as he saw the way Potter’s eyes followed it. “Come on. Show me what you can do.”
Potter stood quite still a moment, body leaning on air. Draco took the moment to eye him. Potter had a strength that he didn’t often show when he was in Auror robes, as if they served the same purpose that his baggy Muggle clothes had in Hogwarts, to hide his body. But now he was stripped down to shirt and trousers, and his hair was disordered with sweat, and his eyes were dark.
Well, all right, Draco would have liked to see the last two things under less dangerous circumstances. But he would take what he could get, and at the moment, Potter’s grim little smile appealed to him, too.
“Seriously, Malfoy?” Potter began to shift to the side, his eyes on Draco’s, his body quivering with something that looked like tension, looked like eagerness, smelled like passion. “You want to take me on, right now, knowing what you know?”
Draco nodded. “Everyone knows that Weasley’s in hospital, and everyone knows that you’re tearing yourself up about it because you didn’t stop the hex in time,” he drawled, forcing the right amount of insouciance into his voice to make Potter quiver some more. He liked watching it. He liked a lot of things about Potter at the moment, and in general this year, if he was being honest with himself. “And I know that you’re in here hexing nothing and it isn’t working. Come and get me, then.”
He posed, and it nearly cost him the duel. Potter rushed at him, and over his shoulder came the curse, cast from behind him so that Draco’s attention would be on his charge and not the actual threat.
Draco ducked awkwardly and heard more stone tear out of the wall behind him. He Transfigured the floor beneath Potter’s feet to water, wondering if it would slow him at all.
It didn’t. Potter leaped, and somersaulted, and unfolded in front of Draco with a grace that made his mouth water even as Potter struck out with one hand full of shimmering, translucent oil. Draco judged the hand aimed neatly parallel with his eyes, and knew what it would do if it struck: cling to his eyes and mouth, blinding and suffocating him.
He lurched backwards again, and Potter laughed. “Always retreating, Malfoy, never attacking?” he asked, and created a handful of the oil that flew at Draco separately from his body.
Draco ducked that, too, and from his position flat on the floor called tiny rustling scarab beetles, which climbed straight up Potter’s legs. Potter’s face took on a distant expression until the first bite, invisible because they were under his trousers. Then he laughed aloud and cast the charm that dismissed them, saying, “Well done, Malfoy.”
Praise from Harry bloody Potter shouldn’t make Draco breathless and nearly hard. But it didn’t stop him, either, and that was the important thing. This time, he was the one to fling a handful of oil at Potter, the kind that would burn on contact. Potter pivoted, avoiding it, and turned that into his second attack on Draco, which became a handful of burning white dust, and crowded Draco’s eyes before he could evade.
Draco immediately slammed his eyes shut and cast Aguamenti, washing his face clean. He emerged with no greater damage than a few boils around the nose and ears filled with the snapping and burning sound of the miniature sparks embedded in the dust.
He was aware that he was grinning, so widely that the dangers of Potter launching something into his mouth were rather great, and that his heart and his erection were both throbbing. He only hoped that Potter wouldn’t notice the latter.
But he no longer feared his comments if he did, either.
He flung his own hand out, and almost felt Potter turn to look at it before he cast the spell around the other, a tiny storm complete with thunder and lightning that would grow as it neared the victim and fill their world with noise and light and danger. It flew, and Potter wouldn’t be able to dodge it in time. Draco watched breathlessly-
And Potter spread his hands, and a dragon unfolded from them, long-bodied and desert-colored, and opened its mouth. The storm flew down its dry throat, and the dragon spun in place on itself and disappeared.
Only then, when no more spells came at him, did Draco realize how tired he was. He watched Potter slump over, hands on his knees, and wished he could do the same thing himself. But they weren’t yet in that place.
The yet surprised him, and by the time he had finished dealing with his thoughts, Potter had straightened up and was staring at him speculatively. Draco inclined his head back and smiled slightly.
“Thanks, Malfoy,” Potter said, facing the wall he’d nearly destroyed and repairing the holes he’d left with a few well-placed charms.
Draco nodded, realizing with an unexpectedly fierce ache that he would have to wait until Potter left and then quell both his erection and his desire for a repeat of the fight. They had helped each other-well, he had helped Potter-but the moment was over, as quick and fleeting as the time that he had saved Potter’s life or Potter had attacked Pollinac for him. Nothing where they were concerned could last forever.
But Potter paused in front of him instead of moving out of the room. Draco blinked and looked at him.
Potter leaned in, balanced on the balls of his feet as though it was important that he not touch Draco otherwise, and brushed his lips in a long, slow line across Draco’s left cheek, to his lips, to his right cheek. Then he drew back and nodded, more to himself than Draco.
“See you, Malfoy,” he said, and strode out, leaving Draco to stare after him in wonder and try, unsuccessfully, not to touch his face.
Part Two.
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