The Better Part of Valor 9/9 (R/D, PG-13)

[wideworldsend]

Title: The Better Part of Valor
Author: Mad Maudlin
Rating: high PG-13
Pairing: Ron/Draco
Summary: Discretion is the better part of valor. But for Ron Weasley, a rash of Muggle poisonings coupled with the abrupt and disturbing return of Draco Malfoy to his life threaten to blow the lid off his best-kept secret.

The Better Part of Valor

by Mad Maudlin

9.
When I was revived, the first thing I saw was a portrait in blue and orange ink of a male nude groping himself, embedded in a sparkly pink frame. I had to be at Tiresias.

I raised my head and looked around: I was propped against the wall of a small room with a large desk, decorated in a predominantly pink-and-sparkly theme, with accents of faux fur. My hands were tied behind my back. The room had one very small, barred window and two doors; as I was contemplating these as means for escape, the club bouncer entered through one of them, letting in a gasp of noise from the dance floor. He shut it, locked it, and then settled into what I guessed was his default stand-around-and-look-scary posture.

On my left, Malfoy stirred awake, looked around, and whispered, "Weasley, I am going to fucking murder you."

"You weren't complaining a little while ago," I hissed back.

"Because I was unconscious."

"Gentlemen," said a lispy falsetto voice from behind the desk, "this is no time for pillow talk."

I couldn't see the speaker from this angle, but I recognized Madame Helene's voice, and next to me Malfoy scowled. "And you can go straight to hell as well," he said.

Helene tisked at us. "Language, Draco dear. Or should that be Lysander?"

Malfoy glared at me, as if this were all my fault, which it may in fact have been. I concentrated on Helene. "So you're in on this, too?" I asked. "Using the profits to keep your fan club in free drinks and body glitter?"

Helene leaned forward, and a slice of her face came into view; she was wearing an elaborate wig, and one eyebrow was raised to the hairline. "I may have to apologize to you, Draco," she said after a moment. "Here I had thought you went and tattled on me."

It was my turn to glare at him. "You said you had told me everything!"

"I assumed there were certain things you could figure out for yourself," he hissed.

"Ah, so it was through your assistance that Mr. Weasley found us last night." Helene turned a patronizing smile onto me. "Tell me, dear, do you remember anything that happened? I wasn't certain I got the dosage right, what with having to pour the potion straight down your unconscious gullet."

I gave myself just a moment to be pleased that I hadn't, apparently, gone down without a fight, before decided to simply bluff. "Why, are you nervous?" I asked. "Afraid I may've already told the Ministry about you and Higgs?"

Helene's eyes opened very wide, and her jaw hung open a bit. Malfoy pulled his knees to his chest so he could bury his face in them. "Weasley, you imbecile," he grunted. "That is Higgs!"

Oops.

Helene/Higgs murmured, "Well, that answers that question."

"Tell me, Weasley," Malfoy ground out, "who did you blow to get your current job?"

"Shut up," I said. "I'm having an off week."

"That is truly comforting."

"This is as much your fault as mine!" I snapped.

Higgs clapped his hands. "Ladies!" he called. "I wasn't finished."

"Can you give us a few moments to sort this out?" I asked.

"No," said Higgs.

"Damn," I said.

"We'll discuss it later," Malfoy muttered. "If he doesn't kill us."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you," Higgs cooed. "As a matter of fact—" He conjured a pair of chairs in front of the desk. "Why don't you make yourselves comfortable?"

We both stared at him. I looked over my shoulder to confirm that, yes, we were still tied up. Malfoy snorted.

"Ah," Higgs said, and banished the cords around our wrists. "There. Terribly sorry about that."

I went for my wand, which was, predictably, not there; Malfoy made the same motion, then folded his arms across his chest. "I'd rather stay down here, thank you," he said.

"Malfoy, don't be an ass," I said.

"Listen to the man, Draco," Higgs said. "I just want to ask a few questions."

"Go fuck yourself," Malfoy suggested.

I gritted my teeth and tried to convey, using nothing but facial expressions, that after I told everyone in my office that this club was significant to the case, and furthermore after I gave Kingsley a bloody name which (unless Higgs had gone quite mad) should've been connected to the deed on this property and its business license, I expected Aldershot and Rickler, if not an entire detachment of Enforcers, to show up any moment with wands out. As you can imagine, it didn't work. "Malfoy," I said, "stand up. We don't want to be rude."

"Yes," he said, "We do."

"No," I said, "we don't."

"Why don't we?"

"Because he could still change his mind about killing us?"

Higgs said, "Now, Weasley, I'm not nearly that foolish. The murder of an Auror is a far messier business than I am willing to get involved in, and if I killed Draco, I would be throwing away a precious gift from Fate."

Draco leapt to his feet, snarling. "You think you can pin all the blame for this on me?" he demanded. The bouncer, sensing trouble, flexed his biceps in a vaguely menacing manner.

"Why not?" Higgs asked with a little smile. "You've been placed at the scene of the crime, you're already a suspect, and thanks to the misguided ambitions of your adolescence, no decent wizard will trust your word as far as he could Banish you. I couldn't have set things up better if I'd tried."

Malfoy's face was very white, except for two spots of pink in his cheeks. I grabbed his arm, hauled him towards a chair, and pushed him at it; he stayed standing, fists clenched. I sat. "But first you have a few questions, don't you?" I asked. "Because you still don't know what we know about you."

"Correct," Higgs said. He folded his hands and leaned over the desk. "And you will answer, if only to stall for time in the hope that somebody will notice you've gone missing and track you here before anything unpleasant happens."

I glanced at my watch; we must've been unconscious for quite a while, because it was almost eight o'clock. "It's certainly a possibility," I admitted. "Not likely, though. I haven't exactly been communicating well with my coworkers lately."

"Ah, yes, the maverick Auror striking out on his own in pursuit of the suspect," Higgs said. "You really are adorable, dear. It's a pity I'm going to have to Obliviate the shit out of you."

Malfoy suddenly sat down in his chair. "That's how you plan to do it, then?" he asked, with a funny hitch in his voice. "Mangle his mind and blame me for it?"

"More or less," Higgs said, with a horrible, cheerful calm. "But before that, I'm curious about a thing or two—mainly how you, Draco, deduced what I was doing."

"Easy," he said. "The weeks I saw you pulling at the Golden Claw were the only weeks you paid me on time."

"I see," Higgs muttered, and his falsetto slipped, though the smile didn't.

"I was right about that part, wasn't I?" I said. "You needed the money to keep this place open when you're treating half your customers to free drinks every night."

"I prefer to think of it as living within my means through creative accounting," he said sharply.

Malfoy snorted. "I prefer to think of it as your being unable to find anyone willing to put up with your weekly wardrobe budget."

Higgs leapt to his feet, fists clenching. "I don't need you conscious to continue with this," he growled, all pretense of femininity gone. "All I need to know is what I can safely tell the Ministry."

"The Ministry knows nothing," I said, trying to draw his attention back to me. There was no way I could keep stalling, but maybe if I was really clever (yes, I know, first time for everything)— "They're all convinced that Malfoy is guilty. I'm the only one who's ever thought he might be uninvolved."

Higgs leaned closer, with a look on his face that was almost hungry and definitely very creepy. "You're telling me that they don't know any of what you've learned?" he said. "Nothing that connects me or Tiresias to the Golden Claw?"

"None of it," I said. "And even if they did, they probably wouldn't believe it."

"Why not?"

I took a deep breath. "Because nobody at the Ministry would every believe a pathetic little faggot like yourself was capable of anything but taking it up the arse from someone with actual intelligence."

That did it. Higgs glared at me, and he reached into the top drawer of the desk—and there it was, Malfoy's wand, which I'd known he'd have handy for the last part of this scheme. "I think we're finished here," he said, and started to raise the wand towards me.

Just before his arm came up, I vaulted across the desk and tackled him. I heard Malfoy's chair squeal on its casters as he leapt away—running away, I'd expected that. Malfoy's wand tumbled away when I landed on top of Higgs, and I got in a nice solid punch across his face before I reached into the drawer for my own wand. I got my fingers around it, just a split second before the bouncer reached in and grabbed my wrist in a grip tight enough to grind the bones to powder. The bouncer yanked me backwards as Higgs came up with a punch of his own that rattled my teeth—damn it, why couldn't he be one of those fags that hits like a girl?

I popped Higgs in the face with the heel of my palm and felt his nose snap, and he staggered backwards. Once I got my feet under me, I spun around and slammed my forehead head towards the bouncer's face; we were both off-balance, but he was still reaching across the entire width of the desk, and he stumbled as he leapt backwards to dodge me. Unfortunately, he didn't let go of my wrist, and I had to leap over the desk with him to avoid getting my arm yanked off. I was lucky enough to land with one knee deep in his diaphragm, and that got him to let go—I scrambled up, but my wand was still in that drawer, and Higgs was pointing his own wand at me—

And then Higgs' wig leapt forward over his face.

I jumped back over the bouncer and grabbed my wand out of the drawer. Malfoy let go of the wig, shoved Higgs into the desk, and crossed in front of me to snatch his own wand off the floor. I put my back to the wall near the door, covering Higgs as he flung the wig away. The bouncer clambered upright, and for the first time he pulled his own wand, a monster that was probably half an inch thick at the base and long as a whipping rod. Malfoy, in yet another astonishing act of non-cowardice, covered him from my right, though the way his hands were shaking he was more likely to hex himself by accident.

"We seem," Higgs said thickly, "to be at an impasse."

"You could always let us go," I suggested.

"Higgs," Malfoy suddenly blurted, "Terrence—"

"Helene," he corrected with a growl.

"Helene, whatever—" Malfoy swallowed hard. "Just let us go. Please. I promise I won't testify against you—I'll leave town, leave the country—and without my testimony they've got nothing. You heard Weasley. They've got nothing. They'll probably think I just fled prosecution. Just, please, let us go—"

"Malfoy, don't be a tit," I snapped, then realized what he said. "Wait, 'us'?"

"Or just me," Malfoy said quickly. "You can have your way with Weasley, if you like."

Higgs snickered. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be so quick to toss aside your lover, Draco."

Malfoy and I said at the same time, "He's not my lover!"

I looked at him. He blinked. "Well," he said, "you're not."

"I know I'm not."

"Then why are you giving me that look?"

"I don't have any look—"

"Can you discuss this later?" Higgs said, sounding exasperated.

I snapped my attention back to him. "Look," I said. "Obviously we're a bit stuck here."

"Yes," Higgs said, "but I've a number of employees out there who would be more than happy to rescue me from a maverick Auror and his criminal lover."

"We're not lovers!" Malfoy and I both shouted at once.

I added, "And if you really think you're quicker with a wand than I am—"

I never got a chance to complete that sentence, because the door slammed open.

It broke my nose.

I went down, and the door bounced back again to hit me hard in the shin. A curse flared harmlessly against the wall over my head, and somebody screamed like a twelve-year-old girl. And then I heard the most wonderful sound in the world—Aldershot shouting "Freeze! Drop your wands!"

I shimmied out from behind the door to find a half-dozen Enforcers, plus Harry and Tonks, fanned out across the room. Higgs, the bouncer and Malfoy had all dropped their wands and put their hands over their heads. "She didn’t mean you, you idiot," I told Malfoy through a mouthful of blood.

Harry spun around and lowered his wand. "Ron! Are you okay?"

"Define 'okay.'" I charmed my nose back together, though it still felt terribly sore. "Took you long enough to get here."

He glanced at Aldershot. "Somebody insisted on talking to the goblins first."

"Because somebody wanted a water-tight warrant," Aldershot said triumphantly. She flicked her wand at Higgs, conjuring a set of shackles. "Terrence Hillary Higgs, you are under arrest..."

After that there wasn't much to do but the boring parts—statements, reports, debriefing. More bloody paperwork. Malfoy, surprisingly, went along with it all rather willingly; I think he may have just been in shock. I answered lots of embarrassing questions and tried to justify some of my stupider actions without involving the phrase "Malfoy's arse," which was both difficult and humiliating. The worst part, though, came when my parents burst into Kingsley's office. Mum walked right up to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, and started to sob. "My baby!" she wailed.

"Hello, Mum," I said. Aldershot looked alarmed, but everyone else had gotten used to this sort of thing.

"My poor baby!"

"It was the clock," Dad said quickly. "She came straight to my office wailing about Mortal Peril. We just wanted to see..."

"My baby!"

"Mum," I said, "can we step outside for a moment?"

She pulled away, sniffled, and nodded. I lead them to my cubical, while Mum licked a handkerchief and tried to wipe the blood from my chin. I sat them both down and said, "Listen. I'm fine."

"I was so scared," Mum said. "I thought, not twice in one day, I can't see my Ronnie in the hospital twice in one day..."

"I wasn't really in any danger."

"But the clock—"

"The clock is too sensitive," I said. "It was only a bit of peril."

Dad patted Mum on the shoulder. "There, Molly, you see? Right as rain. Now let's get out of Ron's hair..."

I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes. Part of me couldn't believe what I was about to do, but another part—a part that sounded suspiciously like Hermione—insisted that this had been a long time coming. "Wait," I said. "Listen."

"Yes?" they both said.

"There's something I need to tell you," I said quickly, "that I've been putting off for a long time, because...for a lot of reasons, but I think now that I have to, before it's too late."

"Too late for what?" Mum asked. "Ron, what's wrong?"

I took another deep breath and clenched my fists. "Mum, Dad, I'm...I'm gay."

They stared at me. "Erm," Dad asked, "congratulations?"

I blinked at them. "I mean I like men, Dad."

"Of course you do, dear," Mum said, uncertainly. "You have lots of friends..."

"No," I said. "I mean I like men and I don't like women."

"Of course you like women," Mum said, "you and Hermione have been friends since you were small..."

I leaned against the wall and buried my face in my hands. See? I told the Hermione-voice, see why I didn't want to do this in the first place?

Perhaps they really don't understand, the Hermione-voice suggested. They can be a bit...provincial, can't they?

Someone knocked on the side of my cube, and I turned around. Malfoy was standing in the aisle, looking singularly uncomfortable. "Is this a bad time?" he asked. "Only apparently you have to sign something for me."

"Hello, Draco dear," Mum said—she had always been deeply conflicted about Malfoy, because on one hand he was yet another lost little boy to add to her collection, but on the other not even she could cope with his personality on a day-to-day basis. "Ron was just trying to tell us—er. Something."

I had a sudden thought.

That's a bit blunt, isn't it? asked the Hermione-voice.

They are a bit provincial, I thought. "Malfoy," I said out loud. "C'mere."

He stepped into my cubical warily. I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him towards me, then looked at my parents. "Look," I said. "It's like this." I turned back to Malfoy and planted what I guessed was an appropriately chaste kiss on his mouth.

Malfoy held his breath, and his spine went rigid, but he parted his lips just a hair and his hand sought mine of his shoulder. I heard my dad said "Oh!" and something thumped to the floor. I pulled away to look; my mum had fainted.

"Er," I said. "Is she okay?"

Dad swallowed hard a couple of times and then knelt next to Mum on the floor. "Er. Yes. I think so." He swallowed again. "Could we, er, have a moment alone, Ronald?"

I flinched a bit. Full names always equal trouble, even when you're twenty-five years old. "Sure," I said. "Take all the time you need."

I stepped into the aisle, and Malfoy followed me; I realized he was still holding onto my hand just before he dropped it. "So. Erm. You said I needed to sign something?"

"Yes. Right. This." He shoved some forms at me—the amount of parchment flowing through this building could wallpaper Hogwarts, turrets and all—and I fished a quill from my pocket to sign it with. Malfoy asked softly, "I take it they didn't know?"

"Nope."

"I see." Malfoy cleared his throat. "I suspect there was a better way to break it to them."

I did, too, but it was that or the Golden Claw—come out or end up another successful, lonely old fart still pulling anonymous shags in Muggle pubs. I handed back his paperwork. "They'll survive."

"Thank you." He folded the forms down the middle and started to walk away. I watched him for a moment—him, not his arse, I swear it—before something occurred to me.

"Oi, Malfoy!"

He turned back to me. "Yes?"

I trotted up to meet him. "Thought you didn't care about anyone but yourself anymore," I said.

He folded his arms across his chest. "I don't."

"Then why'd you pull Higgs' wig?"

"Excuse me?"

I folded my arms and watched his face. "You stopped him hexing me back there," I said. "You could've just done a runner and left me to hang."

Malfoy looked down and sighed deeply. "Perhaps I've come to realize that those who sit on fences make better targets," he muttered.

I blinked at him. "That's very deep, Malfoy."

"Thank you, Weasley." He glanced back at my cubical, where presumably Mum was still coming around, and in a lower voice, he added, "You also wouldn't be particularly shaggable if your mind was melted."

"What?"

He looked at me, chin stuck up in the air, and not just because I was taller than him. "I believe we started something back at the Two Hippogryffs," he declared. "And I have a passing interest in finishing it."

"You do?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. And then added, "not that I've been obsessing about it for the past week or anything."

"Of course not," I said.

"Because I haven't."

"I would never have accused you of it."

"Your arse is merely average, at best."

I raised one eyebrow at him, amazed at the freedom of standing in the middle of the Aurors' cubical farm and flirting with a fit bloke—any fit bloke—even if it was Malfoy. "You want to bet?"

Chapter One
Chapter Eight