Pay Me What I’m Worth (Harry/Scorpius, NC-17)
Author: pretty_panther
Title: Pay Me What I’m Worth
Rating: NC-17
Word Count :8175
Pairing(s): Harry Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, off-screen Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Warnings: Age Difference of +20 years, prostitution.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy left Hogwarts with no friends and a lot of NEWTs, expected to do well even in a post-war world that looks down on the families of Death Eaters. Harry Potter gets a shock when he completes an Auror raid on a brothel in Manchester and finds Scorpius working there. Not thinking clearly, Harry puts his career on the line and spirits Scorpius away to keep him out of trouble, paying to support him to keep him off the street while unable to stand the thought of someone his son’s age prostituting themselves. Scorpius doesn’t understand Harry’s game but goes along with it anyway and quickly starts to lose his grip on his own rules of survival.
Author's Notes:With thanks to K for her beta skills. This isn’t a pairing that I had written before so was a right challenge for me but an enjoyable one. This fic snuck up on me and grew into a bit of a beast but it was a lot of fun to create.
The raid wasn’t expected to turn up anything unusual. They just knew that the small wizarding community that had been in Manchester for years had gone through a sudden expansion and one of the new businesses in town had been a brothel. Brothels were neither legal nor taken lightly in the wizarding world and so their instructions were very simple, get in and arrest everyone on site while shutting the place down. The prostitutes were to be sent to the new level 2 prison up in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland for six months as punishment. The new prison was a part of the new government’s policy on crime and wasn’t as strictly guarded as the new Azkaban was but it was still cold and miserable. Dementors were no longer used by the Ministry to guard prisoners as they could not be trusted but instead the prisons were on levels with more freedoms being available for criminals who had committed lesser offences.
“You know, as easy as this raid should be in theory, I really don’t want to catch anyone going at it when I get there,” Ron shudders as Harry and himself filter from the meeting rooms and head to their designated Apparition point.
“Trust that to be what enters your mind,” Harry comments while double checking where they will, hopefully, turn up.
“Well, what do you expect mate?” Ron splutters, “It is a brothel for Merlin’s sake and there are some things I just don’t need to see or know about alright?
Harry throws him a toothy grin as they come to a halt, “I know that. Just saying, that would be what you would think about first rather than if there will be any wards up to keep us out or if they offer up any resistance. They could have muscle in there to protect the...um...workers.”
“Like it never crossed your mind,” Ron responds bluntly while pulling out his wand, “Ready?”
“You know me Ron, born ready.”
“Shut up, Potter,” Ron laughs while grabbing his arm and Apparating them both out. They reappear in an alleyway next to a tall building with what looks like someone’s garden wall and overgrown hedges behind them. The Mason family, if Harry remembers correctly. They were the ones that had tipped the Aurors off in the first place and he was sure Lily was at school with their daughter.
“Come on,” Harry mutters while making his way towards the back door. He could see Terry and Dean further down the alleyway, wands out as they checked the perimeter.
“Jenkins will be going in the front with the others right about now if I remember right,” Ron whispers behind Harry, “The dickhead. I can’t believe he got promoted high enough to get jobs like these.”
“Save it for the coffee break,” Harry snaps while pointing his wand at the door, ready to shield Dean as Ron covers Terry as their colleagues blast the back door apart and dive into the brothel. Pandemonium erupts as Harry hears a shriek and then sees a blue flash through the window. Rushing forward, he hears Ron following him up the back steps and into the kitchen to see a young witch in a short dress bound in the corner of the room while Terry and Dean move into the hallway.
Harry can hear commands being shouted and shrieks of surprise but after a quick duel between Terry and one of the male prostitutes it is pretty easy to subdue the occupants of the house and reinstate a sense of calm over the property.
The group of eight Aurors set about gathering the prostitutes in the front room of the townhouse that had clearly been serving as some sort of entertainment entrance way where customers picked their preferred prostitute before heading upstairs to one of the buildings many bedrooms.
“Nott isn’t here,” Edward Jenkins informs Harry bitterly as Harry puts magical cuffs on another of the prostitutes, “Five of them have said he is out of the country for the week. Getting more employees as it were from Eastern Europe.”
“So it looks like they are going to co-operate?” Harry asks quietly, moving to the edge of the room where they won’t be overheard.
“Seems a few of them will,” Jenkins replies with a nod and grim face, “I don’t think they have permission to be here so maybe they think co-operation will prevent them being deported. If some of them are Bulgarian...”
“Yeah,” Harry nods, thinking of his recent conversations with Hermione who now worked in the international relations department. He knew through her that even Victor Krum had fled his homeland when the bloody revolution broke out. He shudders, not wanting to know how bad things must be if so many consider selling themselves for sex as a better alternative.
“I will start getting these off to the slammer. Can you take Weasley and Boot and check upstairs? There must be more of them”, Jenkins asks with a hopeful look that just about masks his unease and Harry sighs and nods. Clearly he didn’t want to catch anyone at work either.
“Did we catch any clients when we busted in?”
“None so far, they scarpered as soon as they saw us. One lad left a bit quick...well Thomas has taken the girl to St Mungos.”
Harry nods, not wanting or needing to know anymore, and orders Ron and Terry to follow him up the stairs. The decor is tacky and old fashioned and yet fits with what Harry imagines an establishment such as this would look like. Not that he had given it too much thought, he thinks to himself while making his up.
“Start at the top and work our way down?” Ron suggests grimly, wand at the ready.
Harry nods and they carry on up to the third floor after checking no one on the second was about to attack them. Ron bustles past him to the door at the end of the corridor and throws it open to find it empty. Harry then moves on to the room opposite and finds the same. Moving from one to another sometimes Harry finds empty rooms and other times he startles witches and wizards that Merlin must be younger than James and sends them down to his colleagues before continuing with his search.
It is in the last room he looks in that he finds something totally unexpected. The room is no bigger than the others, painted the same dark blue with the same large bed, and the same bland furniture. It is not the surroundings that throw Harry but the occupant he really wishes he wasn’t able to recognise. Clearing his throat, Harry enters the room with his wand trained on the young wizard sitting completely naked and unfazed on the bed immediately summoning the other man’s wand from the bedside table.
“Stand up and put your hands behind your head! Now!” Harry barks automatically, wary of the blond who obediently gets to his feet and does just that without appearing affected at all by the Auror standing with his wand pointed at him as he stands there naked as the day he was born, “State your name.”
“Scorpius Malfoy,” the blond drawls and it sounds so painfully familiar that Harry feels like he had been punched in the gut. He had thought it was him but just didn’t want to believe he might be right.
“Thought so,” Harry grunts with a nod, “Put some clothes on. I’m not taking you downstairs like that.”
“Why not?” Scorpius asks quietly, “Worried I might turn you on and that you will be embarrassed. That is ok; I know I look good.”
“Clothes,” Harry growls, telling himself that he has done enough of these things to be above letting a hooker get under his skin no matter who his father is.
“Yes, Sir,” Scorpius mutters, appearing irritated that his teasing hasn’t worked as he crosses to a wardrobe against the back wall and pulls a t-shirt and jeans from the top shelves before bending over to reach down for some shoes, completely uncaring that he is showcasing his pale round arse to Harry who can’t help but take a look.
It really is a fine arse.
Somehow, when Scorpius has pulled his clothes on he doesn’t look so confident. His arena is sex and when he turns and faces Harry in preparation to be dragged downstairs with his co-workers, Harry feels like he has been punched in the gut again. This man was at school with Albus; he can’t be older than nineteen years old and an impulsive urge takes over Harry’s senses. The others they had found were older, knew better, and chose to do it anyway. Scorpius was young and had time to fix things, but not with a record that branded him the prostitute son of an ex-death eater.
Harry should take him downstairs and process him but he can’t. He just can’t.
*
It is several hours before everything is settled and Harry can return to his office where he has hidden Scorpius. The blond had thrown a fit when he was Apparated over and demanded to be taken back which worried Harry if he was honest with himself. Plenty of charms and wards had kept his young prisoner silent and locked in as Harry had gone about his work but as soon as the Auror gets in the door he can tell the young man has spent the whole time he was gone fuming.
“I demand you release me at once! My father always said that you were arrogant and thought yourself better than anyone else but I never thought you would kidnap someone, Potter!” Scorpius tirades while jumping to his feet and storming across the office to get right into Harry’s face.
“Oh, are we going to talk about your father, Scorpius? Funny that because I certainly wouldn’t mind. Does he know what you ...do for a living exactly?” Harry replies calmly, using his years of training to hold back the emotion filled response he might have unleashed in his youth.
As he expects him to, Scorpius huffs and throws himself back into the chair he had been previously occupying, remaining silent for a few moments as Harry crosses the room and takes his seat opposite the sullen blond before muttering, “Let me out.”
“You want to be arrested for prostitution?”
“No,” Scorpius sulks, “What is your angle here, Potter? Why didn’t you arrest me before?”
Harry shifts slightly in his chair, eyes darting to the door for a moment, before he returns his gaze to the blond. He had known all afternoon that he would have to answer that question and yet still hadn’t been able to come up with an answer that was truthful. Instead, he offered Scorpius the version of the truth that he had been attempting to convince himself of.
“You were at school with my son. My youngest son,” Harry rasps, watching carefully as Scorpius’s face crumples into confusion.
“Yeah why-,” he being only for Harry to swiftly cut him off.
“The others who worked with you. Most of them were older, some of them refuges from Bulgaria, many of them uneducated but you were different. I remember you being the subject of frustrations in my family because you were so intelligent and yet....there you were,” Harry states truthfully, finding it best to cover his own motives without using lies. The thoughts had crossed his mind after all.
“So, you bailed me out because of some twisted guilt that it might have been Albus? That is fucked up, Potter,” Scorpius states factually, and Harry nods because at the end of the day he is right. Scorpius doesn’t say anything more though, merely shifts in his seat and looks uncomfortable, probably because at the end of the day twisted or not Harry had kept him out of jail.
“If you get a conviction like that,” Harry begins again, only for Scorpius to be the one cutting him off now.
“Yeah, I know what it would mean. Thanks for...whatever. No one does something like that for free though. What do you want from me?” There is a steel to Scorpius’s voice which almost covers the fear that only trained ears pick up on. Harry files the information away for later and shrugs.
“I don’t know to be honest. I wasn’t really thinking all that far ahead,” he states, before conjuring up some sandwiches and juice out of the blue and taking a sandwich for himself before pushing the plate towards a bewildered Scorpius, “You spoke of your father but didn’t threaten me with him as I might have expected which makes me think you’re not talking to him. Given where I found you, I have to be honest I was interested.”
“My father is none of your business,” Scorpius responds with a blush, “When can I leave?”
“When I say so,” Harry responds bluntly, with a toothy grin that isn’t at all professional and makes Scorpius feel deeply uncomfortable.
There is an idea forming at the back of Harry’s mind and his conscious struggles to fob it off every time Scorpius shifts in his chair, pushes a strand of chin length golden hair out of his face, or blushes a light pink. The boys is pretty, beautiful even, in the classical way that seems so rare these days. His hair is blond, but not the dramatic platinum of his father, and he has his mother’s blue eyes that stand out so brightly against his pale skin. Harry wants to understand him and his motivations.
It was true, what he had said, in that Scorpius had been at school with Albus and both he and Rose had commented on how intelligent the blond was on many occasions. So how had he ended up in a brothel in Manchester selling himself for sex? The boy had left Hogwarts with a score of NEWTs as far as Harry could remember and his current situation didn’t make sense. The Auror is overcome with a need to understand him, and finds himself shifting in his seat again at the thought of all sorts of men having their hands on his beautiful pale skin, running their hands through his blond hair, and using his body for their own gratification.
“You will get in trouble if you hand me over now,” Scorpius observes, as if he can tell what the older man is thinking, “You’re Harry Potter, but you’re not the Head Auror.”
“True,” Harry grins, “But what if...I don’t plan on handing you over to my colleagues.”
“I am afraid that I don’t understand,” Scorpius drawls slowly, and Harry resists the urge to search the room for someone else before calmly picking up another sandwich.
“I don’t want you to go to jail Scorpius but I can’t just let you go back to your, um, previous place of um residence either,” Harry mutters, stumbling over the words slightly though he isn’t sure why. He knew what Scorpius was and he had already said as much, “You have qualifications don’t you?”
For a moment Scorpius just stares at him, his face cold and completely blank, giving away nothing as he turns Harry’s words over in his mind.
“Yes. I sat my NEWTs like you said and I got good marks. Why?” he demands, warily, not bothering with the confident front now because he obviously has no idea what Harry is thinking. Harry isn’t entirely sure that he knows himself. It is more like he is making it up as he goes along and hoping it doesn’t blow up in his face. He just knows that he has dealt with criminals and vile people and Scorpius isn’t one of them. He had a chance to fix his life but he couldn’t do that with a criminal record behind him.
“I don’t have to hand you over, like I said. I can get you out of here if you will give me your word that you will find a proper, legal job,” Harry states quietly, perhaps not thinking things through, definitely not being rational.
“And in the meantime? Haven’t you noticed that things are a bit hard right now? I mean, business was slow recently,” Scorpius states, referring to the financial troubles that had been plaguing wizarding Britain for the past six months or so.
“I can give you somewhere to stay,” Harry states more calmly than he feels, because he really is doing this, letting those thoughts that he has had in the back of his mind for several hours come to fruition and take over. He is letting his emotions rule his head, his attraction to the younger man and his pity override his common sense, “I can support you.”
“Financially?” Scorpius drawls, “Because if it isn’t financial then there is really no reason for me to accept. I have to eat while I look for this job you expect to fall into my lap and there are other places I could earn my keep in the meantime.”
“You’re not going back out on the streets, Scorpius,” Harry warns, sternly, “No one is going to be buying your services.”
“No one?” Scorpius says slowly, wicked smile playing at his lips because he has always been good at reading people and as much as Harry had thrown him for a rather large loop he was starting to put the pieces together, “Or no one else? Are you attracted to me, Potter? Is that what this is about? Letting your dick make the decisions for you?”
“You’re not going back out on the streets if I have anything to say about it. I can support you financially,” Harry states, his feathers ruffled, cheeks blushing slightly. He can’t outright deny what Scorpius had said because frankly he didn’t like lying to people and that is exactly what he would be doing if he did so. He was attracted to Scorpius and more than that, he wanted him.
“What is the catch?”
“The catch?” Harry asks with a lopsided smile, “The catch is I’m not known for thinking ahead and I might change my mind later. Of course, you might have this over me but I have charges of prostitution over you and, well I’m Harry Potter.”
He says it apologetically but that doesn’t make it any less true. Scorpius sighs and looks at the ceiling. He can’t really say no.
***
The flat is small but nice enough but definitely has more of a ‘dirty little secret’ than ‘secret lover’ feel to it. There is no mistaking that this is all business as the place is barely furnished and Scorpius can see exactly where his first ‘wage’ will be going as it were. It was clear that this was Harry’s escape from the marriage that obviously wasn’t as happy as people thought it was. Scorpius won’t be ungrateful though; it was certainly better than where he had been working before and at least he knew Harry wasn’t carrying anything and could be pretty sure that the older man would not hurt him. At least not deliberately.
Surely, he could trust the Auror that much. Trust him as much as Scorpius Malfoy trusted anyone these days right enough. He had trusted too many and been burned before. The world didn’t like the Malfoy family and had not forgiven them for the last war. Wars and passed before with families on the losing side squirming their way back into society but the last had been different. It had been too vicious, too deadly, too underhanded and horrifying to be forgiven. A job was not going to fall into his lap even if he wanted one but as long as this was available it would do. He knew what he was dealing with and that could be enough for now. It would have to be, at least until he had enough on Harry to get away without him coming after him with all the charges he had against him.
“It isn’t bad,” Scorpius mutters, to himself mostly but close enough to Harry so that the older man will hear him, “I’ve been in worse.”
“You really are a Malfoy aren’t you?” Harry states flatly, shaking his head while wandering through to the kitchen and putting the kettle on. Scorpius can instantly imagine a wary Harry, haggard from a screaming match with his wife putting on the kettle to make coffee that is far too strong and sitting down to drink it on the sofa with hastily made cheese on toast while watching that strange muggle box that Scorpius can’t remember the name of.
He doesn’t rise to the statement, because he doesn’t even feel like a Malfoy anymore. He certainly wasn’t wanted back there nowadays.
Harry goes about making cups of tea, the muggle way, which added to the thing in the corner convinces Scorpius that they must be in a muggle area of wherever they are, which jolts him because he suddenly remembers that he doesn’t actually know where he is and so questions the Auror the minute he enters the living room.
“Cardiff,” Harry replies gruffly, “You know I live at Godric’s Hollow right? Well, Apparating to London every day is enough of a strain on my energy so being closer to home while blending in seemed like a good idea.”
Scorpius nods robotically and takes the cup of tea from Harry without thinking about it. He had never been to Wales. Ever. They sit and drink their tea in silence until Scorpius has had most of his and decides that Harry has had enough. The whole situation is too normal, domestic even, and however strange the whole thing may be Scorpius still has a job to do, even if Harry had never outright demanded anything.
It would probably be so that he could defend himself with that fact later.
Putting his cup back on the table, Scorpius turns and takes Harry’s cup, putting it to the side too before climbing into the Auror’s lap, “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Pardon?” Harry squawks, but it only makes Scorpius laugh and run his hands through the older man’s hair.
“Don’t play coy. You have a hooker locked away in your secret apartment and we both know the deal. What do you want me to do?”
“I didn’t plan this,” Harry blinks and Scorpius smirks because he is counting on that.
“You mentioned that. Gryffindors always jump in head first without checking how deep the pool is. I’m here now though and you were right; you have everything over me. Might as well make use of my talents and I promise, Harry, I am very talented,” Scorpius promises, hands dropping to Harry’s shoulders, rubbing at his tense muscles and squirming very deliberately in his lap, “You have had a long and hard day haven’t you? I can help you relax. I can make you forget all about it; that is what I am here for. For your pleasure.”
It is a practiced speech, the movements familiar, and he doesn’t really have to think about where the ties of the robe are, where each button of the shirt underneath is and it is practiced hands that undo the buckle on Harry’s trousers. Harry’s boxers are bulging and Scorpius smirks knowingly as he palms his erection through the material and feels him buck into the touch. Harry’s glazed green gaze at him as if not really seeing him, just feeling and that is familiar too. Sometimes it feels good because it means the way he is rolling his hips and teasing is as good as he claimed it would be and at the same time sometimes it stabs at his heart because he could be anyone and despite all his intelligence he has become a pretty face that Harry isn’t even noticing.
“Do you want me to suck you off?” Scorpius enquires lightly, his hand now under the waistline of Harry’s boxers, fingers rubbing at the head of the elder man’s cock.
Harry finds his eyes and then reaches around the blond to squeeze at his arse cheeks, “Might as well go all out. I want to fuck you. That is what sluts do right?”
“I’m not a slut thank you,” Scorpius replies sulkily, before pouting slightly and leaning down to lick the shell of Harry’s ear and whispering, “I’m a whore. I get paid.”
With that he pulls back and expertly slips out of Harry’s lap and back onto his feet, winking, before making his way towards he hopes is the bedroom. He immediately begins to pull of his clothes, throwing them carelessly to the floor as he hears Harry get up and follow him, slipping into the room and then stopping by the door in just his boxers and trousers, the latter halfway down his thighs. His youthful face and wide eyed gaze makes him look so much younger than Scorpius’s father and the blond wonders how many times he has done this before if at all. He is almost certain that Harry is bisexual if not gay and that he has slept with men before, probably here, but whether or not he has paid a prostitute before he isn’t sure. He seems to shy for it, too uneasy at the thought of giving instructions and Scorpius tucks the information away for later because it can easily be used to his advantage.
This is business and Harry’s naivety is a business opportunity in Scorpius’s book.
Carrying on with stripping himself naked, Scorpius mentally tries to relax himself for what is to come, while Harry fumbles his way out of his trousers and boxers, before shifting around the bed and pulling a bottle of lube from the bedside table and throwing it onto the bed as he sets his glasses down.
“You’re clean?” he grunts at Scorpius.
“We used those muggle condom things to stay clean,” Scorpius states, “Boss didn’t want any of us taking nights off to recover from anything that could be prevented.”
“And what about what couldn’t be prevented,” Harry demands while crawling onto the bed, slipping back into interrogator mode when he notes three light purple bruises around the younger man’s wrist, like the imprints of angry fingers pinning him down onto a bed.
“It isn’t the safest of jobs,” Scorpius concedes, “Is this really the place though? I thought you wanted me.”
It is almost sulky, the way he says it, but he doesn’t care because it works and that is what is important. Harry shrugs and wraps his hand around the back of Scorpius’s neck but when he tries to pull the blond towards him Scorpius places his hands on Harry’s chest and pushes away from him.
“No kissing,” he states firmly, causing Harry to raise an eyebrow at him.
“You’re hitting every cliché possible in your actions, you know that? Little lost boy who doesn’t kiss but gets fucked for a living,” Harry mutters bitterly and Scorpius says nothing because really Harry has no right to get mad at him because he won’t kiss. Scorpius will let him do almost anything else because when it comes down to it he doesn’t really care. He wants to be above street corners but apart from that, he’s notorious in his trade for being open to anything.
“It isn’t a whore thing. It is a Scorpius thing,” the blond mutters before pushing Harry onto his back and immediately shifting down his body to suck on his cock and effectively shut the other man up.
Kisses had bad memories. Memories of people pushing him against walls and crushing their mouths to his as they shoved their hands down his trousers and groped at his dick, his arse, his balls, driven by lust and not really giving a damn about him. Even at Hogwarts people wanted him for his beauty and then sex and not a relationship. People wanted him but they didn’t care about him and maybe Harry was right and it was a cliché that he ended up in the sex trade but at least it was something he was good at and he had been around people that understood him and with a roof over his head.
After his father had thrown him out, it wasn’t as easy as Scorpius had hoped to be his own person and not just the Malfoy heir he had been raised to be.
He feels Harry pulling on his hair as he licks up his shaft and hums around it teasingly, almost amused when Harry moans deeply at the sensation. Expertly, he rubs at the soft skin of Harry’s balls, and the sensitive flesh of his inner thighs until he had Harry on the edge, drops of sweet pre-cum dripping onto the blonds’ tongue as he pulls off him. Reaching for the lube, he squeezes some onto his fingers and reaches between his legs to hurriedly prepare himself, the familiar burn returning some of his confidence, reminding him that this is what he does and that ultimately he is in control of the situation. There was no escaping into the hallway this time, no bodyguards in the reception area downstairs to deal with customers that went too far but he knew where Harry’s wand was if not his own and he could still get out.
“How do you want to do this?” he pants, adding a third finger to his stinging hole and stretching himself further as Harry looks on with greedy eyes.
“I said, I wanted to-“
“Yeah, yeah I know that,” Scorpius cuts in, “You want be on my back, my front, to ride you, what? I can do whatever you want me to, baby.”
The ‘baby’ was a mistake and Scorpius knows it the minute he lets it slip, forgetting Harry doesn’t do this, but he tries not to give away any sign that he knows he screwed up, just finishes preparing himself and waits on Harry’s verdict.
“Ride me,” Harry states, a blush covering his cheeks as Scorpius smirks and crawls on top of him, grabbing his cock in a firm grasp and rising above it before slowly easing himself down, feeling the head pushing past the rings of tight muscle until Harry is inside him, lowering further still until he has taken him all in. It isn’t so difficult after he’s had so many but there is still a painful burn as he does so.
So he does ride Harry, hard and fast and it hurts but is a burn he is used to and it turns him on. He’s learned by now not to make a sound though, merely settles his hands on Harry’s shoulders and immediately raises himself back up again and then down, throwing his head back as Harry grunts and settles his hands on Scorpius’s hips. He feels his own cock harden as Harry moans and grips him hard enough to leave moon shaped marks on pale skin. Scorpius grips his erection and jerks himself off while rolling his hips and tweaking Harry’s nipples until the older man comes with a gasp and goes limp underneath him.
Finishing himself off, Scorpius rolls off the bed and heads for the bathroom, cleaning himself off and taking a damp towel through to Harry who takes it with a muttered thanks. That is the moment when the uncertainty returns. This is new for Scorpius. This is not where he demands payment and asks his customer to leave because it is he who is the intruder now and his arse has become his rent money.
He goes for his clothes, pulling his boxers back on before sitting on the edge of the bed, his bed, and turning towards Harry.
“I will need a change of clothes. Will you be able to get my things?” he demands, suddenly aware that he lacks all of his possessions and Harry hadn’t mentioned returning them.
“No, everything was taken as evidence,” Harry mutters after a few seconds, still basking in his post-coital bliss, eyes shut and his answer slightly slurred as if he is falling asleep, “It can’t be traced to you though.”
“That was all I had,” Scorpius says quietly, almost to himself and Harry is suddenly far more awake than he wants to be, cringing because the more he learns about Scorpius the more sorry for him he feels and the blond will detest that. Harry can tell that the younger man doesn’t want to be pitied or viewed as the poor little hooker that got thrown out by his aristocratic father for being gay but that is exactly what he is. He doesn’t need to confirm it for Harry to know. All he has is what Harry has given him and Harry is almost overcome with a strange need to protect Scorpius and he hates himself for it because all of this is still wrong.
Wrong. All of it.
***
Harry didn’t stay the night which was a huge relief to Scorpius and more importantly he left him some muggle notes to go out and get food and clothes with. He still hadn’t returned Scorpius’s wand to him so he was pretty much stuck just going out and putting everything he had learned in his compulsory Muggle Studies class to the best use he could to get what he needed.
He was left alone for several days, only a few notes about the case of the brothel sent with a tawny barn owl showing that Harry remembered he existed and Scorpius didn’t understand any of it.
He was being paid to stay there and for Harry to make use of him yet he was nowhere to be seen. It made Scorpius feel uneasy.
***
Harry comes back five days after dropping Scorpius off and brings Chinese and a scowl. Scorpius doesn’t ask and Harry doesn’t tell and the Chinese is good.
After that Harry asks if he can suck Scorpius’s cock and the blond isn’t sure what to make of it other than to note that he was right and that Harry had to be at least bi-sexual. So he shrugs, lets the older man suck him off on the couch with the muggle box thing showing a movie thing in the background as Harry licks his way around the head of Scorpius’s dick and jerks himself off at the same time.
“Having trouble at home?” Scorpius asks quietly when they are done and Harry is lounging on the sofa next to him flicking the channels.
“What makes you think that?” Harry asks, and it isn’t demanding and Scorpius doesn’t understand it because that is giving so much away and why would he do that?
“You’re here sucking your secret whore’s dick and watching muggle things instead of being at home with your wife. It is not hard to put it together,” Scorpius states, all matter of fact , more intrigued than anything else because this might give him what he needs. Harry has his prostitution over him and he might just have a secret sexuality and a failed marriage on the Auror.
“So what if I am? Your job isn’t to ask questions. I will be back in two weeks with your payment. Look for a job in the meantime. I’ve got a subscription to the Prophet set up for this place to help you look,” Harry replies without even looking at him, his voice nervous and unsure.
Scorpius merely smirks and goes to get some of the muggle juice he had taken a liking to. They both know that Harry will be back before the two weeks were out and that Scorpius wouldn’t have a job by then.
***
Harry turns up two days later, informs Scorpius he is on a lunch break, and fucks him on the bed from behind before he Apparates back to his work.
Ten minutes after he has left Scorpius rolls out of bed and pulls his clothes back on. Harry had looked stressed out and wary, he thinks to himself, before returning to the book he had been reading.
He wonders if Harry has things on his mind and then curses himself for thinking it. This is all business. Every fuck is something he has against Harry.
That is all.
***
That isn’t all.
Harry turns up on the Saturday, three days after his midday appearance, and brings pizza this time. He informs Scorpius that his wife is at his sister-in-laws and proceeds to tell him all about the problems he is having at work and how incompetent some of his colleagues are. Scorpius doesn’t want to be interested in it but finds himself offering his opinions on the various subjects anyway as they eat.
It is like Harry doesn’t get the rules of the game they are playing. He doesn’t understand what he should do; turn up, get whatever he wants from Scorpius and leave.
“I mean, just, he’s a complete twat you know? I don’t even know how he passed the entrance exams,” Harry moans to Scorpius, once their pizza is done, and the blond casts his eyes up to the clock on the wall and rubs at his thighs.
Harry will move them to the bedroom soon he is sure. He has been talking long enough surely.
“Hang on,” Harry mutters, “Merlin, you’ve been listening to me moan, I should reward you for it.”
“No, no, that is my job isn’t it?” Scorpius says as seductively as he can manage, squeezing Harry’s thigh and tracing his fingers up the Auror’s jeans towards his crotch before Harry bats his hands away.
“No, no, none of that. What we need is booze! Hang on, I have something in the kitchen, unless you drank it?” Harry demands while getting to his feet.
Scorpius shakes his head, a little humiliated by the blatant rejection, and Harry disappears into the flat’s small kitchen before reappearing with a bottle of clear liquid that Scorpius doesn’t recognise and two glasses.
“Vodka,” Harry informs him, “It burns, but I find that is best.”
“A muggle drink? A spirit”
“Yes,” Harry replies with a glare, “Nothing wrong with that.”
“I didn’t say there was!” Scorpius responds sharply as Harry pours him a small drink, “Only asking. You know, drinking won’t fix things. At work or...with Ginny.”
“Don’t say her name!” Harry snaps, “Drink your fucking vodka.”
Scorpius does so, warily of this more aggressive Harry, but he needn’t be. He returns to ranting about work, as if Scorpius is his significant other or something, pouring out his frustrations and then rambling on about everything and nothing as the alcohol takes over. He keeps thanking Scorpius for paying attention and listening to him and for not caring that he’s slouched on the couch and eating pizza and none of it really makes sense.
Scorpius feels almost guilty at the way he is being treated. He feels guilty for the food and the shared alcohol that he didn’t put anything towards and the fact that he was saved from prison and a permanent record only to listen to the woes of Harry Potter while doing nothing at all to make him feel better.
Almost desperately he crawls into Harry’s lap, “You’ve had a hard week. Let me make it better, ok? I can help.”
Rolling his hips down into Harry’s, Scorpius smiles as Harry shudders and moans, grabbing the blonds’ arse cheeks and nodding almost to himself.
“Had a fucking terrible week. And Ginny...she wanted sex you know? I don’t want to be having sex with her. You’re better,” Harry grunts, slurring his words slightly and really Scorpius hadn’t realised they had drunk that much. Maybe this vodka was just stronger than anything they had had before.
“You prefer men then?” he asks, the vodka loosening his own tongue as he pulls Harry’s t-shirt free from his jeans and then up over his head.
Harry grins at him and shakes his head, “I prefer you!”, he informs Scorpius jovially while pushing him off and getting to his feet, dragging Scorpius up with him a second later and into the bedroom.
“You’ve only had me twice,” Scorpius drawls, amused at Harry’s antics.
“Have you again now,” Harry mutters, pulling him close and kissing his neck. Scorpius freezes but doesn’t push him away, wary as Harry gets closer to his lips before kissing the inside of his jaw and pulling away with a smouldering gaze.
Scorpius relaxes and then rips his own top off, sensing something is different but not wanting to comment on it, as Harry strips off and gets onto the bed to wait on him.
Harry fucks him again but in the morning he is still there and Scorpius feels strange. It hadn’t been rough or desperate or even lust filled. It had been slow and careful and at one point he had let his guard down and let Harry kiss him before pulling away and burying his head in the older man’s shoulder. He had liked it, not just in a sense of cuming, but he had really enjoyed it and wanted more of it and that wasn’t how things were supposed to work.
He wasn’t supposed to enjoy waking up and finding his client was still there. He wasn’t supposed to feel.
***
The paper comes and every day it advertises jobs and every day Scorpius doesn’t apply for any of them. At first he feels guilty, and scared, but then he just starts to feel confident.
***
Harry starts to spend more and more time at the flat with Scorpius. Sometimes they have sex and sometimes they don’t. On the days that Scorpius is alone he begins to miss Harry, wonders why he hasn’t come and slowly as the weeks pass becomes more and more jealous of Ginny Potter though it takes him a while to realise it.
Harry manages to catch him out and kiss him more than once and Scorpius stops telling him off for it because they are not bad memories. Harry doesn’t hurt him. He is paying Scorpius to stay there and suck his cock and let himself be fucked but he still seems to care for him more than any of the boyfriends Scorpius had ever had.
It unnerves him and sometimes when he is out and about later in the evening and recognises the women and men standing on certain city street corners as prostitutes he shivers and pulls his jacket closer as if they might realise that he is one of them and he finds he doesn’t want to be recognised as one of them anymore.
His life is simple and enjoyable now, without fear of beatings and customers being too rough, and he knows that Harry is clean and won’t hurt him and sometimes when the other man Apparates in during the week he will kiss Scorpius’s cheek because he is caught up in his own thoughts and doesn’t think twice about it. It feels like normality and something Scorpius could hold on to as opposed to his previous life which had been all about letting the world pass by with no attachments and without being noticed.
When he kisses Harry one night instead of the other way around he realises he has made the biggest mistake a prostitute can make.
He has fallen in love with his client.
***
Scorpius doesn’t tell Harry because he isn’t stupid and doesn’t want to throw away everything he has until he has a plan B at least. He just carries on as they were but the no kissing rule has gone. Harry has a knowing look in his eye but he never says anything about it.
Harry comes around more and they fuck less and eventually Scorpius asks about it. Harry informs him that his wife wouldn’t even notice and he doesn’t care and when it comes to sex it isn’t good for a man to have too much of a good thing. Scorpius doesn’t understand the saying, assumes that is comes from muggles, and continues on with his life as puzzling as it might be.
He is no longer sure what he wants. To stay, to go, to use everything he has against Harry against him or not. Every weekend Harry brings alcohol and carry out and gives away enough information for Scorpius to completely and utterly destroy him and then they have sex.
Scorpius is annoyed now, when he wakes up alone, and that is when he realises how much he’s screwed up his own plan. He isn’t sure whether he is annoyed with himself for it or not.
***
He starts to wonder if Harry has feelings to when the older man returns his wand one day and doesn’t give him any rules about it.
He trusts Scorpius to stay.
***
Scorpius is utterly astounded when Harry turns up with his trunks and a red cheek to inform him that Ginny knew he had a lover and he had been kicked out. He is too stunned to really say anything but moves his things about to give Harry room all the same.
“Do you want me to go then? I mean you will be wanting this place for yourself now won’t you?”
“Oh, Scorpius,” Harry says, and that is all he says, just looking at the blond with those big green eyes that seem to say everything he won’t before laughing and shaking his head.
Scorpius remains where he is for a moment, rooted to the spot, before he frowns and wanders off to put the kettle on because he noticed when Harry was anxious or annoyed he made tea and it seemed to work for him.
***
The money stops coming so rigidly and more appears when Scorpius mentions he is running out. They both know what it means and neither comments on it. Harry’s daughter Lily visits one day and Scorpius feels awkward and out of place but he doesn’t leave the living room because that flat has become his home and he belongs there.
She talks to her father, complains about her brothers, and makes Scorpius a cup of tea when she makes a pot and presents him with a biscuit he has never heard of as if visiting her father and his secret prostitute at what had clearly been his shag-pad was perfectly normal.
It is only after she has gone that it really hits Scorpius what he himself had been thinking.
“I’m not really your whore anymore am I?” he states out of the blue while chewing on his pasta, almost making Harry choke.
“Pardon?”
“I’m...well I thought...Lily said I was a secret lover,” Scorpius stammered, feeling a burning blush coming to his cheeks, “And when you moved in...”
Harry glances over at him with wide eyes and shakes his head, “Obviously. Did you have to say it like that though? Merlin I nearly chocked! Boy-Who-Lived defeated by macaroni! I can see the headline now! You stupid bastard. I think I stopped paying you for sex a long time ago. You could have left the minute I gave you your wand.”
Scorpius chews on his dinner, thinking things over. Harry talks about his day when he comes in, complains when Scorpius leaves his dishes all along the counter, asks him to do things for him during the day out in the muggle world and a couple of times had sent him into wizarding Cardiff to get this and that. Even though that was never part of the deal as it were, the younger man never refuses him.
Scorpius had never taken the chance to run. In fact he had come to enjoy telling Harry about his own adventures learning to blend in with the muggles and how fascinated he was with muggle technology .
Somehow, he had gone from a whore locked up to avoid being banged up in prison to Harry Potter’s lover and confident and he has no idea how it happened.
Scorpius loves him. He won’t tell him that but he does.
“You’re still wearing your wedding ring,” Scorpius says quietly, placing his bowl on the table in front of them as the adverts come on the TV.
“Do you want me to take it off?” Harry asks carefully, knowing it isn’t as simple as a piece of jewellery. This ultimately defines their status between them. It sets a boundary. It admits things. It puts them on an even footing.
“Yes. Yes, it bothers me,” Scorpius states firmly, claiming him completely from Ginny Potter and the life before Harry had raided the brothel and broken laws to keep him out of trouble and learn more about the shunned Malfoy heir that everyone else saw, “I don’t want you wearing it while you are with me.”
Harry removes it, sets it on the table, and it isn’t mentioned again.
Scorpius still doesn’t understand but eventually he stops trying.
Title: Pay Me What I’m Worth
Rating: NC-17
Word Count :8175
Pairing(s): Harry Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, off-screen Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Warnings: Age Difference of +20 years, prostitution.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy left Hogwarts with no friends and a lot of NEWTs, expected to do well even in a post-war world that looks down on the families of Death Eaters. Harry Potter gets a shock when he completes an Auror raid on a brothel in Manchester and finds Scorpius working there. Not thinking clearly, Harry puts his career on the line and spirits Scorpius away to keep him out of trouble, paying to support him to keep him off the street while unable to stand the thought of someone his son’s age prostituting themselves. Scorpius doesn’t understand Harry’s game but goes along with it anyway and quickly starts to lose his grip on his own rules of survival.
Author's Notes:With thanks to K for her beta skills. This isn’t a pairing that I had written before so was a right challenge for me but an enjoyable one. This fic snuck up on me and grew into a bit of a beast but it was a lot of fun to create.
The raid wasn’t expected to turn up anything unusual. They just knew that the small wizarding community that had been in Manchester for years had gone through a sudden expansion and one of the new businesses in town had been a brothel. Brothels were neither legal nor taken lightly in the wizarding world and so their instructions were very simple, get in and arrest everyone on site while shutting the place down. The prostitutes were to be sent to the new level 2 prison up in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland for six months as punishment. The new prison was a part of the new government’s policy on crime and wasn’t as strictly guarded as the new Azkaban was but it was still cold and miserable. Dementors were no longer used by the Ministry to guard prisoners as they could not be trusted but instead the prisons were on levels with more freedoms being available for criminals who had committed lesser offences.
“You know, as easy as this raid should be in theory, I really don’t want to catch anyone going at it when I get there,” Ron shudders as Harry and himself filter from the meeting rooms and head to their designated Apparition point.
“Trust that to be what enters your mind,” Harry comments while double checking where they will, hopefully, turn up.
“Well, what do you expect mate?” Ron splutters, “It is a brothel for Merlin’s sake and there are some things I just don’t need to see or know about alright?
Harry throws him a toothy grin as they come to a halt, “I know that. Just saying, that would be what you would think about first rather than if there will be any wards up to keep us out or if they offer up any resistance. They could have muscle in there to protect the...um...workers.”
“Like it never crossed your mind,” Ron responds bluntly while pulling out his wand, “Ready?”
“You know me Ron, born ready.”
“Shut up, Potter,” Ron laughs while grabbing his arm and Apparating them both out. They reappear in an alleyway next to a tall building with what looks like someone’s garden wall and overgrown hedges behind them. The Mason family, if Harry remembers correctly. They were the ones that had tipped the Aurors off in the first place and he was sure Lily was at school with their daughter.
“Come on,” Harry mutters while making his way towards the back door. He could see Terry and Dean further down the alleyway, wands out as they checked the perimeter.
“Jenkins will be going in the front with the others right about now if I remember right,” Ron whispers behind Harry, “The dickhead. I can’t believe he got promoted high enough to get jobs like these.”
“Save it for the coffee break,” Harry snaps while pointing his wand at the door, ready to shield Dean as Ron covers Terry as their colleagues blast the back door apart and dive into the brothel. Pandemonium erupts as Harry hears a shriek and then sees a blue flash through the window. Rushing forward, he hears Ron following him up the back steps and into the kitchen to see a young witch in a short dress bound in the corner of the room while Terry and Dean move into the hallway.
Harry can hear commands being shouted and shrieks of surprise but after a quick duel between Terry and one of the male prostitutes it is pretty easy to subdue the occupants of the house and reinstate a sense of calm over the property.
The group of eight Aurors set about gathering the prostitutes in the front room of the townhouse that had clearly been serving as some sort of entertainment entrance way where customers picked their preferred prostitute before heading upstairs to one of the buildings many bedrooms.
“Nott isn’t here,” Edward Jenkins informs Harry bitterly as Harry puts magical cuffs on another of the prostitutes, “Five of them have said he is out of the country for the week. Getting more employees as it were from Eastern Europe.”
“So it looks like they are going to co-operate?” Harry asks quietly, moving to the edge of the room where they won’t be overheard.
“Seems a few of them will,” Jenkins replies with a nod and grim face, “I don’t think they have permission to be here so maybe they think co-operation will prevent them being deported. If some of them are Bulgarian...”
“Yeah,” Harry nods, thinking of his recent conversations with Hermione who now worked in the international relations department. He knew through her that even Victor Krum had fled his homeland when the bloody revolution broke out. He shudders, not wanting to know how bad things must be if so many consider selling themselves for sex as a better alternative.
“I will start getting these off to the slammer. Can you take Weasley and Boot and check upstairs? There must be more of them”, Jenkins asks with a hopeful look that just about masks his unease and Harry sighs and nods. Clearly he didn’t want to catch anyone at work either.
“Did we catch any clients when we busted in?”
“None so far, they scarpered as soon as they saw us. One lad left a bit quick...well Thomas has taken the girl to St Mungos.”
Harry nods, not wanting or needing to know anymore, and orders Ron and Terry to follow him up the stairs. The decor is tacky and old fashioned and yet fits with what Harry imagines an establishment such as this would look like. Not that he had given it too much thought, he thinks to himself while making his up.
“Start at the top and work our way down?” Ron suggests grimly, wand at the ready.
Harry nods and they carry on up to the third floor after checking no one on the second was about to attack them. Ron bustles past him to the door at the end of the corridor and throws it open to find it empty. Harry then moves on to the room opposite and finds the same. Moving from one to another sometimes Harry finds empty rooms and other times he startles witches and wizards that Merlin must be younger than James and sends them down to his colleagues before continuing with his search.
It is in the last room he looks in that he finds something totally unexpected. The room is no bigger than the others, painted the same dark blue with the same large bed, and the same bland furniture. It is not the surroundings that throw Harry but the occupant he really wishes he wasn’t able to recognise. Clearing his throat, Harry enters the room with his wand trained on the young wizard sitting completely naked and unfazed on the bed immediately summoning the other man’s wand from the bedside table.
“Stand up and put your hands behind your head! Now!” Harry barks automatically, wary of the blond who obediently gets to his feet and does just that without appearing affected at all by the Auror standing with his wand pointed at him as he stands there naked as the day he was born, “State your name.”
“Scorpius Malfoy,” the blond drawls and it sounds so painfully familiar that Harry feels like he had been punched in the gut. He had thought it was him but just didn’t want to believe he might be right.
“Thought so,” Harry grunts with a nod, “Put some clothes on. I’m not taking you downstairs like that.”
“Why not?” Scorpius asks quietly, “Worried I might turn you on and that you will be embarrassed. That is ok; I know I look good.”
“Clothes,” Harry growls, telling himself that he has done enough of these things to be above letting a hooker get under his skin no matter who his father is.
“Yes, Sir,” Scorpius mutters, appearing irritated that his teasing hasn’t worked as he crosses to a wardrobe against the back wall and pulls a t-shirt and jeans from the top shelves before bending over to reach down for some shoes, completely uncaring that he is showcasing his pale round arse to Harry who can’t help but take a look.
It really is a fine arse.
Somehow, when Scorpius has pulled his clothes on he doesn’t look so confident. His arena is sex and when he turns and faces Harry in preparation to be dragged downstairs with his co-workers, Harry feels like he has been punched in the gut again. This man was at school with Albus; he can’t be older than nineteen years old and an impulsive urge takes over Harry’s senses. The others they had found were older, knew better, and chose to do it anyway. Scorpius was young and had time to fix things, but not with a record that branded him the prostitute son of an ex-death eater.
Harry should take him downstairs and process him but he can’t. He just can’t.
*
It is several hours before everything is settled and Harry can return to his office where he has hidden Scorpius. The blond had thrown a fit when he was Apparated over and demanded to be taken back which worried Harry if he was honest with himself. Plenty of charms and wards had kept his young prisoner silent and locked in as Harry had gone about his work but as soon as the Auror gets in the door he can tell the young man has spent the whole time he was gone fuming.
“I demand you release me at once! My father always said that you were arrogant and thought yourself better than anyone else but I never thought you would kidnap someone, Potter!” Scorpius tirades while jumping to his feet and storming across the office to get right into Harry’s face.
“Oh, are we going to talk about your father, Scorpius? Funny that because I certainly wouldn’t mind. Does he know what you ...do for a living exactly?” Harry replies calmly, using his years of training to hold back the emotion filled response he might have unleashed in his youth.
As he expects him to, Scorpius huffs and throws himself back into the chair he had been previously occupying, remaining silent for a few moments as Harry crosses the room and takes his seat opposite the sullen blond before muttering, “Let me out.”
“You want to be arrested for prostitution?”
“No,” Scorpius sulks, “What is your angle here, Potter? Why didn’t you arrest me before?”
Harry shifts slightly in his chair, eyes darting to the door for a moment, before he returns his gaze to the blond. He had known all afternoon that he would have to answer that question and yet still hadn’t been able to come up with an answer that was truthful. Instead, he offered Scorpius the version of the truth that he had been attempting to convince himself of.
“You were at school with my son. My youngest son,” Harry rasps, watching carefully as Scorpius’s face crumples into confusion.
“Yeah why-,” he being only for Harry to swiftly cut him off.
“The others who worked with you. Most of them were older, some of them refuges from Bulgaria, many of them uneducated but you were different. I remember you being the subject of frustrations in my family because you were so intelligent and yet....there you were,” Harry states truthfully, finding it best to cover his own motives without using lies. The thoughts had crossed his mind after all.
“So, you bailed me out because of some twisted guilt that it might have been Albus? That is fucked up, Potter,” Scorpius states factually, and Harry nods because at the end of the day he is right. Scorpius doesn’t say anything more though, merely shifts in his seat and looks uncomfortable, probably because at the end of the day twisted or not Harry had kept him out of jail.
“If you get a conviction like that,” Harry begins again, only for Scorpius to be the one cutting him off now.
“Yeah, I know what it would mean. Thanks for...whatever. No one does something like that for free though. What do you want from me?” There is a steel to Scorpius’s voice which almost covers the fear that only trained ears pick up on. Harry files the information away for later and shrugs.
“I don’t know to be honest. I wasn’t really thinking all that far ahead,” he states, before conjuring up some sandwiches and juice out of the blue and taking a sandwich for himself before pushing the plate towards a bewildered Scorpius, “You spoke of your father but didn’t threaten me with him as I might have expected which makes me think you’re not talking to him. Given where I found you, I have to be honest I was interested.”
“My father is none of your business,” Scorpius responds with a blush, “When can I leave?”
“When I say so,” Harry responds bluntly, with a toothy grin that isn’t at all professional and makes Scorpius feel deeply uncomfortable.
There is an idea forming at the back of Harry’s mind and his conscious struggles to fob it off every time Scorpius shifts in his chair, pushes a strand of chin length golden hair out of his face, or blushes a light pink. The boys is pretty, beautiful even, in the classical way that seems so rare these days. His hair is blond, but not the dramatic platinum of his father, and he has his mother’s blue eyes that stand out so brightly against his pale skin. Harry wants to understand him and his motivations.
It was true, what he had said, in that Scorpius had been at school with Albus and both he and Rose had commented on how intelligent the blond was on many occasions. So how had he ended up in a brothel in Manchester selling himself for sex? The boy had left Hogwarts with a score of NEWTs as far as Harry could remember and his current situation didn’t make sense. The Auror is overcome with a need to understand him, and finds himself shifting in his seat again at the thought of all sorts of men having their hands on his beautiful pale skin, running their hands through his blond hair, and using his body for their own gratification.
“You will get in trouble if you hand me over now,” Scorpius observes, as if he can tell what the older man is thinking, “You’re Harry Potter, but you’re not the Head Auror.”
“True,” Harry grins, “But what if...I don’t plan on handing you over to my colleagues.”
“I am afraid that I don’t understand,” Scorpius drawls slowly, and Harry resists the urge to search the room for someone else before calmly picking up another sandwich.
“I don’t want you to go to jail Scorpius but I can’t just let you go back to your, um, previous place of um residence either,” Harry mutters, stumbling over the words slightly though he isn’t sure why. He knew what Scorpius was and he had already said as much, “You have qualifications don’t you?”
For a moment Scorpius just stares at him, his face cold and completely blank, giving away nothing as he turns Harry’s words over in his mind.
“Yes. I sat my NEWTs like you said and I got good marks. Why?” he demands, warily, not bothering with the confident front now because he obviously has no idea what Harry is thinking. Harry isn’t entirely sure that he knows himself. It is more like he is making it up as he goes along and hoping it doesn’t blow up in his face. He just knows that he has dealt with criminals and vile people and Scorpius isn’t one of them. He had a chance to fix his life but he couldn’t do that with a criminal record behind him.
“I don’t have to hand you over, like I said. I can get you out of here if you will give me your word that you will find a proper, legal job,” Harry states quietly, perhaps not thinking things through, definitely not being rational.
“And in the meantime? Haven’t you noticed that things are a bit hard right now? I mean, business was slow recently,” Scorpius states, referring to the financial troubles that had been plaguing wizarding Britain for the past six months or so.
“I can give you somewhere to stay,” Harry states more calmly than he feels, because he really is doing this, letting those thoughts that he has had in the back of his mind for several hours come to fruition and take over. He is letting his emotions rule his head, his attraction to the younger man and his pity override his common sense, “I can support you.”
“Financially?” Scorpius drawls, “Because if it isn’t financial then there is really no reason for me to accept. I have to eat while I look for this job you expect to fall into my lap and there are other places I could earn my keep in the meantime.”
“You’re not going back out on the streets, Scorpius,” Harry warns, sternly, “No one is going to be buying your services.”
“No one?” Scorpius says slowly, wicked smile playing at his lips because he has always been good at reading people and as much as Harry had thrown him for a rather large loop he was starting to put the pieces together, “Or no one else? Are you attracted to me, Potter? Is that what this is about? Letting your dick make the decisions for you?”
“You’re not going back out on the streets if I have anything to say about it. I can support you financially,” Harry states, his feathers ruffled, cheeks blushing slightly. He can’t outright deny what Scorpius had said because frankly he didn’t like lying to people and that is exactly what he would be doing if he did so. He was attracted to Scorpius and more than that, he wanted him.
“What is the catch?”
“The catch?” Harry asks with a lopsided smile, “The catch is I’m not known for thinking ahead and I might change my mind later. Of course, you might have this over me but I have charges of prostitution over you and, well I’m Harry Potter.”
He says it apologetically but that doesn’t make it any less true. Scorpius sighs and looks at the ceiling. He can’t really say no.
***
The flat is small but nice enough but definitely has more of a ‘dirty little secret’ than ‘secret lover’ feel to it. There is no mistaking that this is all business as the place is barely furnished and Scorpius can see exactly where his first ‘wage’ will be going as it were. It was clear that this was Harry’s escape from the marriage that obviously wasn’t as happy as people thought it was. Scorpius won’t be ungrateful though; it was certainly better than where he had been working before and at least he knew Harry wasn’t carrying anything and could be pretty sure that the older man would not hurt him. At least not deliberately.
Surely, he could trust the Auror that much. Trust him as much as Scorpius Malfoy trusted anyone these days right enough. He had trusted too many and been burned before. The world didn’t like the Malfoy family and had not forgiven them for the last war. Wars and passed before with families on the losing side squirming their way back into society but the last had been different. It had been too vicious, too deadly, too underhanded and horrifying to be forgiven. A job was not going to fall into his lap even if he wanted one but as long as this was available it would do. He knew what he was dealing with and that could be enough for now. It would have to be, at least until he had enough on Harry to get away without him coming after him with all the charges he had against him.
“It isn’t bad,” Scorpius mutters, to himself mostly but close enough to Harry so that the older man will hear him, “I’ve been in worse.”
“You really are a Malfoy aren’t you?” Harry states flatly, shaking his head while wandering through to the kitchen and putting the kettle on. Scorpius can instantly imagine a wary Harry, haggard from a screaming match with his wife putting on the kettle to make coffee that is far too strong and sitting down to drink it on the sofa with hastily made cheese on toast while watching that strange muggle box that Scorpius can’t remember the name of.
He doesn’t rise to the statement, because he doesn’t even feel like a Malfoy anymore. He certainly wasn’t wanted back there nowadays.
Harry goes about making cups of tea, the muggle way, which added to the thing in the corner convinces Scorpius that they must be in a muggle area of wherever they are, which jolts him because he suddenly remembers that he doesn’t actually know where he is and so questions the Auror the minute he enters the living room.
“Cardiff,” Harry replies gruffly, “You know I live at Godric’s Hollow right? Well, Apparating to London every day is enough of a strain on my energy so being closer to home while blending in seemed like a good idea.”
Scorpius nods robotically and takes the cup of tea from Harry without thinking about it. He had never been to Wales. Ever. They sit and drink their tea in silence until Scorpius has had most of his and decides that Harry has had enough. The whole situation is too normal, domestic even, and however strange the whole thing may be Scorpius still has a job to do, even if Harry had never outright demanded anything.
It would probably be so that he could defend himself with that fact later.
Putting his cup back on the table, Scorpius turns and takes Harry’s cup, putting it to the side too before climbing into the Auror’s lap, “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Pardon?” Harry squawks, but it only makes Scorpius laugh and run his hands through the older man’s hair.
“Don’t play coy. You have a hooker locked away in your secret apartment and we both know the deal. What do you want me to do?”
“I didn’t plan this,” Harry blinks and Scorpius smirks because he is counting on that.
“You mentioned that. Gryffindors always jump in head first without checking how deep the pool is. I’m here now though and you were right; you have everything over me. Might as well make use of my talents and I promise, Harry, I am very talented,” Scorpius promises, hands dropping to Harry’s shoulders, rubbing at his tense muscles and squirming very deliberately in his lap, “You have had a long and hard day haven’t you? I can help you relax. I can make you forget all about it; that is what I am here for. For your pleasure.”
It is a practiced speech, the movements familiar, and he doesn’t really have to think about where the ties of the robe are, where each button of the shirt underneath is and it is practiced hands that undo the buckle on Harry’s trousers. Harry’s boxers are bulging and Scorpius smirks knowingly as he palms his erection through the material and feels him buck into the touch. Harry’s glazed green gaze at him as if not really seeing him, just feeling and that is familiar too. Sometimes it feels good because it means the way he is rolling his hips and teasing is as good as he claimed it would be and at the same time sometimes it stabs at his heart because he could be anyone and despite all his intelligence he has become a pretty face that Harry isn’t even noticing.
“Do you want me to suck you off?” Scorpius enquires lightly, his hand now under the waistline of Harry’s boxers, fingers rubbing at the head of the elder man’s cock.
Harry finds his eyes and then reaches around the blond to squeeze at his arse cheeks, “Might as well go all out. I want to fuck you. That is what sluts do right?”
“I’m not a slut thank you,” Scorpius replies sulkily, before pouting slightly and leaning down to lick the shell of Harry’s ear and whispering, “I’m a whore. I get paid.”
With that he pulls back and expertly slips out of Harry’s lap and back onto his feet, winking, before making his way towards he hopes is the bedroom. He immediately begins to pull of his clothes, throwing them carelessly to the floor as he hears Harry get up and follow him, slipping into the room and then stopping by the door in just his boxers and trousers, the latter halfway down his thighs. His youthful face and wide eyed gaze makes him look so much younger than Scorpius’s father and the blond wonders how many times he has done this before if at all. He is almost certain that Harry is bisexual if not gay and that he has slept with men before, probably here, but whether or not he has paid a prostitute before he isn’t sure. He seems to shy for it, too uneasy at the thought of giving instructions and Scorpius tucks the information away for later because it can easily be used to his advantage.
This is business and Harry’s naivety is a business opportunity in Scorpius’s book.
Carrying on with stripping himself naked, Scorpius mentally tries to relax himself for what is to come, while Harry fumbles his way out of his trousers and boxers, before shifting around the bed and pulling a bottle of lube from the bedside table and throwing it onto the bed as he sets his glasses down.
“You’re clean?” he grunts at Scorpius.
“We used those muggle condom things to stay clean,” Scorpius states, “Boss didn’t want any of us taking nights off to recover from anything that could be prevented.”
“And what about what couldn’t be prevented,” Harry demands while crawling onto the bed, slipping back into interrogator mode when he notes three light purple bruises around the younger man’s wrist, like the imprints of angry fingers pinning him down onto a bed.
“It isn’t the safest of jobs,” Scorpius concedes, “Is this really the place though? I thought you wanted me.”
It is almost sulky, the way he says it, but he doesn’t care because it works and that is what is important. Harry shrugs and wraps his hand around the back of Scorpius’s neck but when he tries to pull the blond towards him Scorpius places his hands on Harry’s chest and pushes away from him.
“No kissing,” he states firmly, causing Harry to raise an eyebrow at him.
“You’re hitting every cliché possible in your actions, you know that? Little lost boy who doesn’t kiss but gets fucked for a living,” Harry mutters bitterly and Scorpius says nothing because really Harry has no right to get mad at him because he won’t kiss. Scorpius will let him do almost anything else because when it comes down to it he doesn’t really care. He wants to be above street corners but apart from that, he’s notorious in his trade for being open to anything.
“It isn’t a whore thing. It is a Scorpius thing,” the blond mutters before pushing Harry onto his back and immediately shifting down his body to suck on his cock and effectively shut the other man up.
Kisses had bad memories. Memories of people pushing him against walls and crushing their mouths to his as they shoved their hands down his trousers and groped at his dick, his arse, his balls, driven by lust and not really giving a damn about him. Even at Hogwarts people wanted him for his beauty and then sex and not a relationship. People wanted him but they didn’t care about him and maybe Harry was right and it was a cliché that he ended up in the sex trade but at least it was something he was good at and he had been around people that understood him and with a roof over his head.
After his father had thrown him out, it wasn’t as easy as Scorpius had hoped to be his own person and not just the Malfoy heir he had been raised to be.
He feels Harry pulling on his hair as he licks up his shaft and hums around it teasingly, almost amused when Harry moans deeply at the sensation. Expertly, he rubs at the soft skin of Harry’s balls, and the sensitive flesh of his inner thighs until he had Harry on the edge, drops of sweet pre-cum dripping onto the blonds’ tongue as he pulls off him. Reaching for the lube, he squeezes some onto his fingers and reaches between his legs to hurriedly prepare himself, the familiar burn returning some of his confidence, reminding him that this is what he does and that ultimately he is in control of the situation. There was no escaping into the hallway this time, no bodyguards in the reception area downstairs to deal with customers that went too far but he knew where Harry’s wand was if not his own and he could still get out.
“How do you want to do this?” he pants, adding a third finger to his stinging hole and stretching himself further as Harry looks on with greedy eyes.
“I said, I wanted to-“
“Yeah, yeah I know that,” Scorpius cuts in, “You want be on my back, my front, to ride you, what? I can do whatever you want me to, baby.”
The ‘baby’ was a mistake and Scorpius knows it the minute he lets it slip, forgetting Harry doesn’t do this, but he tries not to give away any sign that he knows he screwed up, just finishes preparing himself and waits on Harry’s verdict.
“Ride me,” Harry states, a blush covering his cheeks as Scorpius smirks and crawls on top of him, grabbing his cock in a firm grasp and rising above it before slowly easing himself down, feeling the head pushing past the rings of tight muscle until Harry is inside him, lowering further still until he has taken him all in. It isn’t so difficult after he’s had so many but there is still a painful burn as he does so.
So he does ride Harry, hard and fast and it hurts but is a burn he is used to and it turns him on. He’s learned by now not to make a sound though, merely settles his hands on Harry’s shoulders and immediately raises himself back up again and then down, throwing his head back as Harry grunts and settles his hands on Scorpius’s hips. He feels his own cock harden as Harry moans and grips him hard enough to leave moon shaped marks on pale skin. Scorpius grips his erection and jerks himself off while rolling his hips and tweaking Harry’s nipples until the older man comes with a gasp and goes limp underneath him.
Finishing himself off, Scorpius rolls off the bed and heads for the bathroom, cleaning himself off and taking a damp towel through to Harry who takes it with a muttered thanks. That is the moment when the uncertainty returns. This is new for Scorpius. This is not where he demands payment and asks his customer to leave because it is he who is the intruder now and his arse has become his rent money.
He goes for his clothes, pulling his boxers back on before sitting on the edge of the bed, his bed, and turning towards Harry.
“I will need a change of clothes. Will you be able to get my things?” he demands, suddenly aware that he lacks all of his possessions and Harry hadn’t mentioned returning them.
“No, everything was taken as evidence,” Harry mutters after a few seconds, still basking in his post-coital bliss, eyes shut and his answer slightly slurred as if he is falling asleep, “It can’t be traced to you though.”
“That was all I had,” Scorpius says quietly, almost to himself and Harry is suddenly far more awake than he wants to be, cringing because the more he learns about Scorpius the more sorry for him he feels and the blond will detest that. Harry can tell that the younger man doesn’t want to be pitied or viewed as the poor little hooker that got thrown out by his aristocratic father for being gay but that is exactly what he is. He doesn’t need to confirm it for Harry to know. All he has is what Harry has given him and Harry is almost overcome with a strange need to protect Scorpius and he hates himself for it because all of this is still wrong.
Wrong. All of it.
***
Harry didn’t stay the night which was a huge relief to Scorpius and more importantly he left him some muggle notes to go out and get food and clothes with. He still hadn’t returned Scorpius’s wand to him so he was pretty much stuck just going out and putting everything he had learned in his compulsory Muggle Studies class to the best use he could to get what he needed.
He was left alone for several days, only a few notes about the case of the brothel sent with a tawny barn owl showing that Harry remembered he existed and Scorpius didn’t understand any of it.
He was being paid to stay there and for Harry to make use of him yet he was nowhere to be seen. It made Scorpius feel uneasy.
***
Harry comes back five days after dropping Scorpius off and brings Chinese and a scowl. Scorpius doesn’t ask and Harry doesn’t tell and the Chinese is good.
After that Harry asks if he can suck Scorpius’s cock and the blond isn’t sure what to make of it other than to note that he was right and that Harry had to be at least bi-sexual. So he shrugs, lets the older man suck him off on the couch with the muggle box thing showing a movie thing in the background as Harry licks his way around the head of Scorpius’s dick and jerks himself off at the same time.
“Having trouble at home?” Scorpius asks quietly when they are done and Harry is lounging on the sofa next to him flicking the channels.
“What makes you think that?” Harry asks, and it isn’t demanding and Scorpius doesn’t understand it because that is giving so much away and why would he do that?
“You’re here sucking your secret whore’s dick and watching muggle things instead of being at home with your wife. It is not hard to put it together,” Scorpius states, all matter of fact , more intrigued than anything else because this might give him what he needs. Harry has his prostitution over him and he might just have a secret sexuality and a failed marriage on the Auror.
“So what if I am? Your job isn’t to ask questions. I will be back in two weeks with your payment. Look for a job in the meantime. I’ve got a subscription to the Prophet set up for this place to help you look,” Harry replies without even looking at him, his voice nervous and unsure.
Scorpius merely smirks and goes to get some of the muggle juice he had taken a liking to. They both know that Harry will be back before the two weeks were out and that Scorpius wouldn’t have a job by then.
***
Harry turns up two days later, informs Scorpius he is on a lunch break, and fucks him on the bed from behind before he Apparates back to his work.
Ten minutes after he has left Scorpius rolls out of bed and pulls his clothes back on. Harry had looked stressed out and wary, he thinks to himself, before returning to the book he had been reading.
He wonders if Harry has things on his mind and then curses himself for thinking it. This is all business. Every fuck is something he has against Harry.
That is all.
***
That isn’t all.
Harry turns up on the Saturday, three days after his midday appearance, and brings pizza this time. He informs Scorpius that his wife is at his sister-in-laws and proceeds to tell him all about the problems he is having at work and how incompetent some of his colleagues are. Scorpius doesn’t want to be interested in it but finds himself offering his opinions on the various subjects anyway as they eat.
It is like Harry doesn’t get the rules of the game they are playing. He doesn’t understand what he should do; turn up, get whatever he wants from Scorpius and leave.
“I mean, just, he’s a complete twat you know? I don’t even know how he passed the entrance exams,” Harry moans to Scorpius, once their pizza is done, and the blond casts his eyes up to the clock on the wall and rubs at his thighs.
Harry will move them to the bedroom soon he is sure. He has been talking long enough surely.
“Hang on,” Harry mutters, “Merlin, you’ve been listening to me moan, I should reward you for it.”
“No, no, that is my job isn’t it?” Scorpius says as seductively as he can manage, squeezing Harry’s thigh and tracing his fingers up the Auror’s jeans towards his crotch before Harry bats his hands away.
“No, no, none of that. What we need is booze! Hang on, I have something in the kitchen, unless you drank it?” Harry demands while getting to his feet.
Scorpius shakes his head, a little humiliated by the blatant rejection, and Harry disappears into the flat’s small kitchen before reappearing with a bottle of clear liquid that Scorpius doesn’t recognise and two glasses.
“Vodka,” Harry informs him, “It burns, but I find that is best.”
“A muggle drink? A spirit”
“Yes,” Harry replies with a glare, “Nothing wrong with that.”
“I didn’t say there was!” Scorpius responds sharply as Harry pours him a small drink, “Only asking. You know, drinking won’t fix things. At work or...with Ginny.”
“Don’t say her name!” Harry snaps, “Drink your fucking vodka.”
Scorpius does so, warily of this more aggressive Harry, but he needn’t be. He returns to ranting about work, as if Scorpius is his significant other or something, pouring out his frustrations and then rambling on about everything and nothing as the alcohol takes over. He keeps thanking Scorpius for paying attention and listening to him and for not caring that he’s slouched on the couch and eating pizza and none of it really makes sense.
Scorpius feels almost guilty at the way he is being treated. He feels guilty for the food and the shared alcohol that he didn’t put anything towards and the fact that he was saved from prison and a permanent record only to listen to the woes of Harry Potter while doing nothing at all to make him feel better.
Almost desperately he crawls into Harry’s lap, “You’ve had a hard week. Let me make it better, ok? I can help.”
Rolling his hips down into Harry’s, Scorpius smiles as Harry shudders and moans, grabbing the blonds’ arse cheeks and nodding almost to himself.
“Had a fucking terrible week. And Ginny...she wanted sex you know? I don’t want to be having sex with her. You’re better,” Harry grunts, slurring his words slightly and really Scorpius hadn’t realised they had drunk that much. Maybe this vodka was just stronger than anything they had had before.
“You prefer men then?” he asks, the vodka loosening his own tongue as he pulls Harry’s t-shirt free from his jeans and then up over his head.
Harry grins at him and shakes his head, “I prefer you!”, he informs Scorpius jovially while pushing him off and getting to his feet, dragging Scorpius up with him a second later and into the bedroom.
“You’ve only had me twice,” Scorpius drawls, amused at Harry’s antics.
“Have you again now,” Harry mutters, pulling him close and kissing his neck. Scorpius freezes but doesn’t push him away, wary as Harry gets closer to his lips before kissing the inside of his jaw and pulling away with a smouldering gaze.
Scorpius relaxes and then rips his own top off, sensing something is different but not wanting to comment on it, as Harry strips off and gets onto the bed to wait on him.
Harry fucks him again but in the morning he is still there and Scorpius feels strange. It hadn’t been rough or desperate or even lust filled. It had been slow and careful and at one point he had let his guard down and let Harry kiss him before pulling away and burying his head in the older man’s shoulder. He had liked it, not just in a sense of cuming, but he had really enjoyed it and wanted more of it and that wasn’t how things were supposed to work.
He wasn’t supposed to enjoy waking up and finding his client was still there. He wasn’t supposed to feel.
***
The paper comes and every day it advertises jobs and every day Scorpius doesn’t apply for any of them. At first he feels guilty, and scared, but then he just starts to feel confident.
***
Harry starts to spend more and more time at the flat with Scorpius. Sometimes they have sex and sometimes they don’t. On the days that Scorpius is alone he begins to miss Harry, wonders why he hasn’t come and slowly as the weeks pass becomes more and more jealous of Ginny Potter though it takes him a while to realise it.
Harry manages to catch him out and kiss him more than once and Scorpius stops telling him off for it because they are not bad memories. Harry doesn’t hurt him. He is paying Scorpius to stay there and suck his cock and let himself be fucked but he still seems to care for him more than any of the boyfriends Scorpius had ever had.
It unnerves him and sometimes when he is out and about later in the evening and recognises the women and men standing on certain city street corners as prostitutes he shivers and pulls his jacket closer as if they might realise that he is one of them and he finds he doesn’t want to be recognised as one of them anymore.
His life is simple and enjoyable now, without fear of beatings and customers being too rough, and he knows that Harry is clean and won’t hurt him and sometimes when the other man Apparates in during the week he will kiss Scorpius’s cheek because he is caught up in his own thoughts and doesn’t think twice about it. It feels like normality and something Scorpius could hold on to as opposed to his previous life which had been all about letting the world pass by with no attachments and without being noticed.
When he kisses Harry one night instead of the other way around he realises he has made the biggest mistake a prostitute can make.
He has fallen in love with his client.
***
Scorpius doesn’t tell Harry because he isn’t stupid and doesn’t want to throw away everything he has until he has a plan B at least. He just carries on as they were but the no kissing rule has gone. Harry has a knowing look in his eye but he never says anything about it.
Harry comes around more and they fuck less and eventually Scorpius asks about it. Harry informs him that his wife wouldn’t even notice and he doesn’t care and when it comes to sex it isn’t good for a man to have too much of a good thing. Scorpius doesn’t understand the saying, assumes that is comes from muggles, and continues on with his life as puzzling as it might be.
He is no longer sure what he wants. To stay, to go, to use everything he has against Harry against him or not. Every weekend Harry brings alcohol and carry out and gives away enough information for Scorpius to completely and utterly destroy him and then they have sex.
Scorpius is annoyed now, when he wakes up alone, and that is when he realises how much he’s screwed up his own plan. He isn’t sure whether he is annoyed with himself for it or not.
***
He starts to wonder if Harry has feelings to when the older man returns his wand one day and doesn’t give him any rules about it.
He trusts Scorpius to stay.
***
Scorpius is utterly astounded when Harry turns up with his trunks and a red cheek to inform him that Ginny knew he had a lover and he had been kicked out. He is too stunned to really say anything but moves his things about to give Harry room all the same.
“Do you want me to go then? I mean you will be wanting this place for yourself now won’t you?”
“Oh, Scorpius,” Harry says, and that is all he says, just looking at the blond with those big green eyes that seem to say everything he won’t before laughing and shaking his head.
Scorpius remains where he is for a moment, rooted to the spot, before he frowns and wanders off to put the kettle on because he noticed when Harry was anxious or annoyed he made tea and it seemed to work for him.
***
The money stops coming so rigidly and more appears when Scorpius mentions he is running out. They both know what it means and neither comments on it. Harry’s daughter Lily visits one day and Scorpius feels awkward and out of place but he doesn’t leave the living room because that flat has become his home and he belongs there.
She talks to her father, complains about her brothers, and makes Scorpius a cup of tea when she makes a pot and presents him with a biscuit he has never heard of as if visiting her father and his secret prostitute at what had clearly been his shag-pad was perfectly normal.
It is only after she has gone that it really hits Scorpius what he himself had been thinking.
“I’m not really your whore anymore am I?” he states out of the blue while chewing on his pasta, almost making Harry choke.
“Pardon?”
“I’m...well I thought...Lily said I was a secret lover,” Scorpius stammered, feeling a burning blush coming to his cheeks, “And when you moved in...”
Harry glances over at him with wide eyes and shakes his head, “Obviously. Did you have to say it like that though? Merlin I nearly chocked! Boy-Who-Lived defeated by macaroni! I can see the headline now! You stupid bastard. I think I stopped paying you for sex a long time ago. You could have left the minute I gave you your wand.”
Scorpius chews on his dinner, thinking things over. Harry talks about his day when he comes in, complains when Scorpius leaves his dishes all along the counter, asks him to do things for him during the day out in the muggle world and a couple of times had sent him into wizarding Cardiff to get this and that. Even though that was never part of the deal as it were, the younger man never refuses him.
Scorpius had never taken the chance to run. In fact he had come to enjoy telling Harry about his own adventures learning to blend in with the muggles and how fascinated he was with muggle technology .
Somehow, he had gone from a whore locked up to avoid being banged up in prison to Harry Potter’s lover and confident and he has no idea how it happened.
Scorpius loves him. He won’t tell him that but he does.
“You’re still wearing your wedding ring,” Scorpius says quietly, placing his bowl on the table in front of them as the adverts come on the TV.
“Do you want me to take it off?” Harry asks carefully, knowing it isn’t as simple as a piece of jewellery. This ultimately defines their status between them. It sets a boundary. It admits things. It puts them on an even footing.
“Yes. Yes, it bothers me,” Scorpius states firmly, claiming him completely from Ginny Potter and the life before Harry had raided the brothel and broken laws to keep him out of trouble and learn more about the shunned Malfoy heir that everyone else saw, “I don’t want you wearing it while you are with me.”
Harry removes it, sets it on the table, and it isn’t mentioned again.
Scorpius still doesn’t understand but eventually he stops trying.