Chapter Eleven of 'Leopardspaw'- Inconvenient Requests From Friends
Chapter Ten.
Title: Leopardspaw (11/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Eventual Harry/Draco, past Lucius/Narcissa
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, some angst
Summary: The Ministry is very sorry that its latest mistake-an artifact that was supposed to let Aurors detect lies-blew up on Harry, and now he can detect lies every time someone tells one. (Inquiries are continuing). The Ministry is also sorry that they can’t tell Harry how long the effect would last. (Unspeakables are working around the clock). And the Ministry would probably be two times sorrier if they knew that Draco Malfoy has hired Harry to find his father, who’s escaped from Azkaban. (The Chosen One should be able to have a full and normal life).
Author’s Notes: Despite the angst warning, and the fact that this is a mystery, it also has a fair amount of humor. I’m not currently sure how long it will be. The title is a variation on the term “catspaw.”
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Eleven-Inconvenient Requests From Friends
“Do you really think that line of inquiry will yield anything?”
Harry closed his eyes and didn’t rub his forehead only because he thought Malfoy was waiting for him to do exactly that. He admired the bloke, he thought he was fit, and he’d tumble Malfoy into bed right now if he was sure Malfoy agreed it was the best time. But as an ordinary conversationalist, he left more than a minor thing to be desired.
“I think it’s the best chance we have of finding out whether the Aurors that said they were on the island at the time your father was actually witnessed what they said they witnessed,” he snapped, and went back to writing his letter.
“They’ve already told you everything they know, the dunderheaded lot of them.” Malfoy slid down against Harry’s bookshelves and stared at the blank telly as though something about its glass was the real recipient of his displeasure. “How do you know that you’ll get any further with this?”
“Because it’s actually the sort of thing George will love, and Ron won’t be far behind him,” Harry said, snapping again in case Malfoy hadn’t got the message his tone of voice implied the first time. He ended with the line I have complete faith in you, which George and Ron would understand as their permission to go wild, and stood up. “I have to find an owl. Do you mind?” Malfoy was blocking the direct route to the door.
Malfoy looked up, blinking. “Of course I mind you bringing your friends into this. Did you assume I was objecting for my health?”
“Everything you do is for your health, obviously, the way you look,” Harry said. He hoped for a blush and a pulling-back-which Malfoy had done several times since they’d come home, as if he regretted that touch he’d given Harry outside Immortal’s interrogation room-and blinked when Malfoy stood up.
“This is unprofessional,” Malfoy said. “And threatening the investigation. I must ask that you stop.”
Harry gaped at him, and then sagged against the wall with a sudden attack of the giggles. It felt bloody good. It felt so good that he ignored the thunderous expression on Malfoy’s face and continued laughing until Malfoy made an attempt to slap him on the side of the head, something Harry wasn’t inclined to tolerate since he became a full Auror and his instructors in the Auror program couldn’t do it anymore.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he murmured, catching Malfoy’s hand easily and forcing it back. “Seriously, you don’t think this is already unprofessional? Hiring an Auror and asking him to ignore illegal activities?”
“I knew that you weren’t a shining beacon of light when I hired you,” Malfoy hissed, and seemed not to notice the way Harry stiffened a little. “But you talked so much about being a good Auror. I don’t think you flirt with every criminal you bring in. I’m asking you not to flirt with me.”
“You’re not a criminal I’m bringing in,” Harry said absently. “And who told you that I was-what? Corrupt?”
Malfoy moved back from him. “They hardly used that word,” he said.
It was intelligent of him to say nothing else, since it undoubtedly would have made the air around his head glow. Harry found that he admired the intelligence even as he resented the fact that Malfoy knew enough to stop speaking right there. It was infuriating.
“But someone talked about me to you,” he said. “Someone said that I was known for-what? Using Dark curses on investigations?” It was true that he had used some that were on the edge of illegality, but full-on Dark Arts were rare for him, whatever the gossipmongers at the Prophet thought. They were so hard to explain away, and it was so tiresome to undergo the tests that the Ministry insisted on afterwards, to make sure that he had no stain on his soul.
(If that was the tests actually proved, Harry never knew. Mostly they involved the Unspeakables earnestly waving a blue crystalline artifact at him, and given the way he felt about Unspeakables lately, he was more than half-tempted never to let them do it again).
“I don’t think I should repeat what my clients said,” Malfoy murmured.
The air around him flickered, faint scarlet, a statement that could be true sometimes and not others. Harry nodded. “Except when it could bring you some profit, right,” he muttered. “I bet you’d report some of the things you heard to Corinna soon enough, back when you were still afraid of her.”
He paused. The mention of Corinna, and the sapphire he’d kept, made him think of something else.
But he didn’t get far with the thought before Malfoy was stepping aggressively towards him. “You don’t know what I am, who I am, what I value,” he said, and waved his hand between them as though building a wall of air. “That’s only another reason we shouldn’t have begun this.”
Harry leaned towards him in turn, well-pleased to see Malfoy flinch. “You’ve hired me and kept me working for you this long with only the promise of payment,” he said. “I haven’t demanded more. I’ve kept going even when you lied and hauled me into situations where I should have arrested someone, if I was going strictly by Auror ethics. I told you what I wanted, and you were the one who kissed me. If anyone’s being unprofessional and trying to hide behind empty words and gestures here, it’s you.”
That caused Malfoy to splutter and step backwards at the same time. At least Harry could get around Malfoy towards the door, and he promptly took the chance, shaking his head about what Malfoy expected from him the while.
Then he stopped, as the idea about Corinna’s sapphire came fully into play.
“You think letting more people know what we’re doing is a good idea?” Malfoy’s voice came from behind him, having descended into an ugly, nasal whine. “You think-what? That your precious friends really will manage to come up with a way to collect all the owls that went to Azkaban that week and read the past impressions the letters they carried made on them?”
“It’s possible,” Harry murmured, his eyes closed. “There are spells the Aurors know that can pick up the emotional impressions impassioned or angry people leave behind on tables and chairs and murder weapons.” But behind his eyes, the idea about Corinna’s sapphire was coming into full flower. It was daring and impossible and mad, but what else had Malfoy hired him for?
“That’s inanimate objects, not living animals,” Malfoy snapped.
Harry opened his eyes and smiled at him. His mind was awash and acolor with the idea now; he had no more need to concentrate on it. “I didn’t know that you knew so much about the theory of that branch of magic. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You know so much about everything, after all.”
Malfoy froze. His hand had risen in an instinctive impulse to preen, Harry knew, and then he had halted the hand because he didn’t want to preen because of a compliment Harry had given to him. Harry snickered, a bit.
Malfoy moved back with an involuntary head toss. “You’ve come up with something else,” he said flatly. “I can see it in your eyes. At least, you must have done, because you can’t think this idea will work.”
In response, Harry tossed the letter to George and Ron into the fire. “We’ll reserve that idea for later,” he said, just to watch Malfoy shake off the words like a dog shaking off water. He would like to see George meet this new Malfoy and see what happened. “But for now, we can do something with this.” He dug into his pocket and produced Corinna’s sapphire, which he’d carried in contact with his body at all times. Leaving it around would almost ensure Malfoy would find it.
Malfoy stared at it, then at him. “You promised to send it back,” he whispered.
“Oh, I sent back a glamoured fake,” Harry said. “It’s clever. I think that most people won’t notice a difference. The reputation she has is what protects her, more than the sapphire. You’re the only one who would probably notice an extreme difference, because it really was only the sapphire that cowed you.”
Again Malfoy made that funny aborted gesture with his hand. Then he shook his head and said, “So what were you thinking of using the sapphire for?”
“I thought we’d make use of it to get into Azkaban and intimidate some of the other guards and prisoners there to show us your father’s cell,” Harry said, watching the interesting colors Malfoy’s face turned. “Then we could really find some results.”
*
“Then you are mad,” Malfoy said. It was his latest argument against the plan-number nine, if one counted all the arguments separately, Harry thought. He had decided to keep count of the separate ones, since it made for more of them than if he kept track of the screaming matches. When he reached ten, he would make Malfoy buy him ice cream. “I’ve hired a mad Auror, and no one you worked with spotted it. Oh, God.”
He sat down on the floor with his hands over his face as if he actually believed it, and Harry laughed in spite of himself. “No, of course you haven’t, you idiot,” he said. “The idea about the sapphire makes perfect sense. Corinna has a buried Imperius Curse in it. It was the sapphire you were responding to, not her. I thought you understood that already.”
“I understand that if we use it, she’ll hear of it and make my life even more difficult,” Malfoy snapped, standing up.
“There was a we earlier in that sentence, and then a my by itself, for reasons I don’t understand,” Harry said. “Do you think I would really abandon you to her wrath when I’m the one who got you into trouble with her in the first place?”
Malfoy stared at him with his jaw dropping slightly. Harry motioned to him, and Malfoy swallowed and shut his jaw. “But you have no reason to remain with me when this job is done and my father caught,” he whispered.
Harry shrugged impatiently. “There are at least two reasons I can think of.” He looked Malfoy up and down, making sure to let his gaze linger at Malfoy’s groin. “Or maybe three, if I really decide to let you go all the way.”
Malfoy put his hands back over his face again. At least he didn’t slide down the bookshelves these days, so Harry accounted it progress. “You’re insane,” he repeated.
“No,” Harry said. “Cleverer than they know, than Corinna realizes, or than you’re comfortable with, yes. I can understand why you think me mad, though,” he had to add gently. “You’re not used to anyone being able to outwit you.”
“You didn’t outwit me,” Malfoy said, popping his head up again. Harry was glad to know that he could make Malfoy engage with him so easily. That bade fair for his future chances of keeping the man interested. “We haven’t engaged in a contest of wits yet! All you’ve done is trample through my life and cast it into ruins.”
“And warn you that someone was trying to cheat you, and tell you about someone who would have used the Imperius Curse on you, and pointed out that the reason you were afraid of her was a load of bollocks,” Harry said. He tried to be gentle, again, but his voice was becoming more pointed, and so was the look Malfoy was giving him. Well, fine, then. “This is the way it is, Malfoy. I’ve helped you, and yes, I’ve changed things, but they were things that would have changed anyway. If you’d bought Flint’s nonsense and tried to use that thing to hunt for your father, you would have gone back to confront him. If you’d had to ask Corinna where your father was without an advantage over her, you would have paid a high price. Things always change. I’m surprised you don’t know that by now.”
Malfoy stood there for a few seconds, breathing in and out, in and out, in a way that Harry recognized from when Hermione was tired of dealing with him. Harry sighed and leaned back against the bookshelves. The only thing he could do with someone who found him so tiring was wait until they had some of their energy back.
Finally Malfoy said, in a low voice that indicated he was keeping it low partially to avoid screaming, “So. What would you advise now?”
Harry bounced the sapphire up and down in his hand. “I told you. With this, we can get onto the island.”
Malfoy shook his head. “One person can get onto the island, and there might be someone there like you who’s resistant to the Imperius Curse. And you can’t fool wards and guard spells. What story are we going to come up with?”
Harry smiled at him. “Don’t you know the way the Ministry handles the wards on Azkaban?” He paused, but Malfoy looked at him blankly, and Harry nodded. “Well, I thought you would. You strike me as someone who would want to face up to all the dangers of a place you thought you might be going someday, instead of someone who avoids them out of the superstitious fear that what you don’t learn about can’t hurt you.”
The only sound in the flat for long minutes was the grinding of Malfoy’s teeth. Then he opened his mouth and said, more sweetly than Harry had heard many birds sing, “Tell me how they handle the wards on the island.”
Harry smiled. He couldn’t help it, he thought. Malfoy was so-so infinitely pleasing. He would make a mistake, sometimes, because he was only human, but he always returned to the fray after he did it. Harry could count on him as he could count on few other people at this point, because those people either thought they hadn’t made mistakes or didn’t want to come back to the fight.
“The wards on Azkaban are linked to the Aurors,” he said. “It was thought safest. A prisoner might be able to bribe one Auror to get off the island, but not all of them at once.”
Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “And you think that someone-what? Did manage that, in order to remove my father? Or had a sapphire like Corinna’s?”
“They wouldn’t need a sapphire. Someone who wouldn’t stop at destroying souls,” Harry pointed out, “is extremely unlikely to balk at using Unforgivables.”
Malfoy shut his eyes. Harry watched him in something like admiration and something like pity; the emotion couldn’t decide which of the two it wanted to be. But then, Harry couldn’t decide whether he felt more admiration or lust for Malfoy, either, so at least that particular emotion was in good company.
Malfoy was innocent. In some ways. Obviously not of brewing illegal potions and acquiring illegal ingredients and meeting Dark wizards and trading favors.
But he hadn’t pictured using the Unforgivables. He hadn’t thought to look for an Imperius Curse in Corinna’s sapphire because, most of the time, he wouldn’t have associated with people who would use one. He was in the shallow end of that murky grey pool that Harry knew comprised the wizarding world’s black market, library of secret knowledge, and safety net for Dark Arts practitioners.
There are some things he wouldn’t blink at, but he would blanch if I showed him some of the situations I’ve dealt with.
And that meant Harry could feel towards him as someone he could protect. That pleased him to no end.
“So,” Harry said, when he felt Malfoy’s little reorientation to the world around him had gone on long enough. “I don’t know yet how they managed to slip your father off the island, but they managed. And we’re going to use that sapphire to impress and intimidate the first few Aurors we encounter.” He bounced the sapphire up and down in his palm, noting the way Malfoy couldn’t keep his eyes off it. That made it all the more urgent that he be the one carrying the sapphire for this part of the plan, Harry decided. “My reputation will do the rest.”
Malfoy blinked rapidly. “I thought you were going to go in disguised. And that I was.”
Harry closed one eye in a slow wink. “You are. You’re going to go disguised as a notorious murderer that we’ve been trying to catch for a while. I’m Harry Potter, Auror Extraordinaire, who finds legendary criminals just walking down the street.” He spread his hands. “That initial story will win us access. The sapphire will do the rest.”
“They’ll believe that,” Malfoy said, a strange note of satisfaction in his voice. “They do fawn on you, Potter.”
“Or I’ve finally learned to use the power of my name for one of the few things it’s good for,” Harry snapped.
Malfoy watched him through strangely shadowed eyes, and didn’t answer. He looked-he looked like some of the people Harry had talked to when they realized that he wasn’t a complete and total innocent to the ways of manipulation and subterfuge as they had assumed he was.
God, don’t start telling me that he wants a hero instead of an Auror, Harry thought, as he began to prepare the glamours Malfoy would need. He isn’t going to want to stay with me at all if that’s the case.
But he cheered up as he remembered Malfoy’s intelligence. If he did have that belief, he would get past it. He was too smart not to.
Chapter Twelve.
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