Chapter Eight of 'The Auror Method'- Freed From Burning
Chapter Seven.
Title: The Auror Method (8/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco (mostly pre-slash), mentions of past Draco/others
Warnings: Manipulation, slight angst, slight violence
Rating: R
Summary: Draco has constructed the perfect cover for his activities as a con-man specializing in thefts from a distance: Draco Malfoy, the redeemed Death Eater and Recluse of Malfoy Manor. But now there’s evidence that some people are onto him, and as a consequence of the death threats issued to him, he gets an assigned Auror guard. Maybe Harry Potter, their leader, could be a problem when it comes to Draco’s latest con. Although how could he, when he’s getting all distracted by Draco’s fluttering eyelashes?
Author’s Notes: This is a mostly humorous story that will probably be between twelve and fifteen chapters.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Eight-Freed From Burning
The pain was so intense that Draco was losing things. He knew for a second what curse this was, or thought he did, but the knowledge slipped away, and he couldn’t retrieve it. And then he was suspended above the floor with spikes of agony striking through his convulsing limbs, and his fingers ached, and he didn’t know what to do next.
“Malfoy!”
Potter was awake and on his feet. Draco didn’t know how, because he didn’t think the spell would have allowed his lungs to function enough for him to yell. But he was grateful.
Potter jabbed his wand towards the streamers of light that were wrapped around Draco, and began to murmur something. Draco lost the words, too, as his head sagged forwards and he felt something stab through his chest. It went between his ribs as though they didn’t exist, into nothingness and space. He was panting. He wasn’t panting. He didn’t know how to hold onto things, where anything was, in the midst of that spinning…
“Now.”
Potter’s voice was so calm, so devastating, so sharp. Draco latched onto that one word, the sound of that voice he had once known so well, and used it to drag himself back from the darkness that wanted to consume him.
Someone screamed. It wasn’t him. Draco’s pain had gone beyond screaming. But the pain lessened a little in that very moment, and he managed to force open his eyes and look around.
The curse was screaming. It was spun out from Draco’s chest, with Potter turning his wand over and over in a cranking motion, as though he had the curse wrapped around an invisible pulley. He brought his hand down a second later, hissing under his breath like a teakettle.
The curse thinned out and paled. Draco looked down and saw only a single streamer still sticking through him.
He opened his mouth to panic. Because a single streamer still sticking through him, maybe impaling his heart, was still a big fucking deal.
“Hush, Malfoy,” Potter said, and he said it between gritted teeth and with sweat still standing out on his forehead. He clasped his hands together and forced them down towards the floor. “I need you to be quiet so you don’t distract me.”
Doesn’t your own talking distract you? But Draco had no idea what curse this was or how to survive it if Potter suddenly stopped winding it away from him, so he shut his mouth and was obediently still. Potter was muttering to himself again, shaking his head as though someone was trying to wrap the curse around his head in Draco’s place. Then he took a long, sliding step forwards, and hit his hands together.
The light of the curse winked out. Draco looked down and realized the thing stabbing him in the chest had vanished, without his even being aware of it.
Potter turned towards him with a tired smile on his lips. “There,” he said. “You need to sit still for a minute, and tell me where your Pain-Killing Draughts are.”
“Lab, second floor, blue hinges on the door,” Draco began, and then sighed. Why was he falling into the trap of Potter’s mindset, when he knew perfectly well there were more efficient ways of doing things? “But you don’t need to go and fetch them yourself.”
“The vials could break if I do a Summoning Charm with as much power as I’ve got-”
“I have house-elves.”
Potter’s face flushed up with vivid color. “Oh, right,” he said, as though he should have remembered that, and then turned and clapped his hands. Draco was glad he did. Summoning the right sort of authoritative clap might be hard right now, as tired as he felt. He let his head sag into his hands.
A pop, and Draco heard the disturbed squeak of a house-elf a few seconds later. He smiled tiredly into his palms. It would probably start scolding itself any second for not having sensed the intruder in the house.
Luckily, Potter took firm hold of the situation before that could happen. “What’s your name?”
“Is being Hizzy, Master Potter!”
Draco sighed as pain spread all through his chest and began to ache in his joints. At least Hizzy wasn’t the most hysterical of his elves.
“Excellent name,” said Potter, which made Draco give him credit for more knowledge of how to handle house-elves than Draco had suspected he had. “Good. Your master needs help. Go to the lab on the second floor and fetch the strongest Pain-Killing Draught he has. You understood. Good. Go now.”
Draco heard the small thunderclap of Hizzy’s disappearance, and then Potter turned and knelt down in front of him, resting his hand on Draco’s knee. Draco bent his eyes and blinked, dazed. “I could have given him the commands,” he whispered.
“No, it really is best that you stay as quiet as possible.” Potter was calm, but there were wrinkles along the edges of his eyes that told Draco he was holding onto the calm in a forced way. “You see, that spell is designed to lead to effects that spread through your body faster and faster the more talking or other activity you do. A little talking like this, or breathing and blinking and moving your hands a little, is fine. But you shouldn’t do much else.”
Draco swallowed, and forced himself to remain calm and loose, sitting there. He’d heard of spells like that before, and poisons, and he knew the effect would be greater if he panicked and his heart began to beat faster.
“Is that goblin magic?” Draco finally forced his mouth to move and ask, using the smallest amount of words possible to make his point.
“You didn’t recognize the curse?” Potter was studying him, eyes a little narrow and hand still resting on his knee.
Not one to waste an opportunity, Draco forced a blush and moved his hand to cover Potter’s. “No.”
“Interesting,” was all Potter said, but then Hizzy reappeared with the Pain-Killing Draught, and Potter grabbed it and drew the cork. He almost crammed the lip of the vial into Draco’s mouth, and if he had broken his teeth, then Draco was going to charge the Auror Department for the necessary healing spells.
Draco swallowed, and felt a hardly-noticed hollow feeling that had been gripping the edges of his chest vanish. He sagged forwards, but didn’t let go of Potter’s hand.
“That was goblin magic,” Potter said, and his voice was deep and gentle. “Now. I really want you to tell me the truth, Malfoy. Please? There’s no need to hold back. No reason,” he corrected himself a second later, shaking his head. “The goblins have the impression that you’re trying to rob Gringotts, don’t they?”
Draco had to agree that it seemed they did. He thought about confessing the truth to Potter-but it was a truth that would instantly get him arrested.
No. He wanted the money. He wanted the boost to his reputation that robbing Gringotts would give him among people who knew the truth. He wanted the apology from the goblins that they would have to give when the Malfoy vault was “robbed,” and the extra money they would pay him as compensation.
He wanted to win. The efforts of someone at Gringotts who had probably overheard his firecalls to Jared made it all the more tempting.
“I didn’t recognize the curse,” Draco said, and looked over to the side, at the chair where Potter had been slumped. “But there were two spells, right? The one that put you to sleep as well as the one that attacked me? Maybe you should bring in some more Aurors. I can wait if you want to find some that you work with better than Mytherian or Greengrass-Rosier.”
Silence. Draco looked at Potter and found him staring at the floor with his face flushed as red as Draco’s should probably be by now.
Draco reached out and caught Potter’s chin, tilting his head up. “Hey,” he said softly. Merlin, his skin is really hot. He hoped that Potter wasn’t catching a fever of some kind. That would be all they needed right now. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Potter said, and swallowed several times. “Fine.” His voice was less than convincing, and Draco wasn’t surprised when he stood a second later and pulled back, pacing in a tight circle around the room. “Fuck, Malfoy. I’m so sorry. I’ve chased away the extra protection that could have spared you the pain from that curse.” He turned around and stared at Draco, dividing his gaze about evenly between his face and Draco’s supposedly bad leg. “Can you forgive me?”
Draco wasn’t about to let this chance pass by. Because, while he might have to sacrifice Potter’s regard for the money-and he would, without a pause, if it came down to a choice between them-he wanted both. He’d played the game, he’d taken risks in the name of the game, he deserved to have what he wanted.
It was one of the reasons he had started doing this in the first place, after all. To get back at the world that told him he deserved to have nothing nice after the war.
He leaned back and caught Potter’s eye with a slow smile. “I can do that,” he said. “If you’ll do one thing for me.”
“I’m not sure if I can strengthen the wards so that no more goblin magic comes in,” Potter began, sounding honestly regretful.
“Get over here and kiss me.”
Potter tensed all over, his expression shifting to miserable in the span of a second. Or maybe it went into deeper misery; Draco honestly wasn’t sure. “You don’t want me to do that. You don’t really.”
“Who told you that you weren’t desirable?” Draco made his voice soft and coaxing, the voice of someone sympathetic to other people’s plights. The voice of someone redeemed. “Come here, and I’ll show you otherwise.”
Potter hesitated, and stared at him. Draco had the mad urge to tell him that he’d heard Potter’s conversation with his boss. Potter had protected his virtue, and protested like the lady Draco supposed he was. He could go ahead and kiss Draco now with a clean conscience.
But Draco settled for looking pathetic and hopeful instead, and then folding in on himself. “It’s the leg, isn’t it?” he whispered. “Everyone tells me that they can get past it, but I haven’t had nearly as many offers to sleep with me since I hurt it.”
“Malfoy…” Potter came to him halfway through the sigh, though, so Draco didn’t have to scold himself for looking needy when it didn’t work.
Potter could kiss. Draco leaned back against the chair, not needing to feign the weakness in his legs now. Fuck. Potter had one hand confidently in place on Draco’s shoulder, his fingers stroking his collarbone, so warm that Draco ached. And the tongue in his mouth and the expert darting brushes against his cheeks made Draco long for more. He leaned forwards, and Potter gave a muffled noise and dropped to a kneeling position in front of him.
“Oh,” Draco said nonsensically, breaking away. For a second he couldn’t remember why, because he wasn’t about to give a speech, but then he knew. For air, and to admire the sweet flush of Potter’s lips.
He went back to taste them, but Potter put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. “That’s enough,” he said.
“Why?” Draco pouted again, and knew he was pouting, and knew how much of it was sincere. Potter watched him with worried eyes and didn’t know, though, so that made it okay. “You already kissed me once. Don’t you want to do it again?” He wound his fingers in Potter’s hair and brought him temptingly back in towards Draco’s face.
“You have no idea what you’re playing with,” Potter breathed, his eye shutting.
“I know that you’re a big, bad, dangerous Auror.” It was no problem to make his voice breathy. Draco arched his neck back, eyes fastened on Potter’s face. It was also no hardship to look at that face. Draco was glad for that much. He could have played the seduction game with someone ugly, but it would have meant a greater chance of betraying himself. “I like that about you. I like that you can save my life. I don’t blame you for being asleep. You already said that goblin magic crosses my wards without trouble-”
Potter made a harried, desperate noise, and lunged at him. Draco opened his arms to welcome him, and Potter didn’t bear them both down to the floor only because the chair turned out to be depressingly sturdy.
They rocked together, Potter pressed awkwardly close, chest into shoulders, mouth mashed against Draco’s. Draco was tangling his fingers through Potter’s hair, the hair on his head and at the back of his neck, and his hands were so busy, so full. So was his mouth, and he had a wild wish to pull back and start kissing Potter at the corners of the mouth, just to see what they tasted like, what was different-
Potter slid a hand down his chest, and then froze.
Draco tried to speak, but his breath was such a series of wild pants that he couldn’t make himself understood for a long second. Potter just waited there while he did, the fine tremors making their way down his arm and causing his hand to scrape against Draco’s muscles in a light, maddening way.
“You can’t stop now,” Draco whispered, and grasped Potter’s hand, and pulled.
Potter’s hand nearly got to where Draco wanted it, to where he needed it, before Potter curled his fingers and pulled his arm back. “You were just wounded,” Potter gasped, and slung his face into Draco’s shoulder, arms retreating to his shoulders, holding Draco tight. “You just-you could have suffered a lot more if you-hadn’t had that potion. I fell asleep and the spell came in. My fault.”
Of course if Potter’s going to claim something, it would be blame, Draco thought in irritation, and tugged at Potter’s unmoving arms. The disadvantage of pretending to be so weak was that he couldn’t believably sling Potter around like he wanted. “Come on,” he whispered. “You saved me. You know you did. It could have been worse, but it wasn’t. Come on.”
The need was spectacular now, with Potter so close and their warmth burning so brightly, and Draco reached up and hooked his fingers into the collar of Potter’s robe, wondering if he could “accidentally” tear the cloth and let things take their natural course. Then he snorted. Things probably wouldn’t take their natural course, not with Potter’s level of guilt.
“It could still be worse,” Potter said, and tore himself away from Draco.
Draco let his head dangle to the side in frustration and closed his eyes. Potter would probably think it was some other emotion. Or he was free to think it was frustration. It was unlikely he would connect the frustration to the right source, anyway.
“Potter,” he murmured. He didn’t know if he had the tone of voice right. It was just something he needed to say now, and he would say it and worry about consequences later.
“Listen, Malfoy.”
Draco opened his eyes and turned his head, but said nothing. He would pay exactly as much attention to this particular speech as Potter’s opinion was worth.
“It wouldn’t be fair to you.” Potter was pacing back and forth over this, running his hand through his hair. Draco followed him with his eyes, and said nothing. “You have no idea how deep this runs. You’ve said it yourself, that I’ve chased off the other Aurors who tried to work with me. I’m handled it all wrong. I’m not going to do something that I know you would end up regretting, no matter what you may think right now.”
“You’re making another mistake,” said Draco, and made his voice deep and smooth.
Potter turned towards him, almost eager. Maybe he loves being blamed. Maybe he’s a secret masochist.
“You’re making my decisions for me.” Draco shoved himself upright in the chair, but didn’t try to walk, not right now. He would probably forget the right angle for his leg, he was so angry. “I don’t like that. I want someone who’ll respect me when I say that I want something, and refuse me only for good reasons.”
“But having you regret it is a good reason!” Potter threw up his hands. “I’ve already brought enough chaos into your life by being an incompetent Auror. Are you really sure that you want me here to be an incompetent lover, too?”
At least he was saying the words now, instead of seeking refuge in blushes and all kinds of other idiocy. Draco slid towards him, to the edge of the chair. “You don’t know that I’d regret it.”
“I think I know more about-”
Potter cut himself off, maybe seeing the dangerous glint in Draco’s eyes, maybe hearing the dangerous direction that his words could go in. Draco nodded, saying nothing for a second, and then extended his hand.
Potter closed his eyes. Draco waited out this last, silent struggle.
Then Potter came to him, and it was all the sweeter because Draco knew about that “secret” conversation he’d had with his boss, all the more interesting that Potter was trying to seduce him on orders and acting reluctantly against those orders when Draco knew that Potter knew this was all a sham, but Potter didn’t know that Draco knew that he knew.
So sweet, Draco thought, and tilted his head back for the kiss.
Chapter Nine.
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