Chapter Seventeen of 'Acts of Life'- Compromising
Chapter Sixteen.
Title: Acts of Life (17/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, eventual Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, some violence
Summary: That Harry returned Draco’s wand to him was only one small act in a life, one thing that he might have done or not done. But more acts succeed that one, and Harry and Draco find themselves sharing more and more of them.
Author’s Notes: Despite the angst warning, this story is more fluffy than anything else, and is episodic. It will be updated every Monday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seventeen-Compromising
The world shouldn’t look so much better after a simple lovemaking session and sleep and breakfast, Harry thought, but it did. He lifted a spoonful of porridge to his mouth and sighed. The honey he’d added to it made it perfect.
Draco leaned back on the other side of the table, shaking his head. “It amazes me that, with all the things the house-elves offered to prepare you, you wanted porridge.”
Harry grinned at him. Draco had brushed his hair, but imperfect tufts still stuck up along the sides, and his eyes were heavy with sleep. It meant a lot to Harry that he hadn’t thought he needed to appear dressed-up in front of Harry. “You haven’t complained about me putting honey on it. Like a ‘barbarian,’ I believe Hermione’s term was.”
“I think it’s strange.” Draco shrugged his shoulder and looked up as the door to the dining room opened. “But it’s not like it harms anyone.”
He has changed, Harry thought. And I don’t think it’s all my influence, either. He turned around to nod to Mrs. Malfoy. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Mrs. Malfoy’s eyes cut towards his porridge, and then she scrupulously looked away. She had the paper in one hand, Harry saw. He sighed a little. He suspected his idyll was almost over.
“What is it, Mother?” Draco had already swallowed his eggs and had been idly stirring a piece of bread through the remains of the yolk, but he dropped the bread and sat up.
I suppose that’s her exasperated face, Harry thought. Or her upset one. He didn’t feel that he knew enough about Draco’s mum to say.
Mrs. Malfoy held out the newspaper. While Draco was reading the second-page article, apparently directed there by some subtle signal Harry had missed, Mrs. Malfoy let her eyes flick over Harry’s pyjamas. If there was any disapproval there, Harry couldn’t see it. “I am happy to see you enjoying our hospitality, Mr. Potter.”
“So am I,” Harry murmured, provocative on purpose, and watched her eyes widen. He smiled once at her and gestured a little, releasing her from any suspense he’d generated. “No, really, I’m happy to be here.”
“Good.” Mrs. Malfoy looked for a moment as if she might have said more than that, but then turned to face Draco instead as he whistled. Harry wanted to say something about the cake he thought she’d sent by the house-elves more than once-including this morning-but he kept his mouth shut. If, for whatever reason, Mrs. Malfoy wanted to keep any “approval” of him under wraps, then Harry would oblige her.
At least for now.
“You have a situation to handle, don’t you?” Draco’s voice was a little strange, and Harry turned to look at him. “A messy one.” He held out the paper to Harry, and then pulled back his hand the minute Harry took it, lowering his head as if he wanted to hide his expression.
Harry had had enough of letting things lapse because he didn’t understand them, though. Specifically, when he was with Ginny and his friends and had avoided important conversations because one person didn’t want to have them.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You can tell me.” Draco shot his mother a look, and she stood up at once.
“You can, Draco,” Mrs. Malfoy said to Draco, and her voice was so gentle that Harry smiled. If Mum was still alive, I’d want her to sound like that with me. “I will not let my presence be a distraction from something so important.” And she left the dining room and shut the door quietly behind her.
Harry turned and stretched his hand out to touch Draco’s. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Because, I warn you, I’m not great at Legilimency, and it’ll hurt if I have to try and read your thoughts.”
*
Draco ducked his head. He hadn’t wanted to talk about this in front of Mother because it involved sex, but then she had gone and removed that excuse. His cheeks wanted to be on fire just thinking about it.
“Draco?”
Damn him for not letting this go. But Draco knew that a Harry who didn’t care and let the little things slip past him would have ended his friendship with Draco months ago, or just drifted away from him. At the very least, he wouldn’t have ended up in Draco’s arms last night.
That reminded Draco of what he had just thought concerning that fact, and he flushed and whispered, “You wouldn’t have come to me at all last night if not for her. With it being about her.”
Harry blinked once, twice. He was still blinking when Draco looked up at him, in fact, and added in a burst of bravado, “You’re still being more affected by her than all the rest. What am I, a substitute for her? Would you-would you have come here at all if you weren’t upset or if it was just other friends of yours instead of her?”
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping with you at all when I got here,” Harry said slowly. “That was just sort of the way it evolved.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I would have come to you if I was that upset about anything,” Harry said, and tilted his head as if Draco was the one who had behaved strangely. “More upset because it was my friends and Ginny, of course. But you’re not a substitute for her.”
“How can I be sure about that?” Draco whispered, his heart aching.
“If you won’t believe my words? You can’t.” Harry leaned forwards until Draco kept seeing him even with his own head bowed, and touched his hand. “Just take it as sure that I’m devoted to you now, and not her.”
“You don’t say-what you could have said.” When it came right up to the moment, Draco found that he wasn’t able to say those words, either.
“No,” Harry said. “Because I’m not sure whether I ought to call it love or not, yet, what I feel for you. And I’m not going to be dishonest with you, Draco. Never.”
Draco swallowed against the flutter in his chest. He could-he could sort this out. He could also turn his back on Harry and be upset about it and determined to reject Harry’s words, but he didn’t really want to do that. It was only such a horrible idea that he was being used in Weasley’s place that he had seized on it, and it was hard to let go.
“In fact,” Harry added, and drew Draco’s attention again, “now that the news is out, I don’t have to try to explain it all. And I’m hoping that you can help me think up some way to fix it.”
He held Draco’s gaze, his own silently demanding, and Draco understood what he wanted, what he was offering. Weasley was the one who had caused this particular problem. Draco was the one who could come up with the solution.
If Draco was a substitute for Weasley, it was only in the best way possible.
Draco managed a smile, and nodded. “I think so. But you do have to explain a few things. The papers only said that a group of war heroes had protested outside Hogwarts, attacked some Slytherin students, and then got attacked by the professors and arrested by the Aurors. What happened when you went to see them?”
*
Harry wanted to dance. Draco believed him. He sounded reasonable. The delicate situation between them, which Harry had been sure for a few seconds would simply explode, had calmed down again instead, and he had the chance to hope it would go on being reasonable.
“I did go down and speak to them last night,” Harry began. He had to shake his head now, thinking how silly and naïve he had been. “It was-a wash, honestly. The minute they saw me coming, half of them stood up and turned their backs. Others wouldn’t even come to the doors of their holding cells. But Ginny was the worst.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
Harry nodded. He had wondered how he could tell this story in a way that wouldn’t make either Ginny or himself look horrible, but he had promised to be honest. And if Draco decided one of them was horrible, surely that was a decision he needed to make for himself, and not because Harry had already made it for him and edited what he was going to tell him.
“She said that this was her political involvement, and it was nothing like mine. It didn’t involve compromises. It involved demands.” Ginny’s face was bright in front of Harry as he recalled her words, and how strong they were. Once, he would have believed them without question. She was so passionate, so convinced that everyone else was wrong and she was right, and he had been that way himself often enough.
“They want a memorial to students who died during the Battle of Hogwarts on the Hogwarts grounds. Reasonable, really, although they could have asked McGonagall instead of just assuming she would say no.” Harry sighed and rubbed his lip for a moment. “And compensation to the families of students who were tormented by the Carrows. But it was attacking Slytherin students that was inexcusable to me.”
“Maybe they thought they were evil.”
“I’m afraid that’s it,” Harry whispered. “And I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t going to survive in politics with an attitude like that. She might get some of what she wanted by protesting and speaking her mind, but attacking people-she’ll just be tried and put into a cell.”
“Are you sure the Wizengamot would do that?” Draco looked thoughtful. “There are people on it who might be grateful to her for her activities during the war, for saving their children if she did. And some who don’t like the families of the children she cursed.”
“But she could also hurt the child of someone with connections,” Harry pointed out. “And you forget how practical the Wizengamot members are. They’ll distance themselves if she keeps up this kind of thing.”
Draco nodded. “How strong is her group? If she was imprisoned, or anyone else for a long period of time, would they try to make them martyrs?”
“This is the first time I’ve heard of them,” Harry admitted. “Maybe if I hadn’t tried so hard to avoid thinking about Ginny or talking to her, I would have heard of them before now, but I didn’t.”
“Well, I didn’t hear of them, either,” Draco pointed out briskly. “And I spend time every day reading the paper. We can assume they’re new. Young. They might gain adherents, or they might not. The best thing you can do is defuse their potential causes for action.”
Harry slowly cocked his head. “You mean me, specifically?”
“Why not?” Draco cocked his head back. “The Ministry can’t do it, lest everyone who wants a certain thing think they can get the Ministry to cooperate by attacking Hogwarts students and shrieking about the Carrows. But you-you have enough pull as a war hero to counteract theirs. You have influence that might persuade the families of the children they attacked into dropping the charges. And you have the money to put up the statue and maybe pay the compensation, if you can look into things and decide it’s warranted.”
Harry felt himself smiling. “Of course,” he said, “I would have to carefully investigate the claims they made, and make sure that the compensation was warranted and going to people it was supposed to go to. And that it was enough, but not too much. Or too little.”
“Right.” Draco smiled back at him. “A process that can take a while and be intensely involved.”
“Intensely involved by the nature of the thing,” Harry muttered. He wouldn’t try to hold up Ginny and her group on purpose. There was just too much that had to be done before he would feel comfortable handing over money to people. Putting a price on their pain was-not something he wanted to do, either.
“Which, in the meantime, deprives their group of steam on two counts,” Draco said. “Their concerns are being addressed, so they can’t just run around saying no one cares. And they have to go slowly, instead of streaming ahead.” He hesitated. “Maybe on three counts, if part of this is being driven by Weasley’s dislike of you.”
Harry shrugged a little. He wanted to say that wasn’t it, that Ginny was simply a true believer in what she was doing and it had got a little out of hand, but yeah, the more he thought about it the more he decided he couldn’t be sure it was true.
“So.” Draco smiled at him and picked up the piece of bread to begin pushing it through his egg yolk again. “Can you commit to this?”
Harry nodded. “I can. I’ll start by speaking to McGonagall and making sure that she doesn’t have some other reason to object to the memorial than just the way it was proposed.” He touched Draco’s knuckles with his fingertips. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Draco grinned at him. “Plod along in hopeless confusion with no ideas of your own, no indication of where you’re going to go next, no hope for good sex ever again-”
He deserved the glob of porridge that Harry flicked into his eye, but Harry didn’t deserve the egg yolk that he promptly got in his hair, and retaliated. The elf that appeared, squeaked, and began hurrying to clean up while they were still hurling food at each other had to dodge them constantly.
And Harry’s heart was light and bounding. It seemed to give a new bound every time he caught a glimpse of Draco’s face, even streaked with porridge and honey as it was.
Yes. I can commit to this.
Chapter Eighteen.
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