Chapter Nine of 'Ad Pavonem'- Party Time
Chapter Eight.
Title: Ad Pavonem (9/10)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco eventually, Draco/Pansy
Rating: R
Content Notes: Ridiculousness, crack-ish humor, jealousy
Summary: Draco Malfoy, who had seemed to be staying out of trouble after the war, has been connected to smugglers of Dark artifacts. Harry goes to investigate…and runs afoul of a defensive spell at the Manor that makes it highly improbable he can complete his mission. Much worse, Draco doesn’t even know the defensive spell has been triggered.
Author’s Notes: This is a silly story that will probably have seven or maybe eight chapters. It should be updated on Sundays. The title is Latin for “to the peacock.”
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Nine-Party Time
“Do you see any sign of anyone else yet?” Ron breathed the words practically against Harry’s ear, and Harry knew his wits were at least slightly rattled because the first thing he thought of was how jealous the whispering would make Draco.
Harry literally shook the thought away, and muttered, “No. But you know how good they are at sneaking around.”
Ron nodded and fell behind him to pace in between Harry and the other Aurors. They were wearing modified Disillusionment Charms and others that would muffle most noise. The Auror Department had had a few embarrassing incidents where completely invisible or inaudible Aurors had captured each other instead of the criminals. Nothing like that was going to happen tonight.
Harry found himself tensing as they went over the wall, through the hole Draco had arranged in the wards. But he didn’t turn into a peacock, and neither did anyone else. They were still on their feet, moving steadily forwards.
The Elder Wand thrummed in his hand.
Harry understood the signal without knowing how he did. He stepped back once, jammed an elbow into Ron’s ribs, and caught the attention of the others with a little flex of his neck. He nodded to the shimmering of other Disillusionment Charms that were forming off to the side, moving too fast to blend in with the night. They were near one of the flowerbeds where Harry had found the footprints.
“Didn’t hear them?” Ron asked as a question against his ear.
“They muffled the Apparition.”
And strolling towards both groups of them, coming from the house, were Draco-his hair unmistakable even in the starlight-and Parkinson. Harry nudged Ron again, and he fell back one step with a nod. Then he and the other Aurors began to spread out, slowly so their charms would have time to adjust to the background, and surround the smugglers.
The smugglers had already dropped their own disguises. They were all staring at Draco with fierce looks and fierce grips on their wands. Harry had no doubt they would harm or threaten him if they had to. They probably wouldn’t kill him only because that would make the wards try to expel them off the land at once.
Draco’s voice was audible as they came closer. “I didn’t hear you summon them, Pansy.”
“It’s a twist on a ring, darling. Nothing so vulgar as a spoken word.” Parkinson tucked her hand into Draco’s elbow and nestled up to him.
Harry could feel Ron flickering an eyebrow at him without even looking around. They had sometimes wondered how the smugglers communicated, and a slight twist to a ring was a better idea than some they’d had. They’d known the rings did something, but the spell must rely on another ring in someone else’s possession, so they couldn’t be sure what.
The rational part of Harry’s brain thought about that. The rest of his brain entertained the idea of marching over to Parkinson and explaining to her in small spells why she should not be touching Draco like that.
Harry calmed himself with a harsh breath-this is harder for him than for you-and moved slightly to the side as Draco and Parkinson walked past him.
Draco glanced straight at him, or at least Harry could have sworn he did, and his eyes seemed to catch the light like an animal’s. Harry did his best to smile in reassurance, but his lips were strangely stiff. He ended up standing there and feeling like an idiot while Draco swept Parkinson on to the place where the other Aurors and the smugglers waited.
Someone, though, had sensed something, and shouts abruptly exploded from the night. Parkinson vibrated to a stop and shrieked, “Draco! How could someone get through your wards?”
Harry immediately went to work placing anti-Apparition spells over Parkinson’s immediate area. She would decide in a moment the only thing that would have let enemies through the wards-Draco himself-and try to flee.
Draco, however, separated himself from Parkinson and stepped back, shaking his head. “It’s over, Pansy. And as for coming through the wards, how long did you do that before you let me know about it?”
Parkinson turned to him with an open mouth and staring eyes. Harry tensed, expecting her to either run or try to Apparate. The spells he’d used were limited-area; large-area ones needed a license and the permission of the Ministry. He was in good enough shape to catch her in a sprint.
Instead, Parkinson shrieked and flung herself towards Draco, a blue spell like forks of lightning reaching out of her wand.
Harry didn’t think. He flung himself, too, but it was between Draco and Parkinson. And between the spell and Draco.
*
Draco had a shield lifted on instinct the instant Pansy screamed. That had always been the sign that she didn’t know what to do and was about to lash out at someone else.
But something muffled and moving hit the shield instead of Pansy’s spell, and bounced off it. Draco stared, not understanding. Then the blue lightning of the spell lit up a figure writhing in pain and muffled under what looked almost like a coat of dark, rippling water.
Harry. He was Disillusioned.
He’d better hope he survives the spell so I can kill him.
Pansy was casting another spell, rage driving her through what must have been a confusion as great as Draco’s. Draco coolly hit her with a special Stunner one of his ancestors had developed, one that would pass through a shield from the back. Pansy thumped to the ground, and the sounds of battle washed over Draco as though a bubble of silence had been punctured with her fall.
He didn’t care. He had an impossible, ignorant, arrogant prick on his hands whose suffering he had to stop. And whose ears he had to fill.
Grimly, Draco cast the countercurse to Pansy’s. Harry relaxed with a gasp and a limp surge of his head that revealed he was probably on the edge of unconsciousness. Draco didn’t actually care very much. Harry’s pain in the seconds before Draco could get to him would have been extreme, and his nerves could be affected in a less severe way, but a similar one, to how the nerves of those tortured by Cruciatus could be.
Draco immediately began to cast what healing spells he knew, and revived Harry a moment later. Harry blinked at him and turned his head to the side. “Where’s Parkinson?” he slurred, mouth trembling.
“Stunned. And the rest of your Aurors are fighting,” Draco said pleasantly. Just as he had thought would happen, Harry tried to dig his hands into the ground beneath him and stand up to join the battle. Draco flicked his wand again and he thumped back, in Incarcerous bonds. “Ah, ah, ah. Not so quickly, Harry.”
Harry blinked at him. “But you’re not hurt.” His voice was thick was something that might have been joy. Draco decided to take it that way. “And I’m not hurt, so-”
“She tortured you with the Nerve Lightning Curse,” Draco said flatly. “Yes, you’re hurt, and yes, you’re staying here because you would do no good in the battle anyway. And because we’re going to have a little talk about your propensity to risk yourself for me.”
“I thought you liked it.”
The way Harry accented that one word made a sharp shiver creep up Draco’s spine. He resisted the urge to give in to it, though, instead smiling blandly in response and tapping his wand against his thigh. “I liked it when it happened once. I dislike it more when it happens again and it becomes clear you could get yourself killed or wounded trying to keep me safe.”
“A small price to pay.”
Draco leaned over until he was staring directly into Harry’s eyes, and said, “No. It’s. Not.”
Harry blinked and said nothing. Draco sighed and tapped his own wand against the Elder Wand. A moment later he thought that had been a stupid idea, but the Elder Wand did nothing except give a low hum, as if Draco had crossed one of his own wards. “You have this. You could have cast almost any spell with any power that would have got in Pansy’s way, and probably used death magic I don’t know about. Why did you leap in between?”
“I-honestly didn’t think of anything else.”
Draco nodded sharply. “And that’s the part that has to change. I understand why you haven’t done it this way up until now, Harry, but now that you’ve got someone who insists on you being alive and unwounded, you have to.”
*
Now that you have someone…
Harry swallowed. And swallowed again. Not because Draco’s words had literally rendered him speechless, but because he was going to say something awfully stupid if he spoke just now.
That was what he’d wanted. Someone-and he had daydreamed about Draco but never assumed it would come true-who would have his back, who would love him, who would insist on privileges Harry would never give to anyone else. And suddenly he had that person, and that person was unimpressed with the way Harry was doing things.
I’ll change. I want to.
Harry reached up and clasped Draco’s hand, wringing it so tightly that Draco winced and stared down at him. But it was the only way he could think of to convey, without the words that would have been so difficult, what this meant to him.
“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you.”
“Oi, mate!”
That was Ron, coming towards them with his robes ripped and a slight burn mark on his face. He stopped and abruptly turned his back. “I’ll wait until whatever’s happening over here is…done,” he said, waving a vague hand.
Draco snickered and rocked back on his heels, levering Harry up with an easy flip of his arm. “Sorry to interrupt your battle, Weasley. I trust that you didn’t miss Harry too much in the final conclusion?”
“Considering he was always supposed to stay and arrest Parkinson,” Ron said dryly, still facing the other way, “no.”
Draco nodded and said, “Well, I don’t know about arrested, but stopped, certainly,” and Harry hoped that he was hiding his blush as he ventured over to look at the other smugglers.
They’d been caught completely by surprise-probably the only reason they’d been able to take them with minor Auror casualties, Harry thought, limited to injuries like the one Ron had and a nasty green growth on Auror Ferguson’s leg that had already been frozen dead and had stopped growing. They’d have to go to St. Mungo’s to remove it all the way. The smugglers were mostly Stunned, but a few, awake in bonds and wandless, scowled at him.
And at Draco. Harry murmured without looking back, “You’ll have to watch your arse for a while.”
“I’m sure you can help me with that.”
Harry shuddered and arched his neck a little. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this wild, this out of control. And he couldn’t even yield to it, because that would put Draco in more danger. These were already people who would attack Harry because of who he was. He didn’t want them attacking him because he was Draco’s lover.
“Snap out of it,” Draco said, in a way that told Harry he’d noticed.
Harry nodded, and stepped away from Draco to question the prisoners. There was always someone who would snap back at the sight of his, as they liked to put it, “smug face.”
*
“Good job, Malfoy. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
Weasley recited the words in a monotone, his gaze locked on the ground. Draco restrained his laughter and simply nodded. “You’re welcome,” he added a second later, when he realized Weasley wouldn’t look up to see the nod.
“I wonder whether your father will change his tune when he hears we’ve captured them.”
Draco blinked. It was something he honestly hadn’t considered. “I’m not planning on telling my father.”
“Really?” Weasley frowned. “I was hoping he might be startled to hear it and release some valuable information.”
“He won’t. Weasley, my father isn’t sane. I doubt he even knew the full extent of the smuggling plan, if he knew anything about it at all; maybe all of it developed after his trial. You’ll need to talk to Pansy about that, and Blaise if she implicates him.”
“Do you think she will?”
Draco shrugged. “Probably.” He thought Pansy would implicate almost anyone to save herself, but on the other hand, she’d held her silence and secrecy about the smugglers for far longer than he’d thought she could. She had dropped hints around him, but never anything major enough to make him think this many people were coming and going at the Manor on a regular basis.
“Good,” Weasley said. “Good, then.” He paused, then added, “The battle went too easily. These are probably the ones who could get here on a moment’s notice. Not all of them, and not their best fighters.” He sighed. “The more information we have about them, the better.”
“But you don’t need me for that.”
“No.” Weasley gave him a doubtful look. “Harry will still be working the case, though.”
“As if I want to control that.” Draco rolled his eyes when he saw the way Weasley looked at him.
“I heard some of what you said to him. You want to control him sometimes.”
“I want to stop him from jumping in front of curses for me when he can damn well find another way to stop them,” Draco said harshly. Just thinking about it made him see the blood on Harry’s white feathers again, and that made him want to strangle someone. Preferably someone who had a human neck now. “With the power he has, there’s no reason he needs to do that. He’s strong enough, he’s smart enough. He’ll find some other way.”
Weasley listened with his eyebrows rising further and further towards his hairline, and then he nodded. “Well, if you set it up like that, he probably will.”
“Probably will what?” Harry came jogging back from the questioning, grinning. “That tall one over there revealed some things he shouldn’t have, Ron. I know where a couple caches of their goods are.”
“You’ll learn how to use the Elder Wand and your magic in a way that doesn’t damage your body all the time,” Draco said, and slid an arm around Harry’s shoulders.
“Yes, I will,” said Harry, exactly as if he had always been planning to agree to that, and then nodded to Weasley. “Do you want me to just tell you, or to write it down?”
Weasley’s face turned a shade of red that was brilliant even in the dim light from the Aurors’ wands. “It was one time that I forgot to use the Pensieve!”
“And the time that Hermione asked you to tell that lawyer she was working with that news about house-elves, and the time that Calzade thought I was the one who lost a report that never existed, and-”
“Fine, fine.” Weasley tossed his hands up. “Write it down if you must.”
Draco blinked as he watched Harry grin and take out parchment and ink. He wondered why Harry was writing it down instead of simply accompanying Weasley and the other Aurors back to the Ministry and telling Calzade, or the Head Auror, or whoever needed to hear it, himself.
Then Harry caught his eye and gave him a smoldering smile, and Draco felt his chest shudder with his heartbeat. Of course, the promises they had made each other. He had honestly almost forgotten about that.
Now, with the way that Harry’s eyes and smile sparked as he wrote down several lines rapidly, he wondered how that was possible.
*
Harry handed the list of cache locations to Ron. The other Aurors had already Disapparated with their captives, and now only Parkinson was left, lying senseless on the grass behind Ron.
“There you are,” he said. “I’m sure Draco is eager to put his wards back up so that people will stop Apparating in and out.”
Ron stared at him, his gaze saying more clearly than words that he had thought there would be one more Apparition. Harry tilted his head haughtily upwards, feeling the flush course like river water through his face.
“Right,” Ron said finally, grabbed Parkinson, and Apparated with a shake of his head. A moment later, Harry saw the air shift in an intangible ripple that meant the wards were back up.
And then Draco grabbed him and kissed him so much that his mouth ached the way his heart used to, when he thought he would never have anyone.
Harry cupped his hand behind Draco’s neck and kissed back. They had promises to keep.
Chapter Ten.
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