Songlines; Chapter 3
Jun. 27th, 2008 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silyaraTitle: Songlines
To:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joanwilder
Author/Artist:silyara
Pairing/Threesome: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione (side), Neville/Luna (implied)
Rating: R (overall)
Warnings: EWE, dom/sub
Word count: 19500+ (overall)
Summary: Draco is assigned to help Harry and Hermione find the Grangers in Australia. But along the way, the two are bonded, which changes everything.
Chapter: 3 of 7
Disclaimer: I am simply playing. JKR has the rights.
Request: Slash, post-war fic, romance, sex toys, consensual BDSM, Dom/Sub roles, sex in odd locations, desperate!sex, forced magical bonding, claiming and marking, EWE, united begrudgingly by a purpose
Author’s Notes: First off, thank you to my beta, C. I tried to fit in as much of the request as I could, but the boys didn’t want to do everything. They had their own ideas, and I followed along for the ride. I enjoyed it, and I hope you will too.
“I can’t believe Dumbledore knew nothing,” Harry muttered, as he opened yet another record of British wizards in Australia. In the two weeks since arriving back in warmer weather, they had not found anything – even after talking to Dumbledore and Snape (well, Harry talked to Dumbledore, and Malfoy talked to Snape as privately as possible). They could comfortably be one room apart from each other for an hour or so, which made washing and other private activities slightly more tolerable, but he had not been able to see Ginny yet. She had flipped out when she heard the two of them were still near each other.
Malfoy laughed, which he liked to do a rather lot at Harry, “He didn’t know everything, Potter. And aboriginal magic was not his specialty. Just keep reading.”
Harry grunted in reply. Nothing he said to Malfoy came off the way he wanted and could always be twisted so as to make him look stupid. And he only had a month until Auror training.
“Mm,” Malfoy hummed, “this is interesting. A young couple experienced something similar.”
“And,” Harry looked up, “what happened to them?”
“It’s some kind of bond. They, too, could not part from each other’s company for two years. The witch apparently wore the pants of the relationship just slightly beforehand, always getting her way, and that trait in the relationship grew more pronounced,” Malfoy paused.
“What? What happened after those two years?” Harry asked.
“It…doesn’t say. They fought and nearly killed each other twice; well she almost killed him. He apparently couldn’t stop it. But the record stops after those two years. There’s nothing else about them,” Malfoy pursed his lips, not looking very happy.
“And they began the…bond or whatnot liking each other?” Harry asked rhetorically, “Damn. That doesn’t look like we have much of a chance.”
“If there was this one case, there should be another,” Malfoy snapped, “Keep reading.”
Harry sighed, rather bored. Hermione and Malfoy would have gotten along wonderfully, except from the blood and House issues, he mused, for all the research they threw themselves into. His readings only touched on the aborigines, whom those recording were apparently frightened of, though the dark-skinned wizards had never seemed to harm anyone. The rather fairy-tale reports about them made Harry want to scoff at their stupidity. But he supposed he should not, as he had (at one point) owned all three Deathly Hallows, which were supposed to be a children’s tale.
“Huh,” he spoke aloud by accident, and Malfoy’s piercing eyes looked up at him, “this man is afraid of the desert. There is some ‘ancient power’ his group heard about that bound people together until they went mad and the one with power killed the other. He feared it forced slavery upon one of the parties, while the other had control. But the aborigines loved it for their own use. He often heard of males and females bonded together, occasionally two warriors. He doesn’t know what happened to the aborigines who did it though.”
“So it’s an aborigine magical bond that we don’t know much about, and they won’t tell us because we aren’t aborigines and therefore not supposed to be bonded,” Malfoy commented dryly. “Great deal of good that does us.”
Harry sighed, “There has to be something good about it, or the aborigines wouldn’t do it.”
“It appears to be a great way to break up any relationship,” Malfoy joked.
Harry looked up at him and sighed, “I am trying to be serious here.”
“I can’t live with you if you’re always going to be serious,” Malfoy commented, twirling his quill between his fingers.
“Since when did you make jokes?” Harry asked, confused.
“I thought 'Weasley is Our King' was quite genius,” Malfoy laughed.
“It was rude,” Harry crossed his arms.
“But funny. It was just an example,” Malfoy looked across the table and sighed, “Potter, when were we ever not at each other’s throats? There is a lot about each other we don’t know, but I am betting we are going to have to. Now, I’d rather live with you than be dead or in Azkaban for killing you. And looking at the history, you get to yet again break another record. You survived the killing curse twice, so think you could try to survive this bond?”
Harry felt astonished, “You’re…serious?”
“No, choke me now,” Malfoy sighed.
“Okay, okay,” Harry backtracked, “I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Do you ever think ahead, Potter? Or is that why you usually travel with Granger?” Malfoy smirked.
“That’s…very…” Harry sighed, “...funny if I choose to laugh at myself.”
“You know, Potter, living with a hero has perks,” Malfoy looked at him, and his whole face looked like it was laughing.
“What’s that?” Harry asked, waiting to be another punch line.
“You just drop the hero status, and you keep getting what you want,” Malfoy remarked, holding a hand up to Harry’s fish face. “Those records are private,” he imitated Kingsley. He then copied the face Harry gave Kinsgley that read, “I saved the entire world. Certainly I could have such a small favor as this…”
“Yeah yeah,” Harry waved at the air, “I needed to know. This was – is – potentially a life or death situation.”
“I’m not complaining, since they’re helping me,” Malfoy remarked with a smirk.
“Back to being serious,” Harry scratched the back of his neck nervously, “I, uh, still want to become an Auror. So since we’re still living together it seems, you’ll need to train too.”
“And how are you going to get that done? I can see Rita Skeeter’s headline already – ‘Death Eater gone Auror?’” Malfoy rolled his eyes.
“Just what you were saying,” Harry laughed, “I'll drop the hero card.”
“And how are you going to explain it to Shacklebolt this time?” Malfoy asked skeptically.
“You always accuse me of having a hero complex,” Harry began.
“And you do,” Malfoy interjected.
“Yes, so I’ll use that charming complex on you,” Harry laughed.
“You’re going to save me from, what, the evil influences of my father?” Malfoy glared.
“You never had much of a chance to choose anything but Voldemort. You’ll be an excellent example to show that we don’t need to persecute all of the Death Eater’s children. Their family shouldn’t make them a victim as well,” Harry spoke, getting more wrapped up and emotional as he did.
“Okay, calm down Potter,” Malfoy looked relaxed in his chair, “I’ll be your little poster child publicly. But I don’t need to be reformed. So don’t bother trying in private.”
“And we’ll just…have to live together the rest of the time,” Harry concluded, “but I still want to be able to have my friends over. You don’t get to drive them away.”
“And my friends?” Draco asked. His mouth closed as confusion washed over him, “Why for Merlin’s left nipple did that come out as a question? I was…demanding.”
Harry – in a flash of understanding, as it usually seemed to come to him – laughed, “Oh Merlin’s butt cheek. I cannot believe it.”
“What, Potter?” Malfoy snarled.
“I am the one with the power,” Harry explained, almost doubling over in laughter. “You're my…”
“You say bitch and I will hex your sorry face off,” Malfoy threatened, pulling out his wand.
Harry pulled himself together, barely gaining control of his laughter, “This is how people end up dead. Look, I don’t want us to end up dead, so I sadly can’t egg you on. But you have to admit, it’s funny.”
Malfoy glared.
“I laughed at myself earlier today!” Harry insisted, “you can make fun of my hero complex as much as you want.”
“Yes, but that’s a part of who you are, not something thrown onto you by some spell,” Malfoy pointed out.
Harry disagreed. The notes about the bond said it brought out and magnified previous power relations, so that meant Malfoy had been like that to some degree even beforehand. And that made him laugh so hard.
“Alright,” Harry said, choking on his laughter, “I guess we’re done here.”
“There could be more,” Malfoy pointed out, glaring, except it felt more like a guilt trip. Since when had Malfoy been able to guilt trip him?
“Fine,” Harry sighed, as he settled in for a long read. He woke up sometime later to Malfoy tapping him, “Ministry’s closing, hero boy.”
“Mmrmph,” Harry responded groggily, “Do we have to go? I was sleeping.”
“It didn’t look very comfortable,” Malfoy pointed out.
Harry felt his side, “It wasn’t.”
“Time to go and talk with Shacklebolt,” Malfoy prodded, “he wants to talk to you anyway, since this research was such an important matter to you. I trust your skills at BSing will help you through this?”
“That,” Harry stood slowly, “and a nice long repetition of ‘Dumbledore’s wishes.’ It worked last year.”
“Yes, but you were on his orders last year,” Malfoy pointed out, “not so true at the moment with this bond…thing.”
“But he wanted to save you,” Harry sleepily argued, “he wanted to help you get out of the Death Eater mess.”
“How do you know that?” Malfoy snapped, stepping back.
“I was there, git,” Harry replied, “under my invisibility cloak.”
“As always,” Malfoy sighed, “I couldn’t be humiliated without you watching.”
“You lowered your wand,” Harry argued, his mind waking up, “You weren’t going to do it.”
“So much good that did,” Malfoy threw back.
“You were going to accept his offer. That means you were not fully belonging to Voldemort. You were there out of fear for your family,” Potter argued.
“One point to Potter for recognizing the obvious,” Malfoy quipped.
“But that’s how I can convince Shacklebolt. Do you think you can sit in the waiting area right outside his office, and neither of us will collapse while I talk to him?” Harry asked.
“If you start feeling something,” Malfoy muttered – his Slytherin brain working tricky schemes faster than Harry’s could, “just demand I come in and show my arm. I don’t have the mark.”
“You don’t?” Harry asked, shocked.
“You never peeked in all the time we’ve spent together?” Malfoy asked.
“No, I just…assumed…”
“The Dark Mark was an honor, and I was a failure,” Malfoy spoke calmly, but Harry could sense the emotion underneath.
“Well, a failure for Voldemort is what you want to be right now,” Harry commented, trying to make it lighter.
Malfoy sighed but did not argue the point as they made their way to Shacklebolt’s office. The reactions they received were rather different. All the witches and wizards smiled at Harry, some of them a bit in the manner Harry had seen boys fawning over Fleur in fourth year, which sickened him. But it was better than the glares and hateful looks directed toward Malfoy. Harry observed him out of the corner of his eye and saw that the blond did not even acknowledge the other people’s existences, holding to the Malfoy manner that gave the impression he did not notice them. But Harry knew that had to be impossible. It was an act – a front – to protect Malfoy from showing any weakness, though it did not make him any more loved.
The secretary batted her eyelashes but went for Kingsley immediately, who called for Harry as soon as he heard. Malfoy sat in the chair closest to the door, Harry noticed, but the door shut behind him and Malfoy was gone from him. He felt slightly chilled and a bit empty, but he ignored it to get the conversation done. Harry could not reveal what had happened to Kingsley – he needed the man to believe him.
“Harry, do sit down,” the calming former Auror began, “What can I do for you?”
“Hear me out until the end,” Harry started, “Don’t interrupt me until I’ve finished.”
“Okay,” Kingsley’s fingers interlocked and rested on the desk.
“Malfoy isn’t a bad fellow. He’s very witty and snaps out at others to protect himself, which, considering the sentiments toward him, happens about all the time. But he was essential in finding Hermione’s parents and convincing them to even give her a chance to explain why she had done that to them. He’s proud, but he’s extremely talented and far more devoted to developing his skill than I have ever been, except perhaps in Defence. He was thrown into a situation where Voldemort could kill his parents at a whim, and all the pressure was on him. I know that saved him from jail time, but the way society is, I fear that they’ll push him in the opposite direction we want.” Harry set out the basics that he agreed with, though perhaps before he would not have gone out of his way to fix the situation.
“If he does not get the chance to show his worth and ability to choose good when his parents won’t die for it, all the potential for him to become a decent person is lost. He lowered his wand. He wouldn’t have killed Dumbledore. If he just gets a fair shot, I think we’ll reap the benefits from it as well as him. Almost no one is willing to give it to him, but I want to. I want to show he can become a good person. Thus, I want to ‘reform’ him or what not. I want him to join the Auror program, with me. We’ll be training partners for everything. I doubt anyone else would want to partner with him. And he’ll move into Grimmauld Place with me, so that I can help him become a better person and watch that he doesn’t slip,” Harry laid out the plan, which he actually liked and on a deep level – despite his promise to Malfoy – hoped would work.
“You may object that he’s a coward and runs away in almost every situation, which isn’t a good trait for an Auror. But more than that, he will do anything for his family, if it will help them. Lucius and Narcissa cannot expect any friends, any prospects of anything besides a socially imposed house arrest for the rest of their lives, unless he does something for the Malfoy name. I believe he spoke to you about that for the community service. And there is nothing greater he could do for his family to help them. And that is the only motivation that can make him fight and risk his neck. And it’s there. He will not have any other option for helping his family because it’s the only way I can help him, and no one else will help him,” Harry defended Malfoy against the easiest allegations that could be thrown at him. Oddly enough, it had stopped being merely a speech but something he – sort of – believed in.
“And it’s a first step. People are completely divided and treating anyone who could be interpreted as helping Voldemort as crap. And while some of them deserve it, others don’t, and they too aren’t getting a chance. If I can show that Malfoy can be a good person, it will give those people a chance as well to prove themselves. But until there is an amazing case no one will believe possible, no one gets a chance. So even if you don’t want to do it for Malfoy, do it for everyone else,” Harry finally stopped.
His head felt woozy, but he ignored it. Hopefully Kingsley would act quickly, or Harry would need to call Malfoy in to show his arm…soon.
“Always the hero, Harry?” Kingsley laughed, “If he gets the marks, and if you can overcome your schoolboy enmity, I can allow it. But he has to get the NEWT marks. You may get to be an exception, but Malfoy hasn’t vanquished any Dark Lords, so he’ll be on the same footing as everyone else.”
Harry grinned. It had worked! “Thank you, sir,” Harry replied loudly.
“And you both will be held to the same standards as anyone else in the training, even if you won’t be rotating partners,” Kingsley pointed out, as if to emphasize he was being fair.
“Of course, of course,” Harry stood.
“I take it you already asked him?” Kingsley looked to confirm the situation.
“Well, I figured that would be the harder part, so yes, I did,” Harry replied jokingly.
Kingsley shook his head, “Now, if you please, I do have other work to get to.”
“Right,” Harry stood to leave, “thank you sir.”
Malfoy was standing and approached Harry as soon as the door opened. He looked a bit pale and not his best. But they did not do more than walk out relatively close to each other until they apparated to Grimmauld place. There, Malfoy almost fell down from the effort of Apparating in such a state. Harry caught him and held Malfoy’s back to his chest.
“Come on,” Harry forced himself to say, despite the stars and birds beginning to appear around his head, “Let's stay up.”
“Mmm,” Malfoy stuttered, “Feels a bit better now.”
“Thank Merlin we now have an official reason to always be together now,” Harry sighed, watching the world return to focus.
“Even being an Auror is better than collapsing like this,” Malfoy remarked.
“Yeah, let's not do that again,” Harry agreed as they stumbled upstairs. They slept in separate beds as always, but they needed to be moved closer after being apart so long. The bond would hopefully not have many circumstances to do that again.
To:
joanwilderAuthor/Artist:
silyaraPairing/Threesome: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione (side), Neville/Luna (implied)
Rating: R (overall)
Warnings: EWE, dom/sub
Word count: 19500+ (overall)
Summary: Draco is assigned to help Harry and Hermione find the Grangers in Australia. But along the way, the two are bonded, which changes everything.
Chapter: 3 of 7
Disclaimer: I am simply playing. JKR has the rights.
Request: Slash, post-war fic, romance, sex toys, consensual BDSM, Dom/Sub roles, sex in odd locations, desperate!sex, forced magical bonding, claiming and marking, EWE, united begrudgingly by a purpose
Author’s Notes: First off, thank you to my beta, C. I tried to fit in as much of the request as I could, but the boys didn’t want to do everything. They had their own ideas, and I followed along for the ride. I enjoyed it, and I hope you will too.
“I can’t believe Dumbledore knew nothing,” Harry muttered, as he opened yet another record of British wizards in Australia. In the two weeks since arriving back in warmer weather, they had not found anything – even after talking to Dumbledore and Snape (well, Harry talked to Dumbledore, and Malfoy talked to Snape as privately as possible). They could comfortably be one room apart from each other for an hour or so, which made washing and other private activities slightly more tolerable, but he had not been able to see Ginny yet. She had flipped out when she heard the two of them were still near each other.
Malfoy laughed, which he liked to do a rather lot at Harry, “He didn’t know everything, Potter. And aboriginal magic was not his specialty. Just keep reading.”
Harry grunted in reply. Nothing he said to Malfoy came off the way he wanted and could always be twisted so as to make him look stupid. And he only had a month until Auror training.
“Mm,” Malfoy hummed, “this is interesting. A young couple experienced something similar.”
“And,” Harry looked up, “what happened to them?”
“It’s some kind of bond. They, too, could not part from each other’s company for two years. The witch apparently wore the pants of the relationship just slightly beforehand, always getting her way, and that trait in the relationship grew more pronounced,” Malfoy paused.
“What? What happened after those two years?” Harry asked.
“It…doesn’t say. They fought and nearly killed each other twice; well she almost killed him. He apparently couldn’t stop it. But the record stops after those two years. There’s nothing else about them,” Malfoy pursed his lips, not looking very happy.
“And they began the…bond or whatnot liking each other?” Harry asked rhetorically, “Damn. That doesn’t look like we have much of a chance.”
“If there was this one case, there should be another,” Malfoy snapped, “Keep reading.”
Harry sighed, rather bored. Hermione and Malfoy would have gotten along wonderfully, except from the blood and House issues, he mused, for all the research they threw themselves into. His readings only touched on the aborigines, whom those recording were apparently frightened of, though the dark-skinned wizards had never seemed to harm anyone. The rather fairy-tale reports about them made Harry want to scoff at their stupidity. But he supposed he should not, as he had (at one point) owned all three Deathly Hallows, which were supposed to be a children’s tale.
“Huh,” he spoke aloud by accident, and Malfoy’s piercing eyes looked up at him, “this man is afraid of the desert. There is some ‘ancient power’ his group heard about that bound people together until they went mad and the one with power killed the other. He feared it forced slavery upon one of the parties, while the other had control. But the aborigines loved it for their own use. He often heard of males and females bonded together, occasionally two warriors. He doesn’t know what happened to the aborigines who did it though.”
“So it’s an aborigine magical bond that we don’t know much about, and they won’t tell us because we aren’t aborigines and therefore not supposed to be bonded,” Malfoy commented dryly. “Great deal of good that does us.”
Harry sighed, “There has to be something good about it, or the aborigines wouldn’t do it.”
“It appears to be a great way to break up any relationship,” Malfoy joked.
Harry looked up at him and sighed, “I am trying to be serious here.”
“I can’t live with you if you’re always going to be serious,” Malfoy commented, twirling his quill between his fingers.
“Since when did you make jokes?” Harry asked, confused.
“I thought 'Weasley is Our King' was quite genius,” Malfoy laughed.
“It was rude,” Harry crossed his arms.
“But funny. It was just an example,” Malfoy looked across the table and sighed, “Potter, when were we ever not at each other’s throats? There is a lot about each other we don’t know, but I am betting we are going to have to. Now, I’d rather live with you than be dead or in Azkaban for killing you. And looking at the history, you get to yet again break another record. You survived the killing curse twice, so think you could try to survive this bond?”
Harry felt astonished, “You’re…serious?”
“No, choke me now,” Malfoy sighed.
“Okay, okay,” Harry backtracked, “I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Do you ever think ahead, Potter? Or is that why you usually travel with Granger?” Malfoy smirked.
“That’s…very…” Harry sighed, “...funny if I choose to laugh at myself.”
“You know, Potter, living with a hero has perks,” Malfoy looked at him, and his whole face looked like it was laughing.
“What’s that?” Harry asked, waiting to be another punch line.
“You just drop the hero status, and you keep getting what you want,” Malfoy remarked, holding a hand up to Harry’s fish face. “Those records are private,” he imitated Kingsley. He then copied the face Harry gave Kinsgley that read, “I saved the entire world. Certainly I could have such a small favor as this…”
“Yeah yeah,” Harry waved at the air, “I needed to know. This was – is – potentially a life or death situation.”
“I’m not complaining, since they’re helping me,” Malfoy remarked with a smirk.
“Back to being serious,” Harry scratched the back of his neck nervously, “I, uh, still want to become an Auror. So since we’re still living together it seems, you’ll need to train too.”
“And how are you going to get that done? I can see Rita Skeeter’s headline already – ‘Death Eater gone Auror?’” Malfoy rolled his eyes.
“Just what you were saying,” Harry laughed, “I'll drop the hero card.”
“And how are you going to explain it to Shacklebolt this time?” Malfoy asked skeptically.
“You always accuse me of having a hero complex,” Harry began.
“And you do,” Malfoy interjected.
“Yes, so I’ll use that charming complex on you,” Harry laughed.
“You’re going to save me from, what, the evil influences of my father?” Malfoy glared.
“You never had much of a chance to choose anything but Voldemort. You’ll be an excellent example to show that we don’t need to persecute all of the Death Eater’s children. Their family shouldn’t make them a victim as well,” Harry spoke, getting more wrapped up and emotional as he did.
“Okay, calm down Potter,” Malfoy looked relaxed in his chair, “I’ll be your little poster child publicly. But I don’t need to be reformed. So don’t bother trying in private.”
“And we’ll just…have to live together the rest of the time,” Harry concluded, “but I still want to be able to have my friends over. You don’t get to drive them away.”
“And my friends?” Draco asked. His mouth closed as confusion washed over him, “Why for Merlin’s left nipple did that come out as a question? I was…demanding.”
Harry – in a flash of understanding, as it usually seemed to come to him – laughed, “Oh Merlin’s butt cheek. I cannot believe it.”
“What, Potter?” Malfoy snarled.
“I am the one with the power,” Harry explained, almost doubling over in laughter. “You're my…”
“You say bitch and I will hex your sorry face off,” Malfoy threatened, pulling out his wand.
Harry pulled himself together, barely gaining control of his laughter, “This is how people end up dead. Look, I don’t want us to end up dead, so I sadly can’t egg you on. But you have to admit, it’s funny.”
Malfoy glared.
“I laughed at myself earlier today!” Harry insisted, “you can make fun of my hero complex as much as you want.”
“Yes, but that’s a part of who you are, not something thrown onto you by some spell,” Malfoy pointed out.
Harry disagreed. The notes about the bond said it brought out and magnified previous power relations, so that meant Malfoy had been like that to some degree even beforehand. And that made him laugh so hard.
“Alright,” Harry said, choking on his laughter, “I guess we’re done here.”
“There could be more,” Malfoy pointed out, glaring, except it felt more like a guilt trip. Since when had Malfoy been able to guilt trip him?
“Fine,” Harry sighed, as he settled in for a long read. He woke up sometime later to Malfoy tapping him, “Ministry’s closing, hero boy.”
“Mmrmph,” Harry responded groggily, “Do we have to go? I was sleeping.”
“It didn’t look very comfortable,” Malfoy pointed out.
Harry felt his side, “It wasn’t.”
“Time to go and talk with Shacklebolt,” Malfoy prodded, “he wants to talk to you anyway, since this research was such an important matter to you. I trust your skills at BSing will help you through this?”
“That,” Harry stood slowly, “and a nice long repetition of ‘Dumbledore’s wishes.’ It worked last year.”
“Yes, but you were on his orders last year,” Malfoy pointed out, “not so true at the moment with this bond…thing.”
“But he wanted to save you,” Harry sleepily argued, “he wanted to help you get out of the Death Eater mess.”
“How do you know that?” Malfoy snapped, stepping back.
“I was there, git,” Harry replied, “under my invisibility cloak.”
“As always,” Malfoy sighed, “I couldn’t be humiliated without you watching.”
“You lowered your wand,” Harry argued, his mind waking up, “You weren’t going to do it.”
“So much good that did,” Malfoy threw back.
“You were going to accept his offer. That means you were not fully belonging to Voldemort. You were there out of fear for your family,” Potter argued.
“One point to Potter for recognizing the obvious,” Malfoy quipped.
“But that’s how I can convince Shacklebolt. Do you think you can sit in the waiting area right outside his office, and neither of us will collapse while I talk to him?” Harry asked.
“If you start feeling something,” Malfoy muttered – his Slytherin brain working tricky schemes faster than Harry’s could, “just demand I come in and show my arm. I don’t have the mark.”
“You don’t?” Harry asked, shocked.
“You never peeked in all the time we’ve spent together?” Malfoy asked.
“No, I just…assumed…”
“The Dark Mark was an honor, and I was a failure,” Malfoy spoke calmly, but Harry could sense the emotion underneath.
“Well, a failure for Voldemort is what you want to be right now,” Harry commented, trying to make it lighter.
Malfoy sighed but did not argue the point as they made their way to Shacklebolt’s office. The reactions they received were rather different. All the witches and wizards smiled at Harry, some of them a bit in the manner Harry had seen boys fawning over Fleur in fourth year, which sickened him. But it was better than the glares and hateful looks directed toward Malfoy. Harry observed him out of the corner of his eye and saw that the blond did not even acknowledge the other people’s existences, holding to the Malfoy manner that gave the impression he did not notice them. But Harry knew that had to be impossible. It was an act – a front – to protect Malfoy from showing any weakness, though it did not make him any more loved.
The secretary batted her eyelashes but went for Kingsley immediately, who called for Harry as soon as he heard. Malfoy sat in the chair closest to the door, Harry noticed, but the door shut behind him and Malfoy was gone from him. He felt slightly chilled and a bit empty, but he ignored it to get the conversation done. Harry could not reveal what had happened to Kingsley – he needed the man to believe him.
“Harry, do sit down,” the calming former Auror began, “What can I do for you?”
“Hear me out until the end,” Harry started, “Don’t interrupt me until I’ve finished.”
“Okay,” Kingsley’s fingers interlocked and rested on the desk.
“Malfoy isn’t a bad fellow. He’s very witty and snaps out at others to protect himself, which, considering the sentiments toward him, happens about all the time. But he was essential in finding Hermione’s parents and convincing them to even give her a chance to explain why she had done that to them. He’s proud, but he’s extremely talented and far more devoted to developing his skill than I have ever been, except perhaps in Defence. He was thrown into a situation where Voldemort could kill his parents at a whim, and all the pressure was on him. I know that saved him from jail time, but the way society is, I fear that they’ll push him in the opposite direction we want.” Harry set out the basics that he agreed with, though perhaps before he would not have gone out of his way to fix the situation.
“If he does not get the chance to show his worth and ability to choose good when his parents won’t die for it, all the potential for him to become a decent person is lost. He lowered his wand. He wouldn’t have killed Dumbledore. If he just gets a fair shot, I think we’ll reap the benefits from it as well as him. Almost no one is willing to give it to him, but I want to. I want to show he can become a good person. Thus, I want to ‘reform’ him or what not. I want him to join the Auror program, with me. We’ll be training partners for everything. I doubt anyone else would want to partner with him. And he’ll move into Grimmauld Place with me, so that I can help him become a better person and watch that he doesn’t slip,” Harry laid out the plan, which he actually liked and on a deep level – despite his promise to Malfoy – hoped would work.
“You may object that he’s a coward and runs away in almost every situation, which isn’t a good trait for an Auror. But more than that, he will do anything for his family, if it will help them. Lucius and Narcissa cannot expect any friends, any prospects of anything besides a socially imposed house arrest for the rest of their lives, unless he does something for the Malfoy name. I believe he spoke to you about that for the community service. And there is nothing greater he could do for his family to help them. And that is the only motivation that can make him fight and risk his neck. And it’s there. He will not have any other option for helping his family because it’s the only way I can help him, and no one else will help him,” Harry defended Malfoy against the easiest allegations that could be thrown at him. Oddly enough, it had stopped being merely a speech but something he – sort of – believed in.
“And it’s a first step. People are completely divided and treating anyone who could be interpreted as helping Voldemort as crap. And while some of them deserve it, others don’t, and they too aren’t getting a chance. If I can show that Malfoy can be a good person, it will give those people a chance as well to prove themselves. But until there is an amazing case no one will believe possible, no one gets a chance. So even if you don’t want to do it for Malfoy, do it for everyone else,” Harry finally stopped.
His head felt woozy, but he ignored it. Hopefully Kingsley would act quickly, or Harry would need to call Malfoy in to show his arm…soon.
“Always the hero, Harry?” Kingsley laughed, “If he gets the marks, and if you can overcome your schoolboy enmity, I can allow it. But he has to get the NEWT marks. You may get to be an exception, but Malfoy hasn’t vanquished any Dark Lords, so he’ll be on the same footing as everyone else.”
Harry grinned. It had worked! “Thank you, sir,” Harry replied loudly.
“And you both will be held to the same standards as anyone else in the training, even if you won’t be rotating partners,” Kingsley pointed out, as if to emphasize he was being fair.
“Of course, of course,” Harry stood.
“I take it you already asked him?” Kingsley looked to confirm the situation.
“Well, I figured that would be the harder part, so yes, I did,” Harry replied jokingly.
Kingsley shook his head, “Now, if you please, I do have other work to get to.”
“Right,” Harry stood to leave, “thank you sir.”
Malfoy was standing and approached Harry as soon as the door opened. He looked a bit pale and not his best. But they did not do more than walk out relatively close to each other until they apparated to Grimmauld place. There, Malfoy almost fell down from the effort of Apparating in such a state. Harry caught him and held Malfoy’s back to his chest.
“Come on,” Harry forced himself to say, despite the stars and birds beginning to appear around his head, “Let's stay up.”
“Mmm,” Malfoy stuttered, “Feels a bit better now.”
“Thank Merlin we now have an official reason to always be together now,” Harry sighed, watching the world return to focus.
“Even being an Auror is better than collapsing like this,” Malfoy remarked.
“Yeah, let's not do that again,” Harry agreed as they stumbled upstairs. They slept in separate beds as always, but they needed to be moved closer after being apart so long. The bond would hopefully not have many circumstances to do that again.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 02:34 pm (UTC)Is Kingsley already Minister at this point in time? *kind of got that feeling, but isn't 100% sure*
no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 06:03 pm (UTC)