Dragon Tamer

[Disclaimer] Characters belong to JK Rowling. No money is being made from this story.

After five years of building his life him, Harry Potter\'s death had all but taken Draco Malfoy down with him. Left with a sizeable fortune amassed between the Potter and Malfoy inheritances, Draco could have done anything he wanted. Anything in the world. But all he wanted was to die.

When Draco said that a part of him died when Harry did, he wasn\'t being melodramatic. The two boys, while still at Hogwarts, had magically bound themselves to one another. The bond was manifested physically upon Draco\'s lower abdomen where a proud sentient stag sought to protect him. It silently carried the characteristics that Draco treasured about Harry; proud nobility, the drive to defend, and a charming shyness. What he loved best, in the absence of Harry, was to trace his finger over his belly to watch the stag chased after it, prodding at him faintly with dark, illustrated antlers.

Draco put the best parts of himself into the mark he manifested on Harry in the form of a dragon. All of his love, his passion, and his need had been invested. Tragically, five years later, Harry was murdered. No, not murdered exactly. He was caught up in the backlash of his own spell that felled Voldemort. There had been so much of a to-do about what would happen to Harry once Voldemort was dead. No one dared verbalize the awful truth that Harry might die along with him. The only person to broach the topic was Harry.

When Harry was stilled, the vibrant dragon mark expired with him, resting with its spiked head over Harry\'s heart as Draco so often placed his head when they slept. While Snape had never been able to find a precedent for the particular side effect, Draco insisted that his capacity to love, or care about anything had shrugged off this mortal coil along with Harry.

Still, Draco had never been a particularly brave boy and he grew up to be only slightly less sheltered than he\'d been at Hogwarts thanks to the War. While there were nights when he thought there would be nothing better than to end himself, he simply didn\'t have that manner of will. Even if he had, such thoughts caused his belly to sting from Harry\'s mark stabbing him with the sharp points of its bony antlers.

Harry always told Draco to move on if he died. Idealistically, Harry thought that Draco would get over it. That he could. Draco had dismissed such discussions of Harry\'s possible demise as being ludicrous. If Harry died, it would have meant that Voldemort had won, and a blood traitor such as himself would be next to go.

Some might\'ve said that life was funny. Draco maintained that life was quite the opposite of funny. That, in fact, life was little other than a series of near misses that only led to disappointment. In spite of losing the only thing he\'d wanted, life did go on and he had elected to train as an Auror; taking up the mantle of Harry\'s life as he saw it. It wasn\'t what he wanted. It was what Harry wanted. But in the absence of the desire to do anything at all, it made a peculiar sense.

Being a coward at heart didn\'t appear to be as big an issue as Draco had thought it would be when it came to being an Auror. There were plenty of brave Aurors, what they didn\'t have were planners and investigators. In that capacity, Draco\'s analytical nature was invaluable. While the others raced into the fray to capture a fugitive, Draco would hang back, deduce escape routes and stun the escapee from behind.

He didn\'t have many friends at the Ministry. After a few too many pints at an after-capture celebration at a pub, Tonks had tried to saddle him with the nickname \"The Iceman.\" He swiftly killed the temptation to use the moniker with a stony glare. He didn\'t care much for Tonks. On occasion he\'d go to a pub with Shacklebolt, who was at least reasonably quiet. None of the other Aurors were gay, nor were they interested in befriending a homosexual. Other than Tonks, of course, which was something else that irritated Draco about her. No one liked an overly enthusiastic fag hag.

In spite of her off-putting behavior, she did know of a few Wizarding gay clubs that he checked out, and some Muggle clubs that were rather close to the magical world. Draco quickly found the advantages of his pull and run tactics, practicing them primarily in the Muggle world. He was untraceable as soon as he stepped back into the Wizarding world. So it went that three or four nights a week, Draco would go out, find someone suitable for the night, or perhaps a few nights, and then he\'d disappear from their lives entirely.

Muggles couldn\'t see magical marks, and so no one noticed the stag Draco had given the uninventive name \"Harry.\" Not that they would have. Usually Harry hid at the base of Draco\'s prick during these encounters, nestled in amongst the forest of dark blond curls, back to the activity.

Whenever anyone emotionally reached out to Draco, he always answered virulently with an acerbic tongue that left its victims cut off and stunned. If there was one thing that Malfoy had mastered in his short life, it was how to drive people away. Only Harry had been determination to break through to him. Only Harry had the resolve to make him shut up. Only Harry ever reached him.

---

Draco was closing in on nearly a decade under the employ of the Ministry. The first few years had been exciting and somewhat satisfying with running down the rogue Death Eaters. Often he would brutalize them with impunity when he got to them first. He was on his own private mission to make those who took his Harry experience as much pain as he felt waking up alone every morning. Even if it were for just a few hours before they were sent away and eventually Kissed.

Ironically, because of the treachery of the Dementors before the war began, Azkaban was a much more humane place. Most of the Dementors had been slaughtered along with the giants in a battle in the mountain stronghold where the last of the huge creatures were holed up. A few Dementors were allowed to linger to administer the Kiss, however. Although with Granger steadily working her way up the Ministry, that practice was sure to soon fall out of favor.

Draco peered listlessly at Ron Weasley when he entered his barren cubicle dull in its muted blues and greys, and took a seat without being invited. \"Malfoy.\"

\"Weasley.\"

Knowing that Draco wasn\'t likely to be impressed with his or Hermione\'s requesting action, Ron decided to couch his proposition using his brother. It was a favor for him, after all, and as far as anyone knew, Draco didn\'t have any antipathy for the dragon trainer. \"My brother Charlie would like you to do some investigating in Romania for him. One of his dragons was eviscerated, heart removed, internal organs--\"

\"Fascinating. I don\'t care.\" Draco turned his chair to dismiss him.

Ron balked at being interrupted, \"Charlie thinks that the body parts are being used for dark magic.\"

Draco didn\'t look up as Ron spoke, instead fixing his attention on the mug of tea he was twirling on the desk. \"So let a Romanian Auror deal with it. Or some... animal... person. Or-- why are you here asking me anyway? I don\'t take orders from you-- \"

\"Because the Romanian government isn\'t taking it seriously and Charlie\'s afraid that more dragons will die and that some dark witch or wizard will benefit. Hermione thinks it\'s very important, but the Ministry won\'t listen to her, just like they wouldn\'t listen to Harry when we were at Hogwarts in fifth year.\" Ron\'s eyes widened at how Draco\'s body stiffened and his expression steeled over.

\"Oh, how very Slytherin of you. Invoke the name of \'Harry Potter\' to get what you want from me. Utter his name and some platitude for justice and I\'m going to fall to pieces, is that it? I\'m that pitiful now, am I? So easy to manipulate, so easy to lead around once you\'ve invoked the Golden Boy\'s name? Fuck you, Weasley. Fuck Charlie. Fuck the dragons, and fuck your Mudblood wife!\" Draco barely restrained the urge to throw the mug of tea at Ron\'s head.

Ron\'s face lit up with rage. There were some things that clearly would never change. Clenching his teeth and leaning in, he growled, \"Yes, actually. Hermione had hoped that your loyalty to Harry would help you see that perhaps the Ministry was being shortsighted on this issue. I knew you\'d be the same nasty git you\'ve always been.\"

Draco winced, not because he was afraid of Ron in particular, but Harry was stabbing at him. His hand moved over his abdomen and jabbed back with his index finger, hard. \"I\'m not doing that sodding Mud—ow! Muggle-born\'s bidding!\" Draco argued, more with the bucking stag on his stomach than with Ron.

\"May I see him?\" Ron looked down at Draco\'s hand with a bit of longing. He hadn\'t seen the mark at all since Harry and Draco had put them on each other. Even then, Draco only flashed him on Harry\'s insistence. He\'d almost forgotten about it, but now that he was reminded, he felt himself overwhelmed with the want to see something of his deceased best friend.

Snorting at the straight man staring so rapturously at his pants, Draco gave a haughty laugh. \"You wish.\"

\"Not THAT, I meant—\"

\"I know what you meant, and no. He\'s mine.\"

\"Harry was my friend, too!\" argued Ron.

\"He wasn\'t just my FRIEND, he was my... my....\" Draco huffed. Lover didn\'t cut it. It sounded tawdry, like Harry hadn\'t changed who Draco was. Like all they did were those nasty things that Muggle Christians were all so afraid of happening in their back yard. Draco never had the privilege of calling Harry a spouse, or a husband. Even if there had been time there were no provisions for same-sex marriage in the Wizarding world. \"Soul mate.\"

\"You know Harry never wanted this for you.\" Ron gestured at the plain cerulean walls of Draco\'s undecorated cubicle. It was hard. Malfoy was such a defensive asshole and Ron had never liked him. \"And not that we\'re trying to set you up or anything, but we also thought it would be good to send you in particular since Charlie\'s--\"

Draco picked up the mug and looked for all the world like he was going to beat Ron about the face and neck with it, but then with a decisive clunck, he dropped it back onto the desk. \"Don\'t set me up with your lot. I don\'t need hand-me-downs, particularly not the black sheep of the Weasley clan.\"

\"He\'s not a black sheep. We\'re all proud of him and his choice.\" protested Ron.

Choice, indeed; as if you\'d opt for that kind of derision and a world full of people who didn\'t understand or care to. Draco waved him off and stared at his calendar that was, as always, empty. He\'d been pointedly ignoring the fervent and persistent prodding of his dead lover\'s mark into his belly, but it was clear Harry wanted him to do this. Who knew, perhaps from his heavenly vantage point Harry could see something dark going on that no one else saw. Besides, it wasn\'t as if he had anything better to do.

\"Fine. You\'re proud, he\'s proud, we\'re all so very proud. I\'ll take him a rainbow flag for you,\" Draco spat, rubbing his tender side as the stabbing stopped.

\"So you\'re going?\" Ron stood up as if he were going to make a break for it before Draco changed his mind, which was wise.

\"Yes. I\'m going. When do I need to be ready?\"

\"Can you be packed and ready tonight?\"

Draco flipped his scheduler to the next day. Blank. How pathetic. \"I\'ll try to move some things around.\"

\"Great, Hermione will get the time and the information to your superiors, she\'s already been talking to them so you should be squared away.\" Then he dared to reach out to pat Draco\'s shoulder. The aristocrat recoiled and gave him a disgusted sneer for his trouble. \"I owe you one.\"

\"Oh really?\" asked Draco leering up at Ron.

Ron didn\'t care for those cold, grey eyes on him, suspicious of what they were calculating. \"I\'m straight!\"

Draco looked highly affronted, but only replied with, \"Ew.\" After a hard look, he carried on, \"If you really want to do something for me, take me off of your Christmas list. If I have to endure another piece of mail from you lot with your bad hair and freckled progeny, I\'ll pluck my eyes out. So be a good man, and we\'ll be even.\"

That was Malfoy for you. One moment of goodwill and already Ron wanted to throttle him again, turning his kind gesture into something venomous. \"Done.\" He reasoned that telling Malfoy off, in spite of the fact that the git deserved it, wouldn\'t further Hermione\'s agenda. He\'d promised to try his hardest.

\"Good then. I shall be back here by half seven with my things. How long will I be gone?\"

\"A week at least. We\'ll have the port key to Charlie\'s house set up when you get back. Good day.\" Ron dashed away before he lost his temper with Malfoy.

\"Great. Romania with a faggy Weasley. How much more must I endure?\" Draco asked as he poked his abdomen.

Harry gave no reply.