Memoirs of a Male Escort

Authors Note: A million and two thanks to Alexandra for her diligent work as my beta for all my current WIP stories. I also wanted to say, I have the best readers ever! This story (and a couple others) have already cleared over 200 reviews! I'm so excited I could kiss you all! I know the last chapter was fairly uneventful, but that was because it was building up for this chapter, which has a little bit more going on...

Chapter 10 Protector

It doesn’t do to dwell on things that can never be. One of the first things you must understand is that you only have so much control in any given situation, and sometimes, things just don’t go the way you want them to.

It’s no ones fault, just a fact of life. So you shouldn’t try to push an issue, and you can’t beat yourself up over any particular outcome.

--

They arrived at Grimmauld Place entrance in off balance fashion. Harry’s sudden apparition must have taken Draco by surprise, because he fell upon landing on the front stoop, and brought Harry down, unceremoniously on top of him.

Their noses were nearly touching they were so close.

They stayed that way for far longer than was necessary, each breathing heavily and staring into the other’s surprised eyes. It was only when Draco made a move to kiss him that Harry leapt off of him with a curse and nearly toppled backwards in his haste.

Draco looked angry and frustrated as he pulled himself from the concrete landing. “You could have given me some warning,” Draco fumed.

“Well, it’s done, sorry you landed on your arse,” he said with a crooked grin.

“Is this the hospitality I have to look forward to?” Draco asked with a huff.

Harry shrugged. “Most likely. I don’t know how to be any other way.”

“Great,” Draco muttered, rolling his eyes and following Harry into the gaping Manor that was his home.

Harry was pleased to note that Draco’s demeanor was less flirtatious than before. Something he had said must have finally stuck. Part of him had hoped that things would have gone differently, which was why he purposefully made the request for Draco to join him here open ended.

Either way, Harry was going to do everything he could to protect Draco, but he had made the offer for him to stay ambiguous to see where Draco’s head was. Was he interested in Harry outside of the client/escort dynamic?

And clearly the answer was ‘no’.

Draco had immediately jumped to the question of being hired. Harry slightly resented that Draco wouldn’t come with him of his own free will, not that Harry minded spending the money. He would gladly give every galleon in his vault to keep Draco safe, and that was where his real resentment came into play.

He liked Draco more than Draco liked him.

It wasn’t Malfoy’s fault that Harry had feelings for him, he knew he shouldn’t, but it didn’t make the rejection sting any less.

He couldn’t even pinpoint exactly what it was about Draco that made Harry like him so much. The little speech he made about ‘knowing Harry’ was part of it, of course, but surely that was just part of his act to be the perfect escort.

No, what he had said that evening while they were locked up had touched Harry, as did their kiss afterward, but if he really thought about it, he would know exactly what it was.

Harry had always had feelings for Malfoy.

Not necessarily the feelings he had now, though he didn’t even begin to know what to make of those, but strong feelings running the gamut of every emotion he could ever remember feeling. What was once barely restrained anger toward the eleven-year-old boy had morphed into pity, then into seething hatred, and then finally acceptance and understanding.

Draco had been in the worse place out of the two of them during the war, after all. Harry’s parents were gone, nothing but a dream and a faded memory, but Draco’s parents were threatened each and every day by a dark lord that made his home inside Malfoy Manor.

If put in the same situation, would Harry have made the same decisions? They all seemed so wrong from the outside, but if Harry could do something to protect his parents, even if that thing was wrong, could he have just sat back and done nothing?

He didn’t know.

That was when his feelings began to change toward the boy into a bit of a truce, on Harry’s part at least. He could never say whether or not he would have made the more socially acceptable choice, so how could he judge?

He shook away the thoughts that pestered him for attention and turned back to Draco. “I have a room ready for you, though you can select any of the other unused rooms if you would prefer,” he added.

“Whatever you like,” Draco said with a sad smile.

Harry nodded and walked up the winding staircase that would lead him to the topmost floor. Harry usually didn’t go near Regulus’s old room out of respect of the man’s memory. But something had seemed right about putting Draco there, so he had spent the last few days redoing the space, making it nice and pristine for his new guest.

He opened the door and let Draco lead them into the room. He had put a lot of work into it, but it still didn’t seem nice enough for Malfoy. He had left the green and silver interior, thinking Draco would find it familiar, and even left the Black family crest painted above the bed, as that too was part of Draco’s heritage. It was almost comical to think of living in a house that, for all intents and purposes, should have been passed to Draco.

Harry had added a desk and chair to the room, as well as a large wardrobe for his clothing. This floor didn’t have any bathrooms, but there were several on the floors below.

“My room is across the hall,” Harry told him. He had taken Sirius’s old room after being originally hesitant to do so. There were larger and nicer rooms in the manor, but Harry felt closest to his godfather in his old bedroom. “So I’ll hear if anything goes wrong,” he added.

Draco whipped around to face Harry. “What’s going to go wrong?” he asked, clearly worried.

“I said ‘ if’,” Harry muttered.

“But the fact that you felt the need to say it at all tells me you’re hiding something,” Draco huffed.

Harry frowned. “Look, you can’t have it both ways,” Harry scoffed. “You're either here as my escort, or as my guest, so which is it?” he pressed. He knew he shouldn’t be opening the door to Draco again, but he couldn’t seem to resist.

“What? How are they different?” Draco asked looking genuinely curious.

“Well, as my guest, I’m obligated to be nice, and to tell you things, but as my escort… well I’m paying you, so you just have to do as I say,” he answered with a smug grin.

“As your escort though, you'll have to sleep with me,” Draco amended looking triumphant.

“I’m not sleeping with you either way,” Harry corrected, though he was far more likely to let his guard down if Draco were there on his own terms and not as a job.

Draco crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Well, then I suppose it doesn’t matter which one I choose, because I don’t get what I want either way,” he fussed.

Harry laughed, trying to quell his throbbing libido. “Why is it you are so focused on fucking me, Malfoy? Does the escort business not pay enough? Do you need to supplement your income with a scathing piece of gossip for Witch Weekly?” Harry asked with a sneer.

“What? No,” Draco exclaimed looking affronted.

Harry stepped up to him, closing what little distance there had been between them and whispered in Draco’s ear. “Why don’t I just give you enough information to make your story worth reading and you can fill in all the blanks,” Harry growled. “I have a phoenix tattoo that starts on my back and trails down my arse, I shave everything and I have no preference between being a top or a bottom, I like both,” he whispered, grabbing Draco’s shirt. “I also give spectacular head,” he added with a smirk and let go of his shirt abruptly, stepping away from Draco’s surprised body and leaving him alone in his room.

--

Draco just stood there for a moment staring at the open door; the one Harry had just exited through after giving him the worlds most raging hard on.

Harry’s reaction to Draco once again trying to persuade him toward sex was surprising. In fact, Harry's reactions to everything Draco said were usually surprising. Part of him knew it was stupid to ask again, Harry had only told him ‘no’ a dozen times, but he just didn’t feel like he could give up on the idea. He wanted to be with Harry, more than he had ever wanted to be with anyone.

He knew he should act professional and he kept reminding himself that this was a job, but something about Harry’s request made it seem like it might be more than that.

Could Harry actually like him? Was that why he wanted him there? And if that were the case, why would Harry decline sex?

But then, he knew the answer to that too now. He was afraid Draco would betray him. But how could Draco go about convincing Harry, who had every right to be paranoid about such things, that he had no such intentions?

He gave one last look around the room, which looked almost custom tailored to resemble the Slytherin dorms, and left in search of Harry.

“Potter,” he called when he spotted him in the study.

Harry looked up and seemed to be fighting to decide how annoyed to look. He landed on something between disgusted and apologetic. “Sit,” he ordered, pointing to a chair in front of his desk.

Draco hesitantly obeyed. He didn’t like to be ordered around, be he got the impression that Harry was just angry and things were coming out harsher than he intended.

“You’re right,” he said at last.

A swell in his gut sent him slightly off balance, was Harry changing his mind about having sex with him? Did Draco inadvertently say or do something that showed Harry he could trust him? “About?” he asked casually, or at least hoped it didn’t sound as yearning as he felt.

“The reason I asked you here,” Harry replied. “Hermione came to me a few days ago. She has a source; the same one who gets her inside information on house elves that are being abused. Well, this wizard told her that he had overheard a rumor about you,” Harry said.

Draco panicked and quickly ran over the last few years in his mind, searching for anything that would have made Harry not want to be with him, but turned up with nothing substantial. His profession was obviously the biggest obstacle; Harry thought it was too demeaning to pay for sex, though even when Draco offered himself free of charge he had still refused. The man was complicated, that much was certain. It was probably what Draco liked most about him.

Nevertheless, Draco felt sure he could counter any rumor the Granger girl could have told him.

“Well, it’s not only about you, but you are the newest target,” he muttered.

Now Draco was confused. “Target?”

“There is this group, we’ve known about them for awhile. They are a sort of a vigilante gang made up of anonymous witches and wizards who found the Ministry’s solutions for certain criminals to be... light, so they take it into their own hands to dish out a special brand of justice. It usually involves torture and eventually death, and the Ministry has only been able to stop a couple of the kidnappings before they reached that point.

“You see, we don’t know who these people are. We have our suspicions, but no concrete evidence to prosecute them,” Harry added, looking very angry with himself.

“This group… they want me, don’t they?” Draco asked, his voice a small whisper. He didn’t know what he had been thinking, of course Harry hadn’t wanted him here as a social visit. There was a target on his head and Harry felt responsible for it, so now he was trying to protect him. Always the hero.

Harry nodded. “They call themselves The Code, and the worst part is, they see nothing wrong with what they do. They also seem to have members in pretty high places, considering that they have access to information that should be off record. Still, they didn’t know your whereabouts until I drug you out with me,” he whispered apologetically.

As Harry confirmed Draco’s thoughts, his world slowly crumbled around him. He felt like he might start hyperventilating, Harry didn’t care about him at all; he only wanted to make sure Draco didn’t die on his watch. It was probably very bad publicity for the new Minister.

He was used to hiding from people who wanted to kill him. He had even avoided several former death eaters over the previous year or so, but what was much worse than any of that was that Harry didn't care a lick about him.

“Look, Potter,” Draco started, his voice cracking with emotion. “If that is all this is about, the only reason you asked me here, I think I’ll take my chances at home,” he said as he started to get up.

His legs were still shaking from the fear of losing his dream of Harry completely though, and he almost fell. He had to catch the chair to keep his balance.

Harry must have noticed, because he was at Draco’s side in an instant, holding him close. Draco wanted to protest, to shove him away, but the warm feeling of being wrapped in Harry’s strong embrace made him falter.

Why was Harry torturing him this way? Didn’t he know that Draco had feelings for him and that this was a far worse fate, being wrapped in his arms but never getting to be with him, than anything The Code could do to him?

He began to sob his grief into Harry’s shoulder, unable to stop himself despite how degraded he felt and Harry ran his fingers through his hair and whispered soothingly in his ear. “It’s okay Draco, I won’t let them hurt you, they won’t ever be able to touch a single beautiful hair on your head,” he cooed.

Draco didn’t know which of Harry’s words held the most power, whether it was the compliment or the promise of safety or the fact that he called Draco by his given name, but whichever it was it made Draco sob all that much harder.

More than ever he wanted to belong to someone, and more than anyone he wanted it to be Harry.

Authors Note: Please review and I'll send out candy coated Draco's. yay!