Trophy

Author's Note: Many thanks to Angel for her beta of this chapter.

Chapter 14 Some Kind of Progress

The pub was significantly warmer than the crisp air outside, making Ron remove the gloves he’d worn to keep his fingers from going frosty. A frigid gust of wind wafted over him as another patron made their way inside, so Ron moved further from the doorway and into the loud room. He had no idea what this Xander bloke would look like, but he only saw one man sitting alone in a booth, so Ron decided to approach him.

“Mr. Scott?” he inquired and the man nodded, gesturing to the seat across from him.

“You must be Mr. Weasley from the Ministry,” he noted wisely and Ron showed the man his badge, a piece of shining metal with Ron’s likeness on the front of it and his Auror credentials on the back.

“Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice.” Ron tried to keep his tone business-like even though he was dying to just blurt out his questions and get this charade over with. “I hope I didn’t interrupt any important plans.”

“Hardly,” Xander scoffed. “My days are rather boring lately, in fact, I’m thinking of moving again.”

“Again?” Ron asked, his interest peeked. He wasn’t sure why but that statement seemed important.

“I was born here, but my family moved to Spain when I was younger, then I moved to Ibiza when I was eighteen and then I moved back here to London with my boyfriend a few years ago,” he explained.

“Ibiza?” Ron asked at once, leaning in so he could better hear the man. “Is that where you plan to return?”

“Maybe,” he replied with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll just move out of London… was this what you wanted to ask me about?” Xander inquired, his brows knit in confusion.

“No, not really, but… well maybe,” Ron replied noncommittally. “I have some questions about your involvement with Harry James Potter.”

Xander went still across from him, so still that it looked as if he’d even stopped breathing. “Why?” he whispered at last.

“I’m investigating a case in relation to him, but he’s very… careful about his past and what he lets others know about it. I need more information if I’m to solve this problem,” Ron admitted, hoping the man believed him.

“Harry should be careful. Certainly wouldn’t want to have that brilliant image of his tarnished,” Xander replied, a heavy bitter tone settling over his words.

“What would Harry be hiding? What could he have done that was so bad he would withhold it from the Ministry?” Ron pressed, sensing that Xander was his ticket to finally understanding what happened in those mysterious years of disappearance.

“Don’t you mean, what did he do that was so bad he would hide it from his friends?” Xander asked intuitively. When Ron balked, Xander merely rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that you’re the Ron Weasley, the one who fought at Harry’s side in the war, one of his two best friends. You and your wife were the reason Harry wanted us to move back.”

“Us?” Ron picked up on the word at once. “Do you mean to say that the boyfriend you moved back to London with was Harry?”

“Please tell me you knew he was gay…” Xander asked, his eyes wide with dismay.

“Oh, of course,” Ron amended. “I know he’s gay, he just never mentioned you.”

“He wouldn’t,” Xander informed him, still sounding quite bitter. “Harry and I dated for a year and part of that was here in London.”

“So, when he moved back here and took up the Auror position, you two were together?” Ron tried to clarify. He didn’t understand why Harry would keep something like a serious relationship from his friends.

“We lived at his Godfather’s place until I left,” Xander added.

“Why did you two break up?” Ron asked. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he added bashfully. Xander seemed like a nice enough guy on the surface. Handsome, smart and he spoke of Harry in a sort of reverent way, as if he wished things were different. He didn’t understand what could have gone so wrong to now leave both parties alone and rather bitter about life and love.

“Is it an official question?” Xander asked.

“Not really,” Ron admitted with a sigh.

“He cheated on me,” the man replied after seeming to give his answer a few moments consideration. “A lot,” he amended. When Ron looked stricken, Xander continued. “Things started as a fling, same as the hundreds of other guys Harry’s been with, but we heated up pretty quickly. Everything seemed fine at first, Harry was a gentleman, very kind and giving, but maybe too giving. It was as if he couldn’t say no to anyone who propositioned him for something, especially sex. He cheated on me twice in Ibiza, and we nearly broke up over it then, but we worked things out. That was when we decided to move back to London. He thought that being around you and Hermione and out of the party scene would help him get his head on straight and, frankly, I was for any option where I got to keep Harry. I was in love with him,” he sighed, obviously imagining his relationship with the ebony-haired man now.

“Hundreds?” Ron squeaked, skimming over the bulk of Xander’s story to hone in on that one mention of Harry’s quantity of lovers. It went so much against what Ron knew of his best friend that he couldn’t get his mind to wrap around it. How could Harry have had hundreds of lovers in just a few short years?

“Hundreds might be exaggerating,” Xander admitted, “but not by much. Especially not if you count blowjobs, which I do.”

Ron’s mouth went dry and he found most of his motor functions to have seized up. “I just…”

“Can’t put that behavior to the face of the friend you know?” Xander finished for him. “Sorry mate, but it’s true. Harry Potter is nothing more then a two-bit whore in a chastity suit. Mark my words; he’ll never be able to have a real relationship. He’s too fucking weak to keep his dick to himself.”

“Now, you wait a minute,” Ron balked. He didn’t stand for people saying bad things about his friend. “Harry’s the strongest person I know, and for your information, he hasn’t slept with anyone in months.”

“Are you sure?” Xander asked. “Do you check his sheets for foreign emissions every night?”

“That’s disgusting,” Ron shuddered.

“It’s the truth. Harry cheated on me within weeks of moving back here and he continued to cheat right up until the very minute I left him. Now, I would love to believe my leaving sparked some redemption in him, but I am highly doubtful. That Malfoy bloke he’s dating now had better watch out or he’s going to get his heart broken,” Xander commented.

Ron just rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Draco Malfoy doesn’t have a heart.”

“Well, then maybe he’s the perfect match for Harry. Merlin knows I wasn’t,” Xander sighed and pushed his glass of water toward the center of the table and moved to slide out of the bench. “Was there something else you needed from me?”

Ron shoved a few slips of parchment across the table in front of Xander and gestured for him to look at it. “Do you recognize any of these names?”

With a quick scan, Xander seemed to grow angrier where he sat. “Those ten,” he mentioned, pointing to a group in the center of the first page, “were some of the blokes I know he cheated on me with. Other names I recognize as people he met and most likely shagged while we lived in Ibiza. I’d say you seem to have a copy of Harry’s little black book.”

Taking the report back, albeit with extreme distaste, Ron gestured that Xander was free to go. He didn’t watch the man leave, he was too preoccupied trying to figure out what the man had said that was truth and what was lies. There were always two sides to every story, but would Harry even give Ron his own side to things? He figured that if he was going to unravel the honest truth about his friend, he was going to have to do a bit more digging.

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Harry groaned as he looked at the pile of paperwork on his desk. It was going to take him days if not weeks to get through it all. It was hardly any use complaining or even trying to delegate though, because everyone else seemed rather busy as well. Even Ron had some odd lunch engagement with an interviewee, or at least that’s what Harry had been able to discern from the protracted and mumbling answer he’d gotten when he invited his friend out to lunch.

He knew Draco wanted to take him out today, but although part of him desired the blond’s company, another part of him wanted to be out of the office on personal business when the Slytherin arrived to call on him.

Sifting blindly through the files, he came across several new cases that he briefly skimmed to determine which Auror team would be best suited to each task. He then authorized a few inter-office memorandums that declared the cubicles personal space, allowing the staff to customize their areas with family photos and whatnot, and one that would stop the abuse of Memory Charms on Muggles who had already been exposed to them more than three times. There were now less faulty potions that could achieve the specific memory loss effect without dissolving too much of the person’s other memories.

After that, he had only taken the pile down to almost half of what it had been originally, when he spotted a bright orange note sticking out from mid-way through the stack. He tugged at the slip of paper and held it up. It had the Minister’s seal as well as the signature of an archival associate he didn’t recognize.

Dear Mr. Potter,

As per Ministry policy 7-843-67 we are entitled to make you aware when your file has been requested from the Archival Department. The request was authorized and your file checked out within the last forty-eight hours. If you would like to inquire as to what department or individual removed your file, please see Stephanie Pincus in the Archival Department at your convenience. If you have already been made aware of the file’s recipient, please disregard this message.

Sincerely,

Gwendolyn Sparks

Archival Associate

Kingsley Shacklebolt

Minister for Magic

“What?” Harry whispered aloud. He didn’t know who would want to pull his files. There was no reason he could see that such a thing would be needed. It was far too late in the year for an evaluation, and he’d already passed one just a few weeks ago. He hadn’t put in any benefit requests or written anyone up for misconduct, so he doubted that anyone had reason to put in a complaint about him.

“It looks like you might be too busy for lunch,” a voice noted from the doorway, pulling his attention away from the little orange note.

Harry looked up to see Draco smiling at him from over his precarious tower of paperwork. It was difficult not to return such a seemingly genuine smile, but somehow Harry managed it. “Malfoy,” he greeted.

“Still angry with me, I see,” Draco observed as he made his way over to sit in the chair across from Harry’s desk.

“I’m not mad,” Harry sighed. He was, but his anger was irrational and he hated that he had it at all. He wanted to trust Draco, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that, not when he could barely even trust himself. “I’m just overwhelmed.”

“With work or with me?” Draco asked, crossing his leg elegantly over his knee. It looked as if he were settling in and getting comfortable, which was not what Harry wanted.

“Both,” Harry admitted.

“Well, are you hungry? If not I could come back after you get off and we could go to dinner instead,” he offered. He was always doing things like that, always being the gentleman, and Harry often found himself wondering what was the truth and what was a lie.

He almost took Malfoy’s out and said he wasn’t hungry, but his stomach chose that moment to growl menacingly at him and would give his lie away. In the end he figured a lunch with Draco would be better than some intimate candlelit dinner with the overly charming man. “Lunch would be nice,” he conceded at last and Draco beamed at him. This time, however he wasn’t able to resist smiling back.

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The restaurant Draco chose for their lunch was understated, a nice little café that served delicious sandwiches and salads. He held the door open for Harry and lingered behind a moment to get a good look at the man’s bum. The lack of physical connection was really starting to get to him, but he practiced patience with the reluctant Gryffindor. He knew his persistence would eventually pay off, but the wait was slowly killing him.

They selected a nice little bistro table by the expanse of windows that would allow them to watch the Londoners trail by them on various errands. Draco enjoyed observing people’s habits and mannerisms, often picking up hints about their character based on their swagger or the way they reacted to an elderly woman trying to cross the street. Sometimes even something as simple as their facial expression when they thought no one was paying attention to them could be so telling.

As a boy, Draco had wanted to be a photographer. He found the craft artistic and loved to take portraits of his family with the tiny camera his father had gotten him for his birthday one year. He remembered smashing the camera to bits one day when Pansy had snapped a picture of him instead. The photo showed him looking dreadful, so sad and so lost that Draco couldn’t bear to look upon it and vowed never to capture another image again. He couldn’t manage to turn off the switch that made him perceptive to what other people where thinking and feeling, he just used it to his benefit in different ways now.

Harry Potter, however, was just as much of a mystery now as he was that first day of school. His personality seemed to bend and shift at will, always adapting, always fighting off some internal demons. Draco wanted desperately to take his photograph and see what story the camera’s eye told him.

“Knut for your thoughts,” Harry mused, watching him with an awkward smile before shoving a bite of cobb salad into his mouth.

“See that woman over there?” Draco gestured to a slender woman in a powder blue business suit standing on the corner and Harry nodded. “I think she just lost her job.”

Harry laughed and shook his head. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Her shoulders are slumped, her face looks as though she’s fighting off tears… she just looks defeated,” Draco observed.

“Maybe she’s just been broken up with,” Harry suggested, studying the woman closely, trying to pick up on why Draco thought such a thing about her.

“But she’s not holding her briefcase, its just shoved on top of that box she’s caring, which I’d bet you a Galleon has the things from her old desk inside of it,” Draco noted.

Harry merely chuckled and shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.” Draco watched as Harry’s face took on the look of someone deep in thought and then his green eyes went wide as they stared back at Draco. “She just got sacked, you were right,” he confirmed.

“You just read those poor innocent woman’s thoughts?” Draco asked, somewhat shocked. He wasn’t surprised by the act, it was terribly easy to invade Muggle minds since they’d never built up any defenses against it, but he was caught off guard by the fact that morally high Harry Potter had been the one to do it.

“Trust me, she wasn’t innocent,” Harry scoffed. “She got sacked because she tried to manipulate her intern into shagging her.”

“Still, you didn’t know that going in,” Draco reprimanded. He hated having his mind invaded and hated watching it happen to others nearly as much.

“I’m Head Auror,” Harry laughed. “I know what I’m doing. I have to do it all the time for work. In fact, with your observation skills, you would probably make a decent Auror as well.”

“You’re not working now,” Draco noted, ignoring the job offer. He had no time to have a career; he was far too busy not having one. “You’re supposed to be on a date with me.”

“Not a date,” Harry corrected, repeating himself from the night before. “Just lunch.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “When will you get past this cat and mouse play and realize that we both fancy one another. I, for one, am quite taken with you, Harry.”

It looked as though Harry was trying to fight off a smile, but the smile won. “I’m… I just don’t know if I’m ready for this,” he admitted.

Never had Draco seen Harry look scared. Not even on the battlefield at Hogwarts when he had to face his own death. It was a sobering sight and Draco wondered what had brought it out in him. “Is it me that frightens you or just commitment in general?” he asked.

“Both,” Harry replied with a laugh. “You must admit, Draco Malfoy is not the most trustworthy of people to get into bed with.”

“Bed?” Draco asked, a wicked smirk playing on his lips and an eyebrow shooting up into his fringe.

“Bad analogy,” Harry groaned. “I just meant that you and relationships are about as successful as me and relationships, and that doesn’t bode well. What happens if I actually start liking you and it all falls apart?”

Draco’s smirk instantly went into a dramatic pout at Harry’s words. “You don’t already like me?”

“Of course I like you,” Harry scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m just not sure that I should.”

“Why don’t you just relax,” Draco suggested, taking Harry’s hand into his own. Harry didn’t pull away, he just allowed the blond to hold his hand under the table, smiling when Draco began drawing slow circles in his palm. “You worry too much.”

“It’s my job to worry,” Harry countered, unable to remove the smile from his face.

Something about Harry’s company always seemed to give Draco a matching smile. “Well, at least let your dates with me stay worry free. We’re both adults, Harry. We can weather whatever storm the world throws at us.”

This time Harry didn’t correct him and didn’t tell Draco that it wasn’t a date. Still, the spell that locked their gaze together and seemed to be pulling them closer across the table towards an inevitable kiss, was broken abruptly as a man went tripping into their table, spilling the contents of their meal into Harry and Draco’s laps.

“Terribly sorry,” the man apologized and then continued down the walkway away from them, as if he’d been too embarrassed to say more.

Draco huffed but Harry had them both cleaned up within moments with a silent spell. “No harm done,” he told the fuming Slytherin.

But there was harm done. He’d been close to securing his first kiss with Harry until that clumsy bloke had knocked into them. He silently counted to ten and finally sighed, trying not to let it ruin the rest of his date with Harry. Now that the man was finally admitting it was a date –or at least not denying it, which was progress of its own- he was determined to make the most of it.

Unfortunately Harry seemed to have something else in mind. “I’ve already been out past my lunch hour. I should be getting back.”

Draco sighed and nodded, standing as he threw a few bills of muggle money to the table. “Can I walk you back?”

Harry smiled, but shook his head. “I have some thinking to do,” he admitted. “But I guess you’ll see me at dinner tonight?”

“Oh? Are you taking me out then?” Draco asked with a wink.

He expected Harry to look amused, but he just looked Confunded. “Er… I got an invitation from your father inviting me for a family dinner tonight,” Harry told him. “I just assumed you were behind it.”

“Oh, yes, of course. That dinner. I simply forgot that it was tonight, my apologies,” Draco replied with a tight smile. He wondered what his father was up to and didn’t care for surprises that made him look a fool in front of a potential conquest, and this was the most important person he’d ever courted.

“Are you sure? I mean, if you had other plans-“

“Not at all, I’m at your disposal any night of the week, Harry,” Draco replied, smoothing his hand down Harry’s arm. “I just lost track of what day it was, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Harry replied awkwardly. “I suppose I’ll see you tonight then.”

“Tonight,” Draco confirmed and watched as Harry left the café and headed down the street, miraculously staying dry as other Muggles struggled to get their umbrellas out after the skies had suddenly opened and began dumping rain upon London.

Once he lost sight of Harry, Draco stormed out of the café and Apparated from a nearby alley to the Manor grounds. His father had some questions to answer.

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Author’s Note: So many mini cliffhangers! We get a good look at Harry’s past, but in return we find out that Harry is close to finding out that Ron took his file, we get an almost kiss and an almost date and the promise of an interesting evening at the Malfoys.