Trophy

Author's Note: Many thanks to Angel for her beta work on this chapter. (also, If you haven't noticed yet, I've posted a new two shot called 'the Positive Effects of Porn' and the start of a collection of stories called Twisted Faerie Tales, with the first story in the collection being Little Red Riding Hood)

Chapter 15 Pouring Down

Lucius had a few variations of his smile, and only those close to him –namely his wife and son- had seen the entire range of them. There was the subtle smirk he gave when throwing a rather poignant barb at someone he disliked, the wide smile he only used in private for occasions that warranted it, a soft twist of the lips when he was genuinely pleased with a kind gesture and the wicked grin he often showed when some manipulation of his had paid off. Today, he was wearing the latter.

Hedrick lounged in an armchair by the fireplace, sipping on a glass of cognac as he appraised Lucius’ reaction to his latest news. News that he had severed a kiss between Potter and his son just before it happened, news that he had gone above and beyond his station to assist the Malfoy family with Lucius’ request, even after it had been revoked.

“You’re certain they didn’t take note of you?” Lucius asked, turning to face his employee.

“I fled the scene the moment I broke up their kiss. They were close, Lucius. All I had to do was trip into them. It created a mess, but I think they were far too startled to notice my face,” the man replied proudly. He had been taken aback when Lucius all but fired him, but apparently he had the blond patriarch rethinking his strategy.

It had been Hedrick’s own initiative that put him in the café that afternoon, deciding to follow the younger Malfoy of his own accord to prove that the elder Malfoy did indeed need his services. Lucky for him it worked. As he well knew through stories from other hired men, Lucius Malfoy had a fickle temper. He could have just as easily blasted Hedrick for daring to defy his orders; instead he offered the man a seat and a drink.

“Wonderful,” Lucius praised, tapping his fingertips together in a manner Hedrick could easily call villainous. “You’ve done well, Hedrick, and the reward will be great. I’ll draft a note to Gringotts this afternoon for your payment.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Hedrick noted with a slight bow of his head. “It is always my pleasure to assist such a prestigious family as the Malfoys.”

“I’ve already thanked you, Hedrick. There is no reason to continue your prostrating,” Malfoy quipped. A certain amount of flattery was expected, but Lucius never liked it when one went too far overboard with it.

The man wisely nodded in response and changed the subject. “It was exactly as you predicted,” he mused aloud. “They were just sitting there chatting amicably when your son mentioned something that seemed to captivate Potter’s attention like nothing else. I almost didn’t catch them in time to halt it.”

“Well, good for you that you did, otherwise this chat would be going quite differently,” Lucius replied, and if anyone could make their tone seem both light and menacing all at once, it was Lucius Malfoy. “I won’t require your services tonight, since I do believe I can keep a close enough eye on them both while they are under my own roof, but I’d like you to follow them again tomorrow. Merlin only knows what plans that pair might make for the weekend.”

“Of course, Sir,” Hedrick replied before downing the last sip of his drink and setting the glass aside. He stood, dropped his waist into a slight bow and then strode toward the fireplace. He didn’t get the opportunity to cast the Floo powder into the hearth, however, because Draco chose that very moment to burst into the room in a fit.

“What exactly is it that you’re up to, Lucius?” Draco demanded, no care for the man on the far edge of the room. It rather shocked Hedrick to hear the boy speak to his father so boldly, Lucius seemed like the kind of figure who wouldn’t tolerate such behavior, but it wasn’t his place to comment, and it would be folly to do so in that moment regardless.

“You’ll have to be more specific, Son,” Lucius replied carefully, turning so that Draco’s gaze was forced to follow him away from the man looming next to the fireplace. He was fairly confident in Hedrick’s assessment that his son had not laid eyes on his face, but still, there was no reason not to take precautions.

“A dinner invitation? Really, Lucius, do you think this will give you some sort of upper hand?” Draco snarled.

“If you’re storming into my study in such a huff over it, one might think that I already had the upper hand, Son.” Lucius gave Draco his best smirk, and since his son was so adept at that particular expression, he knew only too well what it meant.

Draco just stood there, scowling and staring his father down as if his flinty gaze alone might melt the man, unfortunately for Draco, Lucius had to stand up to far more fearsome men in his life, so Draco’s sneer simply made him chuckle. “It’s only customary for your mother and I to have an opportunity to meet the boyfriend you’re so serious about.”

“He’s. Not. My. Boyfriend,” Draco corrected, carefully punctuating each word with a snarl. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m only going through this charade to fuck him?”

“Whatever you say, Son. Still, it seems a good deal more to me,” Lucius mused, his smirk slipping into a more genuine grin at the thought of all the crow his son would be eating in the near future.

“You already know him, you and Mother both,” Draco huffed, sounding more and more petulant.

“We’ve only met the boy under unfortunate circumstances,” Lucius began, but Draco cut him off.

“Right, like that time you tried to murder him in the Department of Mysteries,” Draco pointed out scathingly, but Lucius continued as if his son hadn’t said a word.

“We’d like to get acquainted with him on a more personal level. Seeing as though he might be a part of our family soon, it seems only fair,” Lucius chimed, seeming quite pleased with himself by Draco’s sputtering reaction.

“If you or mother do anything, and I mean anything, to jeopardize my position with Harry, I’ll Avada you both in your sleep,” he threatened hollowly. His father simply nodded and laughed to himself, carefully noting the fact that Draco called Potter by his given name, and not for simply for the sake of appearances. Just a week ago he would have still referred to him by his surname in Lucius’ presence. The boy was becoming smitten with the reluctant hero whether he chose to admit it to himself or not.

“We wouldn’t dream of breaking up such a happy couple,” Lucius patronized.

Draco fumed, his hands forming into fists at his side and he turned to storm out of the room, only pausing when he saw the man who was trying to appear invisible. “Who the hell are you?”

Hedrick’s eyes flicked to Lucius briefly before stepping slightly out of the shadows, nodding to the younger Malfoy. “He’s an old associate of mine. He was just leaving,” Lucius noted and Hedrick moved to do just that.

Draco narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the stranger in his father’s study for a good long moment. “You seem familiar.”

“I was here quite often during Voldemort’s regime,” Hedrick replied, hoping the answer would pacify the boy.

“That must be it,” Draco replied, but he didn’t seem entirely convinced. Still, he continued his quick stride from the room, causing both Hedrick and his employer to let out a sigh of relief.

“I think it might be best that we only correspond in my private quarters from now on. I don’t want to risk this blowing up in my face. Now that he’s seen you it will be that much harder to get close to him,” Lucius whispered, mulling over what to do about it. He could always modify his son’s memory, but that practice often went awry and he would prefer not to take such a drastic measure against his own flesh and blood, at least not until he saw good enough reason to.

“Agreed,” Hedrick replied with a curt nod before making a hasty exit. He didn’t want to linger with Draco still hovering nearby. He’d achieved his goal, falling under Malfoy employ once more; he had no other reason to stay.

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Ron sighed as he sealed the final note and threw it into the pile with the others. Seventy-two letters, seventy-two names on the list that Xander had told Ron was probably the names of all the lovers Harry had taken. He shook his head for the hundredth time in disbelief, figuring Xander was grossly exaggerating. By this count Harry would have had to have a new conquest every week, and that just didn’t seem much like the Harry he’d known his whole life. The ex was obviously bitter, so maybe there was a smidge of truth to the story, but it could just as easily have been a complete and utter lie. He wouldn’t know for sure until he started getting responses to these letters.

It was just a simple note asking, on Ministry letterhead of course, for each recipient to confirm that they had indeed carried on a personal relationship with Harry Potter during the time he was away from England. Based on the responses, Ron figured he could take it up with his friend. He refused to jump to conclusions though; Harry was his best mate and deserved the benefit of the doubt.

What he couldn’t seem to piece together was the fact that not even the Prophet had seemed to catch wind of their favorite hero’s debauchery, which only led Ron to believe that Xander was blowing steam up his arse. The Daily Prophet would have had a field day with such news, but all too often the pages were completely void of information about his friend.

Like a bolt of lightning the answer struck him: Luna Lovegood.

She had taken over the editor duties at the Quibbler for her father the moment she graduated. If anyone had been soliciting papers with information about Harry, she would know about it. Quickly, Ron grabbed his letters and ran to the Owlery, tapping his foot impatiently as the lift seemed to crawl the one floor he had to go up, thinking he should have just taken the stairs. It took him nearly an hour to lace all those letters to the carrier owls, and he was lucky there were even enough for them all. When he was done, only three very faulty looking owls were left.

He grimaced on his way out when an older woman walked by him carrying an armful of parchments, but hastened on outside. If he wanted to catch Luna before she left her office he’d have to get there before six and it was half till already.

Luna was still working diligently when Ron arrived to her office out of breath. She shot him a winning smile when she spotted him and he returned it in kind. He’d always liked Luna, despite her odd outlook on things.

“Ronald,” she cooed, her dreamy voice so familiar to his ears. “What a pleasant surprise.” Ron took a seat across from her desk and waited patiently as she set some things aside and gave him her full attention. “What can I do for you?”

“I have an odd request,” Ron admitted, smiling as her face lit up. No doubt she was hoping Ron was going to ask her how to remove an infestation of some peculiar creature she’d made up. “It’s about Harry,” he clarified.

“What about him? Has he been up to his old mischief again?” she asked, her face falling into a look of overwhelming concern.

“About that, do you know what Harry was up to in those years he was away?” he asked bluntly, hoping he didn’t sound terribly rude.

“Of course I do. Nearly every day I had to snuff some story or hide some photo that people were sending me about him. The Ministry sent a mandate to all the papers and magazines that no story, not even a blurb, was to be mentioned about Harry without their express permission. But then, I’m sure you knew all about that,” she told him with a smile.

“Right,” Ron replied, hoping he didn’t look as guilty as he felt. “I know all about it.”

“I would assume so. They must have recruited you to help them with their cause. Taming someone like Harry proved quite difficult,” she said with a laugh. “Who knew the boy we all grew up with could be so promiscuous? Hardly seems like him at all, in fact, I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen the evidence with my own two eyes. Still, it was rather nice of the Ministry to go to such extents to cover it all up, even if it was for their own personal gain.”

“Really nice,” Ron agreed, not even sure he knew what he was agreeing to. “In fact, I’m not even sure why they worked so hard to cover it up,” he offered, hoping to pry more information from the Ravenclaw.

“They couldn’t have the reputation of their poster boy tarnished, could they? Apparently Harry was rather good at stringing them along with promises to eventually come back and head their Auror department, and the Ministry wanted him badly enough to fight the rumors off for him,” she replied. “I can’t believe you didn’t figure that out on your own, Ronald. Your Auror skills must be slipping.”

“Must be,” Ron sighed, rubbing his temples. From what he was hearing, there was no way Harry was innocent of the acts Xander had accused him of. “Listen, Luna? You said you were barraged with stories and photos, right? Well, do you still have any of them?”

“No,” she replied thoughtfully and Ron sagged in his chair. That could have been just what he needed to solve this whole thing, just enough concrete proof that he could confront Harry with. “I have all of them,” she finished, and Ron beamed at her.

“Could I see them?” he asked, his expression torn. Part of him knew it was wrong to continue prying into Harry’s personal life when he’d already heard enough to confront the man, but the rest of him needed to see for himself that what everyone was saying about his friend was true.

“Why?” Luna looked suspicious for the first time since Ron had walked in and he didn’t like that.

“Well, I’m supposed to do some follow up, make sure there are no loose ends, and with Harry dating Malfoy now, the Ministry is worried he might be slipping back into his old ways,” Ron lied, feeling awful even as he did it. Still, he was worried, and he worked for the Ministry, so it was partly true at least.

“I suppose it would be alright. You are his best friend, after all. I’m sure Harry wouldn’t mind,” she noted, making Ron feel even lower.

“Thanks, Luna, you’re a lifesaver,” he commented, and she was. She might even be helping him to save Harry.

Luna led him down to the storage room and Ron marveled at the stacked boxes lining every wall. It had to be as much, if not more, information than all the Ministry archival associates combined kept in their offices. The room was as large as a Muggle supermarket, with aisles that towered far above Ron’s six-foot frame, and on every shelf of every aisle were hundreds of boxes. Ron couldn’t even believe how many there were.

They walked further into the room, and Ron noticed that above every aisle hovered a letter and Luna explained that every document was cross-referenced by the last name of the person involved, if no name was given, it was referenced with some other pertinent detail like location or date. When they emerged into an aisle that had a great big glowing ‘P’ looming above it, Ron’s heart rate sped up.

His gut didn’t want to continue, didn’t want to know too many details about Harry’s sex life, but he got the sinking feeling he was about to enter a world of too much information. Perhaps he would just skip the photos and stick solely with the articles.

They walked about halfway down, Ron eyeing the boxes as they went, until Luna suddenly stopped. “Well, here we are,” she chirped.

“Great,” Ron replied, happy for the assistance, no matter what he found. “So which box is Harry’s?”

“All of them,” she replied with a smile and gestured to the entire aisle, probably about five hundred boxes or more.

“Thanks,” Ron squeaked, wondering –and not for the first time, or the last time- what he’d gotten himself into.

“No problem,” Luna replied as she turned to leave Ron alone in the dusty storeroom. A desk, chair and a lamp flew into place in front of him from Merlin only knew where and Ron sagged into the seat, staring up at the work he had in front of him. “Just lock up when you leave,” Luna called and Ron nodded, thinking that he might actually still be there when she returned to work on Monday.

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Harry stood before his bedroom mirror dressed in his nicest dress robes. He wanted to look presentable for his dinner with the Malfoys, meeting the parents was sort of a big step, even though he’d already met them several times.

He could hardly believe he was even going. Dating Draco Malfoy had not been part of his life’s plan; in fact, he couldn’t believe he was committing to dating anyone after the Xander fiasco so long ago. He thought for a moment that maybe he should just owl and say he was sick, he was starting to feel a bit peaked now that he thought of it, as if all the blood had drained from his body.

Xander’s face continually loomed in the background of his thoughts lately, taunting him and telling him it would never work. “You’re a whore, Harry. You’ll cheat on him as well.” The voice was faint in his mind, but he knew all too well who it belonged to.

“I won’t,” Harry told the voice defiantly. “It’s different this time.”

“How is this any different? I was in love with you, Harry, and you betrayed me. Why wouldn’t you do the same to him?” Xander’s voice asked in head.

“I learned from my mistakes. I can be happy. I deserve to be happy,” Harry told himself, but his inner thoughts disagreed.

“You don’t deserve it. You’re a ruiner and you’ll ruin this just as assuredly as you ruined us.”

Harry closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the persistent naysayer inside of him. Draco might not be perfect, but he was warm and funny and kind. Things might not work out between them, but it wouldn’t be because Harry cheated, not this time.

He took a deep breath, adjusted his tie and smoothed the lapel of his robes before walking to the front door. With a sharp pop, he Apparated to the Manor and strode purposefully to the door. He was going to try his best to be gracious and charming for the Malfoys, but most of all for Draco. If they were really dating now, Harry would give it his all.

The door opened before he even had the opportunity to knock, and he smiled crookedly at the lithe blonde woman in the doorway. “Harry,” Narcissa cooed like a long lost aunt. “So happy you could make it. Do come in.”

With one last exhalation of breath, Harry breached the entrance into what could possibly be the first of a lifetime of family dinners with the Malfoys.

Author's Note: Cliffhanger? What cliffhanger? What, were you guys looking forward to the Malfoy dinner or something? Perhaps next chapter, or maybe I'll just skip right over it... what do you think?