Payment, Sequel

Summary: A few months after the first payment, Malfoy’s obsession with Harry’s humiliation is as strong as ever. He keeps him on a short leash and pushes him into things that make Harry’s skin crawl with shame and disgust. However, when Malfoy goes a step too far and tries to set Ron against him, Harry understands the real reason behind Malfoy’s actions and decides to use them to his advantage.

Warnings: cross-dressing, non-con, unrequited Harry/Ron, hints of the Epilogue, heavy ramblings in this part

Author’s Notes: I got carried away in this part so there is one more to come.


Payment, Sequel – part 2

Days after their bizarre encounter, Harry was celebrating the completion of an entire Malfoy-free week by going to bed early when Ron burst into his bedroom, a crumpled piece of parchment shaking furiously in his hands.

Naturally, Ron bursting into his bedroom was one of Harry’s long-standing fantasiesá but none of them included a furious Ron, spitting with rage and swearing to rip someone from limb to limb. Harry instantly knew that he wasn’t dreaming.

Ron paced back and forth, muttering under his breath, while Harry got out of bed, thankful for his pajama bottoms, and stared at his friend in some confusion. He was dazed by his sudden appearance but was getting over his shock quickly enough.

When it became clear that Ron was not about to stop and tell him what was the matter, as he was too busy having a fierce confrontation with someone invisible, Harry took him by the hand and dragged him to the bed, forcing him sit and take notice of him.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘This!’ roared Ron, thrusting an ill-treated parchment at Harry. Harry had to struggle it out of Ron’s hand, before he had the chance to have a good look at it.

‘The bastard!’ hissed Ron, when Harry started scanning what looked like an article from the Daily Prophet, though he didn’t remember anything of the kind from this morning’s paper.

His eyes widened. He didn’t need to look at the signature at the bottom of the page or even read beyond the first paragraph to know who the author was.


"Wizarding World in Danger of Exposure

It has been of some concern to myself and my fellow witches and wizards from old pure-blood families to witness an alarming rise of pro-Muggle activity within the Ministry of Magic in recent years. While some might say and others might agree that it is without a doubt a worthy cause to maintain friendly ties between our communities and to welcome and support Muggle-born witches and wizards, we find it rather disquieting to discover that certain members of the Ministry of Magic are over-zealous in their attempts to establish what we can only regard as a strictly Muggle-born society, governed by their new, untested laws; as well as promote, one can only imagine to some extent, Muggle awareness of our existence. I sincerely hope that this is someone’s idea of a bad joke. Otherwise, I am very much concerned for the well-being of the Wizarding World once it becomes exposed to Muggles. I do not suppose that anyone, who is familiar with our history at least, must be reminded of the constant danger wizards faced while exposed to the Muggle eye before the institution of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1689."


Harry snorted at the drivel. But he read on as there had to be something more than Malfoy’s anti-Muggle ramblings to make Ron so furious that he could hardly speak.


"Prominent among those who believe that Muggles can be trusted with the knowledge of our existence is one Hermione Granger – a Muggle-born witch of some talent who, it has been whispered, makes up in brains what she thoroughly lacks in pedigree. Having no ties to the Wizarding community before she received her Hogwarts letter, she has often failed to grasp many of our long-standing customs and traditions. Indeed, ever since she arrived into our world she has been trying to change and even undermine our ways that had been a part of our heritage for centuries – heritage, that her Muggle descent does not allow her to either value or comprehend.

Her subversive activity started while she was still at Hogwarts. Then she launched her first attack at our traditions by aiming straight at the heart of every respectable Wizarding household – at house-elves, implanting dangerous ideas into their heads and going so far as sabotaging their work by trying to set them free against their will and very nature. And now, holding a position at the department of Magical Law Enforcement, it seems, that there is no one who can stop her as she continues her devastating campaign, mindless of harm and distress that she is inflicting upon the elves and their owners by her forceful actions that should not be tolerated.

Should we let Miss Granger have her way and carry on the execution of her unfounded belief that she is doing right by house-elves setting them free against their wishes and our traditions, she will not stop there. And before we know it, she will demand the introduction of Magic Awareness subject in Muggle schools, the main aim of which will, naturally, be to learn how to recognize a witch or a wizard living in the neighbourhood, which will instantly put us in direct danger of Muggle detection. And from there it is not hard to predict what will happen next.

So I urge you to protect and preserve our legacy and stand against the tide of ill-meant intentions of some of the Ministry of Magic workers before it is too late and our children first and foremost – hope and future of our world – become an easy target in the face of witch-hunters – another thing that Miss Granger unfortunately cannot understand, having no children of her own."


Harry put the parchment aside and stared, horrified. The missive was ridiculous but potentially harmful. He couldn’t believe that Malfoy would do something like this. Write something like this. Not now. It was the worst time possible. But that was probably why Malfoy chose to do it now in the first place: attack Hermione in the press and hit on the very thing that drove her even more obsessively than ever before to secure elf rights and freedoms.

Ron sat rigidly on the bed and Harry nudged him with his knee.

‘Did Hermione see this?’

Ron shook his head. He looked as green as before his first ever Quidditch match and he had trouble unclenching his jaw as if holding back the urge to throw up.

‘The owl brought it straight to me.’ he forced out at last.

Harry nodded.

‘Was there anything else? A note? A possible date of it being printed? Anything that would indicate what he wants in return for not printing it?’ asked Harry, trying hard to understand Malfoy’s motives this time around. What else could he want?

‘No. Just – this – this – this – thing.’

Ron lost the struggle with disgust and his face twisted horribly.

‘Then we’ll just have to confront him about it and find out. I’ll go to him the first thing in the morning.’ said Harry, resolutely, though without any real wish to go after Malfoy and demand explanation.

Harry was so happy that he didn’t have to see Malfoy for an entire week – but, really, he should have been more concerned by the lack of owls from Malfoy; he should have known that it was just the calm before the storm and that if Malfoy hadn’t demanded his presence by now it probably meant that he had been busy plotting another disaster that Harry would have to prevent. Harry was convinced that it was all about payment all over again. The only problem was that he had nothing left to trade.

Ron gave him such a pleading look that Harry hated seeing on his best friend’s face.

‘You’ll do it, mate?’ he asked hopefully.

Harry rolled his eyes.

‘I don’t reckon you’ve come here just to rage about Malfoy, Ron. Don’t you want me to do it?’

Isn’t that what you’ve come here for, Harry left for another time. He was afraid that it would sound too bitter.

Ron looked sheepishly at Harry.

‘That’s ok. You know you can count on me.’ said Harry.

‘I just thought, you know, you went to him last time and it worked. I don’t know what you told him and you’ve never told us, but it worked.’ said Ron in a kind of awed astonishment, gazing at Harry with his mouth slightly open, as if trying to figure out what it was, which made Harry cringe. He turned away.

‘There was no case against you. It was all talk and he knew it.’ he lied. ‘I didn’t do anything heroic if that’s what you think.’

Harry couldn’t help wondering what sort of power Ron imagined he held over Malfoy and what he would say if he knew the truth.

But getting hold of Malfoy proved more difficult than Harry had originally expected. In the end, he was reduced to actively seeking him out and hating himself for it. When all his attempts to contact him by owl or catch him in the Ministry and even in Malfoy Manor failed, desperate, Harry put on his Invisibility Cloak and slipped unnoticed and unhindered into Malfoy’s office during lunch break.

Malfoy, who was on the point of leaving, was supremely unsurprised to see Harry as he took off his cloak and glared at him. If anything he looked highly amused. Obviously, Harry chasing him around like a puppy was as entertaining as anything else.

‘Fancy seeing you here, Potter.’ he said. ‘Though, I don’t remember requesting your presence. Is there anything you wanted?’

‘As a matter of fact yes.’ snarled Harry. ‘I wanted to ask you if you had trouble with your muse. I mean, did it actually take you a whole week to come up with this rubbish?’ he said, throwing the piece of parchment that held all the tell-tale signs of being abused by two sets of hands on the table in front of him. ‘What is it this time, Malfoy? What is there left of me for you to take? Why do you keep targeting people I care about? I know that the Daily Prophet will lap up everything you feed them, but you can’t just go and print something like this! It will kill Hermione!’

‘An interesting choice of words there, Potter.’ replied Malfoy and Harry instantly blushed. ‘I don’t think that a piece of my mind will kill Granger,’ he continued coldly, ‘but even if it does, I won’t care much as long as it doesn’t happen at the Ministry – I can only imagine the stench.’ He sighed as if Harry was boring him and moved towards the door. ‘I really don’t have time for your hysterics so if you don’t mind - ’

Harry glared furiously at him, clenched his wand so tightly that it started sending angry sparks and flushed further still with the memory of his ill-timed break-down during their last meeting. He snarled at Malfoy’s back -

‘What’s the matter? In a hurry to meet your pure-blood trophy wife in a pure-bloods-only restaurant?’

Harry was still smarting too much from his encounter with Astoria Malfoy to let it go completely. Malfoy paused with his wand on the doorknob and spoke: ‘I’ll owl you the details of our next meeting. Until then, don’t even think about forcing yourself into my house or office or the article will go into print before you have the chance of negotiating the price of its staying out of it.’

Left alone, Harry wondered if he could get away with turning Malfoy’s office upside down like an over-excited Niffler looking for gold or maybe setting fire to some important-looking documents, but thought better of it. There was nothing to be gained from pushing Malfoy further, because if that was the extent of what Mafloy did for fun, Harry shuddered to think what he’d do if he really had a reason to extract payment.

*
It took another two weeks for Malfoy to send Harry an owl, by which time Harry had been driven crazy with nerves and odd sort of anticipation. He knew, or rather he wanted to believe, that Malfoy wouldn’t print the article about Hermione before he had the chance to offer another payment. But then it was Malfoy and Harry couldn’t exactly trust him to keep his word and not to do anything to hurt his friends as he was known to derive particular pleasure from it.

It came as a shock that Malfoy didn’t expect him to arrive at Malfoy Manor, wearing another stupid dress, but instead told him to meet him at one of the inns, located on the outskirts of Diagon Alley. It was a rather shady location, sprinkled with the kind of establishments that were not frequented by parents and their children while purchasing school supplies. In fact, you would never find them there in broad daylight, because they seemed to appear only when it was safe to show themselves to their prospective customers. Harry had never been in one of those before, but he had heard other Aurors mention them in connection with certain entertainments and potions that could be easily obtained there for a nice sum of Galleons.

Occasionally Ministry would conduct a raid or two to clear up the place and shut down more objectionable inns, but it was as pointless as de-gnoming the garden as they reopened after a short while and the Ministry mostly kept a blind eye policy towards them as long as there were no serious complaints. Harry wondered if Hermione knew of this part of the wizarding community. It was certainly up her street to work tirelessly in order to ban something like this.

When Harry arrived at ‘Dragon’s Fire’ – snorting at the name for the umpteenth time – he was surprised to see that this particular inn, at least, looked quite respectable and he would never believe that anything untoward was going on behind its doors. He checked the parchment to make sure that he got the right inn and walked inside, drawing the hood over his face. The room was low-lit and spacious with a bar counter, a dance floor, a number of private booths and a staircase leading upstairs. The first indication that this was not a place any decent witch or wizard would visit was a number of explicit pictures of highly obscene nature lining the walls.

Shivering slightly, Harry went to the booth at the very back of the room, as per Malfoy’s instructions, and sat down, trying not to look around or catch anyone’s eye. A glass of water appeared in front of him. He cautiously sniffed it, cast a spell that would instantly identify the presence of any illegal substances in there and, his throat feeling quite parched, drank it in one gulp. He wished Malfoy would hurry up and explain why he wanted to meet in a place like this. What was wrong with Malfoy Manor, anyway?

When a quarter of an hour later, that felt much longer to Harry, Malfoy slipped into the booth and cast a charm that allowed them complete privacy, Harry relaxed and took off the hood. He was ashamed that he was almost happy to see Malfoy, but in the crowd of strangers whose tastes ran a little too wild for his liking, Malfoy was like a dear old friend. Harry debated whether to ask him about the choice of the place first or to go straight to the matter at hand. But deciding that Hermione’s well-being was more important than his curiosity or the unsettling feeling somewhere in the region of his stomach, launched forward with his well-rehearsed line -

‘Don’t print it, please.’

Malfoy snorted and took up the menu that appeared as soon as he had settled down opposite Harry.

‘Malfoy,’ said Harry, forcing his voice to remain calm, though his insides were all jittery. ‘Don’t do it. You don’t even need to. With your contacts and connections at the Ministry you don’t need to print anything to be heard.’

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, closed the menu and crossing his hands in front of him, stared expectantly at Harry as if saying ‘Go on. Convince me.’

‘It’s not like you even care!’ burst out Harry, goaded by Malfoy’s smug look. ‘But Hermione will! Normally, she would have ignored such an article, but her defenses are pretty low now and you having a go at her so publicly will be a real blow. Just let it go. At least for now.’

‘So what are you saying, Potter? We should stand aside and let Granger infest our traditions with her skewed ideas like a human version of a Bundimun*, because that’s her way of dealing with personal crisis?’

Malfoy sneered.

‘What does a Mudblood know, anyway?’

Harry clenched his teeth and tightened his grip both on his wand and his temper, while Malfoy went on.

‘Why does she think that she can challenge our beliefs and get away with it? I’m sure she wouldn’t have such a hard time adjusting if she tried to challenge her ideas first. As it is, she is blinded by her false misinterpretation of elfish nature, completely ignoring their needs, and is bent on meddling in matters that should not be sullied by the likes of her. What gives her right to stand there and screech at the top of her voice that what we stand for is wrong while what she stands for is right? Is she really so arrogant and self-centered that she believes to know better than those of us who have been raised firsthand within the wizarding community, following its laws and traditions and intent on preserving them intact for future generations like our ancestors had been doing for centuries before us?’

Malfoy stopped to draw breath and Harry stared wide-eyed, his breathing quickening with every word Malfoy spat. Harry had never seen Malfoy looking so passionate before; breathing through his nostrils, leaning across the table with his hands clenched into fists; his eyes shining with fire as if manifesting that there were things he found worthy fighting for; red patches of colour appearing on his cheeks, showing that he was alive and not a marble statue of pure-blood perfection; his lips stretching into a snarl that Harry found fascinating to watch.

He was confused and mortified by his own reaction to him. It was the first time in history that he felt remotely attracted to Malfoy or wanted, willingly, to be kissed with that mouth, that was spitting words like fire spits sparks… he wanted that mouth… wanted it… amidst the talk of house-elves and Hermione versus pure-bloods and their traditions… What in the name of Merlin’s frilly knickers was wrong with him? Harry cursed under his breath when he realized that he had lost the chance to have his say.

‘You might not see it, Potter,’ continued Malfoy in a low voice. ‘but Granger is as prejudiced against pure-bloods as she thinks we are prejudiced against half-bloods, Muggle-borns and Muggles. Perhaps, it escaped her notice, while she was busy researching elfish rights denied to them by wizardkind, that there is a reason behind our distrust of the lot of them. Muggles didn’t exactly treat us like kindly neighbours would. Instead of living in peace and harmony and benefiting from magic that our ancestors were willing to use for their needs, they hunted, prosecuted and executed us and I am sorry to say that not everyone of our kind managed to escape Muggle ‘justice’ unharmed.’

‘I don’t ask you to stand aside or abandon your ideas, Malfoy!’ said Harry furiously when he could finally break in. ‘If you want to fight Hermione on this – go ahead and fight! You are fully entitled to fight for what you believe in. But do it face to face – she is tough enough to handle you – but don’t do it in such an underhand way. It’s just cowardly. Haven’t you grown out of this? Haven’t you left your Hogwarts-style tricks behind?’

‘Just tell me,’ said Malfoy as if not listening to him. ‘What exactly is she going to do with the elves once she sets them free? Keep them in an Elfish Rehabilitation Centre, perhaps? Where she will be teaching them the finer points of being free and giving tips on how to seek employers that would pay them wages and would not abuse their power? What? Has she thought about what they are going to do once she forces them into freedom that they don’t want, that is as strange and unexplainable to them as magic to a Muggle?’

He shook his head.

‘They don’t know what it’s like to be free, to enjoy themselves outside the household they are bound to by ancient magical laws and are only too happy to serve. It’s in their nature just like it’s in the nature of a dragon to breathe fire or in the nature of a wizard to do magic. She is so blinded by her self-righteous indignation on the behalf of poor, mistreated, under-represented house-elves that she doesn’t allow herself to look beyond the possibility that they might not be enslaved against their will!’

There it was again – that misplaced attraction – and Harry fought to take himself under control and not let it overtake him. There must have been something in that water after all, he thought, something that completely avoided detection.

‘You can tell her this face to face, you know.’ he said and almost smiled, but caught himself just in time. ‘I reckon that the majority of house-elves are quite happy with their lives and their place in the wizarding world. I remember witnessing how angry and distressed they can become if threatened to be parted from the family they serve. But it was always a non-negotiable question for Hermione. I think it has got something to do with the way she was introduced to the house-elves in the first place. It had a huge impact on her. She had seen one house-elf being abused and mistreated by her master and she assumed that they are all used in much the same way.’

Personally, Harry believed that Hermione’s obsession with elf-enslavement was taking her a bit too far (not that he would admit it to Malfoy) and her measures were becoming more and more desperate with each failed attempts to secure the change of laws concerning them. In fact, Harry dreaded that she would try to force him and Ron to campaign for elf rights at every wizard-inhabited site wearing nothing but togas embossed with multiple elf heads and carrying ‘Give ‘Em Clothes’ banners next.

Harry thought he could understand Malfoy’s indignation on this point (once again, not that he would be telling Malfoy this). Hermione’s main problem was that she wanted to revolutionize century-old laws without taking pains of looking beyond her own perception of them and trying to understand them unbiased, without linking them to pure-bloods. More than once Harry got frustrated with her as she struggled against opening her mind to ideas that didn’t comply with her logic. Apart from magic, she remained skeptical to everything else that her brain failed to categorize as logical or rational and relied too much on her text-book attitude to ever lose the title of a narrow-minded person given to her by those who didn’t agree with her brain rigidity.

On an impulse, before Harry knew what he was doing, he outstretched his hand and moved it towards Malfoy’s. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next and it didn’t matter because Malfoy took Harry’s hand and clasped it tightly in his.

It was a strange moment. As if something life-changing was about to happen. And it certainly did. As they stared at each other, Harry felt the cracking of magic around them and the next second he heard a familiar, shocked, voice say –

‘Harry? No! What the bloody hell?’

Harry gasped, snatched his hand from under Malfoy’s as if burnt, whirled around and came face to face with Ron.


* M.O.M. Classification: XXX
Bundimuns are found worldwide. Skilled at creeping under floorboards and behind skirting boards, they infest houses. The presence of a Bundimun is usually announced by a foul stench of decay. The Bundimun oozes a secretion which rots away the very foundations of the dwelling in which it is found. From ‘Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them’