Memoirs of a Male Escort

Authors Note: A million extra thanks go out to my friend and beta Laurel on this chapter. As Beta did her job and polished things up for me, but as my friend and a fellow reader I think she hates me just a little for this chapter. OH! AND, last week she threatened to count up my cliffhangers and brandish them all in my face for me to feel guilty over, but she's done one even better, she wrote a funny little oneshot about me and my stories. You can find the link on my profile, you should all check it out, it's very VERY funny!!

Chapter 21 Judge and Jury

Sometimes your clients might get violent. Hopefully this never happens, but if it does, there are a few simple guidelines to follow. I say ‘guidelines’ because by no means are they steadfast rules, more like things to think about and improvise upon because the most important thing is to get away.

Number one; agree with them, no matter how nonsensical they are. Number two; delay things. Keep them talking and distract them from harming you for as long as possible. Number three; beg. If it comes to it, tell them exactly why they shouldn’t hurt you, but rather let you go instead. Put yourself on their level, in their world. Make yourself a human to them, thereby making them think twice before inflicting damage upon you.

But no matter what it takes, you must get away.

------------------------------------------------

Draco wished he had lost his eyesight in the beating he had gotten earlier, anything so as not to see the unlikely sight before him.

Light fell from one lonely bulb to illuminate a typically soft and sweet face, and frizzy honey brown curls. Hermione smiled a wicked smile that looked more like it belonged to his Aunt Bella than on the face of one of Harry’s friends, and her usually warm chocolate brown eyes shone with anger and malice. A stab of sorrow wrenched through him as he thought of what Harry would say or think or do if he found out that his best friend of more than a decade had betrayed him in such an unforgivable manner.

“You never thought I had it in me?” Hermione asked repeating his worlds for confirmation. “You rarely ever think, Malfoy, and you constantly underestimate those around you.”

“I thought you were Harry’s friend? You can’t be the judge of The Code and Harry’s friend all at once, so which is it?” Draco demanded.

“Both,” she answered with narrowed eyes. “This ragtag group needed a leader, and I’m the natural choice, but I am also Harry’s friend, which is why I am giving him the ultimate gift,” she replied. “Your death now will save him the pain you are sure to inflict upon him later.”

“Are you mad, woman? Do you even hear yourself?” Draco sputtered, shocked at the inane rubbish falling out of a so typically rational mouth.

“Leave off with the insults, Malfoy,” spat the man who had beaten Draco. He let his own cowl drop to reveal startling red hair and brilliant blue eyes.

“Weasel,” Draco scoffed. “I should have known you were a lackey if Granger is the leader of this twisted gang.”

“You couldn’t just die the first time?” Hermione asked in a soft whisper, drawing his attention away from her husband. “It really would have made things so much easier.”

“Clearly things like miraculous recoveries happen when you’re in the company of a hero,” Draco shot back snidely.

“Yes,” she mused. “ I know this better than many. Still, what he sees in you I’ll never understand. He was willing to let our friendship fall apart over you. He’s the Minister for Magic now, he should know better than to roll around with the likes of you.”

“Why can’t any of you understand that we’re in love? And if you can’t understand that, why can’t you just leave us alone? It’s hardly any of your business who Harry dates,” Draco lectured.

“Not my business?” Hermione growled. “When Ron and I were with Harry trying to get the Sorcerer’s Stone before Voldemort, where were you? What were you doing the summer after second year when we were trying to help Ginny get over the guilt she felt from being used as Riddle’s tool after writing in the journal that your father gave her? In third year, while you were poking fun at Harry for his fear of Dementor’s, we were fighting werewolves and saving the hippogriff you tried to have slaughtered, and saving Harry’s godfather from The Kiss! Then of course there was the Quidditch Tournament and while you were all cozy in your box seats with the Minister, we were being attacked by Death Eater’s like your father, and need I even mention Umbridge and the inquisitorial squad or your plans to kill Dumbledore in sixth?”

Draco sighed, sagging against his chair under the weight of the argument against him, which suddenly felt like such a heavy thing. He opened his mouth to refute her words, but couldn’t. Every word she spoke was the truth. She and Ron were always at Harry’s side and he was on the other end, shouting torments at the boy and striving to make his life hell.

“You teased him, you beat him up, you were awful, Malfoy. We are his friends, we know what’s best for him, we helped him win that war and you only fought him every step of the way,” she continued when Draco didn’t argue.

Perhaps she was right; perhaps Harry was better off without him. Merlin knew he didn’t deserve Harry, but he had always known that. Harry was sweet and kind and perfect and who was he? A monster in the eyes of Granger, and maybe that was it, maybe he was a monster, maybe this was his punishment for trying to attain something he didn’t deserve.

“You’re right,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve him. But he does love me, I couldn’t begin to know why, but he does! Doesn’t that mean anything?” he exclaimed.

A sharp bark of laughter escaped the lips of another Code member and another cowl dropped revealing Ron’s younger sister Ginevra. “Like Harry knows what he wants?” she laughed without humor. “He said he loved me once as well.”

“You cheated on him. I don’t even understand how anyone could ever cheat on him? He’s… he’s Harry for Merlin’s sake,” Draco shouted in defense.

“He cheated on me!” she shrieked.

“Only after he found out that you were sleeping around,” he corrected.

Her gaze widened slightly, her cheeks turning pink but then she sneered. “How would you even know?”

Draco simply rolled his eyes. “Harry told me of course.”

“And you think everything he tells you is true?” she asked, a wicked smirk playing on her features.

“Yes,” Draco replied with a firm nod.

“Well, he says that he loves you, and he told me he loved me. So which is true? They can’t both be. How could the same person love both of us? There isn’t a single thing we have in common,” she told him haughtily.

Draco had an answer. He suspected that Harry never really loved Ginevra at all, but that was not an answer she would want to hear so he kept his mouth shut. Partially to save his skin from undergoing further damage and partially because he knew the same could be said for him. Maybe Harry was just looking for something to fill a hole, and along came Draco: hole filler. It was his job after all to be what people wanted most.

“Either way, he’s been led astray, fallen victim to the infamous Malfoy charm,” Hermione noted. “And we’re going to nip that problem in the bud.”

“So you could just kill me?” Draco asked. “You, who are all supposed to be better than me, you could commit murder?”

“It’s not murder, its justice,” Hermione corrected.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night sweetheart,” Draco spat. “But I’m sure Harry won’t see it that way.”

“Harry won’t know it was us,” Ron corrected. “He’s never known it was us sending all those Death Eaters to the grave where they belonged.”

“What if he found out? He is Minister now; he has more resources than ever before. Do you really think he won’t use those to find out who murdered me? Did you ever think of how badly he would hurt if he knew what you three had been doing?” Draco asked, begging for them to understand what they were doing.

A flicker of comprehension darted through Hermione’s eyes, but it wasn’t echoed in the others. They thought they were untouchable, above the law, above Harry.

“That’s exactly why he’ll never know. He’ll be made to believe it was your boss that killed you and he’ll be happy to take her down and sentence her to a nice long stay in Azkaban. It kills two bird with one stone, really,” Hermione informed him.

“What’s the other bird?” Draco asked.

“It will give Harry closure and it will get rid of that vile harem she’s been keeping. You should be thrilled because this way she won’t go after your mother again,” Hermione offered with a smile. “And we’ll be happy because it will keep Harry from falling into the same trap again.”

“How will he fall into the same trap if I’m dead?” Draco asked, confused by her reasoning, if you could even call someone threatening to kill you ‘reasonable’.

She narrowed her eyes slightly after sharing a glance with her fellow Code members she laughed. “Oh that’s too precious. He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Draco shouted.

“Harry was a regular client for Madame X. He usually got muggles that he would bring home and do Merlin only knows what with, but for the Gala he wanted a wizard. He called her up and asked for her best, someone that would keep a secret if put under public scrutiny and she sent you. But no, you weren’t Harry’s first prostitute, Malfoy,” she informed him with a sizable grin on her malicious face.

The news shouldn’t have surprised him as Harry did seem to know Madame X quite well, but it did surprise him and it also made him wonder why Harry had hidden that fact from him. In theory it mattered very little. Surely Harry had only a fraction of the men in his bed that Draco had as a professional escort, but it was just that. It was Draco’s job, there was little choice involved, but Harry had choices, nothing but choices, and still he chose to walk the path of the lonely?

He laughed then, the sound filling the dank basement and making a few of the still shrouded Code members step back.

“What the hell is so funny?” Hermione demanded, her previous smile withering away into a scowl.

“You just proved it, you just proved that he loves me,” Draco chuckled lightly, the pains from his torture lessening instantly at his revelation.

“How did telling you that Harry slept around and you were just another one of his whores tell you that he loves you?” she asked, clearly confused at how he reached such a conclusion.

“That’s just it though. Harry and I only made love for the first time the night you captured me. He wanted it to be right and special not just a quick shag on the Minister’s desk,” he chuckled, mimicking Harry’s words from that day he spent cooped up in Harry’s office while Harry interrogated suspects.

“That proves nothing,” Hermione shouted, but Draco could tell from the glitter of defeat in her eyes that she knew exactly what Draco’s words meant. He was special to Harry, not just somebody to fill his needs.

Hermione shot him with a blood-boiling curse, but Draco merely gritted his teeth and kept his eyes locked firmly on her chocolate brown orbs. He was more resolved than ever to get away. He would live through this; withstand any amount of torture to see Harry again.

He thought of Harry and how splendid it would be to see his smiling face again as he braced himself for Hermione’s next curse.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

“No, no you must be mistaken,” Harry groaned, rubbing his temples with his index fingers to try and ward off the impending headache threatening to slam through his brain.

“I wish I were, Sir. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be able to blame this on just about anyone else, but it was Hermione Granger that asked of your whereabouts. She said you asked her to pull some information on Madame X for you and that she wasn’t able to get them to you in time, but the information was too sensitive not to give you directly,” Dennis replied, wincing from the glare Harry shot him. “I’m sorry, sir. I had no idea she was a threat. She’s been your best friend for years after all.”

Harry sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dennis. I know it wasn’t your fault. I had reluctantly suspected Ron as part of the Code back when we were Aurors together and I never did anything about it. I was fairly close to being able to prove it on the Rowle case. When Rowle disappeared suddenly during our investigation I found evidence linking Ron to his home the night before he went missing. I tried to talk to Ron about it and he denied it of course, and then when I tried to look into it further, the evidence was gone. I should have realized then that only Hermione would have been able to keep Ron safe from an ongoing investigation.”

“I think you did realize it then, you just didn’t want to admit it to yourself,” Dennis observed and Harry nodded.

“I was terrified that she had been the one to get inside my wards and attack Draco the first time. As much as I hated taking down Blake, I was relieved that it wasn’t Hermione or Ron,” Harry sighed.

“But it was,” Dennis pointed out. “They set him up, and they clearly think you’re not clever enough to catch them.”

“I’m not! I have no idea where to even start looking for them,” Harry groaned.

Dennis looked thoughtfully at his Minister and pulled out his clipboard. “That’s why you have an assistant. Tell me all the property you know of that the Weasley-Granger’s own.”

Harry thought it over, listing things out on his fingers. “There is the Burrow, obviously, their cottage in Ottery St. Catchpole, Hermione’s parents home in Surrey, and last year Ron bought the old run down joke shop in Hogsmeade from his brother… that’s it isn’t it?” he hissed, suddenly realizing he had discovered their hiding place, or at least a decent starting point.

Dennis smiled widely and nodded. “I would imagine so, yes. It seems a suitable place to take someone for an extended kidnapping. It’s been vacant for so long and no one would ever think Hermione or Ron coming and going would look suspicious.”

Sparing only a moment to shoot his wonderful assistant a relieved smile he raised the Elder Wand and apparated from his office directly into the center of Hogsmeade, a feat he would have been unable to achieve without the help of the Deathstick. Startled faces greeted him at his arrival but he ignored their questions as he ran at breakneck speed toward the old Weasley Wizard Wheezes shop at the end of the street, hoping against all hope that he would reach his love in time to save his life.

Authors Note: Okay, so I know things seem rather bleak at the moment, though several of you guessed that Hermione was the judge, but I ask you not to lose hope just yet and read on (next week of course) lol.