Forgotten Not Forgiven

Author's Note: Thanks to Laurel for her beta work on this chapter. I'm having a blast with crazy stalker Draco and this chapter sheds a bit more light on Harry.

Chapter 9 No Good Options

Despite what everyone probably thought of him after the fiasco with his wife –ex-wife he had to keep reminding himself- Harry was no fool. Now that he’d been tricked in the worst way, his eyes were wide-open when it came to his personal life. He was more observant than ever. He noticed the small possessive gestures between Ron and Hermione, a hand on her back here, a smoldering gaze there; all things that he’d never really had with Ginny and never paid much attention before. The Weasley-Granger marriage was the way a marriage should be. Sure they fought occasionally and frequently disagreed, but they always worked through whatever stood between them because they loved one another. Harry was starting to see more and more that he hadn’t loved Ginny, not the way a husband should have, and had he realized this a couple years ago it might have caused everyone a lot less heartache, especially himself.

A Time Turner, however, was a thing he didn’t possess, so there wasn’t much to be done aside from making sure he never made such a massive mistake ever again.

He didn’t tell his friends about his meeting with Malfoy, nor the subject of their awkward discussion. Harry had no intention of setting foot in the home of the man who had shagged his wife ever again, so there was no way in hell he would be making Malfoy Manor his residence for any length in time. He was trying his best to be polite to the man who was apparently duped just as thoroughly as Harry himself had been, but his civility toward the blond was wavering and had only held thus far because of the guilt he felt at his violent initial reaction to seeing him there.

It had been childish and petty of him to lash out and hit the man, bringing back old animosity in the worst way, so Harry had tried to call a truce between them –for the night at least. He hoped he would never have to see the blond again, but he knew in such a tight knit wizarding community that the idea of never setting eyes on Draco Malfoy was nearly impossible to achieve. Doubtless there would be some mutual function they would have to attend or some other reason that would cause them to cross paths, and Harry hoped he could keep his detachment around him like a comforting blanket to avoid another outburst as had happened in the pub.

Ron would probably pay galleons for the memory of Harry punching Draco squarely in the nose, but that would require more explaining than Harry was willing to do, so Ron remained in the dark about the entire exchange, bludgeoning included.

On his lunch break, Harry hustled over to the office of Midge Pennyworth, the woman who leased the flats Harry was most interested in. As he entered the two-story townhouse that Midge used as her office, Harry found it mostly empty. There was no receptionist at the desk and no one in the small lobby either. Harry wondered if perhaps the staff was out to lunch as well when he heard a noise from the back, a woman humming.

Being nosey, Harry strode toward the sound and found Midge in her office, smiling at a thick set of documents. “Mrs. Pennyworth?” Harry inquired and the woman looked up with a start.

“Oh, Mr. Potter, do come in,” she chimed, bustling over to shake his hand. He’d never met the woman, but nearly every witch and wizard in England knew his face, so it wasn’t surprising that she’d recognized him without having to introduce himself.

Midge was a short, thin woman, but her round face indicated that she might not have always been that slim. She wore a beige skirt and white blouse with dark amber robes instead of a jacket and her graying hair was pulled back into a loose twist. She beamed at Harry when she took her seat again and Harry smiled back, hoping she could help him with his living arrangements in a quick and efficient manner.

“How can I help you, Mr. Potter?” she asked, the smile never leaving her lips.

“Well, I’m in the market for a new flat. Nothing too large or extravagant, but close to work with at least two bedrooms and two baths,” he explained before pulling out the paper he’d marked up. “I’ve circled some of the listings you advertised in the Prophet recently, but an acquaintance of mine said they were all leased. I wondered if you might have anything else available?”

“Oh dear,” she replied, her face falling as she glanced from the paper to the heaping pile of documents in front of her. “I’m afraid I don’t have a single other property at the moment.”

Harry sighed and rubbed his temples to ward off a headache he could sense coming on. Pennyworth Realty was the only company who leased magical real estate in London and Harry didn’t want to be forced into a Muggle development or outside of the city he loved. “You’re certain that there isn’t even one flat left? Maybe I could rent something smaller or larger than the ones I circled until something else comes available?”

“I’m afraid I have nothing just yet. A prominent businessman rented my entire inventory just last night. I don’t know what he could possibly need them all for, but he just returned the signed paperwork to me this morning. I should have some new listings within the month, I could owl you when something comes available,” she suggested with an apologetic smile.

“Who rented them all? Perhaps I could speak with him persuade him to let go of one of the flats?” he countered. He didn’t want to wait until something new came on the market, he was eager to settle into a place of his own before Teddy’s next visit.

“Oh, Mr. Potter, I’m sure you understand that confidentiality is of the utmost importance to us here at Pennyworth Realty. You certainly wouldn’t want us giving out your contact information to strangers, now would you? I have to protect all of my clients in the same manner,” she informed Harry politely.

Harry nodded, suitably chastised. It was true enough; he wouldn’t feel comfortable leasing a flat from someone willing to give away personal information so easily. Still, he needed a place to live and soon. He started to ask if she had a specific date that she suspected something else might come up, perhaps one of her current leases was expiring soon, but the bell for the exterior door chimed alerting Midge that she had another client.

“Would you excuse me for just a moment, Mr. Potter? I’m afraid my secretary, Emily, has taken a personal day,” she asked and Harry nodded graciously. No doubt a receptionist wouldn’t be very necessary if there wasn’t a thing to lease at the moment.

Harry sighed and looked around the expansive office after she’d left. There were portraits of her family –a husband and two little girls - sitting on her desk, which was reasonably tidy, compared to his own at least. Several locked filing cabinets were pressed up against the wall and there was a large bay window looking out over a quaint little garden. His gaze drifted over to the pile of paperwork he noticed sitting on her desk –the only clutter there- and his mind began to whirl with unusually cunning thoughts. Those papers had to be the contracts for the flats he wanted to lease. He could easily peek over and see whom the leases were made out to; even a name would be enough because he could get the contact information for the person from the Ministry archives. It would just take a moment and Midge would never have to know.

No, he decided. He couldn’t do that. The information, as she’d pointed out, was confidential and none of his business. He’d just need to wait until something else came available and hope that it would be soon. Morally, his heart knew refraining was the right thing to do, but it didn’t explain why he was standing up and creeping over to her desk, or why he sifted through the top stack of documents to see the name Draco A. Malfoy written in careful script on the third page.

It couldn’t be…surely Malfoy wasn’t so insane as to buy up all the properties available in London? Why would he do such a thing? Why would he be striving to make Harry’s life so miserable? First he broke up his marriage, and now he’d decided to abscond with every vacant property he could move into? What was he playing at? Why did the man hate him so much? Harry thought that they’d moved past all their childhood differences, but obviously not. Was this in retaliation for the broken nose? He certainly hadn’t seemed too angry over it; he’d seemed more resigned than anything.

Harry flipped through the other pages just to confirm his suspicion that Malfoy had leased every property in London and then fled the office, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pennyworth,” Harry mentioned to the woman as he passed her in the hall. “I’m running late, but please Floo me when you have something that I could look at.”

Harry left the realtor’s office filled with confusion, but instead of going back to his own office, he Apparated to Malfoy Manor.

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Draco was eating lunch alone in his formal dining room - a salad composed of fresh, leafy greens, rich Gorgonzola cheese, almonds and thinly sliced duck breast - when an unexpected guest barged in. He often took a long lunch, Apparating back to the manor instead of going out and today he was pleased he did. He hadn’t predicted Harry would come to him so quickly with an acceptance to his proposal of living there at the manor, so he beamed when he saw the man approach, however, the smile quickly dropped from his face when he saw anger gleaming in the other man’s eyes.

“Harry?” Draco asked, his eyebrows knit together in confusion. “What brings you here?”

“Don’t you ‘Harry’ me,” the dark-haired man growled. “What are you playing at?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Draco replied, and he honestly didn’t. What could have gone wrong in the hours since they’d chatted amicably at the pub? Perhaps Ginevra went to him to spill his secret after all.

“Come off it, Malfoy,” Harry spat. “Why are you trying to ruin my life?”

“Ruin it?” Draco gaped, “I don’t want to ruin it. I want to make it better.”

“And you think that keeping me from moving out of the Weasley’s house is making my life better?” Harry asked incredulously.

Apparently it wasn’t Ginevra who squawked then, it was Midge. Draco was going to have to do something about that woman’s big mouth. “I’m still not understanding, what’s upsetting you, Harry?” he replied calmly. “I haven’t done a thing to prevent your departure from the Weasley home. I even offered you private quarters here,” Draco reminded him.

Harry’s eyes narrowed slightly and then almost instantly widened as he came to another frightening conclusion. “Did you lease up all those flats so that…so that I’d agree to live here?” The look on Harry’s face made it clear to Draco that he thought the idea to be preposterous and, by the confusion flitting through his beautiful green gaze, Draco thought that perhaps Harry was regretting voicing his theory since it sounded so completely ludicrous.

“Actually, I have several clients Flooing in from the states and I needed accommodations for them all. They’ll be here for almost a month, so leasing was a better option than getting them each hotel rooms. My firm made all the arrangements, I’m afraid and I only discovered they had absconded with all the flats last night when I called Midge for you,” Draco lied smoothly enough. “I know I should have told you last night, but I didn’t want to cause any further animosity between us. I think you and I could be excellent friends.”

Harry blinked and looked slightly uncomfortable. “That’s a fairly elaborate lie, Malfoy,” he said at last.

It was then that Draco noticed a faint glow emanating from his pale skin. “You placed a Detector Charm on me.” It was more of a statement than a question. Draco should have known better, really. Harry was an Auror after all; of course he’d have acute knowledge of the newly developed Charm that would indicate when a person was lying. It couldn’t force them to tell the truth like Veritaserum could, but if the subject was being knowingly deceptive the Charm would pick up on it and create a soft white glow around the liar.

Draco hadn’t even noticed Harry casting it when he walked in, which only made Draco want him more. Harry was clever, powerful and cunning –the perfect match for someone as completely Slytherin as Draco Malfoy.

Harry inclined his head slightly to let Draco know that was exactly what he’d done. “Care to tell me the truth now?”

Draco sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t tell Harry everything yet, not when he was still so far from winning the man’s heart. On the other hand, he knew that if he let Harry leave thinking that he was simply trying to be petty and malicious, the winning of his heart might prove to be an impossible task, even for him. As Harry stared at him, Draco wondered what to do. He couldn’t lie, but he couldn’t tell the truth either. He was stuck.

It wasn’t until Harry turned to leave that Draco was forced to act, he was seconds away from losing everything he’d worked so hard for and it made him desperate. “Wait!” he pleaded, rushing over and snagging the arm of Harry’s well-tailored cloak. The man turned and brushed Draco’s hand away before raising his eyebrows in clear question. “I rented all those flats to try and persuade you to take me up on my offer to stay here.”

Harry looked him over and seemed satisfied –yet distinctly not- by the fact that Draco wasn’t glowing from his Charm. “Why? Why do you want me to stay here so badly?”

“I want you around,” Draco admitted with some reluctance. “Its lonely here, and I figure we have a lot in common.” This was all true, and Draco could admit all of this easily enough without professing his love and frightening Harry away for good. It was enough of the truth to satisfy the Charm, leaving his skin glowing only from its natural luminosity rather than the effects of the spell.

“We don’t have that much in common,” Harry muttered, but Draco could tell he was thinking it over.

“I think you’d be surprised how much. Perhaps we could move on from this whole unpleasant business with Ginevra together,” Draco suggested, although the word together bore more meaning to him than it probably did to Harry.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Harry replied, his face set into a cautious mask. “A few weeks ago I would have thought us friends but, Malfoy, you slept with my wife for a whole year. How am I supposed to get over that?”

For the first time in a long time, Draco didn’t have an answer. He had assumed that with careful coaxing the Gryffindor would see him as an ally, not the enemy, but that wasn’t the case at all. The man was being amicable, but it was pretty clear that Harry wanted nothing to do with him despite the anger that was void from his tone. “Would you believe that I did it all for you?” Draco asked, his voice a mere whisper.

Harry laughed; his entire body shook with it until he saw that Draco’s skin lacked the glow that would tell Harry that Draco was lying. “Wait,” he said, his laughter dying abruptly on his lips, “what exactly is it that you did for me?”

“All of it,” Draco told him, forced to show his hand of cards and see what would come of it. “I respect you, Harry. I think you’re everything I’ve ever been looking for and I want you by my side.”

“You…you’re not talking about friendship or business are you?” Harry stammered, his throat drying up at Draco’s words.

“No,” Draco confirmed, his face carefully blank. “I’m not.”

“You want a romantic relationship with me.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Draco answered anyway.

“I do, yes.”

Harry shook his head as if he was trying to clear his hair of cobwebs, his eyes blinking rapidly as his mind spun circles from Draco’s words. This was an overload of epiphanies, more than one person could reasonably be expected to process, and Harry was suddenly sorry he’d decided to confront the blond. “I have to go,” he said at last and he walked to the door as quickly as his legs would carry him, grateful that Draco didn’t try to stop him this time. He didn’t know what he would do if he’d felt the man grab him again.

Draco sighed as he watched Harry leave him, knowing that there was a very good chance the man would never come back. The steps he’d taken to win Harry seemed foolish now in the brilliant green light of Harry’s incredulous gaze. How they’d made sense at the time, Draco didn’t know, but all he could do was stand rooted to the spot as his love stormed out the door.

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Deceit was a good title to put on it, but Harry could think of a few more colorful things to call what Draco had just admitted to moments ago. If what Draco had alluded to was true, then Harry had a mess on his hands that was far more monumental than he’d ever thought possible; he had a failed marriage, no home to call his own, heavy questions about his sexuality, and a beautiful stalker who just might be completely insane.

Harry just wanted to go to sleep for a very long time and wake up to find that everything was back to normal. He and Teddy could play in the yard while Ginny fixed lunch and then Harry could fantasize about Malfoy as he wanked himself to sleep that night. It might be dysfunctional, but it was far preferable than the realizations he’d come to that afternoon.

Could it really be possible that Draco had arranged an elaborate scheme of sleeping with Ginny for a year just to cause their marriage to dissolve so that he could claim Harry as his own? Who would do such a crazy thing? Draco Malfoy, his mind answered easily enough.

Harry shook his head again. This line of thinking was making him dizzy. It was such a ridiculous plan; faulty and foolish on so many levels that Harry could scarcely comprehend them all. Briefly he considered apologizing to Ginny, she was obviously seduced by a madman, but he quickly realized that madman or not, she’d still slept with him while she was married to Harry. She deserved what she got. For a fleeting second Harry even considered the gesture might have been intended as flattering. That someone would go to such extremes to win his affection was oddly warming, but he was often barraged with loony suitors who went to distant lengths to pursue a relationship with The Boy Who Lived so it wasn’t really working. However, after evaluating the act itself he couldn’t muster up the energy to feel flattered, he only felt ill.

If Malfoy had wanted him so badly, why couldn’t he have simply told him? Merlin knew that Harry had felt a stirring of lust for the man, one he might have acted upon if he’d known the feeling was returned. But then his heart told him no, that wasn’t true at all. Harry wasn’t a cheater and he would have never divorced his wife so that he could be with Malfoy. In a very sick and twisted way Draco had known the only thing that would cause him to divorce Ginny. Unfaithfulness he just couldn’t cope with.

But the way he went about it! For a year!

The plan was just so baffling that Harry couldn’t even look at it from a proper perspective. Luckily, he didn’t have to, for at that moment, Ron knocked on the frame of his open door and strode into his office. “Pub?” he asked and Harry nodded vehemently.

“I’m going to need a beer, Ron, a very, very large beer. Maybe a few of them,” Harry confided in his friend, though he knew he could never tell the redhead what he’d found out today. How could he even begin to explain it to Ron when he didn’t understand it himself?

“No good options then, huh?” Ron asked and Harry knew the man was talking about flats. His friend probably assumed he’d spent his entire lunch hour looking for places that didn’t fit his needs or match his taste, but what Ron didn’t know what how accurate his words actually were.

“No, Ron. There are no good options at all.”

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Author's Note: Tee hee. So the sweater is unraveling and leaving Draco nude and quite chilly on the stairs... sorry. I think this story is so much fun and I love the new turn it took, so far off from my original plan but so much better!!