Chapter Text
The second annual Ministry Peace Banquet was a boring affair; an assortment of Britain’s wizarding elite and three hours of self-congratulations. Harry leaned against a column, glad he’d taken that new anti-anxiety potion. He was definitely finding it easier to “socialize without stress or tension,” as promised on the bottle. Last year he’d spent most of the Peace Banquet behind the column. This year, thanks to a dose of Chillax, he’d shaken hands with half the wizarding world and posed for a mind-boggling number of photos.
And now he was sipping a fizzy green drink and listening to the warm sounds of the Chudleigh String Quartet as he counted down the minutes to dinner. Feeling calm, and nearly guilt-free at having done his bit for the Ministry, Harry engaged in a spot of people-watching to pass the time. There was Rowan MacCorquodale, regaling a trio of adoring witches with a story about battling a Welsh Waterleaper that had killed three muggle fishermen. By the bar, a witch from Cornwall was drinking double-fisted while lecturing an Unspeakable about the Ministry’s abysmally insufficient financial support of ley line research.
It wasn’t the usual Ministry crowd, Harry realized. In an effort at reunification, Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt had invited a number of guests whose wartime allegiance hadn’t been light. Harry recognized Pansy Parkinson and Gregory Goyle by the appetizers. There was Theo Nott, locked in an animated discussion with Thrax Bean from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Nott’s father had been a Death Eater and the family had used dark magic for generations. Theo probably had more than a few stories about magical accidents. Merlin knew Ron had shared some hilarious ones with him just from his experience as an auror.
And there was Messrs. Borgin and Burke, whose eponymous Knockturn Alley shop had been recently burgled of dark relics. Ron was on the case now, otherwise he’d be here, distracting Harry from his nerves.
Harry slipped a hand inside his jacket and reassured himself that his conversation-starters were still there. He’d thought Hermione was insane when she’d suggested researching the guests and preparing notes ahead of time, but he was damned glad to have them. He’d find his targets, say his lines, eat his dinner, and go home, mission accomplished.
Now, he wondered, eyes scanning the crowd, where was Lady Pitt Peel? He had some lovely smart questions to ask about her gardening.
Harry spotted Draco Malfoy, his white-blonde hair cropped short, wearing a black muggle suit and tie. He supposed the new look helped Draco distinguish himself from his father. Ron claimed that the Ministry had docked the estate heavily for inheritance taxes after the death of Lucius Malfoy, but Draco’s suit must’ve cost a packet. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of an issue of Esquire. Harry felt shabby in comparison.
“They’re not as evil as people expect them to be.”
Harry smiled. That ethereal voice could only belong to Luna Lovegood. He turned, pleased to see a familiar face. The way her furry pink boots matched her gown was reassuringly odd.
“Oh. Hey Luna. Who’s not evil?”
“Our classmates, of course.” She nodded toward Parkinson and Goyle who were talking with an elderly wizard sporting a Slytherin tie.
“I don’t think they’re evil,” Harry said. “They were young, frightened, and easily led.” Harry wondered how things might have been different if he had made an effort to recruit the Slytherins to his side in the war. Although really he’d just been following Dumbledore’s lead on leaving them to their own devices. Perhaps they’d all been easily led.
Luna swung around the pillar, her blonde curls floating in her wake. “I wonder who’s leading them now?” Her face brightened. “Maybe they’ve learned to lead themselves.”
Harry wondered too. Losing a war didn’t change who people were at their core, any more than winning a war had erased character flaws on his own side. Even Snape, one of the bravest wizards he’d known, had still been a right bastard as a professor.
“All alone this evening Harry?” Luna asked.
Harry nodded. “Ron’s working that Knockturn alley burglary and Hermione’s in Scotland, recruiting for her campaign.”
“I admire her commitment to securing voting rights for magical creatures. We’ve covered it several times in The Quibbler.”
Harry supposed it was admirable. The current law only allowed wizards and witches to vote, but people like Firenze and Griphook deserved to be just as disappointed by politics as he was. He’d expected that Kingsley would shake things up as Minister for Magic, but thus far things remained annoyingly static.
“Have you seen Draco’s muggle suit?” Luna asked.
“Yes, I did.” Harry finished his drink and set it on a tray offered by a passing house elf. “Rather unexpected.”
“Muggle clothes are all the rage now,” Luna said. “Maybe I should get a suit too. Draco looks quite good in his.”
Harry reminded himself to think before replying. Malfoy did look good, but saying so might be a bad idea. Since his break-up with Ginny last year he’d been doing some soul-searching. An explicit dream about Oliver Wood had raised some questions for him, and an explicit magazine he’d seen in Knocturn Alley had answered most of them. He wasn’t ready to tell everyone, and if he were then he’d start with Ron and Hermione. Best friends deserved to hear it first, directly from him.
“You’d look smashing in a suit, Luna,” he said at last.
The chime rang for dinner so he bid Luna farewell, then wandered, looking for his place at the banquet table. Ministry dinner seating was based on a complicated arithmancy known only to the event planners. His seat assignment changed every time. He wondered if this was to prevent someone from cursing his chair, or planting a muggle explosive under it. Probably best not to know.
He nodded greetings to the witches on his right and left. One stiffened in shock and the other simpered into her hand. He sat, raised his head, and got a surprise of his own. There, practically across from him, was Draco Malfoy.
Up close, Malfoy looked different than he had as a teen. This was a quieter, more serious Malfoy, with a lean masculine face. Harry supposed they all had reason to be serious now. It was great not having Voldemort trying to kill him, but being an adult was no picnic.
Harry took a calming breath and acknowledged Malfoy with a nod. He hadn’t forgotten how the prat had stomped his face in sixth year, and tried to crucio him in the girl’s bathroom. But if he were tallying up sins, Harry had nearly murdered him with septumsempra, and Malfoy had refused to identify him to the Death Eaters when he, Ron, and Hermione had been taken by snatchers, for which Harry was grateful, however begrudgingly. Malfoy had also prevented Crabbe from killing him in the room of requirement, although that may have been so Voldemort could kill him later. Still, whatever Malfoy’s motive, Harry had saved him from Fiendfyre, which had to count for something.
His feelings about Malfoy’s family were mixed as well. Narcissa had lied to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, saving his life again. Harry heard that Lucius had abandoned the Death Eaters prior to the Battle of Hogwarts, which rather stretched the meaning of ‘better late than never.’ Harry had kept Draco and his mother out of Azkaban by testifying on their behalf in front of the Wizengamot and felt they were even. Given their history, they weren’t enemies, but they were miles from being friends. He aimed for civil.
Harry started on his first course. The meal was very good, even if it wasn’t up to Hogwarts standards. As a child, he’d had to gobble his food before his aunt took it away, which hadn’t made him the most elegant of diners. After horrifying people at the Orphan’s Fund Dinner by using his dessert fork to eat Brussels sprouts Harry had taken a dining etiquette class. He’d learned a lot, but regretted telling Hermione. Although the pamphlets for other self-improvement courses she’d foisted upon him had made a good start to his bonfire last Guy Fawkes Night.
“Harry Potter!” A plump witch next to Malfoy gushed at him. “I simply have to thank you for killing You-Know-Who! Amazing work!” She elbowed the man on her other side, whose pale shapeless face Harry recognized. It was Kilgore MacDuff, an under-assistant-to-someone-or-other, in Kingsley’s cabinet.
“Isn’t he amazing?” She prodded.
“Yes, very impressive,” MacDuff said, not sounding impressed in the least. “Even if it did take him three years.”
“I was fourteen when Voldemort returned.” Harry spoke through gritted teeth, trying to keep his smile from slipping. He’d heard this complaint before and always thought it particularly unfair. He was only nineteen now, but it made fourteen look alarmingly young to him in retrospect.
MacDuff grunted. “Too busy playing quidditch and chasing after witches. Wish you’d gotten ‘round to ending the war earlier, is all. Cost a lot of good wizards their lives.”
Harry felt this temper rising and tried to calm himself. He’d had a bit of accidental magic when he got angry lately. Another thing he’d be sure to tell Ron and Hermione about first, when he got round to it. But unlike his anxiety, there wasn’t a raspberry-flavoured potion to deal with explosions of fury. He spoke as calmly as he could. Raising his voice only made it worse.
At times like these Harry felt the tension between his Gryffindor side, that wanted to knock MacDuff in the head, and his Syltherin side, that urged him toward a more subtle revenge. He let the Slytherin side win. Smacking someone in the head would ruin the Peace Dinner. The cold stare he gave MacDuff would have unnerved anyone.
“Thanks for your thoughts on the matter,” he said. “What exactly did you do during the war?” He’d learned that this line of questioning usually shut up most of the blowhards.
“I was at the Ministry,” MacDuff said, making eyes at the simpering witch. “I was junior vice-assistant for the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic.”
Harry’s heart pounded and he felt a predatory rush. Of course. MacDuff had worked for ‘Madame Undersecretary’ Umbridge, breaking the wands of muggle-borns and sending chasers after people like Hermione. So much for staying calm. Harry supposed he should excuse himself before all the glassware on the table exploded in their faces.
“So you worked for Voldemort.” Malfoy’s clear, posh voice cut in.
Harry turned in surprise. People rarely said Voldemort’s name, even now. He hadn’t expected Malfoy to do so, and especially not to agree with him. It was intriguing.
“I beg your pardon?” MacDuff turned to glare at the blond.
“Voldemort controlled the Ministry from the moment he murdered Scrimgour,” Malfoy said evenly. “The Thicknesse Ministry was a puppet regime.”
MacDuff spluttered. “The ministry has never been controlled by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!”
“Oh?” Malfoy feigned innocence. “Who issued all those wanted posters for Potter then?”
Harry laughed, his anger dissipating. He had a cracking good collection of anti-Potter propaganda in a box at home, including a ‘Potter Stinks’ button Malfoy himself had charmed back in the Tri-Wizard Tournament days. The damn thing still worked.
“Malfoy’s right.” Harry said, and all eyes turned to him. “Sorry, MacDuff, I thought everybody knew about Thickness. Under Imperious from the start, apparently. Dark time for the Ministry. Some people still ask me to sign my wanted poster.”
MacDuff wobbled. With his pale head and protruding eyes, he resembled a surprised blancmange. He reached for his wineglass with a stiff arm. “I’m sure nobody wants to be bored with old Ministry doings.”
“On the contrary.” Malfoy said. “I’d be interested to hear how you fought corruption in the Ministry during Voldemort’s reign. It must’ve been rife.”
A dozen eyes turned to MacDuff.
Harry smiled. He wondered if the others could tell that this was Malfoy being funny. Maybe you needed to be on the receiving end of it for seven or eight years first. MacDuff was rather on the spot, but Harry didn’t mind.
“Wasn’t my brief to rout out corruption,” MacDuff said. “I was a junior vice-assistant for the—“
“Oh yes. That’s right!” Malfoy cut in. “You’d said. Sorry.”
“Umbridge, wasn’t it?” A wizard with a luxuriant moustache asked, getting in on the chat.
“I believe you’re correct, Llewellyn. It was Umbridge.” Malfoy said, putting a smile under that wizards’ facial hair. “Tell us, MacDuff, what did you think of the trials against the muggleborn?”
Harry was surprised by the ease with which Malfoy said ‘muggleborn’ instead of ‘mudblood.’ Harry wondered if Malfoy had practiced.
“I did the job I was asked to do!” MacDuff spat. “Can’t we discuss something other than the bloody war?”
Those around them exchanged glances, clearly of the opinion that MacDuff was prone to vulgar outbursts. Harry stared at Malfoy, who looked a picture of distressed virtue. Only Harry could tell it was a mask, and he enjoyed that fact immensely.
“Sorry,” Malfoy said. “I didn’t realize it was a sore point. Must be the happy occasion. Peace Banquet, you know. Reminding me of the war a bit.”
Harry felt warm inside. Seeing MacDuff be sorry he’d opened his mouth was an unexpected gift; and from Malfoy, of all people.
Harry recognized the witch next to Malfoy and was pleased to recall his conversation notes. “Lady Pitt-Peel,” he said, “why don’t you tell us about your gnome-repelling radishes? I hear you’re going commercial with them soon.”
The rest of the dinner passed quickly, and Harry soon found himself next to Malfoy in line for the cloak-check.
“Thanks for that,” Harry said, feeling awkward. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had at one of these things. Really.”
Malfoy sniffed. “MacDuff wouldn’t know a Dark Lord from a demiguise. He should be thanking you.” He accepted his cloak and tipped the smartly uniformed cloak-check witch. “We all should.” Without another word, Malfoy apparated away.
Harry was so surprised at the compliment that he almost left without his cloak.
Draco stripped off his muggle suit and gave Worry, his house elf, strict instructions regarding its laundering. He’d had to venture into Muggle London to buy the thing, finding his way from King’s Cross to Oxford Circus and from there to Savile Row, clutching his wand in a white-knuckled fist all the way. The black plastic card Gringott’s had provided him seemed entirely suspect, but the handsome muggle in the shop had accepted it as if it were made of galleons. Considering what Gringotts charged to set up the Mugglemoney card, he supposed it might as well be. He’d bought some pret-a-porter garments, and had a few bespoke shirts done up. He’d say this for them, muggles made exceptionally good tailors. The shop had made him a bloody gorgeous suit, and he had no intention of messing it up with shoddy cleaning. Worry was excellent at wardrobe, even if she seemed to have lost interest in much else.
Draco downed a small vial he’d placed by the bed earlier. The potion was an experiment, designed to enable him to dream, but not risk his recurring nightmares. It blocked the fear centres of the brain during the REM cycle, making dreams considerably less disturbing. He’d spent the winter reading muggle books on sleep from London's Central Library, which reminded him of Hogwart’s, save all of the books felt dead. Nevertheless, they’d been exactly what he needed to make the next leap in his work. When perfected, his potion would stop nightmares without the addictive side effects and long-term damage of Dreamless Sleep. Tonight he’d be testing a change he’d made to the timing of the second stir, which should quell his impulse to shave with a straightrazor the morning after. He couldn’t knock Dreamless Sleep off the market if his customers risked cutting their own throats.
As he settled into bed he wondered if he’d dream about Potter. He’d enjoyed taking MacDuff down a peg tonight, the pompous windbag. The nerve of him. Potter had prevented them from being ground under Volvemort’s boot, and Draco would be damned if a cowardly paper-pusher like MacDuff was going to talk to him like that. The way Potter looked at him had been more than worth it.
Feeling pleased, and somewhat reckless, Draco fell asleep.
Harry might have forgotten about the incident at the Ministry Peace Banquet if The Daily Prophet hadn’t outed him the following week.
He’d run into Justin Finch-Fetchley in Diagon Alley on Monday, and they’d caught up over a drink. It was nice chatting up someone who knew both the muggle and wizard worlds, and wasn’t stunned by Harry’s fame. The Finch-Fletchleys were old money and went to parties with David Beckham and various minor royals. Their tolerance for fame was high.
Justin talked about living in Spain after his family pulled him out of Hogwarts at the outbreak of the war. They reminisced about school and had a good laugh about Lockhart’s duelling lessons. Harry asked if Justin was still scared of snakes. Justin put his hand on Harry’s leg and assuring him that he’d overcome that particular fear. Harry wasn’t exactly drawn to Justin, but he was friendly, and nice-looking, and clearly interested. Intrigued and hopeful, Harry ordered a Gin Tornado and practiced his flirting.
They’d left just before close, staggering under several rounds of drinks, and Harry had thrown caution to the wind and kissed Justin goodnight. On his way home in a muggle cab, he wondered why he’d been so worried. Sparks hadn’t flown, but it wasn’t all that different from kissing a girl. He smiled sleepily and considered his first-real-kiss-with-a-bloke to be a success.
Harry’s kiss made the front of The Daily Prophet, together with a quote from Finch-Fletchley asserting his heterosexuality in no uncertain terms. So much for Hufflepuff loyalty, Harry thought. They must have been really drunk if neither one of them had spotted the camera.
That lunchtime, Harry sat in The Leaky Cauldron, polyjuiced into a Weasley cousin, pointedly reading The Quibbler, whose cover story was about the endangerment of magical creatures due to habitat loss. Ron had floocalled him that morning, scorned The Prophet staff as a load of twats, and promised to buy all the chips and firewhisky Harry could stomach if they met for lunch. So Harry sat, unrecognizable, as witches and wizards nearby gossiped loudly about him. The Slytherins in the next booth were a case in point. He could only see half of them, but he could hear them as clearly as if they were in his lap.
“Read the morning news?” Marcus Flint slapped a copy of The Prophet onto the table. “Chosen Shirtlifter!”
“I don’t believe it.” Pansy Parkinson said. “He could get any witch in Britain. Why would he go basket shopping?”
Harry choked on a laugh. He hadn’t heard that euphemism before, but rather liked it. ‘Hello Sir,’ he imagined himself saying, ‘what a lovely upfront basket you have! May I take a squeeze? Purely for research purposes.’
Flint sneered at the photo. “Potter’s got his tongue down Finch-Fletchley’s throat.
“Some role model.”Blaise Zabini managed to sound both judgmental and bored.
Flint laughed. “Modelling how to end the Potter bloodline.”
“Leave Potter alone. Both of you.”
Harry’s ears perked up. It was Draco Malfoy, coming to his defence again. Harry shifted his seat until he could see the back of his spiky blonde head.
“Bit close to home, Draco?” Flint teased. “Still got a pash for Potter?”
Harry was suddenly very focussed. Did Flint mean that Malfoy had an interest in him? Or was he only teasing, given their stormy history?
“Let’s not argue over it,” cut in Parkinson. “Who’s buying the next round? I want another Curdled Cannoncleaner.”
“Seriously, Marcus,” Draco said, his voice slow and careful. “Glass houses and all that.”
“I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Not even that muggle cousin you’ve been shagging in Ipswitch?”
When Malfoy spoke Harry couldn’t think of anything except the low, serpentine way his voice moved.
Malfoy gestured elegantly. “What’s her name? Emma? Jemma?”
“You’ve got a muggle cousin?” Parkinson made it sound akin to having a second head, which was a troll.
“What’s it like to do it with a muggle girl?” Goyle asked, his voice more curiosity than malice. “Are they the same? Down there?”
Zabini cupped his nose. “I thought you reeked of muggle.”
Malfoy dropped a handful of coins on the table to cover his drinks. “I’m off. I have work to do and you lot make me sick. Marcus, why don’t you ask Blaise how the Weaslette turned him down when he asked her out in seventh year. Just as well, really. Based on how she’s done with the Harpies this year she’s far too good for you.”
Parkinson let out a horrified shriek at Zabini. “What happened to ‘wouldn’t date a blood traitor’ then?”
“We didn’t date!” Zabini turned desperately to Flint. “Marcus, back me up on this!”
“Sorry.” Flint sneered. “Too busy reeking of muggle.”
Their argument continued, but Harry was watching Malfoy’s broad shoulders weave toward the door and forgot to listen.