Morality for Beautiful Slytherins

II.

Draco rose early the next morning but skipped the exercises he usually did before work. He wanted to read the paper before going anywhere, to be prepared for any letters he might get, or even better, Howlers. If there was any hate mail in Harry Potter's favor it would probably go to his parents, but he didn't like the unexpected.

The Daily Prophet came as the water for his coffee began to boil, and he settled at the glass kitchen table with toast and his coffee cup. One advantage of his current job over his former: He got to eat or drink whatever he wanted. Caffeine was strictly off-limits to players during peak season. The headline on the third page was about what he expected: "Verdict in Black Estate Battle: House Will Remain in the Family." Skimming the article, he was surprised to see words that favored his parents. Finally, a reporter with an eye for the truth. Whoever it was deserved season Quidditch tickets. He turned the page. Sure enough, there was another article and picture of The Man Who Was Defeated By The Malfoy Legal Counsel. If possible, Potter looked even worse in today's photo than he had yesterday in front of the courthouse. He kept turning his head away from the camera. Snickering, Draco scanned the article. Quotes from one of the judges, who reaffirmed his eye only for the law. Pictures, and rather good ones at that, of his parents. Overall, he decided, a fair set of articles.

After finishing his coffee, Draco showered and dressed, taking care to smooth his dark green robes and tie his hair back securely in case reporters congregated outside his office. That was assuming all of them weren't at Potter's residence right now, banging on his front door. Ten Galleons said Potter didn't show up to practice today. Fifteen said he called in sick. A headache, maybe, or a cold. A hangover was more like it. But if Harry Potter wanted to lose a day of practice the week before league championships began, that was between him and his coach.

Securing the door of his flat with a tap of his wand and a hex, Draco Apparated to the British and Irish Quidditch League offices, a building separate, thankfully, from the Ministry of Magic. Instead of a cramped metal table and a modular filing cabinet in the corner of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, he had his own office. Spacious, airy, and bright, it had room for all his files, a couch, extra chairs for meetings, a private fireplace for communications, and an enormous mahogany desk. The desk had been his father's present to him when he earned the office, a near replica of the desk in Lucius's study at home. As a little boy, Draco loved to sit at that desk and pretend he was working on something important, just like his father. Of course, he kept his silly childhood fantasies to himself, but every time he saw the desk in his office a part of him wondered if Lucius picked that particular design knowing what it meant to Draco.

With league championships so close, the offices were a hurricane of papers and agitated team managers. Draco left his door open, the better for his employees to talk with him. Of course, they all saw the open door as an invitation to barge in with whatever ridiculous requests they had. Without knocking.

"Malfoy, do you have the arrangements for the Kestrels-Falcons game next Thursday? The Kestrels want to know if their referee is anyone they've maimed before. They said, quote, 'If it is, we're really sorry.'"

"Malfoy, have you finished reading over those applications for the Irish national team? Someone's got a bug up their arse at the Ministry and wants them in an hour."

"Malfoy, could you please tell the Holyhead coach that the urinals in the locker room are not a personal insult, and could you not use the phrase 'Don't get your knickers in a twist' this time?"

While Draco made arrangements for extra security at the Kestrels game, someone knocked at his door. That had to be his personal assistant, Edward Miller, one of the few people in the office perceptive enough to know that Draco's open door did not indicate a field day for rudeness.

"Daily meeting, sir?" Miller stood in the doorway, holding his clipboard. He was very young, not quite a year out of Hogwarts, and had a sort of pinched, nervous look about him that belied an amazing mind for organization and efficiency. "Sorry I'm a little late, but I didn't want to disturb you while everyone else was running in and out. Is this a good time?"

"Better than any other time I'll have today, I suppose. Close the door and sit down."

Miller opened the leather folder in his hand, pulling out some papers. "I figured we could do a quick run-down of your duties for the Puddlemere United game, sir, because that's the first one in the league championships and you'll want to have everything in order as soon as possible. Ballycastle drew for home field advantage and Puddlemere's not happy about that, especially because their Seeker--"

"Missed practice today," finished Draco. He figured it would be bad form to smirk, so he bit the insides of his cheeks. "Did he call in sick?"

"Yes, sir. How did you know? I mean, of course you know, sir. That's your job. Anyway, Puddlemere's reserve Seeker's not up to par right now, problems with injuries, so they want to know if there's any way they can get their game delayed a week and their captain--"

"They won't need him."

"Sir?"

"Their reserve Seeker. They won't need him. Tell Puddlemere their game is on, field disadvantage and all. I don't care if there's a monsoon during that game; they're going to play. Do you read the papers, Miller?" Draco leaned back in his chair, shifting the papers on his desk so Puddlemere's game information was under his right hand.

"Of course, sir, every morning. Oh! Harry Potter is Puddlemere's Seeker."

"He's not sick. Not physically, anyway. He was fine yesterday. Just a little bruised ego. And his is certainly big enough to take a bruise or two or ten."

"Er...yes, sir. He...something to do with a house, correct? If it's all right that I ask you something so personal." Draco liked this about Miller, his manners and shy caution. The same caution he had with people transferred well to his work. It was the reason he rarely made mistakes.

Glancing at his fireplace to make sure no one was trying to communicate with him, Draco sat up. A flick of his wand sealed the door. Miller closed his folder, recognizing the signs of a confidential conversation. He and Draco shared a certain level of candor behind closed doors, and he wasn't afraid to offer his opinion. Their understanding was that Draco would never fire Miller for anything he said in confidence short of a murder confession, but the minute Miller so much as thought about violating Draco's trust, he was out of a job and possibly a career.

"That house has been in my family for generations, do you understand? My bloodline dates back to the Middle Ages. Harry Potter was insane to think that he had any hope of getting that house. Sirius Black was an obviously unstable person and Potter was too blind to see otherwise. He didn't stand a chance." Draco said this in a low, mildly amused voice. "For months he tried to spin it the other way and act like anyone with a heart would just give him the house because he was Harry Potter, the Man Who Caught The Snitch In Last Year's Game Against Wimbourne. This time, however, the wizarding government actually did something right. By the end of the day, the house will be mine. My parents don't want to move, so they're giving the house they won yesterday to me."

"So...you're going to own the house that Harry Potter wants."

"Correct."

Miller looked out the window of Draco's office into the midmorning sun. Deep in thought, he spoke in halting sentences. "Potter wanted that house more than anything. It was all over the papers. It's almost too bad you're going to move in. Can you imagine what Potter would pay you for that house? I can't even fathom the price."

"I'm not going to sell it," said Draco dismissively. "If I did that, I wouldn't be able to spend the money I earned from the sale because my mother would kill me."

"Understandable, sir." Miller paused. "I guess it wouldn't make sense to sell the house your family worked so hard to keep. Turning down a free house doesn't make much sense, either."

Draco sighed. He didn't have the time to think about this now. "I think we should get back to work. Owl Puddlemere and tell them to quit their whining. It's not like they can't survive for a day or two on their reserve Seeker."

The rest of their meeting focused on the league championships; then Draco took a short lunch. The week before tournaments, anyone in his office was lucky to get the chance to eat at all. He knew he didn't have the time for distraction, and certainly not distraction over the new house, but Miller's words, like the image of Potter in front of the courthouse, wouldn't leave him as he tried to eat.

"Can you imagine what Potter would pay you for that house? I can't even fathom the price."

Draco found himself ignoring his paperwork, spinning his quill back and forth between his fingertips. Why was he even thinking about Potter and the house in the same sentence? Potter would be ecstatic at the chance to even think about living in that house, and Potter's happiness was the last thing Draco wanted. The curiosity of seeing Potter's reaction to his proposal, though, was tempting. Very tempting. Especially since Potter would pay for that house with a lot of things. And if Draco purposely set the price too high, he would get the satisfaction of owning the house, of taunting Potter with it, and of knowing that Potter didn't own it.

An owl flew in his window and dropped a letter on his desk. The seal on the back of the letter was his mother's.

Draco,

Are you still planning to meet us on your lunch break tomorrow? The papers for the house have to be recorded during business hours. If you want to start moving in, you need to meet with us.

-Mother

He grabbed a spare piece of parchment and scribbled a reply:

I'll be there. I can't take too long, though, because of the league championships.

-D.

Except that secretly, Draco wasn't interested in his parents' plan for what he would do with the house. Secretly, he wasn't interested in getting married and he certainly wasn't interested in having children. Squalling dependent brats did nothing but suck the life out of you for years. He enjoyed his freedom far too much. Freedom allowed him to build his career and enjoy a certain level of privacy. As far as housing, his flat in London served all his needs and wants, and he wasn't even there four, sometimes six months out of the year. He was in no position right now to even think about any sort of long-term commitments to people or to property or really, anything beyond the league championships.

"Miller!"

Having an assistant, Draco decided, was sometimes better than having a house-elf. Miller nearly tripped on the carpet in his rush to answer Draco's summons.

"Yes, sir?"

"Mail this, please." Draco held his response to his mother's letter aloft, and Miller retrieved it.

He had no intention of doing anything other than signing the papers and taking possession of the house, but just because he was no longer playing Quidditch didn't mean he was ready to retire into what life expected from him. He liked the money that he could spend on himself and the freedom that not having a family brought him. What would he do with that great ugly house?

"Anything else, sir?"

"What else were you planning on doing?" Draco placed the papers for the Cannons-Portree game in a folder.

"Sir, I'll take those papers for the Holyhead game if you're done with them."

"The what?"

Miller pointed to the folder on Draco's desk. "Red folder. Those are the Holyhead papers. I'll send them to their management if you're done with them, sir."

Confused, Draco opened the folder. "Oh. No, not done with them yet. I'll let you know when you can send them."

"Are you all right? Do you need a cup of tea or anything?" Miller sounded concerned. Or maybe frightened.

"That's fine for now. Thank you."

Miller nodded and backed out of the room slowly, closing the door on his way out. The click of the doorknob seemed louder than usual. Draco put the Cannons-Portree papers in the correct folder, but let his mind drift after that.

Selling the house would be nothing short of traitorous, but ultimately he knew he was his own person with a life he'd made for himself, and he could do what he damn well pleased. He knew he was supposed to feel something about a house that had been in his family for generations, but he hadn't been there since he was a small child and all he remembered was that crotchety house-elf with the ear hair that died years ago. There was no way to hide the sale of the house from his parents. Hell, he probably wouldn't be able to hide it from the general public, this amazing twist in the Black estate battle. But if the house was his, who would stop him?

A knock at the door made Draco snap to attention.

He groaned. The fastest way to get someone to knock on your door around here was to shut it. "Enter!"

"Got another memo from Puddlemere, sir," said Miller, standing in the doorway and waving a piece of parchment.

"What do they want this time?"

"They said they want an extra week to train with their reserve Seeker, just in case whatever Potter has is catching."

"Tell them, again, because they were too thick to pick it up the first time, their answer is no. Potter has many communicable diseases, I'm sure, but none of them are going to affect that game."

"Yes, sir."

Draco figured he had nothing to lose where the house was concerned, and even better, he could put himself in a position to ask anything he wanted of Potter. Of course, he still had to handle the situation with a degree of delicacy. Fighting over the house in court in plain view of the public eye with witnesses and judges was one thing, but when he was one on one with Potter, he couldn't predict anything. Potter had no reason to maintain any kind of public image when the two of them were in private negotiations, and he could have a temper. It wasn't that he thought Potter would do anything unreasonable, but Potter was the media's golden boy and he could easily twist Draco's idea and sell it as a story of attempted extortion.

The sun faded into the west as Draco pulled a new quill and parchment from a drawer. Dipping the quill in black ink, he wrote:

Have dinner with me tomorrow night. Seven o'clock. Meet me in front of Gringotts and leave the Mudblood at home. I promise it will be strictly business, and I promise you'll be interested in what I have to say.

Draco B. Malfoy

There was no way in hell he'd tell Potter everything in a letter. Owls were too unreliable to trust with this information. His letter to Potter had to be something simple yet cryptic, something that would draw Potter to him. It occurred to him that no one outside his family and Miller knew about Narcissa's plan to sign the house over to Draco, and that was going to work to his advantage.

The letter would do. Potter would have to at least wonder what Draco wanted, or where he was going. Draco folded the parchment, sealed it with his personal stamp, and summoned an owl. When the owl flew away, he collected his bag, straightened his desk, and sent Miller home.

If things went as planned with Potter, Draco was going to give Miller a very large raise.