No Desert

Chapter 4 ~ Nets

Harry raised his redstart tail feather quill and ran a vertical line through two-thirds of the parchment he was correcting.

You're turning into Snape, he commented wryly to himself as he scrawled a none-too-friendly comment in the margin of the offending passage.

Fact remained, however, that most of his carefully-prepared lecture on variations of standard attack spells had whistled right over Fabian Barberi's head. Of course being thrown to the ground on the duelling floor, spread out and being fucked with your own wand until you begged for mercy while your school nemesis watched and chortled gleefully because it was "the only proper use that instrument will ever be put to", was a unique incentive to pay attention to magical theory, and not one he would wish on Barberi, dunderhead as he was.

Naturally, Lucius had punished him for failing, while Draco took out his fury at being bested, both of which had happened with beautiful regularity, so that between the two Harry was thoroughly fucked in every sense of the word.

If Harry had believed that Snape had employed the electroshock therapy version of Occlumency teaching, he'd quickly realised that the man had been of almost Dumbledore-like benevolence compared to Malfoy. Lucius had revelled in pulling the most embarrassing fantasies and images out of Harry's squirming brain, and then made him beg for them aloud before putting them into practice. Putting those things into words had actually been far more humiliating than having them dragged out of his skull, and almost worse than doing them.

A rap on the door left Harry aware that he'd once again slipped off into the wrong kind of memories, Barberi's half-corrected essay lying forgotten on his desk. Red ink had seeped from the quill onto his fingers, covering them with sticky wetness that looked like blood. Shuddering deeply, Harry Scourgified the traces before disarming his wards.

This was Durmstrang, where the students had a propensity for pranks to put the Weasley twins to shame, and the staff was infamous for combative one-upmanship. Trying to score one over the young Duelling Magister was a popular diversion. When the last sigil blinked out of existence, he called,

"Come in."

The distraction turned out to be Magda Lativari, one of his Advanced Duelling students, and a prefect.

"Meister Evans." She smiled at him shyly. While Durmstrang had a heavily multi-lingual student body, its teaching language was old-fashioned Latin, which had given Harry considerable trouble in his first year. Translation Charms went only so far. Still, students tended to translate their professors' titles into their native languages - at least the titles of those they liked, or so Harry had been told. He knew he was popular enough with the students, both for his friendly even-handedness and for his looks, especially the 'cool' scar on his cheek. "The Headmaster asked me to tell you that he would like to see you in his study as soon as possible," she said.

"Thank you," Harry replied politely, and hesitated with a glance at the huge stack of homework scrolls. "Would you perhaps be interested in correcting a bundle of second-year papers?"

"Extra credit?" she grinned.

"Of course," Harry grinned back. "Ten points."

"Fifteen."

"Twelve."

"Done."

Though Durmstrang had no house system and operated on individual credit, Harry sometimes felt like he was teaching a school full of upper-level Slytherins. He levitated the stack of scrolls to Lativari, who stuffed them into her bookbag before bidding him good-bye.

As he watched her retreating back, Harry frowned. He'd spoken with Viktor in the Staff Mensa during lunch, and nothing in his words or behaviour had indicated that he would want to meet Harry later. He shook his head. Even after more than two years at the school and with the best cover Galleons and Malfoy influence could buy, changes in his daily routine still made him jittery. He left his workroom, rearming the wards as he went.

Walking up the main staircase to the front of the central building that housed the Headmaster's quarters, he heard low snickering from a side corridor and spun round, wand in hand. Harry ducked just in time to deflect an Itching Hex coming his way from a gaggle of hooded figures. He waved his wand, grinning inwardly, and pinned the chief offender who had cast the hex to the wall with a quick "Gluemos!".

The attacker's hood fell back to reveal a face flushed almost as crimson as his school robe. One of his second years, with worse aim than Barberi, and obviously not yet ready to make his mark in class.

"Two points to whoever manages to get him down," Harry cheerfully called to the boy's accomplices, who were poised for flight further down the corridor, before continuing on his way.

The Headmaster's pompous quarters lay behind a wooden door with ornate medieval carvings twirling around the crossed wands of the school's coat of arms, the same sign that was displayed prominently on Harry's own robes.

He knocked and was admitted by the Headmaster's house-elf, a pretentious creature very well-attired in a crimson lace pillowcase, knee socks and pointed cap. It conducted Harry to Viktor Krum's study and bowed deeply before beckoning Harry inside.

Krum sat behind his desk, while Hermione was perched on the settee below a garish painting of a fifth century wizarding battle that took up all of the right wall and made Harry shudder and think of Voldemort every time he saw it.

Hermione's body language suggested that she'd been pacing the room for quite a while before taking an uneasy seat. Krum looked darkly pensive, but then he usually did. The elf bowed to them as well, humbly to Viktor, and then so deep that his ears brushed the carpet before Hermione.

Harry had arrived at Durmstrang much too late to be involved in Krum's spectacular takeover after Karkaroff's successors, vacillating between tacit support of Voldemort and uneasy neutrality, had not managed to win control over the school's warring factions. It had, Harry had been given to understand, involved a fair bit of duelling, resulting not only in Hermione's instalment as the first Muggleborn professor at Durmstrang, but also in the vacancy that Harry finally had been chosen to fill. And no one who had seen Madam Granger fight that day, Harry had been told by more than one source, would ever again suspect that she held her Charms position only because she shared the Headmaster's bed.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed when the elf had shut the door behind him.

"The Ministry?" Harry asked, dread slithering down his spine.

"No, James," Viktor said quietly, with one eyebrow raised at his partner. Hermione blushed, usually being the one to emphasise the need to conceal Harry's real name, even in private conversation. You never knew who was casting Spyspells at Durmstrang, and it would not do at all to hear the name Harry attached to their own young Welsh sorcerer James Evans.

"You haf a visitor," Krum explained.

A visitor? Harry frowned. He had no acquaintances outside the school, and none of his former friends knew his alias. In fact, nobody knew he was here, apart from the Malfoys, and possibly Snape...

Draco? he wondered. But no, it couldn't be. Draco would never work up the nerve to brave Harry's home turf. That left... A strange, near-nauseating feeling rose like swamp water in Harry's stomach.

"It's Lucius Malfoy," Hermione hissed, her face screwed up in anger. She shredded one of her students' Charms essays on the sofa pillow without noticing; her fingers trembled.

Harry hadn't seen her this furious in a long, long time. Not even when Harry had told her that Ron was dead. Only that, not what he had done before, and what had happened after. It was enough that he knew. Hermione did not need that kind of burden. In fact, she hadn't looked so angry since the day she'd managed to pry out of Harry a few shards of information about where he had been ever since Voldemort's defeat and Headmaster Dumbledore's death. He would give away no more than the barest essentials.

"What does he want?" Harry asked, his voice and expression perfectly calm.

"He said it vas a 'family matter'," Krum replied.

"Family matter!" Hermione exclaimed. "As if you had any ties to those infernal monsters after what they did to you!"

Lucius... Harry swallowed hard. He was more familiar with the man than Hermione would ever know. Familiar with the shift of emotion in the sea-grey eyes, with the endlessly nuanced touch of his hands, with the taste of his skin, his mouth, his seed... Heat stung Harry's face at the memory, and he lowered his eyes to the carpet.

"I'll name him persona non grata and send him avay if you vish it," Viktor said, and though Harry knew that his friend Viktor would do so without a second thought, he also knew that Durmstrang's Headmaster would be wary of antagonising as influential a wizard as Malfoy had proven to be. Influential enough to procure a false identity for Harry, with no questions asked from any quarter.

"I'll be happy to tell him myself..." Hermione began.

Harry shook his head. "No."

"...and make sure he won't set foot in the school ever again!" his friend finished venomously.

"No!" Harry repeated, more audibly this time. "I'll speak with him."

"But you don't have to! Not just to prove-"

"Would you prefer me to look as if I was too afraid to face him?"

Harry met Hermione's eyes straight on, and could practically hear her thinking, Aren't you?

He shook his head.

"You can haf my office for the meeting, James," Viktor said, but Harry shook his head again.

"No. I'll meet him in my quarters." For the first time, he regretted that apart from the Headmaster, the teachers' quarters at Durmstrang had to double as offices. The last thing he wanted was for Lucius Malfoy to walk into his safe space. It was bad enough that the man walked in and out of his mind all the time.

"Do you really think that's wise?" Hermione pleaded.

"He had over three years to murder me at leisure in accordance with wizarding law and with no one to gainsay him," Harry stated calmly. "I can't imagine he'll try now." Hermione looked anything but convinced at that. "Just give me a few minutes before you have him escorted to my rooms," he added.

Hermione surprised him by throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly for a moment. Then she patted the braid on his back for encouragement and pulled back with a self-conscious smile.

"Be careful, James," she said.

...

Lucius Malfoy wore a heavy black-and-silver cloak, and the way he paused in the doorway with his hood up cast Harry's mind back to his first appearance in the Room of Retreat. Harry wondered if the reminder was intended. Then Malfoy stepped inside, placing the cloak over the headrest of a chair to reveal equally formal black winter robes, embroidered with glittering silver warming runes.

Lucius loved the winter but hated the cold, Harry remembered, and February in the Carpathians certainly rivalled winter in the Swiss Alps. The man had always insisted on lit fireplaces in every room, carefully maintained by the house-elves. In the bedroom, in particular, the heat from the ornate monstrosity and the innumerable floating candles had sent fiery ghost touches over Harry's bare skin, as if the heated air was an extension of the man's hands... Harry shook off the memory and kept his face from colouring with some effort. Dealing with forward students for more than two years had taught him almost enough self-control to rival Lucius'.

"It isn't easy to win an audience with you, Harry," Malfoy remarked, casually tugging off his gloves and placing them on top of his cloak.

"I wasn't expecting visitors," Harry replied coolly. "And it's James now."

"So you don't admit what you are even in your inner sanctum?"

Harry felt the prick of the verbal barb, but shrugged.

"Constant vigilance," he replied, before adding, "But I'm sure you haven't called to analyse my sense of identity, Lucius - what brings you here?" After all this time, he thought without voicing it aloud.

Lucius pursed his lips. "Oh, I am merely a messenger. I had some business to conduct in Krakow, and I detoured to extend to you an invitation to attend the reception celebrating Draco's engagement to Pansy Parkinson."

He reached into his robe. Harry restrained himself from going for his wand with some effort, but Lucius only brought forth a prim envelope engraved with the Malfoy crest.

Harry's eyebrow rose in sardonic amusement. "Engagement? And here I thought they'd fallen out for good."

"You've retained an interest in our affairs, James?" Malfoy smirked. "I'm flattered indeed."

Harry twirled the envelope between his fingers. "Shortly after coming to Durmstrang, I received a three-page Howler in the Staff Mensa, detailing Pansy's... physical and intellectual shortcomings in very crass language. Naturally I assumed their relationship was over for good." He couldn't help the grin that tugged on the corners of his mouth at the memory. "A handful of more conservative colleagues petitioned the Headmaster for my dismissal afterwards, arguing I was unfit to be a teacher due to the company I kept."

Lucius stroked the handle of his cane with one finger. "They make for a... temperamental pair. I wasn't aware that you and Draco were corresponding."

"Rarely," Harry replied. "The school houses a collection of rare Byzantine Potions Papyri I've consulted for him a few times."

Harry had received some books full of outrageously gruesome Dark Curses in return which had deeply endeared him to Durmstrang's Dark Arts Magister, and two or three letters a year on the state of British Wizarding society, in Draco's typically slanted style. And he had read Draco's unvoiced "don't come after me, all right" between the lines of their correspondence, which was incredibly gratifying. None of which was any of Lucius' business, of course.

"But certainly you didn't for a minute expect me to accept that... gracious invitation," Harry added, throwing the envelope onto his desk without another glance. "So I repeat - what brings you here?"

"Perhaps I wanted to check up on my former... charge?"

Harry snorted bitterly. Yeah, as if!

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "No? You find it unconvincing that I would inquire about your happiness? To wonder whether you had found friends? A lover, perhaps?"

Unconsciously, Harry bared his teeth, anger breaking free for the first time.

"As if I'd ever look for a lover after you warped my responses to such a degree that I can't even recognise myself in a mirror!"

"Oh, but I would assume that you had picked up quite a few skills from me to keep a bed partner entertained," Malfoy mocked.

"Not anyone I'd ever hold in the slightest respect, Lucius," Harry said coldly. "Now if that was all you wished to discuss, I'm quite busy with my work here."

Malfoy just scrutinised him for a moment. "So I've heard, and I have no intention to distract you from your duties. Just let me add that, unconnected to Draco's engagement reception, you would be welcome to come home over the holidays."

Harry felt the blood leave his face at this, and shuddered, unable to believe what he thought he'd just heard.

"Home?" he whispered.

"Grindelwald." Malfoy shrugged, purposefully dismissive. "Unless you have made other arrangements, of course."

"I'm surprised that you would come looking for me," Harry snapped. "I expected you to have caught another prey in your nets by now." The words rang with enough venom to do a Basilisk proud, and Harry winced at his own intensity. He hadn't meant to give so much away.

"Ah, James... do you think you're so easily replaced?"

"You could have refused to release me from my debt when I got the appointment to Durmstrang," Harry pointed out. "You could have asked me to stay, even after that."

"You wouldn't have stayed," Lucius pronounced with absolute certainty.

Harry nodded. "I would have left no matter what," he agreed.

The words hung between them until the mood shifted and Lucius made the tiny movement that signalled he was going to leave. Harry froze.

Coming here, offering what he did, had been more than Harry had ever expected, more than he himself would ever have given. He'd made a fortress of his pride. He rested safely behind its walls, but it was cold.

"I would have left," he repeated. "But perhaps I would have asked you not to wait two and a half years to come and see me."

Seeing the small flicker that lightened up Lucius Malfoy's half-turned face, Harry knew that what he had said wasn't true. He wouldn't have given Lucius that much, then.

He was giving it now, after two and a half years, in freedom.

There was another moment of silence, almost as strained as the first, and for a terrible instant Harry was sure Malfoy would laugh in his face, gloat over his final victory, and leave.

"So, will you get rid of that monstrosity at last?" Malfoy finally asked, pointing at Harry's prim crimson Durmstrang robe. "The colour doesn't suit you much."

"I thought you liked blood on me?" Harry mocked.

"Oh, I do," Lucius murmured with that satisfied feline expression that had never failed to send shivers through Harry's whole being. "But I prefer to watch your face when I shed it."

Touché, Harry thought and turned to hide an impish grin as he unhooked the heavy gold fastenings that held the pompous robe. He grinned openly as he turned around, hanging the robe over his desk chair. Underneath, he wore dark wool trousers, sensible - and warm - boots, and a heavy white turtleneck sweater with stark black rune design. The latter Hermione had given him for his last birthday. It was his favourite piece, though Hermione had never quite grasped the reason for his amusement when he'd unwrapped it: the way it fit into the rigid Malfoy style and colour scheme.

Harry saw the corner of Lucius' mouth quirking upward and realised the man had figured it out immediately.

Then Lucius took a step forward to close the distance between them and pulled Harry into his arms almost violently. Insistent hands tugged the hem of his sweater out of his trousers, and slid underneath to caress his skin. Harry gasped at the familiarity of the sensation, and let his eyes fall shut quickly to hide the intensity of his longing as much as to enjoy the feeling more fully. He lifted his arms, though, to help Lucius pull the garment off. It ended up in an awkward position, with the cuffs insistently clinging to his wrists and the narrow collar stuck around his chin, enveloping him in woolly darkness.

"Lovely," Lucius murmured against his chest, sliding his tongue over Harry's nipples until he groaned and moved his hips in blind search for contact. "I did miss seeing you like this, dear Harry." He brought up his hands to encircle Harry's trapped wrists in a harsh grip, and desire sliced though Harry's body like a knife. Feeling suddenly unsteady on his feet, he allowed himself to sag in Lucius' hold, until Malfoy finally wrenched the sweater off to bury his hands in Harry's hair, messing up the remains of the braid completely.

"Are you aware that my useless son is spreading rumours to the British wizarding world, insinuating that you had perhaps been falsely accused, and that the Ministry's hunt for you was a result of misinformation and political cowardice?" he murmured.

Despite his dizziness and the fact that his blood was quickly deserting his brain for certain lower parts of his anatomy, Harry could hear the wheels turning in the older wizard's head. A rehabilitated Harry Potter, victor over the Dark Lord, and tied to the house of Malfoy by a debt released, and a bond renewed, was exactly what an accomplished schemer like Malfoy would go for. Perhaps he always had.

"I won't ever again offer you my freedom," Harry stated plainly. He wanted this, but not enough to lose himself in the process.

"You are free - are you happy?" Lucius inquired, caressing the side of Harry's neck with a single fingertip while eyeing him with interest.

"I'm alone." The words were out before Harry had the chance to think on them, and he flinched at their unguarded honesty. Even Hermione, his best friend, kept a careful distance in front of others. They both knew only too well that she was still associated, even at Durmstrang, with the fugitive Harry Potter whom she'd refused to disown. They could not be seen being too close. And of course she had Viktor.

"You don't have to be," Lucius murmured quietly. "And I don't see a need to bind you again." He paused, and amended with an evil smirk, "Except in bed, naturally."

But that was the way of Lucius' intricacy of character - you couldn't have just the focused attention without the incessant scheming and provocative sadism. Nor, Harry realised as he brushed his fingers lightly over Lucius' lips and received an affectionate nip in return, would he want to.

For a moment, Harry leaned forward to place a kiss on Lucius' neck, and then he just rested his head against the man's shoulder, letting the tension of almost three years run out of his body, resting in the familiar embrace of scent and hands and hair until the knot in his chest had dissolved fully.

Home, he mused, was perhaps not as far away as Grindelwald.

~ finis ~

I walked in a desert.
And I cried:
"Ah, God, take me from this place!"
A voice said: "It is no desert."
I cried: "Well, but -
The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon."
A voice said: "It is no desert."
(Stephen Crane)