The Mystery Wife

Draco Malfoy, heir to a great Wizarding fortune, handsome, charming, did anyone mention rich as Midas, was seriously thinking of having his tongue cut out.

Oh, it wasn't that he disliked his tongue, especially. He had eventual future plans for it, nebulous ones that very possibly involved his Mistress. It was just that it was going to have to go, in order to keep him from having to have any more seriously awkward conversations with old schoolmates.

First there had been the one with Pansy Parkinson, the night after the Charms NEWTs, in which it had been firmly established that she'd been dating Blaise Zabini for the last six months, they were Very Happy, Draco was Very Happy For Them, and Draco and Pansy were going to be Friends Now. That conversation, admittedly, had rather made him squirm, as he'd disappeared from her life quite completely after his final botched attempt to kill Albus Dumbledore, and the hasty flight it had necessitated. But it was nowhere near as bad as the conversation in which he currently found himself.

The one with Harry Potter.

It was the fifth night of the NEWTs, they'd just finished the Care of Magical Creatures rotation, and Draco and Potter had had to subdue a manticore together. The fact that they'd managed to do so successfully without losing any limbs, thus almost certainly passing at least one NEWT with an O, should have made this somewhat easier.

It didn't, of course.

Potter had accepted Draco's invitation to drinks at the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade -- the Three Broomsticks was right out, as Rosmerta had banned Draco permanently -- and they'd gone, and now they were sitting at a scarred, dirty table in a dark corner, not saying anything to each other. Bloody hell, was Potter this bad on dates?

Sod it. Somebody had to say something. Draco retreated to the safety of common platitudes.

"To passing the NEWTs," he said wryly, tilting his glass in a cautious toast. "May we all have earned enough of them to go where we want, after Hogwarts."

Potter joined him in the toast. "So, um...where do you want to go?"

It occurred to Draco suddenly that he could lay some very usefully misleading groundwork in this conversation, as well as getting what he had to say over and done with. Granger had been wearing that look for the past few days, whenever she was around the Ghost of Headmaster Snape--the one that made her look like she was thinking so hard it was frizzing her hair. Not that it needed it.

And Hermione Granger figuring this out, after all the effort Sevanna had put into getting away clean, simply wasn't to be endured.

"Professor Snape saw to that for me, actually, before..." Draco trailed off, looking down into his drink. "I didn't know about it at the time, but he made arrangements for me to be apprenticed to another Potions Master, if I wanted it. She's a cousin somewhere on his mother's side; apparently they wrote to each other, on and off. I'll be joining her after the NEWTs are finished."

Potter nodded. "Congratulations. You were always, um, good at Potions." He stared down at his innocent butterbeer for a second or two. "I can't believe it, about Snape. It's so unfair. I mean, he didn't have to die. Voldemort didn't have to kill him in order to defeat him; you didn't kill Dumbledore, but you defeated him on the tower. All it would have taken was a lousy Expelliarmus. Why did he have to kill him?"

Draco, who had winced at the name of Voldemort, then winced harder at the mention of Dumbledore and the tower, gave a stiff and uncomfortable shrug.

"You-Know-Who had been having trouble just trying to beat your wand," he guessed. "He got my father's wand destroyed that way, you know, and you didn't even have the Elder Wand yet. I think he deliberately chose a way that... that didn't involve having to duel Snape."

"Coward," Potter grumbled. "Maybe. I dunno. I mean, I was there, but it all happened so fast...I should've done something. Maybe I could've saved him, you know? How many people are dead because I didn't...anyway. Depressing topic. So, you're going off to study Potions with some cousin of Professor Snape's? Have you met her yet?"

One corner of Draco's mouth quirked upwards, and he nodded. "She's... interesting. I think Professor Snape got his sharp tongue from his mother's side of the family. But I think we'll get along pretty well. She's in Paris right now, settling in."

"So you're headed off to Paris, after the NEWTs? Hermione's been there. She says it's really nice."

Merlin help Potter; in order to be a worse conversationalist, he would have to be six feet under the bloody ground.

Draco was clearly going to have to manage for both of them, which fairly well negated his earlier plan for getting his tongue cut out. Pierced, maybe, if they got piss drunk and went on a screaming bender.

"Drink up, Potter," he said encouragingly, as that was sounding like a distinctly good idea. "You're too sober."

"We've got more NEWTs in the morning," Potter pointed out, frowning.

"There are potions for that," Draco replied with a smirk. "I should know. We've got a stash of them back in the dorms, and if you're good--which is practically a certainty--I'll give you one. Drink up."

Harry frowned at him suspiciously, but whether he was worried about being poisoned or being allowed to flunk his NEWT tomorrow, he didn't say. Whatever the case, he visibly came to a decision and tossed back his butterbeer inexpertly. "Okay," he said. "Fine. We're getting drunk."

Draco tossed back his own, rather less inexpertly, and ordered several more from the bar. "Well, I don't know about you, but I've been wanting to get plastered for about two years now. And it'll certainly make it easier to talk to each other, won't it?"

"Yeah, I guess," Potter shrugged. "All I know is, I could really stand to get drunk, and so could you. Are butterbeers...look, if we're going to do this, let's do it right. I've never had a firewhisky. Have you?"

Draco raised a reluctantly impressed eyebrow at him. "Never quite dared steal any from the liquor cabinet. I suppose it can't be worse than the scotch-and-kir hangover I had from my birthday."

A firewhisky bender. Even better. In public, with no backup, in the company of Harry Potter. Sever-- Sevanna was going to kill him.

Sod that. He wasn't going to be wrapped in tissue paper and kept in a drawer for the rest of his life. Or treated like a five-year-old. Draco was definitely not having a five-year-old's thoughts about her. Him. Whatever.

"Right," said Potter, his jaw setting mutinously, similar thoughts obviously running through his mind. "You'll be in trouble with Snape. I'll be in trouble with everybody, and our drunken likenesses will probably be plastered on the front page of the Prophet, doing something stupid and embarrassing. Do you care?"

A smirk stole back onto Draco's face. "No," he drawled decidedly. "We're both adults, and the war's over. I say we stagger back to Hogwarts singing the Wizard's Staff song."

"Right," Potter actually smiled at him. "Firewhisky, coming up. A whole damned bottle. And you're going to have to teach me this song." He trotted over to the bar and returned with a freshly opened bottle of Ogden's Old Reserve in hand, two glasses floating along obediently beside him.

They settled on the table, and Potter poured out two sloppy measures.

"To the end of the war," Harry toasted. "And nobody dying anymore."

"To the end of the war," Draco agreed, and clinked glasses with him. "Let no one suffer anything worse than a hangnail for the next ten years."

Draco didn't have the nerve to down the whole glass-- he'd heard about firewhisky. The judicious mouthful he took of it was still enough to burn the lining of his throat off. Clear out to the inside of his rib cage, it felt like.

"Holy mother of Merlin," he complained with what little air he had left, blinking furiously and refusing to cough.

Harry wasn't so fortunate. "Bloody hell," he choked. Draco laughed and risked downing a little more. It wasn't so bad, once you got used to the initial burn. It was burning a trail all the way down his throat and into the pit of his stomach, but the warmth of it was spreading out to his fingertips.

And numbing them.

"Alright there, Potter?" he asked jauntily.

"Fine," Potter wheezed, screwing up his Gryffindor courage and taking another sip. "Tastes like petrol smells. Why the hell are we drinking this? Why the hell would ANYONE drink this?"

"To get drunk, of course," Draco smirked at him. "Which is the whole point of this. So we can talk."

"Right," Potter said determinedly, as if it were the most sensible thing in the world. He refilled their glasses, a little less than steadily, looking painfully earnest. "To passing our NEWTs."

"To passing our NEWTs," Draco agreed amiably, and they downed their drinks with determination. What the hell was it Wilkie Twycross had told them, with respect to Apparition? Draco wondered. Determination, Deliberation...Drunken Disorderliness?

"The thing is," Potter said miserably, as if taking up the thread of a conversation they were already having, "I should have gone out there and taken him on hours before I did. How many people would still be alive, if I had? Fred Weasley. Remus Lupin. Tonks. Colin Creevey. Like about fifty others, and that was just on our side. Fifty people who'd still be alive now, if I'd figured out all that stuff about the Elder Wand just a few hours earlier."

He looked miserably into his empty glass, and refilled it with an unsteady hand. Oh, fucking hell, Potter was a maudlin drunk. That wasn't on. He actually looked like he wanted to cry. That was just...sad. How the hell were you supposed to continue a perfectly satisfactory hatred-unto-death for someone who looked that sodding miserable?

Draco refilled his own glass, none too steadily. If he'd challenged Voldemort himself, it would have spared them all months of misery. Not that he'd known. There was really no way he could have, was there?

"Well, I had the bloody thing for months, and I didn't figure it out," he pointed out, his drawl sounding softer than usual in his own ears, blurred by alcohol. "And I'd grown up knowing the legends. I'll bet it was complete news to you, growing up with those Muggle relatives of yours."

He poured himself another drink as well, and was a bit surprised to find himself adding, "Just think if I'd challenged him. The war could have been over a year ago, and I'd be the hero of the wizarding world instead of you. I have nightmares about that." He squinted in puzzlement, hearing himself. "That didn't come out right."

"Yeah, it did," Potter nodded, his eternally messy hair flopping in his eyes. "I have nightmares, too. Probably really similar ones. I think...I think you understand it better than anyone, maybe. We've both been Masters of the Elder Wand. Weird, huh?" He stared into his drink again. "I don't see how you could have known, though, and even if you'd thought of trying something, the fact that he had your whole family there must have meant you really couldn't. Like your father. Only reason Lucius didn't do something is because you and your mum would have been in danger, I bet. Otherwise, I think he really might've done a Snape. Bet you would've, too, if not for them."

Draco tried to keep his eyes from widening. Not only was he astonished, he'd been alarmed by the phrase 'done a Snape'. Then he realised that Potter wasn't talking about faking his own death-- he was talking about turning spy for the other side.

He snorted a laugh and downed more firewhiskey. "Probably. Maybe as early as sixth year, if I thought you'd have listened to me-- and that your side could have protected me. He wasn't what I thought he was going to be, you know. He was mad and twisted and completely bloody terrifying." He poked at his empty glass, savagely, nearly knocking it over. "He had my parents. He had us all trapped in our own home. He'd even taken my father's wand. I tried to help him as little as I could, and that was all I could do."

"Yeah," Potter said hazily, topping off their drinks. He downed another, shuddering. "This stuff is awful. Look, I don't think any of us imagined you had a lot of choice in anything you did. Nobody blames you, and I mean nobody. It really had to suck for you. By the way... thanks for not giving me, Ron and Hermione away, after the Death Eaters captured us. It would've been easier to say it was us. You had no reason not to tell them; you didn't even like us. You would have gotten credit for identifying us. You took a risk for us. So... thanks."

Draco's mouth curved in a bemused smile. "You know, you really are too good for the world, Potter... You're welcome." He downed another firewhisky as well, took a deep breath, and added, "Thanks for getting me a pardon. You had no reason to do that, either, and I'll bet it didn't make you popular with your friends."

"Seriously, I didn't get any disagreement on you, Snape or Narcissa," Potter shrugged. "Everybody agrees that all of you suffered enough, frankly. Okay, maybe not Ron, but everybody else."

Draco laughed again. "There'd be something seriously buggered in the world if Weasley agreed. I'm almost relieved." He studied his empty glass, thinking that he was really going to want another drink to talk about the obviously connected topic. "How bad off is my father, legally speaking?" he asked, as levelly as he could.

Harry looked uncomfortable, glancing quickly up at Draco before he poured out another measure for them both. He spilled a little on the scarred wooden table.

"I'm trying, for Lucius," he hedged. "It isn't as easy for him as it was for you and your mum. On the one hand, the last couple of years at least, it could be argued, and I have, that nothing he did was voluntary, and he didn't have a choice about it. His family was being used against him. He saved a couple of lives on our side in the final battle, too. On the other hand, he used to be Voldemort's most trusted lieutenant, if Voldemort could be said to have a most trusted anything. I've been talking to Hermione about this, and she thinks his best chance lies in the Imperius Defense. It worked for him the first time Voldemort fell, it didn't work for him so well in our fifth year when Voldemort came back and the public was pretty much terrified and looking to put as many potential Death Eaters away as possible. Hermione's assessment, not mine. She thinks it might work this time, because Voldemort's definitely dead and the public's in a pretty forgiving mood."

"Will his staying of his own free will to stand trial win him any additional points?" Draco asked, and tossed his drink back. "He is, you know. He doesn't want us to be there for it, either-- me and my mother-- but I'm going, if I have to Polyjuice myself to get in."

Potter toasted him, rather sloppily. "Yeah, I think I would, too, if it was my dad. I think it can't hurt, that Lucius isn't running. I hate to say it, but it would be easier if Lucius were a Muggle. Muggles have lawyers, barristers, whatever you want to call them, anyway, they're people who defend you in court professionally. They're trained for it. The Wizarding world has 'witnesses for the defense,' when those can be bothered to turn up. Usually, there's no one but you, sitting in that big ugly chair in the Wizengamot and stammering. Hermione's talking about studying law at Gray's Inn, becoming a barrister and defending criminals in the Wizengamot. Someone bloody well ought to, and I think she'd be really good at it. I mean, of all of us, she was the one who never gave up on the notion of Snape being on our side. She always defended him. She turned out to be right, too."

He downed another drink.

"Tell her thank you from me, and possibly Slytherin House as a whole, for that," Draco said with a quirk of a smile, and toasted Granger in absentia. "I rather wish I could be there when you do; she might faint. Tell her right before the NEWTs tomorrow. Alright, so I'm going into Potions, Granger's planning on revolutionizing Wizarding Law-- what are you doing, now that the war's over?"

"Becoming an Auror, I guess," Potter shrugged. "If I do well enough on the NEWTs." He topped off their drinks again, and downed his without so much as a wince or a shudder this time. "I mean, okay, I'd love to play Quidditch, who wouldn't, but...I think...I could probably do a lot more good as an Auror. The Ministry is broken. Totally corrupt. And they've got incredible amounts of power over us. Needs to be put right, you know?"

His tousled head slumped onto the table. "Room is spinning," he mumbled. "Whee..."

Draco stifled another burst of laughter, and reached over for the bottle of firewhisky, to move it out of Potter's reach. It took him two tries. He shifted it to his side of the table with exaggerated care.

"No more firewhisky for you," he pronounced gleefully, slurring his words just a little. "You're a lightweight, Potter. Don't ever try to get information out of someone for the Ministry, when you're an Auror, by going drinking with them. Just a tip."

"Not trying to get information out of you," Potter slurred. "Just making friends is all. Like I'm making friends with this table right now. Iss a nice table." He petted it, by way of showing his appreciation.

Draco fell back in his chair and positively howled. "I've been there," he gasped. "On my birthday. I like tables: they don't care how much you drink... they don't embarrass you in front of people... they don't treat you like you're five... they don't have any opinion on who you should be shagging..." He gave the table an approving pat also.

Potter glanced up curiously, his eyes brilliant green and a little vague beneath his mop. "Why, who are you meant to be shagging?"

"Whom. And nobody!" Draco protested blurrily, feeling himself turn pink. "My parents are trying to... I mean, I suppose I get it-- my father wants to see me settled, I'm his only son, he may be in Azkaban again by the end of the year... but does he have to sit there and heckle? Imagine taking... Mrs. Weasley," he chose in a burst of drunken inspiration, "along on your first date, will you?"

Potter looked horrified. "Um...no, if it's all the same to you. In fact, the thought is killing the nice buzz I had going. Your father is heckling you on dates? How's he managing that? And who are you going out with? I thought Parkinson'd taken up with Zabini..."

"Oh, Pansy's with Blaise now," Draco agreed, propping his head on his hand. The world seemed to spin less that way. "We sorted all that out. And wasn't that a bloody awkward conversation... No, I'm not going out with anybody. This was during my birthday dinner. With my new Mistress sitting right there at the table. Merlin."

"You have a MISTRESS?" Potter blurted, having apparently forgotten their earlier conversation. Every head in the pub turned to look at them, and as it was a rather seedy pub, there were some fairly strange heads in the collection. At least two hags, and one that was probably a part-troll or something. "You have a mistress?" Potter asked him again in a carrying whisper. "And your father is going on dates with you?"

The other denizens of the pub went back to their own drinking, most looking amused, but it was clear that some of them were now listening in.

"No! Shhhh!" Draco flapped a hand at him in horror. "Mistress as in the other half of Apprentice, idiot! Potions Mistress! They were meeting her as part of my birthday dinner! And then my father started going on about me still being... single," he substituted out of sheer self-preservation. "Never mind! I'm not asking personal questions about who you're shagging or not shagging, am I?"

"I'm not shagging anybody," Potter said forlornly. "Hasn't exactly been time, has there? And now I'm a dad. Sort of. Remus Lupin and Tonks, they died in the last battle, and they had a boy named Teddy, Teddy Ruxpin, er, Lupin, and I'm his Godfather. Your aunt Andromeda is raising him, but when I've got a job and a place to live, I'm going to help out as much as I can. I'm a dad," he repeated, clearly not believing it himself. "Weird, huh? I should probably offer to marry Andromeda and raise Teddy together or something, only Ginny would kill me, and it would be really hard to go out with her if I was married to your aunt. But anyway, why's your father going on about you being single? And anyway, you aren't single, you're supposed to be having it off with your mistress, I thought that was how it worked."

"How the hell do you know that?" Draco asked blankly. "I swear, you have the weirdest patches of wizarding knowledge... I just MET the woman, you know. And you can't marry my aunt. That'd make you my uncle. That would be too fucking weird even for my life."

Absolutely everybody in the bar was listening now, at least as far as Draco's paranoia was concerned. He drew himself up haughtily, weaving only a little. "This is not the place for this conversation, Potter. Let's take the bottle and go for a walk."

"Okay," Potter shrugged, and out they went.

The Hog's Head's environs were every bit as dodgy as the place itself, and as the two of them emerged into the warm and admittedly better-smelling night air, free of goats, Draco found he was still aware of the sensation of being watched. The path back to Hogsmeade's main thoroughfare was rocky and overgrown, hedged with large boulders and small hills and other seriously ideal ambush points. The warm-looking little shops and houses below, lit in the darkness, were the only point at which Draco was going to feel safe, and he aimed himself and Potter at them with a will, trudging down the hill as if demons were on his tail.

For all he knew, they were.

"So lessee if I understand this," Potter frowned, staggering down the hill, the bottle weaving in his hand. "You've got a mistress, and for the three year term, you're supposed to be faithful to her. Right?"

"Right," Draco drawled, somewhat quellingly, making a mental note to ask Potter some hideously personal questions about Ginny Weasley before they both sobered up.

"So you're not single. You have a mistress. So whass your dad on about?"

Draco glanced quickly around the path, then stepped in very close.

"Alright, look, Potter-- imagine you're me for a second," he snarled under his breath. "You're introduced to someone close to twice your age, whom you must obey for the next three years. She's drop-dead gorgeous and unbelievably brilliant, with the poise and self-mastery of a bloody empress. And YOU haven't dated anyone since you were fifteen because you've been too busy fighting a war. Do you grab her by the hair and drag her under the table on the spot? My father was acting like he'd prefer that, Merlin knows. I'M thinking it's a little intimidating, not to mention rude, and I'm likely to make a complete arse of myself. What do YOU think?"

Potter looked at him blearily. "I think it'd be hard at any age, frankly," he shrugged. "I'm totally out of my depth with Ginny. I mean, what if I'm really bad at it? Sex, I mean. And she decides Dean was bett...oops," he trailed off, reddening so violently it was visible even in the darkness.

Draco stared, then snickered.

"This is just fucking sad," he said with acid amusement, going back to dragging Potter down the hill. "The Dark Arts, obscure magical artifacts, the subtleties of Occlumency, the art of surviving for years in a war zone-- we can tell you anything you want to know. Ask us about shagging, and we're completely clueless. God, I wish I'd had a normal adolescence."

"Ditto," Potter muttered, and Draco wondered what it meant. "So you're out of your depth with the new Mistress. But she's older, and she's supposed to be teaching you what's what, or so I heard. Sounds perfect, like a chance to learn from somebody who actually knows what they're doing. Wish I had someone like that to learn from. It's like, with Ginny, it's this big risk, you know? What if it all goes horribly wrong?"

Draco gave him a sharp look. "Was all that dating she did for her own fun, or an effort to get you to notice she was worth dating?" he drawled.

"I dunno. Hermione said it was Ginny trying to get over me. Why?"

They reached the bottom of the hill, and the path back to Hogsmeade looked clear enough from here.

"If that's the case, she won't care," Draco smirked. "Really, Potter. If she was a Slytherin, you'd be in trouble; but as it is, she'll probably just be glad you're finally with her. Gryffindors seem to be funny that way."

"Trust me, she'll care," Potter grimaced. "You can't be suggesting I go off and...well, what about you? You, with your older woman mistress, you could probably teach me some stuff..."

Draco suppressed the urge to howl and bang his head on the nearest wall. Oh, certainly. He knew all KINDS of stuff. When blast-ended skrewts flew, he did.

Then as the rest of that sank in, he had to suppress the urge to fall apart laughing.

"Potter... are you seriously asking me to teach you how to have sex?" he drawled, his voice shaking. "I want to be really clear on this. Because I can only think of one way to do that, and I don't know if either of us would think it'd been such a great idea, in the morning."

"Well...I dunno," Potter reddened. "Couldn't you just tell me about it? What's it like?"

Draco thought that he would really rather die than admit that he had no idea.

Well, no idea from actual experience, anyway. Did dreams count?

"I am not finding a convenient hole in a wall so I can further your education," he snorted, shaking his head in bemusement as he steered Potter down the street. "I mean, you have some idea of the basics, don't you? Everything else is just... paying attention to what they seem to like."

That sounded reasonable. He'd want his partner paying attention to what HE liked, during sex. And if you didn't want to be complete crap at it, you did the same, surely.

Besides, making your partner completely lose it sounded like half the fun.

Bloody hell, had that been a bad line of thought to embark on, when he was probably going to have to face Sevanna, while still drunk, within the hour.

Severus. Whoever. Draco was becoming uncomfortably aware that he didn't much care which body the Headmaster was wearing.

"I pretty much got the basics from Fred and George Weasley, but I'm not sure how much of it they were having me on about," Potter admitted.

Alright, back to the 'cut own tongue out' plan. This was easily the most screamingly embarrassing conversation EVER. Definitely cutting his tongue out. And then applying acid to the stump, just in case someone tried to heal it back.

"Well, you must have at least kissed the Littlest Weasley, right? Apply what you learn there to other areas. Do I need to spell that out?" Draco asked in desperate exasperation. "Just as a hint, they involve taking clothes off. Hers, at the least. You've got an imagination, I hope. If I'm the only one who's ever had dreams like that, you'd better bloody tell me, because I'll need to go have my head examined at St. Mungo's on account of being a screaming pervert..."

Potter actually laughed at that. "Nope. I have those dreams sometimes." Unlike Draco, he sounded actually cheerful about them. Their footsteps were taking them mercifully out of the darkness and into the warmth and light of the little town ahead of them, the nearest buildings just a few feet away. "So teach me this staff song," he said, "and we'll sing it down the street."

This was a bad idea. Draco seized the bottle of firewhisky from Potter and took another swig.

There. Now it was still a bad idea, but that was okay, because it was also funny.

And it practically qualified as educational, for Potter. Draco smothered another fit of snickering, and began singing.

A wizard's staff has a knob on the end,

Through thick and thin, it's his firmest friend.

He polishes it tenderly

And imagines it a mighty tree.

A wizard can do naught but good

When polishing his morning wood.

It will never bend or break or flag

Or have a headache or complain or gag.

Oh, you must never point and laugh

When polishing a wizard's staff.

If you want to help him polish it

Pay close attention to the knobby bit.

If you love your staff, as I love mine,

It will always be your valentine.

Don't disrespect the mighty staff!

It is a wizard's better half!

Potter was howling with laughter. "Go back, do the first verse again, I have to learn it!" Draco did, and by the time they made it to the main thoroughfare, the two of them were staggering along arm in arm, singing at the top of their lungs and laughing their fool heads off.

And people were starting to stare at them as they passed, and damn if there wasn't a savage satisfaction in that.

Draco Malfoy wasn't accustomed to being ignored, after all.