None But The Brave Deserves The Fair
Premise: Harry, Draco and Ron are Aurors. Draco has saved Ron's life, so everyone, including the Weasley Clan adore him. Harry is jealous. [I wanted to write something where the angst in a story came from something other than Ron hating gays and hating Draco.]
Disclaimer: J K Rowling is a god of fantasy fiction. I don't own anything, except my laptop, so please don't take it away from me. If I owned the boys they'd basically never get out of bed and they'd let me watch.
Warnings: EWE. Swearing. British-isms. Literary quotes. More Swearing. Sarcasm/Black humour. Eventually slash HPDM. If you are homophobic and/or don't like boys doing stuff with other boys then why are you reading this?
Any non-Canon characters are named for various science fiction writers from the 1950s onwards.
[Brownie points for spotting the Jane Austen quote, as I was re-reading 'Pride and Prejudice' at the same time]
-o-o-o-o-
None But The Brave Deserve The Fair – Chapter 2
Harry spent the morning doing paperwork at the Auror office. The final two Death Eaters: Aldiss and Leinster - all that remained of Lord Voldemort's side from the war four years ago - were safely on their way to Azkaban, thanks to insider tips from Former Death Eater, Wizz Kid Auror and the New Ministry Platinum Boy: Draco Malfoy.
Harry met Hermione for lunch in the Ministry canteen. Any sympathy he might have expected from her was crushed within seconds, as she launched into gushing praise of Malfoy's latest 'helpful suggestions'. Those 'helpful suggestions' being how to phrase Hermione's new campaign for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The effusive comment that stuck this time was, "Draco knows just the right way to convince the pure-bloods of our point of view!"
Harry produced monosyllables when Hermione appeared to require them. He really didn't care what the Slimy Slytherin Sod was up to now. "Yeah", "No", "Really?" would just have to cover it.
"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "Have you been listening to anythingI've been saying?"
"Sorry, Hermione, I just can't take any more! I don't care what Malfoy's been up to, or who he's saved this time, or how marvellous he is."
Hermione sighed, "Oh Harry, Draco's changed. You used to believe it too."
-o-o-o-o-
(Four years ago)
Four months to the day after the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, the school reopened, with Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress. With so many families fled, and students missing or deceased, the school had barely half the customary number of scholars. But the famous British Bulldog Spirit didn't just apply to the muggle world. Aware of the depleted student numbers, and not wanting the Great Hall half empty, McGonagall had invited the previous seventh year cohort back for an 'eighth year'. The benefits being, of course, to enable them to study and obtain their NEWTS, and also to have the chance to be teenagers again, not easy after the horrors of the war. It was not a massive success, but enough students came back for it to be workable. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy were amongst those who returned.
Harry was aware that he needed to do somethingto make peace with Malfoy. He wanted a quiet and stress-free final year at Hogwarts. The antagonism and hatred of the previous seven needed to end. He decided, with Minerva's approval, to do this at the Start-of-Term Welcoming Feast.
He made a short speech, thanking all the returning students for supporting Hogwarts. He made everyone laugh when he quoted a famous Chinese Muggle curse, "May you live in interesting times," saying that he hoped it would not apply to the students of Hogwarts this year. He credited Narcissa Malfoy for saving his life in the Forbidden Forest and Malfoy's wand for helping him defeat 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. Harry then offered the former Death Eater back his wand and held out his hand to shake… There was a stunned silence. The Slytherin Ice Prince looked dumbfounded but he graciously took the wand and shook Harry's hand, to cheers and applause from the floor.
The Peace held. Malfoy was polite to the Golden Trio, kept his head down and worked hard. Ron and the others, heavily influenced by Harry, did not mock Draco about Lucius Malfoy's trial and subsequent incarceration in Azkaban. Nor was he teased when the humiliated family's Nouveau Pauvre status became clear.
Hermione and Ron were seldom apart, and thankfully were not nauseatingly 'In Love'. Harry and Ginny didn't get back together and she once again dated extensively. Harry did not.
Their eighth year at Hogwarts passed uneventfully in a haze of lessons, homework, Quidditch, Ron thrashing everyone at chess and visits to Hogsmeade.
The seventh and eighth years duly took their NEWT level exams. Hermione, of course, achieved the best results of the lot and was fast-tracked into the Ministry. Harry, Ron, and to everyone's surprise, Draco, applied for, and were accepted, onto the Auror Training Course.
-o-o-o-o-
(Three years ago)
The autumn 1999 intake of trainee aurors was twelve, a large number as so many of the old guard had died fighting Voldemort. The normal Auror training of three years was to be packed into two years and they would have to work harder than they'd ever worked before. The 1998 cohort were just about to start placements, but were still a year off graduating. Remaining Death Eaters who had fled or were in hiding still needed to be contained.
The apprentices lived in the Ministry hall of residence. Harry and Ron shared a room, as did Malfoy and another novice named Ken Bulmer, who had moved to the UK from Australia after the war had ended. The others were similarly paired up in the rooms on the same corridor. The training programme was fiendishly difficult, as well as physically and mentally draining. They studied all sorts of new subjects from Concealment and Disguise to Stealth and Tracking, as well as Muggle methods (to be used mainly if disarmed), from how to break away if grabbed by a suspect, to physical combat and martial arts. They all put in ridiculously long hours and came back to their digs only to shower and sleep.
Malfoy was still unfailing polite to Harry and Ron but as the trainees bonded and began to tease and prank each other, he lightened up and turned out to have a wicked sense of humour. He could mimic most of the instructors and had the other undergraduates in stitches. He came up with the wittiest nicknames for their trainers and tutors, and declared that anyone involved in education who thought they could get away with the surname 'Moorcock' and notexpect to be mocked, was living in a fool's paradise. It was assumed that Professor Michelle Moorcock, the rather scary Curses tutor, was not aware of Malfoy's name for her as he passed her subject with honours.
Most of the students spent Friday and sometimes Saturday nights at a wizarding pub called the Moon and Sickle. The Australian, Ken Bulmer, as the stereotype suggested, could drink the others under the table. Standing 6 foot 4 in his socks and built like the proverbial brick outhouse, he would sling the drunkest of the trainees over his shoulder, and the others would stagger around him back to their rooms before passing out on sofas, beds, baths, and, on one memorable occasion, the kitchen table.
At some unspecified point they became Oz, Ferret, Weasel and Scarhead, but the nicknames were used with affection rather than bitterness.
Not long back after the Christmas holidays, Harry caught Malfoy looking despondent and, when pushed, Draco admitted to missing his godfather. Snape would have had his fortieth birthday that week. This led Harry to own up to having seen Snape's dying recollections and having aided his posthumous redemption. This, after all, was not public knowledge. The Wizengamot had heard Harry's pensieve evidence about Snape in private, meaning the only information in the public domain was the absolving of Snape's status as a Death Eater, and confirmation that Severus Snape had been a loyal spy of Dumbledore's and had aided Voldemort's downfall by being a double agent.
Draco was stunned by the revelation that Snape had loved Lily Evans and listened intently to Harry's tales of the hostility between Snape and the Marauders, of failed Occlumency lessons and the legend of the Half-Blood Prince. Draco told Harry of his happy Snape-related childhood memories. Snape had, of course, bought a 'My First Potions Kit' for Malfoy's eighth birthday. He had also shown Draco how to brew a cleansing ointment which restored Malfoy's milky white hands to their original hue no matter what he had spilled on them. If, at some points in the conversation, the blond's big grey eyes looked about to shed a tear, Harry was too savvy to mention it after thatsixth year incident.
Six months into their training, on Ron's twentieth birthday, Malfoy produced a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey, and they played various drinking games, culminating in a drunken, yet ferocious, game of exploding snap. Ron lost an eyebrow, Harry lost both, and Malfoy set the entire left side of his head on fire. Oz had to throw a blanket over his head to put him out.
Luckily the Auror infirmary was run by Healer Blish, who appeared to have rather a crush on Draco. She looked horrified at the scorched, half-bald blond and gave him a soothing balm and a potion to regrow his hair. She merely laughed at Harry and Ron singed faces and offered them an eyebrow pencil.
Draco's June birthday was celebrated in style: they actually ate out together, rather than just snacking to mop up the alcohol. Malfoy and Bulmer introduced the Gryffindors to sushi, at 'Oishii', a rather trendy muggle restaurant not far from the ministry. Ron refused to touch the raw fish, sticking to miso, shellfish and noodles but Harry tried everything, as it all looked so pretty.
It was at 'Oishii' that Harry finally began to admit to himself that what he felt for Draco was perhaps a little more than just a friend. The sight of Malfoy's alabaster hands deftly wielding chopsticks and slipping slivers of tuna between his rosy lips made Harry feel… something. Not so much hot and bothered, just a rather warm, tingly feeling whenever he looked at the flaxen-haired youth.
It had been a slow burner, turning seven years of animosity to one year of indifference to a nine months transition from merely someone intent on the same career path, to colleague, to friend. And now what? There was much to admire in the new improved Draco: more down-to-earth, less judgemental, more open, less anally retentive, more tolerant, less Slytherin, more Gryffindor. The old Malfoy was haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting. The new one was a beautiful, interesting, and engaging young man.
Harry had absolutely no intention of doing anything about his crush. They had to work together. They would be moving from mainly classroom based, to their intensive placements at the start of September. It would not be quite active service, but as close as. It was possible their happy quartet would be split up anyway, though the Head Auror preferred well-bonded pairs or groups, who would back each other up without hesitation and defend their colleagues at all costs. If Harry was given the choice, he would have chosen the three without a second thought but there would be the other second year trainees and who knew what combination would suit their future Section Chief.
-o-o-o-o-
(Two years ago)
The training placements were exciting and boring at the same time. The quartet were assigned to work under the section chief, Jim Ballard, with two other more experienced Auroras, Paula Anderson and Kylie Bonfiglioli.
Ballard was in his mid-fifties, grizzled and battle-worn. He could be crotchety but he was scrupulously fair. Paula was in her late thirties, tall and angular, with a sharp sense of humour and an encyclopaedic knowledge of every case on which she had ever worked. She had so much experience, and if she was around, it was always quicker to ask Paula than look anything up. Kylie was ten years or so younger, small, quick and lively, fantastic at charms and newly married to Giulio Bonfiglioli, from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. Apparently the Bonfiglioli clan rivalled the Weasleys for family size and there was a Ministry sweepstake running on exactly how quickly Kylie would request office only duties.
The field work was stimulating, if dangerous, but the paperwork was tedious, and there was a lot of it. The aurors were still dealing with Voldemort's twisted legacy: psychotic Death Eaters, cursed buildings, missing Dark Artefacts, as well as the occasional Obliviated memory, and the second year undergraduate aurors were plunged into it.
The hours were ridiculous and Harry once worked out he had clocked up a ninety six hour week. He wondered whether perhaps there was a secret store of Time Turners for trainee Auror use only but someone had forgotten to give them out. It might be some kind of test but he was too tired to tell. Oz, Malfoy and Harry still lived in their rooms in the Ministry hall of residence; very welcome as food was provided and they lurched from Hall to Ministry and back again with monotonous rapidity. Ron and Hermione had decided to move in together. Harry missed his roommate, though he rather liked having the bedroom and tiny sitting room to himself.
Bulmer had an on again, off again girlfriend; a mediwitch named Emily, and spent some of his downtime with her. Shopping for kitchen implements and looking at wallpaper swatches seemed to fill up a lot of Ron's limited spare time.
However the original foursome still spent their occasional free nights drinking, though attendance was no longer mandatory. Sometimes it was just Harry and Draco, supping mead at the Moon and Sickle, before they wobbled off back to either Harry's rooms or Malfoy's to chat until one of them passed out from either alcohol or sleep deprivation. And if Harry spent the odd occasion watching the moonlight bounce off Malfoy's platinum hair as he slept on Harry's sofa, well no one knew but Harry. He nurtured his crush; it was his and his alone. No one else needed to know. It wasn't so bad that it would ever prevent him working on a case with Draco. It made no difference to anyone but him.
-o-o-o-o-
(One year ago)
They graduated at the start of September. The whole Weasley clan turned out to watch the ceremony and Molly went through at least a dozen handkerchiefs. Ken's parents took an international Portkey from Adelaide, along with his younger sister, Shannon, who hit it off immediately with Ginny. Andromeda Tonks couldn't make it as Teddy was too little and too naughty and his magic was uncontrollable. Harry would have given anything for Sirius, Remus, or Dumbledore to be there to witness his triumph. Nevertheless, he knew that Hermione and the Weasleys were cheering just as loudly for him, as for Ron, and that made it better.
But Draco had… no one. Lucius was in Azkaban and Narcissa no longer went out in public. He received only the polite, but lacklustre clapping of the assembly and no one applauded just for him. Harry's heart went out to him, but he could hardly invite a Malfoy back to the slap-up meal at the Burrow. The new graduates would all be going out for pizza the following night but just now he had not a soul to see his success, and tonight, Draco would have to go back to his digs alone.
-o-o-o-o-
To their relief, Section Chief Auror Ballard took them on as a bonded quartet. They shared a rather untidy office. Ron's rather slapdash approach to paperwork was covered by Malfoy, who knew that tactical planning was Ron's forte. Harry had always been best at combat and defensive spells, and nothing had changed; no one mentioned the V-word, but Harry was automatically appointed Team Leader. Oz was the muscle: he had come top of the physical combat training and just looking at him had many criminals shaking in their dragon-hide boots. Draco's specialty was curses and, of course, his insider knowledge.
As he had been a Death Eater, albeit underage when he had taken the Dark Mark, Malfoy was able to make helpful suggestions for places to search for the fugitives, and he could identify possible suspects by looking at pensieve memories. Ballard's team led the way, and their success rate was far higher than the others. As the months passed, the list of outstanding renegades dwindled and shrank until there were only three left: Belknap, Leinster and Aldiss.
Belknap was the most powerful, and it was thought he had been involved in helping the Dark Lord develop new spells and enchantments. However, he had now only a slender grip on reality and was rumoured to believe that if he could kill enough muggles, his Dark Lord would return, and live forever. It also didn't appear to bother Belknap how many witches or wizards, or indeed aurors he killed as well. Of the last three aurors, who had gone up against Belknap, two were dead and the third had a permanent bed in the Spell Damage Ward at St Mungo's.
Then came that fateful date three months previous.
Anderson was in St Mungo's as a curse had hit her the previous week, shattering every bone in her body, and Bonfiglioli was on maternity leave. Ballard had faith in his boys, though. They were summoned to his office for a briefing.
Section Chief Auror Ballard leaned against his desk and issued his commands crisply, "Right, Death Eater Francis Belknap was spotted entering Knockturn Alley fifteen minutes ago. We have warned the shopkeepers to stay out of the way.
"Aurors Potter and Weasley: Apparate to the end and block off his exit. Aurors Bulmer and Malfoy: go in from the front. Keep him in your sights the whole time. He's cunning, brutal and quite mad. He's killed at least fifty seven muggles, five wizards and three witches since the war ended, as well as two aurors. He is not getting away now. I want him in custody and in front of the Wizengamot as a priority. Do WHATEVER it takes…"
-o-o-o-o-
Oz was the one the closest to Belknap, who spun round like a thing possessed and fired off a Reducto, throwing Bulmer hard against the wall, with a dull thud. The Death Eater muttered something incomprehensible and suddenly there were two Belknaps, then four, then eight; all insane and firing curses at the three remaining aurors.
"It's a variation of the Gemino Curse!" yelled Draco. "He was working on it with the Dark Lord. Belknap will multiply and you have to fight all the copies. Finite Incantatem won't work, you'll have to hold them off whilst I work the cancellation spell." He dropped to the ground and began to utter strange syllables, in a language Harry didn't recognise.
Harry and Ron started duelling the numerous Death Eaters, but it was two against eight. Harry, as Team Leader, gave the command, "Umbridge," their code for "Get back-up!" He ducked and weaved, wand set to Stun, as the various Belknaps muttered, snarled, shielded, swore and hexed, shooting multi-coloured spells in every direction.
What happened next was etched into Harry's consciousness. Indeed he had replayed it incessantly in the Auror Office Pensieve. He had even considered buying his own so he could relive it at home too. It had only taken a few seconds but he needed to see all the angles and everything had happened at once.
Ron, Protego activated, sent off his Patronus for back-up and Healers for Bulmer. In doing so he turned very slightly to the side of his Shield, and one of the Belknaps pounced. A flash of green light shot from the wrathful wizard's wand straight towards Ron.
Malfoy screamed, "Weasel!" and threw himself protectively towards Ron, whilst still gabbling nonsense and flexing his wand simultaneously.
Belknap's Avada Kedavra missed a startled Ron by around a millimetre.
A blaze of turquoise sparks shot from Malfoy's hawthorn wand towards the Belknaps and suddenly the octet of duelling wizards became one again.
Belknap roared but Harry was too quick. He rapidly cast a Petrificus Totalus, followed by an Incarcerous, and Disapparated with the now incapacitated Death Eater Belknap.
Ron and Malfoy followed Harry back to the Ministry, with an unconscious Oz between them.
-o-o-o-o-
At the final tally, Bulmer had a serious concussion and multiple fractures – he would live, but his immediate future was desk-bound. Malfoy had a broken arm and had bled heavily where he had hurled himself across the broken glass and stones that formed the alley floor, Harry had multiple cuts across his neck, torso and legs, adding to his already impressive collection of scars, whilst Ron had got away with his life and only a few scratches, thanks to Malfoy's quick thinking and skilled spell-casting.
Belknap was sentenced to life in Azkaban with no prospect of parole.
Harry Potter was already a hero. Now Draco Malfoy was a hero too.
-o-o-o-o-