Chapter 45
“Hold up. What?” Draco couldn’t wrap his mind around what Percy just said. Percy began pulling papers out of his bundle as if he needed them to explain. Draco forcefully shook his head. “No, Percy, stop. I’m not going to read those. I just need you to go back and explain why you didn’t open this whole thing with ‘I’ve discovered a treasonous amount of theft’.”
Since Draco’s luck was complete shit, that was the exact moment the king opened the door to their room. The words “treasonous amount of theft” hung in the air between the three of them. King Harry turned around and Draco caught a glimpse of the secretary standing behind him. “Dennis, I think you better clear my afternoon,” said the king. Then the king glanced back at the two men in the reception room. “And perhaps send someone to find Hermione.”
Percy was bowing again as the king entered the room and closed the door behind him. Draco was holding up a hand, silently asking for just a minute more to finish his conversation. He stepped close to Percy and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Percy stood rigidly, his eyes darting from Draco to the king and back again. He gulped, uncertain of how to proceed. The king was frowning at both of them, but perhaps it was because he didn’t look angry that Percy leaned over and whispered back. “I would have shown you the reports, but you agreed without looking at them. I figured I should keep it secret in case the king didn’t see us after all.”
Draco gaped. “I wouldn’t have told anyone!”
Percy had the good sense to drop his eyes and look bashful. “I know that. But the best way to keep a secret is to tell no one and I had to be sure.”
“Gentlemen,” the king piped in over their conversation. “You’re treading dangerously right now. I expect it of you,” he actually pointed to Draco. “But, Percy?” Percy’s eyes got all panicky and he grabbed his paperwork and began laying it out over the table, moving in quick, deliberate jerks that lined up everything exactly so.
Draco wished his hair was long enough to pull. He had to grab his head and scratch at it instead. He shoved his hands to his hips and sought a way to buy time. “Your majesty, the evidence you need is right here,” Draco pointed at the meticulously laid out documents. “Take just one minute to review, while my associate and I,” Draco actually grabbed Percy’s arm, “have a word over here.” Draco used the element of surprise to drag Percy back a few steps, hopefully out of ear shot.
“What are you doing?” asked Percy, not lowering his voice at all.
Draco had to take a deep calming breath. He looked up at the ceiling, focusing on the smooth lines of paint above them until his mind calmed. He waited as long as he dared then looked back at his friend. “I just… Is there anything else you should have told me? This could go very badly and clearly we need to have a conversation about which facts are critical to communicate with one another.”
Percy’s eyebrows narrowed and he leveled Draco with a stern expression Draco rarely saw, and never directed at Draco. “You said it didn’t matter and I believed you.” His annunciation was especially clipped.
“If it’s not interrupting,” the king said, clearly interrupting, “someone should come tell me what I’m looking at.” Draco shot him a scathing glare before turning back to Percy.
Draco grabbed Percy by the arms so he couldn’t go. “It doesn’t matter to me, Percy, I wasn’t lying. I just… would have handled this differently if I knew it was something so dire.”
Percy’s stern look darkened. “Why else would I need to see the king?”
That was when Draco actually stopped and considered what it would take for Percy to overcome his neuroses, go around the chain of command, and approach his sovereign monarch. Percy wasn’t like Draco, who might do all that on a lark because he was feeling testy. Percy was so very much more noble than that.
“Bugger,” Draco muttered. He couldn’t meet Percy’s hard eyes and looked instead at the king. King Harry wasn’t bothering to examine the papers at all. He was staring skeptically at Draco, possibly having overheard everything. Draco was desperate to salvage what he could of this situation and his pride. “Your majesty, Percy here will now explain to you how Horace Slughorn has stolen one third of the kingdom’s revenue.”
“Property tax revenue!” Percy yelped, pulling out of Draco’s grasp and trying to adopt an air of authority even if he just came across as high strung. “As you know, there’s funding from trade, agriculture, various fees, and more specialized taxes covering a range of services. Property taxes only make up one fourth of the budget.”
Draco stared at the ceiling again as Percy talked until he had the chance to cut him off with a swift, “Percy here will now explain to you how Horace Slughorn has stolen… eight percent of the kingdom’s revenue. Ish.”
“Well actually, he’s lended most of it back to the kingdom to make up for the budget gap created by his majesty’s new social programs. So mostly he’s profiting from the interest, but he has structured it to pay dividends over decades.”
Draco pursed his lips, struggling not to snap about how no one cared about the technicalities. Especially since the king looked highly interested and probably did. “Percy here will now explain how Horace Slughorn stole approximately eight percent of the kingdom’s revenue, and I’m guessing is now using that money to gain political favors while conning you for decades of interest payments.” Draco took a deep breath. “Percy, would you please just show him the reports?” Percy had been dying to show someone the reports. He rushed forward and dove straight into a highly technical explanation of accounts.
The king and Percy sat at the table with the paper and Draco slumped into a chair across from them. It was his nightmare. Not only was he trapped in a room having to listen to people discuss math, but Percy was actually damn good at it and Draco was starting to understand the complex money laundering Horace Slughorn used to cheat the system. The furrow on the king’s brow kept furrowing further, until his forehead was a mound of wrinkles and his lips were pinched thin in anger. His questions started out thoughtful when Percy initially explained what had happened. They’d grown terse once full realization set in and there was nothing left but to identify incriminating evidence. Draco could tell the king was angry at the situation, not Percy, but Percy would flinch whenever a question was especially harsh.
“I’m parched. You must be parched. Your majesty, would you be a dear and call for tea?” As excuses went it was weak, but Draco hoped a brief respite might clear the air and give Percy a chance to recenter.
“No. We’re busy,” the king said, not even looking up from the report he was studying.
Draco gulped but didn’t let it go. “Percy, you could do with a spot of tea, couldn’t you?”
Percy was hunched over with his fingers clenching the side of the table, just waiting for the king’s next pointed question. “I’m working, Draco,” he answered.
Something tightened in Draco’s chest. “You work too hard, it’s not good for you. I remember how the castle had wonderful tea, I bet they still do. And we could ask for something to munch on. Salted nuts, or maybe even chocolate.”
The king slammed the report down on the table. “Can’t you stop being self centered for one moment?” His eyes blazed furiously.
Draco’s mouth went dry. He tried to remember the king was angry at the situation and it wasn’t personal, but he better understood what it was to be in Percy’s shoes taking the brunt of it. Draco forced himself to sit still, not folding under the pressure of the king’s fury. He bit out, “A break would do us all some good, your majesty.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “You’re welcome to leave. You don’t serve any purpose here.”
Ah, there it was. Proof this was personal. Draco struggled to appear unaffected but he could see in the king’s smug expression that he had failed. It sparked the all too familiar anger in Draco. “You’re welcome to stop being an asshole to your friend, who came here at great personal risk to himself to make sure you knew your own Overseer of Finance is playing you for a fool.”
“Draco!” Percy gasped in shock.
The king slammed his chair back as he got to his feet, looming over the table and seething at Draco.
Draco answered Percy without taking his eyes off the king. “It’s fine, Percy. In a minute the king will realize I’m right, he was being an asshole, and instead of being exceptionally petty and punishing us he’ll likely just apologize and send for the bloody tea.”
King Harry scowled. His eyes blazed and his nostrils flared. His hands were in fists that looked ready to swing if Draco wasn’t just out of reach. He looked like he might climb over the table and take a swing anyway. Draco wasn’t afraid. He’d seen what the king looked like out of control and this was not it.
True to form, King Harry burst out a frustrated growl then whirled to stomp across the room, giving himself distance between himself and Draco. He flexed his hands, as if considering punching something after all, but instead he just rubbed his hands through his hair, pulling it into a sloppy mess. “Why do you always do this?” King Harry nearly yelled, his back still to Draco.
Draco opened his mouth to retort, but Percy lurched over the table and grabbed his hand. Draco looked at Percy instead, to see Percy shaking his head frantically, his eyes begging Draco to let it go. Draco frowned but for Percy’s sake he answered, “My apologies, your majesty, I was out of line.”
That got the king to turn around. He caught instantly Percy’s influence on the situation and it didn’t soothe his temper. He looked as if he were about to shout again, but this time Draco’s luck saved him. Dennis the secretary opened the door with Hermione in tow.
Brilliant, clever Hermione took one look at the riled up king, and one look at the men at the table, and pursed her lips in a shrewd way Draco didn’t trust. Apparently, neither did the king. He didn’t look remotely relieved to see her.
He did force himself to take a deep breath and calm enough to say evenly. “Thank goodness you’re here. Percy brought troubling news. Dennis, would you call for tea to be set out in the Hogsmeade Chamber? And some food. Whatever you normally do. Percy, can you take everything there with Hermione and walk her through the basics?” Percy stared at the seemingly calm king as if he’d grown a second head. He turned his wide-eyed gaze to Draco, who nodded at him to go. Only then did Percy begin gathering the papers back together.
Draco got to his feet with Percy and walked together with him towards the door.
“Stay, Draco,” the king ordered.
Draco froze, staring straight ahead at the open door. He could make a run for it, what would the king really do to stop him?
“Do you need me to stay with you?” Percy leaned over to whisper. Draco blinked in surprise and pulled his attention away from the door and to his friend. Percy looked twitchy and nervous, but his steady gaze wasn’t second guessing his offer to directly contradict the king if Draco only wished it. It warmed Draco from the inside out. Sure, they definitely needed to have a conversation about all this, but there was no doubt that when it came down to it Percy was on his side. That was enough to hold Draco steady.
“Go ahead,” Draco reassured. “I’ll be behind you in just a moment.”
So Percy left, with Hermione right behind him, but only after she sent an indecipherable look to the king.
Draco stayed calm right up until the door clicked shut behind them. He stayed there, only a meter from the exit, and wondered if there was still time to make a run for it after all. No. He was braver than that. He knew the king wouldn’t actually murder him while his secretary laid out tea a room over. Draco needed to act like it. So, he squared his shoulders and turned around to see what the king had to say.
King Harry was just staring. It was like he’d been waiting for Draco to get the nerve to turn around and face him, but he’d never doubted that Draco would find the nerve eventually. The king no longer looked angry. Just tired. He tried to shove his hands into pockets but once again discovered that the fancy suit pockets were insufficient and he grimaced and flung himself to lean back against a table instead. His hands gripped the table behind him.
“You need to stop doing this, Draco,” the king’s voice was suspiciously calm.
Draco held still under the king’s intense gaze. “Doing what?”
The king raised a hand to gesture at Draco as if that clarified the situation. “It’s one thing, at Grimmauld Place. No one there cares and there’s no doubt Andromeda has a hold on her house. Here at the castle, though, you can’t behave this way.”
“Precisely which way?” asked Draco, although he suspected he knew.
“Entitled. Pushy. Demanding,” The king looked like he could keep listing things out.
“I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about me but you seem to be describing yourself.”
The king’s eye twitched. Draco could see the king’s hand straining as it squeezed the table behind him. Draco watched King Harry force himself to relax before speaking again. “You’re clever, I grant you.” The words caught Draco off guard. Something in the king’s gaze shifted, looking Draco over from head to toe. Draco didn’t understand what it meant. “But you’re not a child anymore. It’s not enough to be clever to impress all your little friends while you hide behind your father’s money and title. You have to grow up and think about the bigger picture.”
Draco shifted his weight, trying to balance the judgment against him that hit far too close to home. “I’m not doing anything wrong,” he insisted. He could hear how childish he sounded as he said it. The king didn’t even need to frown disapprovingly. He just stared, unimpressed, and Draco squirmed.
“You’re smart, Draco. What do you think everyone would think if they heard what you did today?” the king asked sharply. “You stormed into my castle, made outlandish demands of my staff, and scolded me repeatedly without any consequence.”
Draco hadn’t thought about what anyone would think. “Percy said it was important. He wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true,” Draco said earnestly. “Aren’t you thankful we came all this way?”
The king raised an eyebrow in a way that clearly said “you know that’s not what I mean.” His actual words were more surprising. “In the exceptionally unlikely event that one of your little friends discovers treason, at least lie better when you bring it to my staff’s attention.”
Draco’s mind was caught in a loop jumping between every part of that sentence. Emotion swelled up in him and he decided to tackle what he saw as the important part first. “Don’t be such a condescending dick about it. Percy isn’t one of my “little friends”, he’s an exceptionally dedicated and brilliant public servant who just did you a huge favor.”
His majesty’s official portrait should be of the unimpressed face he kept showing Draco. “Why don’t you practice responding differently. I’ll say something to offend you, like, I don’t know, you’re stubborn as a pig. Then you can say something gracious and I’ll know I can trust you to be seen in public.”
Draco seethed. The king wasn’t being fair. “Thank you, your majesty,” he growled out, the opposite of graceful. “Seeing how you’re the epitome of pig-headedness, it’s kind of you to compare me so favorably to yourself.”
The king threw up his hands before breaking down in laughter. “This is a lost cause. You can’t be helped.”
Draco rolled his eyes before snapping. “If you were trying to help you’d simply not be a dick about everything. All I did was ask for some fucking tea and you tried to throw me out of the room. You don’t treat anyone else like that.”
The king eased back against the table and sighed. There was no anger left in his body. He stared down at his feet. “I treat plenty of people like that. You’re just the only one who won’t let it go.”
Something unexpected caught in Draco’s throat. It felt alarmingly like pity. “That’s really shitty. Mostly you, you’re a dick. But I guess it would suck if I drove all my friends away with my dickishness and I had no one in my life that cared if I was a decent person.”
The king looked up at him, completely exasperated. “You can’t say things like that, Draco.”
“Somebody should,” said Draco. The king’s eyes had that look again. The one that Draco couldn’t identify but made Draco’s skin prickle. Draco rubbed at his arms, trying to make the feeling go away.
The king watched his hands move over his arms, then his eyes flickered back to Draco’s face. “It can’t be you.”
Draco was at a loss. “Why not?”
The king couldn’t meet his gaze, choosing to stare instead over his shoulder. Draco could see the king working his jaw as he considered his answer. “You are,” the king started, his gaze flickering briefly to Draco. “An exceptionally attractive man.” he looked away hard. “And when you’re overly familiar, people assume I find it charming.”
Heat rushed up Draco’s face and he wished there was some way to hide his blush. “They think we’re flirting,” he realized.
“Yes,” the king said, still not looking at Draco. He held himself uncomfortably stiff.
“They think you’re attracted to me,” Draco realized further. The king’s lips pursed as he nodded. Draco swore he could see a slight blush on the king’s cheeks as well. Draco opened his mouth, but he held back the next thought that came to mind.
For months, the king had been stealing peculiar glances at Draco. He was ill-tempered and tetchy, but also had begun letting Draco in past his gruff exterior. He thought Draco was clever, and a rumor had started just because Draco could make him laugh.
Draco knew exactly how it felt to have the king run his strong hands down Draco’s body and how the king couldn’t get enough of his skin to taste. Draco had done everything in his power to hide himself in fashion so spectacularly un-Malfoy like so no one would mistake the equinox ball persona for Malfoy himself - but underneath it was the same body, and the king unquestionably wanted it.
“Fuck,” Draco said. The king answered with a rumbling, desperate laugh. They looked at each other for just a moment, and in that moment the king didn’t hide his lust. However, it was only lust. The sort of thing the king felt for any one of what George would call the king’s pretty boys. It wasn’t personal. It held none of the sentiment that lead the king to promise Draco anything he wanted.
Draco felt cold all the way down to his bones.
“You best figure out how to be a decent person,” he said to the king. “Because there won’t be any solutions to this problem from me.”