Title: A Game of Honesty
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny, Ginny/Astoria, Draco/Astoria
Content Notes: Heavy angst, open marriage, consensual infidelity, manipulation, undernegotiated polyamory, epilogue marriages but no epilogue children
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 4000
Summary: Harry had agreed to an open marriage because he loved Ginny too much to lose her. But he struggled every day with jealousy of Ginny's bond to Astoria Greengrass. He knew that Ginny was the opposite, and had encouraged him to find a lover of his own, but Harry only wanted his wife. At least, he thought so until Draco Malfoy offered an arrangement of their own that would have the advantage of making their wives pay more attention to them, and suddenly Harry is feeling, and watching everyone else feel, emotions of an intensity he never knew existed.
Author's Notes: This is one of my "From Litha to Lammas fics" being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year, and one of the longest. It will be posted in seven parts. Also, please look at the content notes; the majority of this fic is an angsty mess.

A Game of Honesty

"Potter? I need to talk to you."

Harry took a wary step back as he watched Malfoy hesitate on his threshold. "Are you looking for Astoria? She's not here."

"No, I came to talk to you." Malfoy still had that prissy little edge to his voice when he was annoyed. He walked into Harry's house as if he had never hesitated and turned around, leaning against the mantel with his arms folded. "And I know my wife and your wife are frolicking around Diagon Alley this afternoon."

Harry shut the door. "Don't remind me." That sounded more bitter than he meant it to, so he rushed to make up for it. "What do you want to drink, Malfoy? We have water, Firewhisky, pumpkin juice, Muggle milk that we ended up with for some bloody reason—"

"Why did you agree to this arrangement if you hate it so much, Potter?"

Luckily, that was something Harry had a ready answer for it. Ron and Hermione had questioned it a lot when he and Ginny made their rules, too. "It was that or lose our marriage. Ginny needed more than me. I love her too much to lose her." Saying those words didn't even hurt much, now. "Now, Malfoy, you never told me what you wanted to drink."

"But rumor has it that Perfect Potter never steps out on his marriage."

"Wouldn't be stepping out when Ginny and I have rules. To drink?"

"You have drinking rules, too? Aren't you thorough."

"If you want to talk to your wife or Ginny about this, then you should talk to them." Harry kept his voice steady despite his increasing longing to punch Malfoy in his pointy chin. "If you want to talk to me about something, what it is? Although I can't imagine what we have in common."

"Let's say, common dislike of our common arrangements."

Harry gritted his teeth so his jaw wouldn't drop. "What the fuck, Malfoy? Why did you agree to yours?"

"Because it's so unlikely that I could have been in love? Love is only for Gryffindors?"

Harry settled back on his heels and nodded shortly. "Fine. But if you dislike it, then you should talk to your wife about changing it." He had talked to Ginny, but it was so clear that she needed more than he could offer—more excitement and passion and even time, given the long hours that Harry worked as an Auror. And if he was jealous of Astoria anyway, that was petty and immature of him. He could at least hold off on voicing it to Ginny.

"She's been more than unreasonable, at least by my standards. She says that someday she'll have children with me, but for now, she wants to be in love and have fun."

"She's not in love with you? I'm sorry, Malfoy." That was something Harry didn't have to worry about with Ginny. She had explained that she simply was fashioned by magic to love more than one person at a time.

"No, she's not." Malfoy took a deep breath and finally moved into the kitchen, to sit down at the table. Harry followed after him and got butterbeer for himself, since Malfoy persisted in not saying he wanted anything. "Listen. I've had a few lovers, and when I did, Astoria was jealous."

Harry blinked. "Why?"

"Because she doesn't want to lose the house and the wealth and the position and the marriage, even if she doesn't give a fuck about me. She wants an unequal arrangement. I have no intention of giving it to her. I want to do something that will persuade her to abandon the arrangement because she's in danger of losing me."

"Okay," Harry said slowly. "But why tell me this?"

"Merlin, you're thick, Potter. I want you to become my lover."

Harry choked and put his butterbeer down. "No."

"Astoria and I have the same rules that you and Weasley do, from what I hear. No bearing or siring children with other people, no sex that would expose anybody to a disease, and discretion. In practice, that's more likely to mean a same-sex lover. I've had a few, men all. It would be perfect for you, too. Can your Weasley stand seeing you with another man? Stir her jealousy, and she's more likely to start paying attention to you."

Harry shook his head. "Thanks but no thanks, Malfoy. I hope you and Greengrass work out what you need to do. I won't be part of this." He stood and used his wand to flick the door open.

Malfoy didn't stand up. "Think about it, Potter. I doubt your Weasley is actually as unbiased and welcoming as she's pretending. Unlike Astoria, she probably does love you. But she's never had to face the challenge of watching you be affectionate with someone else, which is the only reason she can pretend to be that way. Give her the idea she'll lose you, and she'll come running home. Probably even agree to stop seeing Astoria, if you want her to."

Harry hated how tempting that was. He hated what it said about him. But he had got better at facing what was sordid in himself. He let Malfoy's words pass him like a wind, and gestured towards the door with his wand.

Malfoy studied his face for a second, then stood and sighed. "This would have been so much simpler if you'd agreed to what I wanted immediately."

Harry laughed, back on secure ground now. "So what are you going to do, Malfoy? Spread rumors that we're already sleeping together? That won't get you anything you want."

"No, it won't. Especially since the target of the rumors wouldn't be our wives." Malfoy took a step towards him, but stopped when Harry twisted to the side, into a dueling stance. "Not only thick, but also paranoid."

Harry shrugged without moving. Malfoy wanted to cause trouble, or wanted to spite Astoria since he couldn't get her to love him, or something similar. It was none of Harry's business. "Get out."

Malfoy raised his hands and took a step backwards out of the door. Creepily, he did it without taking his eyes from Harry. "You'll see. It would have been simpler."

Harry didn't move until Malfoy was on the other end of the door and he could safely shut and lock it. Then he rolled his eyes and went to finish his butterbeer.

"I would feel so much better if you would take a lover, Harry."

Harry closed his eyes and said nothing. His arms were wrapped around Ginny. Her sweaty hair was draped across his face, and he had been memorizing every strand. They had just made love, and joy had filled Harry like shining fire.

At the moment, the last thing he wanted was to let that fire turn to oily smoke and cloud his mind again.

"I would." Ginny propped herself up on an elbow and stared at him earnestly. Harry opened his eyes because he could feel the force of that stare and knew she would want him to, but damn it. Did they have to talk about this now?

And if he said that, he would sound like he was whinging. Ginny really was the more mature one in their relationship. Harry rolled to the side to indicate he was listening.

Ginny's face grew soft, and she reached out to trail her fingertips over the stubble that Harry hadn't bothered to shave that evening. She'd been waiting when he got home, and that was enough to overcome everything else. "I just want you to feel what I do, Harry. I get more sex, more companionship, more love from two people instead of one. I just want you to have that."

Harry shook his head a little. "I'm too straight and too monogamous for that, Gin."

"But why?"

"I'm not attracted to men at all. And I can only sleep with people I love."

Ginny looked down at the cover of the blanket, tracing it with one finger. Harry looked at them with her. Molly had made those looping patterns, purple and blue curlicues, dancing leaves and loose-limbed trees.

Molly had no idea whose bodies had touched those lines besides Harry's and Ginny's.

Harry jerked his eyes away as if burned, and found Ginny watching him again. She shook her head a little, as if she wanting to get rid of her own pensiveness, and said softly, "I just worry about you, Harry. What would happen if we did fall out of love someday, you and I? You wouldn't have anyone to catch you."

"I'd have Ron and Hermione," Harry said, his whole soul caught around those words. "And what are you saying, Ginny? You're falling out of love with me?" Those last words were so stuck, and Ginny's face softened as she reached out to caress his cheek.

"Of course not, Harry. I'm just saying that it could happen. I would feel better if you had someone to take care of you then."

Harry closed his eyes. It was pathetic, the way that his last words had emerged in a whine. He didn't—he didn't want to be that pathetic person. And he didn't want to be the man who made Ginny worry.

Maybe he could just try to socialize with his fellow Aurors more? Get some new, casual friends? Then Ginny might worry about him less.

He opened his eyes to suggest that just as she said softly, "I want you to know the security of sleeping with someone else, feeling a second pair of loving arms close around you. That's all."

Harry had to close his eyes again and abandon the conversation in what he knew was a cowardly way, so that both pain and guilt struck inside him like twin clock pendulums. Ginny was so much wiser than he was, so much further along the path towards a place where she didn't feel jealousy anymore. She was a better person than he was in every way.

But he didn't think he could do this, even to make her happy.

"Astoria told me about what your wife suggested."

Harry didn't even start when Malfoy appeared at his table in the Leaky Cauldron. It had been that kind of week. All his startle reflexes had gone into surviving a surprise assassination attempt from a Dark wizard and then working through a complicated maze of wards around a suspect's house.

And all the pain from Ginny's request had made him unable to hold any other kind of pain. Harry shrugged at Malfoy and drank his butterbeer, staring at the front of the pub. He wanted Firewhisky, but he knew he couldn't handle it. Not this way. He would drink two, and somehow two would multiply to five.

Another sign of how weak you are.

Malfoy leaned towards him. "Did you even hear me, Potter?"

"Yeah. What of it, Malfoy? She suggested it. It's impossible." Harry swallowed the last of his butterbeer and contemplated standing up and leaving. He didn't want to miss precious time with Ginny. She'd said she would be home at nine tonight, and it was almost nine now.

Malfoy reached out and put a hand on his wrist. Harry stared at it briefly. All of the Aurors he worked with knew to take their hands away when he did that, but Malfoy only tightened his hold.

"That person you have security and companionship with could be me."

Harry reached out and squeezed Malfoy's arm back. Malfoy's face rapidly lost color, and he flinched as Harry pressed tendon to bone. He also let go of Harry, which was the only thing Harry wanted. He stood up and walked rapidly towards the door, his eyes averted.

Malfoy followed him into the alley behind the pub, towards the Apparition point that Harry had already been planning to use. "I don't understand why you object to the idea so much, Potter. We already have a connection of a sort through our wives, and you know that we have similar rules. You won't have to worry about being with someone who would try to betray you or reveal the truth to the papers."

Harry stopped and closed his eyes. His anger was boiling so close to the surface that it honestly felt as if he was full of scalding fury that would burst out on someone any second. This wasn't how he wanted to go home to Ginny. He had to pause, just for a moment, just an undisturbed moment to get his temper back under control and—

"Are you scared, Potter?"

Harry kicked, once, precisely, behind him, and heard Malfoy gasp as his leg popped. Then Harry turned around and forced Malfoy into the small dark alley, holding him against the wall with his hands on Malfoy's shoulders. The other man gaped at him.

"Fuck off, Malfoy," Harry said. Malfoy just kept staring, and Harry released him and turned away. Only then did he realize those first two words had been in Parseltongue, not English.

Fuck. Fuck. Harry wasn't fit company for anyone right now. His temper really slipped when the serpent language started to emerge from his lips. He spun on the spot and Apparated, but not home.

A heavy weight seemed to drag at him, and when he opened his eyes in the field near the Burrow, Harry realized that Malfoy had grabbed him and been Apparated next to him. Harry reached out, honestly meaning to break fingers this time, but Malfoy seemed to sense the difference and stood up, scrambling away with his hands raised.

"Get the fuck away from me," Harry said, low, deadly, and as precise as the kick that had hurt Malfoy earlier.

"Merlin, you're magnificent like this."

Harry snarled at him, a wordless noise of pain and despair more than anger this time. His magic had risen to the surface, and the grass around him was sizzling, slowly burning. It was disgusting, his loss of control. Harry closed his eyes and breathed out, reaching for that moment of peace Malfoy had deprived him of earlier.

He found it. When he looked at Malfoy again, the dangerous moment of magic was under control. The ludicrous thing was that Malfoy looked disappointed.

Harry just shook his head. He wasn't going to be accommodating Malfoy's desires in any way. "I told you no. Do you also find it magnificent when you're trying to rape someone?"

Malfoy recoiled, his head jerking. Good. "I would never—"

"Then be good enough to accept a fucking no."

"You're clearly miserable," Malfoy said, one hand on the side of his knee. Why he hadn't just Apparated yet, Harry didn't know, but then, not much Malfoy had done in the last two times Harry saw him made sense. "Why didn't you tell your wife that you didn't want this arrangement?"

"Why didn't you?"

"I want her to be the one to say we should end it."

Harry had to roll his eyes. Of course it would be something that petty and that personal. "I knew Ginny would leave the marriage if I said I didn't want it."

"She said that, then? And you didn't call her bluff?"

"I—no, she never said it. She just said that she would be so unhappy without this, that she was born to love more than one person at a time—"

Harry stopped. He had never realized before that that was more an assumption on his part than something Ginny had demanded. Of course, the only people he had discussed this with before were all related to Ginny by blood or marriage. And they didn't want to really hear the details of Harry and Ginny's sex lives, and they wanted both of them to be happy. Harry had insisted he was happy to be giving Ginny what she needed, so why should they have pressed?

"Then you should have called her bluff." Malfoy's voice was soft and firm, "Told her that you couldn't be happy that way and seen what she did."

"I'm still sure she would have left."

"This doesn't cost you anything you value, then, does it?" Malfoy gestured between them as if he was skidding his hand down an invisible wall. "You and I can be together and she'll probably even be pleased."

Harry closed his eyes. That was too close to what Ginny had said to him a few nights ago.

"There's still a problem with that, Malfoy," he said, keeping his voice as calm and neutral as he could. "Ginny's bisexual, which is why it isn't a problem for her to sleep with women. I'm straight. I can't be with you the way you seem to want."

"I want to annoy Astoria. But in the end, it isn't about love, is it, Potter? This is about sex. For me, also annoying my wife. For you, also pleasing yours."

Harry shook his head without opening his eyes. "That doesn't make me any less straight, Malfoy."

"How many people have you actually been with? Have you ever tried it with a bloke?"

Malfoy's voice was low, and Harry jerked out of the world of darkness consuming him when he realized Malfoy had moved closer. He stood right in front of Harry, eyes locked on his. He made no move to touch Harry, though Harry thought that was as much a manipulation as anything else.

"That's none of your business."

"I'm curious. And I've already helped you to one revelation, that your supposedly fickle wife never actually said she would leave you. Indulge me now."

Harry lifted his chin. Now that he thought about it, why shouldn't he say it? It wasn't as though he was ashamed of it. "I've only been with Ginny."

Malfoy's smile was a secret thing, welling up like dark water from underground. "I thought so." And without explaining what he was doing, he reached out and slid his fingers up Harry's arm.

Harry caught his breath sharply. Tingles raced up his arm in the wake of Malfoy's hand. For one moment, it was as though someone other than Ginny could arouse him—

And then Harry knew what had happened, and snorted. "Did you think I wouldn't notice that you'd put a spell on your hands, Malfoy?"

"What? I didn't use a spell!"

Malfoy sounded truly indignant, but Harry didn't have to stay and listen to that with someone who undoubtedly had his own motives for trying to get Harry into bed. They had to do with Astoria, Harry knew that much, and maybe also with Ginny, if Malfoy was continuing the old feud between the Malfoys and the Weasleys, and maybe he wanted to humiliate Harry.

"Yes, you did," Harry said, and shook his head. "I don't have time for this. I shouldn't have stayed so long."

He Apparated, this time making sure Malfoy couldn't grasp his arm to come along, guilt already churning in his head for having spent so much useless time with Malfoy when he could have been home to see Ginny minutes ago.

"Draco came and talked to me, Harry."

Harry closed his eyes. He'd been sitting in front of the fire with Ginny, brushing her hair. Almost everything had gone away while he did that, everything but the warmth around him and the shine of the strands of her hair that were brighter than the fire. He didn't want to have everything brought back again so abruptly.

But he was the one who had listened to Malfoy enough to invite this confidence, so he nodded. "What did he say?" he murmured, moving the brush over a little so that he could separate a few strands of her hair trying to form a knot.

"He said that he'd been feeling a bit left out lately with Astoria having me but him having no regular relationship. And he said he thought you were probably feeling the same way."

Harry snarled in spite of himself, and Ginny pulled abruptly away. "Ouch. Harry!"

Harry opened his eyes and found that he had caught Ginny's hair in a tangle in the brush. "Sorry."

"See, to me that just makes what he said sound more sensible." Ginny settled cautiously back against him, shooting one distrustful glance over her shoulder that cut Harry harder than anything Malfoy could say. "He said that you're tense and not getting enough sex. Not enjoying enough attention."

"I get plenty of fucking attention from the Prophet and people at work!"

"That can't be true, or you wouldn't cling to me the way you do when I come home."

"I—I don't want their attention, Ginny's. Or Malfoy's. I want yours."

Harry had to fight to keep his voice steady, but he must have succeeded, because Ginny simply patted his arm. "I know, but when I'm busy with Astoria, I don't want to leave you by yourself. Malfoy is volunteering to give you that attention."

Harry had to close his eyes again, and steady his hands as he moved the brush through her hair the way he'd had to steady his voice. It still felt as if he was bleeding under his robes.

But that didn't matter. He wouldn't let it matter. He opened his eyes and took a slow breath. "You want me to be Malfoy's lover, Gin?"

Ginny glanced over her shoulder, her smile so gentle that it was worse. "I don't mean just him in particular, Harry. You could choose someone else and I would approve." Her voice was teasing, and she glided her hand up and down his arm. It felt ten times more intense than it had when Malfoy did it the other day. "But Malfoy is the one who's offering to give you the attention, and we know that he understands what it's like because he's with Astoria. So I think you should go for it."

If she had sounded even a bit uncertain, Harry would have held back. But her voice was warm and firm, and he nodded. "Okay."

The rest of the evening, it felt as though a third figure was with them, sitting next to the fire and walking up the stairs with them and lying down beside Harry in the bed. It wasn't Astoria, although Ginny chattered freely about her—she said it was such a relief to know that Harry was too mature for jealousy—and it wasn't Malfoy, either.

Harry had never felt his own unhappiness that keenly before.