Kept Man Chapter 1: Kind and Cruel, a harry potter fanfic

Title: Kept Man

Description: A downtrodden Harry Potter in a serious dry spell is looking to be a kept man, and a lonely Draco Malfoy responds to his anonymous ad. A perfect storm of lust, scandal, and maybe even love.

AN: This has been in my head for years. I wrote 'Shameless' (another fic of mine) when I was a lot younger and certainly all the less wise for it as my rentboy!Draco fic and I always swore that when I got better with writing/the concept of sex work I'd do it better with a fic with Harry on the other side of the transaction. He's not a rentboy here but he's sugaring, and he's sugaring for love instead of money. Lots of BDSM shenanigans incoming, so I'll warn with specific labels per chapter. The overall TWs are for sex work, D/s relationships, BDSM, Daddy Kink, etc. but as usual with me it'll all be safe, sane, and consensual! Other TWs include Harry being quite depressed and anxious at first, suffering from PTSD and trichotillomania.

Chapter 1: Kind and Cruel

Submissive man seeking to be kept by a kind, cruel, true Dominant Daddy. I will earn my keep in your home however you see fit. Hardworking, eager, open to anything once. Seeking discipline, structure, empathy and torture. Thin, 168cm. Dark hair, green eyes. Discretion far more important than your means. -H

Discretion far more important than your means. Why in the hell had he worded it like that? Draco twisted the Malfoy signet ring on his index finger, a habit he'd picked up since he had started wearing it. The ad referenced housing, so it wasn't like this bloke was married and sneaking about. What did he need discretion for, and why did he need it even more than he needed money? That was sort of the point of this, right?

Draco had been envisioning this entire situation—an imagined fantasy of saving some street rat and starting some Pretty Woman makeover—in a limited way, it seemed. Discretion more important than money, what an odd request. Did this man want to sugar in a trailer park? No doubt this ad had gotten countless replies already because of that caveat the man added to the end. Draco wondered if he should even bother writing in. Money was his edge here, and while he had a deeper vault in Gringotts than any other candidate could dream of, what if the person who put this ad out rejected him anyway? Could there be anything more pathetic?

Replaying the text of the ad a few more times in his head did nothing to ease Draco's mind. He Vanished away the magazine with a resigned huff, reserving this dilemma for Future Draco.

"Healer Malfoy!" someone shouted outside his office door, one intern or another. They were a rotating cast of young faces that turned to mostly disgust whenever in Draco's presence. Such was the legacy his parents had lain for him and he had indeed followed along with in Hogwarts. Draco liked to think he was changing, becoming a better wizard and a better human more importantly, but he was hardly going to go grovel to the likes of them for forgiveness for what he did when his life and parent's lives were threatened.

Draco had gotten forgiveness in stranger places when he asked for it, though. Potter had given it to him without him even asking, an act that still stupefied him to this day. That selfless, compassionate bastard. Probably did it for the good karma points. That, or survivor's guilt, but that was a much less funny concept bordering on frighteningly real for Draco as well.

He tried to channel his own guilt, his own neuroses, into something positive. It made him a thorough Healer, always skeptical of the easy solutions now. His methods were sound, and those patients that didn't reject him outright usually came to be quite grateful of his services, making him their primary Healer. He took pride in that, and sought greater power in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries not to line his already-stuffed pockets but to help more people. Maybe if he helped enough people in such a real, tangible way like saving their lives or easing their pains then it might be enough.

Father was always pushing him to be more ambitious with his desire for promotions, but Draco didn't exactly give his advice as much credence as he used to these days. To his credit Lucius had taken to post-war life well enough, banished to the France Estate of the Malfoy family while only Draco was permitted to set foot in the Manor again.

It was up to Draco to restore his old home, restore his name, and to restore himself. Doing it alone was proving trying.

Discretion far more important than your means. Yeah, well, how discrete would this man be if he realized an ex-Death Eater was contacting him? Draco could see the Prophet headlines now—Loveless Malfoy Heir Seeks Male Fetish Companion. Wouldn't his dear mother and father just love that?

"Healer Malfoy?!" the voice rang more urgently this time.

"Coming!" Draco sighed, pocketing his wand in his robe and hauling himself up from the office chair to open his door. "Yes, what is it?" he huffed at the unlucky intern sent to fetch him. She looked like she still belonged in a school robe, all bright and perky so early in the morning.

"The patient in 394 was responding successfully to the potion, but we looked away just a moment and then all of this—this blue stuff was coming out! I've never seen anything like it!" she exclaimed.

"'Coming out' of where? Please, be specific in your medical—"

"Everywhere, Healer Malfoy. Coming out of everywhere."

"Oh, joy." Draco brought up the charmed linen barrier he kept strung around his neck to cover his nose and mouth. He snapped on gloves as he walked, and as they approached the room in question he picked up the foul, fetid scent of rotten fruit. The intern was trying not to shed a tear at its intensity. Draco sighed. Was she Mary or was she Britney? Either way she'd clearly only add to the mess with her weak stomach. "You wait out here, I can do this on my own." She backed up in silent, reverent head bows. "A Healer's work is never done," Draco declared before opening the door so a wave of hot, nasty rot could hit him head-on.

"Mr. Pierson!" Draco greeted his blue muck-covered patient who looked just as horrified as the intern had been, if not worse. "What seems to be the problem?"

It took three showers in the employee locker room and several angrily-muttered spells, but Draco's hair was finally clean enough to be up to his standards. He'd nearly scrubbed his scalp raw in the process, but it was all worth it to have that goop smell off of him.

Charmed blueberry incident—that was a new one. The novelty forced Draco to be the one that wrote up the report, as Head Healer Pye would drive a lice-comb through the paperwork when he got wind of a file heading to the Records. New cases were always sent there upon first encountering them, and Pye was always intercepting them to make sure things were 'up to par' before they got there. Draco had stayed an extra hour filling out nonsense for this alone, and then the shower robbed him of more time.

He wouldn't be back to the Manor until long after dark, and being there was more draining than work sometimes. While his father and mother were exiled to the estate in France it fell to the sole heir of the Malfoy family to rebuild upon their Wiltshire land to 'reclaim what was theirs' or whatever Lucius was on about now.

Lucius had put up immense resistance to Draco's demolition needs when it came to construction, but it all had to go. Malfoy Manor had spoiled from the inside-out when Lucius invited The Dark Lord into their home. The boards themselves had rotted, pestilence overtaking the house. Upon further reports of the extensive damage, Lucius caved.

The patriarch only ever apologized to two people in the world: his wife, and his son. The world would never see how broken he was after the Battle of Hogwarts, how he wept and clung to Narcissa and Draco for dear life decrying himself.

Draco's father's pride returned slowly after the War Trials when their sentencing had been carried out. Potter had been their saving grace again by demanding the abolishment of Azkaban and extreme leniency in the Malfoy's favor. Harry hadn't gotten the former, and that seemed like a big blow to his ego or whatever, that righteous, sexy bastard—wait, what? Ugh, Draco was tired. No time to think about schoolyard rivalries, especially ones that might inappropriately excite him at work.

He stepped out of the shower into his sandals and wrapped a towel around himself on the way to his locker. With a drying spell and a quick change of clothes he was on his way, out of the locker room, employee lounge, and into the lobby.

The massive fountain sparkled, and as always Draco's eyes went right to the edges. He was always morbidly curious about who was donating. He'd seen people dump sacks into the charmed waters and walk away shaking, as if this was their penance. People sometimes jumped into the fountain to try and reclaim donations even though it would feel ankle-deep to them, the donations kept safe under a shielding spell that only allowed coins through quite close to the surface. A little charm played a 'thank you!' illusion. Pye said it increased donations 25%, but Draco had not seen the numbers on that and was reserving his opinion with prejudice on the older man.

Before the fountain sprang a dark Aphrodite.

"Sure took you long enough," Pansy greeted him with the utmost affection that a Parkinson was capable of. She had long since changed out of her front desk uniform and was in a tight little number of a green dress that brought Draco once more back to his schooldays.

"And you got dressed up all for me," Draco joked, receiving a jab in his side for his jest. "Ow! Rude, you're so rude, how did you ever get hired here?"

Pansy snickered. "I get off on denying people—being the one who gets to say you're too busy to see someone is the perfect high. Other than, you know, actually getting high."

Merlin, Draco loved this woman. Shrewd, shrill, and self-indulgent to a fault—they would have really made a wonderful arranged marriage like Lucius had hoped for if Draco was somehow straight. "So, where are you taking them tonight?" Draco inquired, walking her across the lobby.

"Tonight we're doing the casinos of Atlantic City—I've a Portkey there and a hotel suite booked up. I'm mostly just looking to blow on some dice, but I've heard Blackjack can be fun and I am always happy to bet on Niffler races. No matter what I get to retreat to a Presidential Suite with my two most loyal attendants and receive the adoration I deserve." Pansy sighed loudly, fondly, and deeply sexually, twirling her hair with her index finger as she and Draco approached the edge of the wards. Apparation was only possible in the foyer, to prevent those of ill intent from sneaking into patients' rooms unbeknownst to hospital staff.

The pair stepped outside the wards and turned to face each other. "Good," Draco said. "Good, I'm glad you three are having fun."

"You know," Pansy said, voice a little too sincere for Draco's taste. "I really do have to thank you for introducing me to that magazine. Don't think I haven't forgotten about your little quest, too."

"Please, do not call it a quest," Draco sighed, stepping away and making the gestures that he was about to apparate away soon.

"Wait!" Pansy said, reaching out for his wrist. "Before you go, you have to tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me you're going to respond to at least one sub ad in there. You look tense, Draco. You need to get laid," Pansy informed him seriously. Draco rolled his eyes. "I mean it. You need to at least try, even if it doesn't work out the first couple times. You have so much to offer, Draco. A big house that needs fixing, endless money, a big cock—"

"Pansy!" Draco looked around to make sure nobody heard that.

"—what, I've seen it plenty of times! Ugh, you didn't even let me get to the part about your sparkling personality. Pretty rude of you to interrupt." Pansy liked to hold onto grudges like a hoarder to newspaper. Of course she hadn't forgotten his little jab. "Just—try with someone who emphasizes being private. If they're paranoid in their ad there's no way they'll sell you out to The Prophet and risk themselves like that." At least she hoped not—any wizarding newspaper would give buckets of galleons to anyone with dirt on Draco Malfoy.

Draco becoming a Healer did not sit right with a majority of people, and plenty wanted to see him chased out of the profession in humiliation. That wasn't even to mention his sexuality which he had not hidden but certainly not announced.

Pansy was only tangentially related to the war, her parents too rightfully frightened to fight just as she was, and she still got remarks and stares. Draco had it much, much worse than her, and it made her worry.

"Fine, one, whatever it takes to have you never talk about my love life in public ever again," Draco huffed, waving his hands dismissively. Pansy intentionally incorrectly took that as a gesture for a hug and went in for a tight one. "Why are you like this," Draco hissed into the constriction.

"You love me," she replied, and knew he couldn't deny it. "You better fill me in on all the details, okay? I want to hear all about the one, maybe even two you respond to."

"One," Draco insisted for naught. He shook his head and cracked a smile, and so did Pansy. "Have a good weekend, Panda."

"You too, my Dragon." And just like that Pansy was gone, apparated away to wherever her loyal servants were picking her up.

Draco didn't linger long after his customary eyeroll. He took a deep breath, focusing hard on the Manor and closing his eyes only to have them open on the front door. Home sweet home, he supposed.

He kicked off his shoes and stepped into his monogrammed house slippers, a Christmas gift from mother. The first floor was restored far beyond its original glory in Draco's humble opinion, and so was the marble staircase leading up to his room on the third, but the rest was either covered in tarp or under construction. Most nights he didn't even look at the second floor, too overwhelmed with the chore list ahead of him there. Draco had put the tarps down intending to paint about a month ago and wasn't even able to touch it because of the plumbing issues he'd had putting in the new master bathroom. Worth it for the massive tub, though.

The Manor was a work in progress, he had to remind himself. It was unsettling to come home to more work than he'd left behind at the hospital, but it had to be done and there was no one else to do it. Once it was done Draco would get to feel proud and show it off, so that was a strong motivator when his familial duties didn't feel as convincing.

Draco wanted to point to both things in his life, his home and his career, and say he was doing better than everyone who wished him ill had screamed that he deserved hell. It was a petty wish but Draco Malfoy had lots of petty wishes and there was nothing wrong with that, he was but a gay wizard in a trying world that seemed determined to kill him and his parents.

He trudged up to his room, the master bedroom as he was now the master of this house, and lit all the candles in his room with a flick of his wand. This was his sanctuary, his place from which he could pretend the rest of the house looked this nice.

Draco had spared no expense on his comfort here. The wide, open space had a tall ceiling with a grand chandelier hanging above the California King mattress. The finest linens, the smoothest silks, and the sturdiest headboard a wizard could have adorned Draco's bed, the covers taupe adorned with white flowers, and plush to the touch. The mattress itself was a marvel, soft as a cloud and warm as a nest.

Rather unceremoniously Draco flung himself onto the bed. He laid on his side, wand in hand, and let out a groan to be reunited with his faithful bed. How he'd missed it. He turned his head to the side to get comfortable and his gaze fell upon one of the dark mahogany beside stands, the one where he kept the books and publications he was currently reading. Atop the pile was the same magazine he had summoned to his office to look over in his spare time.

Something deep in Draco's chest ached hollowly. He grimaced, swallowed, and reached out to grab the magazine. The page he wanted was already dog-eared in it.

Kind and cruel, empathy and torture… Draco brushed his fingertips over the words as if that could better help him feel them. He had even stressed discretion as Pansy advised, and Draco was now properly horrified to realize he was taking her advice.

If there was to be 'just one' he would contact, it would be this man. Everything about him seemed perfect from how he was shorter than Draco—what could he say, he was shallow on that one—to how he said he was hardworking, though Draco was managing expectations and refusing to get his hopes too high up.

Still, they were high enough to make him reach for a quill and parchment, shaking his head at himself all the while. Was he really doing this? Was he really putting himself out there to be hurt like this on his own free will? Could there be anything more foolish, any pursuit more doomed to fail than his?

Maybe that was a bit dramatic, considering he'd survived a war, but the lone Malfoy heir had guarded his heart so long. He'd had trysts and flirtationships and all manners of sex with men—he was approaching thirty, dammit—and never once exposed himself deeper than taking off his clothes.

Draco wanted this more than he cared to admit. He wanted to be there for someone, and to provide for them, and help them achieve whatever dreams they had, too. Being a Daddy obviously involved a sexual component he enjoyed to no end, but beyond having some blokes call him by that title while getting spanked he'd never really, actually been a Daddy.

Daddies took care of their partners. They supported them emotionally, financially, whatever they needed. Daddies, true Daddies, put their submissive's needs and goals first. Wasn't that the exact phrase this man had used in his ad: true Daddies? That was what Draco aspired to, and he knew he would never see it realized if he didn't at least try.

Draco took a deep breath and began to write.

In all the times Harry Potter had imagined what life would be like after The Wizarding War, of all the fantasies he'd spun about the things he'd get to do after vanquishing the man who'd taken his family from him, he'd never included this much idle boredom.

The hum of the television in the background was just enough noise the room less empty but not so much that it flooded Harry's thoughts. He yawned, scratching behind his head. How long had been sleeping? Was he still sleeping now?

Whatever he'd been watching on the television to pass the time was long done airing, and now an infomercial for a special towel was lighting up the screen. Harry thought hard for a moment.

"It was… I was watching… some crime show," he tried to recall aloud. "Husband killed his wife on a boat." The editing had managed to make even that dull and boring to Harry.

Harry often got so bored, so droopy and wilted, that he conked out on the nearest flat surface. That was just fine considering he didn't leave the flat much, and even the carpet here could be nice to lay on sometimes. He was doing a lot of laying down these days, and not in the way he wished he was.

He squinted to see the blackout curtains letting in a sliver of light. So it was morning, then? Or afternoon. Harry usually didn't want to know the time, hence the curtains, but for the first time in a long while he was paying attention to the clock again. The magazine had gone out into circulation—Harry checked his muggle phone—about fifty hours ago. He told himself he had to wait forty-eight so as to not rush things when he was still reeling from submitting the ad in the first place.

How his heart had pumped when he sent the ad in. It had almost scared him to hear it so loud in his ears. Then the approval of the ad came back and this heady, hot feeling came over him again, and once more when the magazine went into circulation and he was able to read his own 'anonymous' writing. That intense and sudden physical sensation had been a terrifying mix of fear, shame, desire, sadness, anger, too—it was all emotions at once, and scared this brave Gryffindor half to death. There were so many ways this could go wrong and every time Harry tried to list them—exposed to the press, taken advantage of while in submission, no one responding at all because even anonymously he wasn't worth shit to anyone—he got panicked like this.

Gripping his wand in his pocket was the constant reminder of the power he did have. It had become a tell. He would have never wanted to lead such a public life if he'd gotten the choice. The cameras were and continued being the worst thing about being Harry Potter. The flash that captured his dumbfounded face made him wince, and he had only sunglasses as his defense.

People lunged at him. They yelled nonsense about prophecy or hatred or 'fated' love that was really obsession. It was all to bait Harry into saying something in return to satisfy them. It had been worse right after the war, when everyone was speculating 'what he was going to do next'. Harry had just wanted to fucking sleep.

The Wizarding World viewed him as their collective orphan child hero, and Harry flat-out refused to engage with complete strangers as if their advice was an authority for him, asking all the questions Molly asked of Ron. That was Harry's only real look at parenting beyond how Vernon and Petunia had treated Dudley. Andromeda was doing well with Teddy, as she'd done with Tonks, but that was distant and sometimes too upsetting to face.

These strangers who approached him were not his parents, not anything to him, really, and he resented them so much he stayed inside to keep thoughts of the general wizarding public away.

Harry could have just written that he wanted a general caretaker, but he didn't. Familial love was one thing, and he had it, and had nothing to do with. It was separate for him, this concept of being a Daddy. It was something he'd heard young, in the muggle schools whispered on the streets about the single mothers around the area, about teachers and waitresses. 'Kelly's gotten posh 'cause she went and got a Daddy!'. Petunia loved to gossip loudly with Harry in his assigned cupboard. At the time it was both the money that Harry focused on and one key factor: escape. It was forbidden slang, a forbidden thing for a boy to want.

He had all the money he could ask for now, and no reason to spend it beyond throwing chunks at charities or St. Mungo's out of guilt.

Harry took deep breaths like Hermione had showed him. There was something he could hold onto—he was worth something to at least two people in the world and found them more than worthy in return. Ron and Hermione were quite literally in the trenches with him, and had forged a bond of friendship to last a lifetime. They had forged a romantic bond between themselves after the War, and that meant a little less time with them, but other than some awkward heterosexual displays of affection everything was the same.

It was hard to keep the ad he'd sent in to himself. Just after sending it Hermione had made a surprise visit with treacle tarts from a bakery nearby—her way of letting him know she was worried about him. She meant well, she always did, but there was no way Harry could talk to her about this. Hermione could tell he was keeping something from her, too, but thankfully she hadn't pushed too hard.

Soon enough Ron would show up for his own visit because he worried too, and clearly felt eternally guilty. He had become an Auror while Harry didn't, and now Auror Weasley's time was spent protecting the wizarding world. Ron was making some really great changes internally, but Harry could tell he wished they were doing that together. They were meant to be partners.

It wasn't truly meant to be, though. Harry had to accept that, and so did Ron. Harry had failed all psychological evaluations, and every consecutive therapist he saw only made him feel like more of a freakshow so he'd stopped going altogether, stopped trying to get into an organization that clearly thought him insane.

Maybe they were right. Sane people didn't lock themselves in their flats crying and masturbating all day until the days turned to weeks and months. Sane people usually didn't like the idea of being someone's kept toy, right? And they definitely didn't write that desire down for any random man to contact him about. Harry wasn't naïve—he knew there was great danger here. There were people who enjoyed sadomasochism and then there were people who enjoyed committing violence and found BDSM as their way to do it without guilt. The role he was putting himself in was an extremely vulnerable one already, and he hadn't even gotten face-to-face with anyone yet.

Merlin, he was crazy. Harry had really done that. He had really, truly confessed his dark desires to the wizarding public—or at least those who read this publication—in hopes of seeing them come true.

A chill went up Harry's spine even though it wasn't cold. Here on his couch he was wrapped in a nest of blankets and pillows, empty snack bags littered across the coffee table in front of him. Harry brushed crumbs off of his lap and stood weakly.

It was time.

Harry padded over to his bedroom, having left the door shut so he wouldn't be able to see when responses came. Maybe there wouldn't be any at all. The magazine, Safeword, had a magical mailing system that was much more subtle than owls. With a subscription to the magazine came a charmed scroll device unique to each user, where messages could be written back and forth on an ever-expanding piece of unfurling parchment. The tail end grew and grew based on the message received, and the messages could be erased by rolling up the head end into the ornate black scroll case, sending the quillmarks to oblivion.

Harry's hand lingered on the doorknob. That horrible, hot sensation was twisting in his gut again. Was this too little time to wait for replies? Or was he already late on replying to someone who would have wanted him but was now too impatient? Only one way to find out.

He opened the door and saw what had once been a tiny scroll now a massively long piece of parchment paper running all the way from his desk to the bed and back again. "Oh," he said in pleasant surprise. "Well, alright then." It looked like he had some serious reading to do.

Harry approached the tail end of the device, figuring he'd read these in order of who sent them in first. So much for not being wanted—now he just felt overwhelmed. So many men had written back, but did any of them mean what they said? He really, really hoped his highlighting of the discretion necessary to make this work had only attracted those of like mind.

Seeing all these men who'd written him was absolutely mad. No bloke had ever liked Harry for Harry—they liked Harry Potter, Savior of the World, no matter how hard they tried to hide it.

He sat with crossed legs on his bed, settling into the rumpled sheets with all the messages of the blokes who liked him just based on a measly paragraph description. It made something rare blossom inside Harry's chest—hope. That was dangerous.

Ron and Hermione were great to him, but dammit, was he lonely in a way they could never fix. Harry's deepest hope, that he might find a man to love who would love him in return, seemed too lofty a dream for him to even talk about with his friends. With his fame and fortune, his deteriorating mental health, and his general lack of motivation towards anything at all these days, the only parts of himself he could imagine any man liking were the galleons of the Potter vault and the renown that came with them.

But these men had no idea who he was—and that was enough to spark hope for the first time in a long time that he could find someone, that his life could change. Oh, how he hoped it changed, because if things kept up like this he might go catatonic in this constant oscillation between bored and panicked. He couldn't go on like this.

Harry held on tight to the hope he wouldn't have to go on like this and plunged headfirst into his reading, seeking his out, his escape.