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Deconversion	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 23338 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 9
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Ten—More Than Slit Pupils

            “What an honor, Mr. Potter. If you don’t mind me calling you that, since you aren’t exactly an Auror anymore?”

            Harry smiled, and made sure that none of his teeth showed. The concentration he’d used to reverse the serpentine features didn’t seem to work well on his fangs, or at least they reverted most when he wasn’t looking. He leaned forwards across the space between them and allowed his hand to glance across the back of Skeeter’s. He knew he didn’t mistake the way that her eyes widened or her breath caught. Among other things, the white snake would report those signs to him if he missed any of them.

            “I’d appreciate it,” he murmured. “I doubt the Aurors would want to be associated with me any more than I want to be associated with them.”

            Skeeter fastened on the hint of gossip as he had known she would, dipping her quill and sitting up as though it was a refreshing breeze. “Do tell me what you mean, Mr. Potter,” she murmured. “Or can I call you Harry?”

            Harry didn’t dare glance at Malfoy, who sat beside him on the sofa and sipped tea with the calm politeness of someone far removed from the situation. This was something he would have to make his mind up on and decide for himself. Either answer had its perils—encouraging Skeeter to treat him with some contempt, or sounding so distant that she wouldn’t write a sympathetic article.

            “Not right now,” Harry said finally, after giving the impression of long and tormented thought. Well, in some ways it had been that, although not for the reasons that Skeeter would decide it had been. “Maybe later, as we get to know each other better.”

            That seemed to be all right. Skeeter smiled at him and nodded. Malfoy shifted his weight, and Harry knew he would find a flicker of approval in his face if he glanced over at him.

He didn’t, though. Malfoy had told him they should appear independent of each other, allies and not friends, as if it was accidental that Harry had ended up at Malfoy Manor after fleeing St. Mungo’s. Otherwise, Harry might alienate his friends and those readers who would still have a grudge against the Malfoys.

The reasoning all made sense. And it didn’t make Harry’s head ache as much as politics in the Ministry had always done. He wondered what the difference was. Maybe he just found them more interesting when his life and freedom were at stake.

            “That’s fine,” Skeeter said. “Now. My first question. When did you first notice that your Parseltongue was coming back?”

            Harry widened his eyes and let his eyelashes tremble a little, the way Malfoy had suggested. They’d practiced it. Maybe Malfoy or Parkinson could have done it on command, but for the moment, Harry couldn’t, so it was better to look in the mirror and see, as Malfoy had put it, the “wide-eyed beauty” that he would come across to the readers of Skeeter’s article as. “A few months ago,” he whispered. “It was frightening. I hadn’t been able to speak to snakes in a while, or at least I hadn’t tried, and now I was seeing them everywhere.”

            Skeeter hummed sympathetically under her breath as she wrote. “And what was the reaction of the people around you?”

            “They were scared,” Harry said, and bowed his head. Malfoy had told him something about keeping sympathy and bitterness mixed in his expression, but Harry really doubted he had enough control of his face to do that. So he would just sound sad and breathless and let Skeeter assume things. “They didn’t know what to do. They wanted to help me, but…they thought I was going mental. Of course they wouldn’t always listen when I told them what they could do to help me.”

            There. It was real, but it cast what had happened into the most pathetic light possible. Harry knew that Skeeter and the people who read the article would eat it up.

            Skeeter practically purred as she wrote the words down, telling him that those had worked. “What did they do, specifically, Mr. Potter?” She patted him on the knee when he hesitated. “You can tell old Skeeter, you know. I would never use these words for any purpose than telling the truth.”

            Harry saw the tremble of Malfoy’s teacup out of the corner of his eye. He was probably trying desperately to control his laughter.

            Harry bit his lip and looked up at Skeeter through his lashes, another motion that Malfoy had told him could be devastating and had advised him to practice. The way Skeeter flushed made Harry wonder about some interactions he’d had in the past with archivists and clerks and other people who seemed to melt when he talked to them. Maybe it was just his fame and the fact that Harry Potter was asking them, but maybe not. “They said I should control it. Stop talking to snakes, stop seeing them. But how could I do that, when they were part of my magic and just everywhere?” He swallowed, and his voice turned into a whisper without his meaning it to. This was true, also. “They were inside me. I woke up at night thinking about ways to stop it, but nothing could. And no one else really helped, even when they were comforting me. They just told me to think about something else, and it would go away. That didn’t help. And I thought it was just because I wasn’t concentrating enough, but…now I don’t think so.”

            There. He had some control back by the end of that little speech, and he thought it was a good one, and it would make a neat segue into the next part of the interview, when he would talk about why he had turned to the Dark Arts.

            Which made it strange to catch the expression on Malfoy’s face out of the corner of his eye. He hid it in a moment, but he looked as he had done when Harry was refusing to take to Dark magic at all.

            Harry didn’t do it with an audience, but he wanted to glare at him. What was wrong? Hadn’t he made his appeal appealing enough? He would have to ask Malfoy later, after Skeeter had gone.

            For now, he settled for holding Skeeter’s eye and answering the next, inevitable, questions. Malfoy would just have to be weird on his own time.

*

            Draco didn’t say anything, because what he would have said would be stupid, the result of impulse. He settled back in his seat and sipped at his tea instead, and let the Calming Draught he had mixed in take effect. He could resist it if he wanted to, partially because of his long training in Potions, but there was no reason to at the moment.

            Still.

            He hated waste. He hated stupidity that came not from ignorance but from willful misunderstanding of the situation at hand.

            Potter’s friends, and anyone else who told him to merely concentrate the snakes away, must have seen that their strategy was not working long before Potter got to the point where he was taken to St. Mungo’s. Why hadn’t they learned more about Parseltongue, and found another way to approach the problem?

            Draco knew the answer already. He had remarked on it to Pansy. Fear. The thick, choking, irrational dread that the Dark Arts inspired, the fear that meant research into them was seen as the same thing as openly practicing them. He understood what had driven Granger and Weasley. He understood everything.

            He did not have to like it. He did not have to avoid churning and seething at the thought that it might have ended in Potter’s permanent madness or suicide, if he had not chanced to overhear Potter and Weasley while they were on their way to hospital.

            But he had to be quiet for right now, while Potter worked to convince Skeeter that he was the charming victim of those misunderstandings, and charmed away those fears in the process.

            So he sat, and sipped his tea, and smiled blandly when Skeeter caught his eye. He knew that she probably wanted the story that had ended up with him at Potter’s side, but at the moment, the first “heartfelt” interview that Potter had ever given her was more important. So she faced Potter, and Draco sat there with a bland smile and exasperation in his heart.

            He would end up murdering someone from that exasperation, he knew. Someday.

            But it would have to be after the effort they were making now, which was to make Dark wizards look like tame and fluffy kittens instead of the hunting leopards that Draco knew and acknowledged they were.

*

            “I think that went well,” Harry said, sprawling back over the cushions and closing his eyes. He thought for a moment, then pulled his legs up onto the couch, helped by the snakes that had appeared to twine around them. He had sent them away while he was speaking to Skeeter; it wouldn’t do to have her glimpse them and perhaps take fright, herself. Now they were back with a vengeance, wanting to assist him with everything and sniffing at Malfoy’s furniture with forked tongues in hopes, Harry thought, of telling him something new.

            “It did,” Malfoy said, and no more.

            Harry turned his head. They still occupied the small drawing room—well, small by comparison to some of the other rooms in the Manor; Harry thought it was larger than the entire ground floor of the Dursleys’ house—where they’d talked with Skeeter. Along one wall was a piano, which Harry hadn’t paid much attention to before, except to note that it was made of dark and polished wood. Malfoy sat on the bench in front of it, stroking his hands along the keys, producing random but musical falls of notes.

            Harry cocked his head. The cold one is angry, whispered the white serpent.

            “What is it?” he asked.

            Malfoy turned around on the bench and sat regarding him for a moment. Then he exploded to his feet and crossed the distance between him and Harry in one of those sudden movements he had. Harry flinched despite himself. Malfoy leaned close enough to practically snarl in his face.

            “Have you thought about how close you came to dying?” he whispered. “Either because of the Healers’ treatments, or because you would have committed suicide in despair? Or maybe someone in the Ministry would have taken fright and slain you as a Dark wizard? You acted as if you don’t care that they threatened you.”

            Harry blinked. “I care,” he said finally. “But the ones I care the most about are Ron and Hermione, and I want to get them back, and I kind of understand why they did it. The others are just like the people who threatened me for not ending the war fast enough, or for killing Voldemort.” He didn’t think Malfoy flinched at the name, but he wondered if that was because Malfoy was holding himself rigidly in the grip of his anger right now, and no other motion could make it through his still body. “So that part isn’t new to me.”

            “You should be more angry,” Malfoy said, and leaned closer to Harry than Harry wanted anyone except one of his serpents right now. The white snake hissed eagerly, but Harry refused its silent invitation to reach out and bite Malfoy on the nose so that he would withdraw, or let Harry use it like a whip on him.

            “Don’t you tell me what I should feel,” Harry hissed, feeling his fangs shine out again, and his cheeks swell with the venom. He still didn’t know what effect his poison had. He didn’t want to test it on Malfoy, but his resistance to the idea was weaker than it had been. “I don’t care. Fuck you. I’m going to feel what I want, and if you’re not used to that idea, then you’re exactly the same as the rest of them.”

            Malfoy paused, but Harry didn’t think the hesitation came from fear. Instead, he was simply regrouping himself to attack from a new direction. If the anger hadn’t burned, Harry would have laughed. People called him stubborn and addicted to getting his own way. That was because they had never seen Malfoy in action.

            “You’ve been betrayed and used so much by everyone that you no longer think of it that way,” Malfoy said, his voice low and soothing, “as something you deserve revenge for and should have revenge for. But someone else, from the outside, can see it and take it for you.”

            Harry rose so fast that his vision swayed. Then he stalked closer to Malfoy, who widened his eyes but didn’t move away. The element of risk in his beloved Dark Arts apparently made him immune to the fact that he really should have backed off, Harry thought.

            “I’ve been betrayed and used,” Harry said, right into Malfoy’s face. The white snake danced in excitement beside him. It was so loyal to him, Harry decided, that it would be happy to strike at anyone if it would aid Harry; it didn’t matter whether it had once approved of Malfoy or not. Harry was glad that he now controlled the snakes, and not the other way around. “But picking out random people to hurt will only convince them that I’m evil and chaotic. And we don’t want that. Remember?”

            Malfoy tilted his head to the side. “In your place, I would be screaming for vengeance.”

            “In my place, you would be so busy experimenting with the Parseltongue and what it could do that you wouldn’t have time for screaming,” Harry corrected him. “Honestly, you should have been the Parselmouth, you’re so fascinated with it.”

            The white snake leaned against him and hissed in his ear, Brother. Do you not want us? There was the slide of a heavy constrictor against Harry’s legs at the same moment, and the patterned kiss of vipers along his cheeks.

            I want you, Harry hissed back, and turned his head to caress the white snake’s neck with his cheek, while keeping a wary eye on Malfoy. But I don’t want to let him tell me what to do. Just because he thinks Parseltongue is wonderful and my friends are horrible doesn’t make it true.

            The white snake paused as if turning that information around in its mind, and then flicked his ear. Whatever you say is right, brother.

            Malfoy hadn’t answered his question. He simply sat with his hands folded between his knees and stared at Harry. Harry stared back. He wished that he had another place to go besides Malfoy Manor, and then he would walk out right now and never come back. Or at least not until Malfoy recovered his senses.

*

            Draco hadn’t anticipated that Potter would argue with him so soon, when he was still feeling his way in shallow political waters and hadn’t even spent forty-eight hours outside the walls of St. Mungo’s.

It was…quite wonderful.

            Draco could feel his senses sharpening, his skin opening up, the way that they never did except when he had opposition. Pansy provided him with arguments when it came to the future of the Dark Arts and her own specialty, but Draco otherwise dominated their conversations. Similar things happened with Blaise and Gregory and Millicent and the others he still had regular contact with from the old Hogwarts days.

            But he had grown wise on risks, on challenges that would throw him and bite him with worse than Potter’s poison if he faltered, and he hadn’t found those challenges in magic itself for some time. Creating things like the Net was now a matter of effort and investigation, not pure fear.

            He needed the sharpness, he thought. Otherwise, he would be dull someday on the Dark paths, and the darkness would swallow him without fuss, without noise.

            He laughed instead of raging, and saw Potter’s stance flow and soften. Draco stood up and stalked a step forwards. Potter immediately tensed again and moved in a half-circle, his arm coming up. From there, the band of white encircling it would have a good way to strike at Draco, he knew.

            “You’re doing well in the interview,” Draco said. “And I think that you’ll help me convince the public that Dark Arts aren’t the evil and horrible thing that they always thought they were. And you’re mastering Parseltongue in a way that does make me envious.” And hard, he thought, though Potter might have missed the way Draco unsubtly jutted his hips forwards, his attention was so firmly fixed on Draco’s face. “But you have to think about it beyond that. What do you want from the Dark paths? What will drive you to walk them once you reconcile with your friends? What specialty will you make your own, beyond Parseltongue?”

            Potter crouched, and the white serpent drifted down his shoulder until it rested half on the crown of his head and half on his neck. Draco watched it, wishing that he could see the details of scale and face. Perhaps, the more time he spent around Potter and the more Potter looked on him as an ally, the more that would happen. That might make up for some of the sharpness going away.

            “I assumed that Parseltongue was the only Dark gift I needed,” Potter said at last. “And if I have my friends back and I’ve repaid you for the way you helped me, then why do I need to keep walking the Dark paths?”

            Draco clucked his tongue. “Do you need to see the Hanging Tree again?” he asked. “Walk on them, and you can’t draw back. You don’t have to travel every path, and some people, like Pansy, prefer to master the same ones over and over rather than constantly striking out into the new—”

            “Let me guess,” Potter said, lifting his head. “You prefer the second way.”

            Draco ducked his head and fluttered his lashes. “Is it that obvious? Or do you like to keep me under observation?”

            The thickness in his voice made Potter stumble. Blue and red shimmers around his legs promptly anchored him, and he shuddered a little. “No,” he said. “Stop being stupid, Malfoy. I just meant that anyone could tell that about you from the way you talked. It’s the Auror training! That’s all it is!”

            Since that sounded like an argument Potter would have to have with himself, Draco wisely passed it over, and went on. “You have to keep walking them. You choose how to walk, but you can’t forsake them.”

            Potter clenched his hands. “If I’m strong enough in my magic, I should be able to.”



Draco shrugged. “I can see from your thread in my Net that you’ve used more Dark magic than the Parseltongue. That was both a strength and a weakness; you’d used it, but you denied it so furiously, and used it so rarely, that you could still think of yourself as a Light wizard. Now you’ve taken Parseltongue willingly into your grasp, and accepted guidance on the paths. Worse, you stepped onto them of your own free will. Will, Potter, is behind this, and you can’t take back a choice with another choice. You’ll be on them forever.”

Potter flexed his arms in and out. The white serpent slid down to the level of his ear. Draco didn’t know what it was saying, and wished he could hear.

Then he snorted. Even if he could hear, he would never understand. Best to leave the serpent tongue to Potter. What he wanted to know, he would have to have a Parselmouth to tell him anyway. Draco doubted the magical snakes understood the core and the ground of their being.

Then Potter said, “I knew that. But I didn’t want to face it.” Draco smiled, but Potter swung to face him. instead. “That doesn’t mean you get to dictate how I feel, either. I’ll reconcile with my friends and react to how the Ministry betrayed me in my own bloody way.”

            Draco spread his hands innocently. It was at least a good sign that Potter had used the word “betray” when speaking about the Ministry, he thought. “All right,” he said mildly. “That’s good to know. Now that I know it, I won’t irritate you with talking about what I think you should feel instead.”

            Potter stared at him, then narrowed his eyes. “Your specialty is information, right? The way that Parkinson’s specialty is finding and tracking spells.”

            Draco smiled, and extended his arms to the sides, while Potter’s words ran through him, warm as mulled wine. “Very good. What gave it away?”

            “I didn’t think of it until just now.” Potter looked at the white snake from the corner of his eye. “But the Net, and the way that you want to learn more about Parseltongue, and the way that you look when I’m explaining something…they all add up.”

            Draco nodded. “So. We have the first step done. I believe the second step is to set up a confrontation so that you can speak to your friends in a way you find comfortable. Which place and time would you suggest?”

*

            Harry started. He’d thought he had Malfoy cornered, that he had the advantage for a moment because he knew something Malfoy hadn’t told him, and Malfoy wriggled out from underneath the hold and turned around again. If Malfoy was a snake, Harry thought, he would be a krait. Small and fast and able to move.

            Brother, are you well? the white snake asked him, with a flick of a tongue like a cool drop of water on Harry’s cheek. You smell too warm.

            Harry swallowed and said, “The Ministry is sitting on the news right now. Do you think they’ll move to force it out of Ron and Hermione if I talk to them?”

            “The Ministry knows only as much as they choose to tell it,” Malfoy said, and cocked his head wisely. His eyes burned for a moment, the way they had when he learned the truth about Harry’s feelings. “You’re thinking of two kinds of news here. There’s the news of your gift and your escape from St. Mungo’s, which the Ministry is keeping quiet right now, and the news of your being willing to speak with your friends. But Skeeter’s article will combine them, and no matter what the Ministry wants, I don’t think it can suppress that.”

            Harry flushed. He hadn’t remembered that Skeeter would probably publish before Ron and Hermione agreed to speak with him, no matter how soon he contacted them. “I’m not used to politics,” he muttered.

            “That is far more irritating than your propensity to forgive your enemies,” Malfoy said to the fireplace. “Your continual deriding of your own intelligence and strength, and your assumption that you cannot learn what you need to learn.”

            Harry stared at him. He was so used to hearing that he was reckless and arrogant and self-confident, mostly from other Aurors, that he hadn’t thought…

            That’s the problem, brother, the white snake whispered into his ear. You aren’t thinking, and you must.

            Harry swallowed and nodded. “All right. I want to set up the confrontation at Parkinson’s house. I think they’ll be suspicious of her, but they won’t hate her as much as they hate you right now. And I don’t think they know about your friendship with her.”

            Malfoy smiled. “Good thinking,” he said, and Harry jolted a little at the pleasure that ran through him. “I’ll firecall Pansy, but you speak with her. You need the practice at decision-making.”

            He turned away, and Harry waited for a moment before following him. He could feel the fangs withdrawing, the venom sacs shrinking.

They are under my control. I can do this.

He watched Malfoy’s back, and reflected on the way that he had both yelled at Malfoy and guessed his specialty without provoking a deadly fight either time.

What else can I do? What else have I thought is beyond my ability that actually isn’t?

            He was aware, from the corner of his eye, of the white snake dancing happily on his shoulder.

*

            Talltree-san: Harry is starting to acknowledge that, though not fast enough for Draco’s taste.

            SP777: What with the one-shots I’m posting lately, I think the dark side is coming out to play more and more often!
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