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Universal Chaos	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13263 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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Chapter Eleven—Stampeded

            Draco stared for long minutes at the message that the owl had brought him, his fingers tapping on the chair arm and on the paper, dimpling it. The owl sat on the back of the chair, drowsing, its head tucked into the feathers of its back. It didn’t seem to care whether he responded in a timely fashion or not, though Draco was certain it had been told to wait for an answer.

            Will you allow the other Harry to see you? I’ve learned now that he did this because he decided to be a selfish, spoiled child deliberately, and he used you as a victim in the same way that he thinks he was used by the entire wizarding world. He claims that he’ll go to St. Mungo’s once he’s seen you, though I’ve talked him out of expecting any more than that. It’s your choice, and I’ll simply take him into hospital and leave him there if you decide you don’t want to see his face again.

            Draco had to smile, wryly, at the last line, even with all the other emotions running riot through him. Harry would never miss an opportunity to use dramatic words, it seemed.

            He was of two minds about the request. On the first hand, he was sure that he knew Potter better than Harry did, and that this was only a mask for another desperate attempt to make Draco his. It would be a waste of time to invite Potter to see him, even on his own ground, because his optimism would make encouragement out of the smallest gesture, and it might seem as though Draco had an intention of forgiving him—which he didn’t.

            On the second hand, inviting Potter here would give him a perfect set-up for the confrontation he now knew he needed to engineer in order to shake Harry out of his feelings of martyrdom.

            Draco smiled slightly as he considered the advantages of such a confrontation. It would do other things. On his own ground, it might at last allow him to impress both Potter and Harry with his power, to show them that he was not the weak being they had tried to dominate on the one hand and pitied on the other. And it would ensure that Harry knew more about his real nature. If he pictured Draco as soft and yielding, a “noble” person under a harsh exterior, the way Gryffindors had a habit of doing, then Draco needed to show Harry immediately that he was still more than a bit of a bastard, and they needed to part, no matter how much it hurt.

            Draco was no longer capable of changing himself into a different person for someone else’s benefit.

            He turned the letter over and wrote on the back with a quill he had Summoned the moment he saw the letter, Come ahead. I insist on your being there, and you need to tell Potter that he will not like what he hears.

            He signed his name with a flourish and a nasty chuckle. The warning, he knew, would mean nothing to Potter, with his stubborn determination to have what he wanted no matter what. He would probably even interpret it as another encouragement, the way he would probably think that Draco’s agreeing to see him meant some kind of hidden tenderness for him in Draco’s heart.

            And that means my rejection will crush him all the more.

            He wasn’t good like Harry, he thought, as he woke the owl and sent it on its way with the message. He was too human not to take pleasure in the suffering of someone who had made him suffer.

            And that would be another warning to Harry, to consider carefully before he tried to involve himself with someone who was so different from him.

*

            “I can’t believe he agreed to see me.”

            Harry eyed the other Harry worriedly as they Apparated onto the lawn outside the front doors of the Manor. His eyes had been brighter ever since he read Draco’s tiny message, and he walked with a spring in his step. Harry could almost read the words floating in his mind, despite not being a Legilimens. If he did that, he might do something else, and give me what I want.

            “Neither can I,” said Harry, and ignored the hurt look that he got in return for that. He steered the other Harry towards the front doors of the Manor, keeping a cautious eye on his wand hand. He had already seen a pale flash of hair that meant Draco was walking on the lawn.

            Draco turned and stood still as they came towards him, his hands in his robe pockets and his eyes colder than Harry would have expected of him, since he had sent the invitation. His face had an expression on it, but it wasn’t any expression that Harry had seen him wear before. It seemed like an assessing look.

            He’s weighing him up, Harry thought, and then, as the cold eyes turned to him, Both of us.

            He shivered and reached out to put a hand on the other Harry’s shoulder, suddenly wondering if now was the right time to bother Draco after all. But the other Harry shook his hold off impatiently and hurried up to Draco, grinning like a delighted idiot.

            “I knew you couldn’t resist forever,” said the other Harry. He halted in front of Draco instead of reaching out to embrace him, which showed that he had a particle of sense left, but he didn’t alter the beaming imbecility on his face. “I knew that someday, you would want me as a lover.”

            “I wouldn’t take you as a lover if you had a sudden change of personality and a cock ten inches long,” Draco said.

            His voice was simple and bored, which made the impact of the words all the greater. Harry winced, and saw the other Harry actually stagger from them. His mouth flapped open and his eyes widened. “I—what do you mean?” he asked. “I’m sorry about what I did. That’s really all you need to know, right?”

            “No.” Draco began to walk slowly around the other Harry, reminding Harry of a cat who had cornered a mouse. “I won’t give you another chance. Your words paralyzed my self-confidence and sent me spinning further into despair and loneliness at a time when I most needed sympathy. You tried to make me live my life out in slavery to you, hoping that I would be too stupid to research life-debts. You didn’t care what I thought or felt or wanted, but you expected me to be endlessly attentive to all your desires.” He halted and stared directly into the other Harry’s eyes, which for a moment made Harry feel oddly as if he stood alone. “There is no forgiving someone like that, especially when he demands my presence before he goes into hospital for the treatment he so obviously needs.”



            For a long time, or what seemed like a long time to Harry at least, the air was hot and still, the loudest sounds the other Harry’s quick breaths. Draco stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His expression would have been appropriate to a businessman refusing a risky proposition.

            Harry wondered if he ought to intervene. Draco would be angry, yes, but could he mean to deny the other Harry his forgiveness for life?

            Draco looked like a marble statue, secure in the poise that Harry had sometimes envied him when they were in school—or envied his universe’s version of Draco Malfoy, he reminded himself in confusion. It was sometimes difficult to separate them. His life had been so consumed in trying to help Draco and put up with the other Harry for the past month that he had barely missed his own, ordinary world.

            “I can’t accept that,” the other Harry said at last, but his voice was shaking and his eyes were cast down. Harry thought he was closer than he had ever been to simply believing that Draco wouldn’t want him.

            “You will have to.” Draco began to move again, this time traveling behind the other Harry. He made no effort to stop Draco, instead staring straight ahead and gripping his fists together. Harry made sure that his hand was on his wand. If there was a time when the other Harry would lash out, it must be coming soon. “You ruined any chance you might have had with me by simply assuming that you deserved me. What was in it for me? Nothing. What would you have done if I had begun to love you back, against all odds? You would have been smug and proud, and probably mocked me for doing so.

            “And now I hear from Harry’s latest letter that this pose of yours, this childish and selfish pose, was a deliberate choice. Tell me, Potter, why I should pay attention to you ever again, when you can choose to act as you have towards me.”

            “I was suffering.” The other Harry whispered the words clumsily, as though his lips had begun to go numb.

            “So was I.” Draco stopped in front of the other Harry again and stared at him. “Try again.”

            “I wanted a lover who would support me.”

            “I could have used one. But I didn’t try to make someone else into an object and a slave.” Draco moved a step forwards, a slash of a smile on his face. “Try again.”

            “I was worn out with saving the world.” The other Harry flushed and folded his arms. “There. Match that, if you can.”

            “I was worn out with my parents’ suicide,” Draco replied, “and with my trial before the Wizengamot, and with being despised and hated by the world that revered you. You were the one who chose to squander that fame. You could have had someone who supported you simply by spending Galleons—”

            “That wouldn’t have been a real relationship!”

            “But the one you wanted with me would have been?” Draco moved a few more steps forwards, his feet noiseless on the thick grass. “If all you wanted was support, then you had options unavailable to me. You turned your back on them because you wanted to pout. Excuse me for not being very sympathetic.”

            Harry, unable to stand it anymore, edged nearer. Draco looked at him at once, his eyes still cold and flat. “Draco,” Harry whispered. “I—it makes you seem more petty and vengeful than you really are, to talk to him like that. Couldn’t you find a bit of pity in you?”

            The other Harry shot him an angry glance. Harry didn’t know if that was for interfering in what he undoubtedly considered a “private” conversation or for mentioning pity. He didn’t care. Once again, this was more about Draco than about either version of Harry Potter.

He held Draco’s gaze and waited.

*

            I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist that bait for very long.

            But Draco also knew that he to control his glee, or Harry would sense that something was off and back away. He worked his face into a sneer, instead, and shook his head. “Why should I pity someone who’s done to me what he’s done?”

            Harry hesitated. Draco could almost read his thoughts at this point. He was beginning to realize that the Mind-Healers had trained Harry to be inscrutable only up to the point where you understood his motives and could work your way into his mindset. Then he became as transparent as he ever had. Now, he was thinking, Draco has the right to feel what he feels because he’s in pain, but the other Harry is also in pain.

            Then Harry’s face hardened, and Draco nodded. Harry had told him that he wouldn’t allow one person’s mental health to be pitted against another’s. This was where he would stop playing the game, as he said, and tell Draco that there had to be a way for Potter and Draco to get along.

            But Draco didn’t care about forcing Harry to make a choice between them. He was after something else instead.

            “Draco,” Harry began quietly, “there can be an end to angry words and hatred, no matter what you feel. If the best you can do is bite your lip and accept his apology, then that’s the best you can do. But there’s no need for—for torture.” He glanced quickly at Potter. There was less compassion in his eyes than he might have thought was there, Draco noted. “Any more than he needed to ask you again and again whether you would be his lover.”

            “Ah, but he did,” Draco said. “That merits a response on my part. And if I seem calm and conciliating, do you think he will give up pursuing me with requests for a relationship that I have no intention of accepting?”

            Harry pinched his nose as though he thought restricting his breath for a moment would somehow clear his brain. “That’s the risk you take when you try to be the better person, Draco,” he said. “I would have expected you to understand that. You’ve been steadily improving as a person in the last little while, getting your friend back and sharing your space and possessions with me and learning to look beyond the sadness that was consuming you.” He dropped his hand from his nose and gave Draco a hopeful smile.

            Strike, and strike quickly. Draco shook his head. “I’m not morally improving because I could look outside my sorrow,” he said. “I’m healing. And I accept you and I’m pleasant to you because you’re pleasant to me, Harry. I wanted Gregory back as a friend because he’d been my friend before. If he was a stranger, I wouldn’t give a fuck about him.” Harry jolted as though that one word had been a lightning bolt to his spine. Draco turned fully towards him and folded his hands behind his back again. “This is the person I am—the person who doesn’t care as much as you do about others, who restricts his affections to those he loves.” He held Harry’s eyes steadily, not showing how much of a sacrifice it was for him to speak those words aloud. “Can you still learn to live with me?”

            Harry licked his lips. “What I want doesn’t matter.”

            Draco smiled at him. “Then you shouldn’t care how I act towards Potter. You should accept it as the natural convulsions of healing and leave us to settle this however we wish, as long as we don’t use hexes or our fists.”

            “But I don’t want you to,” Harry began, and then paused.

            “Ah,” Draco said, very softly, because the gleam in Harry’s eyes told him the light was dawning at last. “Yes, I thought you would see it, eventually. You have a habit of ignoring your own feelings, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”

            “Thanks,” Harry said, with what was probably intended to be dryness, but came off as shock. He was blinking so rapidly that Draco would have been concerned he was about to faint if he didn’t see the color in Harry’s cheeks. Potter, meanwhile, did look as if he were about to faint, but Draco thought measuring his length on the grass a time or two would be good for him. “This—Draco, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to act so petty as to torment another person with your words, but that doesn’t mean I want to interfere in your healing.” He spoke as carefully as though each word were a glass bauble he had to place on a high shelf without breaking it.

            “And that means more to me than you know,” Draco said. “But at some point, Harry, there need to be limits. You need to feel comfortable telling me what you like about me—and do feel free to be lavish with your praise—and what you don’t like and what you won’t consent to. Particularly as I tend to be more adventurous in bed than you might be comfortable with.”

            Potter made a sound of paralyzed despair. Draco ignored him, keeping his eyes on Harry and the conflicting emotions that rushed and dashed across his face. He was the one who had to make the final decision.

            Just as Draco would not allow Potter to try and make Draco into his perfect possession, and he would not allow himself to fall into the abyss of self-pity again, he would not allow Harry to escape responsibility for his emotions anymore.

*

            You are a strong person, Healer Ellison’s voice said in Harry’s mind, but your great weakness is that you put other people ahead of you at all times. It makes it seem as if there is something in your soul that you are afraid to face.

            Harry had admitted it. It didn’t seem hard to admit to a fault, then, when he was sitting in the comfortable, cool, mint-colored room that Ellison kept for his favorite patients and listening to a Mind-Healer lecturing him. Harry had liked the healing process, once he settled into it and began to see that it really would help him, because it was possible to get some distance from his problems and think about them like maths.

            And that was the problem, here, because Draco was watching him with hot eyes and from a body of flesh and blood that Harry had touched and remembered feeling now, which made his palms tingle and his cock half-harden. There was no retreating. There was no pretending that he could think about this like an equation. There was no stretch of unlimited hours when Healer Ellison would leave him alone, if he liked, and let Harry think about the question he’d asked from all angles.

            Harry had to risk hurting people and explain what he liked and didn’t like.

            It was like being asked to walk through the air when he’d only walked a tightrope before. Harry closed his eyes and hoped that he wasn’t making a horrible mistake when he said, “It—I don’t like it when you hurt other people, Draco. A sneer or a condescending remark is one thing, but not trying to hurt them for a prolonged period of time because you’re angry at them, no matter what the reason.”

            “Good,” Draco breathed. “And that is not the same thing as saying that I don’t have a right to my anger. You’ve said that, and survived.” Harry didn’t dare open his eyes to see the smile he heard in Draco’s voice. “Now. What else don’t you like? What would you like to change so that you could be more comfortable when you’re around me?”

            “Um.” Harry scratched the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t like you to talk about blood and make me feel that I’m inferior for having a Muggleborn mother.”

            “Ah,” Draco said, his voice soft and eager. “I haven’t thought about blood politics in the past two years. I haven’t had time for them, and they’re not relevant any longer. I can promise that I won’t try to hurt you deliberately.” Then he paused, and Harry knew some other weighty pronouncement would follow. “But if I hurt you unintentionally like that, then I need you to tell me, all right, Harry? I can apologize, but only if I know you’re hurt, not if you lick your wounds in private and tell yourself that they’re unimportant.”

            Harry gave a tense nod.

            “Good,” Draco said again. “Now, is there anything you’d like to change about the way that we relate in bed so far?”

            “I don’t have to listen to this.”

            Harry opened his eyes at once and looked about anxiously. The other Harry had turned and was striding away across the lawn, hands clenched into fists at his sides. His face was as red as if he’d run a mile, and he stumbled now and then, which made Harry think he was blinded by tears.

            Harry started to step after him, open his mouth, explain, try to make this look better than it was. His stomach was sinking as though he was going down too fast in one of the Ministry lifts. He had hurt someone again. He hadn’t meant to, but—

            The other Harry spun around to face him, his eyes wide and blinking rapidly, which didn’t stop the tears from falling. “I understand, all right?” he said so loudly that Harry thought he must have hurt his throat. “I understand now that you’re both in love, and that there’s no place for someone like me in Draco’s heart.” He shot Draco a murderous glance that made Harry put his hand uneasily on his wand again. “He’s talking so tenderly to you, and—and he would talk to me like that if he felt about me that way.”

            Draco gave a few sarcastic claps. “And it only took my repeated refusals and Harry’s several dozen attempts to help you for you reach that conclusion, Potter,” he said. “Try not to slice open your skull with that sharp mind of yours.”

            “Shut up!” The other Harry was barking the words now, the cords in his neck standing out with a rage that Harry thought was more like Ron than any time he’d ever lost his own temper. “I know now that you won’t be mine, that you can’t be mine, that you refuse to be mine, and would reject me if I were the last person on the planet.”

            “If you were the last person on the planet,” Draco said helpfully, “then I wouldn’t be around to reject or choose you.”

            The other Harry closed his eyes and bowed his head. Harry had some idea of the emotions he was fighting. He would have stepped closer and laid his hand on his shoulder, but he knew that his sympathy would be violently thrust away, and he didn’t feel like getting his hand burned or cursed right now.

            “Harry has to go back to his own universe,” the other Harry whispered. “Would you—is there a chance you would—”

            “Why should I, when I’ve found spells that will let us visit each other for brief periods of time?” Draco’s eyes were dull with boredom. “And one of you isn’t the same as the other. I won’t replace Harry with you simply because you have some of the same looks and it would be more convenient.”

            The other Harry bobbed his head, utterly crushed, and turned to Apparate. Harry caught his eye, only to receive a tremulous smile in return.

            “I’m going to St. Mungo’s,” he said. “I want someone who wants to help me, not someone who’s only interested in ripping me to shreds.” He gave a vicious, angry look at Draco, and then vanished.

            Harry blinked. It looked like the last of the other Harry’s illusions were dead and he would get help, but he did wish that the price hadn’t had to be so heavy.

            When he expressed that to Draco, Draco only snorted, said, “He was the one who forced it to be so heavy,” and seized Harry’s chin so that he could drag him into a kiss.

            Harry went, though he hesitated at first. Draco was not exactly the kind of person Harry had thought he was: not so weak, not so helpless, not so forgiving.

            But then, you’ve just learned that you’re not perfect, either.

            Harry closed his eyes and kissed back.

*

            polka dot: The other Harry is definitely going to get help now, and hopefully his friends can forgive what he said. They already like him, for one thing, while Draco didn’t.

            butterpie: Thank you! This is the very last iteration of that denial, though, as even the other Harry can’t believe now that Draco wants him.

            Kane: Thanks! But Draco does not feel flattered that the other Harry wanted to pursue him, especially when he did it in such a clumsy and insulting manner, and he doesn’t think that he brought Harry to this universe as an attempt to apologize; he wanted Harry to apologize for him, and then be able to step in and claim Draco in such a way that he didn’t have to do anything uncomfortable. While I agree the other Harry needs help, Draco doesn’t want to be involved with him at all.

            Thrnbrooke: Er, be a bastard?

            MewMew2: Ron and Hermione will show up in Chapter 12.
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Universal Chaos