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Soldier's Welcome	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 25565 -:- 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�Boundaries

�� With all
due respect, sir,� Harry said, clinging to his temper because striking out at
this point would do no good, �I�d like to know how the Death Eaters got inside.
I�m more interested in that than anything else right now.�

�� Dearborn
sat back in his chair and surveyed him leisurely. He was questioning Harry in
his office this time, while Portillo Lopez had taken Malfoy. Harry couldn�t
help wondering if they weren�t deliberately reversing what had happened the
first time Harry and Malfoy had confronted Dark magic, but there was the
possibility that Malfoy had really needed Portillo Lopez, because of whatever
Harry had done to him when he pulled on his magic.

�� Harry laid
aside his guilt for later. (God knew there would always be time for guilt in
his life). At the moment, he wanted to know why Dearborn continued to ask him
questions about the compatible magic instead of admitting how the Death Eaters
had got through the wards. The instructors had conducted a detailed
investigation while other Aurors herded the trainees out of the way, and they�d
been conducting that investigation for the last two days. They should have
found something.

�� Potter,�
Dearborn said. �You are no longer a hero of the war. You are one of our
students. And no matter how low the standard may be for professors at Hogwarts,
here in the Auror program we strive to take the best care possible of our
students.�

�� He gave
Harry a peaceful smile. Harry remained quiet, despite the way that he wanted to
speak up in defense of his Hogwarts teachers. From the weight of the silence,
Dearborn had something more to say.

�� We are
growing concerned about you,� Dearborn said. �Even for someone with
your�extraordinary history, three encounters with Dark magic in the span of
three months is unusual. We will place a watch on you, Mr. Potter. If someone
is tracking you and timing attacks to your movements, then we need to know at
once.�

�� Harry
clenched his fists next to his sides. It had happened again. He was the victim
of an attack and he was being treated like the perpetrator.

�� Please
answer my question about the Death Eaters,� he said. �Were they even Death
Eaters? Is this a kind of belated Halloween prank? Please tell me. Sir,� he
added belatedly, when he realized that Dearborn�s eyebrows looked as if they
were about to float off his face.

�� That is
privileged information,� Dearborn said. �Until we know whether or not you have
tracking spells on you, you understand our reluctance to share it.�

�� Harry
growled and tried to think of another question he could ask that would reveal
the information to him indirectly. But Dearborn had played this game longer
than he had, and Harry had never been good at subtlety. Malfoy would have
reminded him of that.

�� Malfoy.

�� Is Malfoy
all right?� he asked.

�� Dearborn
smiled slowly and sat up. �I have been waiting for you to ask that,� he said.

�� Of course you were, Harry longed to say.
You supported this ridiculous idea that
we should be partners. You�re probably thinking of us as puppets that you can
manipulate, so each time we�ll come closer and closer to making your ideal a
reality. I�m symbolic of an idea. I�ve been that way all my life. But this
time, I have a companion in being symbolic, which isn�t the way it usually
works.

�� With
effort, Harry clutched his tongue between his teeth and stared at Dearborn.
Speaking only seemed to earn him more patient indulgence or refusal. Dearborn
had acted the whole time as if he was pacifying a child.

�� Even now,
he couldn�t tell Harry the truth straight off, but had to smile at him and
shake his head as if chiding him. �I do think that it would be more fitting for
you to call him by his first name, after everything that you�ve been through
together,� he said.

�� Harry
ground his teeth, and knew it was audible from that overwrought chair that
Dearborn sat in.

�� Dearborn
adopted a sadder smile, and regarded him for a few minutes in silence. It
aspired to be the kind of silence that Dumbledore had used sometimes, the kind
that made you ashamed of yourself, but Harry held out stubbornly against it,
and finally Dearborn gave in.

�� Trainee
Malfoy is fine,� he said. �Recovering from physical and magical exhaustion.
Compatible magic does not always grant the ability to use a partner�s power, at
least not without permission, and I feel sure that that is the reason this
happened. You will have to be more careful around each other in the future, so
that you do not accidentally drain each other.�

�� I don�t want to be careful! Harry wanted
to yell. Do you understand that? I want
to act carelessly like other people, and suffer minor bumps and bruises, and
wake up in the morning with a hangover or a broken leg because I was careless!
I don�t want all these special consequences and all these honors that people
seem determined to pile on me that just turn out to be extra duties!

�� But Harry
already knew that no one understood
that sort of talk: not Malfoy, not the Auror instructors, not Hermione, not
Ron, not the people he wasn�t going to think about. So he simply nodded and
waited until Dearborn flicked a languid hand at him in dismissal.

�� Harry
marched back to his rooms in deadly silence, wanting nothing more than to take
a few gulps of a concealed bottle of Firewhisky that he kept near his bed and
then go to sleep.

�� Ginny was
waiting for him in the fireplace, so that
was out.

*

�� I begin to
wonder if we should have allowed you to partner.�

�� Draco
turned his head. Battle Healer Portillo Lopez stood beside his bed again,
frowning down at him. It took a few tries, but Draco managed to clear his
throat. �So far, all it�s meant is a few extra lessons.�

�� And extra
trouble.� Portillo Lopez held a silver sphere that Draco didn�t recognize above
his head and began to swirl her wand around it, reading some message in the
flashing lights. One eye remained on him, however, and she was frowning. �Do
you not remember what happened to you when you and Trainee Potter faced the Death
Eaters?�

�� Draco
choked back his immediate reaction to the last words. No one here was close
enough that they deserved to see that. He thought carefully, but could recall
only immense exhaustion and the spell that had blasted the Death Eaters into
dreamy uselessness. He shook his head.

�� Trainee
Potter pulled magic from you,� Portillo Lopez said. �It can be done by someone
using compatible magic, but usually only with permission. Compatible magic is
meant to strengthen both partners, not leave one exhausted and weak.�

�� I didn�t
give him permission,� Draco murmured, thinking rapidly. If Potter was capable
of that, why hadn�t he done it before? Possibly he hadn�t been as frightened as
he was by the Death Eaters, but the red and black magic, if not the illusion
and the message on the wall, had been sufficiently threatening.

�� Or perhaps he simply reached out wildly and
snatched the first thing that came to hand, never mind whether that was my
magic or not.

�� Draco
snorted weakly. Yes, that sounded like Potter.

�� Then we
must learn why he was able to do so.� Portillo Lopez retracted the sphere from
Draco�s head. �You are recovering, and may return to your room. I would not
advise you to move fast, however, or to cast powerful spells any time soon. You
have lain here for two days already, drifting in and out of consciousness.�

�� Draco
stiffened his muscles, the only sign of protest he would show as he wrestled
himself slowly from the bed and placed his feet on the floor again. He was
disgusted that he had wasted two days, especially since one of them had been a
class day, but he would not show that to Portillo Lopez.

�� Trainee
Malfoy?� Portillo Lopez paused in the door of the small, private room which,
Draco saw now, was one of those where trainees were brought to recover from
serious wounds received in class. �Did you hear me?�

�� Draco
thought he had never lived such a restricted life before, not even when he was
a child and his mother had made him ask for permission to walk on the grass in
the garden. But this was the life he had chosen, and if he gave up now and
retreated back to the Manor, he knew exactly what his enemies would call him. Coward would be the least of it.

�� He nodded
and waited a moment while Portillo Lopez examined him with a critical eye. At
last she grunted and turned away, and Draco made his escape.

�� As he
walked back to his rooms, he tried valiantly to put together the scattered
scraps of memory that remained to him from the fight. Yes, he remembered the
Death Eaters. He remembered his contempt, and his disbelief. Anyone who was
actually worth anything, anyone who had served the Dark Lord directly, had been
rounded up and tried or sent to Azkaban already. There was no reason to think
that these were real Death Eaters.

�� On the
other hand, Draco didn�t know many people stupid enough to dress up and claim
the Death Eater name, as high as the fame of the Chosen One and the bad
reputation of Dark magic were riding at the moment.

�� They were
probably relatives of Death Eaters, people who had told themselves they would
do glorious deeds if someone would just let them fight. Every pure-blood family
had at least one idiot in the closet, the result of too much inbreeding. Draco
knew that some of the idiots could be troublesome if too many members of their
family died to keep them under confinement, however. Some of them might even be
the heads of their lines now, with so many people dragged off in different
directions. His ancestors had had a magnificent idea when they confined themselves
to one child as often as possible, and that child a direct heir, so that the
idiots would gradually die out. Draco knew he had distant relatives, but there
was no one close enough that the wards would recognize them. If the worst
should happen and he should die without children, then the Manor would simply
close in on itself and refuse to respond to anyone else, no matter how much
diluted blood they carried.

�� Draco liked
his theory because it narrowed the suspects down. He could find out, and he would find out, who had been playing at
Death Eaters and Aurors in the past few weeks. Their game couldn�t be that old,
because if it was, they would have tried striking at the Chosen One before now.

�� Could they
be behind the other attacks, though?

�� Draco frowned
thoughtfully. He believed Nihil�as he chose to call the man who had left the
message and the illusion behind until he learned of a better name for him�a
cleverer wizard than that. It wasn�t beyond the realms of possibility that he
was manipulating these poor fools, though, and that he had weakened the wards
for them.

�� That
possibility would have to be looked into.

�� In the
meantime, he turned his steps towards Potter�s rooms. There were several pieces
of unfinished business between them.

*

�� Ginny.�
Harry tried to make his voice absolutely neutral as he hung up his cloak on the
peg by the door. �Hullo. Does Ron know that you�re firecalling?� The trainees
weren�t supposed to make private firecalls. Harry had never been grateful for
that rule before, but he was now.

�� Of course
he does,� Ginny said, with a snort that seemed to make the flames ripple around
her head, even though Harry was perfectly aware that she couldn�t affect the
fire that contained her. She leaned forwards, fixing him with intense eyes.
�Besides, I didn�t call to talk to him. I called to talk to you.�

�� Harry
swallowed and sat down on the chair that was furthest away from the fireplace.
He had no need to go nearer, since
they could see and hear each other perfectly well from here. �Oh? What about?�

�� Ginny shook
her head, her eyes gentle but devastating, as piercing as they had been in the
moment when Harry confessed the truth about his nightmares to her and she had
let him know what everyone else would think of him if he confessed them to
anyone else. �You know, Harry. Hiding the truth is unworthy of both you and
me.�

�� Harry
thought quickly. She couldn�t mean
the fits, because so far Harry still hadn�t told Ron or Hermione the truth
about them. He�d taken the sleeping potions that Hermione brewed for him
sometimes, and luckily most of his fits had been in private since then. So she
must mean the situation with Malfoy.

�� That gave
him the strength to face Ginny, luckily. He couldn�t do anything about the
situation with Malfoy, and if Ron had listened when Harry tried to explain,
then he would have known that. He sat up. �I can�t help who I have compatible
magic with,� he said. �And I objected when the instructors wanted to pair us
up, and they didn�t pay any attention to me at all.� He didn�t have to work to
put contemptuous anger into his voice, not when the thought of the instructors
made his blood churn.

�� You can
help other things,� Ginny said, quietly. �Like the private lessons. Like the
way that you take Malfoy on private investigations into Dark magic and other
things. Ron feels left out, Harry. He feels like he�s losing his best friend,
and his best friend not only doesn�t care about that, he�s willingly walking
away from him.�

�� Harry put a
hand to his head, then dropped it. If he started tearing at his hair, that
would only convince Ginny he was �overreacting� again. She had used that word a
lot when they were still dating.

�� Listen,�
he said. �I don�t want to leave Ron behind. I�m not doing that, in anything except this. We can still be friends
even if we aren�t Auror partners. In fact, it might be better for us. I don�t
think our magic will let us work together in the same way that I can work with
Malfoy��

�� And is
that all you care for?� Ginny�s voice had sunk into a deepness that warned
Harry she was about to say something hurtful, but he still felt he had no
warning when the words came. �For power? For honors?�

�� You know I don�t!� Harry shouted, springing
to his feet. �If that was the case, I�d tell everyone about the fits and milk
them for sympathy.�

�� I can
easily see you hiding a weakness.� Ginny brushed her hair out of her face, her
eyes never wavering from their fixed stare at him. �I can see you doing that
all too easily, in fact,� she added, �even when it comes near to wrecking your
relationships with your friends. But for power, you�d risk a lot.�

�� You don�t
know me,� Harry whispered, sitting down again and splaying a hand across his
face. He felt as though his strength had washed out of him all at once, both
the strength to stand up and to look at her. �We�ve established that, Ginny.�

�� I�m still
the one you�ve made more confessions to than anyone else,� Ginny said. �You
told me that you didn�t always think about the effects of your actions, Harry. This
is another case of doing that. To try to please Malfoy and the Auror
instructors, you�ll risk everything else, everything that you have.� She
paused, and her voice grew softer and warmer. �You�re Harry Potter. Your
specialty is finding ways out of impossible situations. Do it again.�

*

�� Draco
didn�t think he could have moved if one of the fake Death Eaters had appeared
in front of him again and tried to cast the Cruciatus Curse at him.

�� Potter
hadn�t shut his door when he came in. Draco had sneered at that sign of
carelessness and lifted his hand to knock, and then he�d heard the conversation
in the room. He knew Potter�s voice, of course, but it took him a few moments
to place the other, during which his mind drifted towards deepening dislike for
no reason that he could rationally explain.

�� That was,
of course, until Potter spoke her name, and then he knew that his dislike was
perfectly rational. Malfoys and Weasleys could not listen to one another, or
touch each other, or speak to one another, without repelling.

�� Draco stood
there and listened, absorbing the
words like parched land absorbing rain. It was so fascinating that he nearly
forgot that this had any relation to him. He didn�t seem like the person the
Weaselette was urging Potter to stop being partners with. He was more
interested in the hints of secrets that his curiosity discerned under the
surface, those mentions of how the Weaselette knew or didn�t know Potter and
the way that she seemed to think urging him to do the impossible wouldn�t be
hurtful.

�� Do none of them know him?

�� Surely
Draco wasn�t the only one who had seen Potter flinch and shut his mouth when
people called him the Chosen One. Surely he wasn�t the only one who knew now
that Potter really was as modest as
he always presented himself, with his ducking away from attention and his
distrust of it. The Weaselette, and the Weasel too, speaking of him blithely as
a hero had to realize they were inflicting injuries.

�� Didn�t
they?

�� A sharp
tingle ran through Draco then, as though he had bitten into a mint leaf without
preparing himself for it. Maybe not.
Maybe not. Maybe I�m the only one who sees that and really understands him.

�� Maybe his friendship with the Weasel will
lessen in force, not because I did anything to weaken it or because we�re
partners, but because they keep pushing him and he�ll eventually reach his
snapping point.

�� Draco
closed his eyes. The vision overwhelmed him with pleasure, and for that very
reason, he was less inclined to believe that it could come true.

�� But when
Potter answered in sharp agitation, �Ginny, I can�t, not if I want them to treat me like any ordinary Auror,� he
opened his eyes and leaned close to the door, listening intently. Not for the
world would he miss the end of this conversation.

*

�� There are
ways,� Ginny said, and now she was giving him the bright smile that had always
been her vote of confidence in him. �There have to be ways. You didn�t think
that you could defeat Voldemort either, did you, but you managed. And now this
is another challenge, a lesser one. It ought to be possible to be Ron�s partner
and Malfoy�s�whatever the term is for someone who shares compatible magic with
you.� She waved one hand vaguely, making her face flash and blur in the fire.
�All Ron wants is to be your partner, and I don�t think that�s too much to
ask.�

�� Harry
stared at her, body paralyzed. On the one hand, he wanted to do what she asked.
Yes, Ron wanting to be his partner wasn�t such a big thing. And he�d certainly
fought beside Harry for longer and sacrificed more for him than Malfoy ever
could have or would aspire to.

�� But he also
wanted to snap that that wasn�t all
Ron was asking for, that he was demanding a lot more, essentially stifling the
normal life that Harry was trying to lead and the way that he was trying to
accept the compatible magic. He knew compatible magic couldn�t be fought, he�d
told Harry that, but he kept talking like it was possible to fight it.

�� I don�t
see why he has to call his sister in to fight his battles,� he said at last,
when his heartbeat almost deafened him, �instead of telling me the truth
himself.�

�� He has tried to tell you the truth,� Ginny
said, her eyes narrowed now as if she was staring through a wind that whipped
dust into her face. �He said that you ignored him and told him some nonsense
about how Auror partners don�t always stay the same throughout the years of
training.�

�� That
wasn�t nonsense, it was truth,� Harry
snapped, feeling as though something was snapping inside him. Some conviction
or some belief was being ripped up by the roots, and he didn�t know what it was
or if he wanted to stop it. �I don�t know that I�ll be partnered with Malfoy
forever. I don�t want to be. But right now, it�s doing some good, and the
instructors wouldn�t let me out of it without my making a great big fuss��

�� Stop it,�
Ginny said, not raising her voice, but making it so intense that Harry wasn�t
able to do anything but what she said. �You refused to deal with your issues
from the war, Harry, and you�re refusing to deal with this. But we both know
that you could if you wanted to. You
could tell more people the truth. You could get help. You could stop having
these shaking fits that make you into a child.�

�� Don�t say
that, Ginny.� Harry found himself standing up again. It felt as though someone
had propelled him to his feet. His vision swayed, and he swallowed. �I trusted you with that information, and
you turned against me.�

�� I told you
the truth,� Ginny said, her face unflinching, her voice steady. Always so steady, Harry thought, with a
mixture of admiration and loathing. She�s
never met anything that made her flinch. Even being possessed by Tom Riddle is
something that only made her stronger, not scarred her. �I did what you
didn�t have the courage to do.�

�� Stop it,
Ginny,� Harry whispered, but his voice was weak. Like the rest of me, he thought in disgust.

�� Ginny knew
it, too, and she went back to their former topic of conversation. �I don�t want
to badger you, Harry,� she said in a tender voice. �I only want to tell you to
do what�s best for you and Ron. You know it
would be better if you talked honestly to him and explained that you�ll give up
being partnered to Malfoy. Not right away, of course not, because you explained
why that couldn�t happen, but eventually. You know it the same way you know it
would be better if you told someone the truth about your fits, so that you
could get the help you need. What�s weak is hiding it, not having it.�

�� Harry
raised his head. �Liar,� he whispered. �That�s not what you said when I first
told you about them.�

�� Ginny
raised her eyebrows. �I�m allowed to change my mind with more information,
aren�t I? Get help, Harry. And talk to Ron and tell him what you told me.�

�� I already
did,� Harry said, feeling tired and sad and frustrated and old. �It didn�t content him.�

�� Tell it
again,� Ginny said. �Use different wording. Promise that you�ll do your best to
get out of it while you�re still trainees, instead of when you�re full Aurors.
I think that�s the part that�s disturbing him.� She was smiling pleasantly
again, tucking her hair easily behind her ears. �You know that I�m right,
Harry. My words hurt you so much because they�re the same words that you�ve
used to yourself.�

�� Harry shut
his eyes. The bloody truth was, she was right. Sometimes he thought he ought to
tell someone else about the fits; sometimes he thought he ought to be more
truthful about everything and not accept the shit that other people tried to
pile on him.

�� But what if
the person he told about the fits reacted like Ginny did? What if the person he
objected to reacted like Ron had?

�� The problem
was, he did take a risk of trusting people,
and then they didn�t repay that trust.

�� Just think
about it,� Ginny finished, placatingly. �That�s all I ask. It was nice talking
to you again, Harry.�

�� Harry heard
the whoosh that meant the Floo connection had closed. He continued standing
there, though, with his eyes closed, because there was nothing else that he had
the strength to do.

*

�� Draco�s
head was afire with dizziness and curiosity and anger and scorn, and perhaps
that was why he took one of the greatest risks of his life.

�� He raised a
hand to the door, and knocked.

�� When Potter
opened the door and stood there, looking like a ghost, Draco said simply, �I
heard everything. May I come in?�

*

�� Lillybe:
Thanks! Harry and Draco�s magic could cause a problem; that�s one reason they�ll
have to train together to get it under control.

�� hieisdragoness18:
Too early for that yet. Draco doesn�t want to ruin his chances.

�� Tree802:
Thanks! Draco, as far as he knows, is being sincere; he wants to manipulate
Harry, but he also really wants his friendship, so he takes the course that�s
most guaranteed to make that happen.

�� polka dot: As
Draco thinks, it�s unlikely they were trainees. The instructors would probably
have no problem making it public and disciplining them if they were. But they
were probably pure-bloods, just not experienced fighters.

�� MewMew2:
Thank you!

�� Lilith:
Thank you! Draco really wants to be partners and train with Harry at the moment,
rather than date him, but he probably will use a similar process to convince
Harry to date him when they get around to that.

�� Alliandre:
Thanks!

�� Compatible
magic is not dangerous with training; they can learn to compensate for
injuries. And the way that Harry pulled power from Draco is not supposed to happen.
They�ll have to study how to avoid that.

�� Mr Spears:
Ron is not going to die, sorry, but he and Harry are going to have to have a
talk.

�� SP777:
Thanks! Glad you�re enjoying this.

�� Harry is
much more open to having Draco as a partner now than he was. But he�ll have to
discover a way to make other people stop plaguing him about it, or he�s likely
to roll back into reluctance.

�� Harry is,
at the moment, so occupied with learning new spells that I would feel a bit
weird bringing the old ones back. Maybe when he learns that the old ones have
some power, too, and the new ones don�t always work.

�� Dragons
Breath: Yes, Ron is Harry�s friend (in fact, many of his actions right now are
motivated by the fear that he might lose that friendship). He�ll need a stern
talking-to before he gets back on track, though, and he really should have some
hobby or skill of his own that�s separate from Auror training.

�� Draco was
indeed asking how Harry pulled magic from him.
- 10
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