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Practicing Liars	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 63257 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 10
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eleven�Bloodlines

�� Harry knew
his head was swimming, and he knew his arms were breaking out in welts, and he
knew that his hands stung.

�� He knew he
had seen the white Dementors just before everything began to hurt so badly that
he thought it might be worthwhile to cut his hands off.

�� But he didn�t
know where he was now, or what might happen next. His body was shaking and his
sight was blurring and he couldn�t stand up. He reached towards the one solid
body that seemed to have come near him, whispering his desire for help.

�� A voice he
recognized but didn�t know said in an
unnerved tone, �All right, Potter, I�ll�I�ll go to Snape. He�s the closest. He
should know how to deal with this in some
form or other.� The person sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

�� Harry
blinked several times, but still the swimming haze across his eyes didn�t
clear. He shivered, but he didn�t think that was the cold from the Dementors.
He thought he was simply suffering, and the suffering had to go somewhere to
express itself.

�� Please
hurry,� he said.

�� Yeah,
Potter, I will.� The voice sounded half-panicked now, although Harry wished it
wouldn�t, because if it was panicked then it probably couldn�t help him. �Shite.� And Harry heard feet pounding down the corridor.

�� Harry
curled up on the floor and closed his eyes. The welts along his arms seemed to
be getting worse, at least if the pops and the liquid sounds he heard were any
sign, but he couldn�t see them anyway, so why should he look for them?

*

�� Draco
pounded on Professor Snape�s private door, glancing uneasily over his shoulder.
He didn�t know if he should have left Potter lying on the dungeon floor where
any Slytherin could come along and see him, but on the other hand, what else
could he have done? Dragging him here was out of the question. Potter was too heavy.

�� Professor
Snape opened the door so suddenly that Draco nearly knocked on him. He froze at once, vaguely glad that
he had enough of a sense of self-preservation not to do that.

�� What is
it?� the professor asked curtly, looking over Draco�s shoulder as if he
expected the Dark Lord to be right behind him.

�� Draco
swallowed. He didn�t know what to do,
he wanted to wail. Maybe he was going to get in trouble for making this big
fuss over Potter when Professor Snape would just sneer and shut the door on
him.

�� On the
other hand, Potter had helped Draco by bringing him to Professor Snape, and
Draco knew his Head of House had always said that Slytherins should pay their
debts. So Draco took courage by the horns and said, �It�s Potter, sir. He�s
moaning about Dementors and breaking out, wounds everywhere��

�� That was
all he got out before Professor Snape�s eyes narrowed and he strode past Draco.
Draco took a breath of relief which felt as though it sent cool air traveling
to every part of his body and hurried after Snape.

�� The professor
was already kneeling over Potter when Draco came up on them. He was making pass
after pass with his wand and whispering incantations that Draco didn�t know. He
suspected they were healing spells, and he hadn�t studied healing that closely
except when he was trying to find spells that would work on the Vanishing
Cabinet. He did his best to stand by and look helpful, such as by glaring away
a Slytherin second-year who stopped and tried to see what was going on. The
girl squeaked and ran off.

�� I can do
nothing here,� Snape said abruptly, making Draco leap. His own thoughts had
absorbed him. �And this is far too public a place. We must take him to Madam
Pomfrey. Come.� He waved his wand again, whispering a spell Draco did
recognize, and a stretcher materialized next to him. Then a Lightening Charm
and a Levitation Charm ensured that Potter floated into it. Professor Snape set
off with his robe flapping behind him and the stretcher bobbing at his back.

�� Draco
blinked. Was he really supposed to
accompany them? Couldn�t that make one of the spies suspicious that he wasn�t
working for the Dark Lord?

�� Then he
reminded himself that Professor Snape had probably considered that, and had
still said he should come. And besides, he was curious as to what was happening
with Potter. If he went back to the common room and tried to answer questions
coolly, he would only think of Potter and falter anyway.

�� He hurried
after the tail end of Professor Snape�s swishing robes, noting absently that he
wanted to learn how to walk like that, incredibly fast without breaking into a
run.

*

�� Goodness,
Severus! What happened?�

�� Severus had
never liked the matron�s manner of expressing herself. She could, on occasion,
choose a stronger word. The sight of Harry Potter covered in welts and
pus-filled boils that were making their way over more and more of his body, if
Severus felt their magic correctly, was appropriate for the expression of
stronger sentiments if any time was.

�� But then he
reminded himself that there was more at stake here than whether one woman said �Goodness�
or not, and returned his attention to Potter. The boy was curled in on himself,
shivering so hard that the stretcher vibrated. Severus�s spells had picked up
no trace of a fever, but then again, his spells had picked up no trace of any
normal illness or curse, so that didn�t necessarily mean anything.

�� I do not
know,� he answered. �Potter was complaining of seeing white Dementors, which he
had done once before. At the time, we dismissed it as a hallucination brought
on by stress.� He would say nothing to Poppy about Albus�s
suspicion that the boy was receiving impressions from the Dark Lord unless he
had to. �This evening, this happened to him, not long after I released him from
detention.�

�� Poppy
clucked and moved forwards, her wand darting in several intricate patterns that
Severus recognized as the basic diagnostic spells. She puckered her brow when
nothing happened. �No symptoms that you recognize?� she asked, tapping her
sleeves with her wand to move them up her elbows and fasten them there. Then
she Summoned several topical potions from her supply cupboard and began to rub
them over Potter�s welts. �Could he have ingested any potions or poisons from
the time that you saw him to the time he was found? Who found him? Have you
given him any potions?�

�� No,
perhaps, Mister Malfoy, and no,� Severus responded, taking a petty delight in
the way she scowled at him for his abbreviated answers. He nodded at Draco to
come up to his side so that Poppy could question him if needed. Draco clenched
his fists and did so. He did not seem to know, still, what his place was here.
To tell the truth, Severus was not sure himself.

�� Hmmm,�
Poppy said, and then leaned back to examine the effects of the potions she had
used on Potter�s skin. Severus narrowed his eyes when he saw the skin heaving
beneath one of the pastes, as if it would erupt like a miniature volcano. He
started to step forwards to observe the reaction better. If he needed to brew
an antidote to Potter�s strange malady�as Albus would not doubt command if it
did not improve on its own, because Potter was destined to take up so much of
his time this term�he had best know what stages the reaction passed through
when it was no longer new.

�� And then�

�� Then the
pustules vanished. Severus was looking at Potter�s face, his glamoured and false face, out of the corner of his eye only,
but he had no doubt of what he saw. The oozing, red sore on his chin simply
folded in on itself, dwindled to a speck, and was gone. At the same moment,
Poppy gasped and wiped away a patch of a blue potion she had put in place on
Potter�s arm. The welt that had been beneath it was gone, as well.

�� Severus
transferred his gaze to the boy�s hands. Clear, now, and they looked as if they
had never been wounded. At the same moment, Potter uncurled and seemed to drop
straight from his feverish shivering into calm, normal sleep.

�� Well,�
said Poppy, shaking her head. She looked wary, but excited at the same time.
Severus wondered if anyone besides himself knew how fascinating she found magical diseases. �That settles the question
of whether it can be anything natural. Only a curse or a potion could cause a
change that abrupt.� She drew her wand without taking her eyes off Potter. �I
shall have to make some tests.�

�� A
Transfiguration is an obvious second choice,� Severus noted. �Would you like me
to ask Minerva to come by?�

�� Please.�
Poppy gave him a quick smile and then murmured what Severus thought would be
the first of many charms she would use on Potter. This one surrounded him with
a yellow glow and apparently made nothing happen. Poppy wasn�t discouraged, if
the way she immediately scrambled for parchment and quill to take notes was any
indication.

�� Will she
need to talk to me?� Draco whispered uncertainly.

�� Severus
glanced down at him. His eyes were wide, his face solemn and pale. There was a
spark in his expression of what Severus had been looking for all along:
maturity, the sign that he was considering the ways his actions could influence
the world instead of simply the way they were influencing his future and his
parents� future.

�� I think
not,� Severus said. �Keep me informed, Poppy,� he added, to which the matron
nodded without looking up. He turned back to Draco. �But I require a moment of
your time. There are things we should speak of.�

�� Draco
tilted his head up. His solemn expression turned cautious again. But Severus
knew what he had seen, and he was not one to distrust his perceptions. Draco
was ready for the kind of discussion that Severus would gradually and subtly
have drawn him into if Potter had not moved too fast in confronting him.

�� All right,�
he said.

�� Severus did
give one final glance at Potter as he left the infirmary to inform Minerva, but
the boy didn�t move, and the echoes in Severus�s head had reported no
miraculously new information. The mysteries that surrounded the brat would have
to wait for their solution.

*

�� Harry came
slowly back to consciousness. It felt as though someone had lowered a rope to
him through an ocean and he clutched at it and climbed it until his head broke
the surface.

�� He knew
right away that he was in the hospital wing. No other beds in Hogwarts had
sheets that crisp and cool. He turned his head cautiously from side to side,
but didn�t hear many voices. He was probably alone, then, or else his best
friends had come, visited, and gone.

�� But there
was one voice. Harry opened his eyes halfway and saw Madam Pomfrey standing
with her back turned to him, leafing through a book. She was talking to
herself. Harry rolled his eyes around the room to satisfy himself that there
really wasn�t anyone else there before he started listening to what she was
saying.

�� Thought I recognized something,� Pomfrey
muttered, and flipped another page. �Wouldn�t have known it myself, and I
daresay that not one mediwitch in a hundred would have.� She chuckled. Harry
thought it sounded arrogant. He�d never thought of Madam Pomfrey as an arrogant
person.

�� Then he
thought of the way she always made him stay in bed when he felt perfectly fine
and thought she knew what was best for him when he was the one who did, and grimaced. Oh, wait, yes, she is.

�� It was
neglected so long,� Pomfrey murmured, and turned towards Harry, still cradling
the book. Harry shut his eyes quickly most of the way, so that he could watch
her without her knowing he was awake. She would probably just put him back to
sleep if she knew, and he was curious. What had
happened after the white Dementors appeared to him? �Not a Transfiguration�Minerva
had no idea�not a potion. But a curse. Yes. An old curse.� She ran her fingers over the page and then
actually did a little dance in place, which made Harry
have to muffle his snort. �A bloodline curse.�

�� Harry found
himself holding still, or at least more still than he
was already. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, speeding up faster
and faster. His breathing wanted to speed up, too, but he knew he would hyperventilate,
and that would make Madam Pomfrey pay attention to him, and right now that was
the last thing he wanted.

�� His mother�s
letter, which he�d read so many times that he knew it by heart, was singing in
his head now.

�� She said something about me getting some
kind of disease from being part greasy git.

�� One of the
bloodline curses,� Pomfrey said, apparently reading from the page in front of
her, with great satisfaction. �Yes. �When there was
warfare between pure-bloods in the seventeenth century, one of the most-used
weapons was the bloodline curse. Many wizards and witches who knew they would
lose a particular battle cast such curses to punish not their enemies, but what
mattered most to their enemies: continuation of that particular pure-blood
line. Most curses would take effect just before the children in question came
of age at seventeen, in other words when the young wizards and witches had survived
the trials of adolescence and their parents were just beginning to be most
proud of them.�� Pomfrey nodded to Harry as if she knew he was awake and
listening. �Someone must have cast a certain bloodline curse on your Potter
ancestors, my lad, probably one that skipped generations. They do that
sometimes, and I don�t remember James having anything like this. I just need to
figure out which one it was.� She began to turn pages again, murmuring
something about �hallucinations� under her breath.

�� Harry
froze. He was sure that even his breathing and heartbeat stopped, because his
panic was that deep and complete.

�� Madam
Pomfrey would find out that there were no bloodline curses like that on the
Potters. But she would probably look further into the book, and find out that
there was some curse like the one Harry was suffering on the Snapes. Or Snape�s ancestors, or whoever had been his great-grandfather or
whatever.

�� She would know.

�� And because
she was an adult, and adults seemed to have that kind of mindset, she would tell
Snape instead of letting Harry keep it a secret.

�� Snape would
know.

�� The horror
of that moment was so overwhelming that it took Harry a full minute to decide
what he would do. But of course there was obviously only one thing he could do, since Madam Pomfrey wouldn�t
listen to his arguments. No adults ever listened
to him, or not in time.

�� Harry
grabbed his wand, which was lying on the table next to his bed, with his
glasses, and pointed it straight at Madam Pomfrey. She was looking up from the
book with her mouth open and her eyes blinking slowly, not trying to defend
herself against him because she had no idea that he would attack.

�� Harry�s
voice sounded very small and desperate to him. �Obliviate!�

�� The Memory
Charm hit Madam Pomfrey so fast that at first he wasn�t sure it had worked. She
reeled backwards and lifted a hand to her forehead, as though she�d hit her
head on something. The book fell from her hands to the floor, and she looked
down at it in wonder.

�� What was I
doing?� she muttered.

�� Harry
distracted her as quickly as he could by moaning. Madam Pomfrey looked up at
him and exclaimed softly, hurrying over to the bed. �Harry! Are you all right?
Do you require anything?�

�� No,� Harry
said. He rubbed at his forehead dramatically. This wouldn�t be the first time
that his scar had got him out of trouble, even though it happened a lot less
often than Snape and Malfoy thought it did. �I feel great. As
though nothing happened at all.� He gave her an appealing glance,
widening his eyes. �I know that Ron and Hermione will be worried. Can I please
go back to Gryffindor Tower, ma�am?�

�� Pomfrey hesitated,
blinking. It was obvious that she didn�t remember much of what had brought him
into the hospital wing, but didn�t want to say so. �I don�t know,� she said,
wavering. �You seemed in bad condition. I don�t know if you should be walking
around again so soon.�

�� I�ll go
really slowly,� Harry said, with an earnest tone that he knew wouldn�t have
worked on Snape or McGonagall. �But I don�t have anything wrong now, and I
really want to sleep in my own bed. I think I�ll sleep best there,� he added,
with another touch to his scar and another pathetic look.

�� Pomfrey
waited some more, biting her lip and frowning. She kept reaching after that
memory Harry had blocked, Harry thought, and it just wasn�t coming to her. He
hoped that it wouldn�t. He was sorry he�d had to use a Memory Charm on her,
since he knew from Lockhart how easily those could go wrong, but there wasn�t any
other choice.

�� I should be able to choose who I live with.
I should be able to choose the people I think of as my parents, and I know I
won�t if Snape knows. He wouldn�t want me as a son�how could he? I don�t matter
to him�but he would use it as an extra excuse to torture me. I don�t want that
to happen.

�� All right,
Harry,� Madam Pomfrey said at last. �But I really think it�s best if you don�t
linger on the way.�

�� Thanks, ma�am!� Harry shoved his glasses on his face,
hopped out of bed, and then Summoned the book to him. �And should I take this back to the library for you? Or is
it one of yours?� He held his breath as she glanced down at the cover of the
book, but he couldn�t just leave it on the floor. The chance was even better
that she would recognize it and remember what she was doing with it if he did.

�� Madam
Pomfrey frowned and tapped her lips, then nodded. �I took it from the library.
Do return it, Harry. I�m sure that Madam Pince would
be upset with me if I kept it out too long.� She smiled at him.

�� Harry gave
her a little salute and then went trotting out of the infirmary, making sure to
walk slowly. He didn�t want to fall down the stairs in case he was still shaky after the attack of the
white Dementors, or whatever they were.

�� And he wasn�t
taking this book to the library right away. He was taking it to the Room of
Requirement, the room with all the broken things where Malfoy�s mysterious
cabinet was hidden. He wanted to come back and look at it later. Maybe what he
was suffering really did come from a bloodline curse that someone had cast on
the Snapes a long time ago.

�� But if that
was the case, then he was the one who
was going to find out about it and how to cure it. Not Madam Pomfrey, because he
couldn�t trust her. Not Snape, because then Harry would never live a peaceful life
again. Not Hermione, because Harry knew that she would insist on him at least
talking to Snape.

�� There were
just some things that he had to do alone.

*

�� Draco lay
down thoughtfully in bed that night, feeling far more confident than he had
since the day the Dark Lord gave him the Mark.

�� Professor
Snape had spoken to him like he was an adult. He had explained, delicately,
without really explaining, that he had the beginnings of a plan to rescue Draco�s
mother. It depended on something he wasn�t sure existed. He admitted that he
had heard of the circumstances that seemed to dictate its existence, but that that
object, even so, belonged to another person, who might be averse to sharing it.

�� Draco didn�t
care. What mattered most of all to him was the way Professor Snape�s eyes had studied
him all through the talk, depending on Draco to accept what he said and respond
to it in an intelligent way, and how he had avoided referring at all to the
fact that Dumbledore probably knew what Draco was up to.

�� He was
letting Draco have a choice. He wasn�t making him pick sides right now, which
Draco didn�t think he could do.

�� That was
more than anyone had done for Draco in so long that he was dazzled and humbled.
He would have gone to his Head of House for help weeks ago if he had known it
would be like this.

�� Granted,
the thing that probably did exist but even if it existed belonged to someone
else worried Draco mildly. It could all be a lie. But he didn�t think so.

�� Even if it
was, the respect in Professor Snape�s eyes wasn�t a lie. He had let Draco know
something about his plans. He had paused for Draco to interject information
into their talk, even though Draco had mostly just nodded and let the words flow
past him. He had listened.

�� If Draco
had known more about whether he had discovered a disturbing secret of Potter�s
or not, the evening would have been perfect.

*

�� Severus sat
upright in his bed, breathing slowly and calmly while his Legilimency probed
through his own mind, seeking out the confusions and unexpected tangles in his
thoughts that could be the result of someone interfering with him. He would not
put it past Albus to have repressed certain memories or given him orders that
must lie dormant for the time being. Albus was a generous and warm-hearted man,
but he was also ruthlessly practical. And Severus would not necessarily want to
undo his actions. He simply preferred to know about them.

�� Of course,
the greater concern was that the Dark Lord might have implanted something in
Severus�s mind, which would indicate he had managed to slide past Severus�s
Occlumency shields but was cunning enough not to reveal it immediately.

�� Perhaps it
was the disturbing revelations of the evening that made him go deeper than
usual. Perhaps it was the nagging echoes in his mind. Perhaps it was the fact
that he hadn�t encountered anything that baffled him as thoroughly as Potter�s �white
Dementors� in years, and so he was half-consciously searching his memories for
some indication of where he might have heard of them before.

�� Whatever
the reason, he brushed, for the first time in his searching that he could remember, a wall. A smooth black wall, built of compacted
bricks of magic and will, one that had been in place a long time.

�� The sort of wall created by a Memory Charm.

�� Severus�s
eyes snapped open, and he held still. The age of the wall indicated that it
could not have been a recent �present� from Albus, nor from the Dark Lord. If
either of them had seen fit to make Severus forget something from more than a
decade ago, they did not seem to have had a recent need to reinforce that
block.

�� Severus
felt a growl travel up his throat as he sent his Legilimency whisking around
the wall to learn the shape and size of it. Whoever had done this was good. It
was small, but that didn�t matter. It still surrounded a specific set of his
memories, and Severus had no idea what they might be, and he wanted to know.

�� On the
other hand, what had waited this long would keep. More to the point, he needed
preparation before breaking a wall that ancient if he did not want to end up a
drooling wreck like that fool Lockhart.

�� Cold
strength pouring through him, Severus lay down in his
bed and shut his eyes. Sheer willpower sent him to sleep. He had been a soldier
of sorts for so long that he knew not to neglect his rest.

�� The image
of Lily�s face in the water followed him, blazing, into the darkness.

*

�� The mods on AFF have asked people not to post long review
replies to save server space, so I�ve posted review replies for Chapter 10 at http://lomonaaerenrr.livejournal.com/308.html.
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Practicing Liars