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Learning Life Over	By : Meander Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 69712 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Thanks again for the reviews! I�ve answered a few questions
at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 12- The Terrible, No-Good, Awful Fourth Day

�� Harry spent
a few minutes standing in front of the door back into the room where Theresa
waited, opening and closing his hand. He didn�t want to go into that room. He really
didn�t want to go into that room.

�� But he knew
what his choices were if he didn�t. Trying to break free and go back to his old
life, at which he would eventually falter, thanks to the numbers Draco had
gathered about him slipping up on his hours of sleeping and eating. Staying
here under compulsion rather than freely, when he still had a right to refuse
what he didn�t like and to fight back subtly. Or, perhaps, following up the
offer that Theresa had given him yesterday, when he�d apologized to her and
said he wanted to delay a more extensive conversation until today: that he come
to St. Mungo�s with her and endure the attentions of a few other Healers.

�� But he
couldn�t do that.

�� He even
knew why. He just didn�t know if he had the courage to say it to Theresa.

�� At last, he
told himself that she wouldn�t go away, and neither would Draco, standing
behind the enchanted window next to the meeting room. Besides, he wasn�t
afraid. He couldn�t be afraid to confront anything, and that had to include his
own emotions, or how was he going to make a good Auror?

�� He opened
the door and stepped in.

�� Theresa
smiled at him from the furthest of the chairs. She already had a cup of tea,
and was sipping it carefully, as if she feared it would singe her lips
otherwise. She didn�t refer to the conversation yesterday, but said, �Please
come in and make yourself comfortable, Harry. Where would you like to start?�

�� Harry took
his own chair, wishing he had his wand with him all the while. But it was true
that, while accidental magic might cause more harm than spells in the long run,
it was more likely to rattle around in a directionless manner first, and would
give Theresa or Draco more time to get out of the way. So it made sense that he
should talk to the Healer without his wand.

�� He still
didn�t like it. His body was convinced that this was a dangerous situation, and
he should take every step possible to get away.

�� I suppose
that you should- that you should know- � Harry shook his head as his voice fell
nerveless. He had to say this, or he wouldn�t make any sense to Theresa.
And he did accept that she wanted to help him, no matter what Draco�s motives
might be. If she�d only come here as a favor to the Malfoy family, she would
have given up after yesterday, apology or no apology.

�� Theresa
raised her eyebrows. �Yes?�

�� I won�t go
to St. Mungo�s.� There, he�d said it.

�� She
blinked. �Why not?�

�� And then
here it came. Harry made himself look his fear in the face, the way that he had
Dashwood even as he knew that this man was responsible for the murders of three
small children. What lurked in his own heart was not as evil as a Dark wizard,
and if he could face them, he could face this.

�� Here, I
still have some sense of control,� he said quietly. �I have a chance of
winning, of retaining the person I was and still want to be. At St. Mungo�s, I
don�t have as much of a chance of that.�

�� Theresa
frowned and set the cup of tea aside, leaning forward to speak earnestly. �I assure
you, Harry, the people there would have your best interests at heart. And
though Mr. Malfoy is a family friend, I am not convinced he does.�

�� She�s
bold, to speak like that when she knows he�s watching. Or maybe just a Healer. Even
some of the ones who�d tried to tend him after he killed Voldemort, before he
frightened them off, were like that. �I know,� Harry said, shaking the memories
away. �And that�s the problem. With St. Mungo�s, I mean.�

�� Her frown
deepened.

�� I would
feel I couldn�t fight back against them,� Harry explained, �since they really would
be doing what they could to help me. Draco�s own feelings towards me are all
mixed up with what he wants.� He knew Draco was probably stiffening
indignantly at that, but he didn�t care. It was true, after all. �So I don�t
feel bad when he says something stupid and I want to snap back, or when he
makes an assumption about me and I want to correct it. I still have an amount
of freedom. I control how much I change. I do better when I�m fighting something,
Theresa, whether it�s Dark wizards or him. And at the hospital, there wouldn�t
be enough people to fight. I could do some damage, but then I�d feel so guilty
that I�d agree with whatever they proposed.�

�� Theresa
cleared her throat. �I am not convinced that fighting the whole world the way
you wish to do is healthy, either, Harry.�

�� That
part, I�m not willing to change,� said Harry adamantly. �I�ll do what I said:
talk to you and try to go along with what Draco suggests when that�s genuinely
what I want. Otherwise, forget it.�

�� Do you
agree, then, that talking about the death of your friends is healthy? Or
genuinely what you want, now?� Theresa was watching him closely.

�� Harry
fidgeted, looking several different directions before he turned back to her.
Then he drew in a deep breath and said, �Yes and no. I don�t want it, but- what
I did and said yesterday frightened me. I should be able to deal with it better
than that. I had thought I was dealing with it better than that. You�ve
showed me that- maybe- I was ignoring things I shouldn�t have ignored.�

�� It was as
gracious as he could be. He was still sure that everything would have been
better if Draco and Theresa and everyone had left him alone. Better for
him, anyway.

�� But then
what might have happened the day that he was just a little too tired or slow to
catch a Dark wizard, and an innocent person got hurt, or his partner did? The
damage would miss him, of course, because fatal damage always did. He lived on
and on and on. That might be the thing he most hated about himself.

�� So he would
do this. But he was determined that he was doing it for his own reasons, and if
he changed his mind about those reasons, it would be on his
recognizance, and no one else�s. Draco�s chattering about this and that, his constant
encroachments on Harry�s personal space, were better for reminding Harry what
was at stake than the calmness and empty spaces of St. Mungo�s would be. There,
he might change his mind about things before he was ready.

�� Very well,
Harry. It�s a start.� He ignored the disappointed tone in Theresa�s voice.
�Now, what would you like to talk about concerning your friends?�

*

�� Draco
scowled at the enchanted window. Both Harry and Theresa seemed to have less
than complimentary opinions of him. Well, Theresa perhaps didn�t think as much
of his methods as she had when he brought back Harry snogged yesterday. And
Harry...

�� Unravel
one layer of resistance, and there�s only another one underneath it.

�� He could
have worked himself up to a fine head of indignation by thinking that, damn it,
he�d done his best and Harry still hated him for it even as he succumbed, but
then he heard the rest of what Harry said.

�� And an
emotion he didn�t recognize at first rose in the center of his chest. Draco
leaned back on the couch with his eyes half-closed, and tried to identify it,
even as Harry started talking to Theresa.

�� It was
delight.

�� He
encouraged Harry to fight, didn�t he? And that fighting part of Harry was the
one that had captured him, not the calm passivity that Harry had buried his
passion beneath.

�� If Harry
wanted to stay with him because of that, then Draco won on two counts. First,
Harry was staying. Second, he was amenable to expressing just the sorts of
emotions that Draco wanted to see from him.

�� Draco
folded his arms behind his head and congratulated himself on arranging the
universe in the precise ways that would benefit him, even as he didn�t know he
was doing it.

*

�� Harry
watched Theresa suspiciously. At her prompting, he�d talked about his friendship
with Ron and Hermione in Hogwarts, his brief relationship with Ginny, how Remus
taught him the Patronus Charm, and the way that he�d always felt welcomed and
at home in the bosom of the Weasley family. She�d tried to ask about the
Dursleys, but Harry had cut her off on that subject quickly enough. He
hadn�t seen them since the day he turned seventeen. He�d tried to say goodbye,
figuring that Dumbledore would have wanted that, and had received only stares,
as if he were a dog that had suddenly started talking. Harry had shaken his
head and gone his way. The possibility of a reconciliation in that direction
was as far away as it had ever been.

�� And now
Theresa had arrived at the question he dreaded most.

�� What
happened, that day they died?� she asked quietly.

�� Harry took
a deep breath and shut his eyes. It was better if he spoke of this with them
closed; that way, his memories were clearer, and he could be sure he wasn�t
leaving out a detail. Besides, it would keep back tears if any threatened to
rise.

�� We were at
the Weasleys� house, the Burrow, for a celebration,� he began quietly. �Bill,
Ron�s older brother, had just got married to his fianc�e, Fleur Delacour, and
I�d spent a few days with them after my birthday. Ron and Hermione and I were
about to leave on the quest that would destroy Voldemort.� Even so many years
later, Harry wasn�t sure it was a good idea to mention the Horcruxes to anyone.

�� I went
outside. It was an August evening, and it- it was just one of those beautiful
days, you know, when the light is low and the gold seems like it�s never going
to end. I stood looking from the edge of the Weasleys� garden towards the
fields. I was thinking of how happy I�d been with the Weasleys, and how much it
would hurt to leave them all behind. I didn�t want to, but we had to. There was
no way that Molly and Arthur- Ron�s parents- would have let us go if they knew
what we were going to do.

�� I heard
this whistling sound behind me- �

�� Harry
stopped. He had never told anyone else about this before. He�d lied when the
reporters asked him how the Weasley house was destroyed, claiming that
Voldemort had appeared with fifty Death Eaters and cast Killing Curses through
the windows, then collapsed the Burrow inward. He couldn�t bear to talk about
it. The reporters swarming him with eager questions and bright eyes and
flashing cameras didn�t deserve to know the truth. The best and most guarded
tomb his friends could have was in his memory.

�� Harry?�

�� You can
do this. It wasn�t as though he�d never thought about it again. He had, and
for the first few years after it happened, he�d lived through it again in his
nightmares.

�� I can do
this,� he said, and if his voice was roughened with tears, so what? He went on
quickly enough not to give Theresa a chance to comment on it. �I turned around,
and I saw a piece of flaming stone heading straight for the Burrow. It was
already there before I made it back up through the garden. It drove the house
straight down, and there was an enormous flash of white light. I heard screams.�

��

He sought desperately to drop into
the flat, emotionless voice that he used when giving Auror reports, even about
the most horrible atrocities that a Dark wizard could commit. This had only
been another one of them, hadn�t it? The atrocity that had set him on the path
of hunting Dark wizards in the first place.

�� When I
could see again, the Burrow was this- this pancake of melted earth and stone. I
came as near as I could, but the heat drove me back. It was burning, everything
was afire, and I knew nothing could have got out alive, but I still wanted to
go near, still wanted to see.

�� And then
the smoke from the house coiled green, and turned first into the Dark Mark, and
then Voldemort�s face. He- he was laughing at me. He said that now that I didn�t
have any friends left, any protectors, I might as well come and face him on my
own, in a final duel to the death.�

�� There had
been more than that, and worse, but Harry would never share those words. They
were branded into his brain. They haunted him still. That didn�t mean anyone
else had to know them.

�� And why
did he do that?� Theresa�s voice was soft. Harry had the feeling that she might
have asked the question more than once, but he had been lost, drifting
somewhere in a trance. He shook his head, but couldn�t yet bring himself to
open his eyes. He knew the tears would fall.

�� He was
trying to bait me, make me rush off and confront him and die. Or he wanted to
make me despair and give up. I didn�t do that. I went off and completed the
quest I needed to complete to kill him, and he died.�

�� Harry bowed
his head and buried his face in his arms. Talking about it hadn�t made him feel
better; so much for that sort of wisdom. It made him feel as if someone had
forced broken glass down his throat instead, and his consciousness spun slowly,
held on one thread over a darkening abyss.

�� Can you
talk about anything else today, Harry?� Theresa�s voice had softened even more,
to a hooting that reminded Harry of Hedwig. She�d been- lost, somewhere. He
never knew for certain if she died in the Burrow, or thought he was dead
there and flew off.

�� No,� he
said. His voice was creaky, and raspy, and cracked in the middle. He stood and
shook his head firmly, his eyes still closed. �I want to go back to my room,
and I just want to not think for a while,� he said. �Trippy?�

�� She
appeared at once, he could tell from the crack, but he didn�t open his eyes to
see her. �Yes, Master Harry? Master Harry is wanting something?�

�� Can you
take me back to my room, and fetch me a Dreamless Sleep Potion?� Harry asked.

�� Trippy is
helping Master Harry!�

�� Harry had
to open his eyes once, so that he could see her and follow her out of the room.
His eyes were far too hazy, and brimmed with tears. He closed them again as
soon as he could.

*

�� Draco
slowly entered the meeting room when Harry had left it. His earlier delight had
drained away, replaced by intense horror.

�� God, to
have lived through that, to have carried it on his shoulders for eleven years,
and to never have told anyone...

�� Draco had
known the Weasleys died violently. He had never known precisely how, and the
taunting message from Voldemort had never been a part of the stories he
collected. He doubted anyone but Harry had heard it.

�� He wanted
to wrap Harry in a blanket and keep him protected against all the woes of the
world. He wanted, after all, to take Harry to St. Mungo�s. Harry had said it
would be too quiet and calm for him, but God, wasn�t that what he needed now,
to deal with and acknowledge what he�d just told Theresa?

�� He shook
his head. He said what he wanted, what he needs. At the least, I think we
have to respect that.

�� What do
you think?� he asked, leaning against the door so he could look at Theresa.

�� Worse than
I expected.� Theresa sighed. �He not only had to witness their deaths- which I
hadn�t thought was the case before- but he has to live with the knowledge that
they were targeted because they were his friends and killed to make him react
in a certain way. I think he is blaming himself for that. Perhaps he doesn�t
exactly think of them as dying because of him, but he�ll be close to it.�

�� Draco
nodded.

�� And we
still have years of denial to get through, including this resistance to
change.� Theresa gave another sigh, then straightened up and nodded to Draco.
�I�m willing to help him any way I can, but I wish I could do this in St.
Mungo�s.�

�� I�m not
taking him there until he asks to go.� Draco folded his arms.

�� For a
moment, they glared at each other in silence, until Theresa glanced slightly to
the side and nodded. �Perhaps you are right,� she said. �I think it may be
better to ignore his wishes in this case, but it is true that that edge of
freedom seems to be essential for him. We may at least wait and see what
happens.�

�� She left,
then, and Draco went to Harry�s room to check up on him. He found him curled
deeply into the middle of the blankets, shoulders hunched as if he were cold,
now and then curling more and more deeply. He was grinding his teeth again,
which shouldn�t be possible with a Dreamless Sleep Potion.

�� Draco
hesitated. He wanted to hold Harry, but Harry had said he wanted to be alone.
So, in the end, he compromised and cast a spell that made the sensation of a
pair of warm arms enfold Harry. Harry sighed. His shoulders slowly relaxed, and
then he shifted backward, seeming to move deeper into the invisible embrace.

�� Draco shut
the door quietly.

******

�� SLQ: At the
moment, Harry won�t consent to go to either St. Mungo�s or the Manor completely
on his own. I couldn�t think of a way to have that happen without driving him
OOC.

�� Kimmi:
Perhaps Harry could have defeated Trippy if he was a little more desperate, but
he still didn�t want to hurt her, which was one reason he tried Summoning his
wand first. Besides, I don�t think there�s an instance in canon where Harry�s
tested directly against house-elf magic and defeats it. We know that an adult
wizard like Lucius Malfoy couldn�t resist it, though.
- 11
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Learning Life Over