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Providence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 15842 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve�What Draco
Malfoy Revealed

�� Harry woke
slowly and spent some time looking around the bedroom Draco had assigned him,
shaking his head.

�� It was an
alien place, mostly because of the coldness. Harry thought that marble walls
and floors might be all very well in the estimation of Draco�s ancestors, but
he flinched when he walked on the second and winced when he looked at the
first. He had conjured a series of red rugs and hangings last night to cover
them.

�� The windows
were as large as the bed, which was large enough that Harry felt rather absurd
sleeping in it. He stood up and wandered slowly towards the windows. He hadn�t
had time to look out of them the evening before, since by the time Draco had
finished showing him around the Manor it was dark. But now sunlight poured
through them, and he thought the view looked rather promising.

�� I wonder if I really love Draco? he thought,
as he leaned an elbow on the sill and stared out. I thought I did. But maybe his mask fooled me all this time, and even
the parts I thought I loved were only part of the mask. Maybe compassion was
never one of his motivations. Maybe he tried to coexist with people only to
gain revenge on them later. I simply don�t know, and it does seem as if I ought
to demand less from him if I was in love.

�� His
thoughts occupied him so much that it took a moment for him to concentrate on
the view outside the windows, and then he blinked and paid attention when he
realized how beautiful it was.

�� The windows
looked out on a garden that was contained within glass walls but opened on the
sky. Harry thought the weather unnaturally beautiful, but surely conjuring
sunshine was a better use of pure-blood magic than enslaving house-elves. Ferns
climbed the edges of those walls; tendrils twined around trellises; enormous
drooping red flowers spread their petals to the light. Harry could see small
paved walks winding between the plants and sheltered benches that he�d like to
sit on.

�� He couldn�t
smell the plants even when he inhaled hard, but that was all right. He could imagine the smells, and they were all
delicious.

�� As he went
on gazing, absorbed, and noticing blue flowers and yellow ones, purple ones and
silver, to complement the red, he saw a figure sitting on one of the benches.
Harry frowned and peered closer. The figure was obviously a woman with long
pale hair. He swallowed. Did Draco have someone living with him all this time
who Harry didn�t know about? He had assumed he knew everything about Draco, but
he had already been proven wrong.

�� Then the
woman raised her head, tilting her face into the sunlight, and he recognized Narcissa
Malfoy. Harry let out a sharp breath and shook his head, ashamed of his
jealousy. Her face was pale with the marks of long suffering, and her hands
trembled as though she had that shaking disease Muggles got.

�� Of course. I forgot that Narcissa stayed
with him after he got her out of St. Mungo�s.

�� Then Draco
appeared, walking into the garden down one of the paths that led from the house.
He leaned on the back of the bench, and though his mother looked nervous, she
turned her head happily, confidently, towards him. Draco started speaking to
her, his hand touching her hair now and then. His face had relaxed to an extent
that Harry knew he had never seen, and it didn�t matter how long he�d observed
Draco.

�� But still,
he had seen traces of it. When Draco brought his mother out of hospital and protected
her from the reporters, for instance. When he appeared at the trial that the
Ministry had insisted on forcing Pansy Parkinson into because she�d recommended
turning Harry over to Voldemort, although she�d never been a Death Eater. When
he arranged a private meeting at a restaurant with a man Harry didn�t know,
shoved a bag of Galleons into his hands, and then stood up and abruptly left
again.

�� He hides it. Pretty well, in fact. Harry
stared in fascination as Draco straightened up, leaving his mother to lean back
in the sunlight again, and headed back to the house. His mask slipped over his
face so imperceptibly that Harry knew he missed some of the changes due to his
blinking. But the compassion is there.
The ability to help other people. Along with the self-satisfaction and the
arrogance.

�� Harry
stepped back slowly from the window and spent a moment pacing back and forth
between it and the bed, his head lowered. New thoughts tumbled up and down, and
unfortunately each one ended in a question he didn�t know the answer to.

�� Some of what I saw in him is real. But how
much?

�� Is it enough for me to love him as wholly as
he deserves someone to love him, as I have to if I�m going to spend the rest of
my life with him?

�� Is it enough to overcome the arrogance that�s
tied to his beliefs in blood?

�� Harry
halted and rubbed his head. Making up his mind about Draco was hard work, but
it always had been. Maybe he�d had the worst delusions about Draco not during
Hogwarts or when he was first following him and trying to decide what kind of
character he had, but in the last two years, when he�d finally felt certain.

�� He deserves hard work. And no matter how
long Harry waited, thinking patiently, no question followed that solid answer.

�� I do want to stay with him. That�s certain,
too. What I�ll need to do, for both of us, is make an honest evaluation in the
next few days. Ask questions he might not like me asking. Watch all his
actions, not just the ones that he does for the sake of propping up his
reputation. Show him how important Ron and Hermione are to me, and that I can�t
stay with someone who won�t at least tolerate them.

�� There was
no reason, Harry told himself around the twinge of panic, that he couldn�t do
those things. Hermione probably would have approved of them. If he couldn�t display
any sense when he first fell in love, then he would display it afterwards.

�� It�s not the most comfortable thing in the
world, trying to decide if you were a fool and your love has any basis at all.
But I want to know. I won�t continue
in the mindless vein that made me propose that letters plan, and I won�t simply
love Draco if the qualities that made me fall in love don�t exist.

�� Harry
smiled when he heard footsteps in the corridor outside his room, pausing and
then continuing on their way. Draco had seen the shut door, and probably
assumed that meant Harry wasn�t awake and ready for breakfast yet.

�� And in the meantime, let him try to seduce
and court me if he can. The steps he adopts should tell me still more about
him.

*

�� When Potter
came down to breakfast that morning, Draco knew at once that something had
changed. Potter often carried his head half-ducked, as if he assumed that
letting his hair fall across his scar would keep anyone from recognizing it. He
stared at the ground and muttered. When he was angry, yes, then he looked you
in the eye, but otherwise it was rare.

�� Now Potter
was looking him in the eye, but the glance was calm, almost meditative. He
nodded in response to Draco�s �Good morning,� and then sat down in the seat
across from him with not much more than a sidelong look or two at the wonders
of the dining room�delicately carved wooden walls and a great floating golden
curtain of beads to separate it from the kitchens, the curtain enchanted only
to convey pleasant scents. Instead, he seemed much more interested in watching
Draco.

�� Did you
sleep well?� Draco asked. He would play it polite and safe until he knew what
had changed Potter�s mind in the night and whether it was catching.

�� Of course,�
Potter said, and then laughed in a way that made the corners of his eyes
crinkle. Draco had to fight the temptation to become fixated on his face. �I
don�t know how anyone couldn�t, when the bed was that soft.�

�� Draco
sniffed. �Soft beds aren�t the only factor in a comfortable night�s sleep.�

�� A shadow
crossed Potter�s face, though so lightly that Draco could see how his friends
would have missed it, if they weren�t in the habit of studying him closely. �What
others do you think of first?� he asked, reaching for the plate of sliced fruit
in the middle of the table.

�� Careful, Draco. Draco sat back and
picked up the plate of bread and butter, pretending that he hadn�t heard the
question. Of course he wanted to explain right away that unpleasant company
could ruin any night�s sleep, and then detail that unpleasant company. But he
thought he understood Potter�s strange manner now, and it meant he had to be
more careful. Potter would be waiting for him to say something like that, and
probably to start talking about Mudbloods. Then he would feel free to stand up
and walk out of the house.

�� Draco was
not prepared to let that happen. In fact, he startled himself with just how intent he was on preventing Potter�s
departure.

�� He�d had a
long, silent struggle during the night, thinking about Potter�s ultimatum and
what it would mean for his behavior. Specifically, he�d fought past the pride
that drove his first reaction�his father had always said, �Pride is
preservation in small doses, poison in large,� and Draco thought he should have
paid more attention to that advice, even if Lucius hadn�t taken it himself�and tried
to analyze the demand more rationally.

�� How much
difference would it make to him? Really? He had acted in public for years as
though he thought all blood differences fit to be abolished, and he had
cautioned other pure-bloods he knew to do the same thing�and distanced himself
from them if they wouldn�t. He had enjoyed his spirited debates with the people
he allowed to �persuade� him, and he valued some of their argument tactics. He
used them himself, in fact.

�� He had
lived behind a mask, he thought, and dropped the barriers in private with
people he trusted. But there were so few of those, other than his mother. He
had dreamed of a wife in part because he had imagined he would find someone who
shared his opinions and would console him on the rest of the blinkered world.

�� But he didn�t
have a congenial wife, and with his standards he had to admit it was unlikely
he would find one. Instead, he had Potter, and he had the passion he felt for
him, and he had the deep desire to extend their alliance further than mere
physical lust.

�� He had
spent more time in the last few years acting the way people would expect him to
act, behaving as they thought he should, than behaving the �natural� way. And that
made him wonder how much of the act was an act, and how much of nature was left
to him.

�� Brewing
potions didn�t require rigid beliefs about blood purity. Neither did running his
healing house for veterans of the war; Draco had never cared what kind of guest
he welcomed into the place, because they would give him money and might give
him some insight into speeding up his own coping process. And spending time in
bed with Potter practically demanded the absence of those beliefs.

�� Draco had
weighed what mattered most to him against what he had only thought mattered most, and discovered that the beliefs his father
had taught him concerning blood were firmly in the latter category.

�� It�s at least worth the effort to change.
And Potter might value the willingness to change as much as he does the final
results.

�� Draco
blinked, startled by the insight contained in those last words, and then jumped
as Potter snapped his fingers in front of his face.

�� Did you
hear my question?� Potter demanded. �You�ve been sitting there and staring at
nothing. I think that butter�s going to melt on your fingers.� With an
impatient jerk that made Draco curl his lip�surely Potter could mend his
manners if Draco mended his�he pulled the plate of bread and butter away.

�� I think many
things can add to a good night�s sleep,� said Draco. �For example, not having
nightmares.�

�� Potter
paused and shot him a keen glance. Draco weathered it, though he objected
silently to the way it searched out the corners of his soul. It was no wonder
that Potter was such a good interrogator of criminals; whilst Weasley
intimidated them with his explosive temper, Potter would dig all their secrets
out of them before they knew what had happened.

�� You have
them, too,� Potter said, and his measured words rendered it a statement instead
of a question.

�� Draco
controlled the impulse to change the subject or snap viciously at Potter, the
way he often did when he felt vulnerable. Potter
won�t hurt you. Of all the people you�ve dined with in the last five years,
only Mother is less likely to hurt you.

�� I did,�
Draco said. �I�ve made a point of controlling them with Dreamless Sleep, and of
taking advantage of my own convalescent home.�

�� And just
like that, Potter smiled a little and looked down at the plate he held, and
Draco knew he had passed the first test.

�� The feeling
that rolled through his stomach didn�t have a name, but it decided him on one
thing. Yes, it was worth it to give up his beliefs on blood purity and strive
to become the kind of man Potter could date comfortably, because Draco was not
deeply invested in those beliefs anymore and so they were no great loss�

�� And because
the prize was so far beyond anything he had ever dreamed of winning.

*

�� Harry
couldn�t hide his amazement and delight when Draco escorted him into what he
called the instrument room, so he didn�t try.

�� There were
musical instruments of every kind in every direction. Most of them rested on
pedestals of marble and silver, but for this once Harry could forgive the
ancestral Malfoys, because this was
the right way to display such precious objects. Several also had cloths of blue
or settings of purple velvet, but they were never too ostentatious. Harry
wandered past drums, flutes, a piano, a thing with hammers that he thought must
be a dulcimer�Hermione had tried to take lessons in playing that�a long-necked
instrument that resembled a guitar with spikes on the top, and a harp. He
paused near the harp and ran his fingers lightly down the strings, smiling at
the sound.

�� That can
be commanded to play by itself,� Draco said softly in his ear. Harry jumped; he
hadn�t heard Draco come up behind him. �Would you like to hear it?�

�� Harry
hesitated, but curiosity got the better of him. He�d never heard a Muggle
harpist play, and his initial reaction, that being able to play by itself made
the instrument somehow lesser, was silly. They were wizards, after all, and
Harry should have known the harp would be magical. �Yes, please,� he said.

�� Draco
stepped up to the harp�s frame and swept his fingers over it in a rough
half-circle. Harry couldn�t keep track of exactly which spots he touched, but
they must have been the right ones. Lively, rippling music began to spill out
of the harp, more like the tune that Harry would have expected a drum to play.
His foot tapped, and he didn�t try to stop it.

�� Then Draco
turned towards him and extended a hand. His eyes were wide, the pupils grown to
enormous proportions. His jaw was clenched shut, as if to keep it from falling
open. His fingers tightened on air. Harry swallowed a gasp. Yes, Draco was a
perfect picture of lust at the moment, but for God�s sake, he didn�t have to
gasp.

�� Dance with
me?� Draco whispered.

�� Harry
shivered, and decided at the last moment to let Draco see it. Draco�s pupils
got more dilated. Harry held his hand out in turn, and watched it almost creep
across the air until the fingers closed over Draco�s. Strangely, Draco remained
motionless, and it wasn�t until several beats had passed in silence that Harry
understood.

�� Yes,� he
said.

�� Draco
yanked hard, and Harry stumbled towards him. He managed at the last moment to
turn the stumble into a smooth step; he�d had much the same thing happen during
Auror training, though the yank hadn�t been a prelude to dancing. He lifted his
head and stared into Draco�s face, making sure to keep his expression defiant. Being
this close to Draco was overwhelming, yes, but if he thought he could simply
overwhelm Harry�s objections, he should think again.

�� Draco
lowered his face towards Harry�s. His nostrils flared, as though he were trying
to memorize Harry�s scent�or detect the scent of anyone else who had ever
touched him. He must have liked what he found, because his mouth expanded in a
lazy, predatory smile, and he moved into the dance.

�� Harry
entertained one terrified memory of the Yule Ball before he banished it. He�d
become considerably more graceful since then, and he�d learned how to follow
instructions, too. He trailed Draco�s movements awkwardly for a minute or so.
Then he started anticipating them, and they swirled across the floor in a loose
back-and-forth pattern, sliding and shuffling in a way that Harry reckoned
would look formal enough to anyone watching them.

�� He didn�t
have the time to think about how it would look, because he was more occupied
with Draco�s face. Draco�s hand had taken up residence on the small of Harry�s
back, and his mouth twitched every time he pressed Harry closer. His other arm
was around Harry�s shoulders, his fingers lightly playing with his hair. Harry
could see the breath traveling through Draco�s half-parted lips in rhythm with
those fingers. And his eyes were lidded, like a cat staring fascinated into a
fire.

�� Except this
time, Harry was the fire.

�� Or perhaps the
shimmering tension between them was, which built higher and higher with every
turn across the floor they made, with every spark of the harp�s notes. Draco
didn�t dance close enough that Harry could feel his body, but the tantalizing closeness
was there all the same, like the feeling Harry had when he tried to grope his
way through a darkened house. He knew he
would encounter an erection if he pressed his hips forwards.

�� At least, I damn well better. Because he�d
feel mine.

�� Draco
danced as if the outside world had gone away, as if Harry was worthy of all
that focus he usually brought to business deals or arguments. His mouth had
fallen open by this time, and Harry could hear
the breaths passing his lips now; they made a throaty sound. His hair
dangled loose around his head, not disheveled, but unattended to. And Harry
knew that was a first, at least for him. He�d never seen Draco so unaware of
his appearance.

�� The harp�s
notes swept up a final cadence and then stopped. Draco halted them, too, standing
in the middle of the instrument room and staring into Harry�s eyes. Harry felt
a choking sensation creep through his lungs. It was an effort to keep his own
breath moving the way he should.

�� Draco bent
down and held his lips an inch or so away from Harry�s. The tension built up to
the point that Harry swayed. He could tell himself he was dizzy with the
dancing, when he had gone backwards and in circles as much as forwards, but he�d
stopped being a fan of self-deception when he got out of Hogwarts. He shivered
and resisted the temptation to initiate the kiss for long moments.

�� Then he
broke, because the tension was like a cord pulling him into Draco now and he
wanted the kiss badly enough not to care, and made up for all Draco�s
hesitation with a hand around the back of his neck.

�� Draco
uttered a surprised sound, which was even better, but better still was when
Harry silenced him with his tongue. Ah, God, he�d forgotten already how eagerly Draco�s tongue
sought out his and the way that Draco�s hands drifted up when he got lost in
the kiss to cup the sides of Harry�s face. How could he have forgotten already?

�� Harry
twitched a leg forwards, wrapping his heel firmly around Draco�s knee. Draco
hopped to keep his balance. Harry pulled again, and they fell to the floor with
Harry on top. Draco said something that could have been a complaint, but Harry
pinned him with his hands on his shoulders and thoroughly licked behind his
teeth until he moaned in surrender and opened his mouth wider.

�� Harry
finally drew back, shutting his eyes to savor the richness of the silence between
them, the feel of Draco�s chest having under his hand, the foreign taste in his
mouth.

*

�� Draco lay quiet,
trembling. He flattened his palms on the floor and silently begged for some
small part of the strength of the spinning earth beneath him. He needed it,
because at the moment he simply didn�t have the force of will inside himself
not to flip Harry over and take him here.

�� But he didn�t
know enough about having sex with a man yet. Humping each other was one thing�he�d
done that with women�but Draco hadn�t studied lubrication spells in detail and
he realized that he would need them. Making Harry laugh at him the first time
they had proper sex was not a
possibility.

�� Besides, he
hadn�t had enough of seduction yet. It would be worth it if he could wait and
tease and tempt Harry into offering himself, the way he�d teased him into the
kiss.

�� His body
throbbed at him, telling him that nothing could be worth this. Especially with Harry sitting back and bringing his arse into
contact with Draco�s groin.

�� Harry
seemed to understand, because he chuckled into Draco�s ear and then rolled off
him. Draco licked his lips. At least a sideways glance showed him that Harry
was walking cautiously.

�� And all this from a kiss. Draco
swallowed against the realization. He�d been able to excite women that much
with just a kiss, but usually they wanted him already and he was gratifying
their desires. He at least had to touch their breasts, or see them with their
hair unbound, which always affected him, before he was so ready.

�� Harry didn�t
have long hair, which was a pity. But he had a challenge�already his eyes were
direct again, his smile wry, as if he were thinking about all the changes he
had asked Draco to make yesterday�which more than made up for it.

�� Draco managed
to stand by placing his hands flat on the floor and bringing his knees up
little by little. He still bent awkwardly at the waist when he was upright, but
Harry gave his groin a whip-quick glance and suddenly started walking a little
more awkwardly himself. That was as it should be, Draco thought. He didn�t want
Harry to be too easily submissive, but neither did he want to be outdistanced.

�� I reckon I�ll
see you later, then.� Harry�s voice was gratifyingly breathless.

�� Much later,� Draco said, to imply a
nice, long wank, and Harry�s eyes deepened in color until Draco thought they
might have their roll on the floor after all. But then he caught his breath and
rushed out of the room.

�� Draco
retired slowly to his own chambers, mind already fastened on the image that he
would use to bring himself off: Harry, braced against his hands in the dance, body
locked in tension that felt like quivering resistance�whilst his eyes shone
with a dark fire that Draco thought could immolate them both.

�� If you can make the changes. If you are only
patient.

*

�� GeminiCancer:
Thank you!

�� Yami
Bakura: Thank you. Harry and Draco are gearing up for a different kind of battle
than they previously imagined, but the struggle is still there.

�� kegunPotter:
Thanks.

�� butterpie: Thanks!
Harry and Draco do have lots to sort out, which is one reason they aren�t
jumping into bed quite yet. And despite Draco�s good intentions, it remains to
be seen whether he can do what Harry wants him to do.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thank you! I�ve read many fanfics where Harry never confronts Draco about his
beliefs, and it bothers me, because valuing your culture is one thing (as Harry
says), but racism/prejudice is the kind of belief that needs to be challenged. It adds nothing.

�� YanaYugi:
Harry just thinks Draco�s possessiveness is a little strange.

�� Werewolf
Mistress: Thanks for reviewing.
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Providence