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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.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve�Unexpected
Tangles

�� Ah, thank
you, Severus.�

�� Severus did
not look at Albus�s face, because, if he did, then he
was likely to say something he would regret. He continued wrapping the
potion-soaked bandages around the Headmaster�s swollen fingers instead, making
sure to touch every bit of skin. Albus let his head fall forwards when Severus
finished, exhaling in a way that made it clear how much of his breath and pain
he�d held in during the operation.

�� Severus
could bear it no longer. He leaned forwards and spoke with the quiet intensity
that had persuaded Albus when he could persuade Albus at all. �Why must you do
this alone? Tell me which Dark artifacts you are hunting, and I can come up
with potions that would neutralize them, or at least make the hunting easier.�

�� Albus
looked up at him with a misty smile. Severus was not impressed, as he never was
by the act that made Albus look like a doting grandfather. He knew there was
steel beneath that surface, and the sword-smile would flash out when he least
expected it, as long as they were alone. �Ah, my boy, I know you would help if
you could,� he said, in the same soft tone that Severus had used. �But it is
not to be expected.� He flexed his wrapped hand gingerly. �The Dark magic in
these artifacts is not amenable to potions. It is hardly amenable to anything
except outright destruction.�

�� Severus
looked askance at the cracked cup that rested on the desk beside Albus. It did
not look dangerous to him. Of course, when he let his other senses than sight
extend towards it, such as the sensitivity to blood magic that he had developed
in the Dark Lord�s service, then he could feel the aura of evil leaking from
it. He shuddered and turned his attention back to Albus�s
hand.

�� Is it
truly weakening your magic?� he asked.

�� Albus
laughed and extended his unwounded hand in front of him. A fountain of red and
gold sparks rose from his palm. It would have been a simple trick to perform
with a wand, but Albus wasn�t holding one.

�� Severus
nodded in reluctant satisfaction. Wandless magic weakened first, if it weakened
at all. �I still wish you would let me help,� he said, simply to get the point
across, as he began to clean up the empty vials and spare bandages he had
brought to the office.

�� There is
not much remaining for you to help with.� Albus sat back in his chair and
reached for one of the lemon drops. Severus rolled his eyes. Someday he was
going to design a potion that did not work with lemon drops in the body, merely
to see Albus�s expression when he had to stop taking
them. �Now comes the time for research. I believe I know where Tom is hiding
another of these artifacts, but not the last two.� A flash of sadness passed
over his face for no reason that Severus could understand. �Yes, it would be
two,� he said, so softly that Severus would not have heard him if he wasn�t
straining his ears.

�� Since he
would get no clarity from Albus on that subject, Severus changed it to a
different one. �I didn�t know that you had seen fit to block memories from the
time when I first came to you and offered to change my allegiance,� he said
casually.

�� He received
no more than a quick hawk-look before Albus smiled genially, and even that
could have been a lie�but he did not think
it was, and that was enough for him. He had estimated the age of the wall
blocking his memories off to be at least sixteen years, probably closer to
seventeen. If Albus had reached out to impinge his memory,
that was the first chance he would have had during that year to do so.

�� Then the Dark Lord is the most likely
culprit. Severus might have thought someone else was to blame�perhaps a
fellow Death Eater�except that few people had ever taken him by surprise when
it came to the mental arts, and fewer still would have the power to build a
wall like that. It had to be one of his masters.

�� You and
your suspicions,� Albus said, with an airy little wave. He crunched his way
contentedly into another sweet, and then spoke with his mouth full, a habit
that annoyed Severus to no end because he was forever having
to train it out of his Slytherins. �How are you getting on with young Harry?�

�� Better
than I was,� said Severus. �I have learned that he wears a
glamour for no discernible reason, and that the Dementors that were
appearing to him are real enough to cause certain physical effects.� He
described the state of Potter when he had transported him to the hospital wing
the other night.

�� Do keep an
eye on him, Severus.� Albus�s voice had turned quiet
again, but without the force he had used to convince Severus that he could not
help. He stared at his wounded hand as if he was estimating when the bandages
would come off. �I will try to aid him�my aid will need to start very soon�but
he needs more help than I can give.�

�� I do not
understand why you want me to do this,� Severus said, giving voice to one of
the questions that had haunted his mind since Albus�s
first order. �If he needs to build a bond of trust and confidence with a
professor, surely Minerva would be better.�

�� If that
were the only thing, I would indeed ask her to do it.� Albus glanced up at him.
�But you know that we need to defeat Voldemort, and after Harry himself, you
are the one who comes closest to realizing the boy�s importance to the war. I
fear Minerva would indulge him too much.�

�� Does that
mean that I can do the opposite of indulge him?� Severus smirked at Albus.

�� Severus.� The Headmaster looked
half-amused even so. �You know that you achieve surer results with compassion
and understanding.�

�� I know I
can use understanding to destroy my enemies,� Severus retorted. He had not
truly expected Albus to give him permission to mentally scar the boy, but it
was good, sometimes, to remind Albus that Severus was more than just his tame
Potions master. �I will bring you a potion for your hand tomorrow.�

�� Good
night, my boy.�

�� Albus was
already opening a book as Severus turned towards the door to the moving
staircase. Severus bowed his head a moment in homage, though the Headmaster
didn�t glance up to receive it. Severus himself sometimes tired of the double
life he had to lead and the risks he had to take, but he did not think the
Headmaster knew what weariness meant.

*

�� Draco
narrowed his eyes when he saw Potter come happy and chattering into Defense
with his friends beside him. He looked as though he�d never been covered in
welts and boils the other night. Draco had gone to the infirmary and asked
Madam Pomfrey about Potter, but she had told him briskly that he had no right
to know private information about another student and bundled him out the door.

�� Draco was
irritated at that. Like it or not, his survival was tied to Potter�s now.
Potter knew that Draco had a mission,
if not what it was, and Draco wanted to keep him close to make sure that he
didn�t tell anyone else. And if Draco ended up coming to Dumbledore�s side,
Potter was one of the people he would have to work most closely with, like it
or not.

�� It could be
even more than that. Potter was the only person on Dumbledore�s side that Draco
thought he understood at the moment, the only one he knew was near his own age, the only one he
could speak to about something other than the war. And he hadn�t betrayed Draco
to the Aurors when he had the chance, even though it would have a perfectly
reasonable thing to do. Draco wanted to know more about why.

�� He waited
until Potter was sitting down and then gave a quick glance at the door.
Professor Snape hadn�t come in yet. Draco drew his wand and aimed at Weasley
under the desk.

�� Confundus,� he whispered.

�� He couldn�t
see Weasley�s face, but he knew his eyes would be growing glazed. The next
moment, Weasley said, in a voice even more mindless than usual, �Lavender is a
really good kisser. I never knew that.�

�� Other than
several shocked gasps and giggles, you could have whispered in the classroom
and been heard. Then Granger said in a voice that made Draco wince, �What?�

�� Draco
smiled smugly. He�d seen Weasley snogging the Brown bint in the corridors. It figured that that thought would
be at the top of his mind and come out first thing if he wasn�t carefully
preventing it. Of course, if it hadn�t, something else equally astounding would
have. Weasley�s mind was a chaos like that.

�� It served
his purpose, distracting Potter�s best friends. Potter leaned back in his chair
and watched them with slowly blinking eyes as they fought. Draco quickly
scribbled a note on a spare piece of parchment, folded it into a small dragon,
and tapped it with his wand so that its wings would beat and carry it over to
Potter�s chair.

�� The dragon
landed in front of him. Potter�s hand shot over and crushed it as if it was an
insect. Draco sniffed. He�d better not throw it away or crumple it up without
looking at it. Draco was proud of his ability to send notes shaped that way.

�� But Potter
cradled the dragon in his hands instead and lifted it to his face without
taking his eyes from his best friends. Then he spread the note out and read it.
Draco smiled at the back of his head. He didn�t need to see Potter�s face to
know the bewildered expressions that would be passing over it.

�� How are you feeling?

�� It was the
last thing Potter would be expecting from a rival, someone who hated him. And
though Draco hoped Potter would eventually come to recognize that their
relationship to each other had changed, the most
important thing for the moment was keeping him off-balance and slow to
respond.

�� Potter
turned the flattened dragon over and wrote something on the back. Then he
rolled it up and tossed it into the air as though throwing it away. You would
have had to be quick of eye�and not watching Granger and Weasley�to notice the
tiny wind charm that caught it and sent it scudding back to Draco. Potter even
sent it under the table, so it was less noticeable.

�� Impressive, Draco thought, as he looked
down to read it. Potter had improved over the summer in magic as well as in
wits.

�� And looks.

�� Draco
rolled his eyes. He hated it when he had stray, irrelevant thoughts like that.
In the past, he�d tended to have them about Quidditch, wondering what the
effects of certain plays would be, and about Hufflepuff House, wondering why
the Slytherins hadn�t got together and massacred them long ago. The last thing
he needed was to have thoughts like that about Potter.

�� You don�t fucking care, Malfoy, and don�t
try to pretend you do, Potter�s note said.

�� Draco�s lip
curled. He reached for his quill, knowing exactly what he would write. Such vulgar language to use
to someone who�s only interested in your well-being.

�� But
Professor Snape entered the room then, and Draco didn�t dare pass notes in
front of him. Even Granger and Weasley had the sense to shut up when they saw
their professor, though they scowled at each other.

Draco satisfied himself with
glaring at the back of Potter�s head as Snape began the lecture. Don�t think that you�re getting away with
this. You interfered in my life, and that gives me permission to interfere in
yours.

*

�� Harry
turned another page in the book he�d stolen from Madam Pomfrey and sighed,
rubbing at his eyes with one fist. There was so much information about the bloodline curses that could be cast on
various lines, and so much of it was written in a dry and dusty way, as dry as
the textbook that Umbridge had wanted them to use in Defense last year. He
didn�t know how he was supposed to do this on his own.

�� Then he sat
up and straightened his back, wincing as a broken bookcase that stood near the
center of this version of the Room of Requirement poked him in the spine.

�� The only alternative to
telling Hermione, or whoever I want to help me, about Snape. And that�s not an option at all.

�� Harry
turned another page, and the word �Potter� caught his eye. He bent down and
read.

�� The most common Potter bloodline curse, like
many, does not surface in every generation, but only once every two or three.
It involves a grand feeling of power, and the victim�s self-confidence
sometimes strengthens their magic for a short time, supporting the delusion. In
the end, many Potters are injured or do damage to their magical cores while
attempting to accomplish feats beyond their strength. They survive to pass
their curse to the next generation, but they will miss out on the glory that
could have been theirs.

�� Harry let a
gusty sigh go and flipped more pages. It was all like that. It seemed that most
of the bloodline curses had been designed to let people survive and go on
having children, or the families themselves would have died out, but they hurt
people and their power and prestige.

�� The one
thing Harry was sure of after reading this book was that the ancient
pure-bloods were a bunch of bloody-minded bastards, and that it was no wonder
Voldemort wanted to imitate them.

�� No matter
how he looked, though, he couldn�t find a reference to Snape. Harry growled and
slammed the book shut. It would be just his luck if Snape was descended from
someone who had married into another family and changed their name, but if that
was the case, Harry didn�t know how he was going to find out.

�� I can hardly say, �Hullo, sir, mind giving
me the names of your ancestors back to the sixteenth century? All of them?�

�� Harry
rubbed his eyes again and shoved the book carefully back into its hiding place,
beneath a curtain that draped over the edge of a table. There was more than one
reason to keep the book hidden, even if it didn�t tell him anything useful. If
someone read that part about the Potter bloodline curses, they would know that
he wasn�t a Potter. And since his mother was a Muggleborn�

�� Harry
grimaced and shook his head as he stepped out of the Room of Requirement and
watched the door fade into the stone. It was all complicated and confusing and stupid. He wished this hadn�t happened
and that he�d never known. It sounded like the bloodline curse wouldn�t kill
him. If he didn�t know the truth, then he could just suffer through it and it
would go away and he would be left none the worse for wear, like with so much
else in his life.

�� He turned
around.

�� Only to
find Snape right behind him, staring at him down the length of a lighted wand
with an expression that could have made Dudley stop beating up little kids.

�� Harry flinched
for a minute. Then he remembered. Snape was like Uncle Vernon, and bullies
attacked when you showed fear. Harry hadn�t done anything wrong. It was still
before curfew, and this wasn�t a night when he and Snape had lessons. Harry
lifted his head and matched Snape glare for glare. �Sir?� he asked coolly.

�� You are to
tell me,� Snape said, every word delicate and careful, �this instant, why you used a Memory Charm on Madam Pomfrey.�

*

�� Until
Potter�s face darkened with guilt, Severus had not been truly certain. The
evidence pointed that way, especially when the matron babbled that she knew Potter was fine, she was just a bit
fuzzy about what he had come to the hospital wing for and couldn�t remember any
of the symptoms but she knew�

�� But there
was the guilt.

�� Severus
stepped forwards and cast a Sticking Charm to bind Potter�s feet to the floor.
The boy gave him a shocked and betrayed look when he tried to run away and
couldn�t. Then he hunched his shoulders and bowed his head in the same odd
posture he�d used when Severus bound him to the wall of his office.

�� At some
point Severus would have to figure out why that particular posture was so
familiar. But it would have to be a point when anger didn�t fill his head like a
white flame burning behind his eyes.

�� You idiot boy.�
He couldn�t even raise his voice. Luckily, Potter looked as if the lowered
tones would be as effective in frightening him as a yell would be. Good. �Do you have the slightest idea of
what you were doing? You have no expertise
in the arts of the mind. You could have ensured that she went as mad as
Lockhart with one misplaced syllable. What were you thinking? Is it so important to you to look invincible that you
must try to hurt someone who was doing you only good?�

�� Behind the
anger was shock�he truly had not thought Potter would do something like this,
however morally corrupt the boy was in other dimensions�and more anger, at
himself. He had not anticipated this, but he should have. He should have
remained with the matron until she could discern what Potter was afflicted with
and speak to him about it.

�� But then you would not have spoken with
Draco, as also needed to be done.

�� It was easy
to turn the anger into rage into Potter. It would have been counterproductive
to turn it against himself. He leaned forwards and held his silence, waiting
for the boy�s answer, but allowing his face to turn harder and harder as each
minute passed.

*

�� Panic as
white as the strange Dementors tried to consume Harry. He couldn�t imagine�he didn�t
know�he�d never been good at lying when put on the spot, and if he didn�t lie,
who knew what would happen�

�� And then he
realized that he had an advantage. Snape would never ever believe something
like him sleeping with Harry�s mum without prompting. Never in a million years.
He�d already come up with his own reason for why Harry had done this. All Harry
had to do was build on it.

�� He put on
his most stubborn expression, the one that would have got him a cuff to the
back of his head from Uncle Vernon, and said between gritted teeth, �I thought
you would approve of me for not showing weakness, sir. You always seem disgusted when I can�t do or a spell or I can�t
do Occlumency. And we don�t know about
Madam Pomfrey, do we? I mean, not for certain? What would happen if she told
the wrong person about my weakness, on accident or on purpose? I know that Voldemort is watching me all
the time.� He really enjoyed watching Snape flinch away from the name this
time. �I can�t take the chance.�

�� Snape�s
nostrils pinched in until Harry wondered how he could breathe out of them. And he
was watching Harry like a hawk, and his hand was twitching on his wand, and
Harry braced in anticipation of the spell to come.

�� He didn�t
know if he would fool Snape. But it had to work. That was what Snape thought.
He had no reason to think anything else. Harry was just a stupid fool, someone
he could yell at but didn�t have to care about at all.

�� Come on, Harry thought urgently. Believe it the way I want you to.

*

�� Severus
stared at Potter with the boy�s comebacks ringing in his ears. Stronger still
was the pounding of his own heart in his anger.

�� But
strongest of all were the ringing echoes that he had got from the boy�s
behavior and the sight of Lily�s face in the water last time they had a
confrontation.

�� Something
was wrong. Of course Potter had acted
stupidly; he did that all the time. Most of the time, however, Severus could understand
why it had happened. This time, he could not.

�� Potter�s
action smacked of desperation. It could be, as he had said, that he had some
idea of the real stakes and a lack of trust, both of which Severus would find
it hard to condemn him for. He had taken an irresponsible, foolish action because
of it, but in that case Severus should teach him better, instead of attempting to
change the principles on which he had acted.

�� Yet�

�� Severus
could not think the boy had changed that quickly and completely over the course
of one summer. He would not use a Memory Charm in such a cause. He might use it
to defend a stronger, deeper secret.

�� But what
that secret could be, Severus had no idea as yet.

�� Severus
stepped smoothly back and released the Sticking Charm that tied Potter�s feet
to the floor. Potter leaped away at once, his eyes bright and wary and his wand
in his hand. Severus restrained a growl. Yes, Potter should stay cautious and
not trust anyone in sight, but that should not include him.

�� Fifty
points from Gryffindor for an action that could severely have hurt an innocent,�
Severus said. �Ten for defying me. And
five for wasting my time.� He turned and strode away towards his lab.

�� The nagging
thoughts in his head that he could not quite identify and his uncertainty had
made him determine to begin breaking down the memory block tonight. If he could
not be completely in control of what was happening in the world around him, he
could at least be in control of his own mind.

*

�� Harry
leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. He had waited until Snape was around
the corner and then run most of the way up to Gryffindor Tower, because after
all his talk about weakness it would probably look bloody suspicious if he
broke down in front of the man.

�� Besides, he
never wanted to show more weakness to Snape if he could help it.

�� God, that was�

�� Harry wiped
at his forehead and his throat, where the sweat seemed to have collected, and
straightened. He wasn�t going to think about it. The point was, it was done, and Harry would certainly remember
the lie he�d told, so he didn�t have to worry about tripping up if he talked to
Snape about it later.

�� He was just
around the corner from the Fat Lady. He stepped forwards.

�� The air
seemed to stir, and there was Malfoy, coming out from under a Disillusionment
Charm and staring at him with a stony, determined look. Harry bit back a groan.

�� Madam Pomfrey�s been Obliviated,�
Malfoy said. �Was it you?� Then he rolled his eyes and snorted. �What am I
talking about? Of course it was you.� He leaned towards Harry. �I want to know
why.�

�� I don�t
care if you tell Snape,� Harry said, deciding to take a risk. �He already
knows, and he doesn�t care.�

�� Malfoy gave
him the kind of smile Harry thought he would see on Mrs. Norris�s face, if she
could smile. �You should be more worried about who else I would tell.�

�� Harry
glared at him. Malfoy raised an eyebrow and smirked. Harry glanced around,
remembering then that someone would probably be along at any minute and they
would be more than curious when they saw him talking to Malfoy.

�� Fine,� he muttered. �Come on.� He
whirled around and started in the direction of Umbridge�s old office, which no
one was occupying this year.

�� Malfoy followed
him with what sounded like a chuckle, but Harry didn�t look over his shoulder because
he didn�t want to get in a duel. He gritted his teeth and walked on.

�� Bloody Slytherins. Why can�t they leave me
alone?

�� But beneath
his irritation was bewilderment.

�� Why aren�t they leaving me alone? Snape shouldn�t care this much. If Malfoy wanted
revenge, this is a weird way to do it.

�� I don�t understand them.

*

�� The AFF admins have asked that I post review replies elsewhere to
save server space, so I have put my replies to the reviews on the last chapter
at http://lomonaaerenrr.livejournal.com/903.html.
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Practicing Liars