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The Conservation of Fame	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 22392 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve—Nadir

            Harry woke abruptly, the way he tended to on most mornings when he hadn’t slept behind his own wards. He lay still, partially because of the unfamiliarity of the room and partially because of the arm across his waist pinning him to the bed, turning his head so that he could take in the sights around him.

            This particular bedroom—from the rows of doors they had passed last night, Draco hadn’t been lying about the number of them in the Manor—was decorated in a mixture of pale greens and some yellows that Harry had expected to find nauseating. It was pleasant in the sunlight, though, and so was the breeze from the large open window. Harry sniffed, and caught a hint of roses, dirt, and sharper things. This bedroom must look out over the gardens.

            The fireplace’s mantle was white marble, of course; Harry should have known it was never going to be anything else. It was unmarked, unstained, by any vein of color, but he could see a few delicate boxes sitting near the edge. They looked like lacquered wood, the colors of jade and gold and ebony. Harry wanted to get up and run his fingers along their smooth sides.

            The fireplace grate was a single pane of glass, depicting curling ocean waves with racing clouds above them. Harry wondered who had chosen that, if it represented Draco’s good taste or his mother’s or a throwaway contribution to decorating this room for guests.

            The bed was so huge that Harry had actually needed the help of the footstool Draco had lent him to get inside it. It had curtains along only one side, for some reason, the one nearest the door, as if Draco wanted to keep himself from hearing the house-elves passing up and down the corridor. There was sheer openness on the other side, with the carpet somewhere down there, past the froth of lace and cloth. Harry rolled to the side, wondering if he would be able to see it and determine what color it was. He didn’t think he’d noticed last night.

            The arm across his waist halted him, and then Draco rolled into the dent in the bed he’d made and murmured in his ear, “Good morning.”

            Harry turned his head to capture Draco’s mouth, and Draco allowed it with scarcely a murmur. His fingers smoothed up and through Harry’s hair, down his sides to his ribs, and paused for a moment before sinking into the soft skin there.

            Harry smiled into the kiss. “Not ticklish, sorry,” he said, and ran a hand into Draco’s own hair. It looked a natural, tangled mess, and Harry tugged on it hard, pulling his hand back only when he heard Draco’s curse and fluttering his eyelashes at him. “I like it.”

            “You would,” Draco said, lying there with his eyes half-lidded and his smile so satisfied that Harry was tempted to fuck him again so he would lose that look. “You like naturally chaotic things, I’ve already noticed.”

            “Does that fit in with all the other conclusions that you think you’ve drawn about me, or not?” Harry yawned, and stretched his arms over his head, towards the pillows. They were miracles of softness, so much so that Harry had found his head sinking into them until he almost suffocated and had actually rolled to the side so that he could rest on Draco’s shoulder. He had to have something solid to prop him up.

            How long since you’ve had that thought?

            Harry shrugged irritably to himself. Yes, once his Auror job had been the foundation he thought he would build the rest of his life on, but that hadn’t worked out. He had his house and his friends and his convictions and, oh, everything else to build on now.

            And I don’t know how much of a place Draco can have in that, when he’s the only one I’m close to who doesn’t know the truth.

            Draco hadn’t answered his last question, Harry realized. He turned his head and found that Draco had risen on his side, although God knew where he got the purchase to do so in the enormously soft bed, and was staring down at him with pensive eyes.

            “I know that you’re chaotic,” Draco said, as if talking to someone who wasn’t in the bed right beside him, and watching him with a fairly critical eye. “I know that you were probably in Gryffindor. I know you got in trouble with the Ministry, and felt that you had to cast a spell that erased my memory in order to hide.” He stared harder.

            “Not just your memories,” Harry said, rolling his eyes and wondering if the sex had been good enough to change Draco’s opinion of him. “Everyone’s.”

            “Mine is still the most important,” Draco said. “And you claim that you hated my father, and my wand reacts to you.” He looked over at the table where Harry had laid his wand and glasses when they had finally fallen into the bed to sleep, and reached out a hand. Harry watched him in some amusement. Draco had already touched the holly wand when he dangled Harry over the edge of his broom. If it hadn’t reacted to him then, then it seemed unlikely that it would right now.

            Draco picked up the wand and made a few passes through the air with it, then shook his head and gave it to Harry. Harry used it to clean up his morning breath and heal some of the aches and twinges coming from his arse, then ran his hand down Draco’s back and healed a few of the scrapes he’d left there.

            Draco shivered under the influence of the magic, not taking his eyes away from Harry’s face. “You took mine,” he said. “You used it. But it seems that I never made your wand obey me. I wonder why not? That’s the kind of confrontation I would have demanded an equal share of.”

            “I don’t know,” Harry said, cocking his head to the side and feigning confusion that he hoped Draco would find adorable. “That seems to be the kind of thing that you would repay as soon as you could, you’re right.”

            “Don’t do that, please.” Draco’s eyelids flicked shut and then opened again. He was staring intently at Harry and speaking in a voice so low that Harry had to concentrate to hear the individual words.

            “Don’t do what?” Harry asked.

            “Don’t act as though you’re puzzled when I know you’re not,” Draco said quietly. “I know that you realize the truth, and probably—you think it’s funny to watch me grope after it.” His face began to turn red. “But you can at least act decent and not as though you share my confusion.”

            Harry nodded and gripped Draco’s wrist for a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

            Draco’s face froze in the middle of a smile. “I don’t think I’ve heard you say that before,” he whispered. “Or not often. Is that another clue?”

            “I don’t know,” Harry said, forcing himself to lean back on the pillow and idly spin his wand instead of pointing it at Draco. “I reckon it could be. I don’t know what’s going through your head right now, how advanced you are at figuring out who I am.”

            “I want to know,” Draco said, and rose to his hands and knees so smoothly that Harry spent a moment blinking until he realized that Draco was leaning over him, his hands locked on Harry’s shoulders, his leg sliding in between Harry’s thighs. Harry shut his eyes and thought about objecting that the way Draco was handling his questioning really wasn’t fair, but then Draco’s leg began to rub and he abandoned the questions for moaning instead. Draco stroked his jaw, leaned down to kiss him, and then went on as though nothing had happened to interrupt him. “If you would just tell me, it would be easier.”

            “I couldn’t,” Harry said, wrestling back control of himself and opening his eyes. “It wouldn’t do any good. The spell wouldn’t let you accept anything I said that contradicted what you already believe.”

            “How…interesting,” Draco said, and bit Harry’s chin hard enough that he knew it wasn’t intended as a love bite. He pulled back and sat up, or tried. Draco was still on top of him, and came with him, smiling at him with savage eyes. “And it doesn’t matter to you what I want? It doesn’t matter to you what I ask for?”

            “Yes, it matters,” Harry said, too far gone to lie, and let his eyes slip shut. He was thinking: Perhaps this is the best way. If Draco doesn’t like me, really doesn’t like me, then I don’t have to worry about him breaking the spell.

            “Then tell me.” Draco’s hands were gentle on him, and firm at the same time.

            Harry shook his head, listening to the rustle of his hair on the pillow and the gasps that came through his parted lips as if they were made by another person.

            “Can’t, won’t, what?” Draco’s grip tightened, ran over him, song-quick and breeze-light. “Harry.”

            Harry sighed, and turned his head. It looked as if he wasn’t going to get out of this, and that meant that he had to say something. It was impossible to leave Draco wanting, even if it would be better, even if he thought that sooner or later it was going to happen anyway. He was incapable of making it happen of his own free will.

            “The spell prevents me,” he whispered. “And because I’m afraid that you would abandon me the moment you found out who I was.”

            Draco made a growling sound that warned Harry a moment before Draco flipped him over and leaned on him, his hands bracing themselves on Harry’s naked hips as if he wanted to rip the skin off. “We’ve been over that. I have to know. I want to know. And I have no intention of ever letting you go.” He kissed Harry in the middle of the back, as if he thought gentleness might persuade Harry to tell him where force wouldn’t.

            Harry sighed and stretched under the kiss, and then reached back and took the back of Draco’s neck in his hand, not trying to draw him forwards, just feeling and keeping him there.

            “Harry,” Draco whispered again, and bent down long enough to apply his teeth where his lips had been, sucking, drawing, making Harry writhe in lazy urgency under his tongue.

            “Keep doing that, and I might just keep you there and doing that,” Harry muttered, arching his neck back and feeling Draco’s teeth scrape down just to the right of his spine. “Not tell the truth. Your teeth.”

            “They are rather good, aren’t they?” Draco said, in a voice that wound all around Harry’s body and tightened and tensed his muscles at once, and then Draco’s hand was on his spine, his shoulder blade, rubbing up and around. “Harry. Please.”

            Harry shuddered a little at the last word. He was sure that it was one Draco didn’t use often. He rolled over, and Draco let him do it, his eyes eager on Harry’s face. He could feel them long before he faced Draco.

            When they were face-to-face again, Draco kissed him, so that any confession Harry might have wanted to make was drowned by teeth and tongue and lips. Then he let the kiss go and sprawled across Harry’s stomach and legs, his own legs kicking up towards the end of the bed, his face shining.

            Harry swallowed. The sight made him want to get up and flee, and not because he was afraid of the damage Draco could do if he punched Harry with all the force of that lithe body behind the gesture. He didn’t want to damage that expression on Draco’s face. It really didn’t matter what kind of damage he took himself.

            But Draco was there, and he deserved an answer. Harry reached out and cradled Draco’s face between his hands, running his fingers up and down his cheeks. Draco closed his eyes and turned his head to the side so that he could kiss Harry’s palms.

            “If I could tell anyone, it would be you,” Harry whispered. “You mean more to me than anyone except my friends has since I put up the spell. I’ve dated people, and made friends, and talked to them about my hobbies, but you’re the only one I’ve shared something this deep with.”

            Draco’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked at Harry in a way that made Harry have to look down.

            “But besides the spell,” Harry whispered, “there’s the fact that I’m fucking selfish, and want to enjoy you being with me for a little while. I can’t enjoy that if I have to worry about what you’ll do when you find out. I want—will you let it go for right now, Draco? If you figure it out on your own, that’s fine, but I don’t want you to ask me anymore.”

            Draco pulled away from him, as Harry had feared and thought would happen, and moved restlessly, on his hands and knees, towards the end of the bed, shaking his head all the while. “God,” he muttered. “You sound as frightened as a little boy. Maybe I was wrong about you being in Gryffindor.”

            “Draco—” Harry tried to say.

            Draco pulled himself haughtily up at the far end of the bed, which put more distance between them than Harry would have liked, just due to the sheer size of the bed, and glared at him. “I like you, you wanker,” he snapped. “I see the man who took care of me, and the man I had the most incredible sex with last night, and the man who got away from me when I took his wand and his broom. And I can’t reconcile it with someone who’s asking me to give up the one thing I want to know most.”

            “Draco,” Harry said again. He was uneasy. He could feel a tightening sensation in his spine, and he wondered if he was getting close to the point where he would try to tell Draco himself, spell or no spell.

            “Fuck off.” Draco gave his head an irritated motion that was neither nod nor jerk, as though he had started out with one and then couldn’t get it to change into what he wanted. “Merlin, not even the Boy-Who-Lived tried to make decisions for other people like this—”

            His voice vanished. His smile vanished. He stared at Harry with falling eyes.

            Harry felt the tension in his spine snap. It was a fragile thing, a string that unraveled and plucked him on the head as though unleashed from a harp, but he felt all the muscles in his body pull taut.

            Draco stared at him.

            The falling eyes became knowing ones.

            Harry looked down.

            And Draco moved.

            “You,” he was saying, something of the way he had said it last night in there, and something of horror, and something that made Harry tense and begin counting down in his head. Draco had stretched his arm out to the side and his hand was on the hawthorn wand, but his gaze was still on Harry, devouring. “You—I saw the scar, but it was so faint, and then I thought—you.”

            He cast the curse nonverbally, so that the first thing Harry knew about it was the long beam of yellow light streaking towards him.

            But Harry had his Auror training, and he had his anticipation of what would happen when this happened, in a way that Draco never could have. He flipped himself forwards and off the bed, bracing for the landing jolt, and the curse hit Draco’s headboard and started a fire. Harry flattened his belly to the floor and scooted under the bed, Summoning his wand with a flick of his head, and then casting the Summoning Charm that would reach for his clothes. He could Apparate naked if he had to, but—

            The bed above him started to cave in. Harry raised a Shield Charm above his head and scuttled under the protection of its dome to the edge.

            There, Draco’s hawthorn wand thrust into the curve of his throat. Harry looked up along the wand to the edge of it, and Draco’s face, and the knowledge that was cut there like a wound.

            “How could you,” Draco said, not enough breath behind it to make it a question. Harry wouldn’t pretend not to know what he meant, but at the same time, there were too many things there for him to grasp them all.

            Instead, he held Draco’s gaze and said words that he hoped would make more sense later, when Draco wasn’t in the mood to kill him instead of listen. “I’m sorry.”

            Draco shook his head, refusing the apology. He was white to the lips, and he began to chant as Harry watched, his wand weaving back and forth, his head half-lowered and the words tripping out of his mouth.

            Harry recognized the spell. It would turn him to stone, and then Draco could stick him in the corner of one room and do whatever he wanted to him later. It was easily reversible for the caster, but no one else would ever know what had become of Harry. Draco would have full control, and could lie to Harry’s friends if they came by, and with the Manor’s wards no one would be able to break in—

            “Confringo,” Harry said flatly.

            The bed shattered, and the burning headboard behind Draco, and the wall behind that. Draco cursed and flung himself sideways, ruining his spell. Harry rolled over, and found his clothes coming to him. He yanked the shirt over his head and pulled on the trousers. He would worry about the pants later.

            He looked back, because he must, to see Draco rising to his feet, one hand on his cheek where a flying piece of wood must have struck him. Harry met his gaze and just waited, his throat so full of his heartbeat that he couldn’t have spoken even if he’d tried.

            “Why?” Draco whispered.

            “Because you were trying to control me,” Harry said. “No.”

            “I hate you,” Draco said.

            Harry just nodded and then backed up a step when he noticed the wand coming around by Draco’s hip. “Lift the wards,” he said.

            “Or what?” Draco lowered his head and moved a half-step forwards.

            Harry raised his wand and struck out as hard and as fast as he could. The Manor’s wards ripped above him, stone parting, and then ancient magic, and then newer magic, and then the newest and most fragile spells of all, and Harry knew the backlash would hit him in a moment and double him over.

            But he Apparated before that could happen, and the racking pains seized him beside his own hearth, and he rolled over on the carpet and vomited into his own basin that stood ready in the corner of the room. Backlash like this had happened before.

            That done, he closed his eyes and leaned his head on the carpet. He was shaking, but he was whole, and what had happened was no more than what he had expected.

            But it was done with, and while he was sorry to hurt Draco—

            Now Draco knew.

*

            SP777: I don’t do it the majority of the time because sex scenes are not the majority of my fics!

            moodysavage: Thank you!

            LeaniaSTL: The main problem here is that Harry is going to find it hard to forgive Draco’s apparent desire to control him.

            elementalwitch: Thank you! I do enjoy these kinds of scenes, but I find I have to be in just the right mindset to write them, and sometimes that doesn’t work. I appreciate the compliments of a pro, though. ;)

            Amberr: And here’s more of it! Sorry.
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The Conservation of Fame