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The House That Lovers Built	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14853 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twelve—Of All the Conversations

            They walked aimlessly for a while after they got out of the Wizengamot’s courtroom. There was really no place in the Ministry they could go that someone couldn’t spy on them with wards, Harry thought, and was impressed with Draco for recognizing the same thing. And he wasn’t about to invite Draco back to his home, and he doubted that Draco wanted to invite him to Malfoy Manor, or wherever he was living now.

            I don’t even know that.

            Harry shook his head. Of course he didn’t. Draco was a Potions master who had admitted to brewing Dark potions, or at least ones with illegal ingredients and dangerous effects, and Harry was an Auror. Still. Despite everything.

            The time in the house didn’t change me from what I was. It taught me that it’s not all I have to be, perhaps.

            His head bowed, walking deep in thought, Harry almost jumped when Draco pressed his fingers against Harry’s shoulder and said, “I think that we should go somewhere we can be alone. Truly alone. Do you trust me enough to let me Apparate you?”

            Harry took a deep breath and looked around. They were in the middle of a corridor in the Ministry, an empty corridor for right now. The wards would still be watching, but he thought anyone listening wouldn’t be able to get to them quickly enough to prevent them from leaving. He nodded, and began walking in the direction that Draco gestured with one widespread hand.

            Draco trailed him with a softly stunned expression on his face that said he hadn’t expected a positive answer to his question. Harry shook his head. Then why ask it? Draco hadn’t struck him as someone who took a lot of risks. He had done what he had done in the house because he knew Harry had nowhere else to go, and he had the house’s magic to back him up.

            I hope he tells me some more of what he’s thinking, because at the moment it does baffle me.

            They reached an exit from the Ministry, finally, and stepped onto the dirty cobblestones in the shadow of one of London’s streets—more like an alley, really. Harry swallowed and turned to face Draco, already holding out an arm. Draco looked at him, looked him in the eye, strong and steady as a pulsebeat, and nodded. His hand gripped Harry’s, hard, for a second.

            Then they were Apparating, and Harry grimaced. He had never liked the sensation. He came out of with the usual feeling of being squeezed through a tube, shook his head, and resisted the urge to reach up and make sure his hair wasn’t matted to the sides of his head. Draco wouldn’t care if it was, and Harry had never been able to do much with his hair.

            “Here.”

            Draco led the way into a small house that stood, Harry couldn’t help noticing, in what looked like a wide meadow, miles from anywhere. The house was a cottage, made of stone, with a fireplace in the corner that flared with flames when Draco merely looked at it. Harry could feel the magic that powered it, surging to life, present in everything from the unmortared walls to the simple wooden table in the middle of the room. Yes, this place looked defenseless and poor, but someone had spent a lot of magic preparing it.

            “Yes, you would be a fool to attack me here,” Draco murmured.

            Harry turned to look at him. Draco leaned on the mantle by the fireplace, his arm propped up and his head turning sharply so that he could track Harry’s movements. He looked relaxed, but Harry knew any false movement would probably trigger a deadly display of violence. Draco had had to bring him to a place where he felt absolutely safe in order to talk to him.

            Harry shook his head. “If you distrust me so much, why do you want me as a lover?” he asked, speaking the first words that came to mind, the way he would have in the house. Well, if the house had let him say something like that, anyway.

            It probably would have. It was happy to hear us talking about anything that sounded romantic.

            Which only increased the mystery of why it had dissolved, instead of trying to keep them pinned in a conversation that had the potential of turning romantic. Harry shrugged. That wasn’t the mystery he was here to solve.

            “I want you because the wanting won’t go away,” Draco said, his voice as soft as the snick of the door closing on an interrogation room, and bitter as the clash of chains. “I realized that, last night, when I tried to think that I would spend the rest of my life without seeing you again, except perhaps today. What we have can’t be the same as it was in the house, but—I still want you.”

            Harry sighed and wandered over to the opposite side of the table, studying a low bookshelf that stood against that wall. All Potions books, of course. Harry hoped this house’s doors wouldn’t slam shut and trap them here, or he would expire of boredom before he found something to read.

            “Wanting isn’t enough,” he said, not looking at Draco because the words might feel false if he did. “Lust isn’t enough. I don’t want to spend my life with someone who wants me.”

            “You don’t?” Draco’s voice was as blank as his walls.

            “I mean, not just with someone who wants me,” Harry corrected. “If that was what contented me, I could have had it at any time. Lots of people wrote to me after the war, or came up and told me straight out to my face, that they wanted me.”

            He turned around, intending to continue, and stopped short at the complex expression on Draco’s face. It took him a moment to work it out.

            “Look,” he said, his voice gentle without his permission. “I’m just trying to explain to you what happened. I didn’t—you know full well I didn’t take anyone up on those offers. So there’s no reason to look jealous over me.” That last sentence made him want to shake his head again. Jealous over him? Draco didn’t know him enough for that, but he did know that Harry was hardly out there fucking everyone he met.

            “I’m not jealous,” Draco said, but he hunched his shoulders in the next moment and looked away, which was all the sign Harry would ever need that he was lying.

            Harry concealed a sigh. It wouldn’t endear him to Draco at the moment, and while Harry didn’t precisely want Draco’s approval, he did want to avoid alienating him. He thought there had already been enough of that. “All right. Then do you want to sit down and tell me what you are? What you’re feeling?”

            “You sound like a Mind-Healer.” Draco turned towards him, all eyes and claws and teeth, and Harry wondered if he really felt safe in this safehouse after all. Or maybe he had had to come here to articulate some of what he was feeling at all.

            “I don’t mean to,” Harry said quietly, and decided to offer something Draco might not know about him, something that might possibly create a bond between them if anything could. “I hate those bastards.”

            Draco started and focused on him. “Why?”

            Harry shook his head. “No matter what I did—poorly in my Auror training, well in my Auror training, killed someone in self-defense, killed someone in anger, killed no one, talked about the war, didn’t talk about the war, was gracious, was silent, was open—they were determined to find something wrong with me.” He sighed and stared down at his hands. “Something that would make me unfit to serve as an Auror, I thought at first. Then I realized they wanted gossip to tell their friends. No one who treated me could ever keep their fucking mouths shut.” The words burst out of him, and he paused, embarrassed, a moment later. “Anyway,” he finished, with a small cough. “So being told that I sound like one of them is pretty much the worst insult you could offer me.”

            He smiled at Draco, who had come closer. Draco stood there for a second, and then sat down in the chair opposite Harry, which was at least progress. Harry gave him an encouraging nod, but for long minutes Draco stared at his hands and seemed to think about other things instead of responding.

            Then he said, “I don’t mean to insult you. I want you, though. That’s the truth. That’s just something you have to put up with.”

            “But do you want more than to fuck me?” Draco winced a little, as though insulted by the crude wording, and Harry sighed again. “Sorry. I’m no good at this. I’ve never had a steady lover since Ginny.”

            “Why?” Draco looked up at him. “That was something I asked you in the house, but you didn’t answer me the same way there that you would out here. Why didn’t you want someone to have sex with?”

            Harry smiled. At least Draco realized there was a difference between the house and the real world. That was a strong sign that maybe they could move past what had happened there, and into something else.

            “Because I didn’t want someone to have sex with,” he pointed out. “That was all it would be, or all some people wanted. I didn’t. I wanted to focus on my job, and when I couldn’t find someone who would do more than sleep with me or brag about it to their friends or want me to take care of them, then I focused even more on it.”

            “But sex is nice,” Draco said, leaning forwards over the table as though he thought he would have to convince Harry all over again.

            Harry swallowed. “I know. You taught me that.”

            Draco’s eyes flamed with triumph, but at least he didn’t do something like reach out and try to continue what he had begun the last morning they were in bed together. “But why didn’t you want it? You could have done something. Concealed your face under glamours and found someone who didn’t mind casual sex.”

            Harry leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Because I don’t just want casual sex. I don’t do casual, Draco. How many times do I have to repeat that before it sinks in?”

            Draco blinked. “You did in the house. I mean, you agreed to fuck me when you thought it was going to be casual.”

            Harry grimaced. “That was when I thought it was what we needed to do to get out of the situation, and I thought you were thinking the same way, until you told me about this longing you had for my friendship.”

            “You—you honestly would have done something like that to get out?” Draco went on staring at him.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “I would have found someone else after the house, maybe, if that had been all it was, because you did open my eyes to some of what I’ve been missing. But I would still have wanted a steady lover, someone to love me for me, not just someone to love me for my fame and my money. I would have looked harder. I’m never going to be content with what you think I should have been content with, though.”

            Draco’s nostrils flared a little. “I’m happy that you refused them and remained a virgin for me to take,” he snapped.

            Harry leaned forwards. “I am more than that.”

            “I just don’t understand why you didn’t go after what you wanted.”

            “Because I thought it was impossible to find, and I deserve to have what I want,” Harry replied shortly. “A real lover, not a relationship that’s going to end in two months, not a casual fuck. I decided after the war that I was going to work as hard as I could for what I wanted, but I’m not going to settle for something lesser, either. Because I bloody well suffered enough in that war to deserve something better.”

            He hadn’t ever said that aloud before, and the sound of the words shook him. Draco, across the table, stared at him with wide, startled eyes.

            “I—didn’t know you thought that way,” Draco said at last, shaking his head as though he thought that would somehow clear his thoughts. Harry was sure it was more likely to confuse them, but he kept his mouth shut. “I thought you were—well, repressed.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “That would be part of it, yeah, with that intense focus on my job. But it also helps to know the person that you claim you’re ready to profess undying love for, Malfoy. Might help.”

            “Don’t call me by my last name.”

            “Why not?” Harry leaned back and lifted his hands. “There’s no one here to enforce the rules that the house wanted. We can call each other by our last names. We can go different ways if we want. What are we going to do outside the house? We can’t live by its rules, no matter what happens. I refuse. They were far too limiting.”

            Draco did some more blinking. Then he said, “You make no sense. You want someone to love you, someone to have a real relationship with, but you didn’t do any looking. You just said that you didn’t. How did you expect to have a partner like that if you wouldn’t even bloody well look?”

            Harry clenched his jaw again. “I would have responded if someone had come along. But so many people weren’t coming along, and I was tired of the immense effort I was spinning out for so little reward. I decided that I would rather concentrate on my job for now. But when I saw the chance, I was going to grab it with both hands.”

            Draco leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms so that his hands dangled on either side. His silence was eloquent.

            “Someone who wants the real me,” Harry said, locking eyes with him. “Not the version of me that the house dreamed up, not an isolated me without my friends.” Yes, Draco still flinched when he said that. It seemed that part of him was real and not an invention of the house or the situation they’d been trapped in. “I need my friends, Draco. I want them. I’m going to have them. There’s no reason to think I’ll change my mind on that. If you can’t stand that, then go elsewhere, because I’ll never give them up.”

            Draco shut his eyes. Then he said, “It wasn’t—I just objected to the way they might talk to you about me.”

            “Insulting you?” Harry leaned back in his chair. Although it seemed the hardest part of the argument was still ahead, he was breathing a bit easier. Part of him had expected Draco to surge out of his chair and slap Harry’s other cheek. “Well, be fair. You’ve insulted them quite a bit. I told Ron and Hermione that you helped, and that’s true. But that was partially self-interest, in their eyes. You wanted to escape the house, too.”

            Draco opened his eyes. “If the alternative was losing you, no, I didn’t.”

            “I told you you might be able to have me,” Harry said with careful emphasis. He flattened his hands on the table. At the moment, it felt very important to him that Draco should realize he wasn’t reaching for his wand. “The problem is, you decided that you wanted a certain answer, and that’s the sort of thing I can’t give you.”

            Draco shot him a taut, simmering glance. “Why not? Don’t you specialize in certainty, as an Auror? Always finding the clue, always bringing down the criminal?”

            Harry sighed, and massaged his forehead. He wondered what it would take to make Draco understand him.

            “That house wasn’t like the rest of my life,” he said. “As you should know from the very fact that I was willing to have casual sex if it would get us out of there. You can’t gauge all my reactions from what happened in there. Yes, I’m uncertain. That’s the way I really am, until I know I have a solution.” He dropped his hand from his forehead and raised an eyebrow at Draco. “I thought the raid on the Solitary Brewer’s house was a certain thing, but you never know when a new factor is going to pop up and prove you wrong.”

            Draco was staring at him in what looked perilously like horror. “When do you think you can give me an answer?” he whispered.

            “You already have plenty of them,” Harry said, watching him. “About what I’m like, and what I want, and about my friends.”

            Draco shook his head. His voice was high, and sounded stuck in his throat. “When can you give me an answer about staying with me forever?”

            Harry sighed again. “I want someone who will stay with me forever,” he said. “Yes. That much is true. But I can’t say it’s going to be you. That’s what we actually have to take some time to think about and decide.”

            “But when do you think we’ll know?”

            Harry sighed yet again. He was getting used to it, but he didn’t like it. “I don’t know what you want out of me, Draco. I told you over and over again that nothing in the house was real, not in the way that would let me know whether it would endure outside. And now, we’re here, and surprise, I don’t think it was real. Why do you keep asking about something that I told you I can’t tell you?”

            Draco sprang to his feet and began pacing back and forth. Harry watched him in silence, folding his hands in front of him. He had the feeling Draco was working up to something important, but he had no idea what it could be. So far, he had sounded more stubborn and repetitive than involved in something important.

            Draco turned around again, and his eyes were burning with passion. Harry reckoned that was a start. He sat up and paid attention.

            “I want you,” Draco said bluntly. “I told you I wanted the chance to find out what friendship with you was like, and that’s true, but this is more than that. I want to sleep with you again. I want to work side by side with you. I want to hold you, and I want you to stay with me because you want to, not because you have to.”

            “That’s something we never had in the house,” Harry felt compelled to point out. “You don’t know that you like it. You might hate it.”

            “Then I want the chance to find out if I hate it,” Draco said, watching him. “Fine, I agree with your logic to a certain extent, that none of it was real, or at least that we can’t be sure how much of it translates to the outside. Then—I want the chance to work with you until we can figure out what’s real, and until you can give me an answer.”

            Harry nodded slowly. “I can give you that if you promise that you’ll give my friends a chance.”

            “To do what? Insult me? Because as you pointed out, I’m sure they’re doing that already.”

            “I can’t promise instant peace with them,” Harry said. “But Ron already knows we’re sleeping together—and I didn’t tell him, he guessed it when he saw the way I reacted. And they’re part of my life, and they’re not going anywhere. I may not know yet whether we’d be together in two months’ time, but I can assure you we won’t be if you keep insisting that I choose you over them.”

            Draco’s face had closed. “I’m only doing what they’re sure to insist on with regards to me.”

            “You don’t know them very well,” Harry said. “Just like you don’t know me. And that’s essentially what I’m asking you: to give me and them a chance to show ourselves for who we really are, not the Hogwarts caricatures you think we are.”

            Draco bowed his head. There was silence. Harry wondered if it would be a bargain after all, or too much for Draco. Draco had been careful to stay away from him, he noticed, not to touch him. That might mean he thought they could never have back what they had in the house, but that made no sense, given what he was asking of Harry.

            No, it was more likely that he knew that Harry would never agree if he simply tried to take what he wanted. And that gave Harry hope. Draco cared about his wishes at least this much. That was a good sign.

            Now to see if he can get over his prejudices against other Gryffindors.

            “I’ll talk to them and treat them like normal human beings,” Draco said abruptly, looking up. “If you’ll give me a fair chance, and not hold what happened in the house against me.”

            “That’ll depend on how many times you insist on referencing it, and talking about it as your ideal place,” Harry said, meeting his gaze evenly. “Because I assure you, it was far from mine. I never want to live like that again.”

            “You didn’t find any comfort there?” Draco sounded baffled.

            Harry shook his head. “Not comfort. I learned what sex was there, and I learned that I could like it. Thank you for that. I learned that I could trust you to work with me. That was important. But I wasn’t comfortable. That’s another thing you don’t know about me,” he added, because Draco was watching him with the kind of breathlessness that really deserved an answer. “What I look like when I’m relaxed, because you haven’t seen it.”

            Draco nodded slowly. “I assumed you were happy there and just resisting it because admitting it would mean that you were admitting I made you happy.”

            “You have a twisted mind, you know that?” Harry asked when he’d worked that out. “I’m no good at lying. If I tell you that I mind something, I mind it. If I don’t mind it, then I don’t.”

            Draco looked at him for long moments, taking a step to the side as though he assumed the firelight would do something other than cast a few shadows on Harry’s face. “All that tells me is what you would say if you were unhappy or indifferent,” he muttered. “It says nothing about what you’re like when you’re happy.”

            Harry smiled at him and lifted an imaginary glass in a toast. “Now you get it.”

            From the widening of Draco’s eyes, and the soft way he exhaled, it seemed he really did. Harry stood up and held out his hand.

            Draco froze as though the house had materialized around them again. Then he crossed the room slowly, and took Harry’s hand. Harry nodded to him, and pumped his wrist once before he let go. Draco blinked, but did release his hold, something Harry hadn’t been sure would happen until it actually did.

            “Nice to meet you,” Harry said softly. “And for the record, this is what my face looks like when I’m happy about something, when I think something impossible has a chance to come true. That first started happening to me when I was eleven, and my delight in it hasn’t stopped yet.”

            Draco’s real smile was a glorious one.

*

            Makoto_Sagara: Oh, they did talk! But it still won't necessarily be easy.

            SP777: Harry doesn't see them as really close at all, but thinks they'll have a chance to grow that way.

            Katlin Malfoy: Thank you!

            addiena saffir: Luckily, Ron will wait for more advice from Harry before reacting.

            unneeded: Ron didn't actually see them naked. So, not as embarrassing as it could have been.
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The House That Lovers Built