Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 41050 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
The Wider World
            The attack happened the way such attacks usually did. One minute, Harry was walking down the middle of Diagon Alley, minding his own business. He was trying to juggle a new purchase from Madam Malkin’s and an ice cream cone, and not doing a very good job of either. Then again, robes could always be cleaned. Melted ice cream couldn’t be brought back and poured into his mouth again.
            The next minute—the next second—the air around him blazed with white lightning that tried to earth itself in his chest.
            Harry dropped to his knees and lifted two sets of Shield Charms around him as fast as he could think them. One protected him, curled in on his crouching form. The other spread around the center of the alley, a huge, shimmering dome, guarding the innocent wizards and witches who walked there from the attacker.
            That taken care of, Harry turned to find out who it was this time.
            It was a tall wizard in a purple cloak, was who it was, and when he cast another curse, Harry caught a glimpse of the rearing serpent that fastened his cloak shut. It looked like it was made of pure emerald, too. Harry sighed in disgust. Yet another of those Risen Cobras. They thought they were the Death Eaters all over again.
            Most of them were saner than Bellatrix Lestrange, but had less sense than she’d had. Which was not a recommendation.
            Harry stood. The Risen Cobra promptly started dancing in place, pointing his wand proudly at Harry. All of them did that when they thought they had managed to “trick” him into a duel.
            Harry flicked his wand at the ground. It was the only sort of spell he could cast when he was inside the protection of his Shield Charms, because they would prevent any spell from flying out from the inside as surely as they would prevent them coming from the outside.
            But it was enough. The cobblestones beneath the Cobra’s feet ripped apart, rippled apart, and then the whole section of the street where he stood shuddered, tossing him to the ground. His wand flew out of his hand.
            Harry cast the Summoning Charm that brought the wand flying towards him until it hit his shields with a little tinkling sound and rolled on the stones. Then he canceled the shields and stepped out, putting one foot on the wand.
            The Cobra was on his feet now, gaping. Of course, without his wand, he couldn’t even Apparate away. He looked back and forth between Harry’s boot and his face as though that would change the situation somehow. Harry could see his face under the heavy hood as it fell back, and noted that he was very young. He probably imagined that excused him somehow.
            As far as Harry was concerned, it didn’t. He wouldn’t kill the little bastard, or even break his wand, but sometimes children needed to be punished.
            He cast another spell that made the street shudder a second time, rising up like that snake they were so proud to wear, and again the Risen Cobra crashed into the ground, flailing his arms. Harry cast a spell that plowed up the stones in an arrow-shaped wedge that aimed straight between his spread legs. The Cobra squeaked and tried to stand, to run, but the street leaped and danced, and kept him where he was.
            At the last moment, the Shattering Curse stopped an inch or so short of his groin.
            Harry snickered at the expression on the idiot’s face, and then turned around and nodded as he heard the cracks of the arriving Aurors. Two of them leaped forwards, and then stopped when they saw no casualties. The nearest one, Dawlish, approached Harry, shaking his head in a way Harry knew well.
            “And you left the training for the Corps because?” Dawlish demanded, even as he cast the spells that tied up the Cobra and ensured that he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Harry flicked his foot, and sent the idiot’s wand flying into the grasp of another Auror, who looked startled for a second, and then grinned.
            “I was bored,” said Harry, and rolled his eyes at the look that got him. “And my friends needed me.”
            The Aurors had finally taken down the shields that protected the crowd, and chattering people tried to press forwards. Harry frowned at them. Most of the time, they were content to ignore him; he had finally convinced the ordinary shopkeepers and others who spent a lot of time here that he was a normal wizard, one who helped George run the shop and didn’t need or deserve any special consideration. Now they would gossip about him and look for some evidence of “differences” for Merlin knew how long.
            “That, I can understand,” said Dawlish, his voice softening. “But—won’t you let us do something for you?”
            “I already have two Orders of Merlin, First Class,” said Harry. One of them had been for the war, and another for that nasty little business that had seen him swimming a good part of the Channel at night. “But this time, there’s something you could do.”
            Dawlish perked up at once. “What?”
            Harry looked at the small, sad spot of color in the middle of the stones where he had been crouching. “Buy me some more ice cream? I think that one’s pretty much ruined.”
*
            Harry was peacefully eating his dinner when he heard his Floo chime. Harry sighed and dropped his fork on the plate, contemplating not answering at all. If it was another stupid Prophet reporter who wanted to talk about his “undoubted heroism”…
            But it might be one of his friends, and Harry made his way to the fireplace half-rehearsing answers in his head about how anyone would have done that, if they had the ability, and half-ready to reassure them that he was fine.
            “Do you always have to risk your life?”
            Harry blinked at the way Draco’s face appeared in the fireplace. “Hello to you, too. And no, I suppose I don’t have to. I suppose that I could have just stood there and let him kill me.”
            Draco flushed; Harry was sure of that, even though it was often hard to tell with the green state of the flames in a Floo call. Then again, he was already familiar with a lot of the little ways that Draco’s face changed and tightened. “I didn’t mean that. I meant—were you annoying anyone when he attacked?”
            “I was walking down the middle of Diagon Alley eating ice cream and carrying a robe from Madam Malkin’s. Don’t worry, though. The Aurors got me some new ice cream.”
            “You’re ridiculous,” Draco said, and his eyelids closed as though heavy weights were attached to them. “I kept the paper from Scorpius. I didn’t want him to see the pictures and worry.”
            “What pictures?” Harry knew that no reporters had got there until he was safely back inside Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.
            “The pictures of the Cobra who attacked you, and the Aurors holding him,” said Draco grimly. “The story talked about how close he had come.”
            Harry rolled his eyes. “And how likely do you think that is? Compared to the likelihood of the papers exaggerating so they’ll have a good story?”
            Draco hesitated.
            “Exactly,” Harry said, with a nod. “He did catch me by surprise, but I set up Shield Charms around me and other people before he could hurt anyone. Then I used a spell in the street to knock him down, and another one to take his wand. Then I had a little fun teasing him before the Aurors showed up and took him into custody. That’s all that happened. The most upsetting thing was my ice cream getting ruined.”
            Draco held his hand to his forehead. It was trembling in a strange way. Harry kindly didn’t comment on it, and waited for Draco to either recover himself or tell Harry what the real purpose of his Floo call was. Because if it was just to yell at Harry for something Harry couldn’t help and hadn’t asked for, he was going to end it and go back to his neglected dinner.
            “I was worried,” Draco whispered, as if he had heard Harry’s thought and wanted to make sure that Harry didn’t shut down the Floo. “That was all. When I heard—when I read—” He opened his eyes. “They said you were all right, but they also said that you’d come close to death.”
            “Both things can’t really be true at once,” Harry said, sighing. “The Prophet likes to sell newspapers, and thus they insist on setting up stories that manage to twist the truth. I suppose that you could say I came close to death because the attacker could have wounded me if I wasn’t a good fighter. But I am. I was more worried about the people around me, honestly. There were a lot of children there.”
            Draco went on looking at him, but his face had softened and changed again. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you call me when you got home?”
            “Because I was hungry?” Harry asked, wondering what the hell was going on now. “It was kind of a full day.”
            “The shop, then, or wherever you were.” Draco flapped a hand that dismissed the exact location as unimportant. His gaze never left Harry’s face. Harry thought he could stick out his tongue and Draco would do no more than blink. “Didn’t you think I would want to know?”
            “Know about what? I think we established that the newspaper was exaggerating and I didn’t really almost die the way they tried to imply I did.”
            Draco swallowed back something that was probably part of an indignant gasp. “Know about the attack.”
            “No,” said Harry blankly. “Why? I mean, I told George about it, but that was only because he was there and he wanted to know why I was all rumpled. I didn’t firecall Ron and Hermione. Why?”

            Draco just looked at him, and although Harry knew the expression on his face had changed again, this one wasn’t one he was already familiar with. He tried to maintain his calmness, but the way Draco stared at him was really getting on his nerves.
            “Didn’t you think I would want to know?” Draco finally whispered again, and Harry also knew the question had an inflection it hadn’t had before.
            He still didn’t know how to respond. He held out his hands helplessly. “What do you want me to say, Draco? This is my life, the way it is. People have been trying to kill me since I was a baby. It’s a shitty way to approach me, I agree. I would rather they came and sued me or spread nasty rumors about me or whatever the accepted way is of dealing with people that you don’t like. But there’s not much that I can do about it.” He paused, then added, “If you’re going to be friends with me, then you have to accept that that’s just the way it is. People will try to kill me sometimes. If you can’t stand that, then don’t be friends with me.”
            Silence, while Draco worked his hands in something invisible to Harry from his perspective outside the Floo. He wondered what he would do if Draco turned around and flung those words back in his face. Harry’s finger seemed to burn beneath the ring, and he rubbed it without thinking.
            Draco’s eyes shifted to the ring, then rose to Harry’s face. He gave a shrug that was probably supposed to be casual, and didn’t really come across that way. “I just want to know,” he whispered, “when my friends are facing danger.”
            “Even if it would upset you?” Harry pushed on when Draco hesitated. “Because you’re really the one who seems upset, more than Scorpius would get. Scorpius would probably enjoy hearing how I fought him.”
            Draco’s lips thinned. “You’re right about that,” he agreed, in a way that made Harry snort again. It seemed to promise no agreement with Scorpius’s taste. “But—yes, I would like to know. If this is the way that some people choose to approach you, then I want to know so I can offer you the protection of the Manor’s wards, at least.”
            Harry smiled. “I appreciate the thought, but I couldn’t just stay in the Manor all the time.”
            “Why not? I would, or at least go out with a house-elf ready to attend and protect me, if I had half the enemies you do.” Draco stared at him again. “Don’t your friends make any attempt to defend you?”
            “Ron does, when he’s there as someone attacks. He’s a fully-trained Auror, and I’m not. He’s saved my life more than once.”
            That seemed to confound Draco, and he paused again. Harry waited. He had the sense that this was something important, despite how much it seemed to rely on Draco’s stubborn unwillingness to comprehend basic facts, and so he would let Draco think it through and state the conclusions that he obviously needed to.
            “How can you live like that?” Draco asked finally. “I would spend every day in fear, even if I did have the wards and the house-elves to protect me.”
            “You get used to it,” Harry said. “Remember back to that horrible year you survived? You got used to it, a little, didn’t you? There comes a time when certain emotions just get numb. Like terror. You survive.”
            Draco dropped his eyes. “No one else has ever understood that.”
            “Well,” said Harry, and he knew his voice was soft and he was leaning forwards with one hand out to the fire, as though Draco was a timid wild animal he wanted to coax into the open, but he didn’t think those things were sins, however strangely they did make Draco look at him. “I do. We didn’t go through the exact same things, but we went through some damn similar things. And I could see through his eyes, sometimes. I saw some of what you suffered, and how much you didn’t want to do it.”
            “You mean, I don’t need to—say it?”
            “Talk about what happened during the war?” Harry asked. “Or apologize for it? No, neither one, not if you don’t want to.”
            “You’re so restful,” Draco said, voice so low that Harry only realized what he was saying after a moment of concentration. “But when do you get to rest? What happens if you want to talk about something that happened to you, and your friends don’t want to hear it?”
            “I could always tell my story to the papers and get an audience that way,” Harry said, and laughed when Draco’s eyebrows flickered up. “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t do that. But they’ll listen, if I want to talk.” He hesitated, then decided he might as well take the risk. What would happen, if he was rejected? Nothing but a little pain. “Just like I have the feeling you would.”
            “I would do more than listen.”
            “But what else is there?” Harry asked, and shook his head when Draco glared at him. “No, I’m not being disingenuous. You can’t change time, and the wounds are healed as much as they will be. What can you do?”
            Draco was silent for a while, one hand clasping open and shut. Then he said, “I can also talk about them and ask you questions about them.”
            “Well,” said Harry slowly. He didn’t see much point in hashing out his issues with his old friends, who understood them all already as intimately as Harry understood their own griefs and nightmares, but there might be something attractive in talking about them with Draco. “Maybe. At least once.”
            “Not more than that?”
            Harry rolled his eyes at that, a little. “Is this one of the ways that you want our friendship to be special and exclusive?”
            “It could be.” Draco’s face had gone still and quiet.
            Harry reached out one hand before he remembered that Draco was on the other side of a fire and he couldn’t cuff him. “I didn’t mean that I would never want to discuss things like this with you, you berk. And I don’t mean that I never want to discuss them with someone. It’s just, well, that’s the way things are. And my friends and I have talked about them all already.”
            “I could at least give you a new audience.”
            “I think it’s going to be more than that,” said Harry, looking into his face, “even if one of us wanted to plan to limit it.”
            Draco turned his eyes away for a second. Then he said, “What—what if, during the visit that you and Teddy make to the Manor, you and I go off and talk about the attack today?”
            “I thought I already told you all the details.”
            “Somehow, you managed not to focus very much on how you felt.”
            Harry considered that, and nodded finally. “It’s not that I don’t want to discuss it,” he had to add again, when he saw the glow of triumph on Draco’s face. He didn’t want Draco to think all his friends were selfish and neglectful. “It’s just that my friends know everything already.”
            “If I’m to be a friend, then I should, as well.”
            “Can you return the favor with complete honesty?” Harry asked. “I know I said you didn’t have to, and you don’t, but I want to know what I should ask.”
            Draco paused. “That’s something I’ll have to think about, and decide what I might want to discuss, and what I don’t,” he said at last.
            “Fair enough,” said Harry. Draco lingered by the fireplace for a second, and Harry added, gently, “I really am fine, you know. Dawlish was one of the Aurors there. He’s always concerned about me, and he would have made me go to St. Mungo’s if I was wounded.”
            Draco sniffed. “At least someone among your friends has common sense.”
            Then he vanished from the fire in that abrupt way he seemed to favor, and Harry went to finish his dinner. He did have to cast a few Warming Charms on it, but he didn’t mind that. The pleasant glow of well-being in his stomach made up for the loss of any heat to the food.
*
SP777: Some people taunted George or tried to trick him early on after the war, and he attacked several of them.
delia cerrano: Harry takes a ring seriously, but he’s willing to trust Draco if he says it’s just friendship he wants.
Eros: Harry is just going with what Draco wants to do, rather than asking himself if every gesture is friendly or romantic.
Jester: Thanks! Although George won’t get to know Scorpius unless they can come to the shop.
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There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That