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A Dream of Running Water	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7806 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of A Dream of Running Water. I hope you enjoyed it.
Chapter Twelve—A Handclasp
            “I still don’t like to think how much of this you planned without informing me,” Draco said.
            His voice was slow and warm and drowsy, because, at the moment, that was the way his body felt. He was draped over Harry’s lap, and Harry was breathing as softly as the fire did, the motions of his chest matching the flickers of the flames. Draco couldn’t open his eyes or raise his voice to the level he thought it should be, a stern and commanding shout, demanding that Harry open his eyes and look at him, and account for his actions.
            Draco had been a pawn, of sorts, in this contest between the Dark Lord and Harry. Or between the Dark Lord and Snape and Harry. But it seemed that neither Harry nor Professor Snape was properly remorseful for that.
            “I know,” said Harry softly, and his fingers intertwined through Draco’s hair. Draco was horribly afraid that he made a purring noise as he nestled his face into Harry’s leg. It was out there now, though, and there was no way of taking it back. “I wish we could have told you more. But I never did mean for you to be Voldemort’s instrument, you know.” Draco was so relaxed that he didn’t even flinch at the name. “I thought I would arrange to be captured and brought to him as soon as I’d finished destroying the rest of the Horcruxes. I was only lucky that I’d already told the others in the Order so much about them that they could figure out how to destroy the last one themselves.”
            Draco sighed. “The last one other than you.”
            “Yes.” Harry’s fingers tightened for a moment, and then smoothed out and went on stroking in apology when Draco made a wordless noise of protest. “Snape told me about that a long time ago, right after a conversation he had with Dumbledore about it.”
            Draco rolled over so he could look up into Harry’s face. Harry looked back down at him with softened eyes that Draco knew well how to read. But he pretended he didn’t, fluttering his eyelashes instead and murmuring, “And you really thought you would survive the Dark Lord hitting you with a Killing Curse?”
            “I didn’t know for sure,” Harry said soberly. “That was something Professor Dumbledore theorized, and he convinced Snape of it. But I never knew for sure. I—Professor Dumbledore knew that my Cloak was a Deathly Hallow, probably pretty early on. And after he found and destroyed one of the Horcruxes, he knew where the Resurrection Stone was. Because I owned one of them and I could inherit the other one, he thought they could hold my soul here.”
            “He knew where the third Hallow was, though,” Draco said, and took Harry’s wrist and moved it so that his hand was stroking Draco’s scalp in exactly the right place. Draco arched, certain he looked like a decadent cat, equally certain he didn’t care.
            “Yes,” said Harry. “His wand.”
            His voice was deep and sad, and his hand had stopped moving altogether. Draco turned to the side so that Harry’s fingers would brush through at least some of his hair, and squinted at Harry. “You know what Professor Snape said about the reasons Dumbledore didn’t leave you the wand. I agree they’re probably the truth.”
            “I know,” Harry whispered, but didn’t say anything else.
            Draco rolled his eyes. Only Harry would simultaneously agree that it would have been a burden to be Master of the Deathly Hallows, the way he could have been if Dumbledore had left him the wand, and yet resent it anyway.
            Of course, Draco thought Harry resented it more than anything because Dumbledore hadn’t told him what he planned to do, not because Dumbledore had decided taking away the power of the Elder Wand was more important than Harry’s ultimate survival. Harry could take being neglected and even tortured. It was harder for him to be lied to, even by omission.
            Draco, who had been lied to a lot more, including by the boy whose lap he rested in, thought the resentment was silly and would go away in time. So he said, “You promised you would tell me what that spell was that you used on Greyback.”
            “Just something Hermione came up with,” said Harry, and he looked unaccountably embarrassed, unless it was because Granger had been the one to come up with the spell instead of him.
            “You said,” Draco muttered, and Harry nodded and cleared his throat a little and began to talk.
*
            There wasn’t nearly enough time between the moment when he and Harry stood embracing and the moment when the Death Eaters began to pound on the locked door, in Draco’s opinion.
            “This is what we must do,” said Snape. If he had ever been out of control, he was back in it, his voice and face both calm and smooth and cool. “There are some Death Eaters who will flee at the sight of the Dark Lord’s dead body. We must float it in front of us and make sure they see it.”
            “And the ones who won’t?” Draco asked. He was thinking of them. Elwood. Rodolphus. Fenrir Greyback. At least Bellatrix was no longer a problem.
            “We shall take care of them.”
            Draco eyed Snape sideways and shivered a little. He wondered why he had never noticed this deadly, coiled side of Snape beneath his mask, not the Death Eater but the man simply and utterly committed to violence.
            “Good,” said Harry, and he stepped back and lifted his wand. The body of the Dark Lord rose from the floor, its head rolling grotesquely to the side, the wound in the neck opening to spill some of the blood down the pale skin.
            Draco averted his gaze, swallowing queasily. He knew that Harry had had to kill him, but he still—it still made him a bit sick to watch.
            “Now,” said Harry, and although Draco didn’t think he was asking it as a question, Snape nodded and threw open the door of the torture room.
            “Now.”
            Draco didn’t remember much of the way that they had pounded through the corridors. He could hear snarls off to the side that indicated the presence of Greyback, and that made him bow his head and run faster than ever. He heard a clatter that suggested flung stones were falling over their heads, but then cold touched his arm and he shuddered. It was probably spells, and not stones.
            He did see the way that Harry apparently conjured a sack to swallow Greyback up, though. He seemed to have dropped through the sack to the center of the earth. Draco vowed to ask Harry about that later.
            If they survived.
            Once, Elwood appeared in front of him. Acting solely on terrified instinct, Draco screamed and struck. He couldn’t remember what spell he had used, but there was one; he didn’t try to simply slap Elwood across the face with his wand. Elwood fell down on the floor in front of them, and Harry helped Draco leap over his body and find the next set of stairs that led down.
            Draco did stop at one point, with a cry working its way up his throat. He had thought simply of escaping, and what about his mother? She was up in her room and had no idea about what had happened.
            “Taken care of,” Snape told him curtly, and Draco saw that his mother was there with her hand on Snape’s arm. Once again, Draco had no idea of when that had happened.
            They began to run again, and Draco suspected that Snape was using some magic to help his mother maintain the pace, but there was nothing he wanted more at the moment, so he didn’t dispute it. He kept his gaze focused straight ahead and vaulted over the barriers that appeared in his path. He never saw Rodolphus.
            They made it out through the Manor’s front door. Snape turned and cast some spell the instant they did.
            Draco heard rumbling. The walls might be falling in. The roof might be collapsing. He didn’t care. He had come out of the house with the people he valued most, and he didn’t think he would ever really want to go back to Malfoy Manor.
            He tightened his hold on Harry’s hand and reached out to take his mother’s. She gave him a faint smile.
            “I understand that we have Snape to thank for this,” she said, in a ghost of a voice. “And Mr. Potter.” A moment’s pause, and then her hand tightened on his wrist enough to make Draco wince a little. “And you.”
            “He was the bravest of us all,” said Harry softly. “And he played his part without knowing what was expected of him, or choosing it, but he still did it.”
            “I chose it a little,” Draco muttered. He looked at Snape out of the corner of his eye for a moment. He knew now that Snape must have had the box for a long time before he gave it to Draco. He wondered why that had happened just then.
            “Yes,” said Snape, sweeping them all up with his eyes as much as with the motion of his arm, “but this is not the time to discuss it. Mr. Potter, if you would.” Even when he was asking a favor, Draco thought, he sounded like he wanted revenge on Harry for his father’s sins.
            Either Harry knew Snape’s manner was fake, or he had just got used to it over the months they worked together. He nodded and reached for his wand, and the next minute, a blazing silver stag had leaped into view. Draco flinched. He had once seen that stag way too close, as it charged at him down the Quidditch pitch.
            Harry smiled at him and murmured to the stag, “We’re safe. Snape and me and Draco and his mum, at the First Place. Go tell Ron.” The stag stomped a hoof and sprang away, and Harry took Draco’s hand and held it securely. “Shall we?”
            “Apparate?” Draco whispered. It seemed impossible that he had got outside the Manor’s walls with all his limbs and his will intact, although he didn’t know how else to explain the fact that he was standing here and breathing the same air as Harry.
            “Yes,” said Harry. “To one of the places the Order of the Phoenix was using as a safehouse. That doesn’t mean Ron and Hermione will be there to meet us, though. That’s why I sent the Patronus. They could be anywhere, but they’ll come and join us once the Patronus tells them so.”
            Draco grunted. He thought the explanation a bit condescending—that part he could have worked out for himself—but at least Harry was explaining things to him now. He took Harry’s arm, and prepared himself for the Side-Along Apparition.
            The First Place was a dusty house that had definitely seen better days. Draco saw a coat of arms on the wall beneath a round window, and squinted, trying to make out what it was and whose house this would have been. A second later, he stopped and blinked at himself, shaking his head.
            I can think about normal things like that again?
            It was the first sign, perhaps the best one, that the Dark Lord had not irrevocably damaged his brain. Draco found himself relaxing, even smiling. Yes, he could get used to living like a normal person again.
            “I am taking your mother up to a room where I can treat her,” said Snape abruptly, snappishly, steering past them so that he could guide Narcissa up the steps. She didn’t stumble as badly as she might, Draco saw. She hadn’t been cursed in the last day or two, then. That meant she would be all right. She really would. “It is more than obvious that no members of the Order of the Phoenix are here, and thus no one can help me.”
            Draco opened his mouth to say that he would, but Harry put a hand on his shoulder and murmured, “Can I talk to you?”
            All sorts of things that Harry might say crowded Draco’s head in a dizzy whirl. However, precisely because there were so many, he couldn’t come up with any particular decision on which might be first. So he nodded, with his throat dry, and only lingered to make sure that Narcissa did reach the top of the stairs safely before he turned to face Harry.
            Harry looked at him for a second, a long, searching look that Draco thought saw deeper than even some of the glances they’d exchanged while Harry hung on Elwood’s torture machine. Then he reached out and placed one hand delicately, palm open, on Draco’s shoulder again.
            Draco waited. Maybe it was going to be, Thanks for all the help, but I don’t need you now that I’m back from the dead and about to enjoy my fame and fortune and friends.
            “Thank you,” Harry whispered. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”
            Draco shook his head a little, in a dream. “Why did you choose me? You can’t have thought I’d be friendlier to your cause than Snape was.”
            “Snape thought someone would discover that he had the box in his possession,” Harry murmured back, “and he didn’t want that. And, well, he chose you especially because you’d lost your father, and had that motivation to help us.”
            “I see,” said Draco, and closed his eyes. He felt a little numb. “Then it was because I was a convenient tool.”
            “At first, yes.” Harry held him, still, close, and Draco found himself opening his eyes and gazing back at Harry. Harry smiled reassuringly. “You were the one that Snape suggested, and when he told me about why he thought you’d want to do it, I agreed. But then you came in and talked to me, and told me things about Elwood’s machine that no one else could have, and you—you showed that there was more out there than being a Horcrux and dying at a certain specific time. Because you didn’t know, and you couldn’t remind me of it constantly.”
            “Did the rest of your Order of the Phoenix know?” Draco asked quietly.
            “Only Ron and Hermione.” Harry smiled faintly. “And that was because they insisted and insisted and insisted until I told them. Hermione was always looking around to try and figure out how I could survive it, but I didn’t have much hope of her finding anything. But the rest of the Order didn’t know, and I didn’t even want to tell Ron and Hermione, because I was afraid they might try to stop me.”
            “Well, I certainly would have,” Draco retorted. “And that’s not even because we’re—friends, or whatever we are.” He gestured between them, wondering what he was indicating, feeling as though he should be pushing his hand through thick air or something. “Because I thought you were our only hope of defeating the Dark Lord.”
            Harry nodded, not even looking upset. “I know. There are some members of the Order of the Phoenix who would have felt the same way. They didn’t all know me very well.” He hesitated. “Can you—we both used each other. Can we both get past that and forgive each other?”
            Draco didn’t know for certain, but he thought Harry was asking himself as much as Draco. Draco could only answer for his side of the equation, though.
            “If you ever again walk away without giving me an answer to a question, or you lie to me,” he said carefully, “then you won’t have my forgiveness.”
            Harry’s smile was slow and dazzling. He leaned in, and Draco embraced him again.
            He heard noises outside. Presumably Harry’s Order of the Phoenix was arriving. He had only a minute to do what he wanted to do, and he would have to be quick and light, in case Harry had to gently push him away.
            Draco kissed Harry clumsily, and knew he could blame the clumsiness on all sorts of things: fear, weariness, the sheer adrenaline-punching terror of the chase through Malfoy Manor. But it was there, and it was done, and he moved cautiously away from Harry, and then lingered for a second to see what the effect would be.
            Harry opened his eyes slowly. His cheeks were flushed for a second with something that looked as deep and dazzling as his smile. Then he reached out and slid a hand up and down Draco’s cheek, as though checking for its plumpness.
            “Thank you,” he said. “That tells me what I need to do next.”
            Draco would have asked what that was, but then various people started arriving, and he didn’t have the chance to ask, as much as he would have liked to.
*
            And in the end, of course, despite protests from Harry’s friends and some of the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, and sharp looks from Snape—who had fought at Harry’s side and done his best to bring him back from death, but who, Draco thought, still didn’t seem to like Harry very much most of the time—and even his mother’s languidly lifted hand, they had become what they had become.
            There were stolen kisses. There were clasped hands and slyly exchanged glances when the rest of the room wasn’t looking. There were confessions and laughter and rows that seemed to go on for hours, and at last, there was the warmth of a shared bed, and Draco’s slow stirring back to wakefulness with sprays of kisses all over his arms and shoulders and Harry’s brilliant smile awakening beside him.
            There was, finally, this, Draco lying on Harry’s lap in front of the fire with nothing uncommon about it at all.
            Draco did have one thing to say, though, one thing that he thought he had to ask before Harry got any ideas.
            “Do you wish it was different?” he asked. “That you hadn’t been tricked and pulled in by the Dark Lord like that, and you hadn’t been tortured, and you hadn’t had to die and come back?”
            He could feel Harry’s headshake above him, traveling in soft ripples through his legs and so into Draco’s pillow. “I would have had to die and come back regardless. Or die and not come back. That was the only way for the Horcrux to be destroyed.”
            Draco gave a little light growl and sat up so he could scowl at Harry. “You know what I mean. Do you ever wish that it had been different, that things had worked out?”
            “I wish your father was alive,” Harry said quietly. “That Moody was alive, and hadn’t got killed because I was too impatient about destroying that diadem and didn’t tell him everything.” He closed his eyes. “I wish that I hadn’t been tortured, you hadn’t been tortured, your mother hadn’t been tortured. I wish my friends hadn’t had to suffer as much as they did from not knowing what had happened to me.”
            Draco pulled a lock of his hair demandingly. “But?” There was a “but” in there somewhere.
            “I can’t unwish Voldemort being destroyed,” said Harry simply. Draco didn’t even flinch at the name this time. “And I can’t unwish meeting you, being with you.” He bowed his head.
            Draco met his lips eagerly, wrapping a hand furiously around his thin wrist, and when Harry shifted and murmured, “I think we should move this to the bedroom, before my lap becomes uncomfortable for you,” Draco scrambled to his feet with his heart beating and his cheeks flushed with a fierce triumph.
            Yes. And yes again. This is the way it was meant to be.
            This is the way it’s going to be. And we won’t let each other go.
            Because we don’t want to, and the wanting is enough.
            The End.
*
Jester: Thank you!
Moodysavage: Thanks! Hope the end satisfies as well.
moon: Thank you!
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A Dream of Running Water