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Starfall	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 32486 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
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Chapter Thirteen—Humiliated in Defeat
            Draco sat in the warm bath in the center of the biggest bathroom in Malfoy Manor and watched the steam rising past him from half-lidded eyes. He had no intention of opening his eyes any more than that, not for a long time.
            The water coiled along his limbs, relaxing them. When Draco bent down and dipped his head under the surface, using his hands to rub rich, sweet-smelling shampoo into his hair, the bruises and other irritations he had received from Potter began to fade.
            You said that you weren’t going to think about Potter.
            Draco lifted his head again, listening to the tinkle of water from his hair back into the bath before he looked at his arms again. Bruises mottled his arms. There was a large one on his back that he had seen in the full-length mirror on the wall before he sat down. Abrasions covered his skin. Now and then he still drew a wheezing, painful breath from the way Potter had knelt on him, even though he’d taken a Pain-Killing Draught the instant he returned home.
            Potter had flung him into walls and grappled with him and used a web on him.
Potter had used a Dissolving Charm that had let Draco go.
Draco sat there, and he thought about Potter, because it was impossible not to. He only reached out and picked up his wand when the bathwater began to cool and he had to make sure that it was still soft and steaming around him.
There was no answer to the dilemma. If Potter was his implacable enemy, he would have brought Draco in to the Aurors and had him arrested for attempted murder—or at least attempted paralysis, the most likely consequence of the Back-Breaking Curse. He wouldn’t have cared about subjecting Scorpius’s father, as he said he did, to a sojourn in Azkaban Prison.
He’s a liar. You know that you can’t trust him. And not because of things that happened years ago or because you can never trust a Gryffindor. You can’t trust him because he told you powerful and recent lies.
Draco shuddered and tipped a cupful of water over his head. The cups that his ancestors had made and kept to aid in their bathing were lovely things, made of silver and faceted with small, gleaming embedded emeralds around the lip.
If Potter was his friend, he wouldn’t have lied to Draco in the first place. He wouldn’t have mistreated him. He wouldn’t have made it necessary for Draco to hire warlocks.
Everything was so strained and strange and difficult.
Draco had known what would happen, when he went after Ethan. He would get an explanation. He wanted Ethan’s painful torture and possible death, and he especially wanted that after Moonstar had told him that “Ethan” was Potter, but the information had been primary.
He hadn’t got one. Potter had walked away with the secret of his strange behavior intact, not something Draco would have wanted to happen under any circumstances.
He could feel that realization pouring through him, tightening his muscles. A few hours ago, he thought it would have made him write back to Moonstar or seek Potter out again.
But he hadn’t been thinking.
That was what his parents had been trying to tell him, Draco thought, as he picked up his wand and cast the Warming Charm on the water again. It was what Blaise, in his own way, had been trying to tell him, although being Blaise, he would never come right out and say it. He always had to disguise it with a joke instead.
Draco hadn’t been thinking. He was just feeling, running around after the next emotion that reared its ugly head. He was concerned about Scorpius, he was infatuated with the idea of Ethan helping him and wanted to meet him, he was full of rage at the way Ethan had manipulated him, he wanted to kill. He had made plans, like the one to manipulate Ethan until he gave up his secrets, but he hadn’t followed through on any of them except the ones made on the spur of the moment.
            That is pathetic.
            Draco wouldn’t have been able to bear that thought, an hour ago, a day ago. He wouldn’t have been able to think it. It would have been drowned in the cascade of his rage. He acknowledged that now.
            He still hated the fact that Potter was the one who had made him slow down enough to think about it, that he owed this space of clear thought, in a way, to Potter. But he was wise enough to acknowledge it.
            That was the most pathetic thing of all, that he had prided himself on being so clever and manipulative and wonderful, but he hadn’t carried a single one of his plans through. He still didn’t know why Potter had done this. And since Potter obviously wanted both of them to walk away from this and never speak again, he wouldn’t willingly tell Draco, either.
            I want to know.
            Draco felt his fist clenched in the water without knowing how it had got that way. He looked down, and eased it open. Lazy little trails of red curled through the water, and after another second of staring, he understood. He had bloodied his own hand, without realizing it. The force of his own passion had been more important.
            People like you wanted to be—Slytherins, Malfoys, pure-bloods—can feel. But they don’t let their emotions dictate their actions. You didn’t let your irritation at having to get married stop you from doing it. You didn’t let your boredom with Astoria let you end your marriage before Scorpius was born. You don’t let your exasperation with your parents drive you away from them forever, because Scorpius needs his grandparents.
            Draco knew he had made rational decisions, as recently as the last year. What he didn’t know was what had driven him away from them.
            Then he flinched, as the picture of the reason appeared in his head, blond and grey-eyed as he was.
            Scorpius.
            Draco didn’t know how to raise him, didn’t know how to cope with a child that couldn’t be reasoned with. He knew about pure-blood ways, but none of them applied. He knew about being a good Malfoy, but he wasn’t raising one. He knew about Slytherins, but Scorpius wasn’t of the age to go to Hogwarts yet.
            Everything he wanted to be, everything he was, fell apart in the face of Scorpius’s passionate temper tantrums, and Draco responded with nothing but passion of his own. It was all he had left.
            He had shut himself away from Theo because he was disgusted at the way Theo ran around. He had neglected his friendship with Blaise because Blaise’s humor annoyed him. He had turned his back on the advice his parents would have offered him because he couldn’t bear the thought of them criticizing him.
            Every one of those decisions hadn’t been something an adult would do—at least, not an adult who had the regular company of other adults, and could get some perspective outside the little, closed world of the child. Scorpius might be the center of Draco’s universe, but Draco couldn’t help him if he was spiraling out of control.
            That was exactly what had happened, though.
            This fall was a long time coming.
            Draco would still rather anyone than Potter had precipitated his fall. But it had happened, now. He was awake, now.
            So, the biggest question was what he was going to do next. Not whether Scorpius would ultimately want to be a Malfoy, or how he would make Potter pay, or whether there was some answer as to why Potter had invented the identity of Ethan Starfall to write to him—although Draco would still like to know why that had happened. What decisions he would make.
            Not just what he would feel.
            Draco Summoned ink and parchment, and began casting the spells that would make the quill write on the parchment of its own accord, hovering above the water so it wouldn’t get wet.
            This time, he was writing a letter to Theo.
*
            Harry couldn’t sleep.
            That was a pretty normal reaction, he thought, after a day when he had been attacked by three warlocks and then had his secret revealed by Malfoy. He’d spent a long time at the Ministry questioning the warlocks, too. But none of them could tell him anything useful about Malfoy. It seemed he’d been smart enough to meet them in a disguise.
            That was the only smart thing he did.
            Harry rolled over and punched the pillow. In a few hours, light would be leaking through the windows, and he hadn’t really done anything responsible. He hadn’t slept, he hadn’t thought things through, he hadn’t decided what to do about Malfoy.
            There is nothing to do about Malfoy. You gave him one chance, and if he comes after you again, you’re justified in responding with everything you’ve got.
            But that wasn’t the main problem. Lying there with his lungs laboring again as if he was back in the battle with the warlocks, Harry shut his eyes. His chest hurt.
            The peace of his life had been shattered, and he didn’t know how he was going to get it back. It wasn’t as though he could escape into Ethan’s voice without trouble again, not after what he had done with it and what he had done to Malfoy with it.
            That was the real problem at the heart of it all, he realized numbly, when another hour had slipped past and his ability to hide from himself was almost gone. He had wanted to escape into another time and place and sort of life when he first realized he was childless and always would be, and Ethan had been a way to do that. But let someone take that away, and he was left almost as helpless and fragile as he had been the day St. Mungo’s told him the truth about the curse.
            No wonder I reacted to the news of Ginny’s pregnancy the way I did. It took her longer than I thought it would, but she moved on with her life. I haven’t.
            Harry clenched his hand in the sheets. Sometimes, when he got in this mood after he had seen another Auror killed or injured, picturing the faces of Ethan’s children had helped him. Or coming up with another adventure they could have the next day, in the perfect life they lived, with loving parents and grandparents and a life never marred by the war.
            But now, he couldn’t see them. They wavered like smoke in front of his inner eyes and vanished.
            Maybe I didn’t have any right to them in the first place.
            He had thought that before, and he had ignored the thought, because if he didn’t have a right to them when he was the one who had created Ethan Starfall, who did? But he wondered now if it was really something else, if he didn’t have the right to them because creating them in the first place had been irresponsible.
            Certainly writing about them to Malfoy had. If he hadn’t used those names, then Malfoy would have found someone else to advise him about Scorpius without being suspicious of that person’s real name or motives, and Harry would have remained safe with his secret.
            He sat up. Morning was creeping along the walls, and he had solved nothing. He felt no better about things than he had when he had lain down.
            Harry buried his face in his hands. He had a meeting in a few hours, to speak with the other Aurors who would join him for a new case. The case concerned the kidnapping of children, and Kingsley had given it to him partially because he knew that Harry worked so hard on cases that involved children. Harry wouldn’t be doing any field work, per Kingsley’s ban. What he was supposed to do was advise the other Aurors and give them clues about the minds of the kidnappers, if he could.
            You have a job. You have a real life that does affect some people positively, even if it’s only your friends and the victims of the cases.
            When he thought about it like that, Harry’s breathing slowed down. He would just have to concentrate on his job, that was all. It was half of what he had done in the last three years, anyway, using his job as an anchor to reality and as a shield when he might be invited some place where Ginny would be, too.
            The other half had been Ethan.
            But that’s done now. Harry couldn’t bring himself to burn the journals that contained Ethan’s life, but he would lock them up, and keep them away from his friends. They were pathetic, they were private and silly, but he had always acknowledged that. What he couldn’t stand was for other people to find out his secret, now.
            This was his life, the only one he had. It would be foolish to waste it.
*
            “I must admit, we were somewhat surprised to hear from you this early, Draco. Your mother seemed convinced that whatever occupied you would keep you away for some time.”
            Draco’s temper boiled again as he stared down into the bowl of steaming soup he had carried with him into the library, so as to give him something to do with his hands while he spoke to his parents. Or his mother. He had been sure that it would be his mother who would answer the fireplace, and they could talk trustfully, the way they usually did.
            But instead, it was his father. The man who had already raised the successful Malfoy heir of his generation, and didn’t need to worry about it anymore, but could criticize Draco from a position of power.
            Draco swallowed, and reminded himself of what happened when he just blurted out his thoughts and did nothing except on emotion. “I’ve come to ask you to keep Scorpius for a few more weeks.”
            Lucius’s eyes sharpened, and he shifted. He’d already had his arms crossed, or so Draco assumed from the position of his shoulders, but now, Draco could really see them folded. “Why? Does this quest your mother spoke of lead you out of the country?”
            “Yeah,” said Draco. “It does.” Theo was in Vienna right now, on a flying visit to some colleagues of his there, and Draco had arranged to visit him. But he knew he couldn’t mention that. His parents knew he didn’t speak to Theo anymore. They would want an explanation, and Draco…
            Wasn’t ready to give it yet.
            Lucius was still, watching him. Draco knew this for an old tactic of his father’s. Silence touched some people with an irresistible compulsion to fill it. Draco had been one of those people, once upon a time.
            Now, he sipped his soup and waited. It was also good to have something to do with his mouth, he thought. He vowed to have food like this with him the next time he firecalled his parents. Yes, in a way it was a weakness, because they would probably guess what he was doing, but on the other hand, what mattered most were his actions and words, not their impressions.
            Draco felt dizzy a second later. When did I start believing that?
            Before he could think too much about it, Lucius surrendered. “Very well. It’s true that he is exposed to more of the pleasant side of his heritage here.”
            Draco leaned forwards, insistent now. “You wanted me to have the Manor so I could expose him to all the beautiful things that you taught me to appreciate.” That had certainly been the main reason that his parents had moved out, although Draco thought it also had a lot to do with the memories of the Dark Lord lurking around every corner.
            “That is more than true,” said Lucius, one of those ambiguous phrases that would leave Draco wondering for hours what his father meant with it. “But we thought that you would explore the beauty of the Manor. You have taught him nothing but duty.”
            Draco did some more staring that ought to have made his father back down, but, maybe since they were on opposite sides of a fireplace, that was exactly what Lucius didn’t do. Finally, Draco had to say it. “That was what you taught me, when I was Scorpius’s age.”
            “And I realize now that it was a mistake,” said Lucius. “It made you obsessed with living up to a certain set of standards, which did not always help you later.”
            Draco snarled. His father stared at him. Draco ignored that. Maybe he was displaying unusual emotion, odd especially in front of a man that he had tried to keep his difficulties in the last few years concealed from, but he had to say this. “So I’m supposed to suffer and not do as well just because you had this experience that you think is wrong now?”
            “I do not understand what you are saying, Draco.”
            Draco shook his head sharply. “I was trying to model the way I raised Scorpius after the way you raised me, because it was the only model I had. And now you sit there contentedly and tell me that it was all wrong? When were you planning to tell me that? How was I supposed to realize it?”
            Lucius didn’t look unruffled, but he didn’t look as changed and remorseful as Draco had hoped, either. “Lately, whenever we have tried to offer you advice about Scorpius, you have snarled at us and changed the subject. We thought that you wished to be left alone.”
            Draco closed eyes and lips on the snap that he immediately wanted to give. His father was right, as far as it went, although Draco thought he should have persisted anyway if he saw his grandson suffering.
            I hope that I’ve saved his father for him. I hope so.
            Potter should have had nothing to do with this, but he did have something, and Draco thought acknowledging that to himself and moving on was better than saying it aloud. So he murmured now, “I was—running into trouble raising Scorpius, and I had defined myself as someone who had nothing to do, no more important duty but to raise him.”
            “It is the most important thing you can do.”
            “Stop misunderstanding me!” Draco glared at his father, and proved to himself and Lucius both that his anger hadn’t gone away after all. “I meant that you had a life outside me when I was that age. And so did Mother. You had each other. You had your politics, and the alliances that you maintained with other pure-blood families.”
            “It was your choice to divorce Astoria.”
            Draco ignored the attempt to distract him from what he was saying. “I had nothing else. That was what led to Scorpius becoming my obsession.”
            His father looked at him keenly. “Once I would never have thought to hear you use that word. What changed your mind?”
            Draco thought of the many things that he couldn’t tell his father about—Potter, his rage, the warlocks, how he had flailed around screaming and trying to break Potter’s back, and Potter—and then decided that he would need to say something, or his father would never believe him. “A confrontation with a man I’d been relying on for advice. I didn’t want to believe some of the things he said. But seeing him face-to-face was a lot more effective than reading his letters.”
            Perhaps that was the truth, after all. Seeing Potter stare him in the face and tell him to stop acting like a madman was far more effective than reading that admonishment would have been.
            He was right.
            Not about everything. Potter’s bizarre motives for writing to Draco under a false name and inventing a false family were still suspect. But Draco didn’t know if he would ever get an explanation for those, while he did have an explanation for how Potter’s words had affected him.
            Lucius seemed to take that statement into consideration for a much longer, and more insulting, time than Draco had thought he would. Then he nodded and said, “Perhaps you need a journey abroad. We will keep Scorpius.”
            Which was the simple thing that Draco had been trying to make him agree with in the first place. But nothing was ever simple with his father.
            “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be in Vienna. An owl should find me without much trouble.”
            Lucius didn’t move, either to shut down the Floo connection or say farewell, which Draco would have expected. Draco finally reached to shut down the connection himself, impatient with the staring contest. Lucius had subjected Draco to enough of those since he became an adult that he’d lost his tolerance for them long ago.
            “I hope that your change lasts.”
            Draco narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

            “This change,” said Lucius, and gestured between them as though it was a living thing, perhaps fragile, like a flower, that would crumple if touched too heavily. “I don’t know if it was the presence of your advisor that brought it on or not, but I encourage you to encourage it.”
            Then he did shut down the Floo connection, and left Draco with a head and a room full of ringing silence.
            Encourage it.
            Well, his visit to Theo was going to encourage getting out of the house and having interests other than his son. But what exactly would keep him from succumbing to the rage and obsession again once he was back home?
            The rage was there for the thinking of it, such a long and powerful rush that Draco swayed with it. He still wanted to know why Potter had hidden under the name Ethan Starfall, he thought. That was the main thing he lacked. He could accept Potter’s superiority in battle and even the way Potter had humiliated him, but—
            There is a way to find out. Write a letter to him and see what he says. He doesn’t have to respond, but he might, for the same reason that he dissolved that web instead of arresting you and bringing you into the Ministry. This was partially his fault, and Gryffindors have really tender consciences.
            Draco turned the matter slowly over in his mind. No, it wasn’t guaranteed to work. But it had a much higher chance that most of his plans so far. And it was cunning.
            The way he had thought he was being. The way he wanted to be.
            So Draco wrote the letter, in the midst of the house-elves packing his clothes and several books that he might want on the journey, and sent it off by his eager owl.
*
moodysavage: He’s trying to be better! It’s going to be a long process, though.
SP777: Thanks! And, well, I will attempt to provide the miracle.
“Frango dorsum” means “I break [your] back.” Thus the Back-Breaking Curse.
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Starfall