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Chains of Fool's Gold	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3178 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
Thank you again for all the reviews! And thanks for reading the whole series. There will be one more one-shot after this, "A Panoply of Souls," to close out the series.
Chapter Fifteen--Packing
            "Kreacher is not to come with masters?"
            Harry grimaced a little and shot Draco a look from where he was kneeling beside Kreacher. Draco had his back turned, though, and was firmly packing up some of the books and potions vials he had decided were worth taking with them from Cuthbert's Corner. That left Harry to answer Kreacher's question on his own.
            He took a deep breath, and turned around. "I don't have a house there for you to serve, Kreacher," he said quietly. "And it would mean breaking your bond with Grimmauld Place and not leaving you there to pass out your days in peace even if I did. Would you really want to leave the house of the Blacks?"
            Kreacher's ears drooped a little, but he muttered, "Kreacher could be coming with Masters Harry and Draco and building a home for them there."
            "When we have a permanent home, I'll tell you what." Harry reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll firecall you, and you can make your decision about whether you want to come with us, or stay in Grimmauld Place."
            Kreacher gaped at him a little. It sometimes seemed to surprise him, Harry thought, that Harry would try to honor his wishes, even though he'd had Harry as his master for a number of years now. Well, he had had so many years of the opposite kind of treatment, Harry supposed that he couldn't be that much surprised when Kreacher still found it hard to overcome old habits.
            Then he flung his arms around Harry's legs and started to babble. Harry patted his shoulder, found something unidentifiable on his hand, and managed to avoid stepping back and making a face only be a supreme effort. He contented himself with smiling and nodding at Kreacher instead, and cocking his head at Draco.
            "We'll miss you, Kreacher," Draco said, and looked so sincere that Harry wanted to applaud. "But Harry's right that we don't have a permanent house in Spain yet, and you should think long and hard about whether you want to move away from your old house."
            Kreacher sniffed and wiped his hand across his face. "Then Kreacher will be making the decision when the time comes."
            Harry smiled, and went to help Draco pack up the bed linens they'd brought. It hadn't seemed like much at the time, only the bare minimum that they needed to make the place habitable, but now a number of other people had been living there as well, and that meant cleaning up rubbish, sending things back by owl to their friends, discarding some objects that they had decided were too old or Dark or disgusting to take along, and casting constant Packing Charms, until Harry's arm hurt. He supposed they could have left some of the work to Kreacher, but he had shown that he had his own judgment about what counted as too Dark or too old, so Draco preferred to do it himself.
            "You sound as though you think we'll have a house in Spain fairly soon," Draco said neutrally at one point, as Harry struggled to take down a portrait from the wall to see if there was anything behind it.
            Harry turned around and stared at him. "We don't have to," he said. "That's why I didn't give Kreacher a time limit. If you'd prefer to live in some other way--"
            "You keep misunderstanding me." Draco folded his arms and looked ruffled. "I just meant that we didn't really discuss having a house, but you mentioned one to Kreacher as though we were definitely getting one."
            Harry opened his mouth to snap back, and then closed it again and started snickering. Draco scowled at him, and Harry held up his hand. "I'm just glad that we can fight over unreasonable things like this, without having to present a united front or worry about the Ministry all the time," he said.
            Draco watched him one more moment, then sniffed and said, "You wouldn't consider it unreasonable if you had been accustomed to living in houses instead of these gloomy mansions."
            Harry held back a retort about Malfoy Manor that would only have made everything worse, and adopted the most conciliating expression he could. "You're probably right. I've shared space with someone else most of my life, and even my flat was pretty small. If you want a house, though, we can have one."
            Draco spent a moment visibly wrestling with answering that in a way that wouldn't give satisfaction to Harry, and then nodded grudgingly. "Just as long as you don't make a decision about something as important as that without consulting me."
            "I wouldn't dream of it," Harry promised, pressing a hand flat over his heart, and held his tongue until Draco had turned away and was considering some of the sheets. Then he added under his breath, "Not a permanent one."
            It turned out Draco was still close enough to punch him without straining himself.
*
            "Are you sure that you have to go?" Granger's eyes were wet, Draco could see that clearly enough even through the fire. "We're going to miss you so much."
            Harry smiled at her, but stood firm. Draco was glad to see that. He had thought all along that Harry's friends were being strangely compliant about his leaving, and now it seemed that they had only agreed to Harry and Draco getting out of the immediate situation at the Ministry. That wasn't the same thing as agreeing that Harry and Draco should actually move away and lose themselves in another country.
            "I think it's the best thing for all concerned, Hermione," Harry said softly. "Even for you and Ron," he added, apparently anticipating the way she opened her mouth. "You're going to be in the public eye a lot in the next few months, testifying about what happened at the Ministry and what you learned from us. It would only muck things up if we were in the country but refusing to come and testify ourselves."
            "Not to mention that they could probably compel us, legally, if we were here," Draco murmured, touching Harry's back in a subtle reminder not to forget about the practicalities.
            He loved the smile that Harry cast back at him in return. "Right."
            "I know that you don't want jobs with the Ministry again, and that's entirely your choice." Granger looked desolate, and so Draco forbore from rolling his eyes. So nice that she and Weasley recognize it's our choice. "But there are still plenty of things that you could do if you're here, Harry. Reconnect with us. Work in the joke shop. Start that dueling and bodyguard business you used to talk about, when you were in training and fed up with it. What options are you going to have in Spain?"
            "Being with Draco in freedom and peace," Harry said. "As for a job, well, you nicely got my money out of my vaults for me before the Ministry thought to freeze them, so we won't have to worry for a while."
            Granger bit her lip. "I wasn't thinking that much about money," she whispered. "I just--I don't know how well you're going to do without something to do, Harry. You even complained you found the peace after the war boring, remember? You went into Auror training as soon as you could."
            "And I've been in training or a full-time Auror for almost ten years," Harry said, still firmly. "I've learned to value different things now." He leaned back, perfectly, at the moment Draco wrapped his arm around Harry's waist. "It might be harder than I think. But I'm sure I'll get used to it. And I'll have someone who can keep me sane."
            Draco smiled at Harry when they exchanged glances. He didn't even mind doing this in front of Granger. Harry's friends really had been remarkably good about accepting his relationship with Harry, even if part of that had come from the demands of the situation, again, and not bothering to question them about who they were sleeping with when there was a strike against the Ministry on.
            And if they might be a little more obstructionist when things calmed down and they had leisure to worry about who Harry was dating...well, it would be good to have a whole lot of water between them.
            "Harry," said Granger, with the tiniest of sighs. "Well. If you're happy." She hesitated. "Ron's a lot more upset about it than I am, so I promised that I would try to talk you out of it. But I'm still worried about you."
            Draco opened his mouth to say that Weasley could talk to Harry if he was so bloody worried, but this time, it was Harry's elbow that was in the perfect place, nudging Draco in the ribs to shut him up. "I know that Ron's worried," Harry said. "I'm sorry for it. But I don't want to stay here, and I don't want to get another job now, and I don't want to be involved in the cases at the Ministry, and I don't want to abandon Draco."
            "He would never ask you to do that," Granger protested, in a deeply shocked tone.
            "But he's worried about it," Harry said, and Granger glanced away and nodded a little. "Seriously, Hermione. It's not like I'm going to the end of the world. I'll still owl you and firecall you, and we'll visit when the scrutiny's not as intense."
            Granger finally smiled. "I told Ron that, and he still worried," she said. "But I'll show him the Pensieve memory of this conversation, and we'll see if he won't believe me this time." She reached towards the edge of the fire as though she could clasp Harry's hand through the flames, and Harry solemnly knelt down and offered his own. "Good-bye, Harry. I love you. Stay safe."
            "Good-bye to you, too, Hermione," Harry said, and smiled. "I'll send you an owl as soon as we come to a place that's safe for us and where I can find a good bird."
            Granger laughed, and then the fire cleared out and she was gone. Harry rose to his feet, stretching wearily, and turned his head to look at Draco. "Are you ready?"
            "We have nothing more to stay for," Draco said simply. It was true. They had bade their farewells to all of Harry's friends, including Prince and the other Weasley; Kreacher was packed off back to Grimmauld Place; the remains of Cuthbert's Corner were under heavy wards that would keep any casual wizard from intruding into its Dark magic.
            And I have no family left.
            Harry pressed his hand, his eyes intense, in a way that gave Draco no doubt he had guessed that last thought. "You'll always have me," he said softly.
            "I know," Draco said, and pulled him close for a kiss.
*
            Carvenhoof still led, his wings longer and his sense of adventure, Harry thought, keener. But the mare--whose name, Hagrid had told Harry, was Lightdrowner--showed no reluctance to keep up with him, and actually took the lead away several times as they soared through thick clouds close to the ground, and then higher, over the English Channel.
            The thestrals' backs bore trunk after trunk and bag after bag, most of then filled with shrunken contents and then shrunken themselves. Harry looked back at them once or twice, frowning a little. For the life he had led so far, and especially because they were mingled with Draco's possessions, it seemed pitifully little.
            "Are you all right?"
            That was Draco, more sensitive than he would give himself credit for. Harry bit his lip, hard, so he wouldn't smile, and turned his head slightly away. "I'm fine," he said. "A bit sad about leaving home behind, but this is a decision we made together. I mean, slightly together. Assuming you still want to go to Spain?"
            Draco didn't answer for long enough that Harry began to get nervous. Lightdrowner snorted in derision when he tightened his hold on her mane, though, so he let go as much as he could and sat waiting for Draco to make up his mind.
            "As long as I'm with you," Draco said, "I have what I need."
            Harry turned his head, and Draco met his eyes with an astonishing tenderness. Harry swallowed, his heart going far too fast.
            "Not always what I want," Draco added reflectively a second later. "But we can work on that."
            Harry smiled, reached across the gap between the thestrals, and caught his hand. Draco squeezed hard enough to make his fingers ache.
            They soared, and soon enough they saw water beneath them, with land on the other side.
            The End.
*
            SP777: Well, as you can see, this is the last chapter of the last novel-length story. There will be one more one-shot after this.
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Chains of Fool's Gold