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Learning Life Over	By : Meander Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 69712 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
Thanks for the reviews, once more! A few questions answered
at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 16- Just Another Little Therapy Session

�� Hello,
Harry.� Theresa�s face was soft, her eyes bright and understanding and
compassionate. Harry wished she wouldn�t look like that. There was no use
pretending that this session would be anything but unpleasant. It was the sixth
day of the month he and Draco had agreed on, and Theresa had come back that
morning just after breakfast, patiently determined to see and speak with him.

�� Harry had
agreed to let her do so, and even to let Draco watch, because he knew putting
them off wouldn�t work. Draco would whinge and sulk and sulk and whinge.
Besides, he would know most of what Harry told Theresa, thanks to spending time
with him during Hogwarts or researching his life since.

�� And the
Healer- well, she wouldn�t leave until she thought she had healed him.

�� Hello,
Theresa,� Harry said, and tried to keep his voice so neutral that she could
tell nothing from it. Of course, she nodded wisely, which made him squirm as he
sat. Once he sat, though, he concentrated on keeping his hands and feet
motionless. She might read him, but at least he would cut down on the size of
the writing.

�� Are you
ready to speak of what you did after your family died?� Theresa asked.

�� Harry
blinked. �There�s lots of things I still can�t tell you,� he said. �What made
Voldemort immortal, for example.�

�� I didn�t
mean that, Harry.� Theresa shook her head and leaned forward. �I meant, are you
ready to speak of what you felt, then, what you experienced inside your
head and your heart?�

�� Harry
rolled his eyes. He didn�t think he could keep his contempt hidden. �Why is
that important?�

�� Because I
believe the origin of most of your problems might lie in that time.� Theresa
regarded him solemnly. �You maintained a mask of stoicism almost unbroken for
eleven years. But you must have started using that mask then. I want to know
why. I want to know why you felt you needed to perfect it.�

�� I won�t
sound self-pitying. I won�t, I won�t, I won�t. Harry thought it would be a
disgrace to the memory of the Weasleys to sound self-pitying.

�� I grieved,
of course,� he said. �Who wouldn�t grieve? But I also knew that I couldn�t let
the trick work. I couldn�t let Voldemort make me despair and give up on
fighting him. I didn�t know who would take up the quest if I fell. No one else
knew as much as I did.

�� I got
ready to hunt him. I told the Weasleys goodbye- � The scent of smoke seemed to
crowd his nostrils, the image of the burned Burrow to rear up in front of him,
but he pushed it away. No self-pity. �I left that night. I tracked down
someone who could help me in the first step of the quest.�

�� Did you
want help, then?� Theresa asked. �I was getting the image of you as the lone
hero.�

�� Harry
almost smiled. He could hear echoes of Hermione�s voice in Theresa�s, the
scolding way she�d wanted him to go to adults when something bad happened at
Hogwarts.

�� This
person had information I didn�t, though he didn�t realize why or how the
information was important,� Harry explained. Mundungus Fletcher had been
shocked when Harry hunted him out and demanded to know the location of the
locket he�d taken from the Black house, in fact. �So, yes, I did take help when
I needed it. Sort of like this,� he couldn�t help adding. �Once you convinced
me that you wouldn�t spread my secrets far and wide, I accepted this.�

�� Grudgingly,�
said Theresa, staring into his eyes. �I still don�t think you�re full-heartedly
committed to this, Harry.�

�� I won�t
lie to you,� said Harry. �If I could wake up tomorrow with my grief soothed but
my life otherwise exactly the way I left it, I�d return to it without a qualm.�

�� Why?�

�� Harry
shrugged. �I have no one to make me care about connections, about ties,� he
said simply. �The Weasleys died along with the people who�d cared about me and
might have checked up on me if they were all dead. I never returned to
Hogwarts. There were- a few people there I could have trusted.� His mind was on
McGonagall, whom he hadn�t seen since the last day of his sixth year. �I�d left
my Muggle family behind. My parents were dead, and I never had any siblings. So
I did what I had to do alone, and since then I�ve been alone. It hasn�t been
bad.�

�� It�s not
healthy- �

�� For me,�
Harry countered. �And because there was no one else to care about me, there was
no one else to be affected by my unhealthiness. Don�t you see? At least, even
if you�re right, I was only hurting one person.�

*

�� Draco
closed his eyes and shook his head. His emotions were a mixed-up tangle as he
listened, part admiration at Harry�s determination to keep from hurting others
and part fury that he hadn�t talked to someone, that he hadn�t seen that
he didn�t have to remain distant from other people just because his first
friends had died.

�� He opened
his eyes and leaned forward again, staring hard through the enchanted window.
Harry was watching Theresa with an expression of faint puzzlement, obviously
trying to fathom the motives behind her questions.

�� He still
doesn�t understand. He still doesn�t see that we�re here to help him and that
we actually do care about him, not some abstract idea of health, or
about winning the game.

�� And Draco
couldn�t show him the sympathy he wanted for fear of losing the game.

�� He scowled
and folded his arms, tapping his foot on the floor. Perhaps Theresa could make
Harry see sense. It certainly sounded as though she was about to try.

*

�� Is that
the real reason you didn�t try to make new friends, Harry?� Theresa asked.
�Because you feared being hurt again?�

�� Harry
shifted restlessly against the chair. When put like that, it sounded so- so
stupid. So much like something a child would do, thinking the world was not
cruel enough to find other ways to hurt him, bonds or no bonds.

�� No one
could replace them,� he said stiffly instead. �And no one else cared enough to
get to know me, not the Boy-Who-Lived. I only had a few masks I could
have worn that would make attention-seekers and glory-hounds stop following me.
And the stoic mask was the only one that wouldn�t involve hurting others.� He
paused as if considering something. �Well, I suppose I might have become a
bitter recluse, but that was less to my taste than Auror.�

�� Theresa
didn�t look amused. �Most people need others, Harry,� she said. �It disturbs me
and saddens me that you don�t- seem to? That you told yourself you didn�t
deserve human contact?�

�� Harry let
out a sharp, bitter laugh. �I promise, no thought like that ever crossed my
mind. It was the not needing. I had no guarantee that anyone approaching me
with his hand out in friendship really wanted friendship and nothing else. And-
well, I�d grown used to not needing other people. I could do it. I knew that.
So that was what I went back to.�

�� When did
you grow used to not needing other people?�

�� My quest.�

�� A month
taught you enough for the rest of your life?� Theresa raised her eyebrows,
indicating how much she doubted that.

�� Harry
sighed in irritation. He�d hoped to avoid discussing the Dursleys at all, but
he�d also said that he wouldn�t lie. �Ten years as a child, too,� he admitted
grudgingly. �I had no friends when I was a boy. I grew up with an aunt and
uncle who feared and distrusted magic, and a cousin my own age who chased the
children who could have been my friends away. It prepared me for leaving the
Muggle world and becoming a wizard, though,� he added, using the cheerful
thought he�d tried on himself when he left the Dursleys behind. �And it taught
me to survive extended bouts of loneliness, and to live in a world where no one
did care about me.�

�� It seems
to me,� said Theresa softly, �that you lost the will to make friends when the
Weasleys died and wrapped yourself in that cloak of indifference as a defense.�

�� Harry
shrugged. �Even if that is right, what does it matter?�

�� It
matters,� said Theresa, �because your mental stability does depend on having at
least a rudimentary connection to others, Harry. Would you want to cease
working as an Auror, cease to live as a sane man, because you refused an ordinary
part of life?�

�� Harry
shrugged again. He could get used to this, he thought, as he watched the
frustrated expression on Theresa�s face. Perhaps freezing out and obstinacy
would work with her as it appeared to be working with Draco; he still didn�t know
how to cope with Harry�s lack of passion towards him. �Some people might say
that,� he said. �But the only changes I can accept that I experienced in the
past few years were physical changes. Not sleeping as much, for example. And
did those have anything to do with not having friends? I really don�t believe
they did.�

�� Theresa
sighed and drew her wand. �Do I have your permission to cast a spell on you? It
is a complicated one, but it will not hurt you. It simply shows you the state
of your relationships to other people.�

��

�� Harry
snorted. �Simply?�

�� The state
of the part of you that connects to others,� said Theresa. �It creates an
image. It�s called the Soul�s Mirror, but I promise, it doesn�t actually show
your soul.� She gave him a sharp smile. �Since you�re so reluctant to bare your
soul to anyone else, I wouldn�t want to subject you to that.�

��

�� What
does she get out of this? Harry felt an enormous weariness rising up in
him. He�d known the weariness after the battle with the Healers who wanted to help
him after Voldemort. He knew it with Draco, too. At least he had a better idea
of Draco�s motives than Theresa�s, though. He had never understood Healers, at
least when they wanted to help him and not someone else. He was beginning to
believe that whatever debt she owed the Malfoy family could not possibly be
enough to compel her to these heights of sacrifice.

�� He waved a
hand when he realized she was still staring at him. �Go ahead.�

*

�� Draco was,
by now, paying very close attention. He had heard of the Soul�s Mirror, but
never seen it performed. Apparently Healers used it on young children
sometimes, in abuse cases, to try and determine the child�s attachment to his
possibly abusive parents and how he really felt about them.

�� Theresa
aimed her wand at Harry, and said lowly, �Speculum animae.�

�� The spell
created a silvery light that drifted around Harry in a slow, sun-like corona.
He sat blinking in the middle of it, lifting his hand as if he would shield his
eyes from a harsh glow. The light of the spell never grew any brighter, though.
It circled Harry slowly- to know him, Draco supposed- and then moved in front
of him and formed into a bright mirror.

�� The mirror
had a single green gem of light in the middle of it. That would represent
Harry, Draco knew. There was no mistaking the color of his eyes. A thin, misty
yellow trail pointed from the green gem in his direction. An even thinner one,
orange in color, led towards Theresa.

�� There was
nothing else.

�� Harry
shifted in his seat, but didn�t speak. Theresa was the one who leaned forward
and whispered, �Judging by this picture of your attachments alone, Harry, I�m
astonished that you�re not already insane.�

�� Harry�s
voice descended like a whipcrack into the silence. �Why don�t you explain it to
me, then? Because what I�m seeing is nothing more than what I�d expect.�

�� Theresa
said, �You have an attachment to Draco. He is the closest person to you right
now.� She let one hand linger on the yellow trail as if afraid of disrupting
it. �And you consider yourself bound to me, in a sense of duty or obligation.�
She nodded to the orange link. �The Soul�s Mirror uses colors to measure
attachments, the spectrum of the rainbow. The lowest-level bonds are red, and
then comes orange, then yellow, then green. And so on. The warmest bonds are
violet or indigo. Most people feel those for their families and close friends.�
She met Harry�s eyes. �I have never seen a person without at least one bond
higher than green,� she said bluntly.

�� So I�m
just different.� Harry raised a hand to rub his scar. Draco wondered if he
realized how often he did that. �As if that�s unusual for me.�

�� If I
hadn�t made a promise,� Theresa continued, as though he hadn�t interrupted,
�you would be in St. Mungo�s already. I haven�t seen people like you, Harry,
but I have heard about them. They�re considered in imminent danger of suicide.�

�� Draco
closed his eyes. He had been right about Harry, then, but he had never thought
it would go this far. He�d thought- well, that a few days of sex and yelling
would be all it would take. And though he�d told Harry that someone without
friends would go mad, he hadn�t meant it as literally as Theresa appeared to.

�� There was a
silence during which Draco could hear every heartbeat crushing home like the
sound of velvet. Then Harry said, flat and precise, �I suppose you�ll tell me
that I need to form bonds again to become well?�

�� Yes.�
Theresa�s voice was emphatic. �And ideally, though you�ll form bonds with other
people, it will be Draco you focus most of your attention on. Since you seem to
have- let him close to you, for whatever reason, you must pay attention to that
link. Strengthen it.�

�� I�m not
gay,� Harry snarled, like a mantra.

�� I didn�t
say it had to be a sexual bond.� Theresa�s emphasis had turned to frustration.
Draco fully sympathized. �Friendship. Strive for that. But not- not this
freezing out you�ve tried to do to me, Harry, and which Draco tells me you�ve
practiced on him for the past day. It won�t work. Otherwise, the moment you
leave the Manor, you�ll start sinking again, and we won�t be able to help you.
Imagine your magic escaping your control, Harry. Imagine the damage it would
do.� She paused for a long moment. Draco was patting himself on the back for
telling her about Harry�s changed demeanor in the last day, and how he hadn�t
been able to figure out what it meant. He�d thought it could be a bad idea, but
not if it helped her learn what one of Harry�s major problems was.

�� Imagine,�
said Theresa, �that we have another Dark Lord on our hands, a year from now.�

�� I
wouldn�t.� Harry�s voice was strangled. Draco opened his eyes to see that true
fear had twisted his face, though. He was no longer merely angry.

�� Why
wouldn�t you?� Theresa leaned forward. �You have no one to hold you back,
Harry, no one to provide you moral or emotional support, no one to help you
relax or notice if you�ve had a bad day. I�ve studied the little about Tom
Riddle that was ever released to the Healers. Who did he have? Whom did he
truly let close? No one.�

�� I let the
Weasleys close.� Harry curled his shoulders up as if he would strike.

�� And
they�re dead,� Theresa said. �I can�t completely understand your
reasoning, Harry. I�m trying. I can�t tell if the greatest part of it is based
on not wanting to let someone else close and be hurt again, or whether you
truly do believe you�re protecting others and sparing them a burden by keeping
them at a distance. But you went without friendship for ten years, you told me,
and now you�ve gone without it again for another eleven. You�re twenty-eight.
That leaves seven years of your life when you had someone to care for you,
Harry. One of those, you can�t remember, and the others are too long ago to
help you now. You�ll have to accept friendship, if it�s offered.
Otherwise, what can I do? What can Draco do?�

�� Plenty.

�� Draco had
to admit he hadn�t known Harry�s problems were this deep or this long-lasting
when he first began to obsess over him. But it wasn�t just a sexual interest,
either, or he would have drugged Harry, coaxed him into a swift fuck, and then
abandoned him again, probably under a Memory Charm. He didn�t watch someone he
just wanted to fuck for two years before approaching him.

�� He would at
least try to make the effort of being Harry�s friend, or lover, or companion,
or whatever term Harry would finally adopt as applicable. Perhaps he wouldn�t
be equal to that effort. He�d never done it before, that was certain.

�� But that it
was new, and that it was Harry, was enough to intrigue Draco. Of course, Harry
had to permit it in the first place.

�� Draco
looked back at Harry. He was sitting with his eyes closed, as though trying to
meditate his problems out of existence. Then he opened his eyes and nodded.

�� If I have
to.� His voice was quiet, resigned.

�� Such an
enthusiastic beginning, Draco thought wryly, as he moved to the door of the
meeting room. But I�ll wring something stronger out of him soon. And if we
don�t have at least a green bond in the Soul�s Mirror by the end of the month,
it won�t be my fault.

�� He opened
the door. Harry turned fierce, half-despairing eyes towards him.

�� Draco met
the gaze with a little shrug. He didn�t intend to give up.

*******

�� SLQ: Yes,
I�m still enjoying it. This is my �blowing off steam� story, written to take
refuge from a stressful term and because I couldn�t find a story I was really
interested in reading.

�� Madlodger:
Draco would have backed off on listening to the therapy sessions if Harry had
demanded it. But Harry gave in because he suspected it wouldn�t be an easy battle,
and Theresa owes the Malfoys too much to protest. And yes, thank you.
Thanksgiving was fun.

�� Satu: Well,
as you can see, not everything about the relationship can be sexual. But it�s
something that Draco is very, very interested in, and Harry�s locked there
because of the touch-deprivation and the fact that it�s the most powerful of
the impulses Draco�s tried to provoke.��
- 15
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- 17
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Learning Life Over