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The Same Species As Shakespeare	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Sixteen�A Madness
Most Discreet

�� Where are they?�

�� Lucius
winced. �I would prefer that you not shout in my home, Mr. Weasley,� he said,
with more politeness than he had ever thought one of Arthur�s children would
deserve from him, �no matter how angry you are.�

�� Weasley
whirled around, his mouth contorted in an ugly sneer. For a moment, it seemed
possible that he would say something unfortunate. Lucius lifted his chin and
his eyebrows. If Weasley wanted to get in a duel, then he should pursue that
course.

�� But Weasley
took a deep breath, shuddered once, and said, �Sorry, sir.� Lucius let the emphasis on the title go for now. �But do you
have the slightest idea where they could be? We�ve checked most of the Manor,
the Quidditch Pitch�� he glared out the front door at the Pitch as if it were
the fault of the wind and the grass that no one was there ��and all the
bedrooms. Where else could they be?�

�� Clucking
his tongue softly over the amount of redundancy that Hogwarts did not bother to
eliminate from its students� vocabularies, Lucius put his hand on his wand and
closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating. He had an ancient tracking charm
that he�d put on Draco years ago and rarely activated, because it was powerful
enough to alert his son if he used it carelessly. But wherever Draco was,
Potter was with him, and Lucius thought that meant he was likely to be too emotionally�and
physically�occupied to notice the buzz of the charm around his body.

�� Lucius
waited. And waited. And then opened his eyes with a frown to see Weasley
hovering in front of him like a kestrel hovering over prey.

�� Well?�
Even the tone with which Weasley demanded the answer was sufficient to make
Lucius curl his lip. But his conclusion disturbed him enough that he answered
in a calm voice.

�� I have a
tracking charm on Draco. It does not locate them on Manor grounds. They must be
far enough away that I cannot feel the echo of the spell.�

�� Weasley
tensed further. Lucius spent a moment feeling sorry for his wife, who had to
share a bed with him when he lay awake at night and stared up at the ceiling,
and then carefully directed his thoughts away from wives who had no reason to
be proud of their husbands. �Could they have Apparated?� Weasley demanded. �If
the attacker kidnapped them��

�� We still
sensed his use of hostile magic on Potter the other night,� Lucius felt
compelled to point out. �I am sure he could not have forced them to come with
him sans struggle. And that means
that Severus and I would both sense the disruption of the wards.�

�� Weasley
opened his mouth as if he would argue about that,
too, and then closed it and nodded curtly. �Could they have taken one of the
Floos out?�

�� Likewise,
I would have sensed them, and one of the house-elves is specially trained to come
and warn me of the unauthorized use of Floo powder in my home.� Lucius tapped
his first two fingers against his thumb. �I am afraid that it is by broomstick
that they have left us. Draco has a rather powerful broom, a Clearstar.�

�� Weasley
leaned against the wall as though someone had hit him in the solar plexus. Lucius
suffered a brief shiver of distaste. He hoped that neither he nor Draco were
that open with their weaknesses. They could learn many things from the victors
in the Second War concerning how to live in this changed world, but that was not a necessary skill.

�� And we
have no idea what direction to go in, or where they are,� said Weasley. He
straightened with a sigh. �I reckon I�ll have to tell Kingsley about this. And Hermione.
Neither one will be pleased.�

�� Lucius smiled.
�Or we may turn to other methods to track them.�

�� Weasley looked
up, hope lighting his face like the trail of a comet the night sky. �You have
something that�ll work?�

�� Lucius waited
until he judged that Weasley�s desperation had outweighed his inherent distrust
of a Malfoy, then inclined his head and swept down the corridor. �Come with me.�

�� Weasley�s
eager footsteps told him he would have all the audience he could desire, and
more than he had wanted.

*

�� Harry did
not know how long they had stood there next to the illusion of Draco�s house,
with Harry admiring and Draco watching him. He was perfectly content to remain
for longer. Though the sun had gone down, the look on Draco�s face warmed
Harry. There was a wild peace in his eyes, the most beautiful expression Harry
had seen in long years.

�� Then his
stomach rumbled, and broke the calm.

�� Harry
flushed, but Draco chuckled�a sound so light Harry had never thought to hear it
out of him�and waved his wand to banish the illusion of the house. Harry mourned
its passing, but he understood why Draco had to take it down. Someone else
might come past, see the house standing here, and steal his ideas. And Keller
might be glad to pay a lesser amount for a design so beautiful.

�� I know a
place we can eat.� Draco was holding out a hand towards him, his voice soft and
his face edged with�Harry didn�t know what to call it, because the names his
hope wanted to give that emotion were too
soft. �I don�t go there often, and you�ll see why, but for your sake I�m minded
to risk it.�

�� Draco, if
it�s a place that will leave us vulnerable to the imposter�s attack�� Harry
began, alarmed. The last thing he wanted, given how much he cared for Draco,
was for him to get hurt. The wound along his side twinged unpleasantly, but so
what? He would willingly go through that for Draco.

�� It�s not.�
Draco shook his head. �I doubt that more than a hundred wizards in Britain know
it exists.�

�� Harry
blinked. �How does it make enough money to stay open, then?� Automatically, he
accepted Draco�s hand, and let Draco steer him back to the Clearstar, which was
already hovering obediently over the edge of the cliff. Harry felt a faint
envy. If he still played Quidditch, he would have given a lot to own a broom
like that.

�� Because it�s
hideously expensive, of course.� Draco murmured the answer near his ear, and
distracted Harry from worrying that Draco would spend too much money on him by
tightening his arms around his waist. �How much do you trust me, Harry?�

�� Harry�s
mouth dried out. Draco was using his first name, and willingly. Yes, something had changed between them, and he couldn�t
give credence to Ron�s idea that Draco was only doing this out of some twisted
revenge plot. Perhaps it was the way Harry had shown honest admiration for
Draco�s craftsmanship. He must not be able to show his artistry to many people
who would appreciate it. Lucius was mad and Snape too involved in his own
research, his own brand of artistry.

�� He leaned back
and shut his eyes as he murmured, �More than is sensible.�

�� Draco�s
kiss brushed the corner of his mouth like a whip of fire, and then he backed up
and flung Harry over the edge of the cliff.

�� Harry
couldn�t even describe the emotions with which he fell. His head was dizzy with
them, his arms flapping in midair because of them, but they remained nameless.
He was more conscious of the wind cutting through his fringe and stroking his
flushed cheeks to coolness. And there was space beneath him and space above,
and he fell reeling between the stars and the sea, and any moment Draco would
catch him.

�� He did. The
Clearstar came up beneath Harry as if it had always been there, a part of the
shore and the headland, and Draco�s arms took their place at his waist again.
Harry leaned back against his chest and resumed the posture he�d been holding
before they landed the first time. He knew he was smiling, and also knew he
must look like an idiot, but he wasn�t about to open his eyes and confront the
expression on Draco�s face yet.

�� You did
very well, Harry.� Draco�s voice was low, and perhaps even impressed. He
nuzzled his way into Harry�s hair, resting his cheek against Harry�s for a
moment, and tapping Harry�s scar with his index finger. �Tell me, how did you
know that I would catch you? I made an implicit
promise that I would, but no explicit one.�

�� I know,�
Harry sighed, and licked Draco�s jaw. They were close enough that he could aim
with his eyes shut and still be fairly certain of guiding his tongue to the
right target. From the way Draco gasped, he�d succeeded. �And the answer is
that I trusted my own inclinations in your direction even more than I trust
you. I knew what I wanted and I knew how much I wanted it to come true, and I
couldn�t think that, if you were going to kill me, you would do something as
simple as tossing me over a cliff.� Draco�s arms tightened on his waist,
effectively saying, Yes, that�s true. �Part
of what I accept in you is what I want to accept in myself. I would be a lesser
person if I didn�t trust you as much as I do.�

�� Draco was
silent for long moments, and they flew in circles until Harry thought Draco had
given up his plan to take Harry to this restaurant, wherever it was. But then
he crushed Harry with a ferocious embrace and leaned down to whisper hoarsely
into his ear, �I don�t ever want anyone else to have you. I don�t want you to
give that acceptance to anyone else.�

�� You don�t
have to worry,� Harry breathed. �It�s wedded to you, and I couldn�t imagine giving
it to anyone else.�

�� Draco
immediately urged the broom upwards, as though he half-regretted what he had
said. But Harry knew it was the truth. He could feel it in the press of the arm
against his waist and groin, and he pressed the heel of his hand hard into Draco�s
forearm in answer.

�� He wondered
if he was touching the Dark Mark.

*

�� A drop of
dragonfly blood.

�� The drop
fell, and the surface of the potion shuddered once and then lay smooth and
quiescent. He bent closer to it, examining the blue color it had turned, noting
with satisfaction that he could see light stabbing through the surface as he
might through the surface of a shallow sea. The drop of blood had done its clarifying
and purifying work.

�� Crystallized
drops of bicorn blood.

�� This time,
the potion rippled and a white bubble swelled up along the sides like a fungus.
He dipped a silver spoon into it and broke the surface tension, twice. There was
a ringing, bell-like sound, and the bubble disappeared.

�� Scales from
a night monarch�s wing, collected on a full moon night when the enormous
black-purple butterflies visited the moonflowers he had planted in one of Lucius�s
gardens for just such a purpose.

�� The scales
floated for long moments, longer than they naturally should have, before sinking
and changing. Clear tornadoes formed in the middle of the potion, stirring up
the tattered shreds of ingredients dropped in before them. He exhaled as two of
the scales stuck to the sides of the cauldron, but he had judged the mixture
accurately. They settled to the bottom of the cauldron in the next moment, and
the others followed them down. The potion turned as dark as they were.

�� He stepped
back from the cauldron. He had to leave the potion to cool for five minutes
now, and no more than that.

�� As his mind
rose out of the trance that complicated brewing always put it into, Severus
recalled first his own name, and then the circumstances Lucius had communicated
to him an hour ago�Potter and Draco missing from the house�and then the
circumstances that had never been far from the forefront of his thoughts since
he had read Potter�s mind.

�� Severus
felt the corner of his mouth crimp. Sometimes he had been sure that learning
Legilimency had caused him more trouble than it had saved. At times like this,
he was certain of it.

�� Potter.

�� The name
was a well of loathing for Severus, and he had long since given up hope that it
would ever be anything else. Sometimes he thought he could see a trace of his
beloved Lily�

�� (Lily. His life had been a temple of mourning
for her, and always would be).

�� --in her
son, but always it turned out to be a delusion of his own, or a possibly good
trait tainted and sullied by his father. It was as if someone had told the boy
how much he resembled his mother already and he had deliberately set out to
cast every one of those resemblances into the rubbish bin.

�� He was not
a hero. He was an attention-seeker, someone who had received unfair advantage
after unfair advantage, someone honored by the world when the world should have
honored Severus Snape instead. It was true that Severus had made mistakes in
his life, but he had atoned. Was that never to be taken into consideration? Was
destroying a Dark Lord with a flare and flash of fire really so much more
impressive than discovering new potions and carrying on the spy work that had
made that destruction possible in the first place?

�� Yes, it
was, Severus knew, to his bitterness and his sorrow. The people whom the
glamour of spying attracted were not the ones who could give him an Order of
Merlin, and not those people whose good opinion he would wish to have in any
case. And there were precious few who would listen to his tales with any
graciousness or believe them. Even Lucius tolerated Severus�s presence in his
home mostly as a favor to his son, and not because he believed that Severus had
contributed to the war effort.

�� The ghost
of Narcissa hung between them�

�� (Narcissa. Perfect and pale. He honored her
for the son she had borne, the most competent Potions student he had ever
trained, but he could not honor her for her stupidity in the matter of her
death. What did she think Bellatrix would do, driven by jealousy?)

�� --and
always would.

�� And between
him and Potter�

�� Severus
snarled. One hand flexed, the fingers digging into the edge of the table. He
did not jolt the cauldron, because Potions masters who made such elementary
mistakes did not live to make more. But he needed some outlet for his feelings,
and with no one in the same room as him, he would indulge himself.

�� He knew the
truth about Potter, and Lily�s tainted legacy, and the boy who had pried into
his Pensieve in his fifth year and inherited a life of sunlight from that,
whilst Severus found himself condemned to the shadows still.

�� But the
mind he had read the other day was not the mind of someone who basked in the
attention he had attracted undeserved. It was the mind of someone who flinched
from it and clung to the shadows, someone whom Severus might have said would be
glad to change places with him, save
that that was so ridiculous he knew he must have misinterpreted the thoughts he
read.

�� But it was the mind of someone who carried an
enormous lode of love for Draco Malfoy, close-packed and gleaming like buried
gold.

�� Severus did
not know what to make of a Potter who could appreciate the grace and cleverness
that was Draco. How could Lily�s son love Narcissa�s?

�� A sharp
chime sounded from the potion, and at once Severus lifted his head and plunged
back into his work, leaving behind thought.

�� A mouse�s
head that had passed undigested through an owl�s body.

*

�� This is blood magic.�

�� I do
believe that you have said that more than once since we walked through this
door, Mr. Weasley,� Lucius murmured, bending over the lens and frowning. It was
a large, tilted piece of glass, convex and flashing with brilliant slashes of
blue and green. A drop of his blood ran back and forth about the middle of it,
swirling and darting in sudden slashes, but refused to do as it should and show
him visions of the place where Draco and Potter were now. Lucius shook his
head. The only answer was that Draco had protected himself against detection
via this kind of blood magic, and that was something Lucius had thought he
would not have the foresight for. �As it is not your blood, I do not see why complaints are needed.�

�� A rustle of
cloth and a deep huff showed that Weasley had crossed his arms. Lucius smiled
absently and cut his arm again. A second drop of blood fell to join the first.
Even if Draco had set up protections
against this kind of detection, enough blood should manage to overpower it.

�� The second
drop of blood mingled with the first, and for a moment they touched like small
animals bumping noses. Then they began to race around the center of the lens,
and the blue and green flashes grew deeper and more brilliant in color. Lucius
leaned nearer the lens, and heard Weasley drawing near on the other side. He
was muttering under his breath, but stopped when he saw the behavior of the
blood, perhaps because he really would do whatever he needed to in order to
bring Potter back, perhaps in reluctant fascination.

�� The blood
circulated until Lucius felt a dizzy, throbbing headache break out behind his
eyes. He clenched one hand down on the edge of the lens and hissed. Spiderweb
cracks radiated through the glass, and Lucius leaned cautiously backwards,
wondering if he should Vanish the second drop of blood. Too much power would�

�� The lens
flew apart into glittering shards, and Lucius barely put his arm over his eyes
in time. The rain of glass made Weasley curse in a way that testified to his
mother not using enough power behind the wooden spoon Lucius imagined she
threatened her children with in private. Lucius waited until the tinkling
noises had ceased, and then lowered his arm and stared at the hollow ring where
the lens had been.

�� What the fuck
happened?� Weasley demanded, waving his wand over his face to heal small wounds
inflicted by the flying glass.

�� Lucius shook
his head, unable to respond. There were only two things that should have caused
the glass to crack like that. Either Draco�s protection spell was mightier than
the charm that tried to pierce it and had turned Lucius�s magic back on itself�

�� Or the
person Lucius was trying to find was not in this world.

�� For a
moment, a third possibility teased his mind, one that said something about it
not being possible to locate twins using this spell, but the thought fled when
Weasley�s impatient voice said, �Well, what are we going to try next?�

*

�� Potter was
impressed, of course. Draco had been certain he would be, or he would not have
risked bringing him to Avalon.

�� Much more
than a place to eat, this was a secret sanctuary for those pure-blood wizards
who had not abandoned their traditions
and sought to cringe with fear and awe before the Muggle world. Draco could
feel himself relax as they passed inside the wards. Everything here would be
done by magic, and that particular truth resonated within his muscles and
bones.

�� He and
Potter had soared through a door in the air that looked like a normal shaft of
moonlight, but in fact functioned as a combined Portkey and Apparition point,
transferring them into a wide wizardspace. Or perhaps it was some impossibly beautiful place in the real world. Draco had
never known, and the owners of Avalon were not about to tell.

�� He lifted
his head, blinking away the silvery afterimages, and heard Potter gasp. Draco
smiled smugly. He blinked harder, because he wanted to get rid of the bloody
afterimages soon in order to appreciate Potter�s expression.

�� He had no
need to look up, because he could see the reflection of their surroundings on
Potter�s face. They were hovering above a wide expanse of dark purple sea,
touched by pinpricks of silver stars that didn�t match any constellations Draco
knew. A full moon hung low in the western sky. It was always full, no matter
what the behavior of the moon in Britain. Its light spread a shimmering wake on
the sea, which pointed like a path straight at an island.

�� At first,
as they flew towards the island, it appeared as a dark bulk of undifferentiated
stone. Then they whirled around on a permanent wind current placed stationary
to the east of the shore, and Potter gasped again. Draco looked down himself at
that point. He hadn�t seen this sight often enough to get tired of it.

�� As they
turned majestically, purple and silver light elongated over the island, as if
it were coming out of an eclipse. Some of the mass of rock revealed itself as slender
silver towers, and other parts as spires of amethyst. Arched windows shone with
complicated patterns of blue and green light in the towers, but there were no
doors that Draco had ever seen. Chains and walkways too thin for any but
trained acrobats to walk led from tower to tower. Branches of enormous trees
twined about the walkways. So close did the trees stand to the spires, and so
deep were the colors of their bark, that it was hard to tell which part of
Avalon was grown from roots and which part from stone.

�� Potter was
panting now, as if he couldn�t get enough breath. Draco urged the Clearstar down
with a whispered word and let Potter see into the heart of the island, as trees
and towers parted around a central clearing designed to be visible to someone
from flight. Draco wondered idly for a moment how it looked from other parts of
the island, then dismissed the idea. The immense magic that had created Avalon
would not find it difficult to arrange matters so that it blazed with beauty
from every angle.

�� Dark purple
and silver roots gave way to dark green grass, a shallow bowl of it delving
down in gentle slopes that made the clearing resemble a ring of ripples made
from tossing a stone into water. White flowers crouched about the slopes to
echo the stars in the sky above, and a long inlet of shallow water dominated
the center of the clearing, reflecting a finger of moonlight. There was a
smaller island in the exact middle of that inlet, complete with miniature
towers and trees, which resolved themselves into a table and chairs as they
hovered closer. Draco heard Potter sigh, and knew it for the moment when he
discerned the mirroring effect.

�� Phoenix
song rose to greet them as they descended, and Draco shut his eyes in spite of
himself as pure serenity breathed along his hair and into his face. There were
no human servitors here, no house-elves. Everything was done by magic alone,
enchantments layered and piled until they took on their own awareness from
sheer density.

�� Potter was
whimpering now, and they hadn�t even landed and had anything to eat yet. Draco
chuckled into his ear. He would feel Avalon�s magic calling out to the magic in
him, and he would feel at home for the first time in his life. It was possible
to feel a shadow of this sensation in Hogwarts or Hogsmeade, long-settled areas
of wizarding Britain soaked in generations of practitioners, but neither of
them had the presence that this place
did. Muggles had walked in them perhaps a thousand years before. No Muggle had
ever walked in Avalon.

�� They
landed, and Draco seated Potter carefully in a silver filigree chair before a
table carved of a single large amethyst. Potter leaned back as a whirling
cascade of moonlit motes darted past him, already forming into the food he
would like to eat best and which would best match his internal mood and power�the
magic, in tune with him now, needed no speech to understand that�and his
expression was intense and open at the same moment, joyful and free.

�� Draco sank
more slowly into his own chair. His gaze clung to Potter�s face.

�� I want to see him look that way, too, for as
long as possible.

�� Draco frowned
a little. He did not understand that desire
of his. It seemed to have less to do with revenge than his desire to maintain
Potter�s admiration.

�� But then
Potter smiled at him, and Draco remembered that no one else had ever seen
Potter look at him with those softly shining eyes. Rarity was reason enough to
value it.

*

�� FallenAngel1129:
Interesting question! I don�t think Draco knows what Draco is. Snape probably
comes closest of anyone in the story to understanding both Draco and Harry.

�� linagabriev:
Unfortunately, while Harry will listen to Ron while he�s right in front of him,
in the end he probably thinks more of Draco while he�s with him.

�� And it�s an
open question whether Draco will actually listen to his own inclinations. Does
he want triumph? Or Harry? Will he let himself have Harry even if he decides
that�s ultimately what he wants?

�� Lucius has
some important things to learn about himself as well as Narcissa.

�� I promise
that all the characters live! That�s as much assurance as I can give of a happy
ending right now.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Well, the answer to your first question is �no,� for right now.

�� Jilliane:
Lucius does feel betrayed and many other things, but he also can�t stop
thinking there�s something he could have done to change Narcissa�s fate.

�� About Ron
and Harry: Harry is kind of easily swayed at the moment. He can acknowledge Ron
when he�s talking to him, but then his obsession with Draco takes over when he�s
with Draco. He�s falling deeper and deeper into that same trance-like state
Draco acknowledged, the moment of the hunter and the prey. He could clear his
head if he could get some time away from Draco. Which, uh. Is not going to
happen any time soon. This chapter is meant to reinforce that surreal feeling.

�� Mangacat:
Thanks, and don�t worry about it! I�m glad you�re enjoying the story.

�� MewMew2:
Thanks! Writing Ron and Lucius together this chapter is stretching my tolerance
for weirdness to the limits, really.

�� The Kita:
Thanks very much for giving this story another chance! I was uncertain at the
beginning, which is part of the reason for the rockiness there. But this story
has grown on me, too, as it went along, and now I know where I�m going with it.
I enjoy the chance to show Draco (especially Draco) and Harry being completely
wrong about themselves and each other.

�� I hope that
you do write your story. I�d be interested to see in what way it�s similar to
this one.

��
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The Same Species As Shakespeare