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Sleepless	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16095 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter Seventeen—All Changing

            “Well, where is he?”

            The owner of the pitch that they had practiced on was a hefty man with a long black beard who had a habit of holding his wand in his hand as if he expected someone to attack any minute. He had stared at Harry a bit, but hadn’t been cringingly in awe of him when he first started asking questions. Harry was starting to wish he had been. It would have got him more results than this stubborn wall of silence.

            “What makes you think that I know?” The wizard leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers through his beard, and gave Harry a threatening enough glare that he was tempted to draw his own wand.

            But that would do no good, so he took a deep breath instead and tried to speak calmly and rationally. “I know that he used to rent this pitch a lot. I thought he might have been by here recently.”

            The owner studied him with a bit more interest, then tilted his chair further back and put his feet up on his desk. “What did he do to you? Still a Death Eater, is he? I probably shouldn’t have trusted him with the pitch, but I thought, well, his money’s as good as anyone else’s.”

            It crossed Harry’s mind to ask what crimes this man thought Malfoy could commit with spells cast on a Quidditch pitch, but he refused to ask. What he wanted was to find Malfoy, not engage in unnecessary conversations with people who didn’t need to know his business and apparently couldn’t help him anyway.

            “Never mind,” he said, and turned his back.

            “You might try his house,” the man told Harry’s back. “It’s the first thing I would have done, rather than accosting a decent wizard who’s just trying to make a living.”

            Harry snarled over his shoulder, but managed to keep it to a sound without words. He didn’t want to start a debate with this idiot, either. He stepped outside the owner’s office and stood there with his arms folded around himself. A chill breeze was blowing, and although he could easily have cast a Warming Charm, the wind fit his mood enough at the moment that he wanted to feel it.

            He had already been to the Manor. He had come here as a second-best choice. Now that Malfoy had quit his team, Harry could no longer be sure of finding him at their practices or pitch. He had been sure Malfoy was home, because, well, why wouldn’t he be?

            Perhaps I should wait for him to find me. He seems to have a particular genius for doing that.

            But Harry shook his head in the next instant. No, he wanted to find Malfoy, and he wanted to find him now. Passionate anger pumped through his veins still, but it had been joined by a sourer, redder remnant as he thought of all the fuss Malfoy had made about the dreams and their mysterious origin, when all the while he had known perfectly well where they came from.

            Did he think I would never find out? But then, why write that apology? Why cast the spell in the first place? Wasn’t it enough for him that he could have come and talked to me, and I might have paid attention?

            Harry rolled his shoulders as he thought about that one. It was possible that he wouldn’t have paid attention, come to that. He remembered how reluctant he had been to agree to practice Quidditch with Malfoy. Hermione had been the one to convince him more than Malfoy had, he thought. But ultimately, he had agreed.

            Perhaps the dreams really were an unanticipated consequence. But he still could have told me, the first time he realized I was having them.

            Harry shook his head. In the end, none of those thoughts lessened his urge to make Malfoy pay. He was going to confess, and Harry was going to yell at him, and he was going to understand that it was no wonder they couldn’t ever be friends, that it had been foolish to think of it in the first place. They couldn’t trust each other, and they only did damage when they were near each other.

            At least that explained some of Malfoy’s volatility. He had probably been wondering when Harry would find out, and what his reaction would be.

            He had enough sense to realize it would be bad, but not enough sense to refrain from casting that spell in the first place. What would have happened if it had worked? Would he have refused to ever tell me?

            Harry gritted his teeth and raised his wand to cast a tracking spell. He needed to know the answers to this too much, so he would hunt Malfoy down if he had to and then get the answers out of him.

            And then he could walk away, secure in the knowledge that Malfoy understood how bad they were for each other and that it would never work out.

            Safe to go back to Draco.

            Remember that he might not be real, his brain said in Hermione’s voice. Now that you know this, can you think he is?

            Harry gritted his teeth and cast his spell.

*

            “Potter.” Malfoy’s voice was flat and discouraging, and he leaned his face around the side of his door as though he assumed Harry would try to shove his way through. Or maybe he had a top-secret potion brewing in that room, Harry thought. He didn’t really know, and he didn’t really care, not when his blood was still seething with rebellion and resentment. “Why are you here? I’d thought I might be untroubled by you in my private home, at least.”

            Harry took a minute to look at the building again. It was the same kind of building that he and Hermione had their office in, located at the border of Muggle and wizarding London, old and anonymous and safe. Harry had to admit that he would have walked past it without a second glance if his tracking spell hadn’t tugged him here. It didn’t seem Malfoy’s style.

            But the fact remained that he’d found Malfoy, and he wasn’t about to give up and go quietly away when the arsehole had done this to him. So Harry leaned forwards, glared, and then said, “I found that little note you left.”

            Malfoy’s eyes widened, and for a moment he actually looked as if he might bolt. Harry held in his laughter with an effort. Of course, Malfoy had probably left the note assuming that Harry would never find it, or as a way to salve his conscience—which probably didn’t sting him very often—without thinking about the consequences.

            “I didn’t think you would find out about that.” Malfoy’s voice was very small, and he kept his gaze on the ground as though it would spring up and attack him any moment. Then he seemed to steel himself, and met Harry’s gaze again. “But you’ve already made it clear that you want nothing to do with me, so I don’t see why it makes any difference.”

            He started to shut the door, and Harry, befuddled, almost let him get away with it. Then he snapped his foot out and stuck it in the door. Malfoy shut it anyway, on his toes. Harry took great delight in yelping aloud. He’d wager anything that Malfoy didn’t want his neighbors to find out he had the Chosen One on his porch and was mistreating him.

            Sure enough, Malfoy yanked the door open again, his expression close to panicked. “What the fuck do you want?” he snarled.

            “To talk.” Harry met his eye once, and then shoved past him into the flat. Malfoy let him pass, though he stood with his arms folded and a permanent scowl on his face that made Harry want to snort.

            Malfoy’s flat was a largely neutral place, decorated in smooth greys and whites that made Harry long to introduce a bit of color, whether that was by smashing his fist into Malfoy’s jaw or spitting on the floor. He whirled around the moment he was inside, making sure that he had his wand in his fist. He didn’t know if Malfoy would actually curse him or not, but he knew that he wasn’t going to take any chances on getting hurt.

            Malfoy didn’t have his wand drawn. Malfoy was watching him with his forehead wrinkled, as if trying to figure out why Harry thought he would be cursed. Harry shook his head. “Why did you do it?” he asked.

            “Cast the spell?” Malfoy sneered at him mildly. “My note should have told you that. I wanted your attention, and I knew you would do nothing but ignore me if I asked for it in any ordinary way.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes. That’s why asking later didn’t work, and I never practiced with you at all.”

            “You did it reluctantly.” Malfoy prowled closer, looking incensed. His shoulders were tense, his fingers closed in one another. Still not reaching for his wand, Harry noticed. Maybe he wanted a physical fight. “You complained all the time about what a nuisance it was, and you were glad to get rid of me!” His voice had risen by the end, and he looked as if he would be happy to pound Harry to bits.

            “Because you were a bloody nuisance,” Harry hissed. “And because you lied to me about what you knew about these dreams, and plagued me about them all the time when you knew perfectly good and well why they’d started!”

            “You only know that now,” Malfoy said, his voice slicing, sharp as ice. “You hated me poking into your life and acting concerned about you at the time, even though you didn’t know what I’d done.”

            “I sensed something off about you,” Harry insisted. He couldn’t let Malfoy get the moral upper hand. That wouldn’t do at all, not when he was the one who had cursed Harry in the first place and put them into this bloody situation. “That’s the reason why I kept my distance! Well, that and the fact that you changed moods more often than a hormonal Crup,” he felt compelled to add.

            “I was guilty, you prick,” Malfoy snapped. He was pacing in a circle now, glaring at Harry from the corner of one eye, as though he assumed Harry would suddenly grow too clever for him and lash at him from the side. Harry sneered at him. Attacking from behind was only for faithless idiots like him. “And I was worried. And I wondered what would happen when you found out, even though I still wanted your friendship and so I kept trying for it.”

            “That’s another thing,” Harry said, deciding that he might as well voice all his disappointments at once, because the chances that he would get to do it again were slim. Fuck, he couldn’t imagine seeing Malfoy again once he walked out this door. “Is it friendship or fucking you wanted?”

            “Friendship first,” Malfoy said. “I told you that. I got upset when it didn’t work, and I snapped at you. And then sometimes you acted so stupid about the dreams that I had to question whether I really wanted you.”

            “That’s pretty fucking rich,” Harry scoffed, when he could get his breath back from the sheer surprise that had landed on him, “since you were the one who caused those dreams in the first place.”

            “I still don’t know how,” Malfoy said, and now he was glaring at Harry as if it was his fault. “Trust you to have an unusual reaction to everything! That spell should have either worked or failed completely. I thought it had failed because it’s like the Imperius Curse, and I remember hearing in fourth year that you were immune to that—”

            “You used a spell that you think is like the Imperius Curse to get me to pay attention,” Harry repeated, unable to believe his ears. “And then you wonder why in the world I’m angry at you?”

            “If you hadn’t acted like a prick and at least listened to me, then none of this would have happened!” Malfoy waved his arms like a windmill’s blades. “We would have become friends, or I would have figured out that I don’t want anything to do with you and moved on. I can’t make a decision as long as you’re this frustrating!”

            Harry barked out a laugh. “You’re talking about yourself,” he said, when the laughter would let him speak. “You realize that, don’t you? The frustration that I felt from you was that you wouldn’t make up your mind, or say what you wanted, and you changed your approach ten times a day. Whatever frustration I caused you, it can’t compare to that.”

            “How in the world do you know what it can compare to?” Malfoy growled, and his eyes were practically red. He took a step closer, and then stopped in place, rocking slightly, his hands clasped together behind his back, as though he was afraid that he would strangle Harry if he came any closer. I’d like to see him try, Harry thought, and tightened his grip on his wand.

            “You can never see anything beyond the end of your own nose,” Malfoy said, after a few moments of gulping breath and charged silence. “You’ll never look at me just because you wouldn’t have looked at me in Hogwarts. You’re still the child that you always were, and I should have seen that and never longed for you.”

            The vicious bitterness in those last words propelled Harry into action. He wasn’t going to stand there and agree with what Malfoy said about him, which was what silence would imply. “Meanwhile, you’re the man that I always thought you were, just selfish in different ways,” he said scornfully. “It’s no wonder that I prefer Draco over you.”

            Malfoy’s eyes widened, and he reeled back a step as though Harry had hit him. Harry watched him with his breath quickening. Yes, I want him to understand what he did. The price that I’m going to have to pay because he couldn’t just fucking ask.

            “He’s not real,” Malfoy said after a moment, his voice numb. He reached out and put a hand on the edge of a nearby table, apparently to hold himself up.

            Harry would have felt bad about that if he wasn’t so angry. As it was, his temper was enough to shelter him from any sorrow. He snorted. “Yes, but you gave me the chance to meet him. And I can obviously like some version of you. So whose fault is it that you never once became someone I could like?”

            Then Harry listened to the words he was saying, and winced. Shit. I reckon I can feel bad about what I’m saying after all.

            Malfoy closed his eyes. “You should just leave,” he whispered. His face was white. “I should have never let you in or listened to you in the first place.”

            “Listen,” Harry said, deciding that he had to explain himself before he retreated. Hermione would make him justify his actions later, and this was the only way that Harry could. “I know now that Draco’s not real. But I still prefer him to you because he’s simple. He’s honest. He doesn’t keep saying that he wants one thing and then changing his mind. And I know that he would never curse me.”

            “Because he’s not real.” Malfoy’s voice was slow and patient. “Besides, Potter, have you once thought that you’ll need my help to remove this curse?”

            Harry jerked back. “Why would I trust you near me again with a wand?”

            “Shut up,” Malfoy said, and his voice was blank, almost neutral, except for the sheer force of his words. He turned so that he was staring at the wall and spoke as if to a stranger. “We need to help each other. I need to make sure that I haven’t permanently hurt you. You need me because it might be something about the connection between our wands or the desires I had when casting the spell that made your dreams take this form. We need to help each other,” he repeated, and by the end of the speech, he even sounded as though he believed that.

            Harry shook his head. Everything had got all twisted around, he thought. When he came here, he was going to throw Malfoy out of his life, and yell at him, and Malfoy would understand what he’d done wrong and slink away. And he had felt angry. He missed the comforting pull of his anger, and wanted it back.

            “I don’t think we need to,” Harry said. “Hermione knows now, and she’s helping me. We’ll be able to reach the end goal.”

            Malfoy gave him a quick, unreadable glance. “Good,” he said. “That makes one less threat that I can hold over your head, and I think we should work together as honestly as possible. And I’m glad to see that you have more good sense than I thought possible for someone who wants to live in dreams.”

            “You still don’t need to help me,” Harry said. “Hermione’s a better researcher—” He snapped his jaws shut again, and winced. There was that bloody guilt, always popping up where it was least wanted and poking him in vulnerable places.

            “I don’t care, frankly,” Malfoy said. “You can think of this as my apology. And you might finally be able to see me for who I am if I help you.”

            “Why is that so important to you?” Harry had to ask. “I’ve rejected you, I’ve insulted you, and we fought on opposite sides of a war. That ought to have been enough to destroy any obsession you had with me. You’ve seen me at my worst, and you should know that I’m no friend for you.”

            Malfoy’s mouth relaxed into a faint smile. For a moment, he stood there, looking at Harry, and Harry had to admit that he looked more handsome than he had seen him yet with his hands on his hips and strength in his eyes. He reminded Harry of someone, in fact, but it took a moment of fumbling in the back of his mind before Harry knew who it was.

            He reminds me of me.

            “I don’t let go of what I want without a fight,” Malfoy said. “One of the reasons that I was acting so erratically around you—”

            “Among all the other reasons,” Harry had to add.

            Malfoy inclined his head in a gesture that didn’t admit he was right or wrong, just acknowledged the existence of his words, and went on. “Was that I knew, although I wouldn’t admit it consciously, that you would find out about the note and I was trying to convince myself to let go before you could slap me with another rejection. I didn’t manage to. I still want you. No, I don’t know why. It’s probably not the most healthy relationship in the world. But if anything can change my mind, it’s constant exposure to you. If that doesn’t do it, then I’ll know that this really is obsession, or love, or whatever you want to call it.”

            “Not love,” Harry said quickly. He couldn’t imagine it being love. Why in the world would it be?

            Malfoy shrugged at him, a gesture of much the same sort as the inclination of his head before. “So this is as much for me as for you.”



            “I still need to give you permission, though,” Harry had to point out. “It’s not as though you can go about doing whatever you like without my permission.”

            Malfoy snorted softly, but his eyes shone now as if he was enjoying the challenge. “So. Give it to me.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “I told you, why should I trust you around me with a wand? And feeling sorry for you doesn’t mean that I have to give you access to me.”

            Malfoy laughed outright. “You’re still stubborn, I see. Anyone else would leap at the chance to work with the person who had cursed them, just in case they knew something special about the spell. It’s a rare opportunity, after all.”

            “What were your motives for casting that spell?” Harry had to ask. “Why not just come to me, tell me what was going on, and then ask me to see where friendship with you went? That’s what you ended up doing anyway.”

            Malfoy’s laughter fell away, and he stared at Harry with a bone mask for an expression, too bare and naked and honest. Harry winced and glanced away.

            “Maybe you can be that courageous about your deepest emotions,” Malfoy whispered. “I can’t.”

            Harry took a large breath and closed his eyes. It seemed he did have the chance to work with Malfoy, whether or not he wanted it. The biggest problem was whether he was going to take it.

            On the one hand, he didn’t want to. He wanted Malfoy as far away from him as possible, and he wanted to show the git that nothing good would come from cursing Harry in the first place. Who knew but that he would do it again because the first time had worked out for him and he wasn’t going to suffer the consequences for it?

            On the other hand, hadn’t he already suffered the consequences? They might not be large consequences as far as Harry’s personal belief system went, but they obviously mattered to Malfoy. Harry couldn’t see the expression on his face and doubt that.

            He sighed and looked back at Malfoy, who at least looked a bit less vulnerable than he had before. “Fine. You can work with me and Hermione to—make sure the dreams don’t have an evil origin, or whatever it is, exactly, that you want to do. But I want you to promise that you’ll let me rescue the Draco in the dreams first.”

            Malfoy looked at him with what seemed to be unfeigned disgust. “I don’t see how you can, if he’s as helpless as you’ve told me,” he muttered, and his words sparked on the edge, metallic with jealousy.

            “He needs someone to defend him in his trial,” Harry said. “And his parents, too. I want to do that.”

            Malfoy gave an elaborate yawn and turned to stare at the far wall. “Why should I care when he doesn’t exist? Why do you care when he doesn’t exist?” He turned his head and peered at Harry over his shoulder, as though wondering why he hadn’t agreed already and praised Malfoy’s wonderful wisdom. “You know that he isn’t real now. You can’t doubt it, not when you also believe that I caused the dreams by casting that spell on you. Why care?”

            Harry hesitated. The immediate answer that had jumped to mind was one he wouldn’t have minded sharing with Hermione or Ron, but Malfoy was different.

            Malfoy seemed to see something of that in his face, because he immediately turned away. “We’ll work together,” he said. “But it’s more than obvious that you’ll never trust me.”

            “Fine,” Harry said, trying to ignore the way the word sounded as if it was wrenched from him. “I just—Malfoy, I didn’t want to stay an Auror because I knew they would never let me fight, all right? They would never let the Chosen One risk himself. I decided to become a barrister because it was a way that I could help people and undertake some amount of risk, although it wasn’t as direct as becoming an Auror. And being Draco’s barrister—it’s a risk, too. I knew from the beginning that something was abnormal about these dreams, but that only made them more attractive to me. It only made me want them to continue, because it made me feel alive again in a way that studying law books didn’t.”

            Malfoy stared at him in open disbelief. Then he said, “I never knew that you liked to risk your life that much.”

            Harry smiled a bit. He knew the way Malfoy’s jaw had hung open didn’t come from that. “I know,” he said. “But now you do. Do you still want to be around me?”

            Malfoy smiled back and stepped up to him. Before Harry knew what he was doing, Malfoy had taken his wrist in a clasping hand and leaned near. His lips brushed teasingly against Harry’s ear, sending tingles and jolts of energy through him.

            “I do,” he breathed. “Maybe I can convince you that there’s more than enough risk associated with me.”

            Harry was still flushed several minutes after Malfoy released him.

*

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Sleepless