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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
- 18
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Chapter Nineteen�If
You Wrong Us, Shall We Not Revenge?

�� The figure
of Potter cowered in the corner of the photograph as Draco�s Cutting Curse
approached him. He gave Draco one pitiful glance, desperate, his lips moving in
small silent pleas, before the curse sliced the picture apart, and him with it.

�� Draco drew
a deep, satisfied breath, and then felt the anger crash into him again. No
matter how many pictures might look like that, the real Potter never would.

�� And the
taunting words of his letter rang in Draco�s head again: You thought that this would destroy me? How stupid of you.

�� Screaming,
Draco whirled around and aimed a curse at a case of food and scraps of clothing
on the far side of the room. It also contained a table from a restaurant that
Potter had once frequented before money troubles forced it to close. Draco had
appeared on the day of the sale and requested that they sell him the table
Potter spent most of his time sitting at and staring out the window from. The
owner had done it gladly, never once suspecting that he was looking at the man
who had engineered the collapse of his restaurant through a few successful
bribes. Draco could not bear the thought that something giving Potter so much
pleasure as a favorite restaurant should exist.

�� The table
flew apart into splinters, tossed aside from one another as if flung by the
hand of an angry god. Draco snarled, showing his teeth and not caring that he
did so. That revenge was my finest.
Original, not pathetic�

�� If that revenge was your finest hour, snarled
the voice in his head that had Potter�s face and his own bitterness, what was the moment when you went to the
papers?

�� Draco
turned away from the glass case with a low scream. He could not, he would not, admit how deeply Potter had
hurt him.

�� Of course not, because I�m not hurt at all.
Why should I be? I got what I wanted. Potter is devastated and will be for the
rest of his life. Those words he wrote to me were just a desperate attempt to
bandage the wound that�s already killing him.

�� And Draco
would have been satisfied with that explanation, if not for the fact that the
words had infuriated him so much.
Potter must understand him better than Draco had given him credit for, and that
suggested an intelligence and a level of careful
observation that Draco could not reconcile, could
not, to the image of Potter that lived in his head.

�� He�s stupid. He deserves everything that
happened to him. I�ll get over him and go on.

�� The bitter
voice laughed at him, and Draco knew, as he had known during the moments when
his world seemed to fall in on him as he read the letter, that Potter was too
smart for this, and that he did not deserve to be tormented if he retained so
fine a spirit and so high a pride as to reject
Draco�s attempted control over him, and that Potter�s last letter had revealed
him as someone who could mark Draco�s heart, too.

�� Again he
screamed, and again, as it had all morning when he didn�t listen to it with
deluded ears, it sounded like the noise of a vulture caught by one leg in a
steel trap.

�� He turned
in circles, his fingers crooking, his wand almost
dropping to the floor several times as his hand flexed anxiously around it.
There had to be something he could
do, some strain he could relieve, some outlet that would allow him to be really
angry without constantly bringing up the thought that he really had no right to
be angry at all.

�� But the
bitter voice laughed again, and the thoughts he had been avoiding for
years�because he had never known himself well enough to entertain them, because
he was careless as well as clever, because he had always seen the defeat of
Potter as an end in itself and not something he, as well as Potter, would have
to live past�closed in on him, swift and relentless as a hound pack tracking a
fox.

*

�� Harry
opened the door to the knock on it out of stubborn pride. No matter what
happened, Malfoy should not hear of him brooding in his room and refusing to
see anyone. Harry would face this with his head held high, and in the end the scandal
would wear away, as scandals always did.

�� It was pleasant, of course, to be caught in
an embrace instead of having a chattering reporter asking him embarrassing
questions. Hermione had been at the door. Harry buried his head in her shoulder
and clung back, hands so strong that he felt Hermione wince. But she didn�t say
a word about his hurting her.

�� I saw the
article,� was all Hermione said, and Harry tensed, because he did wonder if she
was going to scold him, and tell him that she�d always known Malfoy was no good
for him. He was anticipating a speech like that from Ron. But all Hermione did
was run a hand through his hair and say, her voice infinitely gentle, �Is there
anything I can do?�

�� Harry
sighed. �Do you know any place we could go that isn�t closed-in, but where
people wouldn�t stare at me?�

�� I do, as a
matter of fact.� Hermione had a little smile on her face, mostly in her eyes,
when Harry pulled back to look at her. �There�s a woman who almost got in
trouble with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement a few years ago for
poisoning a customer, but I was able to prove that it had been accidental; in
fact, the silly woman who got poisoned ignored warnings that the food had
ingredients she was allergic to in it. Ever since then, the restaurant owner, Lily
Balfours, has owed me a debt, and she�s given me a
private place to come and sit and eat and think whenever the pressure of the
Department is too much. Come with me.�

�� The woman�s
name, Lily, seemed like a good omen to Harry. He took Hermione�s hand and
stepped out his door.

�� A whirring
noise, a scream that sounded like it was breaking from a throat torn by
previous cries, and then the imposter was upon him.

*

�� Draco sat
with his hands clenched into fists and folded into his eyes.

�� He was
trembling, and there was cold sweat on his brow. He couldn�t lift his head
without feeling an ache in his neck and at the corners of his eyes. Every now
and then the trembling built to a shudder that made him feel as if he were
sitting in cold water.

�� He saw now,
clearly, what the nature of Potter�s regard for him and his regard for Potter
had been.

�� He saw that
he was a fool.

�� How many
years had he thought of revenge against Potter every day, even when there was no article in the newspaper to remind him
of the Chosen One�s existence? He had done it at the height of his own triumph
in constructing beautiful, prized houses. He had accepted congratulations and
the tributes of lovers and the admiring glances of people who couldn�t help
looking at his physical beauty even if they hated the Dark Mark on his arm, and
still thought only that none of them were as beautiful as Potter�s submission
would be.

�� And then he
had received that submission, and it had broken him.

�� Draco
didn�t understand how, because the strength he knew lay in conquering and
breaking and destroying, but Potter had contrived to make giving and
unhesitating acceptance a stronger force yet. He had smiled up at Draco with
his body sated and exhausted and still bound�he had not asked Draco to remove
the ropes that tied his hands to the rock in Avalon�and his eyes were glazed.
Draco could have killed him in that moment and received no resistance. And
still, he won.

�� Draco
experienced a moment of bitterness licking down his throat. It was Potter�s
luck, of course. That was the problem. No matter how many enemies came against
him, he would always experience some lucky chance that would deprive them of
the power to actually hurt him.

�� And then
Draco winced. No, that wasn�t true, was it? Potter hadn�t been able to prevent
his other lovers from going to the papers, and he had said it to Draco in the
letter: a betrayal like that hurt him. So he didn�t escape unscathed. He escaped unbroken,
but that was a different thing.

�� The thought
leaped around the corner and stared at Draco with the brilliant eyes of a
hunting leopard, and he could no longer avoid it.

�� Potter had
escaped heart-whole because of Draco�s own weakness. Because Draco had wanted
things that he didn�t even know he wanted. Because he had not
acknowledged what it meant that he mused about consuming Potter and owning him
at the same time.

�� Even now,
with Potter reaching out to sever any connection between them, Draco couldn�t
let him go.

�� And that
was the most pathetic thing of all.

*

�� Harry was
aware that he�d shoved Hermione aside, and that his wound had opened and was
paining him again, and that the imposter was running towards him with his wand
out and he was probably about to be hit with a curse.

�� But he had
to admit, at the moment was paying more attention to the words that were
tumbling out of the imposter�s mouth.

�� You
spoiled it!�

�� A violent
green curse came for him, forked lightning that Harry
thought in dread was the Killing Curse. But he didn�t know anyone who could
cast it nonverbally, and indeed, when the lightning hit the wall beside him as
he instinctively twisted aside, all it did was crack stone and make a puff of
dust rise up. The Killing Curse had no effect on anything non-living it struck.
Harry heaved a sigh of relief and tossed his sleeve, settling his wand in his
hand.

�� You ruined
it! You ruined him!�

�� Harry was
glad for the expression the madman wore: distorted, his voice a harpy�s scream,
his hands stuck out and fingers crooked as if he were about to rip the flesh
from Harry�s sides. This was a way that Draco would never look. He had probably
received Harry�s letter, looked struck and uncomfortable for a moment, and then
laughed coolly and gone back to his habitual expression of impatient amusement.

�� This man
was not Draco, no matter how much he might wish he was.

�� Harry aimed
at his feet and whispered a spell that Percy, of all people, had discovered and
used during the war when he had to incapacitate others without their noticing.
The imposter didn�t notice, either, too interested in trying to open Harry�s
face with a Permanent Scarring Curse. Harry ducked, and then noticed Hermione
standing up and drawing her wand.

�� He nearly
barked at her to get down, but then realized the madman was focused on him, and
probably wouldn�t see her. Harry kept one eye on her and realized she was
raising her wand, twining it slowly. A series of golden bubbles flowed out of
it. Harry smiled and matched her movements�this was a spell she had designed,
but to be truly effective, it needed two wizards to cast it�and watched as his
first spell took effect and the imposter�s foot began to vanish, toe by toe.

�� You were
the one who came between me and him, between the reflection and its reality,�
the imposter was ranting now. He circled in front of Harry, never looking to
the right or the left, which meant he didn�t see Hermione, and never even
looking down, which meant he failed to notice the golden bubbles emerging from
Harry�s wand. They probably wouldn�t have meant anything to him if he had. The
spell was not widely-known, and Harry didn�t think this fool had much respect
for magic that didn�t involve the Dark Arts. �You were the one who prevented me
from making my face into his, from breathing life into his skin, from being
what he was and what he should be. You,
you, you, that is
all everyone can talk about, and that is all Draco Malfoy can talk about. But
no more! When you�re dead, then his obsession must cease��

�� Enough of
his toes had vanished that he suddenly tripped and stumbled, and at the same
time, the net of golden bubbles flowed into being around him.

�� Hermione
had based this spell on things she�d read about humpback whales, which would
breathe air bubbles together underwater to trap their prey. The net of bubbles
took some time to form and was inherently fragile until it had joined, but once
made, it was firmer than it seemed. Now the net crowded in on the imposter and
drove him backwards, then around in circles, until the net sealed and stuck to
the wall.

�� The
imposter raised his head and screamed. Harry stared. There were tears streaking
his face now, and he no longer looked mad; he looked the way Draco would have
if he could ever shed genuine tears.

�� And then he
was gone, Apparated out. Harry gave a startled curse. At the very least,
Hermione�s net should have prevented Apparition.

�� He stared
at Hermione, who shrugged, said, �We�re dealing with a genius here, Harry,� and
began casting charms to heal the wound in his side, which he barely felt. She
kept her head down, but her hands shook, and it took a long time for her voice
to return to its usual briskness. �Now, do you still want to visit Balfours�s restaurant?�

�� Harry
nodded distantly, his mind more preoccupied with the words that the imposter
had spoken, which Harry thought must be a clue to the puzzle. Ruined him? Spoiled him? The idiot thinks I
did something to Draco? But he couldn�t possibly have known about the letter,
even if he crept through the wards; it would have gone to Draco and not him.
And why does he want to kill me and not Draco now?

�� Then Harry
took a deep breath. It was highly likely that he wouldn�t have to worry about
this, anyway; Kingsley would certainly drag him off the case now with a warning
for unprofessional behavior, and Harry would have protection from the imposter.
And he had cast Draco off, and of course there was no chance that Draco would
ever try to resume the connection.

�� Malfoy. I have to remember to call him Malfoy now.

*

�� So. Now that you have decided all this is true,
what are you going to do?

�� Draco took
a heavy breath and brought his hands into his lap, where he could stare at
them. He could feel curious gazes on him, from the portrait and the remaining
photographs he hadn�t destroyed, but he ignored them. They could stare at his
face; it wouldn�t reveal the tenth part of what was passing in his head.

�� Draco was
angry at himself, laceratingly angry. And he could
not pretend that his anger would be soothed by trying to destroy Potter again,
not now. Potter had survived the worst revenge Draco could think of on the spur
of the moment, and he and his friends were alerted now, and would defend
against others.

�� Why was that the worst revenge you could
think of? You knew that he�d had lovers go to the papers. You never would have
devised something so simple and�pathetic�in a saner moment. Why did you do it?

�� And the
answer to that question hit him with the force of the letter. Draco let himself
slump forwards until his face rested in his hands.

�� I cared too much about him to do something more
permanent, something that stood a chance of doing him harm he couldn�t recover
from. The very fact that other lovers had done this in the past was a
recommendation to me.

�� Would there
never be an end to his folly and the bitter revelations he was uncovering every
time he blinked? First he was more affected by their fucking than he wished to
be, then Potter escaped able to heal, then he realized that he was just as hurt
by the ending of their affair as Potter was�or more, since he could not have brought
himself to write such a letter�and now�

�� He shied
from the words, but the thought was there, bubbling beneath the surface of his
mind, even if he wouldn�t speak it.

�� I care for him too deeply to do much to hurt
him. I have to have him back not because I�m weak, or not only because of my
weakness, but because he�s part of what I need to go securely about my
day-to-day life.

�� Draco
shuddered in revulsion. He would not have thought himself able, at one point,
to ever make an admission like that.

�� And this is the thing Snape warned me about,
the reason my father sometimes looked at me with pity in his eyes, the reason
Weasley curled his lip and snarled but didn�t attack the way he should have if
he suspected I was going to kill his precious friend with heartbreak. All of
them knew me better than I knew myself.

�� All of them knew that I couldn�t live
without him.

�� Draco spent
a lot of time relaxing the muscles in his body, one by one, to come to terms
with what he�d just thought, and what must have been true for years, if his
father had had time to notice.

*

�� Lucius sank
back in his chair and stared up at the empty portrait frame. There was no sense
of a listening presence when he began to speak, but he was used to that. So
long as she could hear, he would
forgive the not-listening.

�� I have
failed, Narcissa,� he said, and then shook his head. �No, I don�t think that�s
true. I have not protected Draco from himself, but I do not know that anyone
could. He had to learn the lesson the way he learned it, through running headlong
into the noose, and then learning how much the trap hurt when it tightened. The
moment I saw him with Potter, I knew it would end no other way.

�� I know you
cared for him, dear one, but in one way, you can�t know him as I do.� His voice
lowered, and Lucius was astonished to hear bitterness creeping into the words. Well,
he was alone, and the occupant of the portrait was unlikely to walk back into
it at the moment. �He�s become more self-satisfied in the years since the war,
almost intolerably so. He thinks he knows everything about himself and
everything about the world and everything about how to live as a Malfoy. He tells
other people without faltering that I�m mad because I preferred to retire from the
world and try to learn who you were through your diaries. He is blind to
everything except the demands of art and his own soul.

�� Selfish,
Narcissa, to a degree that I can�t countenance in a son of my own line.� Lucius
frowned; once he would indeed have been startled to hear himself speaking such
words. Better selfish than losing one�s self, as his father had been accustomed
to say about those who behaved like Gryffindors even when out of Hogwarts. But��Draco
is so selfish that he contents himself with what knowledge he possesses of his
emotions and temperament already. It would take time and effort to look for
more, and he wants that time and effort to do other things. And now�

�� Now he�s
learning what it�s like when someone else casts a hook into your soul and you
never know it�s there until it rips out.�

�� Lucius closed
his eyes. He had not seen his son since the Prophet
containing the article about Potter had been delivered that evening. In
fact, he was rather alone in the house at the moment. Severus had flung the
paper down immediately and strode off to the Potions lab, pausing only to give
Draco a cold look that Lucius did not understand. Weasley had used several
dozen words that Lucius had never heard before, and then tried to Apparate out
past the strengthened wards. At least he had received a severe shock, for which
he had actually apologized, when the wards repelled him, but he had gone
nonetheless. Probably to be with and comfort his grieving friend, Lucius
thought.

�� And Draco?

�� Lucius did
not know exactly where he was or what he was doing, but he didn�t need to. He
had read the truth on his son�s face the moment he stared at the headline.
Draco had looked sick and pale and weak with the strength of his own feelings,
and the surprise of experiencing those feelings at all.

�� He had
looked, in fact, as Lucius knew he had looked when he heard of Narcissa�s
death.

*

�� What are
you going to do?�

�� Harry
sighed and lifted his eyes reluctantly from his food to look at Hermione. The
meal had been delicious; Harry wasn�t sure what kind of meat lay at the bottom
of either his sandwich or his stew, but it was thick and naturally spicy and
seemed to introduce his tongue to some new taste every time he took a spoonful.
The sandwich had been covered with a white-red sauce that Harry was tempted to
lick his plate to get every trace of. The drinks were plain water, but that
tasted better with the stew, in particular, than he would have reckoned.

�� And there
were carvings of lilies on the tables, on the walls, on the fireplace mantelpieces,
on the chairs. It comforted Harry more than he would have thought possible to
see his mother�s namesake flower in every corner.

�� Lily Balfours herself had taken one look at their faces, bowed,
and escorted them to a corner table where they could be alone. Privacy wards
kept Harry from worrying that reporters would chase him into the restaurant or
that their conversation would be of interest to any other patrons.

�� But of
course the end of the meal had to come, and, with it, the beginning of the
conversation.

�� Harry
grimaced, traced one finger through the sauce on his plate, and then shrugged. �I
don�t know, actually,� he said. �Brave it out as best I can. The Prophet grew bored of Penelope
eventually, and it�ll have to happen with Malfoy, too.� He was proud of himself
for remembering to call the git by his last name, this time. �It�ll be harder since
it�s spread across multiple days, but��

�� I didn�t
mean about that.� Hermione leaned forwards and caught his hand. �I meant about
getting revenge on Malfoy.�

�� Harry
stared at her for a few moments, then snorted. �I don�t
want revenge on him, Hermione,� he
said. �I want him to take his slimy face and his pure-blood heritage and his
sneering face and go away.� Stronger
bitterness than he liked infected his words, but if he couldn�t be bitter in
front of one of his best friends, who could he show his real emotions to? �I
don�t want to see him or speak to him or listen to any flattery or excuses that
he might dream up. And taking revenge on him would prove that I�m noticing him
more than he deserves.�

�� Hermione
bowed her head for a moment, then nodded, slowly. �I
can see that,� she said. �But Ron will have a hard time accepting it.�

�� I don�t
care.� Harry slammed his free hand down on the table, making Hermione jump. �This
is my life, and I don�t have to share
it with Malfoy or Ron�s revenge if I don�t want to. And I�ll never want to
share it with the first again.�

�� Hermione leaned
forwards and stared intently into his face, probably trying to see if he was
telling the truth. Harry stared steadily back, until she smiled and picked up
her water, rubbing his hand with her thumb. �Good man,� she said.

�� Harry
shrugged again. He was only doing what his natural inclinations told him to do,
the thing that made the most sense. Why would he want to see Malfoy again? From now on, the idiot would always be
dragging the dead ghost of the potential man, the one he could have become and
whom Harry would have really loved, behind him.

�� I never want to see him again.

*

�� After hours
of thought, only one plan was clear in Draco�s head, fluttering brilliant wings
and bouncing up and down.

�� I need to see him again.

��

*

�� Dezra: Harry is actually going to be kind of puzzled that
Draco chases him. He understands his own feelings, but he doesn�t know the
depth of Draco�s yet.

�� linagabriev: If there�s one thing
Skeeter isn�t, it�s objective. So I thought it was best to let her try and give
a feel for Draco to her readers.

�� I hope that
you�ll be intrigued with the rest of the story. At the moment, Harry is
convinced he will have to drop the case since he won�t physically be allowed to
continue on it anymore. But he doesn�t know about the strength of Draco�s
feelings, or maybe even the strength of his own. A lot depends on just what happens
with the imposter and with Draco trying to see Harry in the next chapter.

�� Paigeey07:
Thank you!

�� Thrnbrooke: Harry might want to be the one who watches out
more, at this point.

�� Go Harry
Brigade: I think you�ll find a lot to approve in Harry�s actions in this
chapter.
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The Same Species As Shakespeare