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Here But For the Grace of Merlin	By : makochan0217 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21620 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 13
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling. We make nothing from this piece of fanfiction, and suing would be pointless, unless you like lint and bad skin!

Chapter List
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Warnings and Disclaimers found in Chapter 1.

Author’s Notes: Thank you for all of the reviews! They really do brighten up my day and make writing so much more enjoyable! And, unneeded, READ THE STORY! IT’S GREAT! By the way, Jokes, I heart you so very much for everything you’ve done so far!!! You’re a right gem!

Chapter Nineteen—Scouring the Land

Draco was torn. He knew that he was supposed to be examining a list of potential spouses for Harry that his mother had drawn up the moment that Draco had told her about Harry’s decision the night before, but he didn’t want to. No one would be good enough or willing enough to put up with everything that being with Harry Potter entailed—especially while he was very much attached to the Malfoy name—or who wouldn’t agree to an union just because Harry was the Chosen One or rich and famous.

Besides, the list was rather pathetic.

Shockingly enough, his name was the first. The second was Hermione Granger. The others consisted of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs from either their year at Hogwarts or a few years ahead. He could have laughed when he saw George Weasley’s name, but something stopped him from blowing it off as his mother’s idea of a horrible joke. Mother wouldn’t do something so crass as to joke about the debt, especially not if she’s plotting something, and I know she is.

George Weasley, and his deceased twin Fred, had been rather good friends with Harry back at school. He remembered hearing a rumour that Harry had turned over his winnings from the Tri-Wizard Tournament to help start their joke shop. He also remembered seeing Harry and his two sidekicks in Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes before the beginning of sixth year before he’d had to go intimidate Borgin at his shop through the large plate glass window in a rather intimate huddle. And the Weasley twins had always seemed more Slytherin than Gryffindor —at least that had been the consensus in the snake pit one day when they were all talking about the Boy Who Lived and his cronies.

So, no, George Weasley was a fine choice, if Draco was being honest. But, he didn’t want to be. He wanted Harry for himself. He didn’t want to have to give him up to a redheaded Weasel.

He looked up when someone knocked on the door to his own study—just down the hall from his father’s and close to the library as well—and bade them to enter. He wasn’t so surprised to see that it was Granger standing there, looking annoyed and as if she was going to subject him to one of her infamous lectures. “Is there something I can do for you, Hermione?” he asked politely, putting the list down on the desktop with no little relief.

“Yes, Draco,” she snapped, stomping over to his desk like some uncouth commoner. “You can tell me why you are going to go through with this farce of a search when you and I both know that Harry wants you and you want him!”

“Because, Hermione, I must at least make an effort to find someone else before I suggest that Harry and I join to fulfil the debt. My marrying Harry is to be a last ditch effort, regardless of how I really feel about the situation.”

“God, that’s so stupid,” she said, snatching up the list and throwing her body inelegantly into one of the comfortable chairs in front of his cherry-wood desk. “Well, you can cross my name off of this list. I mean, it’s flattering that I’m there at all, but if Harry wasn’t so lost over you and he wasn’t like my brother, it wouldn’t be a bad match.”

“No, you’d supply all the brains, and he’d supply the good name and gold,” Draco answered sulkily.

“Yes, yes, I know I’m only a Muggleborn and that must really irk you, but the idea of marrying Harry is a little disgusting to be truthful.” She looked up and blushed when she noticed that Draco was trying to kill her with his glare. “I only meant to me, not someone else!”

“And the others?” he asked sharply.

“Well, Ernie is dating Parvati Patil and I think Michael Corner and Lisa Turpin are engaged now,” she said.

“How in the world do you know that?” Not even I have kept up on the gossip of our year mates and she spent nearly the whole of the last year in Australia and the year before that camping out in the woods with Harry and the Weasel.

“Ah, well, Lavender Brown still can’t keep her mouth shut. I ran into her last week in Diagon Alley while I was getting potions supplies. That’s why I was so late that day. You would have known sooner if you hadn’t been so nasty about it. Better cross Wayne Hopkins off the list too, since he’s dating Lavender.”

“Why don’t you go through the list first and take out who is unavailable before I take it to Harry then?”

“Of course, Draco,” she muttered, taking a quill from behind her ear and conjuring up a pot of ink before crossing off names while continuing to mutter under her breath.

That taken care of, Draco leaned back in his chair and tried his best to remember the dream he’d had about Harry the night before.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Narcissa glided into the library, spotting Harry in the window seat, a book in his lap but staring out onto the grounds. “Do you find Lucius’s peacocks that interesting, Harry?” she asked calmly as she moved over to him.

“Oh, hi, Narcissa,” Harry replied listlessly. “They belong to Lucius, then. Can’t say I’m really surprised to learn that.”

The boy appeared glassy-eyed and completely unlike the fiery Gryffindor she’d come to know and respect. Is there a problem with his potions? Perhaps I should talk to Jacobi about them. “Is there something the matter?”

“No, not really,” he answered. “I’ve had a talk with Healer Jacobi today after he checked up on Lucius and we were discussing my parents’ deaths and the way I latched onto Ron and Hermione when I joined the Wizarding world. He seems to think that I’ve made them and Ron’s parents into my stand-in parental figures.”

“Hm, that does seem to have been the case, from an outsider’s perspective, but what is your opinion on the subject?” she asked, sitting at the other end of the window seat.

“No offence, Narcissa, but do you really care? It’s hardly Slytherin of you to be so willing to help if there’s nothing in it for you. Sounds a little Hufflepuff-ish to me, really.”

She gave him a fond smile before she answered. He is learning, a little bit, but he still has much to learn if he can ask things like that. I suppose that I will just have to be as honest with him as is possible and let the gobstones play as they fall. “There is something in this for me, Harry. You are, for all intents and purposes, a member of my family. My cousin made you his heir. My son and husband owe you so much that there is a debt of honour in play. You are living in my home. And, as if all of this was not enough, you and Hermione have become almost friends with my son. That makes me very interested in your well-being. So, shall I repeat the question again or will you answer me?”

He stared at her for a few minutes, his green eyes swimming with thoughts and emotions so quickly that she couldn’t place them all before he closed them. “I think it’s true that I wanted very much to belong to a family when I arrived, and Ron’s family has been great. George and…” he took a deep breath before continuing, “…Fred were some of the best big brothers that anyone could ask for. Bill and Charlie always treated me like I was another one of their younger brothers underfoot as well. Molly and Arthur were wonderful. The only one who really made me feel unwelcome was Percy.”

Narcissa frowned at the mention of the third Weasley son. “Yes, Percy Weasley is a bit more…ambitious than the rest of his family, if I have the gossip correct.” She gave a huge sigh at the look of confusion on the young man’s face. “As much as Lucius meddled in the Ministry, and I am not confirming or denying anything that he might have done, he has never turned his back on his family. I understand that that was an issue between Arthur Weasley and his son.”

“Yeah, Percy’s always been a jerk,” Harry muttered.

“I notice you did not mention either the youngest Weasley son or the girl—Ginevra, I believe is her name.”

“I still don’t know how I feel about Ginny or Ron.” He ran a hand roughly through his unruly hair before he spoke again. “No, that’s not right. I know exactly how I feel about Ginny. She’s like my little sister. It would be too awkward to date her again. I mean, it was okay when we were in school, but I really felt like it was expected that I should fall in love with her and have a horde of redheaded brats, like Draco was so fond of suggesting back then.”

“So, you are saying that your attraction to Miss Weasley was fleeting? A mere crush?”

“I don’t know?” Harry answered, his eyes frantic. “All I know was that after Dumbledore’s death, I had to break up with her to keep her safe. It was the only thing I could think of. I couldn’t get her into trouble on the hunt. She was underage and Molly’s only daughter. By the time that we left, Ron and Hermione were seventeen and knew exactly what it was that could have happened to us. I mean, I guess we were lucky with only being dragged here to the Manor that one time, but it could have been so much worse. Especially if Draco hadn’t been so reluctant to admit that it was me to Lucius and Bellatrix.”

Narcissa once again felt her lips curling up into a fond smile for the young man beside her. “So, you nobly told the girl that you loved that she had to stay with her parents so that she could be reasonably safe. Did you not think that once Severus became Headmaster that she could have been used against you by the Death Eaters?”

“I didn’t know that Snape was going to become Headmaster, but even as much as I hated him for his part in Dumbledore’s death, I didn’t think he’d use a girl to further his agenda. I mean, he pretty much had what he wanted, aside from me dead.”

“Harry, you are very mistaken if you believe that Severus ever truly wanted you dead. Out of the many things he was, stupid was not one of them.”

“I know; he loved my mum so much that he betrayed Voldemort, even though he knew it was too late. The git went out of his way to make sure that I would defeat Voldemort, despite the fact that it cost him his life. But, he was anything but nice to me. He treated me like shit from the first second we met, refused to acknowledge that I was a completely different person from my dad, and even went so far as to be legitimately cruel to me. I will never be a Severus Snape fan, Narcissa, but I do appreciate the lengths he went to so that I could win the war. That doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

“That is true. Severus was a hard man to get close to, and even I found myself desperate enough to beg him into the Unbreakable Vow to keep my son alive during his sixth year. Do not think that Severus let that occasion pass without gloating.”

“I bet he couldn’t laugh hard enough that you were there for Draco,” Harry said bitterly.

“To be honest, I think that sometimes Severus forgot that he was Draco’s godfather. He let his guilt and his grief over Lily Evans-Potter twist his heart into something unrecognisable from the boy I knew at Hogwarts.”

“I don’t want to talk about Snape anymore, Narcissa.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. We were speaking about Ronald and Ginevra Weasley,” she said, ignoring the way his jaw clenched and the sound of his teeth grinding together. That is a habit he will have to break. He has such lovely teeth that it would be a shame should he mar them. Another time, we will speak about that, but not now. “Continuing on with the subject—when did you notice your feelings for her had changed?”

“The night of the Final Battle, I guess. I realised that I hadn’t thought about her the entire time I was hunting down Voldemort’s Horcruxes. I mean, I knew she existed, but I didn’t really miss her the way that Hermione missed Ron when he went home for a spell. I was too preoccupied with trying to keep everyone safe. I mean, if I really loved her, wouldn’t I have been able to spare a few seconds every once in a while to fantasize about our life when the war was over?”

“I cannot answer that question for you. It is something that you will have to find out for yourself. However, was there someone that you thought about while you were away?”

“To be honest,” Harry said, blushing furiously and rubbing at the back of his neck in a rather adorable fashion. “I’d get these visions about what Draco was forced to do and I would see his face and it would haunt me more than the deaths or tortures that were going on around him.”

“Tell me, truly, Harry, if you had a say in how the debt was fulfilled, how would you go about it?”

“I wish it didn’t even exist, to be honest,” he muttered darkly. “It’s been nothing but trouble from the first. No one told me about a time limit and how it would make you and Draco suffer until I gave you my answer, and then if I refused you could have lost your magic. I just feel like it is totally unnecessary in the long run. Besides, I hate that Draco and I have no choice in the matter. I mean, I really appreciate the fact that you and Draco have let me stay here in the Manor to escape all the crap from the reporters, the public, and the Weasleys, but I could do without the magically-enforced meddling.”

She chuckled wryly. “I can guarantee that Draco does not see it that way, Harry. Perhaps you and my son should discuss what is going on around you some more. And I believe it would do you both a world of good if you both left your tempers at the door and spoke honestly. Now, I believe he is in his study, should you wish to do so.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry narrowed his green eyes as he looked at Narcissa Malfoy fully for the first time since she had entered the room. Sure, she appeared to be the same self-contained, aloof, beautiful woman he’d met before, but there was a certain look in her blue eyes that set off his suspicions. And instead of brooding on it, he gathered his courage and said exactly what he was thinking. “Are you telling me that you wouldn’t mind if Draco and I failed to find a ‘suitable’ match and were forced to marry to fulfil this stupid debt?”

“Why would I, Harry? You have already proven that you are powerful by surviving the Killing Curse twice now. You are obviously smarter than Draco or Severus ever gave you credit for, especially if the story that Hermione told me about your tricking Lucius into freeing his personal house-elf is true. You are not a fortune hunter. You are fair of face. You are, perhaps, a little rough around the edges, but the best diamonds usually are until they are buffed a bit.”

I think I understand what she’s saying. Harry gave a huffy sigh and felt his body relaxing for the first time in weeks. “Although I can’t really take credit for surviving Voldemort’s attempts to kill me, I suppose the rest is fairly accurate.”

“Wonderful,” she said, placing a delicate and long-fingered hand upon his arm. “Now, I am going to have tea in the conservatory. Would you care to join me?”

Just as he was about to answer, a house-elf popped up before them and began pulling at its flapping ears and wailing. “Mistress ‘Cissa, Manky is having bad news to tell you.”’

“What is it, Manky?” Narcissa asked kindly, keeping the elf from pulling her ears off. “Is there something the matter with Master Draco or Lucius?”

“No, no, ma’am, Masters is being fine.” The elf’s large, hazel eyes began to water. “Manky was being out in the gardens talking to Rochester about Mistress’s roses when a rude boy with red hair is trying to break down the gates and not going away. He is being a bad blood traitor!”

Harry felt his blood run cold. Of course it had only been a matter of time before news of where he was staying reached Ron, but he hadn’t thought that his ex-best friend would go so far as to actually show up at Malfoy Manor. “I’ll go talk to him,” Harry said lifelessly, standing up to take care of it.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Draco snarled from the library door. “I will speak to Weasley, before I hex his genitals off for trespassing and attempting to destroy private property.”

TBC

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Here But For the Grace of Merlin