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Secondhand Heroes	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 6782 -:- 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 for all the reviews!

Chapter
Two�Stubbornness

�� Thank you,
Potter.�

�� Harry
stepped back from the bed; Malfoy had attacked the food on the tray with a fury
that sent bits of egg and crumbs of toast flying off to the sides. He made no
comment about how it wasn�t good enough for him. He even drank the tea without
complaint, though Harry was sure he was used to better.

�� And that
worried Harry. How beaten down must Malfoy be, that he wasn�t complaining and
making vague threats to tell his father on everyone?

�� Then Harry
winced, remembering Lucius Malfoy was dead. His son would be extremely unlikely
to use his name as a threat anymore. Harry sat down heavily on the chair next
to the bed, watched Malfoy eat, and tried to think of the future instead of the
past.

�� I�ll need
you to stay silent and hidden here whilst I get you documentation,� he said. �I
think it�s best to go through Muggle channels, at least to get you out of
Britain. Most of the Ministry still doesn�t have a clue how things like that
work, and they�d need someone with expertise in forging Muggle documents to
notice something wrong with yours, anyway. We�ll need to dye your hair; when
the warning went out that you were a declared fugitive now, the first
identifying marker they mentioned was your hair. I know a few Permanent
Glamours that should hold for months. We also need��

�� No,
Potter.� Malfoy glanced up briefly from the tray Harry had given him. He was
still so weak that he needed to lean against the pillows to hold himself back from
collapsing into the bed, but the lines of his face were as hard and stubborn as
ever. �We don�t need to do that.�

�� Harry
clenched his teeth, but a sigh escaped anyway. �Yes, Malfoy, we do,� he said. �There isn�t a wizarding way out of
Britain that isn�t watched, unless you�ve perfected inter-continental
Apparition.� Malfoy smirked at him, but said nothing, and Harry concluded he
had no smart answer for that. �They�ve started cursing down unauthorized
broomsticks now, and any creation of a Portkey brings at least three Aurors
swooping in, even if the makers registered the Portkey already. I don�t know
how long you�ve been�unaware�of the general situation, but we can�t get you out
of Britain except on a Muggle aeroplane.�

�� Malfoy
sniffed and pushed the tray away from him. Harry caught it with a Levitation
Charm before it could shatter on the floor. Apparently, he thought, irritation
laying a familiar sour film over the back of his throat, Malfoy had done with
being polite. �There are always ways,� Malfoy said, not deigning to notice
Harry�s anger. �You�d be surprised how many of them have gone out of common
memory and aren�t watched, because the Aurors and the Ministry officials don�t
remember them. But that doesn�t matter, because I�m not leaving Britain.�

�� Harry
stared at him, feeling as if he had Apparated straight into the middle of a
brick wall. Malfoy folded his arms and gave a firm nod. He had his teeth
clenched together now, Harry saw, or at least that was where he thought the faint grinding noise was
coming from. Then he realized it was his own teeth. He made himself stop.

�� You�re
mad,� Harry said precisely. �They�re searching for you. Even my house can only
shelter you for so long. They might not punish me, but they�ll take you away, and if you think Azkaban�s a
jolly good time��

�� I know
it�s not.� Malfoy�s smile had vanished. �My father wrote to me during my sixth
year, and my mother got out one owl before they silenced her.� He leaned
forwards, the lines of his shoulders hunched and tense. �The interesting thing
about this conversation, Potter, is you. You�re an unknown factor. Why did you
want to help me?�

�� I was
tired of seeing people be mistreated.�

�� But you
haven�t done anything before now.� Malfoy laughed, an odd, strained sound that reminded
Harry of fingernails scratching down a chalkboard. �Unless there have been a
lot of daring rescues I don�t know about, and that�s not likely. You sat on
your arse when I was declared a fugitive, and when they arrested my mother, and
when they arrested my father��

�� I know!�
Harry found that he�d raised his fingers to his ears, as if he could shut out
the story of his own inaction by blocking the sound of Draco�s voice. He
dropped his hands again and released a heavy breath. �I know, and I�m sorry for
it. It was inexcusable. I�ll get you away from Britain, and I hope that goes
some way towards making up for��

�� It won�t.�
Malfoy�s eyes were fever-bright. �When I�m free, will you go back to sitting on
your arse again? Will you ignore the next wounded former Death Eater?� He
shoved at his left sleeve impatiently, and pushed it up to reveal the Dark Mark
on his forearm like a sore. �Do you believe that everyone branded with this
thing isn�t human?�

�� No�I��

�� For evil
to triumph, all that is needed is for good men to do nothing,� Malfoy said
roughly. �I heard that somewhere. Somewhere in the last mad year, when I was
running and hiding among Muggles and former friends and sometimes even with
ordinary people who knew something was wrong with the Ministry�s actions but
didn�t have the courage to challenge the Ministry themselves. They had the
courage to help, though. So did I. I was trying to find some way, against all
the chances, to get my mother free of Azkaban prison. And what were you doing?
Basking in praise, enjoying it,
rotting your teeth with chewing on the sugar of adulation��

�� I hate
that!� Harry screamed before he could stop himself. �I hate what they do to me
and for me! I�d stop it if I could!
But every time I try, they only smile at me and make me go away. And I don�t
have the power to force them to stop, to tell them they�re wrong and make them believe it��

�� He realized
suddenly that he was on his feet, wand pointed at Malfoy, as if he intended to
continue the torture that Gingerbrats had begun. He closed his eyes and
swallowed, suddenly sick. His hand opened, and the wand dropped to the floor
and rolled away.

�� Malfoy
spoke above his harsh panting. �You say that,� he whispered, �but I haven�t
been sharing your head for the past few years. I thought you were perfectly
content with your lot. You acted like
it. If you want me to believe you, then come into the fight with me. Help me
struggle against the Ministry, instead of run away.�

��

�� Harry
swallowed. �I�ve just told you,� he whispered. Whispering made things sound
more solemn somehow, as if he and Malfoy were actually planning a rebellion.
But of course they weren�t. Malfoy was still paranoid and scarred from the
torture he�d undergone; Harry was helpless against the might of everyone who
believed in rough justice. �My fame won�t help you. It�s a prison instead of a
power.�

�� I�m not
talking about your fame, you idiot.� Malfoy�s voice was sharp. �I got further
with only ordinary people to help me than I�d ever get if I was walking around at
your side and demanding that people bow to the Almighty Savior.� Harry glared.
The Daily Prophet tended to call him
that in earnest, which was probably why Malfoy had used the name. Malfoy
ignored him, smoothing his thumb thoughtfully over his lip. �Come to think of
that, it might convince a few people,� he muttered, and then his eyes focused
on Harry. �But not the vast majority of them. It�s like you said. This has gone
beyond one wizard�s power to stop now, even if he�s a hero. What I need is your
wand and your hand, your will and your courage.�

�� You talk
like someone who always planned to fight,� said Harry. �And you mentioned
something about knowledge you had that might be dangerous��

�� Malfoy
lowered his head for a moment, and the lines of his face became tighter and
more ferret-like than ever. Harry paused, wondering what memories his words had
roused. Of course, if Malfoy had spent the entire six months since he was
outlawed trying to find a way to free his mother, running, and hiding, he might
have picked up the knowledge anywhere.

�� When Malfoy
finally spoke, it was in a whisper.

�� I don�t
know how long they held me. It was pure chance they got me in the first place.
I went to meet a contact who didn�t show up. It was on a seashore I never saw before;
I received the Apparition coordinates by private owl. I think the whole thing
was a trap, now, and it took me as cleanly as those Muggle traps take a rat.�

�� Harry, who
had seen Dudley playing with a rat in a trap one day, winced but said nothing.

�� They took
me to one of the ancient manor houses,� Malfoy said, his voice soft and almost
dreamy. �I do know that. No one builds with stone like that anymore, as if they
meant to live in the house permanently instead of moving away at the first sign
of trouble. And I think I could recognize it again. There were snakes carved
into the wall, several with plumes on top of their heads, one with yellow
jewels in its stone eyes��

�� Basilisks!�
Harry blurted, and then felt bad for doing so when Malfoy turned to stare at
him. But it was impossible not to respond to so clear a description of the
monster he�d fought in his second year.

�� Yes, that
was it,� said Malfoy. �I thought I should know them at the time, but I was too
busy trying not to lose my mind.�

�� It was the
flat way he said the words that was worst of all, Harry thought, rubbing
briskly at his arms. Gooseflesh prickled up and down beneath his fingers. He
said the words in the way he�d eaten the food earlier, without a trace of the
complaint that once would have been automatic. His enemies had taken and broken
some part of Draco Malfoy, and Harry didn�t know if he�d ever win it back
again.

�� What did
they do to you?� he whispered, whilst being certain that he didn�t really want
to know.

�� Malfoy
looked at him with strangely gentle eyes. �What didn�t they do to me? Chained
me upside-down so all the blood rushed to my head. Flogged me with whips that
felt like the brush of leaves at first, but carried some potion that got into
my wounds and lit them on fire.� A twisted smile crossed his face, and he
tugged down the ragged robe he�d worn ever since Harry found him; Harry hadn�t
wanted to try and put him into better clothes when he didn�t know if Malfoy�s
wounds might have made him panic when other people touched him. �And this.�

�� Harry
stared for long moments before he realized he was looking at the ruin of
scarred and puckered flesh where someone had torn Malfoy�s left nipple away. He
looked at the floor and practiced strenuous breathing whilst the room spun
around him.

�� That�s why
I don�t know how long it lasted,� Malfoy continued. �Pain wrecks your
perceptions enough at the best of times, but this was so many different kinds
of pain, continually changing, so I couldn�t get used to them. And they were
careful never to speak of dates around me, or any time more specific than
�long� or �short.��

�� His teeth
suddenly showed. �But they spoke of other things, sometimes, and one of them
got careless. I learned something they didn�t want me to know.�

�� What?� Harry
whispered. It was the only word he could have forced past his tight throat in
that moment.

�� That�s the
knowledge they�ll destroy me for, and which I�ll use to destroy them instead.�
Malfoy�s eyes flashed with a purity that made Harry glance away in shame.
�That�s why I can�t flee Britain. I need to take vengeance on them.�

�� Your
mother?�

�� She�s
dead,� Malfoy said. His voice cracked and rasped with the sound of fear and
horror and grief pounded into anger. �And you won�t distract me from the goal again,
Potter. Are you going to stand with me or not? If you�re not, then nothing in
the world could persuade me to tell you what I know. I�ll kill myself first.�

�� With an
enormous effort, Harry managed to move his eyes back to Malfoy�s face.
Ferret-like, maybe, but noble at the moment, with a strength behind it that
Harry thought he himself had lost long ago.

�� No one had
ever expected Malfoy to be a hero, except maybe in the cause of fighting for
pure blood and exterminating Muggleborns. And yet he had taken up that role
anyway. He had suffered more for his cause than Harry had suffered during the
war.

�� Harry could
no more let him go on suffering alone than he could have looked away from one
of his best friends dying in the middle of the street. Shame, it seemed, could
still cut through his weariness.

�� I�m going
to stand with you,� he whispered.

�� Malfoy
reached out a hand. Harry, trying to ignore the strong sense of d�j� vu
swirling around him, reached out and clasped it, squeezing. He was ready to draw
back if the squeeze became too much for Malfoy�s fragile bones and skin, but he
was the one who winced when Malfoy�s fingernails cut into his skin from the
force of his own clasp back.

*

�� Harry
nodded to the woman passing him in the corridor, an Auror with blonde hair and
green eyes whose name he�d never been certain of, because she started giggling
hysterically whenever he tried to talk to her. She did it now, her eyes on the
floor and her hands clasping the front of her robes as if they would fall open
at any moment. Her eyes darted up to him and then away again. Her giggling grew
louder, shriller. Harry tried to maintain a polite expression on his face.

�� Malfoy had
told him to find someone like this, someone who would give him information
willingly but wouldn�t dare to ask what use he�d make of it later.

�� Harry
stopped, braced an arm on the wall, and leaned towards her. The woman stared up
at him with an opening mouth and gradually pinkening cheeks. Harry smiled with
an effort. He wanted to sick up, but then, he�d wanted to sick up for several
months now and he�d resisted the urge. Surely he could do it now, when it
actually mattered that he retain his composure.

�� Is it
Alissa?� he asked, hoping he was striking near the right name.

�� Heloise,�
the woman whispered, and uttered one more nervous chuckle, and then was still
again, staring at him.

�� Forgive
me.� Harry looked away from her as if shy, biting ferociously at the inside of
his cheek. He hadn�t flirted with anyone since he�d broken up with Ginny. Their
responses were too much like this. And yet, Harry knew he wouldn�t have dated
anyone who simply held contempt for him, either, as Ron had jokingly suggested
when Harry turned down the seventh infatuated witch. He wanted something more
complicated, something he couldn�t even name.

�� And you need to focus on the task at hand,
not on your nonexistent love life.

�� I wanted
to ask you a question,� Harry whispered. �There�s no one else in the Auror
Department who would tell me this without making a fuss��

�� Despite this
silly and patently untrue statement, Heloise�s hand immediately fell on his
sleeve and clutched fast. �It�s all right, Harry,� she breathed in ecstasy.
�You can trust me.�

�� Good.�
Harry glanced up and down the corridor, making sure no one else was near. Of
course, Heloise thought he was doing that mainly to make sure he had privacy to
flirt with her, and sighed in delight, leaning nearer to him. Harry clenched
his teeth and breathed through his nose for long moments until he could bear to
go on.

�� I really,
really need to find Draco Malfoy,� he said. �I�ve learned that he was behind
one of the crimes the Ministry thought it had traced to another Death Eater.�
He paused dramatically for a moment, the way Malfoy had told him to do, though
Harry had objected when he heard the plan that no one would fall for this.
Malfoy had arched an eyebrow, and Harry had to think about the behavior of the
people around him and nod after a moment. �No. I won�t try to shift the blame
to someone else. He was behind one of the crimes that I thought I had traced to another Death Eater. A crime important to
me, that hurt someone I cared about.�

�� Heloise�s
bright face had grown troubled, and she watched him with what could be
dangerous intelligence in her green eyes. He hadn�t judged her fairly, Harry
realized. Of course, that was hard when she fell over herself around him. �You
aren�t thinking of going out in the field and hunting him yourself, surely?�
she whispered. �It�s too dangerous.�

�� Harry had
told Malfoy he was no actor when Malfoy described this part of the plan. Malfoy
had curled his lip and said, �You only need to tell them what they want to
hear. You�re good at that.�

�� Harry had
looked away.

�� Now he took
both of Heloise�s hands and gazed steadily into her face. �There are some
things a man needs to do for himself,� he said. �If I hadn�t learned the truth,
I could have ignored it. But I know that truth, now, and I can�t. Please,
Heloise. Give me a chance to be a hero in the old fashion. Tell me what the
latest reports say about Draco�s Malfoy�s whereabouts.� Heloise was a field
Auror. She would have access to the information that was carefully kept away
from Harry, behind his desk or interviewing victims in the company of other
Aurors, so as not to �worry him.�

�� Heloise
sighed gustily. Now she was the one to check up and down the corridor. But she
rose to her toes and whispered into his ear, her breath making the skin along
his neck shiver. Of course it would, Harry thought. He couldn�t always reconcile
his body�s lusts and his heart�s longings.

�� The latest
reports put him on the coast of Wales. There were rumors that he might try to
escape Britain in a small boat, so we were watching for that, but then he
vanished again. He hasn�t resurfaced yet.�

�� Harry felt
a soul-deep wave of relief shudder through him. He had learned the news he and
Malfoy had hoped to hear, that the Ministry didn�t have any concrete
information about what had happened to him after he vanished into the paws of
his unknown captors.

�� Time to achieve the thing we want them to know.

�� Thank you,
Heloise,� he said, and let his voice drop to a conspiratorial whisper. �I�ve
always had a connection to Malfoy,
you know? A way of knowing what he was up to. I can�t tell you how many plots
of his I stopped during school. I think I can foil him again, now that I have
some idea of where to look.� He took her hand and kissed the back of it, trying
to give the impression that he was doing something greatly daring. �Thank you.�

�� Heloise
flushed all over and gave him a glance that made him wonder if perhaps this one
woman�s emotion for him ran deeper than hero-worship. But he wouldn�t have
wanted to pursue her even if it did. Ginny could have offered him genuine love
along with the worship. It still hadn�t been enough.

�� If you
don�t hear of me for a few days,� Harry whispered into her ear in return,
�don�t worry. I�m out stopping Malfoy from escaping and hurting anyone else
innocent.�

�� Heloise
nodded, cheeks bright. Of course she wouldn�t keep the secret to herself
forever, but in the meantime Harry had bought a few days of grace. And when she
told the �truth� to Ron, Hermione, Kingsley, and the others who would ask, they
would look for him on the coast of Wales, not in his flat.

�� Or the other places that Malfoy intends to
introduce you to.

�� Harry gave
her a strong, mysterious nod and walked towards his office. Ron clapped him on
the shoulder and said something about Harry�s success with the witches that
Harry didn�t hear, because his head had begun to whirl.

�� I�m a rebel now. A traitor. Part of the
Order of the Dragon, if such people actually existed.

�� Does that make me as bad as the Death
Eaters?

*

�� Harry still
hadn�t resolved his moral dilemma when he went home that evening. But he came
in too quietly to alert Malfoy, and thus he surprised him standing half-naked
in front of the mirror in Harry�s bedroom and staring at himself.

His back was a ruin, Harry saw, frozen with his hand on the doorframe. The missing
nipple couldn�t compare to the deep scars that ran like ravines from Malfoy�s
neck to his waist. Someone had made a spirited attempt to remove his spine.
Writhing, twisting gouges danced around each other on his shoulder blades,
leaving not a mark of unspotted skin.

�� Come in.�
Malfoy�s voice was that same flat one he had used earlier when speaking of his
torture. �Or leave. Don�t for heaven�s sake stare.�

�� Harry
swallowed and stepped into the room, still unable to take his eyes away from
Malfoy�s back. He was shuddering at the sight of all those scars like a horse
touched with the whip. But he wasn�t thinking about how ugly they were.

�� He was
thinking about how Malfoy had earned those
marks, every single one of them, doing something heroic in the name of a cause
worth fighting for.

�� And Harry
knew suddenly that that was what he most missed about the old days of the war
with Voldemort, and in Hogwarts: the power to act. The wizarding world had
never treated him sanely; he could have put up with the hero-worship if he
could have been a field Auror, or if they�d listened to him when he tried to
speak up against using the Unforgivables on Death Eaters. His powerlessness had
taken him by surprise, stunned him, and kept him from developing the mental
resolution to do something even if he�d had the physical opportunities.

�� You shame
me,� he whispered, and came into the room.

�� Malfoy�s
reflection in the mirror curled his lip. �Yes,� he said, �I�m used to the
sensation. My father said the same thing to me several times before he died.�

�� Not like
that,� Harry said. �I wish I carried those marks.�

�� You�re
just crazy enough to believe that�� Malfoy began, his voice torn between
laughter and disgust.

�� And then he
fell silent, because Harry had reached out and touched the center of one of the
tangled knots of scars.

�� Harry held
Malfoy�s eyes in the mirror. Malfoy wasn�t breathing now. He seemed to be
waiting for Harry to pull away and shake his hand as if shaking off
contamination.

�� But Harry
didn�t move, and in the end Malfoy began to breathe again.

�� What
caused this?� Harry breathed.

�� Acid,�
Malfoy said. �The whip I told you about.�

�� These?�
Harry slid his hand across the lumpy and bizarrely changed skin to touch one of
the deep, parallel scars.

�� Flesh-eating
creatures of some kind.� Malfoy�s back rose and fell beneath his fingers with a
particularly deep breath. �The skin will never grow back. It still hurts to try
and carry anything on my shoulders, just there.�

�� And did
someone really try to take out your spine?�

�� Good guess,
Potter. Yes.� Malfoy spun, so smoothly that Harry never tried to retract his
hand, and it ended up on Malfoy�s chest instead as they faced each other.
Malfoy�s nostrils were flared, his eyes quick and bright with some nameless
emotion. He seized Harry�s fingers and pressed them to a section of his torso
between his right nipple and the place where his left one used to be.
�Recognize these?�

�� Harry
looked down. Yes, he did recognize the scars left by the Sectumsempra curse.

�� I did
that,� he said. �And I can�t change them.�

�� Malfoy
released another deep breath, and Harry realized that Malfoy had needed him to say that, for some reason.

�� Good,�
Malfoy said. �The last thing I need you to do is enter this struggle thinking
it�s some chance to pay back your debts to me. It�s not. This is bigger than
both of us.�

�� Yes, Harry thought, as his fingers
traced the white scars, but it includes
both of us, too.

�� It was
absurd, how much both that thought and the frantic beat of Malfoy�s heart
beneath his fingertips comforted him.

*

�� Mangacat:
Thanks so much! And thanks for reviewing again.

�� Lisa: Thank
you! Draco�s knowledge will have to wait for Chapter 3, since this chapter was
mostly about Harry proving to Draco that he could be trusted.

�� Anon: Well,
that would finish the story much too soon, since it only has eight chapters!

�� cleo: Thank
you! Draco was tortured, and that�s an important part of the backstory, but the
major plot of the present timeline is Draco getting his revenge/reviving Harry
to do something about the world.

�� Jilliane:
Thanks for reviewing.
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Secondhand Heroes