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The Conservation of Fame	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 22392 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Two--The Consequences of a Spell

            Draco Malfoy lay on the spare bed that Harry kept for times when George shouldn't be alone, or times when Ron and Hermione, as they still sometimes did, had rows so severe that neither of them wanted to go back home that night. Harry stood next to the bed and scowled at him.

            Well, he wasn't completely inhuman. He wouldn't leave Malfoy on his doorstep when he was wounded.

            And he was. Blood made his milky-blond hair clump together on the back of his skull, and he had long gashes in his arms, as though attacked by something with claws. Maybe that was why he'd been shielding his face. Harry had rolled him over with spells and used the same magic to lift his clothes gingerly, looking under them to see if he had other wounds that should be treated. He couldn't really see any, though.

            So, for the moment, Harry had stopped the bleeding, cleaned out the cuts on his arms and the back of his head, forced a little Strengthening Potion down his throat between lips he had to hold open, and stood there listening to his breathing and trying to decide what the fuck he should do.

            The spell would make it possible for him to take Malfoy to St. Mungo's and not have anyone comment on it; they would just see an ordinary man named Harry Potter doing it. It was Malfoy's name that would likely cause comment and staring, and might make some of the Healers, depending on who they got, refuse to treat him.

            That was what made Harry hesitate, despite the fact that common sense and a desire to have his peace back both said he should take Malfoy to the Healers. What if his enemies still waited for him out there? What if they could track him to hospital, or find him again once he was there? Harry's wards had suffered damage from them, and he knew that St. Mungo's didn't have protections anywhere near as strong, except perhaps on the Janus Thickey ward. And those were there to protect other people from the patients, for the most part, not patients from them.

            It was a conundrum.

            Malfoy groaned and rolled over, aiming his face towards Harry. Harry paused, his heart drumming so urgently that for a moment he thought he would suffocate. Then he shook his head and told himself not to be so stupid. The spell would hold for Malfoy, too. He didn't know who Harry was, only what he was. And Harry had sent his fame elsewhere, mostly to other real people.

            Malfoy's eyes opened. Harry scrutinized them carefully. He knew that, sometimes, a blow on the back of the head could make someone blind.

            But Malfoy didn't look as though he had that problem. He was staring at Harry, his eyes steadily widening, and their color seemed to be the same as far as Harry could remember, that bright pale grey. Harry hadn't had any reason to pay attention to Malfoy's eyes in years.

            "You're safe," Harry said quietly. "I don't know how you got through my wards--" another question to ask when Malfoy had some reason to trust him more "--but you did, and your enemies didn't. I'll treat your wounds, and then I'll take you anywhere you ask. You can go back to sleep if you'd like."

            Malfoy didn't respond, and Harry wondered if he was so distrustful that an offer of help just sounded like a threat to him. He was about to ask what kind of reassurance he could give when Malfoy whispered hoarsely, "Who are you?"

            Harry shivered. The spell was holding.

            Unless the blow on the back of his head made him lose his memory, of course.

            Harry shoved the thought away with an inner scowl that he made sure not to let show on his face, and said, with a faint smile, "My name is Harry Potter." He had let his fringe grow long to hang over his scar, although it had faded so much that it was hard to distinguish from less than an inch away and he had ample proof that the spell was strong enough to make people ignore the evidence of their eyes. He didn't think there was anything left for Malfoy to remember him by, if the name didn't trigger memories.

            It didn't seem to, since Malfoy's cloudy eyes didn't immediately fill with hatred. Instead, he continued staring, and then repeated, in a voice that scraped and dipped in the middle with urgency, "Who are you?"

            "I just told you my name," Harry said, snarling in spite of himself. Malfoy could still irritate him effortlessly, it seemed, and it didn't matter whether they were interacting as Slytherin and Gryffindor or patient and healer. "Anyway. I know yours. That face is distinctive, Malfoy. You'll have to decide what to do, though. Your enemies, whoever they are, probably saw you come in here, and they'll be after you soon. Maybe with some assault stronger than my wards can withstand." He turned towards the door of the bedroom. "For now, rest," he added, over his shoulder.

            And I don't want to move. This was Harry's home now, every crooked and rambling inch of it. He had decided to make his stand here. That meant no running.

            "I need to know who you are before I can make any decision," Malfoy said, in a tone closer to his usual hauteur than any he'd used before.

            Harry rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "If you don't know me by that name, then I can't help you," he said, part of him relishing, in spite of himself, how very double-edged some of their words were.

            "No French accent," Malfoy mused. "No Bulgarian, either. You must have attended Hogwarts, but why don't I remember you? You look like you're the same age as me. I should have remembered you."

            "You think there are only three wizarding schools in Europe?" Harry asked, picking up one of the nest of prepared lies he had worked out with Ron and Hermione just in case anyone ever did come close to discovering the secret of his identity. Ron had collapsed laughing over some of them. Harry looked back at Malfoy and arched his eyebrows. "I'm surprised that someone of your obvious experience still does."

            He shut the door on Malfoy's gaping face, and went to fetch him some food and tea from the kitchen, then Floo Ron and Hermione. Harry was over the point where he would run to his friends for help in every trouble, but it still did him good to complain, sometimes.

*

            "Malfoy is in your house?" Ron made a face that seemed to fill the whole fire. "That's hard, mate."

            Hermione, who was beside Ron in the flames, gave Ron a hard look and Harry a tolerant one. "It's good to know that you'll help someone in trouble, Harry," she said quietly. "Even if it is Malfoy."

            Harry rolled his eyes at her. "You know that I never meant to turn my back on the whole wizarding world when I started living like this, Hermione. Only the ones who turned their backs on me, or never saw the real me in the first place."

            "I wondered."

            Hermione had helped with the spell that moved Harry's fame away from him and separated his reputation from the body he lived in under protest. She agreed that it was necessary for Harry to do something about the people hunting him and the Prophet harassing him when the Ministry wouldn't, but she still wasn't happy at the thought that the spell affected other people's minds.

            But she had done it, because she was his friend, and Harry had to admit that if he had heard about someone else controlling people's minds and living behind powerful wards, he would have questioned their compassion, too. So he let it go, and said, "I don't know what he's in trouble from. Maybe once he's better, he'll want to go somewhere else anyway. It's already driving him mad that he can't figure out who I am."

            "Yeah, it would," Ron said, and blinked at him worriedly. "Be careful, mate."

            "There's another problem," Hermione said, her eyes wide in the way that meant a new theory had just occurred to her. "The longer he's with you, Harry, the more familiar he'll become with you. The more he'll get to know the real you. Eventually, the spell might snap and connect him with his old memories."

            Harry paused. Then he said, "Are you sure? Because, really, Hermione, that's not something I worried about. That's--that's weird, to tell you the truth. Why the fuck would he get to know the real me?"

            "Because you'll be lying to him in one way, but not another way," Hermione said. "You'll be taking care of him and talking to him in a normal tone of voice and showing him the man he never got the chance to know when you were enemies. That's enough to make someone else fond of you."

            Harry laughed and relaxed against the chair that he usually used when he was on the Floo. "For a minute there, you had me worried, Hermione. That's not going to happen this time. Malfoy can't be fond of someone who helps him when he's hurt. His pride is going to be more deeply wounded than anything else by the time he's better." He saluted Hermione with his bottle of Muggle beer. He had spent some time and effort making sure that he could have a fridge that would work with magic. Just because he lived in isolation from the wizarding world didn't mean he had to be without creature comforts. "I'll keep your words in mind in case I ever have to shelter someone else, though."

            Hermione didn't look convinced, but Ron broke in before she could talk about it further. "How long do you think it'll be until you can get him out of there, mate?"

            "God knows." Harry flipped a lazy hand up and down. He felt much better about the whole thing now that he knew it was probably just a matter of time until he was alone again. "He'll have to recover from his wounds first, and then I need to find out more about his enemies, and whether they'll come after him if I let him out the door. That'll take time, too. He has to trust me enough to tell me. Or at least enough to give me the name of a friend I can leave him with."

            "That eager to be rid of me?"

            Harry whirled around, landing in a battle-crouch with his wand out before he thought better of it. Well, he wasn't used to being startled in his own home. Given his wards, even Ron and Hermione usually Flooed or owled him before they came over.

            Malfoy, swaying and looking far paler than he had when lying down in bed, stood in the middle of the doorway that led to his room. He had hold of the walls with both hands, but the expression of extreme determination stamped on his face was familiar to Harry from sixth year. He might look as if he was about to fall down. He also looked as stubborn as a pig.

            "Damn it," Harry muttered, decided from Malfoy's line of sight that he probably hadn't seen Ron and Hermione in the fireplace, and shut the connection with a snapped command. He stood up and moved around the chair, and still Malfoy stood there staring at him, not the hearth. Good. "Yes, actually, I am. You arrived here trailing unknown danger behind you, and there's no reason to think I can take the best care of you. I'm not a trained Healer."

            "But you're what I have," Malfoy said, his eyes unwavering now, despite the shadowy color in them and on his cheeks. "And I--I can't remember everything, but I know that I was trying to Apparate to a place of safety. You're it. Even if I don't know why, I know I'm safe here." He took a deep breath, and then released it in that eternal question. "Who are you?"

            "Har. Ry. Pot. Ter." Harry tried it slower this time, just in case that would imprint the truth on Malfoy's absurd brain.

            "But I know you," Malfoy said, and took a step away from the doorframe. That turned out not to be wise, since his legs promptly crumbled beneath him. Harry sighed, cast a Lightening Charm at the git, and snatched him up, cradling Malfoy against his shoulder as he carried him back into the bedroom. He arranged the sheets for him, and even fluffed the pillows, before he wrestled Malfoy into it. Malfoy didn't do anything to fight him, but he didn't help, either, content to just lie there and stare at Harry with wide eyes.

            "You must know me," he whispered. "You must hate me. No one who doesn't hate me would talk like you do, as if he despised me merely for existing."

            "There's a class of people," Harry said, dragging the sheets up over Malfoy's legs and noting as he did so that Malfoy had let his toenails grow long, as if he'd been on the run for a long time, "who hate being disbelieved. No matter how many times I tell you my name, you don't accept it. That's irritating." He smoothed down the sheets again, and then Summoned some more food from the kitchen, bread under a Warming Charm that he'd been saving for his own breakfast in the morning. Well, he could have something else. He arranged the bread on a tray and thrust it at Malfoy. "Here. Eat this."

            Malfoy picked it up and took a bite, but his eyes, as motionless as a snake's, never left Harry's. "You take care of me," he said. "And hate me at the same time. A strange combination. I know you can't be a Gryffindor, because I knew all the Gryffindors in my own year, but you act like one."

            Harry thought he had managed to keep from flinching when Malfoy mentioned his House, and maintain a calm expression. "Do you want to go to St. Mungo's?" he asked.

            "No." Malfoy ate several more bites of the bread, continuing to stare at him. It was extremely creepy. Harry had just decided to step out the door of the room when Malfoy said, "I want to know who you are."

            "You discovered me." Harry leaned forwards and lowered his voice, amused to see Malfoy lean forwards at the same time, although he couldn't upset the tray because of some of the charms Harry had placed on it. "I'm actually the long-lost son of Merlin, transported through time to the modern day. I took an ordinary name so no one would discover me and I'm hiding until the moment when England needs me again."

            Malfoy opened his mouth, then scowled and shut it. "That lie couldn't fool a Muggle baby, Potter," he muttered, and took another bite of bread, half-shutting his eyes as if he found the taste of thick sweetness near the crisp crust overwhelming. That, and his slenderness, made Harry think he hadn't been eating well for a while.

            Harry grinned. "Admit it, you believed it for a second."

            Malfoy opened his eyes and looked at him, and this time, his stare didn't have the fixed quality it had had, before. He leaned forwards again, pushing the tray along in front of him, and said in a gentle, strained voice, "Please tell me who you are. When you smile like that, I should know you. I should know how to respond. Please." His hand reached out, callused fingers brushing Harry's.

            Harry took his hand back and said, "No one, really. I mean it. I probably look like someone you know--sometimes people tell me I look like the Chosen One--but I chose to sit the war out." There. That lie had been one he had picked because it inevitably made people who had fought in the war despise him and want to think more about their own superiority in strength and courage than his identity.

            Malfoy went on gazing at him in that same steady, considering way. Harry found himself wondering, given the calluses on his hands and the secret enemies and all, whether he had continued doing dangerous things since the war. Perhaps he had been an Unspeakable? That would explain a lot, including why Harry hadn't heard that much about him in the years just past.

            Then Malfoy said, "Wise decision. I would have done that myself, if I could have." He sipped from the glass of water that Harry had placed on the tray with the bread, his gaze still not letting Harry go.

            "You don't mean that," Harry said, startled into honesty before he thought about it. "I mean--I've always heard that you fought bravely for your family."

            "Oh, at the time I was mad for glory." Malfoy waved a hand and broke off another chunk of bread. "But I was stupid. I should have realized what that glory would consist of." He grinned, apparently enjoying Harry's confusion. "I should have stayed out of it and let the adults fight the war. And the Boy-Who-Lived. He was the one who was always at the center of everything." He snorted and rolled his eyes.

            Harry was grateful for the reminder of who Malfoy was, who they both were. It wouldn't do to get too close to him, not when Malfoy was under the spell and didn't, couldn't, know who Harry really was. Harry wouldn't mind getting to know Malfoy, but it would be under false pretenses. Malfoy was talking to a helpful, cowardly stranger, not someone he wanted to be friends with.

            He'd finished with the food, so Harry reached out to take the tray. "I think you did the best you could, Malfoy," he settled for saying diplomatically.

            "Call me Draco."

            Harry glanced up. "What?"

            "Call me by my first name." Malfoy gave him a strange smile, crooked and charming in a way that Harry had never imagined it could be. Surely Malfoys never had smiles that were less than straight. They would ruthlessly correct them if they were. It wouldn't do to be less than classically handsome.

            Just as it wouldn't do for Malfoys to have calluses on their hands or accept help from people they don't know?

            "I want to hear what it sounds like in your voice," Malfoy continued, his words sinking. "Please."

            It was a small enough thing in the end. Malfoy would be healed and on his way elsewhere in a few days, Harry was sure now. The bump on the back of his head didn't seem to have affected him much except maybe for his short-term memory, and his wounds weren't as bad as they'd seemed at first glance. So Harry offered a shrug, and a smile, and a, "Draco."

            Malfoy shivered, a single, full-body shiver from head to toe, but only shook his head when Harry tried to pull up the blankets. Well, if he wanted to be cold, that was his business. Harry retreated with the tray.

            "Thank you, Harry," Malfoy whispered after him.

            Harry closed the door, and waited to scowl until he had. Damn it. There go my plans for the next few days. I have to find out what happened when he either can't or won't tell me, make sure Malfoy's safe, and avoid letting him charm me in the meantime. It would be stupid, and it would all end in tears, given that the spell exists.

            All the same, it was rather nice to hear Malfoy speak his first name without malice, hatred, or the conviction that he was a blot on the face of the earth. But it was false, everything between them right now was, except Harry's willingness to help and Malfoy's insistence on knowing who he was.

            Harry sighed and went to put the tray in the sink.

*

            LeaniaSTL: Thank you! Harry is happy, too, or was until bloody Malfoy showed up.

            SP777: Thank you!

            moodysavage: No, or he would have recognized Harry when he woke up.

            Wölkchen: Thank you! How Draco got through the wards is explained in Chapter 3. Other explanations have to wait a bit.
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The Conservation of Fame