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The Drawing Room	By : Lindsay Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 1616 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make any money from writing this story.

Chapter List
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The Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire was a rather impressive property; much less sinister and ominous than the first time Harry had been there while Voldemort was still occupying it. Harry tried to imagine the grounds in their former glory, knowing that the unkempt orchard and overgrown gardens must have been spectacular once. It had been three weeks since Harry had first used the portkey (a small silver letter-opener) to travel to Malfoy Manor and yet the grandness and beauty of the place had yet to wear off.
With Hermione’s help Harry had made significant but painfully slow progress in disabling the wards. As it turned out the wards preventing entrance into the manor weren’t dark at all but rather a complicated spell comprised of very old magic. Hermione’s research and their constant communication were invaluable in breaking the outer wards. Once inside the wards were clearly distinguishable with advanced revealing spells but most all of these were comprised of dark magic.
Harry was able to distinguish and break most of these wards with Hermione’s help but the manor was so large and so heavily warded that sometimes it took days to get through just one room, or one hallway, or past one window. The magical signatures connected to the wards were muddled but judging by the sporadic placement it was safe to assume that they were put up by countless people at different times. Occasionally Harry could feel the dark magic dissipating when he disabled a particularly difficult ward and he wondered fleetingly if it was set by Voldemort himself.
So far Harry had cleared the entrance hall, a large sitting room, the library and the adjoining music room. He’d since been making his way upstairs and just deactivating the wards surrounding the staircase had taken a full day.
“Where are you? Over,” Hermione’s voice suddenly crackled through the walk-e-talkie causing Harry to jump in surprise. He unclipped the device from his robes and brought it to his mouth.
“Top of the front staircase. Should I go left, or right? Over,” Harry replied, steadying his shaken nerves. The Malfoy Manor may have been a beautiful place but it was dauntingly creepy none-the-less.
“Go right, that hall seems to lead to the bedrooms and they should be less warded than the other way. I suspect Lucius office was at the end of the left side hallway. Over,” Hermione chirped. She’d been studying old blueprints of the manor for weeks now and had been advising Harry on where to go next. Sometimes her inclination that one way might be easier than another was wrong but for the most part everything had gone smoothly so far. In just a few days they were both to meet with Shacklebolt and Harry was hoping to have made more progress by now.
It turned out that the upper hallway was barely warded at all compared to the downstairs of the manor. Harry took down all the wards at that end of the hallway before moving on to the rooms. The first three rooms weren’t warded at all, aside from the door leading in and the windows. These all appeared to be guest rooms, ridiculously lavish and adorned in the finest furniture and tapestries, but guest rooms none-the-less. Two rooms were absolutely empty and only the windows were warded. One of the rooms housed a grand piano but nothing else. Harry spent a lot of time in this room as the window wards were particularly tough to break. It was already nearing midnight by the time Harry made it to the last room at the end of the hall.
Hermione had gone to bed hours ago and he’d been working furiously even without her help. He resigned to finish this room before heading home and tomorrow he could start on the other end of the hallway. Unfortunately the last room was more heavily warded than the guest rooms and hallway put together. It took at least twenty spells and charms just to get into the room but once inside he could see that this was a lived in bedroom.
Harry dismantled the wards surrounding the windows and worked nearly through the night in order to secure the room. There was, however, one ward he could feel yet somehow couldn’t find. He went through the list of revealing spells he knew before finally a glimmer of magic could be seen beneath the large four poster bed. Harry knelt to investigate and was surprised to see the first ward put up without dark magic in the house. He disabled it easily but his curiosity over why that particular section of baseboard hidden underneath the bed was warded at all was overwhelming.
Harry shimmied under the bed and felt around the baseboard before finding a weak spot within the wood. He pried it away from the wall to reveal a small alcove within the wall. He reached in blindly, foolishly really, before his hand closed around the only object contained within the hiding spot. He could tell that it was a book and wondered over the importance of it as he climbed out from under the bed, the book clutched tightly in his left hand and his wand in his right.
Harry waited until he’d climbed atop the large down-soft bed before examining the book. It was leather-bound and felt expensive in his hands but not particularly old. The cover was soft and slightly worn and in the bottom right hand corner of the cover the initials DM were elegantly inlayed in gold. Harry had suspected he was in his old rivals’ room but the book, which turned out to be a journal, only proved this fact.
Harry felt slightly voyeuristic knowing he was sitting on Draco Malfoy’s bed and holding his personal journal. He was curious for sure, wondering why Malfoy had hidden the book so well and why he’d warded it with perfectly legal spells. Harry hadn’t seen Malfoy since the trials nearly six years ago where Harry had testified in favour of both Draco and Narcissa. Harry’s part had been minimal; he had merely stated that Malfoy was barely involved with the death eater attack on Hogwarts and of how his attempt on Dumbledore’s life had failed as Malfoy was unable to utter the killing curse. He had also testified for Narcissa, explaining how she had lied to Voldemort about Harry being alive although she’d likely only done it because Harry had saved Draco’s life in the room of requirement.
It didn’t make a difference though, and Harry had known that it wouldn’t. Lucius was appropriately sentenced to death when he was caught months before the war was over while Narcissa was given the Dementor’s kiss before being banished to a cell in Azkaban. As for Draco, he bore the dark mark, and that was enough for the Wizengamot to sentence him to a lifetime in Azkaban. At the time Harry had been so exhausted he didn’t care one way or another about his rival but throughout the years intermixed with his nightmares was a reoccurring dream of a child Draco offering Harry his hand in friendship. That’s all the dream ever was but it was disturbing in ways his nightmares could never be. Harry hadn’t liked the thought of any of his classmates ending up in Azkaban, not even his bitter most rival.
Harry flipped the journal open and began to read from the beginning. The first half of the journal was mostly innocent ramblings about school and his friends and Harry was bemused to note how often his own name appeared within the pages. Obviously Draco had nothing good to say about “Dumbledore’s precious savior” but Harry was still amused at the level in which he bothered the Slytherin. It wasn’t until Harry was halfway through the journal, and the first rays of sunrise were filtering through the windows, did he read anything of actual interest. What he read proved to Harry that he hadn’t really known Malfoy at all and perhaps this very journal should have been presented at his trial.

I don’t want to do it, I really don’t. Why does it have to be me? I met him, the Dark Lord, tonight. I’d never seen….never spoken to him before. He burned that horrible mark into me and I can feel it. I can feel him and it burns. I’m afraid to think about how scared I am of him and I try to act strong. But I am scared and I think everyone is. I thought fixing that stupid cabinet would be enough. My father say’s I have to prove my loyalty to that thing and I know I can’t stay neutral in this war. I have to kill Dumbledore. I wish they’d just do it themselves. I wish I could get away.

Harry stared stunned at the journal entry. It was the first entry that had even hinted at the war or Voldemort and Harry briefly wondered if Draco was naïve to his eventual involvement with the death eaters. The entry looked like it had been written in a hurry; Malfoy’s meticulous penmanship had been replaced by a still recognizable but shakier and loopier scrawl. The entry before had talked about a Quidditch match with Ravenclaw and on the following page Malfoy was discussing the amusing properties of a sleepless drought he was brewing for potions class.
Harry was thoroughly perplexed. How could Malfoy write with such tension and fear and on the next page continue on like nothing had happened? Harry felt an odd sort of pity for Draco now knowing that he hadn’t wanted to take the mark; had never wanted to be a Death Eater. That thought was more of an assumption but Harry was sure of it. He no longer felt bitter about Dumbledores death after realizing that Snape had been on their side all along but reading about it now in Malfoy’s journal had again changed Harry’s perspective of the whole event.
“Harry?....Harry are you up? Over,” the crackle of the walk-e-talkie jerked Harry awake. He looked around blearily, disorientated, before realizing he’d fallen asleep. The room was now bathed in late-morning light and Harry stumbled to his feet. The book slipped from his lap and landed on the floor with a hollow thud. Harry reached to pick it up, the events of the previous night and ensuing morning coming back to him as he slowly wiped the sleep from his eyes.
“Harry? Where are you?” Hermione’s voice, sounding a bit shrill, cut through the silent room. Harry fumbled with the muggle device for a moment before responding.
“Sorry Hermione,” he responded.
“Where have you been? I’m at Grimmauld Place. We’ve been worried. Over,” the relief in Hermione’s voice was instant and obvious.
“I’m at the Manor. I fell asleep but I’ll be there soon. Over,” Harry replied quickly before leaving the room and heading back down the hallway, down the stairs and to the small table he had left his portkey on. He would have just apperated but the Ministry had wanted the no-apparition spells to remain in place. Harry clutched Draco Malfoy’s journal as he took a hold of the portkey and felt the familiar pull, watching the world blur around him, before arriving in the living room of Number 2 Grimmauld Place.
He set the portkey down immediately so as not to cause himself to immediately return to the manor. He could hear female voices coming from the kitchen so he took the stairs down but stopped dead in the doorway. Hermione and Ginny were sitting at the large table, mugs in hand and with a large teapot between them. Harry silently wished he could slink away but before he could think any further on it Hermione spotted him in the doorway.
“Harry! I’ve been so worried!” She exclaimed, jumping to her feet as fast as a heavily pregnant woman could before descending on him and trapping him in an awkward hug. She pulled him back towards the table and he reluctantly sat down.
“Hey Gin,” he greeted the other woman and she flashed him a small smile. She was probably angry at him; he had been avoiding her for weeks after all.
“How could you fall asleep in that creepy place?” Hermione asked suddenly breaking the uncomfortable moment while fetching Harry a mug before rejoining them at the table. He calmly poured himself a cup of tea before turning back to their waiting gazes.
“I was reading,” he admitted before reluctantly laying the journal on the table. Both women looked at it quizzically before sharing a look that only women could interpret.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ginny asked, apparently forgetting her anger for Harry and for that Harry could have kissed the journal for being such a great distraction.
“It’s Draco Malfoy’s journal,” he confirmed, not really knowing if that’s what she’d been thinking at all but there was no point drawing out the suspense.
“You aren’t supposed to be snooping,” Hermione scolded in the motherly tone she had developed since having children.
“I wasn’t really. It was warded, otherwise I never would have found it,” Harry gave them a moment to digest this information before adding; “It wasn’t warded by dark magic.”
“Who do you think set them?” Ginny asked tentatively.
“Malfoy did, I’m assuming. I found it in his room,” Harry explained vaguely but decided not to mention that it was also Malfoy’s room he’d fallen asleep in.
“That’s odd. Though when you think of it he probably didn’t know a lot of dark warding spells unless his parents taught him,” Hermione pointed out.
“That’s what I was thinking at first but his magical signature is actually on wards throughout the house,” Harry corrected before deciding he’d tell them about the journal entry. He’d rather not do it with Ginny there but if anything at least he knew he could trust her. “I found something kind of interesting….” Harry trailed off before flipping through the journal to the page that had so perplexed him the night before. He held the book open for Hermione who took it from his hand. Hermione and Ginny’s heads bowed together as they read the hurried journal entry.
It was a long time before either of them looked up although Harry knew it couldn’t have possibly been taking that long for them to read it. Then finally Ginny looked up, her expression slightly perturbed as she met Harry’s gaze. Eventually Hermione set the book down, her brow furrowed, before also turning her attention back to Harry.
“What do you think of this, Harry?” Hermione asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted.
“Is there anything else about the war?” Ginny asked, looking as equally uncomfortable as Hermione did and as Harry had felt when he’d first read it himself.
“Not before that entry. I read a little further and he doesn’t mention it again but I fell asleep before finishing it,” he shrugged, trying to act nonplused before asking, “What do you make of it?”
“I’m not sure. I mean….why was he scared? I always thought he wanted to be a Death Eater,” Hermione mused.
“Exactly,” Harry agreed. “Maybe the reality was more than he could handle.”
“What should we do about it?” Ginny asked.
“Nothing; there isn’t anything we can do.”
“Harry’s right. A journal entry isn’t a very reliable source of information,” Hermione conceded.
“If he didn’t have the mark he wouldn’t have been sentenced to life in Azkaban and it sounds like he never wanted it to begin with,” Ginny replied diplomatically.
“He never said he didn’t want it and besides, why do you care?” Harry put it bluntly.
“I suppose I don’t,” she said it practically under her breath.
“I know how you feel Ginny but it doesn’t matter if he was scared or wanted to run away because he didn’t; he chose to fight for the dark side,” Hermione reassured and they all fell silent for a moment.
“What now?” Harry intervened hoping to change the subject.
“We need to keep working on the wards. I think you should finish the other side of the hallway before moving on to the back of the house. We have to meet Shacklebolt tomorrow afternoon so I think we should do as much as we can,” Hermione explained.
“I agree. I guess I should get going then,” he said it definitively before draining his teacup and standing up.
“I’ll be in touch,” Hermione reminded.
“We’ll talk soon,” Harry affirmed but didn’t know how to proceed or how to address Ginny in this situation.
“I’ll walk you upstairs,” she offered before also standing. Hermione glanced over them both but didn’t say anything as they made their way upstairs.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” Ginny had waited until they were in the sitting room, only feet away from his portkey before bringing it up.
“I’m sorry Gin,” he responded lamely.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to avoid me,” she replied sincerely.
“I thought you were mad,” Harry pointed out, knowing it was true.
“I was….but I’d rather have you as a friend than nothing at all.”
“Me too,” he replied before they embraced in a quick hug. They didn’t say anything else and eventually Harry reached over to the small table and wrapped his hand around the portkey and moments later Ginny was gone and he was standing in the foyer of Malfoy Manor. He was still holding Draco Malfoy’s journal.
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The Drawing Room