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Learning Life Over	By : Meander Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 69712 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- 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
- 19
- 20
- 21
Thanks again for the comments and reviews here! This is such
a fun little story, and part of the fun is knowing that other people enjoy it.

Chapter 20- Breakthrough

�� This is
excellent, Harry.� Theresa smiled at him from beyond the glow of the Soul�s
Mirror spell. �The bond you have with Draco has strengthened to green. If you
keep paying attention to it, I don�t see any reason for you not to have normal
friendships when you leave Malfoy Manor.� She waved her wand and banished the
shimmering image.

�� Harry
nodded curtly. Funny. He had felt perfectly relaxed that morning, with Draco,
at least once he had heard that the game with Narcissa really was just a game.
But now he could feel his muscles tensing, though Theresa moved and spoke
slowly, trying to reassure him. He trusted the Healer to be a Healer and follow
her own instincts in trying to help him. He didn�t trust her to let him
progress at his own pace, as Draco seemed to be willing to.

�� The thought
that Draco Malfoy, of all people, was the one person in the world he
most trusted was a bit stare-worthy, but Harry had other things to think about.
Theresa was speaking again.

�� Have you
considered what�s going to happen when you leave Malfoy Manor?�

�� Harry
realized he had folded his arms a moment after he folded them. Damn it. He
didn�t mean to use such defensive body language. He had trained in that, too,
as an Auror; he ought to be able to control himself better. He unfolded his
arms deliberately and shook his head. �I know that I can�t live as I was living,�
he said. Even though it would still be my first choice. The
vulnerability he�d felt that morning, when he was sure that Draco was taunting
him, had been uncomfortable enough to make him wish for that life back. �But I
do intend to return to work as an Auror.�

�� And have
you thought about plans for other friendships?� Theresa asked. �For finding
other people in your life? Establishing social connections? Perhaps continuing
to see a Healer? I can recommend other people at St. Mungo�s, very discreet Healers
who would keep your condition absolutely private. Or you can continue talking
to me, though I understand why you wouldn�t want to.�

�� Harry
tossed his head. He felt cornered, and he didn�t like it. �I�m going to
maintain my friendship with Draco,� he said. �I�m going to work as an Auror.
Beyond that, no, I haven�t thought of it.� He could almost feel Draco scowling
where he was watching through the enchanted window. He didn�t think that Draco
could rightfully scold him for this one, though. After all, he was the
one who had been so insistent that Harry pay attention to activities inside the
Manor.

�� You should
give some thought to your future, Harry.� Theresa�s voice had a lulling
quality, which put Harry more on his guard. He knew her now. When she sounded
most lulling, she was preparing some strike that would go for the jugular.
�Before, you existed in a holding pattern. You cast a Cooling Charm on all your
emotions, it seems to me. It would be too easy to return to and maintain such
stasis. I�d like to see you try for change. I can help you with that, and so
can Draco, but you�ll want to include other people in your circle.�

�� I don�t
want to,� said Harry. If she wants honesty, she can have honesty. �I
just- I don�t want to.�

�� Why not,
Harry?� Theresa sounded as if she knew the answer already, and was waiting for
him to figure it out. Harry had always hated that trait of Healers most, other
than the ones that said they wouldn�t go away and just leave him alone.

�� Why should
I have to go around making enormous changes?� Harry asked. �Why aren�t a few
small ones enough?�

�� Because
they probably won�t be enough to keep you from slipping back,� Theresa said
quietly. �I want you to be able to live on your own, Harry, not just depend on
someone else to keep you out of the abyss.� She paused as Harry snorted with
laughter. �What�s so funny?�

�� Abyss.�
Harry leaned back on the couch and extended his hands into the air before
folding them behind his head. Relaxed, carefree. That�s what I want. �You
make it sound so dramatic.�

�� And you
believe that what could have happened to you, insanity or the destruction of
half of Muggle London due to your released magic, would not have been
dramatic?� Theresa asked him.

�� Harry
winced. He didn�t like thinking about it. But then, that was the main reason he
had agreed to make these changes, to prevent something like that from
happening. �So,� he said. �You think I would become the person I was again if
my friendship with Draco didn�t work out and I stopped talking to you as my
Healer?�

�� It�s
possible, if we�re your only supports.� Theresa leaned forward. �I still don�t
quite understand the source of your reluctance to change, Harry.� Her tone said
she understood it all too well, and Harry gritted his teeth to keep from lashing
out. �Is it a lack of trust? A lack of anything outside your work to engage
your interest? What?�

�� Why does
it have to be any one particular reason?� Harry rolled his shoulder and looked
away. �I�d found a life that suited me, a life that let me help people and do
something I cared about. And no one was left alive to be hurt by that lack of
connections to me, and, as you�d pointed out, I�d put my emotions on hold, so I
wasn�t hurt, either. It worked for me. That was the reason.�

�� But it
isn�t the life that you need, Harry, if you�re to keep your magic under
control.� Theresa spoke as if she were edging up on a wild animal. �Nor is it
the life that you deserve.�

�� That�s
it. Healers were all mad for thinking that the reason people had problems
was their belief that they didn�t deserve- or did deserve- something or
another. Harry shook his head. �I wasn�t doing this to punish myself, if that�s
what you�re implying,� he said, and kept his voice bored. �I really did do it
just because that was the life I fell into, the life that I embraced.�

�� Those are
contradictions, Harry.�

�� God, he was
coiled as tight as a whiplash, and he didn�t want to be. Theresa understood
nothing, nothing at all. He hadn�t wanted this. Of all the things Draco had
offered him, this was the only one he actively hated.

�� Leave it,�
he whispered, his good mood from the conversation with Draco vanishing
completely.

��

�� Theresa
looked at him with large, sad eyes, and shook her head. �I don�t think I can,
Harry,� she said. �You stopped living when your friends died, as if you
believed that you didn�t deserve to be alive, didn�t deserve to have friends,
didn�t deserve even to eat good food or get a regular amount of sleep, because
they were dead. And you speak always of what other people got out of you- the
help victims received from your work as an Auror, the hurt people didn�t
take because of your lack of connections- and what you get out of it second, if
at all. You�re only here talking to me because of what could happen to other
people.�

�� Stop it,�
Harry warned her, his teeth clenched.

�� You do
deserve to live,� Theresa said, ignoring his warning. �You do deserve to have a
life that includes other people, and that connects you to others, Harry. Your
selflessness became a kind of self-serving justification for your actions, to
hide actions you must have suspected were wrong- �

�� They
weren�t wrong,� Harry said heatedly. The one thing he could not stand
was the accusation that he was a criminal. �I didn�t do anything immoral.�

�� I meant
wrong for you,� Theresa said. �Wrong for your development as a whole and
healthy human being.�

�� Who the
fuck cares about that?�

�� Harry knew
he was red-faced and panting after he said that. He didn�t care. God, he just
wanted them all to go away, Theresa and even Draco in that moment, and stop
caring. He�d got along fine with just the people he helped to worry about.
The effort of working on a friendship with Draco left him weak and shaky. How
in the world could this be worth it?

��

�� It couldn�t
be.

�� And now
Theresa was feeding him this load of bullocks about how it was wrong and Harry
was the equivalent of one of the Dark wizards he�d spent so much of his time
working to rid the wizarding world of-

�� And saying
that he believed he didn�t deserve to live after Ron and Hermione and
the others were gone!

�� It was
nonsense, all of it. And Harry was so damn sick and tired of being told that
what he thought wasn�t really what he thought, that there was another
layer of thoughts underneath it, susceptible to observation and correction by
anyone reasonably well-intentioned.

�� I do,�
said Theresa, making Harry blink, because at first the words seemed to have no
link to his thoughts. Then he realized she was answering his question about who
cared. She was on her feet, in fact, one hand reaching out to him. �And Draco
does. We do care, Harry. I will admit that Draco�s methods are- unorthodox-
but I have come to accept that his emotions are sincere, or I would never have
let him keep you here, debt to the Malfoy family or not. Now that you are
working on a friendship, you are moving in the right direction. If you can keep
moving in it- �

�� Harry
didn�t want to hear more. His mind was so twisted, so confused, caught between
the conflicting impulses to admit that, yes, his friendship with Draco was a
good thing, and to shout that it wasn�t because of all the horrible sexual
interest mixed in with it, and to say that Theresa should go away and not care
about him any more, which she would only use to prove her theories.

�� Besides, he
could feel his magic twisting around him, waking, bursting its boundaries. He
had to get out of there before he hurt someone.

�� He bolted
without waiting for Theresa�s next words. He didn�t have his wand with him, as
she had requested since that first session, but that wouldn�t stop his magic if
he remained in her presence.

�� He thought
he heard Draco shouting his name. He ignored that. He didn�t want to talk. He
wanted to escape before he could cause some sort of disaster. That would be all
he needed, to bring down Malfoy Manor on the heads of those who had sheltered
him and who professed to care about him.

�� He ran, and
ran, and ran, and his feet must have remembered the way better than his head.
He was out in the gardens, in the row of apple trees where he and Draco had
walked yesterday.

�� His magic
came with him, but luckily waited until he was there to inflict any damage. The
earth around Harry shuddered, rising up beneath his feet. He fell, not making
any attempt to stand. He�d had experience of fits like this while he was
hunting Voldemort, and still bleeding from the emotional wound of the Weasley
Massacre, before he�d learned to freeze his emotions. Standing, resisting it,
just made it worse. Better to huddle and protect his head.

�� He heard
apples fall around him like heavy rain, and then apple blossoms settled on his
skin like the kiss of a gentler shower. That wouldn�t have happened at all if
not for the strange, mingled seasons the orchard bore like the flowers and
fruit on its branches.

�� It
shouldn�t- it shouldn�t-

�� He wanted
to fly. He wanted to run away. He wanted to shout. He wanted- he didn�t know
what he wanted any more, except to creep into some locked room and shut a door
on anyone who approached him.

�� What he had
was his magic twisting and writhing, racking the ground and the trees, blasting
flowers off nearby plants. He hated it, and he couldn�t help it, and that sense
of being out of control just fed the magic, and made its convulsions more
violent and more unnecessary, and made him hate it more.

�� He curled
up so tight his arms hurt. He didn�t want to uncurl. He didn�t want to see
anyone beyond his tight little shell. He especially didn�t want to see Draco,
because he knew he would give in and talk to him. And that-

�� That could
be the death of the person he had been.

�� Perhaps
Theresa�s metaphor of an abyss wasn�t so dramatic after all. Harry knew a gap
loomed ahead of him. He could feel the darkness trembling beneath his feet,
ready to claim him.

�� If he
thought about it too closely, he would admit that Draco and Theresa were right,
that his thoughts did have some of the elements they talked about, and that he
needed help. So the thing to do was not think about it.

�� His magic
finally played itself out, as it always did, and left Harry sitting there. He
uncurled his arms, relaxing a little when he realized Draco wasn�t watching
him. Or, if he was, he was employing a spell or technique good enough to fool
both Harry�s magic-heightened senses and his Auror training, which wasn�t likely.
That was good. It left him with a few more moments to decide what to do.

�� He couldn�t
go back on his word to Draco. And there were enough right things in what
Theresa had said, without thinking about- that- that he felt compelled
to keep listening and talking to her.

�� But he also
couldn�t do those things without becoming different.

�� God, I
don�t want to.

�� If only
there wasn�t that possibility of becoming a Dark Lord, or killing other people
with his magic. If suicide had been the only risk of his emotional isolation,
he would have accepted it in a heartbeat.

�� You
really don�t want to live, do you?

�� Harry
snorted. Since when had his conscience acquired Theresa�s voice?

�� He was so
involved in denying it that he didn�t realize the voice speaking his name was
outside his head at first. And then he looked up, and saw Wormwood standing at
the edge of the row of apple trees.

�� Wormwood
moved a few steps forward, his eyes bright. �I knew that person in the hospital
bed wasn�t you,� he breathed. �He didn�t have the sense of your magic. And when
I tried Finite Incantatem on him, he flickered. And then I got help
finding out that you were at Malfoy Manor, and she opened the wards for me.� He
put out a hand, beaming widely. �Come on, partner. I�m bringing you back to the
life that you had to leave behind so suddenly.�

�� Harry
understood, then. While they had been playing a game with Narcissa, she�d been
playing a game of her own. Confront Harry with the life he�d left behind, and
he might not be able to resist going back to it.

�� And now the
temptation yawned before him, the chance to preserve the person he had been, to
refuse Theresa�s words, to forget the sheer effort of maintaining a friendship
that was like walking a rickety bridge in a windstorm.

�� To go home.

*******

�� SLQ: Well,
this should you give a partial answer to your question about Narcissa.
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Learning Life Over