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The Dust of Water	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20632 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty—Shadows of the Past
            “I can’t believe that you have still more papers.”
            Harry shrugged a little and pulled out the stack of bound letters and the Pensieve that he’d taken from the Shadow Vault. He was glad for the enchantment that would prevent him from talking about them outside that level of Gringotts. There were some things he wanted everyone to know, some things only his friends, and some things that might be better off if no one but him knew about them. “Old Harry wanted to write everything down, I suppose. Maybe someday he thought he would come out and confess his wrongdoings, and he would need evidence to support himself.”
            “If he had wanted to do that, then he would have. Consider how your friends reacted to an actual confession. They never wanted to give up their hero, did they?”
            Harry frowned a little at Malfoy over his shoulder. “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way about them.”
            “What, as traitors?”
            Harry rolled his eyes and said nothing else as he laid the letters on the main table in the library. A glance at them showed him they were addressed to people whose names he vaguely recognized from the blackmail ledger. Probably nothing intimate and important, then. He would skim through them later just to make sure.
            The Pensieve was what he was most interested in. He gestured at Malfoy with his head. “Are you going to come and look at this with me, or not?”
            “I wasn’t sure I’d be invited,” Malfoy muttered, walking up beside him.
            “Yes, you were. Or you would have kicked up a fuss until you were.”
            Malfoy gave a soft, rough chuckle, and then placed one hand on Harry’s back. It felt a little strange, and Harry squirmed. Malfoy gave no sign that he’d noticed that. “Are we going in?”
            “We are,” Harry said, and tried to ignore the sensation of the hand still being there as he bent down and slid his head into the Pensieve.
*
            The memories parted around them and then opened again into a field flooded with light. Harry stared around. His first thought was a Quidditch pitch by moonlight. That was what the glow looked like, silvery as the memories themselves.
            But he could see walls surrounding the area, and even a roof, he thought, although all of them were far away. He seemed to be standing inside some huge silver-lit structure, almost like a Muggle arena.
            “Where are we?”
            Slightly reassured by the fact that Malfoy didn’t recognize it either, Harry shook his head briskly and stepped forwards. “I think we need to figure that out before anything we see here will make sense,” he muttered.
            Malfoy started to answer, but a sharp yell cut him off. Harry swung his head around and saw himself—well, Old Harry—running down the center of the field, grass swishing beneath his feet, and something winged diving after him.
            Harry caught his breath. He’d never seen those creatures in real life, but there had been illustrations in his Care of Magical Creatures books. Old Harry had somehow stirred up a bunch of Harpies and set them free in this place.
            “Potter, what…”
            It was Malfoy, and Harry nodded briskly and resisted the temptation to drag Malfoy out of the way. This was only a memory, and the Harpies couldn’t really hurt them. “I know. It’s incredible, what he did.”
            Old Harry turned around as he neared Harry and Malfoy. Harry could see that his wand was flickering in precise, strobing movements, not tracing the pattern of a spell that Harry knew. Malfoy muttered in what sounded like surprise, but he didn’t get to tell Harry what was so surprising, either, before light erupted from Old Harry’s wand.
            It caught the Harpies as they stooped towards him. The Harpies had wings and iron nails and twisted mouths full of fangs and talons that made those of some hippogriffs Harry had seen look weak.
            It didn’t matter. The light swept over them and simply, quietly, destroyed them. For an instant, Harry thought he saw flying shadows in the middle of that light, traveling on towards Old Harry. Then they were gone, too, and there was only a wisp of smoke here and there, and a smell like old grease.
            “I know that spell,” Malfoy whispered, while Old Harry stood there with his eyes closed and his breathing fast and tight.
            “What is it, then?” Harry found it hard to take his eyes away from Old Harry. Why had he come here and destroyed these Harpies? To relieve some of his emotions? To have one moment of honesty in a life so filled with lies?
            “The Annihilating Lumos,” said Malfoy quietly. “It’s the bigger spell that our common Lumos Charm derives from. But I haven’t heard of anyone performing it in hundreds of years. It got itself banned even from battlefields. It was too destructive, and wizards who were fighting each other didn’t want to destroy their entire race.”
            Harry just had time to nod before the memory changed, and they found themselves in Kingsley’s office. Old Harry was sitting in a chair with his legs bouncing off each other, his expectant gaze on the door. “Could he have learned it from anywhere?”
            “He must have.”
            Malfoy said that so dryly that Harry rolled his eyes. “Right, but I meant, are the instructions common?” He was thinking of the books that had also been in the Shadow Vault.
            Malfoy didn’t have time to answer before the office door opened and Kingsley came in. He carried a small round thing in one hand that he tried to turn around and hide a little, but Harry suspected he already knew what it was. An Order of Merlin.
            “I’m happy to tell you that Auror Weasley is going to be fine,” said Kingsley, just as Old Harry opened his mouth to speak. “And that you more than deserve this.” He held out the medal.
            Old Harry closed his eyes. Harry wondered if he was the only one to see his jaw work, and the lines of anguish around his mouth. “I don’t deserve it.”
            “Yes, of course. Because it’s every day that an Auror saves half a dozen of his fellows with a combination of pure defensive spellwork and low-level charms.”
            Old Harry’s eyes popped open. “But they were only there in the first place because I led them there.”
            Kingsley reached out and flicked Old Harry’s nose gently with one finger. “You couldn’t have known what was down that tunnel, Auror Potter. You did what you thought you had to do to rescue the hostages. It was a brilliant performance, and then you saved those lives that you unwittingly endangered. No more complaining.”
            Old Harry looked as if he would object for a second. Then he closed his eyes and nodded. Kingsley chuckled and leaned forwards, pinning the medal on Old Harry’s robes and admiring it for a second before he leaned back.
            “You would ordinarily be presented with a small amount of Galleons on receiving the award,” he recited, in a way that said he knew what Old Harry’s answer was going to be. “But I don’t think you’ll want to receive them traditionally any more than you wanted a traditional award ceremony.” He gave Old Harry a grin. “What do you want done with them?”
            “The same as the last two,” Old Harry mumbled, staring at his hands.
            This time, Kingsley chucked him under the chin. “You realize that your extreme modesty sometimes makes other people look at me with suspicious eyes?” he demanded. “They think I’m mistreating you!”
            “He didn’t even need to keep it up after a while,” Malfoy breathed, making Harry leap. He’d honestly forgotten Malfoy was there. “They did it for him. People made up all these stories, and he just…had to fit himself into them.”
            Harry nodded without taking his eyes from Old Harry. He was honestly curious as to where he’d been sending the money he didn’t need.
            “The same as the last two,” said Old Harry. He didn’t try to respond to the bit about his modesty, Harry noticed. He lifted his head, and his smile was watery. “Deposit it into Ginny Weasley’s private Gringotts account, please.”
            Kingsley dropped the smile for a second. “I wish someone had loved me when I was her age like you love that young woman,” he sighed, shaking his head.
            “Even a romance story for the ages.” Malfoy sounded envious for a second. “He doesn’t even need to make them think he has that, not when he’s already set up all the right conditions for it.”
            Harry felt a hard ache in the center of his chest as he watched Old Harry. He was certain that Old Harry at least cared for Ginny. If he’d only started being with her as a sop to people who thought he should date her, and didn’t love her at all, then he would have slipped up before now.
            But that love was dead and gone, and Harry couldn’t remember it. What Ginny remembered were the lies. Harry wondered for a second what she would think if he showed her these memories, but he also recoiled from the thought of hurting her so badly.
            “I suppose, if you find me attractive, you can stop being jealous of that, though,” Harry muttered, as the memory bled into another one. “After all, no one is going to believe in it any longer after I start telling the truth.”
            Malfoy was silent. Harry glanced at him, and jumped when he found Malfoy looking at him with a slightly crazed expression.
            “No,” Malfoy whispered, hand tightening on Harry’s arm for a second. “I was jealous of his skill in manipulation. I’d like to have had that, and make people believe my lies so easily. It would have made my life easier after the war.
            “How can I be jealous of something that isn’t real, when if you ever do offer me what I want, it’s going to be as real as iron?”
            Harry stood there, unable to take his eyes away Malfoy for a second. Then he nodded jerkily and looked away.
            “Right,” he whispered.
            Iron’s an odd comparison to make. I suppose you can’t deny iron is real, but it’s also hard and cold.
            But maybe it was appropriate for Malfoy.
*
            “It seems to me he hid all the memories that reminded him his life was a lie.”
            Harry sat with his hands clasped around the cup of tea that Kreacher had handed him the moment he and Malfoy came out of the library. It was—odd to have Kreacher staring at him like that, and hanging around with plates full of sweets Harry hadn’t asked for, and hinting in a croaking voice that Harry could ask him for anything else he liked. The last clear memories he had, Kreacher was just starting to warm up to him, and only thought Harry was a good master because of trickery.
            But just now, he needed that care. He thought back to all the memories they’d seen in the Pensieve and felt so much pain in his head that it seemed even his hair ached.
            Memories of dancing with Ginny, sitting with Ron and Hermione at their house and explaining earnestly to their kids how to be a good person, telling his godson Teddy Lupin stories of his “heroics,” laughingly assuring his friends that he just never seemed to get angry anymore…
            “It explains Ron and Hermione, anyway.”
            Malfoy had opened his mouth to say something else, and shut it, looking displeased. Harry thought it was at being interrupted rather than being reminded of Ron and Hermione’s existence. “What do you mean?”
            “Everything he did—everything—went towards living up to this heroic persona he’d made up,” said Harry, and sipped from his tea. He suspected there was a Calming Draught in it, but didn’t know who he truly suspected for slipping that into his drink, Malfoy or Kreacher. “It’s no wonder they didn’t believe me when I tried to tell them it was false. They probably thought there was no way it could be false. They had to know the real him, or…”
            “Or it implied the existence of a level of manipulation and deception that they couldn’t credit him with. Yes, I see.”
            “I just wish he’d changed his mind. Told them the truth at some point. Found the strength to turn his back on the reputation he was building up with and maybe serve some time in Azkaban, if that was what the Wizengamot decided.” Harry traced a hand around the ring his cup had left on the table, in the moment before Kreacher appeared with a rag to clean it. “Maybe he would have his memory now. Maybe he would still exist. They wouldn’t have let him be an Auror, so no Dark wizard would have cursed him.”
            “Do you really think that he only went on with the deception because he couldn’t find the courage to come clean?”
            Harry frowned at Malfoy. “That’s what you implied to me. I don’t see why you’re rolling your eyes at me now.”
            “Not at you. At the simplicity that you still want to attribute to people’s motivations.”
            “Remember that mentally, I’m still about eighteen years old.”
            “An eighteen-year-old wouldn’t attract me.”
            Harry sighed. Malfoy still couldn’t take a joke. “Fine. What do you mean about me trying to be too simple?”
            “He was a coward.” Malfoy tapped two dismissive fingers on the table, then seemed to notice Harry looking at his hands and pulled them back, onto his lap. “But he also enjoyed the attention and the adulation he received, wouldn’t you say? He could have cultivated a reputation as a rich eccentric, or someone so private no one could get close to him, or a solid family man who retired early to look after the children he and his wife had. Why do you think he chose the path of the Auror and the hero instead?”
            “I hated the attention. You don’t understand. I didn’t want people to gossip about me at Hogwarts. I wanted them to go away and leave me alone.”
            “You hated it. Did he?”
            Harry scowled at his tea. He hadn’t been able to imagine any downsides to someone believing him when he tried to insist that he and Old Harry were separate people. Trust Malfoy to find one.
            “He was brave enough to go out and face real Dark wizards. And Harpies,” Harry added, remembering the first memory in the Pensieve.
            “With Dark magic that he couldn’t reveal to anyone he’d learned. Without ever publicizing his real motives.” Malfoy shook his head and clucked his tongue. “I think what made me most ashamed was when he lied to those children.”
            “Oh, shut up, Malfoy,” Harry muttered, but he knew what Malfoy meant. He hadn’t even thought much about Andromeda and Teddy Lupin since he recovered his memory. He had no idea what Old Harry’s relationship with them had been like, and no one around him had seemed eager to volunteer details.
            Now, thanks to the Pensieve, he knew a little more. And it was just as built on lies as all the others.
            “There’s something else we should discuss.”
            “Hmm? What’s that?”
            “Eyes on me, Potter. I don’t want you to mistake me for something else.”
            Harry gave a faint smile and managed to look up at Malfoy. Malfoy paused, then added, “Not that I think you will. No one else is going to give you such sensible advice. You shouldn’t show those letters or reveal the memories in that Pensieve to anyone else.”
            Harry clenched his hands on the edge of the table. “Then I wouldn’t have any way to atone for the crimes I committed.”
            “Do you think you need to end up in Azkaban for lying to people?”
            “You know very well that’s not what I meant.”
            “No. But I still fail to see why going to Azkaban for Enthralling someone ten years after the fact helps anyone.”
            Harry grimaced and let his head fall forwards. “I’m the one who went to Ron with the news that I should be tried for these crimes, you know. You might think he or Kingsley are wrong to investigate me, but I’m the one who insisted on being investigated. So. I can’t back away now. I told them what I wanted.”
            “Yes, you’re very noble and all that rot,” Malfoy drawled. “Nobler than he was, yes. But just as stupid.”
            “So what would you suggest, then?”
            Harry had never realized how Malfoy’s sincere smile could transform his face, probably because he’d never seen it before. “I’d suggest actually paying attention to what people need to hear from you now,” he said. “Which is apologies. And information that could lead to Kelvin and the other criminals you consorted with getting arrested. And making it up to the people you hurt and fooled. If you were locked away in Azkaban, you wouldn’t have to do that, would you? It would be a simpler solution, but one that, incidentally, would also protect you and let you keep being a coward.”
            “Damn it.” Harry rubbed his head.
            “I hardly think that my good counsel is painful.”
            “No. It’s just that it sounds too much like what I want, which is to stay out of Azkaban and have a relationship with the people I lied to, if I can. I was just trying to see whether it’s possible to see it from an angle that would make it evil. I distrust—I distrust all the things I want, now.”
            Malfoy shoved his chair back from the table and came around it. Harry watched him apprehensively for a minute, wondering if Malfoy would leave in offense, but Malfoy clenched a hand down on his shoulder instead.
            “Sometimes,” he told Harry quietly, “you’re allowed to have what you want.”
            Harry reached up and covered Malfoy’s hand with his own. He couldn’t say anything, but Malfoy seemed to find everything he needed in Harry’s eyes, because he smiled again.
            It didn’t hurt, this time.
*
Severus1snape: No, although at the moment the majority of that is because Harry feels so alone.
moon: Thank you!
SP777: Well, less of a clue about a way to express it that doesn’t freak out Harry.
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The Dust of Water