Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 20
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- 22
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-One—Speaking
            “I would like to speak with my son, please.”
            “Mr. Malfoy.” Madam Juniper was fluttering, Harry saw. He had never made her react that way. Now she bit her lip and shifted her hand over her bosom, and Malfoy gave a half-smile. “I don’t know if that’s possible. He’s still in the infirmary, but he’s helping his friend Al Potter cope with his brother’s injuries…”
            “If he’s in the infirmary and not in classes, then I need to speak with him anyway,” Malfoy said. His voice was low and calm, and so neutral that Harry strained to hear any emotion in it and could make out none. “He should be in classes this time of the day.”
            “Yes, but.” Madam Juniper didn’t seem to know how to finish that sentence, so she didn’t. She finally stepped aside and Harry heard murmuring. Malfoy was down on his knees in front of the fireplace in Harry’s drawing room. Harry stood back far enough that Scorpius couldn’t see him if he looked out of the fire. Malfoy had wanted Harry there to hear the discussion of the life-debt, but Harry was reluctant to interrupt the natural, normal way that father and son spoke to each other. This was their compromise.
            “Hello, Scorpius,” said Malfoy, when his son’s face appeared. “Mr. Potter told me that you wanted to pay the life-debt. Why is that?”
            Scorpius blinked at his father. Then he said, “Well, it’s my life-debt, right? So I should be able to.”
            “But I asked you what you wanted to do about this, and the fact that your thirteenth birthday was coming up in a few weeks.” Malfoy remained calm. Harry thought the iciness was kind of unnatural and not the best way to deal with a child, most of the time, but he had to admit that it obviously worked here. “You said that you were all right with me paying the debt. You said that you would rather concentrate on school and your classes. What changed?”
            Scorpius lowered his head and gripped the fold of his cloak for a second. Then he said, head still bowed, “I just realized that you’ll be spending a lot of time with Potter—”
            “Call him Mr. Potter.” Malfoy’s voice had turned from neutral to cold, so fast that Harry gaped at the back of his head. How had he managed that? “He saved your life. You owe him the courtesy.”
            Scorpius stared, then nodded. Harry bit his tongue on the temptation to say that Scorpius didn’t need to do that. A fine thing that would be, revealing his presence after they had deciding on not doing it
I am trying to keep my promises to him.
            “Mr. Potter doesn’t need you the way I do,” Scorpius said, and his cheeks were flushed, Harry could tell that much, even with the green color of the fire interfering. “He—he doesn’t need you at all, I think. I can think of other ways to pay the life-debt. I even know what I would give him.”
            “What is that?” Harry couldn’t tell whether Malfoy was humoring Scorpius or not. His voice had gone back to neutral.
            “I was going to give him that portrait of the Black woman that hangs in the upper attics,” Scorpius said. “You said she knew his godfather. You told me that,” he added, a little hesitantly, perhaps because of the look on Malfoy’s face. “I thought that way, he could get to know his godfather. Al said he didn’t know him all that well, he only got two years with him, and, well…”
            Scorpius trailed off while Malfoy looked at him. Then Malfoy nodded. “That’s a very good thought,” he said. “And given that I owe Mr. Potter other life-debts, then it might make a suitable gift when I’m finished here. But you haven’t told me what changed, why you agreed to let me pay the debt my way and then changed your mind.”
            Scorpius looked down and swished his foot back and forth over the infirmary floor.
            “I’m waiting, Scorpius.” Malfoy was so calm, but Scorpius jerked his head up as if it was on springs.
            “All right, all right,” Scorpius said. “Al told me that his father didn’t need to be tied up with you, Dad. He said that he needed his dad more than you did. I’m sorry,” and this time that was definitely because of the expression on Malfoy’s face. “I am! But I said that I would try to get you away from him.”
            Harry shut his eyes. Al. Why couldn’t you come to me?
            But a number of excellent answers sprang to mind, and all of them concentrated on how much he had failed his children, that they couldn’t even trust in him to do a little thing right. Harry swallowed his protests and numbly opened his eyes, waiting for the next hurtful revelation.
            “What does Al need his father so badly for?” Malfoy asked. He still hadn’t changed his tone or his posture, and now Harry could see the good side of that. “He saw him in the hospital wing. I don’t believe he mentioned to him that he wanted him to stay.”
            “That’s not for me to say.” Scorpius was really interested in the foot that was stirring the hem of his robe now. “But he said that I should see if I could pay the life-debt, and I had to do something. I owe Mr. Potter a life-debt, but he’s my best friend, Dad.”
            He looked up at Malfoy under lowered eyelashes, and Harry had to admit, he would have melted right then. But Malfoy just looked back, mildly but steadily, and Scorpius let his head droop again and gave a forlorn-sounding sigh.
            “I know that you were trying to do what you thought was best,” Malfoy said. “But you gave your word. Tell your friend to talk to his father about what he needs. I won’t be at Mr. Potter’s house this weekend. Al can come visit with his father then, or do anything else he needs to. But he shouldn’t sneak around and make other people reason out his meaning, especially when he has the chance to talk to his father face-to-face and doesn’t take it.”
            Scorpius was subjecting the floor of the hospital wing to such an intense study that Harry thought he could probably pass an exam on it. “He won’t like that,” he whispered. “He’s already upset with me for—I mean, he’ll be upset with me once he found out that I told the truth.”
            “He’s the same age as you,” Malfoy said. He ignored the way that Harry moved. Al was a month younger than Scorpius, actually. But Harry supposed the difference didn’t matter that much. “He can talk to his father instead of trying to trick him. You can send him to talk to me first, if you want. But he’s going to do that instead of trying to pressure you into paying the life-debt with that portrait.”
            Scorpius swallowed and nodded. Then he looked up and studied Malfoy with desperate eyes. “Are you angry at me, Father?”
            Father seemed to be reserved for moments that were less formal, Harry thought, which wasn’t the way he would have imagined it.
            Malfoy smiled at his son, and there was no reserve about this smile, any more than there had been reserve about his intensity when Malfoy went after Harry about not keeping his promises. “No,” he said. “You found yourself caught between your father and your friend, and tried to keep promises to both of them. But in the future, I trust that you’ll tell your friend to do his own dirty work.”
            No question at the end of that sentence, Harry thought. Malfoy seemed to trust his son utterly. Harry swallowed down envy and concentrated on watching the way Scorpius tossed off a little salute. If he was hurt by what Malfoy had said to him, Harry couldn’t detect it.
            “Thank you, Dad. I love you.”
            Malfoy whispered the same words back, making Harry wish that he had chosen to stay outside the drawing room after all. But the next instant, the fire puffed and went back to ordinary flame, and Malfoy turned around with the same calm expression that he wore most of the time in Harry’s house. “I thought it was something like that.”
            “How did you know?” Harry asked. He had to admit that if one of his children had told him something about a life-debt and then changed their minds, he would have accepted it as their privilege to do that.
            “Because Scorpius understood the circumstances very clearly,” Malfoy said. “I explained them all to him, and what he could do to pay the life-debt back and what he couldn’t. He said that he was happy to have me do it. Happy, not just giving in because he didn’t want to think about it. His idea about the portrait is a good one. When I’m done giving you some of your life back, if you still want the picture, you can have it.”
            Harry swallowed. “You—you still could have accepted his decision and gone away, you know.”
            Malfoy gave him one of those sideways-tilted-head looks that made Harry’s insides squirm. “But I don’t stop halfway paying through one of my debts,” Malfoy said, slowly and clearly enough to make Harry ache a little. “I do what has to be done, and then I count the cost.” He snapped himself back to a more normal expression, and shook his head. “You act as though it’s horrible for me to be here.”
            “Sometimes you act as though it is,” Harry muttered.
            “Only when you make a promise to act one way, and then do something else instead.” Malfoy took a single step towards him, and they might have been back in the Owlery. “Are you going to keep it this time?”
            Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I understand that it means a lot to you, and so it means a lot to me. It’s just—I wanted you to know that you could go. Your family is important to you.”
            “And so is clearing this debt,” Malfoy said. “Because of that. In addition to that. Not in spite of it, or in place of it. You understand?”
            Harry nodded, and rubbed his eyes again. Between one blink and another—but of course, when Harry didn’t actually have his eyes on him—Malfoy turned back into the somewhat-annoying caretaker that Harry had become used to. He took Harry’s elbow and steered him towards the door of the drawing room.
            Harry knew exactly where they were going, and tried to plant his feet. “I have to stay by the fireplace,” he said. “In case Madam Juniper calls with news about Jamie.”
            “I intend to stay awake myself,” Malfoy said. “Unlike some people, I got a full night’s sleep, and a relaxing shower beforehand.”
            “I showered!”
            Ignoring that, Malfoy piloted him into his bedroom. He paused and examined the walls that Harry had to admit were rather bare. Harry tensed a little, ready to defend himself, but Malfoy did nothing except cluck his tongue, once, and then ignore it the way he’d ignored Harry’s protests. He settled Harry on the bed and stripped off his boots, then pulled the brown robes off over Harry’s head with a sweep of his wand.
            Harry yelped and clapped his hands over his groin. He’d only put on the robes last night, and that left his bits hanging out in front of Malfoy. Or, well, okay, he was wearing pants, too, but it was the principle of the thing.
            Malfoy didn’t seem to understand about principles. He just stood there, watching Harry, and Harry finally nodded and dropped his hands. Then he Summoned one of Dudley’s big, old shirts that hung in the wardrobe behind his Auror robes, and draped it over himself. It covered him down to the middle of his thighs, still, and hid his bits as well as everything else.
            “Good,” Malfoy said, although his voice was a little husky, which made Harry shoot him a suspicious look. What was he saying good for? “Now, can you rest? Or do you need a Sleeping Draught? I’ll be happy to give you one. I know you might be worried about your sons.”
            “Only one of them was injured,” Harry muttered as he bedded down and turned his face to the wall.
            “Yes, but the other one is demonstrating a tendency to manipulate his best friend and try to manipulate me, instead of just coming to you and telling you straight out what he wants,” Malfoy said dryly. “And the other is a chronic thief, which, from what I could pick up from the house-elf, is part of the reason he’s now in the hospital wing. And—”
            “You’re not helping.” Harry turned over to glare at him. “Yes, I would like a Sleeping Draught. Please,” he added, when Malfoy seemed disposed to linger and stare at him.
            Malfoy sniffed and left the room. Harry sighed and touched his forehead. He felt almost limp and damp with lack of sleep, but part of his mind still ran in circles. What would he do if Jamie needed him while he was asleep, under the influence of the potion, and couldn’t wake up? There was no way that Malfoy would go to Hogwarts in his place, and Ginny—
            Harry paused.
            It occurred to him, for the first time, that it was strange Madam Juniper hadn’t contacted both him and Ginny. Ginny had been angry that Harry hadn’t told her about Jamie’s fall, but exactly why was it his responsibility to do that? Harry himself wouldn’t have known if Madam Juniper hadn’t firecalled him.
            With a disgusted sigh, Harry rolled back over on his pillow. Something else to worry about. Either Jamie had told Madam Juniper that he wanted her to talk to his dad and not his mum, or everybody was just so used to depending on Harry for everything that Madam Juniper hadn’t thought about Ginny.
            Not horrible, sinister explanations. But ones that did show him how wound up he’d got in people’s expectations and serving as the sole bulwark in times of distress, the sole receptacle for blame if someone needed to find fault.
            “Yes, you need the Sleeping Draught if you’re going to wrinkle your forehead up like that.”
            Harry reached absently for the vial that Malfoy held, but Malfoy pulled his hand back and stood looking at him with patient eyes. “The potion doesn’t work well on a mind that’s racing,” he said.
            “What good is it, then?” Harry snapped. “I never was good at clearing my mind for bloody Occlumency. Are you telling me that I need to learn that before I can take your damn potion?”
            Malfoy sat down on the bed beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. Harry winced a little. For some reason, it felt much warmer, as though Malfoy was setting a brand on him, when he touched Harry through a simple shirt and not his robes.
            Malfoy paused, but didn’t stop touching Harry, and didn’t ask if Harry wanted him to. He looked him in the eye instead, and asked, “What happened? Surely your house-elf didn’t bring you more bad news in the short time I was gone?” He hesitated, then added, “Besides, unless he has a twin, he was in the kitchen making breakfast.”
            Harry shook his head. He didn’t even know if he could speak about the misery clogging his throat. It would sound silly. Malfoy was supposed to teach him to stand up for himself, wasn’t he, not to give in to silly emotion?
            Malfoy just sat there, waiting, and Harry at last realized that he wouldn’t go away until Harry said something. Probably won’t give me the potion, either, Harry thought, and swallowed enough of the salty tear-mixture that he could speak. “I was wondering why Madam Juniper didn’t firecall Ginny. Either Jamie didn’t want her to, or she thought I was the only one who could take care of my son. And then Ginny came in and blamed me for not letting her know, even though Madam Juniper contacted me. Why couldn’t she contact Ginny at the same time?”
            Malfoy was quiet for long seconds. Then he said, “I think she may have forgotten. Or, as you say, she’s come to think that you’re the one responsible for fixing your children. Has she firecalled you before when they were injured?”
            “Yeah,” Harry said. “But we were married then.” Malfoy stared at him, and Harry sighed and explained, “So we both got the message at the same time.”
            “And since the divorce?” Malfoy asked, softly. “Or if you were home and your wife wasn’t? You never got the only message?”
            “Yeah.” Harry mopped his face with one hand. “But—I mean, I always told Ginny. I didn’t think of it this time. I don’t know why.”
            Malfoy leaned forwards and took both his shoulders. Harry had thought he would want to flinch, given that branding heat; it had to be stronger if it was on both sides of his body and not just one. But instead, he found himself sitting still and staring Malfoy in the eye.
            “Listen to me,” Malfoy whispered. “Even if you forgot and you were the one who should have done it, it’s not an unpardonable sin. Maybe enough for your wife to be angry at you. It doesn’t mean that you’re a horrible failure of a father. Any more than the mediwitch forgetting to firecall Weasley means that she’s a horrible person, rather than just forgetful. You have to stop taking these moments so personally and assuming that you—that you should wallow in guilt.”
            “It feels like the only way of making it up to them,” Harry whispered, naming aloud, for the first time maybe, something he’d always thought. “If I feel bad about it. It’s payment for doing the stupid thing in the first place.”
            Malfoy’s hands tightened. “And does that make it better?”
            “No,” Harry said. Guilt hadn’t helped with Lily; it hadn’t soothed Ginny’s anger and pain today.
            “Then stop,” Malfoy said, and shook him a little. “Firecall Weasley later and apologize if you like. Then let it go. Stop acting as though she has the right to scream at and denigrate you for months because of this. You’re divorced. You no longer think of her immediately, the way you did before. Let it go.”
            Harry took a gulping sob, and did so. Then he lay back on the pillow, and closed his eyes. He didn’t know if he needed Malfoy’s Sleeping Draught. He felt pretty bloody worn out.
            But Malfoy held the vial to his lips, and Harry automatically swallowed when he felt the thick potion edging down his throat. At least it was sweeter and blander than a lot of the other potions he’d had in the past.
            The last thing he was aware of was that Malfoy hadn’t moved from the bed, that he still had one hand on his shoulder, and that he was murmuring something too softly for Harry to make out. It might have been, “I’m here.”
*
polka dot: Part of that was because he was trying to keep Draco’s attention away from her, but yeah.
CareLessLover: You mean by thinking that Harry is now gay? She may think that. She may not spread it.
BAFan: Well, Draco may not have meant it in exactly that way.
rabiarose: Thanks!
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Marathon