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The Same Species As Shakespeare	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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
- 21
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Chapter
Twenty-Two�Fortune�s Fool

�� Draco woke
slowly, wincing as he laid a hand against his throat. It felt as though he had
been running in winter air and trying to swallow knives at the same time. He sat
up, and winced again as his head throbbed.

�� Welcome
back.�

�� Draco
looked up quickly. Faustine sat in a chair across from him, her legs crossed as
she sipped a steaming drink from a small silver cup. Her eyes were dark with
knowledge, her face creased in lines of calm amusement.

�� Anyone else
in Draco�s position would have looked around for the opal and the wheel.
Because he knew Faustine would expect him
to do that, he kept his gaze fastened on her instead, and tried to match her
tranquility as he sat upright in the chair. A puddle of drool had formed on the
table where his chin had rested; he Vanished it without drawing attention to
its existence. Then he laid the wand next to him and said, �I want to know what
you did to me.�

�� His voice
was remarkably controlled. Draco felt proud of himself for an instant. Then he
thought of what Harry would likely say if he were here, and the remembrance of
contemptuous green eyes and power that argued down any lie he could present in
his own defense sobered him at once. He dug his fingers into the underside of
the table to escape Faustine�s sight, almost not caring if he received
splinters for the action.

�� I did what
I said I would.� Faustine inclined her head in a manner that reminded Draco
irresistibly of the way his mother had bowed to the Dark Lord when he made a
point she disagreed with, the day she died. �Tore the truth from you, and made
it impossible for you to lie to yourself any longer.�

�� Am I under
a permanent trance that mimics the effects of Veritaserum, then?� Again Draco
was proud of himself. Severus would have snapped at the notion like a cornered
dog; his father would have flown into rages like the madman he was. Draco�Draco
Malfoy was cool. He even raised his
eyebrows, smiling slightly, inviting Faustine to give him the right answer so
that she could share in the joke.

�� Nothing so
likely to make you think yourself innocent.� Faustine reached down to the chair
beside her and lifted something into view.

�� At first
glance, Draco thought it was a fishbowl�at second glance, a Pensieve. Then he
realized the silvery sides weren�t solid, and indeed bulged and rippled in such
a way that he couldn�t understand what kept them vaguely in place. They seemed
ready to flow down the sides of Faustine�s cupped hand as the opal had flowed
down its wheel. He pushed himself back slightly from the table, and then made
out white letters floating in the middle of the silver. He hesitated.

�� With his
attention, the letters sharpened. He caught a glimpse of the words I need Harry Potter, and then he snarled
and jerked his head back. The words once again became amorphous.

�� What have
you done?� he asked, and once again his voice was the soulless thing that he
knew it needed to be if he was to break Faustine for what she had dared to
inflict on him. He had picked up his wand without realizing it, and part of him
was regretful for that, because it ruined the subtlety of the threat he wanted
to make. But that didn�t matter. He leaned forwards, his hands braced on the
table, one digging splinters into his fingernails again. �This is some joke,
some trick.�

�� Do you
know that the Romans discovered some magic they didn�t bother to pass on to
their descendants in Latin incantations?� Faustine asked dreamily. �We�re
limited by thinking Latin the source of all magic and tracing so many of our
traditions back to Rome. The Greeks knew things, in their time, that made Roman
civilization look small�as the Senate and the Emperors themselves acknowledged.
Speaking Greek, and reading old Greek manuscripts, will get you surprising
results.�

�� Draco
sneered. Faustine didn�t deserve even that much acknowledgment from him, but a
voice in the back of his head whispered remembrance that she knew how to
contact Potter. Maybe if he looked more human, more breakable, more approachable,
he would get assistance from her still. Draco was not above manipulating the
pity that others might lavish on him. �And yet, you made Rome the theme of your
restaurant. It�s plain to see what you
most value.�

�� And
because you build beautiful houses,� Faustine asked him, her voice almost a
sigh, �is beauty the only thing you value?�

�� Draco tried
not to stiffen, but fastened his hands on the edge of the table and said
evenly, �Go on.�

�� I have
learned Greek,� said Faustine. �And I have learned magic in that tongue that is
parallel to the magic we�ve learned to wield in Latin and English. The road of
Latin and English produced Veritaserum. But that potion has drawbacks. It can�t
pull truth from the drinker that he doesn�t know himself, and a determined
subject can still lie by omission and by guiding the questions with the truths
he reveals. It can�t pierce the truth in the soul.� She nodded to the side, and
Draco followed her gaze to see the red-black wooden box on the shelves again.
�The Greek magic can, and it brings forth the truth that the Veritaserum
drinker would be able to deny, if he was skilled in lying to himself.�

�� Draco
snarled at her. �And of course you would have me believe you.�

�� You came
here wanting to know where Harry was,� said Faustine. �You seem to have
something invested in my truthfulness. And besides�� She tilted her small
silver cup, and Draco beheld the milky sheen to the chocolate in it that he
knew came from added, diluted Veritaserum.

�� My price,�
said Faustine, �for giving you the information that you need to contact Harry,
is for you to look into that.� She nodded at the silvery blob hovering beside
her. �And never dare to tell me that you don�t believe it, or that you can�t
read the wording. It will come clear enough when you lean close and
concentrate.�

�� Draco
considered quietly for a moment, his eyes locked on Faustine. He didn�t want to
give this woman, who might turn into an enemy as easily as an ally, a glimpse
of him acting weak.

�� Then he
remembered that he had fainted in her presence, and from a pain that he
shouldn�t have allowed to affect him, even if she had been telling the truth
and the magic was tearing the truth
out of his soul. She had a low opinion of him for hurting Potter, too. He could
not base his decision on what Faustine thought of him, especially when he
didn�t have any idea yet if her opinion was worth having.

�� And whether
or not he needed Potter, himself, he
needed the chance to make things right between them. To apologize, if he must.
To tell the truth, even, if Potter turned out to demand that.

�� He gritted
his teeth and leaned forwards.

�� The silvery
blob had drifted nearer, probably at a motion of Faustine�s wand Draco had been
too occupied to notice. Now the sides were trembling and melting again,
quivering so hard that Draco wondered if they would explode on him for a
moment. But he felt nothing more than a passing coolness, like the touch of a
strand of mist, even when a drop did leap off the fishbowl and brush against
his forehead.

�� And then
the letters formed.

�� I, Draco Malfoy, need Harry Potter. I have
lived all my life thirsting after him, the only greatness I ever knew�the one
figure described to me in fairy tales who sounded as if he might actually live
in the real world under the sun. My father�s tales of the Dark Lord made me
shiver, but I wanted Potter. I
desired him as other people desire sunlight, or diamonds, or release from
poverty.

�� Draco
jerked his head away, but the protest he wanted to make died on his lips when
he saw the smile Faustine regarded him with. Draco stared back at the letters
again instead, and they surged towards him and crowded on his soul.

�� And then when I met him, and discovered that
he was actually nothing like what I�d been told, I decided to punish him for
being that way.

�� Draco sat
back with an angry toss of his head, his fingers clutching the edges of his
chair. �I was never that way,� he said, whilst the letters dissolved into
strands of silver-white like hanging cobwebs.

�� Yes, you
were.� Faustine�s smile had grown remorseless, which was worse still. �Such a
selfish, spoiled brat. You wanted a whole person to satisfy your cravings, when
other people would be satisfied with attention, or a friendship. But not you. Not
Draco Malfoy. Even if he hadn�t become friends with Ron Weasley, you would have
been disappointed, because he was too generous to confine himself to you alone.
He had to save others; he had to teach them, and sympathize with them, and be
their friend. And you couldn�t have tolerated that.�

�� Draco felt
his lips drawing back to expose his teeth. �You make Potter sound like a saint,
and me like a dragon,� he said at last, when he thought he was in enough
control of his anger not to simply explode at Faustine. �You must know that that is not true.�

�� Faustine
ran a hand through her hair, catching it against imaginary curls and tangles
there as if she wanted to avoid answering him. Only when she lowered her hand
to the table again and fixed him with an even gaze did Draco realize that she
might have been subduing anger of her own. It cheered him, but not as much as
it would have under different circumstances. Faustine was still the one in
control, and he had to yield to her power. He would never be happy as long as
that was true.

�� I know
that Harry has his own faults,� she said. �I shudder to know what this spell
would reveal as a glimpse of his soul, actually. But we are talking about you, Malfoy. And I say that you have the
greed of a dragon. You weren�t born with it, no. You encouraged it to grow at
every opportunity, and when you had the chance to turn away�as you did when
your mother died and you were shocked, for the first time, out of absorption
with yourself and into grief�you deliberately recommitted yourself to the
selfish path instead. You received multiple warnings, from people concerned
with you, not only Harry, to draw
back when you began pursuing him. Of course you did not. The selfishness
extended to your opinions. You could not believe that you, the great and mighty Draco Malfoy, might be wrong.�

�� Draco
snarled and clenched a fist openly in Faustine�s sight. Why not? He had already
revealed how much her words affected him. �I could have pulled away at any time
I desired��

�� So blind,�
said Faustine. �Until you are cured of that blindness, I�ll not let you
anywhere near Harry.� She stood abruptly and paced towards the far side of the
room, where she stood with her back to Draco. �Take as long as you like to look
over the words in that glass, and unobserved by me,� she added over her
shoulder. �You�ll need some time to accept what you see, that�s plain.�

�� Draco
glared at her, and then glared at the silvery blob. Nothing changed. The words
continued to swim, and he decided that he might as well read them. Why shouldn�t
he? He was the one who would decide whether they affected him or not.

�� He leaned
nearer, and the words sprang into existence as if they had been waiting for his
eyes. Draco told himself that he had not really
seen any viciousness in the motion. This was magic. It wasn�t alive, it
didn�t determine itself, and it was most probably a trick that Faustine had
made up. She had said herself that Veritaserum could only pull out truths the
victim knew to be truths. Someone had probably lied to her about the real
nature of the Greek magic, and she was faithfully repeating those lies to
Draco, under the impression that they were true.

�� I could have been free of him. The only
rivalry we truly shared was the Quidditch rivalry, and other members of the
Slytherin team didn�t hate Harry Potter so much. And we were on opposite sides
of the war, but so were other people. They fought for their beliefs, as Potter
fought for his; they didn�t fight for hatred of him. And he didn�t fight for
hatred of me, as much as I tried to tell myself he did at the time.

�� A flash of
outrage traveled through Draco, but it was transient, because he did indeed
remember thinking such thoughts during the war. He�d caught a glimpse of Potter
from afar across a battlefield, and thought smugly that those green eyes
focused on him for a moment and shone with loathing. Yes, he�d thought he was
the reason that Potter drove so furiously at Malfoy Manor during the war, and
finally made the most important battle happen there.

�� The Dark
Lord had also been at Malfoy Manor during that same time. Rationally, Draco
knew that, and he would have agreed with anyone in public that that was the
reason Potter had been so desperate to reach the house.

�� But in
private, he had hugged to himself the secret of Potter�s wartime obsession with
him.

�� Now it lay
open and shattered, as pitiful as the limbs of a broken doll Draco had seen
lying on the floor in the Malfoys� cellar once, accidentally Apparated with a
Muggle victim. He stared at nothing for long moments before he could look at
the blob and convince himself to read on.

�� I could have been free of him. It was my
conviction that he needed to be
defeated in order for my life to mean anything that made me cling to my hatred
when the war was done. I started training as an architect, but my full heart
was never on the job. I kept an eye cocked over my shoulder, wanting to see
Potter standing there, wanting to see him be impressed. And when I found out he
was, it still wasn�t enough for my hatred of him. I wanted to see him broken
for the crime of ever daring to care more about someone else than me, and for
the crime of still caring about his job instead of falling worshipfully at my
feet when I deigned to notice him.

�� Draco
turned his head. He felt as if he wanted to spit, the liquid boiling up in his
mouth and resting against his tongue, but there was no possible way he could
spit out his disgust with himself, and that was what really needed to go. He
rested his forehead against his palm and closed his eyes for a moment.

��

�� Did I�

�� But he knew
he had really done that. If nothing else, the sense of familiarity in his chest when he read the words confirmed it.

�� Familiarity,
and a squirming, stinking nausea. This time, when he swallowed, he choked down
bile.

�� He opened
his eyes and continued reading, almost certain that he was numb, that no
revelation could hurt him now.

�� When I found out he was obsessed with me in
return, it was cause for only a moment of joy. I had to have more than that. I had to have enslaved to me, twined around me,
and softer than it turned out he was. I had to make him break and shatter. If I
had achieved my goal, if I had been right about him, he would never have
managed to write me the letter that so insulted me in the first place.

�� Draco sat
back and ran his hand across his face. He felt the temptation to stare vacantly
into the air nearly overcome him, and shook it off so suddenly that he felt as
though an earthquake had run across the territory his shoulders occupied.

�� Blind. I was blind. The blob doesn�t say it,
but if I had been right about Potter, and it had turned out he was that soft
and pliant, I would have despised him, and despised myself for obsessing over
him in the first place. I wanted to be the sun of his universe, but I would
have found no satisfaction in being so.

�� Draco gave
a chuckle that sounded hollow and rusty even to him. Again he ran his hands
across his face. Sweat had broken out on his brow, but it was cold to the
touch, and his fingers shook so severely he nearly poked himself in the eye.

�� This is actually the best thing that could
have happened. Now I only need to despise myself for misunderstanding him so
greatly, and misunderstanding my own motivations, rather than despise myself
for my emotions.

�� But the
blob had said nothing about the way he needed Potter since the first sentences
Draco read in it. Maybe there was one thing he hadn�t mistaken. Maybe he was
less stupid than he appeared. Draco leaned forwards again, and the words
swirled and rushed at him for a vengeance.

�� I�m the next thing to in love with him. I�ll
never rest easily until he admires me and returns as much emotional investment
to me as I feel in him. Even if I know that he�ll never bow down at my feet, still,
the moment of triumph when he let me do as I liked to him in bed was too sweet
not to be repeated. I need him beside me if I�m ever going to move on from the
obsession with him and think about other things.

�� Draco sat
back and closed his eyes. Then he laughed again.

�� The next thing to in love with him? At the
moment, I�m the next thing to broken.

�� And now he
wasn�t numb, but he was alive to pain, and he wanted to know what could hurt
him worse than what he had just experienced. He leaned towards the blob,
feeling as if he were daring someone to torture him whilst being mentally prepared
for it.

�� There was
no more. The letters in the blob melted together and ran down the insides of
the silvery walls like hot wax. Then the whole thing burst, and Draco flinched
before he could stop himself; the thought of all that truth flying at him was
more than he could bear. Nothing touched him this time, however. He caught a
glimpse of dissipating streamers of silver, and that was all.

�� He looked
up. When he was laughing and combating the truths the blob had revealed to him
in his mind, he had forgotten Faustine was in the room. Now he remembered, but
the embarrassment he would ordinarily have felt at experiencing those emotions
in front of her was muted and chased away by the fact of his own folly.

�� I could have had everything I wanted. I had
the chance. Potter was in love with me already. I could have coaxed him and brought
him along, bit by bit, showing him my good qualities until he forgot the bad
ones. I�m the one who destroyed this, and not him.

�� The truth
coated the inside of his mouth with a metallic taste, and caused a twinge in
his chest. Draco rested a hand absently over the skin there. He wondered if
this was what people meant when they talked about a broken heart.

�� What
happened to the truth?� he asked.

�� Faustine
inclined her head. Her eyes revealed nothing, no matter how hard Draco looked
at her. �It will travel with you. Should you start doubting what it revealed,
it will reappear.�

�� Draco�s
breath caught, and he stared at her. �And you�re not going to force me to
reveal it to Harry?�

�� I don�t
have that power.� Faustine dropped her eyelids over her eyes and gave a very
faint smile. �Greek magic doesn�t turn our unhappy endings into happy ones any
more than Latin and English magic does. I could only force you to confront
yourself and stop lying.� She considered him quietly, her head on one side and
her fingers traveling steadily over her arm. �Harry isn�t perfect,� she said. �I
am not one of his closest friends, which means I�m more likely to look at him
with my eyes open. But he�s not the one who almost destroyed what you shared
together. That�s you. Only when you faced those truths could you come together
on a more equal footing. As long as you remember
them�� her voice sharpened until Draco winced, thinking he felt it dig into
his skin ��then you carry only as much guilt as he does.�

�� Draco said
nothing for long moments. It seemed too simple, even after the pain he had
suffered to attain it. �And that means you�ll tell me where he is?� he asked.

�� Faustine
raised an eyebrow. �I don�t know his exact location. But he gave me the means
to send him news even when he�s isolated, out of the country, or behind
powerful wards. We�ll put a special tracking spell I know on the owl.�

�� Draco shook
his head. �Why are you doing this? Do you really have that much invested in our
relationship working out?� He stopped the moment he finished speaking the
words. A tone of spite had crept into his voice, and if he was unable to stop
his stupid, self-destructive behavior, at least he recognized it when it was
happening.

�� I want to
see Harry happy,� said Faustine. �He has done some lasting things for me, and I
have rarely been able to repay him with more than temporary information that
cools quickly. But, more, this neutralized you.� Her eyes shifted and changed,
and Draco wondered if he should be afraid of the emotion that appeared in them
now. He thought he might have been, before the pain he suffered in reading the
blob. �Now either you will approach him like an adult, and in full cognizance
of the information you�ve learned, or you�ll slink away and not bother him
again.�

�� What makes
you think I won�t approach him and make as big a mess of this as I ever did
before?� Draco demanded.

�� Faustine
flicked her wrist. A second blob appeared out of the air, paler than the one
that had haunted Draco, but with the same words more brightly sketched in it.

�� The opal
makes two copies,� Faustine said. �One for the person who needs to face the truths
of his soul, and one for the person who questions him.� She smiled at Draco�s
reluctantly horrified glance. �If you try to lie to him again, I�ll simply send
this to Harry. It�s not a foolproof means of solving the problem, no, but I
have to at least let you try to
approach Harry.� Her voice showed her reluctance clearly now. �He�ll never be
happy until he has you�or until he�s convinced that you�re beyond redemption.
And he will be, if you try to hurt him again and then he reads this.�

�� Draco bowed
slowly, never taking his eyes from her. He could admire her, in a way. And he
was more annoyed with himself than her, for not facing these truths in the
first place. He could have dealt with them privately on his own, if he had
known himself as well as he always thought he did.

�� Indeed, that�s the most galling thing, he
thought, when he stood outside the Imperatrix again, with Faustine�s promise
that she would contact him when her owl returned ringing in his ears. Everyone was always telling me that I lacked
self-knowledge. I ignored them, because they weren�t inside my head and they
couldn�t read my soul. And it turned out they were right.

�� He would
have to tell the truth to Potter and endure the prickling touch of truth�s fire
on his soul�

�� Because if
he didn�t, then he was likely to be wrong again,
and he didn�t think he could survive the shame a second time.

�� It was bad
enough finding out I needed Potter,� he muttered, and began to walk, feeling,
with each step, like a scraped sculpture just emerged from the glassblower.

�� But he had
the chance to escape feeling that way. He had, in fact, the chance to attain
everything he wanted.

�� Maybe.

*

�� Linagabriev:
Well, so far no one has guessed completely right on the imposter business, so
don�t worry about being stupid. ;)

�� And yes,
Faustine was speaking metaphorically. Draco has to be a better person before he
can actually be Harry�s lover.

�� Harry is
still feeling defensive and sorry for himself, so, in a way, he�s
de-emphasizing the emotions he knows Draco probably feels. He�s essentially saying
to himself, �If he doesn�t love me and betrayed me like that, he�s not worth
having anyway.� This story is full of people lying to themselves.

�� The
imposter will have to find Harry first!

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thank you!

�� paigeey07:
He can lie to other people, but not to himself�and not to Harry, or Faustine
will find out about it.

�� Sean: Thank
you! Hope you enjoyed Chapter 22.

�� arealdeal:
Thank you! I do like this characterization of Harry, more than I expected to
when he was first obsessed with Draco, and Draco is slowly learning. The next
chapters should also advance Lucius�s plotline, and more information about the
imposter is coming.
- 21
- 22
- 23
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The Same Species As Shakespeare