Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Ceremonies of Strife	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16218 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 21
- 22
- 23
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter
Twenty-Two�Words Writ Upon Suffering

�� Ventus
seemed to have made it her mission to shadow Draco no matter where he went. She
sat not next to him but not far from him in Combat, and watched him so intently
that Morningstar had partnered them together more than once. Draco always lost.

�� He would
have let his resentment for that overcome his flattery at her admiration, but
Ventus was so insistent that she had her own kind of charm. She talked
relentlessly about the resistance against Nihil that she was so sure he would
lead, and jerked her head to add emphasis to her words hard enough that her
hair fell in her face. She would push it back into place and continue talking
on as if she hadn�t noticed.

�� But what
makes you so sure that I can lead one?� Draco asked in the library one
afternoon, a few days after Ventus had first approached him. �I know that you
told me surviving the war must count for something, but I don�t feel as though it does, and a leader
needs confidence.�

�� I�ve
watched you in classes,� Ventus said. �You know the answers most of the time.
You just can�t always express them.�

�� Draco laid
his book down and frowned at her. �What does that have to do with readiness to
become a leader?�

�� Leaders
are there to issue commands and take action,� Ventus said, �not talk. And you
issue commands well enough, and I think that you can apply the practical
knowledge even when you sit there with your mind clogged because you can�t find
the right words to put around a concept.� She sniffed. �Words. Who cares about
them, anyway?�

�� Draco
frowned more widely, not entirely pleased with the way she had put things.

�� But Ventus
was just that way. She made it clear that she wanted to fight and believed
Draco would bring her nearer that goal than anyone else, which was refreshingly
honest and meant Draco had the kind of relationship with her that he hadn�t had
with anyone since Hogwarts. She didn�t lie; Draco didn�t think it would occur
to her to do so. She pushed Draco and expressed an unwavering belief in him
that gave Draco his own kind of confidence, even as the days passed and Harry
made no other attempt to apologize.

�� He had
warned Harry away from apologizing, of course, but warnings had never been
enough to keep him at bay before. Draco was starting to think that Harry let
his emotions control him and distance him from Draco when it most counted�when
he should have listened to his Gryffindor stubbornness and broken through
Draco�s reserve.

�� Draco
didn�t know if he would have accepted that had it happened, of course. He
wasn�t ready to forgive Harry yet. But he would have been able to explain
himself and release the accumulated poison from his veins, and he couldn�t do
that with Ventus because he didn�t want her to know the details of the fight.

�� He was
reduced to watching jealousy from a distance as Harry ate and talked with
Weasley and Granger, as he worked through his projects alone, and as he once or
twice sat back from his books with a grin, as though he had just made some
important discovery. They hadn�t had another training session with Lowell and
Weston yet, and they weren�t being asked to demonstrate compatible magic in
class right now, so Draco had lost even that excuse for being close to him.

�� Draco
reassured himself that he didn�t need a partner who would lie to him, someone
who had violated his trust at every turn and didn�t even regret it. But he
found his eyes tracking Harry when they shouldn�t be, his shoulders twitching
at the sound of his voice, his ears waiting for Harry�s laughter.

�� He needed the bastard. That was the plain
and sober truth of it. Draco wished it wasn�t so�wished so fervently that
sometimes his waking seemed like a nightmare and his dreams, where he walked
proud and alone, like real life�but wishing wouldn�t change things.

�� He still
didn�t want to make the first move, though. His pride had been hurt. Harry
should be the one applying balm to those wounds. He should apologize. Draco�s
pride was the only thing keeping him upright at the moment, and he couldn�t
bend it again.

�� So he
waited, and pined, and hated himself for pining, and listened to Ventus and got
his confidence up again temporarily, and did classwork and tried to pretend
that Harry Potter didn�t exist.

*

�� It was days
before Harry felt confident enough to put his next Draco-recovering plan into
motion.

�� He had
clung to the idea that had come to him the other day (before his conversation with Ventus, so that he didn�t have to say
that he owed the idea to her). He would write Draco a letter. He might do
better if he had more time to put his thoughts into words, and he could go back
and cross out anything that sounded stupid. And if Draco chose to read the
letter, at least he wouldn�t walk away in the middle of the conversation,
before Harry had said everything that he wanted to say.

�� Of course,
maybe Draco would tear the letter up instead, but in that case Harry was no
worse off than he had been before.

�� He debated
and struggled and tried his best to listen to his feelings while he was building
up his courage. He watched Draco from a distance, noticed the way he talked to
Ventus and sometimes to other people that he had �control� over�which Harry
assumed meant he had blackmailed them�and the way he sat writing in class or
while hunched over his homework.

�� How did he
feel about that? How badly did he want the separation between them to end?

�� I miss him.

�� That was
the most concrete observation to come out of Harry�s time spent looking at
Draco, and he was afraid it sounded stupid and wouldn�t be strong enough. He
ought to find subtle, elegant, refined words for Draco, words that would reach
out and grip his heart and persuade him to give Harry another chance. He ought
to be better than his own limitations would let him be.

�� But he
wasn�t, and so in the end he decided that he needed to write the letter as the
person he was and not the person he would have liked to be. He sat down with a
quill and parchment and ink during an hour when Ron was �visiting Hermione�s
rooms� and poured out his feelings onto the paper.

�� When it was
done, he stared at it and bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed. This was
too honest, he thought. He shouldn�t give it to Draco because Draco would have
blackmail material for the rest of Harry�s life. He would only have to whisper
a few words of this with a smirk, and Harry would die of humiliation.

�� But he�s changed since Hogwarts. And I trust
him.

�� The trust
finally made Harry stuff the letter in an envelope and find an anonymous
post-owl to send it by. He would have to hope that Draco would give the letter
a chance, and that the honesty wouldn�t put him off.

*

�� The owl
came winging down into the middle of the dining hall and straight for Draco. He
accepted the letter warily. All the trainees had been urged to watch their post
for signs of nasty tricks or hexes. Since Nihil wasn�t trying to get past the
wards anymore, he would probably attempt to sneak in another way.

�� There was
no name of the sender on the envelope, which increased Draco�s
trepidation�until he looked hard at the scraggly, slightly rounded letters that
made up his own name and realized he knew them.

�� He jerked
his head up, narrowing his eyes at Harry�s back, and then realized Harry had
already left the dining hall.

�� And people
were beginning to give him curious looks, attracted by the way he had handled
the letter. If Draco didn�t want someone to start spreading gossip about his
private affairs, it was better to act as if the message contained nothing
significant. Draco tucked the letter away in his bag without opening it and
continued eating.

�� All the
afternoon he could feel the letter burning there like an icy ember, until
finally he reached his rooms again and could take it out to read it.

�� Dear Draco:

�� I still feel comfortable calling you that,
despite everything we�ve gone through. I can�t imagine that I�d go back to
calling you Malfoy, no matter how much distance we put between each other.

�� I�m sorry.

�� I�ve told you that before, but I remembered
that I didn�t tell you why I meant it, why it was different from what I said
when you first confronted me about the necromancy. I�m sorry now because I saw
the darkness in Nihil�s mind and I know what it means. The thought that I could
become like Nihil really scares me. That was what I needed to make me realize
that I should stay away from it.

�� I confused the dead with the living. I
thought the dead could still think and feel like the living, and would resent
the fact that I hadn�t saved them. So I had to do anything I could to make it
up to them, and it didn�t matter what it cost me, because it�s never mattered what it cost me. I didn�t think
about the living.

�� I�m not sure what that says about me. Maybe
that I still have that hero complex you told me I had last year, when I took
off to try and help Hagrid without telling you. Maybe just that I�m not very
thoughtful and don�t consider what kind of claims other people have on me.
Maybe both, or some other possibility that I haven�t even thought of. My mind
tends to go in circles a lot. That�s one thing you do for me�help me out of the
circles�and one reason I love you.

�� I don�t know if I can change anything or
make anything up to you. Maybe the wound goes too deep. Maybe it would be
better for you if I let you go, so that you could find someone who respects you
and whose word you can trust.

�� But I can�t.

�� I�m selfish, Draco. I didn�t pay enough
attention to you, and that was stupid. I need you, and not just because you
pull my mind out of the circles. I�ve missed you this last week. I want you
with me because I�m a better person when you�re here. You open up new
perspectives to me. You teach me that the living really do matter, and that I
shouldn�t take dumb risks. You�ve taught me that I matter to other people, too,
and I can�t thoughtlessly sacrifice my life, or even do it thoughtfully, and
hope that the world will improve.

�� What do I give to you? I�m less sure about
that, and I don�t really want to answer, because you might think that it�s
presumptuous. I think you need to define it.

�� So. Someone advised me that I should grovel
to you, and I�m ready to do that. But I�m not sure what kind of groveling would
be best, because I know that you don�t want apologies so far, and promises from
me would mean nothing. Will you tell me what you�d like from me? I know that in
one way I�m putting the burden on you again, demanding that you advise me, but
I really am out of ideas. And I think we�ve seen that my ideas aren�t always
the best ones, anyway.

�� Love,

�� Harry.

�� Draco sat
there for a long time when he�d finished reading the letter. He thought he
should have more of a reaction. He thought that he should feel scornful and
tear up the letter.

�� Instead,
his hands were numb, and his tongue was still, and his head was filled with a
buzzing, clear light.

�� He read the
letter again, and a third time. When he finished, his head danced with the
words, and he could almost have recited the letter from memory.

�� Various
reactions began to rush through him when he could think of something other than
the clear light, words that collided with each other and spun around one
another like dance partners.

�� I don�t believe any of it.

�� He�s demanding guidance from me, just the
way he did in the library. If he was really sorry, he would pick some course
and follow it, and if he really knew me, he would have known without asking
what would please me.

�� Someone else recommended groveling? He can�t even have that much initiative and that
much of an idea about what would help me?

�� Draco
turned the letter over, thinking as he went that he really should feel
something more than sad disbelief, and then saw a note that Harry had scribbled
on the back. At least, it was in the same handwriting as the rest of the
letter. Draco had to admit that he didn�t know that Granger hadn�t stood over
Harry and dictated this to him; it sounded too honest, too real, too full for Harry to have written on his
own.

�� I was thinking the other day about how we
don�t really know each other at all. We sprang over some of the immediate
steps; we were friends and partners and lovers too fast, and the compatible
magic made everything too easy. If you accept this letter, could you meet me
somewhere so we can talk about it? A conversation is what we need.

�� It was as
if Harry had read the thoughts about how little Harry knew him out of Draco�s
head and anticipated them.

�� Draco flung
the letter on the table and stared at it.

�� He had
never heard Harry sound like this, which increased his suspicions that he was
looking at something Granger had come up with instead. And that was cheating. Draco was tempted to go to
this meeting with Harry just so he could spit those words, see his face
crumple, and then leave haughtily.

�� But that would still be looking at him.
Talking to him.

�� Draco shook
his head. He didn�t understand. He was upset, exhausted, and confused. It felt
as though he was being swept out to sea after having struggled a long time with
a heavy current. He couldn�t think.

�� He wanted
to see Harry, and he didn�t. He wanted to accuse him of cheating with Granger�s
help, and he wanted to believe, desperately, that he had written this letter
himself and meant every word. He wanted to blame Harry because he had asked
Draco for advice on apologizing again,
and embrace the trust it implied, that Harry was letting him direct the terms
of their reconciliation.

�� And he
couldn�t do any of that, because there was no way that he could trust or
believe any of what Harry had written. He was a liar.

�� Draco
seized a quill and ink and wrote a response on the paper below Harry�s note,
before he could stop himself. Meet with
me at seven tonight in the library. I�m going to bring Veritaserum. I want you
to confess everything that you just told me in the letter under the influence
of that potion.

�� It was the
only way he could protect himself, Draco thought as he went to search for a
post-owl. If Harry refused to do it, then Draco would know he was a liar, and
he wouldn�t have to think about him ever again.

�� If he
agreed�

�� Draco
straightened his spine and shook his head. He didn�t have to think of that possibility, because there was no
way that Harry would ever agree.

*

�� Harry read
Draco�s note and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. This was what he had
wanted: a chance to prove himself. And he swore up and down, if only to
himself, that he wasn�t going to fuck it up this time.

�� He opened
his eyes and frowned. A strange, shimmering, heavy haze hung at the corners of
his eyes. He blinked and rubbed them, thinking it might be bits of sleep
clinging there, but the haze remained.

�� Harry
shrugged. He really didn�t have time to worry about it. Draco�s letter needed a
reply, and he wouldn�t feel good until he�d written one. Draco would probably
be waiting for it, too, with his arms folded and a sneer on his face.

�� That�s how I know I�m in love with him,
because even picturing that sneer just makes me smile, instead of resent him.

�� Harry
dipped his quill in the ink�

�� And the
world around him turned inside out, sounds becoming muffled drums in the
distance, and Harry found himself spinning down into the depths of a memory.

�� No! I don�t have time for a fit! Not when
Draco�s waiting for me! Harry struggled with all his might, trying to send
his mind surging upwards and out of the whirlwind that threatened to consume
him. He was sorry the dead were dead, that was still true, but he didn�t care, he couldn�t faint, Draco was
waiting�

�� The images
that wavered in front of him were familiar, of the first time he had gone to
see Teddy after his parents� death and found himself thinking that he might
have prevented Teddy from being an orphan if he had just been a bit quicker, a
bit smarter, a bit more attentive during the battle�

�� That�s not true, Harry thought, flinging
the words at himself that he knew Draco would have used. It didn�t mean he believed them, but they were the best
weapons he had available on short notice. I
didn�t kill Remus and Tonks. I�m sorry they�re dead, but it�s not my fault, and
I can�t change anything, and�

�� The truth
burst out of him, cutting through the tired words that could never get rid of
the burden of his guilt. And I�m so tired
of these stupid fits!

�� The memory
tore like mist. Harry found himself crouched over the table where he�d sat down
to write his letter to Draco, blinking and massaging his head. He cast a swift Tempus Charm to reassure himself that he
hadn�t lost time, but no, it was only a few minutes later than it had been the
last time he remembered checking. He hadn�t missed his meeting with Draco.

�� What had
happened was so momentous that it took Harry a while of sitting there and
rubbing his forehead to understand it.

�� I can control these fits! I really can. I
don�t need a Mind-Healer. I just need to think through what I�m saying and
thinking more often, and hate the fits enough to get rid of them.

�� Harry
whistled under his breath and grinned. If the fits were caused by his intense
guilt, then of course they would go away if he didn�t feel the guilt anymore.
That was so simple he didn�t know why he hadn�t considered it before.

�� Luckily or
unluckily, an answer wasn�t long in coming.

�� Because I don�t deserve not to feel that
guilt. And I need my conscience. I can�t cast it aside because it makes certain
things inconvenient. If I�d been listening to it in the first place, then I
would never have hurt Draco.

�� Harry
frowned and spun his quill over between his fingers. How did other people make
up their minds about these things? He knew that sometimes they worried over
things that Harry didn�t�like the way Hermione worried about marks�but they
didn�t do it intensely enough to cause themselves fainting and convulsing fits
every few days.

�� And wasn�t
it better to worry too much over causing deaths than not enough?

�� But did I cause them?

�� Harry
gnawed his quill, and then stopped, because it stuffed his mouth full of
feathers. He started cracking his knuckles instead, just to give himself
something to do while he thought.

He didn�t know the answer, that was
the problem. He thought he�d had the power to save them. To save Sirius, all he
would have had to do was listen to Snape and not go to the Department of
Mysteries. That made that particular death his fault, even if none of the
others were. Something he had done
had directly caused it.

�� But could
he have saved Remus and Tonks?

�� If I�d been stronger, faster. If I�d worked
out that I was the last Horcrux on my own and confronted Voldemort right away,
then there wouldn�t have had to be a battle. I could have died, and come back
to life, and Teddy would still have a mum and dad. I don�t want anyone to grow
up the way I grew up.

�� That was
the familiar track of his thoughts, but Harry did something he�d never done
before: he braced himself in his thoughts right there and tried to follow them
to their logical conclusion.

�� Was Teddy
really going to grow up like him?

�� No. Andromeda loves him, and he has me�even
though I haven�t visited him much lately�and other people, like the Weasleys,
who know about him and are interested in him. Nobody except Dumbledore knew
where I was, and I didn�t know about the wizarding world, and nobody visited
me. So he�ll still be an orphan, which is awful, but it isn�t going to be
exactly like me.

�� Harry
licked his lips when he finished thinking that thought, and flinched a little.
It made sense, or it seemed to, but it still hurt.

�� What if I�m wrong? What if I hurt more
people the way I hurt Draco, because I�m not paying enough attention to what�s
right and wrong? I would rather suffer a lot myself than hurt someone else.

�� Then he
remembered that he had hurt Draco because he was trying not to hurt the dead,
and shut his eyes and shook his head.

�� This is ridiculous. I can�t be perfect. I
need to do something to make it up to Sirius, yes, but maybe not everyone else.
And I�m going to hurt Draco and my friends some of the time. What I need to do
is make sure those are small wounds, just the kind you get from living
together�the way Ron and I would row at Hogwarts. Not the big ones.

�� It felt
weird, like trying to put on the wrong pair of glasses. But it was the best
thought that Harry could come up with for now, so he wrote his response to
Draco�s note and then went to send it.

�� And he
hoped that Draco would ask him questions about the way he�d been feeling since
the attack on Nihil, because Harry wanted to tell him that the mere thought of
him had helped drive away one of Harry�s fits.

�� I can bear Veritaserum. I can bear anything,
as long as I can have Draco with me again.

*

�� SP777: Yes,
well, that is the larger time-frame, despite all the smaller plots in it!

�� Harry has
managed to engineer a meeting. Let�s see what he does�

�� MewMew2:
You�re welcome. Of course, Ventus might be wrong about who�s going to be the
leader, but she has her reasons for thinking so.

�� polka dot: Maybe
Draco needs his very own Hermione! More seriously, Draco probably would not
make friends at this point if he wasn�t pushed.

�� anciie: Draco
didn�t really reveal much. He didn�t tell her about the Fellowship, the compatible
magic training, the ways that Nihil has tried to attack them specifically, or
anything like that. But he does think that at some point he has to trust
someone, and his loneliness because of Harry has him reaching out.

�� (Besides,
the problem is, what would constitute proof that she could be trusted?)

�� Dragons
Breath: Draco becomes aware of his own contradictions here, which is at least a
step closer, if he acknowledges the problem exists.
- 21
- 22
- 23
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Ceremonies of Strife