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Soldier's Welcome	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 25565 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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

Chapter Twenty-Three�The
Real Thing

�� I�m going
to ask you again to wake up, Trainee Potter.�

�� Harry
hastily forced his drooping eyes open and sat back in the chair. Auror Pushkin
stood in front of him, shaking his head slowly and tragically back and forth.
He tapped the crystalline sculpture that sat on Harry�s desk with one
fingernail. The sculpture rang as though it was a cymbal.

�� You have
had more than enough time to do your observation,� Pushkin said crisply. �How
many spikes does this object have?�

�� Harry
cursed under his breath. He was getting better and better at noticing
individual small details, like the singed side to Ron�s sleeve that he�d seen
when his friend came storming into Observation and meant to ask him about, but
he couldn�t count a huge number of things at a single glance. It was one time
that Harry would have been glad to be Hermione.

�� Um,
thirty?� he said.

�� Pushkin
simply stood there considering him. Harry looked down at his desk and pushed
his quill back and forth. Dearborn�s silent looks of condescension set his
teeth on edge, and the other instructors tended to scold. Pushkin was the only
one whose silence made Harry feel the way he used to when yet another birthday
passed without presents.

�� A hundred
and sixteen, Trainee Potter,� Pushkin said, his voice chill and gentle. He
removed the sculpture from Harry�s desk and stepped out of the way, waving his
wand at a blank wall. A picture appeared there, a confusing tangle of colors and
shapes to Harry�s tired eyes. �This is an image of the Forbidden Forest at the
height of summer, a place that you might find yourself fighting in someday if
you are lucky enough to survive the training program.�

�� Harry
swallowed down the urge to tell Pushkin that he�d been fighting there last
night and that was why he was so tired. He was almost sure the Observation
professor wouldn�t care that Harry was trying to keep a madman from taking over
the world. Pushkin probably would have insisted on counting the number of
threads in Voldemort�s robe before he killed him.

�� What
should I be looking for, sir?� he asked instead. He heard Draco snicker from
the side, or was sure that he did. Harry tightened his left hand down into a
fist at the side of the desk and made a mental note to curse every pair of
Draco�s socks to tie themselves together later.

�� This image
has been altered,� Pushkin said crisply. �Find the animals and the geometric
shapes that have been added to the trees and branches.�

�� Harry
wanted to laugh. Are you bloody kidding
me? This is the kind of game that Muggle children play.

�� But
apparently Aurors had to play it, too. Harry leaned forwards, straining his
eyes, and made out a square in the trunk of the nearest tree. He announced it.
Pushkin nodded and gestured with his wand again. A faint pink number 1 appeared
on the wall next to the picture.

�� How many
are there, sir?� Harry asked, feeling a bit better.

�� Eighty-nine,�
Pushkin said at once.

�� Harry
glanced at the rest of the class out of the corner of his eye, wondering what
they would have to say about this, and felt his face burn when he realized that
the room was empty. Pushkin had let him sleep through most of the exam, then,
and awakened him only when the last student had left.

�� Clearing
his throat, Harry applied himself to disentangling the shapes of leopards and
griffins and circles from the surprisingly dense picture of a forest in
midsummer.

*

�� Malfoy. I
wanted to talk to you.�

�� Draco
raised his head, and his eyebrows. The voice had been polite, and that was a
feat in itself, when no one but Potter and the instructors spoke to him except
through gritted teeth. He pushed his tray aside and nodded to the speaker. �I
have time.� The dining hall was open at all hours during exams, giving harried
trainees time to snatch meals in between frantic bouts of study. Draco wouldn�t
admit to himself that he was sitting here, long after he had finished his meal,
and waiting for Potter.

�� The woman
sat down across from him and looked at him seriously. Draco looked back at her,
noting the tight lines around her mouth that meant she hadn�t approached him
voluntarily, and said, �Catherine Arrowshot?�

�� Yes.�
Arrowshot clasped her hands on the table in front of her. She looked weary, her
eyes rimmed with red, but Draco reckoned they were pretty eyes enough, deep
blue. Her hair, though, was brown and stringy and hung over her shoulders as
though she�d forgotten to comb it. Draco kept from curling his lip with an
effort. He preferred hair darker than that, and with a will of its own.

�� Stop thinking of Potter. Among other
things, he didn�t need to flush from the force of his own thoughts or the blood
they sent to his cock and have Arrowshot think the blush was for her.

�� He tilted
his head and adopted a quiet, supercilious expression. �What could be important
enough to make you approach me?�

�� Damn few
things,� Arrowshot said, without smiling. �But I wanted to ask you about the
red and black magic that you�ve confronted.�

�� Draco nodded
without surprise. The instructors had tried their best to keep the content of
Harry and Draco�s battles quiet, but of course that was impossible in a
building of any size, and the trainee barracks had about a third the number of
students that Hogwarts did. �Ask.�

�� You can�t
guarantee that you�ll answer, though.� Arrowshot peered at him through the
outermost pieces of her hair.

�� Draco shook
his head and darted another look at the door of the dining hall. He�d thought
it amusing when he realized that Potter was asleep and Pushkin was letting him
rest, but he wouldn�t have felt that way if he�d known how long he would have
to wait. Come on, Potter.

�� Did the
red and black magic leave�remains behind?� Arrowshot spoke so carefully that
Draco was sure she�d spent a long time picking out that word.

�� Draco gave
her what she probably wanted: a sharp look and his attention. �What do you mean
by that? You know about the letters on the wall and the Death Eaters, of
course.� If she didn�t know that the Death Eaters had been fake, simply
containers for the red and black magic�the instructors had presumably
dispatched them, but they�d been moved out of the Ministry and Draco didn�t
know their fate�then Draco wasn�t about to tell her. Nihil had corrupted trainees,
hadn�t he? Arrowshot could be one of them.

�� Arrowshot
sat still for a minute, agitatedly plaiting her fingers through her hair in a
manner that told Draco how it had ended up looking the way it did. Then she
snorted, said, �Ah, fuck,� and reached
into her robe pocket for something that she slapped into the middle of the
table.

�� Draco drew
his wand and cast a Lumos spell so
that he could see the object better than the dim lights of the dining hall
allowed. He wasn�t about to touch it until he knew what it was.

�� It, or
rather they, looked like plaster, at first. Jagged white pieces. Draco glanced
at Arrowshot, and she nodded. �They�re safe to touch. I�ve done multiple spells
on them, and they only exude residual magic, as if someone powerful touched
them and then went away.�

�� If she was
one of Nihil�s followers, that was just the sort of thing she would say. Draco cast a protective charm
on his hands before he reached out.

�� They were
silky in the middle despite their sharp edges, and it took Draco a long moment
to decide what they reminded him of. �Eggshell,� he breathed. �They look like
pieces of eggshell.� He looked up. �Where did you find them?�

�� Inside the
interrogation rooms where they were keeping the Death Eaters.� Draco knew he
had blinked from the way that Arrowshot looked at him scornfully. �Do you think
you�re the only one who has the courage to investigate inside the Ministry?
Yes, I�ve been there, too, and so do other people you don�t need to know
about.�

�� Draco
looked thoughtfully back at the bits of shell, wondering if he should worry
about this. Then he shook his head. He didn�t think so. After all, he and
Potter had more knowledge about Nihil than Arrowshot could have. He was sure of
that. They could allow Arrowshot and any little friends that wanted to run
beside her investigate for them, make noise, and attract attention. Then he and
Potter could come in behind and pick up the pieces.

�� And are
you sure that they aren�t ordinary debris?� He let his voice waver as he turned
the bits over with his fingertips, memorizing the slippery feel of them in the
middle. Arrowshot smiled proudly, as he saw from the corner of his eye. Good. If he pretended to be more
interested than he really was, the advantage would lie with him. �Maybe a
Potions master dropped them while he was carrying ingredients.�

�� I�ve done
the standard tests that Auror Jones told us about,� Arrowshot said, her voice
as solemn and proud as though she was declaring that she�d mastered a rare and
secret art. �They don�t match standard Potions ingredients. And I�m taking
Battle Brewing,� she added, as if that had only just now occurred to her. �I
think I would recognize them if they fell within normal parameters.�

�� Draco gave
her an absent smile that he hoped would look impressed. He had finally accessed
the odd sense memory that the bits of shell brushing against his fingers had
reminded him of.

�� These are pieces from a roc egg.

�� But that
still left the question of how they had come there. Roc eggs were not simply
lying about anywhere for anyone to snatch up. Their use was carefully
restricted. And Draco thought that these had been used in some unusual way, if
residual magic lingered about them still.

�� I don�t
know what they could have to do with Nihil,� he said, not quite truthfully, as
he pulled his hand back and pushed the bits of shell towards Arrowshot again.
�But they could be an important clue. Maybe.�

�� Arrowshot
dipped her head. �That�s all I wanted to know.� She scooped up the pieces of
eggshell and made them vanish inside her sleeve with a complicated motion that
told Draco she could be a dangerous duelist. �This way, at least I can help
Sarah.�

�� Draco
blinked. �Who�s Sarah?�

�� Arrowshot
froze in the act of rising from the table and gave him a sharp glance. �You
don�t know who Sarah Manders is?� she asked, as if the girl was the
reincarnation of Merlin.

�� Draco gave
her a steady gaze back. As always when someone tried to put him at a
disadvantage, the temptation to throw them off-balance instead was
irresistible. �How many people do you think talk to me and exchange friendly
information?� he asked with a drawl, tilting his head from side to side so that
Arrowshot would have to take in the empty tables around him, and the turned backs
beyond that.

�� I�m
sorry,� Arrowshot said, so quietly that Draco would have missed the words if he
hadn�t been listening intently for her every breath. He blinked again, but
Arrowshot had gone on before he could respond, and he thought she found the apology
distasteful and was glad to get it over with. �Sarah Manders is a second-year
trainee who was one of Auror Gregory�s mentees. Everyone thinks that she must
know something, and they keep
questioning her and refusing to let her participate in some of the higher-level
training that she needs if she�s going to become a third-year trainee on time.�
Arrowshot�s jaw tightened. �You haven�t been treated fairly, Malfoy. I
acknowledge that. But she hasn�t been treated fairly, either.�

�� Just someone else whom I don�t care about. But
Draco had learned how highly pretenses of compassion could be valued. Potter
seemed to approve of the way that Draco �tolerated� his friends simply by
keeping most of his thoughts to himself.

�� Besides, he
was beginning to think that Nihil�s web was laid stronger and deeper than he
and Potter had believed it was. It would not hurt to have allies, if they could
make them and if they held them outside that inner circle of trust he still
believed should exist between himself and Potter only.

�� Tell her
that I hope her name is cleared,� he said politely.

�� Arrowshot
gave him a smile that was out of all proportion to the gesture and nodded.
�Thank you,� she said again, and turned and strode from the dining hall. In her
face was a familiar kind of passion. Draco usually saw it in Potter�s
expression when he contemplated defeating evil.

�� Why were
you talking to her?�

�� Draco
smiled and took a moment to revel in Potter�s tone. There was a compressed
spark there, something pounded flat that might take Potter months to
acknowledge, but which Draco knew was jealousy. That made up for the fact that
he had not heard Potter approach.

�� Because
she showed me bits of eggshell that she had found in the interrogation rooms
and wanted to know if they had something to do with Nihil,� he said, turning
around. Potter flopped into the seat beside him, and Draco shuddered a little.
It was a miracle that his attraction to Potter could survive individual
movements so graceless. �What kept you?�

�� Pushkin
made me do the Observation exam,� Potter muttered. He glanced at the tray in
front of him and dug a finger into a bowl of something limp and yellow that
Draco hadn�t been able to identify and therefore hadn�t chosen. It looked like custard, but it also looked
like fresh vomit. Potter gave a grimace of resignation and picked up his spoon.

�� I�m amazed
that you fell asleep,� Draco said quietly. He leaned closer so that no one else
would overhear, though given the way everyone continued to pointedly ignore
him, it wasn�t likely. �We were out late last night, but I didn�t think you
were that tired when we got back.�

�� I wasn�t,�
Potter said. He pulled up a long, sloppy strand of custard and swallowed it
with a noise that made Draco shudder. �That was the problem,� Potter said, and
Draco reached over and pressed his jaw shut so that he wouldn�t take with his
mouth full. Potter rolled his eyes at him.

�� Manners,�
Draco said, as gently as he could when he both wanted to laugh and to
concentrate on the warm, smooth skin under his fingers. �Tell me that you know
what they are.�

�� Potter
looked away and gave his shoulders a shake that told Draco how irritated he
was. Draco dropped his hand at once. When he touched Potter, his mind was going
to be fully on what was happening to him, or Draco wouldn�t give him the gift.

�� Potter
finished licking his lips and defiantly ate two more spoonfuls before he said,
�I couldn�t fall asleep. And now I think something is wrong because Ron came
into Observation with a singed sleeve, and I have to talk to him. And the
thought makes me tired.� He bowed his head as though someone had pressed the
weight of the world on his shoulders.

�� If he
makes you that tired,� Draco said, �why do you keep his friendship? I wouldn�t be
friends with someone who caused me only pain.�

�� Potter
glared at him. �He�s done a lot for me,� he said. �He�s always been my best
friend. Just because he�s being a bit of an arse now doesn�t mean I want to
turn my back on him.�

�� Back off, Draco. Draco stifled a sigh.
Potter would be so much easier to deal with minus his tagalongs, but Draco
didn�t think he was going to get that wish granted any time soon. It would need
far more outrageous behavior from the Weasel before Potter consented to abandon
him completely.

�� All
right,� he said, �I don�t want to talk about Weasley, anyway. I want to talk
about Nihil and what we�re going to do.�

�� Potter ran
his fingers through his hair, which didn�t improve its appearance, and sighed
into his dinner. He had put down the custard spoon, Draco saw. He stored the
information that Potter apparently didn�t eat well when he was stressed in the
back of his mind. It was the kind of thing that it would be useful to know
about his partner in the future.

�� Or my lover.

�� The thought
swirled around his mind like delicate morning mist and was gone as quickly. It
was a thought that Draco dared not entertain until he had far more concrete
proof than he possessed right now of what Potter might someday mean to him.

�� Finish
your ludicrous meal,� he said, �and we�ll talk.�

�� Potter
shook his head, refusing to reach for his cutlery out of sheer
bloody-mindedness, Draco was sure. �I�m tired of that, too,� he said. �We have
to start somewhere, but I think we�re running around in the dark. We keep
picking up threads, and then the threads are attached to something else, and
the whole thing unravels, and we�re left with a bunch of dirty cloth and no
idea what to do next.�

�� Poetic,
Potter,� Draco muttered, but Potter kept on in such a way that Draco was sure
he couldn�t have heard. Draco�s words deserved more attention than that.

�� What do
the beasts have to do with Nihil? What were they looking for on Hogwarts
grounds? Why would they give Chester to Hagrid�if Nemo was Nihil�and then try
to take him away again? What is the red and black magic exactly? What is
Gregory�s connection to this whole mess? What do the instructors know? Why
would Nihil want to reveal his name like that? Why the attacks on us, before we�d done anything but
destroy one of his illusions? So many questions.�
Potter dropped his head against the back of his chair with a thunk that made
Draco wince and stared at the ceiling. �No answers at all. I think we�re
running in circles.� He glanced sideways at Draco, his eyes hopeless. �And now
eggshells. Where do they fit? Probably nowhere.�

�� Draco
drummed his fingers on the table. He reckoned he could understand why Potter
was feeling overwhelmed; it was simply inconvenient of him to give way to those
feelings now, of all times. Draco was
used to stepping lightly through the dark, gathering the threads together, and
then looking for the place where they would make sense in the larger tapestry,
and they had more threads than ever before.

�� But Potter
needed some goal.

�� Draco took
a deep breath. �The eggshell means living things,� he said. �I could tell that
it was the shell of a roc egg, though altered somewhere. And we at least
suspect that Nihil has been breeding himself servants like the beasts that you
met in the Forest.�

�� Potter
rolled his head towards Draco, his eyes brightening. �Yes.�

�� So let�s
start with them,� Draco said. �If someone breaks the Experimental Breeding Ban,
they�re going to leave traces. And I know people�or my mother knows people�who
could try to find those traces for us. Meanwhile, we can try to figure out what
was done to that eggshell and what kinds of spells you would need to give
something two faces, and why you would want to.�

�� Potter
frowned. �What would the price be for the people your mother knows?�

�� Draco
grinned. �You do have your moments of common sense.� Potter raised an eyebrow,
and he gave in. �Probably no more than an exchange of favors at some time in
the future. Imagine what they could do if they had the Boy-Who-Lived in their
debt.�

�� Don�t you start.� Potter regarded Draco with
distaste, as if he imagined that Draco would grow the long, flowing hair and
starry eyes of one of his female fans.

�� You�re not
like everyone else,� Draco said, flinging his words like stones. �We discussed
that already. It�s time that you started acknowledging the power of your
position and using it, instead of letting other people use you.�

�� Potter
frowned, opened his mouth, shut it again, and bit his lip.

�� Draco was
content to move on from the subject. Just like his point about Potter�s
friends, it was best to leave this seed to grow in Potter�s mind instead of
continually poking at it. �Come with me to the library tomorrow. We can start
looking up information about the Experimental Breeding Ban. And then I hope
that you won�t be opposed to sneaking out again tomorrow night, since you seem
to make quite a habit of it.�

�� Potter
flushed, but only asked, �Where are we going?�

�� Draco
grinned at him. �If you�re going to work with my mother, shouldn�t you meet
her?�

*

�� Mate?�
Harry called softly as he stepped into their room. He knew from the tingle of
magic�something he had just realized he was able to sense a few days ago�that
Ron was here. But he didn�t respond to Harry�s words, and Harry had walked into
the middle of the room before he saw him.

�� Ron lay
face-down on his bed. Harry found himself clutching his wand and staring hard.
Then he realized that Ron�s back still rose and fell gently with his breaths,
and there was no sign of blood. He lowered his hand and cleared his throat in
embarrassment.

�� Ron rolled
over and stared at him. Harry took a step backwards. Ron�s face had red patches
on the skin that looked like burns, or else caked makeup, and his nose was
large and protruding more than it had that morning. His fringe had turned
white.

�� What
happened to you?� Harry asked in some awe. �Did you get in a duel with one of
the second-years?� The only exams that might have caused something like that to
happen to him, Dearborn�s and Ketchum�s, were already over.

�� Ron shook
his head miserably and tried to croak something. His voice sounded like a
toad�s. Harry hastily waved his wand and muttered a Finite that made most of the damage recede from Ron�s face,
although the enlarged nose stayed. That must have been a Transfiguration, Harry
thought absently as he sat down in the chair nearest Ron.

�� Hermione,�
Ron said, putting a hand across his eyes as if he thought that would keep Harry
from looking at him. �We got in an argument over�it doesn�t matter, really.�
Harry opened his mouth to protest that Ron thought Harry�s love life was his business, then thought about it and kept
quiet. If he didn�t want Ron telling him who he should date and how to make up
after fights with his girlfriend, then he couldn�t do the same thing to Ron.
�But she cast spells at me just like she did during sixth year at Hogwarts and
then stormed off, telling me she didn�t want to date me if I wasn�t going to do
my own bloody work.� Ron sounded injured.

�� Ah,� Harry
said. At least that told him the fight had probably been over Hermione�s
newfound effort to keep Ron from using her notes. �Is there anything I can do,
mate?�

�� Ron started
complaining about Hermione, which made the answer clear enough. Harry listened
and offered sympathy when he could, mostly by shaking his head and making
noises in the right places.

�� For some
reason, his thoughts were on Draco and other things unrelated to how happy Ron
and Hermione were in their relationship. He wondered if he and Draco would
curse each other if�

�� And then he
stopped, horrified, because he knew exactly where the thoughts were leading.

�� If we dated? That�s what you were thinking,
Harry, wasn�t it? And it�s wrong. You know that nothing like that will ever
happen. You shouldn�t want it to, not
when it would make everyone around you unhappy and Draco doesn�t want to date
you.

�� Harry
swallowed and shook his head. He didn�t understand his own imagination
sometimes, or want to.

�� That�s
what I said!� Ron exclaimed.

�� Harry tried
to pay attention to the conversation that was happening in front of him, the
real thing, and not the imaginary things that his brain was trying to conjure
up for him to look at. He and Draco were good partners and getting to be good
friends. They argued, sure, but no one was perfect as far as that went.

�� To think of
more than that was�

�� Dangerous.
Stupid. Nonsensical.

�� Harry
didn�t even understand why he was
thinking it, because, as far as he knew, he wasn�t gay.

�� And if he
wasn�t gay, he couldn�t really be attracted to Draco.

�� He sat back
in relief and let Ron�s familiar problems wash over him. At least they were
real.

*

�� Tree802:
Very good that you care about the characters! And maybe Harry advances a little
bit in this chapter.

�� MiraMira: I
can think of times when I would like to Accio Hermione, definitely.

�� While I
think your theory about Gregory is interesting, there are things it leaves
unaccounted for, like why she would burn the evidence that was discovered in
her rooms and what happened to that trainee who was injured by her and found
her way to Portillo Lopez�s rooms.

�� SP777:
Thank you! Draco will hopefully not have to give Harry a piece of his mind
quite so often, now that Harry knows what irritates him.

�� Mr Spears:
Thanks so much!

�� Alliandre:
Snape�s Pensieve was delivered on Halloween, and Draco hates reliving the
memories of what happened during the war. Both the date and the sheer fact of
what might be in there are giving him the chills. Besides, it�s not as though
he doesn�t have plenty of other things to think about, and whether Snape�s
Pensieve would be immediately relevant to the matter at hand is unlikely.

�� hieisdragoness18:
Thank you! Actually, I think that use of the Summoning Charm was mentioned in
canon at some point.

�� Dragons
Breath: Yes. He does accept the friendship even more deeply than Draco does; he
just isn�t thinking as much about the physical aspects yet.

�� chitana;
Thank you. I have the habit of skimming blocky fanfics myself; it probably
helps that I put a line between paragraphs as I type, so even if something goes
wrong with the formatting when I post, at least things aren�t usually all
shoved together.
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