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Sleepless	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16095 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Four—As At the Crack of a Whip

            “Do you understand, Hermione?”

            “I understand, Harry.” She spoke with a constrained voice, staring away from him. As Harry watched, the clench of her hand on the back of the dining room chair turned white.

            “As long as you do,” he said, not really placated, and turned away from her. The creak of his steps on the kitchen floor was loud in the silence. He kept waiting, listening, for the moment when she would turn away from him and walk into her own bedroom, or tell him to get out of their house and not come back. The way Harry felt at the moment, he would be more than happy to stop living with Ron and Hermione and start living on his own, although it had felt like a fate worse than death when he first broke up with Ginny.

            Maybe living on my own would tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do next.

            “Did you say that to Malfoy, too?” Hermione asked, confounding all his expectations of her as she so rarely did. Harry was usually startled by how smart she was, not how brave or stubborn.

            “Say what to Malfoy?” Harry stared at the wall and decided that he could remember times that she was both brave and stubborn at Hogwarts. When she’d taken his Firebolt away despite his yelling at her. When she’d stood up to him and told him that he was acting stupid or crazy or too angry. He just wished that she hadn’t decided to do it now, when he’d exhausted his store of words and only wanted to think.

            “Did you tell him that you distrust him because he’d lied to you?” Hermione still hadn’t apologized not telling him about the potion, Harry noticed, but when he turned around, he discovered that he didn’t actually need her to. Her eyelashes trembled, and her clenched hand looked as if it hurt. His tirade at her had affected her a lot more than he’d realized.

            She was one of his best friends, after all. He really didn’t want to lose her, or make her feel bad, or drive her away from him. He just wished that people would treat him like an adult, for once. He’d told Malfoy that he realized he put other people first too much of the time and that he was working to correct it. Why did Malfoy still persist in treating him like this? And why did Hermione side with Malfoy instead of Harry?

            “Yes,” Harry said. “Well, more than that. I told him that I didn’t ever want to see him again.”

            Hermione jerked with what looked like genuine surprise. “What?” she asked. “Why would you say that?”

            “Because it’s true.” Harry’s head was throbbing. He looked longingly at the kitchen door, but he couldn’t leave in the middle of the conversation. It would cause a breach between him and Hermione, and maybe between him and Ron, that would be hard to repair. Ron would understand Harry getting angry at Hermione for not telling him about the potion, but not walking away from her when she was this upset. “He admits he’s obsessed with me. That’s not healthy for him. He won’t treat me like an adult. That’s not healthy for me. He seems to think he can fix or heal me by stopping these dreams, but his methods to do it are all worse than the original curse was. At least the curse only caused the dreams. The actions he’s taken since then are ripping up my peace.”

            “Some of that comes from your not knowing how to feel about him,” Hermione said softly.

            “Yes, it does,” Harry said. “And I don’t want to be told the way that I should feel about him, and I don’t want to feel any more. I’m leaving, all right? I’ll go to the office and get some actual work done.” He crossed to the door in long, springing steps, wishing he didn’t feel like he was running away.

            “Harry.”

            Though it was possibly the stupidest thing he had ever done, Harry paused and waited reluctantly with one hand on the door.

            “I can’t tell you to give Malfoy a chance when he’s irritated you so,” Hermione said. “And I am sorry about not telling you what the potion was and did. But I do wish that you would think about what you said you learned from the dreams. They’re more important for what they can teach you than for themselves.”

            “I’ve learned that I treat people like children,” Harry said. “And that some of them lie to me in return. How is that a revelation worth having?” He tugged open the door and was gone before Hermione could react.

            He spent that afternoon bending over the law and history books until his eyes blurred through staring at the page, and finally realized that it was midnight when Hermione’s otter Patronus appeared in front of him, swishing its tail and staring at him. It spoke in her voice with an inflection that could have been worry or anger. “Harry, are you coming home tonight? We’ll leave the wards down for you.”

            The Patronus disappeared. Harry buried his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Yes, perhaps he ought to go home and have the dreams in his own bed, but he didn’t see why it would do him so much harm to sleep here. The dreams were coming anyway. And he was probably too tired to Apparate without Splinching himself.

            A pile of books didn’t make the most comfortable perch, but Harry could lean his cheek on them, steady the pile with a few more books planted around the bottom, and relax. He was so tired that he thought he could have fallen asleep with his cheek on a sharp corner.

            Just before the dreams swept in, he remembered that he hadn’t gone away and thought like he’d wanted to; he’d drowned thought by immersion in cases instead. There was probably something significant and psychological there. Hermione or Malfoy would know. But then they would nod wisely and not share whatever thoughts they’d had with him, so Harry felt better not giving a fuck.

            He closed his eyes, and Snape was there.

*

            “You feel that we can involve him?” Snape gave a quick look of distaste in Ron’s direction.

            Harry nodded and looked at Ron as well. Ron stared at him, his eyebrow rising—of course, as far as he knew, Snape was still Woburn, and he must wonder what they were doing here in the first place—before he nodded and shrugged.

            Harry decided to take that as a sign that he could trust Ron. He said, “I do,” and turned back to Snape. “You had some things to explain about Discipula’s background.”

            “A question for a question.” Snape seemed calmer with a glass of Firewhisky in front of him and an attentive audience, even one that stared. He drew Woburn’s cloak around him and sipped once at the drink. Harry reckoned the glamour would have fooled anyone who didn’t know what was behind it, but right now, he could only see the familiar things: the way that Snape’s mouth bent as if everything he tried tasted sour, the way the dark eyes flashed with suppressed emotion when he looked at Harry, and the way his fingers curled on the table and then flexed open again. “I will ask you one, and you will respond.”

            Harry nodded. “All right. What does—”

            “And you’re going to trust him?” Ron asked, his voice rising as if he thought that Harry was going to jump off a cliff instead. “This is a pure-blood fanatic! Someone who’d probably ignore you if you were sprawled on the floor with a slit throat!”

            Harry smiled at Ron. He knew they weren’t friends in this universe, not truly, but he felt the same pressure of warmth against his heart that he always had when Ron came to his defense. “I know he would, if we were dealing with each other as normal people,” he said. “But I’m a barrister and he’s a witness, and he has important information.”

            Ron stared at Snape again. Snape gave him a look of such perfect disdain that Harry liked to think he would have known who Snape was if he saw it without Malfoy’s guidance—

            God, that rankles.

            --but he had to admit that he probably wouldn’t. Snape turned back to Harry and said, “Ask your question.”

            “What is it that Discipula is so afraid that you’ll tell everyone?” Harry asked. “Is it the same thing that makes her want to execute Death Eaters without trials?”

            “Very good,” Snape said, in a voice that brought back echoes of classrooms and corridors and detentions. “Yes. She fears that they could tell others of her presence at several battles against the Dark Lord.”

            “Was she a secret agent for the Ministry?” Harry asked. “Or a Death Eater herself?” He didn’t really believe in the last possibility, since it seemed impossible that Lucius wouldn’t have blackmailed her, but that seemed to be the direction Snape’s words were tending.

            “Neither,” Snape said, with some relish. “Have you never wondered why there was such secrecy around the last battle, why the public was assured that the Dark Lord was dead but no details of his demise were released?”

            Harry hadn’t, actually, since he hadn’t been born in this world and his own battle with Voldemort had played out rather differently, but he nodded as though he wanted to know. Ron was leaning forwards with one arm braced against the counter, all pretense of distrust in what Snape was saying forgotten.

            “She defeated him,” Snape said. “Not that prat Longbottom, the helpless toy and tool that the Ministry has chosen to use as a front. She cast the spell that brought the Dark Lord down, and then cast another that blurred the event in the minds of those who were there. Save the Death Eaters, of course, whose Marks protected them against such things. And those who had the foresight to have defended their minds.” His gaze passed swiftly across Ron, who wouldn’t know that he belonged to both groups.

            Harry sagged back in his seat. He had thought that Discipula was a politician, a bitch, a manipulator, and an enemy, but he hadn’t pictured her in the role of heroine.

            “That’s impossible,” Ron whispered. “She would have claimed the position of—of Witch-Who-Lived. I know she would have. How can she stand to sit back and see all the honors go to Longbottom?” His voice had an old sediment of bitterness. Given what he had said about his brothers, Harry knew why. This Ron would never have been able to give up the chance to stand out and prove those who had sneered at him wrong.

            “That,” Snape said, “I do not know. Except that popular prejudice is hard to fight, and there were those who had been proclaiming Longbottom a hero since birth. To tell them they were wrong would not have resulted in a stainless welcome for her. She would have had to face confusion, wonder, anger, and disbelief. Though some would have supported her, they would not have showered her with rewards for challenging their preconceived notions.” His eyelids drooped almost shut. “The bearers of an uncomfortable truth are nearly never rewarded for it.”

            You might be speaking from experience, Harry thought, but if you betrayed my parents—and me, or the unborn version of me—to their deaths, I still don’t forgive you. Bastard.

            “But why did they think he was a hero in the first place?” Ron asked, blinking rapidly. He was asking the questions Harry would have asked, so he stayed silent and let Ron speak. “How did he survive the Killing Curse?”

            “I have examined the site of the Longbottom house,” Snape said, “in the early hours after the destruction, when the Dark Lord was gone but before the rescuers of the infant arrived. There is a set of footprints unaccounted for there, ones that belong to a witch who walks lightly. Yes, the Dark Lord could have brought one of the rare female Death Eaters with him,” he added, as Ron opened his mouth again. “But I happen to know that he did not.”

            “How could you know that?” Ron focused on Snape, his eyes narrowing as though he was trying to work his way around a hangover. A knowledge hangover, maybe, Harry thought. This had to be changing quite a few conceptions of his world for him, while Harry was simply surprised that Discipula had done it in the first place. “Why would you go there?”

            Snape turned one hand upwards as though he was cupping a glass of water in it. “I think that you must simply leave me my sources,” he said smoothly. “I have access to knowledge that most people do not.”

            Yes, you do, Harry thought. He could believe Snape’s words, although he would have been happier with either outside confirmation or a likely reason for Discipula to do this in the first place. He leaned forwards. “I thought you wanted to ask me questions, too?”

            Snape jerked a little and turned to face him. Harry hid a smile. Snape had probably become caught up in demonstrating his knowledge and forgotten their original bargain. As remembrance returned, his face hardened while he stared at Harry.

            “Yes,” he said. “How did you escape destruction, and where did you hide?”

            “With my mother’s Muggle relatives,” Harry said easily. He doubted that anyone knew about the Dursleys, although this Snape probably would still have known Petunia when she was a young child. Or would he? If the prophecy is different and I died when I was a baby—or unborn—then everything could be different. “No one bothered to check on them. They were distant from the wizarding world, and they were bothered by what they saw as my freakishness. A group of wizards much like the Order of the Phoenix, but distrustful of Dumbledore, came and took me away from them when I was eleven. I couldn’t have gone to Hogwarts, of course, because most people didn’t even know that I’d been born before the attack came, but they raised and trained me. ”

            Snape stared at him. Harry stared serenely back. He had thought of this lie while he was still awake. It sounded ridiculous, but on the other hand, he thought that would make it work on someone like Snape, who saw conspiracies everywhere and would think other people were hiding dark secrets because he was hiding them.

            “And then?” Snape’s voice was strangled.

            “And then what?” Harry could see why Snape and Discipula both played games like this, pretending not to know certain things and hiding them when they did. It was fun.

            “Who are they?” Snape demanded. “Where did they raise you? Your eyes and your face would have given you away at once to most people in the wizarding world.”

            “Hold on,” Ron said. “Who are you supposed to be?”

            Harry looked at his friend for a moment—well, the one who stood in the place of his friend in this universe—and thought about lying. Well, lying more than he was already doing, anyway.

            But he remembered that Snape knew enough to spot any lie in a moment, so he gave up the temptation and answered, “I would be Harry Potter.”

            “Would be,” Snape echoed, his eyes half-closed as though he needed to shut out the world to absorb the impact of this knowledge. “What an interesting choice of words.”

            Harry continued looking at Ron, because he knew a nervous glance now would only give him away. Besides, he had to watch the dawning of disbelief on Ron’s face, followed by a quick examination of his eyes and features.

            “Bloody hell,” Ron breathed at last. “My parents have a photograph of the Potters—and yeah, her eyes—and his face—yeah, I could see it.” He shook his head. “Why haven’t you come out of hiding?”

            “Because the people who raised me knew that something was wrong with my parents’ deaths, and they never knew who had taken me to my Muggle relatives’ house,” Harry said. “I never heard about these footprints that you claim were there at the site of the Longbottoms’ attack and would prove that Discipula interfered—” He nodded at Snape. “But they suspected something else, I think, without knowing what direction to send their suspicion in. So they kept me away from the wizarding world. Even letting me go to Hogwarts would have been a risk, at least if they didn’t disguise me with glamours. And most people can see through a glamour with a bit of work.”

            Snape glanced sharply at him. Harry looked back innocently. He wouldn’t say anything to reveal Snape to Ron, not least because Ron would go off in an entirely new direction and nothing would get resolved. He just wanted to remind Snape that he still knew the truth, and Snape shouldn’t get as cocky as he might like to.

            “Wow,” Ron breathed. “How different would all our lives have been if you were among us the way you were supposed to be?”

            “I don’t know,” Harry said with perfect truth. He controlled the impulse to say better, because if he’d grown up completely without parents and with no idea that he could have defeated Voldemort, he would probably have been ready to worship Longbottom and ignore Muggleborns with the rest of them. He turned back to Snape. “Does that answer your question?”

            “Since you will not give me names,” Snape murmured, and then waited. Harry shook his head firmly. Snape gave him a thin smile that Harry also liked to think he would have recognized, glamour or no glamour, but he didn’t know that for certain. “Yes, that is the end of my questions.” He rose to his feet, and then hesitated. “I will hold this secret, Mr.…Potter, as long as you hold the information I gave you safe.”

            “Yes, of course,” Harry said.

            Snape stared at him a few moments longer. Harry looked determinedly at his nose. He wasn’t going to be subject to Legilimency now, just when he had Snape believing a most magnificent lie.

            Snape finally bowed his head, stiffly, and departed the building. Ron watched him go, then slumped back in his chair and turned intense, critical eyes on Harry.

            “Why did you really come here?” he asked quietly.

            “What do you mean?” Harry cocked his head. “I only chose to come here because the Ministry assigned me to stay here. I like you, Ron, but I didn’t know about you before, and I must confess that you weren’t one of the world’s great attractions at first.”

            Ron’s smile came and went. “No,” he said. “I meant, if you were reared in secret far away from the normal wizarding world, why did you decide to come out now? There’s no reason for you to do it. You could have stayed away from us all and had a happy life. Instead, you decided to defend the Malfoys. Why?”

            Harry flexed his fingers behind his back and thought for a while before he responded. Luckily, he thought Ron would understand the hesitation. “Because I couldn’t stand to see justice miscarried like that,” he said. “It was so blatant. Here they were with no one to help them. And yeah, I know you have reason to hate Lucius,” he added quickly when Ron opened his mouth. “But Draco…he’s a kid. He could live for so many more years, do so much more. Instead, he’s just being condemned.”

            Ron shook his head. “Where were you for all the earlier trials? Why didn’t you interfere when other people, Muggleborn and pure-blood alike, were condemned to the Dementor’s Kiss?”

            Harry shrugged uncomfortably and looked away. He doubted Ron would accept, “I wasn’t dreaming about you then,” as an excuse. “I didn’t have enough of a conscience then,” he said quietly. “I should have done something, yeah. But I didn’t.”

            There was a shuffle and rustle that sounded like Ron rising to his feet. Harry had thought he would go back into the kitchen or his own rooms, but he strode up to Harry instead. Harry started when he turned around and found him so close.

            “That’s shite,” Ron said quietly, but hard enough to make Harry’s hair puff out. “You should have done something. If our world could have been different if you’d lived, or your parents had lived, and you could have been here, then you should have been here earlier.” He paused and gave Harry a steady look. “Maybe you could have prevented fucking Lucius Malfoy from killing my sister.”

            He headed away before Harry could say something stupid, like, “But I did, in another world.” When he’d vanished, Harry sighed and sat down on the chair he’d been in when talking to Snape.

            He shouldn’t feel guilty. Malfoy would say that these people weren’t real.

            But if everything in the dreams was only a reflection of something in the real world, then Harry didn’t see how that really excused him. Had he done as much as he could have, in the Death Eater trials immediately after the war? Should he have stayed an Auror? Would that have done more to benefit people?

            But Malfoy would probably say something else, too.

            You don’t have to worry about everyone else in the world.

            Harry let his breath out slowly. Yes, Ron’s accusation had hurt, especially because there was no way Harry could explain the full context of the situation to him. But would he change what he was doing because of it? No. He wouldn’t even stop defending Lucius, although Harry thought it more than likely that Lucius would be condemned even if they released Narcissa and Draco.

            He couldn’t be responsible to Hermione for all his decisions. He didn’t owe Malfoy perfect obedience to his ideal of what a perfect Harry Potter should look like. He owed it to them not to be rude or unreasonable if he could, but sometimes he had to do what he thought was best.

            Finish the trial. And then get the fuck out of the dreams. This was a confusing world, and a depressing one, and one that Harry thought he didn’t want to live in.

            Even if Draco is here.

            And how much of the attraction to Draco had been that simple draw to someone who needed him? Harry was concerned that he’d hurt Draco’s feelings, but he wasn’t going to be upset for the rest of his life if it turned out that he wouldn’t get to date Draco. The fantasies of living here had faded like…like dreams.

            Harry stood back up, shaking his head. He didn’t know when the dream would fade, because he could never predict that unless someone actually woke him up, but he thought any time now would be a good one.

            “Evans!”

            Harry whipped around. Hermione was running towards him, in a kind of crouching jog that made it seem as if she wanted to avoid notice from just inside or just outside the building. Harry turned automatically to cover her, drawing his wand.

            When he turned back, she was blinking at him. “What?” he asked.

            “It’s just that you looked as if you had battle experience,” she said. “Unusual in a barrister.”

            And no matter what the universe, Hermione sees things that you don’t want her to. Harry sucked in a tight breath and did his best to smile at her instead of grinding his teeth. “Do you have something for me?”

            “Yes,” Hermione said. “It took me a long time, but I tracked down some sources that I’m sure of.” Her face changed abruptly, a snarl taking over her mouth as she flushed deeply. “That bitch. That bloody hypocritical bitch.”

            Harry stared.

            Hermione pulled what looked like a folder from her pocket, and didn’t seem to notice that Harry didn’t reach for it immediately. “She’s not a pure-blood. Her father was a Muggle.”

*

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Sleepless