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Learning Life Over	By : Meander Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 69712 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- 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
- 24
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So many questions this time around! They�ll be answered at
the end of the chapter as per usual.

Chapter 25- Responsibility and Irresponsibility

�� I
wondered,� said Theresa softly, �if you would admit the truth of my
observations after you ran away from me last time.�

�� Harry�s
hatred of being here had still not changed. Even if Theresa had precipitated,
inadvertently, the crisis that led to him turning his back on the past and
becoming more a part of Draco�s life, she�d meant to do something quite
different. So he could not eye her with quite as much trust and belief as Draco
seemed to want him to.

�� He looked
at her with what he knew was a wary expression, and inclined his head in a
short nod. �To an extent,� he said. �I agree that I haven�t thought about my
grief for my friends in too long, and that needs to change. And the life I was
living would probably have resulted in self-destruction and pain for others
sooner or later.�

�� Theresa
gazed at him with a quietly troubled expression. �Have you thought about your
future at all?� she asked. �Other friendships that you can form?�

�� Harry
pushed his hand across his forehead. �I don�t see how I can do that,� he said. Some
things, I can be honest about. It�s not that damaging. �Other people�s
perceptions of me are always going to be clouded by the perceptions of who I was.
I don�t know anyone who would try to befriend me for some other reason than my
being Harry Potter. If I did find someone like that, I don�t know how I could
trust or believe their assertions.�

�� What�s
different about me and Draco?�

�� I accept
that Healers want to help me.� Busybodies who should go and help someone
else, he left unsaid, since he thought Theresa would take that from his
tone. �And Draco hated me. That he would come back and want to help me
all these years later, after my fame has faded- it doesn�t smack of wanting to
bask in my glory. He would have come after me when we were both still seventeen
if he wanted that.�

�� So, if we
can overcome our preconceptions of you, why can�t other people do it?� Theresa
gently pushed.

�� Harry
shrugged. He hated being led into traps. �I don�t know. I just- how would I
start a friendship like that, anyway? Walk up to someone else and ask to shake
his hand and talk about Quidditch with him?�

�� Would that
be so hard?�

�� Yes,� said
Harry. �I don�t know anything about Quidditch now.�

�� Theresa
laughed, though Harry couldn�t figure out why. At least her laughter, like her
tone, was gentle enough that he could ignore some of the more stinging
implications. �You could find out,� she said. �I still want to know what the
difficulty is, Harry. Why are you so unwilling to reach out? Why do you want
other people to come to you?�

�� I don�t want
them to come to me,� Harry protested, though he supposed it was as good a
summation as any of his behavior in the past few years. If someone had made an
effort as determined as Draco�s, he might have admitted that person into his
friendship. �I wanted to be left alone.�

�� Why?�

�� Harry
rolled his eyes. �Now you�re becoming ridiculous. You know why. You�ve
marked me yourself as someone who grieved too much to let other people into his
life, who was worried about getting hurt. You know, all the other reasons that
can apply to every grieving person.�

�� Theresa
gazed steadily at him. �What I�m more worried about, Harry, is whether you
accept that as the truth about yourself.�

�� Does that
matter?�

�� Her gaze
grew incredulous. Harry shifted and looked down. �All right, yes, it matters,�
he muttered. �But I don�t like thinking about it. I know that I had a problem.
I�m working it out. Does it matter whether I think I have a problem for the
same reasons you do, or for another?�

�� I was
saying something in our last conversation that I fear you didn�t fully accept,�
Theresa said calmly. �We cannot be the only relationships in your life, Harry.
Who else will you let in? Will you make other friends? I do not wish to isolate
you with Draco and have you depend solely on each other. If you will forgive
what remains, at the moment, an uneducated guess about your previous life, it
seems as if the destruction of your best friends destroyed the primary
relationships in your life. The other Weasleys were important to you, of
course, and so were Remus Lupin. But take Ron and Hermione away, and you were
crippled.�

�� And so
you�re asking what happens if some crisis like that destroys you and Draco,�
Harry summed up flatly, feeling his heart drum anxiously against his ribcage. People
are in danger from being around me. Even now. Still.

�� I would
venture that Mr. Malfoy is more important to you at the moment than I am.�
Theresa gave him a faint smile. �But essentially, Harry, yes. I�d like to see
you push yourself, keep growing, and have casual friends as well as ones so
dear to you that there is no one left to care about you when they die.�

�� Perhaps
that�s simply the style of friendship I thrive on.� Harry rose and paced
restlessly back and forth across the room. He was trying to keep his wandless
magic under control, really he was. Only small tremors ran through the chairs
so far. �I did cry out my grief a few days ago. You would recommend that,
wouldn�t you?�

�� After our
conversation?� Theresa asked carefully.

�� Harry swung
to face her. �Yes.�

�� It�s a
first step.� Theresa folded her hands in her lap. �What I am most interested in
seeing from you, Harry, is a commitment to further growth. More friendships.
More talking about your past. So far, dragging everything from you is like
pulling a sore tooth from a bear. I fear that if I gave up on pushing you, you
would declare what you had so far enough of a victory.�

�� What if I
want it to be?� Harry turned away from her.

�� You�re
still awfully uncomfortable,� Theresa said. �Your relationship with Draco isn�t
what I would call balanced or healthy. He doesn�t deserve that, and I don�t
think you would want him to have all the work of healing you. Nor, for that
matter, would you want to remain in this broken and half-shattered state.�

�� I- � Harry
stared at his hands, deeply ashamed. It was true that he didn�t want to put
more of a burden on Draco.

�� But he was
also resenting, more and more, the way Theresa approached healing him. Yes, she
only wanted to help him; that, he still accepted. But she was acting more and
more as if she also wanted to mold him. Harry couldn�t accept that. He�d
survived the Dursleys unchanged. He�d survived Voldemort�s attempts to destroy
him physically, and then emotionally. He wasn�t about to turn into a good
little toy for a Healer who didn�t even know him.

�� I�ve
progressed further than you think,� he muttered, still staring at his hands,
not truly thinking about what he was saying. �I did cry my grief out, which I�m
sure would please you, and I�m Draco�s lover now- �

�� What?�

�� Harry
clamped his mouth shut, his ears burning. He was sure that Draco was watching
the conversation- unless his tour to make sure Narcissa had really left
and not secreted herself in some obscure room of the Manor had gone on longer
than he thought it would- and he didn�t want to reveal that piece of
information if Draco hadn�t wanted to reveal it yet.

�� But it was
out there now, and, against all the odds, Theresa sounded horrified.

�� What?�
Harry asked, drawing provocation around him like the cloak of a jaded teenager
and raising his eyes to meet hers defiantly. �You wanted me to start advancing
my relationship with him, didn�t you?�

�� Theresa
drew her wand without answering. Harry tensed, Auror reflexes firing, but she
only murmured the incantation to the Soul�s Mirror spell, and then leaned
forward and stared hard at it. The bond pointing towards Draco, Harry could see
now, was a deep and vibrant blue.

�� Oh,
Harry,� said Theresa gently, sitting back and regarding him with wide eyes.
�Was that such a good idea? You should have established a friendship with Draco
first, before you began a sexual relationship.�

�� I assure
you,� said Harry, bristling, �he didn�t force me.�

�� Theresa
shook her head. �I�m not saying he did. I don�t think that�s in him. But I
wonder if it was the best for your mental health to have this happen now.�

�� Harry shut
his eyes. His emotions were racing around inside his head, colliding again, and
the tremor in the chairs had grown more pronounced. �I don�t understand,� he
said. He was proud of himself. His voice was only a little high-pitched. �I
thought I should try to deepen the bond with him. We both wanted it. It was a
release of emotions that made me actually happy for once. And now it
turns out to be just as wrong as everything else I�ve done?�

�� No reply,
and at last Harry forced his eyes open and looked at her. Theresa was examining
him thoughtfully.

�� I don�t
want to force you into emotional revelations you�d rather not make before
you�re ready for them, Harry.� Her voice was carefully neutral. �I�m not trying
to mother you, nor smother you. But I do think that- well, that I have more
commitment to this than you do. If you don�t tell me the truth, I can�t help
you. If you would like, I can fetch another Healer from St. Mungo�s- �

�� No,� Harry
snapped instantly.

�� Harry, you
need to talk about this- �

�� Why?�
Harry tossed his head. �I�ve talked about my grief for my friends, and I�ve
done some of the things that you recommended. I�ll work on strengthening my
friendship with Draco. I�ll promise to seek out more friends like a good little
boy. I�ll do what you want. I�ve done what you want.�

�� You still
don�t think this really matters,� Theresa said. �You still want to fight me
every time the word talking is mentioned. You�ve still told me nothing about
your childhood. What little I know about your life comes from educated guesses
and newspapers, and we know those aren�t reliable when it comes to you. Why are
you so reluctant to talk to me?�

�� Harry
gritted his teeth. He didn�t want to respond, but maybe this was another moment,
as with Draco, when he had to seize his courage in both hands and jump off the
cliff of doubt. Besides, this time he was actually angry enough that it didn�t
hurt much.

�� I feel as
if you�re trying to change me,� he said. �And I don�t like that. And I don�t- I
don�t like attention.� He shook his head and ran his hand through his
fringe, deliberately baring his scar. �This gave me more than my fair share of
it. I�d just achieved a state where most people comfortably ignored my
existence, and then you had to change it. And now you want to drag out my
childhood and look at it as if you�re actually interested in it. Why?�

�� Because I am
interested in it.� Theresa�s smile widened back across her face again. �And you
can assign that to being an interfering Healer, if you want, but it�s more than
that. I think you need help, Harry. I think your childhood would be interesting
in and of itself, because it would help me better understand a man I�m coming
to admire and like very much.�

�� Harry
watched her, looking for signs of a lie. She didn�t alter her posture, or her
earnest stare. He at least had to allow for the possibility that she was
serious, the way that he had to allow for the possibility that he really was
the most important person in the world to Draco.

�� And,
really, would it be so bad to talk to her about the Dursleys? Harry was sure
that he had grown scar tissue over those wounds long ago. It wouldn�t be nearly
as hard to talk about them as it would be about the Weasley Massacre. He could
even make the stories amusing if he tried.

�� All
right,� he said, with a sigh, and sat down again. �You have to understand that
my uncle and aunt were Muggles- my aunt was my mum�s sister- and they believed
they�d successfully distanced themselves from all magic. Then I ended up on
their doorstep after my parents died. They didn�t really want or like me.
That�s essential to understand, because otherwise it doesn�t make what they did
comprehensible.�

*

�� Draco had
felt many emotions while Harry talked to Theresa- exasperation, pity, fondness,
and the desire to invade the room, grasp Harry�s shoulders, and shake him until
his teeth rattled.

�� But now, as
he listened to Harry rather calmly, and sometimes even with a laugh, and only a
twist of bitterness here and there, detail his childhood with the Dursleys, he
felt himself begin to burn with rage.

�� - didn�t
have friends until I went to Hogwarts, because Dudley chased away the children
who could have been friends with me- �

�� - slept in
a cupboard under the stairs until they realized I was a wizard. Then they were
a bit frightened of me, I think. And they had reason to be. My wandless magic
still tended to burst out when I was enraged. When Dudley�s aunt Marge came to
visit- �

�� - usually
spent most of my time during the summers in Dudley�s second bedroom, and there
were bars on the window- �

�� - no, I
didn�t know about magic until Hagrid- he worked for Dumbledore, he was a
half-giant- told me. I remember thinking I wouldn�t be any good at it during my
first year and would have to leave Hogwarts, but at least they might let me
live with Hagrid and help him keep the grounds- �

�� On and on
it went, moments that Draco hadn�t known anything about. Harry never talked
about his Muggle relatives, never mentioned them in the papers, and never
seemed to attract questions about them, either. Few people in the wizarding
world were concerned with Muggles, of course, and for good reasons.

�� But this.

�� This.

�� Draco
stared at Harry through the enchanted window as he spoke, and recognized the
healed-over scars on him. It was no wonder that Harry still sought to rely on
himself, that he couldn�t comprehend, on a basic level, that anyone would ever
be interested in him for himself instead of for what he could do, and that he
valued so deeply Draco�s relationship with Narcissa. He�d chosen the tactic of
shutting himself off from the world after the Weasleys died because it was,
apparently, what had allowed him to survive his childhood.

�� Draco
wanted to know if the Muggles were alive. If they hadn�t left the country, then
he could eventually find them.

�� It would
take some time and a little work, because his contacts in the Muggle world were
few and far between, and he certainly couldn�t mention it to Harry. But he
could at least find them. Know their faces. Know where they lived, and if they
imagined themselves comfortably distant from the magical world even now.

�� And then-

�� Well. He
would know, that was all.

�� The
protectiveness surged up the scale in him. It was a miracle that Harry had
survived at all, let alone that he�d had the courage to still fight the most
powerful Dark Lord in centuries and then survive his friends� loss and then
talk to Theresa, and Draco, about this.

�� And Draco
had less intention than ever of letting someone like that go.

************

�� SLQ: I
doubt that Harry thinks of Draco as a rebound relationship; he was emotionally
dead to every kind of bond for eleven years, after all, so if Draco is a
rebound romance from Ginny, he would also have to be a rebound friendship from
Ron and Hermione. And Theresa wants to encourage him to form new bonds, rather
than thinking of every single one as in the shadow of the old.

�� Whether
Harry will make it up to Narcissa is not something I can answer right now.

�� YamiBakura:
Narcissa did indeed leave, but we haven�t seen the last of her by a long shot.

�� Demerious:
Depends on what you mean by �naturally.� I do use outlines for a lot of
stories, but I�m not using one for this one. I sit down and start writing- thinking,
of course, of what�s come before- and the story �talks� to me. It�s rather fun
writing like that.
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Learning Life Over