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Nature of the Beast	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 48976 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Five—Defenses and Defenders
            “I’m sorry that my advice to you was so horrible,” said Hermione. Her voice was stiff, her hands were so stiff they could barely curve to handle the papers, and her eyes were on the table.
            Harry waited for a second to see if she would stop acting stupid on her own, but she didn’t, so he reached out and forcibly tilted her chin up. Her eyes glinted at him, full of stubborn tears.
            “Hermione,” said Harry softly. He hadn’t realized how much this would affect her. He had sought her out mainly because he had decided that he was going to let his temper out, and he knew she would want some kind of explanation. “You didn’t mean to give me bad advice.” He hesitated, and then asked a question Malfoy had asked him, one that he knew would bother him until it got answered. “Why did you tell me to suppress all of my temper, anyway? Why not just learn to control it?”
            “Because I saw the look on your face when you twisted Sibley’s foot the way you did,” Hermione whispered back, fiercely. “I didn’t want to see you look like that ever again. And I was afraid you would unless you put your temper under control completely. It might erupt. It did that day.”
            “With provocation,” Harry reminded her. He glanced at her cautiously, but she seemed as if she was ready to look him in the eye and fight with him about it now. Harry nodded and sat back down on the other side of the table. He could hear Malfoy’s restless pacing on the other side of the door. He had come over to the small house Hermione and Ron had rented in Hogsmeade, and Malfoy had insisted on coming, but at least he would stay out of the room while Harry and Hermione talked.
            “Yes, I know,” said Hermione. “But—she’s one kind of person, and you’re another. The kind of person you are can’t do that kind of thing, Harry. Not without everything being lost.”
            “My political credibility being lost?” Harry hated to admit the quick flare of anger that raced up his throat and turned his hopes to ash when he heard that. Why would Hermione think of that first?
            Because it’s all she cares about, whispered the doubting voice in the back of his head, the one that had woken up since he and Malfoy had started talking more honestly in the past few days, and Malfoy had told him how robotic Harry seemed when he was shutting himself down.
            But Malfoy had reasons to be suspicious of his friends (or what he thought were reasons) that Harry would never share, and that suspicion itself burned to ash as Hermione tossed back her head and glared at him. “Don’t be stupid. You made it through the war without splitting your soul. You think I want to see it happen to you now? I don’t want to lose the kind of person you are, the person that makes you you.” She reached out and grabbed Harry’s hand. “I thought I might lose you to being Malfoy’s mate at first, but instead, it’s going to be—what? To wielding your anger like a weapon?”
            “Well, you know,” said Harry, as confidingly as he could, “there is a middle ground between feeling angry and lashing out like a madman. I’m sort of angry at you right now, but I’m not trying to tear your throat out.”
            Hermione’s eyes widened a little, and she blinked. Then she said, “But I’m your friend.”
            “Ah.” Harry nodded wisely. “So it’s only strangers where you don’t trust me not to rip their throats out.”
            “That’s not it at all!” said Hermione, with hot indignation of her own that cracked Harry’s mask. “I never thought—Harry, are you laughing?” She stared at him as though the halves of the cracked mask were doors falling away from his face. “Is this a joke?”
            “Not the bit about trying to let my temper out now and then,” said Harry. That didn’t make a dent in Hermione’s expression, so he relented and explained as best as he could. “We figured out that suppressing my anger suppressed most of my other emotions, too. With magic, I mean. And that meant I couldn’t engage fully in the bond and being Draco’s mate.”
            Hermione blinked again. “You mean, it’s the only thing that let you have some semblance of a free will?”
            Harry rolled his eyes. She didn’t know anything more about the bond than he had at first, but he would have expected her to have more faith in his independence. “No. I’m never going to be submissive. But there are other things about the bond that were supposed to be happening sometimes. Draco should have been able to sense all my anger and defiance, and he only got it in these little solitary flashes that didn’t seem to come at any particular time.” He paused, watched Hermione’s darkening face, and added, “I think it’s going to work out for both of us. This way, Draco is going to believe that I don’t want to be submissive, because he can feel that desire through the bond now, and he’ll stop trying to make me into a slave.”
            There was a noise as though someone had straightened up suddenly from leaning against a door. Harry snorted. Well, he had never believed Draco would sufficiently overcome the temptation to listen.
            “I can see that,” said Hermione, after a long, reflective pause. “But it does make me wonder if you’re going to be any happier than you were, if you and Malfoy still aren’t coming to an agreement.”
            “I’m free to fight with all my resources this time,” Harry said quietly. “I’m not going to worry about being less than the perfect political machine and failing my duties if I yell at him.”
            “Is that the way you felt?” Hermione stared at him. “Oh, Harry, I’m sorry. It’s just that you act like the war is still happening, and if you were going to cling to the peace effort as the one thing that might save you from that, then I thought I’d give you all the help I could.”
            “What?”
            Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth a second later, and made a little gulping sound. Harry stared at her, though, waiting for her to go on, and she had to, even though she was grimacing and shaking her head as though it was physically painful for her to do it.
            “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to phrase it like that.” Which meant, Harry was sure, that she hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “But I’ve thought it a lot,” Hermione continued, facing up to the music like a brave woman. “That you can’t let the war go. It’s there in the back of your mind, affecting everything you do and say. To keep from thinking about it, you cling to the peace effort.”
            “That’s not the same thing as acting like the war is still happening, though.” Harry shook his head, trying to clear it. “I do think that I’ve thrown myself into the peace effort, but I told you—”
            “I know why,” Hermione interrupted quietly. “And it’s an admirable notion. What I meant by you acting like the war is still happening—you’re acting like everything has to be done now, settled now, or it’ll be useless.” She hesitated, then squeezed his hand hard, once, and let it go. “And in a war, you do have to be that way, or the enemy could win. Voldemort could have won. But the peace process can’t be rushed.”
            “I know it’ll take a long time.”
            “Then why not schedule meetings on different days?” Hermione sighed and dropped her chin onto her folded hands, something Harry didn’t think he’d seen her do in a long time, if ever. “Why not get to know some of the Muggleborns and pure-bloods you’ll be working with individually, instead of launching yourself into gathering them all up and trying to see as many of them as you possibly can at once? Why not push the plans for Hogwarts into the future, when you have a few less ambitious things accomplished?” Hermione shook her head. “Why are you so merciless with yourself?”
            Harry paused. That was much the same thing Malfoy had accused him of, and Hermione didn’t have the same motive that Malfoy—and sometimes even Ron—did in trying to get Harry to agree to the bond.
            “I don’t mean to be,” he said, and he hoped Hermione was listening to him. She hadn’t really raised her head or changed her expression. “I want to be kind and fair to everybody, including me. I mean, as kind as I can. There’s no reason to be kind to Maundy or people like that, who don’t deserve it.”
            Hermione smiled cautiously. “I was afraid you would say she was misunderstood or something, or that we needed her as part of the rebuilding effort even if we didn’t like her.”
            “It would have been good if we could have her as part of the rebuilding effort,” Harry said. “But I don’t think that was ever likely.”
            “Not without a lot of changes, no.” Hermione leaned back and looked at him curiously. “And you’re trying to change the way you do things?”
            “Yes,” said Harry. The prowling outside the door had stopped. He hoped that meant Malfoy was listening to this part more than he had to the argument between him and Hermione. He didn’t really want to argue with Malfoy about whether Hermione was being “mean” to him. “I showed a bit of anger to Maundy when she was speaking to me during the duel, you know.” Hermione was nodding. “And when she came to confirm that she would fulfill the stakes I’d demanded of her.”
            “I think you were wise to word it the way you did.” Hermione’s eyes were somber, and she rearranged some of the papers on the table in front of her without taking her gaze from him “She might find a way to come directly back at you otherwise.”
            Harry shrugged. “She might have allies who could do me harm. But that’s not the main thing I’m concerned about right now.”
            “What else about the peace process?” Hermione sat up straight.
            “I’m concerned about myself,” said Harry, with a small grimace. This conversation had taken a lot longer than he’d thought it would when he came to make this little announcement to Hermione. On the other hand, at least now he knew why she’d urged him to hold onto his temper, and he felt better about it. Her concern for him had been misguided, but so had some of the things Harry worried about. “I’m going to take a few days to just—think. I’ll be at Malfoy Manor, but I’m going to delay the meetings we set up. And meditate, the way I did when I was trying to learn Occlumency.”
            Hermione blinked. “Are you sure that Malfoy Manor is the best place to try and learn Occlumency? I mean, you felt safe at Hogwarts, and—”
            She shut up and blushed a little when Harry smiled at her. “I didn’t feel safe with Snape, though,” Harry said, and rushed on when Hermione opened her mouth. Yes, he had been wrong about Snape, and he could acknowledge that, but they weren’t going to have this conversation now. “And I’m not trying to learn Occlumency. Just thump some rubbish out of my head.”
            “Is Malfoy going to help you with that?”
            Harry held her eyes. “Yes. And it means that maybe I can finally live with this in some other way than just planning to lie back and think of England while he has his way with me.”
            Hermione looked as if she was going to gag. “You really—you were about to—”
            “That’s what the kind of person I was planning to become would have done,” Harry said. “And I thought that I couldn’t show any anger because it hurt him when I did. So I couldn’t refuse to have sex with him, and I would have to appear polite and agreeable to in public. Who knows what I would have given him if not for my commitment to the peace process? I insisted on being in public and attending meetings. But if I didn’t have that—”
            “Isn’t that what’s going to happen now?” Hermione whispered. “Because you’re going to do whatever Malfoy wants in the name of pacifying him or something, and—”
            “No,” said Harry firmly. “I know that I’m worth more than to just be a sacrifice. I always knew I was worth more than being a mindless slave. Now it’s time to realize I don’t have to be a slave to the peace process, either.”
            It took a moment, but Hermione smiled and nodded. Then she turned abruptly at the sound of an opening door. Harry looked up, too, surprised. He had heard Malfoy pacing outside the one door, but this wasn’t the one he was behind, the one that led into the corridor; this led into the bedroom.
            “About bloody time, mate,” Ron said, folding his arms and staring at Harry.
            Harry blinked. “Okay,” he said.
            “I was trying to give Malfoy some hints without you thinking I was betraying you,” Ron went on, pacing in a circle and waving one arm as though he was going to clear cobwebs out of massive windows with an invisible cloth in his hand. “But he didn’t seem to ask the right questions, or he was going too slowly, or something. At least you finally saw sense. Took you long enough,” he added over his shoulder, in a grumbling tone that made Harry think Ron didn’t know whether to be more annoyed with Harry or Malfoy.
            “I had told him not to ask questions about my past,” said Harry. “Not my past before the war, anyway, or mostly during the war. That was why he hesitated.”
            Ron swung around and stared at him. “But how is he supposed to understand you if he doesn’t?”
            “At the time, I really didn’t care about him not understanding me.” Harry held up a hand when Ron opened his mouth. “I know, it was stupid and silly. At least this way, I have more to talk to him about.”
            And that, it seemed, was the end of Malfoy’s pretense that he couldn’t hear this conversation. The door into the corridor opened, and Harry turned around and faced him, ignoring Hermione’s outraged gasp. She had to have at least suspected Malfoy was there.
            “And are you going to talk to me about it at any point?” Malfoy paced slowly towards him, his wings fanned out, his attention focused on Harry in that steely way that had made Harry want to reject it from before simply because it was Malfoy. All right, and because Harry didn’t like someone staring at him like that.
            Harry held his breath for a few seconds until the temptation to simply strike out and reject Malfoy had passed, and until Malfoy was standing in front of him, gaze moving so simply and possessively over Harry. Harry nodded and said, “I think I’m going to rescind that order, or command, or whatever you want to call it.”
            “You’re ordering your mate around?” Ron asked.
            Harry would have said something, but Malfoy murmured, softly and sweetly, without taking his eyes off Harry, “Weasley, your intervention has been meritorious. Sometimes. Right now, it isn’t.”
            Ron looked from one of them to the other, then rolled his eyes and reached for Hermione’s hand.
            “Wait,” said Hermione, standing up with a sheaf of papers in her hand and an annoyed look. “We still haven’t settled when we’re going to meet with the Muggleborn activists if you’re canceling the meeting today—”
            “Right now, that doesn’t matter,” Ron told her in a loud whisper Harry would have found funny if he could have looked away from Malfoy. “Come on, let’s go.” He gently took her arm and urged her out of the room through the door he’d used.
            When it shut behind them, Malfoy sighed like a dog released from a leash. He moved the last few steps towards Harry and murmured, “Why do you act as if you’re fighting me every time I look at you?”
            Harry hesitated once, but there was no sense of a magical order coming along with the words. He finally nodded and said, “Because I don’t like being looked at that way. As if I was the center of attention. I get it a lot, and it—bothers me.”
            “Because you think you don’t deserve the admiration?” Malfoy gave him a patient smile and laid one hand on Harry’s arm, rubbing back and forth as if testing the thickness of the bone. No one had ever touched Harry like that before, and he found himself shivering. Malfoy smiled. “If that’s the reason, I don’t think it’s good enough to stop.”
            Indignation surged, hot and sharp, in Harry’s heart, but then he paused. Malfoy still wasn’t ordering him around. He was talking to him as they had been used to talk, half-arguing, but not demanding.
            Harry grinned sharply at him and muttered, “Because they look at me like I’m a freak. And I don’t like being the center of attention.”
            “Ah,” said Malfoy, and his face had a light in it that Harry had never seen before. It reminded him a little of a spotlight, but before he could freeze, Malfoy reached out and slowly swept his hand down Harry’s cheek. “Then the next step is to convince you that you’re not a freak. And come up with ways to either make sure that you’re not the center of attention, or that you can get used to it when you are.”
            Harry studied him skeptically. “You’re somehow going to cease paying me attention?”
            “Oh, no.” Malfoy gave him an elegant little bow. “Mine is one of the kinds you’ll have to get used to.”
            Harry considered that, then nodded. At least he had something definite to react to, to think about. “All right. Then we’ll take a few days to get started on it?”
            Malfoy seemed to relax all at once, in a twitching of his wings and a rolling of his shoulders. “I was afraid you’d say we only had three days to sort it all out or something,” he muttered. “As long as you know this is only a beginning.”
            “It is,” Harry said firmly. “To discover what kind of person I want to be, instead of what kind of sacrifice, or hero, or martyr. Or mate,” he had to add.
            Malfoy inclined his head. “I know.”

*
Meechypoo: Harry may not know how to handle his own emotions at this point; he’s been a stranger to himself for too long. But there is a slow leakage of emotions right now, not a big explosion.
delia cerrano: Although Harry doesn’t think of it like that, you’re right: he’s going to have the chance to get to know Draco in a way he couldn’t before, either.
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Nature of the Beast