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The Rising of the Stones	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13237 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Five—The Harryheads
“We have a special guest today.”
Granger had gone in front of them—to prepare the fan club, evidently. Draco watched in some amusement as Harry leaned his head in his hands and groaned. There was a faint shimmer around the wall he stood nearest, as if Harry was thinking of vanishing into the stone and ducking away through it.
“Are they that bad?” Draco asked. He’d never heard of the Harryheads before, which suggested that they didn’t get up to many reckless stunts or law-breaking ones.
“They’re terrible,” Harry said, ripping his hands away from his face to glare at Draco. “You remember Colin Creevey?”
Draco nodded after a moment of searching his memory. “The boy with the camera who died in the Battle of Hogwarts?”
“Right. Well, they’re all almost as bad as him, except that they have this conviction that they’re my only true fans, the only ones who really care about me, except Ron and Hermione. And I think they only accept them because they’ve been with me for so long and they’re war heroes in their own right.” Harry made a face. “They write angry letters to the Daily Prophet about their articles when they cover me and they’re probably writing angry letters to the Minister as we speak. They have this newsletter where they constantly debate the meaning of my scar.”
Draco struggled to control his laughter. “How do you know?”
“Because they send me copies of it constantly. They’re begging me to confirm that it’s my soul-mark and ‘lay to rest all the pernicious rumors that someone outside the club is going to be soulmated to you.’”
There was a tone creeping into Harry’s voice that Draco didn’t like, so he did something about it. He reached out and grabbed Harry’s ear. Harry stumbled, his voice incredulous as he braced himself on Draco’s shoulders with both hands. “Draco, what the fuck—ow—”
“The next time you start whining about soulmates and soul-marks,” Draco told him generously, twisting the ear a little more to see the way Harry writhed and tried to get away, “then I’m going to do this to both ears, with both hands. The time after that, well, I know a spell that will do it for me. You’re not allowed to whine about it anymore, not now that you have me. All right?”
Harry was staring at him with wide eyes. Draco yanked again when he said nothing. Harry made a garbled sound, probably out of disbelief as much as pain, and Draco let him go.
Harry took a deep breath and rubbed his smarting ear for a moment. “You’re vicious when you want to be,” he muttered, his voice half-resentful.
“Yes, well, there’s something unattractive about you when you’re once again drifting into reveries about what it would be like if you had a soulmate. The fact is that you don’t, which means that you’ll have to put up with what you do have. All right?”
Harry looked at him again for a second, then looked down. “It’s not putting up. I do—care for you.”
Draco nodded briskly, aware that he could hear Granger coming back and she would probably escort them out of this little stone anteroom in the next second. “Good. That’s good to hear.” And he didn’t kiss Harry because they didn’t have time, but he did reach out and tweak his robe collar straight.
Harry gave him a weak smile, which Granger broke into as if she didn’t see it. Maybe it was something she no longer looked for with Harry, Draco thought. It’ll probably take her a while to get used to seeing her best friend with someone beside him.
“The Harryheads are very excited about supporting you, Harry.”
“You did explain that none of them have a chance with me anymore? And that I have no soul?”
“Harry.” Granger rolled her eyes, which Draco had to admit made him feel good. Sometimes, at least, he would have companionship in his determination to chide Harry. “They would support you if you killed the Minister in public. They’d decide that he must be a secret Death Eater before you ever finished speaking.”
“Really?” Draco murmured to himself. “Think we can convince de Berenzan to meet us here?”
Harry rolled his eyes in turn and strode into the room. The deafening cheer that followed made Draco cringe. Granger only stood with her arms folded and an irritating little smile on her face. Draco followed Harry and blinked at the lights that immediately exploded in his face.
It seemed most of the Harryheads had cameras. Well, as long as the pictures didn’t end up on the front page of the Daily Prophet before they were ready for the story to spread, Draco didn’t really mind. Pictures of him standing beside Harry and resting his hand on the small of Harry’s back—as he reached out to do in the next second—would only cement the claim he had to Harry and that all people should respect.
There were dozens of men and women in the room, which was either shaped like an amphitheater or had been transformed into one for the occasion. There were plush seats, and most of the spectators had small badges somewhere on their robes that showed a crude sketch of Harry’s face. The glasses and the lightning bolt were overwhelming, but more dazzling were the flashing letters on them that said HARRYHEADS.
Draco bit his lip so he wouldn’t start howling with laughter. He knew he wouldn’t stop once he had started.
“I told you,” Harry muttered, not far enough under his breath. Half the audience immediately craned forwards, and some of them started waving flags and banners that proclaimed Harry’s innocence.
“What did you tell him?” said at least six different voices, in a mingled chorus that made Draco have to wrap his arm around his stomach. “You can share it with us, Harry!”
One voice went on after that, from the mouth of a man who looked Muggleborn with his horrible glasses and a framed, unmoving photograph of Harry that dangled on a chain from his hat. “Why would you share anything with him in the first place? He’s your enemy!”
Draco opened his mouth, but he didn’t have to. Harry whirled around in front of him and narrowed his eyes on the man in the hat.
“He’s been one hell of a strong ally for an enemy,” Harry snapped. “He’s the one who convinced me that I didn’t have to run for the rest of my life because of the Minister’s paranoia. He’s the one who taught me pride and that my place is here, in the world I helped save. He’s the one who’s chided me when I’ve been wrong and taught me better.” He turned and gave Draco a soft smile.
Draco blinked. They hadn’t discussed this, but suddenly he had the knowledge of what Harry was going to say next.
And absolutely no desire to stop him.
“And he’s my lover,” Harry said, and reached out and linked his fingers with Draco’s.
Draco caught one glimpse of Granger’s wide eyes before the crowd started yelling. Draco flinched a little, instinctively, from the noise, and Harry tightened his grip and reached down to the floor.
There was a rumbling noise, and a sleek column of stone shot out and rose up to touch the tips of Harry’s fingers. Harry tilted his head haughtily. The stone continued on around them, becoming a circular wall. Draco thought it was the right height to just reveal their heads, and nothing more, to the audience.
Appropriate, considering their name, Draco thought, and his laughter bubbled up again. He restrained it to a small chuckle probably lost in Harry’s words.
“Yes, I chose someone. And someone chose me.” There was absolute reverence in his words as he turned his head and locked his eyes with Draco’s. “Not because of my name or because I’m a hero, or even because I’m famous and could make them famous because they were with me. Because he wanted me.”
Because you’re great and intriguing, Draco thought, but that was a clarification these Harryheads didn’t deserve. He nodded.
“Why the wall?” shouted a different person, a woman who had a sign that looked like it was inscribed with quotes. Probably things Harry had said, or supposedly said, in the Daily Prophet.
“Because I didn’t trust you not to throw things at us.”
There was a general movement of hands behind backs, and Draco thought he saw more than one person retracting objects that might have been balls of paper or something more harmful. He snorted.
“Did any of you think you stood a chance with Harry?” he asked. “I mean, did you really think that, rather than making up gossip that you could brag to your friends about?”
“Draco,” Harry mouthed at him, but he refused to feel sorry. Anyway, the man who had Harry’s picture dangling from his hat was answering.
“We thought there might be a chance.” Draco thought he was striving to sound dignified, but he didn’t. He sounded squeaky-voiced, and his dignity was undermined by the awed way he stared at Harry. “We had a better chance than you did, Death Eater.”
Again Harry answered before Draco could. “He’s more than paid for his crimes. I don’t know what you’ve done that’s so great, Dusty.”
Dusty—and was that a nickname for his first or last name? Draco must find out—choked and stared at Harry. Draco tilted his head. It seemed Harry had the power to hurt them far more than Draco had anticipated, simply because they had the kind of delusions the Daily Prophet encouraged when it came to Harry.
“You don’t want us?” someone else whispered.
“I want someone who can respect me in the ways I’ve already talked about,” said Harry firmly. “Draco can, and he’s helped me besides.” He smiled at Draco in a way that made Draco flush. At least the stone wall was high enough to conceal some of his other reactions. “You may have wondered why I ran away from the wizarding world and why the Minister was seeking me so desperately.”
“Yes! Please tell us!”
That was once again a chorus of voices, but Harry didn’t flinch from the noise as he might have before. He squeezed Draco’s hand again and faced his devotees. He tapped the scar on his head.
“This isn’t my soul-mark. I don’t have a soul-mark. I was born without one,” he continued, raising his voice so he could keep speaking over the murmurs and whispers and rising shouts. “That’s why the Minister wanted to capture me. There have been other people born without soul-marks, but the Ministry kills them under the excuse that they’re going to become Dark Lords. They think all Dark Lords are born without soul-marks—”
“Does that mean you were born without a soul?” Dusty asked in a gap between other voices, sounding more than slightly horrified.
“Oh, not you too,” Draco said, rolling his eyes and ignoring the glares that came his way. “That’s what Harry here believes—”
“Don’t call him that!”
“Why not? You do, with less of a claim on him.” Draco laid his arm along Harry’s shoulders and felt him relax, nearly melting against Draco. That gave him the ability to laugh in the faces of the people staring at them. “Anyway, that’s what he believes, but I can tell you the only practical consequence is that he doesn’t wield wand magic anymore. You saw the way he raised this stone wall around us?”
The Harryheads eyed him with hostility, but a few nodded, probably because they couldn’t help it. Draco smiled.
“Harry did that with elemental magic alone,” he said, and caught Harry’s eye, not letting him look away even though his face was a ripe apple of embarrassment. “Earth magic. He’s learned new ways to do things that would puzzle master magical theorists. So don’t tell me that he doesn’t have a soul. He has all the creativity and passion necessary to do something like that.”
Harry swallowed, his eyes burning. Draco knew he was witnessing the dawning of something new in them, something that shone like a clear flame, and he would have liked to be alone so they could explore it.
They weren’t alone. But at least the next interruption was more welcome.
“I’m ashamed of you,” Granger declared, her hands on her hips. “You told me that you really wanted to help Harry. Was that a lie? You only wanted to help him when you thought you could shag him?”
“Miss Granger, it’s just that—”
“I know what you think it’s just, Dusty. You always hoped Harry would turn to you. Well, he hasn’t. The most important question is whether you’re going to help him or not!”
Dusty sat down, the picture on his hat swinging like a windchime as he bowed his head. Draco, standing beside Harry, felt the tension thrumming through him. He poked him on the shoulder and whispered into his ear, “It doesn’t matter if they do or not. I’ll be here.”
Harry leaned on him even more strongly after that, and finally waved a hand that sent the stone wall around them sliding back into the floor.
Maybe it was because they could see better now and see how much Harry needed him, but the murmurs got louder in a way that Draco could easily interpret as supportive. He made sure to smile at the white-haired woman who stood up and tapped her flashing Harry badge as she turned to face the others.
“We promised to be here for whatever he needed, didn’t we?” she asked in a way that made the question rhetorical. “And what he needs right now is someone to side with him against the Ministry.” She gave Draco an honestly terrifying smile and tapped her badge with one finger again. “I never liked the Minister much anyway.”
Other shouts of support came from the corners, as if the rest of the Harryheads were eager to show they were trustworthy once someone made the first move. Harry’s hunched shoulders finally dropped, and he moved forwards to shake hands and smile and bend down so everyone could clearly see his lightning scar—although how they were going to determine it wasn’t a soul-mark just from that, Draco had no idea.
He leaned against the regular wall and watched to make sure no one drew a wand. Granger and Harry could act foolishly if they wanted. Draco would keep up his guard.
“You love him.”
Draco didn’t bat an eye at Granger’s words, but only because he had heard her come up beside him. “I think it might be too early to tell,” he said, his head ducked so that his chin brushed against his chest. “But you would probably use those words anyway, Gryffindor that you are.”
“Harry deserves happiness.”
“I utterly agree,” Draco snapped back, and only realized by Granger’s smile that she’d been trying to provoke him into saying something like that.
“And it’s strange that you’re it,” Granger continued in a musing voice. “But I saw the way Harry was looking at you. I’ve only see him look like that at one other person. And that’s when he thought she was his soulmate.”
“Weasley’s sister,” Draco said, with a gusty sigh. He reckoned he couldn’t blame Weasley for coming before him in Harry’s heart, but it was irritating nonetheless.
“You don’t need to worry, Malfoy. Harry and Ginny broke up a long time ago.”
“I know. And for stupid reasons.”
“Because she wasn’t his soulmate, yes.” Granger folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at Dusty, who was now laughing eagerly with Harry as if he’d never questioned Harry’s relationship with Draco. “Do you know, I’m starting to think that we might not know what soul-marks really are after all? We call them soul-marks. That doesn’t make them linked to a soul.”
Draco cocked his head to show he was listening, but didn’t remove his gaze from Harry.
“It’s only legend and custom that make them that way. And as for the idea that they’re going to tell you who you fall in love with…I don’t know about that, either. Maybe they’re the reason I gave Ron a chance at all, because we had twin halves of the same mark, but who knows? I could have been happy with someone else.”
“Pretty big for a Gryffindor to admit.”
“I don’t like things that hurt my best friend,” said Granger mildly. “And the legend of soul-marks does.”
Draco blinked. “So you’re going to change it so that it can’t hurt him anymore?”
“Don’t be silly. What would be the point of promoting a new legend in its place, one that would still make Harry feel left out for not having one? No, the whole point of this is that I’ll change the idea some people have that it shows a perfect romance and there’s something wrong with you if you don’t marry your soulmate.”
“I’ll join you in that, then. There is certainly nothing wrong with me because I don’t want to marry the horrible woman I’m ‘joined at the soul’ to.”
“Who is she?”
Draco ignored the way Granger spoke. It wasn’t like they were friends. He fixed his gaze on Harry instead, and watched the way he shook hands and listened avidly to words that must surely have bored him.
He only ran in the first place because he thought no one could possibly want to champion him once they knew he didn’t have a soul-mark, Draco realized slowly. Now that he knows they will…
This was the Harry more like the one Draco had known in school, confident to the point of arrogance, a good listener when he had something worth listening to, a faint amused smile on his face as he inclined his head to the small woman who had to stand on her tiptoes to speak to him, and who looked torn between fainting and kissing him.
So long as it’s not kissing him. I suppose the Harryheads might have their uses.
*
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The Rising of the Stones