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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Twenty-Six—A Cure for Mischief

            The best course, Harry decided while the world was still reeling around inside his head, was to pretend that he couldn’t possibly have heard what he thought he had heard.

            “What?” he hissed, shooting a hand out to grip Draco’s arm. “What the fuck—what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

            Draco only looked at him with raised eyebrows, his face pale in the light of the flickering green shadows dancing up from the potion. Then he nodded to Harry’s hand, and put his own hand over it, gently prying it from his elbow.

            “You know as well as I do that we have to go fast, that we don’t have much time before the Memory Charm drives them insane or makes them hate me for the rest of their lives,” he said, and his voice was sweet and level and low. But even with the distraction of Draco’s fingers covering his, Harry noticed how much his hand shook. “You said that we should spend more time studying the books and figure something out. Well. This is what I figured out.”

            Draco, you mad—But Harry cut himself off, because ranting at Draco would probably just convince him further that he was right. Draco was like that sometimes.

            “Fine,” Harry said, and let his breath hiss past his teeth, not bothering to disguise his exasperation. “How is it going to save them?”

            Draco took a step away and stared at him. Harry stared back, impatient. He thought Zabini and the other Slytherins would probably be along any second, and unless Draco explained what he intended to happen before then, Harry couldn’t in good conscience let him use the potion.

            Draco took a long, deep breath, and shook his head, as though he was surprised Harry hadn’t already seized his arm and wrenched his wand away. “All right,” he said, kneeling down. “You know that part of the reason this is as fucked-up as it is is that my own desires interfered with the process and I couldn’t make up my mind what I wanted, right?”

            Harry nodded, and folded his arms over his knee as he dropped beside Draco to study the lines of the spiral. They made him faintly sick, and not because of the glowing green color that filled them (well, not only because of that). There was something about the way they turned and raced and curved that made him feel as if he were falling. He bit his lips and ignored the vertigo as well as he could, but some of it remained, pulsing in the back of his temple.

            “I created a spiral that is supposed to draw things back to you that you summoned and sent out into the world,” Draco said. “In this case, my part of the spell. I can stand up to its returning,” he added quickly, because Harry was opening his mouth. “It’s just my own desire or hatred or—whatever you want to call it. I survived feeling it in the first place, I’ll survive it returning to me.”

            Harry clamped his teeth shut and nodded at the green glow. “And the potion?”

            “That’s a Liberation Potion,” Draco said, and there was a faint smile on his face. “Ordinarily, it would either melt away bars and bindings, if it was being used on a physical prison, or loosen up someone’s conscience and inhibitions.” He gave Harry a bright, sharp look, and then turned his head away. Harry snorted slightly at the obvious conclusion. “But it can be used to cut through other things, too. In this case, I brewed it with the false memories implanted by a Memory Charm in mind. And when it’s poured into the spiral, it strengthens the reverse movement that it implies and takes on a few traits of that movement itself. This is going backwards. Soon, everything in this spiral will be. That includes the spells I cast on my friends.”

            Harry forced himself to breathe evenly. “How do you know that this particular version of the Liberation Potion is the one you want?”

            Draco smiled fiercely. “I brewed it myself. I should have realized before now that that Room can give me anything I want, including the ingredients for a potion like this.”

            “Illegal ones?” Harry asked, staring into the green liquid that eddied lazily back and forth in the grooves Draco had traced on the ground. “Dark ones?”

            “Of course.”

            Harry nodded in resignation. If Draco was going to brew any potion that didn’t fall into the standard kind he probably would have asked Snape to brew for him, it would be something like this. “Okay. But how does it work? It’s not like you’re going to get your friends to drink it.” He peered at the potion again.

            Draco snorted, and leaned back on his hands and heels to look up at Harry. Harry could see that some of the normal color had returned to his face, and he looked—well, much happier than he had the last time he and Harry had spoken, at least. “The Liberation Potion was never intended for that unless it was the kind of thing where you wanted one person to overcome their inhibitions. If you need a potion that can dissolve stone walls and iron bars, then you’re not going to want to give it to someone else to drink.”

            Harry eyed him, his hands cupped beneath his chin. Draco was staring at him now with a softened smile playing around his mouth, although Harry knew that Draco would probably hate Harry if he pointed that out to him. Harry blinked. Was he really that lonely for companionship? Or just for someone to approve of him?

            “The magic that it needs this time comes from the lines of the spiral.” Draco reached out and gently let his finger hover over the edge of the sketched groove in the dirt without touching it. “I told you that already.”

            “You did,” Harry admitted. He sighed. “It’s just that, after all the trouble we went to to look up Memory Charms in our books and the way that we talked about how dangerous they were, it seems odd that this combination of a potion and a spiral is going to work just because you said so.”

            Draco’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I spent today thinking about nothing but this. I promise, Harry, it’s going to work.”

            “If you’re sure,” Harry said. “And I should let you know, if it seems to be—going wrong, then I have to interfere.”

            Draco sneered at him. Harry almost relaxed at the familiar expression. “How can you tell that it could go wrong, when you know little about Potions and less about rituals?”

            “If people start screaming in pain, then I think that’s a pretty good sign,” Harry pointed out, and then jerked his head up and to the left as he heard the sounds of shuffling footsteps. They would have been pretty quiet to most other people, but Harry had lived on the run last year, and they sounded like dragons tramping through the forest to him.

            “They’re coming,” Draco said, and he flushed and lowered his voice. “Harry. I promise, I promise, I’ll end the ritual if I think I’m hurting them. I never want to hurt them again, not after what I’ve already done to them. But I think this is the best chance I’ll have to reverse the spell, and channel my part in it back to me. Please?”

            Harry stared at Draco. Then he sighed and reached out to clasp his hand. Draco blinked as though shocked at the gesture.

            “Yes,” Harry whispered. “I trust you that much. I’ll only intervene if I think I need to.” He flung a Disillusionment Charm over himself, one over the broom that he had left leaning against the side of Hagrid’s hut, and stepped to the left. “Where should I stand, so that I don’t interfere with the spiral?”

            “Anywhere to the right or the left should be fine.” Draco stood up, still looking at him with eyes so bright that they made Harry squirm. “Harry. Thank you.”

            He sprang lightly over the lines and into the center of the spiral before Harry could say anything back, and lifted his hands, one of which held his wand. The green light focused around him and began to glow. Harry leaned against the hut beside his broom and fought the urge to curse, long and low. He still wasn’t sure that he should allow Draco to do this, but it was true that Harry himself could do very little, and that all the books agreed the caster should be the one to reverse the messed-up spell if at all possible. If the Slytherins attacked, then Harry could at least prevent anyone from getting hurt.

            Not easy, is it, to stand aside and let someone else save the day?

            The voice sounded like Ron’s. Harry grimaced and shook his head wryly, then held his breath as Zabini came around the corner.

            Zabini had at least two other people with him, though from the way he had to strain his eyes to see in the low green light and through the Disillusionment Charm, Harry wasn’t sure who they were at first. Zabini jerked himself to a stop, his fists closing down abruptly and his eyes narrowing. Harry thought for a moment that Zabini must have seen him, but instead, he was staring at Draco, and the lines of the spiral carved deeply into the earth.

            “You can’t be that stupid,” he breathed.

            Draco ignored him entirely, and Harry could see the way Zabini’s head jerked forwards before he could stop himself. Harry smiled under the Cloak, despite how hard his heart was beating. Yes, that would be the way to get Zabini’s attention: pretend that there was nothing that mattered to you less.

            “You can’t be,” Zabini repeated, and spread his hands out in front of him as though Draco was making him grope his way through a thick fog. “You’re going to perform a Dark ritual just to get revenge on the giant? Draco. That’s stupid.”

            “But that fits with what you think you know about me, right?” Draco’s voice was light, and he kept his wand spinning through his fingers. Harry wouldn’t have seen the sweat that clustered under the loose curls of his hair along his temple if he wasn’t looking for it. “That I’m stupid, that I’m selfish, that I only try to hurt people I consider beneath me and that I don’t do anything else?” He turned to face Zabini, keeping his feet carefully in the center of the spiral.

            Zabini stared at him, and frowned, and didn’t say anything. Harry could almost feel the real memories struggling to break through the enchanted hatred.

            Of course, that might not make that much difference to his hatred of Draco, once he found out that he had been tortured and that Draco was trying to make up for it. And sure enough, his face smoothed out a moment later, and he shook his head.

            “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing,” he said. “I just know that you won’t catch us out a second time.” He jerked his head, and now Harry could see their faces, Goyle and Nott crowding close behind, a shadow behind them that was probably Greengrass or Bulstrode.

            All of them. Harry saw Draco’s lips form the phrase before he raised his wand and brought it down again, a single word escaping his lips. Harry didn’t think it was an incantation. It sounded more like, “Willing.”

            Harry’s muscles coiled tighter than ever, and it was an effort to keep himself against the wall of the hut, to remind himself that Draco doubtless knew what he was doing better than Harry did. But it was hard, with the sparks raining down from Draco’s wand and the other Slytherins stepping back, too late, as the hard green glow of the potion solidified and tumbled to the ground in shards of emerald, and eyes seemed to focus on them.

            Harry had never seen anything like it before, the way the light hardened and grew and stabbed, and then launched itself across the space at the Slytherins. It pierced them, and they stood there with their mouths open and their wands frozen in their hands, gaping at Hagrid’s hut. Harry could see the frantic way their eyes fluttered, and knew they were fighting the imprisoning grip of the magic. But the ritual was all around them, the lines of green light recreating the spiral that surrounded Draco, but in reverse. This one, Harry thought, led away, and green light rose to touch the corners of the Slytherins’ temples and tugged.

            Silvery liquid leaked along those vines, the kind of liquid that Harry had seen leaking from Snape’s eyes when he died—nearly died—in the Shrieking Shack. Memories.

            The green light carried them across the ground between the two spirals, and poured them into the channels Draco had dug in the earth. Draco knelt down and held his hand out, and the liquid dashed towards him in a flood, propelled by the power. Harry saw him bow his head and swallow, but his extended hand never wavered.

            The magic hit him.

            It lit Draco up from inside, flaring through his bones and his skin, making him shimmer like a living statue. Harry opened his mouth to say something, and then found that he would have had no idea what to say even if he knew Draco well. His hands tightened on his wand, and he thought about intervening.

            And he still had no idea if he should. So far, no one was screaming—although the Slytherins probably would be if the magic of the ritual hadn’t frozen them. Draco had his eyes shut, and his body trembled with the onrush of the light, but he wasn’t crying out. Harry looked between them both in indecision, and wrapped his arms around himself, and bowed his head.

            Then he opened his eyes again. His own uncertainty tore at him, but if something happened that meant intervention was necessary, he could hardly see it with his eyes closed.

            The light was whipping through Draco now in long coils that looked like a recreation of the spiral inside his skin, and Harry saw the flaring shadows draped across his heart, his liver, his bowels. It was a way he had never thought he would see someone, and Harry shuddered and shivered and checked the state of his own feelings for a moment.

            No. He still desired Draco. This wasn’t about to destroy that. If anything, he thought reaching out would only involve him further in the magic and the wanting and the liking and—

            Oh, hell. I don’t know if what I’m feeling has a name.

            Draco spread his hands slowly, as if clawing at empty air. A grunt of effort broke from his throat, and he rocked back and forth on his heels, and Harry saw cracks spreading through the air in front of him.

            Harry stared. Yes, there was something there, something where he had thought there was only nothingness. Harry found himself falling a slow step back, and started when his back bounced off the hut.

            Draco cracked the nothingness, and dug, and clawed, and pulled, and dragged something dark and writhing out of the places which the nothingness had covered. Harry watched him, and sweated, and shivered, and dreamed.

            Draco had been right. There had been some things that he had to do himself. And Harry could feel the uncomfortable emotions inside him crystallize and then surge forwards, and although he would have given anything to help, he had to admit that he wouldn’t have missed out on this feeling of pride and wonder for anything in the world.

            Draco backed up a step, and then he brought his other hand up to grope at the air beside the first one, and opened his lips, and shouted.

            The shout seemed to ring from every corner of the world. Something in Harry’s head said that of course it didn’t, that he was being ridiculous, and if he could look away from Draco, if he could stop thinking of him as the center of the universe for one second, then he would see how silly he was being—

            But Draco took another step, and shouted, and heaved, and the air in front of him cracked and something spilled down it.

            For a moment, Harry thought it was the same liquid that had filled the grooves, the potion, and then he thought it was more green light. But instead, it was thick and manky and dark, and it clung to Draco’s hands. Draco stared at it for the longest time. Harry heard confused murmurs from the Slytherins, as if they were starting to wake up from whatever trance the green light had cast them in, and lifted his wand, prepared to defend Draco if necessary.

            But Draco caught his breath, and laughed, sadly, and then nodded and wrapped his hands around the dark knots of whatever it was, squeezing it. The thing bulged, and rippled uncertainly, and then exploded, dripping down his arms. Draco shut his mouth and eyes and pressed back towards Harry as if trying to get away from it.

            Harry started to reach out, ready to hold him and shelter him if that was what he needed. The lines of the spiral brightened in warning, though, and Harry doubted that Draco could leave them, or that Harry himself could cross them.

            Then the green light flared back to life, more brilliant than before, and making Harry think of his Dementor-driven memory of his mother dying.

            The burn was everywhere, shining and overcoming Harry, making him fall back a step in self-defense. One of the Slytherins—Harry hoped it was Zabini—moaned, and there was a sound that might have been someone clapping a hand over his eyes.

            The green light burst forth in a single roar, and Harry thought he saw both spirals dancing in the air, connected, the one around Draco and the one around the Slytherins that was made of light, and the night tore itself apart in thunder that Harry was sure his friends would see from Gryffindor Tower, if they woke and looked.

            Then the thunder and the light were gone. Harry caught his breath, and swallowed, and forced his eyes open against the pain.

            Draco slumped on his knees inside an area of burnt and blasted dirt that might have resembled a spiral, if you had known that and looked hard enough. And the Slytherins were fighting their way back to their feet inside an area that might have looked the same way, but they were more clear-eyed now, and their wands stayed low at their sides as they stared at Draco.

            Harry took a step towards them, ready to defend Draco if he had to. Then he remembered that he was Disillusioned, and none of them would see enough of him to realize that he could be a threat. He swished his wand and murmured the countercharm, and saw Goyle turn to gape at him as he suddenly appeared.

            But Zabini never glanced at him. He was staring at Draco instead, his jaw set, and after a moment, he spat on the ground, just as Draco got his balance back and shoved himself off the ground into a rise.

            “You tortured me,” Zabini whispered now. “I remember that. And you tried to make me forget it, me and all the rest of us. You’re responsible for what you did to us. You’re the reason that we threatened Potter and that we tortured you. You’re the one who did something to us so vile that our minds knew something was wrong and tried to make us wake up and see that.” His hands shook until he clasped them behind his back, and he bowed his head and trembled so hard that Harry was sure for a moment that he was going to vomit.

            Draco stood still, his head bowed too and his face utterly pale. Harry would have gone to him, but there were the remains of the spiral, and the fact that Draco might not welcome his interference, and…

            And the desire not to make him look weak in front of his friends. Harry had no idea if any friendship could remain between Draco and the other Slytherins now, but he did know that he had the obligation to hold back and try to promote it if it could. So he waited, his heart a high, nervous beat in his own ears.

            “I’m sorry,” Draco whispered. “I’m sorry. It never would have been so bad except that I tried to make you forget, and I wanted to forget, and I wanted to remember, and it all went wrong.” He hesitated, then held out a hand towards Zabini over the churned dirt near him. “Can you forgive me?”

            Zabini jerked back up. His face was almost grey, and his hand shook so badly on his wand that Harry was afraid of what would happen if he did try to curse Draco.

            “Forgive you?” he asked. “For torturing me? For giving me nightmares for two months? For betraying me?” He choked on something that sounded like a large ball of spit, and then laughed. “Do you think—Draco, you think that you deserve anything after that? Except to be thrown out with the rubbish?”

            Draco’s spine went stiff. He opened his mouth, then shut it again with a sound as small and dry as the burning of paper. Harry could see all the truth in his face; he wondered if Draco’s friends—former friends—could read it half as well. Draco had forced himself to concentrate so much on the ritual and spell to get past the corrupted Memory Charm that he hadn’t considered what would happen after that if everything didn’t simply go back to normal.

            “Go fuck yourself with your precious forgiveness,” Zabini said, and turned and stomped off. The others followed him, except for Goyle, who lingered for a moment, opening his mouth as though to say something. Draco looked up and held his eyes.

            That seemed to decide Goyle. In seconds he was gone after the others, and the echoes he left behind died quickly.

            Draco stood there. Harry stood there. He wished he had some comfort to give, but he knew there was nothing that wouldn’t make the situation worse, so he waited with his mouth closed and looked helplessly at Draco.

            Draco used his spread fingers to push his fringe back from his forehead, and then stared at his hand, looking surprised to find it shaking. He gave a shake of his head, in turn, and clasped his hands behind his back. He shut his eyes and swayed on his feet. Well, anyone would have, after a ritual that intense, Harry thought.

            But he knew it wasn’t from that.

            And he knew, suddenly, that he might not be able to say anything, but that didn’t mean there weren’t things he could do.

            He stepped forwards, and wrapped his arms around Draco’s waist.

            He didn’t say anything, even now, and didn’t try to touch Draco further than with the embrace and leaning his chin on Draco’s shoulder. It had to be up to Draco—who had done what he had come here to do this evening, unbelievably—to accept Harry’s support or not, and Harry could imagine a lot of reasons that he might be reluctant to do that.

            Draco choked on air, and took a single step backwards, into Harry. He didn’t fall. He was choosing this, and that made Harry choke in turn, and hold him until Draco stirred in his arms and whispered that they should go back to the school.

            They did, walking under Disillusionment with the broom floating behind them, because riding would have required them to separate.

*

            Moma Nina: Thank you!

            LeaniaSTL: Probably unlikely that Draco will withdraw from Harry again, considering his reaction at the end here.

            unneeded: McGonagall is going to do a lot of headshaking in the next chapter.

            Zip: You mean a secret about the Slytherins? No. He really did tell Harry everything about that, because he knew that if Harry found out he’d lied again, he could have kissed any chance of help goodbye.

            ChaosLady: Right now, I am planning for the story to end on Chapter 34. It might be a bit earlier or later.

            Fullmoons_wings: I think that you’re right on what Draco noticing Harry like that means for them!

            Draco really wanted at least one problem solved, which is why he pushed himself to do the ritual like this.

            And believe me, no one is more relieved that Snape is out of the Shack than Snape himself. He thought he’d go spare staring at the four walls for months.

            Makoto Sagara: Klein worried about what would happen if she couldn’t “control” Harry, so to speak. But she’s calmed down partially because she’s decided that she’s not responsible for that and partially because Harry seems to have calmed down.

            Glad that you like the slow progression of their relationship! It’s true that Draco is wishy-washy, but this is an entirely new situation for him. He really did think Harry would turn away from him after his confession about torturing Blaise.

            I don’t think I noted who else Ginny is involved with, just that it’s not Harry.

            Hermione’s parents being in Australia is something that often feels, to me, like it ought to be the center of a story…but that would make it awfully hard to write an H/D story. This is the best compromise for me, having it be a subplot.
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Parsimony