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Soldier's Welcome	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 25565 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Eight�Training

�� He asked me to call him Harry.

�� Two days
had passed since that had happened, days that he and Harry had mostly spent
buried in the Manor�s library, searching for ways to train their compatible
magic and ensure they didn�t drain one another again. And still Draco felt as
if he was reeling from the shock every time he glanced up and saw Harry�s
bright green eyes narrowed on a book, his lips moving, or watched him spinning
his wand in his hand and glancing dubiously from it to the words on the page.

�� He wanted me to call him Harry.

�� Draco
wondered now why he had held off for so long. It had seemed natural at the
time; he could have named his reasons without hesitation three days ago. But
those reasons had melted, and now he couldn�t.

�� It was strange.
Enthralling. Terrifying. Draco wondered what it meant for him and for them.

�� You shouldn�t be thinking about this right
now. You should be thinking about some way to master your compatible magic
permanently.

�� On the
other hand, they weren�t in battle right now, and they had the rest of the
Christmas holidays to consider what they should do about their magic. And Harry
wasn�t privy to his thoughts, either. He wasn�t even looking up when Draco
looked at him, the way he often did when he felt eyes on him. Draco thought he
could stare and muse as much as he liked.

�� He propped
his chin up on his hand and stared some more. At the moment, Harry was bent so
far over his book that it looked as if his hair had grown from the pages. His
forehead was wrinkled, as Draco could see from the side, but most of his face
was hidden. He shook his head, and then ran his fingers through his hair.

Draco had raised his wand before he
knew what he was doing, to hopefully soothe that tangled mess back into shape.
Harry glanced up at him, blinking.

�What are you doing?� he demanded
in irritation. �Put that down. I don�t want to do any experiments until I�ve
tried to understand this damned thing one more time. I�m certain it�s the book
we need, but the language is so bloody confusing.�
He turned back to the book, his lips forming the words once more.

Draco lowered his wand and scowled.
He hated that Harry could put him off so easily, but he would rather not do
things that would irritate Harry any more, no matter how small.

And
that�s why it doesn�t bother me to call him by his first name and not his last
name, even though it should.

�� Draco
blinked. He had adapted to dropping �Potter�
remarkably well, hadn�t he? He hadn�t slipped up once since Harry asked, and
not just because the need to return a gift for the gift of Politesse had been
so strong. That feeling might have faded, but his desire to do as Harry had
asked hadn�t.

�� I like to do what makes him happy. I would
have called him Harry earlier if I knew how much it mattered to him.

�� And that
suggested the case of his infatuation for Harry was just as bad as his mother
had told him it was.

�� Draco
scowled and glared down unseeing at the parchment in front of him. He wasn�t
sure how he felt about this. Yes, it was one thing to think of Harry as a
partner and a friend, and it was one thing to keep him happy�

�� That�s two things, his internal grammar
monitor pointed out, in the voice of his mother.

�� But it was
another thing altogether to move based on the fragile conclusions that he might
draw from such speculations. Harry hadn�t seemed to react well to Draco�s
attempts to increase their intimacy. He had shut down the discussion of their
not-kiss. He didn�t realize how rare it was for Draco to tell someone else details
of his life the way Draco had done with Harry. He had tried to kill himself,
which wasn�t an indication that he thought his life mattered to Draco, or that
Draco wanted him alive.

�� Draco
gnawed his lip. He didn�t understand, and he wanted to. Eventually, he would need to try to impress or court or
date someone he liked so much, but not without assurance that he wasn�t risking
his pride.

�� I can�t risk myself too much. I can�t bare
my soul without some hope of a return. I need that from Harry. I need to know
that he�ll give himself to me before I can say that I would give myself. Otherwise, we�re being as unequal as we always
are, the way that Harry said we were, with my giving and his taking.

�� Harry
glanced up at him, eyes brilliant and finger resting possessively on one line
in the book. �I think I have it,� he said breathlessly.

�� Draco
froze. It wasn�t fear or anger that froze him in place, as it was so often with
Harry. No, it was awe at the way excitement could change Harry�s face. This was
one of the few times Draco had seen innocent excitement there, not haunted by
fear or the resentment he�d felt when the instructors first made them partners
and forced them to duel together.

�� Draco�s
heart gave a single slow beat, and it seemed forever before he could make
himself lean forwards and say with assumed indifference, �Let�s see it, then.�

�� Let him give himself to me soon, or at least
make some move to show me that he respects my pride.

�� Otherwise, I may not be able to wait.

*

�� You�re
sure that we�ll be safe in here?� Harry looked around uncertainly. Draco had
led him to a plain stone room in the lower levels of the Manor. It didn�t look
as though it had any protections of the kind that dueling rooms at the Ministry
did, not even basic wards.

�� For an
answer, Draco flicked his wand. The walls around them twitched, and Harry had
to cover his eyes; it was too much like having his glasses knocked off for
comfort. When he could lower his hand again, brilliant blue light covered them,
sparking and glittering. Harry turned to look at the door again and found blue
light splayed across that, too.

�� Those are
stronger wards than any that I saw Dearborn use,� Harry said in surprise. Pushkin
had taught them about wards in Observation, too, and Harry knew that their
brightness indicated their power.

�� Of course
they are.� Draco was pacing to the far edge of the room and had his back turned
to Harry, but his voice still thrummed with irritation. �My family has conducted
dangerous experiments here for generations. They�ve spelled the wards, spilled
the blood to strengthen them, and ensured that they would grow more complex as
their descendants added to them.� He paused and shot Harry a look over his
shoulder. He was distant enough that Harry couldn�t read his face perfectly. �Do
you have a problem with that?�

�� No.� Harry
shook his head and drew his wand. �I just wondered why you were taking Dearborn�s
class at all if you were powerful enough to set these wards yourself.�

�� There�s
more to Auror Dearborn�s class than wards and magical strength.� Draco�s voice
was softer now, and Harry hoped that meant his answer had calmed him down. �You
know that yourself. You haven�t managed to master offensive magic the way you�ve
managed to master defensive yet.�

�� I know.�
Harry set himself carefully opposite Draco, imitating his stance as much as he
could: shoulders back, head held up straight, muscles ready but not tense. It
was important to the information he�d found that he do so. �But I�ll have a
much easier time of it if we manage to get this to work.�

�� Draco�s
eyebrows rose. �If.�

�� Concentrate
as hard as you can,� Harry said, ignoring him. This is still our best chance. And I was the one who found it, not him.
If he wants me to try something different so badly, let him find something. �I
think you should do this first because you got better Observation marks than I
did and you can probably sense it better.�

�� He saw
Draco�s mouth fall open, a strangely soft look curling his lips. It faded in a
moment, but not before Harry was certain that he�d seen it. He blinked.

�� I gave something to him. A compliment. A
small one, but I reckon that he appreciates it anyway.

�� Harry
licked his lips. He hadn�t thought of that method of dealing with his
realization that he�liked Draco. But that was probably because he was
inherently selfish and a taker. Why not try to give him more gifts? That might
ease the tension between them, the cramped tension that Harry sometimes thought
he understood and sometimes didn�t.

�� But right
now, he really needed to be thinking about something else. He pointed his wand at
the wall beyond Draco and shouted, �Creo
speculum!�

*

�� Draco shook
off his astonishment at the kind words and focused every sense he had on the
air between them as Harry cast the spell. He saw the light pulse at the end of
Harry�s wand and closed his eyes. He didn�t want to be distracted by the physical signs of the spell.

�� The book
had said people with compatible magic should be able to feel the effects of
each other�s casting. Of course Draco felt that effect when he got the extra
strength in the wake of Harry�s spells, but the book insisted it should go
beyond that.

�� He imagined
his ears growing longer, his eyes growing wider�although they were shut now�and
his skin becoming more sensitive. Anything, everything that would allow him to
pick up on the disturbance in the ambient magic that Harry�s spell could be
causing, he imagined using it.

�� He felt
silly�

�� Until he
felt a faint ripple slide alongside his head.

�� He
immediately threw his hand out, in the way the book had commanded, and focused
all his attention on his wand core. Unicorn hair, different from Harry�s
phoenix feather but not that much, both from creatures of purity and goodness,
conducting his magic, linked to Harry�s power by their compatibility, throbbing
with his spells, resounding to his will�

�� He heard a
sharp gasp. Draco spent a moment breathing calmly before he opened his eyes. If
he reacted too much to Harry�s surprise, then he might lose the effect they had
worked so hard to create.

�� He tried to
subdue his inner triumph, because it could interfere in the same way, but he
could not help feeling smug that they had done something on the first try that
the book had said would take twenty attempts or more.

�� Harry�s
spell, which, if it had been successful, would have created a mirror on the
wall behind Draco, hovered instead as a glowing ball of white-silver light on
the tip of Draco�s wand. Draco bounced his wand up and down, careful not to let
it lose contact with his skin, and the light came with him.

�� He glanced
up at Harry. Harry, his eyes wide with wonder, nodded. Draco spun and hurled
the ball of light at the wall, jerking his wand up sharply to make sure it
went.

�� The silver
light leaped and arced down, colliding with the wall rather close to the floor.
That didn�t matter. What mattered was that it burst, flooding outwards. Draco�s
eyes watered, but he managed to concentrate through the tears and see the exact
moment when the mirror formed, as perfectly as if Harry�s original spell had
gone through.

�� The book was right. Exultation flooded
Draco as he stood there. We can use each
other�s spells and hold them back if we sense them in time. We can draw on each
other�s strength without harm. The main problem is that we must become good
enough to feel it when one of us is dangerously near exhaustion.

�� My magic, his magic�it�s really our magic. We can change the direction of each other�s spells in battle, or save
them for later. We can change them if need be, once we get better. We are more powerful
than any sixteen wizards put together.

�� Draco had
to wait a moment before he turned around, since he didn�t want to show the line
of his hard cock tenting his trousers to Harry.

*

�� Harry
glanced at Draco out of the corner of his eye. �You�re sure that you want me to
do this?�

�� Yes.
Mother already said we could.� Draco was pacing back and forth, his muscles
rippling in a way that Harry found it hard to pull his eyes away from. He
managed when he recalled Draco�s words. He sounded as if Narcissa�s disapproval
was the worst thing they had to worry about.

�� On the
other hand, it was just as well they didn�t have to face it, combined with
Nihil and the feelings Harry was struggling with and the unanswered questions
about what in the world he was going to tell his friends when they find out he
was attracted to Draco. Harry nodded and forced himself to look only at the
vision in front of them for a count of ten.

�� It appeared
the Malfoys owned small parcels of land throughout Britain that came with
safehouses where their ancestors used to flee in old wizarding wars, or when
the Muggles started hunting wizards intensely and they needed to vanish. (Harry
had already teased Draco about his family apparently not being popular for
centuries. Draco had given him a frozen look and said nothing). This particular
one contained a tangled, woody grove of old pines that had wound themselves together
and then died. Narcissa had suggested that they use it for practice.

�� Did Draco tell her the details of the
practice, though? Harry wondered. The trees were old, and he thought
Narcissa was the kind of person who would resent the destruction of anything
old, no matter how useless it was.

�� But they
badly needed to practice, and now that they were both better at sensing and
halting spells than they had been, this was the logical next step. Harry did
wish Draco had wanted to go first, though. It felt like he had given Harry the
chance to do that instead of taking it for himself, and Harry was bloody tired
of being the one to get all the gifts.

�� I even demanded that he call me by my first
name after I gave him Politesse.

�� Harry
sighed, reminded himself that Draco had been the one to insist on returning a
gift for a gift and anyway they didn�t have time for him to brood about this,
and lifted his wand. Draco mirrored him, just like Harry had had to mirror his
position when he was going to cast the spell for Draco to catch. Harry hoped
there was a way to get around that requirement eventually. They wouldn�t have
time to seek each other out in every battle and do little posing dances.

�� He squeezed
his eyes shut and concentrated on Draco the way he had learned to concentrate
on flung spells over the last few days. It took time to sort Draco�s presence
out from the brush of grass against his ankles and the sweep of cloth against
his skin, but at last Harry thought he had it: something like a second heartbeat
of his own, but outside his body. He nodded.

�� Go on,
then.� Draco�s voice had a slight tremor to it, which made Harry feel better
about his own nerves.

�� Harry
reached out to him.

�� The magic
was there, trembling and floating towards him. The effect was extremely
delicate, like beads of water clinging to a rope that Harry held which was
linked to Draco, and Harry knew that he only needed to twitch the rope to hurl
the beads off. He clenched his teeth and kept on drawing it towards him.

�� Draco
gasped a few times, but Harry paused each time, and could still feel the
heartbeat of magic from him, strong and steady. It was probably just that he
was conscious now and expecting the drain, so it felt stranger than it had when
Harry reached out and pulled a bunch of power all at once without permission.

�� As the
magic flooded into him, Harry felt as though his skin had become too tight,
straining with the pressure of liquid. He gulped several times. He opened his
mouth permanently at last, because it felt as if he were drowning. He had to reach the air, but the magic was
getting in the way.

�� Finally, he
decided that the end had come�not because he could feel Draco getting tired, no
matter how he concentrated, but because he couldn�t take any more power. He
opened his eyes, the world around him shiny with floating haze-rings, and
pointed his wand at the grove of old trees.

�� Aboleo cum flamma!�

�� The magic
rose and coursed through him, a flood, outwards. It was the most dangerous and
powerful and rewarding thing Harry had ever felt. He found himself howling, and
didn�t think it was words. It was a simple, primal cry, a necessary cleansing of
his soul given what had poured into him.

�� The trees
rose from the ground, carried on a plume of fire. Harry blinked in shock,
seeing no connection happen between his wand and the spell, the way he would
have ordinarily; the trees simply spiraled up, and up, and then exploded into
ashes at the height of their rise, raining down bits of charred wood and
sparks. Harry remembered that they would set the grass on fire, and maybe the
safehouse, if he let them.

�� And maybe
Draco.

�� That
thought was the most disturbing. Harry spun his wand and cast a Shield Charm.

�� At least,
he thought it was a Shield Charm. The
Shield Charm shouldn�t form a slick silvery film that covered the grass, the
house, Draco, himself, and most of the other things in sight that weren�t on
fire.

�� Harry stood
there blinking as the ashes landed. They immediately went out, and he felt
nothing where they�d landed on his skin. He lifted his hands to brush them off,
and received an odd, smooth, sliding feeling when his hand passed along his
robes and arms, as though he were made of ice.

�� What was that?� Draco said, with an immense
dignity that made Harry wince.

�� He turned
to face him. Draco was watching the film that covered him; Harry could somehow
tell that from the way his eyes were focused, even though he was turned in the
right direction to be watching Harry, instead. He reached up and picked at the
film that covered his nose, which immediately oozed back into place. Then he
flinched as a branch landed not far behind him, but the ground didn�t even
shudder.

�� Then he
looked angry because he�d been made to flinch when he hadn�t needed to.

�� Harry took
a deep breath. He wondered for a minute what would happen when the film flowed
into his lungs, but the answer seemed to be �nothing,� maybe because the magical
protection was there already.

�� Um,� he
said. �A sign that we need to practice more?�

�� Draco
stared at him, then shook his head in disgust and tugged on the magic �rope�
that still extended between them, once Harry could pay attention to it. Using
some of Harry�s power as well as his own, he cleared off the film and put out
the fires. Harry licked his lips and told himself they didn�t feel odd from
having had the film on them.

�� This time,�
Draco said dangerously, as he flipped his wand and conjured a stack of wooden
shields where the trees had stood, �I do
the honors.�

�� Harry
stepped meekly to the side and prepared to let Draco drain his magic from him,
knowing that it would feel odd. �I do think it�s interesting,� he said. �I tried
to cast the Shield Charm, and that�s what I got instead. Something even more
effective. Maybe being full of shared magic increases our power in specific
spells as well as generally, and that means��

�� It made,�
Draco said, his teeth cutting off almost every word so it stood alone. �A.
Great. Mess.�

�� Harry
wisely fell silent.

*

�� Harry had
fallen asleep again.

�� Draco
turned around from telling the house-elf, Mariganny, who�d come to serve them
after dinner, what kind of drinks they wanted and found Harry leaning against
the back of the couch, his head tilted back and his mouth slightly open. He�d
fallen asleep after other training sessions, too, but never as fast as this.

�� Draco
reckoned that completely destroying a grove of trees with fire and then
spreading a disgusting slime over everything in the same day�not to mention
having his magic pulled on when it was Draco�s turn to practice�would take it
out of him.

�� He meant to
stay where he was, so he could drink the wine he wanted and taunt Harry for
falling asleep when he woke. Yet he found himself dismissing Mariganny with a
murmured word and rising to his feet to approach the couch.

�� Harry�s
snoring was loud enough to sound in Draco�s ears like a cat�s purr when he
stood close to him. Draco grimaced. If they ever shared a pillow, then that was
something that would have to change. Draco would teach Harry specialized
Silencing Charms before he would ever let him exhale like that close to his ear.

�� If it ever came to that. Which it would not.

�� Draco sat
down on the couch next to Harry. Harry went on snoring, though his head rolled
to the side as if he wanted to keep track of Draco in his sleep. His mouth
opened further. Draco reached out and touched Harry�s skin, his fingers
lingering on the warmth.

�� I want him. But I can�t take him as he is,
selfish and suicidal and distant from me. If he wants me at all, then he�ll
have to make the first move.

�� Draco
thought of the way that Harry had resisted telling anyone the truth about his
fits and the truth about why he had ended his relationship with the Weaselette,
and snorted.

�� And that will never happen, either, because he
will never lessen his denial.

�� Draco rose
to his feet. Now that Harry was sleeping, perhaps he could get some research
done on whether Harry�s fits were caused by a problem with his magical core. He
had wanted to tackle the subject earlier, but Harry had insisted that their problems
with compatible magic and getting it under control were more important.

�� That is another thing that must cease. The
way he does not regard himself as important, to the point of trying to turn me
away from doing something that could help him simply because it would help him.

�� Politesse
was waiting for him outside the room; he had taken a decided dislike to Harry
and usually refused to be with Draco when he was with Harry. (As Draco had
expected, the small, elegant beast and his mother had taken to each other at
once). Draco held out an arm, and the little dog-creature crawled delicately up
it and to his shoulder, where he promptly sat down.

�� Draco
smiled as he walked. His careful testing of Politesse had revealed loyalty
spells woven into his very being. Draco was not afraid of Politesse ever betraying
him, or taking another master, or hurting him unintentionally the way Harry was
prone to do.

�� Harry bought him to be a friend to me in
situations where he can�t be with me. I fear that Politesse will have to do, in
the end, even in those situations where Harry could be with me, because he won�t
want to.

�� Politesse�s
ears flicked back and forth and he turned his head, sharpness and delicacy in
every line. Draco watched him from the corner of his eye. Politesse was
everything that Harry was not.

�� I need him to change before I can be with
him.

�� And how can that happen, when he won�t admit
he needs to?

*

�� qwerty: Thank
you! As you can see, Harry is fumbling his way towards what he�s going to do
about his attraction, and he�s actually making more progress on this front than
Draco right now.

�� hieisdragoness18:
I promise, that woman wasn�t Andromeda.

�� MewMew2:
Thanks for catching that.

�� Alliandre:
Thank you!

�� SP777: That�s
a good thing to pick up on, though it wasn�t necessarily what I was going for
consciously with regards to those scenes.

�� Soria: It
only gets worse in the next few chapters.

�� Mr Spears:
Thank you!

�� Callistianstar:
Thanks! I didn�t want to show the exact scene from Draco�s POV, but there�s no
doubt that he thinks more of his own reaction than Harry�s.

�� Dragons
Breath: That�s one way of putting it!

�� inesistente:
Thanks!
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