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The Same Species As Shakespeare	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine--Condemned Into Everlasting Redemption

Lucius took a diary from the shelf where he had left it and sat down. For the first time he could remember, he turned the blue-edged pages impatiently, hunting for one particular passage, overrunning it, and then returning with a feeling that he was dragging a heavy finger over the ink and smudging it. He wasn�t, but his hand gripped the corner of the page and trembled with suppressed passion.
I failed. Draco rescued himself, and Potter held the imposter off until Draco could strike him, and Severus was the one whose potion will make the fool sorry for his existence. I didn�t protect Draco the way Narcissa would have wanted me to.

On the other hand, Weasley had demonstrated nothing more than loyalty to Potter. He had been just as useless. Couldn�t Lucius take comfort in that?
No. Because he hasn�t sworn to guard Potter the way I swore to guard Draco.

Useless. In every way a failure.

But it wasn�t anger with himself that made him turn the pages of Narcissa�s diary like this, seeking for and finding a certain passage. In the past, when he had conduct to censor himself for, he came here meek and unassuming, and looked at her writing with reverence. She was an image of success in one way; she had succeeded in protecting Draco during her lifetime and died doing the same thing. And she had hidden her lack of love for Lucius from him, whilst Lucius had never convinced her he was indifferent.
Anger surged and boiled and whirled in him, and it should have been for himself--the words at the surface of his mind said it was--but it was not.
Where does it come from, then?

He tried to erase the words from his consciousness by finally stabbing his finger into the book to mark the right passage and beginning to read, but the anger only rose like a spirit, losing the body of the understandable thoughts that had contained it, and coiled in the back of his mind. It was too large to be contained in words, and in moments or a month or a year it would break.
To avoid the storm, which he knew dimly would change many perceptions he had carried in his mind, Lucius read.

*
Draco lifted his head and blinked slowly. He lay with his arms wrapped around Harry in his own bed. Harry, in turn, lay facing him with his lips slightly parted. A line of drool had worked its way out of his mouth and down his chin.
Draco grimaced and wiped the liquid away, then wiped his hand on the pillowcase. He would have to call a house-elf to take care of that later.
He examined the drape of his arms around Harry�s torso and one of his legs around Harry�s waist, and concluded he couldn�t move without awakening his lover. He lay back instead, shifted until he found a comfortable position for his neck against the pillows, and stared at Harry.
No mark of extraordinary bravery showed in his expression, despite what had happened yesterday. The scar proclaimed the heroism of the past, the facing of Voldemort rather than the imposter. Draco doubted that, if asked, any wizard or Muggle would have said this was the face of a man who could try to rescue a traitorous lover from death.
I wish everyone�s character was written on their faces. It would be easier to know who you should actually trust.

Then Draco winced. And I would probably have far fewer clients if that was the case, and Harry wouldn�t have fallen in love with me.

Love. That was something new to think about. Draco shifted restlessly. He had never doubted his mother loved him, but Narcissa didn�t require demonstrations of it. She simply asked Draco certain questions, watched over him from a distance, and protected his life when she needed to. Draco had reposed on her love, in turn, the way he lay on the bed right now: with utter confidence that it would support him, and no thought for it otherwise.
He knew, distantly, that his father loved him, but Lucius�s emotion was an irritant since the end of the war. Draco suspected his father really sought some reflection of Narcissa�s features in his own and loved that more than he did Draco�s actual, existing form. It was one reason he had done his best to ignore Lucius in the past few years and convince others he was mad. Let him put that emotion safely out of the way, and Draco doubted it would trouble him.
Severus valued his Potions skills and the dedication and good memory that enabled him to exercise them. In a way, Draco�s relationship with his old Head of House was the most comfortable he had ever known. They were both conditionally fond of one another and owed each other debts they couldn�t repay. If Draco suddenly lost his Potions skills, he knew Severus would give him up as useless. Likewise, he had no fear of that happening as long as he retained them.
His clients could love him or not, so long as they continued to give him new commissions and paid him on time.
This new relationship with Harry was something else again, something that took the name of love, scooped out the insides Draco had always known it to have, dropped in a new filling, and expected him to swallow it as usual.
He didn�t know if he could do this. It would be difficult and new and require constant readjustment. He would make mistakes. More, Harry would expect him to apologize for his old ones and remain attentive to correcting them, such as making sure he never called Granger a Mudblood again.
He didn�t know if he particularly wanted this relationship, if he could do it.
But he was certain that his need for it would endure past any transient longing to be free or any anxieties about his performance. His obsession had only grown more permanent and choking when he had seen Harry again. It was a well-watered plant now--Draco pictured it as a thick, luxuriant vine tying them together in endless looping coils, covered with small blue flowers--and it would not lessen or weaken because of any effort on Harry�s part.
Besides, Draco knew that trying to unroot it from himself would cause him intolerable pain. And he had an interest in avoiding pain.
He laid his lips against the skin under Harry�s ear and closed his eyes.

*
Lucius read the passage again. His eyes stung and watered; he hadn�t been to bed, and he knew he needed to. Sleep always helped him recover his emotional balance after an unexpected shaking like the one he had received when the imposter kidnapped Draco. How could he appear before Potter and Weasley with a lined face, red eyes, and his breath coming short?
But there was a certain point where good intentions ran out before physical incapacity, and he could not remove his eyes from the page.
I know that I am the only one who truly loves Draco, that iron bands bind him to me and me to him. Let him leave me for a hundred years and come back with all his beauty fallen to dust; I would know him still, and find the beauty hiding like the dust of sleep in the corners of his eyes. Let him spurn my love in his pride as an independent man and cry aloud that none of my care in his childhood mattered to him; I will watch over him from a distance. Let him bend his bones with iron, take Polyjuice, put a knife to his throat to try and spill the blood; I will be at hand to prevent fatal accidents and give him back his true shape, which my hands and eyes know so well.
Lucius could never understand a bond like this. It is unique, not only to mother and son, but to me and Draco. Blood and iron, flesh and bone, to the end, which will be bitter, for this much love cannot help but be.

Lucius does not love our son.

He had read the words before. At the time, he had closed his eyes and bowed his head in humility and agreed with his wife. She had gone into death and darkness that Lucius had hesitated in front of, despite being the one who had dragged his family into devotion to the Dark Lord, because she loved Draco. He had never once dreamed of doing such a thing. How, then, could he claim that he loved Draco and desired only what was best for him?
But now, he knew otherwise. The panic that had gripped him during Draco�s kidnapping and had ruined his attempt to locate the imposter�s mind was a sign of love. So was the way he had been willing to ally with Potter and Weasley.
That is a step Narcissa never could have taken. She was so sure she was the only one who loved Draco that she never would have looked for help to save him.

So there was a limit to his wife�s competence, her magical power, her deadly coolness.
And hadn�t that always been true? Narcissa never looked into Lucius�s soul and saw that what lurked there was not so different from what lurked in her own. She was unable to recognize the strength of others, even when it would have complemented her own strength. She talked of Severus, her sister, the Dark Lord, everyone but Draco as a playing piece in a game she had constructed and was mistress of. It had been a mistake, and ultimately what killed her. She was incapable of seeing her own limits.
Lucius, at least, knew what it was like to live with weakness and inability. He had spent the last seven years doing it.
The anger blew across his mind in a howling wind now, thick and stinging with particles of contempt like sand.
Why did I feel so inferior to her? Why did she dominate my life for the past years the way she has? Why was I more involved in paying tribute to her love of Draco than in exercising my own?

Why did I ever take every word she wrote as truth?

The anger turned and lashed the other way. Lucius dug his fingers into the pages and stared at his wife�s letters. Some revelation was coming up on him, galloping so fast that he shook with it.
He didn�t know what it was yet, but in a few moments the storm would break, and then he would.

*

Harry set his heels and waited. He hadn�t thought there would be a conflict with Draco quite this soon, but--well, it had arrived, and it wasn�t as though he had expected their relationship to be perfect from this point forwards anyway.
Though it would have been nice if it was, he told himself, and then settled for breathing quietly and watching Draco�s eyes.
Draco folded his arms and stared at the floor halfway between him and Harry, which was occupied by the dining room table. They were in what seemed to be the Malfoys� second-best dining room, less formidable than the one Harry had eaten in when he was first guarding Draco. Polished oak made the table, Harry thought, or some sweet-scented wood that had much the same shades of brown; he kept smelling some drifting fragrance that vanished again when he tried to locate it. Nice, but not interesting enough to hold the attention of someone like Draco for this long. Harry, standing on the other side of it, slid his hands into his robe pockets and went on breathing slowly and silently.
�Why do you want this?� Draco�s voice had a cracked, tinny sound to it, like the kind Harry had heard coming out of some Muggle tellies. Usually after Dark wizards tried enchanting them in some way. �You�re a private person, you�ve told me. You like keeping things quiet. You even resent the articles the Prophet writes about the arrests you�ve made.� His eyes rose and locked on Harry�s, and Harry half-wanted to hug him because of the look of confused vulnerability in them, and half-wanted to laugh. �So why this?�
�Two reasons,� Harry said. �It�s one of the few things that could possibly convince other people you�re serious about this--we�re serious about this--and make them give us a bit of respect instead of cynically assuming I�ve taken you back because I like pain and our relationship will fall apart in a month or so. I would have thought you�d be in favor of that, considering how much you like people to admire you and give you the time of day instead of turning their backs on you.� He paused, but Draco�s open, pleading gaze never wavered.
�And second,� Harry said softly, �it�s one of the few things that will convince me you are serious about apologizing.�
Draco stared at the table again, though from the motion of his arms Harry imagined he had clenched his hands together. �I�ve already apologized, fought for you, and slept in the same bed holding you, which I�ve never done for anyone else,� he said. �I don�t know what else I can do.�
�This.�
Draco winced and lifted his head again. At least this time his eyes had lost some of their antipathetic glitter, and he looked more or less resigned. Harry had known he couldn�t expect joy. �You�re relentless, are you?�
�As much as you were in hurting me in the first place, yes.� Harry rocked forwards instead of shifting his weight the way he wanted to. As much as he loved Draco, he still found it hard to trust him, and he knew Draco would take advantage of any sign of weakness; in a way, he wouldn�t be able to help himself. �I think I have to be, or you won�t respect me.�
Draco ground his teeth. Then he took a deep breath and said, �I�m not asking to be let out of it, Harry. I can only imagine how many people will be after me if I don�t do this, from your friends to the papers. There would be some people who would swallow the story I offered to the Prophet and then turn right around and accuse me of demeaning you.� He shook his head like a horse with the bit cutting into his mouth. �But--not right now. Let�s have a few weeks with each other first, please? Where we don�t have to do anything like this?� His voice soared, pleading, and then he cracked his teeth into each other as if that would make a better sound.
Harry waited until he was certain Draco had recovered from his own dramatics and was actually looking at him. Then he shook his head.
�Why not?� There was a time Draco�s cry would have shattered Harry�s heart, but he had learned to judge him better since he started acknowledging there were flaws in his idol. This sound was more petulance than pain.
And Merlin knew Harry had known more than enough childish criminals in his day, more upset about being caught than they were about the magnitude of their crimes.
�Because,� Harry said, �I can�t trust you until you make this apology, and I don�t want to delay trusting you.�
Draco bit his lip. Then he took a step forwards and spoke in a smooth, persuasive voice. �Harry, I knew I had made the wrong decision almost as soon as I went to the papers. I couldn�t deny it after I received your letter, but even before that, I was muttering to myself and found it hard to look at the pictures above the articles. The moment of my greatest triumph was nearly my greatest downfall. The colors only brightened around me after I thought I had a chance of winning you back, and as painful as the lesson Faustine forced on me was, I went through with it and got used to it. I�ve learned my lesson. Please don�t make me do this.�
�I�m sorry,� Harry said.
�Why does it have to be this that teaches you to trust me?� Draco ran a hand through his hair, disordering it, a gesture that let Harry know exactly how upset he was--or a gesture that he had carefully planned to show how upset he was. Harry still couldn�t be sure, and he hated the feeling that he was constantly the subject of manipulations going on behind Draco�s mask, a game his lover was so involved in he barely noticed he was playing it anymore. Harry had no hope of being able to stop the game completely, but he thought he could at least lessen the degree to which he was subject to it. �Why not something else? Some private gesture--�
�Because this is what I want,� Harry interrupted, finally growing tired of Draco�s excuses. �For you to accompany me to the papers and for us to give an exclusive interview to Rita Skeeter explaining we were both wrong and we�ve forgiven each other.�
Draco�s eyes fell again, and he was silent.
�Unless,� Harry added, and he hadn�t realized he could add so much menace to his voice, �this price is too much for you to pay, and you�re happier turning away from me and separating again. I�m sure I would manage to learn to live without you--�
Draco lunged at him, and forgot the table was in the middle, and half-sprawled across it. Harry leaped back anyway and stood watching him, swallowing a little. I didn�t mean to make him look foolish. We�ll have to see if he manages to recover, and to forgive me that.

Draco pulled himself slowly back to his feet and shook his head as slowly. His eyes looked like waves drowning a gravel shore, they were so gray. �And you saw the way I reacted even to the words,� he said quietly. �Harry, I can�t let you go. You�re part of me to such an extent--� He held out his hands as if together they could encompass the world. �We�ll have to get used to each other. We�ll have to try to do something other than inflict wounds on one another. You�ll have to get used to my having some hard times with your friends before we manage to settle into a truce.� He closed his eyes and bowed his head, an arrow-keen smile curving his mouth as he did so. �And I�ll have to do as you ask.�
Harry didn�t step around the table and embrace him. He would have liked to, but he doubted it was the right moment for that. He nodded briskly and turned towards the front doors of the Manor instead, as if he had never doubted Draco�s decision. �Let�s go, then.�

*
Lucius thrust the diary onto the table next to him and closed his eyes. The storm had broken, and revelations blew through his mind like a tsunami at sea, bits of breaking and tossing foam that touched him briefly and were gone.
Narcissa said that only she could love and protect Draco, and that she was certain I never loved her.

She was wrong.

She said that she was the only one who could prevent harm from coming to Draco, and that her plans would always afford her a way of doing so.

She was wrong.

I�ve confined myself to the study of her diaries for a decade because I thought I needed to understand her, and that was the only way I could do so, and that I had to make up for her death somehow.

I was wrong.

Lucius opened his eyes, and though he knew that neither Draco nor Severus would have seen anything but a man sitting in a chair and glaring furiously at an empty portrait frame, the whirling rage that filled his skull and burst out in a fiercely independent declaration was enough for him.
Narcissa�s death was the direct result of one of her own plans. She thought she could seduce the Dark Lord with her beauty and convince him not to hurt Draco that way. Instead, the only thing she did was rouse Bellatrix�s jealousy and earn her own gruesome death--and if she really believed that she was the only one who could protect Draco, she left her beloved son vulnerable. She was arrogant when she assumed that none of her plans could fail.

I love her still, but she was neither a perfect woman nor an irretrievable loss. I can do more than spend the rest of my life mourning her.

Lucius let his head fall against the back of the chair, and breathed.

*
Draco stiffened his shoulders. The instinct to bolt back down the corridor and out of the building the Daily Prophet was using as its headquarters this week (their funds had become rather unsettled with the recent lawsuit) was stronger than he had counted on.
And he didn�t want to look weak in front of Harry.
Strangely enough, he was coming to accept that the best way not to do that was to make himself vulnerable.
Harry stopped in front of the small room where Rita Skeeter worked and put his hand on the knob, examining the name written across the glass panel in the door as if he needed to make sure of the spelling. He took a single deep breath that made his hair, plastered against the back of his neck, flutter like the trembling feathers of a wind-borne bird.
And suddenly Draco understood that he was nervous, too, and perhaps even doubtful of his own strength to go through with such a thing.
Draco found himself relaxing, his shoulders dropping again and his head rising. He thought he could allow himself to be vulnerable as long as he had someone who was equally so. He would have hated to endure a lover like himself, or like the man he had been before Harry: cold, emotionless, indomitable.
A thought stirred in him, cold and sluggish. Perhaps that will even make up for all the apologizing I have to do. If Harry looks at me with approval and lets me fuck him again for this, then I can think of it as a bargain. Power for power, a sacrifice for a return.

None of that actually made it easier for him to walk into the office when the door opened and he saw Skeeter waiting at her desk with glittering spectacles and a curious, hungry smile.
But the way Harry turned to check over his shoulder for a moment, as if Draco were a new part of himself that he needed to make sure was in order before he could move, did.

*
linagabriev: Harry mostly has forgiven Draco, yes, but there�s some understanding and trust-building still to be done.
To be fair to Draco, Harry rather let the comment about how Draco wanted him partially because he was the Boy-Who-Lived take over his perceptions. It was so disappointing to him that he just shut down.
Whitmore: No missteps as bad as the ones in the past, but, as you can see here, they still don�t think of their relationship the same way, and Draco is still trying to find some way out of the harder parts.
womo: Thank you so much for reviewing!
Glad you liked Chapter 18. Those issues keep on resonating throughout the story; Harry and Draco want to forgive each other, but those actions make it difficult.
And I hadn�t thought of Faustine standing in for the audience, but you�re right, she does.
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The Same Species As Shakespeare