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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 Three�Come Not
Between The Dragon and His Wrath

�� How is he?�

�� Resting,
Mr. Potter.� The Healer smiled and patted his arm. �Would you like to come in
and see him?�

�� I can?�
Harry hesitated on the threshold of Malfoy�s room, suspicious. He hadn�t even
been able to visit Ron the last time he was in hospital, until he was smuggled
in amidst a crowd of Weasleys. St. Mungo�s had become fairly strict about
visiting rules applying to kin only after several assassinations during the
war, which made Harry suspect he was being obliged only because he was Harry
Potter.

�� The Healer,
a fairly young and pretty woman, blushed, which didn�t make him feel any
better. �Well, you seemed so concerned,� she said, and her voice trailed off as
she blinked at him. �Are you all right, Mr. Potter?�

�� Yes,�
Harry said, and stepped into the room, before he could change his mind about
not taking advantage of his name�which he had done many times since the war,
though this use of it was rather different than encouraging contributions to orphanages�or
she could change her mind about permitting him access.

�� The room
was as neat and as blank as any other in St. Mungo�s. The stark whiteness of
the walls and sheets only further emphasized the pallor of Malfoy�s face and
hair, which fanned around his head in a crown of tangled gold. Harry noticed
that the marks of bruising had faded from his throat. He didn�t close his eyes
and allow a sigh of relief to escape him, but it was a near thing.

�� The
bruises came about as the result of wandless magic,� said the Healer. Harry
started. He hadn�t realized she was still beside him. �Unfortunately, when that
happens, we can�t track the person who did it. What we can do is charm the pain away and put on a spell to ensure that no
one similarly attacks him whilst he�s here.�

�� Harry
smiled over his shoulder at her. �Thank you. And the fainting?�

�� The Healer
chuckled. �The charm taking over, and shock. Don�t tell Mr. Malfoy this, but
the attack seems to have overwhelmed him. His heart was beating far too fast
when you brought him in.�

�� Could that
be dangerous?� Harry had to practically pin his eyes to her face so they wouldn�t
wander over to Malfoy. He tried to focus on the sound of her voice, too, because
Malfoy couldn�t speak to him right now anyway.

�� It shouldn�t
be,� she said, and nodded reassuringly at him. �He�ll have the best care whilst
he�s here, Mr. Potter.�

�� Someone
did attack him once.�

�� The
security precautions have been much improved.� The Healer�s voice had lost its
shyness; she was moving onto ground she knew well, Harry thought, and that
meant she felt less temptation to defer to the famous Harry Potter. Good. Outside of deliberate showpieces
and his job, he preferred to relate to people more normally, and to make them
comfortable rather than apprehensive. �We�ll keep him so safe he won�t know he�s
not at home, though doubtless�� she flicked a wry glance around the room ��the accommodations
aren�t what he�s used to.�

�� Harry bit
his lip to stop from protesting that that wouldn�t matter. To Malfoy, it might.
�Thank you,� he said, and she finally nodded and left him alone to approach the
bed.

�� Harry
conjured a chair without thinking; there was none in the room. He wondered for
a moment where Lucius Malfoy was, but rumor said that he�d retreated completely
into his Manor and led the life of a recluse. The news might not have reached
him yet.

�� And,
terrible as it was, Harry couldn�t force himself to leave Malfoy�s bed and go
inform his father about it.

�� He let his
gaze linger on Malfoy�s features, now that the man was no longer awake enough
to object. Even more pointed than the photographs made them look; Harry
reckoned Malfoy must deliberately adopt certain profiles to get the pictures the
way he wanted. Well, Harry did the same thing. He preferred not to be
photographed in the loo or with his hand down his pants, thanks.

�� His eyes
traveled to Malfoy�s hands, lying folded on the coverlet, as if the Healers had
realized it would be an indignity to let them flop limply at his sides. Harry
reached out, his own fingers hovering a few inches above Malfoy�s knuckles. He
couldn�t quite bring himself to touch.

�� He couldn�t
quite believe he was this close.

�� It was
Malfoy�s hands, and not his face, which had first fascinated Harry. He had
watched Malfoy�s architectural career with puzzlement at first, even a sense of
disdain. Who did he think he was kidding? No one would ever forget what had
happened during the war. He could build all the manor houses he liked, but he
would still be a Death Eater in the eyes of the public. Harry felt a bit
regretful about that, since he thought Malfoy didn�t deserve the blame he�d
get, but he considered it inevitable. He had thought Malfoy understood that,
too, and so to see him trying to evade that blame made Harry think poorly of
his intelligence.

�� Then the
first manor, Pegasus Hall, was complete, and the Prophet published pictures of it and an interview with Malfoy that
referred to his �dark and romantic past,� with no hint at all of what that past
had actually entailed. Harry, irritated, Apparated to the site of Pegasus Hall
one evening, determined to prove to himself that the wizarding public in
general was shallow and far too forgiving of people who had let Death Eaters
into Hogwarts and nearly killed Harry�s best friend.

�� Then he had
stood on the wide lawn and looked up at Pegasus Hall by the light of a full
moon.

�� The heavy
white walls had shone, crouched there, displaying graceful arches of stone and
a lightness of construction that hadn�t been visible in the pictures. Harry
thought it looked like a dragon who might take flight at any moment. Here and
there, a twist to the foundations, an arch to the fa�ade as if it were a long
serpentine neck, a ripple to the wings of the building that resembled actual wings, made him think Malfoy had
had the same vision.

�� Harry had
stood still for a long time, staring. What finally brought him back to reality
was his wand slipping from his hand and dropping to the ground with a clunk.
Harry blinked and stooped to retrieve it without taking his eyes off the house,
which meant he groped through dew-dampened grass for long moments before he
found it.

�� When he stood
again, a net of wards had sprung up shimmering around the house, delicate
linked chains of brilliant blue and green that reflected in the white walls
like St. Elmo�s Fire in the waves of the sea.

�� Harry lost
part of his heart that night. Even stranger, he had known it at the time.

�� The man who
could create such beauty was not the weak one Harry had imagined, not that
guilty but not blameless either, who was interesting only because of what Ollivander
had told him about the connection between Malfoy�s wand and his. Malfoy had an
artist�s hands, and an artist�s soul, too. Harry had watched him even more intently
after that, because he wanted to understand how such capacity for greatness
could coexist with the spite and the selfishness he knew he had observed in Malfoy during their years at school
together.

�� Each time
he thought he started to understand the paradox, he found himself needing to do
something else: collect another photograph or watch Malfoy more closely when he
was at work in his office, trying to separate the grandeur in him from the
grime it was mixed with.

�� Slowly, he
had come to accept that Malfoy didn�t have a split personality, that somehow
both grime and grandeur came from the same source. And by then he was
fascinated by the man�s attitude changes, sometimes humble, sometimes arrogance
cloaked in a mask of humility, and the way he stood in pictures, and the way he
worked for money and to specifications and yet stamped his own personality on
every house he built. So many traits, all twined together. Harry never would
have discovered the initial ones without having listened to Ollivander or going
to see Pegasus Hall, though.

�� It was vain
for Hermione and Ron to tell him that great artists could still be awful
people. Harry had lost track of the number of biographies Hermione had given
him, exposing the hatreds and fears of writers, painters, scientists, and
politicians. None of those people were living under Harry�s eye; he hadn�t seen
their flaws firsthand, and he hadn�t seen how they grew past their flaws.
Malfoy was different, because Harry had seen the worst and then the best. Harry
could be sure the best was real.

�� The houses
carried pieces of Malfoy�s soul with them, and because they existed, Harry could
not see him as evil.

�� He didn�t
know if he should ever hope for anything more than distant admiration, but that
was enough to keep him watching by Malfoy�s side after the attack. And he
remembered the way Malfoy had touched his hand and examined the ring earlier
that evening, and had to rub his arms briskly as a rippling wave of gooseflesh
traveled up them.

�� Those hands
that lifted stone into a solemnity and perfection comparable to music had
entwined with his.

�� Harry would
have to be blind and deaf not to want more.

*

�� Draco lay
with his eyes firmly shut and his body so relaxed that even the Healers had
thought he was unconscious. It was a trick he had learned during the war; it
allowed him to survive more than one Death Eater conversation they would have
killed him for overhearing. He had practiced it even longer than he had practiced
making the bruises on his throat appear with wandless magic.

�� Both had
worked.

�� Draco could
feel Potter�s presence next to the bed the way he would have felt the presence
of a bonfire. Every shift and sigh and word to the Healers found their echo in
Draco�s brain. Yes, he longed to say,
yes, I knew you would act like this, I
know you. I could pluck out your heart, and I know exactly how it would beat in
the last few moments before it stopped.

�� Then Potter
reached out as if he would touch Draco, though in the end he didn�t. Draco
could tell where the hand was at every moment. He was glad that no Healer was
in the room then, because although he could keep his breathing and his face
serene, his heartbeat had sped up enormously.

�� He had
expected to court a wary and suspicious Potter. Instead, he found one already
opening up to him, watching over him as if he were a beloved friend, and
anxious for his health. Of course, Draco had foreseen this reaction, too; he
had merely not known it would appear so soon. As Severus would say, even a
potion you knew well could sometimes surprise you when you varied the amount of
an ingredient or the pace of your stirring.

�� He�s drawn to me because he can�t help
himself. I�m still the most significant person he�s ever known in his life, because
I�m the only one who didn�t bow down to him and offer him either honor or
paranoid fear. Even Severus had that unfortunate interest in him because he was
friends with Potter�s mother. Because he�s Potter, he wants to know why I don�t
feel those extreme reactions.

�� Draco badly
wanted to open his mouth and run his tongue along the edge of his front teeth
in anticipation, but that would spoil his perfect rendition of a helpless
patient. He must give Potter a chance to play the hero. The impostor who wanted
to hurt him and smash his reputation was no plan of Draco�s, but Draco was not
averse to using him. It would rouse Potter�s protective side all the more
quickly.

�� I�ll have him. I�ll have him even more
thoroughly if I just remain still for a little while, and let him speculate
about how badly I was hurt.

�� The things I�ll do. The vengeance I�ll take
on him. People will talk about it for years. He won�t be able to look anyone in
the face again. Maybe he�ll commit suicide�

�� But Draco
stopped that train of thought. He�d never been comfortable with the notion that
Potter would escape the grief and pain Draco would cause him that easily. No,
Draco must leave him with the will to live, if only because he wanted to stare
after Draco in hopeless bewilderment.

�� Become fascinated with me, Potter. Become
bound to me. Then you won�t die as long as I live, but you won�t escape my shadow,
either.

*

�� Lucius
stepped out of the Floo at the Manor and removed his glamour with a grateful
sigh. Actions he had once taken without a pause for thought, like disguising
himself, unaccountably irritated him now.

�� Or not so unaccountably, said that voice
like a silken handkerchief in the back of his mind. Before, you knew they were for the good of the family the way you know
winter is cold. And then Narcissa died, and you found out how differently she
thought, and now you can�t help second-guessing yourself, as if that would give
her opinion another chance to live.

�� Lucius
scowled and ducked into the corridor outside the anteroom, absently handing his
cloak to a house-elf on the way. The wing he had moved into after Narcissa�s
death was the western one, cramped and small and dark in many of its rooms and
connections between its rooms, with windows that looked out on pine trees and a
stretch of grass that always appeared brown no matter the season. (Family
legend said an ancient Octavius Malfoy had immolated himself there, and the
grass refused to grow in mourning). Draco rarely visited it, and Lucius had assumed
that he would be alone now.

�� Instead,
Severus stood waiting for him in the corridor, leaning against the wall with
all the poise of a carrion crow. Lucius clenched his hands into fists and willed
his bounding heart to slow.

�� Yes,
Severus?� His voice was brittle, and he knew he would not be able to make it
sound natural. �You wanted something?�

�� Where�s
Draco?� Severus�s eyes traveled to the door Lucius had left open, as if he had
really expected that Draco would take the same Floo home as his father.

�� He played
a nasty trick on Harry Potter and his gracious host and got the hero to believe
he�s sick.� Lucius ran a hand through his hair, more irritated by the remembrance
of what he had seen Draco do than by the fact that Severus had startled him. �He�ll
be fine, of course. When is he ever anything other than fine?� He paused and
took a long breath. One thing he and Severus never agreed on since the war was
what Draco should make of himself and how much time he had to do it in before he
would become irredeemably a small and shallow man. Lucius thought he could do
much better than he was; Severus had declared that Draco had surpassed all his
expectations by not retreating into the house and sulking. Lucius, who could read
those words well enough as applying to more than one person, chose not to open
the argument often.

�� You are
sure he was not injured?� Severus cleared his throat. Of course, he could not
admit he was worried about Draco without criticizing Lucius�s powers of
observation at the same time.

�� There was
an unexpected attack,� Lucius admitted. �That same fellow we�ve been seeing in
the papers, by all accounts, trying to use Draco�s name and face. But Potter
saved him from it. And after that I watched Draco, not Potter. He didn�t have a
wound on him. And he had that small, secret smile he gets when he�s plotting,
at least until Potter came back from fruitlessly hunting the criminal. Then
Draco pretended to faint. Yes, he�ll be fine. I simply wish he knew what he was
playing at.�

�� Severus
started to answer, and then paused. �The wrong pronoun, perhaps?� he asked.

�� Lucius
shook his head and strode past Severus towards the door of the study where he
sat to relax�brood, Severus would call it�and think about Narcissa�s diaries
when he was not actually reading them. It was a dark room, made of obsidian and
wooden paneling that had been stained black by the use of judicious Smoke Spells.
Above the fireplace, the hearth of which took up a third of the room, hung an
empty portrait frame with a chair in it. Lucius regarded it moodily for a moment,
then sat down before the hearth. A house-elf appeared at once, lit the fire,
vanished, and reappeared again with a glass of white wine for Lucius. Lucius
sipped it and closed his eyes. Dragon�s Bane. It had been his favorite wine
even before Narcissa�s death. In some things, at least, he hadn�t changed.

�� I know
perfectly well what Draco�s doing,� he said. �The same thing he always did in
school. Trying to win the Potter boy�s attention.�

�� Severus
laughed sharply. �You should leave him to it. Either he will never succeed and
use the failure to lash himself on to new heights of achievement, or he will
succeed and have what he�s always wanted.� He paused. �A true Slytherin wants
such things for the children he has in his care.�

�� Lucius
opened his eyes to offer Severus another glare. At times he didn�t know why he
had taken the Potions master into his house. No matter how skilled at brewing,
no matter how good a friend he had been to Draco after they had fled Hogwarts
together at the end of the boy�s sixth year, he could not forgive Lucius what
he saw as lapse after lapse in his principles and his love for Draco. Constant
sarcasm was not Lucius�s idea of a fit trait in his companion. He preferred
someone who could offer unexpected stabs of wit but would let him have the
mastery when he preferred.

�� Someone like her.

�� Lucius�s
hand did not tighten around the glass and shatter it into fragments, because he
had that much self-control. �Draco does not know when he goes too far,� he
said. �He invited me to the showing of this house tonight because, he hinted, I
would see something special. That special thing was his meeting of Potter, who
had come to the party on his specific invitation, from the talk I heard around
me. Tell me, Severus, does a young man who is self-confident about his victories
and able to say what they�re worth to him need his father�s eyes to give such a
victory value?�

�� Severus
flicked a hand. �I doubt your eyes are the sole value of the thing for Draco.
He probably wanted to silence your doubts on the subject of Potter by letting
you watch as he captured him.�

�� Lucius
choked on his wine and barely managed to set it down on the broad arm of his
chair before he began to chuckle. The laughter felt like it tore something as
it raced through his chest, but Lucius kept it up anyway. It had been a long
time since he had the chance to see Severus�s face freeze in such an offended
expression.

�� When he
finally chose to put himself under control, he said, �Draco can�t capture
Potter without being captured by him. I know what he feels, Severus, and he doesn�t. That is what worries me. If he
had chosen to mesh himself in obsession or hatred, counted the costs beforehand
and liked the equation those numbers produced, I would not interfere. But he
has no idea of the depth of his feelings for Potter. He thinks this is a small
part of his life, and that he won�t change if he destroys the man. He will. Pardon me if I find such a lack of
self-knowledge in my heir distressing.�

�� Severus
snorted softly. �Potter has few exemplary qualities,� he said. �I would count
luck first among them. Draco will come to know him better, and find how shallow
he really is, how unworthy of an obsession. You need not fear Draco falling in
love.�

�� I fear
Draco falling,� said Lucius. �And Draco does not have the depth of soul to
admit he was wrong about staking so many of his emotions on someone shallow.
Instead, he will try to build Potter up into a worthy foe even if he isn�t, and
talk himself into a headlong tumble before he realizes it.�

�� Severus
stood still for some time, his eyes half-shut. �It is true that hatred can be
as consuming as love,� he said.

�� Only as
consuming?� Lucius arched an eyebrow. One of his few advantages over Severus
was that the man had spent his first days in the Manor under the influence of
powerful healing potions, recovering from the Flaying Curse that had almost
killed him. Lucius had learned many secrets from Severus then, including how
much of his bitterness had stemmed from insults hurled by schoolboys
twenty-five years ago.

�� Severus had
an unattractive manner of flushing, all over his brow and down the sides of his
face in splotches, as if he had broken out into fever. Lucius picked up his
wine and sipped again, enjoying the equal footing he had reestablished in the
conversation.

�� If you
fear so much for your son in Potter�s clutches,� said Severus at last, his
voice clipped, �you might extricate him. Go to St. Mungo�s, where Potter has
doubtless taken him in a fit of misguided heroism, and bring him home.�

�� Lucius
shook his head. �Draco also won�t brook my guidance. I might succeed in
alerting Potter, but I couldn�t keep Draco away from him, and he would probably
spin some story to Potter about how his dreadful father is harassing him so he
can�t repent and become a paragon in British wizarding society the way he wants
to be.�

�� So you�ll
stand back, shaking your head and clucking your tongue sadly, and watch your
son dash himself to his death?� Severus brought his head back in the exact
posture that the Dark Lord�s Nagini had once held before she struck. �I did not
know you had a hobby of repeating history.�

�� Lucius
stood up so suddenly he knew he had no chance of feigning coolness. Instead, he
simply stared at Severus until his eyes lowered, and said quietly, �And who did
not watch Bellatrix, so that such history was possible in the first place?�

�� Severus
turned and walked from the study.

�� Lucius sat
down, staring down at the fallen wineglass, and the wine that had soaked into
the carpet. His fingers twined together, and he could feel them shaking like an
old man�s. It had not been his fault that Narcissa died. He had seen her taking
risks to protect her son, but he had never thought she would do�that.

�� You never knew her, said the
silken-handkerchief voice. As you are
learning now.

�� But Severus
might be right about one thing, much as Lucius hated to admit it. Perhaps Draco
would destroy himself as thoughtlessly, for the gratification of his passions.
Lucius might be able to interfere in such a way that Draco wouldn�t sense his
hand and therefore work against it for the mere pleasure of foiling his father.

�� I will
take care of Draco,� he whispered aloud into the silence of the study. �Even if
he doesn�t want me to.�

�� He spent
some time watching the empty portrait, but no one walked into the frame.

*

�� avihenda: Draco
would say he�s much smarter than
Harry, thank you very much!

�� Jilliane:
Awww, you don�t like Harry�s ring?

�� Draco in
this case has not planned his attacker. He might have done so if the first
attack happened at the party, but he couldn�t be sure that Harry, as an Auror,
would get assigned to the case when the attacks were happening outside the
Manor.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� Mangacat:
In this case, the impostor�s identity is less important than something else is.
You�ll see later on.

�� And I think
Lucius is sane, but certainly obsessed
in his own way with Narcissa.

�� linagabriev:
Thank you! Draco himself doesn�t really understand the depth of his obsession,
as you�ve seen in this chapter, but as more backstory trickles into the fic, it
should make more sense.

�� Lucius is
more human, in part because of Narcissa�s death. He can be sarcastic to people
who displease him, but he�s no longer mindlessly striking out at the world.

�� And this
story does get pretty dark and angsty in later chapters.
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The Same Species As Shakespeare