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Hephaestus	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16287 -:- 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.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Three�Truth
and Illusion

�� The sparks
flew and leaped around the forming pattern as they often did around the real
forge when Grishnazk was working the metal. Harry was glad that he had the
skill to lose himself in the process, to think fully about the changes taking place
under his magic instead of about Draco.

�� The
pattern, already tilted dangerously sideways, wobbled, and for a moment seemed
to slump towards the ground like a disintegrating pudding. The light that
haunted it darkened; the magic that looped and chained it to Harry weakened,
and he felt his instinctive understanding of the labyrinth he had created slip
away with the power.

�� No! He could lose all the time he liked
to brooding when he wasn�t working, but there was no way that he would let his
creations suffer because of his inability to put his infatuation with Draco in
the past, where it belonged.

�� Harry
stretched out a hand and made a sideways wrenching motion. The silver figure,
something like a vastly ornamented musical note at the moment, tilted back
upright. Harry began to sing again, envisioning his voice as anchors on either
side of the single large circle at the bottom of the pattern, to balance and hold
it where he willed. His magic rose and surged like the sea against which the
pattern struggled.

�� He
envisioned a subtle, slinking confusion moving into a Muggle�s mind, creating
less havoc than a Memory Charm or the Repelling Charms that sometimes caused
mental illness when cast by a careless wizard. He willed that image to emerge
into his voice, and that in turn encouraged the metal to flourish up and down
like glass, coiling and dipping like braided hair, brilliant with colors that
molten silver normally never wore, scintillating bands of obsidian and
amethyst.

�� Harry
smiled a little, spared a corner of his mind to comment on how much more encrusted
with gems and metals his metaphors had become since spending time with the
dwarves, and then went on singing.

*

�� He didn�t
appear to notice he had an audience.

�� Draco stood
with one hand clutched around the doorway of the shed, as he could only imagine
his son must have stood earlier�when Scorpius had disobeyed his orders and sneaked
out here�and stared at Potter in awe.

�� He wasn�t
working in the large shed this time, and when Draco allowed himself to think
about how an ordinary person and not Potter would have reacted, he supposed he
could see the sense of that. He wouldn�t want an audience for the anger and
disappointment that too clearly played across his scarred features at being
rejected yet again. The Harry Draco had known had been the same way; he would
take his broom up to absurd heights or vanish into a corner of a forest he�d
camped in during his year on the run with Granger and Weasley rather than face
up to the cause of his discomfort.

�� But now he
poured his frustrations and anger into creating art.

�� Draco
ground his teeth together a moment later. It was not art. It was a profession, a career, the kind of thing Harry had
always needed to support himself and engage his attention. He�d never
appreciated the cultivated art of doing absolutely nothing. He and Draco had
frequently argued about it, and Draco had prevailed enough that Harry hadn�t
ever seriously trained as an Auror, but he had done something worse: he had
gone into dangerous situations anyway, without the appropriate training.

�� He never once thought about me. He never
understood that I might need him just as much as those hapless innocents he was
so bloody set on protecting. And then that happened, and took him away from me
forever.

�� But if
Draco had to keep himself away from some dangerous admissions, there were
others he had enough pride in himself to make. And the first was that he would
not be thinking about Potter in such detail if the door was truly shut forever.

�� With his back
turned, he could almost be handsome, Draco thought in despair. At least he didn�t
wear clothes that would expose the scars seaming his bad leg and the lower half
of his spine. Draco had found those as disgusting to look at as the ones on his
face, if only because they had spoiled Potter�s walk in the way that the ones
on his face had not impaired his hearing and his eyesight. They forced Draco to
think of him as wounded, and not only deformed.

�� And then
Potter made a little lunging jump to the side as a spark from the pattern he
was making leaped at him and sizzled near his skin. The jump had a slide at the
end that most people wouldn�t have noticed, but which couldn�t escape Draco�s observant
eyes. Draco curled his lip. Yes, that spoke of a man used to living with a
limp.

�� How could
he�accommodate it? Why was he
pretending that it couldn�t be changed? Why did he care so much and so fiercely
about what other people might think of him if he covered up the visible scars
with glamours and sought more expensive help than St. Mungo�s could offer?

�� There�s a good reason that Mother told me
not to get involved with people like Potter, Draco thought darkly. It�s not their honor or their chivalry that�s
in question. It�s their damn stubbornness. They sacrifice people to principles.

�� Draco would
have helped Potter gladly, if his lover had been striving to become more
normal. He would have helped gladly, because then it would be a sacrifice for him, and not some ideal that would never
look at Potter with beseeching eyes or lie next to him in bed. Really, by
refusing that, Potter had denied Draco an opportunity to prove his love, and
forced him to act small, mean, and petty.

�� That�s it. I have to be free of this infatuation
with him. I�ll have him to dinner in the Manor tonight, and I�ll use a Silencing
Spell, if I have to, so that I can actually get my side of the story out. And I�ll
make sure he listens to it. That�s all I need: some chance to make him realize
how wrong he was.

�� And Draco
slipped away, before Potter could notice him and become angry that his precious
privacy had been invaded.

*

�� Harry gaped
at Grishnazk, and left the towel hovering in the air to wipe at his temple by
itself. �You�re joking,� he said.

�� The dwarf
stared at him, his grip on the coil of copper wire he�d forged that afternoon
tightening. �I do not joke,� he said. �Not about things like this. Not where
they touch on the accuracy of your skill, or the purity of our materials, or
what we will be able to accomplish in half an hour�s time.�

�� It was true�most
dwarves had less of a sense of humor than Lucius Malfoy did�but Harry still
couldn�t believe it. He shook his head. �Mistaken, then,� he said. �You�re
mistaken. You must have misheard Draco when he spoke to you.�

�� Grishnazk
gave his head a small toss and turned away, his left foot clumping as heavily
along the ground as Harry�s wounded one did. �I thought you different from
other wizards,� he said, �less willing to discount the evidence of your ears
when you hear someone nonhuman speak the truth. In that, I was mistaken.�

�� No, no,
wait, I�m sorry.� Harry hastened around in front of him and knelt down to his
eye level. The dwarf glared steadily at him, and Harry winced. He had forgotten
how angry Grishnazk could get when his honor was touched, because most of the
time now Harry was polite and sensible enough not to do any such thing. �I only
meant that Draco Malfoy is so stubborn and proud I would rather believe it was a mistake in your hearing than believe that
he�s unbent a bit.� He hesitated, then risked a joke of his own. �Him actually
changing his mind could be a sign that the world is coming to an end.�

�� Slowly,
Grishnazk�s grip on the coil of copper wire relaxed, though he never once ceased
his steady stare at Harry.

�� I heard
aright,� he said, voice still sharp enough to score diamond. �And you heard my
words. Draco Malfoy bids you to dinner in his new estate of Morningswood, the
first guest to grace its halls. He bade me,� Grishnazk added, with a twitch of
his beard, �remember the forms.� And he left with a fierce stiffness to his
back that Harry knew would take some time to wear away.

�� Harry stood
up to stare after him, and then winced as dragonfire seemed to eat his bad leg
alive. He always did pay that price when he moved too quickly, though most of
the time now he was also too sensible to do that.

�� This is my day for being stupid, then.

�� For long
moments, Harry stood there and wondered if he should go. After all, Draco had
made his feelings quite clear this
afternoon. Harry didn�t think he could have any purpose to this invitation
except to rub in the point a little more, and Harry didn�t feel like being an
object lesson for Scorpius, or whatever it was that Draco planned for him. His
days of willingly serving Draco Malfoy�s whims were over.

�� But if he
didn�t go, then he would probably have to deal with a confrontation in the
morning�and that would put him in a worse light in Scorpius�s eyes still. At
least, if he went into Draco�s house on Draco�s invitation and Draco was the
one who stormed and shouted at him, there was a chance that Scorpius, unusually
intelligent for a two-year-old, would realize that his father was the one being
stupid.

�� Harry went
to cast Cleaning Charms on himself, wondering a bit why he cared so much for Scorpius�s
good opinion. But the consideration was soon buried in another idea, much more
amusing, which made him smile as he conjured a waterfall to crash over his head
and burnish some of the sweat off the cracked and seamed skin of his face.

�� Draco would
have to sit at a table and eat dinner with him�something he hadn�t done since
Harry was tortured, because of the way it made him feel to see that �perfect�
mouth opening in that �disgusting� face.

�� And he had
inflicted it on himself.

�� Harry
whistled beneath his breath as he scratched at a particularly sharp ridge above
his right ear that stood out like a horn. Sometimes, there was much to be said
for Draco Malfoy�s whims.

*

�� The dinner
was less horrible than Draco expected, and since he had both a vivid
imagination and a vivid memory, he was deeply surprised. Of course, from the
beginning the present was covered with a sparkling haze of the past. That was
probably affecting his honest reactions to Harry, Draco considered.

�� Harry had
appeared calmly at the door of Morningswood, standing there as if he were
invited to places as beautiful every day. �And of course he stood in the middle of the
corridor covered with intricate colored tiles that, looked at individually,
meant nothing, but which blossomed into patterns of whirlwinds and whirlpools
and spiderwebs when the viewer relaxed his eyes, and merely blinked once or
twice.

�� It was
always a conceit of Harry�s to pretend that he had no taste. Draco knew he did,
though, because he had chosen Draco as his lover in the first place. And if he
wanted ugliness, he could have stayed with the Weasley girl, but he had broken
up with her a few months after they began dating.

�� Draco
pushed that thought away from himself again, because he hated remembering how
he had rejoiced when he read the story about Weasley in the gossip pages, and
set himself to being as charming as possible. He had to keep Harry in the house
long enough to hear his side of the story, after all.

�� So he spoke
softly and politely when they sat down at the table, with Scorpius seated next
to Draco, and kept his eyes away from Harry�s mouth. If he had to see Harry
swallowing regularly, and the horrible contrast of normal flesh next to ruined
flesh, then he would lose his composure. Scorpius, of course, stared, but Harry
seemed determined to ignore that. Perhaps he knew that a child had to be
forgiven his reactions, because he wouldn�t have learned as much of courtesy as
an adult would have.

�� And perhaps he�s just waiting for a chance
to infect Scorpius.

�� Draco
forced the thought away as hard and fast as he could, because if it lingered in
his mind, it would unduly influence his speech. He knew Harry�s scars weren�t contagious. Scorpius could touch them
all day long�as he had already told Draco he had, causing Draco to wash his
hands compulsively for the next hour�and never suffer any harm to his own radiant
face.

�� But Harry
was a living reminder that bad luck had always haunted the life of the Chosen
One. Draco, by contrast, had lived in a calm, charmed world where nothing bad
ever happened to anyone, at least not after the war was over and the Dark Lord
defeated. He didn�t want Harry to bring bad luck down on Scorpius by
fascinating him too much.

�� I
appreciate the invitation,� said Harry at last, laying his fork next to his
plate. He remembered the manners Draco had taught him, heartbreakingly. Perhaps
even more heartbreaking, Draco thought, was the fact that, just looking at
Harry�s hands and chest, he could have imagined this man as someone he would
share the rest of his life with. �But I know you. You never do things without
at least two reasons, Draco. What�s the second one this time?�

�� Why do you
assume you know the first?� Draco braced himself and looked into Harry�s eyes.
The skin around those eyes was crumpled.

�� They heated my flesh until it bent, Harry
had told him, and then Greyback plunged
his claws into it and pulled and jerked it up into these ridges and froze it
again�

�� Draco
chopped that thought off at the root.
Nothing was further from his plans than to let pity change his mind.

�� Because
you�ve been polite and treated me to a good meal,� Harry said, his voice wry. �So
I assumed you did want to see me. But what�s the second reason?�

�� Draco took
a long swallow of the sweet wine he�d allowed himself to drink with dinner,
after long and careful consideration of the drinks he couldn�t have because he
might swallow too much of them and lose his head. This wine wasn�t his
favorite; he was in no danger from it.

�� But that
didn�t change the fact that he had to offer Potter an answer, and he didn�t
have one.

�� At least, not one that won�t make me look
weak.

�� Daddy did
want to see you,� said Scorpius, and leaned forwards. His eyes never left
Harry. Draco wished he knew why. Scorpius was far too young to feel fascination
for the same reasons Draco did, and in any case, Draco was raising him carefully,
so that he would never succumb to the same weaknesses that had plagued Draco. �Because
he misses you. He has a picture of you that he keeps in a cabinet. He locks the
cabinet, but I stole the key.� He looked back at Draco. �Can I have sweets now?�

�� Draco
reeled, and nearly dropped a hand to grip the side of his chair, before he
remembered how that would look to Potter. He stole a glance back at the man
sitting across the table.

�� You have a
picture of me?� Harry breathed.

�� Yes,� said
Scorpius. �And he told me stories about you, too, how you saved the world. You
had the scar. And you saved the world,� he added contentedly, apparently liking
the phrase. He poked Draco in the side. �Sweets, Daddy?�

*

�� Harry knew it was stupid. If Ron was here, he would
bristle defensively and tell Harry in a loud voice that he had been right about
ferrets once before, when Draco abandoned him, and he was right now. Hermione
would shake her head tenderly and put a hand on his shoulder. Ginny would raise
her eyebrows and ask what in the name of Merlin he thought he was doing.

�� But
sweetness had flooded his mouth, and his heart hovered in the middle of it. He
leaned forwards across the table himself, unable to take his eyes from Draco�s
face.

�� Unable to
stop hoping that, somewhere in the middle of that mass of prejudice and hatred
and unwilling fascination with Harry as a walking horror show, lay the Draco he
had remembered or imagined or made up.

�� Before or
after I was scarred?� he whispered.

�� Draco shook
himself the way Crookshanks shook himself off after falling in the bath and
wrapped his arms around his middle. �Before, of course,� he snapped. �Did you
think I took any photographs of you after?
Why in the world would I want them?�

�� Harry took
a deep breath, quelling his instinctive reaction to lash out in defense. He�d
become used to speaking before he could be spoken to in the first year after
the torture. A sharp insult usually stopped the reporters from asking stupid
questions, such as whether his leg hurt. Would
I limp if it didn�t hurt, idiots?

�� But Draco
had kept a photograph of him, and he had invited him to dinner tonight, when
Harry would have said in the afternoon that Draco would do anything to keep
Harry away from his precious child.

�� There was a
chance. Maybe a small one, but Harry wouldn�t be the one to blow out the light
of hope, especially when he�d played such a strong part in doing that the first
time they separated. Draco would have to do it himself this time.

�� What�s the
second reason you invited me here?� he asked, and kept one hand braced on the
table in front of him. If Draco showed the smallest sign of softening, of
yielding, he would reach across the table and touch him. �Why? You could have
ignored me. You could have ordered me off the property and called in one of my
business partners to finish the work. You could have refused to hire me in the
first place. I know you must have received recommendations for other Metal-Dancing
companies. But you hired me. Why?�

�� Draco was
shrinking against the back of his chair. His eyes stayed locked on Harry�s
face, as if the sight he had once abhorred was consuming his will to live. His
hands had clenched into fists in front of him. Harry froze in his chair. He
remembered the time Draco had looked like this and had lashed out when Harry
tried to touch his hair, and that had been over a relatively minor incident,
when Narcissa had refused to allow Draco to borrow several of her house-elves to
set up a party. No telling what he might do now.

�� But Harry
no longer possessed enough will to halt his voice.

�� Did you
miss me at all?� he asked. �Not the way I look now, not the way I was when we
broke up. I know that. But before? Did you miss me?�

�� I believe,
to do that,� said Draco, his voice low and cool, �to miss you, I would have had
to be in love with you.�

�� But you
were, Daddy,� said Scorpius, utterly confident, looking up at him with a
faintly puzzled expression. �Mummy told me. I asked, �Why didn�t you stay with
Daddy?� and she said, �Because he only loves Harry Potter.� I remember. It was
a Tuesday. I had treacle tart for dessert.� He looked wistful. �I want treacle
tart now.�

�� With the
mood he was in, Harry was willing to take even those words as a sign of
encouragement. Draco had never liked treacle tart, but he had been willing to
keep it around and serve it on occasion because he knew how much Harry adored
it. It was a way for him to show affection without having to make gestures or
speak words that he considered a sign of weakness. That he had kept it and
served to his son�

�� Harry shook
his head slightly, not wanting to get his hopes up too high, but unable to
avoid it. He had existed on hope in
the days after he was injured, hope that he would one day come to terms with
himself, hope that he would one day overcome the crippling bitterness his
parting from Draco had taught him. He couldn�t avoid saying now, �Draco, I�m
not asking you to love me now, as I am. I just want to know that you did. And it
sounds like you did.�

�� Draco
pressed further against the back of his chair. For long moments, there was no
sound in the room but his breathing, and a soft rustling of cloth. Scorpius,
apparently despairing of his father�s ability to give him sweets, had begun to
look under the chair and around the tablecloth, as if they would appear that way.
Knowing how well-trained the Malfoy house-elves were, Harry thought it possible
they would, the moment the elves noticed that Scorpius wanted them.

�� And then
Draco lashed out in turn.

�� I did love
you,� he said, in a low, grating voice that sounded to Harry like someone
trampling on bones. �You were the one who hated me, and the one who couldn�t even do a simple favor for me!�

�� Harry
dropped his hand to his side again, and told himself that he deserved the pain
that flared through his chest, the death of hope that assaulted him. He was the
one who had asked a question he knew he wouldn�t get a satisfactory answer to. �It
wasn�t a favor. What you wanted��

�� I did love
you,� Draco repeated, his voice rising hysterically. �And you didn�t�Harry, you
didn�t try. You could have kept
looking for ways to heal your face and your leg. If St. Mungo�s didn�t help
you, other people could. They would have helped the Boy-Who-Lived in all the
countries in Europe. You had Malfoy money. You could have kept going. You could
have��

�� The
Healers at St. Mungo�s said it couldn�t be reversed!� Harry yelled, and leaped
to his feet. His bad leg spasmed. He didn�t give a fuck at the moment. �That
was what I told you. The Dark curses sank too deep. It�ll never be better, I�ll never look
any different than I do right now��

�� Bollocks!�
Draco screamed, and he was on his feet, too, furious tears shining in his eyes.
Harry couldn�t remember the last time he had seen Draco cry. �You could have tried! For me, not for you! If you cared
so bloody much, you could have! And you
could have worn a glamour! You could have��

�� Harry was
sick of this, so sick, and his wandless magic reacted to the impatience and
fury storming through him, in a way it normally only did when he was practicing
metal-dancing. Then again, these were the emotions he had sunk often into
metal-dancing in that first lonely, angry year, so perhaps it wasn�t such a
shock that they would manifest now.

�� He snapped
his fingers, and a glamour spread across his features, restoring them to what
they had been when Draco first met him. Harry remembered that face well enough.
Hermione and Ron still kept photographs of his old self�though they loved him
enough to include new pictures of him as well�and Harry had spent months
staring at them in heartsick yearning, before he convinced himself that living
in the past wasn�t living at all.

�� So he
stared at Draco, and Draco stared back at him, and the hunger in his eyes was
so great it made Harry feel triumphant for a long moment.

�� And then
bitter, and so tired.

�� This isn�t
me anymore,� he said softly. �Even if I hid all the scars with glamours, I�ll
never be able to make love with my normal grace. I�ll never be able to ride a
broom again. And you would always know,
Draco. You think you would be content with illusion, but you wouldn�t. I know
you. That�s how you found me out in the first place and we moved in together,
remember? I was trying to pretend I just liked fucking you, not anything else,
and you insisted that was stupid and you wanted more than pretense.�

�� Harry,�
Draco whispered. �It would have been enough, until we found a solution.�

�� And there
is no solution,� Harry said�almost snapped, but this was too important for
Draco to hear. �That�s what I�m telling you. You would have got disgusted with
me eventually and left me. And maybe that�s why I walked away when I did,� he
added, feeling as if the words were being pulled out of him, slowly, the way
Greyback had threatened to pull out his intestines. �Because I would rather you
felt disgust at me for my ugliness than because of my cowardice.�

�� A wave of
his hand banished the glamour, and he turned and walked out of the house.

�� At the
moment, he badly needed Ginny.

*

�� Draco sat
down and put his head in his hands.

�� For one
moment, Harry, his beautiful Harry, had been standing across the table from
him.

�� And Draco
knew, then, that nothing had changed for his body or his soul, however much his
perceptions had altered.

�� Daddy,� said Scorpius, in the voice of
someone reminding him of what was really important. �Treacle tart.�

*

�� Ladynight:
I understand the feeling, but Scorpius is going to help connect them.

�� gentlenightrain:
Aw, don�t cry! I hope this chapter helps you feel a little more hopeful.

�� linagabriev:
You never have to apologize for long reviews. ;)

�� Draco�s attitude
is understandable in many ways, and I think it becomes even more so in this
chapter, where he starts to recognize the limitations to his own reactions. But
being called a monster also got to Harry. Draco�s revulsion took the form of
blaming Harry for his own torture. Harry couldn�t stand that.

�� Glad you
like Scorpius and Ginny/Neville.

�� Harry is
giving Draco another chance, but, now that he�s admitted several things about
his own reactions to the scars and seen Draco�s reactions, he�s not going to be
as hopeful about getting back together with him as he was, once upon a time.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Here it is!

�� SoftObsidian74:
Thanks for reading and reviewing! I have tried to make it a situation that
tears the readers apart, to show why Harry and Draco are so torn up. Both of
them still love each other, but they also don�t like the way the other person
reacted to it; Harry felt he needed comfort more, and Draco felt he did, and that Harry already understood
everything and was just being dumb. (They were probably both too used to
relying on each other�s strength and hadn�t been tested this severely in the
past). And now Harry feels like he�s being discouraged each time he reaches
out, which isn�t helpful, and Draco doesn�t really know why he�s reaching out�until the end of this chapter, of course.

�� Wow, I
think you�ve analyzed my story more than I have! Or, at least, I wasn�t
consciously putting those ideas in there. But, yes, Draco has idealized beauty
as something that he can hardly attain�in a way, he thinks he is also to
blame/tainted for what happened to Harry�and Scorpius is his ideal.

�� AvidReader:
Harry did have Ginny as a lover after Draco; she helped him come to terms with
himself. At the moment, he�s just as irritated with himself as you are that he
can�t move on. ;) But he can�t, not yet. One reason he came to Draco�s estate
was to try and end things or mend them once and for all.

�� yun: Draco
did tell Scorpius stories about Harry. Probably wasn�t able to help himself.

�� seiseme: Thanks,
but I�m taking the view that nothing can correct Harry�s scars, the way nothing
could correct Mad-Eye Moody�s. I think the St. Mungo�s Healers would know if
Muggles could do it.

�� qwerty:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� Graballz:
Thanks so much! Scorpius�s reactions are quite important for the story, as you
can see in this story.

�� DTDY:
Whether he knows it or not, Draco really did raise Scorpius as innocent.

�� applesauce_N_soysauce:
Thank you!

�� myniephoenix:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� BetaForRent:
Good point. In some ways, Draco is only being honest. And really, Harry values
his honesty, as when he tells Draco in this chapter that he knows Draco couldn�t
have lived with the lie of a glamour for long, even if he thinks he could.

�� Slashslut:
Well, Harry�s still in love with Draco, so I�m afraid that won�t happen. But at
least he�s pushing Draco further toward the realization that Draco is also
still in love with him.
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