Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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

Chapter Three—Endurance

            “Here you go.”

            Ginny kept her eyes on Lily’s face as she received her daughter back at the door of Harry’s new house and hugged her gently. “You’re okay?” she asked. “You had fun?”

            Harry winced. He thought the tear tracks still visible on Lily’s face probably told their own story, but he had no idea how to counter that. He had had Kreacher make Lily’s favorite breakfast for her this morning—fresh strawberries with whipped cream, and kippers—but Lily had still picked at the food, eaten in silence, and then looked up and announced that she wanted to go back to her mum’s, although she was supposed to stay with Harry until the end of the week.

            Harry swallowed when Lily nodded. Ginny glanced up at him, and there was no emotion on her face. She was more adept at keeping her feelings under control than Malfoy was, Harry realized, or at least than Malfoy had been when he spoke with Harry last night. When had that happened? When had the laughing, blushing bride he loved become this stranger?

            Well, she didn’t do it on her own. It probably happened during the times that I was gone, and the times I got back later than I promised her, and the times that I told her I’d be home for dinner and then ended up staying in St. Mungo’s.

            In the end, his life just hadn’t been normal enough for both marriage and kids, and Harry was wondering if it would be normal enough for Lily until she went to Hogwarts.

            “Wait outside, please, Lily,” Ginny said, her voice exactly like her face. Lily glanced back and forth between her parents as if she wanted to say something, and then bolted out the door and towards the Apparition point. Harry watched her go, watched her red hair bounce in the sunlight, and wondered if his mum had ever looked like that when she was a child.

            Granted, all he had of his mum were Snape’s memories and some photographs from Hagrid, but he thought she’d been happier.

            “Harry.”

            He winced and turned back to Ginny. She was showing some emotion now, weariness, but she still looked over his shoulder and didn’t meet his eyes. Harry knew that was easier for her.

            “I have to ask that you keep Lily next weekend,” she said. “I have a deadline coming up on that big article I’m writing, an interview that they didn’t tell me I’d have to conduct. The Cannons have a new Seeker.”

            Harry sought for something that would lighten the tension. “And your editor thinks that might mean they’re going to win?”

            Ginny sighed and looked at him. Harry shifted and tried not to feel as clumsy and awkward as he’d felt when he was sixteen.

            “I meant,” Ginny said, “that you have to keep Lily all weekend. No more silly fights. No more getting her so upset that she wants to come home right away.” Harry nodded, although part of him noticed that Ginny called the house where she lived now home even though they were supposed to share custody of Lily. Well, of course she did. It was the house where Lily had grown up. “I want to spend time with her, but I really can’t next weekend. I’m just asking this one thing of you. Turn off your wrist-bell if you have to, but you can’t take off in the middle of that weekend for a case. All right.”

            Harry took a deep breath. “All right.”

            Ginny’s face softened. “Thank you,” she said. She hesitated, then added, “I really think the biggest problem is that she doesn’t think you listen to her. Getting her the wrong present shows that. If you sat down and listened to her, talked about what she wants to talk about and watched her fly, it would help.”

            Harry smiled. “Thanks for the advice, Gin.”

            “Sure.” Ginny was already retreating back into the emotionless mask she’d shown him before, but that was the most helpful she’d been since the day of their divorce, and Harry wanted to maintain that. “I’ll see you next weekend.” She stepped out the door and walked to the Apparition point to collect Lily.

            Harry watched them before they disappeared, Ginny with her arm around Lily’s shoulders and Lily leaning against her as though Ginny was her one support in a hostile world. Harry waved. Lily didn’t look around as they Apparated.

            Harry put his hand down, and sighed. So. He had some unexpected free time, then, since he’d planned to devote today to Lily. He might as well go to the office and do some paperwork, since there were mounds of it to be done, as always, and that way he would be closer, right in the Ministry, if there was a crisis.

            His fireplace chimed before he could even think of going to put on his Auror robes. Harry sighed again and walked over to it, granting permission for the Floo call with a little wave of his wand. He thought he knew who it was going to be, and he wasn’t looking forward to another confusing and irritating conversation while part of him still pined for his marriage.

            Sure enough, Malfoy’s face appeared in the flames, and he studied Harry for a long moment before sniffing and pulling his head up a little. Harry didn’t want to inspect his nostrils to make sure they were clean this time. “What do you want, Malfoy?” he demanded, and winced as the ornate mantle above the fireplace poked his elbow. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but Harry was old enough not to want any more damage to his joints. His wrists already ached in the rain, even though he hadn’t played Quidditch in years.

            “I’ve thought of something that should pay back the debt,” Malfoy said.

            Harry tilted his head slowly, and folded his arms when he thought Malfoy still looked too optimistic. “Oh?”

            “A new owl,” Malfoy said. “I notice that you don’t actually send messages yourself, and you haven’t had an owl since the war, so your other one must have died of old age—”

            “She died of a Killing Curse,” Harry said, and moved back. He was glad that Malfoy was on the other side of the flames, and had at least that much of a barrier protecting him from the cracking, sparkling magic beginning to move up and down on Harry’s fingers. “During the war. Cast by a Death Eater.”

            Malfoy stared at him. Then he said, “She was just an owl.”

            Harry wanted to say something about Hagrid and first birthday presents and the way that an owl could become a friend, but his tongue got all tangled up behind his teeth. Besides, he’d thought of something better to say to the stupid prick.

            “Then so would be the owl you bought me,” he said. “Not something that can fulfill a life-debt, you agree?”

            Malfoy frowned. “You haven’t seen some of the birds that are available, Potter. Eagle-owls, snowy owls—”

            “Hedwig was a snowy owl,” Harry said, and he really did fear that he was going to lose it, which was stupid, especially in front of someone like Malfoy, who wouldn’t appreciate what Harry was saying anyway. He shook his head and shut down the Floo. Malfoy’s face vanished in the middle of saying something else.

            Harry strode to his bedroom to put on his Auror robes, and ignored the Floo when it chimed again. Emergency or Malfoy, it could wait until later.

*

            Malfoy’s small owl performed acrobatics this time trying to land on Harry’s desk. Harry had tottering piles of parchment on either side of him, trying to clear up everything he owed by buckling down to the task and working.

            The owl landed anyway, without knocking anything over, and then fluttered its wings and hooted at him. Harry rolled his eyes at it. “Your master doesn’t need a response,” he said. “Go away.”

            The small owl held out its wings towards the nearest pile and began to beat them gently. The threat was clear: then Harry didn’t need his neat piles of paper, either.

            “Fine,” Harry snarled, and took the letter from the owl. It didn’t fly away, which meant Malfoy wanted to engage in another conversation. Harry rolled his eyes again, but frowned when he felt a thicker piece of parchment in the envelope than just a letter would have made.

            The thinner piece of paper was indeed the letter Malfoy had written, which said simply, Obviously you grieve over the loss of your owl from twenty years ago more than any normal person should. I have thought of a gift that should fulfill the debt and help you recover from that both at once.

            The piece of parchment was an invitation from a Mind-Healer for Harry to call upon him at his earliest possible convenience.

            Harry narrowed his eyes. Then he quite calmly took an envelope from the drawer in his desk where he kept them, held up his wand, and cast a controlled Incendio on the invitation from the Mind-Healer. The owl screamed and flailed its wings, but Harry never looked at it, and it at last settled back, staring at him with evident fascination.

            When the invitation had burned to fine, grey ash, Harry tucked it into the envelope and wrote a short note to Malfoy. Enclosed please find what I think of your effort to send me to therapy.

            Then he gave the envelope and note to the owl, which eyed him cautiously before taking him off again.

            Harry smiled at the air, and went back to work.

*

            “So perhaps the effort to send you to see a Mind-Healer was stupid of me.”

            Harry closed his eyes. He had come out of his office and was walking to the lifts, feeling tired but accomplished. It was nine in the evening and he’d finally managed to clear the huge piles of paperwork.

            And now Malfoy had fallen into step beside him, a faint, abstracted frown on his face when Harry glanced sideways at him.

            “It was,” Harry said. He decided that if Malfoy was going to treat this as a casual conversation, then Harry would do the same thing. “I can’t believe you missed the public scandal a year ago when that Mind-Healer I tried to see decided that she could get a better price for selling my secrets than I was prepared to pay to her.”

            Malfoy moved his hand through the air as though scrubbing a window clean. “Not missed. Forgot about. Had more important things to notice at the time.” He turned his head and locked his eyes with Harry, as though he thought Harry would challenge that statement.

            Harry twitched a shoulder in response, and said nothing. He didn’t know enough about Malfoy to say whether or not it was true.

            But now they were on a lift, and at this hour, there weren’t many other people who could share it with them. And Malfoy showed every sign of following Harry down to the Atrium and out to the Apparition point if Harry didn’t say something.

            Harry cleared his throat. “Was there something you wanted?”

            Malfoy turned his head. Harry blinked. He had deep eyes, something that didn’t really show up when he was talking at Harry through the fire. Intense eyes, both in their clarity and their color.

            “Yes,” Malfoy said. “For you to decide what you want, so that I can pay this debt and reach the end of the month with a clear conscience.”

            “Why is the end of the month so important?” Harry demanded. He drew his wand and cast an anti-eavesdropping charm from force of habit, although he seriously doubted that any of Skeeter’s disciples had followed all her advice and become illegal Animagi to listen in to them. “You still haven’t made that clear.”

            “It’s Scorpius’s birthday,” Malfoy said softly. “And the thirteenth birthday has traditionally been one of some importance in our family.”

            Harry blinked. Sometimes he still stumbled on things about the wizarding world that made no sense, although Hermione had assured him that half of the “traditions” the pure-bloods blatted about were made-up, imaginary ways of separating themselves from Muggleborns. “You’re not supposed to go into your thirteenth birthday in debt?” he ventured, because it was really the only thing that made any sense, from what Malfoy had said to him.

            Malfoy shot him a long look before he straightened up and gave a clipped nod. “Yes, actually,” he said. “That’s part of it. I want Scorpius to have a good year before him, the first year of balance between childhood and adulthood. I don’t want this hanging over his head.”

            Harry sighed and raked his hand through his hair. If this was real and important to Scorpius, then Al probably knew about it, and by putting off letting Malfoy pay the debt, then Harry was making Al miserable, too.

            “Fine,” he said. “I’ll come up with some little thing, and you can give it to me, and that pays it. All right?”

            “Not all right,” Malfoy said, as the lift reached the Atrium and they stepped out. Harry shot him a quick glance and picked up the pace. Malfoy kept up with him without making it look like he was doing so, his eyes half-slitted. “It has to be something you genuinely want, Potter. Otherwise, the debt isn’t canceled.”

            Harry paused to slap his forehead. He hoped that Malfoy would hate to be seen with someone so gauche and go away, but it seemed he wasn’t to get his wish there, either. Although Malfoy’s nostrils flared, he didn’t stop walking or back away.

            “I can’t think of anything,” Harry said quietly to him. “I know this probably doesn’t come up often, what with your money and your connections and all, but you have nothing I want.”

            Malfoy kept studying him. He said nothing, but he followed when Harry made his way over to the Floos. Harry had decided that getting out of sight as soon as possible was preferable to Apparating.

            He didn’t try to prevent Malfoy from coming with him, although it was tempting. He just ducked through and spun around in his drawing room, casting a transparent, flickering shield over the doorway so that Malfoy couldn’t see into the rest of his home. Harry wasn’t in the mood to deal with Malfoy’s cutting comments about his lack of taste tonight.

            Malfoy straightened up once he was past the mantle and leaned on it, expertly avoiding the parts that always pricked Harry, as if he knew where they were. Harry wished he could do that. “I could give you a house-elf,” he said.

            Harry made a face. “Hermione would never let me hear the end of it. Besides, I already technically have one.”

            Malfoy shook his head like an irritated cat. “That’s not a matter you can be technical on, Potter.”

            Harry rolled his eyes back. “I don’t need to explain it to you more than that,” he said, and was going to continue the conversation, when two sounds interrupted him. First was his stomach growling. Harry touched it and blinked. He supposed he had missed lunch.

            The other sound was coming from his wrist, and it wasn’t going to be so easy to placate. That was the bell, telling him he had another case. Harry groaned and lifted it up to his eyes, reading the ribbon of words that unfurled. Possible murder case in Madam Malkin’s. Calling Aurors Potter, Donin, Garrett, Linger.

            And Harry couldn’t even bitch at them for calling him in on this, because he’d supposedly taken this day as a holiday. It was his business if he wanted to come in and clear off paperwork; it wasn’t the Ministry’s fault that he’d been called on a case the same night.

            “You’ll need to go, Malfoy,” he began, looking up.

            Malfoy was studying him with narrowed eyes. Harry shook his head and pushed his sleeve down over the bell. “You can’t sell this secret to anyone,” he said. “Even the reporters know about them now.”

            “I didn’t see you save Scorpius’s life,” Malfoy said abruptly. “Why is that?”

            Harry took a step forwards, herding the man towards the Floo. Malfoy went, but kept looking at him, so Harry gave in and explained. “Al wants me to stay under the Invisibility Cloak when I watch games. It disrupts the game and his concentration when I have seven hundred people trying to get my autograph.”

            Malfoy blinked. “I didn’t see you when Hogwarts had that ball that was open to parents and families, either,” he murmured.

            Harry shrugged. “Invisibility Cloak on that one, too. At my daughter’s request, this time. She could only go because one of the third-years invited her, and she wanted his focus on her, not her dad.”

            Malfoy stared at the wall for a second. Harry gave up on politeness and shoved him towards the Floo this time.

            Malfoy gave him a very faint smile and said, “I think I may have something. But I need the night to think about it. I’ll firecall you in the morning.”

            Harry shook his head. “Better make it two days. The chances that I’ll be both home and coherent in the morning are extremely small.”

            Malfoy opened his mouth as if to ask why, but Harry shoved him again, and Malfoy sniffed and vanished in a whirl of Floo powder. He did cast one glance over his shoulder at Harry before he did, though, intent and assessing. Despite that, Harry thought, he probably arrived at home without stumbling.

            Harry couldn’t give it too much thought. Life-debts might be the most important thing to Malfoy, but right now, Harry had to think of a life that had just ended.

            “Madam Malkin’s!” he called, and vanished into the rush of flame.

            When he came out into a room that stank of blood, he already knew this would be his least favorite kind of case: the gory ones.

            Well. Not much you can do about that.

            Harry calmed his stomach, settled his spirit, and strode forwards to take charge. That was what the others felt most comfortable with, and it was the way the case got solved the fastest, so it was what he had to do.

*

            SP777: He should have, but it’s largely his fault that Lily is like this, just as it’s his fault for not putting his foot down.

            chester: Yes, they’re kids. And Harry often doesn’t let them know that he’s exasperated with them, just like he doesn’t tell the Aurors that they’re overworking him.

            qwerty: Sorry, no Jamie in this chapter. But he will be in the next one.

            unneeded: Thanks! Malfoy may finally have a good idea, after a few very bad ones.
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Marathon