Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Ancient and Noble Houses	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 29877 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Thirty—Dance in the Darkness
            “Malfoy.”
            Draco opened his eyes, instantly aware. He had picked up that skill during the war; one of the favorite tricks of the adult Death Eaters had been to shake him out of a sound sleep and shout orders at him while he was still struggling to deal with being awake. So he sat up now, and turned towards the sullen voice, doing nothing but raising his eyebrows.
            “Potter’s by the door of the common room, shouting that he wants to come in.” The vague shape scowled at him, and Draco finally recognized the voice as Elias Grassburn, one of the boys who had been in their sixth year last year. “He wants to see you. A first-year who was up studying told a prefect, and the prefect told me, and I’m telling you. It’s your problem. You go deal with it.”
            Grassburn stumped back to bed. Draco stood up, frowning a little as he made sure that his robes were closed tight around him and that he’d left his boots where he thought he had. He didn’t know why Potter had waited by the common room door instead of slipping into Draco’s bedroom the way he had the night Kreacher was injured. But whatever magic had guided his movements that night seemed to have deserted him.
            He strode down the steps into the common room. There was no one there now, and the flickering fires were as sullen and low as Grassburn’s voice. Draco shook his head and went to open the door.
            Potter immediately stood up and straightened from a slump against the stone wall. He was staring at Draco with a longing that made Draco feel like the last pool of pure water in a desert. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and waved Potter in.
            “You’re safe,” Potter said, staring at Draco as though he wanted to memorize his face and use it as a beacon later in life.
            “Yes, I’m fine,” Draco said, and pulled Potter into the room when the gormless git would just have stood there staring. “I have to tell you something Snape said, though. I went back, and he was in the portrait. According to him, he really didn’t try to kill you on purpose.”
            “I figured that out.” Draco’s attempt to get Potter to sit down on one of the couches didn’t work. He turned around and went on drinking Draco with his eyes instead. “The house influences people, doesn’t it? It reaches out and makes them do what it wants. It made sure that you were there to save me, because it doesn’t want me dead, but it manipulated Snape into hurting me. So I would learn a lesson, I suppose.”
            “That’s right,” Draco said slowly, a little surprised that Potter had figured that out by himself. “But what are you doing here? Did you have another encounter with the portrait?” It was the only thing he could imagine that might have brought Potter here to make sure he was safe. Perhaps the house had made the portrait threaten Draco.
            Potter shook his head and looked around as though he had only now figured out where he was and why it might be strange for him to be there. “No. I was reading that book your mother sent me, which was Bellatrix’s diary during a time when the house chose her to be its heir.” He didn’t seem to notice Draco’s flinch at the mention of her name, but Draco reminded himself that Potter had brought up seemingly unnoticeable things later. “And it suggested that the house could reach out and bend other people under its influence.” He turned and stared at Draco with eyes so large that Draco blinked. “I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
            “I am.” Draco nodded. He didn’t think bringing up his missed sleep right now would help much.
            Potter gave him a strange, desperate smile. “And I want you to stay safe,” he said softly. “If this house can change me and Snape, then it could do the same thing to you. Maybe it’ll make you think that it’s okay for me to abuse you, or something.”
            Draco lifted his head and locked his hands behind his back. “I have other experiences that make that unlikely,” he began.
            But Potter ignored that and simply looked at him so intently that Draco blinked again. “I need you to stay out of this,” he said. “I have my friends helping me now. I finally told both of them the truth. I’ll have plenty of help. Stay away, okay? I don’t think you should be injured any further.”
            “I wasn’t exactly planning on it.” Draco took an aggressive step towards Potter before he could stop himself. “But what right do you think you have to keep me away? If I want to do something, then I will.”
            Potter shook his head. Then he said, “It doesn’t—it’s not about thinking you can’t handle it. It’s thinking that I’ve done enough to you already, with the ways I attacked you. That oath you made me swear was one of your best ideas. But I want to make sure that the house doesn’t attack you. The vow can’t protect you against that. So stay away.”
            “You’ve made me your heir,” Draco said coolly. “You’ve promised me and my mother more money than we’ve had since the war. I was probably able to cast the spell that saved your life thanks to the house’s influence. It was too complex for me to do otherwise, what with the restrictions on my wand. And you think you can—what, cancel all that?”
            “I think I can.” Potter’s body had gone still. Remembering the vow, though, Draco didn’t much care. “I think that you’d be bloody grateful, though. You never wanted me to take over or change your life, did you?”
            “I never did,” Draco agreed, with a little nod. “That doesn’t mean that you get to send me away like a child.”
            “I’m not doing it because I think you’re a child.” Potter had leaned back against the wall. “I think of you as someone who matters to me, someone I want to protect.”
            Draco gave him a smile that felt queer even by his standards. “And you care about your friends, I know. But you’re letting them fight with you. Why should I be shut out? Why should I be the one wondering if you’re going to go mad any second and have no warning, because I don’t know if you’re growing saner or not?”
            Potter stared at him, and his eyes had widened again and gone darker. Draco had no idea what was coming next, but he stood still, and folded his arms when the impulse to back away came on him. Everything he had said was true. He wanted to see this through to the end, and he thought his best option for doing that was to stay close and learn, from Potter’s friends if not himself, what was happening.
            Potter stepped towards him, a strange smile of his own on his face, and his arms held out. “Dance with me,” he whispered.
            “What?” Draco wanted to laugh.
            “I want you to dance with me,” Potter whispered again. “After that, if you want to stay in contact with me, then you still can. But not until you fulfill this last request of mine.”
            “Last requests are made by people who are about to be executed,” Draco said dryly, but he held out his hands, and clasped them with Potter’s. Potter all but purred, his eyes shut so firmly that it looked as if he might never open them again.
            Draco had wondered what music they would dance to, but they whirled and stepped in easy time in the middle of the common room, to music that Potter did no more than hum. His voice was so faint that Draco felt uneasy, and rested a hand on his chest to check if he was breathing.
            Potter opened his eyes and smiled lazily at Draco. “You feel wonderful,” he whispered.
            They were still dancing, stepping sideways and then backwards, towards the couches and fireplace and then away from them. But the music was gone, and Draco knew something had changed. “Thanks,” he whispered, the only word that would come to mind.
            Potter closed his eyes and began to hum the tune again.
            Draco watched him, and tried to remember whether his mother had told him any stories of Black ancestors who went into bursts of madness having to do with music. He didn’t think so. He was whirled and pressed, taken close and then retreated from, and if felt as if they were the only people in the school.
            Like dark phoenixes, he thought, for no reason, and started a little. The reference was familiar, but he couldn’t remember from where. That might be the house’s influence on him. He would have to try looking it up.
            Finally, Potter’s humming ceased again, and they stood next to one of the couches, close enough that Draco could feel an arm poking him in the ribs. Potter’s eyes opened slowly, dazed and distant and gentle.
            “Will you stay away?” he whispered.
            Draco took a deep breath. His hands tingled where they clasped Potter’s, and he tightened his hold on them.
            “No,” he whispered.
            Potter lifted his head and watched him with soft, narrow eyes. Then he nodded once and turned his back, walking towards the common room door.
            “Then I’ll see you in the library tomorrow,” he murmured, and passed into the corridor.
            Draco remained there to shiver.
            He had had only a glimpse of Potter’s neck when he lifted his chin, and the light was uncertain, with the fires dying. He could have been mistaken.
            But he thought the scars on Potter’s neck were confused, caught in a state somewhere between the curves of a three and the straighter lines of a four.
*
            delia cerrano: Not…exactly? As you can see.
            SP777: Come on. That wasn’t even a cliffhanger compared to some others I’ve done.
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Ancient and Noble Houses