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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 Thirty-One�And Where the Offense Is

�� I know
you.�

�� Severus
laid his fingertips together and regarded the man in front of him with a
pleasant expression. He knew it would have driven him mad to be smiled at by someone who had dumped a Curse Potion on
him, so he did it now.

�� The
imposter shifted a restless step or two nearer. His nostrils were flared, which
only emphasized his likeness to Draco�though, Severus had to admit, not to the
Draco he had seen about the Manor in the last few days. His hands clenched
tight around the shaft of the wand that was not made of hawthorn. Strange,
Severus thought idly, that of all the similarities he had mastered, he would
neglect to fulfill that one. Of course, prowess in magic was important to him,
since he would need all the magic he could master to make himself look like
Draco. And if he could not find a hawthorn wand that would respond to him, he
had doubtless chosen the most powerful wand that would.

�� Of course
you do,� Severus said, and layered his voice with many fine shadings of irony.
This meeting was not a coincidence. He had worked improvements of his own
behind the Malfoys� wards in the past few days; he had long thought it foolish
of Lucius to rely on bloodline wards as his primary protection. But Lucius had
been too preoccupied by some private revelation to notice Severus�s tinkering
or object to it. �You have most of his memories, too, don�t you?�

�� The
imposter edged nearer still. Just now, he had a sharp edge to his sneer that
was unlike Draco. Severus had seen it
often in the mirror, though.

�� The dangers of sympathy.

�� (The dangers of sympathy? Lily said in his
mind, her eyes wide and her hair flying behind her. But sympathy is what makes
us friends, Severus. It�s what lets us look beyond appearances and find
something in each other more important than beauty.

�� She had not said aloud what they were both
thinking at that moment: that Severus would never be able to acquire admiring
looks for his beauty alone, and so needed to depend on sympathy.

�� But Lily was dead, and Severus had done his
�duty� to protect the only reflection she had left alive in the world, that
black-haired son of hers. He had no reason to let the memories trouble him).

�� I would
have had more of his memories still,� said the imposter in an aggrieved tone,
�if you hadn�t interrupted me.�

�� You needed
to be interrupted.� Severus leaned his back against the bole of a tree. They
stood not far outside the Malfoy estates, in the �buffer� zone secured against
the intrusion of Muggles or vengeful wizards with spells implanted in the soil
and vegetation. Severus had no fear of being attacked. Not only would the Curse
Potion inhibit some of the imposter�s major spells, but he had ingested enough
of his own brewing to ensure that he would walk away from this meeting
unscathed. �I have no need for a substitute Draco. The one I have now is worn
to the grooves of my fingers and my uses and my teaching. I prefer to keep
him.�

�� The
imposter�s face quivered, and then relaxed. A terrifying madness shone in his
eyes for a moment. Still Severus did not worry. Madness was not more powerful
than the invisible compulsion, the condemnation, of the Curse Potion.

�� You know,�
said the imposter. �What I am.�

�� I suspect,�
Severus corrected him. �I have no need to hear the whole of the story, which I
am sure is long-drawn and disgusting in several details. But yes, I know that
you are someone who became obsessed with Draco Malfoy and changed your life so
that you might become him. I know that the wards permitted you passage into the
house because, to them, you were Draco.�
He thought, but did not say, There has
been far too much becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy around here.

�� You must
know the passion that drives me.� The imposter whispered the words and came
nearer and nearer. Severus would have recoiled from the hunger in his eyes if
he were a weaker man. �You have experienced the same thing yourself. You have
seen gifts go unused, seen beauty wasted.
And I know that you dislike Potter. You don�t want to see him throwing his
legs around the waist of your favorite student, do you? You�ll help me.
You�ll��

�� Severus
experienced a flash of pure disgust. Yes, he had once known an obsession like
that: the obsession with Lily, and then with wishing he had prevented her death
when news came of what the Dark Lord had done. It was the sort of emotion that
refashioned the world around it, so that people became helpful or irritating or
stupid or beautiful simply because of where they stood in relation to the
perceiver.

�� But the
moment he had realized that such a perception existed and controlled his
emotional reactions, Severus had fought to disable it. He preferred reality, no
matter how prickly and painful. Pretending a cushion of wet moss was a throne
would not make it one.

�� And so he
had overthrown his obsession with Lily. The memories remained to him, and
always would, because the uprooting of what had given his life sustenance and
anchoring had left gaping wounds. But he had not given in to them.

�� Best of all
was to be free of obsession, as he was and he was beginning to suspect that
Lucius was. Second best was to make it livable, as Draco and Potter had. But
Severus had nothing but contempt for someone who surrendered the way this man
had.

�� Powerful in magic, strong in Legilimency,
with the resources and time to pursue this task, and he can think of no better
fate than to become a second-rate imitation of a man himself obsessed with
bedding the hero?

�� I will not
help you,� he said. �There are worse fates for Draco than becoming Potter�s
plaything, and death is one of them.�

�� But if I
destroyed him, it would only be to make him better,�
said the stranger eagerly. �Like melting down an ornament of mostly base metal
to release the silver inside it.�

�� You were
not able to come up with any other way to secure his memories than forced
Legilimency,� Severus said. �You can imitate neither his architectural talent
nor his passion for Potter. No, I find nothing valuable about you, but only the
tarnish waiting for more fingers to multiply it.�

�� The
imposter lunged at him, but Severus flicked his wand and he bounced away,
crashing heavily into a spiny bush.

�� Severus
whirled and Apparated back to the house. His improvements to the wards let him
pass in and out soundlessly, but would keep the imposter out should he attempt
to follow�

�� Which, yes,
he had. Severus smiled as tingling sensations struck the small of his back, the
wards reverberating but holding. The imposter was a genius, but he had devoted
too much of his time and effort to imitation. He did not know potions in the
way that Severus did.

�� If I had an imitator, maybe he would.

�� Then
Severus, who had landed in his lab, laughed aloud. If I had an imitator, and a competent one, he would kill me before I
began to suspect his existence.

*

�� And they
still haven�t decided what the imposter is, have they?� Draco leaned back
against the pillows in his bed and stretched. To the casual eye, he�d look
bored, but Harry knew that he was concealing nervousness under the gesture. He
took a moment to silently marvel at his own knowledge.

��

�� Then he
remembered how dearly that knowledge had been purchased, and bowed his head
over the notes that Kingsley had given him until he could compose himself.

�� As a
matter of fact,� he said, �they think they have a good guess.�

�� Draco
immediately rolled over to face him. Harry kept his eyes on the notes, delaying
and thus making sweeter the moment when he could glance up and see Draco�s gaze
focused and glittering on him.

�� It still
shook him to feel the clenching greed in his body when he met that gaze�the
same way that he loved and yet resented the way his head turned automatically
towards Draco when he entered a room with him in it, or the way he came out of
the Floo into the Manor that evening oriented towards the bedroom already. He
had tried to imagine, yesterday, what would happen to him if Draco died, and
silence and terror had clasped his throat and tried to drown him.

�� Obsession
and love were weaknesses as much as they were strengths. Harry hoped he would
learn to live with both.

�� Well?�
Draco demanded.

�� Harry had
lingered too long in that silence. He looked up, and drank in the light coming
from Draco�s eyes for a few moments before he managed to speak, his voice a bit
breathless. �They think he�s someone ordinary,� he said. �Someone who became
obsessed with you, who wanted to be you��

�� Then he
couldn�t be someone ordinary,� Draco said in a miffed tone, and turned his head
away. Harry smiled and studied the line of his profile before responding.

�� Someone
who wasn�t famous. Someone who didn�t have close relatives or friends to miss
him, or someone would have reported him missing by now.�

�� Draco
huffed a sigh. �Yes, all right, I�m being stalked by a common lunatic,� he
said, and waved an impatient hand. �You might as well tell me the truth.�

�� Harry
concealed a laugh behind his hand. He knew Draco was going out of his way to
amuse him, but the very fact that he was, Harry thought, was a hopeful sign.
Draco had never cared about making up to him before. He had seemed to assume
that the way he wanted to act was also sufficient to draw Harry.

�� Or it�s another sign of his continuing
obsession with me, too.

�� Harry ran
his fingers through his hair to distract himself from scowling. He kept bumping
up against that thought, and each time he had to flinch anew and think how
different the love they shared was from the emotion between Ron and Hermione.
On the other hand, it would hardly do to forget it, after the betrayal Draco
had inflicted on him.

�� Not as bad
as that,� he replied. �You can at least take some consolation in the fact that
he�s not an ordinary lunatic because he�s nameless.�

�� Draco
blinked at him. Harry was hungry even for the way his blond eyelashes rose and
fell, sheltering and then showing his eyes. �And how did he manage that?�

�� The magic
he worked.� Harry looked back at the Auror case notes on the subject, feeling
quiet awe brush him like a moth�s wing. �He passed the wards because he
convinced them he was you. It wasn�t your blood he carried in his veins, but
the stamp of your personality and spirit he carried in his soul. And to go that
far, he had to whittle himself away.
We don�t stand any chance of knowing who he was. The magical theory experts in
the Auror Department think that if we ever ran into his original name, we
wouldn�t recognize it. Magic and desire do strange things.�

�� Draco was
silent. Then he shook his head and said, �He�s still out there, somewhere. Will
the Aurors assign me a guard?�

�� Harry
hesitated. Then he took a deep breath. �They thought I would do, if you�ll
consent to me.�

�� Draco let
his eyelashes rise very high this time. �What? I�I don�t mind�� And there was a
scramble and tangle of emotions behind his voice that told Harry, in incoherent
terms, just how very far from minding he was. �But why would your supervisors
think you were competent enough to take the case? They sent you away in the
first place for sleeping with me.�

�� Not only
for that,� Harry said. �And�I explained things to Kingsley.�

�� It hadn�t been pleasant, sitting down before
the Head Auror and telling him that he had found himself so tied to Draco�s
fate that opposing it was impossible. Harry had rambled on about love and the
way he�d rescued Draco and the way he�d felt when he thought the imposter would
yet tear Draco apart whilst Kingsley gazed past him at the far wall, his face
old in a way that made Harry feel guilty.

�� At last he said, �I understand, Auror. And
yes, you�ll stay on the case. You�re the best protection for him at the moment,
since you�re fighting for love, and it�s the best way to avoid the scandal that
Auror Weasley�s failure to provide guards for Malfoy would signify to the
public.�

�� He turned back and held up a hand just as
Harry began to babble his thanks. �If something goes wrong this time,� he said,
�you won�t be removed from the case, because there won�t be a reason for you to
be in the Department at all.�

�� Harry had bowed his head and kept it still
for long moments, to ensure Kingsley that he understood the seriousness of the
situation. His infatuation with Draco could cost him his job. But he
didn�t�couldn�t�regret the cost, because of the prize, and the frustration of
knowing that shimmered behind Kingsley�s eyes.

�� Good,�
Draco said, and Harry started when he realized that Draco had come closer and
slipped a hand behind his neck. Usually, Draco voluntarily touching him was
such an event that he didn�t miss any nuance of it. �Then we can do a variety
of things that would be hard to do if I had to visit you in your flat every
day. Or, worse, the Ministry.�

�� Harry
smiled and kissed Draco gently, sucking at his lip. �You wouldn�t want to shag
in the Ministry,� he said, pulling away again. �They�ve thought of ways to suck
privacy out of every tiny corner.�

�� Suck, hmmm?� Draco�s eyes filled with
delight. �I think that�s an invitation, Auror Potter.�

�� Harry
flowed down Draco�s body, kissing him and stripping the cloth from his body
with wandless magic as he went. They had wanked and sucked each other off in
the last few days, without hesitation. Harry found a continual violent delight
in touching Draco, rather like dashing into the sea and embracing a wave that
was almost too much for him to handle.

�� But neither
of them had suggested shagging again. The action held too many regrets and too
many silences�too many apologies that Draco hadn�t yet made and which Harry
wasn�t sure he could have accepted were they made.

�� They�d get
there eventually, Harry reassured himself as he opened Draco�s trousers and
then maneuvered his pants gently down his legs. They had more time than he had
ever thought they would when he saw the imposter almost choke Draco to death at
that party.

�� And then
the sight of Draco�s hard cock filled his vision, and the taste filled his
mouth, and he had better things to think about.

*

�� Draco
snapped his eyes open in the darkness. He knew that someone had brushed past
his forehead, and he had the unshakable conviction that it was his mother.

�� Why not a moth? Why not the twitch of a
ward? he asked himself, as he propped his body up on an elbow and rubbed
sleep away from his mouth. You have
enough reason to worry about the wards, with the imposter after you.

�� But he had
sensed things like this before, though the memories were hardly more
substantial than dreams, and he wasn�t surprised to see a faint glow hovering
around the portrait frame mostly hidden by a tapestry on the wall. Draco wiped
his mouth again, and then told himself not to be weak. He stood and walked over
to the frame.

�� When he
drew back the tapestry, his mother sat in the green velvet chair that the
artist had made part of the painting, staring at him.

�� Draco
cleared his throat. He was always unaccountably embarrassed when he talked to
his mother, which he never understood. After all, he had known her all his life
before she�passed. There was no reason that he had to feel isolated from her.
And he had shared a few late-night conversations with her that had ended up changing
his life.

�� Draco,�
Narcissa said. �Am I to understand that you have chosen Harry Potter?�

�� Draco
looked over his shoulder towards the bed, but Harry didn�t stir, except to
mumble and press his face into the warm indentation Draco had left. So he faced
his mother again and nodded, not meeting her eyes.

�� Why?�
Narcissa asked. �I have seen you with others who would have made superior
partners.�

�� Draco
relaxed. When his mother entered this question-and-answer game that was also a
cat-and-mouse one, he knew how to reply. She had always been closer to him
simply because she loved him more than Lucius, but it was also true that Draco
grasped her means of showing that love better. She wanted him to succeed and
survive, whereas Lucius had sometimes acted as if his survival would be enough.
Certainly, by allying with the Dark Lord, he had done much to sabotage Draco�s
future.

�� My feeling
for those people was not superior,� Draco replied. �For him, it is.�

�� And you
would choose a partner based on your feelings?� Narcissa tilted her head, her
eyes glittering like moonflowers at midnight. �Not on what he can bring to your
family, your life, or your vaults?�

�� Yes,�
Draco said. �I don�t want a marriage like yours and Lucius�s.�

�� Narcissa�s
face became so proud and pure and remote that, for a moment, Draco almost
decided he didn�t know her. �What has
your father been telling you?�

�� I have
eyes,� Draco said shortly. He had never spoken about this with his mother�s
portrait, but then, she had never demanded that he justify his choice of
lovers, either. He wondered how far her reach really extended. Had she realized
she was dead and should concern herself with things other than her son? �He
moped after you died, for years, and now recently he goes around with his face
in this look of frozen contemplation. He�s angry at you, now, finally, for
dying the way you did. And he has a right to be. It was a stupid way to die.�

�� Narcissa
stirred, a ripple running the length of her robes. �I was trying to protect
you.�

�� I know you
were.� Draco bit his lips and brew his breath hard through them, trying to
chase away the tension. �But the problem, Mother, is that you refused to rely
on anyone�s help to do it.� He threw
a glance back at Harry and thought, again, of the impossibility of parting with
him. So far, he had thought of that mainly in terms of a weakness, the
obsession he couldn�t grow past or get over or transform. But that wasn�t true,
was it? The emotions had transformed already, from his blank self-absorption into
the stronger and cleaner passion that had made him attack the imposter for
Harry�s sake. �You can call that the lesson I�ve learned and the decision I�ve
made, if you like. I�ve chosen a partner who can help me.�

�� Draco.�
Narcissa breathed a sigh he thought would have felt like moonlight if it had
actually touched his face. �There are two problems with that. The first is the
fragility of other people. What happens if he dies and leaves you alone? If he
tires of you? If he fails you?�

�� I don�t
fear the second happening,� Draco said. �We�ve enthralled each other.� He
smiled, and wondered absently what the smile would look like in a mirror.
�Thrall is an old word for slave. I never realized how appropriate that was.�

�� If he
leaves you alone?�

�� I know
that could come,� said Draco. �I think I would survive it better than Father
survived your death. At least I would know my partner had loved me.�

�� Narcissa
chose not to let that make any impact on her expression. �And if he fails you?�

�� I�ll fail
him, too,� Draco said. �I expect failure. I�m teaching myself to live with it.
I think I�ll be happier when I do.�

�� The second
problem,� Narcissa said, �is that you have not told Potter everything. He
thinks he understands the full range of your obsession, and I have heard him
confessing his to you. But you have left out part of the truth.�

�� Draco
frowned. �What?�

�� In the
portrait frame beside Narcissa, Harry appeared. Draco at once recognized the
one he had kept imprisoned in the portrait in the relics room from the
bitterness around his mouth and the shadows in his eyes. He tossed his head
back, gave Draco a bitter wink, and mouthed something insulting before he
vanished behind the green velvet chair.

�� I didn�t
know he could leave his own picture,� said Draco numbly. He shifted. His
fingers were tingling as if he�d sat on them.

�� We have
conversed for some time,� said Narcissa. �And to both Potter and yourself, you
owe the duty of making sure you can survive your darkest part.�

�� She
vanished out of the frame with a single stride. Draco stood regarding it for a
long time before he let the tapestry fall, and then he went back to bed for
several hours of comfortless waking, whilst Harry snored in his ear.

*

�� Lucius
looked at the endless rows of diaries gathered on the shelves.

�� Not endless, whispered the pedantic,
truth-telling voice in the back of his head. Lucius made it a habit to tell himself as much of the truth as
possible. Lying to other people was a necessity of life, but he had seen too
many Death Eaters who lied to themselves and lost their grip on reality in the
process. You know that she kept them for
the twenty years she was married to you, and she generally filled one every two
months.

�� But for
some months she had written more, and each diary was filled with pages that he
had, reverently, not counted�as if refusing to count them could somehow make
Narcissa�s life, contained within them, last forever.

�� Lucius�s
shoulder muscles bunched, then relaxed.

�� She wrote them. And what good did it do? She
showed them to no one else. She didn�t act on the revelations that she put in
them. Either she was recording actions she had already taken, or actions she
had already decided on, or bitter truths that she hugged to herself, glad that
other people didn�t know them. She never once tried to show me that she didn�t
love me, or felt my love inadequate. She never once hinted that she thought I
couldn�t protect Draco. She expected me to know it.

�� She was self-absorbed, curled into herself
like a snail into its shell, writing for herself only. I thought these diaries
were addressed to me, or maybe to Draco, the legacy she left of herself, my
chance to understand her.

�� I only understand her mirror by
understanding them. And I need to leave this room before my love for my wife is
drained completely.

�� Lucius
stepped out of the library. He had considered, for a wild moment after his
anger freed him from his obsession with his wife, burning the diaries. It would
be a fitting fate for those shiny, reflective words that in the end conveyed
nothing but the endless, suffocating labyrinths of Narcissa�s soul.

�� But in the
end he could not bring himself to do it. Draco was more like Narcissa�was the
center of her life. Maybe he would find something of value in them.

�� Instead,
Lucius locked the library�s door, gently, and then walked away, leaving the
words to whisper in the dark to themselves, the only audience they were truly
interested in.

*

�� Dezra:
Thank you!� I think this story started
off in uncertain territory at first�it took me a while to weave a plot of my
own around the plot prompt�so maybe that was why it seemed like something you
wouldn�t like.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thank you!

�� linagabriev:
Draco is getting there! Though, as this chapter shows, he still has some way to
go.

�� I�m glad
you think Draco is still strong. If he�s weakened, it�s only in the way Harry
has, because they are, after all, obsessed with one another.

�� Harry
wanted to ensure that Draco wouldn�t treat him like a dirty secret, he wanted
to protect Draco from misconceptions, and he wanted to correct the false story
Draco had released to Skeeter, all at once.

�� Harry was
kind of struck dumb by Hermione�s presumption that she could say who was a
fundamentally good person and who wasn�t, actually.
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The Same Species As Shakespeare