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Learning Life Over	By : Meander Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 69712 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- 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.

Chapter List
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Chapter 32- Harry Tells Theresa What For

�� Harry
became aware of a certain caution in Theresa�s eyes when he entered the room
for their next meeting. He wondered if it came just from her memories of their
last session, or from something as elemental as the way he walked, the tilt of
his head, the light in his eyes.

�� This time,
Harry had not needed to go in pasting a mask of confidence over a crumbling
interior world. He did feel
confident, and the way he moved and held himself would reflect that.

�� Harry.�
Theresa�s voice was subdued. She gestured for him to take a seat in the chair
across from her, and only looked more worried when he complied. Harry might
have missed the quick flutter of her lips as she breathed out a small sigh, but
he was a trained Auror; they noticed things other people wouldn�t. �What has
changed since the last time we met?�

�� For one
thing,� said Harry, clasping his hands in his lap and learning forward, �I have
learned the lesson that I was too stubborn to learn from you.�

�� Theresa was
apparently still enough a Healer to be intrigued by the notion of her patient
healing himself. She leaned forward in turn. �What do you mean?�

�� I faced
the Ministry again,� said Harry blandly. �You�ve probably read the articles in
the papers about how Harry Potter reappeared briefly from a mysterious
confinement and then disappeared again?�

�� I may have
read- something about that.�

�� That was me, not someone using my name or my
face,� Harry confirmed. �And I went to the Ministry for the right reasons, to
comfort someone who needed it and make sure a criminal was properly arrested.
But I stayed for the wrong ones.� He cocked his head. �And then Draco kidnapped
me again, and we fought, and I broke his arm, and that was when I felt guilty
and talked myself out of going back
to the Ministry, even when Madam Bones came here to coax me.�

�� Theresa
looked a bit dazed. Harry wondered if it was from the swift way he�d recited
things or the speed of events themselves. �And what do you think this means,
Harry?� she asked finally, evidently attempting to conceal her own uncertainty
by forcing him to answer a question.

�� It means
that I�m committed to healing now, that I acknowledge I have a problem, and
that I faced temptation on my own and didn�t let guilt drag me back to the
Ministry.� Harry sat up. �And it means, I should think, that I don�t need your
help any more.�

�� Theresa
tilted her head to one side. �Really.�

�� Yes.�
Harry nodded firmly. He had had an argument with Draco about this. Draco
thought they should retain Theresa for at least a few more sessions, until they
could make sure that Harry�s change was well and truly settled. Harry wanted
her to leave now, and considered Draco�s stubbornness about keeping her a sign
that Draco didn�t trust his willpower. Finally they�d settled on the compromise
that, if Harry could make Theresa leave on her own, Draco wouldn�t pressure her
to stay. �I learn best on my own, when I�m faced with the actual challenge.
Talking like this makes me feel worse, and doesn�t help. Why would you want to
waste your time when you could go back to St. Mungo�s and help those who
actually need you?�

�� A faint
smile curled the corners of Theresa�s mouth. �I hate to tell you this, Harry,
but though the fundamental lessons probably are the most important, they are
not the only ones. You still need help to learn the rest.�

�� Harry
snorted. �Such as?�

�� The
commitment to making and keeping friends after this. I have not heard you name
that as something you learned.�

�� Harry
shifted. So, all right, he hadn�t considered that, but he had expected a bit
more applause for having stood up to the Ministry in the form of Madam Bones,
and he wondered, now, what it would take to satisfy Theresa. �I might look up a
few old school friends,� he muttered.

�� Theresa
smiled approval. �Such as?�

�� Shit. Harry scowled at her. Theresa only
went on with her gentle beam, as though she were genuinely interested in what
he did after this.

�� Dean
Thomas,� Harry said at last, grudgingly. �He was in Gryffindor House and my
year. He�s an artist now,� he added. He�d come across mention of that when Dean
was a witness in a big case a few years ago. �And he was always friendly. I
thought I�d talk to him, see if we can become friends instead of
acquaintances.�

�� That�s a start,�
Theresa murmured. �Have you thought of other people you might want to share
your life with?�

�� Harry
deliberated. And deliberated some more. And then deliberated some more, while
Theresa waited with no sign of impatience, no twitching, and a serenity that
would have done credit to a trained Auror.

�� No,� he
said, at last.

�� Well,
that�s one thing we can talk about,� said Theresa. �A way to make your way back
into normal life, and think of friends in ways that extend beyond Hogwarts.
They will never replace the ones you lost, of course, but that isn�t their
purpose.�

�� Harry ran a
hand through his hair in frustration. �This damn scar remains a problem,� he
told her. �Other than people I knew at Hogwarts- and only a few of them, even- I
don�t know who I can trust to be a friend and who would want to follow me
around fawning on me. It will be better than it used to be right after I killed
Voldemort, but people still stared at
me in the theater Draco and I went to. You�d think they�d be used to the sight
of an Auror with glasses and a scar on his head by now, but no.�

�� That makes
you upset, doesn�t it?� Theresa asked softly. �That you can never be sure which
bonds that connect you to others are real, and which were founded solely on
your fame?�

�� Harry gave
her a sour look. �What was your first clue?�

�� Theresa
spoke more gently than he�d ever heard her speak. �Have you considered that you
do deserve some fame, Harry, and that if you sift through enough people, you�ll
find those who can offer genuine friendship? You found them once before, at a
time when your fame was high compared to what it is now, and that for surviving
the Killing Curse. Is your reputation really a barrier in your eyes? Or do you
treat it as a barrier because you are used to doing so?�

�� That�s a
stupid question,� said Harry. �Of course it�s real, and of course it bloody
prevents me from doing what I want to do. Why do you think I never made more than a few close friends at Hogwarts?
Everything else was hero-worship and suspicion. People were all too willing to
turn on me when they thought I was lying about Voldemort�s return in my fifth
year, or because I speak Parseltongue.�

�� Well,
that�s unlikely to happen now, at least.� Theresa gave him another smile. Harry
wondered if her brains were addled, or if she could be so cheerful just because
this wasn�t her life. �You probably
only have the heroic side of your reputation to contend with. I�d like to talk
about that now, Harry, what you feel about it and how it prevents you from
having a normal life.�

�� Harry could
feel a blush creeping up his cheeks. He hated talking about being the center of
attention. It seemed to bring all those stares into the room by proxy.

�� You�re not
leaving, are you?� It was more of an exhalation than anything else.

�� When my
work here is done,� Theresa said calmly.

*

�� Draco
smirked and leaned back, stretching his arms over his head. He hadn�t thought
Harry would manage to convince Theresa to leave. Harry was stubborn, true
enough, but he was still out of his league when fighting a purely emotional
battle. Physical dueling was more his style.

�� A pop next
to him startled him, but it was only Trippy, bowing and handing over a sheaf of
parchment. �Here is the reports from Master Dogfoot, Master Draco, sir,� she squeaked.

�� Excellent.�
Draco had hired an ex-Auror- sacked not for incompetence but because he�d
angered the Minister- to track down Harry�s Muggle relatives and find out
essential information about them. From the size of the sheaf Draco held in his
hands, Dogfoot had done his job perfectly.

�� The first
page contained an address in Surrey. Draco smirked. So they haven�t left the country, after all. Better and better. I would
have been annoyed if I had to use the intercontinental Floo network to reach
them.

�� The next
page had photographs. Draco curled his lip and stared in disgust at a man so
obscenely fat that he most resembled a walrus dragged out on ice. He puffed and
blew in the picture as he put his hands on the shoulders of a woman with a
sharp nose, a thick chin, and a long neck that looked as if it would snap under
the pressure of the necklace she wore. Then he bent down and kissed her cheek,
and she blushed and giggled like a schoolgirl.

�� Harry�s aunt and uncle, Draco thought,
since the man was far too old for Harry�s cousin- bald, except for the enormous
moustache that dominated the lower half of his face. Too bad that I can�t count on a heart attack doing the job for me.

�� The next
picture was of a younger man who must be Dudley Dursley; the family resemblance
to Harry�s uncle was unmistakable. Draco looked hard at the squashed face,
marble-like eyes, butter-yellow hair, and, above all, the rolls of fat that
covered him, and yet couldn�t see a trace of Harry anywhere; they might as well
have been unrelated. He found himself savagely glad of that.

�� Dudley
Dursley was walking across the paved yard of some Muggle building, eating a
sandwich. Draco wrinkled his nose as he watched crumbs fly away from the fat
man�s mouth, and remembered something that Harry had told Theresa during his
attempt to make it seem as if his Muggle relatives weren�t all bad.

�� Sometimes didn�t feed me that well, but I
couldn�t blame them; my uncle and cousin were so fat they probably didn�t
notice they hadn�t left me any food.

�� It could
explain, at least, why Harry didn�t appear to care about the meals he ate when
he worked. Long-term exposure to starvation or poor rations would do that, and,
even more insidious, could convince Harry that he didn�t deserve to eat any better than a house-elf. Draco would in no way
want Harry obese, but he made a private note to continue supervising his meals
until Harry learned that lesson as well.

�� The rest of
the parchments contained notes on the Dursleys: their daily routines, the
interior of their house, their personalities, what they most often did when
they left their home. Apparently Dudley still lived at home with his parents,
and worked for his father�s drill company. Petunia, the aunt, spent most of her
time spying on and gossiping with her neighbors. Vernon Dursley went to work
and ate and slept and watched the Muggle device called a telly, and that
appeared to comprise the whole of his miserable existence.

�� Draco had
told Dogfoot to search for traces of magic around the Dursleys� home, or other
evidence of a wizard having lived there at one time, without telling him why it
was important. Dogfoot had faithfully performed all kinds of spells, including
some that were usually known only to Aurors. He hadn�t found a trace, not even
the lingering psychic impression that would have said simply that a wizard had
lived there for more than a decade. In his professional opinion, recorded near
the end of the sheaf, the Dursleys were utterly ordinary Muggles with no trace
of contact with the magical world.

�� Draco knew
what that meant. Psychic impressions could be scrubbed away from a house, but
when a wizard had lived in a place as long as Harry had, it took a two-sided
process. The wizard had to refuse to think of the place as home, and the people
who lived there had to ignore their memories of him. Apparently, Harry and the
Dursleys had been perfectly content to exercise their mutual antipathy. So
Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, was as far from being Harry�s
home as the inside of Malfoy Manor was. The Manor was closer, in Draco�s
opinion, because at least Harry was cared for here.

�� And loved?

�� Draco
considered the difficult question for a few minutes, then carefully set it
aside, just as he tucked Dogfoot�s notes into a rosewood box waiting for them
and charmed it shut so that no one but him could open it. He didn�t know the
answer yet. He was falling more and more steadily in love with Harry, but
something could still happen to interrupt the process.

�� He would
prefer that something didn�t, though.

�� Just as he
would prefer that the Muggles pay for their mistreatment of Harry.

�� Harry
didn�t seem to want that to happen. Draco didn�t care. The Dursleys were criminals, just as they would have been
had they treated his mother or Blaise the same way. Harry had been under their
care, and utterly helpless to defend himself as a child. He should have had one
place where he could feel sheltered from the world, one blood relative who
could love him. He didn�t, and Draco was convinced that had contributed to the
ease with which Harry cut himself off from other people later in life.

�� He would- return
a few of the blows. Nothing as drastic as Unforgivable Curses, of course; Draco
had no wish to see the inside of an Azkaban cell on either Harry�s behalf or
his own. But enough to make the Muggles understand what they had done, and
repent. Perhaps atone, though Draco hadn�t figured out a satisfactory means of
atonement yet. After all, it wasn�t as though Harry wanted them crawling at his
feet and begging his forgiveness, or he could have gone back to them after his
defeat of Voldemort, when he still blazed with power, and demanded that.

�� No, it
would have to be something else. Something decidedly special.

�� Draco went
misty-eyed thinking of it.

�� Draco?�

�� Startled,
Draco lifted his head. Harry had entered the room without his noticing.
Thankful he had locked the papers away already, he stood with a graceful swirl
of his robes. �And so?� he asked. �Is Theresa leaving?�

�� Harry
glared at him, then looked away.

�� Draco
smirked. �I thought not.�

�� Harry
sighed. �Can we go flying? I want to work all this tension out.�

�� For you,
Harry? Anything.� Draco lowered his voice, and watched Harry twitch. An intense
feeling of protectiveness swept over him.

�� Yes, anything. Including making sure that
the people who�ve hurt you realize how very, very sorry they are for it.

********

�� ochibi-chwan:
You could say this is the emotional climax of the first part of the story,
since the significant thing here is that Harry is now fully committed to his
own healing, instead of having to have someone else drag him through it. But
it�s not all downhill from here; there�s other conflicts brewing.

�� Gloria:
Thanks! Character psychology is a passion of mine (and sometimes an indulgence),
so it�s nice to hear that you find it interesting.

�� Asyen-Mari:
No problem! You�re on the update list.
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Learning Life Over