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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-Three�Dearer
Than Liberty

�� Draco
halted in front of the door to his room and closed his eyes. His heart was
beating so loudly that he thought he wouldn�t have heard Harry if Harry had
spoken just then. His mouth was dry and bitter, and sweeping his tongue across
his lips didn�t help.

�� He opened
his eyes and stared unseeing at the door for long moments. The plate of cobalt
was still the same when his gaze focused, and so was the dragon�s head in the
center, surrounded by a braid of gold. Now, he could hear Harry stirring beside
him. To avoid looking at the door for a moment, Draco turned around and looked
at him. Harry was squinting as if he had tried to stare into strong sunlight.

�� What�s the
matter?� Draco asked, watching the shadows darting across his face in
fascination.

�� It is like the Chamber of Secrets,� Harry
whispered. �Both of them guarded by serpents. Both of them with something dark
inside.� He looked at Draco, as if against his will; his left eye lingered on
the door for long moments after his right had transferred its gaze. �There is
something dark in there, isn�t there, Draco?�

�� Draco tried
to speak, but his dry mouth prevented him. He settled for taking Harry�s hands,
murmuring into his ear, �Believe nothing you see or hear,� and stepping
forwards.

�� His
illusory defenses surrounded him at once. The ground trembled and tried to
close over him like quicksand. The voices danced on the edge of his hearing and
laughed and lied. The heat of flames tried to burn his eyes out of his head,
tried to turn his lips to ash, tried to turn his fingernails to drifting black
fragments.

�� Harry
uttered one huge gasp, a sobbing breath like someone about to drown in mud.
Then they were through, and Draco opened his eyes.

�� Once again,
he could not bear to look at Harry. Once again, he stood gazing forwards and
awaiting Harry�s reaction, though this time fear had cramped his spine and the
muscles of his belly until he thought he would vomit.

*

�� For some
reason, Harry noticed the luxurious furniture and wall coverings in a blaze of
gold and gems and glory first, and then dismissed them. He should have stared
the way he had stared at the furnishings of the Manor when he was new to it,
but he couldn�t. Perhaps he knew instinctively that riches were not what Draco
had brought him here to see. Draco would not be nervous about displaying treasures
to him.

�� No, the
glass cases caught his gaze, and held them.

�� Harry put a
hand to his mouth. He hardly knew what he was trying to hold back. Words? Bile?
Blame?

�� He moved
slowly towards the cases, and, somewhere along the way, dropped Draco�s hand.
He stooped, and stared at his own face flickering across the photographs that
the Daily Prophet had published and
other people had taken of him, small images of himself riding brooms, making
speeches, laughing, tossing his head back, leaning a shoulder against a wall as
he gave some brisk post-arrest discussion of a criminal�s finer techniques.
Every Harry, he soon noticed, kept his eyes carefully away from the torn edges
of the pictures, as if he could remain unconscious of his imprisonment if he
did so.

�� He turned
his head slowly, wondering what could come next, what could be worse than the
photographs preserved under glass as if they were precious things instead of
the detritus of a wizarding society that had made him its one true celebrity.
And he discovered that worse was the detritus of his own daily life. Crumpled
invitations, crumbs of bread and cheese, memos in his handwriting, cups which
enchantments must have preserved with the imprint of his lips on the side,
dirtied bars of soap, twists of cloth he didn�t even remember but which he must
have used at some point to dry his hands or carry food on�

�� Or, he
realized as he saw the stains of blood on one of them, bandage wounds.

�� He lifted
his head and moved to another case, and looked at more of the same. His
movements were slow and deliberate, and he thought Draco, watching him, must
assume Harry was doing that to torment him.

�� He wasn�t. He
hadn�t yet let the reality of the situation break over him like a cloudburst, because,
when he did, he thought he would lose something precious.

�� He looked
up at last, to the platform of jade that stood in the center of the room,
raised above the other objects, to the glittering portrait frame that brooded there,
and the scene of the Quidditch pitch that it enclosed, and the figure of
himself that stood in the center of it with arms folded.

�� There was
horror and weariness in his pictured self�s eyes to rival the horror and
weariness that would come from spending a lifetime among the Death Eaters.

�� Harry
swayed, and put out a hand. He found a shoulder beneath his fingers, a hand
clasping his�Draco, ready to lend support.

�� Harry,
without even thinking, tore his arm loose and spun about. �Don�t touch me,� he
whispered, his tongue scraping like one of the dry, tattered parchments Draco
had preserved against his teeth. �Oh, don�t touch me.�

*

�� Draco felt
as though the best thing of his life had turned to tears and salt and melted
through his fingers.

�� He stepped
back from Harry and folded his hands, staring at the floor. The dryness had
invaded his eyes. He knew he should weep for the ending of the love he had
hoped for, but there was no question of that. He shivered again and again, and
didn�t dare to lift his head and look at Harry, in fear of what he would see
there.

�� But of
course he had to look up again, because he had pictured the meeting between the
real Harry and his portrait�in other contexts�for too long not to observe it.

�� Harry had
moved forwards and rested his hands on the jade platform that held the frame,
staring up at his other self with desperate pity. That other self was examining
him with a rapt expression that had driven out its own fear, which Draco had
seen on its face from the day that the enchanted portrait awakened.

�� How long
have you been here?� Harry asked, the words rising and then falling on a slight
breath Draco knew he would never have heard if he hadn�t been concentrating
intently on doing so.

�� The portrait
opened his mouth, but the Silencing Charms Draco had embedded in the frame so
long ago kept him from saying anything. He twitched his cloak around his
shoulder and glared pointedly past Harry at Draco.

�� Harry didn�t
even turn around to look at him; that was the most heartbreaking thing, Draco
thought later, when he could think properly. He simply drew his wand and tapped
it against the frame, muttering a few countercharms. The portrait drew a deep
breath and lifted his hand, laying it against the surface of the painting like
someone stroking a pane of glass. Harry at once lifted his hand in response,
but his fingers hovered a few inches above the streaks of paint; perhaps he
remembered that he couldn�t touch his other self no matter what happened.

�� He�s kept
me here for years,� the portrait Harry said, softly but fervently. �He had
spells on the frame so I couldn�t get out and couldn�t speak. The portrait of
his mother dissipated those spells recently, or I wouldn�t have been able to
move around at all.� He trembled and shut his eyes. Then he said, �I think he
changed when it came to the real thing, but, Harry�are you sure you can be happy with him?�

�� I�m not sure,� Harry said, his voice loud
and rough and broken.

�� Draco
licked his lips and then spoke, because not even the dryness of his mouth could
block the aching of his heart at that point. �Harry. Think of the way we�ve
rescued each other and spoken to each other in the past few days��

�� Think of the
way he abused me,� said the portrait Harry, tossing his hair out of his eyes
and revealing the lightning bolt scar. Draco remembered how careful he had been
to insist on that particular detail making its way into the painting. Harry
wouldn�t really have been Harry without that scar, and Draco had had to have a
realistic image to look at in lieu of the real thing. �For years. Can anyone
change that fact? I don�t think so.�

�� I can,�
Draco said, �now that I have the real thing.�

�� Listen to
you,� Harry said, whipping around to face him. His arms were folded, but Draco
thought the movement was defensive as much as it was angry. His wand scraped
along the inside of his arm, pointed towards his body, and his shoulders
hunched as if he were gifted with wings. �Have.
As if I were a bloody object!� His hair stood on end with the wandless magic
whipping around him, a transition so sudden that Draco blinked in startlement.

�� It�s only
an expression,� Draco said. He could feel anger threatening to break through
his calm, and he willed it away. He thought getting angry now would only
provide the portrait Harry with a chance to point out to the real Harry how
dangerously unstable he was. �Harry, I love you. It�s true that I didn�t only love you for a long time, I wanted
to possess you, too, but you felt the same way towards me. Why is this so
different? We�ve both cleared the rubbish out of our emotions, we can be honest
with one another��

�� I never
felt anything like this.� Harry shuddered, his shoulders rolling this time as
if he stood on a ship. �Nothing like this.�

�� But it was
similar,� Draco argued, stepping towards him. He felt as if he had to reach out
and snare him with his hands, as if Harry would vanish at any moment�despite Draco
knowing that he had spells to prevent anyone else from Apparating in on the
room�and at the same time, he didn�t quite dare to touch him. �Harry, please. I
love you. The real you, not the person I thought you were. That person was the
one I collected these clippings because of, that person was the one I fought
the war for. But you�re the person I attacked the imposter for��

�� Convenient,
then,� said a replica of his own voice from the other side of the room, �that I
can destroy you both at once.�

�� Draco
turned, but not fast enough.

�� A purple
mist encircled him, and then a cold sensation struck to the center of his being�rather
the way his nightmares had included the Dementor�s Kiss happening, sometimes,
when he dared to dream about such things. And then he was falling, and there
was no bottom under his feet at all.

*

�� Harry saw
the imposter standing with his wand triumphantly raised, and then the purple
mist turned away from punishing Draco and surged towards him. Draco lay
motionless on the floor, his mouth open and his eyes blank. Harry thought he
saw something, a whirling scum of stars, shine through the purple smoke. Then
it vanished.

�� Harry felt
an immense anger, sparking red-black, fill him. He might have decided not to
love Draco anymore and leave him alone to wallow amongst the manky remains of
his obsession�but he was the one who
should make that decision, and not this obsessed creature with the mad genius for
spells in front of him. Harry flung his magic towards the imposter, partially
through his wand and partially through the air.

�� The storm
ripped into the imposter and tossed him off his feet. He rolled and smashed
into one of the glass cases, which shattered at once so neatly that Harry
suspected a Reparo had been used on
it recently. But he was back on his feet in a moment, and a blue smoke rose
from his wand and sailed on enormous bat-wings towards Harry, whilst the purple
smoke that had stolen the essence from Draco moved up behind him.

�� Harry
snarled. He didn�t care. He didn�t care. Draco
was lying on the floor, bereft of his soul or something else important, and the
imposter was smiling as if he didn�t care that he had just done something like
that, and Harry�s stomach was churning with the thought of what Draco�s
obsession must have meant�it was much worse than the people who followed him
around asking him for autographs�and his head hurt and his magic rang and he
had lost the love he had thought he had found and he wasn�t going to take this.

�� He cast a
spell that Hermione had designed and then promptly forbidden him to use. The
air in front of him darkened and solidified and became a large, bird-winged
creature with a body like a dragon�s and a head like a donkey�s. It opened its
mouth and sucked at the air, and the blue smoke compressed itself and hurried
into the tunnel its lips formed.

�� That left
the purple smoke. Harry turned towards it and balanced his wand on his palm,
panting lightly.

�� Give up,�
hissed the imposter. �Just give up. You�ve
found out that he never cared for you in the way you thought he did; why would
you want to stay with him?�

�� But Harry
heard the crackling edge of desperation in the man�s voice, and had to keep
from smiling triumphantly. His eyes stayed locked on the purple smoke. He moved
backwards a step, as if frightened, and the smoke surged in.

�� Then Harry
sprang to meet it, and flung his magic in another uncoordinated fashion. He was
already shaking with the exhaustion that always followed any lengthy use of
wandless magic, but his anger was so great that he didn�t care. And besides, he
knew exactly what he wanted to happen, when the condition that usually attended
any use of wandless magic was desire unshaped by will.

�� And now I�m starting to sound like Hermione.
Maybe it�s appropriate when dealing with a genius madman.

�� The magic
surrounded the purple smoke in a shining, snapping net, the way that Harry
thought a fishing net might look if it was alive and aware and able to take an
active part in capturing its prey. It writhed and flung hooks and limbs in all
directions, and the purple smoke screamed. It shredded, and the silver, shining
thing Harry had briefly glimpsed before, the thing that belonged to Draco, flew
out and into the open air.

�� The net
turned to pursue that, and the imposter pointed his wand.

�� Harry
jumped up and caught it the same way he would have caught the Snitch in a
Quidditch game.

�� The silver
thing hissed and coiled around his hands, as wonderfully alive as the snakes
that Harry had once worked with when the Aurors had interrupted an illegal
shipment of cobra-Runepsoor hybrids on the way back to Africa. But this time,
Harry could feel a stronger warmth under the scales, and he knew that what he
held lived in a deeper way than any
mass of scales and muscles ever could.

�� Give me
that.�

�� Harry
looked up. The imposter stood a few feet away from him, and his wand was
leveled. At Harry, not at the prone Draco lying on the floor. Harry gave a
slight, contemptuous smile. Genius madman he might be, but he hadn�t yet
figured out that threatening Draco was more effective than threatening Harry
himself, who had faced death almost daily for years.

�� Not unless
you tell me what it is,� he said, betting on the man�s own obsession to make him
want to explain himself, or at least talk about his ruling passion any chance
he got.

�� It�s his
memories,� the man whispered obligingly, staring at the silver mist Harry held.
�The innermost ones, the ones I couldn�t get when he was my prisoner because he
tricked me.� His voice made that
crime sound worthy of the Dementor�s Kiss. �The ones that will really tell me
what it�s like to be Draco Malfoy. The most important perceptions, the
influences that crept into his mind before he could speak, and the emotions
that will linger on his mind when he dies.� He stepped forwards, one hand out. �Give
them to me.�

�� Harry
swallowed and clasped his hands together. That didn�t crush the memories, of
course; they foamed over his palms and clung to his fingers, twining, restless,
moving, living. Harry dropped his
eyes to stare at them for a moment.

�� You can
give them to me, and that will end the problem,� the imposter said, smiling at
him. �I wanted to kill you, but why should I? I have no doubt, now, after I�ve
seen this room, that his passion for you is rooted deep in his soul. But if I
take it into me, it will become mine. And I�m
not the one who collected these mementoes of you, who made this shrine to
you, who destroyed his soul in the pursuit of you.� He stepped closer and
lifted a hand as if he would lay it on Harry�s cheek. �You could have the man
who loved you whilst knowing, at the same time, that he wasn�t actually the one
who did these horrible things.�

�� Harry felt
a moment�s surge of pity. The words were a temptation, yes, but only in the way
that an offer of a million Galleons would have been a temptation. It appealed
to only a part of him and only for a moment.

��

�� Because the
scales had fallen from his eyes as he gazed at the material of Draco�s
obsession, the differences it had from his own and the similarities, and he
understood himself better than he ever had.

The thing he had always wanted was
for Draco�as he was, cold and supercilious and talented�to acknowledge that he
loved Harry. That was why the fantasy had been impossible, because Draco as
Draco was couldn�t do that. And Harry had allowed himself to believe the
charade of Draco�s feelings in the last few weeks because he had wanted it in
spite of knowing it was impossible.

But now he understood the difference
between the charade and the reality, and he wouldn�t allow himself to fall back
into pretense.

�� Understanding
Draco, loving Draco, would be difficult, given what he now knew. But Harry�s
own love had grown on irrational grounds, and persisted, if twisted into a new
shape, when he learned that Draco had betrayed him. It would not leave. It
would not wither. It would not die.

�� He had to
live with it, and he had to live with Draco as he was, the same way Draco had
to live with the knowledge that Harry now possessed of his relics room.

�� Draco,
bizarre and ugly, strong and beautiful, was reality.

�� Harry
turned and tossed the silver thing he held in the direction of Draco�s body,
hoping that his skin would retain the feeling of it, so he could remember what
it was to have literally held Draco�s life in his hands. The imposter cried
out, his eyes following the motion, his wand flying out as if he could prevent it.

�� And Harry,
without hesitating, cast the spell all Aurors knew and none were supposed to
that splintered the man�s wand.

�� Perhaps
even then he might have escaped, he was so mad and so powerful, but Harry
Stupefied him, put bindings on his magic and shackles on his ankles, and
immediately dragged him out of the room to Apparate back to the Ministry with
him and put him in a secure cell.

�� The man put
up no resistance, strangely. He was crying, and his hands moved in small,
useless motions. Harry stared at him as they Apparated, wondering what had happened,
and why an expression of infinite bitterness twisted his face. Why wasn�t he
fighting to get away and complete his task again?

�� And then he
remembered, and smiled.

�� Snape�s Curse Potion. A bitter fate, I think
he said.

�� And what
fate was there for the imposter more bitter than to realize that he had lost
his chance to replace Draco, and to lose his magic, and perhaps even his
knowledge of spells, at the same time?

*

�� Draco
opened his eyes and slowly sat up. The memories of the last minutes before his
soul had been drained�or had it? because he seemed to be living�flickered through
his mind. He shook his head and stared around.

�� The relics
room was empty except for the Harry in the portrait.

�� Draco shuddered
and wrapped his arms about his knees. So Harry had killed the imposter, or
taken him elsewhere. But either way, he had made the decision to put that task
above spending time with Draco. He couldn�t have spoken his choice more clearly
if he had left it scrawled on the wall in bloody letters.

�� He had
rejected Draco. He wanted no part of him.

�� Draco lost
track of time as he huddled there. He tried several times to lift his head and
walk out of the room, but each time his body betrayed him and he collapsed
further. Finally, he thought, he had been struck a blow that he was helpless to
recover from. He hoped Harry was satisfied�

�� But even
the anger of that thought deserted him, because he had brought this on himself,
by not understanding the depth of the feelings he was dealing with.

�� Footsteps sounded
on the shining floor. Draco lifted his head, and blinked and stared when he
realized that Harry was walking towards him. For a moment, he had to wonder if
it was a hallucination born of his hope.

�� Why are
you still sitting here?� Harry reached his hands down to him, frowning. �I
would have expected you to sit in one of the chairs, at least. It isn�t every
day that you have your soul sucked out of you and then returned the way it was,
and you could use some comfort.�

�� Draco shook
his head, his tears blinding him and filling his mouth. He caught Harry�s hands
and stood, and then stepped forwards and embraced him, silently, desperately.
Harry hesitated, then embraced him back.

�� Listen,�
Harry whispered. �It isn�t going to be easy.�

�� Draco moved
a little to signify that he was listening, but didn�t say anything. Now he
thought it was happiness drying his mouth.

�� I�I didn�t
know you�d gone this deep,� said Harry. �And it changes the way I look at you.�
He sighed and shivered. �Being obsessed with me I can forgive. But keeping a
reflection of myself prisoner�torturing it, him, the way you did�� He sighed
again. �That�s going to take some thinking to come to terms with.�

�� If you can
come to terms with it at all,� the portrait Harry murmured rebelliously.

�� I�m sorry
for what you suffered,� Harry said, and turned in Draco�s arms to look at the
picture. �But I can�t change it. What I can
try to do is change the future, learn what I can and can�t accept, and what
Draco can and can�t alter about himself.� He hesitated again, then reached out
and stroked Draco�s face. Draco hated the way his mouth trembled as he stared
at Harry, but he reckoned one moment of humility wasn�t such a terrible price
to pay for having his future walk back to him.

�� Do you
agree?� Harry whispered. �Do you agree that we�ll need to work on this, and slowly make our way back into complete
confidence with each other?�

�� Draco
nodded furiously, then found his voice and said, �Yes. I love you.�

�� And I love
you,� Harry said. �Strange and painful as it is, nothing like the love I
thought I would have at first.� He rested his hands on Draco�s shoulders and
stared into his eyes. Draco, not sure what he was looking for, stared nervously
back.

�� But
nevertheless,� Harry said softly a moment later, �it�s the love I have.�

�� And he
kissed Draco, nodded to the portrait version of himself, and guided Draco away
from the room, never looking back.

*

�� Sara:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� Thrnbrooke:
And that is what Harry thinks of the room.

�� linagabriev:
Sorry! I took an unanticipated break at the end of that chapter, and so the
cliffhanger lasted longer than I meant it to.

�� Harry will
probably tell Draco about the wand connection in the future, but not right now.
He has too much to think about.

�� womo: Thank
you! As is mentioned in this chapter, originally the portrait Harry couldn�t
move, but Narcissa�s portrait freed him.
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The Same Species As Shakespeare