Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Dust of Water	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20632 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Three—He Shall Overcome
            There was another letter from Rob that morning. Harry burned it without looking at it. Rob could say nothing that would induce Harry to take him back.
            And it’s the way he’s so focused on me taking him back that’s the problem, Harry thought, as he watched Royal warm his tail feathers at the fire, now and then glancing back as if he wanted to make sure the whole letter was burning properly. He can’t help me with anything else the way Malfoy does, and he only told me the truth under pressure. He wants to date me again, and that’s all he wants.
            Malfoy at least wanted other things, even if Harry had to agree that they might be almost as disturbing.
            Royal sat up straight suddenly. Harry glanced towards the door of the library, and nodded when he heard footsteps in the corridor. “You can leave if you want,” he told his owl. He knew Royal didn’t like Malfoy. Then again, Royal seemed to dislike most people and only put up an amused tolerance to Harry.
            Royal didn’t fly off. In fact, he flew to Harry’s shoulder instead and began to delicately groom his hair, picking through the pieces on purpose, his head lowered into Harry’s shoulder like a lover.
            Harry closed his eyes and chuckled. “Sometimes you’re a wanker.”
            “Were you talking to me?”
            Harry opened his eyes, although it was hard to turn his head with Royal seated stubbornly where he was. Malfoy stood in the entrance of the library, balancing a tray of food in his hands. Harry blinked. He knew that most of the time, house-elves were the only ones who brought food, and it seemed odd that Malfoy should have usurped a house-elf’s place.
            “No. My owl,” Harry said, eyes on the crisply-made sandwiches on the tray and the huge, iced tumbler of orange juice, which he knew Malfoy liked. It seemed made for two people, much more than for one. “Uh.”
            “I thought,” said Malfoy, with a nod to the window, “that we could eat outside, since there’s plenty of sunshine right now. And Warming Charms we can use on the garden if we need to.”
            Harry rubbed the back of his head for a minute, forgetting Royal was there. Royal punished him with a sharp nip on the finger that luckily didn’t sever it. “I don’t know. I was looking forward to reading.”
            “Yes, the house-elves mentioned that you’d been reading all morning and hadn’t eaten anything.” Malfoy looked mild and uncompromising. “That means you need to. So come out with me and do it.”
            “What happened to staying apart and only associating with each other when we want to?” Harry asked, since no other blunt reminder seemed to be getting through.
            “I want to associate with you right now. If you feel differently and don’t want to eat lunch outside, then you only need to tell me.”
            Malfoy looked at Harry with wide eyes that were extraordinarily pleading. And extraordinarily effective, Harry had to admit, although that might be because he had seen Teddy’s pleading that way less than twenty-four hours ago.
            “I do want to eat,” Harry admitted. “And I’m not looking forward to reading so much I can’t put it off.” He didn’t say the real objection he’d been thinking of, which was, Do I really want to get so close to Malfoy when I don’t even know if I can satisfy everything he wants of me?
            Malfoy didn’t seem to hear the silent objection. He smiled, and even Harry had to admit that it was a pretty nice smile, one that didn’t look as greedy as lots of his others did. “Then I’ll lead the way,” he said, and turned and walked out the door before Harry could even ask him why he was carrying the tray instead of floating it along with him.
            Harry had to negotiate silently with Royal before Royal would let his hair go and Harry could get up, but at least it got accomplished without bloodshed.
*
            “What am I going to do about Teddy?”
            It was two hours later. The gardens of Malfoy Manor were an even better choice for an outdoor meal than Harry would have thought; the Warming Charms Malfoy had mentioned radiated up through the earth, and there were arrangements of flowers around them that made Harry feel like he was surrounded by a dragon’s hoard. He lay flat on the grass and stared up at the clouds, talking to them instead of Malfoy.
            A second later, he couldn’t believe he’d asked such a stupid question of Malfoy at all. It was probably the champagne-like wine to blame.
            “I can tell you what I think. Not that I’m an expert at dealing with children. But I have got to know Teddy well in the last few years.”
            Harry rolled back onto his elbow so he could see Malfoy. Malfoy sat with his arms folded in his lap, watching a golden flower shifting in the wind. When he glanced at Harry, Harry nodded. “And I don’t know Teddy at all.”
            “You will. Give it time.” Malfoy glanced again at the flower. “One thing Teddy hates is feeling forced into a corner. I think Andromeda does it to him fairly often, without meaning to. She’ll compare Teddy to his mother, especially because he has the Metamorphmagus talent, and not realize how much he hates that.”
            “Because then he thinks he has to be like Tonks?”
            “To—oh, yes. Nymphadora.” Malfoy smiled slightly. “Andromeda refers to her by her first name all the time. I sometimes forget that Tonks was anything other than a last name.”
            I wouldn’t have forgotten.
            But Harry had to close his eyes against a sudden and overwhelming pang of loss for Tonks and Remus, and ask, when he thought his throat was a little less tight and Malfoy could understand him, “Teddy thinks he has to be like her? And he doesn’t want to be?”
            “No. Andromeda already mentions him applying to Auror training, when Teddy hasn’t even gone to Hogwarts yet. And Teddy thinks that being an Auror got her killed.”
            “It was the Battle of Hogwarts that did that,” Harry mumbled, but he could see where Teddy had got the idea. And maybe he felt like Andromeda was treating him as a replacement for his mother. Harry could see where that would hurt.
            Maybe he would even have felt the same way himself, if he had had someone in his life who’d loved his mother and seen him the same way. Instead, for Harry, it had been all about his father, whether it was Snape’s hatred for him or Sirius’s love for him.
            It hit Harry suddenly that Sirius had been dead for thirteen years, and Snape for ten. He bent his head down and put it between his knees. He was breathing too hard.
            “Potter? Harry?” Malfoy had hurried up behind him, and put one slender hand on his shoulder. He could press down pretty hard for someone with such a slender hand, though, Harry thought muzzily. “What’s wrong?”
            Harry gulped enough air to say, “I’m all right,” and then put his head down again. Slowly, the whirling pieces of black and white behind his eyes calmed. He reached up and squeezed Malfoy’s wrist, but Malfoy made no effort to move away.
            Harry finally looked up, sighed, and said, “It just hit me that the people in my life who compared me to my dad have been dead a lot longer than I thought they were.”
            He stopped, because he thought that would sound stupid, but all that happened was Malfoy nodding a little. “You’ve had to put dealing with that aside at first, because you had so much else to think about.”
            “Yeah.” Harry rested his head on what he thought was the stone wall around a flowerbed at first, and then realized was the bracing of Malfoy’s arm. His face flushed and he sat up rapidly, but Malfoy, with a peculiar expression, pushed him back into place.
            “Stay as long as you need. I like supporting you.”
            Harry blinked, but Malfoy’s expression was one of those serious ones it was hard to argue with, so Harry finally nodded and let his head fall back again. The air was still soft and sweet with the scent of flowers. It hadn’t changed because he had.
            “It’s the way I didn’t think about Teddy at first, either,” Harry said finally. “I should have, but there were so many secrets, and then not knowing what was true, and then arguments with my friends, and people hunting me—”
            “Don’t blame yourself. He’ll get over it.”
            “Will he?” Harry tilted back to stare into Malfoy’s eyes. If Malfoy was feeling any discomfort standing over Harry and partially holding him and peering down like that, he didn’t show it; his eyes remained steady on Harry’s. “I know people like to say things like that, but Teddy’s having to deal with the death of someone he loved very much, and he’s only ten!”
            Malfoy shook his head a little. “I’m not saying it because it’s a platitude. I’m saying it because I believe it. One way or another, Teddy will get over this. Yes, he’s only ten. But he has a grandmother who also loves him, and he’s also dealing with a lot of revelations about that godfather that are going to change his perception of him.”
            Malfoy paused, and Harry found himself waiting for the next words in a way he hadn’t waited for anyone’s but Ginny’s since he woke up. Finally, Malfoy continued, “He might not ever forgive you. He might not have the close relationship with you that he did with Old Harry. But he won’t be crumpled for life by this, either.”
            Harry managed a chuckle. “You aren’t that reassuring even when you want to be. You know that?”
            “I don’t want to reassure you by lying or telling platitudes. I think you’ve had enough of that in your life.” Malfoy abruptly knelt down in front of him, adjusted his arms so he was embracing Harry instead of supporting him from behind, and smiled a little. “Even if some of the platitudes were ones that you told to yourself.”
            Harry nodded. “Like sacrifices being good things as long as I could please other people. And love was good even if it was faked.”
            “Exactly.”
            Harry closed his eyes and did something he didn’t think he could have done with them open. He leaned slowly forwards until his forehead touched Malfoy’s shoulder.
            “Potter?” Malfoy breathed for a second, and then touched the second name with his tongue in a way that said he didn’t know how welcome it was. “Harry?”
            “Thank you,” Harry whispered. He waited another second, to make sure neither of them would back away, and then raised his arms and looped them around Malfoy’s shoulders. “Thank you for not leaving. Thank you for telling me the truth. Thanks for being there to support me. Literally, this time.”
            Malfoy smiled against his neck, but waited. Harry moved on slowly to the second part of what he had to say. “Draco.”
            Malfoy stiffened, then slowly slumped back into his muscles. His arms got looser, but he turned his head to the side, into Harry’s neck, and kept it there. “Thank you,” he said.
            They remained like that for long enough that Harry’s arms and neck both started to ache, and then Malfoy stood up with a brisk shake of his head. “Shall we go inside?” he asked, holding out his hand.
            Harry waited, wondering why he didn’t simply Summon the plates and tray. But then he realized that Malfoy’s—Draco’s—hand was for him, not the objects.
            And it was starting to tremble a little.
            Harry stood and smiled, holding onto Draco’s hand. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”
            They did, and Harry made a mental note to tell a house-elf to come outside and clean up. For now, Draco’s face as he stared down at Harry’s hand was too rich with shock for Harry to want to disturb him.
*
            “Thank you for coming.”
            Harry nodded, but didn’t say anything, since they were going into the dining room with Andromeda now. Teddy was scowling at them—well, him, anyway, not Draco—from the head of the table. He had hair and eyes that looked exactly like Andromeda’s right now, as if he wanted to be as much of a Black as possible.
            “Hello, Teddy,” said Harry, and then followed Draco’s advice and talked to Andromeda instead. “Would you know anything about where some of the valuable things in Grimmauld Place might be?”
            Andromeda looked up in shock, and then shook her head. “The last time I visited that place, I was sixteen. And it was never my home, anyway, not the way it was Sirius and Regulus’s.”
            Harry breathed through the grief that accompanied Sirius’s name—for him, anyway, probably not for Old Harry—and said, “Oh, I know. But I think there are all sorts of old cupboards and drawers locked away. I was mainly thinking of hiding places, not objects. Trying to find the dangerous secrets I don’t remember as well as where Old Harry might have hidden things is driving me mental.”
            “Why do you call him Old Harry?” Teddy interrupted. His voice was sullen.
            “Because that’s what he is, to me,” Harry answered, ignoring the way Draco sneered a little. “He’s separate from me, a person who did a lot of things that I don’t approve of.” He turned back to Andromeda. “And I don’t want one of the surprises to spring up and make my life nasty someday.”
            “I thought you weren’t even living there now,” Teddy said, still in a mutter, stabbing some food with his fork and letting it fall through the tines. “The papers said you were living in Malfoy Manor. With him.” He jerked his head at Draco.
            “You could be a little more polite when you refer to me, cousin,” Draco said. “Even if your stock of politeness does match your stature.”
            “I’m not short!”
            “Of course not,” Draco murmured. “The short length of time my eyes take to get from the top of your head to your toes is just a coincidence, I’m sure.”
            Teddy started bickering with Draco, and Andromeda turned back to Harry with a smile she didn’t hide very well. “I’m happy to make a list. You’re right that I know a lot of those places from the times I would visit my cousins and they would play hide-and-seek with us. And my memories of childhood seem so much more vivid than most of my memories now.”
            “I don’t really notice the difference. What’s the thing you remember best?” Harry added hastily, because he thought Andromeda might start with sympathy, and he really hadn’t made his remark for that.
            “Best? The times I spent making up stories when I was a girl.”
            “You wrote?”
            Andromeda shook her head. “I never wrote them down. I just told them to myself and—my sisters.” There was the slightest hesitation, and she flashed a glance at Draco that Harry thought Draco noticed, even though he never turned away from his somewhat manufactured argument with Teddy. “I would come up with a place I’d never seen, somewhere that seemed exotic, like Muggle Paris, and cram all these characters and stories into it. Then I’d tell what I had so far to my sisters and tell them to make a decision about what those characters did next.”
            Harry tried to picture Bellatrix participating in any entertainment that innocent, and failed. On the other hand, Andromeda wasn’t really asking him to comment on it. He murmured, “Did you have a lot of stories?”
            “They never ended. They went from day to day, and sometimes I changed the setting and my sisters objected. Or Narcissa would want to hear some part from the day before exactly as she remembered it, and correct me if I got a word wrong. I always told her to tell it to herself since she remembered it so well, but that was never the same.” Andromeda rolled her eyes enormously. “Little sisters.”
            Harry smiled and tried not to show how envious he was. Stories and siblings—maybe he could have had something like that with Dudley if both of them were different people, but they hadn’t been.
            “What was one of the stories? Since you remember?”
            Andromeda flushed. “I—well, I told you that I’d never seen these places. So it’s not as though I was really telling stories about them. They were as unreal to me as the places in fairy tales are to Muggles.”
            “I don’t care. I probably wouldn’t even notice the difference unless you point it out to me.”
            “All right.” Andromeda cleared her throat. “So. One of the stories I came up with was about the Himalayas. I’d read in a book how Everest is the highest mountain in the world, but I said there was a higher one, there’s got to be a higher one, because Muggles ignore all sorts of things and don’t know all sorts of things, and they must have missed another one. An invisible one, behind Everest. You can only tell it’s there because of the snow that blows against it sometimes, framing it in briefly for the watchers…”
            Harry listened as her voice flowed on, telling a story of snow and the white butterflies that danced there, fragile as snowflakes, and the woman who decided to climb the mountain and find them. He became aware, at some point, that Draco and Teddy had stopped arguing and were listening instead.
            Just the slightest bit, like he was about to startle a feral cat, Harry turned his head.
            Teddy had a rapt expression on his face. And from the way he looked, Harry wondered if he’d ever heard his Gran tell a story before.
            Draco was smiling, a faint, enchanted smile, something Harry valued all the more because it wasn’t caused by him.
            He isn’t just his obsession with me. He’s more than that. Much more.
            Harry took Draco’s hand beneath the table, startling him a little. But it was easy enough to turn back to Andromeda’s tale, and watch it wrap its way around Draco, too.
            As he listened, Harry’s envy and grief wore away, and he found a deep contentment.
            The old memories are gone. But I can make new ones.
*
            Severus1snape: Thank you for answering SP777’s question! And I hope this chapter went a little way towards making up for the angst of the previous one.
            SP777: Yes. Although Harry has to catch his breath and go on, not just let Teddy have the final word.
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The Dust of Water