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Practicing Liars	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 63257 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank
you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Four�The Stretched String
Snaps

�� Harry hurried out of the dungeons
and paused only a moment to look around before he darted off towards the
library. This time of night, Draco was likely to be in there, studying,
especially since they had a Potions exam the next day.

�� I
should probably study, too, Harry thought as he watched for any professors
who would yell at him for running. But
then, I have the Half-Blood Prince�s book, so I really don�t have to.

�� He winced under a small spasm of
guilt. Sometimes he felt bad about not revealing how much the book was
responsible for his improvement in Potions. He wasn�t fooling Hermione, but
Slughorn continued to praise him and assume he had a natural talent just like
his mother, and Harry hadn�t missed the incredulous looks Draco sometimes gave
him.

�� Even more, it felt like concealing
something from Snape.

�� But
Snape and Draco would understand, Harry argued to himself as he dodged
around a corner and leaped the gap between the corridor he�d come out into and
the last step of a staircase just beginning to move. After all, they�re both Slytherins, and they know that sometimes you
just need an advantage in a subject you�re not very good at. Besides, if I
hadn�t read the book, I wouldn�t have been able to save my life with Sectumsempra.

�� Those were good arguments. Solid,
even. Harry could almost picture Draco nodding in approval.

�� Strangely, it was a lot harder to
picture it for Snape.

�� Harry blamed his preoccupation with
that idea for not letting him look where he was going. He scrambled off the end
of the moving staircase and straight into someone tall and solid. Harry let out
an oof and grabbed the nearest wall
so he wouldn�t fall back onto the staircase.

�� Good
old survival instincts, he thought as he looked up.

�� Dumbledore peered down at him with
gently twinkling eyes. It was the most normal Harry had seen him look since the
start of the school year. �Hello, Harry,� he said, in the gentle, grandfatherly
voice Harry remembered from last year when he�d explained the prophecy. �I was
coming to seek you. There is something important you need to know.�

�� Harry could feel himself flushing as
he straightened. The emotions twisting his heart when he looked at Dumbledore
were all uncomfortable: resentment, curiosity, uncertainty�

�� And pity. A lot of that.

�� What can I do for you?� he asked,
and then added, �Sir.� He wasn�t sure he felt
like adding it, but he didn�t think he felt like being rude, either.

�� Listen closely,� said Dumbledore,
and suddenly his voice was deeper, his eyes so bright and strong that Harry
wouldn�t have been surprised if flame had flashed from them. �You need to listen to me, now. When the time comes,
you must remember these words and trust to them, no matter what else happens.�

�� Harry stared up at him, mystified.
Then he nodded slowly and said, �All right, sir. What are the words?�

�� Dumbledore bent closer, looking
around suspiciously in the meantime, as if he thought someone was lurking in
the shadows to take the words away. His voice was a whisper so faint Harry
wouldn�t have heard it if he hadn�t been listening as closely as Dumbledore
told him to.

�� It
is not gone,� Dumbledore said. �But
it is fading. And better a fading thing fight the ultimate darkness than a
bright, strong light that would burn out when it tried.�

�� He was gone in the next moment,
though Harry never knew how. It ought to have been easy to look around and see
those bright blue robes, decorated with silver stars and moons, billowing up
the corridor. But Harry stared into the shadows of the torches, and around the
next corner, and back down the moving staircase, and didn�t see them.

�� He hesitated for two seconds. Then
he was running to the library again, briskly rubbing the inside of his arms to
try and soothe the gooseflesh.

*

�� Draco.�

�� Draco lifted his head lazily. Harry
had come and dragged him out of the library, saying he had something important
to tell him. Draco had been more than willing to go along with that, since
Harry�s face was strange and pale. But once they got to Umbridge�s abandoned
office, all Harry had done was snog him, until they were lying entwined on the
floor and Draco felt almost too warm and smug to move.

�� What?� he asked.

�� I wanted to tell Ron and Hermione
about us,� Harry said, in such a rush that Draco lost half the words and had to
put them in afterwards. It didn�t help that Harry had his head buried in
Draco�s shoulder and so a tendency to drip his words down Draco�s robe. �I
didn�t tell them yet, because it�s your secret too and I didn�t have your
permission, but I want them to know. They won�t betray it, I promise. I�ll ask
them not to. But Ron won�t be happy, and he might hurt you, and I don�t even
want to think about that, and I wonder
if it�s a good idea after all, and��

�� Hush,�
Draco said firmly, and pressed down on the back of Harry�s neck until he
stopped talking. Then he lay there, blinking at the wall and trying to deal
with everything he�d just heard.

�� Harry wanted to tell his friends
about them. Well. That was good, right? That was a sign that he didn�t intend
to abandon Draco the moment things got hard, and he was putting Draco before
Weasley and Granger, or at least putting them side-by-side.

�� But Draco winced at the thought of
what would happen once they knew. The Weasel would probably be lying in ambush
around every corner, waiting for him, and he couldn�t see them keeping this a
secret, whatever they promised Harry. The Slytherins still left Draco alone
because Professor Snape had not-so-subtly informed them that Draco was under
his protection, but knowing that he was dating a Gryffindor might make someone
bold enough to try something. Draco�s life could become more miserable than any
he�d ever lived.

�� Isn�t
it worth it, for Harry?

�� Draco smiled to himself. His mother
and father would say that love was very sweet, and then caution him not to lose
himself to it. Or his mother would. His father would�perhaps have said
different things. Draco would never know.

�� He caught his breath in loss for a
minute and lay there with his eyes shut. He felt Harry kiss his ear and heard
him whisper, �Draco?�

�� Why did you decide to tell your
friends?� Draco murmured to him. �It seems�sudden. You just realized your
feelings yourself. Why now?�

�� Does that mean you don�t want me to
do it?� Harry sounded half-disappointed, half-relieved. �Because we can wait,
if you want��

�� No,� Draco said, lifting himself on
his elbow and squirming around until he could see Harry. It meant disrupting the
comfortable position they were lying in, for which he was sorry, but he had to see Harry now. �I just want to
know why.� He ran his fingers through
Harry�s hair, which made his eyes flutter shut, and then poked him in the
shoulder until he looked again.

�� Harry ducked his head, blushing.
Draco smirked, but decided that the immediate reason for the blush that came to
his mind wasn�t the one for Harry�s
decision. After all, he would hardly tell his friends about any�interesting
dreams he might have had of Draco.

�� I was thinking about myself,� Harry
said, in a voice so small Draco could have lost it in his cupped hands. �I told
you part of that. How I thought about what I�d done in the past, and how hard I
actually tried to learn when I was in school, and decided that I hadn�t learned
much because I was so insistent on stopping Voldemort.� He paused and sucked
nervously at the inside of his cheek.

�� Yes,� Draco murmured, careful to
keep his voice cheerful and not accusatory, �you said that.� He dragged Harry
back down and curled up on his chest again.

�� I decided that I�d kept enough
secrets, too,� Harry said. His voice was swirling dark and bitter now,
reminding Draco of an underground river. �I had to keep the secret from
everyone at primary school about how the Dursleys treated me. I kept that when
I came here, too. And I couldn�t tell anyone about my nightmares and what I
suffered when I did fight Voldemort,
because it might be dangerous. I kept things that happened to me in my first
and second year, things Dumbledore told me, hidden.� He hesitated, and Draco
could have sworn he felt Harry�s smile before he heard it. �I didn�t tell you
that the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, did I?�

�� And you rejected it?� Draco blurted before he could stop himself. �Are you mad?�

�� Not mad,� Harry said dryly. �Just
overly influenced by you, even then. I didn�t want to be in the House you were
in.�

�� Draco lay there trying to decide if
he should be insulted or not. On the one hand, Harry had been so determined to
avoid him that he had gone into Gryffindor,
and made friends with a bunch of people as uptight as Granger or as
appalling as Weasley. And Draco couldn�t help wistfully imagining what might
have happened, a lot earlier than this, if he and Harry had been in the same
House.

�� On the other hand, Harry had been so
determined to avoid him that he had
gone into Gryffindor.

�� That was a lot of power for someone
to wield over the Boy-Who-Lived when he was only eleven years old. Even though
Draco had never suspected he had it, he couldn�t help calming down and preening
a bit as he considered the matter.

�� And there are other secrets, too,�
Harry went on. �You know some of them. I was thinking of how Ron and Hermione
had ignored me for their own private love affair, and resenting it, and then
the revelation burst on me: how could I accuse them of that when I�d ignored them in favor of my own private secrets for so long? Even when I
was with them more often and told them a lot, it still wasn�t everything.�

�� You don�t owe them that much
consideration,� Draco couldn�t help saying sulkily. It seemed to him that Harry
didn�t owe them any, but he knew he couldn�t really change a Gryffindor
friendship. What he had to do was influence how much time Harry spent with them.

�� Yes, I do,� Harry said, and with
the frosty tone in his voice that told Draco not to press further. �Anyway. I
changed my mind, and I want to tell them about us because it�s the best secret
in my life.�

�� Draco found himself caught without a
response. He cleared his throat, and blinked, and cleared it, and blinked some
more. Then he said, �Well, all right. But only because you said that, you
know.�

�� I wouldn�t say it if it wasn�t
true,� Harry said, and then caught Draco around the neck and kissed him so
soundly that all his other thoughts drifted away on a river of warmth.

*

�� Are you all right, Harry?�

�� Trust
Hermione to be observant, Harry thought, and jerked his eyes away from the
spot on the floor where he and Draco had been lying the last time he was in
this room. �Fine, fine,� he said hurriedly. �But I did call you here to explain
other things to you.� He faced Ron and Hermione and took a deep breath.

�� Hermione nodded. She�d conjured
three comfortable chairs for them, or, for all Harry knew, Transfigured them
from dust motes, and formed them into a triangle. She was the only one sitting
down. Harry was standing indecisively near the door, and Ron seemed determined
not to sit down until Harry did.

��

�� Putting this off wouldn�t make
things any better, Harry thought, and finally resigned himself to what he had
to do. �I have two secrets to tell you,� he said. �I got permission from both
of the other people who were concerned in them, so it�s not betraying a
confidence or anything.�

�� Ron snorted. �You�re sounding
formal,� he explained when Harry looked at him. �You always sound more formal
when you�re about to say something we won�t like.� He paused and studied Harry
critically. �In fact, you almost sound like Snape.�

�� Harry must have jumped, because
Hermione said, �I knew it had
something to do with Snape.�

�� There�s no easy way to say this,�
Harry said. �So I might as well stop trying to almost spit it out and actually do it.� He tried to smile, but his
lips were dry and his heartbeat shrill with terror. �Snape�s my father.�

�� Don�t joke,� Ron said.

�� He is,� Harry insisted. �I found
out a few summers ago. There was a letter from my mum among these old papers at
my aunt�s house, and she told me in it that she�she slept with Snape and
figured out he was my dad after I was born.� He knew he was blushing, but
really, was there any easy way to talk about your parents having sex? �There
was a letter to him, too, but I never knew what that one said.�

�� Hermione sat as if she�d been turned
to stone, staring at him. Ron was shaking his head over and over, the way Harry
had seen him do last summer when he was trying to shake off a bee. �No,� he
said. �That doesn�t make any sense.�

�� I didn�t think it did when I first
heard about it,� Harry said, trying to cling to his calm and remember the
startled, wondering look in Snape�s eyes the last few times they�d spoken. Your friends are important, but so is he. If
they get angry at you, Draco and him will still be there. Remember that. And
you can talk them back around. This isn�t your only chance. �But I can�t
think of why my mum would write me a lie like that, either. I mean, why? Even
if she got angry at my dad�James�writing a letter that she didn�t know he�d
live to see isn�t the best revenge she could have. And she didn�t write this to
any of the Death Eaters or Voldemort�s enemies, either, so it�s not like she
was trying to use it as a weapon or a defense for me.�

�� Ron went on shaking his head.
Hermione leaned forwards and said, �But do you actually have any proof of this, Harry?�

�� Harry nodded. �That disease I had,
where I was seeing the white Dementors.� Please
let them believe me about this. Please don�t make me remove the glamour. �It�s
not really a disease. It�s a bloodline curse. Snape�s mother�s family was
cursed with it a long time ago.� He decided not to say that Snape wasn�t a
pure-blood; that was a secret he hadn�t asked for permission to reveal. �There
would be no reason for me to get it if I wasn�t part of his family.�

�� But what about it being a Potter bloodline curse?� Ron asked, so
breathlessly that he sounded as if he�d snatched the idea from a race it was
losing. �It could be that, couldn�t it? And that would explain everything!�

�� Harry shook his head. �It isn�t,� he
said. �I looked it up in a book about bloodline curses when I first started
suspecting what it was. The Potter bloodline curses were all different. I
didn�t see it listed under Snape�s family, either,� he added, when he saw Ron�s
mouth opening, �but I was looking under the wrong last name.�

�� Ron drooped. Hermione spoke quietly.
�Does Professor Snape know, Harry? I noticed that he�d been paying more
attention to you lately.�

�� Harry nodded. �He figured it out
when he put certain facts together.� No need to mention right away what those
facts had been, either. When he�d first decided to tell these secrets, Harry
had imagined that he would want to get rid of everything he�d hidden at once,
but that was proving to be impossible. �He confronted me with the truth, and I
didn�t deny it fast enough to satisfy him. Since then, we�ve been kind of
trying to figure out what we should do.� He shrugged helplessly, while Hermione
stood up and walked towards him and Ron avoided looking at him altogether. �I
mean, it�s not every day that you learn you have a father when you�ve already
been alive for sixteen years, right?�

�� I don�t believe it,� Ron said. His
voice was soft and quiet and heartbroken. Harry took a step towards him, but
Ron moved away a step, and Harry stopped. �You�re making it up. You�re playing
a joke. You�re lying. I know you
are.�

�� I don�t think he is,� Hermione
said. She had a hand on Harry�s elbow now, and he started; he hadn�t even
really noticed her coming closer. Her eyes were very kind and looked enormous.
�It�s like he said. Just like his mum would have no reason to lie to him about
Professor Snape being his father, he would have no reason to tell us this if it
wasn�t true.� She squeezed Harry�s arm. �And that�s why he�s brewing the potion
that will get rid of the Horcrux in your head. Or part of it.�

�� Harry nodded. �Maybe he would have
done that anyway, but yeah. He was furious when he found out that Dumbledore
didn�t know any way to get the Horcrux out of me and was just going to kill
me.� Hermione�s eyes darkened with anger, but Harry spoke hastily. If she
started talking about Dumbledore now, he thought she would never stop. �He
decided that he could find some way to take care of it. So he did.�

�� You�re a stranger,� Ron said, and
again his voice was so soft it hurt. �I don�t know you at all.�

�� I�m still me,� Harry said as
steadily as he could when he wanted to scream. �I promise, Ron. I haven�t done
anything that should make you hate me or turn on me.�

�� I don�t hate you,� Ron said, his
voice drearily precise. �I just don�t know you.�

�� Harry wanted to walk out of the
room, but he had promised himself that he would see this through. And he could
always talk Ron around later, he thought again.

�� He was almost sure.

�� He feared.

�� He hoped.

�� He was more determined than ever not
to remove the glamour if he didn�t have to. That would make Ron all the more
certain he was a stranger, and it would be another secret for Hermione to chide
him for having kept from them.

�� I
reckon there are limits to my courage, after all, he thought, and turned
back to face Hermione. He didn�t want to look at Ron while he recited this
particular, second truth.

�� The other secret is that I�m dating
Draco Malfoy,� he said. �He gave me permission to tell you, too.�

�� Ron made a terrible sound. Hermione
didn�t, but she didn�t look much better, either.

�� Draco Malfoy?� she asked. �Has he
apologized for insulting me and telling me I should die and not attend
Hogwarts? Is he going to make you like him?�

�� Yes, no, and no,� Harry said. He
clenched his fists. This was hard, this was too hard. He almost wished he had
told Draco to come with him, but his presence would have made this even worse,
if that was possible. �He hasn�t tried to change me, and I haven�t tried to
change him. You can�t change people you�re dating, Hermione. You ought to know
that.� He glanced swiftly at Ron, hoping she would pick up on what he meant.

�� I think there�s a difference
between trying to break someone of the habit of talking with his mouth full and
trying to make someone a decent person!� Hermione�s voice rose. �I can�t
believe you would do something like
this, Harry!�

�� I can�t help who I like!� Harry
threw his hands in the air. �Do you think I would have chosen to have a crush
on Cho, when first she ignored me and then she cried on me? I would have chosen
a crush on someone nice and safe, someone Voldemort would always ignore and who
wouldn�t mind that I was in danger. And Snape�s son,� he added, looking at Ron.
Ron had turned his head a little earlier, but he had his back solidly to Harry
by this point. �And anyway, he�s helped me deal with these stupid secrets and
explained the theory of the potion Snape is brewing to me when I didn�t
understand it.� He wanted to talk about the other things that Draco had done
for him, but the words tangled around his tongue, and he thought Hermione
wouldn�t understand anyway, from her hostile expression.

�� It�s�it�s the way it is,� he said
at last. �I didn�t know what was happening for a long time, and now that I do,
I can�t give him up. It would be unfair for both of us if you tried to make me give him up, too,� he added,
just so that Hermione didn�t get any ideas.

�� But what if he starts insulting
me?� Hermione�s voice was dangerously low, dangerously sweet, dangerously
everything. �Will you take my side or his? Will you tell him to stop, or give
me that same speech about how we can�t change people?�

�� I would tell him to stop,� Harry
said. �And if you started scolding him out of the blue, or if Ron tried to hex
him for being a Slytherin, then I would tell you to stop, too.�

�� Hermione shivered. Harry expected
another tirade, but instead she said, with unexpected pity popping up in her
voice like a bubble, �Oh, Harry. It
can�t be easy, balancing between all of us like this.�

�� No,� Harry said, glad that someone
else had at least acknowledged that. �It isn�t.�

�� So why don�t you stop?� Hermione
was plucking at his sleeve and looking up into his face with earnest eyes that
Harry found it hard to turn away from. �Harry, we�re your oldest friends. I
just�I can�t understand why you would want to date Malfoy. I can�t. You have nothing in common.�

�� I do have some things in common,�
Harry said. �Keeping a secret. A dead parent�or at least one dead parent,� he
added. �And�it�s hard to explain, Hermione. But they�re there.�

�� Hermione looked heavily at the
ground. Harry could picture her looking that way if she�d received news that
Voldemort had attacked her house and tortured her parents to death.

�� I can�t understand it,� she
whispered.

�� Then don�t try it,� Harry said,
tension wearing his nerves thin until he had no choice but to snap. �Just
accept it.�

�� Hermione looked up at him with
burning eyes. Then she walked across the room and started to open the door.

�� You won�t tell anyone about this,
will you?� Harry asked. He�d been so caught up in what he was feeling that he�d
nearly forgotten to ask them for that promise.

�� Like anyone would believe us,� Ron
muttered bitterly, and followed Hermione.

�� Hermione looked back, sounded as if
she were taking a deep breath, and said, �No, Harry. Not if you don�t want us
to. And I�m�honored�that you decided to tell us.� She gave Harry a smile like a
blow. �Even if I don�t feel that way.�

�� Then they were gone.

�� Harry, feeling as if he�d barely escaped
a fall from a cliff, stood there shivering for a minute. It wasn�t as awful as
it could have been, he reminded himself. There was still the chance that he
could talk them around. There were no insults, nothing they�d said that he
couldn�t forgive, just denials.

�� But he still had to leave that room
and find Draco as soon as possible. ��

*

�� PG: Thanks so much! I�m afraid that
I can�t do much about the fic feeling as if it takes three centuries to update,
except make sure it�s not four centuries as regularly as possible. ;)

�� I haven�t studied psychology in
depth, but I have read a lot and observed a lot, and I try to write characters
who react realistically to their situations.

�� Thanks so much for telling me about
the recs, too. That�s flattering.

�� ZukoRocks30: Thanks! In this story,
Draco has been more sheltered, at least until this year. Among other things, he
grew up with parents, so it�s quite a shock to him to find himself making adult
decisions.

�� k lave demo: Well, no Draco in the
last chapter was complemented by no Snape in this one, yes. And I don�t plan to
break the friendship apart, but it will go through a rough spot just now.

�� SP777: It would be AU to canon. That means that some sort of
explanation of the difference would be necessary, the same way I feel like I
have to explain why Harry broke up with Ginny if I write a fic that�s not
epilogue-compliant. A fluffy little story and complicated explanations do not
mix well.

�� deadhead: Thank you!

�� Sneakyfox: Thank you! Harry doesn�t consciously
know that he�s thinking of Snape as a father, though.

�� MewMew2: Thank you!

�� Thrnbrooke: Thanks for reviewing.

�� anciie: Harry has kept most of his
thinking out of these last few chapters, because I would rather show the results
than the process, and I didn�t want to repeat the thinking twice, once
directly, once in flashback.

�� Mia: Thank you! Snape can be
perceptive when he wants to, and right now, I think that his perceptions of
Harry warned him that such a touch would be most unwelcome.

�� Dracos Pet: Well, here�s another!
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Practicing Liars