Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Ancient and Noble Houses	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 29877 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Thirty-Six—A Serious Conversation
            Draco led his way off the pitch before he started talking. The way he saw it, he had to get Harry inside and away from the temptation of flying, or he might insist on holding the conversation in the air.
            And even with Warming Charms, cast the minute Draco was sure that his hand wouldn’t shake badly enough to drop his wand, Draco was freezing and wanted a fire to sit in front of. Even an abandoned classroom where they could burn some broken furniture would do.
            Harry caught up with him near the front entrance of the school, and reached out to take his wrist. Draco let him, although he kept one hand on his own wand and tensed, ready to move if Harry should wrench his arm or otherwise show that he wanted dominance over him. The house had reached him all the way here. Draco didn’t dare assume that its influence was completely gone.
            “Your hands are so cold,” Harry whispered, staring at them as if it was a foreign notion to him that anyone could ever get chilled.
            “Flying without Quidditch leathers does tend to do that,” Draco said, with a drawl that he hoped would conceal the way he trembled in proximity to Harry. And not all of that had to do with cold or fear.
            The thought that had come to him in the library returned. I want to be the original Harry Potter’s consort, not some Black consort.
            Draco gritted his teeth and stamped on the notion. The only reason that Potter cared what happened to him at all was the Black family’s obsessive interest in their own blood. The house wanted Draco close to Potter, and as soon as its influence was conquered or dissipated in some way, then Potter would find another interest. Probably Weasley’s little sister.
            Draco hated how spitefully jealous that made him feel. He could have pushed the She-Weasel if she was right there.
            But she wasn’t, and a fire wasn’t, and Draco started walking, practically dragging Potter along with him.
            “You saved my life,” Potter said.
            “Yeah, and you saved mine,” Draco said, without looking over his shoulder. “I don’t think that you need to worry about another pair of life-debts accruing for us.”
            “Will you look at me?”
            Despite the feeling that it was a bad idea, Draco turned around and did it. There was a particular frustrated, yearning note in Potter’s voice that Draco recognized. He had felt much the same way when he wanted Potter’s attention and Potter wouldn’t give it to him.
            Five years of wanting it, a year of concentrating on other things, a year of thinking that both he and Potter were probably going to die. Draco supposed it was no wonder that he was so unprepared when he did finally get Potter to look at him. It wasn’t like he had much practice in emotions of any kind, except fear and despair and pain.
            “I don’t want to hurt you,” Potter whispered, brushing Draco’s hair out of his eyes. His touch was light, and shaking itself. Draco didn’t think he was suddenly feeling the cold. “But no matter what I do, I seem to. I tried to leave you out of things, and it hurt you. I tried to influence you to back away, and it hurt you. I drag you into things, and the hydra attacks you.”
            Draco wasn’t in the mood to listen to Potter’s self-pity. “Let’s get in front of a fire,” he said crisply. “And then you can tell me how sorry you are and moan and whinge on and on, and maybe then I’ll listen to you.”
            Potter opened his mouth, and closed it. He followed Draco along the corridors, and Draco ignored the looks he could feel Potter giving at his back. Potter had wanted his real opinion. He wanted the real Draco.
            This was him.
*
            Draco didn’t speak again until the fire had been blazing for a few minutes and he had cast several Warming Charms on himself as well. Harry almost opened his mouth to ask if he was really all that cold, but shut it again. He had seen Draco’s fingers turning blue himself. Yes, he had been.
            And he never would have been if Harry hadn’t lured Draco after him, to climb higher and higher towards the house’s hydra.
            Harry didn’t say that aloud, though, because Draco would define it as more of his self-pity and wouldn’t want to listen to it. He sat down instead and watched Draco. They had already Transfigured the two uncomfortable chairs in the room into comfortable ones—or, well, Harry had. The kind of Transfiguration that the spell required was beyond the limited abilities of Draco’s wand right now.
            Draco held out his hands, turning them back and forth in front of the fire and examining them critically. Harry felt his heart ache as he watched them. Draco might have got frostbite or even lost a finger because Harry just had to be selfish.
            “You can stop staring at me as if you’re a little lost sheep and I’m your shepherd,” Draco finally said, looking up. “I think we should plan on how you’re going to face this ordeal instead.”
            “What do you mean?” Harry said. “Find some way around the ordeal? What happened today proved that I can’t face it alone.”
            Draco gave him a sharp look. “No, it proved that the ordeal isn’t irresistible. I rescued you. If it was all-powerful, I couldn’t have done that.”
            “But I couldn’t have rescued myself.” Harry shivered. He still remembered the dark tunnel that the hydra had almost convinced him to fly down, and how real it had seemed. Only after Draco had body-slammed him out of the way had he seen the situation for what it really was.
            “Then I should be with you,” Draco said. “All the more reason. But I’ve been thinking, and I don’t think that the house will give up. It wants you to undergo this ordeal. The goblin at the bank said something of the same, didn’t he? That you wouldn’t be a real Black until you underwent it.”
            Harry swallowed and touched his throat, wondering for the first time in a while what number his scars showed right now. “You’re not talking about—giving in?”
            “No.” Draco sounded disgusted. “I haven’t invested this much effort to back away and let you treat me like some kind of toy for the rest of my life. I’m talking about us going in to face the ordeal together, and in the meantime I’ll work out a way to rescue you when I see you falling too far into it.”
            Harry thought he understood now. “We’ve been looking for a way to trick the house, but you think we need to—challenge it, and outface it.”
            Draco blinked at him for a second, and then nodded. “Yes, exactly, Potter.” Harry ignored the sharp little jab of hurt under his breastbone when Draco called him by his last name. He had no right to request that Draco call him by his first, really. He had done enough to him not to merit any more intimacy.
            Draco was going on. “The house won’t leave you alone until you undergo the ordeal. We do some more research about how to survive it, and then we go to face it. Make sure that you have your friends and me with you. Don’t let it suck you into a room by yourself.”
            “I have no idea if it’ll be a room,” Harry muttered, but held up his hand when Draco glared at him. “I’m just saying, this wasn’t.”
            Draco shrugged. “It’s trying to lure you in. It would rather have you in the house to undergo the ordeal, I’m sure.”
            Harry grunted and nodded. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Draco sighed and leaned forwards to prod at the fire.
            “There’s no telling what you’ll feel for me after the ordeal,” he said quietly, not looking at Harry. “You might still want me, or not. You might like me, or hate me. But I don’t think we can have any idea of what’s true and what’s not until after it. So we have to do this for—other reasons than just surviving.”
            Harry swallowed. He didn’t think he could name what he was feeling.
            But he did have one question to ask.
            “What do the scars on my neck look like now?” he asked.
            Draco cast him a surprised look. Harry sat back in his chair and craned his neck so Draco could make out the scars in the hollow of his throat.
            Draco stared, then shook his head. “I can’t make it out. They’re a swirling mess of lines and curves. Nothing stable.”
            Harry stood up abruptly and left the room. His heart was pounding, his hands shaking, and he didn’t think he could stay near Draco for another minute.
            I need to face this. Otherwise, what I don’t know is going to drive me mad, too.
*
delia cerrano: They’re going to try their best.
CareLessLover: Harry would have liked the talk to be more in-depth, but he’s not sure that he really desires Harry for himself.
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Ancient and Noble Houses