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Secondhand Heroes	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 6782 -:- 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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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter
Four�Recklessness

�� Harry
opened his eyes with a gasp. He�d awakened from a hot, stifling dream where he
lay under a green canopy with someone�he hadn�t been able to tell if the canopy
was leaves or a blanket, though if they were leaves, surely they came from a
jungle�and kissed them and bit their throat. That was the strangest thing; he
had known he was lying with a person, but no more than that. Sometimes his
dream-lover had Ginny�s face, sometimes the face of an imaginary person who was
quietly indignant along with him about the way the wizarding world was going,
but always before he�d been able to see who it was.

�� He wondered
what it meant, now, that he couldn�t.

�� He sat up
in bed for a moment, tense, listening. Had something awakened him? He often imagined
noises�thumps, yells, the sounds of Death Eaters breaking in�and had to make a
tour of the flat with his wand lit just to reassure himself that no one was
hiding in the cupboards.

�� In this
case, silence thrummed around him for long seconds before he heard it again. A
muffled thud, a sobbing cry. Harry was out of bed and halfway across the room
when he realized he was only wearing pants. He shrugged impatiently and kept
running. He�d had some training in learning to ignore little obstructions like
nakedness.

�� He�d
finally moved Malfoy into the drawing room and put him on the couch after
Malfoy had made a sarcastic little remark about not wanting to kick Harry out
of bed. Harry had taken him at his word. He felt so worn-out from the
unexpected emotions running through him that he didn�t want to spend another
night on the couch, which had a spring that poked him continually in the back.
Let Malfoy lie on it and think of sarcastic remarks that he could use to the
next person who tried to help him.

�� Malfoy, of
course, had worn a dissatisfied look, as if Harry taking him at his word was
not what he wanted after all, but Harry hadn�t thought there would be worse
consequences for him than a sore back.

�� Now it seemed
there were. He was thrashing back and forth, screaming in a high, heartbreaking
voice for someone to stop. Harry swallowed as he thought about what he might be
dreaming of. He reached out and caught Malfoy�s wrists, gently, meaning to
bring them down and pin them to his sides.

�� Malfoy
immediately went mad, lashing and kicking with his legs, twisting his head as
if his neck was broken. Then, before Harry could take his hands away, something
even worse happened. He simply tilted his head back and let his body go rigid.
He was baring his belly, his throat, his groin, all his vulnerable places. It
was the posture of a man who would let his captors do whatever they liked, as
long as the pain stopped.

�� Harry,
breathless and blinded with tears, hurt somewhere in the center of his bones
that something like this had happened to Malfoy, learned down without thought
and gathered Malfoy into an embrace. He slung the taller man halfway into his
lap and cradled him against his chest, whispering, �It�ll be all right, it�s
fine, I�m here, you got away from them and survived, I�m here.�

�� Malfoy
stayed rigid for long, terrifying moments. Then he slumped forwards and moaned.
The moaning continued in broken sobs until Harry finally managed to distinguish
words. �I�m so tired.�

�� I know,�
Harry whispered into his ear. His tears were making him blink frantically. It
sounded as though someone had taken all his own emotions from the past year and
condensed them into Malfoy�s voice.

�� Sometimes
I want to lie down and never move again,� Malfoy said. �I�m tired of fighting.
I�m tired of trying so hard. Who could blame me? Let someone else save the
world for a change. It hurts. I want
it to stop hurting.�

�� It will,�
Harry said, rocking him, his own head bowed so that his nose rested in the
crook of Malfoy�s neck, between his throat and his collarbone. The skin was
slick beneath his cheek and nose, soaked with sweat and tears. �It will get
better.�

�� When?�

�� Harry felt
Malfoy�s fingers dig into him as he hissed the desperate question, and he could
respond only one way.

�� Soon,� he
said, sinking his nose deeper, breathing in the scent of hopelessness and fear,
wishing he could take it into his lungs and exhale hope and delight. �I�m with
you now. We�re going to make it better.�

�� Malfoy
quivered once, and then he woke. Harry felt the way his breathing steadied and
his head turned in small flinches to look about him. His hands tightened on
Harry�s shoulders, and he said, �You said we.�

�� I did at
that.� Harry didn�t point out Malfoy had made him say �we� earlier that day. It
wasn�t the time. He had only begun to understand how much that word might mean
to Malfoy, and he didn�t need it torn down and mocked. He continued to stroke
up and down Malfoy�s back, and inhale the scent of salt off his shoulder.

�� We�re
going to make it better,� Malfoy repeated, as though he were learning a
precious lesson. He shoved himself a little more insistently against Harry and
closed his eyes. Harry felt his breathing even out again.

�� Harry
frowned. He didn�t think the couch was big enough for both of them to stay
there indefinitely, and if he fell asleep here he would wake up with a sore
back and neck from clutching at Malfoy, which would be a bad thing if he had to
move fast�

�� Oh. Of course.

�� Malfoy�s
reluctance to leave him in sole possession of the bed earlier was now clear.

�� Harry
managed to stand up. Malfoy continued to lie against him as if asleep. Harry
didn�t know if he really was. He didn�t think Malfoy would acknowledge any questions
either way. He began to shuffle slowly towards his bed, maneuvering Malfoy
awkwardly around the end of the table and then around the edges of the kitchen
counter.

�� At last
they were back in the bedroom again, and Harry rolled Malfoy into the bed. He
forgot to take into account Malfoy�s strong clutch on him, though, and so he
fell, too. He was suddenly blinking at the wall from his pillow, and Malfoy�s
hair tickled his nose and made him want to sneeze.

�� Far more
important, though, was the wave of relaxation that swept across him and pressed
his eyes shut with gentle fingers.

�� The bed
really was big enough for both of them.

*

�� Harry woke
from another dream of heat into a reality of heat. Malfoy lay next to him,
propped up on one elbow, studying him as if he were a painting Malfoy intended
to copy. He reached out a hand when he saw Harry was awake and ran a finger
down his cheek.

�� We�re
going after the Troublestone today,� he said. His voice was perfectly calm,
almost indifferent. He joined a second finger to the first and pressed Harry�s
eyes closed the way sleep had last night. �I�ve thought of a way, and I�m well
enough to do it. I don�t have much time before the Death Eaters find out where
I went.�

�� I don�t
understand some things,� Harry murmured. He was still relaxed, as though part
of his brain had commanded his body to sleep. He didn�t mind many things he
thought he should have minded, like his near-nakedness or Malfoy�s closeness or
the way Malfoy was touching him. �How will we get around the wards that sense
your blood? Why did your captors know about and recognize the Troublestone? And
is it really the Ministry or the Death Eaters you fear?�

�� The last
question first,� Malfoy said, moving so near that his breath traveled across
Harry�s earlobe. Harry would have turned his head to get more of it, but
Malfoy�s fingers on his eyes held his face still. �I fear both of them. At the
moment, though, the Death Eaters are the ones who know that I escaped, so
they�re the ones more likely to be hunting me. And some of them still have good
connections, relatives who won�t turn them in or people who are bespelled into
reporting to them. It�s not enough to fight the Troublestone. But they know I
could be a threat, and the Ministry doesn�t.�

�� You�ll
tell them by sneaking into the Ministry.� Harry opened his mouth. Malfoy
slipped a finger into it, tracing the edges of his teeth. He found, unerringly,
the scar on the inside of his cheek where Harry had bitten down during
Kingsley�s speech the year before that praised the Aurors for their good work
in tracking hidden Death Eaters. He�d done that so he wouldn�t scream, but he�d
bitten too deep and left his teeth in the wound too long, and the Healers
hadn�t been able to rid him of the scar. Malfoy stroked the mark as though he
had been there to see it happen. �Is that what you want?� Harry added, tongue
moving awkwardly around the finger.

�� They will
have to know in time,� Malfoy said, and his fingers moved off Harry�s eyes and
along his cheeks. They stroked the line on the edge of Harry�s throat where
he�d been hit by a Decapitating Curse from a Death Eater�a real one, not a poor
man or woman condemned to Azkaban for no reason and desperate to protect his or
her freedom. The curse hadn�t hit directly, but it had still hurt, and once
again the Healers hadn�t been able to mend the wound completely. �They will
have to join the Death Eaters in knowledge.�

�� Harry heard
himself moan from a distance, detached. He thought it was Malfoy�s strange,
half-poetic way of speaking as much as his touches that were making him feel
like this.

�� My captors
knew about the Troublestone because they studied Dark history, and for the same
reason I do.� Malfoy ran a finger around and around the scar on his throat.
�They�re part of the ones being hunted. The Troublestone can�t bind them in its
spell. They have a chance to recognize it. That doesn�t mean they would always
be right if they made the guess, mind. Sometimes disasters and mob-minds happen
to the wizarding world on their own.

�� And we�ll
get around the wards that sense my blood using Dark Arts, of course.� His
finger traced up Harry�s cheek and settled at last on his lightning bolt scar.
�I trust you have no objection?�

�� Harry
opened his eyes and stared in a daze up at those gray ones, brilliant and bleak
as a sea-cliff.

�� No,� he
said.

�� Good.�
Malfoy�s breath on his mouth and fingertip on his scar both burned.

*

�� Harry
walked towards the Ministry. Malfoy followed behind him under his Invisibility
Cloak. Though he insisted the Dark spell would protect them, Harry had insisted
in return on going through the front entrance. The strongest wards were there.
If they could bypass those, the spell could fool anything in the Ministry.

�� Harry felt
as if he were moving along on parade. His limbs were stiff and jerky as a
puppet�s. His hair was thick with sweat. That spell that thrummed back and
forth like a taut cord between him and Malfoy might as well have been a sign
around his neck, he thought, proclaiming, I�m
a traitor! Look at me! Look at me!

�� But no one
turned to look at him with any suspicion. There were a few friendly nods and
smiles, and others graced him with the usual sweep of eyes that seemed to try
to absorb heroism off him with one glance. Harry clenched his teeth. I�m not the one you want to look to for
that. Look at Draco Malfoy�s scars, and then tell me that no one who was on the
other side of the war knows anything about being a hero.

�� They
stepped into the phonebox and began to jerk their way down. Harry felt the
brush of a hand across his shoulder to reassure him that Malfoy was still with
him�in fact, very close.

�� Harry�s
face burned for a moment as he thought of the way they had awakened in the bed
that morning, and the way Malfoy had touched him. When he was showering, the
strange spell the mood had cast on him had worn off, and now he was beyond
mortified. What did that mean,
anyway? Did Malfoy carry some dangerous personal enchantment about him that he started
with his touch? Harry hadn�t seen any wand on him since Malfoy arrived, but
maybe the desperate need to survive had accented his wandless and nonverbal
abilities.

�� The
phonebox came to a stop. Harry took a long, soothing breath, realized he didn�t
know how it could soothe him when he stood an excellent chance of being taken
to Azkaban in the next few moments, and then stepped forwards.

�� The wards
flickered over him, and over Malfoy, who followed like a shadow, but not so
softly that Harry couldn�t hear his footsteps.

�� Nothing
happened.

�� Harry began
to really breathe again. The spell had worked. Malfoy had explained that it
would create a connection between them, a constant transfusion of blood and
genetic material�at least, he had called it that after Harry explained the
concept of genetics to him�leaping back and forth between their bodies and
mixing and scattering itself so that the wards would not be able to tell Harry
from Malfoy. Harry had blinked and wondered aloud if the spell wasn�t
dangerous, if it was performing an active transfer back and forth between them.

�� Malfoy
tossed him a withering glance and snapped, �Why do you think they decided it
was Dark Arts?� Which made so much sense that Harry was willing to shut up and go
along for the ride.

�� And it had
worked. Harry stopped for a moment to lean against the wall and rub his watery
legs. His breath was hoarse in his ears.

�� Malfoy
leaned an elbow on Harry�s shoulder. He started, but the arm crept downwards
and wrapped around his torso. Harry had little choice but to tilt his head back
and listen to the words Malfoy whispered in his ear. He hoped anyone who passed
would think he was tired and just taking the chance to rest himself.

�� I have to
get near the Troublestone and study its defenses again.�

�� What?�
Harry hissed, barely remembering to keep his voice down. He missed being in the
flat, where he could speak with Malfoy all he liked and not have to worry about
who was listening in. �I thought you said you learned everything you needed to
know from my Pensieve memory.�

�� It turns
out I didn�t,� Malfoy said, unfazed. �So. There may be other protections, ones
I didn�t see, on the corridor outside the courtroom. I need you to create a
distraction for me so I can safely bypass them.�

�� Separate
from you?�

�� Yes.�
Malfoy�s fingers curled briefly, digging into the material of Harry�s robes.
Harry assumed it was his replacement for a roll of his eyes, which would be
less than effective with his face under the Invisibility Cloak.

�� But I
thought you said the spell wouldn�t allow us to go far from one another��

�� When
outside,� Malfoy said patiently. �In the same building, it will. Don�t Apparate
out of here without me, though. I doubt you would like the way in which your
veins and your bones would open.�

�� I can�t
Apparate out of the Ministry anyway.� Harry crossed his arms over his chest.

�� Then don�t
Floo.� Malfoy�s voice cracked a
little, and Harry realized for the first time how nervous he must be. That made
the balance in him tilt back towards confidence, as if they stood on either
side of a weighted scale. He reached up and clasped the hand resting on his
chest, giving it a little squeeze.

�� I won�t,�
he whispered. �Where should we meet, and in what time?�

�� If I can�t
learn what I need in an hour, I doubt I�ll be able to learn it,� Malfoy
answered. �Meet me by the lifts to the lower floors.� And then he turned and
slid off down the corridor. Harry listened to his footsteps as long as he could
hear them, which wasn�t for more than a few paces. Then he tried to ignore the
lingering sense of emptiness that filled him and concentrate on the distraction
he was going to create.

�� He had to
discard a few impulses to raise alarms about Death Eaters. If he did that,
Kingsley would probably check even more wards that he didn�t know about and
find Malfoy. So it would have to be something else.

�� Harry
paused for a moment, his mind weighing the consequences of the plan he had just
come up with. He began to smile. He knew it was a grim smile, but, well, Malfoy
was no longer around to make comments on his expressions.

�� The Troublestone gave me a virtual immunity
to the trouble it�s creating so it could use the love people had for my
supposed heroism, didn�t it? Time to take advantage of that, for the first
time.

�� Harry did
have to suppress a feeling of filthiness. He felt that taking advantage of
people under a spell was far more wrong than rebelling against the Ministry or
rescuing Malfoy as he had done. But even if he tried to tell them the truth
right now, it would do no good. He hoped they would forgive him if this action
helped release them from their mental prison.

�� He aimed
his wand carefully at the rebuilt Fountain of Magical Brethren, which occupied
the Atrium of the Ministry. It had been sculpted so that a single wizard hovered
above the other creatures, including Muggles, his arms spread and a benevolent
look on his face. His features were a mixture of Dumbledore�s and Harry�s. If
you looked closely, which Harry only had the second time he�d seen it, you
realized that he was stepping, hard, on the body of a man with a Dark Mark on
his arm.

�� Hermione
had said that the need to see such a statue was �understandable psychology�
after the war. Harry thought now that was another warning sign of the
Troublestone�s presence. The real Hermione would have been horrified at the way
the wizard overshadowed the house-elves and centaurs and goblins on the
fountain, let alone the way he trampled on another human being.

�� Harry
whispered the spell he had chosen. A streak of light like a firework shot away
from his wand and impacted with the fountain.

�� And the
fountain exploded.

�� Harry flung
an arm over his face as gold and water and marble and silver flew at him. A
moment later, he wondered why he hadn�t constructed a Shield Charm. It
certainly would have worked better than bare skin to protect him from the
crumbs of stone and metal raining on him now. Maybe he thought he deserved the
punishment for not acting for so long, for letting things get this bad.

�� Maybe he
wanted some scars of his own.

�� One twisted
shard of gold sliced a deep line down his arm and made the blood flow. Harry
hissed at the pain of it and cast a healing spell at once, not knowing what
wounds might do to his blood connection with Malfoy. But though he waited
tensely a moment, nothing seemed to happen. At least, no one raised the alarm
of a Death Eater in the Ministry.

�� They raised
a different kind of alarm instead.

�� Harry!� Hermione came hurtling out of a
side corridor and grabbed him around the middle, squeezing him hard. �What
happened? Did someone make the fountain explode to try and assassinate you?�
She turned around, wand clasped tightly in a sweaty hand, eyes staring
suspiciously at the other people rushing in. She barely relaxed when she saw
Ron, Harry noted.

�� All his
anger with the Troublestone came back in a rush, and Harry was glad he had
chosen this kind of distraction. If nothing else, it gave him a means to
express his rage to someone other than Malfoy.

�� No one
tried to hurt me,� he said, in a voice that he didn�t have to strive to make
low and dangerous. �I tried to hurt myself.�

�� Hermione
froze. When she turned around, the look of distress on her face was, Harry was
certain, real, but he couldn�t tell how much came from the thought of losing a
friend and how much from the thought of losing a hero. He hated the Troublestone
more then, with a hatred that made a churning maelstrom of his gut, for having
the power to make him doubt one of his best friends.

�� But why?�
Hermione whispered. �Harry, we all love you, you know that. Whatever you need,
we�ll provide it. Whatever you want, you�ll have it.�

�� I can�t stand it anymore!� Harry shouted,
raising his voice and causing Hermione to jump. He backed away from her, making
sure he was the center of a circle of fascinated eyes. �The way everyone fawns
on me, the way everyone smiles at me even when I behave like a deranged idiot!
Haven�t you thought about what I�ve
done since the war? Almost nothing. It�s idiocy that I became an Auror so fast,
when better-qualified candidates were left out in the cold. It�s idiocy that
everyone continues to honor me as a hero, when I haven�t kept on being a hero. You can�t do something good once and then be
honored for it the rest of your life.�

�� Harry.�
Hermione�s eyes were filled with tears, and if he hadn�t seen the Troublestone
with his own eyes, Harry didn�t think he could have kept up the anger in the
face of those tears. She stepped towards him with her hand reaching out. �You
died to save us. You saved the whole
world, because Voldemort would have gone after Muggles like my parents
next, and other wizards, if he�d won in Britain. Of course that deserves honor
for the rest of your life. Which of the rest of us did something like that?�

�� And if you
made the fountain explode from stress,� Ron said from the side, stepping around
the ruins of it to smile at Harry, �well, that�s no more than I�ve wanted to do
myself, mate. Damn ugly thing.�

�� Harry
opened his mouth to reply, encouraged to note that the crowd of people come to
watch him have a temper tantrum was still swelling, but just then Kingsley�s
voice interrupted, sharp with excitement.

�� Ron!
Harry! We have him! We captured him!�

�� Harry spun
around. Kingsley was standing near the entrance to the lifts, and behind him
were two of the taller Aurors. Stripped of the Invisibility Cloak, hanging between
them, bruised and bleeding and nearly unconscious, was Malfoy.

�� We don�t
know how he fooled the wards that detected the Malfoy bloodline to get this far
into the Ministry,� Kingsley said, his words tumbling over each other as he
spoke, �but whatever magic he used, it failed. Suddenly the wards alerted us,
and we were able to freeze him in place until we could capture him.� He glanced
over his shoulder at Malfoy, his back stiff with satisfaction. �And we�ve given
him a preliminary treatment for what he�ll be able to expect when he gets to
Azkaban.�

�� That was my fault, Harry thought, as he
stood there among drifting dust and crumbled stone and the cheers of people he
knew, who sounded as if they were baying like hungry wolves. I thought I was being so clever, because no
one else was in the Atrium just then and destroying the fountain would only
hurt me. But it must have disrupted the connection of the blood spell between
us.

�� I hurt him.

�� Frustration
and fear and fury seized Harry and tore him apart like dogs savaging a corpse.
He couldn�t stand this. He couldn�t bear it if Malfoy were to lift his head
and look at him with silent accusation in his eyes.

�� He cast a
Blasting Curse at Kingsley.

��

*

�� elfqueen114:
Thank you!

�� cleo: Harry
will be even more confused after this chapter!

�� And the
Troublestone starts out working with a leader�s principles, but expands the
madness from there. A lot of leaders haven�t intended the consequences of their
beliefs to hurt the innocent, but that�s what they often end up doing. �Fear of
the Dark side� became �fear of Dark creatures� became �fear of magical
creatures.�

�� Mangacat: Thank
you! Part of the reason Harry�s emotions are changing so much is that he�s been
kind of numb for a while and given up on feeling when there�s no one there to
share it with him.

�� linagabriev:
Thanks! In this case, though, the main antagonist is the stone itself; it will
get itself found.

�� And you
were right about the aggression.

�� avihenda:
Thanks for reviewing.

�� Purple-er:
Thank you! I hope you like their interaction in this chapter as well.
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