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Universal Chaos	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13263 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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Chapter Four—How Like a Mind-Healer

            “I don’t understand why you need to stay there and watch his house.” The other Harry’s words were heavy and slow, and when Harry glanced up from the pack of food and water he was preparing, he turned away and tucked his head into the back of the couch.

            Harry took a deep breath and thought about saying something for a long moment. But he had to wait until his voice was calm instead of irritable. After all, he was borrowing the other Harry’s things, and maybe he even suspected that Harry was trying to take Malfoy away from him. Nothing could be further from Harry’s intentions; he wanted Malfoy to get well. Then maybe the other Harry would even have a better chance with him, because Malfoy wouldn’t be so preoccupied with his own pain.

            But Harry had explained that already, and the other Harry hadn’t listened. In fact, his nostrils had flared and his eyes had narrowed as if he thought Harry was lying to him in revenge for his lies.

            “That’s not possible,” he’d said. “I know him. I would have known if he was suffering such extreme pain.”

            Harry had pointed out that Malfoy was a private person and wouldn’t see any need to confess his deepest feelings to someone who had hurt him, but the other Harry had refused to listen and had drifted off into a dream world where he and Malfoy already lived together. Rather like the universe he had thought he was calling Harry from, actually.

            Harry tucked a few sandwiches into place between places of parchment impregnated with Preservation Charms and kept his voice as calm and friendly as possible. “Because if he sees that I’m constant in my attempts to help him, then he’s more likely to actually let me help.”

            “Have you thought about the fact that you’re here to help me?” The other Harry turned around again and folded his arms like a sulky child, glaring at Harry. “Not him? You haven’t done a lot of that lately.”

            Harry threw up his hands. He’d been trying not to get angry, really he had. At the back of his mind was the reminder that he still needed the other Harry to send him home across the universes. But it seemed that the other Harry was determined to be stupid no matter what Harry did to soothe him. “I can’t help you unless you let me help you! At least there’s the chance that Malfoy might do that. I offered to listen to you while you told me why you hadn’t faced your problems after the war. Do you remember what you told me?”

            The other Harry turned his head away again and didn’t answer.

            Harry answered for him, and for once he didn’t care about how merciless his voice was. He was finding Malfoy more sympathetic at the moment, because Malfoy at least acknowledged he was in pain. “‘I don’t have problems any more. I’ve dealt with my grief and moved on, in a way that you didn’t. You were weak enough to need Mind-Healers.’ I don’t enjoy being called weak. And I learned something in the offices of the Mind-Healers you’re so scornful of. I learned that it’s impossible to give someone something they won’t accept. That ranges from potions to sympathy. I still have hope that Malfoy will accept my sympathy eventually. You’re determined not to.”

            The other Harry took a deep breath. “I have got over my problems from the war.” He ignored Harry’s incredulous snort. “I wasn’t talking about that kind of help.” Harry rolled his eyes this time, because that was such an obvious lie. “I was talking about your helping me to win Malfoy.”

            “You never will until he’s able to think of other people as more than just sideshows to his pain,” Harry said slowly. He was explaining something he had already explained several times before, but of course the other Harry showed no signs of listening, any more than he ever had. “He’s self-centered at the moment, but it’s understandable. What happened to his parents was horrible. You ought to be thanking me for getting him past that. He’ll be able to concentrate on you and consider you as a lover eventually. Just not right now.”

            “I would have known if he was in that much pain.” The other Harry stood up from the couch. “I think you’re just trying to steal him from me.”

            And so the accusation is made words, Harry thought tiredly. He wondered if sympathy might not be the best way for him to communicate with the other Harry right now after all, though he wouldn’t be able to make as sincere as what he offered to Malfoy.

            “Look, what happened to you?” he asked. “I know that something had to have happened. You were brave when you defeated Voldemort. You’re not afraid to use powerful magic to summon yourself from another universe, even though you had to take the chance that I would be angry and wouldn’t want to help you. You even have the kind of courage that it takes to pursue Malfoy, when you must know that a lot of people won’t like you having a relationship with him.” Even though you don’t have the courage to apologize. “I don’t understand why you’re acting like such a coward right now.”

            The other Harry’s face closed. Suddenly Harry was looking at one of the best blank expressions he’d ever seen, especially on his own face. The Mind-Healers had all told him that he was no good at looking expressionless. The other Harry was.

            Something must have happened, Harry thought in frustration. But if he won’t tell me what it was—

            “Go help Draco,” the other Harry said, and fell face-down on the couch, so his words were muffled. “Maybe you’re right, and he can love me later. Just go.”

            Harry stood there a few minutes, eyeing him and waiting for him to stand back up. But nothing happened. The other Harry kept his face buried, and lay still with a stubbornness that said he knew Harry was just waiting for him to do something.

            Honestly, Harry thought, as he finally gave up, packed a few more bottles of water, and then went out to Apparate back to Malfoy Manor. He’s exactly like a sullen teenager at times. He’s twenty, and he survived a war. He should act more adult than this.

*

            Potter was actually camping near his front doors.

            Draco watched him through the eyes of the carving above the doors again. Potter had conjured a chair, with an umbrella stretching out above him in case of rain. Next to him was a box from which he had so far taken two sandwiches and a big glass of water. Maybe his wooden cup had come out of the box, too, but Draco didn’t think so. It looked exactly like the sort of rough work that Potter would conjure.

            He took large bites of the sandwiches and large gulps of the water. Draco felt a sharp ache pervade him. It had been a long time since he had taken that much delight in his food, let alone food so simple.

            When Potter finished eating, he stood up and walked towards the front doors. Draco braced himself, and wished he could brace the wards, for the shock that Potter was about to inflict on them, but all Potter did was knock like a normal person, with his fist. He did it four times and stood waiting for an answer. Draco didn’t intend to give him the satisfaction, of course, and remained still.

            Potter shrugged when a few minutes had passed and set a Tempus Charm in the air beside him. Then he walked over to his chair, leaned his head on the back, folded his arms behind his head, and went to sleep.

            Draco watched him for half-an-hour. Potter went on sleeping. He looked perfectly peaceful as he lay there, which was another reason to believe that he was either an actor or from another universe as he claimed. Draco couldn’t imagine the Potter he knew losing the sulky expression on his face even in sleep.

            Now and then he shifted, and sighed when he did it, or at least Draco thought he was sighing from the motion of his lips. But he didn’t seem to suffer nightmares. He didn’t seem to be lonely.

            Draco would have given anything to have traded places with him.

            He was displeased with himself when he had that thought. It was dangerously close to wishing that he could accept Potter’s help so he could be like him. And Draco had to remember that accepting help was the worst thing he could do. It would all turn out to be a plot and a betrayal. Neither his parents nor his closest friends had stayed with him in the end. Why was he supposed to think Potter would?

            He went out to walk in his garden, convinced that he wouldn’t look out the carving above the front doors again.

*

            Harry opened his eyes when the Tempus Charm shrilled in his ear to tell him an hour had passed. He yawned and sat up, then spent a moment looking at the front doors to see if Malfoy had relented and come out.

            Of course he hadn’t.

            Harry shook his head and smiled as he stood up. Well, after all, he hadn’t expected that this would be easy. He was prepared to wait and do some fast talking when Malfoy was finally annoyed enough to see him. It would be more a process of wearing down than of persuasion, but Harry was confident of his ability to make himself pleasant to Malfoy after that.

            Unlike with the other Harry.

            Harry scowled as he began walking towards the Manor’s doors again. What was he supposed to do in that situation? He asked for information, and the other Harry lied. He asked again, and the other Harry shut his mouth and stared off into the distance. He insisted that he knew himself and Malfoy better than Harry did, and maybe he was right, but when he wouldn’t tell Harry what he knew, it was less than useless to talk to him.

            I am surrounded by exasperating people and by fools.

            But that wasn’t much of a change from his own universe, either, where his friends had sometimes annoyed him—

            Harry paused thoughtfully. His friends. Could I try contacting the Ron and Hermione of this universe, anonymously, since he doesn’t want me to meet them, and asking what happened? I’d have to be able to give a convincing picture of myself as someone concerned rather than someone who just wanted to sell gossip, but I think I could do it.

            It was an idea. For right now, Harry put it away and spent some time studying the front doors of Malfoy Manor. He didn’t want to hit the wards with his magic again, because that was what Malfoy expected him to do, and people became used to things if you repeated them often enough. Harry wanted to do continually surprising things, so that after a while Malfoy would come out and yell at him in sheer exasperation.

            Abruptly, he grinned.

            I’m being rather childish in squatting outside Malfoy’s doors until he does something about it, so I might as well indulge my childish fantasies.

`           Harry waved his wand, and a pair of brightly colored quills appeared in front of him. Another spell filled them with ink that would be hard to get off. Red and gold ink was Harry’s first choice, but after a minute, he changed that to blazing purple and pink. The whole point of this was to annoy Malfoy, rather than trying to prove some Gryffindorish superiority the way the other Harry would probably try to do.

            Harry whispered a third spell, and sent the quills flying at the doors.

*

            As Draco sat on the bank of one of the pools in the garden and tried desperately to think of nothing, he felt a slight tug at the wards. It was less strong than the ripples on the pond in front of him where a butterfly had landed, and he could have ignored it if he wanted to.

            But maybe not-Potter was trying to sneak in, so Draco drew his wand and sent himself speeding through the maze of magic to the front doors again.

            This time, he couldn’t see anything when he looked through the carving except Potter standing there and grinning like a fool, so he slid further down and looked through the doors themselves.

            He was promptly almost poked in the eye with a quill.

            Draco pulled his awareness back in sheer shock, then reminded himself that damage from this end wouldn’t physically harm him, and cautiously pushed forwards again. He glanced down, and squawked.

            Potter was creating an enormous flower design on his front doors. The design was pink and purple, and could have been seen from Draco’s broom. Potter cocked his head critically to the side as Draco watched in speechless outrage, then began to write letters next to the flower. Draco continued to watch, frozen, until the message was finished and he could read it. Home of Draco Malfoy. He has drawn this happy flower to express what he dares not say aloud.

            Then Potter started writing something else beneath that.

            Draco snapped back into his body, leaped to his feet, and Summoned his broom without even thinking. That would allow him to reach the front doors more quickly than running through the house from the garden would. When the broom hovered beside him, he leaped onto it and kicked off from the ground.

            A brief rush of joy hit him, as always. There was more than one reason he’d become a Quidditch player, although the attention he’d thought he would get would always be the most important reason. It was one of the few things he could still be proud of his skill in, and which made him happy.

            He soared over the garden walls, circled around the corner of the western wing, and then dived like a hawk towards the front doors. Potter had just stepped back from his latest piece of immature graffiti and was smirking at it as if it were a work of genius. Draco angled so that his feet would brush the top of Potter’s head and knock him from his feet.

            Blast him, he heard the broom’s buzz through the air and ducked neatly out of the way. Draco circled around with all his breath gone because of rage again—especially when he saw that the new message was in capital letters and covered with magical sparkles.

            COME TO DRACO MALFOY’S HOUSE FOR A GOOD TIME!

            “You bastard!” he screamed, and dived at Potter again. This time, Potter stood there and let him come, and Draco thought he would hit him in the stomach and knock him over.

            Instead, Potter leaned forwards and performed a complicated gesture with his hands, and suddenly Draco was swooping along a foot or so above the grass, with Potter clinging to the front of his broom like a monkey and laughing like a madman.

            Draco screamed at him again, and rolled upside-down. Potter promptly lifted his feet so that he didn’t kick himself in the head and pulled his head inwards so that that didn’t hit the ground. He was still laughing.

            Draco yelled at him from a distance of a few inches, which was enough to make Potter’s hair twitch and which ought to impress him. “Stop it! Do you think I’m happy that you came to my house and made me look like a fool?”

            “Nobody’s here to see it,” Potter said back, as calmly as if they were sitting together in chairs in one of Draco’s studies, with cups of Firewhisky in front of them. “Though that might change when I conjure Golden Snidgets and send them out with invitations to the party, I reckon.”

            “Leave me alone!”

            “All that does is make you unhappy, because you’re lonely,” Potter said. That argument was the same thing Draco had often thought of himself, and it was the shock alone that made him not resist when Potter twisted his body and flipped the broom back upright. Potter, meanwhile, waited a moment to catch his breath and then went on talking. “I don’t want you to be unhappy. So I have to intervene, in ways that will make you angry. At least you’re feeling something other than pain.”

            “I’ll show you pain,” Draco snarled, and flicked his fingers so that his wand leaped into his hand.

            Potter twisted again, and suddenly Draco found himself with his hands clutched in Potter’s. Potter steered the broom with his knees while he pressed firmly down with his thumbs, until Draco’s hands opened and his wand plummeted uselessly to the ground below.

            “A Mind-Healer taught me that,” Potter explained happily. “He thought it would be good for me to have a way to defend myself and take out stress at the same time. Most of the time I practice on balls or stones, but it’s really made to work on the hands of people who are trying to harm me, don’t you agree?”

            Draco couldn’t answer, since he was speechless with a mixture of pain and rage. Potter twitched his left leg, and the broom slowed and grounded itself. Draco made a mental note to speak to the broom’s manufacturer. He had promised Draco that he was the only one who could control his broom.

            Of course, maybe all broom manufacturers built in secret controls for Harry Potter, just in case he ever deigned to honor them by playing on their inferior products.

            Draco was starting to make himself sick, so he did his best to tug his hands free. It ought to have been easy. He’d been playing Quidditch continually for eighteen months, and Potter, whichever Potter this was, hadn’t done that. But Potter kept hold of him easily and looked at Draco with a mild scolding expression.

            “I don’t think I’m done teaching you the particular lesson I want to teach you yet,” he said, and dragged Draco off his broom and turned him to face the east.

            Draco tried to kick him in the groin. Potter avoided that adeptly and said, “Look up at the sun. The sky is so bright. The clouds are the most brilliant shade of white I’ve seen in a long time. This is the kind of beauty that I want to teach you to appreciate again. I’m sure that you have plenty of pretty things in your house, but it’s not the same.”

            “I can have a Perpetual Breeze Charm whenever I want it,” Draco said coldly. He would have laughed, except it would have sounded too hysterical. It sounded as if Potter was telling him he would feel better if he went outdoors more often, which was frankly ridiculous. “And I get enough wind and enough sights of the clouds and sky and sun playing Quidditch, thanks.”

            “But when was the last time you paid attention to them, instead of to the Snitch?” Potter’s thumbs rubbed back and forth over Draco’s skin, as if he thought that he would actually manage to comfort Draco. “You’re playing a game when you fly, and that’s all. But I saw your skill on the broom. Have you considered flying for its own sake, instead of just to practice for your team?”

            “You’re mad.” Potter wasn’t the only one who had learned a little self-defense because of people trying to harass him. Draco edged backwards with one foot, trying to slip it between Potter’s ankles and kick him.

            Potter finally released Draco’s wrists and took a step back. Draco whirled around to face him, hand rising, only then remembering that he didn’t have his wand. He scowled at Potter, who grinned back.

            “I don’t think I’m mad to suggest that you might enjoy flying,” Potter said. “I’m sure that you have places inside your walls large enough to allow you to do it, if you don’t want to fly in public.”

            “I have the most magnificent garden inside the walls, and right outside my bedroom, where I can fly to my heart’s content,” Draco snapped. Maybe the reminder of his considerable wealth would shut Potter up. The Potter had been rich, but it was still nothing like the wealth of the Malfoys. Some was left even though his parents committed suicide—

            (Which only proved how stupid they had been to do that, but Draco always shut up such thoughts as they traitors they were when they appeared).

            And he had added to it with his Quidditch winnings. “I can see it when I wake up in the morning,” he continued. “And I could circle in it a hundred feet off the ground, and you still wouldn’t be able to see me.”

            Potter cast him an admiring glance, and Draco had the sudden sinking feeling that even this wasn’t going to work out the way he had wanted it to. “That does sound magnificent,” Potter agreed. “And I assume that you have trees to circle around and pools that you could potentially fall in when you fly low?”

            Draco nodded, his eyes narrowed. There was no point in lying about it, but he still felt uneasy. Where was Potter going with this?

            “Good. Let’s go see it,” Potter said, and then he jumped on the broom and sent it blasting forwards with what seemed like no more than a thought, scooping Draco up from the ground so that he was sitting on the broom in front of Potter. Potter’s arm was locked securely around his waist, his hand splayed possessively on Draco’s stomach.

            That made Draco struggle wildly, because he remembered, suddenly, Potter rescuing him from the Fiendfyre. That was the thing he had thrown in Draco’s face again and again when they met, insisting that Draco remember his life-debt and that, in a way, everything he had done and become since then belonged to Potter.

            “This isn’t the same,” Potter whispered into his ear, freezing Draco for a moment because his breath was so warm. “I know he said those things to you, and I’m sorry he did. But you were behind me and hanging onto me that time, remember? It’s not the same. Your life is your own, and free to enjoy. But I want you to be able to enjoy it, instead of hiding from it all the time.”

            In the time it took Draco to think about that, they darted over the walls and around in circles. Potter was obviously looking for a large open space, and in less than a minute, he saw the garden and swooped down into it. They landed on the grass with the faintest bump, and then Potter leaped off and started looking around.

            Draco whirled around.

            Only to see an expression of such deep admiration on Potter’s face that he faltered. Then Potter turned the same expression on himself, and another of those deep, aching wounds lost some its ache. Draco had forgotten what it was like to see someone admire him because of his possessions. Indeed, once the prestige of the Malfoy name was gone, he had assumed he would never receive one of those looks again.

            “This is beautiful,” Potter said. “And it can’t have had many guests. Will you show me around?”

            Draco stared at him, caught off-guard again. He had no reason to say yes, of course. Potter had practically bullied his way in here. Why did he assume that he had any chance of getting a positive answer?

            Potter waited, though, his eyes patiently locked on Draco’s. He had leaned slightly away as the silence wore on, and now his body pointed towards the wall. He looked as if he would actually depart if Draco gave him a negative answer. He’d come this far under the pressure of his own energy, his body language said, but Draco had to be the one to decide if he went any further.

            It had been years since Draco was offered a choice like that.

            Draco took a deep breath of air, and gave Potter a mocking little bow, mocking his own hope that this time would be different as much as Potter himself. “Welcome to my garden,” he said.

            The sheer force of Potter’s smile almost knocked him over.

*

            God, he’s resilient.

            The quality that he’d been missing in the other Harry filled Malfoy in abundance. As hard as it must have been, he was allowing Harry into one of his private sanctuaries. Oh, he was prickly about it, holding his head aloft as though any moment he expected an insult. But he was still doing it.

            He was moving forwards. He was doing what the other Harry, perpetually stuck in the past and his failures, couldn’t do.

            Harry experienced a sort of warm melting feeling in his belly as he turned and walked along the nearest path beside Malfoy.

            That feeling was new, he thought in curiosity.

He put it away to think about later. For now, he wanted to listen to Malfoy’s voice as he began to explain the wonders of the garden.

*

Kodaijin Yurei: Thank you! I hope you like this latest development.

butterpie: Thank you! Draco really does want what Harry is offering, but he thinks accepting it would make him look weak.

Alliandre: I really can’t answer that yet. But yes, the other Harry would be in danger of losing Draco if he never reformed.

Thrnbrooke: Be as difficult as possible, of course!

polka dot: He does, but Harry might not be the best person to give it to him.

SamuraiSaaya: Thanks! At the moment, the relationship includes a large dollop of annoyance.

SP777: This is a big-ass SPOILER, so don’t translate it unless you don’t mind spoiling the end of the story: Uneel jvyy tb onpx gb uvf havirefr, ohg abg gb ebznapr uvf havirefr'f irefvba bs Qenpb.

The other Ron and Hermione are here, but, like ‘our’ Harry, they find it hard to help someone who won’t accept help.

My screenname is the combination of the name of two characters I wrote in original fiction stories and didn’t do as good a job of making sympathetic as I’d like. I chose it to remind myself to try to characterize better.
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Universal Chaos