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Incandescence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13876 -:- 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�Ire

�� That was stupid.

�� Draco
sighed and rolled over in his bed, staring at the ceiling and scowling as he
lightly kicked at the sheets with one foot. I
know that. I don�t need my own brain telling me the same thing over and over
again. I�ve thought of nothing else since I left Potter�s office.

�� Have you considered the implications this is
going to have for the story?

�� Draco
sighed again and shut his eyes. He said that he wanted to serve the story, but
he had done the worst thing he could as far as that went. After he broke into
his office, then Potter would hardly trust him again. Their civilized dinner
was a thing of the past. Draco would be lucky if he didn�t get inundated with
Howlers tomorrow, or receive several visits from �concerned� Aurors who had
heard �rumors� about what he planned to get up to.

�� Actually, I�m surprised that he didn�t
arrest me right away. He has enough clout to do that, and the Ministry probably
wouldn�t question it.

�� Then Draco
opened his eyes and shook his head back and forth at himself. �You idiot,� he
whispered aloud. �Of course he�s not going to do that. He�s probably worried
about what you would tell someone if you did
get arrested. You saw that owl arrive in the Fire-Room, and he might
suspect that you saw part of the letter itself. All I�d have to do is open my
mouth, and the newspapers would find something else to be interested in besides
my arrest.�

�� That
changed Draco�s position, although, after a rapid consideration, it didn�t
actually cheer him up. Potter would stay away from him with more determination
than ever, and probably believe that Draco was just waiting for the chance to
betray him. Draco could have wished that Potter would see he had changed since
Hogwarts, but because his latest stunt was exactly like one he would have tried
to pull during Hogwarts, his hopes in that direction were not sanguine.

�� I can expect him to regard me as an
interloper at best and the parasite he said I was at worst.

�� Draco sighed.
He had rarely apologized to any of his subjects, except when he accidently trod
on their most painful memories. This time, though, he knew that he should begin
there�although Potter was unlikely to decide that an apology ended the matter.
What else could Draco do?

�� Admit that I�m not the right one to write
this book?

�� His muscles
stiffened in rejection, and Draco shook his head, once, twice. No. Leaving this
story behind was not an option. He would receive visions of what it could have
been for the rest of his life otherwise, and those visions would urge him into
attempting it at last. But he would betray his artistic instincts when he tried
that, because there was no way the story would be good without input from
Potter.

�� I have to accept that I need him far more
than he needs me. He doesn�t seem to need me at all, in fact.

�� I�ll need to be humble, and I�ll need to
begin with an apology, and then I�ll need to do something to make it up to him.

�� Though I have no idea what that will be yet.

*

�� Draco
surveyed the singed envelope in dismay. Then he looked up at the bedraggled
state of Justice�s feathers, and the furious preening the bird was giving
himself�something he did only when he�d been severely discommoded�and sighed.
It looked as though Potter had cast a fire hex the moment he saw the owl, and
so he�d never had the chance to read the carefully penned apology Draco had spent
a half hour on that morning.

�� He�d
thought Potter might take some coaxing. He hadn�t expected to simply meet a
wall of silence, even after he figured out that Potter was far more concerned
with the mysterious letters that he was receiving than Draco.

�� Draco sat
back and ran his fingers through his hair, frowning. Then he shook his head and
delved into the proofs of Golden Stories.
What had happened between him and Potter was frustrating and it was
tempting to sit here and think up solutions until the Muggle Armageddon that
Granger had told him about, but he had work to finish. He doubted Angela would
be understanding if he told her that he had missed the deadline for the proofs
because he was busy breaking into Harry Potter�s office.

�� Besides,
sometimes working on one project put him in the mood to work on another, or at
least gave him the chance to think about various ideas subconsciously. The
Potter imbroglio was so intractable that that might work this time, as well.

�� He was in
the middle of a story in which he had included Terry Boot as a side character,
and pondering the ways that he could show that the character was a bad poet
without actually altering one of Boot�s own poems, when he sucked in a deep
breath and sat up. Of course approaching Potter as he was at the moment
wouldn�t work. His temper burned hot. Draco was inflaming it with each attempt
he made to reach him.

�� Instead, he
should begin from another direction. Determine what was and was not common
information about Potter, come up with ways to learn what he needed to know,
and go from there.

�� And maybe
he could do some research of his own on that mysterious letter.

�� Draco
hadn�t seen that letter for very long, but he was good at noticing details; it
was one of the things that made him such an excellent novelist. The writing had
been in capitals to make it harder to trace, but, more to the point, it had had
two distinct characteristics that probably wouldn�t mean much to someone who
didn�t spend the best portion of his life handling ink and parchment.

�� First, the
parchment was the kind that Draco used to compose his manuscripts, and that
most of the writers he knew used as well. Thicker than normal, it was intended
to stand up to a lot of blotting, scribbling, and crossing out. Sharpened
quills could occasionally poke holes in ordinary paper; the creators of
Scrooge�s Self-Strengthening Sheets had decided against letting that happen.

�� Second, the
ink looked dark on first inspection, but Draco had tilted the letter to the
light, and there was a deep lavender tint in it.

�� Draco
didn�t know offhand of anyone who used lavender ink, but he didn�t think it
would be that common. And he thought he could probably find it in the same sort
of shop that would sell Scrooge�s Self-Strengthening Sheets, though he hadn�t
looked.

�� If I can find out who�s sending the letters
to Potter, then at least he might see me or write to me out of gratitude. I
admit that�s not the best beginning, and it�ll take a long time to solve the
mystery and then to sit around waiting for him to decide how he wants to
respond.

�� But Draco
was hardly going to starve in the meantime. He had Golden Stories coming out as soon as he and Angela finished a few
more rounds of �mistakes-mistakes-who�s-correcting-the-mistakes� and he could
always start work on the novel about Ollivander if he must. He was willing to wait as long as it took for the chance to
see Potter again and apologize in a way that couldn�t be mistaken as
self-serving.

�� Draco
narrowed his eyes as he realized the direction of his thoughts. Since when do I sit around desperately
waiting for my subjects to come to me and wagging my tail in pathetic gratitude
if one of them glances my way?

�� It was the
rightness that was the answer, of course. The rightness when he watched Potter
move in the corridors of the Auror Department. The expression on Potter�s face
as he bent over the letter he�d received in the Fire-Room, and how complex
those emotions were. Even the way that he looked when cursing Draco�s tongue
and how Narcissa had defended him over her own son.

�� It�s right to wait for Potter. He�s always
been unique, after all.

�� Draco sat
there a few more minutes, until he had the courage to admit the truth to
himself. And I�ve never messed up as
badly with one of my subjects as I did with him.

�� Strangely,
that admission seemed to remove a mental barrier that had been between him and
his work, and after that he knew exactly how to adjust the character based on
Boot.

*

�� Are you
ready?� Draco asked Justice, who sat on his shoulder with his body slightly
hunched and his feathers fluffed out in protest against the light rain falling.
Draco had cast an Impervious Charm almost the moment they stepped out the door,
but Justice wasn�t forgiving him for the few drops of rain he�d caught before
that. The owl didn�t enjoy Apparating, either. Draco thought he had several
bloody bruises under his robes.

�� Justice
gave him a long-suffering glance and then hunched further. Draco said, �You�re
to look for a small golden owl. It�ll be heading for Harry Potter. You remember
Harry Potter? He was the one who cast a curse at you.�

�� Justice
turned and blinked at him, interest showing.

�� Yes,�
Draco said, and spent a moment scanning the area in front of him. He was just
outside the Ministry, and it wasn�t impossible that someone would catch him. But
no one had appeared so far, and Draco didn�t think anyone would. It was shortly
after lunch, so everyone would be back at their desks trying to show how
industrious they could be. �I want you to capture the little owl and bring its
letter to me. You�ll anger Potter by interrupting his post. That would satisfy
your desire for revenge, wouldn�t it?� He always made sure to use a gently
coaxing tone with Justice, as if the great horned owl were a delicate kitten.

�� Justice
wriggled his tail feathers in excitement. Draco nodded and pressed his gloved
hand to Justice�s breast. He stepped up to Draco�s wrist, then launched himself
into the air. Draco didn�t think anyone would notice one more owl circling the Ministry,
but he Apparated home anyway.

�� As he
settled into the tower, he sent a mental apology to Potter, but he doubted that
there was another way to get hold of a letter, especially after he had broken
into Potter�s office. If he tried to communicate with Potter�assuming an owl
could reach him at all�he would only be certain that Draco was in a conspiracy
with the writer, who sounded a nasty bloke.

�� Draco needed a letter to examine if he was to
prove certain theories he had about the possible identity of the writer, who he
probably knew, as he knew most people in wizarding Britain�s literary
community. So he would use the method that was almost guaranteed to fetch him
one without distressing Potter further.

�� Besides, Potter�s shown no inclination to
seek outside help for finding the writer on his own, Draco thought
reasonably, as he leaned back and linked his hands together behind his head. He could if he really wanted to. And he
probably doesn�t want to receive those letters anyway, as depressed as they
appear to make him.

�� He felt a
tiny twinge of guilt, but he buried it by turning back to the last few pages of
Golden Stories and patiently
replacing all the sentences that Angela had taken out which were really
essential to the story.

*

�� Justice
swooped in not long after noon, a letter held firmly in his talons. There were
golden feathers scattered around his beak, and as far as an owl could be said
to look smug, then he did.

�� Draco, of
course, praised him excessively and gave him two whole mice to eat. Justice ate
them and then sat on the windowsill, preening himself and saying in silent
bird-language that all was well with the world.

�� Draco spent
some time examining the envelope, but in the end, he had to regretfully shake
his head. It was one that could have come from everywhere. Maybe the writer
thought he was leaving too many clues to his identity if he used everything from the same shop, or maybe
plain envelopes were the ones he happened to have on hand.

�� He turned
the letter over, and smirked slightly when he realized that the flap was sealed
with saliva, instead of wax. There were interesting things you could do with
saliva with you knew a bit of Dark Arts. He opened the envelope with his wand,
and the parchment inside slid out and onto the table.

�� It was
shorter than Draco remembered the other letter being. No paragraphs, at least,
but simply two lines set far apart from each other, as if the writer wanted to
emphasize each of his ideas separately.

�� HAVE YOU GIVEN MUCH THOUGHT TO WHAT THE WIZARDING
WORLD WILL DO WITH A MAD HERO?

�� YOU DID NOT REALLY SEE THEM. IF YOU SAW
THEM, THEN YOU MUST BE SEEING THE THINGS YOU ARE NOW.

�� Draco bit
his lip and sat back in the chair as he studied the letter. Yes, the purple ink
and the parchment were the kind he had thought them, but for the moment he was
more concerned with the first part of that last sentence. Who were �them?� Why
should Potter seeing or not seeing �them� be a matter of concern to the writer?

�� In fact, not a lot of this makes sense. I
reckon that Potter�s worried about going mad and that�s why he doesn�t want
anyone else to see the letters, but then that begs the question of how the
writer learned about this in the first place. And who are �they?�

�� Draco knew
himself well enough to realize already that the last question was the one that
would torment him.

�� After some
more minutes of staring and not coming up with anything, Draco turned back to
what he thought he could prove. The ink was purple, and, when he sniffed it
delicately, smelled of lilac. Draco smiled. That practically proved that it was
Hell�s Fields Ink, which the owners of several small shops sold for the
romantically-minded. One shop assistant had explained to Draco enthusiastically
that the name of the ink came from the poppies that supposedly littered the
fields of hell. Draco had refrained, with heroic strength, from pointing out
that poppies were red.

�� He felt the
parchment carefully, and nodded. Yes, that was Scrooge�s Self-Strengthening
Sheets, all right. It would take some doing to tear, and Draco recognized the
slight crease under his fingers that was meant to correct and straighten the
writing of those whose words wandered in wavering lines across the paper.

�� So that cut
some of his suspects down. He was looking for someone who used Hell�s Fields
Ink. Whether they had bought it to throw off suspicion or because that was
actually the kind of person they were was irrelevant. They had access to it.

�� So he would
go to the several small shops that sold it, and snoop in plain sight. He always
had an infallible excuse to ask questions�well, at least he had the right to
ask questions of people who weren�t Potter.

�� Research
for his next novel, of course.

*

�� And your
name is Bertha.� Draco nodded and wrote the name down, as if he were likely to
forget how to spell it between one moment and the next. He looked up and
fluttered his eyelashes at the shop assistant who was �helping� him �write his
book.� It was no hardship, since she kept fluttering hers at him. �Right. How
many bottles of the ink would you say that you usually sell in a week?�

�� Bertha
smiled. She had the palest skin Draco had ever seen outside of his own family
and thick dark hair that dangled around her face in untidy strands held in
place by magic. Her eyes were wide and blue and elfin, and Draco might have
been tempted by her if mere beauty could have called and held his attention.
But he needed depth and fire, and Bertha resembled a butterfly who would burn
away when the flame intensified.

�� Probably
only six or seven,� Bertha said, with a light shrug of her shoulders. �I think
that Mr. Comfrey wants to get rid of it, but then every so often someone comes
in and asks for it. And the people who make the ink do sometimes appear and inquire about their sales in these loud
officious voices.� She dropped her chin and frowned fiercely at the air next to
Draco�s left ear. �And how many bottles of Hell�s Fields do you need to
replenish your stock, my good man?� she asked in a booming voice.

�� Draco
laughed, the way he was meant to, and because he was genuinely amused, for
once. �Do you happen to remember if you sold any recently?� He hated not having
a time frame. Still, he didn�t think Potter would be willing to disclose how
long he�d been receiving the letters.

�� Bertha
shrugged and gestured around the inside of Comfrey�s Comforts for the
Burgeoning Writer. �I don�t work here all the time. I know we haven�t sold any
today or Tuesday, but I don�t know about yesterday.�

�� Draco
nodded, disappointed. Well, asking like this wasn�t a guaranteed means of
reaching an answer; he had to hope to find either a general pattern or someone
who remembered a striking customer. �Well, thank you for the material, Bertha,�
he said. �One more question. What would you say the typical Hell�s Fields buyer
is like? Old, young, anxious, successful?�

�� Bertha
looked around to see if anyone was nearby among the crowded shelves, then
leaned towards him and whispered, �To tell you the truth, Mr. Malfoy, it�s
mostly the young, romantic types. And the ones who fancy that they can write
scary stories but haven�t ever actually tried it. As though the ink would make
them into writers capable of handling psychological wounds and horror
suddenly.�

�� Draco
smiled back at her. He had to resist the urge to ask if she was a fan, not
because she�d taken his name calmly but because she was the kind of person he
would like to have him his books.
�Thanks, Bertha. I�ll let you know if I have some other research that requires your
important perspective.�

�� Bertha
seemed to take his half-flirtatious tone the way Draco intended it, not a
promise that more flirtation would be forthcoming but teasing banter that she
could respond to with a smile. �Oh, yes, I would enjoy that,� she said. �It�s
not every day that I�m told my perspective is important. At least, not my
perspective on ink.�

�� Draco
winked at her and slipped away towards the front of the shop, nodding to
several people he knew on the way. Yolanda Timpany was staring at the nearest
pieces of parchment as if she expected them to rearrange themselves for her
pleasure. Xerxes Columbus, who was engaged on the writing of a massive epic
poem that he probably wouldn�t finish before his death, tested the weight of
two quills in his fingers. Terry Boot was sighing melodramatically because the
shop didn�t have the brand of ink he happened to require.

�� Please let Boot be the person writing to
Potter, Draco thought fervently as he stepped out the front door. It would be so nice to be able to despise
him for some reason unconnected to his poetry.

�� A hand
grabbed the front of his robe and slammed him against the window, making it
tremble. Draco�s first thought was an insane hope that Comfrey wouldn�t make
him pay if he�d cracked the glass.

�� Then he
looked up along the arm and into the face of the person who held him, and
hissed in surprise. It was Potter.

�� I knew
that I saw you come in here,� Potter whispered, so softly that Draco doubted he
would have heard him if he were a few inches farther away. He leaned forwards,
and his wand, invisible from most angles, pressed into the soft flesh at the
base of Draco�s neck again. Draco had to admire the effort, and he tucked away
the sight of Potter�s pose for an appearance in the novel. �You�re the one
sending the letters to me, aren�t you?�

�� Draco,
opening his mouth to give a pretty speech about how he was sorry for what he�d
done, was caught completely by surprise. He stared for a moment or so, and then
spluttered unattractively, �No, of
course not!�

�� I know
that this shop sells the ink the letters are written with.� Potter nodded
towards the sign over Comfrey�s door and then glared dramatically into Draco�s
eyes. Again, the effect was nice, or at least Draco told himself that was why he
became breathless from the pressure of that intense green gaze. �And to see you
coming out of this place when you�ve shown that you have far too great an
interest in my personal life?� He leaned closer again, until his nose almost
brushed Draco�s cheek. �It fits very well.�

��

�� It doesn�t
fit well at all,� Draco said sharply.
�I don�t have any of that particular ink in my possession. I was investigating
who has bought it so that I could try to figure out who was sending you the
letters, if you must know. And I�m sorry,� he added, deciding that he probably
should have said this in the first place, but Potter was so exasperating.
�Sorry for breaking into your office, I mean. But I�ll have you know that this
isn�t the only place that sells that ink, so you can�t be sure it came from
here.�

�� Potter
stared at him with eyes that looked like they could strip the soul from a
Dementor. Draco raised his chin and tried to pretend he was too proud to be
affected or disconcerted or embarrassed by that stare, but with his groin
tingling and his cheeks hot, he doubted that Potter thought so.

�� I think I
believe you,� Potter whispered. In a single smooth motion, he pulled himself
free of Draco and stepped back. His eyes were so wary that Draco was impressed;
he had seen Justice make less threatening moves. �That doesn�t mean that you
should cross my path again, Malfoy. Especially in an effort to find out where
the letters are coming from.�

�� Do you
believe me about the apology, too?� Draco asked, ignoring the advice. He was
glad to see that Potter had been at least intelligent enough to figure out the
clue about the ink, but he wasn�t highly placed in the writing community and
couldn�t investigate as easily as Draco. �I do mean that.�

�� Potter gave
him a merciless smile. �It doesn�t matter whether I believe you or not, since I
have no intention of letting you near me ever again.� He turned, his cloak
whipping around him, and strode towards the top of the street.

�� Draco
hurried after him. �But don�t you see,� he called to Potter�s back, �that what
I did was stupid, and poorly thought out, and I do apologize for that? I didn�t
mean to hurt you. I let my exasperation carry me away, and��

�� I don�t
believe you,� Potter called over his shoulder, �because you�re only saying
you�re sorry because this disrupts your research for your story. You�re not
sorry for hurting me in any way. I�ve
learned one lesson in the last few years, Malfoy: I only need to associate with people who have my welfare in mind.�

�� Then he
Apparated away, and left Draco standing in the middle of the street looking
foolish. His recalcitrant brain, of course, pictured how even that would look
in the middle of a novel.

�� Draco
sighed and turned towards his own home. He�s
mostly right, but still�

�� I still didn�t want to hurt him.

�� That
emotion burned right beside his unquenchable curiosity about the letters, and his
squirmy guilt that he�d had Justice steal one of the letters bound for Potter,
and the fierce rightness that made him want to write Potter�s story anyway.

�� I reckon I could do worse than take the
advice Granger gave me, and try to learn more about the small things in
Potter�s life.

*

�� Snivelly:
Thanks so much! I�m glad you took the chance on a story when you might
otherwise not have.

�� Harry is
the more mature one here, I think, though in handling the letters alone he
still shows less maturity than he should. Draco is in much the same position,
though perhaps a bit more childish.

�� Aw, thanks
for the compliment on my vocabulary.

�� Harry hasn�t
been in contact with Narcissa, but Narcissa has had time to think about that
night, now that she�s years distant from it in time and can imagine thinking
about something other than the hurt to her family.

�� Blood Lust
777: Draco sometimes gets carried away with himself and thinks he�s good at
things that he�s really not, like sneaking about.

�� butterpie: Harry
won�t call for an arrest, for the reasons Draco has deduced, but there�s plenty
of other trouble for Draco to get into.

�� yaoiObsessed:
Draco could still have a chance! It depends on what he discovers. And he could
still find out information about Harry, too. So far, he�s only looked in the
very obvious places.

�� hieisdragoness18:
That was definitely one of the intended effects.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Here it is.

�� Yami
Bakura: Thanks very much for the encouragement. We�ll see.
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Incandescence