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Roses, Made by Hands	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7790 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Title: Gold, As Captured Flame

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

Pairings: Harry/Draco pre-slash, Ron/Hermione mentioned.

Warnings: Angst, mentions of violence, “eighth year” Hogwarts fic.

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 2000

Summary: Harry wants to do something to show his appreciation for Malfoy’s help with Parkinson. A gift might do the trick.

Author’s Notes: This is the fourth ficlet in the “Made By Hands” series, short fics expressing Harry and Draco growing towards a relationship with each other in the year after the war. This follows “Roses, Made By Hands,” “Sculpted Light,” and “Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew.”

Gold, As Captured Flame

            Harry sucked thoughtfully at his quill as he watched Malfoy working with his Potions ingredients, the ones that Slughorn had assigned them to make a usable potion out of by the end of the year. Malfoy had a sharp knife, and skill; his eyes always narrowed before he cut something up, but then the knife would flash down, and he would make the cuts precisely. He worked with stirring rods as though they sprouted from his hands. He had the best timing, in terms of adding ingredients to the potion, that Harry had ever seen.

            And he’d never looked up from his work or talked to anyone else in class since the day Parkinson had been arrested and taken to Azkaban for using the Cruciatus on Dennis.

            Harry stirred a little as he thought about that. He had used the Unforgivable Curses during the war, and not been punished for it. Of course, no one had wanted to punish the Chosen One, and the curses had been on Death Eaters. And Parkinson had used the curse on Dennis when he hadn’t actually hurt her; Harry had stopped Dennis’s curse before it could hit any of the Slytherins in the Great Hall on the night of the welcoming feast.

            But still. Her departure had made Malfoy monosyllabic and turned the other Slytherins away from everything but schoolwork, as if they were trying desperately to prove that they weren’t like Parkinson. Harry wanted them to be comfortable in the school; he didn’t want the war to repeat.

            Something had to be done.

            “Harry, you haven’t done anything with your aconite yet.”

            That was Hermione. Of course it was. Harry turned around and smiled at her. “Because I’m thinking about other things to do first,” he replied.

            Hermione followed the direction of his gaze, and then sighed. “It’s very laudable that you want to, Harry. But I think Malfoy might not appreciate it all that much if you tried to make his potion for him.”

            Harry stared at her, then laughed. “Is that what you thought? Oh, no, I wouldn’t. I think this is the kind of thing that he has to succeed at on his own. But I want to do something to show him that some people appreciate his good sense.”

            “His good sense?” Hermione was busily studying a chart of the full moon that she seemed to have decided was going to influence her potion, but she stopped and stared at him when Harry said that. “This is the same boy we’re talking about who came after you in the Room of Requirement to deliver you to Voldemort? After saving your life from the Snatchers?”

            Harry waved his hand. “I think we were all mental during the war, Hermione. That’s what war does to people.”

            Hermione narrowed her eyes. “You’re either being very clever or very obnoxious. I can’t tell which.”

            “Malfoy did the right thing when Parkinson cursed Dennis,” Harry told her softly, because Malfoy had begun to twitch in the way he always did when Harry watched him too long. Harry didn’t want to make him more paranoid. “He told her to stop. And it was a risk. In the mood she was in, she might have cursed him, or done something else painful to him. He might have had selfish motives, but he did the right thing, and he didn’t tell anyone because he probably thought they wouldn’t believe a Slytherin. He deserves something for it.”

            “You can’t start rewarding people for doing the right thing,” Hermione said.

            Harry stared blankly at her for a few minutes, while she began to blush. Then Harry said, “Even if the Ministry didn’t always do it, I intend to. The Ministry didn’t do anything about the Slytherin and Gryffindor rivalry when it was happening before the war, either. I want to.”

            “You can’t do it all by yourself,” Hermione said.

            “Right, so you want to help me with the cost of Malfoy’s gift?” Harry asked, smiling, and saw Hermione begin to smile back, in spite of herself.

*

            Ron followed behind Harry as he carried the wrapped package to the Great Hall, fussing. “What’s Dennis going to think of this?” he asked, when they had reached the doorway and he seemed to realize that Harry really intended to go through with it. “You’re giving something to a Slytherin after he just got cursed by a Slytherin.”

            “Malfoy wasn’t the one who cursed him,” Harry said calmly, over his shoulder. “And Dennis might think all Slytherins are a lump and should be cursed, from the way he reacted the night of the welcoming feast, or he might not. That doesn’t mean that his thoughts should control the way I react. If I let them start mattering to me more than anything else, then I’ll never get anything done.” He nudged the doors of the Great Hall open and walked in before Ron could do anything but wince and gallop after him.

            Harry had deliberately come to breakfast later than normal, because that way more people would be there and see the gesture. They all fell silent, staring, as Harry walked between them with the present floating behind him. Harry had wrapped it in a great, straight box, because otherwise the distinctive shape would reveal what it was to Malfoy before he opened it.

            He floated the gift straight up to Malfoy and set it on his table. Malfoy stared at him around the edge of it.

            “For standing up for the right thing,” Harry said softly, meeting his eyes. “For your courage, no matter what the motives.”

            And he turned and marched away, because, actually, no one other than Malfoy needed to keep looking at his face for that long. As he walked, he heard the murmurs behind him, building into roars, into shouts, into demands for his attention. He ignored them all, and sat down at the Gryffindor table to eat his breakfast.

            When he looked up from his intense search for the butter, he found himself facing Malfoy again. Of course, it was hardly his fault that the table looked that way. He nodded to him and buttered the toast in his hand, then took such a large bite that butter dripped down his chin and gave Hermione something else to scold him about.

            Malfoy had touched the edge of the gift at least once, if the way his hand rested on it now was any indication. Harry doubted that he would have touched it with such confidence at first. He swallowed, and swept his hand up and down the side, then reached for his wand. A slit appeared in the box on all four sides.

            Harry restrained himself from breaking into spontaneous applause as the paper fell away, because that would sound mocking to Malfoy. But it was neatly done, and he made a note that he could possibly study with Malfoy on applications of Complex Cutting Charms, which would be on the NEWTS and which Hermione was more interested in the theory behind than anything.

            Malfoy stared some more. Then he slowly pulled out the golden cauldron that had been inside the package, and gaped at it.

            The cauldron shone like flame. Harry had studied them for a while before he bought one, and had learned enough to ask for one like that. “Phoenix-colored,” the advertisement had said, and it did remind Harry of Fawkes. Gold and scarlet on the sides, narrowing to blood-color near the lip, and purer yellow on the legs.

            Malfoy stared at Harry again over the rim. Then he cast two spells. One of them wrapped the cauldron in a thick cage of bristling silver spikes, which Harry reckoned would impale anyone who tried to steal it, and the second floated it out of the Great Hall, in the direction of the dungeons.

            Then he stood up and beckoned to Harry.

            Someone tried to restrain Harry; someone said something about how Parkinson had cursed Dennis. Harry stood up, said, “And she was punished for it, and Malfoy isn’t her, even if you have really bad eyesight,” and followed Malfoy out the doorway, into the cooler shadows of the entrance hall. Even with some people peering after them, he thought this was private enough.

            Malfoy turned to him. His head was lowered. His breath puffed like a bull’s. Harry watched him, and made sure to show a lifted head to the people staring from behind and his empty hands to Malfoy.

            A minute passed. Another. Harry wondered what strange clock Malfoy was keeping track of time by, that he was content to wait like this and not get embarrassed or ask Harry what the hell he had been thinking.

            Then Malfoy said, “You didn’t have to do that.”

            Harry shook his head, eyes on him. “Not even to reward you. I know that. You did what was right long before you were thinking about any rewards.”

            Malfoy shuddered. Then he said, “You said the motive didn’t matter. You realize that it’ll matter to others? That most of your House still isn’t behind you in the effort to reconcile with us? That the newspapers are back to their stance of saying all Slytherins are rotten to the core, now that Pansy’s gone?”

            Harry nodded. “I know that. But I knew that—You-Know-Who was after me, too.” He had decided that he should spare Malfoy’s sensibilities for the present. “And the Death Eaters wanted to see me dead. And there were people out there who swung between loving and hating me based on what the Prophet reported. I kept going.”

            Malfoy stared at him, then stared at the ground. “I don’t have that kind of courage,” he whispered. “I can’t be what you want me to.”

            Impulsively, Harry stepped forwards and let himself touch Malfoy’s cheek the way that Malfoy had touched his a few weeks ago. Malfoy’s breath flew into his lungs and didn’t come out again; his eyes widened.

            “I don’t need you to be like me,” Harry said quietly. “I need you to be like yourself, the person you can be now that you’re in this world, on the other side of the war.”

            Malfoy shivered, as though Harry had coated him with snow. Harry rubbed once with his thumb, and then lowered his hands, not because he was afraid of what other people might think. He was just afraid that he might make Malfoy uncomfortable.

            “Be free,” Harry said. “And enjoy the gift, for whatever reason you think I gave it.” He gave Malfoy a little bow and walked away. He didn’t want to go back into the Great Hall now. He wanted to walk.

            “I have a gift for you, too.”

            Harry turned his head back over his shoulder, curious. Part of him thought it might be a curse, even now; part of him thought Malfoy might have carried something around in his pocket waiting for a moment like this.

            Malfoy smiled at him, a smile like glass lit from behind by light. Harry assumed that was the gift, and smiled in return. But then Malfoy said, “Thank you, Harry.”

            The name went through Harry like a shaft of sunlight, and before he could recover, Malfoy had vanished back into the Great Hall, leaving Harry to walk outside.

            Leaving him smiling.

            The End.



*

            thrnbrooke: The Slytherins general, perhaps, but not really Pansy. She made her choice.

            SP777: Harry is trying very hard to be mature, but a lot of it will be trial and error. Like here, where he didn’t know if Draco would like the gift.

            HalfPrince: Thanks! I’m trying to show how ordinary events can fit right together with the more brutal ones.

            unneeded: Harry feels a little guilty for having gotten away with so much during the war, so he’s trying to make sure everyone is held to the same standards now.
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Roses, Made by Hands