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Returning to Sanity	By : AchillesTheGeek Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31213 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or films, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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4. Returning to Wakefulness.
Someone was trying to cut him in half. He screamed, but no words seemed to come. There were no sounds that could express this pain. A guilty thought flashed through his mind: was this how Draco had felt when he had cast Sectumsempra on him? But it was driven out as the pain increased, feeling like hot needles being dragged across his skin. It felt like he was on fire.
Abruptly, the pain stopped and the hot feeling left. Now he felt cold and bereft. It was as if half of him had been ripped away, and the half that was gone held all the warmth. He could still feel it, somehow, thrashing; a feeling of anger that was not his own. He started to howl, and then someone forced something down his throat and he was drowning, drowning and he couldn’t yell any more and then he lost his footing and fell into darkness…
Harry woke sobbing in a cold sweat. A dream, then, but frighteningly real. He looked up at the ceiling and recognised it at once. After all, he had looked up at the canopy above his four-poster bed inGryffindor Tower pretty much every school morning since he was eleven. Someone who knew him well must have put him in his old bed.
“What time is it, I wonder?” he said, half to himself.
"Just after four o'clock in the afternoon," said an elegant, refined, and very melodious voice. He looked round to see Narcissa Malfoy eyeing him with a look that was half the calm, arrogant expression he had expected, and half he wasn’t sure what. Distrusting, perhaps. Uncertain, certainly. Which was quite surprising.
What on Earth was he going to say to her? He nervously cleared his throat.
“Mrs Malfoy, it’s kind of you to watch over me,” he said.
She nodded, regally. “It was generally agreed that you should not be left alone once you and Draco were brought up here, Mr Potter.”
“Harry,” he interjected.
“Mr Potter,” she replied. So, this was going to stay formal. Evidently, he was still a mere half-blood to her. Damn, Harry thought. He’d hoped that winning the war would get rid of that. Obviously, it wasn’t that simple.
“The Weasleys wanted to go back to the Burrow at two o’clock, and acting Headmistress Minerva McGonagall wanted someone familiar to you to be present when you awoke, so I agreed to sit with you. You might be interested to know that the Aurors were not at all in favour of this arrangement. They were most concerned that I was with you. Two of them are stationed at the door, just in case I try anything, but Minerva insisted that I could be trusted and was not to be hovered over.”
This did not surprise Harry at all; of course the Aurors would think that the wife and mother of Death Eaters couldn’t be trusted and insist on keeping a watch on her; and of course the Headmistress, knowing better, was not going to let them. If it hadn’t been for his nightmare on waking, he might even have found it all amusing.
There was definitely something she was not telling him. Where was Draco now? Harry could tell, without looking, that he wasn’t in the room; he couldn’t have said how he knew, he just did. And surely, without something having happened between mother and son, Narcissa Malfoy would never choose to be with him rather than Draco.
“Thank you,” he said, to cover her statement generally. He wanted information, it would not be a good idea to get on the wrong side of her. “Um, where is Draco now?”
Narcissa sighed. She did not miss his use of “Draco” rather than “Malfoy”, and she knew perfectly well how unusual that was.
“My son had fallen asleep with you; the night had obviously taken a heavier toll than we thought.”
Harry inwardly snorted at the implication that merely being in a fight to the death and having no sleep for at least a couple of nights was not in itself sufficient reason for a Malfoy to need a nap. But he didn’t make any sound or interrupt.
“When he woke up, he was a bit disoriented and not particularly agreeable, so he went down to talk to his friends in Slytherin house.”
Harry sat up, swinging himself out of the bedclothes, and looked her in the eye. No, he decided, she wasn’t going to fob him off.
“What exactly did he say?” he said, putting so much stress on the word ‘exactly’ that Narcissa could not miss the implication that he didn’t believe her summary to be the whole truth. He could see the battle going on inside her head. He had a pretty good idea what it was about: she didn’t trust Draco and him to be together for some reason, so he put on his most trustworthy face, looked her straight in the eye, and continued.
“Mrs Malfoy I assure you, I only want your son to be free to exercise his magic and get on with his life. I don’t know what that bright light was all about, really, but I want to fix whatever it is and move on. I don’t want to force him into anything, but please, I need to know what he thinks and wants if we’re going to have any chance with that.”
She still looked unmoved for a couple of seconds, during which Harry carefully held her gaze without blinking, willing her to come round; and then she visibly relaxed, gave a small sigh, and waved her wand in an intricate pattern.
“Please excuse my son’s rather colourful language, Mr Potter. And I assure you that what I said before was true, though my son gave another reason for me to stay with you. Repetitatas!”
With that spell, Draco’s voice filled the space between them.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing separating us? We were doing just fine, and I don’t give a shit what you think about it, we both needed whatever was going on then. Look at him! Shivering with cold! Oh yes, push a bloody Sleeping Potion down his throat! That’s just what he needs! Right, you’d better look after him then, I’m out of here now, I’m going to go and talk to Blaise, Pansy and Greg. Don’t you dare leave his side, and make sure you send someone to come and get me the moment he wakes up.”
There were no pictures, but Harry had no problem visualizing the blond with his face distorted by the angry, sneering sarcasm, and then stomping out of the room. It stirred him up a lot, and it was an effort to keep the rising anger out of his voice. He thought back to the nightmare, and realized that perhaps it wasn’t a nightmare at all – it had really happened, just not quite how his out-of-it brain had interpreted it.
“I see,” he said mildly. “I suppose we’d better tell him I’m awake then?”
“There’s time for that, Mr Potter,” Narcissa replied. She was stalling, Harry knew; probably hoping he’d just go away before Draco knew anything about it. Fat chance. If the nightmare was real, they needed to get together and sort things out. Now.
“Oh I think we should do what he wants straight away,” he said. A piece of parchment flew out of his trunk and a quill followed. Narcissa watched astonished as the quill wrote a message hurriedly on the parchment:
          Draco,
          I am now awake. Please come to the Gryffindor Tower.
          Harry.
The parchment then folded up into a paper plane and flew out of the tower window.
She looked at Harry with a new respect. A wizard who could do that much wandless magic, especially having just woken up from a Sleeping Draught, was a lot more powerful and dangerous than she had ever given Harry Potter credit for. True, he had survived the Avada Kedavra twice, but she had always assumed that that was all to do with his mother’s sacrifice. Perhaps, she realized, the boy had depths they had all overlooked. She made no comment, but a faint smile ghosted her face. Against her better judgement, she was growing fond of Harry Potter.
They sat without speaking for a few minutes, and Harry was growing uncomfortable in the silence, so blurted out, “Um, I guess I should thank you for not telling Voldemort I was alive.”
Narcissa stiffened at the mention of the name, but did not immediately react. Still a Gryffindor, she thought, but she was surprised to find it was with affection. All she actually said was, “I suppose you should.”
Alright, Harry thought, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “Right, well, then, um… “ Smooth as ever, Harry.“Thank you for not telling Voldemort I was alive. And thank you for not letting me wake up alone.”
The smile was quite real now. “That’s quite all right, Mr Potter.”
“Harry,” he interjected.
“Harry.” She agreed. A small but definite step forward, he thought. “I’m sure you realize that I acted  mostly for Draco’s sake, especially when you told me he was alive. But you were after all probably the only one with any realistic chance of getting rid of that horrid man, and I’m glad to have been part of giving you the opportunity to do so.”
“Mrs Malfoy, …” he began, but she stopped him immediately.
“Harry, I think perhaps you’d better call us Narcissa and Lucius. I confess – before you awoke, I had thought you were trying to control my son somehow, to get hold of his magic while he couldn’t use it. But I cannot doubt your sincerity, and I accept that you were motivated by a desire to help and free him, not to trap him. If my husband is correct, that may not be the outcome, but I accept that you did not intend otherwise. I cannot fault your motives.”
What the hell was she on about? But before he could ask, or go back to what he was saying before, the door burst open, and Draco Malfoy rushed in, breathless and spoiling for a fight. Harry wasn’t quite sure with whom, but found himself rather hoping it wasn’t him. Draco looked rather too fierce to fight when you’d only recently woken up from a Sleeping Draught and were still feeling a bit groggy.
But it was his mother he turned to and glowered at. She seemed to take it in her stride.
“My dragon, good of you to join us,” Narcissa said, in perfectly equable tones. “I suspect you and Harry would like a word in private?”
The blond looked stunned, but years of training held good. “Yes, thank you mother. Let me introduce Auror Godwin,” with which he moved aside to show a tall, sandy-haired and freckly man in auror’s robes behind him. “He will take you back to the Manor. Apparently we are to stay there under – ahem - auror protection until a decision is made in the future. Harry, his partner, Auror Banks, will be taking you back to the Burrow when we are finished here.”
Draco didn’t say what the decision was about, and Narcissa didn’t ask. But his hesitation about the “protection” was a strong hint that it was about their future freedom. So the “protection” was more likely some form of house arrest, then.
Narcissa coolly stood up to shake hands with the auror, and Harry stood as well, out of politeness. She nodded at Draco, then turned to Harry.
“It seems I must leave you, Harry. I hope you will be kind to my son, and that in time you will be able to forgive us the unkindnesses of the past.”
It was Harry’s turn to be stunned. He didn’t have years of training, but he did have Draco’s example to follow, so he swallowed deeply and gathered his Gryffindor pride.
“Thank you Mrs – Narcissa; I too hope we will all be able to move on from the past.”
“Lucius has mentioned that we will be changing the wards at the manor to allow you unrestricted access, Harry. I do hope you will feel free to visit whenever you wish.”
With that, the aristocrat gave him her hand to kiss and left the room in the company of the auror. “Under auror protection” might mean being under arrest; but she looked much more like the lady being followed by her lackey than a prisoner with her escort.
Draco watched them leave, then turned to him, still looking stunned.
“Um, ‘Harry’? ‘Narcissa’? She gave you her hand? Changing the wards? Want to tell me what’s going on here?”
“I don’t really know myself. I asked her to call me Harry, and she wouldn’t; but eventually she came round and asked me to to call her Narcissa.” Harry then repeated the chat they’d had together. Draco looked stunned. Again.
“There are people mum’s known for twenty years who still call her ‘Mrs Malfoy’! I think you’ve won a heart there.”
Embarrassed, Harry changed the topic: “So, do you have any idea what she meant about your father being correct?”
“Yes, but I think we should sit down to discuss it.”
They both sat on the bed, about a foot apart. Harry found himself wishing they were closer, but clamped down hard on the desire. He didn’t think it was very appropriate seeing as how they’d been best enemies until fairly recently.
“My father told me a little bit more about this Haussmann Shield he mentioned when we were sitting in the Great Hall. Apparently it’s something that happens when two or more people’s magic gets intertwined. Usually, it only happens with partners.”
Harry looked confused. “You mean like, aurors who are partners?”
Draco smiled at the naivete of the raven-haired boy. "No, Harry. I mean like husband and wife. Though it's quite acceptable to have same-sex partnerships in the Wizarding world, and even partnerships with more than two people." Harry looked a bit upset by this so he pressed on, "sometimes a special word is used – bonded, rather than married – because marriage still means a man and a woman in the muggle world; but no-one sees any real difference between a bonding and a marriage."
Harry looked a bit green. “But we’re not … I mean, you hate me …”
Draco looked at him sternly. “No, we’re not. And where do you get off, telling me what I feel about you? I’ve watched you for years, you hate it when other people tell you what you think, so don’t go telling me what I think! For your information, I don’t hate you. How could I? You saved my life from the Fiendfyre. You saved us all from that fiend in human form. Hell, if I hated you, I’d have ratted on you in the Manor. But I don’t, I really don’t; I admire you. When I said ‘Thank you’ before, I meant it. Not because I was supposed to, or obligated to you, but because I really do appreciate what you did for us. And then you went and broke through the Dark Lord’s curse, and our magic got joined together. Though I’m not sure what that actually means.”
“I have a bit of an idea,” Harry replied, telling him about the nightmare. Draco agreed with him about the interpretation: it hadn’t been a nightmare as such, it was Harry’s response to being separated. Clearly the joining together had a physical aspect as well as a magical one. Draco confirmed that the anger was exactly right, as Harry knew already from the outburst Narcissa had replayed. The feeling of being drowned was when Madam Pomfrey had given him the Sleeping Draught he had just woken up from.
Harry kept silent about the Sectumsempra until the very last. He could hardly talk about it:
“I’m -- I’m so sorry. I’ve never regretted anything I’ve ever done as much as that.”
“Yeah – I can’t hold it against you; I was trying to Crucio you at the time, so I guess I forgive you, and I owe you an apology too.”
“Accepted,” said Harry, breathing a sigh of relief. He realized he’d been carrying the guilt of that curse for over a year, and now it had fallen off him. He felt a lot lighter.
“So, did your father say anthing else about this joining-magic-thing, then?”
“Father says that it can only happen when the two people involved are actually compatible in some fundamental way.” Harry thought back to the “partnering” thing, and felt a bit ill. Draco must have noticed, because he quickly added, “but that doesn’t have to mean anything more.”
“OK, so you’re not actually coming on to me?” Harry asked, rather tentatively.
“Were you hoping I was? I’ve been watching you for the last two years, wondering if that’s what you wanted.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. I guess we’re just going to have to see what the future brings. But in the meantime, I guess after the events of today … I mean, I hope … um, can we be … friends?”
With that, Harry reached out his hand. Immediately they both remembered the day, years before, when Harry had refused Draco’s offer of friendship.
“I’m really sorry about seven years ago,” Harry said, sheepishly. “You just reminded me of my rather thick, insensitive, bullying cousin, Dudley.”
“Thanks for that,” said the blond, sounding both sarcastic and slightly hurt.
“Yeah, sorry, that came out wrong. I thought you were like him, but you’re not. I know now you’re not thick, you’re actually one of the smartest wizards I know.”
“One of?” the blond asked, archly.
“Hermione would give you a run for your money, but I guess she’s a witch, not a wizard … And also, it’s obvious that you are quite sensitive, you’ve just had to hide it. It’s not your fault you were so good at hiding it and I was so bad at spotting it that I didn’t see through your mask. And you’re not a bully – well, not any more.” Draco gave him a wry smile for that. “I’m sorry I thought so, OK?”
Draco stared at him for a moment, and Harry’s heart sank. Was it all going to fall apart at the last hurdle?
Then the blond’s face split into a grin. “Apology accepted,” he said, and reached out and shook Harry’s hand firmly.
There was a knock on the door, and Auror Godwin announced that he had come back to take Draco to the Manor.
“I guess this is goodbye for the moment, then.” Draco said. “And, Harry? Thank you.”
With that, the blond kissed him on the cheek, and left the room.
Harry was shocked speechless for a second, and only just managed to call out “thank you … Draco” as his new friend went through the door.
The kiss on his cheek tingled.
He thought over the conversation they had just had, and three things came back with stark clarity.
Harry? Thank you. It was the first time Draco had used his name in the whole conversation, and it was his first name. It felt ridiculously good to hear it from those lips. And he’d kissed him. That just felt amazing.
See what the future brings. Suddenly Harry knew that, whatever it was, he definitely wanted the future to involve a certain tall, blond, sarcastic Slytherin as his friend.
Watching you for the last two years. Merlin! Harry must have been asleep to miss that. Although he had to admit to himself he’d been rather preoccupied, what with horcruxes and hallows and trying not to get killed.
He must have been half asleep for the last few months. But he was awake now.
It was time to find Auror Banks and see what future there was for him at The Burrow.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have set up a thread for replies at http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/56042-review-replies-for-returning-to-sanity/ . I will generally try to reply to posts before posting a new chapter.
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Returning to Sanity