Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Emergence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2816 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Harry snorted a little. Apparently, when Kreacher had a “real master” from the Black family to serve, he could do amazing things as far as cleaning up the house went.
There was what looked like new wallpaper everywhere in Grimmauld Place now, although given how wary house-elves were about changing anything, Harry thought it was more likely the old paper scrubbed to gleaming. The wood looked like it was made of satin, and there were rugs on the floor that had actual colors, red and black and grey. Harry thought it was a little somber, but at least it was somberly magnificent.
And Draco was sleeping better, and recovering faster.
Harry didn’t know if that was being in a house once owned by his ancestors, or being away from the Weasleys, or something else. What he did know was that Draco came down to breakfast in the kitchen with a contented smile on his face.
“I didn’t have nightmares last night,” he told Harry.
Harry blinked and nodded as if he had known that Draco was having nightmares already. And resolved to keep a better eye on him in the future.
Draco ate everything Kreacher put in front of him, including porridge that he probably would have claimed was too thick if Molly made it, and smiled at him in a way that made Kreacher try to bang his head into the floor with bowing. And he asked about the news in the Daily Prophet and looked thoughtful when Harry read to him about the poor performance of the Montrose Magpies.
“I was wondering if we could practice some Quidditch?” he asked. “That might be one of the only careers left open to me when this sentence is done. There are some teams that care more about your skill than your record.”
Harry nodded. He’d learned about that himself, when he was reading papers during the Death Eater trials because it was one of the few ways he could entertain himself during the endless waiting. The scandals that followed Quidditch players didn’t keep them from playing.
“Sure,” he said. “I have two brooms.”
“You do?” Draco stared at him. Maybe he’d thought Harry would say that he had to borrow some.
“All of the gifts people sent me after the war.” Harry looked in the other direction and rubbed the back of his neck. Compared to the situation Draco was in, this felt even more embarrassing than it would have otherwise. “There are brooms in them. One Firebolt, a lot of Nimbuses.”
“I’ll have one of the Nimbuses.”
“Don’t you want the Firebolt?”
“I want to see what my performance is really like, and I’ve never ridden a Firebolt. I wouldn’t know what was me and what was the broom.”
Harry smiled at him and stood up to go get the brooms, leaving Kreacher fussing over Draco. He knew nothing would happen to Draco while he was gone, since Kreacher would fling his body down as a bridge over a puddle before he would let Draco get wet.
And it let Harry have some time to settle his thoughts, which were that it was extraordinarily pleasant to hear Draco talk like that. He sounded wise and thoughtful, and not gushing, the way too many people since the war were.
He sounded like someone Harry would like to get to know.
*
Draco hesitated as he looked at the Quidditch pitch Potter had Apparated him to. It must have been a long distance from Grimmauld Place, to judge by the mountains in the distance, but there was no one else around.
“Where are we?”
Potter was striding ahead of Draco, carrying another Nimbus, but Draco saw the back of his neck still flush red. “Private Quidditch pitch,” he said. “In the magical area of Wales. It was—willed to me. By a woman who died shortly after the battle at Hogwarts.”
“You know,” said Draco, “I could help you come up with ways to use all these gifts, if you’re too mortified to do it yourself.”
Potter rubbed his forehead as if his scar pained him, and Draco felt a surge of panic before he remembered. “It’s just—it’s hard to admit I have them. I don’t want to offend people by giving their gifts away. And I want to think about other things than using them. So they just sort of sit around until I use them anyway.” He gave Draco an unhappy glance.
Draco raised his eyebrows and stumbled a little as he stepped on a rough patch of ground. Potter’s hand was on his elbow in a second, supporting him. Draco pushed him back and glared. “I was feverish. I didn’t die.”
“You could have.”
“And are you going to use that excuse to fuss over me as much as the—as Mrs. Weasley would have?”
“I don’t want to fuss over you,” said Potter, and had the gall to look startled at the accusation. “But I do think you’re not fully recovered yet, so I thought I would watch out for you.”
And he said it so simply that Draco couldn’t even feel offended. He sighed and walked over to a smooth patch of grass in the middle of the pitch, looking around for a moment. “I don’t see a shed or anything else that could contain balls and brooms.”
“The woman who willed it to me had the shed torn down years ago. She said it was the private place she came to fly and think, not to actually practice Quidditch.”
And now Potter sounded sad. Draco sighed again. He hadn’t meant to do that, either. He turned around. “Every piece of this seems equally well-suited to playing.”
Potter nodded. He was looking more at the ground than Draco. Draco found himself frowning. That wouldn’t do.
“Then that means we can take off from everywhere,” Draco continued in the same calm, level voice. “And I could race you to the Keeper’s hoop from everywhere.”
Potter raised his head, but by that time Draco was already aloft—which felt wobbly and dangerous and wonderful—and speeding towards the hoop. He laughed over his shoulder as he heard Potter cursing and trying to scramble onto his own Nimbus.
Granted, it wasn’t as wonderful to know that Potter was probably worried about him falling off the broom rather than about losing the race. But Draco would take what blessings he could get. He leaned forwards over his Nimbus’s shaft and gave it its head.
*
Watching Draco Malfoy crow over winning a Quidditch race against him was less annoying than Harry had expected. It was at least partially because he’d thought Draco was about to kill himself with that mad lift off the ground, and he hadn’t. Instead, he was drifting along above the grass even when Harry had landed, still recounting his victory.
“And then I saw the look on your face when you glanced over your shoulder at me.” Draco winked and shook his head. “You never expected me to beat you, admit it.”
Harry snorted. There was pleasant and then there was letting Draco get a swelled head. “You would never have beaten me in a real Quidditch game.”
“I would so!”
“That was only a race. Not a real Quidditch game,” Harry said, mostly to see what Draco would say.
Draco gaped in silence for a second, his hands working up and down the shaft of the Nimbus. Then he snapped his head forwards and yelled, “I challenge you to a game, then!”
Harry flew down to gather up the box he’d brought along that contained the Bludgers and the Snitch. He thought about getting the Quaffle, too, but they’d both been Seekers at Hogwarts, and he thought they’d have enough to do dodging the Bludgers. He tossed the Snitch into the air and followed them with the sulky Bludgers.
One of them curved back and immediately tried to hit him. Harry struck it with the Beater’s bat he happened to have in his hand at that moment, but then tossed the bat back into the box and flew up again when he saw how intently Draco watched him. He seemed to think Harry would seize every unfair advantage he could.
Not that I will. Harry had even flown down to open the box instead of charming it open because he didn’t want to remind Draco that he couldn’t use magic. He circled back now and nodded to Draco. “First one to the Snitch wins.”
Draco took off immediately, turning his head back and forth, his eyes squinting. Harry looked at him more often than he did the Snitch, but he couldn’t help seeing the gleam of gold speeding towards the center of the pitch a moment later, either.
And neither could Draco. He shouted, something wordless, and took off straight towards it, his hand outstretched as if he could compel the Snitch to come to him by sheer force of will.
Straight into the path of the Bludger that drifted at him as if it had all the time in the world to get there, spinning slowly on its own axis.
While Draco chased the Snitch, Harry aimed himself straight at the Bludger, his wand already in his hand. Screw embarrassing Draco or making him feel inadequate if that meant Harry wouldn’t be able to defend him.
“Confringo!”
*
Draco held his palm up. He could barely breathe. The Snitch was almost there, coming to him like a wild bird lured to be tame by the promise of cake. Was this actually going to happen? Was he going to charm the Snitch to him with no need of magic?
“Confringo!”
Draco’s concentration shattered, and he ducked against his broom with reflexes born of long hours in the same house as Death Eaters. When he glanced fearfully over his shoulder, it was to see Potter framed by an ever-widening explosion of splinters.
Splinters that had once been part of a Bludger. Draco traced the path of those pieces back to the center of the explosion with his eyes, and swallowed. He’d also got good at estimating trajectories.
The Bludger was where his head would have been, if Potter hadn’t blown it up. That Draco hadn’t even sensed it…
That was a bad sign for a Seeker, let alone a human being who wanted to survive a game of Quidditch.
Draco was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he could have died, and he wouldn’t have been able to stop it, and he’d had to rely on Potter for protection just the way he did from the Wizengamot and the consequences of his own actions, when he felt something soft and small touch the center of his palm.
Draco jerked his head around, his eyes widening. He was holding the Snitch.
He had charmed it to him without the aid of magic.
He turned around and held it out wordlessly for Potter to see. Potter had opened his mouth to say something, but he fell silent and blinked in obvious stunned astonishment. Then he looked at Draco.
Draco expected him to say something about how it hadn’t been a real game, and how Draco would never have beaten him in the middle of a real game. Draco was even prepared to agree with that. For one thing, he had no idea how the Snitch had come to be there at that precise moment.
And then Potter smiled at him instead, and Draco understood for the first time why so many students had invoked this man’s name when they were struggling against the Death Eaters at Hogwarts.
*
He caught the Snitch. He really did.
And that made up for everything, Harry thought, Draco causing him worry when he flew like that, and almost dying, and even the other Bludger circling above their heads like a hawk, which he used a spell to imprison now. Draco had to be fully recovered, or he never could have done that. And now he’d beaten Harry’s record for shortest game of Quidditch and quickest capture time.
“You’re not angry.” Draco sounded as if he was wondering about that.
“No, of course not,” Harry said, a little startled that Draco would think that. He landed on the pitch and looked up at him. It took a long moment for Draco to follow him. “Why would I be?”
“Because I won.”
Harry said the first thing that came into his head, because it was the most honest. “Seeing the way you look now, it’s like I won, too.”
And then Draco came down, and landed, and sat on the broom looking at him. Harry looked back, not sure what else he could offer.
And then Draco reached out, hand still holding the Snitch, and opened it. Harry expected it to fly away, but it only sat there, wings quivering in and out, held by whatever wonder had made it fly to Draco in the first place.
Harry reached out, and closed his own hand over the fluttering Snitch and Draco’s warm fingers.
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Emergence