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Inter Vivos	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 42948 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 39
- 40
Thank you again for all the reviews!

This is the very last part of Inter Vivos. Writing this story has been a tremendous experience;
it�s the longest story I�ve written and by far the most full-fledged AU I�ve
done. Thank you to everyone who supported me and the story by reading and
reviewing.

Epilogue�Seasons

�� There were
words being said. Draco didn�t care about the words.

�� There were
people moving around them, distant relatives who had felt the obligation to
show up for the occasion, reporters held at a respectful distance by wards, and
curious onlookers. Draco didn�t care about the people.

�� Harry was
by his side, and his mother was being lowered into the ground. That was what he cared about.

�� Draco felt
Harry wrap an arm around his shoulder, and glare at the people who came
shuffling up, trying to talk to him. He was aware of a distant gratitude, which
he could show only by leaning against Harry and closing his eyes. His tongue
was too thick and heavy in his mouth to talk. His eyes burned.

�� Where are the tears? When he had
envisioned his mother dying before, Draco had always pictured tears. But he
couldn�t weep, any more than he�d been able to when he first saw his mother�s
body lying motionless on the floor of the Black attic. The shock of her death
had burned away the tears. The fire was still there, charring any attempts to
come to a reasonable conclusion or respond to the platitudes that people
offered him.

�� Harry
protected him. Harry stood by his side and snapped at or gave stiff thanks or
offered a glare to the people who came stealing up to them. On the other side
of Harry was a wall consisting of his friends and Professor Snape and Harry�s
Black, but Draco didn�t have to be aware of them.

�� He was
glad.

�� Narcissa�s
will had decreed that she should be buried in rain. Draco didn�t know why. Only
now, as he watched the coffin vanish into the heavy earth, turned mud by the
steadily pounding storm, of the small private graveyard that the Malfoys had
used for centuries, was he coming to realize how little he had known about his
mother. She had been an imposing presence in his life, but she had occupied
little space in his mind.

�� Until now,
when he knew that he would never see her again.

�� The coffin
had already vanished. The earth descended on it in a light, skimming arc,
lifted by the wand of the grey-robed priest Draco had hired to officiate. He
was droning some regulation words about rebirth and flowers rising in spring
that were killed in autumn. Draco knew that was nonsense. His emotions might
come back to life�though, at the moment, it didn�t feel like it�but his mother
never would.

�� Is there a bleaker month than November? Every
tree Draco could see in the graveyard was black and slender and twisted, its
leaves already gone. The graveyard itself was flat and blank beneath the leaden
sky. The rain could have been cleansing, but it didn�t feel either warm or cold
as it fell on Draco�s skin; he�d told Harry not to bother with the Impervious
Charms he wanted to cast. It felt simply neutral, as if the world didn�t care
that Narcissa was dead.

�� It doesn�t, Draco reminded himself. You do, and Harry does, and the other people
who were there do. But the rest just want a good story. And Father can�t care,
because he was dead before she was.

�� The grief
for his father that he hadn�t really allowed himself to acknowledge mixed with
the grief for his mother, and he turned and buried his head in Harry�s shoulder
as the funeral wore on to a close. Harry wrapped another arm around him and
stood there rocking him. Draco stiffened, but Harry didn�t seem to care about
what the observers would say, so Draco forced himself to relax and not care,
either.

�� I just want it to end, he thought. I want the rain to stop. I want to stop
feeling. I want to go to sleep and never wake up.

�� But then he
felt Harry�s warm hand on his back, stroking over and over, and he had to
realize that even that wasn�t true, not really. I want the pain to stop, but I want to roll over and see that Harry is
still next to me, too. I can�t stop living, because it wouldn�t be fair to
either of us. Any of us, if you include Mother in that.

�� She was never reconciled to Harry dating me.

�� That was
the way it would have to be, Draco thought, as the ceremony finally ended and
the grey-robed wizard departed, followed by most of the people who�d been
staring. He wouldn�t get some miraculous rebirth or sudden end to his pain. He
would have to wear and muddle through it, and gradually the grief would dull
and become a wound that chance circumstances pressed on sometimes.

�� That�s all.

�� You must
be Draco,� said a diffident female voice. �I�I know that your mother probably
warned you against me, but she was my sister, and I can�t go on thinking that
her son hates me. Will you talk to me, at least?�

�� Draco
raised his head, blinking. Harry tightened his embrace, but he�d allowed these
people to approach, which meant they weren�t reporters. Draco examined them
cautiously, his mind so fuzzy that even the clue of one of them being his
mother�s sister didn�t register for long moments.

�� One of them
was older and heavyset, with so many streaks of grey in her hair that Draco
wondered why she didn�t use glamour charms. Her hair and eyes were dark, so
that she looked a lot like Harry�s Black. The other was a young woman with
shockingly pink hair, which Draco couldn�t help thinking was indecent in a
graveyard. She wore Auror robes, too, which made Draco look in several
directions for other Aurors.

�� I am
Andromeda Tonks,� said the older woman. �I�m Narcissa�s older sister.� Draco
nodded slowly, feeling as though he were moving underwater. Yes, the one who married a Muggleborn. I
remember Mother telling me about her. �And this is my daughter,
Nymphadora.� She gestured to the young woman, who offered Draco a grimace that
could have been embarrassed or sympathetic. �I hope�I hope that you�ll allow us
to know you, and not keep up this separation between our branches of the family
that has already gone on too long.�

�� Draco spent
a moment studying them instead of answering. He didn�t know what his mother
would have wanted him to do. There must be a reason that she had never
contacted Andromeda again, even though she wasn�t mad or a follower of the Dark
Lord like Bellatrix.

�� But
Narcissa was dead, and Draco was sure that he would never know the reason, any
more than he knew why she had wanted to be buried in the rain.

�� With a
little effort, he found his voice. �I�d like to know you,� he said. And that
was true as far as he went. He didn�t say anything about what his mother would
have thought, because he didn�t know about
his mother. �I�can you speak to me some other time, when I�m not trying to�� He
gestured towards the grave, and then shut his eyes and shook his head.

�� Of course,
dear,� Andromeda said at once, and squeezed his arm. �Come along, Nymphadora.�

�� The girl,
or woman�Draco thought she was older than he was�muttered under her breath as
she followed her mother. She looked back once to smile slightly at Draco and
offer a wink. Her hair changed to black, and Draco blinked. She must be a Metamorphmagus.

�� That one
fact, strangely, altered his perception of them. There were relatives out there
he didn�t know about. There were facts that he could consider whether or not
his parents would have considered them.

�� There were
months of his life still to come that would not be spent in grief for his
parents, as odd as that seemed to him right now.

�� Harry
suddenly put a hand beneath his chin and turned Draco�s face around, so that
Draco was looking straight up into his eyes. �Are you all right?� Harry
whispered. His own voice was hoarse with weeping, though Draco knew that was
more because of him than anything
else. Harry had no reason to mourn Narcissa.

�� Draco
looked slowly in several directions, blinking now and then when his eyes
encountered another bleak tree. Weasley and Granger were coming slowly towards
them, pausing every few steps to watch him with covert anxiety. And that was
another thing Narcissa wouldn�t have understood, the idea that someone
Muggleborn could have any consideration for someone pure-blood.

�� The
necessity to muddle through this wouldn�t ease. But for the first time, Draco
thought he could muddle through.

�� I will
be,� he told Harry quietly.

*

�� And it is
the verdict of the Wizengamot that Sirius Black be cleared of all charges.�

�� Harry shut
his eyes and sagged against his chair as the words hit his ears. He�d been
granted a seat of honor to watch the proceedings, as Sirius told his story
under Veritaserum and gave his Pensieve memories of the day when he�d
confronted Pettigrew in a Muggle street. Pettigrew, the coward, had refused to
give his own memories, but, luckily, the Wizengamot had decided that didn�t
matter.

�� Sirius was
free now. He could get better help for the injuries of his that still remained
from Voldemort�s torture of him. He could walk freely down any street in
wizarding England and not be arrested on sight. He had a wider, better life
awaiting him.

�� Harry could
feel the intense relief washing him like cool water. His victory over Voldemort
would have meant little if people like Sirius were still going to be mistreated
and vilified. The Ministry�s power structure would have remained in place,
unchanged and unchallenged. And probably another Dark Lord could have come
along in a few years to take advantage of that.

�� Instead,
Sirius was free, and that gave Harry some hope for the other changes.

�� He opened
his eyes to see Sirius standing in front of him, beaming like a maniac. �We did
it!� he crowed, and seized Harry in his arms, swinging him around and around
like he was a much younger child. For once, Harry didn�t mind that. He laughed
and hugged Sirius back, hanging on even when Sirius puffed dramatically and set
him on the floor of the courtroom.

�� Aren�t you
glad now that you didn�t kill him?� Harry asked, as he wiped something that was
surely not a tear out of his eye and smiled up at Sirius.

�� And just
like that, the shadows came back, sliding across Sirius�s face and darkening
his joy. He turned away to stare at the wall. Harry winced. He might have
defeated Voldemort with unusual certainty, but the sureness had left him since
then; it seemed that killing someone wasn�t enough to make him grow up, no
matter how much he wished it were.

�� There are
some hours I still wish I could have killed him,� Sirius whispered. �For James
and Lily. They didn�t deserve to die like that. You deserved to have them with
you.� He stroked Harry�s hair. �And he made me spend twelve years in Azkaban
when I didn�t have to.�

�� Another
shadow. Harry doubted he would ever understand the full scope of Sirius�s
suffering, of what he�d had taken away from him.

�� But on the
whole,� Sirius said, with a shake and a straightening of his shoulders, �I�m
glad I didn�t, yes.� He cast a glance at Pettigrew, who was being marched out
of the courtroom between two Aurors. His trial for the crime would come later,
Harry had heard, but he�d still been required to attend in case he had some
defense of himself to offer against Sirius�s testimony and memories. He�d had
none, and now he walked with his head bent and his feet wavering with shock. �I
owe that to you,� Sirius went on, pulling Harry�s attention back to the
conversation in front of him.

�� What?�
Harry frowned at him. �No, you don�t.�

�� Of course
I do.� Sirius�s voice was soft, and he took Harry�s shoulders and gave them a
little shake. Harry swallowed. He had to blink hard in the next moment, because
he knew that his eyes would do
something embarrassing if he gave them the chance. �I wanted to live because of
you. I started caring about something other than killing Wormtail because of
you. When I came to the school, I knew you were James and Lily�s son, but I
didn�t know you. You were just a
symbol to me.

�� But you
became more than that. You gave me a chance. Sometimes you did things I didn�t
understand�� Sirius�s eyes rolled to the side, to the chairs where Draco and
Snape were sitting ��but that hardly matters. After all, that showed you were
your own independent person, not a reflection of James.

�� You gave
me something to live for. And that�s the debt I owe you, the debt I�ll never be
able to repay.�

�� Harry tried
to answer, but his words were all choked and his stupid eyes were watering, so in the end, he hugged Sirius again
and hoped the words he couldn�t speak would be understood. Sirius�s hand slowly
smoothed up and down his spine. So Harry thought they were.

*

�� He should
not be here.

�� But Severus
had never been good at resisting temptation in the sense of ignoring it. He
must dance up to the line and look thoughtfully at the consequences of his
actions before he could be convinced that it was better to do nothing.

�� In this
case, the problem was that all the consequences he could see were favorable,
and provided him with no reason not to do what he was contemplating.

�� Which almost certainly means there is
something I am missing.

�� Severus
walked quietly through the neatly tended front garden and tapped his wand
against the door. He hardly needed magic to charm open the cheap Muggle locks.
He stepped into the house and shut the door behind him, so that no curious
neighbor would see it hanging open. He had no intention of bringing himself
into conflict with either magical or Muggle authorities.

�� Number
Four, Privet Drive, was a smaller and more ordinary place than he had imagined.
He had thought, against all his previous experience, that the very walls would
somehow stink of the pain they had witnessed. But, of course, they stood
silent, as mute as the walls of his own house had been when his father�

�� Severus
carefully wrapped the memories in thick paper and tucked them away into
darkness and silence. Then he began to walk through the house, a charm muffling
the sound of his steps, his wand carrying a weak Lumos that he could extinguish at any moment if he heard someone
stirring.

�� There was
the cupboard door that led to the �room� where Harry had lain for ten years of
his life. Severus put a hand on that door and stood with his eyes shut,
counting a hundred breaths. It needed that long to calm the black anger that
had risen to the surface of his mind. It was an anger he remembered from
conflicts with the Marauders, and he did not want to act that incautiously
here.

�� He stepped
away from the cupboard at last and continued his exploration of the kitchen. It
was impeccable, the table scrubbed as if Petunia wanted to use it for a mirror
rather than a place to eat food from. He opened the icebox and the cabinets and
looked in silence at an abundance of food.

�� All this food, and they could not feed him a
few morsels of it.

�� Again
Severus had to pause and freeze his anger before he could go on.

�� He walked
up the stairs, listening intently for the sounds of Muggles. It was a winter
midnight, and from what his spying spells had told him, the Dursley family went
to bed early on almost all cold nights. But even Muggles sometimes had almost
magical ways of detecting intruders in their home. Severus wished to use as
little magic as possible to evade them, particularly when normal caution would
do.

�� Until the moment when magic is required.

�� Harry�s
room was not hard to locate. Severus had seen enough from his memories to know
approximately where it lay in relation to the other bedrooms, and the locks on
the door rather gave it away. Severus spent a moment tracing his wand over the
locks and imagining the various ways he could disintegrate the metal, which lessened
his temptation to burst the door open and scourge the prison clean with fire.

�� He stepped
inside at last, and gazed around.

�� There were
marks of dust and rust where the owl cage had once stood. There was the small
and empty bed. There was the barred window that Severus still could not fathom
escaping the notice of any halfway competent
observer.

�� And here at
last was what he had been almost unconsciously searching for ever since he
stepped into the house. The Dursleys must not have cleaned this room since
Harry had been resident here; indeed, given the locks on the door, they seemed
to have preferred to shut it up and forget it existed, rather like its
inhabitant. Severus�s nose moved carefully, sniffing out sweat and urine and
pain.

�� Perhaps
pain did not have a smell, but Severus had learned a scent rather like it in
his years with the Death Eaters. That scent was here.

�� He held out
his wand and whispered an incantation that was unlikely to set off any Ministry
alarms. It was a memory spell, calling on the bed and the other furniture to
give up their impressions of humans who had lived here. One might well see
something upsetting from it, but it was not an upsetting spell in and of
itself.

�� In silence,
Severus watched as a wispy shape blew up out of the bed and settled itself into
a lying posture, reading an invisible book. Another shape appeared next to the
window, and then a third by the owl cage, his hand lifted to pet the bird who
no longer lingered there.

�� The shapes
acquired more form and definition as he waited. There was no color�they
remained little more than grey copies of the living boy that was, or had been,
Harry�but he could see the state of their health from a swift examination.

�� Every one
was too thin. Every one was too small. Harry might have moved on, and would
never again live in a situation where he was subjected to such regular and
intense starvation, but the consequences of that malnutrition would persist for
the rest of his life. He would never be as tall as James had been, would never
look like the person he had been destined by his inheritance to be. Severus
supposed he should be thankful that the Dursleys had not starved Harry in the
same way when he was a young child, or his brain would have been affected.

�� The notion
of being thankful to the Dursleys for anything
made him close his eyes and fight nausea for long moments.

�� When he
opened them again, the wispy figures had gone. Severus turned and walked out
the door of the bedroom, locking the locks again with a series of quick
wand-taps.

�� Then he
stood in the middle of the upper corridor and had to make a decision, one that
he would not be tempted to reverse the next day.

�� He knew
that Harry would prefer simply to not think about the Dursleys ever again. He
had moved on. He would sigh if Severus asked him about his �family� and say
that he didn�t wish them well or evil. They were part of his past.

�� But the
effects of what they had done lingered, and if Harry was capable of dismissing
that from his mind, Severus was not.

�� On the
other hand, if he moved too openly against the Dursleys, in a way that could be
traced back to him, Harry was unlikely to forgive this interference. Severus
had spent enough years struggling to gain Harry�s trust that he was reluctant
to sacrifice it now.

�� And yet�

�� Severus
opened his eyes and began to move his wand in a series of sinuous passes
through the air, whispering the Latin words he had studied before he came here
with careful concentration. The incantations included masking spells that would
keep his magic from the notice of the Ministry. If he faltered in the
pronunciation of any of the words, the masks would fall and the Ministry could
sense what he was doing.

�� The main spell
took form as a long black ribbon that billowed through the air and then dived
through the walls. It would settle in the foundations of the house and go to
sleep like a seed waiting for the proper circumstances to grow and flourish.

�� Those
circumstances would involve behavior like the cruelty the Dursleys had shown to
Harry. If they someday had a magical grandchild or relative in their custody
and abused him or her again�

�� Severus
smiled slightly and turned to leave the house.

�� He would
not want to die the death the Dursleys would die if that happened.

*

�� Do you
want me to come with you, mate?�

�� Harry
smiled and glanced over his shoulder. Ron stood just behind him, eyes wide and
concerned. The scars on his chest and arms from the Flaying Curse were still
visible, angry red lines that raced and twined past each other. Harry looked at
them and lost his smile. He would never forget the part Ron had played in
defense of his life, giving him time to get the Horcrux out of his head.

�� You�re a
hero,� he said. �You know that, right, Ron?�

�� Ron blushed.
Then he cleared his throat. �Hermione might have said something like that
once,� he muttered.

�� You are.� Harry walked back to him and put
his hands on Ron�s shoulders, holding him tight. �About everything. The way
that you accepted my friendship with Draco and Snape helping me, the way that
you kept me sane when I was trying to
go mad, how you stayed here and researched the Horcruxes and the basilisk venom
with Hermione when you didn�t have to, and then the way that you went up
against Voldemort himself.�

�� Ron reached
out and put a hand on Harry�s shoulder, too. He shook his head and tried to say
something, but whatever it was died before it left his mouth. His eyes were too
bright.

�� For right
now,� Harry whispered, �you�ve done enough. I don�t think that anyone but me
can really go through with this. And it might not be fair to him if I brought company. I don�t think
he has anyone standing with him as moral support.�

�� Who
would?� Ron muttered, but he clapped Harry on the shoulder, hard, and let him
go when Harry opened his mouth to argue. �I know. There are still people saying
he did the right thing and you did
the wrong one, or that there should have been some way to compromise. But there
are a lot more who think that you�re the real hero. You know that, right?�

�� Harry
managed to smile. �I think I managed to figure it out, somewhere between the
Order of Merlin and the cheering crowds who watched me receive it.�

�� Ron nodded
without smiling this time, his eyes blazing and intense. �Go show Dumbledore
that you don�t need him to give you
meaning in your life, or tell you that you�re right.�

�� No.� Harry
smiled more widely and more naturally. �I have you and Hermione and Draco and
Snape and Sirius for that.� He waved, then turned and spoke the password,
�Canary Creams,� to the gargoyle. It leaped aside, and Harry stepped slowly
onto the moving staircase behind it. He didn�t think that Dumbledore would
really close the walls on either side of the staircase and crush him between
them, but he had to admit that it was something he had wondered about.

�� Dumbledore
had sent a message saying that he wanted to see Harry soon after Sirius was
cleared of all charges. Harry had refused then, not feeling up to talking with
him. Then another letter had come, and another. By the third owl, Harry had
decided that this was something he needed to face.

�� The
staircase stopped moving and deposited him before the door of Dumbledore�s
office. Harry took a deep breath, blinked slowly, and then decided there was no
point in putting off the inevitable. He knocked.

�� Dumbledore�s
voice answered, low and pleasant. �Do come in, Harry. I�ve been expecting you.�

�� That could be good or ominous, Harry
thought, and pushed the door open.

�� The office
inside looked much as it ever had, except less crowded. Dumbledore appeared to
have got rid of a lot of the artifacts that had been sitting in corners and on
tables. In one corner sat Fawkes on his perch; he pulled his head from under his
wing and cooed when he saw Harry. The window showed the sparkling, hard
crystal-clear winter morning outside, under a sky of hammered blue.

�� Thank you
for coming, Harry.� Dumbledore rose from behind his desk to command Harry�s
attention.

�� Harry blinked.
He knew he had grown since the last time he was at Hogwarts, but he still had
not expected the Headmaster to look so�small.

�� Dumbledore
smiled as if he knew what Harry was thinking. Harry wondered if he�d used
Legilimency, but he thought he would have felt someone sliding behind his
shields now. He would never be as accomplished at the mental arts as Snape and
Draco were, but he was good enough.

�� It feels
like decades have passed since we last stood here, instead of the almost-year
that it�s been.� Dumbledore clasped his hands together and looked pensively at
Harry. �I would give a great deal to change the past.�

�� Harry
wondered if he expected a similar sentiment from him. Harry couldn�t give it,
since he wouldn�t change the past for anything. That would probably have left
him with the Dursleys, and distrusting Snape, and apart from Draco. Not to
mention that it was hard to see how Voldemort would have been defeated, if
Dumbledore had insisted on keeping the Resurrection Stone.

�� I know the
Stone has been destroyed,� Dumbledore went on. �You need not fear that I will
ever attempt to take it from you again.�

�� Is that
only because the Stone�s been
destroyed,� Harry asked, the words almost wrenched out of him, �or because
you�re really over your obsession with the thing? If we�d managed to keep the
Stone somehow while removing the Horcrux from it, would you still try to take
it away?�

�� Dumbledore
looked at the floor for the first time. His voice was a sad whisper. �Alas,
Harry, I do not know.�

�� Harry
looked at him, trying to find the real Dumbledore
in the one in front of him, not simply the one he remembered. He looked at the
way Dumbledore�s hands twitched across each other, and the way he hunched his
shoulders as if he were resisting a strong wind, and the way his beard
trembled.

�� He�s afraid that I�ll reject his apology. Or
maybe he�s afraid of me.

�� Harry felt
most of his irritation melt into pity. �I forgive you,� he said.

�� Dumbledore
looked up, his face showing that he hoped Harry�s words were true, but couldn�t
allow himself to accept them yet. Harry almost smiled. Dumbledore had always
wanted more proof for the things that Harry thought were obvious, more
explanation than Harry wanted to give him.

�� Maybe that�s part of the reason I get along
so well with Snape. Neither of us want to show our emotions all that much, so
we do what we have to and ignore the rest.

�� I don�t
like what you did,� Harry said. �But I can understand why you did it. I just�I
couldn�t stay here and let you try to possess the Horcrux and defend it from
being destroyed. Do you understand why I left now?�

�� Dumbledore
nodded slowly. His eyes had no trace of a twinkle. �That is the way in which I
would give a great deal to change the past, Harry. If you had had Hogwarts as a
refuge�if you could have trusted me�I could have been a great help to you in
destroying the Horcruxes and training to defeat Voldemort.�

�� Yeah,�
Harry said simply. Maybe Narcissa and
Lucius and Seamus wouldn�t have died.

�� But he
didn�t know that, and one of the
things he had tried to stop himself from having since the final battle with
Voldemort were useless regrets. Draco had whispered to him in the night how he
didn�t know his mother well enough to realize why she wanted to be buried in
rain, or to know whether she would have ever approved of his relationship with
Harry. Harry had stroked his hair and said the appropriate comforting things,
but the conversation had started his mind running on whether his parents would
have approved of the way he�d turned out.

�� Then he
rejected the thought and refused to consider it again. Because they might not
approve of him�lovers with a Slytherin, student and in some ways adopted son of
a man his father had despised�but Harry didn�t care. He�d never known them, and
the circumstances of his life hadn�t let him cling to the dead. It was the
living he needed.

�� And who need me, he thought, as he
looked up and into Dumbledore�s eyes again.

�� Don�t
blame yourself for might-have-beens,� he said. �At least everything turned out
all right, and your chasing me away from Hogwarts wasn�t fatal.� He mustered up
a faint smile, since Dumbledore still looked so anxious. �If it had been, and
Voldemort was able to get hold of the Horcruxes before we did, then maybe I would never have forgiven
you.�

�� Dumbledore
nodded. Harry doubted that he had accepted the words yet, but at least, from
the slowness of the nod and the long sigh that he gave afterwards, he might
have begun to let them percolate through his mind.

�� Will you
come back to Hogwarts, my boy?� Dumbledore�s voice was gentle now, and Harry
realized it was a question rather than an assumption. He relaxed, where he had
begun to bristle. He isn�t demanding it.
He isn�t assuming that I�ll do it because he wants me to. He�s leaving it up to
me.

�� I don�t
think I can,� Harry said. �Not� because
of you,� he added, as Dumbledore�s face changed again. �But this place is my
past. I want to go forwards, to live my life with Draco and Professor Snape and
see what happens.�

�� I hope,�
Dumbledore said, �that you will at least visit when you can. To keep an old man
and his phoenix company, if nothing else.� He held out his hand.

�� Harry shook
it. Fawkes flew over and sat on his shoulder, fluffing out his tail and
crooning importantly. Harry touched his feet and received a swift rub on his
cheek from Fawkes�s head.

�� And one wound of my life closes without much
bleeding.

*

�� Draco had
known it was coming.

�� It had been
obvious for some days now that Harry wanted it. He kept staring at Draco with
this sharp expression on his face. Draco couldn�t interpret it any of the
obvious ways. Harry wasn�t restless; he�d been the one to suggest staying
mostly in Grimmauld Place for the first few months after the Dark Lord�s defeat
and giving the mobs a chance to get over their passionate frenzy for news of
the Savior. They could catch up on their reading and the education they hadn�t got
at Hogwarts, he�d pointed out. And he could help Draco work through his grief
over his parents.

�� Draco
hadn�t had much to object to, once Harry put it that way.

�� So Harry
wasn�t restless. He wasn�t bored, since he would be tapping his foot on the
floor and sighing if he was. He couldn�t be hungry; they�d eaten only two hours
ago. And he wasn�t tired, since he and Draco had decadently slept in until noon
today, tangled around each other and snoring�well, Harry was snoring, since
Draco didn�t snore�into each other�s ears.

�� So he must,
finally, want the kind of sex that Draco had flatly told Harry he wanted some
months ago.

�� Of course,
it was more fun to pretend that he didn�t know that. So Draco kept his eyes
innocently on the book in front of him, and watched from the corner of his eye
as Harry abandoned any pretense of study to stare at him openly. Harry�s
fingers were tightening more and more on the page. His legs were slightly
parted, and Draco could see the growing erection.

�� He held
back his chuckles and sat still, now and then asking Harry a question or giving
him advice in a tone so bright and helpful that Harry would have seen through
it in a second, ordinarily. But Harry didn�t have much blood in his brain at
the moment. He answered shortly, and the silence went on growing more and more
tense.

�� Fuck
this.�

�� Draco
looked up with eyes even wider as Harry flung his book to the floor, stalked
over to him, and grabbed Draco�s book away. He was just glad that Granger
wasn�t here as Harry hauled him into his arms; she would squawk about the treatment
of a precious, precious tome and destroy the mood entirely.

�� Do you want to destroy the mood, substituting for her absence by the voice in
your head? Draco asked himself, and then curled his arms around Harry�s
neck and returned his kiss with some interest. He could feel Harry rutting
steadily against his leg, and his own erection pressing into Harry�s stomach,
and his own smugness and pride and pleasure. This was happening. It was really,
finally happening.

�� Anyone else
would probably have moved like this generations ago, but Harry had had to deal
with so much grief and stress and tension and relief that Draco wasn�t that
surprised it hadn�t happened earlier.

�� Now�now
they were free, or something like it. Now he could think of Harry�s cock up his
arse without feeling that he should be
thinking about the Elder Wand instead, or Horcruxes.

And
that�s another thing that could destroy the mood if I let it, so that�s enough
of that, he decided firmly, and tilted back his head so that he could study
Harry�s darkened eyes, his red face, his straggling hair and huffing breath.
Even the slight redness in his scar�Harry had taken to rubbing it when he was
angry or deep in thought�was appealing. �Fuck me,� Draco said, because that was
what he felt like.

Harry actually held his breath,
until Draco nudged him sharply in the chest to get him breathing again. Then he
whispered, �You�you want that?�

�If I didn�t,� Draco said, �I would
have hopped down from your arms by now and returned to my studies with a tirade
that would put Granger to shame. And no,� he went on, as Harry opened his mouth
to ask more questions, �I don�t want to fuck you right now. That will happen later, when you�re in the mood of
calm anticipation that you must be in to appreciate such an enormous favor.
Preferably after you�ve fucked me and we�ve slept.� He curled his leg around
Harry�s waist and kicked him in the arse when Harry just stood there, blinking.
Harry yelped and staggered forwards. Draco scowled at him. �What part of fuck me are you not understanding?�

And then, finally, Harry�s brain
caught up with his muscles, and he both dragged and wrestled Draco up the
stairs to bed.

*

Draco was laughing. He sprawled
back on the pillows, his hair stuck to his face with sweat, and laughed as
Harry fumbled inappropriately with the tube of oil they�d used plenty of times
before, to slick their fingers and make wanking more pleasant, or ease the
slide of a finger into an arsehole. Chuckles rippled up from his chest and made
his eyes shine brighter. His chest shook, and so did the erection standing
clearly up from his lap now that he was naked.

��

He looked glorious, and utterly
abandoned, and happier than happy.

Harry almost dropped the oil
because he was busy staring at Draco, instead of what he was doing. Draco
laughed at him again, and because he was thinking about how to make that sound
even better, Harry finally got the oil in the right place.

He was too rough when he penetrated
Draco with his finger, and Draco hissed and complained between his teeth, and
Harry slowed, mortified. But Draco stared back at him and said, �Where were you
raised, that a bit of pain means stop?�

Harry laughed in turn, because this
was how comfortable they were with one another, that Draco could refer to his
childhood and Harry wouldn�t mind it, and slid his finger a bit deeper. Draco
tilted his head back and gasped for air. Harry leaned down before he thought
about it and mouthed at Draco�s throat.

A hand clasped his head and hauled
him close. Draco kissed his temple, then his hair, then his cheek. �Harry,� he
sighed into his ear.

�� Yeah?�
Harry smiled. Draco�s tone was so soft that he thought he might be about to
hear a declaration of love.

�� Get on with it.�

�� Harry
laughed again, and went on exploring with his fingers. Once or twice he managed
to hit Draco�s prostate; it wasn�t something he was good at. But that didn�t
matter, because he expected to have the rest of his life to get good at it.

�� Draco
snapped out when he was ready for two fingers, and then went on to three before
Harry thought he could possibly want them. When Harry expressed that opinion,
though, Draco glared up at him and said, �Listen, whose arse is it?�

�� Harry
laughed again, and had to fight the temptation to collapse on top of Draco and
kiss him until they both came simply from that.

�� It had
never been like this, this uncomplicated and brilliant laughter without a hint
of the tension that had ruled the relationship between them and the war outside
their room for so long. Harry highly approved. They deserved one thing that was simple and
straightforward.

�� Cock now,�
Draco said. Harry had driven him to monosyllables some time ago. Still, Harry
swallowed, because it seemed awfully soon.

�� Are you��

�� :�If you
ask if I�m sure,� Draco said, one eye peering up at Harry from his flushed and
ecstatic face, �then I�m throwing you out of the room and finishing this in a
wank by myself.�

�� Oh, dear,�
Harry said, pressing his erection into place, �back to two syllables. That�s
not a good sign.� He felt dizzy and reckless and light as the words blew out of
his mouth. Whenever he�d dared to picture this in the past�whenever he�d
thought he�d live to see it, instead of dying at Voldemort�s hands�he�d thought
of it as a deep and solemn affair, with him and Draco rocking together and
staring into each other�s eyes. One mistake would ruin it forever.

�� It was
nothing like that at all, he thought as he slid in, and he was so glad.

�� Draco
caught his breath and held it for a moment, his eyes fluttering almost shut.
Then he nudged pointedly at Harry�s arse with his foot. Harry slid another few
inches, and laughed at the look of bliss on Draco�s face. �I can�t possibly be
hitting anything worth hitting yet,� he said. He had to concentrate on his own
words to force them out. Tightness and gripping heat, and oh, it was brilliant.

�� He tried
not to tell Draco that, though, because he was fairly sure that Draco already
knew.

�� Then they were rocking together, but Draco�s legs
were going at all sorts of awkward angles, and Harry was moaning and sighing
about heat and tightness even though he�d promised himself he wouldn�t, and the
oil made the most terrific squelching noises, and Draco squealed like a pig
introduced to sugar. They rolled halfway across the bed and almost off. Then
Harry braced his knees and started shoving, and Draco�s head hit the headboard.

�� Draco
complained again. Harry laughed�it seemed to be the only response he was
capable of�and dug his heels in more firmly. Then he settled down to more
straightforward fucking, whilst Draco panted and writhed and in general acted
in a way that Harry fully intended to tease him about.

�� More heat.
More brilliance. Harry could feel happiness coiling through him in long, lazy
strings, like swirls of sunlight in water.

�� Draco
opened his eyes and gave him a deep, sweet smile, craning his neck as if he
wanted a kiss.

�� Harry came,
hard. He babbled out nonsense as he did, and pleasure kicked him in what felt
like every single muscle of his body, and he was laughing again, really, he
needed to stop that�

�� And then
Draco was coming, arse pumping, cock spasming, a sort of complicated blaarrgh noise emerging from his mouth,
and Harry slumped forwards over Draco�s chest and got his cheek in the mess.

�� Then he
apparently went to sleep, because the next thing he remembered was waking up
and seeing Draco in the fall of spring sunlight through the window, still naked
but with a Cleaning Charm done, standing beside the table on the other side of
the room where he�d left his notes for a new spell he was inventing. He turned
around when Harry woke up and gave him the sweetest smile on earth.

�� Harry knew
that not everything in their lives would be good, but some things had to be,
and that moment was one of them.

*

�� Professor
Snape?�

�� Severus
glanced up and blinked. He had been so deep in the trance of brewing a Burn
Paste Madam Pomfrey had requested from him that he had not even heard Harry
come in. But there he stood by the door of the potions lab, looking at him with
a fragile and yet determined expression that Severus didn�t think he�d seen on
his face since the start of the war.

�� Severus
turned around and settled himself on a stool next to the table he�d been
working at, flicking his wand at the cauldron to hold everything inside
motionless in the stage it was at. �Yes, Harry?� he asked. �Is something
wrong?�

�� Harry came
a few steps closer. His eyes were large, and he was fidgeting from foot to foot
like a child, instead of the fine young man he�d become. Severus watched him in
increasing concern. Did he find out about
the itching powder I added to the mutt�s toilet seat?

�� I�� Harry swallowed several times, which only
sank Severus�s heart further. Even worse,
Black has made a fantastical accusation against me, and Harry believes it.

�� Then
Severus reminded himself that he should have learned more trust than that.
Perhaps Harry had learned that he had visited his Muggle family. Severus asked
again, �Is something wrong?� in his quietest tone, and leaned forwards, trying
to look helpful, patient, and wise.

�� Harry broke
suddenly, and ran to him. Severus, trying to brace himself for a punch or a
shout in the face, found himself dealing with an embrace instead, which was so
tight that it seemed Harry was jealous of every bit of air in his body.

�� I didn�t
say it,� Harry was whispering, fervently. �But I trust you so much, and you helped so much, and I don�t care what
Sirius says or if my parents would have disapproved of my trusting you�� He
lifted his head and looked Severus square in the eye, very small and very
brave. �I love you.�

�� Severus
couldn�t say anything, because it would break the eggshell mood in the room. He
lifted a hand and brushed it slowly through Harry�s hair, staring all the while
into his eyes.

�� He could
read the emotions there; they were sincere enough that he did not need
Legilimency. At the moment, he felt as if he might not need Legilimency ever
again to tell what Harry was thinking.

�� Professor?�
Harry whispered.

�� He is afraid of its not being returned.
Still.

�� But Severus put aside his rage
at what the Muggles had done, because now was not the time for that, and pulled
Harry close so that his head rested on Severus�s shoulder. He stopped stroking
his hair and instead held him tight, one arm around Harry�s shoulders, one
around his waist.

�� He opened
his mouth, and the words were waiting there after all, though he had to whisper
them so softly that he was not sure Harry would hear them. �I love you, too.�

�� From the
way Harry�s arms tightened around his body, he was sure Harry had heard.

�� Severus
looked up and away from Harry, because he had to, and almost blindly outside.
Not so blindly that he did not notice that the tree branch outside the window,
which yesterday had contained only tightly furled buds, now shook with unfolding
green leaves, reaching stubbornly for the sun.

�� Life will not always be like this.

�� But at the
moment, it was, and Severus let out a breath that felt as if it had been penned
up in his lungs for two decades.

�� This was
their spring.

�� End.

*

�� SamuraiSaaya:
Thank you!

�� qwerty:
Thank you! I did consider using the Killing Curse, but considering how
important love is to Harry in this story, it felt inappropriate.

�� Sneakyfox:
Thanks! I do think that Harry is much more mature at the end of this story than
he is at the end of most of my others that feature him as a teenager.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Yes! Harry couldn�t be happier about that fact.

�� MewMew2:
Thank you. I spent a lot of time debating before I realized that there didn�t
need to be a big final battle in public�and it would have felt sort of strange,
since all along Voldemort had been fought in small private battles.

�� She Who
Must Be Obeyed: Glad you enjoyed it! And I hope you got some sleep.

�� SP777:
Well, technically this is the actual ending
to the story. ;)

�� Narcissa is
part of the tragedy of the story. She could have changed, but she�ll never get
the chance now.

�� Dumbledore,
as you can see, is partially redeemed, though he might not be a very big part
of Harry�s life in the future.

�� Mrequecky:
Thank you!
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Inter Vivos