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Practicing Liars	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 63257 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Forty�The Hunt
Ends

�� You�re
here.� Granger folded her arms and glared at Draco as though he had done
something to her personally by falling in love with Harry. �Talk to us. Harry
said that you had a case to make.�

�� Draco
lifted his head and tried to look as noble and pathetic as he possibly could.
Gryffindors fell for that sort of thing all the time. He knew that Harry wouldn�t,
but he considered Harry practically an honorary Slytherin since he�d spent so
much time around Professor Snape and Draco himself. It ought to be an easy
thing to trick his friends.

�� I�ve
changed my mind about blood,� Draco whispered. �I don�t think that it
determines who you are. I�m not exactly the same as my mother or father, though
they would probably want to think I was. That means that I have to reconsider
whether other people are defined by their blood. And I�ve decided that they
aren�t.�

�� It wasn�t
as raw as the words that he had given Harry, but he thought it was more
eloquent, which meant no one could possibly disapprove of it. Harry gave him a
sweet smile as though confirming that thought.

�� Granger, of
course, wasn�t impressed. She put her hands on her hips and stared at Draco. �Do
you think I should die?� she asked.

�� I told
you, I�ve changed my mind about blood,� Draco said, annoyed to find that his
words made less impression than he�d hoped. Of course, he should have
remembered that another trait of Gryffindors was their indifference to or
suspicion against Slytherin words. �And you�re Harry�s friend. I wouldn�t want
you to die because your death would hurt him.�

�� Harry
squeezed his shoulder in approval, but Weasley said, with the air of someone pouncing
on a traitorous word, �So you don�t care about her as a person. You just care because
she�s Harry�s friend!�

�� Idiot. There�s a simple counterargument to
that. Draco turned his head. Granger had ventured nearer to him than
Weasley had. The Weasel seemed content to stand in the back of the room and
stare at him as if he were doing something wrong just by breathing.

�� Do you
care about me at all?� Draco asked. �As a person? Or do you only care because Harry�s
dating me? Would you have given a thought to me otherwise, or cared when the
Dark Lord killed my father?�

�� Weasley
scowled. �You could call him by his name, you know, instead of the Dark Lord.
It�s not like you should still be bloody loyal to him, with everyone he�s done
to you.�

�� Draco
turned away without speaking and fastened his attention on Granger. �Well? Do
you care about me as an individual?�

�� No,�
Granger said, and had the sense to look uncomfortable and embarrassed about it,
given Weasley�s argument. �But I still think you should realize that, if you�re
really Harry�s boyfriend��

�� He really
is,� Harry said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

�� Then you
should realize we care about each other deeply,� Granger finished. �And you�ll
have to do the same thing.�

�� Of course,�
Draco said. �You first.�

�� Granger frowned.
�I�m willing to do that. But you can�t expect me to start caring about you all
at once, given our past.�

�� Then you
can�t expect the same thing out of me, either,� Draco said.

�� Harry, do
you have to date him?� Weasley asked
suddenly, leaning forwards and speaking in a hoarse whisper as if he assumed
that Draco would have to stop listening if he wanted him to. �I mean, there are
plenty of other people you could have. Even other boys, if you�re really bent.�

��

�� Draco ground
his teeth so that he wouldn�t say something unfortunate, and Harry answered in
the gap. �Draco is the one I want,� he said. �The one I�m in love with. I know
that you don�t like him, Ron, but at least you�re making the effort to get
along with him, and I�m happy that you are.�

�� Draco would
have sniffed in incredulity, but he kept silent, because he saw the way Weasley�s
face lit up, and he understood. Harry was using a very Slytherin tactic, praising
Weasley for something he hadn�t actually done yet, and making him more likely
to continue the pleasing behavior as a result. It worked, too. Draco�s father
had used it on him when he was a child, until he learned to recognize it. Given
Weasley�s level of mental development, it was a trick that would probably
always work on him.

�� All right,
mate,� Weasley said. �If you�re sure.�

�� Granger
still looked dubiously back and forth between them. �I don�t know,� she said. �Are
you sure, Harry?�

�� Draco felt
a tremor of irritation run through Harry, who seemed to think that Granger
should accept Draco if her best friend and boyfriend had already accepted him,
but he just nodded and smiled. �Yes, Hermione.�

�� Granger
uttered a long-suffering sigh, then nodded at Draco and marched out of the
room. Weasley followed her, with one apologetic glance at Harry and an
ostentatious ignoring of Draco. Draco snorted as the door closed behind them. �You�re
willing to take very little from them,� he said.

�� They�ve
been my friends for a long time,� Harry said. �And I did treat them badly
earlier this year, when I practically ignored them because you were more
interesting and training in Defense was more interesting, and I was trying to
figure out how to hide the secrets about the bloodline curse and my heritage.�
He sighed and leaned against the wall. �It�s not a lot, but then, I don�t think
we can just begin with a lot. If we could, they would have been more accepting of
you in the first place.�

�� Draco
nodded reluctant concession to that, and then leaned in and kissed Harry. Harry
became interested at once, and wrapped an arm around Draco�s shoulders, turning
his head to the side so that he could control the kiss more easily.

�� Draco
grinned, smug in the knowledge that he could command, and get, a lot more from
Harry than his friends could.

*

�� I haven�t been
having problems, Professor.�

�� Zabini
spoke with an almost charming eagerness in his voice, as though he wanted to
spare Severus the burden of having to worry about him. Severus simply nodded,
said, �I will be the judge of that,� and held out his hand expectantly.

�� Zabini
placed his most recent essay for Transfiguration in it, with a slight scowl. It
had always been his poorest subject. Severus read over it, frowning when he noticed
several misspelled words and infelicitous sentences that he would have taken
off points for. Minerva is too kind even
to the Slytherin students. She will not scold them when they make mistakes, and
then she has only herself to blame for the results.

�� It seems
to me as though you have problems here,� he remarked, and looked up sternly
over the edge of the parchment into the boy�s eyes. �Do you call this a good
essay, Mr. Zabini, in all seriousness?�

�� Zabini
shifted back in his chair and looked defensive. In the meantime, Severus went
smoothly into his head, voicing Legilimens
mentally. Zabini was one of the few whom he had been worried about
discovering his Legilimency, but with his mind focused on something else, he
was less likely to sense it.

�� He
discovered in two seconds that the boy had a Dark Mark, in imitation of his
father�or the man he believed his father to have been, a minor Death Eater who
had disappeared during the first war. Zabini believed he had died heroically.
Severus himself was never sure if Hannibal Zabini had deserted, died on a raid,
or been killed by his wife. He was not the sort of man that one spent much time
noticing.

�� He also
discovered that Zabini would as soon have thought of cutting the moon out of
the sky as of hurting Draco.

�� Severus
withdrew thoughtfully from the boy�s mind. Draco might have a more loyal friend
in this one Slytherin than he had known existed, and the Dark Lord a less loyal
soldier. I shall have to plant some
doubts in Zabini�s mind and see if they sprout. Whether he realizes it or not,
the living have more influence over him than the dead.

�� Sir?�
Zabini demanded. Severus knew that the boy had not said something or he would have
heard the echoes of the words in his ears, but he appeared to think that the long
silence, during which Severus peered at him, was still damning.

�� I have
asked your opinion,� Severus said, and held up the essay. �Is this a
well-written piece of work?�

�� Zabini
shifted, gripped the edges of his chair, and ended up scowling at the floor
instead of answering. Severus was pleased to see that one of his students, at least,
recognized when it was useless to lie.

�� Another strike against his having been the
one who injured Draco.

�� No, sir,�
Zabini said at last. �But I don�t do well in Transfiguration, and McGonagall
isn�t going to help me.� He lifted his head, peered at Severus, and then sat up
further, seeming to understand from Severus�s neutral expression that he wasn�t
going to get into trouble for criticizing another professor. �I asked, sir. I
did. I went to her office and talked to her about it, and she said that she
couldn�t do anything about a lack of natural talent.�

�� Severus
fought to keep his lips from twitching. He could hear the very tone in which
Minerva would pronounce the words. And she had not meant it maliciously�she had
said the same thing to others when Severus was a student at Hogwarts, mostly
those who had wanted careers that involved Transfiguration in some capacity�but
it could be heard that way by those who expected praise.

�� You may
not do well in Transfiguration,� said Severus. �Helping you with the practical
work is beyond my purview.� Zabini nodded, his mouth tight, as if he had
already guessed that but didn�t like to hear it confirmed. �But that is no
reason to write less than perfect essays. I know that you can write, having had
you in my classes. You will do Slytherin House proud with your performance in
the parts of the classes that you can master, do you understand me?�

�� Zabini
bowed his head and muttered something, but from the tone of his voice, Severus
was sure it was agreement and not defiance.

�� He let the
boy slide down from his chair and get almost to the door before he added, �And
Mr. Zabini?�

�� Zabini
turned back and looked at him. Severus gave him a look that would have many
undertones when Zabini thought about it later, though what undertones he found
most prominent and which ones he didn�t would depend on his individual
preferences.

�� Consider carefully,�
Severus said, �whether you want to live all your life in the shadow of others�
accomplishments, or make your own. While you might do poorly at the practical
work in Transfiguration, I know you have a talent for Charms.�

�� He paused,
and when Zabini lingered to stare at him, he added, �Dismissed.�

�� Zabini
swallowed, nodded, and went, his eyes large and dazed. Severus sincerely hoped
it would at least give him an option to think about.

�� While he
hadn�t yet found the poisoner, a rate of progress that displeased him, he had
at least begun to reconnect with his House.

*

�� Harry
stared at the piece of parchment that had come to him in his food, a part of the crust of the bread. He�d been damn lucky
he hadn�t swallowed it, or choked when he was pulling it out of his mouth.

�� Or, for
that matter, that he hadn�t attracted Hermione�s attention. She would have
wanted to know what was written on the paper whether or not she�d seen the way
it arrived; writing always fascinated her like that. Luckily, she was
interrogating Ron down at the other end of the table and didn�t appear to
notice.

�� Harry laid
the square of paper on his knee and waited until he was sure that Hermione was deep in the midst of scolding Ron for
chewing with his mouth open. Then he unfolded it.

�� Despite the
spots of moisture from his mouth and a few traces of food, the words on the
parchment were clear enough.

�� Harry, I would appreciate it if you would
come to my office alone this evening. I have many things to say to you.

�� Albus Dumbledore.

�� Harry
shivered and felt sweat break out on his palms. He kept from looking up at Dumbledore
as he folded the piece of parchment with a few hard presses of his hands. Then he looked up at him. He found
Dumbledore smiling and nodding, one hand stroking his beard as though he
assumed Harry�s answer would be yes.

�� Harry bowed
his head back to his plate and kept eating. The food didn�t taste that good,
but the Dursleys had taught him not to waste it when he did get it. If he was
really upset, he just avoided meals altogether.

�� When he
stood, he kept his eyes carefully away from the high table and headed to his
classes with a ringing head and a sore heart. How was he supposed to know what was
best? Maybe Dumbledore did have information that was vital to the war, and
Harry was being stupid and childish by not going to him. It seemed like that, sometimes.

�� But then
Harry�s spine straightened, and he found himself remembering what Dumbledore
had done to him, and almost done, and kept from him, and consented to.

�� No. If it was really important, then he
would tell me straight out, and he wouldn�t say that I had to come alone. He�s
already admitted that he knows I would tell everything to Draco, or at least my
friends, so why does he have to put up this pretense of secrecy?

�� By the time
he got to Defense, Harry had made his decision. He wasn�t going to Dumbledore.

�� And when he
could, he would go to Snape and tell him about the note.

He would tell Draco, too, but at
the moment he wanted an adult who would tell him whether he was acting childish, or whether it was Dumbledore. He knew Draco
was on his side no matter what, but he trusted Snape to give him the truth.

*

�� Severus
sighed and motioned Monica Cravens to take a seat in front of him. So far, his
investigations had produced nothing except the possible chance to influence
other minds like those of Blaise Zabini. He had found other Death Eaters among
those he had not thought were Marked, but no one who had been ordered to poison
Draco. He was beginning to wonder if he must look for the poisoner among the
teachers, who would also have the skills necessary to prepare the Acromantula�s
Bite, or perhaps in a Ravenclaw who was jealous of Draco�s Potions skills.

�� Miss
Cravens took a chair in front of him and peered at him once before shyly
ducking her head. Severus kept from rolling his eyes with a monumental effort.
He had long thought that Miss Cravens should have been Sorted into Hufflepuff
instead. She had her share of cunning and ambition, but they were both low�the sort
of cunning required to get out from under a teacher�s scolding, but unlikely to
help her succeed later in life.

�� I haven�t
been able to bring any essays with poor marks the way you asked me to,
Professor,� she said timidly. �I don�t have any with poor marks. All my
professors say I�m doing extremely well.�

�� And perhaps
she was, Severus thought. At least Cravens was able to memorize information
when she knew it was vital, as for an exam�thought she often let it sift out
again afterwards. �Then why not decide what you wish to tell me about your
recent performance in class,� he suggested, while he picked up one of the
papers that lay in front of him, �while I mark these essays by students less
gifted than yourself.�

�� Cravens
didn�t seem to notice the sarcasm. She smiled at him, and then bit her lip and
stared vaguely at the far wall, thinking.

�� Well, let�s
see,� she murmured, and her fingers moved over each other as if she had to
count off the days on which exciting things had happened to her.

�� Severus
muffled his snort and drew his wand under his desk. A non-verbal Legilimens, and he was moving into the
depths of Miss Cravens�s mind.

�� Nothing,
nothing, and nothing, again. It seemed the girl never thought of anything from
one end of the day to the other but dress robes, marks, her giggling friends,
and whether she would be married two or three years after she left Hogwarts. Severus
started to draw back in disgust.

�� Something
sizzled past his shoulder.

�� Long years
of being in battle situations, or being likely to be in a battle situation at
any moment, made Severus react the right way. He dropped to the floor, behind
the shelter of the desk, and locked the door so that Cravens could not retreat.
Then he assessed his wound. It amounted to nothing in the end but a singe along
his shoulder, which his robes had mostly protected him from.

�� Then he
understood what had happened. Cravens had been maintaining Occlumency walls
against him, and they were good enough that the casual probe that was all
Severus dared risk would have found nothing. But she had also sensed his
Legilimency, and she had reacted with panic. Severus might never have known
anything if she had managed to cling to her temper and common sense.

�� He rose
from behind the desk and saw Cravens standing in the center of the room,
staring at him with frank appraisal. That made her look very different from the
mindless, giggling little girl he had thought her.

�� I didn�t
think you would find out,� Cravens said simply, and then lashed her arm forwards
and said two short, low words that he didn�t recognize, moving so fast he
couldn�t think of a counter.

�� The room turned
inside-out. Patches of black and golden light swam in front of Severus�s eyes,
and he felt himself tumble away from his feet. He thought he had lost his grip
on his wand, but he didn�t know that for certain because he could no longer
feel his hand. Sick pain ran through his body, and he choked, his arms striking
out uselessly at the air.

�� Cravens
laughed. He could still hear that sound, though the rest of his senses were
entirely consumed by the strange vision she had thrown him into. �I hope you
have fun,� she said. �The spell lasts for several hours, and then all I�ll need
to tell anyone is that I found you like this.� Severus heard the sound of her footsteps
as she turned towards the door.

�� Fool. Severus had been confident he
could handle any threat. He had never once considered what would happen if the
Dark Lord had entrusted his young Death Eaters with the knowledge of Dark Arts
spells that Severus did not possess and did not know how to counter.

�� He heard
Cravens struggling with the locking spells on the door, but he doubted that
they would delay her for long. He tried to orient himself by the sounds,
focusing on the shelves where he kept potions that might, possibly, counter
spells like this one.

�� Then he
heard a knock from the outside, and froze. No one was supposed to intrude on
him for at least another hour, the amount of time that he was giving to these
interviews with his students.

�� He did the
only thing he could, the only thing that might help him, taking advantage of
Cravens�s small pause as she had taken advantage of his, and cried out a
warning.

*

Harry knocked again on Snape�s
door, impatient. He should at least have said something, even if it was just a
warning to leave because he was engaged in a detention or intense marking.
Keeping the door shut like this almost made Harry wonder if he was asleep.

Then Snape shouted. Harry thought
the word was �Danger!� but it didn�t really matter. He had already stepped back
from the door and had his wand in his hand.

�� Part of the
door turned bright golden in a circle, and then lashed out at him in a thin
line of fire. Harry squeaked and ducked. He thought his hair was on fire, but
he rolled on the stone floor, and the flames went out.

�� For Merlin�s
sake,� said someone through the hole that now occupied the center of the door,
and Harry saw a wand realigning itself to point at him.

�� He didn�t
think that would be Snape, unless Snape had been possessed by Voldemort or
something like that. Harry surged back to his feet, pointed his own wand, and
shouted, �Condocefacio!�

�� The wand
vanished. Harry heard the snap of ropes, or at least what should be ropes if
the spell was working the right way, before someone began to yelp.

�� Good. She�s at least distracted. Harry
charged the door and rammed his shoulder into it, casting a few Finites at the same time. The door
popped open.

�� In the
center of the room was a girl in Slytherin robes whom he didn�t know, her arms
and her ankles tied together in the middle of her back, her wand lying on the
floor next to her. Harry smiled grimly. He�d found the Learning by Example
spell in an old Defense textbook in the Hogwarts library, one not used any
longer. The idea was to tie someone in such complicated knots that they couldn�t
be undone by cutting and to take their wand away at the same time, until they
learned by sheer necessity to use wandless magic to free themselves.

�� Snape was
stumbling around near the girl.

�� Harry
stepped up next to him and said, �Finite
Incantatem.� Snape didn�t stop stumbling, so Harry knew the spell he was
under must be worse than usual. He told himself not to panic and said, �What do
you need, sir?�

�� Snape
stiffened a moment, as if he hated that it was Harry who had come to rescue him
instead of someone else, and then reached out a trembling hand. Harry took it
and placed it firmly on his shoulder, then led him towards a shelf and put a
certain potion in his hand at Snape�s whispered instructions. He probably didn�t
want the student who�d hurt him to hear, Harry thought.

�� Or maybe he
was just humiliated. Harry made sure to be looking away when Snape swallowed
the potion and came back to normal, just in case having someone meet his eyes
would embarrass him even more.

�� Snape
coughed several times, then intoned a sleeping spell. Harry saw the girl in Slytherin
robes slump down and start snoring. He sighed and looked up at his father (it
made his insides squirm sometimes to think about that name, but he thought it
all the same). �Are you all right, sir?�

�� Snape
nodded with a grunt. He was still staring at the girl, and there was an
expression on his face that made Harry shudder. He�d thought Snape got angry at
him, but clearly, that was nothing
but practice.

�� Then Snape
said, �I have found, at the very least, a Death Eater in the school, and from
her desperation to protect her secrets, she may be the one who poisoned Draco
as well.� He looked at Harry, and the hand that he still had on his shoulder,
which he�d been using for support so far, tightened. �Why did you happen to be
here just at this time?�

�� Because I
had something I wanted to talk to you about,� Harry said. He kept his voice
low, like Snape�s. Someone could come along the corridor and listen at the
door. �And this happened to me because things like this happen to me. That�s
just how it is,� he added, a bit
defensively, when Snape went on looking at him.

�� Snape
finally shut his eyes, nodded, and said, �As long as you were not hurt.�

�� No,� Harry
said, and helped Snape sit down and then went to firecall Professor McGonagall
on his instructions, trying not to think about how hard Snape had held him for
a moment.

�� Or the way
his arms had twitched, as if he wanted to hug Harry close to him, but didn�t
quite dare.

*

�� k lave
demo: No need to let you know if your guesses are on the mark, because now you
know!

�� And Ron and
Hermione will be better from now on. They turned a corner, even if slowly and
ungraciously.

�� polka dot: Kind
of?

�� anciie: Voldemort
doesn�t know how good Snape�s Occlumency is, so I suppose it�s an even guess
whether he knows how good his Legilimency is. But yes, he wouldn�t have found
out if Cravens hadn�t panicked.

�� Draco does
still dislike Ron and Hermione, so he hasn�t completely gotten over it.

�� yuiop:
Thanks!

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thank you!
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Practicing Liars