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Learning Life Over	By : Meander Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 69712 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 40
- 41
- 42
Sorry for the very
long break in updates. I had either writer�s block or as close to it as I ever
hope to get. Things should be back on track for now.

Chapter 41- Unexpected Visits

�� The wards
warned Draco long before Narcissa entered the Manor, of course. He slowed on
his broom and leaned down, narrowing his eyes.

�� The Snitch
chose that moment to dart past him, beating its wings as if it sensed his
distraction and couldn�t wait to
escape him. Harry swooped after it, then wheeled around in a circle, shouting
like a cuckoo.

�� What are
you waiting for, Draco, permission?� he called. When he opened his hand, the
Snitch tried to dart away, but Harry caught it without even having to lean
sideways. Draco experienced a brief moment of his old envy, but that was quickly
overwhelmed by the fact that this magnificent, easily moving Harry was all his.

�� My
mother�s here, Harry,� he called.

�� Harry at
once stiffened, then nodded and dived. �It�s getting cloudy anyway,� he called
back. �We should land and greet her.�

�� Draco gave
the only clouds floating in one corner of the sky, like players too shy to come
on stage, a dubious glance, but he knew why this visit mattered to Harry. Harry
still hoped against hope that Narcissa would deign to accept his presence into
her son�s life. In vain, Draco had tried to reassure him that it didn�t matter
if Narcissa loved him, because he
loved Harry. Harry had muttered something about parents and how one never had
enough chances to be with them, and Draco had let it go. The subject of James
and Lily Potter was one he wasn�t willing to broach, as yet.

�� He landed
with a casual snap in front of Harry and slung the Flameflare over his
shoulder. �We don�t need to put them away,� he added, as Harry headed for the
shed to one side of the Pitch. �Why shouldn�t we let her know she interrupted
us?�

�� She might
accept that from you, Draco, but never from me.�

�� Draco felt
his face soften. It was incredible what Harry could do to make him melt into
compassion, a feeling he had only ever experienced in small flashes before. His
parents and his friends certainly hadn�t demanded it of him. He rubbed Harry�s
shoulder. �All right,� he said quietly. �Put the broom away. I�ll go to meet
her like this, and find out what she wants. I certainly didn�t invite her.�

�� Harry
smiled at him for a moment, then turned and trotted away. Draco made his way
towards the garden�s edge. He could think of a few reasons for Narcissa to
appear today. None of them were pleasant.

*

�� Draco.�
Narcissa wore white, as always, but her robes had a touch of unusual blue in
them, as though she stood on marble under a very faint shadow, or inside a
snowbank touched with sunlight. She reached out and grasped his hand firmly,
her eyes shining. �I have changed my mind.�

�� Draco
stared at her. �Changed your mind?� he said, when he found his tongue. It had
crawled to the bottom of his mouth in his astonishment.

�� Narcissa
nodded serenely. �I don�t think you will abandon Mr. Potter any longer,� she
said. The slight curl of her lip reassured Draco that not the whole world had gone mad, and she still
disliked Harry. �I do not wish to spend years fighting with my only child. You
don�t mean to give him up and take a wife, correct? Or even a female lover?�
There was a touch of wistfulness in those last words, as if Narcissa would
prefer illegitimate Malfoy children to no Malfoy children at all.

�� Correct,�
Draco said, striving for the tone of coldness and hauteur that his father had
used to cow other Death Eaters.

�� Perhaps
Narcissa had heard it too often to show an effect, because she merely smiled
again. �Then I must become reconciled to him,� she said. Her words had a tone
of quiet dignity in them now. �God knows what that insect Skeeter would say, if
she discovered that Mrs. Malfoy could not get along peacefully with someone who
is practically her son-in-law. I may not like him, Draco, but I have seen that
expression on your face before. You�re set,
aren�t you, and you will not change your mind?� She sighed. �I will have to
learn to be around �dear Harry- and not flinch away from him as though he
carried lice.�

�� Draco
studied her closely. It was a believable enough motive for Narcissa, all in all-
she certainly hated appearing in the Daily
Prophet as anything but an exquisite society matron- but she had had years
to become accustomed and reconciled to Draco�s ways since the War, and she had
never done so. She rather, Draco thought, enjoyed the fussing, because it meant
he paid attention to her. He didn�t think she�d changed now, and he wondered what
game she played.

�� On the
other hand, he intended to exile her from the Manor again once she and Harry
had talked, and she couldn�t influence Harry against him, or whatever she hoped
to do, if she was at a distance.

�� Draco�s
resolve firmed as he remembered the way Harry had spoken to him about his own
past, responded to a confession of weakness with a strength Draco could let
himself lean on if he wanted to. He said
I mattered. No matter what she plans, Mother can�t know about that. She can�t
know that Harry has a fierce loyalty to the people he loves.

�� At least, I think he loves me.

�� He had no
time to stand around indulging his own weaknesses. Harry appeared then, his
robes carefully charmed to remove any sweat that had accumulated on them during
Quidditch. He gave Narcissa a nod and a small smile, which Draco�s mother
returned with a smile that he thought would have fit better in a shark�s mouth.

�� And still
she said nothing more insulting or worrying than, �I don�t yet like you, Mr.
Potter. I suppose I might come to, with time. For now, I think we should
present a united front against the world, and assure the Ministry that Draco
did nothing wrong in bringing you to the Manor.� She put her hand out in front
of her and held it as though she expected Harry to break her wrist. �Friends in
the name of protecting Draco?�

�� Harry
kissed her hand silently. Draco could see the shine in his eyes, and silently
cursed. Misfortune or not, Harry was an optimist. He would want to believe that
Narcissa could accept him, if not love him, and that would make him all the
more likely to ignore the warning signs and look past problems.

�� Mother,�
he said in a low voice, drawing both their attention as he curved an arm around
Harry�s shoulders. �Don�t you think you�ve visited the Manor long enough for a
first time?�

�� Narcissa
only nodded, her manner now reflecting polite resignation to the fact that her
only son was a boor. �Of course, Draco,� she said. �I should be returning to
London.� And she turned and walked away towards the wards. Draco watched her
hands intently, waiting for her to drop a spying device or a pellet enchanted
to blow up on the ground. But her fingers never moved, and never went near her
sleeves, where she often hid her wand.

�� Harry
tugged his arm and said, �Draco,� in a disapproving way.

�� Draco
looked at him.

�� Don�t you
think you should invite her to stay?� Harry asked in a low voice, gesturing
after Narcissa. She had reached the beginning of the small strip of grass that
marked the edge of the Manor and now lingered there, a sad and lovely vision- if
you didn�t look at the shark�s teeth, Draco thought. �She came all the way from
London to see us, and she is making
an attempt at reconciliation. That can�t be easy, after everything I did to
offend her.�

�� Draco shook
his head. �It�s a trick,� he said quietly. �She�ll make us relax, and then
strike.�

�� That�s a
terrible thing to say about your own mother, Draco.� Harry reared back and
frowned at him.

�� It�s true.� Draco folded his arms. �And are
you really more likely to trust her than me, Harry?�

�� Harry
didn�t back down or look away, as those words might have made him do only a
short time ago. �It has nothing to do with trust, Draco, and everything to do
with wanting you to have a full life,� he said. �I might add to it, yes, but I
don�t want my presence to cost you anything except what you�re willing to give
up. And I don�t want to see you using your protectiveness of me as an excuse to
be stubborn, either,� he added, in poisonous tones that would have done credit
to Gardenia Parkinson.

�� Draco
watched his mother. Narcissa had given up on being asked to stay, it seemed.
Even as he watched, she moved beyond the wards, drew her wand with slow and
obvious movements, and Apparated away.

�� Harry
hissed in frustration. �And there goes your chance to ask her.� He rocked back
on his heels and studied Draco critically. Draco flushed as he had not when
exposing his greatest weakness to Harry. This- this was different. This was
something he was absolutely sure was true, but which Harry wasn�t
constitutionally prepared to accept, and which Draco had no proof of.

�� He reined
in his rising temper. There was an easier way to control it than by shouting
and starting an argument, and he intended to go and use that way to soothe it
the moment he�d said a few things to Harry.

�� I don�t
know if she�s up to anything, Harry,� he said. �But she always has been in the
past. This exaggerated friendliness- she�s subtler than that. It must cover
some deeper game.�

�� Or maybe
she�s decided to be obvious and give you what you want for once in your life,�
Harry pointed out.

�� That could be true. But, regardless of
the lack of evidence for anything sinister on Narcissa�s part, Draco was not
prepared to believe her. Every concession that Narcissa traded, she tried to
exact a higher price for. There were a few times when Draco had pinned her and
got a straight promise or plain truth from her. They weren�t common.

�� Please
just be careful around her, Harry,� he said. �If she asks you to meet
privately, refuse it. If she talks to you, weigh her words. I�m not- I�m not
asking you to hate her. But keep in
mind that, even if she means what she says about presenting a united front,
that doesn�t mean she wouldn�t take the chance to abandon you.� He hesitated,
because Harry might resent the extreme comparison, but it was the only one that
made sense. �The Dark wizards you catch can reform, but it�s not very common,
is it? And even if they do, you don�t trust them simply because they say so.�

�� Harry�s
eyes half-lidded, in that look Draco had seen before whenever he thought about
the Ministry. At last, he gave a short nod.

�� I don�t
think your mother�s as bad as some of those I�ve caught, Draco,� he said. �But
I can see sense. I�ll be careful around her.�

�� Draco
kissed him in sheer relief. Harry made a startled little noise, then laughed
into his mouth and put his arms around him. Draco started to push him to the
ground. He hoped, now, that Narcissa
had left a spy, or had remained herself to observe them and look for
weaknesses. He�d give Harry the fucking of his life in front of them.

�� Harry,
being Harry and so often inconvenient to Malfoys, put a stop to it. �I have a
session with Theresa in ten minutes, Draco,� he said. �I doubt she�d like me to
show up with grass stains on my clothes and a silly grin on my lips.�

�� But she
wants you to be happy, doesn�t she?� Draco asked, trying to tug Harry�s robes
back so that he could entrap his arms and hold him still. Harry liked sex, as he�d proven again and
again in the last few days. Wrestle him down, and Draco thought he could
convince him to be late to the session with Theresa.

�� She does,�
Harry said, �but she�s not entirely happy that we�re doing this, even now.� He
slipped away from Draco with a smooth Seeker�s move, and touched his arm. �I�ll
see you later.� His eyes held a meaning that Draco could interpret easily
enough, even without words.

�� He nodded.
�I won�t watch.�

�� Harry
kissed him fiercely, though not nearly hard enough to satisfy Draco, and broke
away, trotting towards the Manor. Draco stood where he was a moment, breathing,
then made for his own bedroom. So long as he was quick and didn�t take more
time than Harry would use to meet with Theresa, he could practice the technique
that calmed his temper.

�� And, not
incidentally, advanced his plan of revenge for Harry.

*

�� Draco
paused and looked around as he landed in front of the Dursleys� house. He had
thought he heard another crack of Apparition behind him, but a few careful
spells revealed no one watching. Besides, he couldn�t see why another wizard
would come to such a boring Muggle neighborhood. Dogfoot had had such trouble
acquiring the information about Harry�s relatives that Draco was sure no one
else knew where they lived.

�� He cast a
Disillusionment Charm on himself, and then tried the door. Locked. Draco
snorted. Muggle locks were pitiful things against a spell. �Alohomora!� he whispered, and the door
opened.

�� Draco
stepped into the neat house and smiled at the photographs on the walls. All the
Muggles appeared to be away, which pleased Draco. He could have done what he planned with them in the house- and, in one
respect, that would have been more fun- but this way, he could take his time
and plant in them the creeping fear and uneasiness they should have suffered a
long time ago, for what they did to Harry.

�� Carefully,
using only his wand (he had heard that Muggle Aurors could track fingerprints),
he moved the photographs sideways. Then he headed into the room occupied by
their telly-vision and firmly levitated the device into the air, sticking it to
the wall. The spell was designed to end the moment someone touched it. Draco
gave a smile that, were it small and mean, no one else was around to see. He
imagined Dudley injured by flying glass shards, and perhaps the smile grew
smaller and meaner.

�� Into the
kitchen, where he painted letters on the glasses and the cutlery and then
rearranged them so that they spelled out a message greeting the Dursleys and
telling them to beware of magic. The kitchen table received a splash of red in
the middle that looked convincingly like blood. Draco amused himself by drawing
the outline of a cat on the floor near each chair, as though someone had
dropped three animals from the ceiling.

�� Unexpected
things, strange things, abnormal
things. Draco intended to frighten them and confuse them, all the more because
the evidence he left in the house didn�t let the Dursleys know for certain what
was happening. He wanted them milling in circles like the sheep they were.

�� He did
pause by the cupboard under the stairs when he saw the door and kneel there in
silence, his heart thudding in his ears. For the first time, the impulse to destroy rose in him. He waned to blast
the door off, to clean any possible psychic residue of Harry�s existence from
it, to bring light flooding into the horrible small dark space. He had to
breathe deeply several times before the red haze faded from his eyes.

�� Draco
contented himself with scribing nonsense letters into the door of the cupboard.
An HP and a DM were scattered among them, but in no precise configuration. Let
the Dursleys drive themselves mad trying to imagine what they meant.

�� And take it
as a warning. Draco would return.

�� He stepped
from the house, locked the door behind him, and spent a moment pondering if he
should tell Harry where he had been. Then he shook his head briskly. No, Harry
still needed some more time to get used to the idea, and to talk about his
childhood with Theresa. Draco would tell him later.

�� He did
think he heard a faint crack before he Apparated, but every possible spell
revealed nothing. Draco shrugged it off as his own paranoia. Surely, if someone
knew what he were doing, he would have received a letter from the Ministry by
now.

*************

�� GreenEyedCat:
I, uh, wouldn�t count on that.

�� Jeanette
Russell: Thank you! I don�t really think a sweet story can happen without Draco
and Harry working through some of their issues first.

�� Heksy:
Thanks! I �hear� character voices in my head, and I�m always happy when I can
make them audible to other people.

�� PicturesqueNightmare:
Perhaps funny, but I�m not entirely certain the chapter titles should be that
explicit.

�� Dantemalfoy1:
Unfortunately, they couldn�t punish Wormwood for the pain curse on Draco
because Draco Obliviated him, so he doesn�t even remember casting it.
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Learning Life Over