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The Dust of Water	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20632 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Forty-Five—Raw and Hurting

            “Is Malfoy going to be okay?”

            It was nice of Hermione to ask, but it was also at least the fifth time she had asked, and Harry had to worry his tongue for a bit with his teeth before he responded. “I think so. But he needs some time to recover from the shock.”

            Hermione nodded wisely and stared at the corner of the room where Draco sat, looking at his hands. “Well, it was a shock.”

            Yes, it was. Harry had assumed that Lucius might come out raging and tell Draco he was disinherited, that he would never see the inside of the Manor again, and that Lucius would toss all his son’s belongings out the door after him. But he hadn’t actually thought that was likely. He’d thought the most likely outcome of all was Lucius being deeply confused about whose memories were real, his or the house-elf’s.

            I thought he would need more time to adjust to being human again and to figure out exactly what Draco did. Harry winced as he looked at the bright red handprint spreading across Draco’s left cheek. He’d offered to heal it, and so had Fleur and Hermione and Bill. Draco wouldn’t let any of them do it.

            Apparently not.

            As if he could feel Harry’s probing stare, Draco lifted his head. And then he was on his feet, forcing his way across the room to Harry. Harry stood up, not sure what would happen next. His looking had been kind of intrusive.

            But Draco simply fell into Harry’s arms, and Harry was so startled that he almost didn’t catch him in time. He was glad, as he cradled Draco against his chest, that at least he hadn’t had to deal with that. The last thing Draco needed was more pain.

            “I want to go home,” Draco whispered.

            Harry wasn’t dim enough to think he meant the Manor. He nodded, and spent a moment trying to think. But he had promised Draco he could live with him, and Kreacher had recovered and Harry had sent him back to Grimmauld Place.

            That had to mean the Dark magic was largely gone. Besides, Ron had already taken Kelvin and the other wizards who had come with him to the Ministry. That meant Harry had less concern about weak defenses in the first place.

            “I can take care of myself,” Draco whispered, as if he were spying on Harry’s thoughts. “Right now, fighting would almost be a relief.”

            Harry winced, but nodded, and turned around with Draco in his arms. Fleur was studying them with a worried expression. Harry wouldn’t need her to help him scrape Draco off the floor, though, and he had only one question. “We can go? There aren’t going to be any side-effects of the ritual?”

            “Would I have let Ron take the criminals away, if there were?”

            Harry smiled at the sarcasm in her tone, although he felt Draco shiver like it was another slap. Well, Draco was vulnerable right now, and reminding him about the ritual that had freed his father wasn’t a good idea. They could wait until they were alone to talk about it. “Thanks, Fleur. We owe you.”

            Fleur’s eyes went back to Draco, and they were so troubled that Harry didn’t reach out to her in reassurance only because he had to hold Draco. “I hope so.”

            “We do,” Harry said firmly, and marched Draco out of Shell Cottage. He could at least walk, although he tried to lean on Harry sometimes when Harry wanted to take a step forwards. But Harry just adjusted, and kept walking.

            “I feel so weak right now,” Draco was murmuring by the time Harry stopped to listen to him again. “So useless.”

            “That doesn’t matter.” Harry readjusted his hold on Draco so that he was in no danger of falling over because of the small rise in the ground just ahead of them. “We can make sure you’re safe when we get to the house.” Harry was going to have Kreacher check all the defensive spells, all the walls, all the windows. If there was anything Old Harry had put into place to either weaken them or invite specific people inside, Kreacher would know about it. He was bound to the magic of Grimmauld Place. He could undo those weaknesses or invitations if Harry ordered him to.

            “I know you don’t have any physical battles to fight now. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you heal me.”

            Harry slowly shook his head. “We don’t know how long it will take to heal you. Or what your father will do next. For now, let’s get you home.”

            Draco said nothing, but neither did he try to get away from Harry or resist as Harry Side-Alonged him. Harry half-closed his eyes and mustered his own resistance to the thick ache of pity in his throat.

            He doesn’t need someone to pity him. He needs someone to help him. And Merlin knows that’s something I should have learned in the past few months.

*

            Royal swooped through the window not long after Harry had settled Draco into a bedroom at Number Twelve and instructed Kreacher to bring him a bowl of thick chicken broth. Royal landed on the perch Harry had ready for him and shook his tail expressively, and Harry found himself hoping that the owl had nipped Lucius Malfoy good and hard before he left the Manor.

            “Unpleasant company?” Harry asked, from the chair where he was going over a list Kreacher had made for him of the changes Old Harry had put into the house.

            Royal gave him a docile look, and Harry laughed. He was sure, now, that Lucius had received that bite.

            “Well, he deserved it,” Harry muttered, to himself or the owl he wasn’t sure, as he went back to the list. Exceptions for Weasley and Granger in the wards. That wouldn’t be a problem. “Slapping his son like that. Who does that?”

            Royal gave an answer in the way he spread his wings and hunched them, then retracted them to his side. Stupid people.

            Harry nodded and read on in the list. Adjustments to the alarms not to react when Dark potions ingredients are transported through them.

            Harry snorted and crossed that out. It had probably actually helped him when Draco was brewing the potion that let him visit some of his memories, but he had no need of it now. If Draco was going to brew Dark potions, he could wait a few months. “If I had family of my own left, I sure as hell wouldn’t push them away and act as if they were tainted.”

            Royal had no reaction to that. Harry glanced at him curiously and found that he had drawn himself up into a straight line and closed his eyes. Asleep.

            Harry shook his head again and went on through the list. Most of the exemptions were for specific people he could remove; there were a few semi-Dark spells woven into the defenses that the Ministry appeared to have missed when they were in the house, and which Harry decided could stay. The spells themselves weren’t illegal, only the actual casting of them, and that was in the past now.

            Harry got up to go start removing the exemptions, and started badly as Kreacher appeared in front of him. He had tears in his eyes so thick that they looked like swarming bugs. His hands were tugging his ears.

            “What’s the matter, Kreacher?” Harry kept his voice as gentle as he could. When they came back that morning, he had made sure to explain to Kreacher that Kelvin was shut up and couldn’t hurt him anymore. He wondered now if Kreacher had forgotten.

            “Master Malfoy is not resting!” Kreacher had a shriek to rattle glass when he wanted to.

            Harry frowned and hurried up to Draco’s bedroom. He’d seemed so pale and quiet when Harry helped him to bed that Harry was sure he’d go to sleep at once. Perhaps he was having a nightmare or needed to talk to someone about what had happened with Lucius.

            But Draco was sitting up in a chair by the window, and barely turned his head in acknowledgment when Harry hastened in. Harry knelt down in front of him. Draco kept looking out the window, although the only thing to see, really, was dirty glass and the side of the Muggle house across the way.

            “What is it?” Harry whispered, touching Draco’s leg.

            Draco sighed hard enough that he could compete with Kreacher’s shriek. Then he whispered, “Do you know that I never once considered what I would do if my father rejected me? Even as part of me thought of it and was plotting about how I would live with you, the rest of me was sure I would walk back into the Manor. That my father wouldn’t want it because he’d lived as a servant there for years. Or something. I—don’t know.”

            “Well, I don’t think anyone can plan for something like that. Or I would have had plans in place for getting my memories destroyed by a Dark curse.” Harry reached out and slowly stroked the bones in Draco’s right wrist, which at least woke Draco up from the staring at the wall he’d been doing. “I have a few months’ lead time on you, but this is still something we can learn together.”

            Draco considered him, with a slowness that Harry endured without knowing where it was coming from. Then Draco whispered, “But if I can’t be useful to you?”

            Harry frowned, not knowing what he meant. “I don’t need the protections on the Manor anymore, I told you—”

            “But all my potions ingredients are in the Manor. I can’t send a house-elf to fetch them, even Kreacher. My father was a house-elf long enough to know all the ways to block them. I can’t—earn money. What am I supposed to do? How can I help you?”

            “I have enough money to not worry about that for a while. And there’s a notion I had.” Harry shuffled closer to Draco on his knees and lowered his voice. Draco bent towards him unconsciously. “A radical one, mind you—I don’t know how well you’ll like it…”

            “Just tell me.”

            “You could try—not brewing potions that have illegal ingredients. Get the ones you can buy in Diagon Alley and grow and collect yourself. And then you don’t have to worry about the potions that you brew attracting attention.”

            Draco slapped him hard on the shoulder. “I’m not worried about that. I wouldn’t brew Dark portions anyway while I was a guest in your home.” Harry raised an eyebrow at him, and Draco blushed a little. “Well, I mean, not without telling you what I was doing.”

            “Right,” said Harry, not entirely convinced, but smart enough to let it go. “So is that the major cause of your despair?”

            “I wanted to help you. Take care of you. And I got an owl from Gringotts a few minutes ago that say my father has already reclaimed the Malfoy vaults. It was inevitable, once he reinstated himself as head of the family, but…”

            “I know you want to. And I’m touched you want to. But we’re going to survive without that, Draco. I promise. There’s nothing your father can do to us.”

            From the way Draco shot upright and then relaxed, Harry knew he’d hit on the real heart of the matter. Draco resented losing his money and his home, but the real problem was what he thought Lucius might do in response, not simply not do.

            “If he blames you,” Draco whispered. “And he might. He’ll have his memories back now, enough to remember what we were arguing about and what he wanted me to do before I enchanted him into the house-elf.”

            “If he blames me, he can come after me,” said Harry. “But with the Elder Wand and Royal and Kreacher on my side, he won’t have an easy time. I think he won’t take Royal lightly,” he added, seeing that Draco was opening his mouth. “From the way Royal acted when he came back, I think your father already has one owl bite to deal with.”

            For a moment, Draco’s face was utterly blank, as if he couldn’t imagine the Mighty Lucius Malfoy having to cope with an owl bite. And then he lowered his head and laughed until his throat must have hurt. “Oh my god,” he finally gasped, leaning his forehead on Harry’s shoulder. “I can only imagine.”

            “Right.” Harry waited until he’d calmed down enough to focus on Harry again, and then smiled at him. “I promise, Draco. This isn’t easy, and I’m not pretending it will be, but we’ll be safe. Both of us.”

            “If he calls me to the Manor—”

            “You won’t go alone.”

            “But what if he sends an owl saying that he’ll give me back some of the Malfoy property if I go alone?”

            “You would really expect that from him?” Harry blinked. He had to admit, he wouldn’t have. Then again, it might just be because he didn’t know Lucius Malfoy as well as Draco did.

            “No,” Draco admitted, and his voice cracked down the middle. “But at the moment, I keep thinking that I’ll never really know my father again, so I might as well come up with wild theories and wait for him to prove them right.”

            Harry gently brushed his knuckles down Draco’s cheek and shook his head. “I don’t think that’s helpful. Your father will reveal himself one way or the other, and probably soon. Even if it’s just not sending owls.”

            Draco shuddered and closed his eyes. “I hope he doesn’t come up with that tactic. Not knowing what he’s about to do or send would drive me mental.”

            “But even that’s a response, isn’t it? A sign that he doesn’t want anything more to do with you right now. And if it’s long enough, then you’ll have to relax. And you’ll think about other things, because you have to.”

            “What do you mean? Are you going to give me some other things to think about?”

            Harry had to laugh at the way Draco fluttered his eyelashes. “Cute,” he said, and nudged Draco in the ribs with his elbow. “But time will, you know. You’ll need to think about gathering new Potions ingredients, and how you’re going to deal with my friends, and what it’s like to live with me when I’m the host and you’re not.” He wasn’t going to call Draco a guest, because he was so much more than that. “And by the time he does send you something, you’ll be better prepared to face it, too.”

            Draco sighed for so long that Harry was sort of concerned that he would blast all the air out of his lungs and faint or something. But he ended up simply leaning on Harry’s chest and staring moodily into the distance. “I hadn’t thought you would be so good at this.”

            “What? Comforting people?”

            “Comforting me. Especially considering the rocky way we began after you lost your memories.”

            “I can’t think exactly the same way about you anymore. Or myself, or my friends, or your father, or my owl, or the way I approached life, or my Auror work, or the things that Old Harry got praised for, or Ginny, or—”

            “Fine, fine, you don’t need to list all the things you have to think differently about,” Draco said hastily. Harry gave him a smug smile. He thought Draco could have gone on listening, but Ginny’s name had pushed him to say something. “But what I’m saying is, you didn’t know much of anything about me when you first began talking to me. And then you learned horrible things. What made you forgive them?”

            Harry smiled at him. Draco might never know if Lucius forgave him, but he needed to know Harry did. And if it was sort of a substitute for what he needed most, Harry didn’t mind that. It was an honest thing, and not horrible as long as they both knew what they were doing.

            “Because you showed me kindness, too,” Harry said. “And you went through things that genuinely changed you. And you got rid of the Horcrux portrait when I asked you to. And you helped me by brewing that potion that let me see how awful Old Harry had really been. And you gave me signs that you were interested in me and not just my memories.” He paused. “Is this the part where you interrupt and tell me that I don’t need to list all these different things?”

            “Let’s say that I could listen to praise of myself a lot longer than I could listen to praise of the Weasleys.”

            Harry laughed again and hugged Draco, pulling him against his chest even when Draco began to struggle a little. “Of course. But you should know, Draco, that I wouldn’t be living with you and telling you I’m in love with you if I hadn’t forgiven you. Old Harry was pretty good at hiding his emotions. I’m not. I won’t ever abandon or betray you.”

            “You think you won’t. I didn’t think my father would, either, but…”

            “You don’t really know him now,” Harry said quietly. “Give him time. It might be that he doesn’t want to do those things, but doesn’t think he has a choice. Or maybe he’s hurting as much as you are.”

            “How foolish. No one can be hurting as much as me.”

            But at least Draco’s eyes shone with fragile hope, and Harry leaned forwards and kissed him on the nose in delight. “Just wait. It might take a long time, but I think he’ll probably send you an owl soon. Maybe it’ll demand answers to questions that you don’t want to answer, but at least it’ll be a start at communication.”

*

            But the next owl that arrived from Lucius Malfoy dropped the letter, not in front of Draco, but in front of Harry, right at the breakfast table.

*

            AnonymousTigress: Thank you!

            SP777: Thanks very much! And, well, I can think of a lot of good reasons Lucius would have, honestly.

            Severus1snape: No, he went home to make sure he put on only the best and most comfortably-made robes. ;)
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The Dust of Water