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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
- 47
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Thank you again for all the reviews! This story will end on
Chapter 50.

Chapter
Forty-Eight�Awakening

�� Severus
settled on a chair beside Harry�s bed in the hospital wing. He had a forbidding
expression, and he had also constructed a series of wards around the bed that
were not visible to anyone else, but would warn him in an instant if anyone
entered the corridor that led towards the door. He would have time to sit back
from the bed and adopt an appropriate bored or frustrated look if it were one
of his Slytherins.

�� He and
Harry would have time to reveal their secret, but it could not be yet, not when
the Death Eaters remained at large and would delight in Harry�s having a family
member that they could kill.

�� In the
meantime, while he waited for the onslaught of people who would surely try to
see Harry once they realized the danger was gone and the hero appropriately
asleep and resting from his hard labor, Severus gazed into his son�s face.
Asleep, behind the glamour, Harry looked ordinary�not like someone who could
have walked out from the walls of Hogwarts, extra magic or not, to fearlessly
face the worst Dark Lord Britain had ever known.

�� I do not
understand you,� Severus whispered. Habit and practice kept his voice in a
whisper so soft that someone standing a meter away could not have heard it.
�You came from me and from your mother. She
demonstrated extraordinary courage, but only when her child was threatened.
And I�I have never had that at all. What made you this way? I know that your
upbringing was not of the kind to encourage compassion or the formation of a
heroic character. And yet, here you are.�

��

�� He fell
silent as the first onlookers peeped in, classmates of Harry�s from Gryffindor.
Seamus Finnigan swallowed when he saw Severus and glanced uncertainly back at
the others�Longbottom, Thomas, the Weasley girl. Then he cleared his throat and
said boldly, �What are you doing here, sir?�

�� Serving as
a guardian for Mr. Potter,� Severus said, in a voice that he hoped would make
them shrink, and it did. Longbottom wobbled on his feet. �It seems that it is
feared some of my students might
attack him.� He let his sneer emerge full-force, and Longbottom backed away
with a whimper. �What are you doing
here, Mr. Finnigan?�

�� We heard
You-Know-Who was dead and Harry was all right,� Thomas said, perhaps a bit
braver because Finnigan�s body partially screened him from Severus�s venomous
glare. He gestured at the bed. �He doesn�t look all right.�

�� He has
just fought a battle,� Severus said, and endeavored to keep down the scream he
wanted to utter to a dry voice of the kind he would use to tell Longbottom why
he had exploded his latest cauldron. �Would you expect him to be on his feet,
singing and dancing the way he does after a Quidditch victory?�

�� H-Harry
doesn�t sing and dance after a Quidditch victory,� Longbottom put in,
unexpectedly brave�and irritating. �Y-you don�t really know him at all,
P-professor Snape.� The other Gryffindors nodded in agreement, and the Weasley
girl pushed into the room, watching Harry with narrowed eyes as if she expected
to find the marks of poison that Severus had slipped him on his skin.

�� Severus�s
legs ground against one another, but he remained seated and calm. They did not
know yet, and so they must not yet suspect. There was no reason for him to be
angry at their saying that he did not know Harry.

�� But he
could get angry at their insolence, and he did.

�� Madam
Pomfrey was stern,� he said, lowering his voice so that it would have a greater
impact. �She specifically said no
visitors. What would you do here, in any case? Stand around the bed and
attempt to awaken him with the power of your goggling?�

�� The Weasley
girl clenched her fists and said, �I want to talk to him, sir. Maybe I can help
bring him out of his sleep.�

�� Severus
rolled his eyes. He saw no reason to refrain when they would expect that from
someone as unpleasant as Professor Snape. �He is not in a coma, Miss Weasley. He is simply asleep. He suffers from magical
exhaustion, given the way that he had to confront the Dark Lord. Do go back to
your common room now and wait for him to awaken. I am sure the news will be
carried to you the instant he does.� He felt his voice thicken with bitterness,
and knew from the wondering glances the Gryffindor students gave him that none
of them understood. Severus was thinking of the way that these people who had
almost no connection to Harry could freely worry for him, while Severus was
forced to disguise his own interest, and Draco, who was not supposed to care
about anything but the way the ending of the war would affect his family�s
political position, would have to wait long hours before he was able to sneak in.

�� The
youngest Weasley didn�t seem inclined to stir yet, no matter how hard Severus
glared at her. �I know that Ron and Hermione came by,� she said. �They got to
talk to him.�

�� And he
tried to sit up so that he could talk to them better, and then flopped down in
a dead faint,� Severus snapped back. He was still seething over the stupidity
of that gesture. Harry�s friends could have talked to him just as well when he
was flat on his back. �That was when Madam Pomfrey forbade visitors.�

�� Weasley
considered him for a few minutes more, then uttered a loud snort of disgust and
turned away. �We should go,� she told the others. �He isn�t going to let us
through, even though Harry would want
us here.� She gave Severus one more glance that he supposed was meant to make
him feel ashamed, and then paraded out the door. The others followed her.

�� Severus waited
until they had passed beyond the boundary of his ward, and then he reached out
and put one hand on Harry�s forehead, checking for fever. Despite Poppy�s
reassurances, he knew that magical exhaustion sometimes passed into fever, and
he wanted to make sure that Harry did not acquire one. The time it would take
to brew the appropriate potion to make the fever go down was time that Severus
would not be able to spend by his son�s bedside.

�� No
excessive heat met his hand. Severus nodded and sat back. He had, of course,
already ensured that Harry had drunk the potions he should have: the
Strengthening Draught to make possible the swift return of his magic and the
Relaxation Draught that would give him a comfortable sleep (and, incidentally,
make his muscles limp to the point where he was unable to sneak out of bed
before he should).

�� Harry had
been in the hospital wing many times before. Severus knew that. It didn�t stop
him from planning to make sure that he received real care this time, not the care that Madam Pomfrey would
distribute from hands and a mind occupied with many other things. Harry would
rest, and he would not get up before Severus determined that it was time. Given
the pretense of having to guard Harry from people in the school who might revenge
for his killing of the Dark Lord, Severus could arrange to be constantly near
his bed, constantly attending him in the way he needed and which Severus
required to soothe his own battered heart.

�� Then one of
his own thoughts caught up with him in a way it hadn�t before and he bent over
at the waist, catching his breath with a deep huff.

�� Harry had
destroyed the Dark Lord.

�� The Mark on
Severus�s arm was now no more than a reminder of past mistakes. He could move
away from the school, if he wished, once the remaining Death Eaters were
captured. He had not had to do any of the more desperate things he had
envisioned doing before the Dark Lord was destroyed, in part because of that
venture into Malfoy Manor which had exposed his true loyalties.

�� He was free

�� And his son
was the cause of his freedom.

�� Severus lifted
his head and shook it, eyes fastened to Harry�s face. This was no easier for
him to understand than Harry�s enormous courage was. How could one person have
done this? How could Severus feel grateful, and resentful because of the
gratitude�he should have been the one to defend and take care of Harry, not the
other way around, and Dumbledore should never have put a child in this
position�and determined to protect Harry from the consequences of his actions,
all at the same time?

�� There were
too many emotions in his mind, too much air in his lungs. Too much life being
forced into his body.

�� Severus had
almost forgotten what it felt like to breathe in freedom.

*

�� So. He�s
gone.�

�� Draco nodded.
He didn�t know what else to say, how else to react. He was sitting in one
corner of the common room, curled up in a large chair, and staring at the wall.
He had been doing that ever since the news of the Dark Lord�s death had
filtered down to the Slytherins, because he wanted to hide his real feelings.
It was understandable that he would feel a bit�abstracted�at the death of the
wizard everyone knew Draco�s father had served. Yes, he had been accounted a
traitor by the Dark Lord in front of the whole school, but still, this would
change the fortunes of everyone in Slytherin House, and Draco would need time
to figure out what he should do.

�� Meanwhile,
Draco burned to see Harry, and knew that he shouldn�t betray that. So the stare
and his arms folded in front of him.

�� At the
sound of Blaise�s voice, though, he still gripped his wand.

�� What�s
going to happen now?� Blaise asked, and then answered himself with a soft
laugh. �I don�t think anyone knows. And that�s what has them so worried.�

�� Draco
finally turned to face him. Blaise stood next to the chair with his arms
folded. Draco thought he meant to look bold and commanding, but it looked as if
he were hugging himself against the cold instead.

�� Why?�
Draco breathed.

�� Why
doesn�t anyone know?� Blaise cocked his head at him with a touch of his old
arrogance. �Don�t tell me that you think your
predictions will be better than anyone�s about how the world�s going to
change.�

�� Draco shook
his head impatiently. �What you said to me before,� he said. �I want to know
why you stayed loyal to me. It would have been�I mean, you could have found a
way to survive if the Dark Lord won.� He was not yet sure that Blaise had borne
the Mark, and he was not going to ask until he was in a setting where he felt
more confident.

�� Blaise was
silent, rubbing his chin. Then he said, �My mother was ambivalent about the
Dark Lord for a long time. She�s a pure-blood, she�s always married
pure-bloods, and she hates the thought of Mudbloods intruding into our world
and taking away our culture, so you�d think she�d be all for him.�

�� Draco
waited, knowing there was more to come, and that he should restrain his
impatience, because Blaise�s rambling couldn�t be as irrelevant as it seemed.

�� But,�
Blaise said, still staring past Draco�s shoulder, �she didn�t like the all-out way he went about things. You
couldn�t be his ally or neutral in the war. You had to be his slave or his
enemy. My mother was convinced that would take away her own freedom, in the
end. She wanted what he promised without having to serve him.�

�� Draco
snorted softly. And so Slytherin selfishness and desire for independence had
provided Blaise with another way to think about the Dark Lord, and had probably
saved Draco�s life.

�� And given me a moment of comfort when I most
needed it, he thought, though it was still hard to think about. The whole
battle was hard to think about, even though he hadn�t participated in it.

�� Blaise�s
voice sharpened, perhaps because he�d heard Draco�s snort and guessed what it
signified. �She passed that ambivalence on to me. I wanted some of the things
he promised, but then I learned about you, and�� He shrugged.

�� Draco spent
some time studying him before he nodded his head in acceptance. He couldn�t
think what goal Blaise could gain that would be worth the vulnerability of
exposing his emotions like this. Yes, he might still kill Draco, but there was
no Dark Lord around to reward him now, which would rather tend to cut down on
the motivation for that. �All right. And why didn�t you report me when you
learned what you did?� It was the most open way he was going to refer to his
relationship with Harry when he knew that other people were listening.

�� Blaise gave
him a narrow grin. �What? And potentially kill the friend I was going to so
much trouble to keep alive?�

��

�� Finally,
Draco allowed himself to return the smile. He still didn�t more than half-believe
Blaise, but circumstances seemed to indicate he was telling the truth, and that
was enough for now.

�� It was more
than enough, considering that Draco couldn�t see Harry yet no matter what and
Blaise had put himself at risk to give Draco this much comfort.

�� Draco
jumped down from his position on the chair. �Do you want to play chess?� he
asked.

�� Blaise
smiled before he could stop himself. He was an excellent chess-player and most
of Slytherin House refused to play with him now, knowing they would inevitably
suffer the humiliation of a defeat. Draco�s willingness to do this went a long
way towards making up for the dangers Blaise had incurred by putting himself at
risk.

�� Let me get
the board,� Blaise answered.

*

�� Harry
opened his eyes slowly. Then he remembered Dumbledore and Fawkes, and opened
them the whole way and tried to sit up.

�� Someone
held him down. Harry snarled and reached for his glasses with one hand and his
wand with the other. No one was going to keep him from fighting the way he thought
he needed to do.

�� Be still,�
said a familiar voice, and Harry paused with his heart beating wildly and his
memory slowly catching up with his actions. He sighed and lay down, but kept
one eye on the hand in the center of his chest�not that he could see it that
well without his glasses except as a huge fuzzy-edged blob.

�� Snape
slipped his glasses onto his face and leaned in to examine him minutely, eye to
eye. Harry swallowed in confusion and stared back at him, brow furrowing. He
wasn�t sure what he was supposed to say or how he was supposed to respond, but
he did know that Snape was making him
nervous.

�� You are
awake,� Snape said at last, �and there is no permanent damage to your mind or
your magic.� He leaned back in his chair and gave Harry a tiny nod. �Welcome
back,� he added, and it might have sounded like a sneer to anyone else�say, a student
watching from the door of the hospital wing.

�� But Harry could
feel the way that the hand in the center of his chest pressed down harder for a
moment.

�� He�s�he�s
gone?� Harry�s voice was hoarser than he would have thought it would be,
considering he didn�t think he�d been asleep for very long. He cleared his throat
in irritation and looked up at Snape, trying to understand his expression. But
Snape�s expression seemed purely for him, and Harry couldn�t tell from it what
was going on in the wider world.

�� He is,�
Snape confirmed. �And the news of Dumbledore�s death is out by now, as well.
McGonagall is dealing with the details.� His voice turned dry. �Of course, a
mob tried to surround you when we first brought you into the castle, but Madam
Pomfrey rather quickly dismissed them. I have been here since.�

�� I just bet
you have,� Harry muttered, thinking about the way Snape had seemed to delight
in having Harry all to himself when Harry was in the dungeons recovering from
the Entwining Potion.

�� What was
that?�

�� Nothing,�
Harry said hastily. �But if nothing is wrong with my mind and my magic, and
everything�s finally over, can I get out of this bed and go back to the Tower?
Ron and Hermione will be worried about me.� He lowered his voice. �And it will
be harder for Draco to visit me here.�

�� Certainly
not,� Snape said. �You were exhausted, and you will stay here until I am
certain you have fully recovered.�

�� Harry
sighed, having a good idea of what that meant. He lay back against the pillows
again, while Snape watched him as if he assumed Voldemort had left some curse
that would suddenly cause Harry to have problems breathing.

�� And then�he
couldn�t help it�Harry started to grin. He shook his head and rolled to the
side to suppress it, but it was there and it wouldn�t be fought, stretching
across his face as he began to laugh softly.

�� I suppose that
you will tell me what is so amusing when it occurs to you to do so,� Snape said
idly.

�� Sorry,
sir,� Harry murmured, snapping back into focus, but the grin stayed where it
was. �It�s just�I beat him. Well, Dumbledore helped me beat him,� he added,
throat thickening a little as he remembered the Headmaster�s sacrifice. �And
now he�s gone, and I don�t have to worry about him ever again.�

�� There are
still the Death Eaters,� Snape said repressively, but the pressure of his hand
on Harry�s chest said that he understood the sentiment.

�� I�m free,�
Harry told the ceiling, and closed his eyes. He thought that he might fall
asleep; surely his mind would be tired of feeling things that were less total
than freedom.

�� But he
remained awake and lively, and while he liked knowing that Snape was close, he
didn�t like the hand on his chest so much. He opened his eyes and looked at
Snape. �Can you take your hand away? It�s not as though I�m going to run away
with you right there.�

�� Snape didn�t
smile, as Harry had thought he might. He leaned over Harry and examined his
face closely. Then he said, �Will you feel comfortable removing the glamour
when the truth about us can emerge?�

�� Harry
blinked. �Uh, yes,� he said. He had been high on adrenaline when Snape had asked
him to remove the glamour last time, and not sure he would survive. It hadn�t
seemed like such a big request. But after that, he had pretty much known that
he would need to wear his �real� face if he lived.

�� Snape�s
face darkened for some reason. �If you are willing to remove it,� he asked,
voice a bit sharp, �why did you wear it in the first place?�

�� Harry
sighed. �Because I was in denial that you were my father first. Well, I mean, I
knew you were�I didn�t think the
letter I had from Mum would lie to me�but I didn�t want to consider it. And if
I left my face the way it was, then I knew someone would eventually notice. It
might not be you, but it would escape my control, and then I wouldn�t have a
choice about the way I lived and who I said my parents were.�

�� Snape
leaned over him like a hunting beast. Harry frowned up at him. He�s bloody lucky I�m used to him from
having him as a professor. If he�d been a stranger and did things like this, I�d
be scared out of my wits.

�� This
letter from Lily,� Snape said in a peculiarly quiet voice. �Do you still have
it?�

�� And suddenly
something Harry had assumed he would never have to confront was right there. He shut his eyes and
winced, wishing he could do something about the shallow air that seemed to have
invaded his lungs.

�� Yeah,� he
said at last. �I do. But�� Fear and remorse clogged his throat, and he stopped
speaking and waited.

�� But what?�
Snape�s voice had curved upwards, and Harry worried for a minute that someone
standing near the door of the hospital wing would hear them. But knowing Snape,
he had probably put up wards so they wouldn�t be surprised, and Harry needn�t
fear being eavesdropped on.

�� And he
couldn�t hope that someone would come in and save him from having to say it.

�� There was
a letter to you, too,� he whispered. �It didn�t have your name on it, but Mum told
me what it was in her letter to me. But even when I believed her, the thought
of you finding that and finding out about me was too horrible.�

�� Snape�s
hand pressed down more firmly again. Harry didn�t dare to open his eyes,
imagining that he would see his father looking ready to strangle him. He
flinched from his own imagination and continued in a hurried whisper, because now
that he had to say this, it was better to just do it and get it over with.

�� I tore
your letter up. I couldn�t�I couldn�t face it, and I didn�t think I would ever
be able to like you, and now it�s gone. I�m sorry.�

�� Silence,
and it continued until Harry knew he would have to end it one way or the other.
He opened his eyes.

�� Snape was
staring at the far wall. His eyes were half-shut and his expression was tight,
controlled. His hand hadn�t moved away from Harry or pressed down any further,
but Harry could read his tension in the line of his shoulders and the way his
robe hung around him like the wings of a dead bird.

�� I�m sorry,�
Harry whispered again.

�� Snape
seemed to collect himself, and turned back. �You could not have known,� he said
in a voice as controlled as his face. �If I had known at the time you found out��
He paused. �When was this?�

�� The summer
before my fifth year,� Harry muttered. �After Cedric died.�

�� Snape
nodded, but absently, as if the words weren�t really important to him. �If I
had known that,� he said, �I do not know that it would have made much
difference. I would have tried to claim you because of the importance of blood
to me, but it might have been disastrous.� He seemed to notice that he was
pushing down too hard and reluctantly pulled his hand back from Harry�s chest,
flexing the fingers as he went.

�� Still,� he
added in a musing voice, �I would have liked to have the letter.�

�� Harry
broke.

�� He reached
up before he thought about it and grabbed Snape�s hand, pulling it back to him
and holding it so hard that he felt Snape wince. But he couldn�t let go of it,
and he couldn�t stop the tears that were gathering around the edges of his
eyes, pushing at his eyelashes and stinging because he couldn�t let them fall.

�� I�m sorry,
so sorry,� he babbled. �I didn�t know, but I should have tried. It seems silly and selfish that I wanted to keep the secret.
I would always have been thinking about it. I would always have had to renew
the glamour. I couldn�t really live a good life, because I�d always be looking
at you and wondering what you were like as a father. And now I know, and you�re
a good one. At least to me. At least
you try. I�m sorry.�

�� Snape
curved an arm around his shoulders, delicately, as though he thought Harry
would break further. Or maybe because he didn�t really want to touch a son who
had hurt him like that, Harry thought guiltily, but he leaned against Snape and
shut his eyes nonetheless.

�� Hush,
Harry,� Snape whispered. �I know that you did not mean to cause me pain, and we
cannot be responsible forever for the decisions that we make when we are idiot
children.� His fingers moved through Harry�s hair, so gently that Harry went
limp in relief, because he knew now that Snape wasn�t angry enough to reject
him. �And as I said, we cannot know what would have happened if I had known at
once. Perhaps something worse than what we have now.� He hesitated, and his
voice was low when he continued. �You are happy now?�

�� Of course,� Harry muttered, and then hesitated.
There was one thing he thought he could do to partially make up for his mistake.

�� And he
wanted to do it. That was the amazing thing.

�� I�m happy
with you,� he said, and felt as though the word was still an enormous risk, so
big he couldn�t look Snape in the face when he said it, �Dad.�

�� Snape�s arm
tightened crushingly around him at once, and he bent closer, as if to shelter
Harry from all the evils of the world.

That was how Harry knew the risk
had been worth it.

*

puck: Thank you so much!

myniephoenix: Aw, thank you!

k lave demo: Thanks! You get more
than one chapter, though, because there are more loose ends to be tied up.

red713: I think a big, fancy duel
would have satisfied a part of Harry, but he partially go to do that earlier in
the story when he killed Bellatrix. And since Voldemort was pretty
insignificant to this story as a whole, I wanted to show that he was also
insignificant to Harry.

Sneakyfox: Thank you! Love was the
only weapon that would work against Voldemort in this scenario, I think, because
it was the lesson he really learned from Draco and Snape in the last few
months.

Madamdragom: Thank you.

Pernilla: I understand the feeling.
I�m conflicted between the need to finish the story and the happiness I have
when writing it.

Mia: Thank you so much. I feel like
I can never say enough to one of your reviews, but this one was especially beautiful.

polka dot: Other than Dumbledore�s
death, yes, pretty painless.

Lady_of_Clunn: Yes, I have Harry
looking forward to the time when he can put his secrets down at last.

KienaBeana: There�s so much more to
say! I think ending with the battle would have undermined the impression I was
trying to make, which is that Harry learned much more than how to fight
Voldemort.

SP777: I�m not offended at all,
though the reference I would use would be different. I do try to use my writing
to make people understand how the characters feel, so I�m glad that succeeded.

Eventually, but it�s too dangerous
right now.

Ganesha: I borrowed your
suggestion! Well, I did plan to have Snape find out, but in a scene told rather
than shown. I think this works better, though.

anciie: Yes and no. This is the climax
of the story, but I don�t think the battle with Voldemort was what everything
was building towards.
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Practicing Liars