Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Acts of Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21189 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thanks again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five—Visiting
Harry pulled his cloak tighter about him and thought he could do with a Warming Charm. But reaching for a wand would only make the Aurors—paranoid and suspicious in the first place about admitting him, even though he’d been visiting Malfoy for three months—protest. Instead, he leaned on the prow of the boat and stared ahead, at the isle of Azkaban slowly growing closer.
            Apparating had been restricted so much on the island that the only true method of getting there was by boat. Or broom, Harry supposed, but, lifting his head, he could see the reason no one wanted to do that either.
            Dementors swarmed and swayed around the sky, confined within a circle that extended perhaps a mile out from Azkaban. Harry didn’t know how the Ministry had actually gained control of them again; he hadn’t been part of the group called on to help with that.
            He only hoped that it hadn’t been because the Ministry had promised the Dementors more souls.
            Frowning, Harry gazed ahead at the rocky shore. The waves crashed over it and then fell back again and again like the desperately gasping hands of someone tumbling off a cliff.
            He sighed through his nose a second later. Most of the time, he wouldn’t have thought in such bleak or depressing terms, but it was hard not to when the gloom of the prison was all around him.
            A stealthy movement caught Harry’s eye. A Dementor was trying to sweep towards them just above the sea. It was hovering almost flat, mingling the edges of its ragged robes with the edges of the sea-foam.
            Harry had no time for this, especially when he was already in a bad mood after the trial yesterday. He drew his wand and aimed it, giving the Dementor a chance. It just sneaked closer instead. One of the Aurors maintaining the enchantment that kept the boat moving was already standing, shivering, his eyes shut.
            “Expecto Patronum,” Harry snapped, his mind filled with the way Ron and Hermione had hugged him yesterday.
            The silvery stag charged directly through the side of the boat and across the foam, at the Dementor. It tried to rise above the water, but the stag chased it even there, and stabbed its antlers directly into the Dementor’s chest. Harry liked to imagine he could hear it screaming as it flew away, back to the circle the Ministry had confined it in.
            None of the Aurors had jumped on him this time. Harry slid the wand back into his sleeve and ignored the mutter of “assaulting the Ministry’s rightful guards.” If the Ministry didn’t want people using Patronuses on Dementors when they came here, they should do a better job of keeping Dementors away from innocent victims in the first place.
            And yes, Harry knew he was moody and snappish and not feeling as cheerful as he tried to be when he was here, if only for Malfoy’s sake. But yesterday had really, really soured his mood.
            It was almost a relief to feel the boat bump into the shore and see the few guards permanently stationed here come hurrying out to greet them.
*
            Draco was curled around a ball of misery.
            He pictured that, constantly, the way that it would appear in front of him and cover his belly. If he curled around it, then he could hold it there and keep it from drifting away. It was the only defense he had against the Dementors, and the way they would force him to relive his happy memories and then take them.
            The other defense was his memory of Potter’s visits—
            No. There was movement outside his cell, and it was a drifting. That meant it was a Dementor. Draco curled up harder, and shivered. He tried to remember the dead way that his father had accepted a sentence back in Azkaban for five years, and the way his mother had closed her eyes when she heard that. Not the way his mother had been released to house arrest. That was a time when he had felt relieved and happy. He mustn’t—
            Too late. The Dementor was at the door, and Draco moaned as he felt the memories being dragged out of him. It was cold. Too cold to hang onto the ball of misery, and his arms were falling open and back against the floor, and he was lying back and staring at the ceiling, and his breath drifted up in front of him—
            “Expecto Patronum!”
            Draco gasped aloud as the cold abruptly disappeared, and the silver stag stampeded past him and vanished through the far wall. He rolled over and sat up. His breath was normal, his muscles were relaxed and warm, and he reached a hand through the bars without hesitation. His father might despise Draco if he saw this, but his father was in some cell far away, and he would never know.
            Potter took his hand and held it. “Hey,” he said quietly, his eyes on Draco’s face. Draco had no idea what he was seeing there. He was too busy drinking in the colors that Potter had, even though his cloak was dark and his robes didn’t look much better. Even his pale face was different than the grey Draco had to see all the time. And his hair…
            Potter patiently bowed his head so Draco could reach up and curl his fingers through the rich dark hair. He had never asked why Draco wanted to do that. He just did it, and then he sat back and smiled worriedly at Draco.
            “Hey,” he repeated. “What would you like to talk about this time?”
            “You’re frowning more than you’re smiling,” said Draco instantly. “Why?” Potter had tried to avoid talking about things he thought might “upset” Draco in his first visits, but to Draco, even politics and gossip were like wine. It was human. It didn’t leave him caged in his own head.
            Potter sighed. “I feel bad talking about this when you’re the one who’s in the much worse situation.”
            Draco shook Potter’s hand tightly through the bars. It was the only thing he could say, now, about how much Potter’s news meant to him. If he was going to go back to apologizing for “distressing” things and only talk about things in vague terms…
            “Right, you’re right,” said Potter, with a smile that made Draco think he did remember those conversations, after all. “So. There was a trial for Pansy Parkinson.” He gave Draco a single searching glance.
            “I remember her wanting to surrender you to the Dark Lord,” said Draco at once. He knew what that glance was about.
            Potter nodded. “Well, they were trying her on that, on charges of depressing morale in Hogwarts, even though I’d said that I wanted the charges about doing something against me dropped.” He took a deep breath. “They’d called me to testify yesterday. Why, I didn’t know. They’d made it clear they didn’t really care about anything I had to say. But I went and talked about why I thought I could forgive her and it was stress. We’d never been enemies. Not even as bad as you and I were.”
            Draco shivered. He didn’t like thinking of the times he had turned against Potter or argued with him, not now. Not here.
            Potter seemed to realize it, and squeezed Draco’s hand once before rapidly passing on. “Well, the Wizengamot decided to send her to Azkaban for three months.” He stared down the corridor. “For nothing. She didn’t fight in the battle, on either side. She didn’t even participate in the torture that the Carrows made some of the Slytherins do your seventh year, because she wasn’t any good at casting the torture spells. That was what all the witnesses said.”
            He turned back to Draco. “Two of the Wizengamot members who are more sympathetic to me explained it afterwards. They said that the ones who voted to send her to prison did it as a message to me. Because they’re worried about my ‘growing political power,’ and they wanted to show me I couldn’t get everything I asked for.” Potter gave a snort that made him sound like an Abraxan. “Even those Wizengamot members thought I should be ‘more careful.’ Not ‘give them a reason to hate me.’”
            Potter bowed his head and shut his eyes. “So Parkinson’s going to be in prison here because of me. Because of things I didn’t even think about and consequences I didn’t intend.”
            Draco held steadily to Potter’s hand, unable to think of what to say. He felt sorry for Pansy, and irritated at Potter for misunderstanding some of those consequences, and sorry for himself, too. His emotions were frequently all over the place when Potter visited, though.
            “Then you know what you need to do,” he said.
            Potter blinked at him. “A daring midnight rescue? That’s what Ron suggested, and he doesn’t even like Pansy.”
            Draco was surprised into a chuckle in spite of himself. “No. Work on understanding and countering their moves so that this doesn’t happen again.”
            Potter exhaled softly, his eyes on the distance now. “You’re right. I had thought, maybe I’ll never understand enough to anticipate all their moves…but if I think that, then I’ll never do anything at all, for fear of what they’ll try.” He turned back and gave Draco a small smile. “And that will let them win the same way.”
            Draco nodded, his veins flushed and filled with a mixture of sweetness and warmth. It was like drinking the kind of Yule wine that his parents only had once a year and sometimes let him sip. “Exactly. There are a few things I can suggest that might help.”
            Potter cuddled closer to the bars, looking annoyed when he came up against them and realized they still formed a barrier between him and Draco. “Tell me more.”
            Draco felt his imagination soaring as he outlined his plans to Potter, and Potter argued back and nodded and sometimes merely looked thoughtful. It wouldn’t get Draco out of Azkaban any sooner. But it did mean that he could play a part in useful life beyond Azkaban, and it kept him from feeling as though he had been left behind by everyone he knew here.
            A small comfort to clutch against the darkness, maybe, after Potter left.
            But a vital one.
*
            Harry leaned again on the side of the boat, this time watching Azkaban grow smaller behind him. He ignored the Dementors swirling above. They were keeping a wary distance from the boat, anyway.
            Malfoy was right. Giving up in despair wasn’t an option. Not only would that gratify his enemies and make sure they won, but Malfoy himself was struggling under the pressure of a despair much greater, and he hadn’t given up.
            Harry tightened his hands on the side of the boat again. He knew that most of the Aurors with him—ones he didn’t know and who hadn’t been in attendance at Malfoy’s trial, ones who seemed selected to make sure they wouldn’t “favor” either Harry or Malfoy by letting him stay too long—were staring at him. He didn’t care.
            Malfoy was right. And, at the moment, brave. Harry owed it to him to listen to him.
            If his weekly visits played their part in keeping Malfoy alive and sane…
            Well, that was something Harry was glad he could do, that was all. He sat up and gave the Dementors one more cool glance.
            He couldn’t stop Parkinson from going to Azkaban either, perhaps. But he could do what was necessary to change the future.
*
Madam_Weasley: Thank you!
Kain: Yes, I think that in general, the emotions of family members should be allowed to matter, but not in the verdict. As Harry says, what matters is that they did something wrong, not who they did it to. Otherwise, it starts to seem as though certain victims—say, of a certain race or age—matter more than others.
Sorry I didn’t show you Lucius’s trial, but it will be referred to a few times in coming chapters.
I am feeling somewhat better. Thanks for the good wishes.
starr: You see some of what the Weasleys think in the coming chapters.
ChaosLady: Thank you!
SP777: No, I worked in academia. But your suggestion isn’t a bad idea.
Yes, I do.
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Acts of Life