Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five—The Taste of Ashes
            Malfoy Manor was easy to Apparate to, popping up in front of Harry the minute after he had whirled around. For a moment, he hoped that meant his memory was returning. He must have Apparated there often if he was working with Malfoy a lot and writing to him often enough to call him Draco!
            But then, as he took a step towards the gates and they swung open, he felt a shock of unpleasant strangeness. The grounds behind the gates looked different than he had seen them when Greyback and the other Snatchers dragged him over them. They were almost all composed of gardens now, not grass, with strange spiky plants and rambling flowers overrunning stone benches that had runes carved into them. And there were no peacocks in sight.
            I’m remembering it the way it was ten years ago.
            Harry bowed his head and walked briskly up the path. He didn’t think standing there for a long time was a good idea, not when the gates were creaking threateningly next to him and swaying back and forth with no wind to push them.
            The front doors of the Manor had changed, too, although Harry had to admit his memory of them was a little hazier. These were made of some kind of wood Harry didn’t recognize, silvery and shimmering. It had dark veins in it. As Harry stood looking dubiously at it, the doors opened and hung there as if inviting him in.
            Maybe Malfoy thinks they are, Harry thought, snorting a little in spite of himself, and stepped in. The doors closed at once, and left Harry in a quiet, cool hall with wavering torches just springing to life.
            “Master Potter. Welcome back.”
            The house-elf’s voice was as deep and quiet as the hall. Harry started as he turned around. This elf was a tall one, with grey eyes that Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen on a house-elf before.
            No. I have, but I don’t remember it. Just like everything else.
            Harry shook his head. “I don’t know if Malfoy told you, but I don’t remember anything,” he said. “I woke up in hospital with all my memories of the past ten years lost.”
            The elf seemed to half-smile. “Master was telling me so,” he said calmly. “I is greeting you for myself.” He held out his arms, and Harry shrugged out of his cloak to deposit it in the elf’s arms, staring all the while. Malfoy had decided he could employ house-elves with their own minds?
            At least that makes him different from his father.
            “Master Malfoy is waiting in his study,” the elf added over his shoulder as he ducked into a cupboard and hung the cloak up. “Master Potter is to be following me.” He started across the gleaming floor, which, if it was tiled, was covered with a material Harry had never seen before, either, as rich and silky as the doors.
            I wonder if I used to know the names of all these materials. I wonder if I was used to this, once.
            With his skin prickling, Harry followed the house-elf around several corners and past arched doorways that seemed to lead to bigger rooms. The door they finally stood in front of was arched, too, but small. The elf knocked firmly, and then waited, listening, until the door swung open. If he heard something, it was too soft for Harry’s ears.
            The room beyond was all red, done in a dusky shade that made Harry think of the Gryffindor common room only second, and spilled blood first. And it didn’t have any gold, anyway. It had brown stones on the fireplace and thick, squashy chairs in a kind of subdued red-grey. The curtains on the single window, to the left, were black and pulled mostly shut.
            Malfoy stood in the middle of the room, holding a glass tumbler of sapphire-blue liquid that he started at intently, not acknowledging Harry as he paused awkwardly in the doorway.
            Harry blinked slowly. In the middle of all this strange house and with the strange elf who bowed in front of him and then left, Malfoy was the only thing that looked the same. Oh, he had his hair pulled back in a severe style Harry supposed he hadn’t seen before—
            Or I probably have, but I don’t remember it.
            --but otherwise, he was the man Harry had known in school. He was still pointy and pale and he turned to face Harry with the same raised eyebrow and superior sneer threatening the edges of his mouth. Harry felt his own face growing hot in retaliation.
            “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Malfoy whispered, placing the tumbler on a table next to him, “that I finally had to coax you to me instead of you coming on your own.”
            “I have no idea what I was writing to you about,” Harry said. Be blunt with everyone who wasn’t a friend, he thought. That way, it was their own fault if they thought he ought to be friendlier or accommodating or something. “I did find one letter that said I wanted a potion to be a better person. Did that really have something to do with it?”
            Malfoy closed his eyes, but it seemed to be a gesture of impatience more than anything else. The next instant, his eyes were open, and he was stalking around the table. “I suppose it only makes sense to have the same conversations over again,” he said.
            Harry let his wand fall into his hand. He couldn’t remember his Auror training, but they trusted him enough to carry his wand. Well, he was sure he still knew how to duel.
            Malfoy’s face smoothed down as he stopped and regarded Harry. Then he shook his head. “You know I won’t hurt you.”
            “Assume I’m exactly the same person who fought Voldemort ten years ago,” Harry said, and to his immense satisfaction, Malfoy still flinched as if Voldemort was a monster under his bed. “Because I am.”
            Malfoy placed his fingers together. “Then I must mourn the loss not only of time, but of some valuable experimental results.”
            “If you have your memories or your records of what the potion did to me, why can’t you just use those?” Harry demanded irritably. He lowered his wand, but he didn’t put it away. He still didn’t know what Malfoy was doing, exactly.
            “Because so much of what the potion did went on in the heart and mind,” said Malfoy. “And it was an ongoing process.” For some reason, half his mouth curled up in a smile, but only half. “There was so much only you could tell me. Though you were a stubborn bastard about doing it, I’ll give you that.” He moved casually away in the direction of the tumbler again.
            “Then I don’t know why you called me here.” Harry didn’t like this place. For a study, it seemed strange. It didn’t have books, and the dark-red atmosphere of the room was enough to make him feel stuffy and stifled. “Was it just to make sure that I really didn’t have any of my memories left?”
            Malfoy turned slightly to stare at him. “I knew that.”
            “What, then?” Harry folded his arms. Yes, he was hot. He turned to the left and focused his gaze straight ahead on the black curtains, hoping they would help him cool down. “It seems to me you should be happy you’re rid of the bastard I was. It doesn’t sound like I helped you much.”
            Malfoy spun so hard that Harry thought he was spinning to Apparate out, despite the heavy presence of spells that would prevent someone from doing that. But he just came to a stop facing Harry, with his robes swaying around him.
            “Is that what you think?” Malfoy whispered. “What sort of person was your old self, then?”
            Harry thought about mentioning his own suspicions of blackmail, but Malfoy might not have known about that, and Harry’s honesty could be limited. He settled for shrugging. “Not pleasant,” he said finally, when Malfoy’s fingers started tapping on his hip. “Overdramatic. Thoughtless about some things. Secretive. What was he corresponding with you about?”
            Malfoy lowered his head and gave Harry a smile that had secrets of its own in it. “I’ll tell you that if you let me cast a spell to estimate the state of your mind right now.”
            “What about the state of my mind?” There was no doubt about it, prickles of sweat were starting to life under Harry’s robe collar. Harry pondered whether he should show that and try to be more comfortable, or stand straight and strong in front of Malfoy. For now, strength won, but barely. “Can it tell you what my thoughts are?”
            Malfoy shook his head. “It lets me see what you value, what your priorities are, what you’re worrying and dreaming about. It’s a Seer’s spell, of a sort. It was developed long ago by wizards who wanted a means of guessing what their enemies would do next.”
            Harry half-smiled himself. “Then we’re still enemies. Thanks for confirming that.”
            “I would describe us as—colleagues. Theoretical colleagues. Working together to discover some of the most important secrets in magic.” Malfoy nodded as if that made sense and laid his hand on the table next to the tumbler again. “Will you let me do the spell?”
            Harry thought about it. He wondered what Malfoy would see, if he would see anything, whether this was worth it when Ginny must be worrying where he was and maybe even calling Healers.
            In the end, it was the time issue that decided him. He had only meant this to be a short conversation with Malfoy, not a long one. He looked at him and nodded.
            “Good,” Malfoy said, a tension going out of his shoulders that Harry hadn’t known he felt. He moved forwards and flicked his wand. A crystal bowl, small enough that it fit into his palm, appeared in his free hand.
            Harry looked at it, picturing Malfoy clapping it around his ear and draining the life out of him. “What does that do?”
            “It holds the impressions, the way a Pensieve holds memories,” Malfoy murmured. His gaze on Harry was intent and fascinated. “Shhh.” He twisted the bowl to the side and spoke another spell, which was probably the one he had told Harry about.
            Harry didn’t memorize the incantation. He wasn’t sure he heard it, with his eyes so steadily on Malfoy’s. Malfoy had eyes that looked as strange a grey as the odd house-elf’s in the limited light. Harry wondered what he would do when he saw Harry’s priorities.
            Maybe he could understand them better than Harry did himself. Even Harry wasn’t sure whether he most wanted to find out the secrets of his past or avoid them, become the man Ginny had loved or stop being him if he had been so horrible.
            The small crystal dish flared with light. Harry blinked, but Malfoy didn’t scold him for interrupting the spell. It must have been done. Malfoy only moved away, and cast another spell, one that made the dish turn dark as if filled with swelling shadows.
            Harry watched the shadows cover the light and rotate. Then Malfoy lifted the dish to his lips and sucked up the contents. Harry shuddered. It was an eerie sight, because the light continued to gleam through the skin of Malfoy’s throat as it disappeared down it.
            “Well?”
            Malfoy held up one finger. His eyes were closed, his mouth still working as he swallowed. Harry folded his arms. From too hot, the inside of the study had become almost too cold.
            It seemed like fifteen minutes until Malfoy opened his eyes, but the stubborn clock on the wall recorded only five. Then he turned and nodded to Harry. “I was collaborating with you on a
potion that would make it possible for you to restrain your baser impulses.”
            Harry scratched his cheek, scowling. “I don’t think wanting to cause other people harm is as simple as a baser impulse. Or keeping secrets all the time.”
            “There are different kinds of impulses,” Malfoy said. His voice and face were both shadowed as he turned and moved away towards the fireplace, and Harry again shivered. It was like listening to a voice speaking out of the cave. “Perhaps I should have said that these are base, not baser. You sought something that would change the very foundation of your character. You had grown sick of what you were, what you were doing.” He cast Harry a sly glance over his shoulder.
            At least, it looked sly. Harry turned away himself this time. The black curtains revealed a glimpse of sunlight beyond them, and reminded him that not all the world was as dark as Malfoy’s study. “Then I thought these were huge problems.”
            “You did,” Malfoy said. Calm. Sadistic, maybe. But Harry thought it was likelier Malfoy just didn’t care about him or his problems that much. “Still, it was an interesting case. You were convinced that certain things you did—such as colleting secrets for blackmail—was wrong, but you couldn’t seem to refrain from doing them.”
            Harry closed his eyes. So it had been blackmail, and Malfoy knew about it. He wasn’t sure which confirmation was worse. “What else did I tell you I wanted to stop doing?”
            “Looking with desire at other people besides your girlfriend. Feeling the impulse to torture wizards who had tortured or murdered others. Whether or not you did that, I don’t know,” Malfoy added, before Harry could ask. “I’ll only say that no hint of it ever made its way into the papers. Instead, they praised you for your mercy.”
            Harry would once have been happy that he’d learned to lie to the papers. Then maybe they would leave him alone. But it sounded like he hadn’t done that. Instead, he had made them think that he was just the sort of celebrity they had always dreamed he was.
            Why? I don’t understand this. I can’t imagine talking about dating Ginny in front of all those people, or sleeping with men, or laughing along at reporters’ jokes. What happened?
            That was probably one of the things Malfoy couldn’t tell him. Harry turned to face him and injected casualness back into his voice. “Anything else?”
            Malfoy had retreated into shadow. The firelight gleamed only on his hands, ablaze with silver rings, as he picked up the tumbler and turned it back and forth. “Yes, as a matter of fact. You said that you sometimes terrified people. On purpose.”
            Harry shook his head a little. “Are you talking about when I wanted to torture people? Or something else?” He sort of dreaded thinking what in the world “something else” might refer to, but he had to know.
            Ginny and all the other people who had loved the old Harry had only known half of his life. Or a portion of it. Harry had to wonder how many secrets were out there that even Malfoy hadn’t known.
            Malfoy moved a step closer. His eyes were intense enough that Harry shivered and glanced away. “Not the torture. You spoke about the torture as a separate problem, and never as if you had done it, that I know of. You only felt the impulse.”
            “That’s as bad as doing it.”
            Malfoy laughed, the sound hollow. “Speaks someone who never lived with the Dark Lord in his house.”
            “I had him in my head,” said Harry. “That was enough.” He turned around and saw Malfoy staring at him, but there wasn’t time to figure out what the cause was. “Tell me what you mean. I let you look into my mind, and you said you would tell me what I wanted the potion for.”
            Malfoy studied him one moment more, then nodded, then glanced aside as if he wanted Harry to look at his profile for some reason. “You used to go to Diagon Alley at night and frighten people on purpose. You used illusions for some of it, I know. And you pretended to be in danger more than once. I think a few of those stories for the papers were made up. You said you liked hearing the screams when people were afraid for you.”
            Harry bowed his head. He felt the sick truth of that slamming into him, ripping through any of the excuses he might have managed to use that would say his old self wasn’t guilty in the sense Malfoy was painting him.
            But no. There was no way to pretend that, not any more. And instead of worrying about how he would live up to the man his friends and Ginny remembered, Harry had to wonder what else he had done that was even worse.
            “He shouldn’t have come to you for a potion,” Harry said harshly, digging his hands into his robe pockets. “He should have bloody controlled himself. He must not have really wanted to change, or he would have managed it.”
            Malfoy jumped as though someone had stabbed him with lightning. Harry stared at him. “What?” he added, when Malfoy didn’t seem disposed to part with the information.
            “That’s exactly what I told him,” Malfoy whispered. He sounded light-headed. “Why the potion didn’t work despite repeated experiments. Until the will existed to change, the potion couldn’t help him.” He moved towards Harry, staring at his face as if Harry was hiding all the secrets of the world behind his eyes. “How did you know that?”
            “It’s obvious,” Harry said. “He shouldn’t have come to you in the first place. He should have—” He shook his head again. “It’s sort of like not being able to remember you drank, and only having a hangover,” he muttered. “He was the one who had all the fun, and I’m the one left to clean up his mess.”
            “Potter,” Malfoy breathed.
            Harry couldn’t look at him. “Send me an accounting of what I owe you, if I still do. Good-bye, Malfoy.”
            He strode off, barely remembering to stop at the cupboard near the door and grab his cloak. The strange house-elf appeared again and tried to help him on with it, but Harry brushed past him and out the door, shaking his head.
            The air beyond Malfoy Manor was clean, full of the smell and sound of rain. Harry walked through it without attempting an Impervious Charm until he reached the point where he could Apparate.
            Maybe, somehow, that was the first beginning of the purification he would have to try to do.
*
starr: Yes, the old Harry was pretty bad. But he wasn’t sleeping with Malfoy.
moon: Thanks. Although I can promise there’ll be more angst before the rebuilding is really possible.
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Dust of Water