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Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Fifty-Five—Family Politics
            “I want to know what the hell you were thinking.”
            Harry sighed and leaned back against the thickest, most comfortable chair in the library of Grimmauld Place. He hadn’t been wounded again during the encounter at the Ministry, of course, but he had walked into the house, and Kreacher had taken one look and squeaked in disapproval. “Master Harry Potter’s shoulders are being tense,” he’d said, and shoved Harry into the chair and a muscle-relaxing potion into Harry’s hands.
            With the potion down his throat, Harry could admit he had been tense. Maybe that was responsible for the soreness in his shoulder; maybe it was the lingering pain from the wound he had received in the battle with the Spiders. But either way, he felt better now, holding a glass of Firewhisky instead of the potion and with Ron opposite from him in the chair.
            Harry would have felt even better if he could have had Draco with him, but Draco had known without asking that Harry needed to be left alone with Ron, and he had departed with nothing more than a light touch to Harry’s shoulder blade.
            “I wasn’t thinking as deeply as I needed to,” Harry said wearily, and took another swig of the Firewhisky. “I just wanted the Ministry to leave me alone. And I knew it wasn’t going to happen as long as I felt able to go back.”
            Ron had been lifting his own glass to his lips, but he lowered it and frowned at Harry. “I thought you were going to say as long as Robards was in charge.”
            Harry waved a hand. “No. I know the reasons that I kept filling in for all those other Aurors and leaping six feet in the air whenever Robards said jump, and it had more to do with me than anyone else. I know full well that I wanted to make people like me and make up for my fame. Sometimes people said that was an unfair advantage and that was the only reason I got into the Aurors. I wanted to prove it wasn’t.”
            Ron’s scowl grew darker. “No one has said that for years. Not where I could hear them, at least.”
            Harry nodded. “Which only proves how stupid it was. I’d earned my place in the Aurors, and sometimes my fame caused problems, too, but it helped just as many times. I should have been able to demand holidays and basic considerations just like anyone else. But I didn’t. I kept acting like the only reason I was there was to fill in for people. Can I really blame Robards if he took me at my word? So I did something that would cut all my ties with the Aurors and make it impossible for me to go back even if I wanted to.” He took another large swallow of Firewhisky, glad that the bloody Azkaban Potion was out of his system and he could drink all he wanted. “And yeah, Robards and the Aurors who kept asking me to fill in for them were bloody annoying, but I could have told them to go hang a long time ago if I was convinced I was worth anything. It took Draco to make me realize that.” He glanced affectionately at the doorway Draco had walked through.
            “Why was he the one who could make you see that you were being stupid and we couldn’t?” Ron asked his drink.
            Harry sighed and turned back. He had been afraid this would come up, but just because he was afraid was no reason not to answer. “Because he was an outsider, someone whose word I could trust—”
            He did have to break off snickering at the look on Ron’s face. “Yes, I could trust him,” he said. “Not because he was inherently more trustworthy than you lot, but because I accepted what you said without believing in it. The way that you know Rosie wanted comments on her art from someone who wasn’t you or Hermione or one of her aunts or uncles, because she knew that we would all say that we loved it?”
            Ron grumbled, but settled back in his chair. “Are these his words I’m hearing now?” he asked, gesturing back and forth with his drink between him and Harry. “Is he the one who thought this up and told it to you?”
            Harry shook his head. “I haven’t phrased this to him at all so far.” Ron seemed to swell with pride, and Harry smiled back at him. “I do need you, Ron. You and Hermione and all the Weasleys. I’d never want to abandon you.”
            Ron nodded like someone who could be convinced. “You couldn’t talk with us about what you said about the Aurors, though? Before you did it?”
            “I was afraid that you would talk me out of it.” Harry swirled the Firewhisky, then downed another gulp of it. “And then I wouldn’t come up with something to cut the ties between me and the Ministry, and I might go running back the next time Robards called.”
            “I could have protected you,” Ron said, and leaned towards Harry. “If you don’t want to leave us behind, then stop doing it.”
            Harry winced, then grinned a little. “I probably deserved that.”
            “You did.” Ron tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “But I don’t understand why you have Malfoy move in with you and suddenly you’re doing everything differently. Quitting the Aurors. Revealing all those things that we’ve agreed to never talk about. Yelling at Robards.”
            “Treating my children better,” Harry pointed out. “Having a real chance to get Ginny to see that I wasn’t cheating on her. Talking more honestly to you and Molly and Hermione and the rest about the kids than I have in years.”
            Ron hesitated, then shrugged. “Fine. But I still would have liked some warning, you know? It made it really awkward, with people coming up to me and asking what you were going to do next and why you’d told everyone those things, and no one believing me when I said that I didn’t know. I’d been your partner, I must know.”
            Ron was smiling when he said it, and a few months ago, maybe even a few weeks ago, Harry would have bought the smile. But now he could see the pain in Ron’s eyes, and he leaned over to punch his shoulder. “Sorry, mate. I really didn’t think about that. I thought you’d be getting trouble because of being my partner when I quit, but this must be a lot worse.”
            “It is.” Ron took a deep breath and stared off to the side. “And that doesn’t even count the conversations I have with Hermione, now.”
            Harry blinked, thrown. He had assumed that Hermione would be upset about what he’d said, too, since some people would always think the whole Ministry was evil, and she had to work with the Ministry, too. “What do you mean?”
            “She didn’t know about those things that you mentioned, mate.” Ron’s voice was muffled, and he put his hand over his mouth a second later, as though he hadn’t meant to say that. But when Harry only went on staring at him, he sighed and lowered his hand. “She says that I should have told her that Aurors were doing horrible things like that. That I was doing horrible things like that. Then we could have changed them together.”
            Harry had to nod despite himself. Yes, that was exactly the sort of thing Hermione would say. But he had still thought she would mostly be angry at him, not Ron.
            “It’s enough to make me wonder if I ought to resign from the Aurors, too.” Ron scowled at the floor. “It’s not nearly as much fun with you gone, and now people are going to distrust me because I came along with you today.”
            “I wish I hadn’t told you to come,” Harry muttered. Things had gone so smoothly at the Ministry that he didn’t think he’d needed as much protection. He’d wanted Ron with him, but that was a different thing. “Sorry.”
            “No,” Ron said, and Harry blinked and looked up. Ron was glaring at him. “Don’t you get it? Being your best mate was always more important to me than being an Auror. I thought you understood that.”
            Harry felt all the words stick in his throat. He just reached out and tried to crush Ron’s wrist to death with his grip instead. Ron wrung his hand when he drew it back from Harry’s hold, but he looked pleased, too.
            “I do now,” Harry said.
            Ron nodded. “So I’m thinking of quitting. But then I don’t know what I would do next.”
            “I’ve been thinking of setting up a business,” said Harry. “Once all the Spiders were captured and I was finally done with the Ministry. A place people could go to learn advanced Defense spells that they weren’t taught at Hogwarts.” He looked at Ron. “Or maybe a place where we could do some investigative work on our own at an affordable price. Those cases that Aurors are too high and mighty look into. I wasn’t thinking about that when I didn’t have a partner, because Draco’s not trained in that kind of thing, but you are.”
            Ron’s grin was slow, like sunrise, the way it had always been. He reached out and clasped Harry’s hand again. Then they shook, and Harry knew this was the beginning of something new and beautiful.
            “It’s still a lot of time and trouble that I didn’t have to go through,” Ron finally said, pulling his hand back, “if you had only trusted me enough to tell me.”
            “It wasn’t me not trusting you. It was me being impatient.”
            Ron thought about that, then nodded. “Fine. But I’m just going to hope that Malfoy can keep you from being that impatient in the future.”
            Harry snorted, thinking of the way that Draco had insisted Harry hold still while he bound Harry’s wounds from the fight with the Spiders. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
*
            “Daddy? Can I ask you a question?”
            Harry had been going over some documents he’d owled Gringotts for, trying to figure out how much money he still had in his vaults and how much he would have to earn in the next few months to survive and support his kids, but he put them down gladly when he saw Lily peering around the doorframe into the library. “Of course, Lils. What’s up?”
            Lily came in hesitantly, and stood in front of him with her hands clasped so tightly that it looked like her knuckles hurt. Harry reached out, and she came and leaned against him, sighing, her head on his shoulder.
            “How long is Mr. Malfoy going to stay with you?” she asked into his hair. Before Harry could say anything, she rushed on, “I mean, I like him okay, but I thought—I thought you and Mum were going to be together forever, and you weren’t.”
            Harry winced from the bitter regret that rushed through him, but that regret didn’t have much to do with Lily. He tightened his arms around her and whispered, “I think I can promise you that we’ll be together for a long time.”
            Lily pulled back and stared at him. Harry had the distinct impression that that hadn’t been what she was expecting to hear. “But—you didn’t say forever,” she said, and pointed one finger at him, as if he might correct his error if someone did that. “You didn’t say forever.”
            “Because I don’t think I should promise that anymore,” Harry said. Lily blinked, and he wondered if he was being too honest with her, but he didn’t think so. Draco had treated her in a more adult way than Harry would, when he was discussing the characteristics that might get her Sorted into Slytherin at Hogwarts, and Harry wanted to be consistent with Draco if they were going to be parents together. “I don’t know for sure. But I want to stay with him, and we’re going to discuss things and not have fights like your mum and I did. I can promise you that.”
            Lily stood there silent for so long that Harry thought she might retreat. But she didn’t, and finally she sighed and muttered, “It would be better if you could promise.”
            Harry kissed the top of her head. “I know. Sorry.”
            He didn’t know what else to say after that, or if Lily needed him to say anything. They stood silent and together for a little while before she nodded and slipped away from him. “Will you tell me if you’re going to break up with him?” she whispered, looking at the wall now instead of him, her cheeks red. “Because I want to know so that I can say goodbye.”
            “I would let you know right away,” Harry said. “And I’m sure Draco would let you know, too.” He found it hard to comprehend a future where Draco left him willingly, but then again, he would have found it hard, three months ago, to comprehend a future where Draco was so important to him.
            Lily relaxed a little. “Good,” she said. “I just don’t want him to leave like Mum did.” She kissed Harry on the cheek and ran out of the room to go back to whatever she had been doing.
            Harry was still looking after her when Draco walked into the library and halted, one eyebrow rising. “Did you have an argument again?” he asked, looking around as though he would see the ghost of Lily’s anger hanging on the wall like a picture. “Do you want me to go after her and talk to her?”
            Harry shook his head and managed a little smile. “No. It’s okay. She just wanted to know if there was any chance that we would break up. She didn’t want you to leave like Ginny did, without a chance to say goodbye to you.”
            “Miss Weasley left without saying goodbye to them?” Draco’s eyes were suddenly blank, and he sat down across from Harry with unnecessary force. “Any of them?”
            Harry sighed and rubbed his face. “No, she did. Anyway, she still lives with Lily and takes care of her a lot of the time.”
            “I noticed that Lily has spent the last several days with you.”
            “Because Ginny had to get away to understand herself,” Harry said, and held up a hand when Draco opened his mouth. “I don’t want to listen to a tirade against Ginny, all right? I know that what she did wasn’t right. But she gave me the kids, and I did a lot that was wrong, too, and there’s no reason to go on blaming her.”
            Draco simply nodded. “But that doesn’t explain why Lily needed to ask that question.”
            “She just had no idea that we were going to get divorced,” said Harry. “She hates yelling.” Now that he understood that, he could more easily envision Lily tucking herself under her pillow and refusing to listen to what her parents were saying to each other. It was another reason she had been so surprised by the divorce, Harry was sure. “She doesn’t want to be caught by surprise if we break up.”
            “She won’t be,” Draco said. “I would always pause to tell her goodbye.” He reached out and caught Harry’s hand. “In case of the impossible idea that we would break up.”
            Harry smiled at him. “Thanks.”
            “How did Weasley take it?” Draco asked, with a line carved around the edge of his mouth that made Harry sure he was changing the subject so he wouldn’t rant about Ginny.
            Harry told him about Ron wanting to possibly join them in their new job, whatever it was, and watched Draco’s eyes brighten. “I always heard good things about Weasley as an Auror. He could be a great asset.”
            Harry snorted. “But I don’t think you would have said it a few weeks ago, before we became properly introduced.”
            “You wouldn’t have said something like ‘properly introduced,’ either,” Draco pointed out, his hand tightening on Harry’s. “I’m rubbing off on you just as much as you’re rubbing off on me.”
            Harry rolled his eyes and didn’t bother responding to that statement, partially because he thought Draco was being ridiculous and partially because the fire behind Draco had flared. Harry found his hand on his wand, then shook his head in annoyance and dropped it. As far as he could figure out, the danger of the Spiders really was over. He didn’t have to worry about them discovering a way through his wards and Floo connections again, in dark or in light.
            Al’s face appeared in the fire, and his voice was pitched very high. “Dad, I really need to talk to you. Can I come through?”
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Marathon