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Secondhand Heroes	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 6782 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter
Six�Uncertainty

�� Malfoy
wouldn�t stop touching him.

�� Harry had
fallen into bed the first moment he could after Malfoy had stopped sucking on
his mouth and permitted him to go upstairs. His thoughts were whirling as fast
as the battle in the Ministry had gone, and he desperately needed some time to think, to try and sort out what had
happened to him, including the battle with his best friends, into a set of
actions he could comprehend and accept.

�� He was not
going to contemplate what had happened with Malfoy. After all, it had a fairly
simple heading in his mind: What the fuck
did you think you were doing?

�� But his
plans hadn�t included a Malfoy who was neither embarrassed nor impressed by
what they had done, and who wouldn�t stop touching Harry. He followed him to
the bedroom and stood with one hand lightly on Harry�s shoulder whilst Harry
cast a spell to banish the dust. He followed him into the loo and leaned
against him, arms draped around his waist, his hands sliding idly back and
forth on the curves of Harry�s hips as though he couldn�t believe he hadn�t
learned them already. Harry ended up casting a Cleaning Charm instead of taking
a shower as he had planned. God only knew what his unwise body would decide to
do next if he was naked in front of Malfoy.

�� Harry
really couldn�t blame Malfoy for any of it, he decided as he walked back into
the bedroom, just a little too fast for Malfoy to keep an arm around him the
way he obviously wanted to. He�d been on edge for Merlin knew how long, and had
become used to snatching his comfort and pleasure where he could find it. He�d
probably had other hasty gropes with other people that had resulted in orgasm.
For him, this experience would only be a continuation of the nightmare he�d
dropped into the day the Ministry had outlawed him.

�� But for
Harry, it was different. He didn�t do
things like that. Since he�d broken up with Ginny, he hadn�t had sex at all.
When he allowed himself to remember his days with her, at least the days before
the Troublestone, they were soft and warm, filled with the fine-spun wool of
teasing and the bright words of love confessions. Harry had needed touching
from her, if only because he�d wanted reassurance that she wanted him for more
than his name and scar.

�� That�s not a problem here, a cheerful
and slightly mad voice said in his mind. You
know Malfoy doesn�t give a damn about your name and your scar. Any person
willing to rescue him and fight with him will do.

�� And willing to provide a warm body for him.

�� Well, Harry
had no intention of doing that last. He climbed into bed, and Malfoy followed.
When he tried to drape an arm around Harry�s neck and exert pressure that was
probably meant to make Harry face him, Harry decided this had gone far enough.
He rolled with the pressure, but only so he could squeeze Malfoy�s wrist and
say, �There�s a bedroom down the corridor.�

�� Malfoy
stared at him for a moment, lips parted. His eyes held absolute and utter
surprise. Well, Harry thought charitably, he could understand that. Malfoy had
probably forgotten that not everyone lived like him, and therefore the sexual
encounter in the entrance hall was an aberration for Harry.

�� Then Malfoy
laughed.

�� What?�
Harry snapped, bristling. He started to draw away, but Malfoy had more strength
in his scarred and Marked arms than Harry had realized. Of course, he was tired
from the battle, too.

�� You�re
mine,� Malfoy said, in the same tone of voice he might use to inform Harry that
gravity worked.

�� One orgasm
does not make me yours, Malfoy,� said Harry. Once again emotions he had no name
for were tumbling through him, giving place to each other so fast that he
really wasn�t sure whether angry or pleading words would emerge from his mouth
until he spoke. �That was�a one-off. An expression of our joy at being alive.
That doesn�t mean it needs to be repeated. We should be concentrating on how
we�re going to break the Troublestone, not talking about sex.�

�� Malfoy
reached out and laid a hand on Harry�s chest over his heart. Harry glared at
him, wondering what he meant to do. Malfoy didn�t scratch him or try to tear
the heart from his chest, however. He simply left his hand there and stared at
Harry from beneath lowered eyelids.

�� Do you
hear your heart beating?� he asked softly.

�� Of course
I do!� Harry reached up and grasped Malfoy�s hand, moving it gently but
inexorably away from him. �What the��

�� I could
hear it beating from a distance when I was a captive,� said Malfoy, his eyes
unfocused. �Or I convinced myself I could. When I lay in that dungeon, on dirty
stone, my mind recoiling from inaction because of the pain and from the thought
of escape because I knew I would face more pain and more enemies in the outside
world, I clung to the hope that you were horrified by what the Troublestone was
doing in your name instead of proud of it, the way some other leaders have
been. I imagined you as the one pure thing in a world of grime and horror. I
imagined that you would hold me someday, and that I could feel your arms around
me and your heart beneath my hand then, when things got particularly bad. You
shone for me like a bloody beacon. When I got the chance to escape, I Apparated
towards the Ministry, because I was going to find you.� He tilted his head back
and stared at Harry with the eyes of a blind man. �I didn�t care about the
danger. I just knew I wanted to find you. And you came, and you rescued me.� He
shook his head, and now his eyes seemed to have returned to normal, but Harry
had started shivering and didn�t think he could stop. �Now we�ve shared
something else I used to dream about in the dungeons, during those broken
moments when I remembered the existence of pleasure. You think I�m going to let
you go now? You�re mad. I need you to survive.�

�� He draped
his arms around Harry and arranged Harry�s limbs to his satisfaction, then
closed his eyes. Harry let him do it. He was numb, unbelieving, his mind making
dash after dash at the horror of what things must have been like for Malfoy and
always falling back from it.

�� I don�t�I can�t�

�� He�s slightly mad, slightly broken. Should I
let a claim on me that he dreamed up when he was in prison affect me that much?

�� Malfoy�s
soft snores drifted up from his chest. Harry looked down at the mass of blond
hair cradled against his skin and slowly lifted a hand. A few minutes ago, when
his resolve had been strong, he knew he would have pushed Malfoy away and
forbade him from cuddling any closer. But now he found himself stroking
Malfoy�s hair, exactly as if their association, or what they had done to each
other on the ground floor of the house, made sense.

�� I don�t�I can�t understand this.

�� And then
Harry had a thought that made him relax into the bed. This was, after all,
temporary. Malfoy had admitted he�d made Harry into a beacon for himself during
the most desperate time of his life, probably because he couldn�t think of
anyone else unaffected by the Troublestone who wasn�t a Death Eater. He didn�t
have any option right now. Of course not. He did need Harry to survive, because his mind was disordered.

�� But things
would be different when they defeated the Troublestone and returned the minds
of the enslaved to them. Then Malfoy would have other options. His parents were
dead, but he would be able to leave Harry and find someone who had suffered
what he had, who could really comprehend that
suffering instead of stand outside it, as Harry had, and only pity him.

�� And that
made sense of the battle with his friends, as well. It was what had to happen
at this point, with the Troublestone in control of everything. But it wouldn�t
last. Harry would have the chance to explain what had happened and reconcile
with his friends.

�� Someday, he
would laugh with Ron and Hermione again, and Malfoy would go back to being what
he had always been. In the meantime, he should put up with this odd variation
on the normal routine, precisely because it wouldn�t last forever.

�� Harry felt
his eyes slipping shut, and he yawned. The thoughts vanished into the back of
his mind. His mind and his breathing slowed, and then he was asleep, the last
sensation he was conscious of Draco�s warmth pillowed against his chest.

*

�

�� It doesn�t
have to be complicated,� Harry said, trying to control his temper. �I don�t
need every single detail of the magical theory behind how you plan to destroy
the Troublestone. But I�d like some of
those details, so I�m not left standing around like a witless moron when we go
to the Ministry.�

�� Malfoy,
clad in an altered pair of Harry�s robes, raised his eyebrows and leaned back
in the chair in the ground floor drawing room. Harry stood on the other side of
the room from him, propped against the fireplace mantle. He had decided it was
for the best if he wasn�t near Malfoy and his clingy hands at any point whilst
they tried to have a serious conversation. Malfoy had awakened without his
sense of boundaries restored. Already this morning he had touched Harry�s
shoulder, his neck, his back, his waist, and his face. He never tried to use
his mouth, which Harry had to be grateful for, but his hands were quite bad
enough. His fingertips carried a power that immediately claimed Harry�s
attention, considering what those hands had done to him recently. And now he
was sitting there smugly and refusing to speak the truth about how he had
determined that the wards on the Troublestone weren�t threats, or about how he
was going to break the stone.

�� Malfoy
stared at him, and smiled slowly, as though Harry had done something amusing
and interesting both at once. Harry closed his eyes, leaned back until his head
hit the wood of the mantle, and tried to control the impulse to throw
something.

�� At least this should dissipate any shreds of
mistaken romance that might be drifting around my head, he thought. I don�t know about Malfoy�s, though. He
seems to thrive on connections created in the heat of madness.

�� The reason
I don�t want to tell you,� said Malfoy reasonably, �is that the method would
carry a price that you, in
particular, would misunderstand. I�m seeking a way to phrase it that would let
you understand and at the same time wouldn�t have you leaping to conclusions
about what I intend or what you need to do.�

�� Harry
opened his eyes to see Malfoy leaning with his elbows on his knees, his fingers
rubbing lightly at his temples. He looked different when he was fully clothed
and not intent on climbing inside Harry�s mouth. He looked weary, battered by
the wounds and lumps he�d taken, older than
he needed to look. Harry remembered that this man was a hero, and forced
himself to speak instead of snap his answer.

�� Let me
know when you do find the phrasing,� he said. �In the meantime, how did you
decide that the defenses around the Troublestone aren�t going to be difficult?�

�� Malfoy
replied with an absent tone to his voice, and Harry suspected that his mind was
still working on the other problem. That didn�t bother Harry; the sooner the
situation was explained to him, the happier he�d be. After all, if it was complicated,
that meant more time spent in Malfoy�s company, and more chances for Malfoy to misunderstand
the �relationship� he might think he was forging with Harry.

�� I�ve
studied enough in the past year to recognize different kinds of wards when I
encounter them, and to estimate how long it will take to snap them. In this case,
the wards on the courtroom itself are of wizarding creation, though the
Troublestone can try to catch the mind of anyone who enters the place, as it
did with you. I suspect that the Troublestone couldn�t have gained so much
prominence so quickly if it used its own magic. This way, it can let those who realize
it exists think it�s their idea to
protect and hide it, and their idea, as well, to persecute Death Eaters and
Dark wizards. If your Ministry friends had to deal with the fact that it was
sentient, they might have been more worried.�

�� Harry
worried his lip and tried to remember for a moment if Malfoy had said that the
defense he�d seen in the Pensieve memories was of wizarding creation or not. He
couldn�t remember, however, so he tried another question. �And so you realized
you could break the ward when you came closer to it?�

�� Yes,� said
Malfoy, drawing the word out into a hiss and looking up at him. His eyes held
that poisonous, faraway light that he�d showed whilst they were giving each
other handjobs yesterday. Harry stirred, reluctant to think of that memory.
From the sharp smile Malfoy gave him, he might have sensed Harry�s discomfort. �It�s
a variation of a Dark ward, Potter, if you�ll believe that. One common to my
family, and to my family�s books.� His hands clenched, and he laughed, and
Harry realized suddenly that he was seeing the methods Malfoy used to control immense
anger. �The bastards raided the books they claimed they�d destroyed for ideas,
and then added just enough �defensive� magic to the ward that they could pretend
it wasn�t Dark. I�ll need your help to get through those extra defenses, since
you�ve spent time in the Ministry in the last few months and probably know more
about them than I do. I can undo the Dark magic.�

�� Abruptly he
locked his fingers together behind his head and hissed again. �I have it,� he
said.

�� What?�
Harry was thinking of the Ministry�s hypocrisy again, and marveling that he
hadn�t noticed before the strange lack of problems that Hermione, in
particular, had with using the books they�d confiscated. He looked up.

�� How to
explain the price you�ll have to pay to break the Troublestone.� Malfoy leaned forwards.
�What you�re giving up is your life.�

�� Harry felt
a strange beat of expectancy travel through him like the blood pounding behind
his temples. Maybe he had always known that his life, twice claimed back when
he should have died, would be demanded as a price someday.

�� You�re not
listening to me,� Malfoy snapped. �I
know that look in your eyes, Potter. You think you�ll be required to die
physically, when you�re only dying in the memory of everyone who knows you.�

�� Harry, with
the bloodbeat still in his head, looked at him and raised an eyebrow. �Perhaps
you could better the explanation that you spent so much time dreaming up so I
can actually understand you, Malfoy.�

�� Malfoy drew
a shaky breath, though Harry wasn�t sure why. Maybe he had sounded like one of
the captors who must have hissed his last name as a curse into his ears. Harry
bit his lip firmly against the temptation to apologize, and waited.

�� The
charisma focus that the Troublestone chooses is intimately bound to it,� Malfoy
said. �It spreads�at least in twisted form�the ideals that he or she stands
for, and makes other people think their actions are right because they�re doing
what that beloved leader would want them to do. If the charisma focus dies, the
Troublestone loses its power.� He looked up, eyes stark. �I once considered
killing you, so that the Troublestone would teleport away and bother someone
else.�

�� Harry
nodded. The suggestion didn�t even shock him. He was still in that place beyond
and between shock and expectancy where Malfoy�s first words about death had
moved him.

�� And then I
realized that that wasn�t enough.� Malfoy leaned forwards, staring at him until
Harry thought there wasn�t a bit of his soul that remained unexamined. That was
only an illusion, he told himself. Malfoy was seeing Harry as he had imagined
him to keep himself sane through torture and darkness. That was all. �I didn�t
want the Troublestone merely to teleport itself somewhere else. I wanted it broken. The suicide of the charisma
focus wouldn�t do it. That�s happened before, and the Troublestone still
survives. And killing you wouldn�t do it. But if you die in people�s minds�if they forget you entirely�then the
Troublestone loses, all at once, the ideals that it�s spreading, which were
your own, and the person it used to reassure its victims that those ideals were
still pure, because you were the living exponent of them. It destroys both
sources of its power, your life and the emotions that it feeds on.�

�� Harry swallowed
dryly. That was�a rather different proposition. �So they would forget that I�d
ever existed?�

�� They would
forget your existence, I should have
said.� Malfoy curled his lips back and gave a rasping bark of laughter, though
Harry didn�t see what about the situation was funny. �Your continued existence.
They would think you had died, in a battle or at your own hand, depending on
what kind of ritual situation we constructed. They would be unable to remember
the fact of your life.�

�� Harry bowed
his head and placed his hands carefully across his face. For long moments he concentrated
on nothing but the coolness of his fingers against his brow, how they brushed
against the rougher and number skin of his scar. The lightning bolt that had
sealed so much of his life, made him special to Voldemort when he was a
teenager and to wizards and witches all over Britain before he was out of
babyhood, and had made him so instantly recognizable to anyone who read the Daily Prophet.

�� There had to be a price. I have too much
already, don�t I? No one survives the Killing Curse once, let alone twice. I thought
I gave my life up when I used it to protect the people at Hogwarts. Third time�s
the charm. This time, I really am giving it up to protect them�to protect
everyone, even the people on the opposite side of the war�and even if I keep that
life for myself, the rest of them will never know.

�� Does that
apply to everyone who lives?� he asked, looking up. �Would I be able to go into
the Muggle world and make a new life for myself?� He concentrated on shaping
the words carefully with his lips and making them as clear as possible. He
wanted to speak without breaking, and he would if he allowed himself to really
think about what he was saying.

�� You could,
I suppose,� Malfoy said, staring at him with angry wonder. �But why would you want to?�

�� I�d have
to have other people to get hold of food and clothing and other necessities of survival,�
said Harry, idly amused that Malfoy wouldn�t think of that when he�d lacked
those necessities himself for so long. �If no one in the wizarding world can
see or remember me, then��

�� That forgetting
doesn�t apply to everyone in the wizarding world,� said Malfoy, almost
savagely, as if he thought Harry had ignored an important aspect of the
situation on purpose. �Only to those who are victims of the Troublestone and
need your sacrifice to free them. Those who aren�t can still remember you.�

�� Wonderful,�
Harry said. �Then I�ll probably have to flee into the Muggle world anyway, to
avoid the vengeance of those who had terrible things done to them in my name.�
His breathing was slowing, though, and he was beginning to accept the idea. At
least it was an action, a kind of
atonement for what he�d done or hadn�t done in the past year. When it was
given, then perhaps he could escape the worst of his guilt.

�� You idiot,�
said Malfoy, and his voice roughened until it sounded as if he were forcing the
words through shards of broken glass. �Haven�t you thought of someone else who
suffered but wasn�t corrupted by the Troublestone?� He reached out and clasped
Harry�s hand. Harry started. He hadn�t even been aware that he�d moved away
from the fireplace and close enough to Malfoy�s chair for the other man to do
that. �I�ll be here, Harry.�

�� Harry
licked his lips. The situation he had thought of as temporary that morning, his
association with Malfoy, looked as if it were on a fair way to becoming
permanent.

�� Why do you
think I dreamed so much about you, for so long?� Malfoy�s voice was almost
lulling, or would have been if Harry was in any normal mood. His fingers
unwound from Harry�s hand, but traveled up his arm and latched onto his
shoulder, tugging on the collar of his robes. His smile was deep and solemn and
poisonous. �I was realizing what price destroying the Troublestone would exact,
even then. I tried to imagine what you would say when I told you, and that led
to imagining you as you were, as I might have you. I knew that I was one of the
Troublestone�s victims and would be able to remember you after you had
destroyed your memory in your friends� heads. And I became convinced that I had
to have you.�

�� Harry
shuddered, but his emotions were buried once again, controlled by the pressure
of Malfoy�s hand on him and the clinging embrace of his eyes. �You�you came up
with this method to destroy the Troublestone only because you wanted to have
me?� he whispered.

�� No.�
Malfoy�s smile was slow, and slithered up his face. �No. It is the only way to
make it happen, and if the Troublestone had had a different charisma focus, I
would have sought out that person and proposed the same idea. Presuming they weren�t
disgusted by me. Presuming they didn�t simply turn me over to the authorities
the moment I appealed to them. But you. But you.� His breathing was fast and
shallow. His hand slid up to the back of Harry�s neck and his fingers fastened
there like lobster�s pincers. �I knew you would never succumb to the pressure
of the people around you, not in the same way. I knew that you would listen to
me and that you would be someone I could have.� He searched Harry�s eyes for a
long moment, then tried to pull him down into a kiss.

�� Harry
resisted. He didn�t know exactly what he felt or what he wanted right now, but
he knew what he didn�t want. It was enough to get used to the fact that he
would have to give up his friends and all the people he knew, except maybe
Dennis Creevey, and go into exile. He didn�t need Malfoy trying to drag him
into another burst of passion that would only add to his confusion.

�� You don�t
care that my friends will forget me,� he said, stepping away from Malfoy, �compared
to the fact that you can have me.�

�� I don�t
mourn the necessity,� Malfoy said, his smile and eyes still too bright.

�� Harry
turned away from them, uneasy. The proprietary way Malfoy had looked at him on
the day Harry first learned the truth about the Troublestone made sense now.
Even then, he�d been planning on binding Harry to himself.

�� Even though it would probably be better for
him, as well as for me, if he tried to go back to a normal life when this is
done. Harry�s life had to alter irrevocably, but why should Malfoy want to
change more than his wounds had already changed him?

�� Harry could
feel Malfoy�s eyes on his back as he left the room. They were as flat and warm
and claiming as the touch of his hand.

*

�� linagabriev:
I�m glad you liked that scene! It�s strange that you call it peaceful, though,
since I think it�s very close to a battle, at least on Harry�s part.

�� If Harry
were to die, yes, the stone�s power is broken, but it would simply teleport
somewhere else, so that is not a permanent solution.

�� There are
consequences. Oh yes, there are consequences.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Harry is busy trying to come to terms with it all, but he will eventually.

�� minn yun: Thank
you! But Harry can die; it�s just
that most of the people he was battling would be reluctant to kill him.

�� Draco�s
feelings are more powerful than Harry can imagine right now, though they�re
rather off-balance.

�� avihenda:
Thank you for reviewing!

�� Mangacat:
Thank you! Draco may be wondering if it was worth the price, though,
considering the way Harry is angsting. ;)

�� Caldonya:
Thank you! I hope to make the last two chapters just as intense.
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