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Roses, Made by Hands	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7790 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Title: Algorithms of Radiance

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco pre-slash

Warnings: A bit of violence, a bit of angst, Hogwarts "eighth year"

Rating: PG-13

Wordcount: 2100

Summary: Harry expected his day to contain a dose of Draco Malfoy, but not Draco, hero-worship, and a duel.

Author's Notes: This is the sixth story in my "Made by Hands" series, quiet and fluffy one-shots showing Harry and Draco moving towards a relationship in their "eighth year" at Hogwarts. It follows, "Roses, Made by Hands," "Sculpted Light," "Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew," "Gold, Like Captured Flame," and "Gifts, Glittering and Jeweled." Read those first to make this one make sense.

Algorithms of Radiance

            Harry laid the torque gently across his chest and throat, and then turned fussily sideways to stare at himself in the mirror. Yes, he thought it looked okay. He adjusted it again just to make sure, and replaced the Weasleys' watch so that the chain hung over the torque instead of beneath it. It just wasn't comfortable otherwise.

            "Are you coming to breakfast, mate? Or are you going to be in here arranging your hair like a witch for the rest of the day?"

            Harry turned around and grinned at Ron. "Don't let Hermione hear you say that. You know she thinks it's sexist."

            Ron rolled his eyes. "That's her latest craze, yeah," he said, in the tone of someone who had put up with lectures on everything from house-elves' rights to the ethical implications of Memory Charms and would be glad when this set was over. "But you look fine, mate." He paused, darted a look at Harry, and added, "If you really have to wear Malfoy's gift everywhere, anyway."

            "I don't have to." Harry smiled at him. "I want to."

            Ron nodded back, a nod that said a lot more than just resignation, and ducked out of the bathroom doorway. Harry followed him, anticipating a few stares at breakfast. Plenty of people had seen Draco give him the torque yesterday, but they might think Harry had only worn it to be polite. To wear it two days in a row...

            Harry was saying all sorts of things with that, and some were public, and some were private. He hoped Draco would be bright enough to pick up on the private meanings. It might be hard to corner him and explain them all.

            But it also might be fun.

            Harry went to breakfast in a thoughtful frame of mind.

*

            There were stares, yes. Lots of them. Harry raised his eyebrows at Draco's amused gaze and turned to answer the fifth question about "homework" from a group of awestruck Gryffindor first-years. It seemed that enough time had passed since the beginning of the year for the stories about him and the Battle of Hogwarts to die down a bit, but the torque had stirred them up again.

            And why? Ron told me it was a duelist's torque, but most of this group is Muggleborns and wouldn't know that.

            Draco was the one who gave him a clue, slipping in neatly beside Harry as he left the Great Hall that morning. "It makes you look different," he said softly, into Harry's ear. "Higher. Part of a nobler world."

            Different, Harry could buy, but he and Draco were going to have their disagreements over his language if Draco went on like that. "Nobler," he said, raising an eyebrow in Draco's direction. "Really."

            Draco flushed, but didn't pull away or remain silent the way Harry had been afraid he would. "You know what I mean," he snapped. "Not that I think pure-bloods are nobler than Muggleborns, or that kind of shite. Just that it puts you in a different world, and it makes them look at you in a new way."

            Harry nodded slowly. He wondered about pushing, but since when did he lack courage? And Draco hadn't pulled away.

            "Do you believe that, still? About pure-bloods and Muggleborns?"

            Draco seemed to stiffen in all the lines of his body, even the curves of his mouth, and Harry winced. But he rested a hand on the torque and watched Draco silently, reminding him that Harry had accepted the gift even if he did. He just wanted to know. It was one thing to protect Slytherins and say they had a right to attend Hogwarts free of harassment no matter what they believed.

            It was another thing to touch, to call by his first name, someone who personally believed that Harry was disgusting.

            Draco breathed in, and in, and in, and the air, as it came out, seemed to remove some of the stiffness, relax his body back into curves. "No," he said quietly. "I don't know what I believed in the last year of the war. Someone told me the Dark Lord was a half-blood, and he killed a professor right in front of me, and he endorsed taking wands from Muggleborns because they must have stolen them from a pure-blood. That's--that's nonsense. I may not like Granger much, but I know her wand is her own. So many things about what they believed seem nonsense to me now. You could only believe them in a war." He gestured around at the stone walls of Hogwarts arching above them. "You can't believe them here."

            Harry smiled at him. "That was all I needed to know."

            Draco's mouth fell open slightly. Harry thought he could get to like that look on him, if only because an open mouth could be--convenient. "What? Don't you want to know what I believe now?"

            "You might not know yet," Harry said, and closed one eye in a slow wink at him. "You'll figure it out."

            "He'll have to do it without your help!"

            Harry turned around and stared at the small figure in the corridor ahead of him. It took him a long minute to place it. "Gabriel Norwood, right?" he said. The boy was a fifth-year Gryffindor, and so Harry had never had much contact with him except one time when he'd tried out for the Quidditch team.

            Norwood, his brown hair standing out in what looked like electric ringlets from his head, glared at him. "You should have found someone else to take gifts from and ask about their beliefs," he declared, leveling his wand at Harry. "I'm the--the champion of a lot of people who are fed up with the way you're protecting the Slytherins."

            Harry restrained himself from rolling his eyes, because that would hurt Norwood's feelings more than it was worth. "A lot of people are happy about it, actually," he said. "And I'm not being unfair. When a Slytherin tortured a Gryffindor, I gave testimony to make sure she was thrown out of the school."

            "But they're dangerous just being here!" Norwood's face turned plum-colored. "You don't understand! The people who were here last year--the Slytherins tortured them!"

            "Because they thought it was a good idea, or because the Carrows told them they had to to avoid being tortured themselves?" Harry very carefully didn't look at Draco. He didn't think they were up to a detailed discussion of how Draco had acted as Voldemort's torturer right now. "See, I know more about it than you think I do. I agree that what happened to you was horrible and unfair. But the Slytherins either suffered right alongside you or had to torture you because they were afraid of torture, or both."

            "They could have run away! They could have hidden in the Room of Requirement like the rest of us! You don't have to protect them."

            "I would say that they were watched a lot more closely than you were," Harry pointed out. "The Carrows would have noticed if they went missing, and they would probably have found you a lot sooner in the Room of Requirement." He noticed Draco nodding out of the corner of his eye, and smiled at him. Always nice to have confirmation and support.

            Especially his.

            "So you can blame them, and you can blame me, but you can't say that it's completely unfair that they're here," Harry told him. "What is it that you want with me, anyway?"

            "A duel!"

            Harry's hand went up to his duelist's torque, especially made to protect a wizard in a situation like this, and he exchanged a silent glance with Draco. Norwood had been present with everyone else in the Great Hall yesterday when Harry received the torque, and Ron had explained what it was. Was he stupid, or what?

            "I demand a duel!" Norwood was getting a little shrill.

            "Fine." Harry turned around, taking his wand out and already planning what spells he could use that would give Norwood a chance of escaping the duel unscathed. "Draco, will you be my second?"

            "Gladly," Draco said, moving back a few steps so that he could be out of the way of the spell-swinging.

            Norwood conveyed his opinion of what Harry was asking with a glare of silent outrage. Harry shrugged at him and said, "To first blood. I get to choose the limit of the challenge since you were the one who chose the time and the place."

            Norwood's chin tilted up and he said, "Fine!" And then he flung a Blasting Curse, a pretty good one, straight at Harry's chest.

            Harry didn't even have the time to lift his wand. The Blasting Curse reflected from the torque exactly as it was supposed to and bounced back at Norwood. Harry had to scramble to turn so that the curse hit the stone wall next to him instead, and made stones and dust puff out.

            Norwood yelped and scrambled backwards, nursing a scratched arm. Harry watched the blood drip to the stones, and nodded. "First blood," he said.

            "Harry."

            Draco's voice was low. Harry looked down, and saw that the reflected Blasting Curse had done something else, or perhaps the torque's magic had when it flared to protect him. The watch he'd received from Mrs. Weasley was shattered, hanging open next to the torque, the chain blackened and gears dripping all over the floor.

            Harry looked back up, and the murder in his face was enough to make Norwood blanche. He scrambled back again, then turned and ran.

            Harry reached up and cradled the watch, saying nothing. What was there to say? Mrs. Weasley had given him her brother's watch, and it had been a seventeenth birthday present, and he had worn it ever since, and now it was ruined. And all because he had tried to soothe Norwood's pride and not insult him too much by agreeing to the duel instead of going to a professor.

            "Here. Let me help."

            Harry let Draco take the watch in one hand, because what further damage could he do? Perhaps Draco knew the right way to dispose of watches like this, or wanted to help Harry gather up the pieces so Harry could take them to Ron and explain what had happened. If he could explain. He was trying to be respectful of everyone's feelings and not humiliate them too much, and what happened? He was an idiot, like usual.

            "Reparo tempus."

            Harry looked down, blinking. The pieces of the watch glowed and sprang out of Draco's hand and off the floor. In moments they were flying back into place, gears locking with gears, tiny cogwheels and important clockwork assembling. Then Draco shut the back of the watch, and tapped the numbers on the front with his wand, and the watch purred to life, quietly ticking away just as it had before.

            "I--I didn't think about that," Harry croaked at last. He swallowed.

            "Of course you didn't," Draco said, and sniffed. "You didn't know the proper spell to repair a time instrument damaged by a curse instead of just by accident." He gave Harry a superior smile of the sort that Harry would have loathed last year, and now felt rather differently about. "But I did."

            Harry touched the watch's surface, watched the numbers shine and blaze under his hands, and swallowed again. "You gave me a gift last time," he said. "Two in a row. That isn't fair."

            "You can owe me one." Draco turned away. "Come on, we'll be late for class."

            Harry followed, in a silent daze. And then he thought of something he could do now, although to really repay Draco he would have to think of something else, and reached out and caught Draco's hand.

            Draco stiffened for just a moment. Then all the lines of his body softened again, and his face glowed like the face of Harry's watch.

            So they made their way to class.

            The End.

*

            moodysavage: Thank you!

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            jujukitty: Thanks. I do feel like writing on it, often, but I want each chapter and the focus of each chapter to be just right, and sometimes coming up with objects is difficult.

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Roses, Made by Hands