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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Six—Seeking Everything But Rosemary

            Potter. It’s time.

            The owl had showed up just as he was getting ready to go to sleep with that message, so Harry reckoned Snape was ready to see him. He had shooed the owl out the window before any of the other boys could come up the stairs or out of the bathrooms, and then drawn the curtains around his bed as though he was really tired and wanted to go to sleep early. Then he motioned the owl towards him and through the gap in them.

            The owl ruffled its wings at him and hooted as though it found his actions ridiculous. Harry didn’t care what it liked. He cast a few spells on the paper just to make sure it wasn’t bespelled, and then sighed. No. It wasn’t. It was just Snape, being stupid and terse as usual.

            “I reckon you’re going to guide me?” he asked the owl.

            The owl reared without a sound and flew back from the bed to the window, then soared out the window without waiting for him. Harry nodded. Yes, that made sense. Snape couldn’t move from the Shrieking Shack, as he had told Harry last time, so of course he would still be in the same place.

            Harry took his Invisibility Cloak this time, and left a note on the bed telling Ron and Hermione that he’d gone to the Shrieking Shack. It wouldn’t necessarily reassure them, but it might keep them from panicking.

            This night seemed brighter and noisier than last night, but that was probably just because he had to dodge lots of people in the castle and it was earlier. By the time he got outside, he felt more sympathy than he’d ever expected to for McGonagall and the prefects and the rules that everyone had to be in bed by curfew.

            Well. Except him, of course. Because what he was doing was important.

            He forged a path across the Quidditch pitch, deliberately treading in circles to make it harder for someone to track him. He didn’t think anyone was following him, since he’d checked several times, but there could be people in the castle who were cleverer with concealing charms than him. Professor Klein, for example.

            I wonder if Snape knows about her?

            Again, he hit the knot that made the Whomping Willow stop moving, and this time he pressed it again once he was inside the canopy of branches. He hadn’t thought of that last night, but now he winced to think about what would have happened if someone had followed him and seen the tree still. Someone who knew the secret of the Shack, maybe, and who and what used to live there.

            If not what lives there now.

            And I wish there was a bloody easier way than this, he added inside his head, as he dropped to his stomach and thrashed his way through the stupid dusty tunnel. At least now he knew the temptation to sneeze and the odd scratchy feeling in the back of his throat came just as much from the incense that Snape had to use to stay alive.

            He paused outside the room to shake some dust off his Cloak and pull the hood back from his head. Then he slid inside, glancing around and making sure that his hand was on his wand.

            Snape sat slumped against the far wall, as before, and there was still a blue chalk circle on the floor with the brazier burning in the middle. Harry hesitated, looking at him. He wondered if Snape was awake. His chest rose and fell slowly enough for him to be asleep.

            “Snape?” he whispered.

            “How touching your concern for my beauty sleep, Potter,” Snape rasped, and brought his head up as though it weighed as much as an iceberg. “I assure you, I do not rest normally any more than I eat normally.”

            Harry just nodded. He wanted to know what that meant, but he also knew that asking Snape to explain would be stupid. Snape would sneer and declaim about how he hadn’t visited the library to research his condition. Never mind that visiting the library before we had proper homework would tell everyone who wanted to pay attention that something was wrong. Harry took the Cloak off and sat down on the floor outside the chalk circle. “Did you finish writing down the list of ingredients you need?”

            Snape grimaced. “I did. Here.” A waft of smoke from the brazier snapped up a pierce of parchment from his hand and floated it towards Harry across the circle. He caught it and examined it for a moment. The list of plants was mostly unfamiliar. In fact, the ones he recognized were the ones where Snape had written down what he didn’t want.

            “No rosemary?” he asked, seeing that that name had been underlined in the “negative” category and had exclamation points after it. “Why?”

            Snape leaned forwards, although Harry had to look up before he realized it. Snape’s eyes glittered, and his hand closed on air with what looked like a ripping motion. “Do I question your ill-advised adventures, Potter?” he whispered.

            “Well, yeah,” Harry said. “All the time.”

            Snape turned his head aside and touched the leaves clamped to his neck. Harry squinted to try and see if there was more blood around them than usual, but he really couldn’t make it out from this distance and with the smoke wavering all around in between. “You shall not hear it from me now,” Snape said. “I have more important things to concern myself with. And I expect that I shall have more than enough exposure to your bad decisions, with all the false matches you will bring me and that I must sort through.”

            Harry snorted. “What else do you have to do?”

            He was sorry as soon as he saw the way Snape’s head jerked around. He couldn’t see the flash of his eyes this time, since the smoke grew especially thick, but he knew his words had hurt Snape for some reason. Harry dropped his head and sighed. “Sorry,” he said.

            Snape said nothing for some moments. Then he said, “You will bring the ingredients to me, and I will brew the potion, and then we need have nothing more to do with each other.” He turned away, resting against the wall, and closed his eyes. Harry coughed hesitantly, wondering if Snape would turn around if he did that, but nothing happened.

            In the end, there really was nothing for Harry to do but take the list and leave. He looked towards the Forbidden Forest, thinking of going into it to hunt for the ingredients, but it was night and he was tired and he wasn’t that stupid.

            As he wandered back towards the castle, he reflected that he hadn’t expected to get Snape’s list of details first. Was it really that hard for Malfoy to remember a day Harry would have thought branded in his mind?

            Maybe he has trouble confronting it.

            That, in the end, wasn’t Harry’s problem. Either Malfoy would get the list to him, or not. Either Harry would be able to help with the spell that isolated Malfoy from his friends, or not.

            I hope I can do it before he dies.

            But, again, it depends on him getting that list to me.

*

            “Rubbish as usual, Potter.”

            Malfoy had appeared next to his table in the library, where Harry was struggling to write his Potions essay. He was more than half-convinced that Slughorn had set them two feet, due the next day, because he was so disappointed in Harry’s performance with the Draught of Living Death. Well, not more disappointed than Harry himself. Harry had to control the temptation to tell him to fuck off.

            “What’s rubbish?” Harry flicked his hair out of his eyes and glanced up at Malfoy. He looked as though he’d spent ten minutes on his hair and ninety on his clothes. He took a seat opposite Harry, and somehow did it without one crease appearing in his trousers or robes. Harry shook his head. He wondered if he would have more of a chance of impressing the reporters and getting them to go away if he learned how to do that. Then again, impress them and they would probably only want to interview him all the more.

            “Your essay.” Malfoy took a look at it and then snorted. “I’ll have you know valerian doesn’t do that.”

            “Yes, it does,” Harry said irritably, and pushed his book and essay both away from Malfoy so he couldn’t spit on them or something, “when you don’t crush it properly. If you’ve come to lecture me on it, then you can leave. Hermione already beat you to it.”

            “Did she?” Malfoy’s smile was slow and delighted, and Harry wondered for a second if Ron needed to be worried about competition for Hermione. “Well, yes, she would have. I saw her face when you smeared the potion all over yourself in the explosion.”

            “Did you have a point in coming over here, or are you just going to babble at me?” Harry refocused on the paragraph in front of him and scratched out another line. Malfoy had hesitated at the question, his eyes narrowing as if he suspected Harry of taunting him.

            “I had plenty of reason,” Malfoy snapped, his back and shoulders all bristling haughtiness. “Here.” He pressed something into Harry’s hand under the table, and it took Harry a few moments to realize it was a folded square of parchment. He took it and dropped it into the pocket of his robe. He would have unfolded it to read it, but he suspected that doing so might panic Malfoy. Even though no one else could possibly be as interested in the list of details as he and Harry were.

            Unless his enemy is in the school. Harry had to accept that possibility, especially if the caster was a Slytherin who had somehow managed to confuse themselves along with everyone else. He touched the square in his pocket again and took a quick look under his lashes at Malfoy. He had a pink flush on his cheeks—haughtiness touched with fear. His hands locked and twisted around each other on his lap, though the moment he caught Harry looking, he stopped that.

            “That’s everything?” he asked in a low tone.

            Malfoy nodded. “Everything I could remember. It took me a while to—think of it.”

            “‘Course,” Harry muttered, and patted Malfoy’s arm awkwardly before he bent over his parchment again.

            He expected Malfoy to leave now that he had delivered his message, but he lingered instead, and Harry finally rolled his eyes and glanced up at him. “Did Your Majesty want something else?” he asked.

            Malfoy shrugged, but his face looked like iron, and he stared straight ahead and still didn’t move. Harry rolled his eyes again and waited. If Malfoy had something to say, then he could bloody well say it in the next minute, or Harry would just give up on him and go back to his essay.

            Well, maybe in the next two minutes.

            All right, the next five.

            Malfoy let out a long, slow, noiseless breath like something dying—like Snape dying, Harry thought in a comparison he really didn’t want to make—and then turned to face him. “Here it is,” he said.

            He waited. Harry waited with him, and then made an encouraging noise when it seemed like Malfoy wouldn’t go on without it.

            “I want to know what you really think of the things that I did during the war,” Malfoy said, his voice quick and low and rough. “Do you believe someone can—do evil and then return to normal again? The Wizengamot didn’t think my father could, or most of my friends’ parents.” Then he paused, and his lip curled. “Well. I call them my friends.”

            Harry nodded. “I used the Unforgivable Curses during the war, Malfoy. I had to think that I could get over that and be a good person again, or there’s no way I could have lived with myself.”

            Malfoy flicked his fringe out of his eyes in turn. “But you only used them for the noblest of reasons, I’m sure,” he muttered, voice thick, almost honeyed, with bitterness. “What about someone who did evil things because he was afraid?”

            “You mean, like torturing someone?” Harry asked, because he was tired of pretending that he didn’t know what Malfoy was talking about.

            Malfoy actually leaped to his feet with a startled cry. Madam Pince, who not even the war had changed, immediately rose to her feet, too, and fixed a gaze on him like a hawk’s. She didn’t have to speak the words; she simply nodded to the entrance of the library, and then sat down again, still watching.

            “How did you know?” Malfoy whispered, for once ignoring the adults around him who wanted him to do something. His eyes were fastened on Harry’s as if he had lost the ability to look away. “Who told you?”

            Harry shook his head and pushed his fringe back so that Malfoy could see the bottom of his scar. That was all Harry felt like showing nowadays, although some of the first-years still peered after him, gaping. “No one told me. I had a connection to Voldemort with this during the war. That means I could see what he was doing and feeling at some specific moments, and I saw you torturing people because he told you to. That’s all.”

            Malfoy sank back into his chair with a thump. Madam Pince rose to her feet, and this time she looked like a praying mantis, stalking over. Malfoy still didn’t notice her. He stared at Harry instead. “I never knew,” he whispered.

            Harry sighed and started gathering up his parchment and books, because his concentration on his essay was ruined anyway. He’d have to come back later. “Come on. We have to discuss this somewhere else.”

            Malfoy finally noticed Madam Pince, and drew himself up with a haughty look in return. It was the first time Harry had really seen him resemble the person he’d been before the war for more than a second or so. “There is no problem here, Madam,” he said. “Potter and I were just talking.”

            “You don’t think I know what it means when you two start a row?” Pince could look really ferocious when she wanted to, Harry had to admit. Her scowl was pinching her forehead like it would cut it in two. “And Slytherins and Gryffindors in general? Get out, and come back when you can display behavior appropriate to a library.”

            Malfoy looked like he wanted to argue with her, but Harry doubted that that would be worth the effort. He pulled on Malfoy’s arm instead, and Malfoy glanced back and forth between them. Then he snorted and stood. “Very well,” he said. “But we have a right to use these books, too. And we weren’t arguing.”

            “You don’t do a good job of demonstrating it,” Pince retorted, and then turned and strutted away again.

            Malfoy muttered curses at her as they left, and all the way up the corridor. Harry finally broke in. “We do have more important things to talk about than her,” he said. “Where’s a place we can go that’s private, but not threatening for you?”

            Malfoy jerked to a stop and stared at him through a swirl of pale hair. “What do you mean, threatening for me?”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “Well, I assume the Gryffindor common room is out, for example,” he said. “And the classrooms where you were forced to watch the Carrows torture people last year. And the Room of Requirement, because that’s where the Fiendfyre happened and I don’t want you to have to relive the scene of your friend’s death. What does that leave?”

            Malfoy closed his eyes, then opened them. “Come with me,” he said, and Harry followed him, stuffing his books into his bag as he went.

*

            Hermione would probably yell at him. Ron would stare in amazement. Hell, most of the members of the Quidditch team would say he didn’t need to give extra practice to a Slytherin.

            But Malfoy had said that he felt most safe and most safe from listening ears on a broom above the pitch, and Harry could see the attraction of that. It wasn’t like one of them couldn’t keep up with the other.

            They had to use school brooms, since there was no chance of getting theirs without someone seeing, but that was all right. This wasn’t about a game. Harry stretched out along his broom as it hovered in midair and looked at the Forbidden Forest. He’d have to go in there later to search for Snape’s ingredients, but right now he could just think about it as this distant mass of green instead of something threatening.

            Malfoy, on the other hand, swirled past him with his broom exactly as though it was a violent game that he needed to have energy to play. Harry sighed and sat up, then threw himself forwards in pursuit.

            They soared and jagged and circled around each other, moving in figure eights and loops and figures like upside-down letters. Harry felt his tension drain away as they flew. Well, some of his tension, anyway. He was still wondering about the list of details Malfoy had given him and how he was going to balance research into that spell on him with schoolwork and research into Snape’s ingredients.

            But those were problems no one could help him with, so when Malfoy pulled up and started speaking, Harry was in a good enough mood to listen.

            “He made me torture them,” Malfoy said. “But I was the one who did it. I could have resisted, like you. Like some of the other prisoners did. They would never give in and help him.”

            “And what happened to them?” Harry asked, wondering if part of helping Malfoy included being Malfoy’s therapist.

            Malfoy glared at him as if this was a trick question. “They died.”

            “Well, then,” Harry said. He sat up on his broom and swung his legs, watching the way it made the shaft of the broom wobble back and forth. He would have to be careful about that if he was going to seriously fly, but he wasn’t, and that was the whole point of this meeting with Malfoy. “You’re alive, and they’re dead. You made the decision that protected your life at the time.”

            Malfoy opened his mouth and laughed in a way that made Harry wince. It was so ugly, and it let Harry see such a long way down his throat. “You don’t understand, do you?” he asked, and sneered the words as he said them. “You don’t—you’ll never understand the way that I feel, because you defied him and you lived.”

            “Then why talk to me, if I can never understand?” Harry swirled around and hung upside-down for a second, to see if the Forest or Malfoy looked different from this angle. They didn’t, except that Malfoy’s sneer was even uglier. Harry flipped himself back upright. “Is it just because you don’t have anyone to talk to in Slytherin?”

            Malfoy’s cheeks flushed, and for a moment, his hands went so white on the broom that Harry thought he would fly away. Instead, he turned his head to the side and whispered, “You’re not making me feel better.”

            “I’m not really trying to,” Harry said, and then paused and listened to his own words. “All right, maybe I am, but I don’t think this is the end of the world, Malfoy. You’re hurting and suffering from what happened during the war. It’ll go away, eventually. And anyone who tries to make you feel bad about it is a dick. They probably either ran away from Voldemort themselves, or did things they don’t want to think about to survive. Think about all the people who worked in the Ministry and did awful things to Muggleborns, for example.” He paused, then added, “Are your friends giving you shit about it?”

            “Don’t you think that one of them would have accused me of torturing people if the spell showed that to them?” Malfoy reached up and mopped his forehead off. It was as shiny as a newly-polished table with sweat. “No. They—they don’t know. I made sure to keep it—from them.” He clenched his jaw down, and a shiver seemed to sweep over him.

            “Hey, don’t faint,” Harry said in alarm, and pushed his broom closer to Malfoy’s. “We’re a hundred feet in the air. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

            Malfoy stared at him, then choked. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Because that would be the worst thing in my life right now, falling to the ground.”

            “You’d die,” Harry said quietly, reaching out so he could put one hand on the end of Malfoy’s broom. “Which I had the impression you didn’t want to do.”

            Malfoy jerked when Harry touched him, but didn’t pull away. Harry leaned towards him. Malfoy’s eyes were as wide and dark as the back of his throat, and he swallowed when Harry’s hand closed down on his hand, then shut his eyes.

            “Why are you being so nice?” he whispered. “You don’t have to.”

            “I decided over the summer,” Harry said, “that I was tired of living the way I did. I was sacrificing everything for everybody. I had to die to save the bloody world. And that was enough. Now I can do what I want, instead of what I have to all the time. And that means I can help you if I want to.”

            For some reason, that got him a stare out of one eye, and then a dusty laugh. “But you are still taking care of me,” Malfoy said. “Someone you don’t have to. Why did you make the decision that you wanted to?”

            Harry hesitated. He hadn’t thought about it that way before. Then he shrugged. It was still true that he’d chosen this, and that was the important thing. “Because I did,” he said. “Because I listened to you, and it’s a mystery to solve, and there’s no one else around.”

            Malfoy snorted and ripped his hand free, nearly causing his broom to wobble. “So I’m just a charity case. I should have known.”

            “No, moron,” Harry said. “Although someone has to protect you from the consequences of your own idiocy.” He enjoyed the way Malfoy gaped at him before he went on, so that the git couldn’t start talking again. “The point is, I think that I can solve this mystery. So I’m really taking it up for my own selfish reasons. You remember the way I ran around sixth year investigating what you were doing even though everyone told me to drop it? This is like that.”

            Malfoy leaned towards him suddenly, as though he’d seen something different in Harry’s eyes he had to identify. “Yes,” he said. “Like that.”

            Having Malfoy that close was a little bit creepy, Harry thought, feeling his spine prickle as he stared back into Malfoy’s enormous grey eyes. But then, well, Malfoy didn’t have any friends now and he was taking friendship where he could find it. So he’d probably be a little bit creepy and intense just because.

            He finally had to clear his throat and turn away, because Malfoy wouldn’t stop staring at him. “So,” he said. “You want to play a short game to take your mind off things?”

            Malfoy grinned at him, and the edges of his teeth seemed wolfish now. “Watch me beat you, Potter.”

            He didn’t, but it was a closer game than Harry had thought it would be. He wondered if he was coming down with something.

            Better not. I think it’s going to be pretty damp in the Forest.

*

            unneeded: Harry’s pretty confident he can manage it, which I think is also different from other fics I’ve done.

            semaphore: Yes, I do write quite a lot!

            Glad you like that idea. For various reasons, I always associate Harry with that color.

            SP777: Thank you!

            I draw a little bit from experience, just mainly what the students are doing and some things teachers might say.

            I like writing action scenes. I’m not sure they’re my strength.
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Parsimony