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A More Worldly Man	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10960 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- 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.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Seven—All That Glitters

            Harry gasped softly as he was swirled into the waters of Draco’s mind. He had been prepared for a stream of thoughts, memories, and emotions, the way he had been when Snape used Legilimency on him; even if the potion was not like Legilimency in the pain it caused, how many different ways were there to read a mind? But it was not like that at all.

            He tipped down a waterfall, as blue-green as the Desire potion, into the midst of a surging sea, which sent Draco’s memories rippling into him the way that salt water might creep beneath the fabric of any clothes he was wearing when he was dumped into it. Suddenly, he knew things about Draco, complete and shining, as if they were experiences he had lived through himself, recovered from behind a Memory Charm.

            He shuddered as he endured the terror of Daphne Greengrass’s torture: knives driven into his arse, spells that ripped his nipples from his chest and then regrew them for the same thing to happen again, his fingers bent backwards with the extremity of pleasure until they broke, pulses of pain and pleasure alternating until his mind grew as thin as a pulled wire and as liable to snap. Draco had discovered this all at once when Daphne had let his memories return to him all at once, shortly before Harry rescued him. Harry would have wrapped his arms around himself and curled up into a ball, if he could have remembered where his arms were.

            And then the current of Draco’s mind turned and swirled like an undertow, and Harry understood, from the inside, the pure-blood pride that had sustained Draco through the first fifteen years of his life, and which he had only begun to question in his sixteenth, when Voldemort used him against his parents. In complete emotional and intellectual sympathy, Harry knew why Draco’s parents considered people like Hermione Mudbloods instead of Muggleborns, why they were so determined to preserve magic and their heritage as they had always known it instead of changing it even a little, and the horror that crawled up Draco’s spine when he knew the Dark Lord for a half-blood and yet saw him welcomed into Malfoy Manor. Bright as Voldemort’s eyes, sheer and hard as diamond, that pride was the world.

            And when it began to crack, as had happened for Draco when he had to let Death Eaters into the school and again when he was forced to torture people under Voldemort’s command, the world cracked as well.

            The elder Malfoys had more practice at repairing such fissures; they had lived longer, through experiences, especially the Dark Lord’s first defeat, that had made them question the utility of such ideals. But each time, the thought of what they would be facing if they tried to change their beliefs—the thought of how wrong they would have to acknowledge they had been—gave them mortar. They smoothed the cracks over with that fear, and once again became what they had been raised to be.

            Draco was younger, without the weight of years to absorb his experiences, and too many of them had happened to him over too short a period of time. He went further. The cracks became a hole, and revealed the whole glittering surface of his existence as ice, not diamond. It fell away from beneath him, and Draco created a new set of ideals to replace it, based on what he observed around him, and a hard practicality that told him pure-bloods could not afford to pretend Muggleborns were not just as intelligent and just as strongly magical.

            And that was the real source of the resentment and fury that bubbled between him and his parents. Draco was an intolerable challenge to his parents’ way of life, a silent rebuke for their failure to change. They had thought survival through that change was not possible, but Draco had managed it; why couldn’t they?

            For Draco, his parents were a likewise intolerable temptation, and a bastion of stupidity. He did not want to become what he had been, what they still were, but at the same time, it would be so much easier. He would have people to support him in it, whereas he had to build his own future road alone right now. He wouldn’t have to sicken of the sound of his own voice, or doubt his every action. And he hated this indecision in himself, this half-regret for what he had left behind, and battled against it with a ferocity that likewise spilled out onto his parents.

            Harry wished he knew where his hands were after that revelation, so that he could scrub himself clean of the feeling of having understood Draco’s bigotry, even for a moment. It was one thing to know racists were human, and another to let them transform you into a racist yourself.

            Then he remembered it was Draco’s prior bigotry. Draco had known his parents—a treasure Harry would have given half his life to attain—and still turned his back on and broken away from them when he realized they were wrong.

            Harry felt himself hurled over a waterfall again, but this time it was composed solely of his own emotions. He opened his eyes, shivering, and found himself gazing at Draco’s face with wonder.

            He had not realized he would know the moment when he fell in love.

*

            Draco looked around in shock. He was used to finding himself in a realm of wind or water when he used this potion: a moving place, where the memories could easily be absorbed.

            Instead, he stood in a heavy cave of gold, with yellow rocks glittering around him, and tongues of fire flickering up the polished stone walls. A dragon’s hoard loaded every corner. Draco found himself hardly able to move with the weight of the memories and emotions that suddenly descended on him.

            He held the things he wanted to know steadfastly in the forefront of his own mind, however. The potion would react with unconscious intentions if he did not, and show him whatever he most wanted to know about in Harry’s mind—but that was different from what he needed to know.

            Why does he fear his own magic so much?

            The question swirled into being in front of him, in blazing blue letters that were unlike any other result Draco had ever seen from this potion. He blinked and braced his back against the nearest basalt wall as the blue of the letters drained away, replaced by gold, and then the light shone directly into his thoughts, projected there by a force that reminded him of sunlight shining through a prism.

            It was not words that answered him, but emotion, and a vision. Ginny Weasley was before him, enchained and encircled by shadows—and he had to think of her as Ginny instead of any derogatory name, because that was the way Harry thought of her, and he was mad with love and panic and jealousy and rage and lust. The shadows wavered up and down, extending glittering jaws. And then they vanished, and Ginny was left intact, but she looked at Harry with fear that broke off part of him.

            The horror that he might hurt someone he loved ran like a current beneath everything Harry did. It always had, Draco learned, as he was tossed rapidly back through glittering, gold-edged memories. Harry was good at Shield Charms, the Patronus Charm, the Disarming Charm—defensive magic. That was what he wanted to be good at. That was what he wanted to wield, because wielding it mean that his first impulse, his first instinct, was to protect other people.

            He needed to be someone who protected them. Being a murderer first—which was the way his mind phrased it, and not the way Draco would have phrased it—was unacceptable.

            But right before and behind and under those realizations ran the memories of moments when Harry’s magic had not been defensive. He had stabbed a diary with a basilisk fang. He had tried to cast Cruciatus twice, and succeeded once. He had used the Imperius Curse. His temper had flared, and Draco found himself, astonished, very solidly in the middle of the beating Harry had given him on the Quidditch Pitch in fifth year.

            And the moment of eating Daphne’s magic danced around him in those blue-edged shadows. Harry was proud because he had saved Draco with that magic, and ashamed because he had harmed someone else. The two emotions were so intertwined that there was probably no separating them. Harry could not leave the first behind because his feelings for Draco and Draco himself would not let him. He could not stop feeling the second because he still felt that he should be the perfect hero, and he should have found some solution to the problem that did not involve violence.

            Draco caught his breath, filled for a moment with the temptation to explain that it wouldn’t have mattered what Harry did; Daphne was mad and would have found a way to counteract anything but the most extreme measures.

            But, of course, he was not speaking directly to Harry. And he doubted his words would ease Harry’s shame in any case. Harry’s emotions had always been the core of him, and they were extraordinarily powerful.

            Why did he take his potion? Draco asked, the letters again blazing blue in front of him, but the potion was already moving to answer that for him, and looking into the words was like looking into the sun.

            Harry had determined that certain of his emotions were the danger, and he was further determined to reject them because they had made him hurt someone he loved, instead of an enemy, which might just be permissible under the strict standards Harry held himself to (thought still not as good as finding a way around violence altogether). If he didn’t have those emotions, then obviously he couldn’t use them as justification for hurting someone. So he had turned to the potion and worked at it, and reworked it, and learned to brew even though he had no innate talent for Potions, and clung with grim determination to his goal, and weathered the disapproval of his friends.

            Because not defending someone he loved, even if he had to defend them from himself, was anathema to him.

            It was not all mindless Gryffindor sensibilities, as Draco had half-feared he would find when he entered Harry’s thoughts. It was self-knowledge twined with self-esteem and self-loathing. Harry knew he was capable of doing things other than protecting and loving; he preferred not to think about them, but the more persistently he avoided the thoughts, the more persistently they showed up.

            It was a holding of opposites in tension that Draco did not think he could have withstood, himself, and now he comprehended why Harry’s mind was so still and heavy, his thoughts golden instead of water and wind. Harry’s vicious self-knowledge demanded it so he could examine his thoughts before they escaped into action. If they escaped anyway, then they would be dragged back and frozen here for endless analysis.

            Draco took a deep breath. He knew the potion would end at any moment and he would be brought back to Harry’s face, but there was still one more thing he needed to know. And what does he feel about me?

            Emotions hit him like boulders. Harry cared for him desperately, was wary of him, wondered frantically what had happened to him when he suffered under Daphne’s torture, wanted to reconcile him with his parents, admired him physically, worried that he would not be enough for Draco—in some mysterious way; Draco could not learn the details because Harry himself did not know what he meant by that fear—and, all in all, wished for the chance to love him whilst seriously doubting that he was worthy of it or could do a good job.

            And yes, there was love there, new and sudden as a cave-in.

            Draco gasped, and once again was swept back to staring at Harry’s face. Harry reached out and cradled his chin. He had a faint smile on his lips, a smile that had reached the backs of his eyes.

            “Find what you needed?” Harry whispered.

            Draco reached out and embraced him, leaning his head on Harry’s shoulder. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, I think so.”

*

            Harry escorted him to the couch in the middle of the main room of the flat—or maybe they escorted each other, because he leaned on Draco as much as Draco leaned on him, and Harry’s head was spinning just like Draco’s appeared to be doing, and his breath was rasping as though he had run miles. Draco breathed more quietly, but he was continually shaking back his hair and then blinking his eyes, as if he found it hard to focus on things more than a few feet away. Harry sat down, or collapsed, and then Draco collapsed on top of him, leaning partially on his lap and partially on his shoulder.

            And then he laughed. Harry tried to think of the last time he had heard Draco laugh as freely and joyously as that.

            Maybe I’ve never heard it.

            He looked down, running his fingers through Draco’s hair, just as Draco turned around on his lap and looked up at him. Draco gave a soft smile, though Harry wasn’t sure what in his face had prompted it. Already he was missing the potion, which would have told him the answer as soon as he asked the question.

            Draco captured his hand and kissed the tip of his index finger. It seemed natural when he spoke, though if his tone was low and conversational, his words were ones that would have made Harry start back in a panic just an hour before.

            “I felt you fall in love with me, you know. Marvelous experience. But can I ask why?”

            Harry nodded and dipped his head so he could rub his cheek against Draco’s neck. Draco let out a little gasp as if the maneuver were taking air away from him, but Harry still didn’t pull back until he was done. Then he murmured, “Because I finally saw how much courage you have, how much resilience. I didn’t think anyone could have survived pulling away from their parents and the way they were raised like that, but you did.”

            “So you love me for my Gryffindor traits.” Draco closed his eyes and tilted his head back, smiling.

            “Not exactly,” said Harry. “Or not just that. I think before, I didn’t understand how you could stand the separation from your parents. Maybe you were confused about it, too. Maybe you hadn’t thought through all the implications of separating from them. Maybe this fight for your freedom and independence, though I think it’s become something much more noble now, just started as a late adolescent rebellion.”

            Draco snorted into the back of his hand.

            Harry went on, feeling relaxed, measured, peaceful. Probably this was just a side-effect of the potion. But if so, he intended to enjoy it as long as it lasted. And it was real now, after all. “And now I know you know yourself. You had to painfully confront and learn yourself, in fact, after what Voldemort did to you.” Draco stiffened at the sound of the name, then relaxed again. Harry stroked the small of his back, and tried to remember if being close to anyone else had ever felt this good. “You’re more mature than your parents. You’re more adult than a lot of people I know. And—it’s everything, Draco. The courage, and the maturity, and the passion, and the way you brew potions, and the stubbornness and determination to keep going even when someone you love scorns you or your shop collapses. Everything. I find so many things to love and admire in you that they combine together and become just one big puddle of love.”

            Draco laughed and rolled over whilst maintaining the same general alignment of his body, so that he now lay with his back across Harry’s knees, his head draped onto the couch, grinning into Harry’s face. He reached up to run a hand across his cheek and hair, then pulled him down into a kiss.

            Harry went, eagerly.

            And it was better than ever, and not just because he thought he could taste a fugitive sweetness from the potion covering Draco’s tongue. There was more confidence in the tongue that moved under his now, and he had more confidence to lick at Draco’s teeth and cheeks and tongue in return, without worrying that he was going to trigger a bad memory or do something unwelcome.

            Daphne had made Draco suck various objects, and she had cut his lips and tongue and filled his mouth with noxious liquids.

            She had never shared a lover’s kiss with him.

            Draco pulled back at last, his eyes brilliant, his face flushed and shining. His hands rose and traced circles on the sides of Harry’s temples. Harry watched him closely, trying to determine the source of the extra light in his gaze, and decided it came from some final wall falling. He was seeing the light Draco carried within him, but usually shielded with thick barriers from the gaze of anyone not initiated.

            Harry knew he was being absolutely soppy and poetic. He didn’t care. He also didn’t care that it was probably the potion that gave him the courage to say, “I’m in love with you now. What about you? Are you in love with me?”

*

            Draco blinked, but more because he hadn’t expected to be asked the question yet than because he hadn’t expected it at all. He reached up and managed, with some stretching on his part and bending on Harry’s, to get a hand behind Harry’s head and scratch through his hair. Harry shut his eyes and made a small, pleased sound.

            “I’m on my way there,” said Draco. “I don’t think I’ll know the emotion when I do feel it, at least not right away. Maybe I won’t know it at all, and then I’ll make some grand gesture and surprise myself as well as everyone else with how much I love you.” He found himself oddly enchanted with the idea, trying to imagine what the grand gesture could be. If he had committed himself to Gryffindor tactics when dealing with his parents, then surely he should commit himself to Gryffindor gestures of love as well.

            “I’d want you to be honest,” said Harry, and made that soft pleased sound again, though Draco’s fingers had stopped moving. “Tell me when you’re certain. Not before.”

            “All right,” Draco said, and reminded himself that he had known this loose, relaxed state would come upon them when they finished the potion, but that didn’t mean he had to act like an utter idiot. Then he wondered if he really was acting like an utter idiot, and lost the train of thought when Harry asked him another question.

            “What did you want to see in my mind?”

            “Why you were so afraid of your magic,” said Draco, and dropped his head back against the couch, and smiled at Harry. He just wanted to lie here and look at him, and he knew he probably would for as long as the effects of the potion lasted. And was that so wrong? Was that something he had to deny himself even when he was in his proper frame of mind again?

            Maybe not.

            “I told you that,” Harry said, and he had the nerve to look surprised. “I was afraid of hurting someone. I consumed part of Ginny’s magic. I nearly killed her. And I did it because I felt jealousy and lust. I couldn’t trust that she loved me enough to stay with me in spite of flirting with Dean.”

            “I knew that, but I didn’t feel it, just like you didn’t feel my rebellion,” Draco whispered. “I thought it was a silly thing to feel. You didn’t actually kill her or drain all her magic, you stopped, so what was the problem?”

            “I felt the desire to do it, though,” said Harry. “I don’t like that.”

            “Desires aren’t evil,” Draco said. “Actions are.”

            Harry smiled, a sad smile, but not a distant one. He was still open to talking about this, and Draco hoped he would be for as long as the effects of the potion lasted. And it was not because he wanted Harry to be vulnerable if he was vulnerable, Draco thought. He just wanted to share this free talking and lack of defensiveness with him.

            “That’s something I think we’ll have to disagree on, always,” Harry said. “But yes, that was it. I know I’ve done things I shouldn’t be proud of, but I still kept trying to pretend I didn’t have those desires. And if I killed the desires altogether with the potion, then I could really say that I didn’t have them at all.”

            “You’ll stop taking the potion,” Draco said. He said it in the way he might have said stones would fall to the earth; he felt the same certainty filling him.

            Harry blinked. “Why? After all, it’s changed. It doesn’t eliminate my desires any more. It’ll allow me to protect you by strengthening my magic, and I think that’s a good thing, for as long as our conflict with our enemies lasts.”

            Draco shook his head. “It could change back,” he said. “What if the danger passes and then you decided that you want to get rid of those desires again? You’re in love with me now. Can you imagine feeling those desires towards me?”

            Harry let his eyelids fall over his eyes, and shivered once, a full-body shiver of absolute terror that Draco could feel very well, lying in his lap as he was.

            “I don’t mind if you feel those desires,” Draco said, very quietly. “You were in love with Weasley, and you felt them towards her. I won’t play jealousy games with you; I can promise that. But I want you to be able to feel them towards me, if you think my behavior deserves it. I want to get rid of even the chance that you’ll someday decide to suppress your passion again, because you’re afraid of yourself. Stop taking the potion, Harry.”

            Harry made a noise of dissent, but it was weak and unformed.

            “Please,” Draco whispered, and arched his neck so he could kiss Harry’s ear.

            Harry nodded against him, then paused as if he were wondering what he had just agreed to do. But Draco immediately turned his head around so he could kiss Harry on the lips, and Harry gave a delighted little murmur and slid his arms around him.

            Draco had expected to feel triumph more than anything else when he got Harry off the potion. Instead, he felt relief. A threat to Harry and his relationship with Harry was gone now, and he was willing to withstand whatever consequences might come along because of Harry’s abandonment of the potion.

            He was not afraid of Harry. Nothing could make him be.

*

            Thrnbrooke: Here it is!

            Mangacat: Don’t worry, Millicent will stick around.

            avihenda: You’re welcome! I’m trying to get into the swing of updating this story, now.

Yume111: I think Draco has a lot of hatred and resentment towards his parents still—hence the way he thinks of them in this chapter—but he’s coming to understand that reconciliation on their terms, using their tactics, is just not possible.

            And yes, I think acknowledging his ‘Gryffindor’ side makes him stronger. He did lose control.

            Throughout Chapter 6, Draco is coming to the decision that he doesn’t know Harry very well and thus must brew that mind-reading potion. It’s one reason he tuned out during the conversation with Millicent; he was thinking long-term tactics for understanding Harry, instead of short-term. That moment when he stares at Harry is when he gets the idea, yes.

            I don’t think Millicent’s goal is really all that incompatible with Harry and Draco’s. She doesn’t want Lucius dead; she wants him to suffer. And seeing his son succeed in spite of him would do that.

            Draco is really sick and tired of being caught up in old patterns, which is one reason he talks to Harry about the mind-reading potion. No more old patterns includes no more problems relating to Harry because of things they can’t/won’t say. They’re still be problems, but hopefully not that one.
- 6
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- 8
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A More Worldly Man