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Incandescence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13843 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

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

Chapter Seven�Insight

�� I do want
to know what this mysterious person has been writing to you about.�

�� Potter
tensed when Draco spoke those words, but didn�t look up from the cup of tea in
front of him. It had been five minutes since Draco had given him that tea, and
yet he hadn�t stopped studying it as if he thought it was poison. It would have
to be a slow-acting poison when he�d taken three huge gulps of it, Draco
thought.

�� You want
to know,� Potter said, and finally looked up. His eyes were blank, as if he
were trying desperately to mute his emotions behind them so that Draco couldn�t
catch a glimpse of what he really thought. �But I don�t want to tell you.�

�� Draco�s
first instinct was to explode. He�d risked his life for Potter and his stupid
secrets, and yet Potter still wouldn�t tell him the secret that had started it
all? That was unfair, and since this was the only reward that Draco had asked
for so far, ungracious of Potter at well.

�� Luckily,
Draco restrained his temper in time. Bursting out now with an angry tirade
would only confirm Potter�s worst suspicions of him. He sat on his hands, as
well, for some moments, and then said in a calm, fragile voice, �All right.
I�ll accept that. But your holding your peace will probably hinder me from
helping you fully. How am I supposed to know who the writer is if I don�t have
a clue what the secret is? The writers I know would have very different
motivations for threatening you depending on that.�

�� Potter�s look
became mulish. �I can tell you enough about this person without that.�

�� Really?�
Draco raised an eyebrow. �How many of the people on the list I gave you do you
know anything about?�

�� Potter
grimaced. �None of them, but��

�� None?� Draco sat forwards and stared at
him. He could understand not enjoying some of the fiction that the writers who
frequented the Labyrinth produced, and no one under the sun needed any excuse
for not enjoying Boot�s or Wrexby�s poetry. But the rest� �Potter, don�t you read?�

�� Potter
flushed and drew himself up into what he probably imagined, wrongly, was a
haughty and intimidating stance. �Excuse me for not having much time to read
when I�m busy saving the world,� he snapped.

�� Oh, come
off it.� Draco slapped his hand down on the table between them. Since the table
was only about the height of his knees and made of a thick dark wood that
absorbed sound, this didn�t produce a very satisfying thunk. He scowled at
Potter and surreptitiously shook his hand out behind his back. �I know that you
don�t believe your own heroic propaganda. I went back and looked more closely
at the old newspaper photographs. You don�t accept any of it, do you? Not the
accolades that other people try to heap on you for killing Voldemort, and not
the reputation you�ve gained as an Auror.�

�� Potter sat
up and stared at him. �I didn�t realize that you�d managed to persuade yourself
to say his name,� he said.

�� Draco
rolled his eyes. �It�s been sixteen years, Potter. Of course I say it. Now, to
return to the more important subject. How is it possible that you�ve lived in
our world for those sixteen years and never managed to read a single word
written by any of those authors?�

�� Potter
shifted his shoulders defensively. �I read newspapers,� he muttered. �I read
file reports. And I read that novel you wrote about Hermione. I think that�s
enough to qualify me as literate.�

�� Draco
snapped his mouth shut, choking on the words that he would have spoken next.
His mind had arrayed Potter in such solid opposition to doing anything that
would have pleased Draco that he hadn�t expected Potter to touch his books.
�You liked Fire in the Darkness?� he
asked at last, pleased that his voice didn�t tremble.

�� I said
that I read it,� Potter said, rubbing
his scar. Draco felt offended. If there was anyone in the room with an excuse
for a headache, it was him. Potter was sidetracking the conversation and still
refusing to tell him anything that Draco could use to prevent the threatening
letter writer from striking again. �That doesn�t imply liking, you know. I
could have hated it and torn it up.�

�� People who
did that sneer in a particular way when they say they�ve read something,� Draco
responded instantly. �I should know.� He�d encountered the tall Weasley who
worked in Gringotts more than once, and he had that kind of sneer when he
talked about Draco�s work. �I think you finished that particular book. I think
you liked it.�

�� Potter
clenched his hands on the teacup until Draco feared he would shatter it.
Perhaps it wasn�t the best idea to taunt Potter when he was near Draco�s
possessions.

�� I finished
it,� Potter said in a low voice. �I�respected it. I wouldn�t say that I liked
it. I like Hermione better than you do.� He stared into Draco�s eyes. �Is that
why you write about the particular subjects you do? Is it a way of getting
revenge on the people who were on the opposite side during the war?�

�� Draco
stared at him, then snorted. �Yes, Potter. I write about the people I hate as
heroes.�

�� Hermione�I
mean, Millhouse wasn�t a heroine.� Potter shook his head. �You made her into this
hard, cold, angry person, determined to do what she wants at any cost. I don�t
see Hermione that way.�

�� Draco
smiled a bit and leaned back against his chair. This was an old objection, one
that Angela had given him when she first became his copy-editor. Draco�s
explanation had satisfied her, and she was a much more critical reader than
Potter; he thought his words should please Potter as well. �And do you not think
that someone looking at Granger from the outside might see her that way? She�s
determined to free the house-elves at any cost, even though she faces rather a
lot of opposition from the Ministry. She�s often hard and cold to people who
aren�t her friends. As to that anger�well, I do stir some creativity into the
mix, you know, or I would be writing biography and history instead. I don�t
know how often Granger is angry. But she admitted to me that she was angry
often during the war. I simply made Astraea angry about different things.�
Draco shrugged and sipped at his tea. �I�m distant
from all my characters, Potter, but I�m also fair to them. I sympathize
with them. That doesn�t prevent me from seeing how wrong they are most of the
time. If you fall in love with a character, then what you write are those
horrid sticky romances that most people won�t admit to reading. Nothing is too
good for that character, and because the writer is the god of the story, he can
give them whatever they want. But I prefer writing stories that I don�t have to
shower afterwards.�

�� When he
finished, he found that Potter�s eyes were indeed fixed on him, but not with
the emotions he had expected. Angela had looked thoughtful. Some of the other
people he�d explained that to, usually those he wanted to become the
protagonists of future novels, were flattered and required more elucidation to
flatter them further. Potter looked�

�� Puzzled.

�� Were the words too big for him? Draco
wondered, and opened his mouth to repeat himself. But Potter interrupted him
with a soft confused tone.

�� I
don�t�Malfoy, the person I knew you as during the war would never have become
someone who could do that.�

�� It�s all
right, Potter,� Draco told him kindly. �Since you work with the Aurors and
don�t read, I rather assume that your world has been deficient in experiences
of seeing people grow up.�

�� Potter made
a rude gesture with both hands at once. �I�m serious,� he said. �What made you
become a writer? Why in the world would you want to make someone into a hero of
your novels? Why would you�why would you pick me?�

�� Draco
thought for a moment about bringing the topic of the conversation back to the
threatening letters, but he enjoyed talking about himself too much to do that
immediately. Besides, since Potter was so reluctant to give Draco any of the
information he needed, perhaps it would sweeten him up if Draco pretended to
ignore that for a while and instead gave Potter what he wanted. At the very
least, he should have more reason to trust Draco if Draco stripped his heart
naked the way he had wanted Potter to do.

�� Not
because you�re the most famous hero from the war,� he said. �I was surprised
myself at how long it had taken me to think of you once the idea came to me.�

�� Potter
jerked his head in a sharp nod. He wasn�t taking his gaze from Draco, and Draco
had to resist the temptation to preen. Potter didn�t seem to like conceited
people.

�� I became a
writer because I wanted a way to make sense of my memories,� Draco said. �The
war was chaos. I didn�t expect that.
The battles I read about were planned. The history my father taught me always
made sense of all the motivations and justifications after the fact. I thought
any intelligent, rational person would plan a war against the Muggleborns in
the same way.� He laughed at the expression on Potter�s face. �Yes, I know that
Voldemort wasn�t rational, but my father made him sound so grand that I simply
invested him with every virtue. Meeting him was quite a shock.

�� And then
my life was a carousel of fear and horror and being forced to do things I
didn�t want to do. I hated that most of all. If I could have achieved one solid
point, one place to stand that would make people react to me in predictable
ways, one deed in the eyes of Voldemort that would keep my parents safe and
give me back some of my self-respect, I could have endured all the rest of it.
But I was thrown from fragmented moment to fragmented moment instead.

�� I thought
there had to be people out there
whose experiences made more sense.� Draco rubbed his finger down his jaw and
smiled wryly. Potter was staring at him, enthralled, and with a touch of awe
that Draco thought probably came from hearing him recite his experiences so
smoothly. Draco wondered what he would say if he knew that Draco had sat down
years ago, with three novels existing, and carefully written out the narrative
of his own experiences so that he would have a story to tell if he wanted.

�� Words are my tools, Potter. Is it really all
that surprising that I can encapsulate reality within them?

�� There
were. Or I could make those people exist.
I started talking to heroes I thought I could safely approach, like Dean
Thomas, whose experiences were potentially powerful but also peripheral. It was
a slow process. I had to learn how to coax them to talk to me. It was the
thought of the story that kept me going, that taught me how to conduct
interviews. Everything, for me, serves the story, Potter. I come up with plot
and character and arc of emotion as one connected whole. None can make sense in
isolation. They exist only in relation to one another.�

�� Draco�s
voice soared with his passion, and for a moment, as Potter�s brows contracted,
he thought Potter might make fun of him. But then he said, in a voice that
rattled like thrown dice, �And so you�re going to make me serve your story as well. I see.�

�� Draco took
a deep breath. He hadn�t wanted to say this so soon, because he was desperately
hoping that there was still a way he could write his novel and not alienate
Potter. But the words rushed through his lips as they did through his quill and
his fingers when he was caught up in the climax of a tale. �I�ve decided not to
make you into a figure in a book. You�re different from the rest.� They needed to tell their stories, or have
someone else tell them, so they could make sense of their experiences. But your
story�s been told again and again, and I can only imagine that you�re sick of
it. I�ll pass this time, and let you tell it in your own words, to yourself and
whoever else needs to hear it.�

�� Potter sat
so still that Draco feared for his breathing. Then his hand closed down on the
teacup, and it creaked. Draco stirred uneasily. This was a matching set his
mother had given him for his last birthday, and if Potter broke one of the cups
when Draco hadn�t even had it a year�

�� Are you
real?� Potter whispered. �You can�t be. What you said sounds too
understandable.�

�� Draco felt
glad for the chance to throw his hands up. Potter confused him to the point
that he didn�t want solemnity in
their interactions. Potter was too solemn for his own good as it was. If he was
sensible, he would have sought out help among his friends and solved the
problem of the letter writer ages ago. �Make up your mind, Potter. You ask me
for the truth, and then you declare it must be a lie. If I told you a lie, you
would accuse me of deception and probably say that all authors do that. Just
because I�m telling you that I think you should write your own story doesn�t
give you permission to reshape mine.�

�� Potter set
the teacup down on the table in front of him, carefully. Draco was at least
glad that it would escape his wrath, should he go mad. �I don�t�I didn�t expect
you to sound so understandable and reasonable, that�s all,� Potter whispered,
and passed a hand over his face as if he sought to banish the shadows of
sleeplessness and fear. �I still don�t know everything about you, but I do feel
as if you could have become the person that you�re telling me you did since the
war.�

�� How nice
of you,� Draco said, and leaned back against the chair again. He needed some
distance between him and Potter right now, physical if not emotional. �Listen,
about the letter writer, I need to know when you began to receive��

�� I see
things,� Potter said suddenly.

�� Draco
blinked and peered at Potter from behind his fringe. He was sitting up with his
hands clenched in front of him, like someone trying to hold onto hope. Draco
reluctantly put the image in the back of his head to use for a minor character,
since he had promised not to base a major one on Potter. �What?�

�� I see
things,� Potter repeated. He licked his lips. �I handled the Resurrection Stone
during the war, and I was briefly the master of all three of the Deathly Hallows.
I�m�I saw the shades of my parents and their closest friends. That�s what the
letter writer somehow found out about, although how I don�t know. And since then, I�ve also�I see death, all right?
I usually know when someone�s going to die. I see the world of death that
flickers behind the world of life.� He shut his eyes.

�� Draco gaped
at him for a few minutes. Then he caught his breath and said kindly, �I think
that would make a wonderful idea for a story, but you�re really not making very
much sense. What do you see?� He knew
that Potter would probably do better with a slightly hectoring tone right now
than a purely gentle one, and sure enough, Potter shook his hair out of his
eyes and looked at Draco defiantly.

�� I see
death,� he said again. �That�s one reason that I�m such a good Auror. I see
grey outlines flickering around people�s hands when they�ve committed a murder.
I see a gray aura replace their shadows when they�re on the verge of death
themselves. I can anticipate and prevent some of those deaths, and I can catch
murderers.� He licked his lips again and looked up at the ceiling, as if that
would somehow lessen the weight of Draco�s fascinated stare.

�� The world
of death�it�s hard to describe. But it�s like this world is just a veil that
covers others.� He gave Draco a distrustful glance. �I�m sure that you�ve heard
and used that saying before, literary person that you are.�

�� Heard it,�
Draco said promptly. �Never used it. You couldn�t persuade me to write a
character who would speak in such clich�s.� Not
now, at least. He hoped fervently that Potter would never read Self-Portrait With Roses.

�� Potter did
smile at that, though the expression was hard and wary. �There are other worlds
that I can only catch glimpses of, instead of seeing into,� he murmured. �But
the dead�I can hear their voices when they welcome someone who�s newly dead
among them. I can see a black sun that rises when ours sets, and immense
volcanic plains stretching into the distance, and trees that have what I think
are black peaches. And there�s a trio of silver moons, and shadows that eat
souls and spit them out again, and wheels that blaze with fire and rotate with
shades of the dead strapped to them. I think those are the people condemned to
relive every incident of their lives.� Potter shuddered and wrapped his arms
around himself. �I�ve seen those visions again and again, and they were so
consistent I thought they had to be real. But�but there�s nothing in the
research about someone who�s held the Deathly Hallows being able to do that,
and just because the visions are consistent doesn�t mean anything. What if I am going mad, and I�ve been doing that slowly
for the last sixteen years?�

�� Draco tried
hard to set his fascination aside and concentrate on what Potter was saying. He
would have liked to ask more questions about the world of the dead, and would
have had his viewpoint character do so if he was writing a novel about this,
but Potter was a real person, not a character.

�� That is, in fact, most of the problem, he
acknowledged to himself, and asked, �Did you think that you were going mad only
because of the letters? Or did you have some idea before that?�

�� It�s a
fear I�ve had as long as I can remember,� Potter said slowly. He closed his
eyes and tilted his head back, and Draco thought he was trying to pinpoint the
exact moment when the fear started. Draco was impressed. A memory that good,
and the skill to use it, was not something he would have credited Potter with
before. �When I was a child, and something freakish happened to me, I didn�t
know it was accidental magic, because I didn�t have any idea magic existed. I
thought I must have imagined it when my relatives refused to talk about it, in
fact.�

�� Draco
swallowed his drool. Potter was letting Draco into his memories without
struggle this time. �And when you were at Hogwarts?�

�� Potter gave
him a long, slow, sardonic look. �The Prophet
ran regular articles on how I was losing my mind. What do you think?�

�� Draco nodded
to show that he should have guessed that, and proceeded. �And have your fears
grown sharper since you used the Resurrection Stone?�

�� Potter
rolled his eyes. �Of course. But I had managed to keep them to a manageable
level until I started receiving these letters. A month and a half ago,� he
added, when Draco leaned forwards and stared at him expectantly. �Always
delivered by the same golden owl. I�ve never seen that breed of bird before,
and I haven�t been able to learn anything about it.�

�� Not
unexpected,� Draco murmured. His mind was working hard. The letter writer
couldn�t simply want to reveal Potter�s secret, because the most effective
course in that case would have been to go the papers. �Have any of the letters
included a demand for money, or an interview?�

�� I could
have dealt with them better if they had!� Potter rose to his feet and paced
back and forth, staring at the stone walls of Draco�s tower as if he thought
they would grow horrid mushrooms at any moment. �At least then I would have
some idea of what to expect. Instead,
what I have is a steady stream of letters that seem to torment me for the sake
of tormenting.� He whirled around to face Draco. �I�ve told no one because I
would have to explain the situation, and other people would believe that I�m going mad.�

�� Including
your friends?� Draco gave him a skeptical glance. �I might not like Granger
much, but she�s devoted to your interests. I doubt she would let you go to St.
Mungo�s if she could do something to stop it� In the interests of diplomacy, he
decided, he would say nothing about Weasley.

�� Potter gave
him the ghost of a smile. �I told them a few things, enough to give them a few
clues. But I never found the words I needed to tell the full story.� The smile
grew stronger, and Draco suspected Potter had chosen that phrasing
deliberately, to appeal to the writer in Draco. He wondered if he should be
flattered or insulted, and in the end settled on a mixture of both. �Except to
you.�

�� Draco bowed
his head and said nothing for long minutes. His tongue had swollen, or felt as
if it had swollen, so that it seemed to fill his mouth. The honor Potter had
done him was great enough that his head hurt.

�� And I�ve
only done that because I think you can help me,� Potter went on briskly, as if
he sensed Draco�s emotions and wanted to dissipate them. �So. Any ideas? Why
would someone torture me in silence about this secret instead of selling it to
the highest bidder?�

�� Because
it�s too unbelievable?� Draco asked, but ended up shaking his head. �No. I
believed it.�

�� Yes, you
did,� Potter said, in a tone with a challenge underneath it, as if to say that
believing his words suggested nothing commendable about Draco.

�� Draco
flapped a hand at him, still tracing the list of names that Cassidy had given
him over in his head. �And you have no idea where you might have met any of
these writers, where they might have learned the secret?�

�� Potter gave
him the most tired look in the world. �I meet a lot of people at all sorts of
functions, Malfoy. No. I can only tell you that I�m sure I didn�t arrest any of
them. I would have remembered that.�

�� Do you
have the letter I sent to you here?� Draco asked. Potter nodded. Draco held out
his hand, and Potter gave it over, scarcely demurring. Draco noted that with
wonder as he unfolded the paper. A little easy self-exposure, and suddenly
Potter seemed almost to trust Draco.

�� He began to
run his eyes down the list, relaxing his mind as he did when he was
contemplating an outline for a novel, trying to let what he knew about each
writer rise to the forefront of his mind as he looked at their names and blend
with the information that Potter had given him.

�� Terry Boot. Gabriel Wrexby. Yolanda Timpany�

�� Draco
froze.

�� You have
something,� Potter said, in the intent tone of a hunter talking to another
hunter. �What is it? What have you found?�

�� Draco
lifted one hand to stop him, while his mind spun in silence through what he
could recall of Yolanda. He had never tried to know her that well, but of
course he had read her stories. She wrote about madmen�

�� Of course.

�� Draco
looked up at Potter. �I think it�s Yolanda Timpany,� he said. �And she�s either
interested in your madness because that�s what she tends to write about, or in
the fact that you�re a prominent public figure, because she likes to ruin
them.�

�� Potter�s
nails rasped on the table, and then he said, �I don�t think you have any proof
of this.�

�� Draco shook
his head. �No. Just intuition.� He felt a faint pulse of indignation that he
had no intention of showing to Potter. Someone
else had the idea of writing about him before I did?

�� Potter�s
face went through several contortions before he settled on disgust. �Another bloody writer trying to corral
me,� he said. �But her harping on my madness doesn�t make much sense, if she
already knew about it. She could have gone ahead and included in a story that
would ruin me.� He looked up. �I�m glad that you decided not to write about
me.�

�� Surveying
the battle-fire that burned in Potter�s eyes, Draco had to agree that it was
one of the luckier decisions he�d made.

*

�� butterpie: Thank
you! Unfortunately, there are some people who will not be impressed with this
alliance simply because they aren�t impressed by Draco or Harry.

�� Snivelly:
Well, Draco can always dream of getting permission for a private copy!

�� Aw, glad
you liked Draco�s writing, even though he�s embarrassed about it now.

�� Thanks for
reviewing.

�� allyroksmuch:
Thank you!

�� hieisdragoness18:
Possibly, but Harry is a bit more mature in this story than in most of mine and
will insist on doing most things by the book.

�� SP777: I
will admit to giving Draco some of my work habits and personal opinions about
writing. I like nonfiction much better than he does, though.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Yes, Draco�s pretty much decided to stop writing the book, unless he gets
special permission from Harry to do so. And I can promise that the attacker was
not Luna.
- 6
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Incandescence