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Soldier's Welcome	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 25565 -:- 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.

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Chapter Seven�How to
Confront Your Best Friends

�� Talk, Harry.�

�� Hermione�s
words had weight, Harry thought. They lay on his skin like stones, and on his
tongue, too. He stared at her sitting in a chair she�d conjured across from
Harry�s bed�because she didn�t trust the rickety excuses for furniture in their
room, she�d said�and leaning forwards. He thought she would have been putting
her hands on her hips if it was possible with the position she was in. She was
so expectant that every time he tried to think of the words, his memory failed
him.

�� Well?�

�� Give him a
chance to talk, Hermione,� Ron snapped. He was prowling around the far side of
the room, his hands nervously fiddling with the Quidditch posters. Harry could
see the small flying players in the nearest poster looking apprehensively at
Ron, as if they were afraid that he would rip them off the wall if he didn�t
stop flipping the edges of the paper like that. �I think he�ll need time to
think of anything that can explain what happened to him in Combat, or in Offensive and Defensive.� He
turned around and settled his back against the wall, glaring skeptically at
Harry. His arms were folded.

�� Harry
swallowed. �I meant what I said in Combat. That�shaking�happens to me when I�m
under too much stress.�

�� But you
never showed it in the past year,� Hermione said, and then paused.

�� Harry
groaned silently. He knew, from the way her eyes widened and her mouth dropped
open, that she was mentally traveling through all the times in the past year
when he�d said that he needed to be alone and excused himself, especially when
Ron and Hermione already had private plans for the evening. Most of those times
had been when he thought another fit would come on, but not all of them.

�� It�s not
as bad as you think,� he began.

�� But what
happens to you during them?� Hermione insisted. �We could only see that you
were shaking, but it�s more than that, Harry, isn�t it?�

�� Harry
sighed and bowed his head. �It�s more than that,� he agreed reluctantly, even
as he tried to figure out how much he could tell them without rousing further
concern. Hermione would probably try to get him to go to a counselor or a
Mind-Healer or whatever the wizarding world�s equivalent of a Muggle
psychologist was, and Harry didn�t want to. There wasn�t anyone out there who
could treat him fairly if they knew who he was, he thought, and the treatment
would be useless if they didn�t know
who he was. He hadn�t noticed anyone else having trouble like this since the
war, so that must mean it was Harry�s problem and only Harry�s problem. Maybe
it was connected to killing Voldemort, or being the master of the Elder Wand,
or dying and coming back. He really had no idea.

�� And no desire to explore it. He wanted a
normal life. He didn�t want yet another reason for his name to become famous,
or infamous.

�� That meant
deflecting Hermione was the most important thing.

�� So he
lifted his head, smiled a bit, and shrugged. �One of the reasons I avoided
telling you is that it�s so silly,� he said. �It looks worse than it really is.
Yes, you see me shaking, but inside my head, I�m just tired.�

�� Tired?�
Hermione leaned forwards and surveyed him. Ron watched him with dark eyes.
Harry didn�t think he really needed to worry about fooling Ron. He was much
more interested in what the fuck Harry was doing sharing compatible magic with
Malfoy than he was in the fits. Harry knew that much from the way his best mate
had looked at him in Dearborn�s class, and, more to the point, looked away.

�� Yes,�
Harry said. �I don�t know how to explain it. I see hallucinations, and floating
colors, and feel the urge to yawn until my jaw cracks. I feel like I would be
all right if I could just yawn.� He shrugged helplessly. �I know those are
signs of sleep deprivation. I think everything would change if I could just get
more sleep.�

�� As he had
known she would, Hermione seized the rather large hint for a solution and
leaped to her feet, beaming. �Of course! I�ll make sure that you can have some
Dreamless Sleep Potion, and that should solve your problem.�

�� Harry
played along, making his expression deep and serious. �But isn�t Dreamless
Sleep addictive? I don�t think I like the sound of that, Hermione.�

�� Hermione laughed
at him. �It�s only addictive if you take it for long periods of time and
without proper supervision. There�s a lesser potion that you can take in
between the Dreamless Sleep, and it doesn�t keep you in a coma-like state the
way that Dreamless Sleep does, but it does make it easier for you to dismiss
nightmares.� She was bouncing on her toes, her eyes shining. �I�ll ask Auror
Roto right away.�

�� Harry was
about to ask who Auror Roto was, and then remembered: the instructor in Battle
Brewing. Well, if anyone would know something about potions and probably be
receptive to what Hermione wanted to do, it was him. He was the opposite of
Snape in temper, according to Hermione.

�� Let her do it, he thought, smiling at
his friend and enjoying the way she smiled back. It�ll make her happy, and on nights when I really do need to get some
sleep, like before an exam, it�ll make things easier for me, too.

�� In reality,
he wasn�t sure that he wanted to block the nightmares. It was the days after
the nights without dreams, like
today, that he had the most intense fits.

�� Hermione
bounced to the door, and then Ron cleared his throat pointedly. �Harry still
hasn�t told us what was happening in Dearborn�s class,� he said.

�� Hermione
blinked and turned around. �That�s right, Harry. What happened? You and Malfoy
acted like you had fought together before.� By the end of the sentence, she
looked her usual combination of suspicious and interested when she was
determined to find out a secret.

�� Harry
groaned in silence. It would have been easier to tell the truth to Ron alone
than both Ron and Hermione. He and Ron would probably have a fight about it,
but in the end they would patch up the fight, and Ron could break the news to
Hermione. Now he had to worry about both truth and Ron�s happiness at once.

�� He wondered
again if he really wanted to be an Auror. It was so much work, and there was so little reward, so far. Most of his teachers
wanted more effort from him, he made his best friends angry and worried, and he
had to spend time with Malfoy, his least favorite person in the world now that
Voldemort, Snape, and Bellatrix were all dead. Maybe it would be better to just
go live in a nice quiet cottage somewhere.

�� And then he
remembered that he would have to live in the cottage without Ron and Hermione.

�� And without
Ginny.

�� Let�s not think about Ginny, he chanted
to himself, and nodded. He had to tell the truth now, at least, because he knew
that Ron had probably recognized exactly what the compatible magic was thanks
to a pure-blood education. So he would do that and worry about placating Ron
when he�d spoken the truth. �Malfoy and I have compatible magic. We discovered
it by accident when we found that strange illusion and message in the corridor
together.� That sounded plausible, and it kept Harry from having to tell them
about the private dueling lessons. Ron would be so angry about that that he would start shouting, and
their fight would last longer than it would if Harry could keep him calm at
first. �So we can�t directly fight each other. We can�t even hex each other,�
he added, putting his anger at the situation behind those words. �We knew that
we couldn�t duel when Dearborn asked us to. But we work very well together.�

�� Of course
you do,� Ron muttered, his voice low and ugly and sad. That last was the
hardest part for Harry to deal with. �Of course, if you had to have compatible
magic with someone, it would be that slimy Slytherin instead of me.�

�� Harry
turned to face Ron and told the truth as fiercely as he could, because it would
make Ron happy this time. �There�s no one I would rather have compatible magic
with than you, Ron. Malfoy�s a git, I hate him, and I hate that I can�t change
this and I have to have this�this with
him.�

�� Ron licked
is lips and blinked. �But I�ve heard that wizards with compatible magic usually
become friends,� he muttered. �It feels so good to fight like that, in tandem
with someone, that they don�t have a choice.�

�� I always
want to have a choice,� Harry said, wincing at the thought of being forced to
feel any differently for Malfoy than he did now. �But even if I had to like
him, mate, do you think it can really stand up against all the fighting we�ve
done together, and the pranks, and looking for Horcruxes, and sharing those
years in Gryffindor?� He reached out, grabbed Ron�s shoulder, and shook it.
�Because it can�t for me. Malfoy can�t have the position of my best friend.
It�s already taken.�

�� Ron reached
out and hugged him. It was brief�Ron always made it that way�but Harry valued
it anyway, because he could count on one hand the number of times Ron had
hugged him. Most of the time, he left that up to his mother and Hermione.

�� Thanks,
Harry,� he said, when he pulled back. His face was calm and bright both at
once, as though he had swallowed a mouthful of Felix Felicis. �I�ll tell the
prat that if he tries to say something to me.�

�� Do.� Harry
tapped his shoulder with one fist and smiled. �He needs some humbling anyway,
since he seems to think that he�s the best trainee in the Auror program.�

�� Oh, Harry,� Hermione broke in then. It
sounded as if she had been forcing herself to restrain her curiosity until he
and Ron had somewhat made up the brewing argument between them. �There�s so
much I want to know. What does compatible magic feel like? Why could you fight
so well with Malfoy when you�d never fought next to him before? Magic alone
shouldn�t do that. I think it would depend on personality, and you know how
much your personalities have always clashed, and I don�t think your history��

�� Harry
caught Ron�s eye as Hermione rattled on, and they smiled wryly at each other.
They all had their places in this friendship, and Hermione�s was to ask a
million questions at once.

�� Harry was feeling
happier than he had in the month since Auror training started, in fact, as if
he were back in Hogwarts. He wondered for a moment if, since telling the truth
about the compatible magic had made him this happy, if perhaps he ought to tell
Ron and Hermione the truth about his nightmares and his fits, too.

�� He shook
his head at once. The difference was that keeping his friendship with them was
important, and the fits weren�t.

*

�� I still
wish you could come home more often, darling.�

�� Draco
smiled reassuringly at his mother through the fire. Narcissa looked worn and
anxious. Draco hoped that she wasn�t spending every day in such a state of
stress. �You know that I can�t, Mother,� he said comfortably, shifting until he
was sitting in front of the fire instead of kneeling. His legs ached after a
hard day of Combat, and later this evening he was supposed to have one of his
private duels with Potter. �I have to work, and when I�m at home, your
conversation is so fascinating that I never do.�

�� His mother smiled,
as he had meant her to do, and smoothed her hand down her hair. �How can I
resent your absence when you make up for it with such charming words?� she
murmured.

�� I hope
that you�ll never resent my absence,� Draco said honestly. His home was one of
the few havens he had left in a world that he no longer understood, given his
father�s imprisonment and his family�s loss of honor. Or perhaps I comprehend it too well, and do not wish to. �Instead,
think of me as doing something that no Malfoy has ever done, and earning
respect by it.�

�� Narcissa
fixed him with a disconcerting gaze�disconcerting because it was direct and his
mother had not given anyone such a direct look in months. �If I could only be
sure that it would contribute it to your being happy as well as unique,� she
murmured.

�� Draco
blinked and then laughed. �I�m not always happy, Mother,� he admitted. �But no
one is. I don�t think that you should worry about the fleeting moments of what
I feel. Look towards my ultimate goals instead.�

�� Narcissa
smiled, but it was a distant smile, and a few moments later, after an exchange
of farewells, she ended the Floo call. Draco leaned back on his heels and spent
a pleasant minute thinking of what the Aurors would say if they knew that Draco
had easily worked around their spells designed to keep the Floo connections in
the trainee rooms private so that he could communicate with his mother.

�� Then his
satisfied smile faded into what he knew was a frown of annoyance.

�� He still
had no idea what to do about Potter. It was obvious that his fits could not be
allowed to continue, because they were linked now in the minds of their
instructors. Portillo Lopez had been watching them with narrowed eyes, and
Draco knew that she was wondering how well Potter�s magic, biased towards
Healing, might work with his own. Ketchum had spoken briefly of pairing them
together when they came to team tactics, but they were not there yet. Even
Pushkin had watched them with elevated eyebrows, though how compatible magic
might work with Observation, Draco had no idea.

�� And this
morning, Gregory had made them fight each other in Combat.

�� Potter had
struck with grim determination, mouth set in a thin line, as if he wanted to
prove that part of him could still
fight Draco�never mind how inferior his physical combat skills might be to his
wandwork. Draco had won the fight, but not easily. What Potter lost in simple
lack of coordination and those damn glasses slipping down his face, he made up
for with sheer stubbornness and a high pain tolerance. When Draco had held out
his hand to help him up, on Gregory�s orders, Potter had grunted and stood
without looking Draco in the eye. He had limped away at once to sit beside
Granger and Weasley. Weasley thumped Potter on the back and shook his head at
Draco, as if scolding him for doing what he was actually supposed to do and
inflicting pain on Potter.

�� Draco
scowled and crossed his arms. Whatever Potter had said to Weasley, it might
have redeemed him in the eyes of his unworthy friend, but it had set Weasley
against Draco more firmly than ever.

�� And then
there was the fact that Potter would have one of his fits again in public
someday, and that would reflect badly on Draco, particularly if they lost a
practice duel because of it.

�� It seemed
to Draco that Potter was following his old procedure of plowing blindly
forwards, ignoring all the evidence that might give him another perspective on
the situation. He had accepted the compatible magic because he had no choice,
but it was becoming only too clear that he wouldn�t accept anything beyond
that. He didn�t ponder the implications. He didn�t think about what would
happen if one of them did something to disgrace the other, and how their
professors would think of them as a linked, marked pair, even if they tried
consciously not to. The friendships that compatible magic formed were so deep
and often so famous that it was impossible not to consider them as pairs.

�� And Draco
knew, because Dearborn had told him so, that some of the instructors had the
ambition to help in the formation of another pair of heroes.

�� His life
could be wonderful. He might become famous. He might become admired. He might
have an assigned partner before the end of his first year, where most of the
other trainees had to wait until their third. He might be able to show everyone
that, no matter what his name, he had the talent and the ambition to succeed at
anything he did.

�� But that
potential future depended on Potter, who seemed ill-disposed to embrace it. The
mere thought made Draco want to grind his teeth. He rose and turned to pace his
room, wondering if perhaps that would make him feel better.

�� Someone
knocked on the door. Draco turned around with a sense of relief. That would be
Potter, and Draco could translate his whirling thoughts into direct words.

�� But
instead, when he opened it, he found a tall, narrow former Slytherin called
Aurelius Kensing waiting with an awkwardly wrapped package in his hands. Draco
stepped back warily, one hand on his wand. Kensing had left Hogwarts three
years before Draco had, and he had been known for his pranks; he had even been
daring enough to try them in Professor Snape�s class.

�� This time,
though, Kensing just looked at him, a leisurely look from bright brown eyes,
before he gave a small bow and handed the package over. �This is for you,� he
said. �I saw the owl struggling and decided to take it away.�

�� Draco
glanced automatically for some sign of a tear in the package, then reminded
himself that Kensing was an expert at making things look untouched and he
should trust to a spell that would let him detect hexes instead. �The owl
didn�t wait for a reply?� he asked as he cast the spell nonverbally.

�� No,�
Kensing said. He seemed to be losing interest, though he had smiled briefly
when he saw Draco�s wand move in the spell to detect hexes. No doubt he
recognized it. �I don�t know who it was from, but I didn�t find any Dark Arts
on it. You know the list of items that first-year trainees are forbidden to
have in the rooms?� His voice was stern, and Draco wondered if he really cared
about the list of rules or not.

�� Yes, I
do,� he said. �You�re more likely to break those rules than I am.�

�� Kensing
just gave him a lazy smile, as if to say that it was completely appropriate for
Draco to bring up ancient history but he would remember it, and turned and
strolled away. Draco watched after him to make sure he turned the corner before
he shut the door and set the package down on the table in the center of the
room. It was heavy; he thought it was made of metal.

�� He took a
good few steps back and cast an unwrapping spell that his mother had taught
him, useful for opening packages and for disabling any nasty surprises that
unwanted or unexpected gifts might bring.

�� The
package�s paper fell apart. Draco was not sure what he expected, but it wasn�t
what revealed itself.

�� The
Pensieve that now sat in the middle of his table was filled to the brim with
liquid silvery memories. They must have been charmed to keep them from
spilling; Draco had no illusion that they would have survived a ride with an
owl otherwise. He walked around the table carefully, staring, but there was no
mark that identified the Pensieve. He would have thought it was a gift his
mother had sent him, but she would have mentioned it, and she would have sent
it empty.

�� No, wait.
There was a single mark close to the rim of the Pensieve on the side that Draco
was now facing, since he had walked halfway around it. He took a step closer
and bent down so he could see it more clearly. It was an engraving, and hard to
make out at first against the bright silver.

�� Property of Severus Snape.

�� Draco
swallowed, and his eyes traveled slowly from the words up to the memories that
looked ready to spill over the rim. Then he took a step back, instinctively
putting some distance between him and the dangerous gift.

�� Professor
Snape was dead, of course. Draco had visited the Shrieking Shack and tried a
few spells on the body just to make sure. He�d even experimented with a bezoar,
though he�d never heard it was effective against the bloody wounds from a giant
snake he was sure had destroyed his Head of House as much as the poison had.

�� But he
could have arranged to send this Pensieve to Draco before his death, specifying
that it should be delivered at a certain time.

�� Today was
Halloween. Draco had never known that was a day of special significance to
Snape.

�� Hesitantly,
he approached the Pensieve until he stood staring down into it. Of course he
could see nothing in the memories clearly when he was looking at them from the
outside like this. Taunting colors and glimpses of shapes danced beneath the
surface, but he knew that his eyes and brain were the ones forming patterns in
them.

�� He wanted
to plunge his head into the memories, and he did not want to. He knew something
of Snape�s story now. It was sure to be a harrowing one.

�� Another
knock on the door, and this one had the arrogance that Draco expected of
Potter. He conjured a dark cloth big enough to enfold the Pensieve and cast it
over the thing. Potter would be curious, but with Draco in the same room, he
would not intrude.

�� Potter
strode through the door when Draco opened it and gave him a brisk nod. �I
thought we would go back to practicing with the Patronus Charm again,� he said.

�� Draco,
about to answer, narrowed his eyes. �How strange,� he said. �I was sure we
would duel.� They had done that for the past fortnight, since the day in
Dearborn�s class when they�d been forced to reveal the compatible magic.

�� Well,
today I don�t feel like it.� Potter faced him and lifted his chin, folding his
arms. Draco sneered at him.

�� Why? Did
Weasley issue you some injunction telling you that you�re not allowed to duel
with me anymore?� Draco took a step closer, watching Potter�s face, ready to
pounce if it turned out that he was right. The thought of Weasley daring to
interfere with him infuriated him more than usual.

�� There�s
another reason,� Potter said instead of snapping, though he had flushed bright
red at Draco�s words. �One that doesn�t concern you and that you don�t need to
know about.� He lifted his wand and cocked an eyebrow impatiently at Draco.
�Are you going to ever learn to do the Patronus Charm properly?�

�� Draco
considered pressing forwards. Potter�s lips were tight, his eyes too brilliant.
He looked over Draco�s shoulder and at the far wall as if he would prefer to
tutor it.

�� In fact, he
looked the way he had after his fit in Combat.

�� Draco made
a decision not to press. Potter would refuse to discuss it, and they would
waste the lesson. Perhaps, in time, Potter would remember his forbearance
kindly, especially since his friends would probably try to get to the bottom of
his fits sooner or later.

�� All
right,� he said, and closed his eyes to concentrate on his happy memory.

�� He didn�t
close them all the way, however, and so had them open enough to see Potter�s
look of surprise and suspicion and speculation�dancing, bright emotions that
had deeper roots than Potter knew.

�� Draco smiled,
and began to conjure his Patronus.

*

�� Mr Spears:
You�re welcome.

�� Lilith: Thanks!
I think secrets like this are usually more interesting when they�re revealed earlier
on and the characters have to deal with them.

�� Dearborn�s
very interested. Draco knows other instructors are, too, as he said here. The
problem is that Harry doesn�t realize this and wouldn�t care if he did.

�� polka dot: Gregory
is far too focused on taking his celebrity away from Harry. I agree that she
should have helped him in some way.

�� SP777:
Thanks! For a little while, the only way for Harry and Draco to relate is by
dueling, so I want to describe it well.

�� Draco
shares your opinion on Ron, by the way.

�� hieisdragoness18:
Thanks! Of course, the problem is that they think about it after the duels.

�� Dragons
Breath: Thank you! The instructors are positive about it for the reasons listed
here. As for Ron, Harry�s own negative attitude is enough to calm him down. He
will be extremely explosive if he ever thinks Harry is enjoying it, though.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Here it is! Hope you enjoy it.
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