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Harry's Project	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11256 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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
- 7
- 8
This is the last chapter of Harry�s Project. Thanks
to everyone who followed along, and especially to those who liked this small
story enough to review.

Chapter Eight�Harry Changing, Draco Shining

�� It wasn�t
easy to get along at first�to convince himself that Draco wouldn�t really
frantically owl him the next day and ask Harry to come rescue him from
loneliness, boredom, the trials of fitting back into pure-blood society, or
himself. At the same time, Harry knew he would have replied to such a message by
asking Draco not to tempt him like that, and encouraging him to act on his own.

�� So longing
for a message was useless, anyway.

�� Harry
contented himself with observing the Malfoy family�s progress from a distance.
Pansy�s solicitor did indeed surrender the vaults and the houses that the
Malfoys had once owned, and the amount missing from the Malfoys� accumulated
Galleons matched the amount Pansy had used to take care of Edgar in the past
few years. Pansy assiduously sent him copies of all the paperwork, or her
solicitor did. Harry spent a few painful nights working out the math and
swearing to learn the counting spell that wizards used in place of a Muggle
calculator.

�� All the
numbers checked out.

�� Two months
later, Harry stared at the photograph on the front of the Prophet and
saw Draco, with his mother on his arm and his father striding behind him,
openly entering a shop in Diagon Alley. The people in the back of the photo
stared at them with hostile expressions, but no one attacked them. And though
Harry followed the papers carefully thereafter, he never heard of an open
assault.

�� There were
pictures of Draco, of course, because the tale of an old, disgraced family
clawing its way back into power was too interesting for the papers to leave
alone. Harry collected them, then destroyed the collection, then built it up
again, then destroyed it again.

�� Hermione
told him he was being morbid. Harry agreed, and made himself get more involved
in his friends� lives, in Auror cases that involved working with more people
than Ron, in applying the information he�d acquired in the Ministry archives
for the better.

�� He only
wished Draco did not look so happy without him.

�� Would
you prefer that he looked miserable?

�� At the
moment he had the thought, Harry really would have. And he understood then why
Draco had said the flaw was in both of them.

�� He threw
himself further and further into the activities that had so far filled his
time, and told himself that it didn�t hurt, it didn�t, when the Prophet
showed a photograph of Draco kissing an attractive blond wizard at the
six-month mark.

�� He�s
moving on. You�re just going to have to do the same.

�� That night,
Harry conjured many small breakable items, locked the door of his flat
securely, and threw an incredible temper tantrum. Then he got drunk and
maudlin. When he woke up the next morning, he had to spend quite a bit of time
drinking hangover potions and quite a bit more cleaning up the remains of his
fit, but he did feel better.

*

�� I don�t
see why you need more than this.� Reynard Mallister, the wizard Harry had tried
dating for the last month, backed away from him, shaking his head. �I mean,
we�ve shagged a few times, but it�s not like we�ll move in together, you
know? I think you�re trying to make this into something it�s not.�

�� Harry
leaned a shoulder against the door of the pub and stared at Reynard wearily.
Reynard was black-haired, belying his name, with a single white streak down the
middle of his scalp that followed an old scar. He had brilliant brown eyes, and
he was nearly as intelligent as Hermione, though stocky and well-muscled from
his work as a professional Quidditch Beater.

�� Harry had
chosen him in part because he fucked very well, and in part because he
resembled Draco as little as possible.

�� But Reynard
was still interested in the casual, fun sex that Harry had participated in
before he found Draco. And Harry had wanted�well, something else.

�� He just
wished he could stop feeling like a failure all the time.

�� Yes,
you�re right,� he said. �I am. Sorry.�

�� Reynard�s
face brightened, and he ruffled Harry�s hair. �Not that much of a problem. I
don�t mind shagging you in a few days or weeks, you know? Next time you�re in
this part of London, look me up.� He kissed Harry on the cheek and then ducked
away, vanishing into the crowd clustered near the bar. Harry thought he was
probably pursuing a wizard with unusual eyes, one green and one brown, whom
he�d been staring at earlier that night. Reynard did love the unusual.

�� At least,
Harry thought, he didn�t feel a lot of bitterness as he Apparated home.
How could he? Reynard wasn�t Draco. He�d always known that.

�� And anyway,
the solution when he saw yet another photograph of Draco on the front page of
the paper the next morning locked in a clinch with yet another man was just not
to read that article.

*

�� You didn�t
hear yet, then.�

�� Harry
started badly. He�d thought he was alone when he stepped into his flat, and
hadn�t seen Hermione, sitting on a couch in the dark. He wiped mud out of his
hair and raised an eyebrow at her. He�d just returned from a tough case in
Scotland, chasing a thief who had escalated in fairly short order to murder,
thanks to the urgings of a possessed artifact he�d stolen.

�� Hear
what?� he asked. �If something had happened to Ron, then I think you�d be at
St. Mungo�s, not here. Unless it happened a while ago.� He�d been in Scotland
for a week, moving so rapidly he usually outdistanced owls. He frowned
worriedly at Hermione and lit the fire so he could see her expression better.

�� It�s not
Ron,� Hermione said, rising to her feet. And it wasn�t. Her face was
compassionate, but for him, Harry thought, not worried the way it would
have been if Ron were injured. �It�s Malfoy.�

�� Harry took
a deep breath and felt himself waver. He caught his balance with a hand on the
couch and wondered if Hermione had noticed his weakness, then told himself that
of course she had; this was Hermione. He looked her in the eye and
smiled. �I can stand it,� he said, answering her unspoken question. �What happened?�

�� The details
trickled into his ears slowly, important, and yet difficult to focus on. Draco
had been investigating Zonko�s in Hogsmeade; it was slowly going out of
business due to competition from the Weasleys� joke shop, and Draco was
thinking of buying the building and turning it into a central shop from which
to sell supplies useful to Hogwarts students, including potions ingredients.
Someone had ambushed him there, and cursed him with a disease that made him
progressively unable to breathe. Draco had recognized the curse, luckily, and
managed to Apparate to St. Mungo�s and seek treatment in time. The Daily
Prophet had carried the details thanks to a witch from Hogsmeade who also
recognized the curse. The Aurors were investigating, but still hadn�t caught
the person who cursed Draco.

�� Harry
controlled the immediate impulse to go flying to St. Mungo�s, and closed his
eyes. Draco might not want to see him. And if his parents were at his
bedside, they would be deeply upset over Harry�s intrusion.

�� Yet Harry
knew he wouldn�t be able to sleep tonight if he didn�t look in on Draco at
least once.

�� Yes,�
Hermione said.

�� Startled,
Harry opened his eyes and looked at her. �What?�

�� I said,�
Hermione murmured, smiling slightly, �yes. I�ll help you sneak into St. Mungo�s
and visit him.� She shrugged a little when Harry�s jaw dropped open. �You would
have asked me anyway, or taken risks that you shouldn�t have in order to reach
him. At least this way I know where you are and what you�re doing.�

�� Harry smiled
wanly, and then let Hermione change his appearance until he resembled a thin,
gawky teenager, whilst she aged herself to appear as his mother. Together, they
Flooed to St. Mungo�s and Hermione managed to attract the attention of several
people who weren�t actually Healers by pretending to have a mysteriously
appearing and disappearing ailment. Harry slipped away in the confusion and
aimed for the Spell Damage ward.

�� He caught a
glimpse of himself in a reflective window along the way and nodded, reassured.
His hair was the color of straw and stuck out from his head in every direction;
his eyes were brown like Hermione�s. And his vision was blurring, in fact, he
realized. He removed his glasses and stuck them in his pocket.

�� A few
Healers caught his eye, but each time he ducked his head and muttered,
�Visiting,� and they let him go, though with kindly reminders that visitors
would have to leave in another half-hour.

�� Harry was
lucky; he caught a glimpse of the dense cloak that Narcissa had worn to her interview
with him in the Forest thrown carelessly over a chair. He crept softly to the
door of the room behind the chair and peered in.

�� Lucius was
asleep in one corner, his mouth open in so ridiculous and helpless a posture
that Harry thought he could have liked him if he�d been meeting him for the
first time. Narcissa hovered over Draco, her face strained but otherwise calm.
Harry relaxed a little. Nothing terrible could be wrong with Draco, or
Narcissa would have looked worse.

�� Draco
himself lay propped up on several pillows, with an apparatus of several joined
vials hovering at his lips, now and then giving a little whistle that stirred
the blue liquid inside the glass. Harry squinted at it, and vaguely recalled
seeing the same thing when he�d been brought to St. Mungo�s with a punctured
lung. It helped a severely wounded patient to breathe.

�� The blue
liquid cycled regularly, and the whistling was soft. Loud whistling was a sign
of distress to alert the Healers, Harry remembered. Draco was all right, or
they wouldn�t have trusted him to just the supervision of the apparatus and
some visitors. He sagged against the doorway in relief.

�� The sag
made his robe scuff against the doorway and caused Narcissa to glance up
sharply. In moments she was between Harry and the end of the bed, her wand
drawn. �What are you doing here?� she demanded. �Go look at something else!�

�� I�m
sorry,� Harry babbled, stumbling away. �My aunt has a cloak like that.� He
pointed at Narcissa�s cloak, telling the first lie that came into his head. �I
thought this was her room.�

�� Narcissa
relaxed, but only enough to become frozen, rather than allowing herself to
dismiss Harry as a threat. �You had best go now,� she said. Lucius
stirred in the corner and snorted into the slight beard he was growing.

�� Harry
nodded and fled, picking up Hermione in the welcoming area. She had already
decided that nothing was really wrong with her and was trading gossipy
anecdotes with another old woman, presumably a real one. Harry clasped
Hermione�s hand and stood with his eyes shut for a moment.

�� He�s all
right. I�ll just�I�ll have to trust his parents to take care of him and the
other Aurors to catch his assailant.

�� And Harry
did. He forbade himself from visiting St. Mungo�s again, even though he caught
himself with Floo powder in his hand several times. He didn�t ask to work on
the case, though he burned to. He held his distance and let Draco stand on his
own two feet, waited for the moment when Draco said it was all right to
approach him again.

�� He never
will, whispered the voice of doubt in the back of his head. He�s
forgotten about you.

�� Harry shut
his ears to the voice as best he could, and endured. He slept better at night
after they�d caught the attacker, a man with a grudge against Lucius, and
imprisoned him.

*

�� And from
then on, somehow, things were easier.

�� Harry could
get through the day, sometimes, without thinking of Draco. He never quite
stopped thinking of jokes he�d like to tell him or looking at the sky in hopes
of an owl, but they became occurrences that slowly decreased in number. He
started going out with other wizards, flirting for long periods of time, not
sleeping around as much. The time he spent with his friends became valuable in
and of itself, rather than just a desperate attempt to fill what he felt as a
void.

�� Probably,
he thought one evening as he leaned back on the table in Percy�s kitchen and
watched Victoire attempt to explain how Lucy and Molly had wound up with mud
smeared over every inch of their bodies whilst she was clean, he owed Draco
himself, for teaching Harry to stand on his own two feet.

*

�� And that
was almost the moment when I punched him.� Christopher winked and threw back
the Firewhiskey he was holding, a skill that made Harry wince even as he
admired it. �But not quite!�

�� Harry
laughed. Christopher had been telling the incredibly convoluted story of what
had led up to his punching his boss in the mouth and being sacked from his
latest job for an hour now, and still he hadn�t reached the moment.
Harry was willing to wait for the climax a while longer. No one could say
Christopher wasn�t an entertaining talker.

�� He wasn�t
a lot of things. Draco, for instance. But Harry had come to accept that
Draco wasn�t ever going to contact him again. It had been a year and a month
now since the Malfoys got their property back. Draco had either moved on with
his life and realized he didn�t really want Harry, or he�d simply been unable
to stand on his own feet yet. And maybe he never would be ready for close
contact with Harry.

�� Meanwhile,
Christopher was the longest-lasting boyfriend Harry had ever had: a skilled and
thoughtful lover, interested in other things than sex, an eternally
cheerful optimist despite all the mistakes he made and the jobs he kept losing.
Harry liked him a lot. If the like hadn�t approached love yet, well, they�d
only been together three months. They had time.

�� Christopher
had opened his mouth to continue the story when someone cleared his throat and
tapped him on the shoulder. �Excuse me,� said a voice Harry had resigned
himself to only hearing in dreams. �I think this seat is mine.�

��

�� Harry
stared up at Draco. Draco cocked an eyebrow at him, and then at Christopher, as
if to say that the merits of his claim to that particular chair should be obvious.

�� Christopher
turned and blinked at him. �Hey, I know you,� he said. �You�re Draco Malfoy.�

�� Obviously.�
Draco narrowed his eyes. �And, as I said, this seat is mine.�

�� Harry
exhaled hard. His heart was beating so fast in his ears that he heard only a
faint ringing. He struggled to concentrate on Draco�s voice, not to make too
much of that intense gaze traveling to him now and then, and to swallow his
Firewhiskey.

�� Christopher
shook his head. �You must be confused,� he said, ever ready to be helpful.
�I�ve been sitting here for an hour. I haven�t even left to go to the loo.� He
turned and beamed at Harry. �So, as I was saying, then the pink elephant
stepped backwards��

�� I was
hoping to avoid rudeness,� Draco interrupted. �I�ve had enough rudeness to last
a lifetime. But since you won�t listen�� He raised his wand.

�� That�s
quite enough of that,� Harry said hastily, staggering to his feet. He didn�t
know whether to laugh or shout or lunge at Draco. Conflicting impulses to do
all three struggled in him like a disturbed nest of hornets. �I�Christopher,
I�m sorry, but it would be best if you went away.�

�� Christopher
blinked up at him, eyes dim with incomprehension.

�� Oh, for
God�s sake, there are some people who won�t listen,� Draco
snapped, and took one long stride around the table. His hands came up to clutch
Harry�s face, and he yanked him into a kiss with a growl.

�� At least,
Harry thought it was supposed to be a kiss. Since their teeth clicked together
and Draco�s actually cut Harry�s bottom lip, that was a good guess. But Harry
reached out in the next moment and put a steadying hand on Draco�s shoulder,
and then he readjusted the position of their heads, and then it was quite a
good kiss.

�� It no
longer filled a gaping hollow at the center of Harry�s life, as it would have
done if he�d retained a lot of hope about Draco�s coming to him. It added to
the richness of the life he had already, and that made it so much better. Harry
sighed into the kiss, and then used his tongue in a little swirling motion he�d
learned from Christopher, because Draco was being far too silent for his taste.
Draco snarled and bit his tongue, then sucked it soothingly.

�� Harry
pulled away at last, dazed and aroused and aware of the angry, incredulous,
frightened, amused stares coming at them from every direction. The only thing
he actually felt bad about was the hurt on Christopher�s face.

�� You�ve
never kissed me like that,� Christopher whispered.

�� I know,�
was the only thing Harry could think of to say, ludicrous as that was. He could
feel Draco�s hands tightening on his shoulders, his body vibrating with the
urge to speak, and Harry knew he only had a few moments to get rid of
Christopher politely. �I�m sorry. I�m�with him.�

�� Christopher
stood, eyes darting back and forth between Harry and Draco. �You�ve been
cheating on him with me?�

�� Until now,
we weren�t together,� Draco said, and stepped closer to Harry. Harry couldn�t
quite figure out whether he meant to protect Harry or stake his claim. Well,
either was fine with him, really, Harry thought, and licked at the bleeding cut
on his tongue again.

�� That
doesn�t make sense,� Christopher said.

�� It would
take too long to explain,� Harry said quietly. �I just�I was waiting for him,
but I didn�t know if he�d come.� He cast a glance at Draco, and felt a thrill
of pride down his spine. Draco stood in the middle of this very public setting
as if he had every right to be there. He held his head high as he would not
have dared to do the last time Harry had seen him. Well, seen him awake,
anyway. His eyes were cold and deigned to notice no one except Christopher,
whom they did not want to notice.

�� Fine,�
Christopher said, in a mutter that told Harry, too late, that Christopher might
have liked him more than he knew. �If that�s the way things are, then that�s
the way they are.� He cast a few Galleons in the middle of the table and
stalked off. Harry blinked at his back for a moment.

�� Then Draco
turned Harry to face him with one palm on the back of his skull. �I came,� he said,
as if he expected praise for the fact.

�� Harry
grinned. He felt as though he were made of air. �In one way, yes, you did,� he
said. He slid his right hand down Draco�s body until he was touching the edge
of his groin. �In another, you didn�t. Shall we cure that?�

�� I don�t
mind at all,� Draco whispered, and pulled him close, and Apparated. Harry
closed his eyes, finding the Apparition as exhilarating as broom flight, his
heartbeat like a song in his ears.

*

�� It went
very fast, that first time.

�� There were
hands and teeth and lips and arms, tongues and feet and cocks and hips. Harry
never knew how he got Draco out of his clothes. Draco claimed to remember that,
but had to admit that he didn�t know why there was a long slash down the
middle of his favorite robe. He made Harry pay for it.

�� There was a
moment in the middle of it where they rolled over twice, and then Harry was
kneeling above Draco, staring down at him. Draco was extremely red, his pale
skin flushed, his lips bitten and covered with blood�or maybe that was Harry�s
blood�his cock engorged to the point where it looked painful. Harry reached
down, and Draco flung his head back with a sigh that quickly became a scream as
Harry�s fingers twisted. Then they rolled, and Draco arched and wriggled in a
delightfully obscene way. Then they twisted again, and Draco was coming in his
palm. Harry would have teased him about his endurance if Draco weren�t already
rolling him over to return the favor.

�� There was a
search for lost lubricant, which Draco claimed to have left in the bedside
table but which Harry couldn�t find when he wanted to use it. They looked
through three drawers, under the bed, inside the closet, and under the bed
again, keeping the mood alive with nips on each other�s ears and busy, wandering
hands. They finally found it wedged into a corner of the room between dresser
and bed. Draco grunted with satisfaction as he pulled it out and tossed it to
Harry, nodding with approval as he caught it in a neat Seeker�s catch.

�� There was
the moment when Harry paused, half-in and half-out of Draco, deliciously unsure
whether he wanted to continue or just linger here until he came. Draco panted
beneath him, so soaked with sweat he looked on the verge of collapse. The sight
made Harry�s decision for him, and he pushed forwards, purely for the pleasure
of seeing Draco�s eyes fly open and more sweat roll down his forehead.

�� There was
the long, torturous slowness with which Draco seemed intent on making love,
pushing so slowly into Harry that half the time Harry felt the teasing strokes
of his hands up and down Harry�s ribs more than he felt his cock. The final
push that settled Draco fully inside Harry for the first time was as satisfying
as arriving home after a tough case, and Harry�s hands scrabbled frantically
across the sheets as he tried to lift himself and push back.

�� There was
the moment when Draco mouthed words against Harry�s cheek, and Harry mouthed
the same words back, before they fell asleep tangled with each other, sheets,
pillows, and the half-open jar of lubricant, which had added to the sticky mess
on the bed by the time they woke.

*

�� When Harry did
wake, he found Draco watching him with his hands folded behind his head and
his elbows resting on the too-large pillow he used. Draco smiled, very slowly,
when he saw Harry looking.

�� There were
times when I thought I wouldn�t come back,� he said, softly.

�� Because he
obviously had come back, Harry did nothing but curl a hand around his shoulder
and listen. Both he and Draco bore scratches and bites from the frenzy of their
lovemaking, he noted distantly. And one didn�t make love like that with a lover
one intended to abandon.

�� Draco
nodded as though the gesture had been an answer to a question. �I kept taking
other partners, looking for someone who would complement me the way you might,�
he said. �I didn�t know you would, remember. I thought you could, but
that could have been my own hopeful delusion. That was another thing I had to
do during the past year. Destroy all my delusions.� He looked away for a
moment. �I would have been back for you long since if there hadn�t been so damn
many of them.�

�� It�s all
right,� Harry whispered.

�� Oh, you
didn�t take that for an apology, did you?� Draco demanded, one eyebrow
rising so that he briefly looked the way he had when confronting Christopher
last night. �I won�t apologize for taking as long as I needed over something I
needed to do.�

�� I know,�
Harry said. �But I just want you to know that I do agree with your taking as
long as you did. I didn�t at first.�

�� You had no
say in it.� Draco�s eyes flashed.

�� Harry met
his gaze and permitted himself a half-smile, certain that Draco could
understand now. �I got used to that, yes.�

�� Draco
relaxed and moved back towards him, draping himself half over Harry�s flanks.
�But none of those wizards quite answered the need,� he mused. �None of them
were strong enough to stand up to me. Or they were too weak to hold themselves
in check the way you did, once they saw my weakness, and they tried to dominate
and overwhelm me. I couldn�t stand it.� He gave a little shudder. �You
gave me more pleasure in the few weeks of our closer acquaintance, even as
exasperating as you were, than they did. And finally I�d finished facing my
delusions, and going through partners in the futile hope of finding someone
suitable if I just changed them often enough, and I went for you. And then I
saw you sitting there with that insipid little��

�� Christopher
wasn�t insipid,� Harry interjected, because he didn�t want to hear his own choices
disparaged.

�� Next to
me?� Draco turned the full force of his attention on Harry.

�� Harry
shivered. The dignity and the strength that Draco had shown under the pressure
of the Wizengamot�s decision were fused, now, with a confidence in himself that
made him shine like a tempered sword. He�d fought his own battles and won. He
never would have done that or known he could if Harry had stayed with him.

�� Next to
you,� Harry said faintly, �yes, he is.�

�� Draco
relaxed. �And so I realize what I want,� he said. �And you�ve realized what you
want, I hope?� Again the challenging glance.

�� Harry
reached out and took his hand. �I have,� he said. �I have to admit, I�m looking
forwards to this just because it�s so new. You�re not a villain and I�m
not a hero, and I�m not bored and you�re not pathetic, anymore.� Draco squeezed
down hard. Harry bore the grip without a murmur, but he did grin at him. �Do we
even know how to relate to each other outside those things?�

�� I,� Draco
said, �am damn well going to try, because I think I�m in love with you, Harry,
and I damn well fight for the people I love.�

�� He had been
the first to say it aloud. Harry could not say how much that meant to him.

�� He could
not say how much it meant to him to lie in bed here next to the man he loved
and wanted, with that man shining like the sun.

�� He leaned
in and kissed Draco until Draco was tugging impatiently at his hair. �So do I,�
he said. �So am I.�

End.

Jude: Yes, this is the end of the
story.

Thrnbrooke: Hope this satisfied
you!

Mangacat: Thank you! I thought
Narcissa would be the better choice to confront Harry with, because her defense
of their way of life would be better. (Poor Lucius is rather distracted in this
story).

Natwestgirl: Wow. Thanks for
telling me that; I�m really flattered to be such an inspiration to anyone.

Dezra: Pansy felt free to toy with
Harry because she was sure no evidence existed linking her husband to illegal
activities. A scandal that could ruin her was not what she had in mind.

Wickedwiccanofthemidwest: Thanks
for reviewing!

Yume111: Yes, Harry needed to learn
to stand on his own. I hope this last chapter shows that.

Draco needed to feel that he
was the one in power even if he wasn�t. That�s part of the reason the sixth
chapter shows him confronting Harry, clearly in control, and why he had to be
the one to make the decision to come back to Harry.

Thanks for reviewing!

Hi-chan: Thanks for reviewing!

Beautifullove348: Hope this cured
the tears!
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Harry's Project

Chapter Eight�Harry Changing, Draco Shining