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All Desire in a Day	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9359 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Eight--Undesired and Unwanted

            Life was horror.

            Draco knew that much from the compressed images that passed in front of him, black and grey, as the vision shuffled through them in search of Harry. There were still faces and glimpses when Malfoy raised his wand to a cowering Muggle and his mother with her hands clasped over her face. Draco was actually grateful that he didn't have to see more than that, that the vision was so focused on Harry he didn't know exactly what this Malfoy's Death Eater life was like.

            Not what he had envisioned it being, that was clear. At least something had cut through the film draped in front of his eyes, created by his own self-absorption and arrogance. But Draco, watching the way Malfoy reeled back from one memory before he was on his way to the next, was not sure it was worth the price.

            Then the pictures began to slow, and Draco knew they were coming back to the Slytherin Harry he had come here to understand. And enjoy, although he didn't think that verb applied anymore.

            Suddenly the light blazed out of the vision, and Malfoy was standing in the middle of the entrance hall at the Manor, staring transfixed at the boy in front of him. He had a complicated glamour on him, one that thinned the lightning scar almost to the point of invisibility, and his hair had darkened and grown longer, and his skin was paler. He looked almost like he could be Professor Snape's son, as a matter of fact.

            But those green eyes were still the same. Through Malfoy's mind there pulsed, like an echo, the wonder that Potter hadn't tried to change them. Draco pushed back automatically with the knowledge that eyes were the most difficult part of the body to use a glamour on, but Malfoy didn't hear him, of course.

            "Is that him, boy?" Fenrir Greyback's hand gripped Malfoy's shoulder, and ignored his flinch away. The werewolf didn't care who he manhandled, although he was more likely to make "pretty" comments under his breath about the Muggle girls they captured. "You were in his House for six years. You must know."

            Malfoy's mind struggled and heaved. His hand rose to touch the scar on his cheek, the one that Harry had gifted him with. Draco could hear the opposing sets of words that rose up in his throat. On the one hand, he thought Potter might be his only chance, and his mother's, to survive the war; on the other hand, Potter had scarred him, and Malfoy wanted to see him suffer.

            That's not important right now, Draco thought, and wished that he had cast a sort of telepathy spell before he came into the vision, or at least negotiated with the ritual for the right to communicate with his younger self. Can't you see that? The only important thing is getting free of the Dark Lord and returning to the status quo we were in before, not making up for old scores!

            Malfoy opened his mouth. Draco didn't think even he knew what words would emerge until he spoke. Draco certainly didn't. "Yeah, that's him."

            Harry continued to look Malfoy in the eye as the Death Eaters exploded around them into delighted howls--literal ones, in Greyback's case. Draco saw no flinching, no withdrawal, in those eyes. He wondered why for a moment. Harry in this universe had the right to feel that Malfoy had betrayed him, if only because they had shared a House, if not a friendship.

            But then he realized. Harry had already withdrawn as far as he possibly could. That Malfoy would do such a thing was a setback, but no surprise. Harry had already taken all compassion away from Malfoy, and all expectation that he would stay true and not betray him, last year.

            And that must mean he had some plan here, that he wouldn't depend on Malfoy's faithfulness to save him--

            "Harry!"

            A figure dressed in dark robes broke from the Death Eaters ranks to the side. Draco hadn't seen him in the memories, but then, those memories had gone past so fast that that wasn't really a surprise. And so, it hadn't happened that way in the real world. What did that matter? If Malfoy and Harry could have different fates, surely other people could, as well.

            None of that eased the clamor in Draco's head as he watched Blaise turn on the Death Eaters, cursing several of them, including Greyback, before they realized what was happening, and Summoning Harry's wand back. He tossed the wand to Harry. Harry caught it and nodded once to Blaise, his smile on his face like a fire made of sunlight.

            That smile had been Draco's, the day he finally got the courage to go up and introduce himself to Harry like a normal person, and ask for a date. Harry had smiled at him like that because, he had confessed later, he had hoped Draco would take the initiative, but he knew he didn't have the right to expect it, and he hadn't thought they could ever move past the sticky shadows hanging between them--

            Draco thought all that as he watched Blaise and Harry work together, in a way that proved Blaise must have attended Dumbledore's Army or at least some training sessions in secret, to surround Harry and his friends with rings of fire and snapping blades and make it out the door. Malfoy sat on the floor where one of Blaise's curses had tossed him and felt nothing but numbness, eating into his head like ice.

            Then the Dark Lord came, and the vision thankfully closed in, because Harry had left the Manor some minutes before, and Draco had no desire to see what would happen to those of them left behind.

*



            It was all he could think of, the driving desire that made him follow Potter into the room he was looking for. The room Malfoy had been working in, trying to find a solution to the problem of letting the Death Eaters into the castle. Malfoy had no idea what Potter wanted in that room, and less intention of caring. What mattered was that he could capture Potter again, take him to the Dark Lord, and make up for his failure in the Manor--the failure that had seen his mother tortured--that way.



            Draco traveled in his head, a prisoner, and tried to shut his eyes regularly, when he thought it would help. It never did, because Malfoy just kept moving along, and Draco wasn't sure he could make him less stupid even if Malfoy could hear him, but he tried.

            And then Malfoy was saying something in a high, shrill voice that Draco didn't bother listening to, because he was watching Harry's face. Harry gazed at Malfoy with nothing in his eyes, as usual. Even as Draco watched, Harry turned his head to the side, and his eyes locked on something in the distant wreckage of items. He smiled, and the gesture was bright and remote. He didn't care about the boy babbling in front of him. That was the worst, that Malfoy was so utterly irrelevant to him, despite being in the same House.

            At least Blaise wasn't with Harry and his merry band. That was the only consolation Draco could take away from this confrontation.

            The universe hadn't changed Crabbe, who still cast the Fiendfyre, and the flames leaped up all around them. Lions charged at Malfoy, who flinched. Crabbe screamed, and Draco wished more than ever that he could close his eyes, as he watched his friend dying for the second time in three years.

            Or should he count himself as older now, since he had lived through so many years in this vision with Malfoy? He felt older. There was nothing in his soul but an echo of the desire he had once felt.

            When he paid attention again, Malfoy and Goyle were climbing a pile of broken chair legs, aiming higher and higher. Above them, Harry and his friends swooped on brooms, and Harry shouted something that Draco couldn't make out. Malfoy looked up, blinking smoke away, and Draco clung to the hope that they would both see Harry's hand reaching down towards them.

            Weasley and Granger were flying to rescue Goyle. But Harry hovered above Malfoy and stared down, and in those green eyes Draco saw that he could have left Malfoy to his death and not cared anything about it at all.

            It was more disturbing than the Dark Arts and the Parseltongue spells that this Harry used so effortlessly, more disturbing than the scar he had left on Malfoy's face. He hung there, and held the power to decide Malfoy's fate in his hands, and looked as if he were choosing the one thing that would be unthinkable to the Harry Draco knew and loved.

            And that, that, knowledge, seared him more than the Fiendfyre could have done.

            That was the difference between his Harry and this one. This one cared so little about Malfoy that he could consider leaving him to die, despite the shouting of his friends and the way that Malfoy stretched a pathetic, trembling hand up. He had closed off the part of him that could have done anything more. While the Harry Draco knew and loved had never hated him enough to consider abandoning him.

            They were not the same. Harry in Gryffindor had enough support to consider more people than just the ones who were nice to him in need of saving. Harry in Slytherin didn't.

            Or he was inherently colder and a worse person. At the moment, Draco wasn't sure which explanation had the more truth, and he wasn't sure that he cared. He focused all his will on Malfoy's hand, trying to make it stretch up and Harry's hand stretch down. He had to care, surely, that this scene might appear in his nightmares for the rest of his life if he left Malfoy to die?

            Then Harry grunted, as though responding to someone poking him in the ribs, and reached down. He snatched Malfoy up just ahead of a roaring banner of demons that would have ripped and burned him to shreds. Malfoy found himself sitting on Potter's broom as Potter and Weasley and Granger all reached for the door to the room.

            He found himself with his wand hand close to Potter's ribs, and his wand still in his grip, since he'd never dropped it (and, in this universe, Draco added in his head, Potter had never stolen it at the Manor).

            The temptation was on him, breathing, palpable. Malfoy wanted it more intensely than he'd wanted anything since Potter first refused his friendship.

            You idiot, Draco screamed, although he didn't fancy the words would make it through. That just made it all the more imperative to scream them, though. Sabotage him and you'll fall to your death!

            Malfoy might not care about that, though, in preference to getting his revenge, the same way that Harry might not care about guilt and regret compared to the chance to get rid of someone he despised. And the way Malfoy's wand inched closer and closer to Harry's ribs, Draco thought it was probably going to turn out with Malfoy burning to death in a few minutes.

            He actually felt, for a moment, that that might be preferable to staying in this vision and seeing the way Malfoy would ultimately screw things up.

            Harry reached back with one hand, keeping the other in a firm grip on his broom, and took Malfoy's wand. He slid it into his pocket, sealed the thing with some kind of nonverbal spell that made it vanish into the cloth, and then continued flying. The whole maneuver had taken perhaps three seconds.

            Draco felt Malfoy's numb shock, and enjoyed it as a sort of cool protection from the heat of the fire.

            No concern. No care. Harry seemed to always have known what Malfoy intended, and he had disarmed him without even the need for a spell. He had done it while flying out of a room that was on fire, and saving the life of the ungrateful bastard who had tried to kill him.

            That was the worst part, Draco thought, after all. That Harry becoming Slytherin made Malfoy smaller than he was, less expansive of soul, more obsessed with vengeance, as if there was only a certain amount of generosity in Slytherin House and Harry had sucked it all up when he was Sorted there.

            Draco and Malfoy were both quiet as they were flown out of the Room of Hidden Things and dumped on the floor, while Harry and his real friends went on to greater matters. Draco began to glance around for the mist that would signal the end of this vision, and let him go back to his own world.

            There was no sign of it, but the world did blur in the way that meant at least this was the end of the one memory. Draco now wished for eyes to close in relief.

*

            He had assumed that the next thing he would be watching was the final battle between Harry and the Dark Lord, but instead, he found himself--or Malfoy--sitting with his mother at a table in the Great Hall. Harry walked towards him, flanked by his friends, and held out the hawthorn wand he had taken during the flight.

            "Your wand turned out useful, after all," Harry said in a voice without emotion that might have made Lucius proud to claim him as a son. "Thank you." He nodded at Narcissa, and some genuine warmth leaked into his smile. "Thank you, too, Mrs. Malfoy."

            My mother was more generous and sensible than I was, here. And she must not ever have believed that Harry killed Father, or there's no way that she would have forgiven him.

            Malfoy's mother smiled at Harry, and let a hand rest on her son's shoulder for a moment. "You are most welcome, Mr. Potter," she said, and if her voice was not perfectly pleasant and happy, then Draco thought no one else would ever know it. No matter what else had changed between the universes, Narcissa Malfoy was a good actress here as elsewhere. "May I hope that you will also speak for us at the trials?"

            Harry nodded and smiled again, and kept his head turned slightly so there was no possible way he would see Malfoy in his field of vision. "Of course. You saved my life, after all."

            Nothing about Malfoy. Then again, this Malfoy had not saved his life in the Manor, and it was more about life-debts that Malfoy owed Harry, rather than ones they owed each other.

            Malfoy just leaned back and shut his eyes as Harry walked away, leaving Draco to hope that they would have a small amount of contemplation and time to think things over. But instead, a laughing voice pulled his attention forwards again, and Malfoy opened his eyes and turned his head at the same time.

            Harry stood in front of Blaise, who had broken away from what looked like a group of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws to confront him. Harry had one hand raised, as though to shield his eyes from the sun, and Blaise was smiling in a way that Draco knew well, but Malfoy, from his slow blinks, didn't.

            I don't want to watch this.

            As with so many wishes since his initial one, the vision ignored him. Blaise said something, and Harry smiled, the dazzle-smile. Then he and Blaise walked away, side by side. Blaise slid an arm around Harry's waist, and although Harry turned his head and watched him steadily when he did that, he made no attempt to pull away.

            So Harry wasn't someone who had gone emotionless and cold towards everyone in this universe. Just towards the people he had decided were worth nothing and he didn't want to deal with.

            That made it worse.

            Malfoy tried to say something to his mother, but he was choked, and had to escape. Narcissa let him go, but there was too much interest and intensity in her eyes, and Draco was sure that she would question Malfoy later.

            Malfoy stumbled across the Great Hall and into the open air. That didn't make it better, though. The Death Eater bodies had been laid out there, and Malfoy had to look into the faces of people he had tortured, who had tortured him, who had taunted him about what would happen when his mother no longer enjoyed the Dark Lord's favor, who had lorded their power over him during his ritual taking of the Dark Mark.

            Desperate, he turned his head and stared up at the setting sun, and perforce, Draco looked with him.

            The center of the sun glowed like a diamond on fire, and Draco almost wished it would burn out Malfoy's eyes, so he wouldn't have to see this shitty world anymore. From the way Malfoy clenched his hands, he might have been hoping the same thing.

            But perhaps it didn't matter--

            He couldn't tell what Malfoy was thinking, because suddenly there were no thoughts there, rushing beside his--

            And suddenly--

            The light was gone.

*

            unneeded: I think that this Harry's lack of emotion when dealing with Malfoy, and lack of expectations for him, did save him in the end.

            Talltree-san: Quite possibly it is. Not that Malfoy is happy about it...

            SP777: I see what you mean. I have seen that kind of thing done in original fantasy, though, so to me it kind of feels like I would be using someone else's ideas to do it too often.

            It depends on what you think happened at the end of this chapter, whether Draco is alive or not.

            aNGELIC mURDER: Your opinion is fine. However, the reason I don't agree with it is that I do think Malfoy was more than a bit stupid to decide that House identities would matter more than anything else to Harry and that he was entitled to Harry's friendship. He didn't know Harry was raised by abusive Muggles, but he knew he had a Muggleborn mother and was raised outside the wizarding world. Assuming that Harry should totally accept blood prejudice and House identity was the stupid part.
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All Desire in a Day