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The Heart of the Matter	By : Jad Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7323 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter Eight

'You're like the A-bomb. Everyone's laughing and having a good time,

and then you show up, and BOOM! Everybody's dead.'

- Master Shake, ATHF

: : :

It was ten minutes after Dumbledore had left and Potter still hadn't come back upstairs. Draco stared down at the dark hallway, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, but couldn't see anything except a particularly ugly portrait of Cassiopeia Black with her head lolling to one side and snoring, and part of the dirty threadbare carpet below. Already irritated at being ignored as if he were a child and growing even more irritated that there was very little he could do about it, Draco stood up straight and made his way down the stairs, taking care to be quiet enough not to wake anything.

He found Potter just opposite of the portrait of Cassiopeia Black, back against the wall of the stairs facing the portrait. His shoulders were held taut, legs brought up to his chest, arms crossed and forehead down against his knees. Potter didn't look up as Draco came to stand in front of him, leaning his back against the wall under the portrait and sliding down to sit opposite of him, staring relentlessly at his mop of untidy black hair.

Draco knew the position. He'd spent his first three days here alternating between lying curled on the bed and sitting similarly to how Potter was now. He almost felt sorry for him; it was fortunate that Draco was not a very empathetic person.

'I don't suppose you'll be enlightening me to why you needed to see Dumbledore at three in the morning,' Draco said.

Potter looked up and Draco tried not to wince at the severity of his glare. 'I don't suppose you'll be enlightening me to everything you've learned about Voldemort, either,' he snapped back.

At the mention of the Dark Lord's name, Draco did wince. He kept his mouth shut.

Potter sneered. Draco was impressed with the viciousness of it. 'Thought so.'

Draco narrowed his eyes. 'I don't know anything important,' he said. Well, it was sort of the truth. 'Certainly not anything of use to your lot.'

'Sorry if I don't believe you.'

'Sorry if I don't care,' Draco replied coolly. 'What – '

Draco never got to finish, as at the very moment there were several muffed cracks that sounded as if they landed right outside the front door. Both boys looked up at it expectantly, and could hear hushed, fervent whispers on the other side before someone said 'Shh! D'you lot have any idea what time it is?' and the door slowly clicked open.

A large, jumbled shadow entered through the doorway, taking care to remain as quiet as possible. It wasn't very effective, as the hall wasn't very large and there had to be at least a dozen bodies trying to navigate in the dark.

Someone tripped over Draco's bent knee. He sighed and helped her off the floor. ''Lo,' he said.

Tonks muttered a curse and blinked at him. ''Lo,' she answered. 'What are you doing up? And on the floor in the dark, of all places? You could kill somebody.' She followed Draco's gaze to Potter, frowned, and pushed herself to her feet. 'You two should be in bed.'

Potter ignored her words. 'Well?' he asked, voice rising with every word. 'What's happened? Did you find him? Is he all right? Did Dumbledore – '

'Shh,' Tonks hissed at him. 'Later, Harry. I'm not the one to tell – you boys need to get off the floor, we need to get to the kitchen – '

As Draco started to stand, Potter followed, looking murderous.

'What do you mean, you're not – at least tell me if he's – '

'Later, Harry,' said a tired voice. Lupin had come up behind Tonks to see what the holdup was; the rest of the Order members were peering over his shoulder curiously, looking at Draco and Potter and whispering to one another. 'Please.'

Potter opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it and closed it, and leaned back against the wall to let the group pass through. Draco had to squeeze himself between Cassiopeia Black and her husband's snoring portraits to allow the people to pass, trying without success to catch useful bits of whispered conversation as they passed.

Potter glared coldly at the door to the basement kitchen as the group disappeared behind it, sealing the sounds of their steps and voices with it. He looked just as furious at being ignored and pushed aside as Draco had felt earlier.

Potter turned his glare around to Draco. 'What are you still here for? Think if you hang around long enough you'll pick up something useful to bribe your way back in with him?'

'Actually,' Draco snapped, folding his arms. 'All I want to know what the fuck is going on with Snape.'

'Well, like I said, I don't—'

'Give a damn what I want?' Draco finished for him. 'Yes, I remember. And the feeling is mutual, believe me. I do care, however, about anything that's happened to Snape. And I also know that you calling Dumbledore here immediately after waking up means that whatever it is isn't something to be taken lightly. So,' Potter blinked at him blankly as he paused for breath, 'I know you might not give a flying fuck what happens to him, Potter, but for once I'd really appreciate it if you remembered that the world does not revolve around only you and what you care about.'

Potter continued to stare at him for a very long time, looking angry and slightly confused. Draco expected him to shout, wake up all the portraits, possibly resort to physical abuse – as Potter and his gang were wont to do – or at the very least, threaten him at wandpoint.

Draco was slightly surprised when Potter just blinked again, looking even more confused and surprisingly hesitant; the confusion wasn't surprising, but the hesitation was. Potter never hesitated – Draco had learned that lesson the hard way several months before.

'It wasn't a nightmare,' Potter said finally, hands curling tighter around his elbows.

'What?' Draco said.

'It wasn't a nightmare,' Potter repeated firmly, explaining absolutely nothing. 'All that – whatever you saw – it wasn't a dream I had.'

'What the hell was it, then? A secret, nocturnal Gryffindor ritual to wake up screaming bloody murder?'

Potter looked at the floor between them, two feet of dusty threadbare between their feet, worn and faded and looking horribly neglected. He furrowed his brow. 'It was – I get these – visions.'

Draco stared at him. It took all of his self-control not to burst out laughing simple by reflex at the utter absurdity of that statement.

'You get visions,' he repeated dully, trying very hard to keep his voice passive. Draco cracked a nasty smirk. 'What are you now, The Chosen Seer? The Boy Who Saw?'

'Piss off,' Potter snapped angrily, looking up at him once more, eyes narrowed. 'Fuck, I don't even know why I'm bothering talking to you.'

'Oh come on,' Draco sneered, rolling his eyes. 'Visions, Potter? Like god-delivered revelations, or a life-changing epiphany—'

'I'm not fucking joking, Malfoy. Do you want to know about Snape, or not?'

Draco stopped smirking.

'All right,' he said, playing along. 'You get "visions". Fine. The vaguest explanation you could have possibly supplied, but I'll buy it. Visions of what?'

Potter clamped his mouth shut and looked at the floor again.

Draco tilted his head. 'Well?'

'You don't want to know.'

'Try me.'

Potter looked up at him with steady eyes. 'I – sometimes – when he's really angry,' he tried, hesitating again before continuing, 'or really pleased about something – I see what he sees,' he finished finally, his voice quiet but thick. 'What he likes to show me.'

Draco didn't have to ask who 'he' was. The hard, guttural emphasis Potter placed on the word was more than enough. 'And what does he like to show you?'

'Usually?' Potter smiled, almost wryly. The expression was quiet disturbing when mixed with his answer: 'Pain.'

Draco was tempted to make another comment about Potter's lack of vocabulary and his spectacular talent at being vague, but the look in those green eyes stopped Draco short. Then the full picture hit him, combining what he'd witnessed in the bedroom, the information obtained from Potter's conversation with Dumbledore, and the increasingly vague answers afterwards.

It really hadn't been a nightmare, but a 'vision', of some sort. All right, Draco could buy that – Dumbledore had answered Potter's call with impressive haste, after all. And whatever the vision was about, Draco could be sure of one thing: it concerned Snape.

And it also involved pain.

Draco's throat tightened. Potter was watching him carefully, and seemed to notice Draco had put the information together.

There was a moment's pause as Draco deliberated his next question; Potter was normally unstable, easy to offend and quick to become defensive. How long he'd keep answering questions wasn't predictable, and Draco had to make each one count.

'Is he alive?' he asked evenly, holding Potter's gaze.

'I think so,' Potter said quickly, brow furrowing again. 'I mean, he was – when I – ' he faltered a bit lamely, and finished quietly, 'I hope so.'

Draco sneered automatically. 'Oh, do you now?'

'Fuck you,' Potter snapped, glaring.

Draco winced inwardly. Potter was even easier to offend when sleep-deprived and on-edge, apparently. 'Don't pretend like you give a damn.'

'I'm not,' Potter replied coolly. 'I hate that sonofabitch more than I hate you.'

'Then why'd you rush to alert Dumbledore?'

Potter raised his eyebrows. 'Because I know that the world doesn't revolve around only me and those I care about, Malfoy.'

Crack.

The front door swung inward again, revealing a tall, robe-clad silhouette. Potter was on his feet in an instant. 'Is he—'

But when the shadow stepped forward, the words died in Potter's mouth. It wasn't Dumbledore. It was, in fact, Professor McGonagall, looking graver than Draco had ever seen her.

'Potter,' she said shortly, by way of greeting. If she noticed Draco, she did not acknowledge it. She closed the door behind her, holding up a hand to silence Potter before he could begin. 'The Headmaster wishes for you to know that all of your questions will be answered as soon as he can make himself available, and in the meantime, he also asks that you refrain from harassing other members of the Order on the matter.'

Potter looked furious, but oddly resigned. 'Is he alive?' he ground out stubbornly.

McGonagall looked from Potter to Draco, who was watching her with the same horrified, desperate needon his face, and sighed deeply.

'For now,' she said quietly.

She swept past them both towards the basement, and by the time she'd closed the door behind her, Potter had sunk back down to the floor.

Draco felt, not for the first time, hopelessly helpless. It was a horrible feeling to have combined with the awful, foreboding knowledge that one of the only people he still cared anything at all about was lying somewhere, dying—that, somewhere, unbeknownst to him, Severus Snape was hanging in a delicate limbo he had absolutely no control over. He wanted to scream, in outrage, frustration, helplessness—he wanted to hit something, or someone, in hopes to transfer his pain somewhere other than inside of him, because he'd already lost his mother and he'd lost his father long before he was born, and he was slowly losing his grip on reality as it was and if he lost Snape—

'He'll be all right,' Potter said, his whisper like a fog horn in the empty silence of the hall. He wasn't looking at Draco, but the opposite wall of the rising stairwell, looking oddly lost. 'He's a bastard and I hate him, but he's a tough bastard and he's—he'll be all right.'

It suddenly occurred to Draco how very uncharacteristic this behaviour was coming from Potter. For one, Potter never looked lost. Even when he was lost, Potter always had a plan, even if it was just a plan of reaction that he made up as he went, and it always worked out as if he'd had it down from the outset. Second, was that Potter was talking to him, even if indirectly, almost as if to reassure him. Potter never talked to him at all, if he could help it, and he certainly could have helped it right now, but he hadn't. And third, the worst, was that Potter almost seemed to hope Snape was all right—Snape, the same man who had tortured him relentlessly for the past six years of his life, who had humiliated and punished and put down for very little and sometimes no provocation at all.

Right now, Potter looked and sounded as lost and helpless as Draco felt, and it was really pissing Draco off.

'He'll be all right,' Potter said again. He sounded like he was talking mostly to himself now; his voice was as distant and empty as he stare, which was still focused on the wall of the stairwell.

Draco stepped over him, exerting enough self-control not to kick him in the head on the way, and ran back up the stairs.

He'd better be.

: : :

Dumbledore did not arrive until sometime around six o'clock. Most of the house was still hanging in a fitful daze of sleep, but Draco was wide awake when he heard the muffled crack outside the front, the quiet creak of the front door's hinges. Rolling out of bed, he dressed quickly; Potter had not come back since Draco had left him alone in the hall. Draco had not bothered to see what had become of him. Pulling on the jeans Tonks had given him and a light set of robes from his trunk, Draco slipped out of the bedroom and managed silently down the stairs.

At the bottom, he heard quiet voices from the living room.

'—could have been much worse,' came Dumbledore's low voice through the entryway. 'I cannot thank you enough, Harry.'

'Don't,' Potter said quickly, just as quietly. 'But he'll be—you know, okay, eventually?'

'Eventually,' Dumbledore confirmed. 'And if I know Severus, much more quickly than most. He has made me a firm believer in the sentiment that bitterness makes one exceptionally resilient.'

Potter gave a short, empty laugh. 'Right. Um. You didn't—you know. Tell him. Did you?'

'I have not had the chance to tell him anything,' Dumbledore said quietly, though curiously. 'He hasn't been conscious since he was found.'

'Okay. Good. Look.' Draco moved backwards on the banister, so he could just see into the living room; Potter had his hands tangled in his hair, as if trying to slowly scalp himself. 'Don't, all right? Tell him. That it was—me.'

Dumbledore, the barest hint of his profile visible, raised his eyebrows. 'I am sure he will be most curious when he awakens to find that he is most certainly not dead, and wish to know why, Harry.'

'Make something up.'

'Harry,' Dumbledore said, sternly, gently, all at once—Draco wondered where Dumbledore learned to talk like that, like he understood everything and knew that in the end, everything would work out all right. 'I know your relationship with Professor Snape is less than amiable, but I would hope that you were at least mature enough to acknowledge the man is not a simpleton. It would be an insult to the trust I've instilled in him to answer with anything less than the truth.'

Potter was silent. Dumbledore watched him for a moment, then continued, 'However, I understand your position, and the effects such information may have on an already delicate balance of tolerance. I will be vague,' he assured, putting a hand on Potter's shoulder, who looked up at him, 'but that is the best I can promise you.'

Potter hesitated, then nodded quickly, sagging under the Headmaster's hand. 'Thank you,' he said quietly. 'Are you going back?'

'Yes,' Dumbledore said, removing his hand and standing back, so he was out of sight from where Draco sat hiding in the shadow of the stair landing. 'Is there anything else you wish to ask me before I return?'

There was a moment of silence. Potter's brow was furrowed over his glasses; he turned so his back was to Draco. 'I'm worried,' he said, finally, quieter than before. Draco had to strain to hear him.

'Worried about what, Harry? Well,' Dumbledore added, 'besides the obvious.'

'Malfoy.'

There was a pause from Dumbledore, in which Draco also stopped breathing. Well that certainly hadn't been obvious.

'I think,' Potter continued. 'I think maybe you should take him with you.'

Dumbledore still didn't reply. Draco's lungs screamed and he sucked in a quick breath to alleviate the burning in his chest.

'To see Snape, I mean,' Potter continued, growing awkward in the silence. 'Especially after his mum, and all—he was really—last night—I think it'd do him good. To go.'

'I see,' said Dumbledore. 'You know, Harry, I actually think I agree with you. Perhaps if Mr Malfoy would continue down the rest of the stairs, I could ask his opinion on the matter.'

It took a moment for what he'd said to sink in; by then, Potter had wheeled around and spotted Draco skulking behind the thick banister. Scowling, Draco stood up and walked swiftly into the living room.

'Good morning,' Dumbledore said when Draco did not say anything. He was too busy looking haughty while Potter glowered at him. 'So, Draco, I assume you've heard enough of the conversation that you do not require a recap.'

Draco did not answer right away. He kept glaring at Potter, hoping he would leave. Potter stubbornly held his ground and, annoyed but too anxious to wait it out, Draco turned his attention to the Headmaster. 'I would like to go, sir,' he said, quietly—he did not, after all, want Weasleys waking and making a mess of his escape. 'If that's all right.'

'I cannot see why it would be anything but,' Dumbledore replied, eyes twinkling over his glasses. 'Harry, if you'd be so kind to pass the message along to the others; Mr Malfoy and I should only be a couple of hours, at most.'

Potter nodded and, after a hesitant glance at Draco (which Draco answered with a scowl), left the room.

Dumbledore stepped up to the fireplace, retrieving an old, ornately-carved wooden box from the mantle. He opened it and offered the contents to Draco: Floo powder.

'You know the drill, Mr Malfoy,' Dumbledore said, eyeing him over his spectacles.

It was both unnecessary and dangerous, Draco realised, what the Headmaster was doing: unnecessary, because they could just as easily use Side-Along Apparition or a Portkey to get to the hospital; dangerous, because this left Draco—and Draco alone—to decide his ultimate destination. He could go anywhere, provided it was connected to the Floo Network. There were dozens of places he could go that the Order, even Dumbledore, could not follow. Places that he could wait at until his father came to collect him, or places he could run from and hide on his own. This, Draco realised, was not so much a trip to see Snape, but a test—a test and a show of good faith.

Draco took a handful of the dust and stepped into the fireplace, facing Dumbledore; he wanted so very badly to prove him wrong. To see those understanding, proud eyes dull up with disappointment and failure.

But Draco wanted to see Snape more.

'St Mungo's Hospital,' he said clearly, and threw the dust down at his feet.

The last thing he saw before spiralling off into the green wreath of flames were two bright, twinkling blue orbs.

: : :
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The Heart of the Matter