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Siege Mentality	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7869 -:- 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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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part IX.
Reconcilation.

�� For some
reason, after a day of brilliant sex and then a night of brilliant sleep, Harry
opened his eyes the next morning with the realization that he had never told
Draco the full details of why he had begun this hunt for him in the first
place.

�� He propped
himself up on one elbow and stayed there for long moments, mopping at his face
and hair. He always spent some time sweating when he slept so close to someone
else. But now he took much longer than he needed to wiping at it, and then
remained still, his eyes deliberately shut.

�� I never told him about Kingsley, or the dead
Aurors, or the way that I was supposed to kill him if I couldn�t bring him back
alive�

�� Harry sighed
and rolled over to look down on Draco sleeping. He dozed with his mouth open,
his lips parted to the point that Harry could practically see down his throat.
He shuddered a moment, his body stirring as he remembered one point yesterday
when he had felt down Draco�s throat.

�� But his
thoughts stole the pleasure from the moment, and his cock sagged back into
stillness. Harry shook his head and reached out to caress Draco�s face, sliding
his fingers around the other man�s mouth and tracing the curves of his
nostrils. Of course he had to tell him the truth; he couldn�t live with himself
if he tried to conceal it. And Draco would eventually grow curious and ask why
Harry had tried hunting him now and not before.

�� Why didn�t I? Lying next to Draco, it seemed
unthinkable that he hadn�t missed this, hadn�t foreseen that he�d want Draco, somehow, and charged forwards to
what he needed.

�� But he hadn�t,
and Draco had spent God knew how long wandering in that changing landscape, not
understanding what was going on, with no one else to see as he saw, no one else
to fight with him and try to win him free�

�� Harry
winced. It seemed that, no matter what kinds of thoughts he had this morning,
guilt would haunt him.

�� But he was
thirty years old. He no longer believed that fucking up meant the end of the
world. He would ride through this and get
through it. He could accept that he�d done wrong, and now he had to make it
right.

�� If Draco will let me, he thought, as
Draco opened his eyes, smiled at him, and sucked Harry�s finger into his mouth.

*

�� Harry
obviously was having heavier thoughts than he liked.

�� Draco had
got to recognize the signs when they were friends in Britain. Harry would come
into the pub after a case where the victim had died, and sometimes even when he
had to kill the criminal, eyes on the floor and feet dragging. Then he would
sit across from Draco, sigh, drink too much tea or coffee, and dig his fingers
into his palm until Draco forced him to say what was wrong.

�� And Draco
felt he had a better right now than he used to to force Harry to talk. Weren�t
they lovers? Weren�t they going to stay together? Draco didn�t have many doubts
on that score now. Not with the way Harry looked at him, not with the way his
hands kept straying across the table to touch Draco or reached back when Draco
passed behind his chair, not with the way he�d woken him this morning.

�� You won�t
make it better for putting it off,� said Draco, blowing across the surface of
his tea to cool it, and Harry tossed him a startled glance. Draco rolled his
eyes. �Oh, come on, Harry. I know
what you�re like, and you brood and fret and stamp around the place like a
restless horse until someone talks you out of your melancholy. I�ve had enough
of that this morning. I want to sit back with a big silly grin on my face and
stare at you like an idiot, as is traditional after brilliant sex.� He crossed
his eyes and produced the requisite big silly grin, which at least had the
effect of making Harry laugh. �Come, now.� He made his voice soft and coaxing,
and leaned forwards. �I think you can tell me what�s wrong.�

�� Harry
swallowed and nodded, though Draco hadn�t been aware there was anything in his
mouth; he�d only been picking at the eggs and toast the house-elves had seen
fit to serve them this morning. �Two things,� he said at last. �I never came
hunting you before this. I left you to suffer.� He looked at Draco�s face, and
he couldn�t have looked guiltier if he�d murdered someone, but Draco was used
to the effects of Gryffindor martyr complexes, and only snorted. Harry promptly
looked upset, as if Draco�s contempt was contempt for genuine pain. �No, you
don�t understand. I didn�t know what was happening to you, so it�s not like I ignored it, but I could at least have
tried to communicate with you and find out what was happening. I should have
sent more owls to France. I should have��

�� After I
ignored one or two?� Draco lifted an eyebrow. �I don�t remember everything that
happened to me in France, Harry, but I do
know that I was immersing myself in research on both the Black and Malfoy
families, trying desperately to ease this sense of belonging �nowhere� that I
had. I ignored owls because I thought they weren�t relevant, unless they were
owls from people sending me genealogical information. I had this obsession with
proving to myself where I belonged, and then returning to Britain in triumph.�
He rolled his eyes. �Don�t ask me why I thought it would be triumph. But you
weren�t the only one who let that relationship lapse, Harry. We were both
perfectly ignorant of each other�s lives for the same amount of time. And now we�re together, and I don�t see much
sense in reliving the past, except for the way in which it might give me some
control of my ability.�

�� Harry�s
face softened as he stared at Draco, and it took Draco long moments to
recognize it as a look of adoration he wore. Draco felt a shiver of pleasure as
great as having sex with Harry run through him. Yes, he could�get used to being
looked at like that.

�� Well, it�s almost as great as having sex with Harry, at least.

�� Yes,�
Harry said, shaking himself, �but I should have tried harder.� Draco scowled,
recognizing one of the incoming explosions of Gryffindor guilt. �I should have
realized that you would need help��

�� When my
parents didn�t realize it? When I couldn�t communicate with anyone outside the
bubble of land I was in?� Draco shook his head. That caused his hair to fall
over his ears, and he noticed the way that Harry�s eyes followed it and widened
slightly. He hid a smug grin. He would have to keep his hair at least long
enough to do this in the future. �No. If you keep blaming yourself, then I
might start yelling at you, and we don�t want that, do we?� he added, when he
saw Harry open his mouth again.

�� Harry
swallowed, then reached out and gripped Draco�s hand. �Thank you,� he
whispered. �But there�s a second thing I have to tell you, and I don�t think
you�ll hear this with so much equanimity.�

�� That�s one
pleasant change, at least,� Draco mused. �Granger has rubbed off on your
vocabulary.�

�� Harry
frowned. �Draco, I am trying to be
serious here.�

�� Draco pushed
himself back from the table, though he kept his hand in Harry�s. �And have you
thought that I don�t want to be serious about this? Of course I�ll fight to
stay with you. That was never in question.� Harry blinked, and Draco realized
then that, though Harry might have intended sticking with him, he also could
have thought that Draco was ready to abandon all this at a moment�s notice. �But
I�d rather be serious about trying to control this errant magic I seem to have.
The threshing out of guilt and confessions about something you did because it
was natural at the time and you had no idea I�d get hurt in the future can wait
for later.�

�� All right,�
Harry said, and looked down at the table for a minute. Draco hoped he was
trying to hide a smile. �But haven�t you thought about why I suddenly came and
found you now? What drove me to this in the first place, when I had no idea you
were suffering?�

�� I have
thought about that,� Draco said, �when I brooded yesterday and�the day before
that? Before we went into the black desert, anyway.� He�d never given that
imaginary place a name, and he would have felt odd trying to come up with one
now. �It has to be something to do with your Auror work. That�s the only thing
you�d be so reluctant to mention, and you�d have said something if it was my
parents.�

�� Harry
caught his breath, and then shook his head a little. �I keep forgetting how
smart you are,� he said.

�� I�ll take
that as a compliment,� Draco said, �and not as your statement that I don�t
normally display this intelligence.�

�� Once again,
Harry stared at him with a look of adoration. �How can you do this?� he asked then. �You�ve been hunted for so long. You were
almost incoherent with terror just a few days ago. You didn�t know that I was who
I said I was. And now��

�� Because
you�re here, and I can see you as human, and I trust you to help me.� Draco
cocked his head to the side, puzzled. If
there�s anything that Harry ought to be used to, it�s the consequences of his
actions helping people. He is a hero, plain and simple. �I�m no longer
hopeless.�

�� Harry
nodded this time, at least seeming to think that the statement made sense. His thumb
rubbed for a moment over the back of Draco�s hand. Then he drew a deep breath
and said, �Yes. Three Aurors had died tracking you, and their bodies were found
in strange places, or with strange wounds. Kingsley wanted me to find you and
bring you in if I could, or kill you if I had no other choice.�

�� Draco
flinched and tried to withdraw�an instinctive reaction, not because he thought
Harry would have agreed to kill him�but Harry held on hard to his hand. �I knew
you couldn�t be a murderer,� he said fiercely. �I knew it. And I wish Kingsley had put me on the case from the
beginning, because I would have been the one to find you and that could have
prevented those other Aurors from dying. And I knew the moment I sensed wild
magic in the meadow where the latest body was found that it wasn�t as simple as
a curse you were casting that got out of control.�

�� But I did
ask for more magic than I could handle.� Draco gave up on tugging his hand away
and leaned towards Harry; he needed the comfort too much, especially with pain
and remorse churning in his gut. �I was responsible for the deaths of those
Aurors. If I hadn�t asked my Black ancestors for��

�� You couldn�t
anticipate this,� Harry said. �No one could have, given how rare the talent is.
It certainly wasn�t covered in Dark Arts instruction during my training. You
weren�t any more responsible for the deaths of those Aurors than a rainstorm or
an earthquake is responsible for the people it kills, Draco.�

�� And if it
happens again?� Draco demanded, wondering, for a moment, just when their roles
had reversed and Harry had taken on the role of protector.

�� If it
happens now, after you know something
about what you�re doing, then you would be responsible.� Harry�s gaze was
serene and clear. �But we�re going to work together to make sure it doesn�t
happen again, aren�t we?� He squeezed Draco�s hand.

�� Right.�
Draco shook his head and blinked a little, then said, �Not that I have the
first idea how to begin controlling it.�

�� From what
I read yesterday�� Harry paused to think about the time, which made Draco smug.
It wasn�t every lover he managed to
bedazzle with sex like that. �Yeah, yesterday, there are other members of the
Black family who had the talent. They must have controlled it, or the chaos
they caused around them would have been noticeable and there�d be records of that
somewhere that we must have found. So
we�ll look in the books first, and then it�s on to performance.�

�� I think
you�ll find,� Draco said, so confident for the moment that he felt as if he
were playing Quidditch, �that I�m very good when it comes to performance.�

�� Oh,
marvelous,� Harry said. �Then I can count on the next five or six decades of
our lives not to be boring.�

�� Draco reached
for his tea, triumphant, smug, and fighting the urge to drag Harry back to bed
again.

�� He had to
eat the rest of his breakfast with only one hand, because Harry didn�t seem to
be inclined to let the other go.��

*

�� Word_Slave:
No! I added it at the last minute.

�� hieisdragoness18:
Harry would certainly agree it was a pleasant sacrifice, at least!

�� FallenAngel1129:
Thank you!

�� SP777: I�m
always more or less stressed. I don�t know how or whether it�s affected my
style of writing. I think this story is less emotionally intense than others I�ve
written, but, on the other hand, I think �Inter Vivos� is about normal.

�� Mangacat:
Thanks for reviewing! As for Draco�s hair, let�s just say that it�s very
precious to him. ;)
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