Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Nothing Like the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 35148 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Nine—Charity

            “You want to go out?”

            Harry didn’t look up from the table he bent over. He’d brought home one report with him, since he had it almost finished. “You object to that?”

            “No! Merlin, no.” Malfoy mumbled the last words, as if he had thought the last one might be too loud a shout.

            Harry turned, propping himself on the table with both hands as he shook his head at Malfoy. Malfoy sighed and touched his robes as though the silver-grey material would have turned suddenly rough. “I’m not sure that I’m appropriately dressed to go out, though,” he finished.

            Harry rolled his eyes. “Is that a torturous effort to pull some compliment out of me? You don’t need me to tell you you look good.” It was true. The grey material was delicate enough to sparkle in the dim lights of Harry’s kitchen, but deep enough that it didn’t make Malfoy look washed-out. His hair even had a subtle glow like gold when he turned the right way. Harry could imagine the yearning looks that would come his way if he walked into some of the Muggle clubs.

            He could imagine, even better, the look that would appear on Malfoy’s face if Harry asked him to go to those Muggle clubs. He hid a wince, and continued, “I don’t think I would like the Sapphire Rose again, but something of that quality.”

            Malfoy was stuck on an earlier point in the conversation, though. “It’s true that people compliment me all the time. But those people aren’t you. And I think that’s worth some extra effort.” He turned so he had his back to Harry, and then angled his head over his shoulder. “Pansy used to tell me I looked devastating looking back at someone like this. What do you think?”

            Harry had to clear his throat and lick his lips before he responded. “A good word, yeah.”

            Malfoy’s smile deepened. “Good,” he said, and spun back around. “As it happens, I know a restaurant I think you’ll like. Very exclusive. You can only eat there if you’re introduced by an existing member of the organization, and invitations are guarded.” He held out a steady hand. Harry tucked his into the crook of Malfoy’s elbow, and they walked out the door.

            And Harry let it happen, because even though he didn’t need the luxuries that Malfoy seemed inclined to shower him with, he liked them and recognized how hard Malfoy was working to court him. He might as well let it happen.

*

            Draco kept his eyes on the restaurant door they had appeared in front of, not on Harry, because he knew that Harry must have had enough people gaping at him in the past not to relish it now.

            But damn, it was hard, especially when Harry wasn’t on his mettle and seemed to have let a few of his barriers down again. And that despite his lack of declaration of trust in Draco.

            Harry wore a casual sort of dress robe tonight, not trimmed with lace or gold or silver but more than appropriate for dining. They were a deep scarlet, but suited him well enough that Draco couldn’t find it in himself to taunt Harry about echoing Gryffindor House colors. Harry also seemed unconscious of the acid scars on his face and earlobe now, which Draco hoped came from realizing that they weren’t anywhere near as big or devastating as they must have felt when the acid landed.

            Then Draco caught a glimpse of Harry in the mirrored doors of the Cloth of Gold, and grimaced a little. Harry wore glamours, that was why. The tiny silver spots beneath his left eye and on his cheek had gone. Draco couldn’t see the earlobe right now, since Harry’s hair hung in the way, but he was willing to bet it was the same.

            “You don’t need to hide,” he murmured to Harry as he opened the door for him, heart so full that he let the words spill over instead of damming them up as he had thought he would do until he and Harry were a little easier around each other.

            “Hide?” Harry turned back to him, eyes as direct as a slap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “The scars.” Draco took his right hand, and yes, although he could feel the sharp shapes of the letters, they were hidden again. “No one who looks at you will notice them, not against the famous one and your robes.”

            Harry smiled at him and took his hand back, with a seemingly casual motion that latched his sleeve back down his arm and let Draco notice a few other small marks that weren’t there anymore. “It doesn’t matter what you think,” he said. “Or other people, for that matter. What makes me comfortable is what I care about.”

            Draco opened his mouth to say that hiding the scars came directly from what Harry’s lovers in the past had thought, and then sighed and shut it. If he was going to keep this romance moving, then he couldn’t let every little snag along the way make him lose his temper.

            “But do keep talking about it, if you like,” Harry murmured, moving through the mirrored hall that the Cloth of Gold sent arching and burrowing down into the cavern that housed the main restaurant. Harry neither seemed to look at or avoid his reflection, and Draco blinked. Most people he had brought here gaped or turned their heads away too obviously.

            Of course, how long does he spend looking into mirrors to develop the bloody glamours?

            “It lets me know exactly how soon I should reject you.”

            Draco caught Harry’s elbow before he could open the last door into the Cloth of Gold, which was surrounded by a gilded frame like a mirror but was completely opaque, dark and gleaming like night ice. “I am trying here,” he hissed into Harry’s ear. “Which is more than I can say about you right now.”

            Harry turned to him and studied him patiently enough that Draco’s hand itched to slap him. He held it back, though, with an effort. He would gain nothing if he let Harry anger him into reacting hastily. So he stood there smiling hard enough to hurt his teeth, and his grip on Harry’s elbow tightened with the same force.

            “You are going to cost yourself more than you know,” Draco whispered. “More than you can afford to pay.”

            “I don’t understand what this is,” Harry said, standing limp in front of him, not clenching his hand or ripping his arm away to get free of Draco’s grip, doing nothing but look at Draco’s chin, as though that was the most interesting part of him at the moment. “Blackmail? A threat? You haven’t told me what I’m going to lose yet.”

            Draco wanted to scratch Harry’s skin with his nails, just to see if he would bleed. He took his hand back with an effort that made it shake. “I mean that you’re going to cost yourself someone who could truly love you,” he said. “And companionship, and togetherness, and all the other things that you told me you valued and went looking for.”

            Harry shook his head a little. “But I gave up on having them. That means that I’m taking a risk by continuing to look for them. I don’t think it’s a sure thing. I know I can get along without them.” He reached out and gently poked a finger into Draco’s chest. “You’re the one I think is taking a risk that might end up being unacceptable to him.”

            “And what exactly is that?” Draco caught Harry’s finger and wondered what scars hid under the mask of skin.

            “Losing.” Harry handed him one more smile and ducked through the door Draco didn’t remember holding open.

Draco closed his eyes. Harry was right about one thing, at least. He didn’t want to lose.

And the Cloth of Gold was no place to walk into with his temper burning. There were too many fragile ornaments here to wreck, too much that was pretty to smash, and he had to look at the most beautiful thing of all walking in front of him, as unconscious of his beauty as any framed picture on the walls. More unconscious, in a lot of cases. Some of those portraits could move.

I want this. But damn, it’s hard.

*

            Harry, looking around, had to admit that the Cloth of Gold did look like the place that Malfoy might bring a date.

            Which made it all the more ridiculous that he was here, substituting for the pretty person who should have leaned on Malfoy’s arm.

            Harry sighed and paced slowly up the circular steps that led from the lower rank of tables onto the dais, where Malfoy had assured him they would sit. He was here. He might as well enjoy what he could and absorb the blows.

            The predominant color of the restaurant was gold, of course, but there were other, deeper shades, too, and the flaring torches on the walls and the ranks of mirrors contrived to make them look like illuminations that Harry had sometimes seen in medieval manuscripts he’d helped to seize in the course of his job. Here a dusky red, there a leaping golden hound in the tapestries that didn’t look much like a real dog. And the tables were made of raised cloth of gold and sometimes cloth of silver, and the chairs were thrones. Eating here would be like eating in a palace.

            Harry half-smiled. The Dursleys would say some interesting things if they could see him now. For that matter, Frank would say interesting things.

            And…

            Harry nearly closed his hand around the stem of a delicate goblet set out on the table near his plate, but managed to retract it in time, and nearly tear the tablecloth instead. Draco, who had drawn out his chair for him, hovered over his shoulder, glancing around. Of course he had noticed those slight indications that Harry was near losing his temper, Harry thought, angrier than he should be. Frank never would have.

            He needed to stop thinking about Frank.

            “What is it?” Draco murmured into his ear.

            Harry swallowed the dryness in his throat and tilted his head back. “Nothing,” he said, and knew it was too bright when Draco’s eyes narrowed in on him as though they would pierce his tongue. He shook his head. “I had something in my throat, that was all. And I think I should thank you. This place is lovely.”

            “Isn’t it?” Draco stepped back slowly, circling to his own chair like a predator. “I wanted to spoil you.”

            That was true, but from the heavy way Draco’s eyes rested on him, he was more interested in what lay behind Harry’s “Nothing.”

            Harry took up the strip of tapestry that lay in front of him, the images of heavy trenchers and tables showing the dishes and functioning as a menu. He had slipped into thinking of Malfoy as Draco again, and he didn’t like that. Of course, it had happened when he saw that reflection in a mirror, but that didn’t matter. Malfoy wouldn’t always be here to protect him. No one would. Harry had had to learn to dispense with the protection of his friends, and he was going to do the same thing with the protection of his sometime lover.

            “Thank you,” Harry repeated, and glanced down at his tapestry. He found what looked like a whole wheel of cheese and some clustered red berries and circled it with a fingertip. “This.” The circle he’d made blazed, a newer thread on the ancient weave, and then vanished. It would transport the message to the kitchens, Harry knew. “What about you?”

            “I haven’t decided yet.”

            Draco—Malfoy—looked like a king sitting there, his head encircled by the golden serpent on the back of the throne. Harry shrugged with his hands up. “Take your time.”

            “I think I will,” Malfoy murmured, and then watched Harry while his hands traced seemingly random patterns on the tapestries that spread across the table. Now and then, he would reel a new strip of cloth down the table, but it never seemed that he chose. Harry would have screamed at him—

            Except that the tactic was probably designed to make him scream. For some reason, knowing that made him relax. He even smiled at Malfoy, which made him frown and circle something he didn’t even look at. Harry had to shake his head as the magic shook itself and sped off. “I hope you like whatever you ordered.”

            “All the food at the Cloth of Gold is good,” Malfoy said dismissively, and folded down his tapestry. His gaze on Harry was intent as he picked up his own goblet and took a sip of the water inside. “A mirror. You were looking at a mirror.”

            “What? To perfect the glamours?” Harry didn’t have any problem saying that aloud. People had looked at him and then away when he came into the restaurant, probably because the Cloth of Gold had rules about staring, but it was enough for them to know he was Harry Potter. They were more likely to assume that it was a different kind of glamour than ones that hid his scars. “Of course I did. No one achieves that level of skill without it, and I don’t care what the books you bought may have told you.”

            He started to sip his own water, but Malfoy reached out and covered Harry’s hand with his. “You saw something that nearly made you ill when we first came in,” he murmured. “You were looking into the mirror. You saw someone.” He turned around, in a slow scan. “If Daphne’s followed us here, then I’ll teach her respect with a sharper spell than you used.”

            Harry shook his head. “She wouldn’t come here without finding something to counteract my spell, and that’ll take a while.” He knew that Malfoy hadn’t spotted the person Harry had seen, because currently they were approaching the table at an angle, from behind Malfoy’s chair.

            “It’s strange to see you out with a wizarding date, Harry,” said that person in a soft voice, moving around the table to watch Harry with eyes that seemed more fathomless than ever.

            Harry took a deep breath. Well, he had decided that he could survive this, couldn’t he? And if his past and his present fell in love at first sight and fucked, then that would solve one of his problems. “Hello, Frank.”

*

            Draco felt a great shock pass through him, as though someone had shot a crossbow bolt up his arse through the bottom of his chair. He turned halfway around to regard the man.

            His first thought was, How did someone like him aspire to become Harry Potter’s lover?

            Oh, Draco had no fault to find with his looks, although he was thinner than Draco usually preferred. But he had a—a chiding look to his eyes, that was the only way Draco could describe it. He had it now, in the way he shook his head at Harry. He had it in the way he folded his hands behind his back, as if he was giving a lecture to demonstrate Harry’s inadequacy. And there was an ocean of quiet that was spreading around them, which Draco hated. That meant they would draw attention, and other people might hear what shouldn’t be heard.

            “Out with a wizarding date,” Frank repeated. He glanced at Draco, and seemed to take him in and include him with a little tilt of his head that shut Harry out. “I can only surmise that you haven’t told him the truth.”

            “One of the first things I did was cast a charm that made my clothes transparent and showed him all my scars.”

            Frank turned and looked at Harry, startled. So did Draco. Harry sat there, holding his goblet and sipping. His smile was hard, and he was bright and glittering and jeweled. He was using his walls again, to crowd Frank and shut him out, to deny that he had a hold on Harry’s heart.

            Draco was almost content to sit back and watch Harry destroy Frank. But he knew the pain it would cause Harry, inside, where no one could see. He didn’t want to witness that.

            “So?” Frank said, and the chiding look was back in his eyes. “Scars don’t matter much. Does he know about the way you treat people?”

            “I know,” Draco said. “I understand that he has you to thank for that.”

            Frank turned to face him fully now, and there was a tugging at the side of his mouth now, as though he understood for the first time that Draco didn’t mean his words. “What? You mean he’s still trying to punish and coerce people into having sex with him? I did think that I had fixed that. Have you tried to have sex with him and suffered for it? I’m sorry.”

            Draco wanted to fling the goblet in his face, or take out his wand and do something more permanent. Frank didn’t understand, that was clear. He thought he was being kind. He thought that revealing the “truth” about Harry was more important than doing it in private, or wording it obliquely, or doing anything but driving straight ahead.

            And this was the man who had been Harry’s lover.

            “No,” Draco said. “What I’ve suffered from is your convincing him of many things that aren’t true.” He did wave his wand then, but to lift a Privacy Dome shimmering above the table. “You were the one who convinced him that he raped people, didn’t you?”

            Frank blinked. “Not raped. I never used that word. I did make it clear that sex with him wasn’t enjoyable. Never the fucking.”

            Draco turned to Harry. He sat immobile across the table, his hand on his own goblet. He met Draco’s eyes, and there was nothing there, any more than there had been when Draco first firecalled him the other night.

            I wonder if he learned that lesson from Frank, as well? With no clear guidance from Harry on how he wanted him to react, Draco turned back to Frank and chose his own course. It could not be a duel or a spell, not here in a public restaurant where some people had seen Frank approach them unharmed, and where some had heard them speak before Draco raised the Privacy Dome.

            It would have to be words.

            Draco smiled. He would enjoy that.

*

            Harry, suspended in the middle of his own mind, the way he had chosen to react and the thickness of his walls surrounding him, was surprised to see Draco smile. Why would that happen, when he had almost surged out of his seat at Frank before?

            Because he agrees with him.

            Harry nodded a little. He could understand. Draco had been able to despise Frank and the rest of them as long as he never met them, but when he knew who they were, when he saw how reasonable and handsome and normal they were, then he didn’t have a choice.

            Well. Harry only had to sit here and smile, and keep himself from being hurt any further by this entirely expected occurrence. He wondered idly when Frank would have had enough and would go away. If he had come only to tell Draco the truth, Draco’s words of agreement might be enough to get him to leave.

            Malfoy, Harry reminded himself with a sigh. He thought he was strong, but how strong could he be when he kept forgetting his resolve to call Draco by his last name? Weak, pathetic, that’s how he was. That’s why he needed to be kept away from anyone who wanted him for more than his mouth.

            Draco spoke. It took Harry a moment to follow the words, because they didn’t fit into the space he had created for them in his mind already.

            “I wouldn’t know,” Draco said. “As we’ve done nothing but go slow, and I’m undoing the damage that you did to him.”

            Frank paused and blinked. Harry knew the way those blue eyes narrowed when he was puzzled, and they were doing it now. For that matter, Harry would have looked the same way if he hadn’t already sealed up his emotions. Draco was telling the truth, but why? Why not agree with Frank, if he thought he deserved the truth, and be done with it?

            “What damage?” Frank asked.

            Draco cocked his head to the side and looked Frank up and down, the kind of slow, steady appraisal that Harry knew would piss Frank off. He liked to do it to others, but hated having it done to him. He had explained it to Harry once: Frank needed time to get to know people, because he was a little slow, but Frank himself was all honest, all on the surface, and people should know what they were getting when they looked at him.

            “You have no idea,” Draco whispered. “Well. I’ll answer, but that’s because I think it won’t hurt Harry to hear it spoken aloud. I’m sure he’s said worse to himself.”

            Frank sighed and nodded to Harry. “He has, but that’s because he has the courage to face that he’s bad in bed, once someone tells him the truth.”

            “You made him think he was so ugly no one would want him,” Draco continued, unflinching. “You made him think that he’d hurt you and hurt you and hurt you again, and didn’t have the courage to admit it to himself, when in truth, you were the coward for not telling him because that would inconvenience you. Either that, or the sex wasn’t as horrible as you pretended it was, because you kept coming back for more.”

            Frank stared. Then he said, “I was trying not to hurt him—something I don’t think you understand.”

            Draco gave him a shining smile. “Why do you care? When you’ve decided that Harry is the monster who hurts everyone he touches, and I’m the innocent victim?”

            Frank appeared flummoxed by that. He darted another glance at Harry, who met it and didn’t look away. He didn’t know how to read what was in Frank’s eyes, but then, there were many things he hadn’t understood. How he could hurt Frank and not see the disgust and pain before he expressed them. How he had never spotted Frank’s relief when he hid his scars, or revulsion when he displayed them. How he hadn’t known that the reporters that followed them were something Frank hated; Frank had sometimes talked to them, sometimes ignored them, and in general, treated them with an amused contempt that Harry had admired and tried to imitate.

            “He’s someone who hurts people,” Frank finally conceded. “But now that he knows it, I don’t think we have to keep emphasizing it.”

            “You were the one who walked up to us,” Draco said, stirring his finger around the rim of his goblet. “You made up your mind about who was the monster and who was the victim before you spoke. Are you changing it now?”

            “I—I only wanted to make sure that you knew.” Frank was holding himself stiffly upright by clasping his hands together behind his back. Harry had done the same thing himself before, and wondered now if it was a trick he had borrowed from Frank. The thought made him want to spit. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have interfered in a private date. I’ll leave now.”

            He stepped back, but the edge of Draco’s Privacy Dome, which spread over the table and arched into the floor, stopped him. Draco didn’t show any sign of wanting to remove the Dome, either. He looked at Frank attentively and cocked his head. “You thought that Harry didn’t deserve to date a wizard,” Draco murmured. “That was obvious enough, by what you said to him when you came up. Don’t you think we should discuss that?”

            Frank had had a chance to settle himself, though, and Harry could have told Draco that it was useless debating with him when he had done that. He tilted his head back with a haughty sniff and flare of his nostrils, and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I am sorry for any distress that I may have caused you. I spoke from the pain that Harry caused me in the past, without considering that you might have a stronger constitution than I did. Please let me go now.”

            “No,” Draco said, his smile becoming so much like the teeth of a trap that Harry had to blink a little. “You caused the pain and distress that you’re talking about to Harry, not to me. I want to hear you apologize to him.”

            Frank turned around and stared. Harry met his eyes, and still said nothing. He wasn’t sure that he had control of his expression any longer, or at least not around someone as perceptive as Frank had always been; maybe he would see into Harry’s heart. But he could control his voice.

            “You don’t deserve one,” Frank whispered. “You must know you don’t. The way you hurt people…”

            Harry found his voice. He knew he wouldn’t have if he’d been alone; he would have bowed his head and let Frank’s praise or blame rain down on him unchallenged. Or, more likely, Frank would have said nothing at all. Harry being alone was the natural state of things, and he had contented himself with only the nods or the glances that told Harry he still hadn’t healed from what had happened between them.

            But someone was with Harry who thought Frank was in the wrong, and he hadn’t understood before how much blue sky that would open up for him, how much he would feel as though someone had lifted him and placed him on a height.

            “Why didn’t you tell me the first time I hurt you?” Harry asked. “Instead of keeping silent and expecting me to read your mind?”

            “Because I was trying not to hurt your feelings!” Frank brought one fist down on the table. He seemed to have forgotten about Draco, who was watching with his eyes so narrow Harry couldn’t make out any color in them. “How many times do I have to say that? Yes, you were bloody awful in bed, but I only told you that when you asked me!”

            Bells sounded in Harry’s head, old ones, over a year old, telling him that what Frank said was the truth, and Harry couldn’t have asked for a more considerate lover. But he pressed ahead. “Subjecting you to the sight of the scars was a horrible thing for me to do, though. Almost a crime.”

            “Now you’re twisting my words.” Frank rested both hands on the table and gave Harry a pitying smile. “I never said that. I did make it clear that your scars made me uncomfortable, yes, and you have to respect that.” He glanced at Harry’s right hand, and blinked, as though he had thought Harry would come out in public with the Blood Quill scar visible.

            Harry didn’t dare look at Draco. “But why didn’t you tell me the first time you saw them? You said that you’d suffered in silence, but if your pain was so great, you could have told me, and then I wouldn’t have hurt you so much.”

            “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

            Harry gestured around him at the Cloth of Gold, and the staring eyes that he knew still sought them behind the Privacy Dome, although they would see nothing but a violent shimmer of silver now. “Coming up and accusing me of bad fucking and not having the right to date another wizard in public doesn’t hurt me?”

            Frank took a long, slow breath. “I only cared about not hurting your feelings before you asked me for honesty. Then I had to be honest.”

            “But you tried to get out of this confrontation by implying that you cared about Harry’s feelings now.” Malfoy’s voice was quiet, his hands folded in front of him as if he was watching a play. “So which is it? You hate him enough to accuse him of being a bad lover in front of an entire restaurant, or you care enough about him to want to escape a confrontation?”

            “A man can mean many things,” Frank said. “A person can mean many things, and change, and not mean them the next year.” He was looking at Harry, and Harry had to admit it was the most direct look he had got from him in a long time—the only one that didn’t imply he was seeing Harry as a constant source of suffering. “I wouldn’t say those things the same way now, if we were dating and you asked me.”

            “And I’ve changed, too.” Harry was smiling. He didn’t know when that had happened, but he wasn’t inclined to stop it, at the moment—especially because Frank had locked his hands together behind his back again, and that made him feel good. “I’ve decided that I don’t want to see you anymore. Leave.”

            “I have as much right to be here as you have,” Frank said, his voice so low that Harry thought at first he had decided not to speak. “More, since I can legitimately invite friends that take up several tables.”

            Harry winced. Frank had also been the one to make him aware of how much of the offers of casual friendship from the Aurors around him were based on his fame—how people only wanted to eat with Harry or go out for drinks with him if they were somewhere highly public, where people would see them being friends with the Harry Potter. It had helped him shed a lot of false friends who would probably spread gossip about him to the papers, but it had left him rather short of people to go somewhere with, except for Ron and Hermione.

            Draco moved on the other side of the table. Harry looked over and saw Draco gazing straight at him, his eyes so furious that it looked like it must hurt, to contain that much emotion. Harry opened his mouth to ask what had irritated him.

            And then Draco spoke.

*

            It was happening again. Draco could see it. Harry was sinking back under Frank’s influence, looking at him with that helpless sheen in his eyes, as though he didn’t have the common sense or the magic to make Frank back off if he wanted.

            But more than that, Draco could see why it worked for the bastard. He presented himself as someone honest, who just wanted Harry to see what harm he’d done so that he could get better. Probably believed it, too. It was easier than believing that he’d hurt Harry on purpose and for no reason, which was the real truth.

            Draco had had enough of both of them.

            “Did Harry ever apologize to you for what happened between the two of you?” he asked Frank.

            Frank turned to him at once. He had been focusing on Harry with the kind of hunger that Draco had last seen in Daphne. He was sure Frank would deny it if Draco asked, but it was there, nonetheless, the sharp appetite for more of Harry’s pain.

            “Yes, he did,” Frank said. “Too late, of course.”

            Draco nodded. “What else should he have done?”

            He got a long, slow, considering glance from those blue eyes, as though Frank thought he was someone who wasn’t a native speaker of English. “Not caused the harm in the first place, obviously,” Frank said at last.

            He had tried to drawl. Draco couldn’t laugh, or he would lose his advantage. “But he didn’t know, because you wouldn’t tell him.”

            “I was trying to spare him—”

            “Now you aren’t,” Draco said, cutting off that line of argument before it could get started, because it was likely to have too much effect on Harry. “And he’s caused the harm, and it can’t be undone. And he’s apologized. What else do you want from him? What else can he do that would make up for what he did?”

            Frank shook his head as though he didn’t understand the question. But ice had rimmed his eyes over, and Draco would have lifted his goblet to him in different circumstances. Now you’re recognizing the real enemy, aren’t you?

            “Nothing,” Frank said. “Nothing can make up for it. I’ll have to live with the memory of those awful months for the rest of my life.”

            “If nothing can make up for it,” Draco said, dripping the words gently into the silence that followed, “then why come up to him in places like this? Why keep reminding yourself of what happened? Why not try to stay away from him and give yourself time to heal that way?”

            Frank looked at the Privacy Dome overhead, and then outside it, as though rescue might come from that direction. Draco knew it wouldn’t. The Cloth of Gold prided itself on its discretion. They would get their food eventually, but the wizards who ran the restaurant would hold onto it, and heat it, as long as the spell was over their table.

            “I can’t heal,” Frank said. “I have to make sure that other people know about it and don’t get into the same kind of trouble I did—”

            “Which doesn’t accord well with your statement about not wanting to hurt Harry’s feelings a little while ago,” Draco murmured. “No. Shall I tell you why you come back?”

            Frank raised an eyebrow. “If you want to try, without knowing me.”

            He darted a quick little look at Harry. Draco didn’t. He wanted to watch every minute of the crumbling of Frank’s face, and his good opinion of himself, too, if Draco was lucky.

            “You want to make sure that Harry never heals, either,” Draco said softly. “You want to make sure he never dates anyone, never has any peace, never has a chance to forgive himself for what happened between you. How can he make up for what he ‘did’ to you? By staying alone and wallowing in guilt for the rest of his life. That’s what revenge is to you. You don’t ignore him, you don’t stay away from him. You just want to make sure that he doesn’t get any pleasure out of any relationship, because you didn’t have any when you were with him. A rather petty and long-term revenge for someone who doesn’t want to hurt Harry’s feelings and was only being honest with him.” Draco paused. “But perfect for the coward whose pride was so badly hurt that he wants the one who hurt it, who didn’t live up to his frankly idiotic imaginings of a perfect hero, to suffer.”

            Frank’s cheeks were pale, and he opened his mouth a time or two as though to speak, then closed it with a wet click. Finally, he stepped forwards and drew his wand.

            “Don’t.”

            Just the one word, but it was so piercing that Frank looked over his shoulder involuntarily. Draco looked with him, and saw Harry sitting with his wand pointing at Frank along the top of the table, his eyes so bright and empty that Draco thought he had shut all his emotions away behind walls again.

            “I’m allowed to attack someone who insults me,” Frank whispered.

            “But I’m not,” Harry said. His voice was passionless, but his wand didn’t waver, and at the moment, Draco thought that was the important thing. “You said so. You can call me anything you want, and I can’t strike back, because I hurt you so much already. I did something wrong once, so you’re allowed to punish me for the rest of my life. But the same rule applies to you, then. If you hurt Draco, then he would get to punish you forever.” Harry smiled at Frank, and Draco would have looked away if he hadn’t wanted to keep utterly still and focused. “I’m saving you from making a mistake that would cost you for years. You ought to thank me.”

            “It doesn’t work like that,” Frank said. “You have no idea what you did to me.”

            “Explain it to me,” Harry said. “Do you have nightmares? You’re obsessed with the memories of the time we were together? You worry continually about who’s going to hurt you next? You don’t want to date again because someone might crawl into your bed and rape you? You can’t relax around many people?”

            “None of that,” Frank said. “The manifestations are subtler.”

            “Rather than my crude, pathetic responses, I know,” Harry said, nodding. “But you have to explain it to me.”

            “It’s scars on the soul.” Frank turned to Draco and recoiled a little when he realized Draco was still watching. “It’s scars on the mind. It’s long-lasting things, little glimpses and catches of my breath whenever I see you in the Daily Prophet or hear other people praising you. It’s nothing you can make up for.”

            “Then the sight of me should affect you in an even worse way,” Harry said, voice without passion again, face without his smile. “Why do you keep coming up to me and shaking your head at me?”

            “Because even stronger than the desire to stay away from you is the desire to make sure that others are protected,” Frank said. “You ought to understand that. You told me once it was the basis of your continuing as an Auror.”

            Harry winced. Draco winced in turn. That was the argument that might consume Harry. Draco didn’t know what defenses he could have against it.

            But in the end, Harry shook his head. “You also said when we were dating that you didn’t know why I wanted to be a hero. You didn’t want to. It was foreign to you. Did I also infect you with my hero complex?”

            Frank tightened his muscles, all the way down his body. Draco wanted to laugh. He really doesn’t like having his hypocrisies noticed, does he?

            “You hurt me so badly that you changed me,” Frank said. “And I want to make sure that no one else gets hurt like that again.”

            “Then you’re too late,” Harry said. “Veronica came after you, and she was also hurt. And Draco was.” He glanced at Draco across the table, briefly. “I’ve tried to hurt him even further in the name of driving him away, but he won’t have it. Tell me, Draco. You thought it was patronizing when I tried to care about your future pain. What do you say about Frank’s longing to make sure you don’t suffer?”

            Draco smiled. He appreciated Harry handing the task of chastising Frank back to him, and not simply because he worried about what effect Frank’s appeals would have on Harry. He folded his hands beneath his chin and gazed at Frank. Frank was avoiding his eyes now, looking at the edge of the table, but Draco didn’t think it would be effective except for someone far away from them.

            And since the Privacy Dome was still up, the effort was rather wasted.

            “I think it’s patronizing as all fuck,” Draco said softly. “More than yours. You’ve been comparing me with your past lovers, which was a mistake, but natural. Frank can’t compare me with anyone except himself, since his subtle reaction to you is so personal and internal. He doesn’t know what I feel or think. And he doesn’t give a shit. He’s only doing this to hurt you.”

            Frank stared this time, still at the edge of the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but his voice was weak.

            “Of course you don’t,” Draco said, and rolled his eyes for effect. He was unsure how effective it actually was, since Frank kept staring at the table, but that was part of the point. “You can lie to yourself and pretend that you care about everyone Harry ‘hurts.’ You can pretend your pain is worse than his. You can pretend that he doesn’t deserve to get over this, that he should keep flogging himself with guilt for the rest of his life. But you can only keep doing that until you tell someone outside your mind about this and they laugh.” He turned to Harry. “Do you think he’s ever said this much to someone other than you? Of course not. He knows your vulnerabilities. If he’s told this story to someone else, he would have to put a different spin on it, to keep from being laughed out of the room.”

            “Conf—” Frank began, his shoulders hunching as if he would fling himself forwards against restraints.

            Harry didn’t even bother casting his Disarming Spell out loud. Frank’s wand simply left his hand and flew across the space between them to Harry, like a homing bird.

            “You can attack me all you want,” Harry said softly, when Frank whipped back to him. “I don’t have a lot of defenses against you, and I hurt you. But you keep attacking other people. I don’t see why I should allow that. I am an Auror, after all.”

            “Give me my wand back,” Frank said, sneering at him. Draco studied his face and could only conclude that Harry must not ever have seen him in this mood when he first dated him. Otherwise, how could he think Frank was handsome? “If you’re not going to arrest me, you don’t have the right to keep it from me.”

            Harry smiled. “Such respect for the law when a moment ago you were about to attack someone unarmed.” And he flowed to his feet. Draco didn’t miss the way Frank backed up. He hoped that Harry didn’t, either. “And I’ll give it back. The instant you step beyond the edge of the Privacy Dome.” He glanced at Draco. “If you wouldn’t mind lowering it so he can get through, and then restoring it?”

            Draco smiled and drew his wand, doing as Harry asked. And doing something else, too, although he cast the spell without his lips moving, so someone else would have a hard time proving it.

            The Voiceless Voice Charm would wait until Frank was a safe distance away, and then begin to whisper in the back of his head. It would repeat the things Draco had said, and point out other things, other hypocrisies when he tried to paint himself as an innocent victim.

            Because Draco knew Frank’s kind; he’d been a member of that kind for a large portion of his life. Frank was convinced that he was special, that his pain was profounder than other people’s, that the rules should never apply to him. If he was hurt, he had the right to take any revenge he wanted, but no one else should strike back at him. Because they weren’t as special, and society only worked in a way Frank liked if other people obeyed the rules.

            The Voiceless Voice Charm would only last a month, the most Draco could make it last. He thought it a fitting punishment for what Frank had done.

            Because he was wrong, and no punishment should last forever.

*

            Harry waited until Frank had backed five steps away from the table. Then he tossed him his wand, and made a show of wiping his palm off on his trousers.

            He saw the deep, low flame that settled into the back of Frank’s eyes. Having someone disgusting, or someone he thought was disgusting, do that, had to be hurtful.

            Harry flicked his hand open and let the gesture go. His stomach squirmed. He wanted to breathe faster than he was doing right now. He wanted to go home and curl up and think about what Frank had said, and what he had done to him right now, in causing him more pain.

            But all he could think about right now was the way Frank had turned on Draco with his wand out, and that shielded him like a wall against all the other thoughts bubbling in the corners of his mind.

            Frank could attack Harry all he liked. Maybe he was justified. Maybe he should stay away for his own good. Harry knew he would have to think about that in more detail before he decided one way or the other.

            But he had no right to attack Draco, the one who was in the same position he’d once been in, and whom he’d claimed he wanted to protect. He was being hypocritical and stupid and impulsive in doing that.

            And maybe he’d been stupid in other ways, too, and Harry should think about those ways.

            “You needn’t think this is over,” Frank said. He was speaking directly to Harry this time, quietly enough that Harry didn’t think any of the craning listeners across the Cloth of Gold could hear. “I have a grudge to settle with you.”

            Harry licked his lips. “Then it’s a grudge,” he said. “And you should sue me or duel with me. You don’t get to come up to me anymore and shake your head sadly when I’m dating, though. Not when you’ve attacked one of my dates.”

            Frank blinked and blinked and looked as though he had no idea what to say. Then he turned and stormed off.

            Harry faced Draco again, to find him holding his goblet and studying Harry with the lively, open, relaxed face that Harry remembered from some of their other arguments. Harry smiled tentatively back.

            “I’m glad that we saw him,” Draco said. “I’m glad I could take a little bit of revenge for you.”

            Harry opened his mouth to say that Frank wasn’t that bad, and then closed it again. He still didn’t know what to say or think about some of the things Frank had done tonight. He wanted to say that Frank wasn’t evil, but maybe it was more true that Frank didn’t think of himself that way.

            But the way he had drawn his wand on Draco was inexcusable. And the things he had said to Draco were, too. Harry was still allowed to care about pain to someone he was dating, even by Frank’s rules. He had to be, or he couldn’t care about what he’d done to Frank, either.

            “Thanks, Draco,” Harry said, and picked up his own goblet as a distraction. In the meantime, the food finally shimmered into place on their plates, just as the Privacy Dome rose again. Glad of that, too, Harry picked up his fork and made ready to eat.

            He stopped, though, because Draco had come to life in the chair across from him. The line of his wrist stretching down to where his arm rested on the table looked like cord. He hunched as if he wanted to spring and protect Harry from some unseen danger. Even his legs and shoulders had gone still, and he made no effort to close his parted lips.

            “What?” Harry asked slowly, wondering if he had done something else nasty without thinking. Then he winced. That was always the problem, wasn’t it? Everything he had done was thoughtless.

            Draco only shook his head, though, and Harry finally could name the tension that had flooded his body: wonder. He picked up his goblet, moistened his lips, and finally seemed ready to close his mouth. “You called me Draco,” he whispered. “And you said the other night that you weren’t ready to do that yet, and that I would know you’d forgiven me when you did.” He cocked his head to the side, and let his eyes ask the question, maybe because he’d run out of words.

            Harry swallowed and gripped the side of his plate for a second. Then he picked up his fork and began to eat, chewing slowly, trying to savor the taste of the food and think of an answer to Draco’s implied question at the same time.

            Draco didn’t look as though he cared about waiting. The wonder was in his face like pain, and he didn’t eat. Maybe he didn’t think his stomach could handle it.

            Harry finally swallowed and said, “I don’t know that I would have called you that if we hadn’t met Frank tonight. So, in a way, you owe it to him.”

            Draco didn’t flinch or back away the way Harry thought he would have at a test like that. He smiled. “I know. But I got a chance to show you that I can protect you in return, and that I hate it whenever anyone tries to make decisions about what would hurt me, not just you. Does that help?”

            He sounded so hopeful that Harry had to smile. “Yes, it does,” he said. “It’s just—I’m not as upset with you as I was anymore, but I don’t know that we’re back to the same level we were before our argument. I just don’t want you to be disappointed if you try to hold me and it takes me a while to relax.”

            Draco reached out, slowly, as though he would startle a bird into flight if he moved any faster. Harry let him come, rolling his eyes, but only internally, at Draco’s speed. He supposed it seemed warranted, after the way he’d reacted.

            “I could be disappointed, but I won’t blame you,” Draco said, stroking Harry’s fingers from the knuckles to the tip, gently, over and over again. “I think you’ve had enough of your lovers blaming you wholly for things that were partially their fault, and also enough of hiding everything from you and then springing it on you all at once. I won’t do that.”

            Harry swallowed. “Thank you.”

            Draco smiled at him and pulled his hand back, and resumed eating. Harry did the same thing, still slowly. He kept stretching out and expecting something to hurt, and nothing did.

            Maybe it would, later, when he got home and had the chance to think about Frank’s words, and the ways he could have avoided hurting him, and the things he could have done better. It had always been the regrets that had hurt Harry the most, the things he could no longer change.

            But so much of what Draco said made sense. And so much of what Frank did didn’t.

            Draco began to speak, idly, of some of the potions he had done lately in the Potions Division, and tell Harry stories about his stupid apprentices. Harry could laugh and listen and not talk much, and so it was no surprise that he didn’t recognize the trembling sensation in his mind until the end of the meal.

            Another wall falling.

            We could fuck up but try again. Fucking up doesn’t ruin it forever, unless both people decide it’s ruined forever.

            Harry caught his breath. Draco promptly stopped in the middle of the story, and waited. Harry held out his hand to him and just squeezed it, once, then dropped his own hand back to his side.

            He didn’t want to discuss his thoughts with anyone right now. He wanted to enjoy the unaccustomed sensation of breathing free.

*

            SP777: Draco is afraid of hurting Harry, but also irritated with him, and that his own efforts seem to be reaping no fruit no matter how much he puts into them. So he’s not as subtle as he might be otherwise.

            CareLessLover: Well, I hope this chapter makes you more cheerful!

            neogetz: Thank you!

            Jan: Thank you!

            moodysavage: Thanks! I think you can see some traces of that thinking here; Harry knew that Draco could take care of his own part of the confrontation with Frank.
- 8
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Nothing Like the Sun