Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Nine—Unsettled
            “Go straight to bed.”
            Harry rolled his eyes when Malfoy said that, but it had been an unsettling day, for him as well as Malfoy, and even if he’d slept most of the day yesterday, he hadn’t had a chance to rest after the confrontation with the Spiders.
            “Yeah,” he said. “See you later, Malfoy.”
            Malfoy came to a dead stop behind him and stared at his back, or at least that was what Harry saw when he turned around to see why Malfoy’s footsteps had stopped. Harry rolled his eyes again. He doubted he would ever understand the sum total of Malfoy’s issues, and if Malfoy wanted him to understand something, he seemed not to have much trouble explaining it to Harry.
            Going into his bedroom and collapsing without the fear that the wrist-bell would wake him in a few hours was heavenly.
*
            Getting woken up a few hours later, anyway, by shrieks from the drawing room was not. Harry made sure that he had his trousers on before he grabbed his wand and bolted out the door, though. Some of the shrieks were feminine, and anyone female except Hermione who came over to his house right now was someone he’d prefer not to appear half-naked in front of.
            Sure enough, the shrieks turned into recognizable words by the time that Harry rounded the corner and came through the open door of the drawing room.
            “—you doing here, you don’t have any reason to be here, I don’t care what Dad did—”
            And sure enough, it was Lily, yelling at Malfoy, who stood with his arms folded in front of the couch and regarded her as if she was a shrilling insect. Lily turned as Harry entered the room and flung out a hand.
            “Why did you invite him over, Dad?” she demanded. “You know that I looked forward to having time alone with you. It was supposed to be just you and me.” She shut her eyes and turned away, walking to the Floo as if she would walk back through it.
            Malfoy shut his eyes, too, and shook his head. Harry stabbed him with a single glance that made his mouth fall open, then turned to Lily.
            “Sorry, Lils,” he said quietly. “I didn’t invite him over. He kind of insisted on it, to pay the life-debt. But what are you doing here? I thought you weren’t supposed to come over until the weekend.” Then Lily turned and looked at him with wide, betrayed eyes, and Harry winced. He’d been stupid again, hadn’t he?
            “I mean, you’re welcome at any time—I just thought you preferred to be with your mum right now,” he added hastily.
            Lily pivoted to face him, so slowly that Harry knew he wasn’t forgiven yet. Well, he shouldn’t be. He wanted this house to be a home to his daughter, not some place that was just a retreat for him. He never wanted to be cut off from his family.
            Malfoy cleared his throat. Harry didn’t turn, though. This was between him and Lily.
            Lily looked straight at him. “I wanted to go away because you weren’t listening to me,” she said. “But now I want to come back, because Mum’s not listening.” She locked her hands in front of her, saw they were trembling, and locked them behind her back. “I just want one of you to listen to me!”
            Harry crouched down in front of her. Lily was the shortest of his children, something she was sensitive about, and it didn’t have much to do with age. Ginny was short, too. “Please tell me,” Harry whispered. “How can I be better? How can I listen?”
            Lily opened her mouth, closed it. Harry saw the moment when she gave up, because she was ten, and he was an adult asking a ten-year-old for advice. “I don’t know!” she said, and ran out of the room, heading directly for hers. Harry heard the door open and slam, and sighed. At least he hadn’t made the mistake of giving Malfoy her room.
            He stood up and turned around, still rubbing his face, and started when he saw Malfoy looking hard at him. “What?” he snapped. “Look, you’re not going to make me love my daughter any less by staring at me like that. I know that I’ve done a lot of things wrong by her, and I have to find a way to start making it right.”
            “That’s one of the things I came to help you with,” Malfoy said, nodding. “And I think the best thing you could do right now is firecall your ex-wife.”
            Harry gaped at him. “Why?” he asked, when he could close his mouth enough to speak. From the way Malfoy’s fingers rapped against his hip, he thought Harry should have been able to speak a lot earlier.
            “Because I think your daughter came here without permission,” Malfoy said evenly. “Maybe ran away. Admittedly, she’s not in Hogwarts, but it’s five in the afternoon now, not a time when most parents would give permission for a ten-year-old child to go to a different house. Does Weasley even know? Maybe not. It would avoid a scene if you firecalled her, told her that your daughter’s here, and asked how she wants to handle it.”
            “Ginny took the name Potter when she married, you know,” Harry said evenly, even as he turned towards the fireplace and picked up a handful of Floo powder from the dish. “And you’re sure that she came without permission? It’s not as though I got to see her actually arrive, you know.”
            “Not sure,” Malfoy said. “But she didn’t mention a thing about her mother when she was shrieking at me, except to say that her mother didn’t listen to her, either, and was presumably part of the ‘they’ who never listen.”
            “Don’t say my daughter shrieks,” Harry snapped at him.
            Malfoy waved him off with one hand. “It’s the word you were using in your head.”
            Harry wouldn’t try to argue against that, because he was a terrible liar, and Malfoy would figure it out. He just sniffed at him and turned away, throwing the Floo powder into the fire. He motioned to Malfoy to move out of the way as he knelt. He knew that people he firecalled couldn’t usually look through the flames and see who was with him—although Hermione was uncannily good at guessing—but he didn’t want to chance it.
            Malfoy took a precise step to the side. Out of the way of the fireplace, but he could see everything that was happening on both Harry’s and Ginny’s ends. Harry exhaled slow and hard and faced the fire again.
            Ginny came into view, her face twisted into a scowl. The splash of ink on her chin said clearly that she was racing to make a deadline, and her ruffled skirt and hair said she’d just come back from an interview.
            Harry felt his heart twist to match her face as he looked at her. He knew that at some point he had fallen out of love with her, and that it had even been long before the divorce, probably, but looking at her like this, he couldn’t remember why he’d fallen out of love.
            “Who is—Harry? Great. Just what this day needed to make it complete.” Ginny raked a hand through her hair and only made it all the more messy and ruffled. “If you tell me that you can’t take Lily this weekend, I’m going to scream, I really am. You know what we agreed on.”
            “I know,” Harry said. “But I seem to have Lily right now. She Flooed over. I didn’t know if she had your permission or not.”
            Ginny closed her eyes for a second and stood there. Then she opened them and said, “I would have come after her right away if she didn’t.”
            Her tone cut into Harry, cut all the more because Harry had faced that accusation from the other end, that he was neglectful of his children because of his job, so he knew exactly what Ginny was feeling right now. He winced a second time, and said, “All right. But did you want me to take her for the rest of this week, or what?”
            Ginny stared at him, then thrust one hand at him and turned aside. “Just keep her for the rest of the afternoon, that’s all I ask,” she said, voice muffled as she bent down to look at a stack of parchments on a desk. “She’s being absolutely impossible. She wanted to go flying, and when I said that I had to go to an interview but she could fly if she went over to the Burrow, she said she didn’t want to go there because she’d just been there for her birthday party. She knows I have to work, but she wanted me to skip the interview and go flying with her. Or maybe she just wanted to do it by herself. I don’t know, she was shrieking about both of those things by the time she was done.”
            Even without turning around, Harry could feel Malfoy’s silent triumph that Ginny had used the word he had to describe Lily.
            Harry gritted his teeth, told himself that was for Malfoy and not Ginny, and said, “All right. I’ll ask her if she wants to stay for the afternoon and wants to fly with me.”
            Ginny nodded at him, said, “Thanks,” and shut down the Floo. Harry sighed and sat back, and tried to remember again when he had decided that Ginny was not someone he wanted to love as a wife.
            “You didn’t tell her about me.”
            Harry started and turned around. Malfoy stood behind him, arms not folded now, eyes so direct that Harry wanted to flinch again. But he thought he had done enough of that for one day, and he didn’t want Malfoy to mock him, so he stood up and said, “Not because I’m ashamed of you, or something.”
            Malfoy gave him a strange look, and then said, “You always jump straight to shame, as if that’s a well-learned response.”
            “Maybe it is,” Harry said. “And maybe I’ve done some things that I should be ashamed of. Anyway. Lily can tell her about you when she goes back to Ginny’s house. That’s one argument I don’t want to have right now.”
            “Do you and your—Mrs. Potter always argue?” Malfoy looked around as though he missed the numbered list he’d been making yesterday.
            “About a lot of things in the last year, yeah,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Mostly about me spending so much time at my job that I never saw her or the kids. And I should go spend time with Lily, instead of standing here and analyzing what went wrong.” He walked down the corridor and knocked on Lily’s door.
            “Lils?” he called. He glanced over his shoulder, but Malfoy had made himself scarce. Probably going back to his list in the kitchen, Harry thought.
            “What?” Lily was leaning on the door from the other side, by the scrapes that Harry heard.
            “Do you want to go flying with me?”
            Lily opened the door and stared at him. Then her face fell and she said, “You talked to Mum.”
            Harry nodded. “I know you were disappointed you couldn’t go flying, so I thought I’d offer to take you.”
            “You didn’t know I wanted to fly until you talked to her,” Lily whispered, and traced her foot back and forth over the floor.
            Once again, Harry felt he was hopeless, just standing there not knowing what to say. Did Lily want him to know her so well that he didn’t need to talk to Ginny about her, he would just know that she wanted to fly? But Harry had always been terrible about that, and the times he had thought he knew what would please Lily without asking, he had always been wrong. It was safer just to ask.
            “No, I didn’t,” Harry said, and tried to make his voice as gentle as he could. “But I’m here now.”
            “Late,” Lily muttered, but she seemed to be thawing, if the way she leaned back and studied him was any indication.
            Harry smiled at her. Lily didn’t smile back, but she said in a quieter voice, “What is Malfoy doing here?”
            “Mr. Malfoy,” Harry corrected her. “Just what he told you. I saved his son’s life—you know, Scorpius, Al’s friend—and now he needs to pay me back.”
            “Let Scorpius do it.”
            “Scorpius is twelve, and still has to attend Hogwarts,” Harry reminded her. “Plus, it’s important that this get cleared up before his thirteenth birthday at the end of the month. It’s a kind of Malfoy tradition. Malfoy decided that he needed to take on the debt and pay me back himself.”
            “If you call him Malfoy, why can’t I?”
            Good question. Great, now he would have to be sure that he called him Mr. Malfoy in front of his daughter for the next three weeks. Harry hid a sigh and nodded to her. “That was a slip of the tongue. I should call him Mr. Malfoy. Thank you for reminding me.”
            Lily eyed him sideways. “But why does he have to stay here? He could pay you back and just visit sometimes.”
            Here it comes. “Because he decided that he needed to be right with me and watch me all the time to know the best way to pay me back.”
            Lily stood there for a second. Harry recognized when she was in one of her internal debates, and winced. Usually the debates turned out badly for him.
            At last, Lily looked up, and her eyes were luminous. “Ask him to leave,” she whispered. “I want some time alone with you.”
            Harry swallowed. Shit. He should have known this would happen. Not with Al or Jamie, since they were in Hogwarts now, and not with Ginny, since spending time alone with each other was so uncomfortable for both of them now. But Lily was the one who needed him most and who he’d neglected the most, and this was a clear, simple thing she was asking for, one that he couldn’t get wrong.
            “All right,” Harry said, voice as low as he knew how to make it. “And then we’ll go flying, right?”
            Lily smiled at him, and it really was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. “Then we’ll go flying.”
            She shut her door, but she didn’t slam it, and Harry stood there sighing for a second. Then he turned around, wondering how to talk to Malfoy about leaving.
            He nearly leaped out of his skin when he realized Malfoy stood there with his arms folded, leaning casually against the wall.
            “So, um.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. It seemed just as hard facing Malfoy now as it had been facing Lily a minute ago.
            And that meant something was wrong. He should care more about his daughter than a random acquaintance who had inserted himself into Harry’s life.
            Harry straightened his spine. “You need to leave,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”
            Malfoy didn’t respond to him. His eyes were fixed on Lily’s closed door, and there was a slight, peculiar smile on his lips that made Harry wonder if he needed to draw his wand to protect his daughter.
            Then Malfoy looked at him and said, “When she reaches Hogwarts, she’s going straight to Slytherin.”
            Harry stared at him, without words. What did that have to do with anything? And why did Malfoy think he could anger Harry by saying that? Al was in Slytherin. It wasn’t like Harry would hate Lily for being in that House.
            Malfoy shook his head. “She knew I was here the whole time. She looked straight at me and even mouthed a few things at me. You are unobservant, not to see it, Potter.” He stood up and nodded. “I think I should leave you alone for a few days, after all. I’ll come back on Friday.”
            “You can’t,” Harry said sharply. “This is my weekend to have Lily, and she’ll probably be here on Friday afternoon.”
            Malfoy lazily regarded him out of eyes that were less cold than before. Harry didn’t know what he had done to make them that way, though.
            Or maybe it was Lily who had made them that way. Maybe Malfoy felt more relaxed around a fellow Slytherin. Harry relaxed a little himself. That meant Malfoy didn’t hate his daughter.
            Which shouldn’t have been important, but was.
            “Then I’ll come back on Monday,” Malfoy said, quietly. “In the meantime, we’ll communicate by owl. I expect you to remember what I said about learning to say no, Potter. You haven’t practiced it much so far with anyone except the Unspeakables.” He leaned forwards. “And keep in mind…if you don’t practice, I’ll be back next week with only a fortnight left to change things. That means my methods will have to be more intense. You won’t like that.”
            Harry frowned at him. “How do you know?”
            That caused Malfoy to smile. Harry blinked again. He was really oddly affected by the man, if smiles and compliments from him made him feel this way.
            “I do,” Malfoy said, and swept out of the room. Harry heard him rustling around in the bedroom he’d created for himself, and he came out with a few trunks he was shrinking and tucking into his pocket.
            He did stick his head around the corner, once, to say, “I left some meals made by my house-elves under the enchantment at the back of the cupboard. Don’t let your greedy visitors eat it all.”
            He strode briskly away, and a few seconds later, Harry heard the roar of the Floo.
            Harry went back to blinking. Everything had resolved itself more easily than he’d thought it would, and he didn’t have to have as many arguments that would hurt people.
            Then he smiled. And right now, he had a standing invitation to go flying with his daughter. He went to find his broom, whistling a little.
            The thought occurred to him as he reached for it.
            Maybe…
            Maybe Malfoy was happy because I stood up to him, too.
            Which just proved how strange Malfoy really was.
*
            delia cerrano: Well, Harry isn’t anxious to see Malfoy interact with his family if he can help it, so he’ll probably try to keep interfering.
            BAFan: Thanks! I think Draco did both, as you can see.
            moodysavage; Draco is much more forgiving to a potential Slytherin than to a potential Gryffindor.
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Marathon