Chapter Forty-Five of 'Changing of the Guard'- The Past Collides With the Present

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Forty-Five—The Past Collides With the Present

“But if your home life really was like that, why did you say all those stupid things at school?” Harry asked, and then added, “Wait, don’t speak yet. This step says that you need to remain still whilst I cast the third spell on your face.”

Draco waited obediently as Harry waved his wand through a looping motion and murmured a few Latin words, but asked as soon as Harry nodded to him, “Why did you have to cast a spell on my face?”

“Because it’s the Lover’s Face Curse,” Harry said patiently, as though he had already reckoned this would be Draco’s question. “It creates a link between your eyes and Alice Moonstone’s face. You would actually look for her when you went out in public, trying to meet her eyes and start the process of becoming her lover.”

Draco shifted uncomfortably. The more he found out about the curse his father had chosen to bind him to Alice Moonstone, the more disturbed he grew. On one hand, he supposed he should think his father respected him; this was no weak magic, and Lucius had finally given up his delusion that he could bind Draco with soft words or false promises. But Lucius had been content to see him spend the rest of his life as a slave, and only fear of Harry’s magic had made him change his mind.

Draco would have much to say to Lucius when next they met.

“And now,” Harry went on, as he glanced back at the book spread open in front of him for the next step to remove the curse, “you were telling me that your parents loved you and encouraged you to have pride in yourself more than they encouraged you to hate Muggleborns, or even me. Why did you say those stupid things to me and Hermione, then? I know I irritated you, but she didn’t seek you out or act in direct rivalry to you the way I did on the Quidditch pitch.”

“My parents gave me too much pride.” Draco shifted again in the chair, his eyes on the far wall. This conversation was teaching him new things about himself. Harry hadn’t asked these questions until now, and Draco had imagined he could answer them honestly without flinching—certainly far more easily than Harry could tell his many secrets, because Harry was fractured mentally and Draco was whole. But he had trouble either finding the words or thinking Harry wouldn’t judge him for what he said. He didn’t think he would have wanted to date someone who sounded as uncertain as he did about the simplest things.

He didn’t ask, and he should have, if he wanted to know about me. But I also didn’t volunteer anything. Now I know why.

“And I was the first serious challenge to that pride?” Harry glanced up, raising an eyebrow. He looked entirely like himself, and Draco didn’t hear Brian in his voice or see him in his face now, but the incredulity in Harry’s tone still made him want to glance away. Talking about himself gave up some measure of control, if only the control to steer the conversation.

“You were,” Draco said softly. “And Granger was the second. It was worse that she didn’t compete with me directly, that most of the time she didn’t seem to notice I existed. She just went after the marks for the pleasure of winning them, and studied the subjects extensively because she wanted to. I never heard her mention whether her parents were particularly proud of her—“
‘
“I’m sure they must have been,” Harry said, and, keeping his eyes on the book, muttered three more Latin words. A white glow enwrapped Draco for a moment, then peeled away like a cocoon. Harry glanced up, grinning. “That should be almost the last of it,” he said, and gestured Draco to continue.

“But not like mine.” Draco folded his arms and scowled at his stomach. “Lucius was less proud of me than he would have been if I had succeeded in getting the top mark in every class, or if I had won on the Quidditch pitch. He would smile and speak of my accomplishments, but I could see the slant at the corner of his eye, the way he would look at me in disappointment when he allowed the smile to fade. He would never betray that he was irritated with me to someone outside the family; that would have been a severe breach of blood loyalty. Nor did he scold me often. But he could speak a silent language to me, just as he could tell me without scolding me when I was being too loud in public and he wanted me to be silent. I understood what he wanted to say, and because of that code of silence I couldn’t even confront him about it.”

“There must have been other challenges to your pride,” Harry said. “I couldn’t have been the only one, and I know Hermione didn’t get the top marks in every class. She struggled in Arithmancy, she told me.”

“You were the first two, and the worst,” Draco said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I was also certain my father would be as proud of me as he should have been if I could manage to beat one of you once. I would have shown him I had the capacity to do it, and then he could choose to think I was conserving my energy on the other occasions for more important things, like studying spells not taught in school. He never expected me to have boundless energy or to be good at everything. He didn’t care about Gobstones, for instance.”

He shifted again. He hadn’t known he believed all those things about his father; they were things his adolescent self had known without words, and his adult self had been able to put aside, because he knew he was cleverer than Lucius and able to act outside his control. Speaking the words made him sound like a petty, bitter child who still resented his father for actions that wouldn’t look large to anyone outside the family.

But he hadn’t been that child in a long time.

“That answers something else I used to wonder about,” Harry said quietly, and then squinted thoughtfully down at the words on the page. “Buckbeak.”

Draco blinked, thrown. “Who?”

“The hippogriff who bit you in your third year.” Harry glanced up with unreadable eyes. “The hippogriff you tried to have executed so it would hurt Hagrid.”

Draco tightened his hands. He would have liked to say, as he had then, that Buckbeak was a vicious creature who deserved to be put down, and that Hagrid should never have allowed hippogriffs near children. The last was still true, but he also knew that he had provoked Buckbeak on purpose, and disobeyed instructions that seemed to have kept Harry, at any rate, safe.

“But you made it about more than just destroying the hippogriff who hurt you,” Harry continued. “You made it about more than hurting Hagrid, even. You were always looking to see how I would take it. You wanted to hurt me when Buckbeak died. I suppose you related other challenges to your pride back to the one I gave you?”

“Yes,” Draco said through stiff lips. “I’m not proud of it, but there it is.” He coughed. “And I am sorry for getting him killed.” He wasn’t sure what good the apology would do, coming seventeen years too late, but he would give it.

Harry gave him a sudden, brilliant grin. “Oh, but he lived.”

Draco blinked. “Father never discussed that with me,” he said. “He mentioned that Walden Macnair was less than pleased when he came back from the execution, but I assumed the beast didn’t give him the sport he wanted. Did Hagrid let him go before they arrived? And how did he avoid going to Azkaban for that?”

“Hagrid knew he had to give in to the law, actually,” said Harry, and grinned more widely. “Hermione had a Time-Turner that year, because she was trying to attend all the classes that were available. We used it to go back in time and rescue Buckbeak, as well as—other people.” His face darkened for a moment, and Draco opened his mouth to ask for that story, but Harry had pressed on. “Macnair couldn’t blame Hagrid for it because he knew he was in his hut the entire time.”

Draco leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. From the brilliance in Harry’s eyes, as if he were remembering some adventure in one of his personas that had gone exactly the way he planned it, he didn’t share the thoughts filling Draco’s head. “Dumbledore entrusted you with that, and with many other challenges that weren’t appropriate to a child your age,” he said.

“And you got entrusted with more responsibilities than you should have, even if you were three years older than thirteen when you had them,” Harry responded gently, and leaned forwards to smooth the hair out of Draco’s eyes. His hand lingered for a moment on Draco’s forehead, as if he were the one who had the lightning bolt scar. “The burdens Dumbledore put on you that year wasn’t fair, either. And then I cut you apart with the Sectumsempra spell, just to make everything harder.” He shuddered and shook his head.

Draco swallowed. He had not thought Harry would bring that up; he had envisioned him leaping to an angry defense of Dumbledore’s judgment instead. He turned his hand and caught Harry’s wrist. “I still don’t think you’re entirely right,” he said, speaking before he could think better of it. “I would have told you these things if you asked me. That’s a lot different than hiding secrets from you, the way you tried to hide the Pensieve from me.”

Harry looked at the floor. Draco could see him biting his lip as though he were forcing away anger. Then he looked up, and nodded.

“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” he said. “But I wanted you to offer me information about yourself for two reasons. First, I thought that would show you were really comfortable around me, that you wanted to tell me about yourself because you wanted to. Second, I didn’t know how much I could ask without driving you away.”

Draco stared at him. “Harry, a clumsy question wouldn’t drive me away.”

“As you so aptly reminded me,” Harry said with more fire in his voice, “I know far less about behaving like a normal person than you do. I’ve gone out of my way for ten years to avoid any conflict because it might make someone else mildly uncomfortable. I translated any and all inconvenience into a belief that I would ruin my friendship with Ron and Hermione if I did something as ordinary as talk to them about a man I dated. And Draco—“ His face flamed red abruptly. “I care about you—more than I do about them. I’m not particularly proud of that. I think I ought to care more about people I’ve been friends with for nineteen years. But I don’t. Maybe that will change when we reconcile. Right now, it hasn’t.”

“So you feared even more to drive me away,” Draco whispered, and lifted a hand to caress Harry’s cheek.

Harry nodded, then laughed. “A right pair of saps we are!” he said. “We know so much about each other, and we still can’t figure out the best way to talk about things like ordinary people without getting hurt.”

“I don’t think that’s unusual,” Draco murmured. “I had something of the same weakness myself. I could have challenged my father years ago and won free of him if it was simply a matter of asserting my independence. But I tried to spare his feelings and didn’t confront him even when it would have been the best thing for both of us, even when I knew I had no hope of making him think I was right by slight hints. Why? I feared the consequences. I feared hurting him. And my mother most of all.”

Harry nodded against his hand. “And that’s why I’ll need you to tell me openly when I make a mistake,” he said. “I can accept someone talking to me about that. I can’t accept someone acting as though I should already know I was making one and apologize for an offense that’s not out in the open.”

“I didn’t—“

“You didn’t mean to, and maybe you didn’t and I’m just misinterpreting things,” Harry said firmly. “But that’s the way I felt you were talking to me in the kitchen. The more patient and controlled you got, the more I felt as if you wanted to be the adult and wanted me to be the child who would just listen and do as I was told.” He sat back, and his eyes as they held Draco’s had the sharpness of Horace Longbottom’s. “Coddling doesn’t work for me anymore.”

Draco sighed. He wanted to argue that everyone needed coddling sometimes, and anyway, some was necessary in this case because Harry could take offense at the slightest things. He’d never meant to suggest Harry was a child.

But he had time to talk like that—years and years of time together. For the moment, he knew what had gone wrong, and he thought he knew how to avoid another fight of the same kind, though not all fights all the time.

And he had the ability to ask for coddling himself, to talk about himself if he wanted and ask for sympathy.

Perhaps someday he would even get used to that.

Harry spoke the last incantation to free Draco from the curse by whispering it into his ear, cradling his face between his hands and working his fingers into Draco’s hair. Draco closed his eyes and thought he felt more than hostile magic melt away from him as Harry gently stroked the back of his head.

*

The owl that hurtled through the window towards lunchtime and began hopping and hooting on the table in front of Harry was the biggest he’d ever seen. He reached out and took the letter, a moment before Draco’s hand got there. Draco sat back in his chair and shook his head, staring at him.

“What?” Harry asked, tearing open the envelope. It had come from Kingsley, as he knew from the loop of the writing before he looked at the signature, and the man might well have important news about the Aurors or about Counterstrike.

“You don’t know what hexes could have been on that thing,” Draco said in a voice that trembled with tension like a cup of water brimming above the surface. “And you didn’t check for any before you tore it open.”

Harry prevented the rise of his own anger. He understood better why Draco would make such remarks after his explanation about his father and how Draco hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Draco wanted Harry to avoid coming to any harm, too.

“The wards around the house wouldn’t have allowed the letter to pass if it had such hexes,” he said gently. “It doesn’t even allow Howlers to pass.” And then he lost himself in the sense of the letter, suspecting it would be the best thing for both of them right now.

Dear Harry:

I have questioned Ron, as well as a number of other Aurors. You will be pleased to know that Ron did not realize whose orders he was acting on. He thought the raid on the party, as well as the one on the meeting of your faction, had my full sanction, and he looked sick when he realized they did not.

I have been less successful in discovering all the members of Counterstrike. Some of the Aurors I interviewed have argued with me that the Ministry should enforce the laws against homosexuality, and if I didn’t care to, they would do it themselves. I have showed I would have no trouble sacking them for such an action, and brought them to their senses. But the prejudice will remain in your dealings with the Ministry, and I cannot promise that you will be entirely safe.

Harry nodded. That, he’d expected. Counterstrike as an organization might be brought down, disbanded, or deprived of funding, but that wouldn’t cure the misconceptions of people who thought no gay wizard or lesbian witch would ever want children, or who believed that gay sex was disgusting because they didn’t practice it themselves. This struggle would be protracted, and Kingsley could only help in part of it.

I have made it clear that I do not consider the enforcement of these laws important given that we have many open cases concerning actual Dark wizards, murderers and rapists and worse. Most of my Aurors have submitted. The names of those who have not follow.

Harry raised his eyebrows. He had not expected Kingsley to give him any specific warnings. He memorized the names in a few minutes of staring, then read the last paragraph of the letter.

To my knowledge, the person who informed Counterstrike about the meeting was not a member of any Auror corps. I also believe that the man who dealt with Lucius Malfoy, or at least received his money, to set up the group was most likely named John Grey. He has remained modestly out of sight the last few years, but shortly before the war he was one of the major contenders against Scrimgeour for Minister. He has never made a secret of his own extremist views, which include bending everyone into one political mold, disposing of Muggleborns as well as homosexuals, and cutting off contact with wizarding communities in other countries. He believes that British wizarding pure-blood culture is the only “untainted” one left, and I can see him seizing the chance to fulfill at least one of his political goals through this group.

Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic.

Harry scowled, dropping the letter to the table. He had heard of John Grey before, though never met him except as a distant face at a few of the parties he had attended in disguise. The man was thoroughly unpleasant, but tolerated for his money, the reputation of his grandfather, and some of his ideas, which many pure-bloods like Lucius Malfoy thought vaguely were the “right” ones, if too extreme for everyday use.

“Bad news?”

Harry started and looked up. Draco was leaning across the table, one hand hovering as if he wanted to touch Harry but weren’t sure it would be welcome. Harry smiled. They were being very careful around each other right now. In some ways he mourned the easiness between them when they had first come together as Draco and Brian, but they could have achieved it now only by ignoring ninety percent of their lives and emotions.

Harry stretched the rest of the way, clasped Draco’s hand in his, and nodded. “We’re fighting John Grey.”

Draco made a horrible face. Harry laughed. “I take it you’ve met him? I’ve never had that dubious honor.”

“I’ve met him, and I hate him,” said Draco, with a rawness in his words that made Harry blink. “If he’s behind Counterstrike, then of course we have to destroy him and embarrass him publicly if at all possible.”

“From what I’ve heard, he’s never yet let himself be lured into an open strike at his enemies, no matter how much he hates the people on the opposite side,” Harry said. “That’s the reason his power has managed to endure so long. He never lets himself be undeniably associated with anything objectionable, and so people still feel compelled to invite him to their houses.”

Draco nodded slowly. “He didn’t join the attackers at the party, though he couldn’t have known you would embarrass them publicly,” he said, and closed his eyes for a moment. “I know him, yes, but I still know too little of him. I don’t even know where the majority of his money came from, which is something I know about almost every other pure-blood family. That bloody reputation of his holds everyone at a distance.” He looked at Harry and raised an eyebrow. “I suppose you don’t have a persona who could approach him and find out what we need to know?”

Harry started to shake his head, then paused. A moment later, he began to grin.

“What?” Draco demanded.

“None of the normal ones, at any rate,” Harry said. “A few people who only exist on paper, Horace Longbottom’s cousins, tried to make contact with him at one point, and he rebuffed all of them. But there’s someone I made up in a fit of mischief one night and then never used who might be perfect.”

Draco leaned forwards attentively. Now that Harry was looking at him with some knowledge of who he’d been as a child and as Lucius’s son, he could see the barely concealed impatience in his expression. That knowledge contented him. Draco was not perfect and flawless in his control after all, and Harry didn’t have to worry so constantly about offending him or about seeming inferior next to him.

Harry paused, to see how much Draco might be tempted to let him get away with.

“Who?” Draco said this time.

“His name’s Vivian Wilde,” Harry said. “He is quite, quite prejudiced. Terrified of nearly everyone different from himself, in fact—Muggleborns, women, Muggles, people of some other skin color than his own, foreigners, people who aren’t pure-blooded.”

“If he’s supposed to be pure-blooded,” Draco said, “I don’t know if we have a chance. Mr. Grey does know all the secrets of all the pure-blood families, and I think he’d be able to recognize an imposter.”

“He never recognized my characters as imposters,” Harry said softly.

“He might have decided that he shouldn’t interfere in concerns that didn’t directly touch him,” Draco said, folding his arms. “But it would be different with someone approaching him and daring to make contact with his august majesty.”

“Trust me,” said Harry, and here his grin began to break forth, “his genealogy will not be good, but it will be impeccable. He’s going to be your cousin.”

“But I only have—“

Draco stopped. “My cousin Maxwell,” he said. “Who’s a scapegrace and certainly could have had a bastard child we’ve never heard about.”

Harry nodded enthusiastically. “At the very least, Grey wouldn’t be able to disprove it right away,” he said “And Lucius’s denials wouldn’t mean anything, since he doesn’t acknowledge that side of the family in any case. I think Grey would be intrigued enough to meet with a cousin of yours who’s intent on betraying you.”

“Maxwell would cooperate, I think,” Draco mused. “The one thing I know about him is that he’s never let the chance for a joke go by. He sent a card to my father when I was born, congratulating him for melting the icicle, as he called my mother, at least once.” He nodded. “His owl ought not to take more than a few days to arrive.” He raised an eyebrow. “And then?”

Harry smiled. “I offer valuable, true information about the rebellion, and get Grey to appear in public with Vivian. And—“

He paused, as the plan changed and unfolded again in his mind. “I wonder if I dare,” he muttered, but he already knew that he had the courage for it. The real question was whether he could morally go through with it.

Yes, I think I can, especially when Nusante has not been helpful these past weeks. I hoped he would come around to reason given time, but we need him reconciled to the rebellion, and that means reconciled to Harry Potter.

He grinned fiercely at Draco, who looked simultaneously frightened and entranced. “How good are you at glamours?”

Chapter 46.

Comments

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Kingsley really isn't a bad sort; he had no idea the Aurors were doing this.

And yes. The sexual compatibility has disguised the fact that they haven't done a lot of talking until now, and there's still a ton they don't know about each other.