Chapter Thirty-One of 'The Same Species as Shakespeare'- And Where the Offense Is

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-One—And Where the Offense Is

“I know you.”

Severus laid his fingertips together and regarded the man in front of him with a pleasant expression. He knew it would have driven him mad to be smiled at by someone who had dumped a Curse Potion on him, so he did it now.

The imposter shifted a restless step or two nearer. His nostrils were flared, which only emphasized his likeness to Draco—though, Severus had to admit, not to the Draco he had seen about the Manor in the last few days. His hands clenched tight around the shaft of the wand that was not made of hawthorn. Strange, Severus thought idly, that of all the similarities he had mastered, he would neglect to fulfill that one. Of course, prowess in magic was important to him, since he would need all the magic he could master to make himself look like Draco. And if he could not find a hawthorn wand that would respond to him, he had doubtless chosen the most powerful wand that would.

“Of course you do,” Severus said, and layered his voice with many fine shadings of irony. This meeting was not a coincidence. He had worked improvements of his own behind the Malfoys’ wards in the past few days; he had long thought it foolish of Lucius to rely on bloodline wards as his primary protection. But Lucius had been too preoccupied by some private revelation to notice Severus’s tinkering or object to it. “You have most of his memories, too, don’t you?”

The imposter edged nearer still. Just now, he had a sharp edge to his sneer that was unlike Draco. Severus had seen it often in the mirror, though.

The dangers of sympathy.

(The dangers of sympathy? Lily said in his mind, her eyes wide and her hair flying behind her. But sympathy is what makes us friends, Severus. It’s what lets us look beyond appearances and find something in each other more important than beauty.

She had not said aloud what they were both thinking at that moment: that Severus would never be able to acquire admiring looks for his beauty alone, and so needed to depend on sympathy.

But Lily was dead, and Severus had done his “duty” to protect the only reflection she had left alive in the world, that black-haired son of hers. He had no reason to let the memories trouble him).

“I would have had more of his memories still,” said the imposter in an aggrieved tone, “if you hadn’t interrupted me.”

“You needed to be interrupted.” Severus leaned his back against the bole of a tree. They stood not far outside the Malfoy estates, in the “buffer” zone secured against the intrusion of Muggles or vengeful wizards with spells implanted in the soil and vegetation. Severus had no fear of being attacked. Not only would the Curse Potion inhibit some of the imposter’s major spells, but he had ingested enough of his own brewing to ensure that he would walk away from this meeting unscathed. “I have no need for a substitute Draco. The one I have now is worn to the grooves of my fingers and my uses and my teaching. I prefer to keep him.”

The imposter’s face quivered, and then relaxed. A terrifying madness shone in his eyes for a moment. Still Severus did not worry. Madness was not more powerful than the invisible compulsion, the condemnation, of the Curse Potion.

“You know,” said the imposter. “What I am.”

“I suspect,” Severus corrected him. “I have no need to hear the whole of the story, which I am sure is long-drawn and disgusting in several details. But yes, I know that you are someone who became obsessed with Draco Malfoy and changed your life so that you might become him. I know that the wards permitted you passage into the house because, to them, you were Draco.” He thought, but did not say, There has been far too much becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy around here.

“You must know the passion that drives me.” The imposter whispered the words and came nearer and nearer. Severus would have recoiled from the hunger in his eyes if he were a weaker man. “You have experienced the same thing yourself. You have seen gifts go unused, seen beauty wasted. And I know that you dislike Potter. You don’t want to see him throwing his legs around the waist of your favorite student, do you? You’ll help me. You’ll—“

Severus experienced a flash of pure disgust. Yes, he had once known an obsession like that: the obsession with Lily, and then with wishing he had prevented her death when news came of what the Dark Lord had done. It was the sort of emotion that refashioned the world around it, so that people became helpful or irritating or stupid or beautiful simply because of where they stood in relation to the perceiver.

But the moment he had realized that such a perception existed and controlled his emotional reactions, Severus had fought to disable it. He preferred reality, no matter how prickly and painful. Pretending a cushion of wet moss was a throne would not make it one.

And so he had overthrown his obsession with Lily. The memories remained to him, and always would, because the uprooting of what had given his life sustenance and anchoring had left gaping wounds. But he had not given in to them.

Best of all was to be free of obsession, as he was and he was beginning to suspect that Lucius was. Second best was to make it livable, as Draco and Potter had. But Severus had nothing but contempt for someone who surrendered the way this man had.

Powerful in magic, strong in Legilimency, with the resources and time to pursue this task, and he can think of no better fate than to become a second-rate imitation of a man himself obsessed with bedding the hero?

“I will not help you,” he said. “There are worse fates for Draco than becoming Potter’s plaything, and death is one of them.”

“But if I destroyed him, it would only be to make him better,” said the stranger eagerly. “Like melting down an ornament of mostly base metal to release the silver inside it.”

“You were not able to come up with any other way to secure his memories than forced Legilimency,” Severus said. “You can imitate neither his architectural talent nor his passion for Potter. No, I find nothing valuable about you, but only the tarnish waiting for more fingers to multiply it.”

The imposter lunged at him, but Severus flicked his wand and he bounced away, crashing heavily into a spiny bush.

Severus whirled and Apparated back to the house. His improvements to the wards let him pass in and out soundlessly, but would keep the imposter out should he attempt to follow—

Which, yes, he had. Severus smiled as tingling sensations struck the small of his back, the wards reverberating but holding. The imposter was a genius, but he had devoted too much of his time and effort to imitation. He did not know potions in the way that Severus did.

If I had an imitator, maybe he would.

Then Severus, who had landed in his lab, laughed aloud. If I had an imitator, and a competent one, he would kill me before I began to suspect his existence.

*

“And they still haven’t decided what the imposter is, have they?” Draco leaned back against the pillows in his bed and stretched. To the casual eye, he’d look bored, but Harry knew that he was concealing nervousness under the gesture. He took a moment to silently marvel at his own knowledge.

Then he remembered how dearly that knowledge had been purchased, and bowed his head over the notes that Kingsley had given him until he could compose himself.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “they think they have a good guess.”

Draco immediately rolled over to face him. Harry kept his eyes on the notes, delaying and thus making sweeter the moment when he could glance up and see Draco’s gaze focused and glittering on him.

It still shook him to feel the clenching greed in his body when he met that gaze—the same way that he loved and yet resented the way his head turned automatically towards Draco when he entered a room with him in it, or the way he came out of the Floo into the Manor that evening oriented towards the bedroom already. He had tried to imagine, yesterday, what would happen to him if Draco died, and silence and terror had clasped his throat and tried to drown him.

Obsession and love were weaknesses as much as they were strengths. Harry hoped he would learn to live with both.

“Well?” Draco demanded.

Harry had lingered too long in that silence. He looked up, and drank in the light coming from Draco’s eyes for a few moments before he managed to speak, his voice a bit breathless. “They think he’s someone ordinary,” he said. “Someone who became obsessed with you, who wanted to be you—“

“Then he couldn’t be someone ordinary,” Draco said in a miffed tone, and turned his head away. Harry smiled and studied the line of his profile before responding.

“Someone who wasn’t famous. Someone who didn’t have close relatives or friends to miss him, or someone would have reported him missing by now.”

Draco huffed a sigh. “Yes, all right, I’m being stalked by a common lunatic,” he said, and waved an impatient hand. “You might as well tell me the truth.”

Harry concealed a laugh behind his hand. He knew Draco was going out of his way to amuse him, but the very fact that he was, Harry thought, was a hopeful sign. Draco had never cared about making up to him before. He had seemed to assume that the way he wanted to act was also sufficient to draw Harry.

Or it’s another sign of his continuing obsession with me, too.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair to distract himself from scowling. He kept bumping up against that thought, and each time he had to flinch anew and think how different the love they shared was from the emotion between Ron and Hermione. On the other hand, it would hardly do to forget it, after the betrayal Draco had inflicted on him.

“Not as bad as that,” he replied. “You can at least take some consolation in the fact that he’s not an ordinary lunatic because he’s nameless.”

Draco blinked at him. Harry was hungry even for the way his blond eyelashes rose and fell, sheltering and then showing his eyes. “And how did he manage that?”

“The magic he worked.” Harry looked back at the Auror case notes on the subject, feeling quiet awe brush him like a moth’s wing. “He passed the wards because he convinced them he was you. It wasn’t your blood he carried in his veins, but the stamp of your personality and spirit he carried in his soul. And to go that far, he had to whittle himself away. We don’t stand any chance of knowing who he was. The magical theory experts in the Auror Department think that if we ever ran into his original name, we wouldn’t recognize it. Magic and desire do strange things.”

Draco was silent. Then he shook his head and said, “He’s still out there, somewhere. Will the Aurors assign me a guard?”

Harry hesitated. Then he took a deep breath. “They thought I would do, if you’ll consent to me.”

Draco let his eyelashes rise very high this time. “What? I—I don’t mind—“ And there was a scramble and tangle of emotions behind his voice that told Harry, in incoherent terms, just how very far from minding he was. “But why would your supervisors think you were competent enough to take the case? They sent you away in the first place for sleeping with me.”

“Not only for that,” Harry said. “And—I explained things to Kingsley.”

It hadn’t been pleasant, sitting down before the Head Auror and telling him that he had found himself so tied to Draco’s fate that opposing it was impossible. Harry had rambled on about love and the way he’d rescued Draco and the way he’d felt when he thought the imposter would yet tear Draco apart whilst Kingsley gazed past him at the far wall, his face old in a way that made Harry feel guilty.

At last he said, “I understand, Auror. And yes, you’ll stay on the case. You’re the best protection for him at the moment, since you’re fighting for love, and it’s the best way to avoid the scandal that Auror Weasley’s failure to provide guards for Malfoy would signify to the public.”

He turned back and held up a hand just as Harry began to babble his thanks. “If something goes wrong this time,” he said, “you won’t be removed from the case, because there won’t be a reason for you to be in the Department at all.”

Harry had bowed his head and kept it still for long moments, to ensure Kingsley that he understood the seriousness of the situation. His infatuation with Draco could cost him his job. But he didn’t—couldn’t—regret the cost, because of the prize, and the frustration of knowing that shimmered behind Kingsley’s eyes.

“Good,” Draco said, and Harry started when he realized that Draco had come closer and slipped a hand behind his neck. Usually, Draco voluntarily touching him was such an event that he didn’t miss any nuance of it. “Then we can do a variety of things that would be hard to do if I had to visit you in your flat every day. Or, worse, the Ministry.”

Harry smiled and kissed Draco gently, sucking at his lip. “You wouldn’t want to shag in the Ministry,” he said, pulling away again. “They’ve thought of ways to suck privacy out of every tiny corner.”

“Suck, hmmm?” Draco’s eyes filled with delight. “I think that’s an invitation, Auror Potter.”

Harry flowed down Draco’s body, kissing him and stripping the cloth from his body with wandless magic as he went. They had wanked and sucked each other off in the last few days, without hesitation. Harry found a continual violent delight in touching Draco, rather like dashing into the sea and embracing a wave that was almost too much for him to handle.

But neither of them had suggested shagging again. The action held too many regrets and too many silences—too many apologies that Draco hadn’t yet made and which Harry wasn’t sure he could have accepted were they made.

They’d get there eventually, Harry reassured himself as he opened Draco’s trousers and then maneuvered his pants gently down his legs. They had more time than he had ever thought they would when he saw the imposter almost choke Draco to death at that party.

And then the sight of Draco’s hard cock filled his vision, and the taste filled his mouth, and he had better things to think about.

*

Draco snapped his eyes open in the darkness. He knew that someone had brushed past his forehead, and he had the unshakable conviction that it was his mother.

Why not a moth? Why not the twitch of a ward? he asked himself, as he propped his body up on an elbow and rubbed sleep away from his mouth. You have enough reason to worry about the wards, with the imposter after you.

But he had sensed things like this before, though the memories were hardly more substantial than dreams, and he wasn’t surprised to see a faint glow hovering around the portrait frame mostly hidden by a tapestry on the wall. Draco wiped his mouth again, and then told himself not to be weak. He stood and walked over to the frame.

When he drew back the tapestry, his mother sat in the green velvet chair that the artist had made part of the painting, staring at him.

Draco cleared his throat. He was always unaccountably embarrassed when he talked to his mother, which he never understood. After all, he had known her all his life before she—passed. There was no reason that he had to feel isolated from her. And he had shared a few late-night conversations with her that had ended up changing his life.

“Draco,” Narcissa said. “Am I to understand that you have chosen Harry Potter?”

Draco looked over his shoulder towards the bed, but Harry didn’t stir, except to mumble and press his face into the warm indentation Draco had left. So he faced his mother again and nodded, not meeting her eyes.

“Why?” Narcissa asked. “I have seen you with others who would have made superior partners.”

Draco relaxed. When his mother entered this question-and-answer game that was also a cat-and-mouse one, he knew how to reply. She had always been closer to him simply because she loved him more than Lucius, but it was also true that Draco grasped her means of showing that love better. She wanted him to succeed and survive, whereas Lucius had sometimes acted as if his survival would be enough. Certainly, by allying with the Dark Lord, he had done much to sabotage Draco’s future.

“My feeling for those people was not superior,” Draco replied. “For him, it is.”

“And you would choose a partner based on your feelings?” Narcissa tilted her head, her eyes glittering like moonflowers at midnight. “Not on what he can bring to your family, your life, or your vaults?”

“Yes,” Draco said. “I don’t want a marriage like yours and Lucius’s.”

Narcissa’s face became so proud and pure and remote that, for a moment, Draco almost decided he didn’t know her. “What has your father been telling you?”

“I have eyes,” Draco said shortly. He had never spoken about this with his mother’s portrait, but then, she had never demanded that he justify his choice of lovers, either. He wondered how far her reach really extended. Had she realized she was dead and should concern herself with things other than her son? “He moped after you died, for years, and now recently he goes around with his face in this look of frozen contemplation. He’s angry at you, now, finally, for dying the way you did. And he has a right to be. It was a stupid way to die.”

Narcissa stirred, a ripple running the length of her robes. “I was trying to protect you.”

“I know you were.” Draco bit his lips and brew his breath hard through them, trying to chase away the tension. “But the problem, Mother, is that you refused to rely on anyone’s help to do it.” He threw a glance back at Harry and thought, again, of the impossibility of parting with him. So far, he had thought of that mainly in terms of a weakness, the obsession he couldn’t grow past or get over or transform. But that wasn’t true, was it? The emotions had transformed already, from his blank self-absorption into the stronger and cleaner passion that had made him attack the imposter for Harry’s sake. “You can call that the lesson I’ve learned and the decision I’ve made, if you like. I’ve chosen a partner who can help me.”

“Draco.” Narcissa breathed a sigh he thought would have felt like moonlight if it had actually touched his face. “There are two problems with that. The first is the fragility of other people. What happens if he dies and leaves you alone? If he tires of you? If he fails you?”

“I don’t fear the second happening,” Draco said. “We’ve enthralled each other.” He smiled, and wondered absently what the smile would look like in a mirror. “Thrall is an old word for slave. I never realized how appropriate that was.”

“If he leaves you alone?”

“I know that could come,” said Draco. “I think I would survive it better than Father survived your death. At least I would know my partner had loved me.”

Narcissa chose not to let that make any impact on her expression. “And if he fails you?”

“I’ll fail him, too,” Draco said. “I expect failure. I’m teaching myself to live with it. I think I’ll be happier when I do.”

“The second problem,” Narcissa said, “is that you have not told Potter everything. He thinks he understands the full range of your obsession, and I have heard him confessing his to you. But you have left out part of the truth.”

Draco frowned. “What?”

In the portrait frame beside Narcissa, Harry appeared. Draco at once recognized the one he had kept imprisoned in the portrait in the relics room from the bitterness around his mouth and the shadows in his eyes. He tossed his head back, gave Draco a bitter wink, and mouthed something insulting before he vanished behind the green velvet chair.

“I didn’t know he could leave his own picture,” said Draco numbly. He shifted. His fingers were tingling as if he’d sat on them.

“We have conversed for some time,” said Narcissa. “And to both Potter and yourself, you owe the duty of making sure you can survive your darkest part.”

She vanished out of the frame with a single stride. Draco stood regarding it for a long time before he let the tapestry fall, and then he went back to bed for several hours of comfortless waking, whilst Harry snored in his ear.

*

Lucius looked at the endless rows of diaries gathered on the shelves.

Not endless, whispered the pedantic, truth-telling voice in the back of his head. Lucius made it a habit to tell himself as much of the truth as possible. Lying to other people was a necessity of life, but he had seen too many Death Eaters who lied to themselves and lost their grip on reality in the process. You know that she kept them for the twenty years she was married to you, and she generally filled one every two months.

But for some months she had written more, and each diary was filled with pages that he had, reverently, not counted—as if refusing to count them could somehow make Narcissa’s life, contained within them, last forever.

Lucius’s shoulder muscles bunched, then relaxed.

She wrote them. And what good did it do? She showed them to no one else. She didn’t act on the revelations that she put in them. Either she was recording actions she had already taken, or actions she had already decided on, or bitter truths that she hugged to herself, glad that other people didn’t know them. She never once tried to show me that she didn’t love me, or felt my love inadequate. She never once hinted that she thought I couldn’t protect Draco. She expected me to know it.

She was self-absorbed, curled into herself like a snail into its shell, writing for herself only. I thought these diaries were addressed to me, or maybe to Draco, the legacy she left of herself, my chance to understand her.

I only understand her mirror by understanding them. And I need to leave this room before my love for my wife is drained completely.

Lucius stepped out of the library. He had considered, for a wild moment after his anger freed him from his obsession with his wife, burning the diaries. It would be a fitting fate for those shiny, reflective words that in the end conveyed nothing but the endless, suffocating labyrinths of Narcissa’s soul.

But in the end he could not bring himself to do it. Draco was more like Narcissa—was the center of her life. Maybe he would find something of value in them.

Instead, Lucius locked the library’s door, gently, and then walked away, leaving the words to whisper in the dark to themselves, the only audience they were truly interested in.

Chapter 32.