lomonaaeren | Chapter Twenty-One of 'Inter Vivos'- Contraries

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Chapter Twenty-One—Contraries

His father’s face, staring up at him like a mask carved of resentment and hatred…

“Are you well, Draco?”

The heavy hand falling on his shoulder pulled Draco back to the present. It was true that his father had sometimes touched him like that, but solely as a steering motion or to remind Draco not to let down the family name in front of an important visitor. This was different. Draco didn’t know how, and he knew Lucius would have scorned his inability to put the difference into words, but it was. There was gentleness behind his touch, and he knew that the strength would be used to support and protect him, instead of crush him.

“I’m fine, sir,” he said, turning and smiling up at Professor Snape. “Just tired.”

Snape raised one eyebrow, as though to say weariness was a bad sign, but swept ahead of Draco to undo the wards. “What you have endured was a trial,” he said, his voice neutral.

Draco snorted softly as he followed Snape into the house that was going to be his home for the summer. Snape had used that word deliberately, so Draco could think it was a simple statement of the literal if he pleased, but which would also serve as an expression of sympathy if that was the way Draco wanted to interpret it. It was no wonder Harry had spent so much time trying to figure out if Snape was serious or not when he offered help. Draco hadn’t ever known anyone, even his father, who was so good at hiding their emotions.

“I never expected it,” he said, leaning against the wall beside the door as the wards sprang back up and looking around the room. It was only too obviously without the tender loving care of house-elves, but, dim as the corners were, shabby as the furniture was, it seemed like a paradise to Draco. He would be free of Lucius as long as he stayed here. “To stand up against my father and say that I didn’t want to be in his custody anymore. I could have pictured abandoning my magic before I abandoned my family.”

“And now?” Snape asked, shifting his weight behind Draco as if the task of resetting the wards was harder than Draco knew it was. “Do you still feel that way?”

“Of course not,” Draco said sharply, “or I would have broken my wand.” He turned around and frowned at Snape. Snape had said a few things like that since they came to Spinner’s End from Hogwarts, and Draco didn’t like what the words implied. “Do you think I should? Or do you really think that the sacrifice I made for Harry wasn’t worth it?”

“You are the only one who can answer that,” Snape said, calmly, infuriatingly, his eyes searching Draco’s face. He had one hand on the latch of the door, and he cast a complicated spell with a simple movement of his fingers even as Draco watched. Angry as he was, Draco made mental note of the spell as one he wanted to learn this summer. “But I do think that some of the statements you have made are problematic, yes. You cannot define yourself as a sacrifice for Harry’s sake, any more than you could define yourself as your father’s son forever. You were made for finer things than that, higher things. I want you to think about defining yourself. Why are you doing this, Draco? What do you get out of it?”

Draco snorted, amused despite his uneasiness. “You want me to act like a Slytherin, you mean.”

“Well? Is that not what you are?” Snape cocked his head slowly, reminding Draco of a magical serpent he’d once startled whilst he was exploring around the Manor. It had been orange and gold, not at all the kinds of colors that Snape wore, but it had slithered up to him, head turned like that, as if it was estimating how he would fit into its mouth. Draco had never found out what kind it was, mostly because he’d run about that time, but he remembered it well enough. He swallowed now as Snape continued to give him that look. “You are still a student, and your House identification is important. You only have two more years at Hogwarts, Draco. Then you will be out in the world and making your own decisions. It would be well for you to build a firm base of your own talents and experience before you must.”

Draco nodded. He couldn’t really deny that Snape was making sense. And Snape spoke about it in a way that made it hard for Draco to get angry, whilst when Lucius made speeches like this they always seemed pompous. “All right. But the problem is that I have to think of what I’m teaching Harry, too, and learn what’s useful for that.”

“And you are incapable of learning more than one thing at the same time?” Snape lifted his lip in a small curl. “Don’t tell me that you have Crabbe blood.”

Draco laughed, although Snape’s words reminded him uncomfortably for a moment of the fact that he would have to go back to school after the holidays, and he had no idea how his Housemates would react to his abandoning Lucius. “I used to want to be an inventor,” he said. “A creator of new spells, new magical theories, new fields of study.”

“A worthy ambition,” said Snape. “I myself have perfected new potions, as you know—though there is always the chance of suffering the disappointment of an inventor who discovers that others cannot use his research as it was meant to be used.” He turned away from Draco and headed towards another small, shabby room that was probably the library, because Draco could catch a glimpse of shelves through the open door. “Come. I have some books that you should read.”

Draco followed Snape, breathing deeply. He took in enough dust with one of the breaths to sneeze, but still, Spinner’s End smelled like home.

*

Copsham Cottage was a small house, with only three rooms downstairs—a kitchen, a library, and an entrance hall—and three upstairs—two bedrooms and a bathroom. There was barely even a corridor connecting the bedrooms. And they were decorated in colors that the Dursleys would have found nonthreatening, a mixture of pale yellow and white.

Harry didn’t care. There was no one at the Cottage yelling at him, starving him, or locking him in his room. Already that made it a better summer than any he’d had except when he stayed with the Weasleys.

For the first three days at the safehouse, he slept and ate. His body seemed to be getting revenge for last summer and for the months of nightmares all at once. Harry only woke up when his stomach hurt him hard enough, and he only stopped eating when he felt he would vomit if he tried to eat anything more. He ate bread, pies, cakes, bacon, fish, beef, soup, lettuce, potatoes, and shining red apples like the ones that he used to see in his dreams at Privet Drive. And he wallowed in the bed, which was enchanted to mold to his body and readjust itself during the night so that he never woke up with a pain in his neck or sides.

He woke up on the fourth morning feeling refreshed, deeply grateful to Snape, and determined to start his training again. He couldn’t make himself just into a warrior, the way he’d been dreaming of last year; there were too many other things to consider, like the people who had helped him and who might resent him neglecting himself. But he did have to study.

He knew exactly what he wanted to study, too. But he didn’t know how to get at it. He doubted that such a subject would be among the books in the library.

He went thoughtfully down the stairs to the kitchen, and stopped in surprise. He’d been vaguely aware during the last three days that Mrs. Weasley was watching him, and that she was happy to make him as much as he could eat. But now it was Remus who stood in the middle of the kitchen, frowning intently at the pan of eggs cooking itself over the fire.

“Remus?” he whispered. “Is Sirius all right?”

Remus smiled and glanced at him over his shoulder. He looked tired, but Harry also thought there was a lightness about him, too, like he’d finally heard some bad news he’d been waiting for for a long time and it wasn’t as bad as he expected. “Of course,” he said. “So much all right, in fact, that he finally got tired of my fussing and chased me out of his house for a while.” He poked dubiously at the eggs, and then nodded in satisfaction and levitated the pan off the fire. “So I thought I’d come and visit you.”

Harry laughed and sat down at the table. “What have you been doing? Sirius told me that it was secret, and he couldn’t tell me.” He took the glass of pumpkin juice Remus handed him with a little nod, watching his face covertly all the while. It was time to see if someone besides Snape, Draco, and his closest friends could manage to be honest with him.

“I was working with the werewolves.” Remus scooped some eggs onto his own plate and some onto Harry’s, keeping his eyes strictly on the pan all the while. Harry wondered if he was ashamed to meet Harry’s gaze. “Dumbledore wanted me to get in contact with a particular pack run by a werewolf named Fenrir Greyback. He’s the one who—who bit me.”

“And you were supposed to get in contact with him?” Harry almost choked on his pumpkin juice. “Why? Why would he make you do something like that?’

Remus didn’t reply for long moments, staring at the eggs as if they held the secrets of the universe. Then he sighed, picked up his fork, and started eating. At least he was looking Harry in the eye this time. “Dumbledore didn’t make me do anything,” he said. “The Order of the Phoenix is made up of adults, Harry. We can choose to fight for what we believe in without having to be coerced.”

Harry bristled, because usually when people talked about adults they followed it up with some reminder of how he wasn’t, yet. “And I’m a child?” he said. “Besides, it still wasn’t right to ask you to go into that much danger.”

Remus gave him a little smile. “Sirius has made it abundantly clear that I’m not to treat you like a child, anymore,” he said. “And Fenrir Greyback is an ally of You-Know-Who. So, you see, it’s important that we learn something about his movements.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I failed, though. Fenrir likes to taunt me, but he didn’t believe my story about being fed up with the Ministry and wanting to live with my own kind.”

Harry nodded. “I’m sorry you failed, but I still think it was rotten to ask you to go into danger like that.” He started hungrily eating his eggs.

“I understand your feelings, Harry.” Remus reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “And I know that you have reason to distrust him, but I do wish you would make up with Headmaster Dumbledore. He’s miserable over his mistakes concerning you.”

Harry felt sympathy and pity wake up in him, but he didn’t really feel like experiencing them right now. So he swallowed and shook his head. “I want him to suffer for a little while,” he said. “The way I did.”

Remus stared at him, seeming somewhere between shocked and flabbergasted. “That’s very—Slytherin of you, Harry,” he said at last.

“But it’s true,” said Harry. “And anyway, I didn’t know you still called things Slytherin and Gryffindor.” He began eating more eggs, wondering if it was a good idea to have Remus here after all. “Did Sirius tell you what I told him about the abuse?” he asked his plate.

“Yes.” Remus spoke so softly that it took Harry a minute to be sure he’d heard him. “I just—I didn’t think Dumbledore knew, Harry.”

“He didn’t know the details.” Harry pushed his plate away, not hungry enough to finish breakfast for the first time since he got here. “But he knew they didn’t treat me well. And he refused to adopt me himself or let someone around Hogwarts adopt me just because there was a chance he might hurt me.” He shook his head, bile rising up in his throat. “I don’t want to feel sorry for him, Remus. Maybe someday I can. But not now. He did too much to hurt me.”

Remus sighed. “I didn’t mean to imply that your pain didn’t matter, Harry. But—maybe it’s hard for me to deal with, too, knowing the Muggles did that to you and I didn’t realize it.”

“All right,” Harry said, the most gracious thing he could say at the moment, and then retreated from the kitchen into the library. He was shaking, and he had to lean a hand on the shelves for a moment to prop himself up.

They all want me to feel sorry for Dumbledore. They all want me to act like he hurt more. They all want me to be a hero and selfless and nothing more than that.

Harry took a deep breath and licked his lips. Those thoughts were unfair, too; he knew Sirius didn’t want that, because he’d been horrified and indignant when he learned from Harry what Snape had learned from Dumbledore. But as long as Harry didn’t yell at someone else, then he could be as spiteful in his head as he liked. It was better, at least, than denying what he’d felt, which he’d spent too much time during the school year doing.

Partially to distract himself, he began to scan the shelves. It didn’t take long. There weren’t actually as many books at Copsham Cottage as he’d thought, and the Darkest one was a Defense book that talked about how to counter some of the curses Snape had taught him. Harry muttered about Light wizards who thought they had to defend themselves by being ignorant and folded his arms.

All right. I need to know about Horcruxes, and there’s only one person who might be able to fetch me books about that.

And I know who I want with me, now. Who I need to have with me, if Remus and the others are going to be stupid about Dumbledore.

Harry went upstairs to find Hedwig, and write a letter.

*

Dear Professor Snape:

I know that you’ll understand why I need a book on Horcruxes. I’m not going to ask what you do or where you have to go to get it. But I need it. If there’s any way to destroy the Horcruxes more easily than I destroyed the diary, then I need to know that.

I want to see Draco, too. Can you bring him to Copsham Cottage in a few days? Please don’t wait until you find the book, if it takes longer than that. I need to see him. Besides, I think it would be good to start the Occlumency lessons again. Voldemort’s left me alone for this long, but that might not last.

Thanks,
Harry Potter.

Severus clenched his hand around the letter and took a deep breath. He did not understand the emotions raging through him, and it took him long moments to calm himself, to separate his mind from those feelings and retreat to a vantage point from which he could look at them rationally.

He was hurt that Harry had not written asking for his presence.

He was worried that, by researching Horcruxes, Harry would lay himself open to the influence of Dark magic, which often accompanied Dark Arts books. Some believed that the pages themselves absorbed the intent of their writers, or at least of the wizards who used them with intent to harm.

But Severus himself had never believed that, and it would be far more dangerous for Harry to face the Dark Lord with no knowledge of Horcruxes at all. Besides, who had the right to know about them if Harry did not, since he was one?

As for the first emotion, it had no place in his mind at all.

Severus turned to call Draco. He would be thrilled to go on a visit to Harry; though he had been content at Spinner’s End, his personality fitting in as compatibly with Severus’s as Severus had foreseen that it would, he mentioned Harry at least three times a day and sometimes stared off into space with a wistful look.

And all Harry’s not asking for you means is that he does not yet wish to see you. He told you it would be at least a month.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Sadly, that was one commandment that Severus had never yet been able to obey.

*

Draco gasped as he staggered back from Harry’s shields. They were thicker and firmer than he could have imagined their becoming in the single week since he’d last seen Harry. Maybe they wouldn’t stand up to the kind of pounding that Draco knew himself capable of resisting, and of course Harry would take a long time to be as good an Occlumens as Professor Snape was, but it was an enormous improvement.

“How did you do that?” he demanded, the moment he recovered his breath.

Harry smiled. “Well, you know that I use you as my anchor for the shields,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

Draco paused. There was an odd note in Harry’s voice that he didn’t understand. And the way Harry turned away a moment after that, as if he didn’t want to meet Draco’s eyes, made Draco wonder if he was hiding something.

“And anyway,” Harry went on, his voice changing so suddenly that Draco wondered if he’d imagined the hiding, “we’ve practiced Occlumency for two hours now. I want to go out and fly.”

“You can do that here?” Draco cast a dubious glance out the window of Copsham Cottage. The windows showed a sunny garden with the light playing over borders of flowers, but he didn’t know if it actually looked like that. When he’d first arrived, he’d been horrified at how small the place was. But then, he reckoned that Snape’s house at Spinner’s End actually wasn’t that much bigger; it just felt bigger because it had more rooms. And Harry seemed happy. But that didn’t guarantee the existence of a Quidditch pitch.

“Yes.” Harry grinned at him. “I know, it doesn’t look like much, does it? But the grounds are strongly warded because sometimes they had too many people staying here to fit in the rooms. So we have a place to fly, as long as we don’t go too far from the house.” He paused. “You did bring your broom, didn’t you?”

Draco snorted. “Of course.” He’d been hoping to coax Harry back to Spinner’s End and the small park Severus had shown him, surrounded with so many Muggle-repelling charms that Draco could fly in safety. But bringing his broom was the surer thing given the way Harry reacted to his mentioning Snape, and he ran to fetch it from inside the entrance hall. Harry followed him down the stairs; they’d been practicing in his bedroom, which was the only place they wouldn’t potentially damage valuable books or dishes.

Draco peered about as he picked up his broom and noted with satisfaction that the strange pink-haired woman who’d been staying with Harry and introduced herself as Tonks wasn’t anywhere around. He turned to Harry, whose mouth was just opening to say something, and gripped his shoulders, looking into his eyes. Harry fell silent and stared at him in confusion.

“You are happy?” Draco whispered. “You haven’t been having nightmares? Not even possession nightmares, but nightmares about your relatives? You would tell me if you were, right?”

Harry watched him with calm, understanding eyes for long moments. Then he nodded and reached up to take Draco’s hands, gently removing them from his shoulders.

“Yes,” he said. Draco stared at him again, but this time Harry didn’t turn away or act like there was something he wanted to conceal. “I’ve learned to stop hiding things that could hurt other people,” Harry said, and he said it like a vow. “I want to help them, not hurt them. I only hid them in the first place because I thought it would cause you more pain if you knew, not because my pain was small. It wasn’t.” He swallowed. Draco moved a step closer, and was delighted to see Harry lean slightly towards him, which looked like an unconscious gesture but was still very welcome. “I haven’t had nightmares since I came here. I’ve had a chance to recover from my relatives’ abuse, and I’m doing something else besides studying. I’m busy, Draco, and I’m happier than I’ve been in years. I promise.”

“Even without me?” Draco cursed himself for saying that the instant he did, because Harry stopped grinning and looked at him seriously, and then—

And then Draco couldn’t curse himself for saying that after all, because Harry had moved closer, wrapped his arms around him, and was cradling him as if Draco had been the one who suffered abuse and not him. It was the first time Draco remembered receiving a hug like this without something traumatic happening first. He hugged Harry back, in happy disbelief, and sighed a little as he let his head rest on Harry’s shoulder. For just a moment he could forget the fact that Harry still had no idea Draco loved him, and he could think they were out of this war, with everything dangerous behind them and nothing worse ahead than figuring out what it meant to love each other.

“I do miss you,” Harry whispered. His hand had moved into Draco’s hair and was running through it, and what Draco adored about the gesture was that it was unconscious, just like the way Harry had leaned into him, and Harry wasn’t doing it because he thought he had to or to oblige a friend. “But I think I needed to be by myself, or almost by myself. When I’m with you or Snape, I’m thinking about everything, Draco, not just learning. I need to rest, too, and dream, and get used to the fact that I’m not going back to the Dursleys’ ever again.”

Then he stepped back before Draco could react, and cuffed him on the shoulder. “Are we going flying or not? And are you going to need a hug every time you get into the air? Try telling that to your Quidditch team.”

*

“Ouch, mate.”

“Sorry, Ron,” Harry said guiltily. He had known the moment he cast the Blasting Curse that it was too strong, but ever since Snape had taught him to concentrate on the effects of the spells instead of flinging all his power behind them, they really had got stronger. And so he’d thrown Ron into the wall before he realized what was happening.

Maybe there’s a way to absorb the energy of a spell just after you’ve cast it, he thought. He would have to look into that. He went to help Ron stand up and examined the scorch mark on the wall, wincing. Tonks was staying with him again this week, and she was nice enough, but she did tend to ask a lot of questions.

“What happened? I heard the noise from downstairs!” The door thumped open as Hermione hurried into the room. “Were you using curses? There must be some safer way to learn this, Harry. Why don’t you find it? Are you bleeding, Ron?” She stepped up to Ron and made him turn around so that she could get a look at the back of his head, Ron grumbling all the while that he was fine but looking pleased at the attention.

Speaking of a lot of questions, Harry thought, grinning as he moved into the corner so that Hermione could have better access to Ron. Hermione had been studying in the library just in case Harry had missed a source of information about Horcruxes that would be useful, and still had one finger in her giant book.

He watched his best friends in contentment. It was good to be with them again, and as long as a woman was staying with him—and Tonks and Mrs. Weasley had both agreed to watch him over the last week whilst Hermione and Ron were here, as well as an Auror named Hestia Jones—then she and Hermione could share one bedroom, and Harry and Ron the second. It was like being back at Hogwarts, falling asleep to the sound of Ron’s breathing.

In fact, this whole summer was like being at Hogwarts, or a combination of Hogwarts and the Burrow. Harry still hadn’t got his breath back yet or stopped being deliriously happy every time something small showed up and reminded him of the differences between Copsham Cottage and Privet Drive.

“I don’t need that much fussing, Hermione.” Ron was trying to pull away from her, an offended expression on his face. “I’ll get that much from my mum. I’m not bleeding.”

“Shut up, I can’t see!” Hermione snapped at him, and then cast a Sticking Charm to tie his feet to the floor.

“Hermione,” Ron said, but Harry saw the expression on his face change to a half-grin, and thought he didn’t really mind being caught like that.

“Why do you have to have all this hair,” Hermione said, running her fingers through it, and, Harry thought, taking longer than she really needed.

It reminded him of the way he had touched Draco’s hair the other day…

Harry sighed. Yes, let’s consider that, shall we?

He had no idea, really, how or when he’d fallen in love with Draco. (If that was what had happened. Harry was still considering other possibilities at the moment). None of it made sense. Why should he fall in love with anyone, first of all, when he’d probably die in the battle with Voldemort? And then, he used to like girls. He remembered daydreaming about Cho, and sometimes about Hermione, just because she was a girl and always around, and that was the kind of thing most blokes thought about. And there might have been a time he thought he’d marry Ginny, when she went through that embarrassing hero-worship phase and then Sirius and Remus told him about the way that his dad had worshipped his mum.

But falling in love with a boy was never part of the plan.

Harry just didn’t know how it would work. He knew boys and girls had sex, or men and women did, and had children. Sometimes he had dreams about that, too. He knew a little about sex, thanks to the twins and overheard conversations and snogging from the seventh-years. But it didn’t include him. He’d redefined himself out of that equation without even realizing it, at least until this summer.

But two blokes? Why would they have sex? Why would they want to have sex? They couldn’t have kids (unless there was some really strange wizarding world magic he didn’t know about, and in this case Harry wanted to remain in blissful ignorance). Would they have to have sex? Did he have to have sex with Draco if he was in love with him?

There were so many questions, and Harry didn’t know what was right or not, the way he would have known about it—all right, a little bit about it—with a girl. So for now he was just turning the questions over in his head and thinking about them and sometimes coming up with answers that surprised himself.

It was nice to have a secret that, for once, was incapable of hurting anyone, a secret that was his alone.

“Harry?”

Harry started and looked up. Ron and Hermione were both staring at him expectantly. He reckoned they had finished their own flirting session and were ready to get back to the training now.

And so should you be, he told himself, and resolutely banished thoughts of snogging Draco from his mind.

*

“Hello, Professor Snape.”

Severus felt as though a heavy burden had fallen from his shoulders with the sound of Harry’s voice, which warned him, if he hadn’t known before, how very much afraid he had been that the boy would not want to see him again. And that was in itself potentially disastrous, this worry. There were reasons that Severus selected so few students for personal favoritism. He had always known that association with him was not a guarantee of a long or happy life.

But then, Harry was in danger already, as was Draco. Perhaps it was as safe to be fond of them as it was to be fond of anyone.

Although that did not save Lily.

Severus shook himself and realized that Harry was still standing on the stairs, watching him with shadowed eyes, and doubtless waiting for a response. “I did find the book on Horcruxes you asked for,” he said, and held out the heavy tome bound in half-slimy leather, glad to be rid of it. Harry, on the other hand, took it and looked at it with grim satisfaction. “I am sorry it took a month. It proved hard to track down. It was among the books that the Headmaster had removed from the Hogwarts library.”

Harry looked up sharply. “Did he do that—on purpose?”

Severus was not reluctant to encourage Harry to distrust Dumbledore, but he preferred that Harry pay attention to the man’s actual crimes, and supporting the Dark Lord was not one of them. “I believe he was researching,” he said smoothly. “He did owl me, when he sent the book, to say that he had located one of the other Horcruxes.” He raised an eyebrow. “And as he believes that the book will not leave my possession, I will thank you not to make the suggestion that he might be plotting against you to his face.”

“Of course not,” Harry muttered. “That might make him suspicious. I’m going to have a hard enough time convincing him that I can actually play a part in the war. I’ll be calm and polite in front of Dumbledore, because that’s the only way he’ll ever consider me enough of an adult.”

He was busy looking at the book and didn’t notice Severus’s stare at him. Severus covered his face with a mask as blank and smooth as the one Harry was planning in the next moment. He has made a resolve to act like a Slytherin, at last, or perhaps simply to use the brain he was born possessing.

“And have you considered,” he began slowly, “what we spoke of the last time we saw each other?”

Harry looked up then, and put the book on the step beside him, and leaned a shoulder on the wall. He folded his arms and watched Severus with a sardonic expression. Severus doubted he would like to be told that his body language was defensive; he had shifted so that more of his back was to the wall than before, and his breathing had sped up.

Considering the circumstances, Severus could hardly blame him.

“I still don’t like you very much,” said Harry. His voice was low, and for the first time Severus could hear a resemblance to Lily’s in it. He immediately told himself that such a thing was ridiculous; children did not sound like their parents unless reared in the same environment. Harry had been raised by Muggles, one reason that his diction was so common. Severus’s mother had made sure he knew how to speak properly. “I don’t like what you did. I don’t—it’s hard to think of you as an unrepentant Death Eater. I’ll never like thinking of you that way. And sometimes, when I look at you, I’ll see the murderer of my parents.”

Severus did not bother to point out that the Dark Lord had actually killed the Potters. He knew he had to accept Harry’s judgment now, or he never would, and the barrier would remain between them. He was not stupid enough to make Dumbledore’s mistakes, and speak over Harry’s words because he found them uncomfortable. He waited, slouching a little so that Harry could have even more of the higher ground than he did.

Harry drew a deep, troubled breath, and looked away from him, his eyes directed at the corner of the bottom step. He sounded almost as if he were talking to himself when he spoke next, as if he had forgotten he had an audience. Severus wondered if he should break him of that habit, but then remembered that Harry was new to being able to speak his thoughts at all. Caging them in his head was not an acceptable alternative, as it was with Draco, because he seemed to brood on them instead of considering them. So, as long as he did this only in private or with an acceptable audience, Severus could let it pass for now. “But that doesn’t change anything. I’ll have to work with you just like I have to work with Dumbledore.” His eyes slid back to Severus’s face. “The difference is that I can let you know I dislike you—sometimes—and you won’t decide that means I’m a child, because you don’t equate the war with yourself.”

Severus paused. That was not an insight which had come to him or to Draco, but yes, now that he thought about it, that was one explanation for Dumbledore’s behavior. He had not wanted to entrust Harry, the “Savior,” to carry his proper share of the burden—even the one that the prophecy said he was destined to carry. He wanted to control all things relating to the Potters, to the Dark Lord, to the spread of information. And because he was so concerned about hurting others and pretended that he could not foresee the consequences of his actions enough to be sure of what would hurt others and what would not, he had done nothing, and assumed that others could also do nothing.

“I trust you enough to let you know I dislike you. Sometimes.” A small, grim smile flitted across Harry’s mouth. “And I can’t always tell when those outbursts of dislike will come. There’s a lot I don’t know about myself. I’ve been working on finding out, this summer, but sometimes I still yell at Tonks or Remus and they don’t understand why—”

“I can think of many excellent reasons to yell at the werewolf,” Severus murmured.

Harry rolled his eyes at him and went on. “And sometimes I’m wildly grateful for what you did for me, and sometimes I still think it should have been left alone.” He paused and ran a hand over his forehead, his fingers lingering on the lightning bolt scar. “So I’ll be moody and difficult to work with. You’ll have to expect that.”

Severus sneered slightly. “Harry, you speak as if I had not taught in a school full of moody teenagers for years.”

Harry blinked and then flushed slightly. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I forgot that.”

“And I have exercised restraint in our meetings since—telling you the story of my friendship with your mother.” Severus thought that was the safest and potentially the most neutral way to refer to what had followed his rescue of Harry from Umbridge’s torture. “I can exercise more. This will work.”

Harry nodded slowly, his shoulders still tense. “All right. As long as you know that.”

Severus nodded back, and squashed his own yearning for Harry to be comfortable in other ways with him, to seek out his company for other reasons. Considering what truths he had had to inflict on Harry, he should be grateful for this much. And Harry had Gryffindor traits as strong as the Slytherin ones. Let him begin a collaboration focused on the war or on learning spells, and friendship was more likely to follow, because he could not keep his emotions out of it. “What curses have you practiced since we last saw each other?”

*

“Hullo, Draco.”

Draco reached out and shook his mother’s hand, clasping it in his own for long moments. He would have liked to hug her, but Professor Snape was in the room—of course he was; he didn’t entirely trust Narcissa—and he wouldn’t be quite that bold in front of one of his teachers. “Hullo, Mum.”

For a moment, Narcissa looked desperately out of place in the dusty room at Spinner’s End, with her blonde hair flowing down the back of a white silk robe that Draco knew house-elves had woven and tended—and then, as always happened, the room reoriented itself around her and became a natural background. Draco shook his head in wonder. He had always longed to know how she did that. But since part of it was probably being a beautiful woman, he doubted he could learn to do it himself.

Narcissa bent to kiss his cheek, not seeming to care that Professor Snape was watching. “Draco,” she said. “I should warn you that Lucius tried to prevent me from visiting you today, and he will be spying on you when you return to school and trying to convince some of your Housemates to harm you.”

Draco swallowed. It was no more than he had expected, but somehow confirmation made it hurt more. He nodded sturdily, and hoped that not too much undignified emotion showed on his face. “Did he confide his plans specifically?”

“He will contact those he knows well, or who owe him debts,” said Narcissa, and sat down on the couch where Professor Snape usually kept the books he was consulting at the moment. He had removed them when he heard that Draco’s mum would be visiting. “Watch for Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle. As usual, he has failed to persuade Blaise Zabini’s mother that he has anything worth offering.”

Draco nodded and sat beside her. “And Bulstrode?”

Narcissa lightly shrugged her shoulders. “Holding neutral, for the moment. The Greengrass family has withdrawn both their daughters from the school and is unlikely to participate in this contest at all. The Notts do not, as yet, show any sign of responding to Lucius’s overtures. I suspect they are trying to gain their own standing in the Dark Lord’s court.”

Draco listened intently, forcing himself to absorb the information as he had Professor Snape’s books on spell creation. The thought of one of his yearmates turning against him scraped against his bones like a knife, but he would just have to get used to it. “And are there any other families he mentioned?” he asked, when Narcissa paused in her recitation.

“Not as yet.” Narcissa smiled with her lips alone, but her eyes shone—not with tears, Draco noted. “But I am able to do something to restrain him, Draco. I have possession of certain secrets that he would not want to get out. I am unable, I fear, to prevent someone from harming you in Hogwarts, given my distance from the school. But I can and will give you the means to protect yourself.”

She reached into a fold of her robes and removed a book. Draco blinked. He could tell the moment it emerged into the open air that it was a Dark Arts book, but it had been so strongly shielded by the cloth that he hadn’t sensed its presence. His respect for his mother grew. He would have to learn that spell, or else commission robes from the house-elves, which his mother was unusual in doing.

He took the book and opened it to the first page. To his surprise, it was blank. He looked up at Narcissa.

“This is a book Lucius does not realize that I knew he had,” Narcissa said. “Had being the important word.” She looked as smug as a cat who had escaped the bath. “It contains a great deal of Dark Arts knowledge—spells, but also rituals, potions, and many other things, willed into the book by its possessors. You must ask it questions, and it will reveal what it can to you.”

In wonder, Draco looked back at the blank page. “The Cruciatus Curse,” he said.

The surface of the page boiled like a maelstrom—rather dizzying to look at, Draco thought—and then a long list of information appeared. It was an index of sorts, Draco realized, starting with the name of the wizard who had invented the Cruciatus Curse and continuing from there.

“The book is now about that particular spell,” Narcissa said, sounding satisfied. “And it will continue to be until you ask it about something else.” She touched Draco’s hand. “Of course, about less common topics there will not be a wealth of knowledge.”

“I don’t care,” Draco said, ecstatic. “I don’t think that many of the other Slytherins will have received more specialized Dark Arts training than I have. Their parents wouldn’t trust them not to use that magic against their own families.” He flung his arms around his mother, Professor Snape’s silent, disapproving presence be damned.

Narcissa touched the nape of his neck. “You are welcome, my son.”

Draco smiled. I can’t wait to ask the book about Horcruxes.

*

“Harry. May I speak to you for a moment?”

Harry stiffened, then sighed and turned around. He had known this was coming. Mostly, he resented Dumbledore for confronting him just as he came out of the hospital wing, where he had been to visit Sirius. Madam Pomfrey had high hopes that Sirius would regain the use of his twisted hand with further physical and spell therapy, and Harry had been on his way back to Gryffindor Tower to share the good news with Ron and Hermione. It would liven up their first night at school as sixth-year students.

Or it would have, he thought as he faced Dumbledore. “Your office, Headmaster?” He reminded himself of his resolution during the summer and kept his voice calm, polite, almost bored.

Dumbledore peered at him intently. Harry looked at the floor. No need to let the old man read his thoughts.

“Yes, Harry,” Dumbledore said, sounding old and sad, and led him down the stairs.

In the office itself, Harry sat in a chair directly in front of the desk and responded with one word-answers to all the questions the Headmaster tried to ask him about his summer, until at last Dumbledore gave a world-weary sigh and folded his hands in front of him.

“I have two pieces of news for you, Harry,” he said, “and one piece of advice.”

Harry just nodded.

“The first piece of news is that I have secured another of Voldemort’s Horcruxes,” said Dumbledore firmly, “and have a good idea of the hiding place of one more. Unfortunately, I believe, from evidence I sought during the summer, that he has created at least six in total, apart from you. He would think that he has split his soul into seven pieces, and he regards seven as a mystical, magical number.”

Harry stared for a moment despite himself. “He’d split his soul that many times just to match a magical, mystical number?” he had to ask. “Is he really that stupid?”

Dumbledore smiled briefly. “One of the things I think you will discover about Voldemort as this war goes on, my boy, is that he is far from rational. Superstition has a greater hold on him than logical planning.” He leaned forwards. “The Horcrux is a stone on a ring belonging to his ancestors—the descendents of Slytherin. As yet, I have no idea how to destroy it. I will ask for your help in the future.”

Harry nodded. This was the kind of help he had hoped Dumbledore would ask him for, anyway, and if Voldemort was immortal because of the Horcruxes, it was more important than going out and fighting on the front lines.

“The other Horcrux I know of is probably his snake, Nagini.” Dumbledore gave him a small smile. “And she would be with her master, of course. We may have to leave her until the last, as she is surely the hardest to come at.

“And the second piece of news is that Dolores Umbridge has been sentenced to Azkaban, and will remain there for five years at least. The Wizengamot found the evidence of what she had done too copious to ignore.”

Harry took a hard breath of relief. He hadn’t wanted to admit it—because, since she’d been arrested, this was another fear that only concerned him—but he had wondered if it was possible that Fudge would manage to get Umbridge out and send her back to Hogwarts.

“My piece of advice might double as a piece of news, as well.” Dumbledore’s smiles had all vanished now. “This has been kept very quiet so as not to panic the public, and because the Ministry does not, as yet, entirely understand how they achieved it. But several Death Eaters have escaped from Azkaban, my boy, and made their way back to Voldemort’s side. One of them is his most dangerous, Bellatrix Lestrange. Voldemort often used her as his second-in-command during the first war, and he particularly delighted in having her hunt down people who had escaped him before. She was the one who tortured Neville Longbottom’s parents into insanity, because the Longbottoms had defied her master three times. I am afraid that, since Voldemort has failed to secure you with his Legilimency, he may have assigned Bellatrix to the hunt for you. It would be his way of pretending that you were not worth his own time.”

“What kind of spells does she use?” Harry asked at once. He was running the list of curses that Snape had taught him through his head, ready to match them up with Lestrange’s specialty.

“A rare kind, unfortunately,” Dumbledore said. “Other than the Unforgivables, she relies on the spells that manipulate fear.”

Harry paused. Snape had said it was almost useless to teach Harry those spells, because one had to understand the emotions that drove them—as one had to know pain to cast the Cruciatus—and Harry was too fearless, being a Gryffindor.

“Because of this,” Dumbledore said, “she can fairly easily corrupt the people around you into betrayal, and they may not even realize they are giving in to spells instead of their own terrors.” He leaned forwards. “My dear boy, please be careful in whom you place your trust this year.”

Harry swallowed and nodded.

“And that is all I have to say to you,” Dumbledore said with a sigh, “though I hope to meet with you regularly to discuss the Horcruxes.”

Harry stood up at once and escaped. He could feel Dumbledore’s eyes on his back all the way to the door, but the Headmaster didn’t call to him again.

That was—tolerable, he decided on his way down the moving staircase. He’s talking about the war, which he must know I want to talk about. He’s treating me like someone who can help him.

I just hope that he doesn’t decide we should have a “heart-to-heart” one of these days.

Chapter 22.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

slashpuppy.livejournal.com

God I love this story!

Another excellent chapter!

From:

slashpuppy.livejournal.com

Wow, I'm shocked at the way that people (specifically Remus) *still* seem to want Harry to just forgive Dumbledore! Harry's only *just* been rescued from the godawful situation he suffered every summer and he's supposed to turn on a dime and forgive the man who left him in that godawful place? Way to empathise with Harry, Remus!

I *love* that Snape wants Harry's trust soooo very much! And that it *hurts* when Harry doesn't give it freely! I soooo want those two to get closer and I think Snape's strategy will work. Propinquity through working together, together with Snape showing that he gives a damn about Harry, may soften Harry's feelings towards Snape!

*squishes Draco's mom* for working behind the scenes to try to keep Lucius in check and giving Draco something that will help him defend himself against his enemies!

Loving this story, can't get enough of it!

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Chapter Twenty-One of 'Inter Vivos'- Contraries

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