lomonaaeren

Title: Soldier’s Welcome (12/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Pairings: Harry/Draco preslash, Ron/Hermione
Warnings: Violence (and plenty of it), profanity, references to sex, takes account of DH but ignores the epilogue, heavy angst.
Summary: It’s the first year of Auror training for Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and…Draco Malfoy, But with Hagrid, Snape’s second Pensieve, rogue Death Eaters, Auror classes, and someone trying to start a second war to worry about, Harry might not have the time to pay that much attention to Malfoy. At first, anyway.
Author’s Notes: This story is the first in a trilogy called Running to Paradise, which takes its title from a W. B. Yeats poem. Each story will be novel-length, and each will cover a year of Harry and Draco’s training as Aurors. Though there are a lot of fics out there about them acting as Auror partners, there aren’t as many about their training, so I hope to cover some original ground there. I’m indebted to a reader named SP777 for suggesting a training fic for me to write.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve—Blistering Honesty

Harry let his head droop forwards. If he hadn’t put a hand up to catch his forehead, he thought it would have gone on falling until he was standing with his chin on his chest. He laughed bitterly.

“I don’t have the energy to face this kind of shite anymore,” he said aloud.

“It’s not shite on my part,” Malfoy said, his voice as soft and earnest as when he’d declared that he’d overheard Harry’s conversation with Ginny. “I promise you that. I think we have a lot of things to discuss, but I’m ready to face up to that discussion and the things I did wrong.”

“It’s surreal that you’re the one who’s saying things like that to me, and not my so-called best friends or so-called caring ex-girlfriend,” Harry said, raising his head and blinking at nothing. His eyes hurt. It was as if he’d tried to suppress tears, but he doubted it could be that when he felt as close to laughing as he did to crying. “The world has turned bizarre. Of course, I should have thought of that when Death Eaters somehow broke into the Auror trainee barracks.”

Malfoy watched him carefully, taking a step back as though he thought that Harry was about to lash out at him. Harry sighed. He wanted to punch Malfoy. Maybe that would make everything normal again. He could tell Ron that he’d “rebelled against the compatible magic” and Ron would welcome him back with open arms. Then he could firecall Ginny and she would smile at him and—

Why do you want her smiles?

The anger he’d felt while he was listening to her speak returned full-force, then. Harry clutched the edge of the door with one hand and ground his teeth. How dare Ron get Ginny to speak to him instead of coming to Harry with his own problems and doubts, and how dare Ginny talk to him like that? Even if she only meant it for the best, it was unforgivable.

If they were going to do strange things and think they were all right, then Harry might as well do the same.

“Come in,” he said roughly, and stepped out of Malfoy’s way.

Malfoy ducked past him, looking around the room as if he thought that Harry’s friends were waiting to ambush him. Harry rolled his eyes and shut the door with unnecessary force. Malfoy spun around, wand raised. Harry blinked. He hadn’t seen Malfoy pull the wand out of his pocket. He was more skillful than Harry had realized he was.

“I’m not going to hurt you unless you hurt me,” Harry said. “I’m sure you have questions.” He didn’t bother to conceal the bitterness in his voice as he crossed the room and dropped into the same chair he’d sat in when he was talking to Ginny. “Ask them.” He put a hand across his eyes and drew a deep breath, trying to take his brain back from the whirling of his senses.

*

Draco raised his eyebrows. He had expected to be welcomed immediately or sent on his way, probably with his face bruised out of all recognition. Either Potter would ferociously defend his privacy or he would seize the chance to pour out his frustrations to someone who seemed receptive.

But when he thought it over again, he realized that this was understandable. Potter had said in his conversation with the Weaselette that he tried to explain things and had them misunderstood. Maybe he so tired that admitting Draco was easier than turning him away.

And he never said that he would answer the questions he invited me to ask.

Draco sat down in the chair across from Potter, taking a moment to make sure the Floo connection was closed. The door stood open, so he spelled it shut. Any intrusion into this conversation would probably shut Potter up in his little shell again. Draco didn’t think he would ever have a chance like this again if it vanished.

Then he studied Potter. Potter, as if he felt the gaze, dropped his hand from his face and stared back. His face looked as if he’d spent weeks without sleep. His eyelids looked dusty. His hand shook before he saw Draco staring at it and reached out to clench it down on the arm of the chair.

This would not be as easy as it had seemed in the first moments when Draco was listening to the Weaselette and thinking that he understood Potter better than any of his friends. But the difficult things were the only ones worth doing. Draco cleared his throat and murmured, “What she said was unfair. You can’t fight against compatible magic and you have to obey the instructors in some things if you want to stay in the Auror program.”

Potter made a brushing motion with one hand. “I know that. It doesn’t make any difference to them. You would know that, if you had really listened to the whole conversation instead of just overhearing it.”

Already he was sitting up straighter in the chair, and his eyes watched Draco with dark distrust. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was staring Draco in the face as if he could have dueled with him. Draco knew the moment was passing, and Potter would shut himself away from sympathy.

Draco softened his voice and made his face open. Potter’s jaw slipped down as he stared at Draco. Draco made sure that he subdued the smile he wanted to give and said gravely, “Yes. All right. I simply wanted to be sure that you knew these things and could hear someone else saying them, someone who wouldn’t blame you. In the meantime, I also know that you’re tired of being a hero, and it’s unfair for them to require you to be one all the time.”

Potter blinked and swallowed. “But I didn’t say that,” he said. “I haven’t told anyone that. How could you know?”

Draco refrained from rolling his eyes and propped his chin up on his hand. “It’s obvious for anyone who knows how to look,” he said. “Besides, I can think about what my life would have been like if I’d been a Chosen One. Doing something incredibly hard, mostly on my own? That would be bad enough. At least I would think the fame and the gifts I received because of it were worth the pain.” He ignored Potter’s shaking head. They were different people, and it was hopeless to conceal that, as much time as they would be spending around each other in the future. “But for everyone to assume that I want to be a hero after that? That because I could do one hard thing, I could do them all? Having lazy people depend on me because they weren’t used to standing on their own two feet?” Draco shook his head back. “That would sour the fame for me and make me want to scream at everyone to help themselves.”

“My friends helped me defeat Voldemort.” Potter spoke slowly, but Draco thought that came from the depth of his consideration, rather than because he wanted to make Draco feel stupid. “They’ve done great things themselves. I don’t think they’re lazy. Ron would never have made it this far into the Auror program if he wasn’t willing to work and to ask for help with things that are beyond him.”

“I know that,” Draco said quietly. “But it’s harder to repair an argument with someone you care for than it is to do classwork. I would think it would be especially hard for someone like Granger.” He would avoid all mention of the Weasels for the moment, because Potter would be more likely to think everything Draco said came from his personal spite against them. “They’re used to one kind of thing, and since you’ve all stayed together instead of separating the way people usually do after Hogwarts—”

“I want to be with my friends.” Potter sat up as though Draco had pushed a pin into his arse.

“I know that. I’m not blaming you.” Draco stared at Potter calmly until he leaned back in his chair and nodded, almost sulkily, as if he didn’t know what to do if Draco wasn’t blaming him. “But because they’re close to you, it can be hard for them to see what they’re doing to you.”

Potter lowered his gaze to the floor and sat there in silence for so long that Draco began to worry about the Weasel coming back with his girlfriend and rattling the locked door. Then Potter fetched a long sigh from the depths of his belly and said, “I don’t know what to do about it.”

Draco began to breathe more easily. If Potter was asking for advice, then he could insinuate himself in. “That depends on the results you want,” he said. “A few days of breathing space? For them to never call you a hero again?” He hesitated, then chose his words delicately. “For those wounds that it seems you talked about to the Weaselette and she inconsiderately opened again to be soothed?”

Potter clenched his jaw. His voice had gone lower when he answered. “I never should have told her about my fits.”

“They have to do with the war, don’t they?” Draco balanced his voice between remote and sympathetic, or thought he did until he saw the way Potter’s arms pulled across his chest as though he were trying to break his own ribs.

“I don’t want to talk about them.”

“Because she betrayed you, it doesn’t mean everyone will.” Draco didn’t want to push too hard, but all he saw was his chances growing wings and flying into the distance. He cleared his throat and wondered if sounding less eager would appeal to Potter. No, probably not. If anything, he needed more begging. Draco reached out to place a hand on Potter’s arm. “You can tell me about them. I’ll need to know eventually, because they might interfere when we fight together, but I’m interested in them outside that.”

Potter gave him an ugly sneer. “Malfoys don’t always get what they want.”

“Did you think the war didn’t teach me that?” Draco’s voice had risen, and it was too late to stop it. Potter was on his feet and pacing back and forth. Draco stood up to confront him. He wouldn’t let Potter have the psychological advantage over him that he would if Draco was sitting. “I know that. Of course I know that. But this isn’t something I want for myself. I want to help you.”

“The last person who said that decided she couldn’t help me when she saw what a huge task it was.” Potter’s hurt steamed off him like the fumes off a fresh fewmet.

Draco shook his head. “And I don’t know what I can do, because you clutch that secret to yourself like a baby you want to smother.”

*

Harry winced and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. He certainly didn’t have to confess everything to Malfoy. He could simply go on holding the secret to himself, and eventually Malfoy would get bored and leave.

And then nothing changes.

Any movement, in any direction, was better than where he sat right now, Harry thought. He couldn’t trust his friends. He couldn’t get through to Ron. He couldn’t persuade the instructors to tell him important information. He couldn’t fight his enemies. He couldn’t keep up in his classes.

At least trusting Malfoy would make things a little different, and that meant, in return, that Harry might be able to change other things.

He turned back to Malfoy with his hand on the wand in his pocket. If he told Malfoy the truth and saw a gleam of mocking laughter in his eyes or heard it from his lips, then he would use a Memory Charm on him. He couldn’t bear to have someone else know the truth and reject him the way Ginny had.

“All right,” he said. “I return to my memories of the war in those fits. They become so intense that I can’t concentrate on anything else. When you saw the fit I had in Gregory’s class, I was remembering the way I went back for Snape’s body.” Malfoy paled at the words, but Harry didn’t know why. He hoped that Malfoy wouldn’t get defensive about Snape’s actions. Harry knew he had been a hero. That didn’t help with this. He pushed ahead doggedly. “They imprison me in hopelessness. I start wondering what I could have done to make sure that my failures didn’t happen, and all the time I know that it’s a memory and the failure already happened, so I can’t change it.”

Malfoy watched him thoughtfully. Then he nodded and said, “I can understand that.”

Harry blinked. He’d braced himself to resist a strong push of hatred and contempt. “You can?”

“Of course. You lived through so much. It makes sense that they would manifest themselves somehow, the memories of deaths and mistakes and regrets.” Malfoy took a step towards him, face like a werewolf’s in his eagerness. “But they’re not personal failures, Potter. You know that Voldemort killed Snape. You know that your friends died fighting, taking part in a battle that they chose to fight.”

Harry stiffened. This was the same kind of advice that Ginny had used on him, only her tone was more condescending.

“Thinking about that doesn’t help,” he said briefly. “It doesn’t soothe the guilt, and it doesn’t make the fits stop.”

“Then perhaps something other than guilt is causing the fits,” Malfoy said. He shifted nearer, his face lean and thoughtful now. Harry blinked. If someone had told him that Malfoy could look thoughtful, he would not have believed it. “Is that impossible? What else have you noticed about them? When do they tend to happen?”

Harry ducked his head , peering at Malfoy from beneath lowered lashes. No mockery yet. Maybe he had learned to be more subtle about it since Hogwarts, but it was also possible—barely—that he honestly didn’t want to mock Harry and was interested in the problem, as he had promised.

Harry took another risk. He didn’t like the sensation he felt, as if each step he took now was onto a floating platform that didn’t exist until he made the step, but it had to be put up with. And Malfoy was the first to suggest a magical source for his fits. If there was any way that could be true, Harry wanted to know so that he could make them stop. They did interfere with his life, and sometimes the effort he put into keeping them secret was more than he could stand.

“I get them most often after nights when I don’t have nightmares,” he said. “Not to mention that I wake up with a tight feeling, a stretched feeling. I don’t think I can describe it better than that,” he added, when Malfoy’s eyebrows rose. “I always know when they’re coming. Put it that way.”

Malfoy nodded. “Well, that sounds reasonable. There could still be a magical connection, but it could also be that on nights when you don’t have the nightmares to get rid of your accumulated sadness, then the fits come on to make sure that you relive the memories.”

“I don’t think nightmares work like that,” Harry said. “There’s not a—a certain amount of poison that needs to be dumped each day, and needs either the nightmares or the fits to get rid of it.”

Malfoy frowned at him. “How do you know?”

Harry laughed. “Because it’s ridiculous, that’s why.”

“Plenty of things about the nature of magic are ridiculous,” Malfoy said, his voice sharper now, as if he were struggling to hang onto his temper. “Or at least counterintuitive. But they’re still true, and they won’t go away because you won’t believe in them.” He paused, then added, “Besides, how do you know what might be true about your fits and what might not be? You haven’t taken the time to investigate your fits, have you? You haven’t wanted to think about what might be causing them. You haven’t told Granger about them, so she couldn’t research them for you.”

Harry shook his head. “But nightmares and memories sound like they’re psychological, not magical.”

“Sound like,” Malfoy repeated. “You’re talking like a Muggle again.” He bustled on before Harry could tell him how stupid and prejudiced he sounded. “We’re wizards, Potter. Everything we are connects with our magic. If you have a series of nightmares, then it’s entirely possible that they represent some disorder in your magical core.”

“I haven’t noticed anything else like that,” Harry said stubbornly. He didn’t want to be interested in what Malfoy was saying, because that would mean that he could have solved the nightmares and fits all the time, and Ginny would be right.

Malfoy smirked at him. “And you know exactly what disturbances in the magical core look like, I suppose?”

Harry touched his wand again. Malfoy noticed the movement, but instead of falling into a defensive crouch the way Harry had hoped he would, he shook his head. “We can’t hurt each other with magic, remember?”

And that means I probably can’t Memory Charm him.

Harry swallowed and took a slow step away from Malfoy. He hated the idea that he had chanced even more of a risk in trusting Malfoy than he knew. They were really in this together, whatever happened. And why should Malfoy keep silent about his secrets in the way that Ginny had? He would probably think it was funny to tell Ron and Hermione and then watch them fuss over Harry or stand around in awkward silence, wondering how to bring up the topic with him.

Malfoy pulled himself up straight, as if he had seen Harry’s gestures and understood what they meant. His nostrils flared, and his head was at an angle that made Harry think the stick in his arse must be poking his chin. His voice was low and steady, more controlled than Harry knew he would have been capable of at that moment.

“You need to stop running and start doing. You haven’t told anyone about your fits because you’re afraid of how they would respond. I can’t blame you, after what I heard the Weaselette say.” Harry opened his mouth to complain about the insult to Ginny, but Malfoy’s voice rolled over him, as smooth as an ocean wave. “But not everyone is her. You’re letting her response control you long past the point when it should. And meanwhile, the fits and the nightmares are conspiring to corrupt your life.

“You could have so much more if you would just move out of this tormented standing still. If you would confront your friends and force them to realize that you don’t want to be a hero anymore. If you would research your fits and try to figure out whether they’re linked to decay in your magical core. If you would accept the compatible magic and work to find out how it can improve your life. If you would trust me until you know that I’m going to do something stupid and betray you.” Malfoy’s face was so dark that Harry couldn’t read his expression anymore. “Arguably, the only thing I’ve done like that since we came into the Auror program is to support the instructors’ idea that we become partners, but you still treat me like a criminal.”

Harry found his voice for that one. “You were the one who decided to blackmail me into giving you private lessons.”

Malfoy flicked his fingers to dismiss that accusation like the little blast of hot air he probably saw it as. “And things changed as soon as we figured out the compatible magic. When we were attacked together. When the instructors started seeing us as partners, whether or not you wanted them to. I’ve tried to adapt and change. You haven’t. You’re still clinging to the past and claiming that you want to be free when you’re doing more than anyone else to imprison yourself.”

Harry shut his eyes. He told himself that Malfoy’s words weren’t reality—why should he want to do anything but say what he thought would hurt Harry most?—but it didn’t matter. They ate into him like acidic dust. He hadn’t done anything for the last few months but run harder and harder to keep standing still.

But…

“Those were the same kinds of things that Ginny said to me,” he whispered. “Blaming me and telling me that I had to do something, no matter how hard it was or how impossible it was for me to accomplish alone.”

“She didn’t offer help,” Malfoy said, his voice sounding nearly as tired as Harry’s had. “I do. I will. I’ve tried to offer myself as partner and friend and helper. But you won’t accept it, and I’m tired of tossing my gifts into a gulf and receiving nothing back.”

Harry heard shuffling steps, and when he opened his eyes, Malfoy was leaving the room. Harry swallowed, or tried. There was a knot of panic in his throat.

“Malfoy, wait,” he managed to croak.

“Why should I?” Malfoy kept walking. “Every time I think that you’ve finally made your mind up to accept me as a partner, you go back on your word and it turns out that you’re doing it because of Weasley. I don’t see why this time is going to be any different.” He paused for a moment, but didn’t turn back around, shaking his head. Then he reached out and laid a hand on the door.

Harry shivered. It felt as if he was hollow. If he tried to use his strength now, he doubted that he would have any left afterwards. The conversation with Ginny had drained him. The conversation with Malfoy had drained him.

Everyone asked things of him, things he couldn’t give. He wondered why they should think that they had the right to claim those things.

But only one person had said that they would help Harry after that, if he made the effort.

Harry managed to swallow this time. He might still try and be left with nothing. That was what had happened when he confessed the truth to Ginny and watched her eyes cloud over in pity and the inability to deal with his need.

But on the other hand, if he tried and Malfoy could work with him, then things would change. If he tried and Malfoy couldn’t, then he wouldn’t really be in a worse position than he had been.

And Harry was sick and tired of hesitating because things might get worse.

He stepped forwards and laid his hand on Malfoy’s shoulder. “Wait,” he whispered again.

*

Draco closed his eyes. He hated how much he had been waiting for that touch.

He had become more sincere than he meant to be. He had revealed his frustration and anger with Potter, that he would cast away the chance at compatible magic and friendship and fame with Draco just because they weren’t offered by his precious, precious Weasleys. He had showed his contempt for those Weasleys. He had showed his scorn for the way that Potter stood still and looked anxiously from side to side.

And now, success, more dearly bought than he had wanted it to be.

He turned around and met Potter’s anxious eyes. “I won’t fuck around,” he said harshly. “I don’t want you to make a promise and then retreat again. I don’t want you to pretend that we’re comrades while we’re fighting together and then pretend that nothing has changed when the fight’s done.”

Potter stood up straight, and Draco saw how much strength it took. Where he got the iron to put into his next words, Draco didn’t know, and he wondered if he was a fool to trust to them.

“I won’t,” Potter said.

And, in a risk more profound than he had taken or thought to take when he knocked on Potter’s door, because now he was in a leaning position like Potter instead of the one in absolute control, Draco reached out and clasped Potter’s hand. Potter clutched him back like a drowning man. Draco wondered if this was wise, if he would be dragged down.

He dropped the question when he realized the fire had come back to life—a low spark, fluttering as if it would go out any minute, but there—in Potter’s eyes.

Chapter Thirteen.