Happy birthday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raphsody606! -Work After Wartime, 1/3
Oct. 11th, 2007 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenTitle: Work After Wartime
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own all characters appearing in this story. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, brief mention of canon het pairings as of the end of DH.
Warnings: DEATHY HALLOWS SPOILERS, but not epilogue-compliant. Language and light slash.
Rating: PG.
Length: ~14,000 words.
Summary: After the defeat of Voldemort, there’s still work for Harry to do –for example, helping Draco Malfoy overcome his water phobia.
Notes: Forraphsody606’s birthday, whose prompt was “wet Harry.” And this story does indeed include a wet Harry, several times.
Work After Wartime
Harry thought that the frenzy was over.
Oh, the days immediately after Voldemort’s defeat had been an endless round of celebrations and funerals, official speeches and demands for his presence at places and times when Harry thought the work could have been done perfectly well without him—the official Wizengamot session to choose the new Minister, for instance—and more mundane work like deciding where he’d live and whether to attend Hogwarts the next year and sit his NEWTs. Of course, the last choice Hermione really made for him, so he could strike that one off the list.
He didn’t know what he’d really felt during that time. Mostly, everything happened too fast for him to feel.
But then the insanity of both joy and grief had eased, and Harry found himself at Hogwarts in the autumn term of his second seventh year, granted the chance to return to a normal educational process. Even better, he could do it without a Dark Lord hunting him and with Ginny in the same year as he was. They still hadn’t picked up their relationship from where it had fallen at the end of his sixth year, but her coy glances were becoming more frequent. Harry might flush when Ron teased him about it. He always thought that as least he was alive to flush, and if this and Hermione’s nagging about revision were the greatest problems he faced, he was damn lucky.
Everything was calm. There was no work outside school to do.
That impression lasted until the night in September when he caught two Gryffindor students trying to drown Draco Malfoy.
*
“Well, good-night, sir.”
Harry always said that whenever he left Dumbledore’s tomb. He visited it two or three nights a week, just to speak to the Headmaster’s departed spirit and think aloud. Hermione thought it was awfully morbid, and had lectured him several times already on his mental health.
Harry just nodded. He never told her that he was sure he had seen and talked with Dumbledore after his death, or that death itself had lost most of its fear for him after he faced Voldemort’s Killing Curse a second time. Eventually he would tell his two best friends that, but he had to find the words first.
He ambled away from the tomb, turning back a time or two to watch it shine in the moonlight, and then faced the dark grounds. It was a beautiful night, September’s full moon, not yet very cold. Harry wanted to walk before he let stone walls close around him again. He was very comfortable in the Gryffindor common room and even in the room he now shared with Seamus, Dean, Neville, Ron, and the Gryffindor boys who had been a year behind him, but one couldn’t really ask for solitude there.
He wandered towards the lake, partly to watch the reflection of the round silver disk in the water, and partly to watch fish leaping and rising to no lure but the beauty. He had reached the shore and was standing there, enchanted, when the sound of a scuffle and a quick cry cut the night to his left.
Harry whirled, his hand on his wand before he even realized it. His heart had also picked up the way it had when Fenrir Greyback captured them during the war. Peacetime hadn’t destroyed his instinct for danger.
He listened again, intently now, and heard nothing. But he wasn’t inclined to dismiss the sound just because of that. What would have happened if he’d decided Snape’s Patronus which led him to the Sword of Gryffindor was nothing?
“Lumos,” he muttered, but kept the lit end of his wand cupped behind one hand as he edged around the lake. Nothing but trees and grass greeted his eyes. No sounds, either. Of course, a lot of the animals out at night in the Forbidden Forest were unlikely to make a sound—
No, wait, there it was again! Splashing and a struggle, and now Harry could see at least two human shapes on the edge of the lake about a hundred feet away, along with the bobbing light of another wand. He broke into a run, several hexes ready and waiting on his tongue. If this was a Slytherin bullying a younger student, maybe one of the newly-arrived Muggleborns—
One of the shapes whipped towards him, hesitated, and then took off. That still left two, though; Harry could see now that the first figure, crouching on the shore amid mud and reeds, was trying to hold the second face-first down in the water. The second one thrashed and yelped, screaming when he could get his mouth clear, but he was going to lose.
“Reducto!” Harry shouted, even as his inner McGonagall pointed out that he had probably used too harsh a spell and primly deducted points from Gryffindor. But this didn’t look like a prank to him.
The first figure went flying, his lit wand parting company with his hand at the same time. Harry blinked in the sudden darkness and renewed the Lumos charm on his own wand. He looked expectantly towards the lake, thinking the victim would come splashing up now and wreak his own revenge on his attacker.
Instead, he saw floating, heavy robes and a still body.
Panic struck Harry like a lightning bolt. He hadn’t been close to death in months, but he’d seen too many people die before that to just stand around and hope for the best. He kicked off his trainers, on a vague memory that told him one shouldn’t be wearing shoes when one swam, and then plunged in.
The water struck him like a fist in the chest and solar plexus, and he shouted and shivered and splashed like a mad thing. Even that didn’t rouse the floater, though. Harry kicked off from the edge of the shore and paddled furiously, his wand clutched in his teeth. It seemed like too long, though it was probably only a minute, before his hand snagged the edge of the robes and he flipped the victim over.
He nearly dropped his wand. The light clearly showed Draco Malfoy’s face.
Harry shook his head, decided that he couldn’t take the time to ponder how this had happened right now, and slung Malfoy’s arm about his shoulders. An awkward aiming of the wand and a muttered Severing Charm chopped off Malfoy’s waterlogged cloak, letting Harry haul him more easily.
By an ungraceful mixture of treading water, twisting this way and that way, stabbing the bottom with his feet whenever he encountered it, and balancing Malfoy’s weight so they wouldn’t go over, they reached the edge of the lake at last. Harry stumbled at the sudden cessation of support as he came out of the water, and then set about pulling Malfoy to safety, feeling rather like a werewolf dragging its kill.
He turned Malfoy over and started pounding his back with his fists, grimly aware that at least he could enjoy this part of the rescue.
Malfoy coughed about a minute into the pounding, then turned his head and was nosily sick. Harry stepped cautiously back. Malfoy might not have the strength to turn his head and vomit on Harry’s feet, but it was the kind of thing that would probably occur to him.
When the sound of vomiting had turned to the sound of dry heaving, Harry Summoned his shoes and looked around for the student he’d blasted. He saw no sign of him, though. He grimaced. I’ll have to ask Malfoy about them, and Merlin knows he’ll probably lie.
He turned back to his former rival, only to find him staggering upright. He patted his robe pockets frantically, but pulled his wand out a minute later. Relaxing, he dried his face and clothes. Harry, watching him, shook his head.
Malfoy apparently caught sight of this and seized it as something to object to. “What, Potter?” he asked, in tones that goblin metalsmiths could have used to forge armor. “Is it so hard to believe that I’m not falling at your feet and warbling my gratitude like the rest of this bloody school?”
Harry rolled his eyes. Malfoy was exaggerating, as usual. But pity had stayed Harry from getting into any of their usual pissing contests since they came back to Hogwarts—pity, and boredom. Fighting with Malfoy just wasn’t much fun anymore. “I don’t care one way or the other, you git,” he said. “I just want to know who attacked you.”
Malfoy paused in the middle of scouring his hair dry. Harry wondered if he was calculating his odds for naming Ron as one of the attackers. Or maybe he was just too wary of appearing weak to want help.
When Malfoy did speak, his voice was odd, twisted in the middle like a cloth wrung to dry. “It was two of your Gryffindors, actually, Potter. I didn’t see their faces, but I saw their ties before they grabbed me and tried to find out if I know Mermish.”
Harry blinked. “You’re lying,” he said reflexively.
“Am I?” Malfoy’s voice was cool. He ran his fingers through his hair and turned around, stalking close to Harry. Both their wands were lit, and Harry could see the twist to Malfoy’s lips, which matched the one in his tone. “No wonder that you haven’t made an effort to curb your lions since you came back, then,” he said. “If you think they aren’t doing anything, or if they’re only harming the nasty slimy Slytherins, what reason do you have to interfere?”
Harry swallowed. Maybe it was just the intensity of Malfoy’s gaze, maybe the fact that he had almost died and Harry didn’t know who his assailants had been any more than Malfoy did, but he couldn’t look away and he couldn’t just assume that this was a Slytherin retaliation born of Malfoy’s embarrassment at being rescued. “I—I haven’t heard anything like that,” he said. His voice had lowered, though not of his conscious volition.
“Would you have done something about it even if you had?” Malfoy whispered.
“Yes!” Harry snapped. “I hate bullying, Malfoy, even if it’s Slytherins being bullied!” Snape’s memories flared in his head like comets; Harry had never found a way to get rid of them or dim their impact. “I’m not my father!”
He winced when he realized what he’d said, but Malfoy, apart from a brief curious glance, seemed too interested in his own grievances to pursue it. “Then open your eyes and look around you, Potter,” he said, raising a brow and stepping away. “The world isn’t sunshine and light because you defeated the Dark Lord, you know, and not all the bullies were Death Eaters.”
Harry frowned at his back, and wished he had something daring or cutting or original to say, something that would force Malfoy to come back and continue the argument. But it was as if his rejection of their usual method of relating left him with no choice but to be silent now.
He’d spent too much of the last year in pursuit of important truths to deny this story off-hand. Uneasy, he wandered towards Gryffindor Tower, wondering if his strange mood would wear off by the time he reached it and he’d just think of Malfoy as an untrustworthy git again.
It hadn’t. After Harry had taken a warm shower to counteract the effect of the cold lake water, and dried himself with a thick towel—so much more satisfying than a charm—he lay in bed and made a promise to himself to keep his eyes open tomorrow. He’d probably realize quickly enough that this was all Malfoy’s paranoia. He became a victim, and he thought the whole world was against everyone.
*
It was.
Harry sat at the Gryffindor table and wished he had a Time-Turner. Then he could have saved Malfoy—the only thing he still felt good about—but refused to listen to his bitter rationalization of the post-war world. Because now that Harry was looking through Malfoy’s eyes, he could see shadows everywhere.
It was in the way everyone at the Gryffindor table was extraordinarily careful not to look at the Slytherin table, as if their very existence was an affront to the existence of other Houses—even though Pansy Parkinson was the only one who had proposed turning Harry over to Voldemort, and she hadn’t attended Hogwarts this year. It was in the hunched shoulders when certain people passed, and the suddenly raised voices discussing what Harry knew were Gryffindor in-House jokes. It was most frequent if a Slytherin walked past them, but it happened even with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Harry stirred uneasily when he tried to find a common link between the victims of the exclusion, and located it almost at once.
The students who had stayed in the Room of Requirement with Neville and the others were shutting out the ones who had done a better job of surviving Snape’s administration.
Harry glanced at the Ravenclaw table. Other than Luna, who was staring dreamily at a piece of parchment as if it were the only thing which existed in the world, each of them also seemed quietly determined to pretend Slytherin didn’t exist. And the Hufflepuffs had acquired a collection of hangdog looks that Harry would have dismissed as contentment just yesterday. It was true that not as many Hufflepuffs as others had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, but that wasn’t a matter for the whole House to feel bad about, Harry thought, frowning. Not all the Gryffindors had fought, either.
And some of those who had hadn’t ended up with heroism for their troubles.
Harry grimaced at the memory of Fred and set about trying to choke down his toast. Hermione had begun to give him those motherly concerned looks, and soon enough she leaned over and whispered, “Are you all right, Harry?”
“Fine,” Harry whispered back, and then shook his head. “No, wait.” Maybe his policy of honesty with his best friends, which he’d tried with so many successes during the last year, would serve him again. “Hermione, do the other Houses seem—well, contemptuous of Slytherin to you?”
Hermione frowned. “Well, no, Harry, not any more than they’ve ever been.” She spent a moment staring at the Ravenclaw table as if she expected anti-Slytherin banners to emerge any moment, then looked at the Hufflepuff one. “There’s some bad feeling because they ran away—“
“Not all of them,” said Harry, thinking of Narcissa Malfoy and Slughorn and Snape. Then he added, “Although Malfoy probably should have.” The idiot wouldn’t have nearly died in the Room of Requirement if he hadn’t stayed.
“But those were adults,” Hermione said calmly, biting into a piece of toast spread so thickly with marmalade Harry raised his eyebrows. Hermione didn’t appear to notice. “What the other students remember is Parkinson standing up and denouncing you—“
“She was just one—“
“But that’s what they remember.” Hermione patted his hand. “You can’t blame people for their feelings, Harry. Let some more time pass since the war, and they’ll learn to start remembering other things.”
Harry nodded. He supposed Hermione was right, and asking for miracles just five months after the war ended was silly. But then, he’d thought everything was perfectly normal, so…
“Have you heard about any pranks happening against Slytherins?” he asked. He didn’t want to mention Malfoy unless he absolutely had to; the poor bloke would probably be embarrassed at the thought of Harry’s friends knowing Harry had saved his life yet again. “I, er, thought I saw one last night, and I was surprised, because I didn’t think they were happening.”
“Pranks?” Ron leaned around Hermione. “You mean, like the time last week when Dean and Seamus Transfigured Nott’s arm into a snake, tied it through a skull, and cast a spell that made him say he wanted to be a Death Eater to everyone he met? Some Ravenclaw whose brother died in the battle finally hexed him so hard he wound up in the infirmary.” Ron snorted into his pumpkin juice.
“I didn’t hear about that!” Harry winced a moment later at the sound of his own voice. It sounded…outraged, somehow.
“Well, why should you have, Harry?” Hermione said, and shook her head a little at him. “That was the night you were serving detention with McGonagall. Besides, I like to think that some of us have grown up through our ordeals.” She frowned at Ron, though it was half-ruined by the pleasure that always haunted her face now when she looked at him. Ron and Hermione certainly hadn’t wasted any time, Harry thought, and sometimes he wanted to imitate them as far as being with Ginny was concerned. More often, he thought there was no rush.
No rush about anything since the war.
But with this? There very fucking well was.
“I didn’t know it was going on,” he attempted to explain, since Ron had stopped eating to stare at him expectantly, perhaps because he wanted Harry to explain why he didn’t find the prank on Nott funny. “I didn’t—well, I thought the Houses only hated each other as much as they did before the war.”
“That’s impossible, Harry,” Hermione said, and started ticking points off on her fingers. “There’s the division between the people who fought and the ones who didn’t, and then there’s the fact that the Slytherins got better treatment from the Death Eaters in the school even when they still suffered, and then there’s the people who wish they had fought, and so are trying to make up for it now.”
“I don’t understand,” Harry said, thinking again of the funerals he’d attended in the wake of Voldemort’s death. There had been more tears than calm masks of acceptance, more shocked and stunned expressions than consolatory speeches about how “they died fighting.” “Why would anyone want to have done what we did?”
“You know the answer to that one, Harry,” Hermione said, in the slightly scolding tone she adopted whenever she thought he wasn’t pushing his brain hard enough. “Because they don’t know what it was really like. They weren’t the ones on the run or constantly fearing capture by the Death Eaters. But now they look back on that, because the people who survived are heroes, and wish they’d done something more than listen to Potterwatch—and lots of them didn’t even do that much, because they didn’t dare or they were living with people who were too afraid.”
“And they think that harassing Slytherins is the way to do that?” Harry shook his head. He wasn’t sure what disgusted him more, the fact that this was happening or that he just hadn’t noticed, because he’d been so busy hoping that the world had just gone back to normal.
“I don’t see why you’re so upset, mate.” Ron watched him thoughtfully as he tried to take Hermione’s toast and Hermione slapped his hand away, the exchange so usual now that they didn’t even bother to look at each other, though both were smiling. “I mean, it’s not as though you caused this, or could have prevented it. And the pranks against the Slytherins are pretty funny, you have to admit.”
“Even if they involve almost killing someone?” Harry asked sternly, his mind filled with Malfoy trying to restrain Crabbe and Goyle in the Room of Hidden Things. He might have wanted to turn Harry over to Voldemort, he might have been monumentally stupid, but even he had thought it was better for Harry and his friends to live instead of dying. He wasn’t the kind of person who tried to drown someone else in a pond for fun.
“Who told you that?” Ron asked, raising his eyebrows. “I promise, Harry, nothing’s threatened anyone’s life. We all know better than that.”
Harry opened his mouth to tell them about Malfoy’s near-drowning—
And found himself closing it again. There were a lot of reasons. Malfoy might have lied about the attackers being Gryffindors, and telling someone else would only alienate Harry from his own House. And Ron might see the sense in sparing anyone else’s life, but not Malfoy’s. And it could prejudice Malfoy against answering any more questions Harry wanted to ask him.
But the main one was that he wanted to see the truth with his own eyes. He’d fallen right back into the trap of relying on his friends’ word-of-mouth for what was going on, and they didn’t make it sound bad—nothing like the glimpses of hostility between the House tables that made Harry’s stomach close up. But it probably wasn’t as bad as Malfoy was painting it, either. He had always loved to exaggerate, even if it meant a hippogriff would be executed for his lies.
So. He’d just have to look for the truth. It probably lay somewhere in the middle. But at least if he looked, he would be able to decide if it was something he could affect. Did he have to try and save the world again, or could he sit back and allow someone else to do it? Or maybe there was no problem, and he could go back to staring longingly after Ginny and avoiding Hermione’s lectures again.
He’d only observed the Great Hall at breakfast. There was still a day of classes and two meals to go. Harry nodded firmly, told himself not to be a pessimist, and settled in to eat again, carefully not looking towards the Slytherin table.
*
“Fancy finding you here again, Potter.”
Harry just grunted, and heaved another stone into the lake. It shattered the surface with a loud splash and large ripples, and that was all he wanted. At least if he was throwing stones, he wasn’t up in Gryffindor Tower hexing his Housemates, and he suspected that everyone from Professor McGonagall to Hermione would find that an improvement.
“Done any thinking about what I said?” Malfoy leaned on a tree not far from him, though Harry noticed that he kept a healthy distance between himself and the water. In fact, when he thought Harry wasn’t watching, he darted looks of loathing at the lake-shore. Does he think the Giant Squid is going to be personally insulted that he doesn’t like swimming? Harry thought.
That provided him a brief moment of amusement before his mood soured again, and he threw another stone.
“I didn’t come out here to be ignored,” Malfoy finally said, and because he left out the sneer, it actually sounded semi-impressive. “Now, Potter. I want to know if our most heroic Gryffindor can change his mind, or whether you’ll just close your eyes and go back to being blind like the rest of them.”
Harry sighed and turned to face him, absently casting a Warming Charm. The temperature seemed to have dropped dramatically between last night and this evening. There was no moon, either, or at least only scattered glimpses of it between racing clouds. Maybe there would be a storm, Harry thought hopefully, and then he would have an excuse to go inside and avoid what he suspected would be a very uncomfortable conversation with Malfoy.
“Why do you care what I think?” he asked. “Why not just go back to—well, I don’t know what you’re doing about it, but go back to doing that and ignore me? Why tell me about this?”
“Because,” Malfoy said at once, “you might have the power to do something about it, even if no one else does.” His wand shifted, and the light flaring at the tip was just enough to show his lips curved in a sardonic smile. “There’s no point in going to the Weasel, he’ll just laugh. And the Mud—“
Harry gave him a disgusted glance. Malfoy paused, and seemed to consider something. Perhaps he was remembering that he was eighteen bloody years old now, a bit too adult to throw childish insults around.
“Granger,” said Malfoy, with the air of someone conferring a great favor, “would just fuss and flap her hands and want to organize some meeting of students from different Houses which wouldn’t actually solve the problem, just drive it deeper under a veneer of false politeness. Right now, it’s close enough to the surface that we can fight it.”
Harry cocked his head. “But then, why come to me? I don’t think that making a speech about it or reminding them that I killed Voldemort and they didn’t would do anything more permanent than Hermione’s solution.”
“Potter, I will never know how you survived a year on your own, away from the watchful care of adults,” Malfoy said, shaking his head slowly and tragically. “Unless Granger counts as an honorary adult, which I’m sure she does. Your example is what people are going to follow. Right now, they’re against Slytherins partially because they think it’s what you want—“
“I did not—“
“But you fought with Slytherins when you were just an ordinary student, and it was a Slytherin who decided that the ‘Boy Who Saved Us All’”—Malfoy quoted the Daily Prophet’s latest title for Harry with a fitting scorn “—should be turned over to his enemy. You might not have encouraged this, but you bloody well didn’t discourage it, either. If you show them that what you value instead is friendship and reconciliation, it’s at least probable that they’ll follow you on that.”
“I don’t think so,” Harry said slowly. “Hermione mentioned that some of them are acting out of frustration and shame of their fear during the war, and grief over loved ones who were killed. People like that aren’t going to change their minds on a whim.”
Malfoy smiled. It was an exasperated smile, but almost fond. Harry blinked at him. Maybe part of the reason that they hadn’t been fighting was Malfoy himself, and not just Harry’s newly mature tolerance.
“You really have no idea of how celebrity works at all,” Malfoy murmured. “Sillier fads than friendships with Slytherins have started because people with powerful images decided to use that power. Did you know that Celestina Warbeck’s new robes have inspired an incredible demand for imitations? Even though most witches don’t have the figure to pull them off and that shade of pink looks horrible on anyone who isn’t named Celestina?”
“You pay attention to things like that?” Harry shook his head. “You are a very strange person, Malfoy.”
“And we could stand around and say things like that to each other all night,” Malfoy said, suddenly brisk, “but the point is that I’ve given you a problem, and I plan to give you half the solution, too. There’s a Slytherin who would be willing to act civil to you in public, as long as you acted civil in return.” He stepped forwards and studied Harry evenly for a moment.
“And that’s enough?” Harry asked.
“Potter, you have no idea of the power your name commands. You killed the Dark Lord. The Daily Prophet will pounce on this as the juiciest new thing it’s had to say about you in a while, and—“
“That’s not what I meant.” Harry waved a hand. “I’m willing to trust that this will work out if you say it will. But are you sure that you don’t want revenge on the students who tried to drown you? Stopping the pranks against the Slytherins before they escalate again is enough?”
It looked as though Malfoy couldn’t decide which part of the statement surprised him more. He blinked and rubbed his temple with the heel of his hand, all the while staring at Harry’s glasses as if they would provide him with the answer to the mystery. Then he sighed and said, “You didn’t see their faces either, did you?”
“No,” Harry admitted. “And by the time I’d got you on the bank again, the one I’d blasted had run off.”
This time, he knew he didn’t mistake Malfoy’s look of loathing towards the lake, though what he meant by it was still unclear. He spoke almost at random. “Are you afraid of water, Malfoy?”
The other wizard jerked, then turned with slow dignity towards Harry and said, “Tell me that you could be almost drowned and not suffer some fear.”
“No,” Harry admitted. “I’m just surprised that you’re not jumping back into the lake to prove to yourself that you’re not afraid. You had enough courage to survive close contact with Voldemort. Why does water frighten you?”
“That wasn’t courage, that was cowardice,” Malfoy said, and his lip curled. “By now, you ought to know I’m a coward if nothing else. I don’t have the desire to lie to myself, and lying to you isn’t possible.”
“You survived,” said Harry. “And you took an awful risk for us when they brought us to the Manor, even though you could have been rewarded with everything you desired. I don’t think you were a coward when you were trying so hard to survive last year, either.” He looked at Malfoy and wondered if his view of him had changed, along with his view of the situation in the school, so that it hung between two views, the old one and a new one where Malfoy would perhaps be someone respectable. “I’m not saying that you’re a great person, mind,” he added, when he noticed Malfoy looking at him as if Harry had advised him to be friends with Hagrid. “But you’re not as bad as you seem to think you are.”
Malfoy made a hm sound under his breath and almost visibly put the matter aside to deal with later. “Why does it matter if I’m afraid?” he asked, with a shrug. “I’m afraid of hippogriffs, too, and yet I don’t run shrieking off the grounds because there are some in the Forbidden Forest.”
“I think,” said Harry, “that this gambit we’re trying on the others won’t work unless we both believe in it. I can act civil to you in the daytime. At night, meet me here and I’ll teach you to swim.”
Malfoy took a step back from him. “What are you playing at this for?” he demanded. “I’m giving you an opportunity to save the day for people who tried to kill you. I’m admitting I need your help. What could possibly be more thrilling for a hero than this?”
“I want to teach you how to swim,” Harry said stubbornly. “It’s the only repayment I can give you for two Gryffindors—“
“So you do believe me!”
Harry gave an irritated shrug and forged on, trampling Malfoy’s attempt to distract him. “Trying to drown you in the first place, since we aren’t telling anyone about that.” He promised himself privately that if he did uncover evidence of who Malfoy’s attackers had been, he would go after them himself. “I just—I think it’s wrong that they should have brought you face-to-face with your fear again, when you’ve spent months trying to recover from that.”
Malfoy stepped nearer. Harry tensed on instinct, making sure he could grab his wand if he needed it, but forced himself not to back away and not to flinch or avert his gaze. Instead, he let Malfoy examine his eyes and, it seemed, his soul through them. There was no other reason for him to spend that much time looking.
Malfoy finally nodded, once. “All right,” he said. “You’re right that I don’t want to be crippled by this.” Harry, though he hadn’t said that word even to himself, nodded. Malfoy shuddered at the lake again and then turned away. “And we’ll use each other’s first names,” he said. “Nothing more than that at first—no handclasps, no hugs. Act casual around me.” He had vanished towards Hogwarts before Harry could respond.
“Right,” Harry said, and then spent some of his time breathing Malfoy-free air. Or maybe it would be Draco-free air, now, he thought.
He didn’t have much idea about what he thought, which was one of the problems. Just a day ago, he had been absolutely certain how he should act, and now he had a new bunch of problems that he might or might not be able to solve, and a close tie to a person who might or might not be trustworthy.
Except—
Harry blinked at the lake, then shook his head. He still didn’t trust Malfoy—Draco—not to prank him or scream childish insults at Hermione, but he no longer thought there was any serious danger of Draco trying to kill him.
Voldemort was gone, and the Death Eaters were on trial or in Azkaban, yet somehow it hadn’t occurred to Harry how much that should shift Draco’s position in his mind. Not fighting with him had been enough. Whether he trusted him hadn’t seemed important.
Why didn’t I think about that more?
Harry picked up another stone and thoughtfully threw it into the lake, though this time he spun it in a high arc first, so that it made a softer splash but longer ripples when it landed. When the last tiny waves had finished washing up on the mud and marshy grass at his feet, he went to bed.
Part 2.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own all characters appearing in this story. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, brief mention of canon het pairings as of the end of DH.
Warnings: DEATHY HALLOWS SPOILERS, but not epilogue-compliant. Language and light slash.
Rating: PG.
Length: ~14,000 words.
Summary: After the defeat of Voldemort, there’s still work for Harry to do –for example, helping Draco Malfoy overcome his water phobia.
Notes: For
raphsody606’s birthday, whose prompt was “wet Harry.” And this story does indeed include a wet Harry, several times.Work After Wartime
Harry thought that the frenzy was over.
Oh, the days immediately after Voldemort’s defeat had been an endless round of celebrations and funerals, official speeches and demands for his presence at places and times when Harry thought the work could have been done perfectly well without him—the official Wizengamot session to choose the new Minister, for instance—and more mundane work like deciding where he’d live and whether to attend Hogwarts the next year and sit his NEWTs. Of course, the last choice Hermione really made for him, so he could strike that one off the list.
He didn’t know what he’d really felt during that time. Mostly, everything happened too fast for him to feel.
But then the insanity of both joy and grief had eased, and Harry found himself at Hogwarts in the autumn term of his second seventh year, granted the chance to return to a normal educational process. Even better, he could do it without a Dark Lord hunting him and with Ginny in the same year as he was. They still hadn’t picked up their relationship from where it had fallen at the end of his sixth year, but her coy glances were becoming more frequent. Harry might flush when Ron teased him about it. He always thought that as least he was alive to flush, and if this and Hermione’s nagging about revision were the greatest problems he faced, he was damn lucky.
Everything was calm. There was no work outside school to do.
That impression lasted until the night in September when he caught two Gryffindor students trying to drown Draco Malfoy.
*
“Well, good-night, sir.”
Harry always said that whenever he left Dumbledore’s tomb. He visited it two or three nights a week, just to speak to the Headmaster’s departed spirit and think aloud. Hermione thought it was awfully morbid, and had lectured him several times already on his mental health.
Harry just nodded. He never told her that he was sure he had seen and talked with Dumbledore after his death, or that death itself had lost most of its fear for him after he faced Voldemort’s Killing Curse a second time. Eventually he would tell his two best friends that, but he had to find the words first.
He ambled away from the tomb, turning back a time or two to watch it shine in the moonlight, and then faced the dark grounds. It was a beautiful night, September’s full moon, not yet very cold. Harry wanted to walk before he let stone walls close around him again. He was very comfortable in the Gryffindor common room and even in the room he now shared with Seamus, Dean, Neville, Ron, and the Gryffindor boys who had been a year behind him, but one couldn’t really ask for solitude there.
He wandered towards the lake, partly to watch the reflection of the round silver disk in the water, and partly to watch fish leaping and rising to no lure but the beauty. He had reached the shore and was standing there, enchanted, when the sound of a scuffle and a quick cry cut the night to his left.
Harry whirled, his hand on his wand before he even realized it. His heart had also picked up the way it had when Fenrir Greyback captured them during the war. Peacetime hadn’t destroyed his instinct for danger.
He listened again, intently now, and heard nothing. But he wasn’t inclined to dismiss the sound just because of that. What would have happened if he’d decided Snape’s Patronus which led him to the Sword of Gryffindor was nothing?
“Lumos,” he muttered, but kept the lit end of his wand cupped behind one hand as he edged around the lake. Nothing but trees and grass greeted his eyes. No sounds, either. Of course, a lot of the animals out at night in the Forbidden Forest were unlikely to make a sound—
No, wait, there it was again! Splashing and a struggle, and now Harry could see at least two human shapes on the edge of the lake about a hundred feet away, along with the bobbing light of another wand. He broke into a run, several hexes ready and waiting on his tongue. If this was a Slytherin bullying a younger student, maybe one of the newly-arrived Muggleborns—
One of the shapes whipped towards him, hesitated, and then took off. That still left two, though; Harry could see now that the first figure, crouching on the shore amid mud and reeds, was trying to hold the second face-first down in the water. The second one thrashed and yelped, screaming when he could get his mouth clear, but he was going to lose.
“Reducto!” Harry shouted, even as his inner McGonagall pointed out that he had probably used too harsh a spell and primly deducted points from Gryffindor. But this didn’t look like a prank to him.
The first figure went flying, his lit wand parting company with his hand at the same time. Harry blinked in the sudden darkness and renewed the Lumos charm on his own wand. He looked expectantly towards the lake, thinking the victim would come splashing up now and wreak his own revenge on his attacker.
Instead, he saw floating, heavy robes and a still body.
Panic struck Harry like a lightning bolt. He hadn’t been close to death in months, but he’d seen too many people die before that to just stand around and hope for the best. He kicked off his trainers, on a vague memory that told him one shouldn’t be wearing shoes when one swam, and then plunged in.
The water struck him like a fist in the chest and solar plexus, and he shouted and shivered and splashed like a mad thing. Even that didn’t rouse the floater, though. Harry kicked off from the edge of the shore and paddled furiously, his wand clutched in his teeth. It seemed like too long, though it was probably only a minute, before his hand snagged the edge of the robes and he flipped the victim over.
He nearly dropped his wand. The light clearly showed Draco Malfoy’s face.
Harry shook his head, decided that he couldn’t take the time to ponder how this had happened right now, and slung Malfoy’s arm about his shoulders. An awkward aiming of the wand and a muttered Severing Charm chopped off Malfoy’s waterlogged cloak, letting Harry haul him more easily.
By an ungraceful mixture of treading water, twisting this way and that way, stabbing the bottom with his feet whenever he encountered it, and balancing Malfoy’s weight so they wouldn’t go over, they reached the edge of the lake at last. Harry stumbled at the sudden cessation of support as he came out of the water, and then set about pulling Malfoy to safety, feeling rather like a werewolf dragging its kill.
He turned Malfoy over and started pounding his back with his fists, grimly aware that at least he could enjoy this part of the rescue.
Malfoy coughed about a minute into the pounding, then turned his head and was nosily sick. Harry stepped cautiously back. Malfoy might not have the strength to turn his head and vomit on Harry’s feet, but it was the kind of thing that would probably occur to him.
When the sound of vomiting had turned to the sound of dry heaving, Harry Summoned his shoes and looked around for the student he’d blasted. He saw no sign of him, though. He grimaced. I’ll have to ask Malfoy about them, and Merlin knows he’ll probably lie.
He turned back to his former rival, only to find him staggering upright. He patted his robe pockets frantically, but pulled his wand out a minute later. Relaxing, he dried his face and clothes. Harry, watching him, shook his head.
Malfoy apparently caught sight of this and seized it as something to object to. “What, Potter?” he asked, in tones that goblin metalsmiths could have used to forge armor. “Is it so hard to believe that I’m not falling at your feet and warbling my gratitude like the rest of this bloody school?”
Harry rolled his eyes. Malfoy was exaggerating, as usual. But pity had stayed Harry from getting into any of their usual pissing contests since they came back to Hogwarts—pity, and boredom. Fighting with Malfoy just wasn’t much fun anymore. “I don’t care one way or the other, you git,” he said. “I just want to know who attacked you.”
Malfoy paused in the middle of scouring his hair dry. Harry wondered if he was calculating his odds for naming Ron as one of the attackers. Or maybe he was just too wary of appearing weak to want help.
When Malfoy did speak, his voice was odd, twisted in the middle like a cloth wrung to dry. “It was two of your Gryffindors, actually, Potter. I didn’t see their faces, but I saw their ties before they grabbed me and tried to find out if I know Mermish.”
Harry blinked. “You’re lying,” he said reflexively.
“Am I?” Malfoy’s voice was cool. He ran his fingers through his hair and turned around, stalking close to Harry. Both their wands were lit, and Harry could see the twist to Malfoy’s lips, which matched the one in his tone. “No wonder that you haven’t made an effort to curb your lions since you came back, then,” he said. “If you think they aren’t doing anything, or if they’re only harming the nasty slimy Slytherins, what reason do you have to interfere?”
Harry swallowed. Maybe it was just the intensity of Malfoy’s gaze, maybe the fact that he had almost died and Harry didn’t know who his assailants had been any more than Malfoy did, but he couldn’t look away and he couldn’t just assume that this was a Slytherin retaliation born of Malfoy’s embarrassment at being rescued. “I—I haven’t heard anything like that,” he said. His voice had lowered, though not of his conscious volition.
“Would you have done something about it even if you had?” Malfoy whispered.
“Yes!” Harry snapped. “I hate bullying, Malfoy, even if it’s Slytherins being bullied!” Snape’s memories flared in his head like comets; Harry had never found a way to get rid of them or dim their impact. “I’m not my father!”
He winced when he realized what he’d said, but Malfoy, apart from a brief curious glance, seemed too interested in his own grievances to pursue it. “Then open your eyes and look around you, Potter,” he said, raising a brow and stepping away. “The world isn’t sunshine and light because you defeated the Dark Lord, you know, and not all the bullies were Death Eaters.”
Harry frowned at his back, and wished he had something daring or cutting or original to say, something that would force Malfoy to come back and continue the argument. But it was as if his rejection of their usual method of relating left him with no choice but to be silent now.
He’d spent too much of the last year in pursuit of important truths to deny this story off-hand. Uneasy, he wandered towards Gryffindor Tower, wondering if his strange mood would wear off by the time he reached it and he’d just think of Malfoy as an untrustworthy git again.
It hadn’t. After Harry had taken a warm shower to counteract the effect of the cold lake water, and dried himself with a thick towel—so much more satisfying than a charm—he lay in bed and made a promise to himself to keep his eyes open tomorrow. He’d probably realize quickly enough that this was all Malfoy’s paranoia. He became a victim, and he thought the whole world was against everyone.
*
It was.
Harry sat at the Gryffindor table and wished he had a Time-Turner. Then he could have saved Malfoy—the only thing he still felt good about—but refused to listen to his bitter rationalization of the post-war world. Because now that Harry was looking through Malfoy’s eyes, he could see shadows everywhere.
It was in the way everyone at the Gryffindor table was extraordinarily careful not to look at the Slytherin table, as if their very existence was an affront to the existence of other Houses—even though Pansy Parkinson was the only one who had proposed turning Harry over to Voldemort, and she hadn’t attended Hogwarts this year. It was in the hunched shoulders when certain people passed, and the suddenly raised voices discussing what Harry knew were Gryffindor in-House jokes. It was most frequent if a Slytherin walked past them, but it happened even with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Harry stirred uneasily when he tried to find a common link between the victims of the exclusion, and located it almost at once.
The students who had stayed in the Room of Requirement with Neville and the others were shutting out the ones who had done a better job of surviving Snape’s administration.
Harry glanced at the Ravenclaw table. Other than Luna, who was staring dreamily at a piece of parchment as if it were the only thing which existed in the world, each of them also seemed quietly determined to pretend Slytherin didn’t exist. And the Hufflepuffs had acquired a collection of hangdog looks that Harry would have dismissed as contentment just yesterday. It was true that not as many Hufflepuffs as others had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, but that wasn’t a matter for the whole House to feel bad about, Harry thought, frowning. Not all the Gryffindors had fought, either.
And some of those who had hadn’t ended up with heroism for their troubles.
Harry grimaced at the memory of Fred and set about trying to choke down his toast. Hermione had begun to give him those motherly concerned looks, and soon enough she leaned over and whispered, “Are you all right, Harry?”
“Fine,” Harry whispered back, and then shook his head. “No, wait.” Maybe his policy of honesty with his best friends, which he’d tried with so many successes during the last year, would serve him again. “Hermione, do the other Houses seem—well, contemptuous of Slytherin to you?”
Hermione frowned. “Well, no, Harry, not any more than they’ve ever been.” She spent a moment staring at the Ravenclaw table as if she expected anti-Slytherin banners to emerge any moment, then looked at the Hufflepuff one. “There’s some bad feeling because they ran away—“
“Not all of them,” said Harry, thinking of Narcissa Malfoy and Slughorn and Snape. Then he added, “Although Malfoy probably should have.” The idiot wouldn’t have nearly died in the Room of Requirement if he hadn’t stayed.
“But those were adults,” Hermione said calmly, biting into a piece of toast spread so thickly with marmalade Harry raised his eyebrows. Hermione didn’t appear to notice. “What the other students remember is Parkinson standing up and denouncing you—“
“She was just one—“
“But that’s what they remember.” Hermione patted his hand. “You can’t blame people for their feelings, Harry. Let some more time pass since the war, and they’ll learn to start remembering other things.”
Harry nodded. He supposed Hermione was right, and asking for miracles just five months after the war ended was silly. But then, he’d thought everything was perfectly normal, so…
“Have you heard about any pranks happening against Slytherins?” he asked. He didn’t want to mention Malfoy unless he absolutely had to; the poor bloke would probably be embarrassed at the thought of Harry’s friends knowing Harry had saved his life yet again. “I, er, thought I saw one last night, and I was surprised, because I didn’t think they were happening.”
“Pranks?” Ron leaned around Hermione. “You mean, like the time last week when Dean and Seamus Transfigured Nott’s arm into a snake, tied it through a skull, and cast a spell that made him say he wanted to be a Death Eater to everyone he met? Some Ravenclaw whose brother died in the battle finally hexed him so hard he wound up in the infirmary.” Ron snorted into his pumpkin juice.
“I didn’t hear about that!” Harry winced a moment later at the sound of his own voice. It sounded…outraged, somehow.
“Well, why should you have, Harry?” Hermione said, and shook her head a little at him. “That was the night you were serving detention with McGonagall. Besides, I like to think that some of us have grown up through our ordeals.” She frowned at Ron, though it was half-ruined by the pleasure that always haunted her face now when she looked at him. Ron and Hermione certainly hadn’t wasted any time, Harry thought, and sometimes he wanted to imitate them as far as being with Ginny was concerned. More often, he thought there was no rush.
No rush about anything since the war.
But with this? There very fucking well was.
“I didn’t know it was going on,” he attempted to explain, since Ron had stopped eating to stare at him expectantly, perhaps because he wanted Harry to explain why he didn’t find the prank on Nott funny. “I didn’t—well, I thought the Houses only hated each other as much as they did before the war.”
“That’s impossible, Harry,” Hermione said, and started ticking points off on her fingers. “There’s the division between the people who fought and the ones who didn’t, and then there’s the fact that the Slytherins got better treatment from the Death Eaters in the school even when they still suffered, and then there’s the people who wish they had fought, and so are trying to make up for it now.”
“I don’t understand,” Harry said, thinking again of the funerals he’d attended in the wake of Voldemort’s death. There had been more tears than calm masks of acceptance, more shocked and stunned expressions than consolatory speeches about how “they died fighting.” “Why would anyone want to have done what we did?”
“You know the answer to that one, Harry,” Hermione said, in the slightly scolding tone she adopted whenever she thought he wasn’t pushing his brain hard enough. “Because they don’t know what it was really like. They weren’t the ones on the run or constantly fearing capture by the Death Eaters. But now they look back on that, because the people who survived are heroes, and wish they’d done something more than listen to Potterwatch—and lots of them didn’t even do that much, because they didn’t dare or they were living with people who were too afraid.”
“And they think that harassing Slytherins is the way to do that?” Harry shook his head. He wasn’t sure what disgusted him more, the fact that this was happening or that he just hadn’t noticed, because he’d been so busy hoping that the world had just gone back to normal.
“I don’t see why you’re so upset, mate.” Ron watched him thoughtfully as he tried to take Hermione’s toast and Hermione slapped his hand away, the exchange so usual now that they didn’t even bother to look at each other, though both were smiling. “I mean, it’s not as though you caused this, or could have prevented it. And the pranks against the Slytherins are pretty funny, you have to admit.”
“Even if they involve almost killing someone?” Harry asked sternly, his mind filled with Malfoy trying to restrain Crabbe and Goyle in the Room of Hidden Things. He might have wanted to turn Harry over to Voldemort, he might have been monumentally stupid, but even he had thought it was better for Harry and his friends to live instead of dying. He wasn’t the kind of person who tried to drown someone else in a pond for fun.
“Who told you that?” Ron asked, raising his eyebrows. “I promise, Harry, nothing’s threatened anyone’s life. We all know better than that.”
Harry opened his mouth to tell them about Malfoy’s near-drowning—
And found himself closing it again. There were a lot of reasons. Malfoy might have lied about the attackers being Gryffindors, and telling someone else would only alienate Harry from his own House. And Ron might see the sense in sparing anyone else’s life, but not Malfoy’s. And it could prejudice Malfoy against answering any more questions Harry wanted to ask him.
But the main one was that he wanted to see the truth with his own eyes. He’d fallen right back into the trap of relying on his friends’ word-of-mouth for what was going on, and they didn’t make it sound bad—nothing like the glimpses of hostility between the House tables that made Harry’s stomach close up. But it probably wasn’t as bad as Malfoy was painting it, either. He had always loved to exaggerate, even if it meant a hippogriff would be executed for his lies.
So. He’d just have to look for the truth. It probably lay somewhere in the middle. But at least if he looked, he would be able to decide if it was something he could affect. Did he have to try and save the world again, or could he sit back and allow someone else to do it? Or maybe there was no problem, and he could go back to staring longingly after Ginny and avoiding Hermione’s lectures again.
He’d only observed the Great Hall at breakfast. There was still a day of classes and two meals to go. Harry nodded firmly, told himself not to be a pessimist, and settled in to eat again, carefully not looking towards the Slytherin table.
*
“Fancy finding you here again, Potter.”
Harry just grunted, and heaved another stone into the lake. It shattered the surface with a loud splash and large ripples, and that was all he wanted. At least if he was throwing stones, he wasn’t up in Gryffindor Tower hexing his Housemates, and he suspected that everyone from Professor McGonagall to Hermione would find that an improvement.
“Done any thinking about what I said?” Malfoy leaned on a tree not far from him, though Harry noticed that he kept a healthy distance between himself and the water. In fact, when he thought Harry wasn’t watching, he darted looks of loathing at the lake-shore. Does he think the Giant Squid is going to be personally insulted that he doesn’t like swimming? Harry thought.
That provided him a brief moment of amusement before his mood soured again, and he threw another stone.
“I didn’t come out here to be ignored,” Malfoy finally said, and because he left out the sneer, it actually sounded semi-impressive. “Now, Potter. I want to know if our most heroic Gryffindor can change his mind, or whether you’ll just close your eyes and go back to being blind like the rest of them.”
Harry sighed and turned to face him, absently casting a Warming Charm. The temperature seemed to have dropped dramatically between last night and this evening. There was no moon, either, or at least only scattered glimpses of it between racing clouds. Maybe there would be a storm, Harry thought hopefully, and then he would have an excuse to go inside and avoid what he suspected would be a very uncomfortable conversation with Malfoy.
“Why do you care what I think?” he asked. “Why not just go back to—well, I don’t know what you’re doing about it, but go back to doing that and ignore me? Why tell me about this?”
“Because,” Malfoy said at once, “you might have the power to do something about it, even if no one else does.” His wand shifted, and the light flaring at the tip was just enough to show his lips curved in a sardonic smile. “There’s no point in going to the Weasel, he’ll just laugh. And the Mud—“
Harry gave him a disgusted glance. Malfoy paused, and seemed to consider something. Perhaps he was remembering that he was eighteen bloody years old now, a bit too adult to throw childish insults around.
“Granger,” said Malfoy, with the air of someone conferring a great favor, “would just fuss and flap her hands and want to organize some meeting of students from different Houses which wouldn’t actually solve the problem, just drive it deeper under a veneer of false politeness. Right now, it’s close enough to the surface that we can fight it.”
Harry cocked his head. “But then, why come to me? I don’t think that making a speech about it or reminding them that I killed Voldemort and they didn’t would do anything more permanent than Hermione’s solution.”
“Potter, I will never know how you survived a year on your own, away from the watchful care of adults,” Malfoy said, shaking his head slowly and tragically. “Unless Granger counts as an honorary adult, which I’m sure she does. Your example is what people are going to follow. Right now, they’re against Slytherins partially because they think it’s what you want—“
“I did not—“
“But you fought with Slytherins when you were just an ordinary student, and it was a Slytherin who decided that the ‘Boy Who Saved Us All’”—Malfoy quoted the Daily Prophet’s latest title for Harry with a fitting scorn “—should be turned over to his enemy. You might not have encouraged this, but you bloody well didn’t discourage it, either. If you show them that what you value instead is friendship and reconciliation, it’s at least probable that they’ll follow you on that.”
“I don’t think so,” Harry said slowly. “Hermione mentioned that some of them are acting out of frustration and shame of their fear during the war, and grief over loved ones who were killed. People like that aren’t going to change their minds on a whim.”
Malfoy smiled. It was an exasperated smile, but almost fond. Harry blinked at him. Maybe part of the reason that they hadn’t been fighting was Malfoy himself, and not just Harry’s newly mature tolerance.
“You really have no idea of how celebrity works at all,” Malfoy murmured. “Sillier fads than friendships with Slytherins have started because people with powerful images decided to use that power. Did you know that Celestina Warbeck’s new robes have inspired an incredible demand for imitations? Even though most witches don’t have the figure to pull them off and that shade of pink looks horrible on anyone who isn’t named Celestina?”
“You pay attention to things like that?” Harry shook his head. “You are a very strange person, Malfoy.”
“And we could stand around and say things like that to each other all night,” Malfoy said, suddenly brisk, “but the point is that I’ve given you a problem, and I plan to give you half the solution, too. There’s a Slytherin who would be willing to act civil to you in public, as long as you acted civil in return.” He stepped forwards and studied Harry evenly for a moment.
“And that’s enough?” Harry asked.
“Potter, you have no idea of the power your name commands. You killed the Dark Lord. The Daily Prophet will pounce on this as the juiciest new thing it’s had to say about you in a while, and—“
“That’s not what I meant.” Harry waved a hand. “I’m willing to trust that this will work out if you say it will. But are you sure that you don’t want revenge on the students who tried to drown you? Stopping the pranks against the Slytherins before they escalate again is enough?”
It looked as though Malfoy couldn’t decide which part of the statement surprised him more. He blinked and rubbed his temple with the heel of his hand, all the while staring at Harry’s glasses as if they would provide him with the answer to the mystery. Then he sighed and said, “You didn’t see their faces either, did you?”
“No,” Harry admitted. “And by the time I’d got you on the bank again, the one I’d blasted had run off.”
This time, he knew he didn’t mistake Malfoy’s look of loathing towards the lake, though what he meant by it was still unclear. He spoke almost at random. “Are you afraid of water, Malfoy?”
The other wizard jerked, then turned with slow dignity towards Harry and said, “Tell me that you could be almost drowned and not suffer some fear.”
“No,” Harry admitted. “I’m just surprised that you’re not jumping back into the lake to prove to yourself that you’re not afraid. You had enough courage to survive close contact with Voldemort. Why does water frighten you?”
“That wasn’t courage, that was cowardice,” Malfoy said, and his lip curled. “By now, you ought to know I’m a coward if nothing else. I don’t have the desire to lie to myself, and lying to you isn’t possible.”
“You survived,” said Harry. “And you took an awful risk for us when they brought us to the Manor, even though you could have been rewarded with everything you desired. I don’t think you were a coward when you were trying so hard to survive last year, either.” He looked at Malfoy and wondered if his view of him had changed, along with his view of the situation in the school, so that it hung between two views, the old one and a new one where Malfoy would perhaps be someone respectable. “I’m not saying that you’re a great person, mind,” he added, when he noticed Malfoy looking at him as if Harry had advised him to be friends with Hagrid. “But you’re not as bad as you seem to think you are.”
Malfoy made a hm sound under his breath and almost visibly put the matter aside to deal with later. “Why does it matter if I’m afraid?” he asked, with a shrug. “I’m afraid of hippogriffs, too, and yet I don’t run shrieking off the grounds because there are some in the Forbidden Forest.”
“I think,” said Harry, “that this gambit we’re trying on the others won’t work unless we both believe in it. I can act civil to you in the daytime. At night, meet me here and I’ll teach you to swim.”
Malfoy took a step back from him. “What are you playing at this for?” he demanded. “I’m giving you an opportunity to save the day for people who tried to kill you. I’m admitting I need your help. What could possibly be more thrilling for a hero than this?”
“I want to teach you how to swim,” Harry said stubbornly. “It’s the only repayment I can give you for two Gryffindors—“
“So you do believe me!”
Harry gave an irritated shrug and forged on, trampling Malfoy’s attempt to distract him. “Trying to drown you in the first place, since we aren’t telling anyone about that.” He promised himself privately that if he did uncover evidence of who Malfoy’s attackers had been, he would go after them himself. “I just—I think it’s wrong that they should have brought you face-to-face with your fear again, when you’ve spent months trying to recover from that.”
Malfoy stepped nearer. Harry tensed on instinct, making sure he could grab his wand if he needed it, but forced himself not to back away and not to flinch or avert his gaze. Instead, he let Malfoy examine his eyes and, it seemed, his soul through them. There was no other reason for him to spend that much time looking.
Malfoy finally nodded, once. “All right,” he said. “You’re right that I don’t want to be crippled by this.” Harry, though he hadn’t said that word even to himself, nodded. Malfoy shuddered at the lake again and then turned away. “And we’ll use each other’s first names,” he said. “Nothing more than that at first—no handclasps, no hugs. Act casual around me.” He had vanished towards Hogwarts before Harry could respond.
“Right,” Harry said, and then spent some of his time breathing Malfoy-free air. Or maybe it would be Draco-free air, now, he thought.
He didn’t have much idea about what he thought, which was one of the problems. Just a day ago, he had been absolutely certain how he should act, and now he had a new bunch of problems that he might or might not be able to solve, and a close tie to a person who might or might not be trustworthy.
Except—
Harry blinked at the lake, then shook his head. He still didn’t trust Malfoy—Draco—not to prank him or scream childish insults at Hermione, but he no longer thought there was any serious danger of Draco trying to kill him.
Voldemort was gone, and the Death Eaters were on trial or in Azkaban, yet somehow it hadn’t occurred to Harry how much that should shift Draco’s position in his mind. Not fighting with him had been enough. Whether he trusted him hadn’t seemed important.
Why didn’t I think about that more?
Harry picked up another stone and thoughtfully threw it into the lake, though this time he spun it in a high arc first, so that it made a softer splash but longer ripples when it landed. When the last tiny waves had finished washing up on the mud and marshy grass at his feet, he went to bed.
Part 2.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-14 01:52 am (UTC)He wandered towards the lake, partly to watch the reflection of the round silver disk in the water, and partly to watch fish leaping and rising to no lure but the beauty.
omg... especially the no lure part... wow. i don't know what it was about that sentence, but i found it incredibly beautiful. i think this was one of the best sentences i've ever read describing the loveliness of a lake at nighttime.
okay... off to finish the story now.. i promise more comments later :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-14 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:02 am (UTC)