lomonaaeren | Chapter Twenty-Two of 'Soldier's Welcome'- A Thunder of a Scolding

Title: Soldier’s Welcome (22/?)
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 Twenty-Two—A Thunder of a Scolding

Draco kept his head. He never knew how he did it, watching his partner leap into danger, but he did. He extended his wand and said, in a tone so clear that he was half-surprised his words didn’t cut the air, “Accio Harry Potter.”

The air rippled and bulged, and then Potter was flying back towards him. Draco braced to resist the collision, but only as much as necessary to prevent himself getting hurt. The moment Potter slammed into him, Draco wrapped his arms around him and tipped them both to the ground.

Which meant that Gregory’s spell flew overhead, of course, as neatly as if Draco had planned that. He smiled into Potter’s neck, giddy and dizzy and feeling amazing. Sometimes, he could manage feats in Defense that Potter couldn’t, then. It was nice to know.

Potter immediately slammed an elbow into Draco’s gut as he tried to scramble up. Draco grimaced in distaste and rolled away. Potter was scanning the area in front of them like a hawk watching for a mouse. “Where did she go?” he demanded.

Draco peered over his shoulder. Gregory was gone, and the severed bodies of her antagonists were the only sign she had been there. Draco sucked the inside of his cheek thoughtfully as he remembered the anti-Apparition wards enclosing the Forest. It was the reason he had had to run to Potter’s side instead of leaping directly there.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “But I doubt that it matters.” He reached out and clamped his hand down on Potter’s shoulder, squeezing until Potter gave a tiny gasping noise of pain. Draco smiled viciously, but continued in a tone so sweet that he hoped Potter would have trouble connecting the touch and the voice. “Meanwhile, what matters a great deal is that you left me behind when you ran off.”

Potter made a loud, wet snorting sound that had Draco biting his lip so he wouldn’t tell his partner to wipe his nose. Then he braced his elbows in the leaves and whirled around. “I came here to help Hagrid,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.” His face changed and he tried to leap to his feet. “Hagrid.”

Draco pressed down again, twisting one of Potter’s legs from under him when it appeared that he was going to get away. Potter went down with an undignified yelp. Draco put his lips to Potter’s ear, ignoring the way that the contact made his body shudder, and murmured, “Are you mad? This forest is full of Nihil’s servants and God knows what else, and still you want to go charging off. Send some message to him. What about your Patronus?”

Potter twisted around to glare. By now, they were almost tangled together, and the light coming from their wands had dimmed. Draco could just make out the way Potter’s lips had twisted to the side and his nostrils flared, and his eyes had an unsteady brilliance to them that increased Draco’s anticipation of his words.

“And they’re not going to notice an enormous glowing stag charging all over the forest?” At least Potter had lowered his voice. “Oh, yes, good show, Draco.”

At least he’s not irritated enough to go back to calling me by my last name. That gave Draco more confidence to continue the confrontation that by now it was only too obvious they needed to have. He pressed down on Potter’s shoulder again. “At least it’s silent, and if they were close enough to see you cast it, they would probably have attacked by now.”

“Probably,” Potter muttered, but he drew his wand and whispered the spell. When the stag appeared—also with a subdued glimmer, as if it understood they were in danger and was anxious to help—Potter told it, “Go to Hagrid and make sure that he’s unwounded. Tell him that we’re all right.”

The stag dipped its antlers and vanished. Draco felt a moment’s yearning. He had to learn how to do that spell.

Then his attention changed focus and direction as Potter whipped around to face him again and said, “Do you mind telling me why you tried to rip my arm off?”

*

Harry kept his voice low despite the temptation to shout. Gregory was gone, and it seemed that the human skins Nihil used to contain the grief magic were no threat, but the creatures that had challenged him might still be around.

He wanted to shout, though. He was angry. Wasn’t it perfectly clear that he had left Draco behind because he felt he had to? It wasn’t something he would have done otherwise. Draco should bloody well know that and stop glaring as if Harry had abandoned him. He hadn’t.

So he told his conscience and his reason and the other things that would have tried to make him feel guilty, while glaring proudly back at Draco.

“Let’s understand one thing right now,” Draco said. His voice was low and deadly, and Harry couldn’t help thinking that he would have been a much better Death Eater if he could have sounded this menacing then. But for some reason, it was always Harry who pulled that reaction from him. “You had no right to do what you did. I wouldn’t have known you were in danger if the compatible magic hadn’t punched me like someone poking me with a needle.”

Harry stared at him. “I didn’t know it could do that.”

“Neither do I. Now I do.” Draco leaned towards him. “You had no right.” His voice was so intense that Harry flinched back. “Tell me why you left.”

Harry glanced from side to side, estimating how open this little hilltop was. Moonlight shone down on it; it was entirely possible that the creatures would see them from a distance. “Shouldn’t we move?” he asked. “We don’t have any shelter if something comes up on us unexpectedly. You know what Ketchum would say about that.”

“Who are you expecting to come up on us, if your friend is alive?” Draco’s voice sounded petulant. He was clasping Harry’s arm again in the hurtful way, the way that seemed to imply Harry was going to run off and leave him all alone. Harry shook his head. Draco was obviously not that good at paying attention to body language.

“This is still the Forbidden Forest, remember?” he asked pointedly. “Besides, I was attacked shortly before you appeared by creatures that I’ve never seen before. Wolves with horns and human faces on both sides of their heads.” He shuddered. Maybe reacting so strongly to that one part of their appearances made him a coward, but he still couldn’t quite get over it. “Maybe they were Nihil’s servants, maybe not. But there’s no telling where they are, not to mention what the centaurs might do when they find us in their territory.”

Draco said, “You’re trying to avoid this conversation.” He pulled himself fluidly to his feet for all that and turned to pick his way down the hill. Harry followed, his wand aimed casually between Draco and the trees and his gaze darting in all directions.

“The reason I came here is very simple,” Harry said. He saw a tangle of roots ahead, and peered at it, using his wand to scrape some of the dirt off. Yes, there was a nice hollow there, where the earth had rotted or fallen away, and they could have some shelter from the light rain that was starting to fall as well as something to put their backs against if the creatures attacked again. Harry relaxed. “This way,” he said, tilting his head.

Draco followed him into the little hollow without complaint, but the moment they sat down and turned to face each other, Harry wondered if this had been such a good idea after all. They were close together, so that Draco could see every flash of emotion that passed across his face, and Harry suddenly found it hard to play the small game he had been playing for so many days.

He drew a hard breath. Nonsense. Nothing to it, he thought. I only need to stop thinking about Draco’s lips.

“Now,” Draco said, voice lower and stronger than it seemed like it should be legal for it to be, “we’ll discuss why you left me behind.”

“It’s simple, like I told you.” Harry craned his neck so that he could see over Draco’s shoulder just in case someone tried to approach from that direction, but so far, there was only darkness and the falling rain. He bit his lip. My Patronus should have reached Hagrid by now. “I got a letter from Hagrid that one of his magical creatures had gone missing and that there were Dark wizards about. I couldn’t let Hagrid be hurt.” He arched his brows as he brought his eyes back to Draco’s face, frowning when he saw that Draco’s expression had simply darkened.

“You could have brought me for that.” Draco dug his fingers into the dirt, picking up a handful and crushing it as if it weren’t powder already.

“No, I couldn’t,” Harry said patiently. He didn’t want to reveal that Chester was an illegal hybrid right now. That would only make Draco angrier. “You don’t care about Hagrid. You wouldn’t have wanted to help him.”

Draco’s breath made a whistling sound. He leaned forwards as if he thought that Voldemort had possessed Harry. Harry braced his hands to keep from falling back and blinked at him. What’s got into him?

“But I would have wanted to help you.”

Harry let his eyes fall. He could feel his cheeks burning, and he was sure that Draco could see them, as unnecessarily close as he was holding the lighted wand.

“I didn’t think of that,” he muttered.

*

Draco felt his rage hissing up in him like steam up the spout of a teakettle. It was probably the smartest idea to keep silent—especially since they were in the middle of a dangerous area—and let Potter figure out for himself what was wrong, why Draco hated what he had done.

But he physically couldn’t.

“You never think,” he said, leaning forwards and crowding Potter into place against the dirt wall under the twisting roots above their heads. Potter swallowed nervously. Draco crowded even nearer. Potter was nervous around him when they were this close. Fine. Draco would use that to his advantage, even if he thought the reasons behind the nervousness were stupid. “You claim that you trust me now, that you’ve adapted to my being your partner, but that’s not true. The minute you’re ready to get into real danger, you leave me behind.”

Potter’s forehead took on the fixed lines that Draco was used to when he was being haughty. “I left Ron and Hermione behind, too, didn’t I?” he replied, as if that proved something.

“They’re your friends,” Draco said. “You can choose to bring them or not, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care. I’m your partner. You’re supposed to trust me and share your dangers with me. And trust me to hold my own, instead of flinging yourself stupidly between me and an enemy’s spell. Gregory’s curse could have done anything, Potter. Do you realize that?”

The words seemed to make an impression at last. Potter flinched. Then he wound his fingers together and said, “I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

“And I don’t want you to be hurt, either.” Draco made his response as simple and brutal and prompt as possible, because he knew no other way to get Potter to listen instead of nod at his words and then think about something else.

Potter gaped at him. Then he shook his head and said, “But I can take care of myself.”

“Do you really think I can’t?” Draco felt a thin, sharp lance of pain run from his throat down his chest. If Potter did think that, then he wanted to know so he could get used to the idea. But it hurt nonetheless.

“I—that’s not what I meant.” Potter swished his hand through his hair. Draco thought he knew where it got at least part of its reputation for uncontrollable shagginess. “I just meant that I can take care of people better than others can, and so you should leave me to get on with it.”

“Come to that, I can fling my body between you and curses as well as you can yours.” Draco folded his arms. “So why don’t you leave me to get on with it?”

Potter glared at him. Draco stared right back. Potter had skated out of their last discussion because Draco had been too embarrassed to make him face the fact that they’d kissed. He wasn’t getting out of this one. Draco would rub his face in his own illogic until he woke up and smelled the stink of it.

*

Harry felt trapped—more mentally than he did physically, even with the short space between his back and the wall of the hollow they were in, and the shorter one between his chest and Draco looming in front of him.

I said I wasn’t going to think about that.

Harry shoveled ignorance on top of the thought and tried to figure this out more carefully. The things he was trying to explain to Draco were things he understood so instinctively that he was having trouble expressing himself. He could have done that to save Ron’s life and Ron would have understood. Hermione would have, too, though she would probably have scolded him about it and told him he was being a martyr.

From the hostility on Draco’s face, he didn’t get it. At all.

And yet, Harry knew it wasn’t the same thing, him trying to save Draco and Draco trying to save him. He just didn’t know how to explain it.

“I do trust you,” he said, because that was true and he thought Draco deserved to know it. “I do want to take you along with me. I would have taken you along with me if it was anyone except Hagrid.”

“What about the Weasleys?” Draco’s voice was soft and precise this time, and he drove it home like a blade that he was trying to plant in Harry’s brain.

Harry hesitated.

“Ah.” Draco rocked back on his heels, giving Harry some breathing space, though the coldness that hovered between them squashed his relief. “So you trust me to battle dummies or imaginary enemies on Ketchum’s training fields, but not to save anyone who actually matters to you. Pleasant to know.”

He stood up as if he was about to duck out of the hollow, and Harry reached out and grabbed his arm. Draco whipped his head around to glare again. The glare couldn’t hide the pain at the corners of his eyes.

“Why shouldn’t we go back to the Ministry and tell the instructors that we don’t want to be partners anymore?” he whispered. “Give me one good reason.”

“Um,” Harry said, and then went back to truth. “Because I need you.”

Draco gave him the most perfect skeptical expression he had ever seen, and Harry babbled more truth before he thought about it.

“I just—I really don’t want you to get hurt, like I don’t want Ron and Hermione to get hurt, and I sacrificed myself to protect people before, and I thought about the same thing now. I reckon I’m just used to it, so it’s the first thing I think of. I didn’t know it would bother you so much, or I wouldn’t have done it. I want to do more things alone because my friends have helped me so much and I feel like I shouldn’t depend on them anymore. I don’t want you to get hurt. I didn’t know what else to do.” Harry swallowed, though it felt like he was swallowing razor blades, and extended his hand. “I wanted to bring you along, my mind told me to, but it was my pride that made me leave you behind. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Please, forgive me?”

*

Draco took a slow, careful breath. He was tempted to fling off Potter’s hand and stalk away in glory, leaving Potter to follow in humiliation like a kicked dog.

But he knew that would only cause problems in the end. Potter would use that pride he was talking about and build walls that would exclude Draco. It was pathetic, maybe, but Draco couldn’t give up his friendship with Potter. It meant more to him than anything ever had.

And Potter had talked about pride being the cause of his stupidity. Draco knew about that. Oh, did he ever know about that. It was pride that had convinced him he could save his parents all by himself in sixth year, and somehow “prove” himself to the Dark Lord, though he had known in his more rational moods that the Dark Lord simply wanted to punish his family and wouldn’t be satisfied by proof of any kind.

If Draco rejected Potter for being too proud, then it would be akin to Potter rejecting his younger self.

Draco liked to think that he had learned from his mistakes. He took a second deep breath, to calm his irritation, and held out his hand.

Potter’s smile when Draco clasped his wrist was powerful enough to make a throb travel through Draco’s body, originating in his chest and ending in his cock. Draco murmured, “If you break that promise, then I’ll curse you. I know several spells that would leave you convinced your balls were tied around your ears.”

Potter paled and leaned back from him, but Draco’s stubborn hold on him wouldn’t let him get very far. Maybe that’s a metaphor for our relationship in general, Draco thought, watching those green eyes and the way they fluttered with hunger.

“Yeah, all right,” Potter said. “I promise.”

“You’ll break that promise, but I’ll remind you,” Draco said, and smoothed down Potter’s arm with his thumb to watch him shiver, and then let him go. Potter stood up and worked his way out of the hollow.

“Point Me Hagrid,” he whispered, and his wand turned and pointed to what Draco thought was the north. Potter began to move through the leaves, more silently than Draco thought he would have been able to but still with a fuck of a lot of noise, and then whispered over his shoulder, “What do you make of Gregory?”

Draco thought about pushing the conversation they badly needed to have, but in the end shook his head and gave in. He’d done enough for one evening. At the very least, Potter was aware of how much they mattered to each other, and he might hesitate in the future to break his promise. Draco would be content with that for now, and quick with the reminders when Potter needed them.

“That she’s trying to play both sides,” he said. “She probably knew that she could convince you she’s been framed, but then she saw me and realized she couldn’t convince me. So she tried to get rid of me.”

Potter snorted and stepped carefully past a prickling bush, holding it out of the way so that Draco could avoid being slapped by it. Draco bit his lip, hard, so he wouldn’t embarrass himself by his reaction. “Why would someone who could know that about us react so clumsily as to try and kill you? At the very least, she had to know that I would suspect her after that. Not to mention that she knows about my sensitivity to Dark magic, so she couldn’t think that I would fail to recognize her spell as Dark.”

Draco nodded, but he wasn’t about to let Potter see how disconcerted he was by the git’s use of proper logic. “Then what do you suggest? Not that she’s completely innocent, I hope, or her attempt to kill me becomes hard to justify.”

Potter snorted again. “No. Mostly, I don’t know what to make of her. She did save my life by conjuring a sword that killed one of the creatures hunting me, but then she tried to kill you. I don’t know.” He shook his head and lapsed into silence.

“Describe these creatures more closely.”

Potter did, but Draco didn’t recognize any of their traits no matter how long he listened. The only thing he could be sure of was that they violated the Experimental Breeding Ban, and that sounded like something Nihil would do, in the pursuit of better servants. But it also sounded like something that oaf of a gamekeeper would do. When they met up with him at last, cradling something small and orange against his chest, Draco half-expected him to scold them for “manhandling the poor beasties.”

But Hagrid was simply ecstatic that he had his “Chester” back, and kept repeating, blubbering, the tale of how he had run up to Hagrid “as if he knew his mummy!” The orange menace that had dragged Potter out here, meanwhile, closed its eyes and snored in all innocence. Draco rolled his eyes and ignored the way that Hagrid stared at him. It was none of the oaf’s business if he chose to accompany his partner.

“You’ll let me know about the Dark wizards that you think are around?” Potter asked Hagrid. He was half-smiling at the man, his head tilted to the side as if he would begin to shake it in exasperation any minute. Draco sighed. How can he put up with someone who constantly gets into trouble and demands so much of him?

Maybe it’s a special Potter trait. He put up with Weasley for this long, after all.

“Yeah, Harry,” Hagrid said, and chucked Chester under the chin. This resulted in a small flare of fire that told Draco the horrid thing had at least partial dragon heritage. “Bless him!” Hagrid said with what sounded like reverence.

Though Potter asked several questions about other wizards in the woods, and the creatures that had stalked him, Hagrid gave him only blank stares. Possibly he was too distracted by his obvious concern for “Chester” to pay proper attention to the questions, but Draco didn’t think he was lying. He knew from experience how terrible the half-breed was at concealing the truth.

Potter thanked him at last with a voice that had defeat in it and moved away. Draco stepped close to him, refusing to glance back when he heard a yelp of pain and then a croon that ended in the word “Precious!”

“What do you think we should do?” he asked.

“Keep an eye on the creatures and the Dark wizards around here,” Potter said. “I don’t know if they’re really interested in Chester or not, the way Hagrid thought they were. It seems they would have stalked him instead of trying to capture Gregory if they were. He should have been easier to take than she was.” He gnawed his cheek for a moment, and Draco struggled against the temptation to tell him it was an unattractive habit. “And keep an eye on things around Hogwarts in general,” Potter finished in a low, frustrated voice. “I can’t get over the idea that there’s something specific around here that they want, though I don’t know what it is.”

Draco nodded. At least their investigation had turned in a new direction, and they had people to suspect outside the Auror barracks. Besides, Gregory’s involvement in the battle would make something interesting to report to Dearborn.

“Thank you.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. Potter had mumbled the words, and he wasn’t sure there weren’t others he had missed. “What?”

Potter turned around to look at him, face set in determined lines. He clasped Draco’s hands as if he meant to squeeze the bones in them to dust.

“Thank you,” Potter repeated firmly. “I don’t—there’s no way that I could have done this without you.”

Draco didn’t want to make a fool of himself. On the other hand, he didn’t want to hurt Potter by cold dismissal. In the end, he settled for squeezing Potter’s hands back and offering a smile that he hoped was distant.

Then Potter gave him a slow, burning smile of his own, and there was a flicker of that interest in his eyes that Draco had missed seeing lately.

Perhaps I do not want my smiles to be distant, after all, Draco thought.

The developments around Hogwarts and in the Forbidden Forest were not the only things that he would have to keep an eye on.

Chapter Twenty-Three.