lomonaaeren

Title: Soldier’s Welcome (29/?)
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-Nine—Outbreaks

“Harry! How was the rest of your holiday?”

Harry smiled and held out his arms to welcome Hermione, who dashed straight into them. No need to ask how her holidays had been since the last time he had seen her; her face was glowing, more relaxed than it had been. She and Ron must not have had another argument.

“Fine, thanks,” Harry said, and smiled down at her. He’d taken care to arrive back at the barracks early, since he hadn’t told his friends he was staying at Malfoy Manor. He didn’t want another row with them so soon, but besides, it wasn’t their business. He didn’t need to know every single secret glance and snog they gave each other, either.

And are you saying that staying in Malfoy Manor is at all the same as them snogging?

Harry rolled his eyes at his inner voice. No, it wasn’t, and not likely to become so, either, because Draco had been acting strangely these last few days—

“Are you ready for the next round of classes?” Hermione was already squirming out of his hug so that she could reach her books. “I’ve studied Observation ever so hard, and I still don’t see how we’re supposed to spot all these tiny details that I know Pushkin is going to want us to see—”

“Let the man have some time to breathe before you start trying to pile homework on him, Hermione.” Ron rolled his eyes at Harry, as if to say See what I have to put up with? Harry only grinned back, because Ron looked just as relaxed and happy as Hermione did. Harry wasn’t about to believe he’d suffered a whole lot of stress.

Like I have, these last few days.

But that way lay self-pity and thoughts that he shouldn’t think anyway when Ron and Hermione were around, until he’d had time to get them used to a few essential truths. He shook his head and said, “Yeah, I’ve been studying the Battle Healing techniques that Portillo Lopez wants us to learn.”

“Those bloody things,” Ron said, his smile turning into a scowl. He aimed his books at the middle of his bed and managed to hit it. “Yeah, I don’t know what in the world she wants us to learn those things for. I’m not going to have to time to bandage up a wound when the Dark wizards are shooting curses at me.”

“That’s why you learn how to do them fast,” Hermione said promptly, “so that you can heal your partner faster than they can use the curses.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “And you think I can charm bandages to wind up in a—” he gave one of the closed books a dubious glance and then obviously took a wild stab at the name “—Bee’s Eye pattern when I still can’t wrap them that way by hand?”

“The spells are different, and you know it,” Hermione said briskly. “Here, let me show you.” She waved her wand and intoned a low incantation that Harry almost recognized, and the blankets rose from the bed to wrap themselves in an intricate knot around Ron.

Ron yelped and stumbled, then nearly fell to the floor. Hermione caught him in time and floated him gently to a chair, while Harry wrapped his arms around himself and laughed until he felt like his ribs would break.

“That’s how you do it,” Hermione said serenely. “And it’s Bee’s Nest, not Bee’s Eye. And when you learn how to do it well enough, then I’ll promise to let you do it to me, and I won’t even fight.”

Harry stood back up, shaking his head and grinning slightly. Ron was smiling in spite of himself at what Hermione had said, even though he was also still thrashing to try and get out of the blankets. Harry was glad that his best friends seemed to have solved their problems for now. It was as though a bleeding wound in the back of his mind had quietly and painlessly sewn itself up.

Which was good, because another one had opened.

Harry gritted his teeth and forced the thought away yet again before Hermione turned to him.

“Ginny sends her love,” she said, eyes intense.

Harry stared at her. Why would she look like that? Hermione had seen the way he avoided Ginny at Christmas, and he’d had the feeling she approved. “Yeah, I know that,” he said at last.

“She said,” Hermione said, and then stopped, nibbling her lip. “Well, it’s better if I just give the bloody thing to you,” she muttered, and took something out of her pocket to hand to him while Harry was still gaping at her.

It turned out to be a letter. From the thickness of the envelope, Harry thought there were several sheets of paper in it. He closed his hand around it and heard it crumple.

Hermione gave him a pitying look, told Ron, “Let’s go to my rooms, and I’ll teach you how to undo those blankets,” and floated Ron out of the room behind her, though he kept insisting that he could hop.

Harry pressed the envelope close down to the paper and stared to see if he could make out any of the words. Nothing. The spiky black letters could have been anything. Harry saw just enough to recognize it as Ginny’s handwriting. Then again, Hermione didn’t have any reason to lie about that.

Harry stood there, still, for a long time, but he knew the stillness was only another way of trying to control his rage.

Then he conjured a fire in the hearth, threw the letter in, and watched until the whole thing was completely burned.

Had he had a letter from Draco at the moment, he might have done the same thing with it.

*

“A bit more slowly,” Draco murmured as he watched Harry’s table manners from the corner of his eye.

Harry’s hand tightened on his fork, and then he banged it down on the table and turned to face Draco. Draco blinked. He was glad that he had left Politesse in his rooms, because otherwise the little dog would have leaned forwards with his teeth bared. Draco was slowly learning that Politesse responded to Harry with hostility at those moments when Draco was feeling hostility; the other evening, when they had discussed how they should hunt Nihil and had mostly agreed, Politesse had napped on Draco’s lap without waking up once to snarl or bark at Harry.

“What’s the matter?” Draco asked.

“You keep giving me advice on my table manners,” Harry said, not raising his voice, but with his eyes blazing so hard that Draco leaned warily away from him, “and my hair, and the way I should stand and sit. Why?”

Draco blinked again. He had expected the question even less than he had expected the conversation about it. “Because you’re doing things the wrong way,” he said. “Or at least, you’re doing them in ways that make you look sloppy and ridiculous. And your back is going to hurt when you’re older if you don’t have good posture now.”

Harry shook his head and swiped his hand through his hair. Draco winced, but didn’t say anything, since Harry seemed to be feeling a bit sensitive right now.

Unfortunately, Harry saw the wince, and leaned towards Draco, his voice sharp. Draco could feel a few people at other tables glancing at them. He hoped that Harry wouldn’t raise his voice while they were outside the privacy of Draco’s rooms.

“There you go again,” Harry said, and his fingers were clenched around the edge of the table, as if he wanted to show Draco beyond doubt how seriously he was taking this. “Why the fuck should it matter to you what my hair looks like, or what my table manners are? We’re not required to watch out for things like that.”

Again, Draco had no idea how to answer. “I assumed it’d be obvious,” he said at last. “Because those are the wrong things, and I’d like to see you do the right ones.”

“Why?” Harry was half out of his chair now, and his voice shook with such strain that Draco was sure he would give in and yell any second. He winced again. He didn’t want to make a disturbance, but Harry was set on making one. Of course.

“Because the wrong things bother me,” Draco snapped. If Harry wanted nastiness, then Draco would give him that. He had no idea why he was being accused. True, he’d been giving Harry little corrections for a week since they returned to their classes, but Harry had only rolled his eyes or even smiled. Why choose to get upset about it now? “I’d prefer it if I had a partner who was polite and well-groomed.”

Harry slumped back down in his chair, which made Draco imagine the pain that would travel through his kinked spine, and laughed bitterly. “I knew it was that,” he told his empty tray; he always ate too fast, as if someone was going to take the food away from him. “But I tried to pretend it wasn’t.”

“What are you talking about?” Draco kept his voice cool and his face stiff. No need to alert the other people who might be glancing at them of their fight, or the ways in which it seemed worse than the other rows they’d had, if Harry’s face was any indication.

“You want to change me,” Harry said, as if that was some heinous crime. “I’m not good enough for you. Not pretty enough. I don’t act the right way. I’m a freak in your little pure-blood world of customs and social cues.” He said “freak” with a particular hard emphasis that Draco didn’t understand, but would prefer not to hear again. “I should have known that what I was feeling wasn’t reciprocated.”

Draco swallowed. It would have worked better if he’d had moisture in his throat to accomplish that. “I still have no idea what you mean. We’re friends. I thought that I’d showed you your friendship meant—much to me.”

“Apparently not, if all you care about is outward appearances.” Harry’s voice was heavy with stupid sarcasm. Draco would at least have liked to hear cutting wit if he was going to be despised. Harry climbed to his feet with his face turned away, flicked his wand so that his tray left the table without his touching it, and then started towards the racks on the far side of the dining hall.

“Wait,” Draco said, unable to believe that Harry was walking away. Draco was the one who did that, instead of getting walked away from. He picked up his own tray and hastened after Harry, catching at his elbow as he turned towards the exit. “We agreed that you needed to change,” Draco murmured, his lips scant inches from Harry’s ear. “That little speech you gave me after you nearly died in my home because you thought it was better to kill yourself than let Nihil’s magic take you is a case in point.” Just thinking about the stupid way that Harry had risked his life made Draco tighten his hold.

Harry ripped free and spun around to face him. By now, Weasel and Mudblood, who were eating at a different table entirely, had risen to their feet and were staring at them in concern. Draco felt his face go red with embarrassment, but he had to pay as much attention to Harry as possible instead of the spectators, to see the moment when Harry realized how unreasonable was being.

“It’s one thing to change the big things,” Harry said savagely, and still in a whisper that made Draco wonder why he wasn’t screaming. “I don’t really want to die, and I’ll have to learn better ways of dealing with Nihil’s threat than killing myself. It’s one thing to keep promises and try to work with you and to stop denying that we’re effective partners. It’s another to change all these little things about myself just because you’re like me to, while you look at me down your nose because you’re too good for me and you think you don’t have to change at all.” Harry sneered. “I thought we were equals, that you saw me the same way I saw you. I reckon that I was wrong.” And off he stormed.

Draco became aware that his mouth was open, and that that might make him look less than perfectly composed. He closed it and placed his tray next to Harry’s. Then he stood there coldly considering his partner’s retreating back.

There were so many misconceptions in what Harry had just said that Draco didn’t feel up to dealing with them right now. He went back to his own rooms and worked on the essay that Ketchum had assigned them, because he said that far too many of them were “thinking lazily” about tactics, and maybe having to put their feelings and actions into words would make their minds run better. He petted Politesse throughout the evening, who rattled his tail in an erratic motion that reminded Draco of the way that some cats purred.

He didn’t think about Harry. It would have suggested that he regretted his actions, and he couldn’t, because he was right.

*

Harry was glad that the trainees who had made it through the first term were allowed to exercise in one of the training rooms that Ketchum sometimes used to set up obstacle courses. He couldn’t go flying, but he needed something physical to work off the rage.

There were few people around the large room, with its mixed walls of stone and wood and its wooden floor, when Harry entered, and those there mostly clustered around a dummy enchanted with shields that they could practice their curses against. Harry made a bee-line for an open area of the room, Transfigured his robes to something more suitable for running without much concentration, and then took off in a wide circle.

His feet pounded the floor, and his breath jarred in his lungs for a long moment before he got used to the rhythm. Then all he allowed himself to think about for the next few minutes was how raw and sore his body already felt and how he would have to increase his physical exercise if he wanted to become an Auror and how he hoped that they would find someone else to teach the Combat course.

But his rage burned too bright to be snuffed out too easily, and soon it was back with him, and soon Draco’s smug, taunting face was floating in front of him again.

Harry had been confused when Draco seemed to grow more distant from him over the last few days of Christmas holidays, but he had thought maybe he was worried about Nihil, or his inability to find an answer in the books for why Harry had fits, or already missing his mother. Then Draco had started correcting his manners and aiming minor grooming spells at his hair. Harry had tried to smile and accept it as partially a joke and partially just the way Draco was. He had habits and traits that he couldn’t change.

But it went on and on and on, until sometimes it seemed as if Draco never looked at him normally anymore. Harry would look up and find Draco’s eyes critically fixed on him, looking for something that he could disapprove of.

Harry bit down until blood from his tongue filled his mouth and intensified his run until the walls blurred past him and his head spun from how fast he made the turns at the edges of the circle.

I was right, when I thought that I didn’t fit into the perfect little pure-blood world that Malfoy Manor and the party were in. He wants me to be someone different, and it bothers him that I’ll never be that way.

Harry snarled and ran even faster. He couldn’t hear the sound of his own feet anymore over the heartbeat that thrummed in his ears.

I still want him. I still like him. But why should I tell him that when he would only look me up and down and tell me that I’m not good enough for him until I comb my hair fifteen times a day and wear designer robes?

I need to change. I know that. I’m not perfect. I know that. But I refuse to change while he’s standing there and not making any effort.

Maybe he assumes that he’s doing his part by telling me what I need to change, but he’s really, really not.

By the time that Harry had exhausted himself and slumped to the floor of the training room, where he panted and sweated like a cow who’d run away from the slaughterhouse, he’d made his decision. He’d be Draco’s friend. He was still that, no matter what happened. He would be his partner.

But he was fucked if he told Draco that he wanted him, at least while Draco was like this. Draco would assume that meant he had more power over Harry and could force him into doing other stupid, petty, annoying things, changing himself like a good little dog—like a pet like Politesse—just because Harry wanting him somehow meant more than friendship.

It doesn’t, Harry thought, standing up and flinging his wet hair out of his face before he went to the showers. They’re equally as important as each other. But one of them he’s never getting from me unless he apologizes and stops acting like a prick.

*

Draco had assumed that Harry was so honest and open and emotional that he would never be able to do cold distance well.

In the next few days, when it felt as though someone had put a wall of glass between him and Harry, he learned he’d been wrong.

His mother sent news that there had been no rash of disappearances among the families she was aware of, or among the families outside her immediate social circles that the Abranes might know. Draco discussed that with Harry, as well as his suspicion that Nihil had created faces that weren’t real on bodies like the fake Death Eaters they had spoken to in the interrogation rooms. Harry nodded, expression calm and eyes looking everywhere but at Draco.

“Then where did the bodies come from?” he asked. “That’s what we need to find out.”

All the reading Draco could do about magical cores yielded no story of symptoms that matched Harry’s. Frustrated, he asked Harry again what happened to him during his fits. Harry described going back into an intense memory, this time the memory of Snape’s death, which had been the one that knocked him down that day in Gregory’s class. Draco stepped closer to Harry, daring to put an arm around his shoulders.

Harry moved away without appearing to notice.

Because most of the leads seemed to be closing in on them, Draco suggested that they try to interview the young woman, the former trainee, who’d escaped from Gregory’s clutches. Battle Healer Portillo Lopez had treated her and sent her home, but she had come back, maybe because her wounds were paining her. The people Draco had questioned had heard only rumors about why she was in the Ministry again. The important thing was that she was.

Harry agreed with any sign of enthusiasm, and they set out for Portillo Lopez’s office.

Draco stared at him from the corner of his eye all the way there. Harry was more quiet and subdued than Draco had ever seen him. He seemed to walk cloaked in his own thoughts much of the time. He would emerge from them to answer Draco if Draco asked him a question, but then he went straight back into them again.

He would never be as elegant on the outside, but otherwise, he was rather like Politesse, calm and cold and restrained. Draco had assumed he would enjoy that, if it ever happened.

He hated it.

But he couldn’t see any way to apologize for the things that Harry seemed to want him to apologize for. That would be like yielding, giving up his pride yet again and letting Harry get away with behavior that even he had acknowledged was selfish behavior. Draco needed to see Harry give something of his own free will. Then he could soften and give the apology in return and not feel as though he was the weaker one in their contest.

But it seemed that Harry would prefer the contest simply continue on.

Draco gritted his teeth. Fine.

When he knocked on the door of Portillo Lopez’s office, no one answered, but the door glowed and swung inwards, which was a sign that the Battle Healer wanted to invite her students to wait inside. Draco stepped in, resisting the childish temptation to shut the door in Harry’s face.

Then he stood very, very still.

Harry walked into his back and peered over his shoulder, saying in annoyance, “Draco, what—”

Then he was still, too.

Someone was pinned against the wall of Portillo Lopez’s office opposite the door. There were knives through her elbows, and through her shoulders, and through her eyes. They glittered like fallen stars, bright as justice through all the blood that had flowed over them. Draco could see the way the body hung, and he knew that the knives must have been driven straight through the woman’s body into the wall itself.

She was not Portillo Lopez, he could make himself see a moment later, and the knife-wounds were not the only ones she had. He didn’t know how he had missed it before, but the entire front of her body had been torn open, her chest and belly peeled down but left attached so that they drooped on the floor like a bolt of cloth. Her organs had apparently been scraped out of her chest. The blood had been left, though, and the muscle, and dark glistening pieces of flesh and globs of liquid that made Draco think of thick jellies. He bit his lip and his stomach heaved as he gasped.

“Do you think she’s the one who escaped Auror Gregory?” Harry whispered, what seemed an endless heartbeat of time later. His hand had come to rest on Draco’s shoulder, and Draco leaned back into him, grateful for the support.

“Yes,” he said. “We have to tell someone.”

In the silence that followed his words, the sound of the door closing and locking behind them was very loud.

Draco turned his head, slowly, feeling as if he had all the time in the world.

The tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed woman he had last seen at the Abranes’ party was walking towards them from the door that led to Portillo Lopez’s private library. She had a pleasant smile on her face and a whirling ball of golden light cupped between her hands.

Beside her, on either side, stalked glittering messes of flesh that had been sculpted by clumsy magic into the form of four-legged beasts. Cats, maybe. Draco swallowed again; now he knew where the victim’s organs had gone.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the woman said. “I thought it time we should formally meet. My name is Nusquam.” She inclined her head, her smile so perfectly polite that Draco suffered the delusion that his mother would approve of her manners. “And it is time for another test, I believe. Though I hope this one works better than the last one,” she added, with a slight roll of her eyes. “Nemo and his creatures test my patience.”

She lifted the sphere of light to her mouth and blew sharply into it.

Draco fell to the floor as his magic revolted against him. Through blurring eyes, he saw the compacted masses of flesh heave themselves at Harry.

And then, darkness, and pounding heartbeats, and oceanic silence as he tried to stop his magic from becoming grief magic.

Chapter Thirty.