lomonaaeren

Title: Soldier’s Welcome (31/?)
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 Thirty-One—In the Service of Sympathy

Harry stared at Draco, panting. It had taken almost all his courage to kiss him like that, and if he did something stupid now and pushed Harry further away, then Harry would—

Well, he didn’t know what he would do. But it wouldn’t be nice.

Draco raised his hand and touched his lips, moving his fingers carefully over them as if he wanted to know what spittle Harry had left there. Harry shivered. He thought the gesture meant rejection. Draco had been on him about his manners for the past few weeks. What if he thought Harry’s kiss was sloppy and decided to teach him etiquette about that, too? Harry didn’t know if he could accept that when he’d taken such a chance and bared such an intimate part of himself.

But Draco’s hand fell back to his side and he tilted his head to the side, giving Harry a single, helpless smile.

The smile reassured Harry as nothing else could have done. Draco didn’t know what to do about all this, either. He wasn’t all-competent. He wasn’t perfect. Harry stood up straight again and took a deep breath that filled his lungs completely for the first time since he’d been left alone in Draco’s rooms with him.

“Harry, you…” Draco lowered his head, but if he meant to hide the smile, it didn’t work. Harry could still feel it there, warming and strengthening him, even when he couldn’t see it. Then Draco cleared his throat and said, “I want you to know that I didn’t mean to hurt you by speaking about your manners that way. I’m sorry.”

That’s a good start. Harry exhaled slowly and shifted one step back towards Draco. “You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “What did the kiss tell you?”

“That you—feel strongly for me,” Draco said, and now his expression was sharper and he looked as if he was trying to repress the smile. “I don’t dare assume more than that, since my assumptions in the past fortnight have been wrong.”

“For longer than that,” Harry muttered, but he wanted to collapse with relief. It was going to be all right. He would make it all right.

Draco lifted his head haughtily, his smile gone. “I meant what I said,” he muttered stiffly. “And the only reason I believed it in the first place is because you said it. You said that you were selfish and took more than you gave and that you wanted to change. It’s not wrong of me to act on that and try to make you change.”

“Being selfish has nothing to do with the way my hair looks,” Harry said flatly. Frustration and anger filled the back of his mouth like bile, but they were still easier to deal with than they’d been all those days when Draco was criticizing him. He kept that smile firmly in mind. He could make peace with him. He didn’t have to walk away, as he’d half been fearing he must do at first. “It has to do with my risking my life when I don’t have to, and not giving you the gifts that you’ve given me.”

Draco sniffed at him. “And what if I respond that manners and better behavior are gifts that I want from you?”

“Then I’d say that you could ask me to do those things, instead of commanding them from me,” Harry snapped. “You made me feel that I’d never be good enough to please you. There was always something else that would have to change before you’d accept me. And that’s it, isn’t it? You’re afraid of how you respond and where this relationship between us might go, so you’d come up with more and more conditions to push me away, because the conditions would be impossible to fulfill if I honestly tried to fulfill all of them. You’re just as frightened as I am.”

*

Draco closed his hands into fists. He wanted to protest. But Harry’s words made too much sense.

It was just—hard, that was all. Harry had taken the first step, and Draco knew that he needed to respond somehow, but wasn’t he just giving in again? Why couldn’t Harry be the one to do all the hard work for once? Draco was the one who had talked to him about things so far and said the right words and made promises that he intended to keep.

Maybe I should remind him about those promises he hasn’t kept yet.

“Yes, I am,” he said, and then went on quickly, so Harry only had time for one smile of triumph. “But I’m frightened of other things, too. Like how you keep trying to die and leave me here by myself.”

Harry froze, only his wide nostrils and eyes saying how startled he was. But they said that clearly. Draco had always thought he was good at reading expressions, since his parents had taught him the trick, but that mostly worked among pure-bloods whose family history he knew. With Harry, their personal history should have kept him ignorant, if anything. Instead, reading Harry’s face was the easiest thing he’d ever done.

“I’m not trying to die,” Harry said, after some strained silence. “I want to live. It’s just that I think me dying is not the worst thing that could happen.”

“What would be?” Draco took another step closer. He was thinking about the way Harry had tried to kill himself when Nihil’s magic had first come piling into his body, and wondering if he had tried it again when he was saving Draco with his magic during their last battle. Would he have cared if he had lived or died, as long as Draco lived?

“Nihil winning,” Harry said flatly. “Someone else dying. Someone, like you, sacrificing their life for me.”

“That’s not always the worst thing that could happen,” Draco said, determined to push this through to its conclusion. It was a conversation they should have had a long time ago. “Some people would say that it would be better for me to die, because I don’t matter to most of the wizarding world, than it would be for you to die, because you’re their savior and their symbol.”

“Those people don’t know you,” Harry said, his voice so filled with outrage that Draco smiled again in spite of himself. He tried to erase it, because he thought Harry would notice and be offended, but Harry was pacing back and forth, his hand tearing at his hair. “They don’t know that you can be a good person when you want to, courageous and giving, and that you’re trying to be a good Auror. They value me for something I’m not.” He spun towards Draco, and now his glare was hot enough that Draco pulled his robes away from his neck. “Don’t ever try to tell me that I should lie back and let you die.”

“Of course not,” Draco said, as soothingly as he could. “I would never suggest that. It’s just that—would you try to save your own life?”

“I did,” Harry countered. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Draco shook his head. “But you care less about your life than the lives of other people. Why? And would you really only care about keeping me and maybe your friends alive, or would you sacrifice your life for any random innocent who happened along?”

From the way Harry flinched, Draco knew he had found a tender spot. He folded his arms and stared earnestly at Harry, waiting for an answer.

*

Harry wanted to point out that this discussion wasn’t fair. Draco had never been in Gryffindor. He had different standards. Anything Harry said would be wrong, because he would never accept the principles that you had to accept before Harry’s answer would make sense.

But Draco was looking at him with such clear eyes that Harry didn’t think they would get far in that discussion. And he wanted to answer Draco’s questions, instead of taking off in another direction that didn’t.

He rubbed his mouth and said, as carefully as he could, “I mean—of course I would try to save someone else.”

“That’s not the question,” Draco said. His voice was heavy and somewhat sad, which was the only reason Harry didn’t snap at him. “The question is if you would give up your life for anyone who was in danger, no matter who they were or what they’d done. Would you die for a Death Eater, if the choice was between his life and yours?” He raised an eyebrow and leaned forwards with an air of intense interest in the answer.

“I don’t know,” Harry said at last, because it was the only honest thing he could say.

“And that’s why I want you to be a little less selfless,” Draco said quickly. “Because—”

Harry glared at him. “Wait. First I was too selfish, then I’m too selfless?”

“I’m beginning to think that the situation is more complicated than you described it as,” Draco said, magnificently avoiding the argument Harry was trying to have with him. “It’s selfish that you keep putting yourself in danger, but it’s far too selfless that you’re trying to die because you might save someone else. Anyone. It’s mad that you think your life is worth less than any other life on the face of the planet.” Harry wanted to object that he hadn’t said that, but he also knew it wasn’t far from the truth, so he kept silent. Draco leaned in again. “Why did you start thinking that? When did you decide that the main way you could do good things was by dying?”

“You die and come back to life so that you can save the world and see what you think,” Harry muttered rebelliously.

Only a slight flicker in Draco’s eyes revealed his astonishment. “It’s older than that, I think,” he said. “Why?”

“You get treated like shite whenever the wizarding world needs a scapegoat and see how you behave,” Harry retorted. He backed up a step from Draco. The room seemed too small, the air tight and hot on his skin. He pulled his robes away from his neck the way Draco had earlier and looked to the side. “Where’s Politesse?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. “Why didn’t he come and help you during the fight?”

“That’s certainly a question,” Draco agreed calmly. “Much like the one that you’re avoiding right now. The wizarding world treated you like a scapegoat when they wanted to, and a hero when they wanted to. I don’t think that, by itself, would be enough to make you start thinking your life wasn’t worth anything. You seemed to bear up pretty well anyway and not be bothered by the rumors that you were Dark or insane most of the time. Why, Harry?”

Harry shut his eyes. “You would make a good torturer,” he said.

“Because I want to know the truth about my best friend, my partner, my would-be lover, so that I can help him?” Draco said. His voice was like a knife, digging past layers of skin. “Oh, my, yes. That makes me so evil.”

“Draco…” Harry put a hand to his forehead. He wanted to tell the truth so the torture would stop, and he didn’t want to, because there would be more torture after that. And there was some other reason that he shouldn’t tell anyone this, but at the moment he couldn’t remember what it was. He felt so crowded and confused, so sure that he could rely on Draco’s sympathy and yet not wanting to risk it, because he’d never told anyone this.

“Harry.” Draco’s hands clasped his, cool and firm.

And Harry gave in, as he never had before.

“You try living for ten years with people who thought you were worth nothing, not even food,” he whispered, “and see what happens to you.”

*

There it was, then.

Draco could imagine the silent shower of maggots the way he had the first time he heard something about Harry’s relatives, and it still disgusted him and made him feel as though his skin was trying to crawl off his bones.

But it was also a relief. Now, at least, he knew what had happened, and he could learn the truth instead of watching his imagination conjure visions that would become successively worse.

Not that what had happened to Harry wasn’t bad enough. He stepped up to him, gripped his arm with one hand, put his other arm around Harry’s shoulders, and whispered into his ear, “You can tell me.”

The words seemed to wake Harry from a trance. He started as if he hadn’t felt Draco embrace him and then tried to shrug himself out from under the hold. Draco took a deep breath, pushed away the hurt he felt—he understood this was hard for Harry—and then moved closer again, tightening his grip. Has he ever talked about this with anyone? Probably not. Or else his friends probably know already and they’ve made some kind of promise not to talk about it.

Idiotic Gryffindors. I don’t see many benefits from honesty, either, but sometimes it’s the only potion that will heal the wound.

“Harry,” he said. “You mentioned not having food. They starved you, then?”

Harry gave a slow nod. He was staring at the ground, his eyebrows twisted, his face so ferocious that the ground might have hurt him personally somehow. Draco debated raising his chin and then decided against it. Best to let Harry look wherever he wanted while Draco slowly took his confession from him.

“Did they beat you?” he whispered.

“Oh, God, no!” Harry exploded, and looked up on his own. His eyes were radiant with rage, but Draco tried not to take it personally. It wasn’t really him that Harry was after, he could see that much. “Why does everyone always think that? They never touched me, and that’s why I think it wasn’t that bad.”

“Tell me what they did,” Draco said, lowering his voice to the purr that seemed to affect Harry most, “so that I can judge for myself.”

Harry nodded, on fire now. Draco was pleased to see that. It meant he would be less cautious about secrets he had obviously wanted to hide. “Fine, I will. My bedroom was a cupboard. They told me I was a freak for performing magic—though I didn’t know it was magic then, because they didn’t tell me I was a wizard, even though my aunt and uncle knew. They lied about my parents and how they died, and there was what Hermione would probably call emotional abuse. But I survived it. And yeah,” he added quickly, as though Draco had already started arguing, “it hurt, and I wanted them to like me for a long time even though they didn’t, and I wish I’d had a better family, and it probably made me think less about my life than I should. But it’s over. Now that you know more about it, you don’t have to talk about it, do you?” He leaned back in the circle of Draco’s arms and looked at him expectantly.

Draco shut his eyes and took another slow, deep breath. His embrace had tightened around Harry. He wanted to drag him close and hold him there while he explained, in exquisite detail, why Harry was wrong and this was something they needed to talk about a lot. Just because they had never beaten him didn’t meant they hadn’t damaged him. Harry needed to see that, and he needed to learn some care for his own life.

But Draco was beginning to understand Harry, and he knew now that trying to force him past his own barriers too quickly was a recipe for disaster. So he would wait, and keep the revelation locked safely in his own mind, and do what he needed to do over the weeks and months—and years, if he was honest with himself—that he hoped they would have together.

“All right,” he said, and released Harry. “Now, let’s go see what kept Politesse from the fight, and then discuss our strategy for fighting Nihil. For better or worse, he seems to have targeted us specifically.”

*

Harry stared at the little dog from across the room. He didn’t want to go near him until Draco had calmed him down, because he was fully aware that Politesse didn’t like him. Politesse was barking and struggling against a beam of yellow light that seemed to be coming out of Draco’s bed and curling around his neck. Draco knelt down next to him and stared at the beam for a long time without expression before drawing his wand and severing it.

“Well, that’s it, then, right?” Harry asked, watching as Politesse scrambled up Draco’s arm to his shoulder and then licked his cheek. “You tied him up and he couldn’t get out of the spell. Or maybe those obedience spells are stronger than the loyalty spells.”

“I don’t know magic like that,” Draco said quietly. “Someone else came in here and tied him up, Harry, probably so he couldn’t help us in the battle.” He met Harry’s eyes with a grimness that shook Harry. “Someone knew that we were going to be attacked. It looks more and more like this was planned.”

Harry swallowed while Draco let Politesse sniff his hand and indulge in an orgy of scorpion-tail-wagging. “All right, then,” he said. “They’re watching us, and it’s going to get easier to watch us, because with those bodyguards following us around, we’ll be conspicuous all the time. So what do you think we should do about it?”

“I think,” said Draco, “that we should try to make allies of our bodyguards, and use them as spies as much as possible. Also, reach out to other trainees that they aren’t watching. Catherine Arrowshot. That rather dim blond one in our year—Samuel Margate, I think his name is. And Pollian Kepler.”

Harry blinked. He could vaguely picture Kepler, a tall second-year who helped Ketchum with their Battlefield Tactics class and seemed to know everything there was to know about unarmed combat, though Gregory probably knew more. “Why her?”

“Because she’s intelligent,” Draco said. “And Margate, who I know you’re going to ask about next, because he’s dim-witted, but gets high marks in Observation. That says to me that he knows when things are happening around him; he just doesn’t always know what they mean.” He sneered suddenly, and his hand tightened around Politesse’s neck, so Harry thought for sure the little dog would yelp and bite him. Instead, Politesse licked his cheek. “And they’re not connected to us in any obvious way. Arrowshot is, but she’s also committed to an investigation of her own, so I don’t think we can help that. At least we’ll have allies who aren’t obvious. We’re too isolated right now, with so few people helping us, and all of them known to Nihil.”

“What about Ron and Hermione?” Harry asked quietly.

Draco arched an eyebrow at him. “You really think that Nihil doesn’t know about them?”

Harry shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I think we should tell them what’s going on, at least as much information as we’re going to trust Arrowshot and the others with.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “You know that Weasley doesn’t like me. I don’t want to spend more time trying to persuade him to trust me than we spend actually investigating.”

“I know,” Harry said. “But Hermione would be valuable, and I think she can bring Ron along now and at least ask him to keep his grumbling to himself. They made up over the Christmas holidays.”

Draco brooded on that for a moment, then nodded shortly. “All right. But I want you to make sure that you tell me if they start trying to argue you away from my side.” He turned and went suddenly into the bathroom.

Harry couldn’t help grinning, though he still had a bit of that flayed feeling that had started when Draco made him talk about the Dursleys. By my side.

Yes, Draco. There’s no place I’d rather be.

*

“That’s what we’re planning to do,” Draco said. He leaned back in his chair and carefully watched the trainee sitting across the table from him. “What do you think?”

Pollian Kepler gave him a bland glance back. She was a half-blood, as far as Draco knew; her mother had a pure-blood last name, but the surname she carried had come straight out of the Muggle world. She was more inscrutable than Draco would have liked, though, so she’d perhaps received some training. Older than most of the trainees, she had left Hogwarts several years ago. Draco had asked a few people discreetly what House she’d been in, but no one seemed to know, which indicated that she had kept her distance from them.

That was only part of the reason that Draco wanted her on their side if they could get her, and so he’d snatched this moment during the early morning when their bodyguards hadn’t been assigned yet and few people were up to confront her in the dining hall.

“I think that you take a great risk telling me this,” Kepler said. Her voice was soft and breathy, a little girl’s voice. Her hair was a mass of shiny brown curls, and her eyes were a bright and startling blue. She glanced up at Draco now and lowered her gaze to the table again. “You have no way of finding out who works for Nihil. I could be working for him. I could be one of the trainees that Auror Gregory corrupted with certain oaths and vows. Why would you trust me?”

“I think you’re too intelligent to work for him,” Draco said. He wasn’t sure of that at all, but it sounded good, and if he was going to win Kepler over, he thought it would be by flattery. Someone who didn’t have many friends would also lack people to give her the praise that she felt she deserved.

Kepler paused, her eyes darting up to his face. Then she lowered her eyes to her hands again. “I will take it under advisement,” she said, and stood up and strode away from the dining hall.

Draco gave a brief nod. He’d done what he could for right now. He had decided that Harry should be the one to make contact with Arrowshot and Margate, because they would be more likely to trust him.

“I can’t believe this!”

Draco winced. A voice that ear-splitting had to be the voice of a Weasley. He turned to see Harry striding into the dining hall with a red face, two large trainees at his shoulders, and Weasel and Granger trailing him.

“You’re staying in the same room with him?” Weasley continued, at a high pitch. “Why? If anything, that’s going to make you less safe, not more!”

“Ron,” Granger hissed.

Harry stopped and whirled around on one heel, making his friends and the trainees who must be their bodyguards scramble hastily to get out of the way. His face had gone from red to white. His words were low, but clear. Draco imagined that some of the trainees who were still in bed could probably hear them.

“It is for our safety, Ron. And I don’t really care what you think. I’m sorry I had to move out of our rooms, but I want to survive this. And I want to go on being Draco’s friend, and your friend, and Hermione’s friend. And I want to survive all the stupid little things that can tear us apart, too. So you might as well whinge and get over it, because I’m going to make sure that we come through it intact in all the ways that matter. All right?”

Draco shivered appreciatively at the growl in Harry’s voice on the last words, and gave him a sharp smile for it as Harry turned around to stride to his table. The bodyguards followed him. Granger and Weasley stood still, blinking.

“All right, then,” Weasley finally said, in a weak voice.

Chapter Thirty-Two.