Chapter Thirty-Eight of 'Soldier's Welcome'- The Withdrawing

[lomonaaeren]

Title: Soldier’s Welcome (38/45)
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-Eight—The Withdrawing

And that seemed to be the truth.

Portillo Lopez had a list of the trainees who had carried Nihil’s infection in their magic, and the notes on the process she had designed to cure them. Draco understood a lot more of that than Harry did. He settled for shrugging and smiling when Portillo Lopez glanced at him for a response, and then Draco stepped forwards and filled the hole in the conversation so smoothly that Harry was convinced she didn’t notice.

Almost.

“What about the trainees who vanished with Nihil in the trap that Auror Ketchum set?” Draco flipped his hair behind his shoulder and considered the lists of ingredients and notes again with a frown. Harry nodded. That was a question he could have asked, and he should have asked it before Draco, he thought, since he understood so little otherwise. But at least it was asked, and for the first time Portillo Lopez frowned.

“I do not know,” she said. “No one knows. Efforts have been made to locate them, but without success. Some of them are well-known, at least to their families, and they are young; they should not be able to hide in such secrecy. But it seems that no one has found or seen them.”

Draco glanced at Harry, with an expression that said they would be looking into this on their own later. Harry nodded.

“Catherine Arrowshot?” Draco asked. “We trusted her, and then she vanished with the rest of them, so we’re especially interested in her fate.”

Portillo Lopez gave a small, grim smile. “Yes,” she said. “The mysterious Miss Arrowshot, in whose rooms incriminating documents were found.”

“What?” Harry breathed. He had thought it was strange that Arrowshot would put herself forwards to both of them if she was really supporting Nihil, because it would be much more sensible to stay quiet and unnoticed, part of his army instead of their special friend. He’d hoped she was just kidnapped. But it sounded more and more like they’d been fools to trust her.

“More lists of names, of the kind that we found in Gregory’s possession,” said Portillo Lopez quietly. She turned the jade bracelet on her wrist and looked at both of them as if she wanted to make sure that they still bore the glamours that would hide their own bracelets. “Some unknown to us, but pointing to the larger wizarding world outside the Ministry. And what looked like a confession from a friend of hers.”

“She told us about that friend,” said Harry, stunned to realize that he was the only one who remembered that. Draco simply blinked and looked blank. “Manders. She said that she’d been one of Gregory’s trainees and she was working to clear her from suspicion.”

“Of course she would say such a thing,” Portillo Lopez murmured, voice rich with scorn, “if she was seeking to divert suspicion from herself.”

“Was Manders suspected?” Harry asked.

“Yes, as all of Gregory’s trainees were,” Portillo Lopez said impatiently. “There was no sign that she was treated especially badly, and now that she has left the program, it is harder for us to be sure of her motivations. She should have stayed and borne the brunt of the attacks aimed at her if she was innocent. Others have suffered worse.”

Harry grimaced. That reminded him of what some of his primary school teachers had said about Dudley and his bullying. Somehow, it always came down to Harry’s strength instead of Dudley’s stupidity and cowardice.

“Well,” Harry said, “why should we trust what we found in Arrowshot’s rooms? She acted like she was straightforward with us, and it would have been stupid to fix our attention on her when she could have stayed in the background. It was stupid to reveal where the meeting with Nihil’s trainees was, too. Maybe someone planted the documents to implicate her.”

“The answer to that one is obvious.” Portillo Lopez was looking at Harry with the expression he was used to seeing on her face in class. “She brought you to the meeting thinking you would be killed or recruited.”

“But if she was Nihil’s trusted servant,” Draco said, “then she would have known that we’d been infected already and fought it off. Can someone get the infection twice?”

“I have not yet discovered evidence of that one way or the other.” Portillo Lopez looked ready to crack in half from indignation.

Harry rolled his eyes as she went on. “And you forget that, although she was one of Nihil’s servants, that means little. He seems to trust no one close to him. He used the false Death Eaters as nothing more than receptacles for grief magic. There is no reason that he should have told her about two of his more embarrassing failures.”

“One thing bothers me,” Harry said, pushing ahead in spite of the disapproving way Portillo Lopez looked at him.

“Only one?” Draco muttered.

Harry pressed a hand into the small of his back out of Portillo Lopez’s sight, hoping that would shut him up. “Why do we trust the evidence that Nihil leaves behind at all? He’s a liar. How do we know that all the people who supposedly were corrupted were? Why have only twenty trainees at that meeting instead of his whole army? Was there anyone at the meeting who didn’t have their names on the lists? I just wonder if all these clues are too convenient, and we’re being led along a blind path.”

“What else do you suggest we trust?” Portillo Lopez lifted a hand when Harry tried to protest. “No, Trainee Potter. Your suspicions are well-founded, but we have nothing—” she laughed bitterly, probably at the pun “—if we do not trust at least some of these. We must proceed cautiously. We must also ask what the point is of leaving so much evidence if none of it is true. It is easier to think that he is careless sometimes than that he is omniscient enough to anticipate all our reactions. If that is so, then we have already lost.”

“I don’t think he’s omniscient,” Harry said. He hoped he’d said that right. No one was quite as skilled as Portillo Lopez was at giving him glances that made him feel stupid, not even Dearborn. “I just think that he wants to sow distrust between us. If we go around suspecting everyone and not attempting to recruit or persuade or convert anyone whose name is on one of those lists, then we’re leaving people vulnerable and making people bitter and making them run away like you said Manders ran away from the program. It’s the same thing that happened with some of the Death Eaters. People decided they were evil before they did a thing, sometimes just because they were in Slytherin, and that made them decide they might as well do things like use Dark Arts and torture people.”

He spoke without thought, remembering the images that Snape had shown him of his memories. He still thought his mother had been right to reject Snape—he didn’t seem to see anything wrong with killing people like her—but his father and Sirius were a different matter.

“Well said, Harry,” Draco murmured, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Yes. I wonder if, after all, Nihil is as powerful as he would like us to think.”

“That is a matter for the instructors to consider,” Portillo Lopez tried to interrupt.

Draco held up his wrist, though Harry had to choke back a smile. He didn’t think the shimmer of the glamour around his arm was as impressive as the sight of a jade bracelet would have been. Sometimes, Draco seemed to forget that the bracelet wasn’t visible.

But Draco’s voice was implacable, and made up for any disappointment in the glamour.

“Harry and I are part of this Fellowship, too,” he said. “I think you should consider us when you make decisions.”

Portillo Lopez puffed herself up until Harry thought she would snap at them, and he rather dreaded what effect that would have on Draco. He didn’t really want front seats on another row when he’d ended the one he was having with Ron not that long ago.

Instead, though, she examined them for a few moments and then nodded. “I am not used to thinking of students as equals,” she said. “But I must admit that it would be for the best in this case. What Nihil sees to want in you, I still do not know. After all, the first attack happened before anyone knew about your compatible magic.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Yet the fact remains that you are involved and likely to stay so. Remind me if I forget again to treat you as fully equal partners.”

She turned away, and Harry closed his mouth on his gape. Draco seemed to do the same on a crow of triumph, and they smiled at each other while Portillo Lopez’s back was turned.

Perhaps she isn’t so bad after all, Harry thought hopefully.

Of course, then she made them brew Blood-Replenishing Potion for two hours, which went a long way towards changing his mind.

*

“Why did you hurt Harry?”

It wasn’t the question that Draco had intended to let burst out of him. He had thought he would go into his next meeting with Dearborn calm and collected, letting his resentment burn inside him and act as an invisible influence on his actions only, another caution against trusting his “mentor” completely.

But the moment he stepped into the private room they used for his training and saw Dearborn turn to meet him with that faint smile, as if nothing had changed, the anger flooded through him and demanded an answer.

“Hurt him?” Dearborn shook his head as he raised a smoky grey shield of a type that Draco didn’t know. “A tripping jinx is hardly that. I did not know that he would fall so badly and bruise his arm. We shall have to train him how to fall,” he added with a small frown. “It may not wait until next year.”

“You threatened him,” Draco said. He had begun as he had to go on, so he kept his voice low and threatening and didn’t move from his place by the door even when Dearborn gestured at him in welcome. Nor did he return the smile. “I want to know why.”

Dearborn sighed and leaned against the wall. More flicks of his wand raised glittering icicles that Draco studied with reluctant interest. The icicles began to spin around each other, blending together into spiky, icy figures.

“I am worried,” Dearborn said quietly, “by Nihil. We all are, of course, but my worry is rather more personal than corruption in the Ministry, or even what the loss of our trainees must do to the reputation of the Auror program in the eyes of the public. Nihil is practicing magic so Dark, and succeeding so well, that he could throw the Wizengamot into panic. They might declare even more magic Dark than already is. It’s happened in the past.” He glanced over at Draco with haunted eyes, and Draco remembered how careful he’d been during their first term to give them the history of why certain spells were declared illegal, and how often that depended on simple whim or misguided fear.

“I have spent my life,” Dearborn continued, his voice passionate, rising, “trying to make sure that the Dark Arts were not always considered forbidden, that someone could practice them and still be considered a good person. But all my work will be lost if Nihil succeeds.”

Draco gave a slow nod. Yes, he could understand that. He knew Dearborn’s passion partially came from the class he taught. He’d complained before that he wanted to teach certain spells as offensive and defensive magic, which they were, but the Ministry had stupid laws preventing him from doing so.

“That doesn’t give you the right to take out your temper on Harry,” he pointed out.

Dearborn snapped his head around. “If he knows something that I would need to defeat Nihil and doesn’t tell it to me,” he snapped, “then it does.”

Draco fell quiet and said no more about it, attending closely to Dearborn’s lessons about conjuring ice warriors and time-swallowing shields, but he decided that he would remember this. Why did Dearborn think that the responsibility of defeating Nihil fell on his shoulders alone?

Another question to join the endless procession of questions that it seemed he and Harry were always asking.

*

“I don’t like Malfoy.”

Harry sighed and picked at his sandwich. The crusts were dry and the bread was soggy, both at once. The only thing that the sandwich was good for was making him smile as he thought about how horrified the house-elves at Hogwarts would be if they saw it. “I know you don’t, Ron. That doesn’t matter, as long as you can work with him.”

“You’re always disappearing on your own.” Ron leaned across the table. “They took you out of my rooms, for fuck’s sake. How are we supposed to work with him if we never see you?”

Harry looked up, and saw from the way Ron’s brows pulled together and his eyes flashed that this confrontation had been a long time in coming. This was the serious one, the big one, and not a whinging session.

He pushed his sandwich back and stood up. “Do you want to go to your rooms?” he asked. “I have nothing to do right now, and I think we should talk about this in private.”

Ron darted his eyes around and seemed to realize just how many curious people were staring at them. He flushed and nodded. “Yeah, all right,” he muttered, as he picked up his tray to take back over to the other side of the dining hall.

They walked back to Ron’s room in silence—at least from them. The people around them muttered and whispered and collected in small groups and broke apart from each other to hurry down the corridors when they saw Harry and Ron approaching. Harry saw more staring eyes than he actually had when Nihil was attacking.

Harry snorted. Of course that would happen. Portillo Lopez seemed to be right—Nihil’s influence had pulled back from the Ministry, and there hadn’t been any attacks now for nearly a fortnight. So people had decided that meant he was hatching a new and more sinister plan, and some of them in particular had decided that Harry and Draco had something to do with that sinister plan, since they had been the targets of the first few.

Harry’s hand tightened on his wand. He couldn’t do anything about the stupid things people thought. That had been a truth he struggled to accept in the last year since the end of Voldemort. As long as people kept those stupid things to thoughts in their heads and the occasional malicious whisper, then he wouldn’t try to interfere.

If someone tried to hex him or Draco, he wasn’t going to stand for it.

This is what Draco’s done for me, he thought, as he held the door of the room open for Ron. I would have felt guilty about thinking that, before. I would have made up all sorts of reasons and excuses in my head why someone might just be frightened and cast a hex before they thought about it.

Now I think that I have a right to be respected, as much as anyone else, and I don’t have to save people from themselves, because I think Draco has a right to be respected, and I don’t want him hurt by watching me get hurt.

Harry smiled as he flopped back in a chair and waited for Ron to sit down, too. That was—wonderful. He knew some people thought caring about other people made you weak, because you could be hurt. It was like having a heart outside your body.

But having a heart outside your body made you twice as strong, too. Harry wondered why the people who said it made you weak never saw that.

“I don’t like him,” Ron said when he’d sat down, jerking Harry rudely back from his thoughts about Draco to thoughts that were not about Draco. “I don’t trust him, and I don’t think that you should, either.”

Harry blinked, and then shrugged. “I told you,” he said. “If you don’t like or trust him, then that doesn’t matter, as long as—”

“But I can’t work with him unless I like or trust him!” Ron’s voice was getting louder, and Harry was doubly glad that they’d left the dining hall. “And Hermione thinks the same way. And that doesn’t answer the question of why you like or trust him.”

“Why do you like me?” Harry asked. “Why do you love Hermione?”

“Well—because I do,” Ron said, sounding baffled. “We’ve fought together and we joke together and you’re my best mate. And Hermione…” His face was red with something other than anger now, and he stared at his lap while he muttered something that Harry didn’t think he’d been meant to hear.

“It’s hard for you to explain,” Harry said. “Well, it’s hard for me to explain about Draco. We have compatible magic and we get along a lot and we’ve told each other secrets and we’ve faced danger together. It’s not the same kind of friendship you and I have—” he choked a little as he thought about the kiss in the corridor, and the way they’d danced around each other since then “—but it has a few of the same things about it.”

“We neglected you,” Ron said earnestly. “We should have thought more about you, and we drove you to Malfoy.”

We, Harry thought in envy. He thinks of himself and Hermione as we so easily. He didn’t know if he could ever do that, because there was nothing easy about his relationship with Draco.

Sometimes he thought there would be. And then he remembered that he’d thought his relationship with Ginny was easy at one point, too.

Harry shook his head. There was no way that he could decide what he felt about Draco as far as sex went on his own, and he was not about to confess that to Ron.

“Maybe that had something to do with it,” he said, because he thought that he wouldn’t have needed Draco’s friendship as much if Ron was acting less like a prick. “But there’s still the compatible magic. And I think the instructors would have made us partners no matter what. They think we’re too good at fighting together.”

“You haven’t been so good at it lately in Defensive and Offensive.”

Ron looked so hopeful that Harry had to smile. “Yes, but no one has been,” he said. “If anything, Draco and I are just so good together that we think about protecting each other first and everyone else second. So I don’t think the instructors are going to decide that we shouldn’t be partners anymore.”

Ron sighed. “I don’t like trusting him just because you do,” he said. “I’ve never asked you to do anything like that.”

Harry shook his head. “No, you haven’t.” Of course, he wanted to say, the situation had never come up because of how close they’d been all through school, and because Harry hadn’t really got close to or stayed with Cho the way he had with Draco, and because Ron and Hermione had approved of Ginny so much. And Ron hadn’t tried to make someone else part of their tight little friendship, either.

But since he had started dating Hermione, there was no one close left for Harry to bring into things unless he wanted to try dating another Weasley.

The thought made him shudder.

“So why should you ask me to do something like that now?” Ron asked, leaning forwards with his chin on one fist and staring at Harry.

“Because we’re not in school anymore,” Harry said. “And Draco is important to me.”

Ron gave a little shudder of his own. “You say his name like you’re in love with him.”

Harry bit his lip, hard, so that his mouth wouldn’t fall open. It sounded as though Ron knew more about his feelings than he did himself.

No, he doesn’t, he decided a minute later. I might speak Draco’s name that way, but I don’t know what I feel, and I don’t know what I can give him. My voice might lie.

“Maybe I could be,” Harry did say, because he was curious what Ron’s response would be.

Ron reared back, coiling in the corner of his chair as though he wanted it to rise up and carry him away from some imminent danger. “Don’t do that again,” he whispered, sounding as if he were pleading. “Harry, don’t give me a jolt like that. I swear I felt my heart stop.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who gave yourself the idea in the first place,” he said. “I’m not asking you to approve of everything I feel for him, Ron. Just to tolerate him a little and learn to put up with him.”

Ron sighed, which made Harry tense, but the sigh continued so long that he realized it wasn’t angry. Instead, this was Ron’s resigned sigh, the one he used to give before they walked into Potions and he realized there was no way to put off the class for five minutes more. “He’s here to stay, isn’t he?” Ron asked.

“At least for a long time,” Harry said calmly.

Ron sighed again, and nodded. Harry knew that he would at least try to put up with Draco, for his sake.

He reached out, covered his friend’s hand with his own, and smiled.

*

Someone knocked on their door just when Harry was yawning and letting his head slump into his arms. Draco glanced up curiously. He could hear Timmons and Redworth arguing quietly with whoever it was, probably because it was after nine at night and the trainees were “officially” supposed to go to bed not much later.

Finally, the door opened and Timmons thrust her head in. Draco might have thought her a beautiful woman before he found Harry, but right now she simply looked harassed.

“There’s two women here, one in some kind of floating chair,” she said. “They said you told them to come. What’s this about?” She looked as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted the visitors to be intruding, so she could see them off, or to be telling the truth, so that she could scold Draco.

Draco knew instantly who it must be: Pollian Kepler and her crippled sister Joanna. The one who had wanted to meet with Harry because she thought he was the center of the war and it would all be worth it, somehow, if she could meet him.

The one he hadn’t told Harry about.

He stood up immediately and said, “They must come in, of course. They’re here to meet Harry.” He turned around and stared at Harry, who was looking up with a startled, sleepy expression.

“Who?” he asked.

Draco explained in a low voice as Timmons gave a great, put-upon sigh and pulled her head back to call to the Kepler sisters. “Kepler said that she would get us some Veritaserum if you met with her sister. But it was going to take her at least a fortnight to bring her here, and I forgot to tell you about it, and—”

“Draco. It’s fine.”

Draco shut his mouth. Harry pressed his hand and began to rise to his feet, a weary but resigned look in his eyes.

“I’ve done harder things, and for less important reasons,” he told Draco as he walked past him to the door.

No matter what he thinks, Draco decided, in the stunned moment before he followed, he is a hero.

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

Comments

[elgraves.livejournal.com]

There are so many different clues, I feel like I should of figured it out by now, but I am not even close. I am hopelessly in the dark. I am looking forward to Ron, Granger, Draco and Harry working together.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, it's meant to be confusing to figure out. But they are going to receive an important clue in Chapter 40.

[groolover.livejournal.com]

I've just realised that I don't seem to recall any uses of their compatible magic for a while - is that deliberate or has it just all happened offstage?

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

At the moment, they're working on things in their cases that either don't allow much compatible magic (like unarmed combat or treating wounds) or they're deliberately being encouraged not to use it (by Dearborn, who wants them to learn how to fight next to other people).

[groolover.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.

[daftfear.livejournal.com]

Oh wonderful chapter! I think Harry and Ron need to work a few things out still O_O and Ron needs to relax a little about Draco. Harry wouldn't trust him for no reason. There is only one person that Harry has been consistently wrong about (I think) and that was Snape. But he wasn't terribly stubborn in keeping those thoughts once given proof against them. Ron needs to finish growing up, I think.

:) I really love this story. <3

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

It would help if Harry and Ron had a long conversation. But Ron is unlikely to get the thing he wants most: Draco simply departing and never coming back.

Ron is a bit "younger" than Harry here.

[aubergineautumn.livejournal.com]

Ron's a twit.

[ravenqueen55.livejournal.com]

LOL! That cracked me up!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

*snort*

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, Ron. It's like he managed to forget that Harry's a capable adult too, with the right to a correct opinion. He'll get over it, eventually...I hope. Sometimes, I feel like Hermione and Ron have no respect for Harry, even if they admire some of what he's accomplished/pulled off.

Draco being protective was cute. And forgetting to tell Harry, who hateshateshates using his fame, seems like it will bite him in the butt in the future.

Can't wait to see what develops with all the instructors and missing trainess. Have to ask: will you begin posting the 2nd story in this trilogy as soon as this one ends, or will you be taking a break?

Can't wait for the next update.
-Jolene

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Yes, he will. It's just taking him a little while because it's Draco. If it was someone else Harry wanted to associate with, he would still be a bit uneasy and jealous, but nothing like this.

There will be a break of a week or so, probably. But then the second story will go up.

[jtsbbsps-dk.livejournal.com]

AW! *melts* That last line is PERFECT!

*flails*

Fantastic!

And oh, the talk with Ron... damn... there'll need to be A LOT of progress on his part if he's EVER to accept Draco as Harry's lover!

And I ADORE how Harry reflected on how Draco's changed him for the better - utterly brilliant! <33 I remember how exasperated I was with Harry in the early chapters and he has REALLY matured! :D

And Lopez is the awesome! As is this chapter!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

At the moment, this might be one reason that Harry has a big subconscious block against thinking of Draco as his lover.

Harry has grown a lot because of Draco's help. It's one reason that he cares for him so much.

[ravenqueen55.livejournal.com]

Favourite lines:

“Only one?” Draco muttered. Have you ever seen the movie 'Clue'? It is one of my favourite movies of all time, and this line reminded me of a scene in it, which made me smile and chuckle! (And, also, I agree with Draco - it's all so confusing!!!)

But since he had started dating Hermione, there was no one close left for Harry to bring into things unless he wanted to try dating another Weasley.

The thought made him shudder. Me, too!

And, of course, that last line - just beautiful!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I have seen the movie, but didn't remember that particular line.

[penkitten23.livejournal.com]

I had a bad feeling before and I still do ... this whole sister thing seems fishy ...

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Not everything is! But Harry is going to get a specific lesson out of that.

[neji-chan.livejournal.com]

Who to trust… and the time will come, perhaps, when the problem will also be who to distrust. That was an issue with Voldemort, now it’s even worse. Nihil is so much smarter! That’s scarier than whatever amount of power he may or not have.

I won’t even try to guess what Nihil is planning, it’ll just give me a headache :P Same with Dearborn… he does something that makes me distrust him, then he goes and says something that makes me think twice about it.

I love how Draco knows when it’s best to shut up and pretend he either doesn’t care or didn’t pay attention and will soon forget about it, when he won’t.

We, Harry thought in envy. He thinks of himself and Hermione as we so easily. He didn’t know if he could ever do that, because there was nothing easy about his relationship with Draco.

That’s quite pessimistic. Though, I don’t think Ron and Hermione’s relationship is as easy as Harry thinks. And I actually thought that ‘we’ came easily because of all the years of friendship, that it was the same ‘we’ Harry would use when referring to Ron and Hermione.

Ron sighed again, and nodded. Harry knew that he would at least try to put up with Draco, for his sake.

Well, at least Ron will try. I’m looking forward to their next meeting, and next chapter. I hope Harry isn’t mad at Draco.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Yes. At least you could always check and see if there was a Dark Mark on someone's arm. Voldemort was predictable (and stupid) that way. That assurance doesn't exist with Nihil, unless you can get Portillo Lopez to check someone's magical core.

Nihil's plans will become more visible in the next few chapters.

I think Harry does realize that the "we" comes from the years of friendship. The problem is, he wants that ease with Draco at once, instead of realizing that they've only been together for a few prickly months.

Harry isn't. Because he can help someone, at least. He would be if Draco had kept a different kind of secret.

[callistianstar.livejournal.com]

I can't say I mind if Ron pushes Harry towards Draco, or helps Harry clarify his feelings for Draco, though I hardly like that he is being so egocentric (though that is just Ron for you), believing that his actions pushed Harry away (as if he were that powerful) and it would have never happened with time naturally. Great job.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I can understand the annoyance, but keep in mind that Ron hasn't actually witnessed any of Draco's better behavior; he just sees the irritating aspects of it. It's hard to take someone seriously when they seem to be the same as ever.

[yanagi-wa.livejournal.com]

Another great chapter. I just can't seem to make sense of all the clues.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!