[one-shots]: Another Country, 3/4, R

[lomonaaeren]

This is part three of four.



“I am honored to have been called upon, Mrs. Malfoy.”

Draco was already impressed. Blaise had recommended this maker of artificial limbs, Madame Anna Ivanovna Ranevskaya, but he’d never actually needed her services. Draco had been prepared for someone who would exhibit discomfort around his mother the way the Healers in hospital had experienced it, and look away from her and at him with an appealing expression, and talk far too much about money.

If Madame Ranevskaya had ever thought about money in her life, or been in a place grand enough to intimidate her, it didn’t show. She was a small, neat woman with perfectly quiet manners. Other than a nod when she came in, she hadn’t once glanced at Draco. All her attention was for her mother.

Of course, that attention was somewhat overwhelming—Madame Ranevskaya had piercing dark eyes and an air so sharp that Draco could imagine his father faltering before her—and so Narcissa’s answers weren’t quite as assured.

“In silver, you said.” Madame Ranevskaya waved her wand, and a quill scribbled instructions out on parchment. She looked back at Narcissa and considered, her head on one side. “Is it to be the exact model of the other? Of course it must be symmetrical, but there are many ways to achieve that. The same muscles? The same length? To join at the shoulder? To come down the same distance?”

Narcissa said, “Yes, in silver. I…” She turned and looked at Draco, as if he would have all the answers to questions that he had not considered in detail.

Draco raised his eyebrows back and leaned against the wall, though he wasn’t crass enough to put his hands in his pockets or shrug. He wanted his mother to make these decisions. The long-term effects of being in hospital could cripple people if they started relying too much on others. Draco wanted his mother to stand up on her own. She needed to take command of her own life once again.

She’ll always live with one arm gone, now. Best that she accept that.

“I…” Narcissa faltered and blinked, but turned away from him to face Madame Ranevskaya again. “Yes, I want silver,” she said, as if she was using the words to give her some small space of time to consider her next ones. If Madame Ranevskaya suspected the same thing, she showed no sign of it on her smooth, calm face. “And it must look like the other.” Suddenly Narcissa lifted her chin, and the spark Draco had known and loved in his mother from his earliest childhood was back in her eyes. “It would be foolish to pretend that I was unchanged. I shall dare people to stare, and the stares to hold something besides approval.”

“Very good, my lady.” Madame Ranevskaya nodded with a touch more approval than Draco had seen from her so far, though Draco wondered the next moment if he was imagining it; she was so very good at controlling her emotions. “To join at the shoulder?”

“Yes, to look exactly like the other.” Narcissa turned her head and looked directly at the wound for the first time, or so Draco thought. He was sure that she hadn’t given it that much of a narrow-eyed glare before, as if it were a spoiled pet that had a propensity for getting lost in her robes. “Although more beautiful.”

“Metal can match living skin and muscle when it tries.” Madame Ranevskaya waved her wand again, and the parchment snapped into a single roll and skimmed back to her. She caught it and tucked it, and the quill, away. Then she stood in silence with her lips moving for a moment, so utterly unselfconscious that Draco felt unable to mock her as he could have, and nodded. “Like this?” she asked, swirling her wand before her.

A trail of sparks became a floating, transparent, turning model of a silver arm. Draco caught his breath. If it was a little more solid, he would have taken it for the real thing. It was lovely, and when Narcissa advanced and held up her own real arm next to it, there wasn’t a hair of difference except the color and the transparency.

“That’s perfect,” his mother whispered. “Does it exist yet?”

“Not yet,” Madame Ranevskaya said, assured as before. “In three days, it will. I need time to cast and forge the pure metal.”

Of course she does, Draco thought. I needed time to reforge my pride, too, and my mother needed time to prepare herself for this. We can’t fault an artist.

His mother seemed to think the same thing. “Take all the time you need,” she said, with a gracious smile, the smile she had used before the attack. “I would rather have something strong and beautiful than something early.”

Madame Ranevskaya dipped a small curtsey. “You shall have something that is both, my lady, by all the power that I carry in my hands.”

His mother nodded back to her, and then Madame Ranevskaya stood and strode out of the room. Narcissa turned around with a stretch of her arm that Draco remembered her giving in the past when some troublesome duty had been well attended to. Her empty shoulder rose and fell at the same moment.

That was a good sign, Draco thought, though his mother flushed in the next moment. Her original arm was gone, but she would wear a new limb there. He didn’t want her to become used to such unnatural gestures as the Healers had recommended, such as keeping the shoulder swaddled at all times and the sleeve pinned shut.

Perhaps other witches and wizards would have to do that, and the Healers had recommended those measures with the best faith in their efficacy. (Though Draco rather doubted that last part). But Draco’s family had money, and they intended to use it.

“Was Father pleased to see you?” Draco asked, as he escorted his mother to the door of her room.

“Oh, yes.” His mother’s flush faded, and the look that Draco loved but rarely got to see, the gentle love she wore towards Lucius, bloomed there. Narcissa looked at the far wall and hummed beneath her breath.

Then she seemed to remember she had an audience and veiled the love again. “You know what I mean to him,” she added.

“And to me.” Draco kissed her cheek.

His mother started to respond, but the air in front of them turned dark, then silver. Narcissa reached at once for her wand with her left hand. At least she had mastered that gesture early, Draco thought. “An intrusion into the wards?” she asked.

“Unless I am much mistaken,” Draco said, walking past her to fetch Potter, “these intruders have red hair and a common surname, in every sense of that word.”

*

Harry was glad that he had learned enough while he was in Auror training to recognize the signs of people trying to get through wards, although he didn’t get the specific warnings because he wasn’t tied to the Malfoy bloodline. He managed to get downstairs and to the front doors before Malfoy or his parents appeared.

Not that Harry thought Lucius Malfoy would be much of a problem. The man stood in the center of a glorious blue aura, at least to Harry’s eyes, behind a half-open door he passed, and tossed chopped pieces of frogs into a wooden bucket. More frogs croaked nervously in cages behind him. Lucius looked utterly focused. Harry had no idea what he was doing and no desire to know.

But Draco came striding down the center of the main entrance hall, the one he and Harry had crossed yesterday, with his head lifted and his eyes sparking with that molded pride he’d told Harry about. Harry’s main objective was to prevent that pride and Ron’s from clashing. Because of course Ron would be here, even if other members of his family also were. And probably Hermione.

Harry hoped that Hermione could help him restrain Ron.

He wasn’t counting on it.

“Listen,” he said to Malfoy, “I know it’s your house, but would you mind translating for me instead of sending them off right away?”

Malfoy gave him a single haughty look. Harry met it, and wondered how many people down the years had seen a look like that and simply backed away, without thinking about what might be behind it.

Merlin knew he might have done the same thing before yesterday, and the conversation they’d had that convinced him, at least, that Malfoy really had changed since they knew each other in Hogwarts.

When Harry stood up to that look instead of retreating before it, Malfoy gave him a thin smile and a cool nod. “I would be delighted to have you speak beside me,” he said, and opened the doors.

Harry stepped forwards and watched the wards dissolve in front of him like blood in water, barely hearing Malfoy whisper behind him, “After all, aren’t we trying to give you your own tongue again?”

It wasn’t just Ron and Hermione. Ginny peered anxiously over Ron’s shoulder, and Mrs. Weasley stood behind him, hands on her hips as if she imagined that she could scold Malfoy Manor into giving Harry up. Her eyes filled with tears when she saw him, and she hurried to him and caught him in a hug.

“Oh, Harry,” she whispered in his ear. “We were so worried.”

Harry caught his breath and nodded, patting her on the back. He smiled at Ron and Ginny at the same time, and looked at Hermione. Hermione gave him a resigned shrug, as if to say that she had tried but she couldn’t hold them back. Harry suspected that she hadn’t tried very hard. She might still distrust Malfoy herself, after all.

“I’m all right,” Harry said, and Malfoy spoke up next to him, translating. Mrs. Weasley immediately let Harry go and stepped back as if she’d been burned, staring at Malfoy.

“You speak Latin?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Malfoy said in English. “The Latin he speaks. He’s asked for my help.” He looked entirely too delighted with that, especially with the way he looked the Weasleys over, as if he were measuring their ability to stand up after he made that declaration.

Harry gripped his arm and shook his head at him warningly. Malfoy only smiled. “I think you should speak, Harry,” he said, raising his voice. “Too many people, even those who mean you well, haven’t heard your voice for too long.”

Harry blinked. He hadn’t realized how much he’d picked up the manners of silence, the ones that he had sometimes thought the Healers preferred him to have. But Malfoy was correct, so he faced his friends. Malfoy spoke after he did, voice so flat that he seemed willing himself to fade into the background.

That will never happen, Harry thought. Or at least it’ll never happen for me, not now.

“I know that you only wanted what was best. But I was going mad there. The Healers would have done me more damage than the curse could, in the end. The auras and the visions I see aren’t constant, and I can see through them. And it’s time to stop pretending that the language issue will ever change. I want to be with people who don’t treat me like a child.”

Ginny looked thoughtful as Malfoy spoke, but Ron only shook his head, eyes locked on Harry’s face as if he hoped he could stare him into thinking and feeling the same things that Ron did. “Don’t you see?” he whispered. “You are with someone who treats you like a child. I can see the smugness in every line of his face.”

“Why does he treat me like a child?” Harry asked. “Yes, Ron, I know you don’t like him, but that’s not what I mean.”

“He translates for you,” Ron answered in a revolted voice.

Harry clenched his fists. Ron’s revulsion was too much like what he had felt himself when he realized that he would need someone to either learn Latin or speak after him. Helpless, caged, held away from everyone around him. That was the period when the Healers’ insistence on him returning to his old self had seemed to make the most sense. Why would he insist on inconveniencing everyone by sticking to this odd, old language that the curse had imposed on him?

But he’d accepted the limits. If Ron loved him—and Harry was certain he did—then he could bloody well do the same thing.

“That’s necessary,” Harry said evenly. “I found someone who could speak Latin and who’s willing to help me.” Malfoy translated the inflection, too, and although Harry didn’t look at his face, he was certain that a trace of an amused sneer showed up there. “Yeah, I wish I could still speak English. But I don’t think that will ever happen again. Maybe someday I can learn French or something else, and then we can chatter away in that. But for now, a translator is the way it has to be.”

Malfoy translated that, and then turned his head to Harry and added softly in Latin, “The way it has to be?”

Harry smiled at him and shook his head. “Truth and a phrasing to calm Ron down at the same time,” he answered.

“Ah,” said Malfoy.

“How do we know that he isn’t twisting your words and saying the wrong thing?” Ron demanded. “It would be just like him.”

“Have you noticed that he doesn’t need to translate your words?” Harry snapped in irritation. “That’s because I can still understand English, even if I can’t speak it. I would notice right away if he was trying something like that.”

“Oh. Right.” Ron blinked and fell silent for a minute after the translation, as if he was trying to think up some new objection.

Hermione moved in with one. “Are you sure this is where you want to stay, Harry?” she asked quietly, eyes intent. “We’d be happy to have you at the Burrow, or at our flat if that’s too crowded for you.”

Harry tilted his head at Malfoy. “And would you be happy to have him?”

Hermione held up a book that Harry recognized as her Latin dictionary. “I could try again to learn it. I shouldn’t have given up so soon.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Harry agreed with a small smile. “But no, thank you, Hermione. I’m comfortable here for right now, and that’s enough.”

She considered him with narrowed eyes, and then said, “I’m still going to learn Latin.”

“Good,” Harry said. “It would be nice to have someone else to talk directly to.” He turned and looked back at Ron, wondering if he would make some other objection.

Ron had been staring back and forth from him to Malfoy in dismay, Harry saw. He didn’t know how long he’d been doing that, but it was evidently long enough for Ron’s jaw to progress more than halfway down his chest. At last he snapped it shut and said in a mournful voice, “Holy shite, I reckon you really are comfortable with him.”

“Ron!” Mrs. Weasley and Hermione said at the same time, in voices so similar that Harry grinned, although only Mrs. Weasley rapped her son on the back of the head and hissed, “Language!” at him.

“Yeah, he is,” said Ginny. “I saw that right away. I don’t know why it took the rest of you so long to catch up.” She gave Harry a bright smile, and Harry was reminded why he had liked to date her when he had. “Malfoy’s good for him. He was starting to look tired and defeated in hospital, remember? Everyone thought it was from the effort of fighting his curse, but it’s obviously more than that if he looks so much better already. It was probably the weight of the Healers’ disapproval and that silly little girl who didn’t have anything better to do than whinge about the failure of her Healing gift.”

Harry gave an exaggerated nod at Ginny, then said through Malfoy, “I didn’t expect you to accept it right away. But I do want you to accept it eventually. I’ve made my decision about where I’m happy and comfortable.”

It didn’t escape him that Malfoy laid a possessive hand on his shoulder when he spoke those last words. Harry leaned back into Malfoy’s touch and raised an eyebrow at his friends in response.

Ron chewed his lip and nodded so slowly that Harry thought some glaciers would have moved faster than his head. His voice seemed to take him longer to pull out of his throat, but he managed at last. “All right, mate. All right. If you’re really happy and he really treats you well.” He glared at Malfoy so hard that it seemed he wanted Malfoy to draw his wand and menace Harry right that minute, so he would have an excuse to attack him. “But when he doesn’t, I’ll hurt him.”

Harry stepped forwards and squeezed Ron’s hand, hard. He could hear Malfoy muttering about a lack of graciousness, but he knew his best friend better, and he knew that was as much as they could count on from Ron—and even then, only because Ron loved Harry more than he hated Malfoy.

“Thanks, mate,” he said.

Either Ron had learned that particular Latin phrase or he guessed the meaning, because he was shaking his head and muttering about how Harry would have done the same for him before Malfoy started translating.

With Ron won over, it didn’t take the rest of them long. Mrs. Weasley hugged him hard and promised him home-cooked meals; she either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Malfoy bristled about that, probably at the insult to his house-elves. Hermione made a final promise to learn Latin and stared into Malfoy’s face as if she could see the future of what he would do there. And Ginny gave Harry a grin and a glance at Malfoy that he knew well. She’d done the same thing when they were out sometimes and a handsome bloke had passed. Harry suspected, now, that she’d known about his declining interest in women before he did and was trying to come up with some way to signal it to him.

But that’s the thing about Ginny, he thought, as he hugged her and ignored Malfoy’s small retching noises. She has a big enough heart not to take things like me breaking up with her personally—at least when it wasn’t because of me cheating on her or something.

“Be as happy as you can,” Ginny said softly, stepping away from him. “When they first told us about your injury, I didn’t say anything, because it would sound insensitive—”

Harry had to grin. For Ginny, that was remarkably diplomatic.

“But, well, it didn’t sound so bad.” Ginny peered at him earnestly. “I mean, seeing auras and visions? Not what it could have been. And you can still understand English, so you’re still in touch with one half of the world.”

Harry nodded back. He understood what she meant, which was enough to make up for any insensitivity she might have shown. And he had felt pretty much the same way. He had less wrong with him than the Healers thought he had, and they would never be able to cure the most annoying things, so why not let him out of hospital?

Ginny tapped him on the arm, told him to take care, and walked away to Apparate with the rest. Harry watched them go until Malfoy tugged on his arm and said something imperious about being cold, which was ridiculous, since it was the middle of July.

But Harry wasn’t going to be argumentative. The confrontation with his friends had gone well. He followed Malfoy happily back into the house.

*

There were some things, Draco had once thought, too unusual to ever be bound into a matter of routine. They would distort the universe around them, rather than becoming harmonious elements in a pattern. The Dark Lord was like that, and the house arrest his father had suffered for two years after the war, and his mother’s injury. Certainly, Harry Potter coming to live in their house was part of the same order.

But time had proven him wrong on the first two, and it seemed determined to prove him wrong on the most recent occurrences, as well.

Madame Ranevskaya had come back with a silver arm, which was not quite the perfect model of his mother’s other one that she had promised. Narcissa had responded with an anger that Draco at first thought would drive the artificial limb-maker out of the house altogether, but in the end, both of the women appeared to like each other better for the cold pride they had in abundance. Draco never knew how he could step into a room that felt chill from all the repressed hostility and yet see them smiling at each other.

Once the limb was fastened on, his mother had to study how to control and move it and wield magic through it—which was much harder than it would be with an arm of flesh—and that occupied most of her time. Meanwhile, Lucius continued researching the blood magic that would enable him to wreak some horrible sort of vengeance on the Dark wizards who had hurt Narcissa. Draco was content not to know much about that. Seeing his father appear with scratches from the claws of animals he had vivisected or a long spray of brilliant red on his hands from a slit throat was enough to tell Draco that the magic would be powerful and his mother avenged.

And meanwhile, there was studying with Potter.

Or, as Draco was finding it increasingly hard not to call him, Harry.

He was much more interested in everything Draco proposed to study than Draco would have thought could be the case. In school, Potter was known as a daring adventurer, not an intellectual. If he studied at all, Draco thought it must be for exams, and that he would forget the information as soon as he had made a passing mark.

Here, he took to French and to the study of magical brain injuries with an impetuosity and breadth of understanding that stole Draco’s breath. He tried to tell himself that part of that was probably because the curse, as it had evolved in Potter’s brain, was based on wisdom and had increased his intelligence, but that didn’t account for the zeal.

Take that morning in the library during the second week, for instance.

*

Harry bowed his head over the book in front of him and squinted at it. His lips moved as he silently formed the French words to himself. He knew his pronunciation wasn’t perfect yet—Malfoy had said so—but he also knew that he intended to work until it was perfect. Malfoy could put that fault-finding faculty to work for once and correct his mistakes when he made them.

The words were strange, and Harry’s memory wasn’t any better than it had been, and so the things he memorized still tried to rebel and run away from him. But he could look at French words and see the way they had twisted off from Latin, or places they had changed and why and how they had changed. He hadn’t been able to do the same thing with English—not that he had ever seriously tried to learn another language when he was speaking English only, anyway. It gave him heart to keep working.

He put his finger on the page so that he could trace a line, and felt an immediate disapproving stare. Harry rolled his eyes. Malfoy seemed to feel that Harry should read without any help at all, as though he had been born with a book in his hands.

That wasn’t the way that Harry wanted to read, so he didn’t. And Malfoy could correct him and help him, but that didn’t mean that Harry would take everything he had to say with equal seriousness.

“Say the word that you’re learning now to me,” Malfoy said, his voice not an interruption but a whisper that seemed to blend with the information tumbling through Harry’s head like an acrobatic set of butterflies.

“Livres,” Harry said at once. He didn’t care if it wasn’t right. It was vibrating in his head and on the tip of his tongue, and the encouragement made it easy to say it.

Malfoy didn’t respond for some time more. Harry went on reading, and repeating words softly to himself, and tracing the page with his finger when he needed to. Who cared what Malfoy thought, anyway?

Finally, though, the silence from the other side of the table became so thick that Harry sat back and cocked his head at Malfoy. “You don’t like me learning so fast?” he asked.

Malfoy shook his head, a faintly dazed expression on his face. Harry thought it made him come as close as he ever did to looking sweet. “That’s not it,” he said. “You pronounced that word perfectly.”

Harry would have smiled, except that Malfoy’s voice was too stunned to be flattering. “You expect me to fail all the time, don’t you?” he asked. “You don’t trust me much or have much faith in my intelligence.” He wanted to slam the book and storm away from the table, except that would hardly be mature.

“Determination can’t replace intelligence,” Malfoy said. “I know that you want to learn this, but that doesn’t mean you can.”

“And yet, you agreed to take on the burden of teaching me anyway.” Harry had remembered that himself in the pause between him speaking and Malfoy speaking, and it calmed him down a little. “You must have some faith in me, or you would never have agreed to do that. I don’t think you fight for hopeless causes very often.”

Malfoy’s lips finally lifted in a reluctant smile, and he nodded. “That is true,” he said. “I did not think you would repay my faith so soon.” He paused and eyed Harry.

Harry didn’t know how to respond. Yes, some things had shifted in the last fortnight, but they’d spent so much time in studying and so little time in life-changing conversations that Harry didn’t think he was a completely different person, or that Malfoy could see him as completely different.

“Er, right,” he said finally, and turned back to pick up the book of French words.

Malfoy reached out and closed a cool hand around Harry’s wrist. Harry looked at it with a withering glare, expecting Malfoy to immediately snatch it back, but Malfoy kept it there, and spoke in a tone as measured as a pulse, which meant that Harry had to look at him.

“Your accusation holds more truth than I wished to acknowledge,” Malfoy said quietly. “I shouldn’t have been surprised at your desire to learn and your mastery of basic concepts, even if I was surprised at the speed. Forgive me?”

Harry sat there, staring at him in surprise for a few minutes.

Malfoy Manor was—different from every place he’d ever been. Of course, that was easy to say when it was so luxurious, but it was more than that, Harry thought. Things seemed to happen at a slower pace inside its walls. People became statues, giving careful, considered responses, and Harry thought he’d even started speaking more formally since he came here. It was like the house was a museum and it transformed the people who inhabited it into works of art.

And it made small things seem strangely important. Harry didn’t think Malfoy was asking for forgiveness jokingly, even though it would have been a joking question at Hogwarts.

He said that his pride was important to him, that he’d made it so. I’ll probably get him angry if I don’t act like it’s important, too.

“Yes, I forgive you,” he said, and put his free hand over Malfoy’s wrist in turn. He didn’t know what to do with it once it was there, so he gave a little stroke with his fingers and pulled it back quickly, returning to his book with purpose this time.

Malfoy didn’t interrupt him again. Harry forgot him for a little while, too busy wrestling with the intricacies of French verbs in his head. But he glanced up when he thought the silence had gone on too long and found Malfoy watching him with his chin propped on one hand. He seemed to watch steadily, without blinking. Harry thought he could have leaned close and counted each pale eyelash, if he wanted to.

Why would I want to? Harry looked back at his book, and cursed the blush that crept up his cheeks.

*

Potter was stubborn. He plowed through books that had defeated him once a second time, and repeated things to himself until he understood them, and sometimes got up in the middle of the night to read. Draco finally told the house-elves, who wanted to slip sleeping potions into his tea, to leave him alone. Potter knew what he was doing, even if it was unconscious instead of the carefully realized plan that Draco would have made. If he needed to learn this fast, then Draco would leave him alone to do so.

Potter was observant, more observant than Draco would have given him credit for, though some of that might come from his training as an Auror. He noticed when Narcissa grimaced in pain one morning as her silver hand knocked over her cup, and cleaned up the mess with a single flick of his wand before the house-elves could even be summoned. He left Draco alone when he truly wanted to be alone, and Draco sometimes didn’t realize the delicacy until he looked up and found the room empty of one dark-haired wizard.

Potter was judgmental, but silent. Sometimes his eyes burned when he looked at Lucius, and Draco could imagine that he disliked the almost palpable reek of Dark magic that hung around his father. But Potter would always turn his head away and ask about another book, or, if they were at table and Lucius had walked through the room with blood on his hands and an expression of maniacal determination on his face, for Draco or Narcissa to signal the house-elves for more food. (He seemed to have a strange reluctance to signal the house-elves himself).

Potter was considerate. His friends came to visit him, and he made sure that he met them in another part of the house and that they kept their voices down. He never let any of them persuade him to leave or insult Draco and Draco’s family, at least that Draco could tell.

Potter was more handsome than Draco had reckoned as well, though he was almost sure that was the effect of the light in the Manor. No one could possibly look good in hospital.

And Potter was almost certainly incurable.

Draco wondered for a time how he could tell him, and then realized that he might not need to.

*

Harry squinted at the words on the page in front of him, which swam stubbornly, choked with a haze that made them blink in and out of his vision. He rubbed his eyes. He’d got enough sleep last night, so what was wrong with him?

“Potter.”

Harry glanced up and put his book aside. Malfoy was sitting on the chair beside him. As usual when Harry got involved in a book, he hadn’t heard anyone else enter the library. He nodded to Malfoy.

“What is it?” he asked. Usually the nod was a signal for the conversation to begin, and Malfoy wasn’t someone who often passed up that chance, but he stayed silent now and simply studied Harry intently.

“What do you think your odds of removing the curse from your brain are?” Malfoy asked. His voice was so neutral that Harry couldn’t tell which response he was searching for.

Also unusual, Harry thought, though in reality he knew that Malfoy had tried to avoid telling him everything. He didn’t want to blind Harry and make him jump to conclusions. He rubbed his jaw and considered acting more optimistic than he felt, but there was really no reason to do that.

“Small,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been concentrating on learning other languages and making sure that the auras and visions aren’t going to cause me any danger.”

“Why small?” When Malfoy wanted to, he could use nothing more than a tilt of his head and a tone of his voice to make you feel that anything you said was unnecessary, unless it was what he wanted to hear.

Harry tensed as he answered. He didn’t like his efforts to live with the curse being ignored. It felt too similar to what the Healers had done to him. “Because most magical brain injuries are a result of just one spell, not a combination of them, and most of the treatments have to remove them instantly to be effective. Or at least within an hour after the injury. And even then, the patients have a long and slow recovery process. I’ve had mine for almost two months,” he concluded, and his voice fell to a whisper in spite of himself. “I don’t think it’s going away.”

Malfoy nodded slowly. “And you’ll live with that?”

Harry glared at him. Sometimes he could understand why Malfoy seemed so reluctant to trust his words; they’d been enemies or indifferent to each other for a much longer time than they’d been trying to help each other. But this was getting old.

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t decided that,” he answered. “I don’t like it, but yes, I’ll live with it.” He turned away and glared at the book he’d been trying to read. The words were clear enough now, but they told him nothing new. The things he was saying to Malfoy were simple and true, and he wished that Malfoy would realize that, too. “It’s so much better than it could have been,” he muttered.

“I thought you would come to this conclusion,” Malfoy said, rising to his feet, “but I did not know how long it would take you to get over the wishes that things could be different. My mother went through that phase for weeks.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “I do wish that things could be different.”

Malfoy paused, his hands clenching into fists for some reason. “Then will you spend your time in useless whinging?”

Harry laughed. “Hardly. I’ll whinge, of course, but I’ll spend more time in research and practice with my new life. Haven’t I proved that sufficiently by now?” he added. “Maybe I’m mistaken, but it seems that you thought better of me when I first came here. As time passes, you keep acting surprised that I’m hopeful, and then suspicious that it won’t last.”

Malfoy tensed for a moment, then shook his head and sighed. “Forgive me,” he said, as he had when Harry accused him of doubting his intelligence. “I suspect that I saw you in the light of a victim when you were in hospital. Now you are rid of that burden, but the ones you still have to carry are heavy. Perhaps I think you will falter under them.”

Perhaps, Harry thought. He’ll still tell me a reason that’s likely instead of the real one. But he didn’t want to argue about it right now, especially since Malfoy had faced him and was waiting for his forgiveness.

“You’re forgiven,” Harry said. “And I’ve carried heavier burdens. I haven’t faltered under them.” His voice shook for a moment and he bit his tongue to stop it. The memory of walking to his death—what he thought would be his death—and confronting Voldemort still held more terror for him than the curse ever would.

“That was years ago,” Malfoy said, with a small wave of his hand. “Perhaps I thought you’d got out of the habit, or forgotten what it was like.”

Perhaps again. Harry fought to keep from rolling his eyes, which he suspected would be counterproductive. “I haven’t,” he said. “I did my duty once. I’ll do it now.”

“Even though there is no world asking for your duty?” Malfoy asked softly. “Even though you don’t owe it to anyone, and your friends would have been happy enough for you to stay in hospital and take the easy way out?”

Harry looked at him in incredulity. “I owe it to myself, Malfoy,” he said. “And you, since you’ve been good enough to take me to live in your house and offer me help. I take my debts as seriously as my burdens,” he added.

Malfoy went still then, and excused himself from the library a moment later. Harry rolled his eyes and picked up the book. He had assumed he would understand Malfoy better once he spent time in his presence. Obviously, that hadn’t worked.

*

After that conversation with Potter, Draco felt as though someone had taken off a thick torque that he was wearing to oblige his mother. He couldn’t have removed the burden himself without seeming rude, but it did so crush one’s shoulders and restrict one’s breathing.

Potter was not perfect—Draco doubted that someone perfect would have let himself be caught by the combined spells that created the curse in the first place—but that didn’t matter. He was willing to fight his part of the struggle. That would be enough.

And at dinner that night, when Draco’s mother made a small sound of discomfort and pulled at her new arm where it joined the shoulder, Potter asked, “Do you need some more exercise with that, Mrs. Malfoy?”

Draco was frozen in surprise for long moments before he could loosen his tongue and translate for Potter. From that way that Narcissa turned her head and glared at Potter, she had the idea of freezing him with her glare.

“What makes you think I do not get enough?” she asked, and her voice sang like ice crystals falling off the edge of the Manor’s roof in a high wind.

“Because you’re still so clumsy with it.” Draco felt his jaw drop open. How am I going to say that? Potter nodded to the center of the tablecloth, clean now but the site of a spill of salt earlier in the evening. “Besides, everyone can always use more exercise.” He smiled blandly at Narcissa and leaned back in his chair.

Draco wouldn’t have translated that for a thousand Galleons if he had the choice, but his mother’s eyes were piercing. He mumbled the words, at least until he remembered what his mother used to do to him when he mumbled, and would still say to him. He pulled himself upright and delivered the translation in as nearly firm a voice as Potter had spoken the original words.

Narcissa waited so long after that that Draco felt the temperature fall several degrees in the room. He managed not to shiver, if only because his mother would have considered that an overly theatrical gesture.

Finally, she said, “What could you do for me that I could not do for myself, or training with my husband?”

Potter bowed his head. “I was Auror-trained, ma’am. I can’t be an Auror anymore, but I retain the reflexes and the spells. And I know that you have trouble making the magic flow through your arm. Dueling someone who can fight like I do would improve your coordination of magic and silver.”

Amazing, Draco thought as he turned the Latin into English. If anyone else said that, it would have sounded arrogant. This time, it just sounds as if he’s making a statement of fact.

Draco thought it had something to do with the way that Potter kept his eyes fixed so intently on Narcissa, as if he was interested solely in her response and not the reaction she would have to his advertisement of skill and training. Potter was not invested in himself in the way that many people were. He didn’t like to be scorned, but he didn’t go around anticipating scorn and coming up with strategies to deflect it. It made him a challenge to be around.

Perhaps that sort of challenge is what my mother needs.

Narcissa waited so long that Draco’s uncertainty passed into certainty and then back out again. Then she inclined her head sharply. “I might as well try it,” she said.

Potter smiled and bowed his head. “I hoped you would say something of the sort, ma’am. Should we try for a dueling session tomorrow?”

Draco’s mother must have understood more Latin than he thought she did. She was nodding before he had translated the whole of the little speech. “Yes. There is a room on the second floor that would do perfectly. Have the house-elves or Draco show you to the way to it if you cannot find it.” She rose and swept through the door as though such a decision naturally meant the conclusion of the meal.

Potter rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. He had turned back to his plate to pick among the crumbs when he seemed to notice the way Draco looked at him for the first time. “What?” he asked defensively. “Should I not have done that?”

“I am surprised you did,” Draco said calmly. He had found that a calm tone worked best on Potter, who naturally bristled if someone seemed to doubt him now.

“Why?” Potter stabbed one particular crumb with much more viciousness than it deserved and carried it to his mouth. “Do you think I still can’t care for anyone but myself? That time’s past.”

Draco raised an eyebrow at the hardness in Potter’s voice. “I don’t know if there’s a time when you ever cared for anyone but yourself,” he said. “I sometimes think you would have been better for it.”

Potter shook his shaggy fringe out of his eyes and peered suspiciously at Draco.

“No,” Draco continued, “I am simply surprised because so few people can handle my mother well. There is a reason that she gets along with my father and I—people who have lived with her for years and whom she has, essentially, trained to her moods—and perhaps with the house-elves, insofar as one can call them beings one gets along with.” He delighted in the way Potter grimaced at that insinuation, and paused a moment to study the expression before he went on. “When you ventured to speak, I thought she would cut you down the way she has so many in the past. But you managed.”

“I think we’re somewhat alike,” Potter muttered, tugging at his fringe this time. Draco’s fingers itched to reach up and stop him. Must he always be touching himself that way?

Though I can think of one way in which watching him touch himself would give me great pleasure.

Draco sucked in a breath and lowered his eyes. His mind did spring impetuously about and leave him behind sometimes.

“I mean,” Potter continued, in the tone of someone who was only paying attention to his own thoughts and probably wouldn’t have noticed if Draco had written his in fire on the ceiling, “we both suffered from Dark magic that can’t be cured. We both wanted to be out of hospital, even though the Healers thought they were doing the best they could for us. We’re both inhabiting the same house. We both don’t have a hope of hiding what’s wrong with us.” He shrugged. “Why shouldn’t we try to help each other?”

“But you’re helping her,” Draco pointed out. “Not the other way around.”

Potter gave him an astonished glance. “Why do you think that matters?”

Draco shook his head slightly. He understood Potter much better than he had, but there were still things that could surprise him. Potter was probably incapable of understanding that not all acts of charity were mutual or desirable.

“Besides,” Potter added, and his smile was faint but present, “she’s going to help me, too. I want to retain my dueling skills. Perhaps I’ll be an Auror in France, perhaps I’ll set up as a private dueling instructor, but I need to make sure that I don’t lose some of the only training that I’ve received.”

Draco opened his mouth to snap that Potter had no need to go to France or be a dueling instructor if he didn’t want to, and then closed it, disconcerted. Of course Potter had that need, if he wanted to make his own living. There was no reason for Draco to think that he could stay in the Manor all his life.

There was no reason for him to feel devastated that Potter wouldn’t stay in the Manor.

“Something wrong?”

Draco looked up into Potter’s quizzical gaze and shook his head. How was he supposed to respond? There was apparently a feeling in him that he had not put there or nurtured with long and careful reading and self-cultivation. It had been years since that had happened.

“All right, then.” Potter turned away. “Will you show me the room your mother was talking about, so that I don’t have to subject myself to her withering sarcasm in the morning?” He shot Draco a teasing smile.

Draco nodded automatically and followed Potter away from the dining room, struggling with the feeling as he went. What the fuck did it mean?

Oh, a stupid question. He knew what it meant. Perhaps more to the point, could he allow it to grow?

*

“And are you really happy here, Harry? You can tell me, you know.”

Harry smiled at Hermione and came close to shaking his head, except that then she would think it was an answer to her question. They were strolling on the Manor’s grounds, almost beyond sight of the house (though not beyond sight of the albino peacocks that strutted across the gardens; Harry had to wonder whose idea that had been. Lucius Malfoy’s probably, so he could have animals around that he wouldn’t mind sacrificing at a moment’s notice). And Draco wasn’t with them, because Hermione had insisted on speaking to him alone.

That meant she could only ask yes-or-no questions, but she appeared determined to use the chance to interrogate him anyway.

“Just nod, Harry, please,” she said now, and Harry blinked, realizing that he had drifted away from the conversation into his own mind. “Or shake your head,” she added, as though she had suddenly realized a negative answer was possible. She leaned forwards to stare at him, practically holding her breath.

Harry nodded at her, and Hermione leaned back. “Are you going to try and go to another country after this?” she asked.

Harry hesitated, then shrugged. It was strange. He was taking steps that he thought ought to prepare him for the future when Draco was no longer by his side a hundred percent of the time, but somehow, he had trouble calling up pictures of that future. His imagination tended to fill with the cool corridors of Malfoy Manor instead and the comfortable bed in his room, which was making him appreciate sleep in a way he never had before.

And pictures of a certain man.

Harry knew that would come to nothing, though. It had to. He could find sanctuary with the Malfoys for a few months—and bloody strange sanctuary it was, too—but he couldn’t live forever in a house with someone who used Dark magic or someone who needed as much attention and care from him as violently as Narcissa Malfoy did. He never knew when he would say something that angered her. Similarly, she would nod approvingly at something else random he said and treat him kindly for the rest of the afternoon, and Harry would never know what made the difference between one thing and the next.

And Draco?

Harry sighed. Yes, he could see Draco in his future—he had begun to admit that to himself when he realized how acutely uncomfortable he was at meals that Draco missed, even if no one else was there, and when he noticed that he was relaxing each time Draco came into the library—but he couldn’t separate Draco from his family. It would be stupid of him to try.

“Are you unhappy after all?” Hermione had an uncomfortably keen eye for noticing things when she wanted to.

Harry drew himself up. He wasn’t going to be the means of making his best friends despise Draco. If Draco wanted to have that happen, he was quite capable of doing it himself.

“No,” he said. Hermione recognized that word, at least, because she smiled. Harry continued, watching her closely. She had been studying Latin; he wanted to see how close she was to being able to understand him if he spoke it. “I want to stay here, and I want to be able to see Draco every day.”

Hermione stared at him, then shut her eyes. “Can you repeat that?” she asked.

Harry did, more slowly. He watched Hermione’s lips moving through the words and felt an irritated spasm of longing for Draco. Yes, he had to respect other people’s limitations on understanding him just as they had to respect his, but with Draco it was so effortless.

You’re studying so that it will become effortless with other people, too, remember? At least the ones who understand French.

Harry rolled his shoulders in what he thought of as a shrug but which would probably be more ambivalent to someone else. He wanted to learn to speak French, yes. It would open a whole new world for him, yes. He couldn’t go through life with only one person understanding him easily, yes.

But sometimes he thought he would have liked to stay here and only speak to Draco and at least see what happened if that did.

Hermione gasped suddenly and made Harry look at her. She had actually fallen a step back from him, he saw, blinking. She pointed a finger at him and said, “I don’t know everything, but I know enough. You want Draco Malfoy?” Her voice broke on the last words with what Harry thought was incredulity.

“No!” Harry snapped. “To see Draco.” That verb was basic enough that Hermione ought to know it.

“Oh,” Hermione breathed. She was standing straight up again and looked much more relieved. “I’m sorry. But it sounded that way.”

Harry grunted, but said nothing in response. He was wondering if his denial of wanting Draco was that convincing after all.

“I just wanted to make sure,” Hermione went on, laying her hand soothingly on his arm. “We all want to make sure that you’re as happy as possible, Harry, since we did so little to help you when you were in hospital. You know that, don’t you?”

Harry wanted to say that they couldn’t have known he was that unhappy, but he didn’t really believe it himself. He settled for laying his hand over Hermione’s and giving her a wan smile.

“He’s been good for you,” Hermione whispered, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll tell that to anyone who asks.”

Too good for me, Harry thought, but that was not something he would have said to Hermione even if she could understand it.

*

The dueling sessions between Potter and his mother had been going on for more than a week when Draco came to watch them.

He had not done so before because he had thought that neither spectator would especially welcome his presence. His mother had her pride, no less cold and strong than Draco’s. If she made a mistake, she would not want him to witness it. And Potter must have strong memories of what had happened in Hogwarts when they watched each other at work or play.

But when he finally stepped into the room, he discovered something he never would have expected: they were both far too caught up in the contest to pay any attention to him.

The room Narcissa had chosen was an enormous one, with stone walls but bright tapestries and large fireplaces that kept out the chill. The floor was stone as well at bottom, but covered with a soft, magically reared growth of grass to provide some traction. Draco knew it had been used at various times as a garden, a conservatory, and a courting room where young couples could retire for a “romantic” moment away from their parents. He did not know if it had been used as a dueling room, but he would not be surprised. History had a way of coming true in Malfoy Manor.

Potter and his mother were spinning and chasing each other over the grass in the center of the room. Draco leaned a shoulder against the doorway and watched idly. Or, at least, he hoped it would look so to anyone who glanced at him.

In reality, observing two of the most important and interesting people in his life as they hit at each other with curse and countercurse could never be idle.

His mother favored the Dark Arts, of course, but she also favored a reserved economy of motion that made some of her spells look less impressive than they really were. It was only when a dark star uncurled in the air some distance from her or a trailing spark of white became a shadowy dragon with extended claws that one realized how skillful she was, how daring, how strong.

Potter’s fighting had no style at all that Draco could see. But he knew that Potter would never have survived as long as he had in the Aurors if he didn’t follow some rules. Draco sorted out the first chaos of the duel and forced himself to look again, trying to find patterns in the unexpected, in the sharp turns of wrist or the way that Potter’s feet scuffled and stamped across the grass, tearing up the blades.

A pretty mess he will leave for the elves to clean up, Draco thought, but his thoughts tore and frayed in front of the spectacle that awaited him.

And there it was, the guiding rule of his fighting. Potter fought defensively for the most part, leaping up in the air and rolling as much as he cast spells, trying to avoid magic that Draco knew he could have deflected. He never used the Dark Arts. His specialty was the shield. Once or twice, when Narcissa’s silver arm twitched and sent her spell awry, he could have hit her badly. He chose not to.

Draco would have despised someone who fought that way if the fighting was merely described to him. But watching the way Potter did it banished all the shades of contempt that could have touched the matter.

Potter moved subtly and imperceptible from defensive to offensive magic as soon as he thought he could do it. Draco would never have seen it had he not been watching, but Potter set up a pattern that Narcissa soon fell into: appearing to just counter every binding spell, and at the last moment spin aside from it or raise a shield in response. In reality, Draco knew, his lithe escapes proved that he had more energy than it appeared, more room to do as he liked. But in the heat of battle, it would be very difficult to convince oneself of that.

His mother did not try. Draco knew her temper. She had sometimes been led to say more than she thought wise or take actions that were risky because the excitement of the moment had baited her on. And now she began to aim binding spells more and more often at Potter’s left side, which he seemed to have designated his “weak” one.

No weakness involved, Draco thought, as he watched Potter’s chin come up and his eyes flash, his hair fly and his feet dance. Even a month in hospital could not deprive him of the skills he had learned, the natural grace of this waltz. He had been a fool to think it would. Shall I hope that my mother notices in time?

She did not. She overextended herself, lunging forwards to put a binding spell in place over Potter’s apparently slow, clumsy feet.

And Potter took her.

He shot his arm forwards, then pulled it back. The air in front of him hissed and then exploded, and when Draco had finished blinking away the white smoke that overwhelmed his vision, his mother was lying on the ground, tangled in a net that looked as if it had risen from the depths of the sea. It was woven of weed, or so it looked, and there were weights hanging off it that made it resemble a fishing net. Draco stared. He had never heard of a spell that conjured a net of that type, and he could not imagine the necessary incantation for it.

Potter panted, his eyes bright and his mouth slightly open, as if he realized how uncouth it would be to show more than that. Then he noticed Draco in the doorway, and nodded. He was unwinded. Draco shook his head in envy as Potter jogged forwards to stand over his mother. She had tried to stand up or untie the net, Draco saw. In response, the net clung closer around her, its weed gripping her skin in a wet manner that would irritate someone far more phlegmatic than Narcissa. Draco feared what would happen to Potter when she regained her balance.

Potter might not have noticed her mood. “Do you yield?” he asked, and they must have arranged the signal beforehand, because Narcissa showed no sign of not understanding. Instead, she lay still, a cool and considering expression on her face. Draco watched her eyes measure the distance between her feet and Potter.

If he had noticed, then someone else had, too. “Do try it,” Potter said, and the eagerness in his voice seemed to convince Narcissa it wouldn’t be a good idea. She dropped back with a slight huff and a nod of her head. Even that was restricted; the weed had wound itself firmly into her hair. Well, at least she would have house-elves to bathe and attend her later, Draco thought, biting his lip so that he could hold back a chuckle that would surely get him in trouble.

“Good.” Potter moved his wand, not speaking the incantation, and the weed net burst into clear, soundless fire, which broke away from the meshes like foam. Narcissa understandably lay still, but when Draco looked a few moments later, she had no trace of burns or ash on her. Potter had made the gesture impressive, but harmless. And he turned away with a faint trace of a smile on his lips that said he knew it, too.

“Draco?”

Draco glanced at him. Potter nodded.

“I wouldn’t have hurt her, you know,” he said. Narcissa had already regained her feet and was examining her flesh arm as if she thought it might be tarnished by the weed in a way that the silver wasn’t.

“I know that,” Draco answered in Latin. He knew his mother would be able to follow a bit of their conversation, but not everything, and that was his desire at the moment. “But I wondered about your humiliating her.”

Potter shrugged. “Not in any way that she wouldn’t have been humiliated in the first place by agreeing to a duel with me.”

The certainty in his voice made Draco look at him hard. “Do not assume you understand our pride that well,” he said.

“Well, not all the vagaries, certainly,” Potter said, and grinned. “But that doesn’t mean I’m entirely unfamiliar with it.”

“Tell me how you learned.” Draco moved closer to him. It seemed an uncomfortably important conversation at the moment, and they might have been the only ones in the room. Perhaps his mother had left. He could not glance over his shoulder to see, not for the moment it would take. Potter commanded his gaze.

“By watching you,” Potter said. His smile had finally faded, but he still examined Draco with a quiver to his lips that could become a smile. “Your pride is similar to hers. It demands honor, and acknowledgment, and no deliberate humiliation.”

“But we can be offended by slights that you find hard to understand.”

“Yes.” Potter cocked his head. “And there are many things I believe in that you find hard to understand. Respect for house-elves, or that blood purity really makes little difference. That it was necessary to die to save the world.” Draco blinked, but Potter had continued as though those words meant nothing more than the others did. “It doesn’t mean that those things need to make impassible barriers between us.”

Draco hooded his eyes at the mention of barriers. It was the same word Potter had used when talking of language and the way that his friends could not easily comprehend him now.

“Did you study to understand our pride only because of the language?” he asked quietly.

Potter raised an eyebrow and examined him attentively. Draco withstood the gaze, but it was harder than he would have thought it would be. After all, since he had embraced his own pride, he had cared little for what anyone outside the walls of Malfoy Manor thought.

“In the beginning? Yes,” Potter said, and his face was clear and reflective and amused. “Now? I don’t know.” He paused, then added, “I’m not sure what else you would want me to say. Isn’t that enough?”

Draco bowed his head slowly. His neck felt frozen; it was a battle to conquer it. Yes, he had to accept Potter’s answer because nothing else would have been honest, and he thought it best to accept honesty and honesty only from someone who was so different from himself.

Then why do I wish he could have said something different?

The thought trembled and mutated and changed the way that light on water did.

And who is to say that it might not be something different, in the future, when he has time to settle what he wants and appreciates? When he has learned French, and he is not as dependent on you as he once was?

It was Latin that brought him here. It is not necessarily Latin that will keep him.

Draco stepped back and smiled at Potter, who was watching him with the sort of transfixed stare Draco was sure he himself had been using for the last five minutes. Good. It was time that Potter should be in Draco’s position, and not have things all his own way.

“I look forwards to what other reasons you might find to stay,” he murmured, and left the room.

He noted on the way that his mother was watching them with a set expression, but that did not trouble him. She would find a way to express her displeasure if she felt it. He would bear it and live with it as he had borne it and lived with it many times before. And he did not think that Potter would regard it at all—at least not if it stood in the way of true happiness.

Draco paused at the top of the staircase that led up to his rooms and laughed aloud when he realized what he was thinking.

True happiness? Yes, perhaps I might find that.

He did not know that, not for certain. But he knew that his heat beat like wings when Potter was near, and he was determined that that beat should not go unanswered.

Part Four.