[one-shots]: Another Country, 2/4, R
Dec. 23rd, 2009 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenThis is part two of four.
Draco relaxed. When Potter first started talking his reasons for helping, he had expected a tirade about Slytherin selfishness and ambition.
But it seemed that Potter had changed in more ways than the obvious. He could accept, without taking a stand on a moral pinnacle over it, that Draco wasn’t someone to simply walk up and begin heavy labor out of sheer compassion.
“Like I said,” he murmured, “I know something about how much Healers tyrannize over patients that they aren’t certain how to cure. I will take great pleasure in thwarting them.”
Potter raised an eyebrow. “And that’s enough?”
His voice slid smoothly over the Latin vowels in a way that Draco couldn’t remember it doing with English. He wondered what Potter would say if he told him that. Probably a stammering denial and a blush. Yes, things had changed, but Potter had not fundamentally altered his personality.
“Yes,” Draco said. “It is, for right now. Of course, when you’re free of hospital and you’re considering giving your story to the papers so that they can understand what really goes on here, then you might remember me.”
“To all those papers that write in Latin,” Potter muttered, and leaned back against the pillows on his bed, scowling.
“We’ll find a way,” Draco said. “Perhaps you can learn French and give it to them that way. But there’s no use in giving up before you start, Potter.”
Potter blinked and looked at him, assessing. Draco expected more arguments, but Potter inclined his head and took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he said. “Sorry.”
Draco learned at that moment how powerful a jolt of surprise Potter could give him simply by admitting that he was right. It felt as though his feet were about to leave the ground. His mouth seemed to flood with sugar water.
How powerful a jolt, and how sweet.
Draco licked his lips and swallowed back the imaginary sugar water. “We need allies,” he said. “People we can convince of your sanity and your willingness to work on being independent again in some other place than St. Mungo’s. Would it help if I spoke to your friend Granger?” There was no malice in his voice when he said her name, and he watched Potter take note of it with a faint rise of his eyebrows.
“It would help, and you have to,” Potter said. He sat back up again, but tucked his feet up beneath him. He looked oddly defenseless. Draco hoped it was only the hospital robes that made him look that way, or they had worse problems than the fact that no one wanted to try and understand what the curse had done to Potter. “You’re the only one who can speak for me.”
He rubbed his hands up and down his arms as if rubbing away a chill. Draco had seen his mother make the same gesture when she realized that she had to trust him to argue for her, since the Healers didn’t seem to listen to any patient.
Draco narrowed his eyes. He wouldn’t want to be in the same position himself, dependent on someone who could betray him, but if Potter didn’t dare trust him, then they were doomed. “Remember that,” he said sharply, “but don’t hesitate to argue with me.”
Potter looked up abruptly. He seemed to study Draco with eyes that pierced deeper than any pair of eyes possibly could, at least when they belonged to a wizard who hesitated to use Dark Arts.
Then he laughed. “Of everything we have to struggle with,” he said, “I think my not arguing with you is the last thing we should worry about.”
Draco smiled and stood. “So long as you haven’t learned the helplessness they wanted to enforce on you,” he murmured. “I was only checking.”
“Of course you were.” Potter held out his hand, his eyes steady. “Hermione’s supposed to visit at two tomorrow. Can you come?”
Draco gripped the hand and felt the pulse throbbing, strong and steady, for a moment beneath his fingers before he answered. “I will be here.”
Potter watched him go, fingers on his throat as if he was feeling the difference that actually being able to speak his new native language made. Draco paused at the door to look back, but didn’t speak the taunting insult he’d planned on.
Not with those green eyes as steady as the pulse.
He shut the door and went down the corridor to visit his mother. He told himself he was glad that Potter was being so adult about it all, and that they didn’t need to spend time butting heads. Perhaps a month under the curse with no one else who’d succeeded in helping him made Potter more tractable.
He didn’t allow himself to think, because he didn’t want to, of the way that Potter seemed to affect him.
*
“Harry! How are you?”
Harry smiled and hugged Hermione. He was glad that she’d come without Ron, at least this time. Ron more usually visited in the evenings, anyway, since he was still busy with his work as an Auror during the days.
The work I’ll never perform again.
Harry tried his best to ignore the bitterness. The one piece of advice the Healers had given him that had proved useful was not to think too much about the past. If he couldn’t be an Auror again, then he couldn’t, but that didn’t lessen his ability to live a good life. He could do other things.
Time to do them, he thought, and nodded to the parchment that Hermione carried with her, raising his eyebrows.
Hermione frowned for a moment, but then seemed to remember what he’d written the other day. “Oh, the Healers,” she said. “They say that they’re still treating you the same as they ever were, Harry. They’re giving you good meals and trying to give you good exercise, but you won’t cooperate.” She paused and regarded him severely.
Harry growled. He knew that Hermione loved and respected the rules, and she’d studied the guidelines for hospital visitors so many times by now that she must know them by heart. But the Healers hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with his eyes that would explain the visions and the auras, and they didn’t know why the curse prevented him from speaking English. They just kept saying that he should be able to, and then they blamed him when he couldn’t.
“I know that they might not be everything you could wish for,” Hermione began in a soothing tone. “I know that they exasperate you, and you wish you could go home. But, Harry, they’re the ones who know best. They’re the ones who can treat a curse like this.” She took a deep breath, and Harry saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.
“I’m so frightened,” she whispered. “I’m so frightened that you’ll never get better, that you’ll have to stay here for years like Neville’s parents. Please, Harry. Can you go along with them? For me? So that you can be free again someday?” She reached out and held his hand, staring earnestly into his eyes.
Harry might have melted. But Hermione had asked him this before, and nothing had actually changed. The Healers continued to look for what they thought should be there instead of at what actually was.
Besides, he had an advocate now.
Who, at the moment, was opening the door behind Hermione. She turned around with a mild look, probably assuming it was Leonora or one of his other failed attendants.
She stiffened all over when she saw Malfoy. Harry was glad that he held her hand, or he thought she would have tried to pick up her wand. As it was, she bowed her head in a way that made Harry wince, because her neck must be so tense, and spoke in a constrained, chill tone. “Malfoy. What do you want?”
Malfoy nodded to Hermione and looked over her head at Harry. Harry understood what he intended to do when the Latin words flowed out of his mouth. “Agitne hoc semper?” Does she always do this?
Hermione stood still this time, instead of stiff. Harry thought that was at least an improvement. He massaged her fingers and nodded at Malfoy. “Yes. And she was just trying to convince me to lay back and let the Healers have their way.”
“But that doesn’t work.” Malfoy took a step forwards that Harry would have called aggressive, except he couldn’t envision Malfoy becoming that upset over him. Hermione backed up a step. Harry didn’t think she was frightened; from the way she positioned herself, she was trying to protect him from Malfoy. “Tell me, Granger,” Malfoy said, shifting back to English and looking at Hermione. “Why haven’t you, or someone else, arranged to learn Latin now that Harry speaks it?”
Harry. His name had never sent a spark and a thrill through him before.
“Or why didn’t you cast a translation charm that would allow you to hear what he says as English?” Malfoy continued relentlessly. “I know that that isn’t beyond the range of advanced magic—which the Healers should certainly have access to.”
“The barrier in his head from the curse won’t let us use charms like that,” Hermione said, firing up with true best friend temper. “We’ve tried. And I don’t care if you speak Latin, if you’re trying to talk Harry out of receiving help, then—”
Harry had never seen the coldness of Malfoy’s face turn hard since meeting him again, but he watched it happen now.
*
How dare she.
Granger might not know about his mother being in hospital. She might not be able to know how profoundly Draco had changed since those days when he was in school and had cared mostly for the next day or the next week instead of the next decade. She had no real reason to think that someone Sorted into a House she despised could ever really change.
But she had heard him speak Latin, and she had seen that Potter’s face didn’t turn blank with shock on seeing him. And she was intelligent enough that Draco was inclined to demand more of her than he did of someone like Weasley. She could not give him the benefit of the doubt. She could not link his presence here with her friend’s unhappiness, and realize how extreme it must have been to send him seeking Draco’s company in preference to the Healers’.
She had leaped immediately to the conclusion that condemned her friend, instead of the one that would allow him to retain some dignity.
Draco looked at her with an expression that he knew would shut her up, and then shifted his eyes back to Potter’s face. “Do you want me to tell her in detail about the Healers?” he asked. “Or translate what you say?”
“You don’t know enough details, I think.” Potter looked stunned, still, but sounded calm. “Besides, if she hears you talking to me and then repeating something, she’ll probably think that it came from me.”
“Probably?” Draco glanced at Granger, who was standing as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her head—shocked and yet resisting the shock, convinced that the person who had done it to her must be the one in the wrong.
“Probably,” Potter repeated. “Hermione’s very reluctant to adopt new ideas once she gets one stuck in her head. Besides, there will be at least one English word in what I say: the Healer’s name. If she hears me say it and you repeat it, then perhaps she’ll let herself be convinced.” He let his lip curl a bit. “Hopefully.”
Draco nodded and waited. Potter rubbed Granger’s hand and then stepped around her so that he was between Granger and Draco instead of the other way around. Draco relaxed without meaning to. He wanted to shake his head and snort in derision at himself, but the reaction of being more content when Potter was close was simply an honest one.
“There’s a particular Healer named Leonora who’s been making my life miserable,” Potter said briskly. “They wanted her to try and Heal me by laying on her hands, which she can do to other patients. Apparently she’s never failed before. It didn’t work, and now she blames me. I don’t know for certain if they won’t assign her elsewhere until she cures me or if she simply is stubborn and wants to find a cure, but she taunts me and treats me like a slow child.”
Draco nodded and repeated that to Granger in English. Granger’s eyebrows rose, and she looked more shocked than ever. Draco approved. As long as they could keep her off-balance, then they didn’t have to cope with a flood of reasons and excuses for her behaving as she had done.
“Leonora? But I know her. I’ve met her. She would never do something like that. She’s been patient and gentle with Harry every time I’m here.” She folded her arms and glared at them both, though Draco thought most of the force in her look fell on him. “If you can’t come up with a better lie than that, Malfoy, I think you should leave.”
“It’s not a lie,” Potter snapped. Draco could hear the strain in his voice, like the strain of ropes trying to bind a dragon, and could only guess how many times he must have tried to hold his temper in check when one of his friends disbelieved him. “She just doesn’t treat me badly in front of you. Why would she? She knows that you’re her ally.”
Draco took some glee in repeating that, especially with the hurt way that Granger’s eyes widened. She was chewing a curl of her hair now, and her gaze darted back and forth between them as if she was trying to see the invisible strings that she must feel Draco was trying to control Potter with. But her jaw was sticking out more, too, and Draco thought she wasn’t far from a decision.
Just make the right one, he thought at her in irritation. Potter needs the support of his friends.
And why should I care about that?
Draco laid the consideration aside for later, carefully wrapped in golden tissue and secured in an ivory box. He had laid many thoughts aside in his mind like that, among them thoughts of the war and the way he had had to torture people. He had never gone back to them. Why should he? Dwelling on questions that had no answers and feelings that no longer resonated did no one any good.
“I could,” Granger whispered, “I could remain here under a Disillusionment Charm and see what happens the next time she comes in to talk to you.”
“You could,” Potter said at once. “Or you could trust me.”
Oh, that made Granger’s cheeks turn pink. She glanced back and forth between Potter and Draco, then said, “You must be desperate, if you’re letting Malfoy speak for you.”
Potter nodded tightly, once. His arms were folded, the nails of his right hand digging into his left elbow. Draco reached out and folded his hand back without thought. Potter blinked at him and relaxed his posture.
“I want out of here,” Potter said.
Granger seemed to understand this almost without the translation. Her eyes darted to the walls of Potter’s room, and she nodded a bit. “I can see why you would,” she whispered. “But they know best how to treat you here.”
“Not without someone by my side to fight for me,” Potter said. “And I haven’t had anyone like that.”
Granger looked up with her eyes full of guilt. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered. “I would have, if I knew.”
“I know that,” Potter said, and bridged some of the gap between them by reaching out and squeezing Granger’s shoulder. “But the important part is that you believe me now, and work with Malfoy and me to get me out of here. All right?”
Draco felt himself almost fade into the background as he translated Potter’s replies and then Granger responded. Because Potter didn’t have to have him translate the English, the link was constant, a one-way circle, instead of having to flow back and forth twice through him. Granger listened to his voice, but spoke to Potter; Potter responded to her words, but depended on Draco to speak for him.
If someone had asked him how he would withstand a situation like this, Draco would have laughed and predicted boredom and active pain. He hadn’t planned to spend his afternoon reconciling Gryffindor friends. He had been sure that Granger would need a lot more persuasion, and he had looked forwards to providing that persuasion.
And yet, he was content to fade into the background now. He was content to watch the play of emotions across their faces and note the way that lines of tension slowly faded from around Potter’s eyes.
Why?
Another useless thought, laid aside in silver paper and ebony box to be opened when some bell that would never ring sounded. Draco had so rarely felt contentment like this that he was disposed to exult in it rather than drive it out of existence with too much questioning.
Finally, Granger said, “All right, I’ll speak with the Healers. They’re used to thinking of me as an—ally, the way you said. It might be that they would take what I said more seriously.”
“That’s the best plan,” Potter said and Draco translated.
Granger still stood looking at them with a faintly shaking head before she turned and walked away. Draco was glad she had gone. Perhaps she would eventually become his ally as well, but for the moment, she made him uneasy when her attention fixed on him.
“I want to leave this room,” Potter said suddenly. “Can we visit your mother?”
Draco turned to stare at him in astonishment. Potter looked calmly at him, his head tilted to one side as though he made a suggestion like this every day and was only waiting now to see how Draco would respond to it.
“I—I reckon we could,” Draco said. His voice was hoarse, and he had to clear his throat a few times before he responded. “I don’t know how she’ll react to the sight of you.” It was the only warning he could offer. Perhaps he should have refused, but the offer made his contentment grow, and that he was unwilling to lay aside. “She might not want to see you,” he added as an afterthought.
“I know.”
Draco stood staring at him for a moment, because he didn’t know this new and strange Potter who could accept that someone might not slaver with joy at the sight of him.
But in the meantime, he shook his head and turned to lead the way down the corridor.
He found another reason for joy as they passed Healers who stared at him and Potter. Once or twice they opened their mouths, but no one said anything. They’d been cowed into submission by him and the Malfoy money, and they seemed to assume that Potter couldn’t understand English anymore, either.
Draco was hoping for some more spectacular reactions later, when the news of Potter being out of his room spread, or when more Healers knew about Granger’s questions.
For now, though, the joyful way Potter looked at the walls and stretched his arms out quickened Draco’s breath and almost dimmed his nervousness as he laid his hand on the door of his mother’s room and urged it open.
*
Narcissa Malfoy seemed graceful and perfectly symmetrical even without one arm. Harry didn’t know how she did that.
Nor did he know how she looked at him with deep eyes when he stepped into the room, nodded once, and simply held out her remaining hand, saying, “The last time I saw you was in the Forbidden Forest. You appear to be in less danger than you were then, Mr. Potter, Dark curse or not. Welcome.”
Harry had held her hand and muttered some incoherent words about Voldemort and how she saved his life and how he owed her a life-debt. She had done him the grace of ignoring those, since she couldn’t understand them anyway, and was now talking quietly with her son. Harry perched on a chair in the corner of the room, studying both of them.
More of his attention wandered to Draco, though. He was smiling gently, his eyes fastened on his mother’s face. It didn’t seem as though he was ignoring the gap where her arm had been, either. It was simply that her expressions, her face, were more important to him. He stroked her hand once and asked in a low voice if he could get her anything. Mrs. Malfoy shook her head and began talking about some kind of investments. Draco seemed to know what she meant, because he bent closer and answered attentively. Harry tried not to listen.
I never knew—I never knew that he could be like this.
Of course, five years could do a lot for a person. Harry, who felt he was really steadier and more adult than he’d been five years ago, knew that. But he hadn’t known that Malfoy would change so profoundly in the direction of a decent human being.
Mrs. Malfoy laughed. It seemed to be at something Draco had said, because immediately he pretended to puff up and said, “Fine, don’t take my advice then,” in a playful tone.
Mrs. Malfoy shook her head, her smile faint but amused for all that. “Draco, darling, I simply don’t think that one should try to avoid all attention. Most people on seeing me will immediately know that I have a false arm. And silver will be lovely, for me to look at if nothing else. I do not need ivory.”
Draco leaned back with one elbow on the table beside the bed and smiled at his mother. Harry picked up the narrowness in his smile and was sure that he had advised an inconspicuous arm just to make his mother pick a more obvious one. He wanted her to feel proud and as though she wasn’t diminished by what had happened to her, Harry thought.
I wonder if he’ll try to manipulate me the same way? But since Draco had already settled it that he was helping Harry, it seemed that any manipulation would have already happened.
At that moment, Draco turned his head and caught Harry’s eye. His smile deepened, but the narrow edge simply became more prominent. Harry smiled back nervously and hoped that it wouldn’t look nervous.
“Mister Potter.”
Harry turned around sharply. Leonora stood in the door of Mrs. Malfoy’s hospital room, her pointed glare saying that she ignored everyone in the room but him.
“What is this nonsense?” she asked in a chilly, haughty tone Harry had learned to hate, because it always meant he was about to be scolded like a child. “Miss Granger has come to me and had the gall to say that I am not treating you properly. What did you tell her? Why did you complain?” She stepped closer. “I am your Healer, no one else.”
Harry opened his mouth to respond, but the first Latin word had hardly emerged when Leonora shook her head.
“You will respond in English,” she said, “which I know you can understand, like a proper adult, or I will have no choice but to report your non-cooperation to the rest of the Healers. Imagine what they will do to you.”
Harry clenched his hands as a familiar feeling of frustration spread through him.
And then Draco was there, standing between them like a living wall.
*
Draco recognized the kind of person this Healer Leonora was at once, because he used to be that kind of person himself.
She had the ruins of self-satisfaction on her face; she had a valuable talent and was used to exercising it, but she hadn’t yet got over finding a challenge that defeated her talent. It was the way Draco knew he used to look when he played Quidditch against Potter and discovered that, no matter how good he was, he would never be good enough. And her chin was pointed with sullen anger. If she couldn’t conquer the person who had presented the challenge, she would at least make them suffer.
Draco knew that look even better.
However, it was possible that she might be reasoned with. Draco had become the kind of person who could be, and Potter was not diplomatic enough to make the try. Therefore, he held her eyes and said in his calmest, most soothing, most authoritative voice, “You know that he cannot speak English. The curse prevents him. I am his translator, since I understand Latin. I trust that that is acceptable?”
Leonora gave a small toss of her head, and Draco realized at once that his assessment had been slightly off. Leonora was not merely spoiled, but someone who had never had her self-complacency shaken before. It would take more patience than Draco could muster, perhaps, to break through that barrier.
“If he can speak it, he can understand it,” Leonora said. “I don’t care what game he’s playing, he ought to be able to see when to stop it and let someone who understands what brains are supposed to be like take over.”
Draco stood close enough to Potter that he could feel him shaking with rage. Draco had to admit himself a bit impressed. Such overwhelming condescension wasn’t common in the life of someone like Potter.
In school, Draco would have said that he could use doses of such condescension to help him learn something about the way ordinary people lived. But the situation had changed, and he had changed, and he no longer wished to say that. Therefore, no one else should think it.
But as much as he wished to say that, he thought he should let Potter speak. After all, that was the whole point of difference between him and the Healer. He stepped aside, with a short bob of his head, and looked at Potter.
The man was not as stupid as Draco had once believed him to be, or else the years had improved him in the same way they had improved Draco. He at once moved forwards, eyes so hard that the Healer blinked and backed up a step.
“You’ve done nothing but blame me for your failure since I got here,” Potter whispered. His voice crisped and crackled deliciously at the corners, making Draco feel as if he stood near a large fire. Like all fires, it might burn out of control, but that was the price for being near such warmth. “I don’t care about that. I don’t care about you. You can’t cure me, and as far as I’m concerned, you never will. It’s not my fault that that might make your superiors distrust you. I’m leaving St. Mungo’s and going elsewhere, to learn how to live again instead of simply get healed.”
Draco translated the moment Potter finished speaking. He couldn’t imitate the fire-tone of Potter’s voice, and he didn’t try. He selected a heavy, flat tone instead, one that should clang Potter’s choices as flat as a coffin lid over the silly Healer’s ambitions.
When he finished, Leonora’s face was white, and she looked as if this second challenge might well destroy her. She fisted her hands behind her back and gave Potter a cold little bow. It would have been more impressive if she hadn’t tottered at the end of the bow with rage.
“I will tell the other Healers about this,” she said. She probably meant that to sound impressive, too. In reality, it sounded like the way Draco used to whinge in Hogwarts when he threatened to tell the professors something Potter had done. Draco gave a mild shudder as he watched Leonora whip out of the room.
I am glad I am not that person anymore.
“I’m sorry this happened,” Potter said. Draco glanced over his shoulder and found that those ridiculously large green eyes were liquid with guilt. “I didn’t mean to argue in front of your mother, when she must—”
Draco glanced at the bed to be sure, but, as he had thought he would find, his mother’s eyes were bright with fascination and she held several of the blankets clenched in her hand.
“Mr. Potter, you should not apologize,” she said. She had read Potter’s expression better than the Healer, and also decided to acknowledge that he could participate in the conversation anyway, which was more than that slip of a Leonora had ever done. “That was the most entertainment I have had in long days.”
“I have to go, now,” Potter said. He seemed able to move on from his guilt faster than he could have at Hogwarts, Draco thought. He was staring at the floor in distress and biting his lip. “I just—I wanted to wait until Hermione could tell all the Weasleys about it, but I’ll have to seek shelter in the Burrow now. I can’t stay here.”
Draco translated the relevant parts of that for his mother, who snorted and said, “Of course you can’t stay here, Mr. Potter. And I see no need to honor this place with my presence any longer when I have decided on the kind of arm I want.” She flung back the covers of her bed and rose. She was the only person Draco knew who could make hospital robes look regal.
“Mother?” Draco stared despite himself. Until this afternoon, she had seemed so reluctant to decide things. Of course she would be. It was a shock to get used to a Dark injury, and especially one that so affected her looks. Far more than looks was important to a Malfoy, of course, but it affected the perceptions of observers. Draco had thought it would take another fortnight at least to coax his mother out of the room, into areas where others could see her.
Then he saw the way her eyes were fastened on Potter’s embarrassment-darkened face, and he understood. She had someone to compare herself to, now. She had someone who was visibly weaker than she was. She could muster her strength and fling a veil of the right kind of condescension over Potter, who was so bewildered that he would be grateful for the kindness instead of resenting the motives that had inspired it.
“Of course we must leave,” Narcissa said, and her beauty shone through her like an icicle, and Draco had to look away to catch his breath and his tears. “And you shall come with us to the Manor, Mr. Potter.”
The ulp noise in the back of Potter’s throat needed no translation. Draco looked back in time to catch his mother’s merciless smile.
“Of course you shall,” she said softly, and it sounded less like an invitation than a threat.
Draco didn’t bother glancing at Potter, because, no matter what his objections, he knew they would be swept aside by the force of his mother’s personality.
As Narcissa went on, detailing the protections of Malfoy Manor that would keep Potter safe in case of another attack by Death Eaters, and how he would be able to heal in peace and privacy with no one from St. Mungo’s intruding, and how she intended to complain to the hospital administrators over the way Potter had been treated, Draco reached back and squeezed Potter’s hand, hard. Perhaps it had been involuntary, but he had done this for Draco’s mother.
Draco intended to see what could be done for him.
*
Malfoy Manor was—big.
That was the impression Harry had when he stepped into the house, and for long minutes he could see nothing else. The arched doorways and huge windows and halls that looked as if they were designed for feasts were there, but they all looked—big.
Then other words started to intrude. The house was light and bright and cold, too. The colors seemed to be either white or shades of blue and yellow that blended into white or grey. The air of the place had a tingling shock to it, and Harry could only imagine that it was winter inside and summer outside. He shivered in spite of himself.
If he’d been alone, he would have backed away. But Draco and Mrs. Malfoy were behind him, and Mr. Malfoy—Lucius—must be somewhere about. He straightened his shoulders and marched forwards.
As he passed along the central corridor, with staircases and doors leading off it like tunnels through a rabbit warren, he started catching glimpses of warmth. Many doors stood open; many fires burned in many hearths. There were rooms done in deeper blues or yellows, including one that looked as if it was entirely underwater, with mounted fish on the walls. Harry felt himself beginning to relax. Of course, that was more likely to be some rare collection of magical fish than a hunter’s room, the way he’d sometimes seen in Muggle houses, but it was still something a bit more familiar.
Then he glanced up and saw Lucius Malfoy stalking down the central staircase, carrying a complicated contraption in his hands.
Harry stared. The contraption seemed to be made of silvery wires, with bits of flesh impaled on various ends and small starbursts of frozen blood at the joins. The bits of flesh still had fur attached to them, and here and there Harry could make out what seemed to be a paw or a section of an ear.
Harry swallowed, queasy. He was sure it was blood magic, and even more certain that he didn’t want to know what it would do. He glanced down and away.
But the sound of soft footsteps and rustling robes halted, and Lucius said something that forced Harry’s eyes back up. “Narcissa.”
There were so many tones in that word that Harry couldn’t have named them all. He didn’t think that he wanted to try. His eyes traveled instinctively from the way Lucius stood still, the contraption held in light hands, to Mrs. Malfoy.
She smiled up at her husband and walked up the stairs to meet him. Her single arm swung to the side to balance her, and on the other side, she occasionally leaned on the railing. When she stood next to Lucius, she put her arm around his neck and simply stood there. Perhaps she didn’t want to kiss her husband in front of strangers, Harry thought. He was blinking. His heart seemed to have frozen, and he didn’t know where Draco was.
Lucius said softly, “I am going to find the ones who attacked you, Cissa. I’m going to destroy them.”
Narcissa pulled her head back, her look of love lively and appreciative. “I appreciate that, Lucius,” she said. Then she did lean in.
A sharp tug on Harry’s arm distracted him. Draco hissed into his ear, “We don’t want to stand here staring when they deserve to have a private moment,” and pulled him across the corridor into a room decorated with all the colors of fire.
Harry swallowed and staggered and stood and stared where Draco had put him while he shut the door firmly behind them. The fire color of the room wasn’t an illusion, he saw. The tapestries glowed with gold. A phoenix was carved above the fireplace mantel. The red carpet and chairs would have done for the Gryffindor common room.
“I didn’t think you’d have a room like this,” he said, the only thing he could say.
“Great-Aunt Hortense was always eccentric,” Draco said, and took a seat by the fireplace. A wave of his hand—Harry wondered absently if that was wandless magic or just a spell keyed to the house—made flames spring up in it. “No one else in the Malfoy family would have chosen this color scheme.”
Harry frowned. “Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you get rid of it?”
Draco stared at him with his lips parted, looking as if he might have just realized that Harry was made of dung. “Change something an ancestor touched?” he asked. “A room that she particularly asked in her will might not be disturbed?”
“Well, I didn’t know about the will,” Harry muttered, feeling absurdly awkward, and shuffled over to another chair. He shut his eyes and tried to shake the feeling of shock out of his body. It wasn’t just seeing the blood magic Lucius Malfoy was practicing and the way he and Narcissa had touched, he was sure. It was also the strangeness of finding himself here again, free of hospital at last, but in a place that was alive with memories of torture and Voldemort and Dobby dying and Bellatrix torturing Hermione—
Harry felt his stomach heave and clenched his teeth against it. When he opened his eyes, Draco was watching him with an expression of understanding that had no understanding behind it.
He can share my feelings on the surface, Harry thought, but this is his home, and that’s stronger for him.
He shifted in his seat, uneasy that he could read Malfoy so well, and wondering why it was so. Malfoy seemed to interpret his movement as something else, and politely raised his eyebrows. “Are you hungry? I can send one of the elves for food, if you would like.”
The nausea squirmed in Harry’s stomach again. He hastily shook his head. “No, that’s all right,” he said, voice too high. “I just—it’s odd being here.”
Malfoy smiled, an expression that seemed to drape over his features instead of sit on it. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
Harry licked his lips. He didn’t really want to discourage Malfoy from helping him, but at the same time, he had to know. “Why is this happening?” he asked. “Is helping me really worth all the trouble?”
*
Draco wanted to roll his eyes, but he saw Potter’s honest, perplexed face, and he knew it would be better to settle this once and for all than have the question keep recurring. He had already thought it was taken care of, but here it came back again, like a dead mouse resurrected by the Rodent-Lifting Curse.
“Yes,” he said. “It is. I like being the only one who can do things. I’m the only one who can translate for you right now, the only one who could have extracted you from hospital with a minimum of fuss. And, as I’ve told you already, I have a dislike of the Healers after the way they tried to tyrannize over my mother. They did not want to admit that there were things they couldn’t do. With your extraction and the story that you’ll tell in the future, it will become obvious how incompetent they are.”
Potter shook his head. His eyes were wide and uncertain. Draco restrained impatience. He could understand that. Until this point in time, Potter had had evil counselors. Even Granger seemed to assume that Potter’s intelligence had diminished simply because he no longer spoke the same language she did.
“I could offer you money,” Potter said.
“That would be most welcome.” Draco laughed at the expression on Potter’s face. “You thought I would refuse? I already said I would help you without money, but I’m hardly going to turn it down if you’ll give it to me.”
Potter went on staring. Draco leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Well?” he asked.
“How much have you changed? Why?” Potter’s voice was low.
Draco relaxed. He had thought it would be a harder question. In reality, he had rehearsed the tale often and quietly to himself, wishing he had an audience. The house-elves hardly counted, and his parents knew the story already, having been there to watch it happen.
Draco was proud of what he had become. To show it off to Potter was a pleasure.
“After the war,” he said, staring at the far wall until he knew that Potter’s eyes were fixed on him in fascination and it was safe to look back, “I began to think seriously about the choices I had made. I discovered they were few, actually. So many times, I was swept along by the tide of circumstances. I did things not because I truly considered them or valued them or even because they could benefit me, but because they seemed like a good idea at the time. And I let my pride rule me too much. If I discovered later that I made a bad decision, I still stuck with the original one, because I thought changing my mind would make me look weak.”
Draco shook his head with a faint smile. He could picture the boy he was talking about as someone separate from himself now, a flawed child with a permanent pout. It was pleasing to turn the figure over and discuss its faults when he was no longer it.
“Pure pride is not like that. Pure pride is like pure metal. It can be melted down, recast, and refined from impurities before it is molded into new shapes. It changes in the doing, but that does not make it weaker.”
Draco idly looked to the side to see Potter leaning forwards in his chair, hands clasped between his knees. Yes, he was the perfect audience, swallowing every word as if it were a rare fruit. Draco ducked his head a bit, turning it, presenting the profile that he knew would look most attractive to an observer sitting where Potter was.
Why should he not do that? He liked to look attractive, and there were few people who could have the Chosen One’s eyes fastened on them.
“I decided that my pride was pure silver, and that I would shape it as I pleased.” Draco looked up at the ceiling and stretched out a hand, knowing Potter would understand the gesture to refer to the whole house, as Draco intended it. “I began to take pride in the appearance of my home, in knowing the deeds of my ancestors, in appreciating the virtues and the beauty that they had handed down to me, and knowing how to counteract the flaws. The whole education of a pure-blood child once consisted of that, did you know that? Our power was our family, not what we could achieve as individuals. Of course, certain Malfoys did extraordinary things, but their extraordinariness was the gift of the family that had raised them, not something inherent to themselves.”
“I can’t imagine you being content to only learn that.” Potter scratched the back of his head.
Draco rolled his eyes. “Of course not,” he said. He said that deliberately in English, for the harsh sound of the words, though he had been sliding in and out of both English and Latin in his speech. “Times have changed. We live with more people, other people who have knowledge that exists outside the pure-blood family. But why not take that knowledge and bend it to the old standard? There is nothing wrong with that.”
Potter scratched behind his ear this time. Draco made a mental note to tell the house-elves to give Potter shampoo that would counteract dandruff and an itchy scalp. “I can see some people who would say there was.”
“Ah, but those people are no longer alive,” Draco said, holding up a finger. “Or, if they are, they are stupid and I don’t have to listen to them.”
Potter tried to conceal a smile, but was unsuccessful.
With a faint smile at him that made Potter blush in interesting ways, Draco went on. “I combined my education at Hogwarts with the education I picked up from the books in the Manor while I was under house arrest. I began to see that there was no reason that I could not change myself into a creature that would suit what I was—no reason in the world except fear of outdated standards. I changed. What you see now is what you emerged from the chrysalis.” He extended his arms like wings and had the satisfaction of seeing Potter’s eyes travel up and down the lines of muscles for a moment before he snapped them away.
“My pride is different now,” Draco said. “I am different now. More patient with people, because so few of them can touch my pride. More willing to indulge myself, because I know when it would be a good idea not to do so. More determined to give pride to those people I know want it, as my mother did after she lost her arm. More determined to punish those who cause true damage, the way the Healers do.”
“But you’re not interested in every charitable cause in the world?” Potter asked.
“Why would I be?” Draco turned his head to the side so that Potter could look at his profile again. “There are other people to be that, and in any case, the thinner I spread myself, the fewer people I can help. It’s better for me to give money and time to those I am truly interested in. My pleasure makes me more likely for me to see a difficult task through.”
Potter said nothing for long enough that Draco thought it best to look at him and make sure he wasn’t frowning. No, he still had a smile on his face, but it was of a different kind. He chewed his lip for long moments. Draco thought it a filthy habit, but then, Potter hadn’t had his education and had spent a month cooped up in a place that did him no good at all. He could be excused some indulgences.
“That sounds as if it should be wrong,” Potter said at last. “But your logic is a lot better than it used to be.”
“Yes, it is,” Draco said, rather disposed to accept the compliment to his present self than to resent the injury to his past self. He leaned forwards. “And what was your logic, meanwhile? That you should contribute to every cause? No wonder you look exhausted.”
Potter blinked at him. “I look exhausted because the Healers tire me out.”
“Of course you do.” Draco gave him a significant look. “And you didn’t answer the question. Did you try to spread yourself too thin? Did you try to do every good thing because you couldn’t bear to think of someone else accomplishing them?”
“I was an Auror,” Potter said shortly, frowning. “That naturally limited what I could do.”
“But you tried to save every victim,” Draco said, “and you were usually forced to ignore your own pride. I know you.”
“You know more about my old self than about the new one.” Potter folded his arms and gave him a stubborn glare. “I’m in the same position with regards to you.”
“The difference between us is that I am trying to give you some sense of how much time has passed,” Draco said patiently. “I’m handing you the knowledge to answer all your questions, if you pay attention. What have you told me about yourself yet?”
“That I’m exhausted,” said Potter, with a pointed yawn.
Draco stood at once and inclined his head. “Yes, and I believe my parents should have left the main staircase free for your passage by now,” he said. He delighted in the way that Potter flushed at that. He probably wanted to pretend that seeing Draco’s parents kiss in public didn’t surprise him at all, but there was no chance of that. “I should have let you rest at once instead of pulling you into this room for a lot of meaningless talk.”
He’d meant that phrase as the sort of empty complaint that he and his friends exchanged all the time, and was surprised when Potter took it seriously.
“But it wasn’t meaningless,” he said, leaning forwards and staring at Draco. “I learned that you’re finally independent and not just considering what other people think about you anymore, and I’ve learned that you’re a very good talker, in English and in Latin.”
“And are those valuable things?” Draco asked quietly, standing still. He could feel Potter’s gaze on his back and shoulders and hands like a warm caress. Of course he had been trying to provoke exactly that sort of admiration—he always did, because he enjoyed being admired—but this was different. Potter showed his emotions more honestly than most of Draco’s friends did.
“Yes,” Potter said. “Very valuable. I’m glad to know that you’ve grown up.” He smiled at Draco and traveled out of the room, keeping one hand on the wall as if he needed it so that he wouldn’t fall down.
Draco took the time to clap his hands and quietly ask the house-elf who appeared to change the color scheme of the room he’d appointed to be Potter’s. The green could stay, he thought—it was a deep shade and would probably be soothing to Potter’s eyes—but he could add a bit of red and gold.
After all, it was not as if Draco would be sleeping in that room. He could sacrifice a touch of aesthetics for the sake of Potter’s comfort.
*
Harry woke slowly, so slowly that it seemed as if he was rising from the bottom of a warm sea to the surface. He blinked and then rubbed his eyes. His hands barely moved. The bed he lay on was comfortable, finally, and his hands wanted to stay where they were.
Finally, he sat up, leaned back against the pillows, and looked around.
The room was big enough to contain twenty beds, but there was only this one, in a cage of some sort, wooden poles that stood around it, planted in the floor. Harry saw rolls of cloth along their sides and suspected that curtains could be pulled between the poles, if you wanted to do it. The bed itself was a huge wooden frame, carved with leaping foxes and dancing dolphins, while an eagle spread its wings above Harry’s head.
The curtains and the cloths along the poles were green, but the walls had a deep red tint to them, and every painting showed at least a hint of red and gold. Harry was surprised they had two such rooms in their house, but maybe this had been Great Aunt Hortense’s room, too, and they hadn’t wanted to change it.
He dragged himself out of the sheets at last, rubbing his head—which still feel oddly clear from lying on such a comfortable pillow—and looking out the window. It was an enchanted window, of course. Harry might not know exactly where in Wiltshire Malfoy Manor lay, but he knew it wasn’t anywhere near a white beach shaped like a half-moon that extended long arms out into a dark blue sea.
That didn’t matter. The smell of sea salt and the sharp breeze coming in through the window were as good as the real thing. Harry closed his eyes and drank it all in.
Two days ago, he had thought he might never leave St. Mungo’s again. Most of the people who had come to see him since his accident had grown used to seeing him there, and assumed he would stay. Harry might have lost hope and become resigned, because what else was there to do except hope that his curse was cured?
He couldn’t act alone. Of course, Hermione and the Weasleys would never leave him alone, not really, but they were so anxious that they wanted him to stay in St. Mungo’s, too.
“I would never stop blaming myself if something happened to you because I told you to leave hospital when you shouldn’t, mate,” Ron had told him. There had been tears in his eyes.
Harry blinked and shook his head, banishing the vision. He leaned towards the window and breathed in the salt again.
There would be a confrontation with his friends. Even though he had told Hermione what was happening, that didn’t mean she was completely reconciled to Malfoy helping him. And he hadn’t told the Weasleys at all. They would be upset when they found out where he was, let alone who he was with.
But Harry was resigned to that. The Weasleys were still his friends. They had tried their best to help him. They had always visited him in the month since Greyback had cursed him. They would understand.
He would make them understand.
In the meantime, he drew in another breath and then turned towards the crack of a house-elf, who was bowing to him and asking in a squeaky voice what he wanted for breakfast.
Part Three.
Draco relaxed. When Potter first started talking his reasons for helping, he had expected a tirade about Slytherin selfishness and ambition.
But it seemed that Potter had changed in more ways than the obvious. He could accept, without taking a stand on a moral pinnacle over it, that Draco wasn’t someone to simply walk up and begin heavy labor out of sheer compassion.
“Like I said,” he murmured, “I know something about how much Healers tyrannize over patients that they aren’t certain how to cure. I will take great pleasure in thwarting them.”
Potter raised an eyebrow. “And that’s enough?”
His voice slid smoothly over the Latin vowels in a way that Draco couldn’t remember it doing with English. He wondered what Potter would say if he told him that. Probably a stammering denial and a blush. Yes, things had changed, but Potter had not fundamentally altered his personality.
“Yes,” Draco said. “It is, for right now. Of course, when you’re free of hospital and you’re considering giving your story to the papers so that they can understand what really goes on here, then you might remember me.”
“To all those papers that write in Latin,” Potter muttered, and leaned back against the pillows on his bed, scowling.
“We’ll find a way,” Draco said. “Perhaps you can learn French and give it to them that way. But there’s no use in giving up before you start, Potter.”
Potter blinked and looked at him, assessing. Draco expected more arguments, but Potter inclined his head and took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he said. “Sorry.”
Draco learned at that moment how powerful a jolt of surprise Potter could give him simply by admitting that he was right. It felt as though his feet were about to leave the ground. His mouth seemed to flood with sugar water.
How powerful a jolt, and how sweet.
Draco licked his lips and swallowed back the imaginary sugar water. “We need allies,” he said. “People we can convince of your sanity and your willingness to work on being independent again in some other place than St. Mungo’s. Would it help if I spoke to your friend Granger?” There was no malice in his voice when he said her name, and he watched Potter take note of it with a faint rise of his eyebrows.
“It would help, and you have to,” Potter said. He sat back up again, but tucked his feet up beneath him. He looked oddly defenseless. Draco hoped it was only the hospital robes that made him look that way, or they had worse problems than the fact that no one wanted to try and understand what the curse had done to Potter. “You’re the only one who can speak for me.”
He rubbed his hands up and down his arms as if rubbing away a chill. Draco had seen his mother make the same gesture when she realized that she had to trust him to argue for her, since the Healers didn’t seem to listen to any patient.
Draco narrowed his eyes. He wouldn’t want to be in the same position himself, dependent on someone who could betray him, but if Potter didn’t dare trust him, then they were doomed. “Remember that,” he said sharply, “but don’t hesitate to argue with me.”
Potter looked up abruptly. He seemed to study Draco with eyes that pierced deeper than any pair of eyes possibly could, at least when they belonged to a wizard who hesitated to use Dark Arts.
Then he laughed. “Of everything we have to struggle with,” he said, “I think my not arguing with you is the last thing we should worry about.”
Draco smiled and stood. “So long as you haven’t learned the helplessness they wanted to enforce on you,” he murmured. “I was only checking.”
“Of course you were.” Potter held out his hand, his eyes steady. “Hermione’s supposed to visit at two tomorrow. Can you come?”
Draco gripped the hand and felt the pulse throbbing, strong and steady, for a moment beneath his fingers before he answered. “I will be here.”
Potter watched him go, fingers on his throat as if he was feeling the difference that actually being able to speak his new native language made. Draco paused at the door to look back, but didn’t speak the taunting insult he’d planned on.
Not with those green eyes as steady as the pulse.
He shut the door and went down the corridor to visit his mother. He told himself he was glad that Potter was being so adult about it all, and that they didn’t need to spend time butting heads. Perhaps a month under the curse with no one else who’d succeeded in helping him made Potter more tractable.
He didn’t allow himself to think, because he didn’t want to, of the way that Potter seemed to affect him.
*
“Harry! How are you?”
Harry smiled and hugged Hermione. He was glad that she’d come without Ron, at least this time. Ron more usually visited in the evenings, anyway, since he was still busy with his work as an Auror during the days.
The work I’ll never perform again.
Harry tried his best to ignore the bitterness. The one piece of advice the Healers had given him that had proved useful was not to think too much about the past. If he couldn’t be an Auror again, then he couldn’t, but that didn’t lessen his ability to live a good life. He could do other things.
Time to do them, he thought, and nodded to the parchment that Hermione carried with her, raising his eyebrows.
Hermione frowned for a moment, but then seemed to remember what he’d written the other day. “Oh, the Healers,” she said. “They say that they’re still treating you the same as they ever were, Harry. They’re giving you good meals and trying to give you good exercise, but you won’t cooperate.” She paused and regarded him severely.
Harry growled. He knew that Hermione loved and respected the rules, and she’d studied the guidelines for hospital visitors so many times by now that she must know them by heart. But the Healers hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with his eyes that would explain the visions and the auras, and they didn’t know why the curse prevented him from speaking English. They just kept saying that he should be able to, and then they blamed him when he couldn’t.
“I know that they might not be everything you could wish for,” Hermione began in a soothing tone. “I know that they exasperate you, and you wish you could go home. But, Harry, they’re the ones who know best. They’re the ones who can treat a curse like this.” She took a deep breath, and Harry saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.
“I’m so frightened,” she whispered. “I’m so frightened that you’ll never get better, that you’ll have to stay here for years like Neville’s parents. Please, Harry. Can you go along with them? For me? So that you can be free again someday?” She reached out and held his hand, staring earnestly into his eyes.
Harry might have melted. But Hermione had asked him this before, and nothing had actually changed. The Healers continued to look for what they thought should be there instead of at what actually was.
Besides, he had an advocate now.
Who, at the moment, was opening the door behind Hermione. She turned around with a mild look, probably assuming it was Leonora or one of his other failed attendants.
She stiffened all over when she saw Malfoy. Harry was glad that he held her hand, or he thought she would have tried to pick up her wand. As it was, she bowed her head in a way that made Harry wince, because her neck must be so tense, and spoke in a constrained, chill tone. “Malfoy. What do you want?”
Malfoy nodded to Hermione and looked over her head at Harry. Harry understood what he intended to do when the Latin words flowed out of his mouth. “Agitne hoc semper?” Does she always do this?
Hermione stood still this time, instead of stiff. Harry thought that was at least an improvement. He massaged her fingers and nodded at Malfoy. “Yes. And she was just trying to convince me to lay back and let the Healers have their way.”
“But that doesn’t work.” Malfoy took a step forwards that Harry would have called aggressive, except he couldn’t envision Malfoy becoming that upset over him. Hermione backed up a step. Harry didn’t think she was frightened; from the way she positioned herself, she was trying to protect him from Malfoy. “Tell me, Granger,” Malfoy said, shifting back to English and looking at Hermione. “Why haven’t you, or someone else, arranged to learn Latin now that Harry speaks it?”
Harry. His name had never sent a spark and a thrill through him before.
“Or why didn’t you cast a translation charm that would allow you to hear what he says as English?” Malfoy continued relentlessly. “I know that that isn’t beyond the range of advanced magic—which the Healers should certainly have access to.”
“The barrier in his head from the curse won’t let us use charms like that,” Hermione said, firing up with true best friend temper. “We’ve tried. And I don’t care if you speak Latin, if you’re trying to talk Harry out of receiving help, then—”
Harry had never seen the coldness of Malfoy’s face turn hard since meeting him again, but he watched it happen now.
*
How dare she.
Granger might not know about his mother being in hospital. She might not be able to know how profoundly Draco had changed since those days when he was in school and had cared mostly for the next day or the next week instead of the next decade. She had no real reason to think that someone Sorted into a House she despised could ever really change.
But she had heard him speak Latin, and she had seen that Potter’s face didn’t turn blank with shock on seeing him. And she was intelligent enough that Draco was inclined to demand more of her than he did of someone like Weasley. She could not give him the benefit of the doubt. She could not link his presence here with her friend’s unhappiness, and realize how extreme it must have been to send him seeking Draco’s company in preference to the Healers’.
She had leaped immediately to the conclusion that condemned her friend, instead of the one that would allow him to retain some dignity.
Draco looked at her with an expression that he knew would shut her up, and then shifted his eyes back to Potter’s face. “Do you want me to tell her in detail about the Healers?” he asked. “Or translate what you say?”
“You don’t know enough details, I think.” Potter looked stunned, still, but sounded calm. “Besides, if she hears you talking to me and then repeating something, she’ll probably think that it came from me.”
“Probably?” Draco glanced at Granger, who was standing as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her head—shocked and yet resisting the shock, convinced that the person who had done it to her must be the one in the wrong.
“Probably,” Potter repeated. “Hermione’s very reluctant to adopt new ideas once she gets one stuck in her head. Besides, there will be at least one English word in what I say: the Healer’s name. If she hears me say it and you repeat it, then perhaps she’ll let herself be convinced.” He let his lip curl a bit. “Hopefully.”
Draco nodded and waited. Potter rubbed Granger’s hand and then stepped around her so that he was between Granger and Draco instead of the other way around. Draco relaxed without meaning to. He wanted to shake his head and snort in derision at himself, but the reaction of being more content when Potter was close was simply an honest one.
“There’s a particular Healer named Leonora who’s been making my life miserable,” Potter said briskly. “They wanted her to try and Heal me by laying on her hands, which she can do to other patients. Apparently she’s never failed before. It didn’t work, and now she blames me. I don’t know for certain if they won’t assign her elsewhere until she cures me or if she simply is stubborn and wants to find a cure, but she taunts me and treats me like a slow child.”
Draco nodded and repeated that to Granger in English. Granger’s eyebrows rose, and she looked more shocked than ever. Draco approved. As long as they could keep her off-balance, then they didn’t have to cope with a flood of reasons and excuses for her behaving as she had done.
“Leonora? But I know her. I’ve met her. She would never do something like that. She’s been patient and gentle with Harry every time I’m here.” She folded her arms and glared at them both, though Draco thought most of the force in her look fell on him. “If you can’t come up with a better lie than that, Malfoy, I think you should leave.”
“It’s not a lie,” Potter snapped. Draco could hear the strain in his voice, like the strain of ropes trying to bind a dragon, and could only guess how many times he must have tried to hold his temper in check when one of his friends disbelieved him. “She just doesn’t treat me badly in front of you. Why would she? She knows that you’re her ally.”
Draco took some glee in repeating that, especially with the hurt way that Granger’s eyes widened. She was chewing a curl of her hair now, and her gaze darted back and forth between them as if she was trying to see the invisible strings that she must feel Draco was trying to control Potter with. But her jaw was sticking out more, too, and Draco thought she wasn’t far from a decision.
Just make the right one, he thought at her in irritation. Potter needs the support of his friends.
And why should I care about that?
Draco laid the consideration aside for later, carefully wrapped in golden tissue and secured in an ivory box. He had laid many thoughts aside in his mind like that, among them thoughts of the war and the way he had had to torture people. He had never gone back to them. Why should he? Dwelling on questions that had no answers and feelings that no longer resonated did no one any good.
“I could,” Granger whispered, “I could remain here under a Disillusionment Charm and see what happens the next time she comes in to talk to you.”
“You could,” Potter said at once. “Or you could trust me.”
Oh, that made Granger’s cheeks turn pink. She glanced back and forth between Potter and Draco, then said, “You must be desperate, if you’re letting Malfoy speak for you.”
Potter nodded tightly, once. His arms were folded, the nails of his right hand digging into his left elbow. Draco reached out and folded his hand back without thought. Potter blinked at him and relaxed his posture.
“I want out of here,” Potter said.
Granger seemed to understand this almost without the translation. Her eyes darted to the walls of Potter’s room, and she nodded a bit. “I can see why you would,” she whispered. “But they know best how to treat you here.”
“Not without someone by my side to fight for me,” Potter said. “And I haven’t had anyone like that.”
Granger looked up with her eyes full of guilt. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered. “I would have, if I knew.”
“I know that,” Potter said, and bridged some of the gap between them by reaching out and squeezing Granger’s shoulder. “But the important part is that you believe me now, and work with Malfoy and me to get me out of here. All right?”
Draco felt himself almost fade into the background as he translated Potter’s replies and then Granger responded. Because Potter didn’t have to have him translate the English, the link was constant, a one-way circle, instead of having to flow back and forth twice through him. Granger listened to his voice, but spoke to Potter; Potter responded to her words, but depended on Draco to speak for him.
If someone had asked him how he would withstand a situation like this, Draco would have laughed and predicted boredom and active pain. He hadn’t planned to spend his afternoon reconciling Gryffindor friends. He had been sure that Granger would need a lot more persuasion, and he had looked forwards to providing that persuasion.
And yet, he was content to fade into the background now. He was content to watch the play of emotions across their faces and note the way that lines of tension slowly faded from around Potter’s eyes.
Why?
Another useless thought, laid aside in silver paper and ebony box to be opened when some bell that would never ring sounded. Draco had so rarely felt contentment like this that he was disposed to exult in it rather than drive it out of existence with too much questioning.
Finally, Granger said, “All right, I’ll speak with the Healers. They’re used to thinking of me as an—ally, the way you said. It might be that they would take what I said more seriously.”
“That’s the best plan,” Potter said and Draco translated.
Granger still stood looking at them with a faintly shaking head before she turned and walked away. Draco was glad she had gone. Perhaps she would eventually become his ally as well, but for the moment, she made him uneasy when her attention fixed on him.
“I want to leave this room,” Potter said suddenly. “Can we visit your mother?”
Draco turned to stare at him in astonishment. Potter looked calmly at him, his head tilted to one side as though he made a suggestion like this every day and was only waiting now to see how Draco would respond to it.
“I—I reckon we could,” Draco said. His voice was hoarse, and he had to clear his throat a few times before he responded. “I don’t know how she’ll react to the sight of you.” It was the only warning he could offer. Perhaps he should have refused, but the offer made his contentment grow, and that he was unwilling to lay aside. “She might not want to see you,” he added as an afterthought.
“I know.”
Draco stood staring at him for a moment, because he didn’t know this new and strange Potter who could accept that someone might not slaver with joy at the sight of him.
But in the meantime, he shook his head and turned to lead the way down the corridor.
He found another reason for joy as they passed Healers who stared at him and Potter. Once or twice they opened their mouths, but no one said anything. They’d been cowed into submission by him and the Malfoy money, and they seemed to assume that Potter couldn’t understand English anymore, either.
Draco was hoping for some more spectacular reactions later, when the news of Potter being out of his room spread, or when more Healers knew about Granger’s questions.
For now, though, the joyful way Potter looked at the walls and stretched his arms out quickened Draco’s breath and almost dimmed his nervousness as he laid his hand on the door of his mother’s room and urged it open.
*
Narcissa Malfoy seemed graceful and perfectly symmetrical even without one arm. Harry didn’t know how she did that.
Nor did he know how she looked at him with deep eyes when he stepped into the room, nodded once, and simply held out her remaining hand, saying, “The last time I saw you was in the Forbidden Forest. You appear to be in less danger than you were then, Mr. Potter, Dark curse or not. Welcome.”
Harry had held her hand and muttered some incoherent words about Voldemort and how she saved his life and how he owed her a life-debt. She had done him the grace of ignoring those, since she couldn’t understand them anyway, and was now talking quietly with her son. Harry perched on a chair in the corner of the room, studying both of them.
More of his attention wandered to Draco, though. He was smiling gently, his eyes fastened on his mother’s face. It didn’t seem as though he was ignoring the gap where her arm had been, either. It was simply that her expressions, her face, were more important to him. He stroked her hand once and asked in a low voice if he could get her anything. Mrs. Malfoy shook her head and began talking about some kind of investments. Draco seemed to know what she meant, because he bent closer and answered attentively. Harry tried not to listen.
I never knew—I never knew that he could be like this.
Of course, five years could do a lot for a person. Harry, who felt he was really steadier and more adult than he’d been five years ago, knew that. But he hadn’t known that Malfoy would change so profoundly in the direction of a decent human being.
Mrs. Malfoy laughed. It seemed to be at something Draco had said, because immediately he pretended to puff up and said, “Fine, don’t take my advice then,” in a playful tone.
Mrs. Malfoy shook her head, her smile faint but amused for all that. “Draco, darling, I simply don’t think that one should try to avoid all attention. Most people on seeing me will immediately know that I have a false arm. And silver will be lovely, for me to look at if nothing else. I do not need ivory.”
Draco leaned back with one elbow on the table beside the bed and smiled at his mother. Harry picked up the narrowness in his smile and was sure that he had advised an inconspicuous arm just to make his mother pick a more obvious one. He wanted her to feel proud and as though she wasn’t diminished by what had happened to her, Harry thought.
I wonder if he’ll try to manipulate me the same way? But since Draco had already settled it that he was helping Harry, it seemed that any manipulation would have already happened.
At that moment, Draco turned his head and caught Harry’s eye. His smile deepened, but the narrow edge simply became more prominent. Harry smiled back nervously and hoped that it wouldn’t look nervous.
“Mister Potter.”
Harry turned around sharply. Leonora stood in the door of Mrs. Malfoy’s hospital room, her pointed glare saying that she ignored everyone in the room but him.
“What is this nonsense?” she asked in a chilly, haughty tone Harry had learned to hate, because it always meant he was about to be scolded like a child. “Miss Granger has come to me and had the gall to say that I am not treating you properly. What did you tell her? Why did you complain?” She stepped closer. “I am your Healer, no one else.”
Harry opened his mouth to respond, but the first Latin word had hardly emerged when Leonora shook her head.
“You will respond in English,” she said, “which I know you can understand, like a proper adult, or I will have no choice but to report your non-cooperation to the rest of the Healers. Imagine what they will do to you.”
Harry clenched his hands as a familiar feeling of frustration spread through him.
And then Draco was there, standing between them like a living wall.
*
Draco recognized the kind of person this Healer Leonora was at once, because he used to be that kind of person himself.
She had the ruins of self-satisfaction on her face; she had a valuable talent and was used to exercising it, but she hadn’t yet got over finding a challenge that defeated her talent. It was the way Draco knew he used to look when he played Quidditch against Potter and discovered that, no matter how good he was, he would never be good enough. And her chin was pointed with sullen anger. If she couldn’t conquer the person who had presented the challenge, she would at least make them suffer.
Draco knew that look even better.
However, it was possible that she might be reasoned with. Draco had become the kind of person who could be, and Potter was not diplomatic enough to make the try. Therefore, he held her eyes and said in his calmest, most soothing, most authoritative voice, “You know that he cannot speak English. The curse prevents him. I am his translator, since I understand Latin. I trust that that is acceptable?”
Leonora gave a small toss of her head, and Draco realized at once that his assessment had been slightly off. Leonora was not merely spoiled, but someone who had never had her self-complacency shaken before. It would take more patience than Draco could muster, perhaps, to break through that barrier.
“If he can speak it, he can understand it,” Leonora said. “I don’t care what game he’s playing, he ought to be able to see when to stop it and let someone who understands what brains are supposed to be like take over.”
Draco stood close enough to Potter that he could feel him shaking with rage. Draco had to admit himself a bit impressed. Such overwhelming condescension wasn’t common in the life of someone like Potter.
In school, Draco would have said that he could use doses of such condescension to help him learn something about the way ordinary people lived. But the situation had changed, and he had changed, and he no longer wished to say that. Therefore, no one else should think it.
But as much as he wished to say that, he thought he should let Potter speak. After all, that was the whole point of difference between him and the Healer. He stepped aside, with a short bob of his head, and looked at Potter.
The man was not as stupid as Draco had once believed him to be, or else the years had improved him in the same way they had improved Draco. He at once moved forwards, eyes so hard that the Healer blinked and backed up a step.
“You’ve done nothing but blame me for your failure since I got here,” Potter whispered. His voice crisped and crackled deliciously at the corners, making Draco feel as if he stood near a large fire. Like all fires, it might burn out of control, but that was the price for being near such warmth. “I don’t care about that. I don’t care about you. You can’t cure me, and as far as I’m concerned, you never will. It’s not my fault that that might make your superiors distrust you. I’m leaving St. Mungo’s and going elsewhere, to learn how to live again instead of simply get healed.”
Draco translated the moment Potter finished speaking. He couldn’t imitate the fire-tone of Potter’s voice, and he didn’t try. He selected a heavy, flat tone instead, one that should clang Potter’s choices as flat as a coffin lid over the silly Healer’s ambitions.
When he finished, Leonora’s face was white, and she looked as if this second challenge might well destroy her. She fisted her hands behind her back and gave Potter a cold little bow. It would have been more impressive if she hadn’t tottered at the end of the bow with rage.
“I will tell the other Healers about this,” she said. She probably meant that to sound impressive, too. In reality, it sounded like the way Draco used to whinge in Hogwarts when he threatened to tell the professors something Potter had done. Draco gave a mild shudder as he watched Leonora whip out of the room.
I am glad I am not that person anymore.
“I’m sorry this happened,” Potter said. Draco glanced over his shoulder and found that those ridiculously large green eyes were liquid with guilt. “I didn’t mean to argue in front of your mother, when she must—”
Draco glanced at the bed to be sure, but, as he had thought he would find, his mother’s eyes were bright with fascination and she held several of the blankets clenched in her hand.
“Mr. Potter, you should not apologize,” she said. She had read Potter’s expression better than the Healer, and also decided to acknowledge that he could participate in the conversation anyway, which was more than that slip of a Leonora had ever done. “That was the most entertainment I have had in long days.”
“I have to go, now,” Potter said. He seemed able to move on from his guilt faster than he could have at Hogwarts, Draco thought. He was staring at the floor in distress and biting his lip. “I just—I wanted to wait until Hermione could tell all the Weasleys about it, but I’ll have to seek shelter in the Burrow now. I can’t stay here.”
Draco translated the relevant parts of that for his mother, who snorted and said, “Of course you can’t stay here, Mr. Potter. And I see no need to honor this place with my presence any longer when I have decided on the kind of arm I want.” She flung back the covers of her bed and rose. She was the only person Draco knew who could make hospital robes look regal.
“Mother?” Draco stared despite himself. Until this afternoon, she had seemed so reluctant to decide things. Of course she would be. It was a shock to get used to a Dark injury, and especially one that so affected her looks. Far more than looks was important to a Malfoy, of course, but it affected the perceptions of observers. Draco had thought it would take another fortnight at least to coax his mother out of the room, into areas where others could see her.
Then he saw the way her eyes were fastened on Potter’s embarrassment-darkened face, and he understood. She had someone to compare herself to, now. She had someone who was visibly weaker than she was. She could muster her strength and fling a veil of the right kind of condescension over Potter, who was so bewildered that he would be grateful for the kindness instead of resenting the motives that had inspired it.
“Of course we must leave,” Narcissa said, and her beauty shone through her like an icicle, and Draco had to look away to catch his breath and his tears. “And you shall come with us to the Manor, Mr. Potter.”
The ulp noise in the back of Potter’s throat needed no translation. Draco looked back in time to catch his mother’s merciless smile.
“Of course you shall,” she said softly, and it sounded less like an invitation than a threat.
Draco didn’t bother glancing at Potter, because, no matter what his objections, he knew they would be swept aside by the force of his mother’s personality.
As Narcissa went on, detailing the protections of Malfoy Manor that would keep Potter safe in case of another attack by Death Eaters, and how he would be able to heal in peace and privacy with no one from St. Mungo’s intruding, and how she intended to complain to the hospital administrators over the way Potter had been treated, Draco reached back and squeezed Potter’s hand, hard. Perhaps it had been involuntary, but he had done this for Draco’s mother.
Draco intended to see what could be done for him.
*
Malfoy Manor was—big.
That was the impression Harry had when he stepped into the house, and for long minutes he could see nothing else. The arched doorways and huge windows and halls that looked as if they were designed for feasts were there, but they all looked—big.
Then other words started to intrude. The house was light and bright and cold, too. The colors seemed to be either white or shades of blue and yellow that blended into white or grey. The air of the place had a tingling shock to it, and Harry could only imagine that it was winter inside and summer outside. He shivered in spite of himself.
If he’d been alone, he would have backed away. But Draco and Mrs. Malfoy were behind him, and Mr. Malfoy—Lucius—must be somewhere about. He straightened his shoulders and marched forwards.
As he passed along the central corridor, with staircases and doors leading off it like tunnels through a rabbit warren, he started catching glimpses of warmth. Many doors stood open; many fires burned in many hearths. There were rooms done in deeper blues or yellows, including one that looked as if it was entirely underwater, with mounted fish on the walls. Harry felt himself beginning to relax. Of course, that was more likely to be some rare collection of magical fish than a hunter’s room, the way he’d sometimes seen in Muggle houses, but it was still something a bit more familiar.
Then he glanced up and saw Lucius Malfoy stalking down the central staircase, carrying a complicated contraption in his hands.
Harry stared. The contraption seemed to be made of silvery wires, with bits of flesh impaled on various ends and small starbursts of frozen blood at the joins. The bits of flesh still had fur attached to them, and here and there Harry could make out what seemed to be a paw or a section of an ear.
Harry swallowed, queasy. He was sure it was blood magic, and even more certain that he didn’t want to know what it would do. He glanced down and away.
But the sound of soft footsteps and rustling robes halted, and Lucius said something that forced Harry’s eyes back up. “Narcissa.”
There were so many tones in that word that Harry couldn’t have named them all. He didn’t think that he wanted to try. His eyes traveled instinctively from the way Lucius stood still, the contraption held in light hands, to Mrs. Malfoy.
She smiled up at her husband and walked up the stairs to meet him. Her single arm swung to the side to balance her, and on the other side, she occasionally leaned on the railing. When she stood next to Lucius, she put her arm around his neck and simply stood there. Perhaps she didn’t want to kiss her husband in front of strangers, Harry thought. He was blinking. His heart seemed to have frozen, and he didn’t know where Draco was.
Lucius said softly, “I am going to find the ones who attacked you, Cissa. I’m going to destroy them.”
Narcissa pulled her head back, her look of love lively and appreciative. “I appreciate that, Lucius,” she said. Then she did lean in.
A sharp tug on Harry’s arm distracted him. Draco hissed into his ear, “We don’t want to stand here staring when they deserve to have a private moment,” and pulled him across the corridor into a room decorated with all the colors of fire.
Harry swallowed and staggered and stood and stared where Draco had put him while he shut the door firmly behind them. The fire color of the room wasn’t an illusion, he saw. The tapestries glowed with gold. A phoenix was carved above the fireplace mantel. The red carpet and chairs would have done for the Gryffindor common room.
“I didn’t think you’d have a room like this,” he said, the only thing he could say.
“Great-Aunt Hortense was always eccentric,” Draco said, and took a seat by the fireplace. A wave of his hand—Harry wondered absently if that was wandless magic or just a spell keyed to the house—made flames spring up in it. “No one else in the Malfoy family would have chosen this color scheme.”
Harry frowned. “Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you get rid of it?”
Draco stared at him with his lips parted, looking as if he might have just realized that Harry was made of dung. “Change something an ancestor touched?” he asked. “A room that she particularly asked in her will might not be disturbed?”
“Well, I didn’t know about the will,” Harry muttered, feeling absurdly awkward, and shuffled over to another chair. He shut his eyes and tried to shake the feeling of shock out of his body. It wasn’t just seeing the blood magic Lucius Malfoy was practicing and the way he and Narcissa had touched, he was sure. It was also the strangeness of finding himself here again, free of hospital at last, but in a place that was alive with memories of torture and Voldemort and Dobby dying and Bellatrix torturing Hermione—
Harry felt his stomach heave and clenched his teeth against it. When he opened his eyes, Draco was watching him with an expression of understanding that had no understanding behind it.
He can share my feelings on the surface, Harry thought, but this is his home, and that’s stronger for him.
He shifted in his seat, uneasy that he could read Malfoy so well, and wondering why it was so. Malfoy seemed to interpret his movement as something else, and politely raised his eyebrows. “Are you hungry? I can send one of the elves for food, if you would like.”
The nausea squirmed in Harry’s stomach again. He hastily shook his head. “No, that’s all right,” he said, voice too high. “I just—it’s odd being here.”
Malfoy smiled, an expression that seemed to drape over his features instead of sit on it. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
Harry licked his lips. He didn’t really want to discourage Malfoy from helping him, but at the same time, he had to know. “Why is this happening?” he asked. “Is helping me really worth all the trouble?”
*
Draco wanted to roll his eyes, but he saw Potter’s honest, perplexed face, and he knew it would be better to settle this once and for all than have the question keep recurring. He had already thought it was taken care of, but here it came back again, like a dead mouse resurrected by the Rodent-Lifting Curse.
“Yes,” he said. “It is. I like being the only one who can do things. I’m the only one who can translate for you right now, the only one who could have extracted you from hospital with a minimum of fuss. And, as I’ve told you already, I have a dislike of the Healers after the way they tried to tyrannize over my mother. They did not want to admit that there were things they couldn’t do. With your extraction and the story that you’ll tell in the future, it will become obvious how incompetent they are.”
Potter shook his head. His eyes were wide and uncertain. Draco restrained impatience. He could understand that. Until this point in time, Potter had had evil counselors. Even Granger seemed to assume that Potter’s intelligence had diminished simply because he no longer spoke the same language she did.
“I could offer you money,” Potter said.
“That would be most welcome.” Draco laughed at the expression on Potter’s face. “You thought I would refuse? I already said I would help you without money, but I’m hardly going to turn it down if you’ll give it to me.”
Potter went on staring. Draco leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Well?” he asked.
“How much have you changed? Why?” Potter’s voice was low.
Draco relaxed. He had thought it would be a harder question. In reality, he had rehearsed the tale often and quietly to himself, wishing he had an audience. The house-elves hardly counted, and his parents knew the story already, having been there to watch it happen.
Draco was proud of what he had become. To show it off to Potter was a pleasure.
“After the war,” he said, staring at the far wall until he knew that Potter’s eyes were fixed on him in fascination and it was safe to look back, “I began to think seriously about the choices I had made. I discovered they were few, actually. So many times, I was swept along by the tide of circumstances. I did things not because I truly considered them or valued them or even because they could benefit me, but because they seemed like a good idea at the time. And I let my pride rule me too much. If I discovered later that I made a bad decision, I still stuck with the original one, because I thought changing my mind would make me look weak.”
Draco shook his head with a faint smile. He could picture the boy he was talking about as someone separate from himself now, a flawed child with a permanent pout. It was pleasing to turn the figure over and discuss its faults when he was no longer it.
“Pure pride is not like that. Pure pride is like pure metal. It can be melted down, recast, and refined from impurities before it is molded into new shapes. It changes in the doing, but that does not make it weaker.”
Draco idly looked to the side to see Potter leaning forwards in his chair, hands clasped between his knees. Yes, he was the perfect audience, swallowing every word as if it were a rare fruit. Draco ducked his head a bit, turning it, presenting the profile that he knew would look most attractive to an observer sitting where Potter was.
Why should he not do that? He liked to look attractive, and there were few people who could have the Chosen One’s eyes fastened on them.
“I decided that my pride was pure silver, and that I would shape it as I pleased.” Draco looked up at the ceiling and stretched out a hand, knowing Potter would understand the gesture to refer to the whole house, as Draco intended it. “I began to take pride in the appearance of my home, in knowing the deeds of my ancestors, in appreciating the virtues and the beauty that they had handed down to me, and knowing how to counteract the flaws. The whole education of a pure-blood child once consisted of that, did you know that? Our power was our family, not what we could achieve as individuals. Of course, certain Malfoys did extraordinary things, but their extraordinariness was the gift of the family that had raised them, not something inherent to themselves.”
“I can’t imagine you being content to only learn that.” Potter scratched the back of his head.
Draco rolled his eyes. “Of course not,” he said. He said that deliberately in English, for the harsh sound of the words, though he had been sliding in and out of both English and Latin in his speech. “Times have changed. We live with more people, other people who have knowledge that exists outside the pure-blood family. But why not take that knowledge and bend it to the old standard? There is nothing wrong with that.”
Potter scratched behind his ear this time. Draco made a mental note to tell the house-elves to give Potter shampoo that would counteract dandruff and an itchy scalp. “I can see some people who would say there was.”
“Ah, but those people are no longer alive,” Draco said, holding up a finger. “Or, if they are, they are stupid and I don’t have to listen to them.”
Potter tried to conceal a smile, but was unsuccessful.
With a faint smile at him that made Potter blush in interesting ways, Draco went on. “I combined my education at Hogwarts with the education I picked up from the books in the Manor while I was under house arrest. I began to see that there was no reason that I could not change myself into a creature that would suit what I was—no reason in the world except fear of outdated standards. I changed. What you see now is what you emerged from the chrysalis.” He extended his arms like wings and had the satisfaction of seeing Potter’s eyes travel up and down the lines of muscles for a moment before he snapped them away.
“My pride is different now,” Draco said. “I am different now. More patient with people, because so few of them can touch my pride. More willing to indulge myself, because I know when it would be a good idea not to do so. More determined to give pride to those people I know want it, as my mother did after she lost her arm. More determined to punish those who cause true damage, the way the Healers do.”
“But you’re not interested in every charitable cause in the world?” Potter asked.
“Why would I be?” Draco turned his head to the side so that Potter could look at his profile again. “There are other people to be that, and in any case, the thinner I spread myself, the fewer people I can help. It’s better for me to give money and time to those I am truly interested in. My pleasure makes me more likely for me to see a difficult task through.”
Potter said nothing for long enough that Draco thought it best to look at him and make sure he wasn’t frowning. No, he still had a smile on his face, but it was of a different kind. He chewed his lip for long moments. Draco thought it a filthy habit, but then, Potter hadn’t had his education and had spent a month cooped up in a place that did him no good at all. He could be excused some indulgences.
“That sounds as if it should be wrong,” Potter said at last. “But your logic is a lot better than it used to be.”
“Yes, it is,” Draco said, rather disposed to accept the compliment to his present self than to resent the injury to his past self. He leaned forwards. “And what was your logic, meanwhile? That you should contribute to every cause? No wonder you look exhausted.”
Potter blinked at him. “I look exhausted because the Healers tire me out.”
“Of course you do.” Draco gave him a significant look. “And you didn’t answer the question. Did you try to spread yourself too thin? Did you try to do every good thing because you couldn’t bear to think of someone else accomplishing them?”
“I was an Auror,” Potter said shortly, frowning. “That naturally limited what I could do.”
“But you tried to save every victim,” Draco said, “and you were usually forced to ignore your own pride. I know you.”
“You know more about my old self than about the new one.” Potter folded his arms and gave him a stubborn glare. “I’m in the same position with regards to you.”
“The difference between us is that I am trying to give you some sense of how much time has passed,” Draco said patiently. “I’m handing you the knowledge to answer all your questions, if you pay attention. What have you told me about yourself yet?”
“That I’m exhausted,” said Potter, with a pointed yawn.
Draco stood at once and inclined his head. “Yes, and I believe my parents should have left the main staircase free for your passage by now,” he said. He delighted in the way that Potter flushed at that. He probably wanted to pretend that seeing Draco’s parents kiss in public didn’t surprise him at all, but there was no chance of that. “I should have let you rest at once instead of pulling you into this room for a lot of meaningless talk.”
He’d meant that phrase as the sort of empty complaint that he and his friends exchanged all the time, and was surprised when Potter took it seriously.
“But it wasn’t meaningless,” he said, leaning forwards and staring at Draco. “I learned that you’re finally independent and not just considering what other people think about you anymore, and I’ve learned that you’re a very good talker, in English and in Latin.”
“And are those valuable things?” Draco asked quietly, standing still. He could feel Potter’s gaze on his back and shoulders and hands like a warm caress. Of course he had been trying to provoke exactly that sort of admiration—he always did, because he enjoyed being admired—but this was different. Potter showed his emotions more honestly than most of Draco’s friends did.
“Yes,” Potter said. “Very valuable. I’m glad to know that you’ve grown up.” He smiled at Draco and traveled out of the room, keeping one hand on the wall as if he needed it so that he wouldn’t fall down.
Draco took the time to clap his hands and quietly ask the house-elf who appeared to change the color scheme of the room he’d appointed to be Potter’s. The green could stay, he thought—it was a deep shade and would probably be soothing to Potter’s eyes—but he could add a bit of red and gold.
After all, it was not as if Draco would be sleeping in that room. He could sacrifice a touch of aesthetics for the sake of Potter’s comfort.
*
Harry woke slowly, so slowly that it seemed as if he was rising from the bottom of a warm sea to the surface. He blinked and then rubbed his eyes. His hands barely moved. The bed he lay on was comfortable, finally, and his hands wanted to stay where they were.
Finally, he sat up, leaned back against the pillows, and looked around.
The room was big enough to contain twenty beds, but there was only this one, in a cage of some sort, wooden poles that stood around it, planted in the floor. Harry saw rolls of cloth along their sides and suspected that curtains could be pulled between the poles, if you wanted to do it. The bed itself was a huge wooden frame, carved with leaping foxes and dancing dolphins, while an eagle spread its wings above Harry’s head.
The curtains and the cloths along the poles were green, but the walls had a deep red tint to them, and every painting showed at least a hint of red and gold. Harry was surprised they had two such rooms in their house, but maybe this had been Great Aunt Hortense’s room, too, and they hadn’t wanted to change it.
He dragged himself out of the sheets at last, rubbing his head—which still feel oddly clear from lying on such a comfortable pillow—and looking out the window. It was an enchanted window, of course. Harry might not know exactly where in Wiltshire Malfoy Manor lay, but he knew it wasn’t anywhere near a white beach shaped like a half-moon that extended long arms out into a dark blue sea.
That didn’t matter. The smell of sea salt and the sharp breeze coming in through the window were as good as the real thing. Harry closed his eyes and drank it all in.
Two days ago, he had thought he might never leave St. Mungo’s again. Most of the people who had come to see him since his accident had grown used to seeing him there, and assumed he would stay. Harry might have lost hope and become resigned, because what else was there to do except hope that his curse was cured?
He couldn’t act alone. Of course, Hermione and the Weasleys would never leave him alone, not really, but they were so anxious that they wanted him to stay in St. Mungo’s, too.
“I would never stop blaming myself if something happened to you because I told you to leave hospital when you shouldn’t, mate,” Ron had told him. There had been tears in his eyes.
Harry blinked and shook his head, banishing the vision. He leaned towards the window and breathed in the salt again.
There would be a confrontation with his friends. Even though he had told Hermione what was happening, that didn’t mean she was completely reconciled to Malfoy helping him. And he hadn’t told the Weasleys at all. They would be upset when they found out where he was, let alone who he was with.
But Harry was resigned to that. The Weasleys were still his friends. They had tried their best to help him. They had always visited him in the month since Greyback had cursed him. They would understand.
He would make them understand.
In the meantime, he drew in another breath and then turned towards the crack of a house-elf, who was bowing to him and asking in a squeaky voice what he wanted for breakfast.
Part Three.
