Chapter Eleven of 'Nothing Like the Sun'- Insight

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Ten.

Title: Nothing Like the Sun (11/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco (main), Harry/Ginny and Harry/OCs (background).
Rating: R
Warnings: Heavy angst, body image issues, references to canonical child abuse, promiscuity
Summary: Harry finally realizes that he has trouble keeping lovers both because of his looks and because he isn’t very good at sex. He does what he can to alter that, but it seems he’s never going to be good enough to satisfy a wizard lover. When Draco Malfoy offers, Harry thinks a casual relationship with him might be the solution to his problems. But he should have remembered one thing: when it comes to Harry, Malfoy has a problem staying casual.
Author’s Notes: The title is taken from the first line of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. This story is going to be irregularly updated whenever I finish a chapter, but will probably not be very long in terms of total number of chapters.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eleven—Insight

Draco led Harry into the bedroom with a hand on his back, as though he wanted to feel all the tremors of admiration that he expected to spread through Harry.

And Harry had to admit, he looked around with an open mouth. The bedroom was gigantic, with doors opening off in various directions that might lead to entire complete wings for all Harry knew. The stone on the walls of the room was shining and pale, but only where it showed between tapestries of pale blue and pale green. The effect kept the chamber from being too dark, as did the enchanted windows that stood between every two or three tapestries. And they showed the gardens, and sunlit views that Harry suspected were false, and lazy starry evenings over lakes. Harry smiled. It was certainly better than the quality of enchanted windows that they usually got in the Ministry—those people who were lucky enough to have them at all.

The doors were paneled, polished wood, darker than the rest, but not looking out of place with the rest of the room so full of light. There had to be some shadows somewhere, Harry supposed. One stood ajar, and Harry caught a glimpse of a bathroom, all soft bright tile and what seemed to be the world’s largest pile of towels. The chairs and the fireplace and the couches all looked to be high quality, too, although Harry couldn’t name the wood or the stone or the cloth that they were made of.

And then there was the bed.

It was large and round and covered with pillows. Harry cocked his head at Draco. The lacy white pillows on top weren’t the sort of thing he would have expected of Draco.

Draco laughed and waved his hand. The lacy white pillows lifted up and revealed another layer below them, of green and blue pillows as soft as cushions.

“The white was my mother’s idea,” Draco said. “She liked the sight of me lying on them when I was a baby. I keep them in memory of her, but only when I’m not actually using the bed.” He turned to Harry and put his hands on his shoulders.

“I want you to enjoy this,” he whispered. “Tell me what I need to do to make you comfortable.”

“Stand back a bit,” Harry whispered in return. His heart was pounding crazily, and he knew that he wouldn’t have any strength left if he waited.

Draco did so, his hands flying away from Harry. Harry winced a little. From the expression on Draco’s face, he probably believed that Harry couldn’t stand being touched right now.

But Harry raced past him and bounced in the middle of the bed. It was so springy that he almost flew off the other side. He laughed and stood up, then fell to his knees, pillows cascading around him. A mouthful of lace made him spit, and when he could see again, Draco was standing in the middle of the room, his hand over his mouth and his eyes merry.

“Do you do that with every bed you encounter?” Draco finally demanded, dropping his hand from his mouth and coming up to Harry, staring down. His eyes were still bright, and he reached out and flipped a strand of hair away from the side of Harry’s forehead with a careless hand.

Harry turned his head and kissed Draco’s palm before he could pull his hand back all the way, then looked up at him. “No,” he said. “I always wanted to jump on my cousin’s bed, but they never let me into his room. And by the time I got one of my own in their house, it was too broken for me to do much with it.”

Draco hesitated as if he would ask a question, but luckily, he didn’t want to disrupt the playful mood that they were weaving, the same way Harry didn’t. He lay down on the bed instead, arching his back and digging his spine into the cushions. “But you could have bounced on the bed at Hogwarts.”

Harry smiled at him and sprawled beside Draco, tracing one hand over the ring of pillows and further down, trying to find the covers. He couldn’t. Then again, maybe he didn’t need to. He could certainly sleep on cushions; he’d slept on plenty of more uncomfortable things during some of his cases. “I did a few times. But I learned that it woke people up, and then I had a lot of homework to do and mysteries to investigate.”

Draco smiled and leaned forwards to stroke that piece of hair away from his forehead again. “Well, I’ll be happy to provide you with beds to bounce on. Any time. The Manor is full of wings that aren’t used much anymore.”

Harry snickered. “I hate to think of the cloud of dust that would surround me if I did that.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Please. Keeping up empty bedrooms is what house-elves are for.”

Harry laughed aloud at that and rolled over in the middle of the bed, kicking his legs out and sighing as his heels settled and dug into the cushions. “Don’t let Hermione hear you say that. You’ll get an immediate pamphlet about how house-elves are free and independent creatures with purposes of their own.”

“A pamphlet rather than a lecture? Granger’s improved!” Draco’s smile was soft as he turned towards Harry. “But she’s wrong, you know.”

Harry didn’t want to discuss philosophy right now, but he let himself say the words that hovered on the tip of his tongue. “Maybe about most house-elves. But Dobby was happy to be free.”

Draco scowled a little. “There’s a strong chance that elf was insane, you know. Even long before he started wanting freedom, some of the ways he behaved were…erratic. My mother wouldn’t let him take care of me when I was little.”

Harry winced away. “Don’t, okay?” he whispered. “Dobby was a friend. He died helping me escape your—your cellar.”

Draco paused for long enough that Harry didn’t know whether he was going to honor the request or not. Then he reached out and stroked Harry’s hair. “All right,” he murmured. “I won’t make you upset. I don’t want to.”

Harry smiled at him and leaned forwards to kiss his chin. That was less threatening than his mouth. Neither Frank nor anyone else had ever told Harry that he was horrible at chin-kissing. “Thank you,” he said. “Now. What do you usually do at night? Take a shower? Read for a while?”

Draco considered him with half-closed eyes. He looked comfortable here the way he hadn’t downstairs, Harry thought. He wondered if Draco thought those rooms were too formal, or whether he had got to play in this room when he was a child and just associated it with having fun, or something else. He wanted to know all about Draco, the way it had once been desperately important to know about Ginny’s favorite ice cream and the times that she had stolen her brothers’ brooms and gone riding.

Harry swallowed when he thought of that. I just hope this works out better than it did when I was with Ginny.

As if Draco could sense that Harry was slipping away again, he spoke quickly. “Who takes a shower in the evening? It must be people whose hair doesn’t get messed up by sleeping as much as mine. I sleep hard, Potter, I’ll have you know.”

Harry smiled. “All right. But you at least brush your teeth, I suppose?”

“At Hogwarts,” Draco said. “At home, I always preferred the Cleaning Charms that I performed. Or my parents, when I was still too young.”

Harry had to make a face. “I don’t want to think about how Cleaning Charms would feel on my teeth. They sting my skin enough as it is.”

“That’s because you don’t know the proper way to cast them,” Draco said. “You do need a mirror to do it.” He reached out and touched Harry’s cheek, petting up and down as though he was feeling the shape of his teeth through the skin. “Do you trust me to cast it on you?”

“If we go in the bathroom and you’re in front of a mirror,” Harry said. “As you were so kindly explaining that we need to do.”

Draco smiled, and led the way.

*

This is ridiculous.

It was ridiculous for Draco to be so nervous, at any rate, as Harry turned around, admiring the wall-length mirror and the shower that overlapped the northern side of the bathroom as he’d admired Draco’s bedchamber. Harry had asked for this, and he wouldn’t blame Draco if it stung a bit. Draco was afraid it might. He had had this performed on him by other people, and done it for himself since he got his wand. But he had never done it for someone else. There was a reason he hadn’t seriously considered a career as a Healer.

“This bathroom is huge,” Harry said.

Draco managed to laugh despite the fear that prickled and tugged at his nerves. Hopefully the way that I might sting Harry is no worse than that. “That’s the only thing you can think of to say?”

Harry cocked his head back to grin at him. “I already paid your bed the compliment of jumping on it. I’m afraid that I can’t think of a similar compliment to pay your shower. Except by using it, but I don’t think you want me to do that right now,” he added, looking doubtfully at the shower, as though he thought the door would open and sweep him into it.

“You can use it later,” Draco said, and drew him away to face the mirror. Harry stood there beneath his hands, passive in a way that made Draco frown. He drew his fingers up the sides of Harry’s shoulder blades, watching him. Harry stood, breathing easily, but his eyes were shut.

“If you don’t trust me not to hurt you, we can wait,” Draco said.

Harry sighed and opened his eyes. “It’s not—that. Not exactly. It’s just going to take a while for me to really trust you.”

“How can you stand here if you don’t trust me?” Draco’s hands flexed open, once, then fell down. “I didn’t think you would let anyone you were wary of that close.”

Harry snorted a little. “I’m doing this for you, Draco,” he said. “Because I know that you’d like me to be this close and trust you to use a Cleaning Charm on my teeth.” He met Draco’s eyes in the mirror instead of turning his head back to look at him. “I don’t think the charm will hurt that much even if you fuck it up.”

“But you don’t trust me enough to want it.” Draco dropped his hands and stepped away. His head had a dizzy lightness to it, as though it was inflating like a balloon, and he felt sick.

Harry held his gaze. “Sorry.”

Draco shook his head, without words. He thought back over what Harry had said about his lovers so far, about Frank in particular. His words would have made Harry sensitive and flinching about hurting others, but why would they have made him think other people would hurt him? So far, Draco had thought Harry was fearless about that, the way he had plunged into giving Draco a blowjob without having an idea if Draco had really changed since their Hogwarts days.

“Fine,” Draco said. “Brush your teeth the way you need to. Wash your face. Do whatever you need to do. But then—I’d really like to talk, and find out why you distrust other people so much.”

Harry’s chest trembled as he took in a breath, and so did his eyelashes. But his voice was gentle. “Okay.”

Draco turned and walked out of the bathroom, to flop down on the bed. His hands were shaking, but he clenched them into his lap and snorted. He didn’t even know who he was angrier at, Harry or the people who had taught him to react this way.

And if he got too angry with either one, then he stood the chance of frightening Harry away again.

Draco hissed and created a mini-bulwark of pillows to lean against. If he could, he would hold onto the image of Harry jumping on the bed and laughing. That was the Harry he wanted to be with, the one that he thought Harry would turn into if Draco gave him enough time and space and patience.

But Merlin, the only art he had ever practiced with patience was potions. He wasn’t sure he could do it with dating.

*

Harry took his time with conjuring a brush and toothpaste, cleaning his teeth, cleaning his face, and pissing. He didn’t want to go out there, but even more, he didn’t want to have to excuse himself to do one of them while Draco was holding onto him. Once he got out there, he would give Draco his full and undivided attention.

Why do you distrust other people so much?

Harry sighed and touched the scar on the back of his hand. He knew the answer, and he could explain it to Draco. But he couldn’t stop the automatic reactions, like thinking that Draco would hurt him with a Cleaning Charm that stung someone’s gums. He didn’t know what to do about it, except keep trying.

But Draco had just shown that trying wasn’t enough for him, that he wanted Harry to trust him right away and with everything.

Harry shut his eyes and shook his head. He would do what he could. That would either be enough, or it wouldn’t.

And he could survive the loss of Draco. It would hurt, he would bleed, but he could go on. That wasn’t what he had felt like when he had first lost Frank, or even Veronica. That had to be a sign he was healing, if he was no longer so dependent on someone else’s good opinion.

He opened the bathroom door and stepped out.

Draco sat in the center of the bed, pillows tucked behind him and in front of him. He peered over the ones in his lap at Harry, his hands clenched so hard that Harry could see his knuckles standing out under the skin from this distance.

Harry sighed and walked over to him. Draco tilted his head back, and said nothing even when Harry stood right beside the bed.

“Can I sit down?” Harry asked quietly.

Draco still said nothing either way, but after a second, he nodded.

Harry took a chance and sat beside Draco, leaning his head on Draco’s shoulder. Draco hesitantly put an arm around his waist. Harry nodded. That was okay. He trusted Draco to hold him now.

“Why do you trust me to do this but not to sting your teeth?” Draco whispered into his ear.

Harry took a deep breath, with his eyes on the covers. “I would have let you do it,” he said. “You know that.”

“Forgive me for saying that knowing that someone would let me hurt them doesn’t make me hot,” Draco snapped back.

Harry relaxed a little. Draco didn’t sound any angrier than he had during some of their other arguments. “Fine,” he said. “I told you that Frank told me that I’d been hurting people for a long time and hadn’t realized it.”

Draco’s chin banged him on the top of the head as he nodded, and Harry winced. Draco muttered what didn’t sound like an apology and said, “But you also know that Frank is a lying arsehole and you shouldn’t trust him.”

“Veronica told me the same thing,” Harry reminded him quietly. “I don’t think they knew each other, and I don’t think they could have come up with the exact same lie. And some of the reactions from the people before Frank only make sense when I think about them that way.”

Draco moved restlessly. “What does that have to do with you not trusting me? I thought you were happy to accept pain from other people, just not the other way around.”

Harry grimaced. Now that he had to say the words, his jaw wanted to lock up. But he was still going to say it. “Okay,” he said. “I can let people hurt me. It’s just—I don’t trust my own perceptions anymore. Not in relationships, unless they’re just friendships or the kind of casual sex I had with Muggles. I don’t know if I can trust someone. Maybe I was just thinking they were trustworthy. Maybe I’m wrong. I was wrong about so many other things. I’m just not very perceptive, at all, and I don’t have good character insight. I can accept pain from other people, I can take chances and decide that it’s worth the pain to try and get close to them, but I can’t—I don’t know if I’m right about them. Ever. At all.”

There was a short silence. Then Draco said, “So if you thought I was kind to you, protective, then you would immediately start doubting yourself? Because you could be wrong, since you were wrong once before?”

Harry nodded in silence, against his shoulder.

“Harry.” Draco moved back, and Harry had to raise his head and look at him. Draco reached out to him, not taking his shoulders the way he had in the bathroom but his hands. Harry blinked at him.

“I want to make this promise,” Draco said, and his eyes were direct and ablaze. Harry didn’t think there was anything wrong with that perception, at least. Frank had never said there was anything wrong with his eyes, except that they attracted people to Harry and then he couldn’t make it good for them. “I will always be honest with you. If I think that you’re going too far, hurting me, I’ll let you know. If I do something you disagree with but I’m doing it to protect you, I’ll let you know. And if I want to break up with you, I would definitely tell you. Okay?”

Harry slowly stretched his fingers. It felt like they’d been cramped for a long time, although he knew that was really just the result of clenching them hard for the last few minutes. He nodded.

“Does that mean you believe me?” Draco’s voice had gone soft.

“Yes.” Harry said it with all the conviction he could muster. He still thought that Draco’s trust in him was probably misplaced and Harry would end up hurting him, but Draco had better insight than he did, better perceptions. If he said he would be honest, he would be. Harry could try his best, but he would never be as certain.

“Good.” Draco kissed him hard enough to hurt and leaned back. “So. Do you want to try sleeping next to each other now?”

Harry smiled at him. “Thank you for phrasing it that way instead of as sleeping with each other,” he said.

*

Draco kept his sigh to himself. That was a tiny thing, a thing that no one else he knew would have thanked him for, because it was so little they wouldn’t have noticed. But then, no one else would have needed the reassurance, either.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and rolled over on his side. “How do you want to do this?”

Harry looked around the bed as though searching for a place he could lie, and then began to tug and rearrange some of the pillows. Draco helped him, suggesting a slightly firmer cushion when Harry began to put his head down on a lacy blue one. It was a little scrap of nothing, and Draco kept it for decoration, not for sleeping on.

Harry looked at him as though he was insane, although he let the lacy pillow go and started pulling some of the larger blue ones into a pile. “Why do you keep it, then?”

Draco shook his head and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the right time to try and explain the purpose of decorative pillows to Harry. They were going to have a hard enough time getting comfortable, if Harry didn’t find something he liked soon.

But at last Harry curled up on his right side, with Draco behind him, arm slung over Harry’s chest, and pillows scattered around them like casualties of war. Harry sighed and closed his eyes. Draco felt the heartbeat beneath him, the ribs, the skin that was probably scarred, if the way that Harry tensed when he shifted was anything to go by.

“Honestly, do you need a Muscle Relaxant Draught?” Draco murmured. “It seems like it’s the only way that you’ll ever go to sleep.”

Harry stirred restlessly against him. “Sorry,” he said, and it came out as a snap. He took a deep breath and stretched his arms out against the bed. “It’s been a long time since I slept beside someone, let alone with them.”

Draco nodded and cast a few charms that softened the bed behind them, around them, and under them, so that Harry sank a few inches. He squeaked and tried to sit up. Draco shook his head, casting more charms that raised the portion of the bed he was on higher. “It’s okay. I just thought you might be more comfortable if I wasn’t touching you as much.”

“I’m not more comfortable with you above me like that.” Harry hunched his shoulders. “It makes me feel like something’s going to attack me.”

“Tell me,” Draco said, because biting his tongue only took him so far, “does that reaction come from your lovers, or your Auror paranoia?”

“Or even from the war,” Harry muttered, not sounding offended. For a long few seconds, he lay there, squirming, and Draco held himself back. But he had to wonder if this would work at all, or if Harry would get up and go to another bedroom. Maybe even go home. Draco put an arm over his eyes and tried not to think about what he would do if Harry did that.

“All right,” Harry said suddenly. “Let’s try this. Can you get all of the bed back to the same level?”

Draco sniffed as he cast the charms. “Of course. What good would be a bed where you couldn’t do that?”

Harry rolled over and smiled at him, and Draco reached out to touch his hair. Harry didn’t try to evade his hand or say anything about scars, just leaned into it. “The Muggles manage somehow.”

`”Another reason to be glad that I’m a wizard,” Draco pointed out. “I learn something new every day.”

Harry laughed this time, and waited until Draco had lifted and sunk the separate portions of the bed. Then he arranged the pillows so that they surrounded him like a moat, gleaming blue and white and green. “Can you lie on the other side of this and still be comfortable?” he asked.

Draco looked him directly in the eye. “If I do that, then I can’t touch you.”

Harry’s smile was gentle and sad, but his gaze didn’t waver. “I know. I think that’s the way it has to be, at first.”

Draco swallowed down a protest and nodded. It was better than running away, and at least Harry was being honest with him this time.

Harry placed a few more pillows where he wanted them, and then lay down on his side again, the left side this time, facing Draco, and smiled at him. When he closed his eyes, Draco heard him whisper, “Good night.”

Draco hesitated, then lifted up the blankets and pulled them over himself. He didn’t need as many pillows as Harry did, and he didn’t need to sleep surrounded by them, either. He would go to sleep, and do his best to forget about the warm, breathing presence next to him in the bed, the presence he couldn’t touch.

But if he forgot, that didn’t work either, did it? He had to be conscious, and listen, and want, without touching. Draco hadn’t had to delay his desires very often in the last few years, when everything he did was working towards one of them or the other, and he didn’t know if he could do this, now.

But although it took long enough to make his eyes feel scratchy with weariness, he did fall asleep at last, and into dreams that weren’t unpleasant.

*

Harry slowly opened his eyes. The room was dark, and he knew, without casting a Tempus Charm, that it was still the middle of the night.

He was cold.

That would be because you don’t have any blankets on you, genius, he thought a second later, and reached down to feel for them.

He found a rucked-up line of them, but when he tried to tug on them, they seemed to be caught on something. Thinking it was the pillows, Harry pulled on them again, and rolled back towards his side of the bed.

His side of the bed. And the obstruction the blankets were “caught” on was muttering sleepily to itself.

He was in bed with Draco.

Harry stared at the invisible ceiling, wondering how he could have forgotten that fact. Then he rolled over and stared towards the flash of pale hair behind the pillows. Draco was mostly covered up by the blanket, but he was there, and Harry hadn’t felt as though someone was looming over him or preventing him from sleeping, or about to attack him. He was just there, and Harry had trusted him enough to sleep beside him.

Harry listened to Draco’s soft breaths, and swallowed. He hadn’t hurt Draco, either, the way that Frank had insisted he probably would if he slept beside someone ever again. Just having Harry in the same bed when Harry had hurt him brought up painful memories, Frank implied.

But this…

He’d done it, and it was okay. He could listen to Draco’s steady breathing and know that. Draco would probably have been glad to get closer to him if Harry could have allowed it.

And Harry thought he could, now. Although the blankets were draped around his shoulders and down his back, he was still cold.

He waited until he was sure that Draco hadn’t awakened, then started pulling the pillows out of the way.

Draco grunted and stirred, once, which made Harry pause with his heart hammering. But he must have gone back to sleep, because the soft breathing started again, and Harry slid into contact with Draco’s side. Blazing heat enveloped him, far better than the blanket.

He was still taking a risk. It was hard to lie there and not think of all the things that could go wrong, and how he might have misjudged things, and entrapped Draco, and made him believe things that weren’t true.

But he also remembered Draco saying that he would be as honest with Harry as he could, and Draco hadn’t wanted the pillows in the way, had wanted to sleep beside him. If Harry couldn’t trust himself, maybe he could trust someone else’s evaluation of himself.

Harry closed his eyes. He banished the memories of Frank and Veronica and all the rest of them from his mind. This was Draco. No one else breathed like this, was warm like this, smelled like this—not in the exact same way. Harry could lie still and silent with Draco, and it wasn’t going to hurt him.

Put like that, it was surprisingly easy for Harry to fall asleep.

Too bad that he had forgotten about the nightmares.

*

Draco came awake, shuddering and dragging his hand over his eyes. It felt as though some horrible monster was right behind his eyelids, scratching its claws, not at all delicately, over his brain and trying to get out.

The feeling went on, and a moment later Draco realized it was because the screaming was going on.

He rolled over, groping desperately beside him. Harry was somewhere there, beyond the barrier of pillows, and if Draco could reach him when he didn’t have his eyes all the way open yet—

The screaming body rolled into him, and hands grabbed desperately at him. Draco murmured something hoarse, got his breath and his voice back, and asked, “Harry? What the hell is going on?”

Harry’s body jolted as though Draco had struck it with lightning, and then Harry slumped and opened his own eyes. Draco could make out how dark they were, but Harry didn’t try to pull away. He smiled wryly at Draco and murmured, “So that was a harsh introduction to some of the other problems with sleeping with me.”

“What happened?” Draco demanded, looking around. He didn’t see any house-elves popped up unexpectedly beside the bed, and a wave of his wand told him about no problems in the wards. Not that he would have expected much disturbance in the wards, anyway, he thought, turning back to Harry. They were wrapped so thickly around each other that someone trying to disturb one of them would inevitably wake five others up.

“A nightmare.” Harry swallowed, then grimaced and started to sit up. “I need some water.”

“Let me,” Draco said.

For a moment, their eyes held. Then Harry lay back against the pillow that had ended up behind his shoulders and waved his hand. “Be my guest,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

“I won’t, but I’ll be your host,” Draco murmured as he stood, and saw Harry smile at him. Draco smiled back and moved across the room to the bathroom, conscious of the heavy weight of Harry’s eyes on his back.

And the way that Harry’s arms had flailed at him as Harry struck and screamed. He hadn’t anticipated nightmares in Harry’s catalogue of injuries and pains, but he should have. It made sense that the combination of the war, the Auror job, and the other things that had happened in his past would give him nightmares.

Draco wondered if he dared press to ask what it was about.

Harry gulped down half the cup of water that Draco brought back, and dropped to his back again, sighing. “Thanks,” he muttered, touching his forehead as though he thought his lightning bolt scar might split open. “It didn’t happen this time, but sometimes my throat is so dry that I think I’m going to die of dehydration before I can make it to the bathroom.”

Draco blinked and asked the first question that occurred to him, though he had to admit that it might not be the first one that occurred to someone else. “Then why not just keep a glass of water beside your bed?”

Harry smiled grimly. “Because it gets knocked over when I start flailing around, and waking up with my sheets soaking wet and cold because I got upset is something I only want to experience once.”

Draco nodded and sat back on his heels, letting his hands rest on his knees. Harry kept his eyes on Draco’s face as though he anticipated more questions. Maybe he should, Draco thought, staring at him. Harry might refuse to tell him the truth, but Draco would never know that until he asked.

“What was your nightmare about?”

Harry grimaced and ran his thumb over his palm for a second. Then he said, “It’s not—I think I could trust you with it. But it’s so small. I don’t know that I can really explain it to someone who didn’t live through it.”

Draco nodded, unsurprised. “Then would a Pensieve help? You could put the memory of the nightmare in there and I could experience it the way you did. Or you could let me read your mind with Legilimency and see if that helped.”

Harry gaped at him. Draco didn’t roll his eyes, but mostly because he was starting to get some practice in resisting the gesture. “What part of your absurd complexes makes you want to resist my invitation now?” he asked.

*

Someone would offer to do something like that?

Draco would want to listen to his nightmares. Harry had tried to anticipate that, to accept it, and find the words if he could. But he hadn’t anticipated someone else wanting to see them. The memories he had put into the Pensieve for Draco when he was trying to scare him off were the only time someone had ever seen his memories, unless you counted the time that Snape had tried to teach him Occlumency.

“That you would care enough to want to see them,” Harry said slowly. “No one else offered…I didn’t think about it, either,” he had to add, because clouds were drawing down on Draco’s brow, and he didn’t want Draco blaming his past lovers for things that really weren’t their fault.

Draco sat there for a second, then made a sharp gesture. “I won’t say what I think they should have done,” he said. “But I’m asking you again. A Pensieve, or Legilimency? Or are you going to tell me to sod off and mind my own business?”

“Legilimency,” Harry said. “I trust you not to hurt me, and the memory is so confused that I probably wouldn’t get the whole thing into a Pensieve. I know that Legilimency can see even buried memories, things you think you forgot.”

Draco drew his wand, casting him a passionless glance in the meantime. Harry, who had seen just how passionate it could get, didn’t flinch or back away. “You know a lot about Legilimency for someone who’s not good at it.”

Harry smiled slightly as he met Draco’s gaze. “I’ve had it used against me, multiple times. You get to study some of the theory, then, from the front seat.”

Draco paused, but in the end, he seemed to have decided that asking Harry about his past encounters with Legilimency was counterproductive. He laid his wand on Harry’s forehead and braced his fingers beneath Harry’s chin. “Open your mind as much as you can,” he instructed in a low voice, making it as boring as he could to listen to without sacrificing Harry’s attention altogether. Harry knew that; it was part of the theory he had learned when one of his enemies who didn’t want to “torment” him tried to lull him into simply accepting the intrusion. “Then it’ll be less painful. Think of me as someone welcome to your mind, someone who can go everywhere and see everything.”

Harry tensed once, then consciously relaxed his muscles. “You’re not him,” he muttered, when Draco paused and gave him another cool glance.

“Who’s ‘him’?” Draco swished his wand back and forth without letting go his hold on Harry’s chin or looking away from his eyes, as though he needed to limber up his wrist. “Not Frank, hopefully.”

Harry shook his head. “Frank believed in speaking the truth to me, not invading my mind and planting it there.”

He would have continued, but Draco pinched his chin, and Harry glared at him. “I thought you were supposed to be relaxing me, not hurting me and making me think of pain,” he snapped.

Draco’s eyes glittered like agates. “I don’t want to hear anything about Frank right now, speaking the truth or lying. But don’t think of this as someone invading your mind. That can make you fight me more effectively than any pain. It’s sharing, the way you shared your memories with me in the Pensieve. I would still like to know who ‘he’ was, but it can wait until after I’ve seen the dream.”

Harry nodded, and Draco smiled and crouched in front of him, his wand lifting again. “Good. Try to relax, if you can. Legilimens.”

Harry managed not to shut his eyes, because that would cut off Draco’s ability to read his thoughts. Instead, he tried to let them drift, let himself drift, and the walls that would have risen up to choke Draco’s way collapsed into banks of dust off to the sides. Harry breathed, gently, in and out.

And Draco didn’t hurt him.

He traveled through Harry’s mind, a noticeable presence. No matter how much Harry concentrated or thought, he couldn’t accept Draco as simply part of him, someone that was the same instead of foreign.

But he didn’t have to. And it wasn’t even as hard to keep the memories of those bad Occlumency lessons with Snape or the last time that someone had tortured him with Legilimency away as he had feared. Draco walked through, picked up his memories, and put them down again when he found out they weren’t the ones he wanted. He didn’t tear apart Harry’s thoughts just to tear. He didn’t cause pain.

Harry took another long, slow breath. In its way, this was a victory as complete as finding out that he could sleep beside Draco in the bed without pillows between them.

I can still trust people.

*

Draco knew when he had found the memory that was the center of the nightmare—whether it was solely the memory of the nightmare, or whether it was one had had become the dream, he didn’t know yet. It lay in the center of Harry’s mind, at least for the moment, and glowed like a black diamond. And the path had led him here, once Draco learned the boundaries of the path and knew enough of Harry’s mind to recognize which were random thoughts and which were important ones. It would have been tempting to explore, but even more tempting was the thought of seeing what had frightened Harry tonight, and having permission later, because he refrained today, to see what else Harry was hiding.

Draco had never been much of a fan of delayed gratification, but he could accept that future pleasure was its own reward.

The memory continued to shine and pulse when Draco picked it up. Draco frowned, and studied it more closely. It had a luster to it, a coat that looked like many memories laid down over it. Draco had never encountered something like this when he practiced Legilimency, and for a moment, he was at a loss. How was he to determine which was the core memory?

Then he smiled. The luster meant repetition, he remembered Professor Snape murmuring to him, not importance. Harry had had this dream before; it didn’t mean that many memories were mingled into it.

Draco took the black diamond in his hands, raised it close to his face, and peered down the center of it.

The darkness unfolded slowly, to the side, like curtains swishing back on a stage. Draco didn’t see much when they had parted, though, at least at first. Then a dim line of light under a door guided his eyes to the sides of the door, and the latch, and he nodded. This was the cupboard he had seen in one of the memories Harry had placed in the Pensieve. It didn’t surprise Draco that some of his nightmares would start here.

One moment they were in darkness, then there was light and confusion, and the Muggle child—Harry’s cousin—that Draco had seen in another memory was yelling into his face. “No one’s coming for you! You’re such a freak! It’s no wonder your parents died and left you! No one is coming to get you ever, ever again!”

The Muggle boy flung Harry on the floor and ran away. The floor was that of a kitchen, but it was surrounded with trees, and more memories and visions intermingled as Harry stood and turned away from his cousin.

Draco blinked and looked around, trying to ride the disorienting shifts in perspective. He hadn’t looked at the memory of a dream before, and hadn’t realized how closely it would correspond to dream logic.

They were in a forest, but it still had the tiled floor of the kitchen in the center, and a series of stools and chairs that looked like they came from a Muggle house. Harry perched on one and wrapped his hands around his head. Another person came and sat down silently on the chair across from him. They wore a dark cloak, but Draco thought it was a man. When he spoke, it was in a voice that made Potter flinch.

Familiarity, or viciousness? The only thing Draco knew for certain was that the man was neither the Dark Lord nor Professor Snape.

“You don’t deserve to be rescued,” the man whispered. “You don’t. Think of all the chances you gave up, all the chances you took, when you dashed off to rescue people who don’t need rescuing, and the ones that you turned your back on because you couldn’t believe they were helping you, and the people the prophecy got killed…”

Harry curled in on himself, smaller and smaller. The hooded figure continued speaking, but the words became a drone, and Draco nodded. He had had dreams like that himself, where it sounded like someone was saying awful things, but the noise was more important than any of the individual words.

Then the cupboard came back once again, and settled around Harry’s shoulders and head, squeezing him in. The figure, who was still out there somewhere even though Draco could no longer see him, laughed, and the sensation, the knowledge, came, that Harry would never leave the cupboard, that no one would ever come to rescue him, that being a wizard had been the dream and that he would never wake up into another life.

A scream shook the cupboard, probably the same one that had woken Draco up. Draco stepped back and pulled himself swiftly and easily out of Harry’s thoughts, following the same path he had taken down.

When he opened his eyes again, Harry was curled on the bed, his hands on his temples. Draco forced himself to be gentle as he reached down and lifted Harry’s hands away from his face. “Did I hurt you?” he asked quietly. He had done as well as he could, but it had been a long time since he practiced Legilimency.

Harry gasped several times and finally opened his eyes. “Not the way that Professor Snape or he hurt me,” he whispered. “Just…reliving the dream made me realize how awful it is, and how pathetic.”

“Dreams are like that,” Draco said, turning over on his side and pulling Harry with him so that Harry’s head rested on his chest. He was struggling to keep his voice even, not to stutter or ask more about who he was. “If you were awake, you would never believe them, but you’re not awake, and that’s the whole point.”

“Thank you for telling me that, Healer Malfoy,” Harry said. The roll of his eyes was audible, although Draco had trouble seeing it from this angle. Harry tried to sit up, though, and Draco slapped a hand over his chest to hold him down.

“What?” Harry added. “You’ve seen the dream. What else do I need to tell you?”

“I’ve seen the dream now,” Draco corrected gently, curling his arm around Harry’s shoulders. The pounding of his own heart was diminished, but he could feel the strong, leaping beat of Harry’s against his hand still. “You didn’t think I would want to hold you? Talk to you about this? See if there was something I could do?”

“I…” Harry blinked at the ceiling and reached a hand down as if he was going to cover up his heart. Draco caught his hand and squeezed it, instead. He would let it go and let Harry cover his heart if he really had to, but he wanted to see what would happen if he interfered, and sure enough, Harry swallowed loudly, nervously, but didn’t try to put his hand back.

“Listen,” Draco whispered into his hair. “You can have silence if that’s what you need, but I need to know what it is you do need.”

Harry shut his eyes as though he had to think about that for a little while. Draco caressed his hair and his neck, let his hands wander down onto Harry’s chest again, and licked his lips as a thought crossed his mind that hadn’t earlier. Why not take off his shirt, the next time he wanted to look at Harry with his shirt off? Why not let Harry look his fill?

That might remind him that he wasn’t the only scarred one in a world full of perfect people.

“I—would like you to hold me,” Harry muttered at last.

Draco rolled Harry up his chest and around, letting the bed and pillows take most of the weight, until Harry was ensconced with his face in Draco’s shirt. Harry laughed and lifted his face. “I can’t really breathe like that.”

Draco smiled. “And the more you complain, the happier I’ll be,” he said, rearranging Harry again so that his elbow wasn’t poking Draco in the stomach.

Harry gaped at him. “But you weren’t happy when I complained about you brushing my teeth.”

“I want to know what I can do to make you happy,” Draco said. “I’m not happy about the causes of your complaints, but if you tell me that you’re uncomfortable, that means that you’ve given up on that fantasy of having everything on a perfectly casual footing so that you never bother me.”

Harry took a short time to think about that. Draco watched his face, silent and contemplative, and didn’t say anything, because he thought he might break the mood and Harry would have a hard time getting it back.

“I’d like to talk about the dream,” Harry said. “I could remember it better after you summoned the memory. Does Legilimency usually work like that?”

Draco held his frown back as he nodded. “Yes. Usually, when it’s being used by Mind-Healers or other people for whom it’s a therapeutic art, the Legilimens brings the memory out and puts it in a Pensieve so that the patient can see and discuss it with the Healer. But just looking at it for long enough, the way I did, lets you see it, too.”

Harry nodded back. “It makes sense that I would dream about the Dursleys. I used to make believe that I had parents out there, strong, rich parents who would rescue me, and one time Dudley heard me pretending that. So that part of the dream comes from memories.”

Draco stroked Harry’s hair back from his forehead again, not knowing what to say. With some of his friends, he would have offered to curse the Muggles, or anyone else who had hurt them. With his parents, he would have done that plus researched ways to make sure that they had strong wards around their rooms and potions to help them sleep. With Harry, he wasn’t sure what help he could give.

“You must have been so relieved when you found out that you could leave for the wizarding world,” he said, to have words to offer.

Harry looked up and smiled at him. “Oh, I was. When Hagrid told me on my eleventh birthday—he had to do that because Uncle Vernon kept taking all my Hogwarts letters away—I felt the world just opening up in front of me. I mean, I wasn’t happy when I heard that I was famous and the way my parents had died, but I knew no one could ever stuff me back in my cupboard again.”

Draco lay further back as one of the pillows sank under him, and Harry came with him, a faint smile still on his face. Draco stroked the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. Harry didn’t stiffen under him. Maybe that was one scar he was used to having people touch.

“Who was the man who spoke to you?” Draco asked quietly. “I didn’t recognize his voice.”

Harry’s smile faded. “As near as I can tell, Sirius. It doesn’t make sense for him to talk to me that way, because I know now that he wouldn’t blame me for his death, but in a dream? Yeah, it means that I couldn’t escape. Maybe I had the wizarding world, but I’d never escape the consequences of my actions.”

Draco bowed his head and kissed Harry’s forehead before he could stop himself. Harry stirred and looked up at him in surprise.

“What was that for?” he asked. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It was nice. It was just unexpected.”

“I think maybe that dream is saying something more profound than you realize,” Draco said quietly, tightening his hold on Harry. “You keep thinking that you aren’t going to escape, don’t you? You keep thinking that you can never make up for all the awful things you supposedly did to your lovers and other people. There’s no apology, no forgiveness, and once you hurt someone, it’s forever. That’s another reason you were so anxious not to hurt me.”

Harry didn’t reject the conclusion immediately, the way Draco had been afraid he might. He thought about it, rolling his tongue against his teeth. It was an annoying sound, but Draco reminded himself about the good side of it, the side that said Harry was comfortable enough with him to make it, instead of anxiously suppressing every natural instinct because he was afraid that he might bother Draco.

“That’s true,” he said at last. “I suppose Frank convinced me that there was no way out of my mistakes with my lovers, specifically, but all this time…no way to change the Auror Department, no way to have the family or the long-term relationship I wanted, no way to escape my fame.” He nodded seriously, his hair flopping into his face. “I think I am afraid of that.”

Draco sighed. Harry promptly rolled over and fixed his attention on him. Draco tugged his fingers through Harry’s fringe again, to put off saying what he had to say.

But Harry was quick enough to catch on to the gesture. He reached up and took Draco’s fingers in his own, gently turning them over.

“What is it?” he asked. “Please tell me.”

“I think that it’s good you recognized what I was saying, without reacting defensively,” Draco began. “And that you can start thinking about what afflicts you, instead of just reacting to it.”

“But?” Harry prompted, a peculiar smile on his face as he watched Draco out of half-lowered eyes.

“I don’t think I can help you on my own,” Draco admitted. “I’m a Legilimens, but not a trained Mind-Healer. And other dreams might be harder to explain. I want you to consider seeing a trained Mind-Healer.”

*

Harry closed his eyes. His body shuddered a little as he remembered what had happened the last time he tried that.

“Harry?”

But it wasn’t like Draco would know that without Harry telling him. Harry opened his eyes and looked at Draco again. “The last tone tried to sell my secrets to the Prophet,” Harry said flatly. “The one before that didn’t understand why I had any problems, because I was rich and a hero and not crippled for life by a Dark curse, the way that so many of her patients were. The one before that wanted to attribute everything to being raised out of the wizarding world. I didn’t even get to tell him about the Dursleys. The minute he heard I’d grown up with Muggles, he was off and running.”

Draco nodded slowly, as though Harry’s words made sense to him. Harry felt his shoulders relax so quickly it hurt.

“Then you’ve been unlucky in who you’ve seen,” Draco said. “It doesn’t mean the idea itself doesn’t have merit, the same way that having a string of bad lovers didn’t mean you should give up on the notion of finding a partner forever.”

“So if I was wrong about that, I’m wrong about this?” Harry muttered, leaning his head on Draco’s knee.

“You could be,” Draco said. “I know a Mind-Healer who’s developed a spell that would render her completely objective for the duration of speaking to her patient. Able to see more of what plagues them and offer solutions, yes, but it would also keep her from caring about stupid things like your past or your fame. Would you be willing to see her?”

Harry closed his eyes. The last Mind-Healer he’d seen was at Frank’s instigation, and that had turned out to be a bloody awful idea. But Draco wasn’t Frank. That thought hit him again and again, and each time, the blow was harder, not lesser.

“All right,” he agreed, opening his eyes with a nod. “I just don’t know how long it will take to…”

“To what?” Draco asked, stroking his hair.

“To get healed,” Harry said. “To stop having nightmares.” He winced, because he sounded whiny. But this was another part of thinking he’d never escape, he supposed. That the consequences of his actions would never stop, never get better, just because.

Draco rolled him over. Harry found himself lying in Draco’s lap, looking at his face upside-down.

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Draco said calmly. “And even if something happens and we break up before it’s finished, I promise you, we’re going to have plenty of good times together.”

As he bent down to kiss Harry, Harry felt belief settle in him, heavy and steady.

Strong enough, at last, to outweigh his distrust and his belief in his lovers’ faithlessness.