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Chapter Twenty-Five—The Truth

For long moments, Harry sat still, his head lowered, his courage gathering. He was surprised that Draco did not ask his questions right away, but perhaps he had sensitivity enough to see how hard this was for Harry and to give him some time to deal with his own resolution first.

Perhaps? He does, and you know it, said that cold, clear voice. Lie to him about the connection between the two of you, but it won't sound very convincing. And I won't let you lie to yourself any more.

Harry did have to wonder about that voice. It sounded firmer and more contemptuous of him than his other personas did. Of course, the other personas didn't speak to Harry; he voiced them, turned them outwards and set them like mirrors facing the world.

"How did you come to work for Metamorphosis?" Draco asked, evidently deciding that Harry had had enough time to brace himself. "And why pretend to be Brian?"

Harry sighed shakily. This was one of the things he had known Draco would ask, and thus one of the truths he knew he would have to tell. But the secret had been his alone for so long, hoarded like a precious gem, that he had a very hard time relaxing his grip on it.

Draco stared intently at him, but said nothing more, and the silence that passed before Harry answered was punishing and comforting both at once.

"I—I don't work for Metamorphosis," Harry whispered at last. "I own and run it."

Draco frowned. "And you delegate responsibilities to the Manager?" He cocked his head. "I suppose I can see why you would do that. You don't want anyone to know you're gay, so you don't want your name associated with an organization that does good work for gay people." His voice grew briefly scathing; Harry winced, but didn't try to defend himself. "That still doesn't tell me why you decided to play one of his workers, though."

Damn. I will have to come out and say it. "I don't—Draco." Harry looked away from him, staring down at the sheets. He only realized his hand was shaking when Draco clasped it and rubbed his fingers back and forth over Harry's knuckles.

That straightened Harry's spine. Draco was the one who had gone through a broken bone and great pain in the last few hours; Harry had no right to shake or break down or act even weaker than he really was.

"What is this terrible secret?" Draco whispered gently.

Harry took a deep breath and answered honestly. It took more courage than he had used to face Voldemort in the duel in the graveyard. "Not terrible, except maybe in its size. I am Metamorphosis, Draco. I play every single person who belongs to it. The Manager was me. If you had chosen one of the other people I showed you—Purity, say—I would have been him. Or her." He looked at Draco, only then realizing he'd been glancing away during his confession, and waited.

It felt as if a firework had gone off in Draco's brain.

No. That isn't possible—no.

Draco opened his mouth to accuse Harry of lying again, and then paused. The expression on Harry's face was quiet, worn, and open, like the expression of someone who had spent days hiking through a thunderstorm. He made no attempt to withdraw from Draco, and he had his head tipped forwards slightly, as if he expected anger to break over him, even welcomed it.

This is the truth. Draco felt that as unshakably as he had felt that Harry's story about a ten-year passion for him was a lie.

Ten years. Metamorphosis had been active for ten years. And ten years was the amount of time that Harry had spent in seclusion, about the time that the "pathetic Potter" rumors had started.

It was possible. Barely. If Draco were willing to credit Harry with supernatural determination, strength of will, magical power—well, he knew about that one—and learning capability.

"Metamorphosis has handled so many cases," he whispered at last. "There have been so many different wizards and witches—"

"Every single one of them me." Harry smiled; it might have been a wry smile if his eyes hadn't been so full of panic. Barely restrained panic, Draco thought, and realized how much it had cost Harry to tell him this. "That's why one of our mottos is 'Need a perfect stranger?' I can guarantee that the person you hire will be a stranger, because they didn't exist before I made them up."

The motion of his wand when he cast the Transfigurations on himself. So practiced, as if he had handled this magic for years.

"I can't imagine the amount of training this must have taken," Draco said. His voice was still low and breathy. There was no particular reason for it to be like that; this was Harry's house, and surely he would have wards that shut out spies. But his mind was glassed over, his emotions drowned for the moment. He knew he was essentially in shock. Even the beat of his own heart, overwhelming in his ears, felt distant.

"It took a lot, yes." Harry shifted a little, as if compelled to put some distance between himself and Draco, though he didn't let go of Draco's hand. His muscles were all locked; Draco could see them bunching in his shoulders. "But I wanted to do this. From the moment I came up with the idea for Metamorphosis and realized how much fun it could be and how much I could help people, I've never wanted to do anything else. So it was acting lessons and dialect lessons and Transfiguration lessons and glamour lessons and learning how to choose wigs and robes and other clothes. Learning to alter the way I walk, my small gestures, my emotions."

Draco took a deep breath.

And the reality of the idea exploded on him.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

The Savior of the Wizarding World, the Gryffindor who had fought to destroy the shadows consuming their society so that people might walk honestly in the light once more and look each other in the face, had also created the most deceptive web Draco had ever seen or heard of. His father liked to brag about the way he had fooled the Ministry for fourteen years into thinking that he'd just been under the Imperius Curse when he'd served the Dark Lord. Compared to this, that was only a half-meant deception, a secret Lucius had betrayed the moment he found an appreciative audience who would not betray him in turn.

The only perfect conspiracy was one that was never discovered. And Draco knew of no one who had even suspected that Metamorphosis was not real, that the Manager was his workers, or that any of them was Harry Potter.

It was clever, and more than clever. It took cleverness, cunning, ambition, power, all the Slytherin traits that Draco had been raised with, and spun them into a web that it tugged over everyone's eyes. The people Draco knew who had used Metamorphosis included a great many Slytherins, and others who prided themselves on knowing the sheathed-dagger traits of the pure-blood world and surviving them every single time. They had been just as fooled as everyone else had been.

One small part of Draco was violently jealous. That Harry had the skills to pull something like this off, and he didn't—

But the rest of Draco was flooded with desire.

He came back to himself. Harry was watching him carefully, head tilted back and nostrils flared and eyes wide. He seemed ready to bolt if Draco had an unfavorable reaction.

Draco smiled. He cupped Harry's chin and brought his face closer, kissing him lightly on the lips, then on the cheek, then behind his ear. Harry gasped a little, his head drooping and his eyelids fluttering.

Mine. Not just him, but everyone he's ever played. He held his cool and finished the jobs with everyone else, but I was the one he gave in to. I was the one he told. Even his friends can't know, or one of those gossipy Weasleys would have betrayed it by now.

"Do you know how much I want you?" he whispered into Harry's nearest ear, making Harry squirm, maybe at the words, maybe at the tickling sensation. "I wish my body was healthier. Lovemaking is the best means of sharing I know, and I want to share everything about you, with you, in you." He felt himself harden and growled a little at the pain that twinged through his left side when he tried to move. "Maybe you can—"

Harry pulled back, alarmed. This was definitely not a normal reaction, and maybe Draco had hit his head on the wall harder than Harry thought. Besides, they couldn't

just have sex every time one of them felt the urge. That was stupid.

"Draco," Harry said sharply. "Why aren't you feeling angry at the moment? Betrayed? You have a right."

Draco smiled dazedly up at him, his eyes shining so fiercely Harry thought he looked drunk. His hand kept moving, sweeping through Harry's hair and up and down his neck. Then he brought his other hand, the one that had been clasping Harry's, into play, as if he couldn't get enough of touching him.

"I'm not angry," Draco whispered, "because what you've done is beautiful."

Harry just stared at him.

"So deceptive," Draco went on, his voice working into an actual croon. "You didn't leave any clues behind, or a trail. I never would have guessed what was wrong if you hadn't confessed it." He didn't look angry at admitting his own incapacity, either, which made Harry flinch. "This—the possibilities are endless, Harry. And you used them to help other people in your own way, didn't you? And to play in your own way. This is an endless game." His eyes sharpened for a moment. "Mind, I want to know why you chose this, instead of the life that everyone expected you to have after the war."

Harry's breath withered in his throat. Oh, Draco would choose the hardest question, the one that he doubted he could answer for anyone, because his justifications would seem impossible or thin outside the shelter of his mind.

"Harry? I'm waiting." Draco's face had hardened slightly, though the shine still lingered in his eyes, and his hands still caressed Harry's face.

"It wasn't—it wasn't the life I wanted or could have," Harry whispered at last. "I found out I was gay, which cut out marriage and a family."

"It doesn't have to," Draco said, so low that Harry could hardly hear him. "There are children you could adopt."

Harry stared at him again. "What are you—"

"Well, never mind." Draco waved an airy hand, all his attention squarely on Harry. It was unnerving. Harry had always had the impression Draco was thinking about at least two things other than him. Now he faced that sole scrutiny, and it hurt. "What were the other reasons, Harry? I want to know them. I want to be the only one who knows this much of you."

His words burned along the edges with strange passion. Harry shook his head, not in denial but uncomprehendingly. Draco wasn't reacting right. His own knowledge of Draco gained from observation and from Pansy and Narcissa said that he should care more about the insult to his pride than about learning Harry's secrets. Why didn't he?

Maybe because he's in love with you, said the merciless voice.

There isn't a me he can be in love with! Harry screamed back at it, and only became aware that he'd pulled away from Draco when the other man's hands tightened on his shoulder and the back of his neck, forbidding him from going further. He murmured a few soothing nonsense words, then said, "Harry? Tell me."

Yes, there is, said the merciless voice. Me, for a start. And if you try to deny that you're on the way to falling in love with him, I shall set your conscience on you. You could have got him medical help and left him alone. That would have severed the bond between you if anything could. Instead, you kept him, healed him, and told him secrets you once swore never to let out. If that is not a sign on the road to love, what is it?

Harry lifted his head with a gasp, like someone surfacing from quicksand. If he loved Draco, he thought wildly, then surely he could trust him. He could trust Draco to listen to a request from him and honor it.

"I'll tell you what made me start Metamorphosis," he whispered. "I will. But later, Draco, please. I'd—I'd break down sobbing if I tried, and that would make me very unattractive, wouldn't it?" He smiled, trying to banter. Surely, if Draco could ask for sex at a time like this, he could use humor.

Draco studied Harry for a moment, his eyes narrow. Harry looked less like a frightened rabbit than Draco had thought he would, and more like a man under torture. His face was pale, his body shaking, his hands clumsy when he reached out to press his fingers under the place where Draco's side hurt.

Draco knew he could press his advantage. He could remind Harry that that pain was his fault, and that Harry owed him the truth. And he thought Harry would break and confess. Perhaps it would even do him good to get it out in the open at last.

But Harry had asked for more time.

And Draco did not really want to see Harry broken. He had dreamed of Harry surrendering the truth to him freely, and that was what had happened so far—at least, Harry must have known there was a possibility that Draco would demand that when Harry offered him whatever he wanted. This truth, too, should come to Draco freely to be really valuable.

When he tells me, I'll know he's mine.

Draco relaxed. Yes. That was important. The myriad selves Harry had just revealed had made their relationship twenty times more complicated. Harry might easily be able to fool Draco into thinking their bond was permanent and then slip away. Or he could show Draco one of the many other facets of his character and bedazzle him. Draco wanted Harry to step to his side and bow his head of his own free will. It was the only way to be sure of him.

Of his love. That is what I want.

And Draco fiercely wanted the man who could do this.

"All right," Draco said at last.

Harry lifted his head, and the expression on his face was stunned, beatific. No one had ever offered him something like this before, Draco thought. He was the first, again. He felt a surge of smug satisfaction, and then more curiosity.

Before he could ask his next question, though, Harry said, "I'd like—I'd like to kiss you right now." He flushed, as if it were asking for a kiss and not all the other things they'd done since they met which was blush-worthy. "Very much. Please?"

Draco tilted his head back, eager to see what the kiss would be like. "You always may," he said.

Carefully, with his eyes open and his face curiously set, Harry kissed him. It was a light, gentle pressure for long moments. Then Harry tapped on Draco's lips with his tongue, and Draco opened them. Harry explored Draco's mouth in silence, save for the soft slopping motions of their lips together.

And then he moaned, a sound that seemed to tear itself out of his guts.

The significance of the moment was not lost on Draco. It was the first real kiss Harry had initiated wearing his own face, and it was affecting him as none of the kisses they had performed before—when he was wearing Brian's face—had done.

Another memory of the last time they had spent in bed together overwhelmed Draco. Strange that he hadn't attached much meaning to it at the time.

He came when he realized I wanted him.

Yes, Harry was there for the having, if Draco could only find him. And he could give himself happily, contentedly, to the man who had done this.

Harry pulled back at last, his pupils so dilated that Draco's erection came back again; he hoped that Harry would forget about his injury and suggest a short romp. But Harry cleared his throat and murmured, "What was your next question? I've asked a few and got such pretty answers, it's only fair I should answer a few."

Draco smiled lazily and let his hand skim over the side of Harry's neck again, hoping the motion would soothe him whilst he asked a question that was sure to be painful. "Why haven't you told your friends about Metamorphosis?"

Harry swallowed. Then he swallowed again, braced an elbow on the bed, and leaned down towards Draco so that he could have his hair and face stroked. Draco obliged.

Harry began in a shaky voice.

Careful. I've got to make it sound good without betraying Ron and Hermione—

You have to make it the truth, said the merciless voice. Or are you telling me that you feel as close to them as ever at this moment, closer than you do to Draco?

His life would have been more comfortable if he could have kept on lying to himself, anyway, Harry thought, and then wondered: which portion of himself?

But Draco was waiting, so Harry spoke. "Hermione knew I had started practicing with glamours and other shape-changing spells in Hogwarts, so I could keep people from mobbing me," he murmured, leaning his head on Draco's shoulder. That left him alone with the memories, but even that was easier than facing Draco's gaze at the moment. "She didn't like it. She talked to me several times about it, then she argued, and then she broke down in tears, pleading with me to be myself, no matter how hard it was. She was afraid that I would lose myself behind the masks."

"And was she right?" Draco whispered directly into his ear. "Have you lost yourself?"

"No," Harry said strongly. "I haven't."

"Liar," Draco sighed. For just a moment, his hand rested heavily on the back of Harry's neck instead of stroking. "Tell me the truth, Harry."

Harry shivered. This was one of those secrets he had wanted to keep back. But telling Draco whathad happened as a consequence of that last year between Hogwarts and the opening of Metamorphosis was not the same thing as telling him what had happened during that year itself. Surely.

Surely, the merciless voice agreed.

"I've come close to it, I suppose," Harry whispered. "I don't want to be Harry Potter anymore. Everyone thinks they know him, and no one does. He's deficient in all the best traits. I want to be the people he's not, and that's one reason I chose as many different personas as I did. I wanted to be Brian more than I've wanted to be anyone in a long time, and I think that's why I slipped up. He was close to the idealized image of my self, the person I would have liked to be if I could."

When Harry began to speak of himself in the third person, Draco went cold. Only great effort kept his hands moving on Harry's neck and shoulders, stroking the truth out of him.

Granger may have been right.

On the other hand, why did she forbid Harry from using the masks and the glamours? Obviously, all that had happened was Harry's agreeing with her on the surface and then using the spells in such a way that she wouldn't find out, and that had increased the danger of his drifting without an anchor. She should have stood by him, been someone he could come talk to about it.

I will be that person. I want to know him. I want to know what he's playing, see how he does it.

Draco's throat was thick with longing. He wanted to know the real Harry, of course, the one the man on his shoulder spoke of losing; he must be the origin of all those traits Harry loved to put in his other personas, and he was so sheltered and hidden that it would be an honor to be his first contact with the outside world in a decade. But he wanted to know the other people, too, the personas Harry became, the flashing, narrow facets of his character that would reflect the light back like a many-sided gem.

How stupid of Granger to give up a chance at that position.

"Go on," Draco said, and touched his lips to the skin behind Harry's ear.

Harry began almost babbling. Draco kept the touches of his hands smooth and steady. How long has he wanted to say this? How long has he had to hold back?

"I pretended to agree, she was so upset about it, but I couldn't stop. And then Ron found out I was gay, and that came near destroying our friendship, but I locked him in a room with me and a bunch of Firewhiskey and talked to him about it until he came around, but I can't let him find out that I actually have lovers, because he asked me not to shove it in his face, and he still thinks of other gay men and women the same way as he always did, and that hurts but he's Ron and I love him. And Hermione is so caught up in her causes, in helping house-elves and Muggleborns, and now she has a new baby on the way, I can't ask her to take on the burden of helping me, too. And she would think I needed help if she knew the truth about Metamorphosis. I can't, Draco, I can't."

"Shhh, Harry," Draco said, his arms tightening. Harry lay almost completely on the bed by now, his breath short and frightened. "I'm not asking you to tell them. I only wanted to know why you hadn't." He paused. "Do you regret that you told me?"

Harry raised his head, sniffling, embarrassed. He had swum entirely in a sea of self-pity for long moments, when Draco was the one who had been hurt. And now he was in tears just from the memory, when Draco hadn't cried at all. It was one thing to choose an appearance of weakness in front of others, as Harry had in order to fool Narcissa, and another thing to let anyone see the parts of him that found the world hard to bear. They deserved to be scorned, but the scorn would tear Harry apart.

"No," he whispered. "But I'm afraid that you might."

Draco's arms tightened again, and he half-rolled, so that they were face-to-face. Harry met his gaze, distantly surprised that it wasn't as hard as he had assumed it would be a few minutes ago.

"Listen to me, Harry," Draco whispered. "It seems that you might have lost part of yourself playing games, yes—"

Harry began to struggle. He could bear anything but the actual evidence of Draco's regret. He would have to reach his wand, he would have to use a Memory Charm—

"Listen to me."

You owe him trust, too, the merciless voice said.

Harry took a deep breath, restraining his panic as he had restrained his tears, and looked back at Draco.

"Good," Draco said quietly. "Now. You might have lost yourself, but I don't want you to have to give up the games. They're beautiful. I want to see all you can do, to meet all the people you are."

Harry reeled as if someone had punched him in the gut. Oh, God. This—it isn't happening. I don't deserve so much good fortune.

Shut up and listen, said the merciless voice.

"I want you to be able to play them whilst still being yourself." Draco's hand slid into his hair and tightened there. "I want everything for and from you, Harry Potter. Do you understand me? Some things about you I won't like, I'm certain, but I want the chance to dislike them. I want you to trust me. I want you to be strong in all senses of the word. And I'm going to demand that you make me strong, and that you tell me what you honestly think of me, and that you give me the chance to earn your trust."

"Oh, yes," Harry whispered, and then he was kissing Draco again, hovering a little to be careful of Draco's wounded side, but frantic to express his emotions and unable to find any other way. Some of his personas were good with words, but he wasn't.

Oh, yes. I—I hardly dared to even envision this.

Envision it, the merciless voice said. And work hard to deserve it. Use all the strength that belongs to you, both with you now and distributed among your personas.

That was the first thing Harry thought the merciless voice had been wrong about, because once he gave a character trait to a persona he could not call it back to himself without destroying the persona. But he would worry about that later.

For now, he simply kissed Draco and was happy.