[Note: This is a revised and generally cleaned-up version of the original fic. My apologies for the complete lack of new material, but there were a few inconsistencies in the fic I felt needed to be addressed.]
+Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus+
(Vergil)
CHAPTER FOUR
Draco woke up in the morning with the covers twisted around his legs and, a thundering headache, and a very bad temper. Muttering into his pillow, he tried to extricate himself from his sheets, failed utterly, and collapsed back down to think unwillingly of the dream that had plagued him all last night: Harry had shown up, and Voldemort was there, one moment demanding that Draco kill him - but then in the next second, Voldemort turned into Ron who told him he wasn't going to shove Harry down Draco's knickers for a million Galleons - and then Ron turned into Snape, who actually *did* pick him up and try to stuff him up Harry's robes, shouting "Necessity, Draco! Necessity, boy - that's all there is!"
In addition to the covers issue and his headache, Draco had woken up with Severus' voice ringing in his ears and an uncomfortable erection between his legs. He lay there, trying to banish his arousal through sheer force of will, concentrating on anything but being stuck under the stifling heat of Harry's robes and hearing dream-Harry asking him if he was having trouble breathing. He purposely did not think of the fact that Harry was one room over, barricaded away from him by a host of Aurors and warding spells, to be sure, but only one small room away...
/This is not working./
Sighing, Draco resigned himself to having to remedy the problem himself - /Necessity,/ Severus murmured sarcastically - but as he groped for the requisite mental images to stoke his passion, he found nothing but pale, insufficient memory. He played over the private reel of footage in his mind, of Harry in a variety of positions, doing things that were probably illegal in the wizarding world, or at least in Britain, beautiful with his pale skin and black hair and green eyes that peered lazily up at Draco as perfect, imaginary lips closed, hot and incendiary, over his erection.
And strangely, as Draco rubbed himself feverishly against his mattress, those images were inadequate. Worse than that, his private fantasies had skewed so far from the reality that he found he couldn't take any pleasure in them. /That's the *point* of a fantasy/ he thought, annoyed and a bit worried at the lucidity he managed when jerking off. /It's not supposed to be the real thing./
But he had the real thing one room away... Draco concentrated on the Harry he knew now, chastened a bit by the effects of time, more softly spoken and generally softer, but with unexpected edges and the determination that never left him. He pictured Harry with his painful limp and the pride that refused to use a cane, that instead found refuge in the form of another animal - and it occurred to him that Harry's choice of a hawk for his animal form was to compensate for something he had lost irrevocably in that accident: the chance to fly as he had once been able to, riding the wind currents as if he'd been born to them, the chance to fly and seek, gifted with eyes that could find anything.
He thought of those penetrating looks Harry had given him, the uncanny feeling he had that Harry had somehow managed to pierce his skin and drag out his thoughts with talons, as if he were being disemboweled. He thought of those green, green eyes that, despite the years and all that had happened, had *not* changed.
Draco rolled over, hand moving in earnest now, his entire body alive and throbbing. Excitement stirred in his gut, the anticipation of release curling tightly within him and spiraling through his veins. Compared to this, this exultation, the sense of Harry so clear in him, previous sessions shaded to insignificance. That those had satisfied him could not be doubted - they *had* -- but they were nothing compared to now, with fire burning in him and Harry's name on his lips, his body arching up into his own hand with an abandon of which he hadn't known he was capable, release seizing him and taking away everything, thought and pain and memory, together - and leaving - leaving -
He slumped back down, spent and trembling, hand slack against his thigh. He stared up at nothing.
/What?/ Nothing?
A sigh shook his body, and he had the thought that he should do something instead of just lie there naked, but Draco found he couldn't do it. Drying semen stuck uncomfortably to his skin, but the annoyance was minor and easily overlooked; his muscles had become absolutely loose, his bones had gone to water. There were things to do, like go to breakfast and deal with another day, and read Severus' diary, but they all required far too much effort to be worthwhile. There was... there was... /Nothing,/ Draco thought abstractly. /Nothing at all./
He felt free, bizarrely enough, in contrast to the uncounted private sessions he had conducted in his rooms with either himself or the individual he'd managed to entice into bed with him. Those times had always meant a gradual return to reality after the spasm of passion that came and went too soon - the hollowness of masturbation that came with waking up to the painful fact that the object of his fantasies was manifestly absent, and the sickening realization that the person in the bed with him was simply... simply not Harry, and usually out for power or gain, or the right to say he had royally fucked Draco Malfoy.
Strange how one could not recognize those feelings for what they were, or be completely happy in a time when they should not have been. He could clearly remember smiling many times as he climaxed, either alone or with his partner - but those times faded to tatters and rags. /Ignorance is bliss,/ he decided. /Severus was right. Nothing is what it appears to be./
Power, orgasms... it was all the same. Severus had realized the futility in chasing after the power offered by Voldemort and had gone his own way. Draco never had - he'd been blind, so willingly and absolutely blind, to flit along in Voldemort's shadow and take a body where he found it. From his present position, flat on his back with the knotwork of his bed's canopy above him, Draco was free to see the past for what it was.
/Shit./ Compelled to move and not liking what he saw, Draco slid off the bed and pulled on his robe. Mechanically, he moved through his bath and dressing, trying not to think of anything. /Nothing,/ a small voice in his mind taunted. /It all meant absolutely *nothing*./ Resolutely ignoring the voice's harassment, Draco stepped to the door and poked his head out, wondering why Ron wasn't howling at him to get a move on for breakfast.
Lavender was standing there instead, arms crossed over her chest. She spun when she heard the door open and glared at Draco in such a way as to suggest that the next time he startled her, she would respond with a curse of the unforgivable nature, rather than the "Goddammit, Malfoy!" she managed to produce.
"He already has," Draco informed her in a low voice. "Everything. I don't suppose I could get some breakfast?"
It took a moment for Lavender to recover, but she regained herself admirably. "Ron'll be here in a minute - the git still sleeps in on Saturdays, believe it or not." She rolled her eyes. "I think he rigged it on purpose that I got stuck babysitting you for the morning shift."
A not-so-subtle reminder that he was still under watch, and that she couldn't understand why Ron insisted on giving an ex-Death Eater the benefit of his good opinion and trusting that he wouldn't try anything nefarious. Draco felt a surge of irritation at Ron's Gryffindor-esque naiveté again. /Nothing,/ the little voice reminded him. /Nothing really matters anymore./
Draco resigned himself to waiting for Ron, who turned up fifteen minutes later, looking absurdly happy about something. It didn't grate at Draco quite the way he expected it to, and he asked - in a remarkably civil tone of voice, he thought - what Weasley was smiling about.
"It's a bloody wonderful day," Ron enthused as they wandered down the hall. Draco could smell the awful scent of eggs and ham, and he made a mental note to stick to the fruit and bread. "Finally got the last of your paperwork cleared away last night - the diaries are yours, and I think Fudge is saying good riddance to them. Thank God for it, I say."
"Thanks, Ron."
Unexpectedly, Ron laughed, and it was his old trademark laugh: open and unaffected and unreserved. "I never thought I'd live to see the day when you'd be thanking me for something," he said, swiping at a fake tear. "I almost thought you were going to start cursing and insulting me, like the last two times I did something nice for you."
"Yeah... well." Draco let the sentence trail off; his response to Ron's offer of amnesty and his offer of the diary *had* been met by strong language. /And 'strong language' is putting it mildly,/ he thought, wincing at his previous behavior. /Nothing,/ the voice replied serenely. /All nothing./ "I have been a bit of a bastard."
"Just a bit," Ron agreed in a tone so neutral Draco was forced to glare at him. It earned him a sideways and thoroughly unrepentant grin, which was in many ways exactly what Draco had expected.
/Wanking is cathartic,/ he mused to himself as they sat down to breakfast and he steadfastly avoided the ham and Flitwick's nervous tittering. He felt absolutely liberated from the torment of the past few weeks - of the past few years, even - and able to look at things anew. /People have changed,/ he thought for the thousandth time since his arrival had forced him to deal with a newly confident Ron Weasley and a very different Harry Potter (and even an Auror Lavender Brown, although that was still hard to credit.) But there was a huge difference between *recognizing* change and *accepting* it.
They had changed. *He* had, in some fundamental way, although he could not identify it.
He turned to Ron, who was plowing through his scrambled eggs. "Ron?"
"Mmph... yes?" Ron ended up speaking past a mouthful of food. He swallowed thickly, coughed, and shook his head. "I mean, yes? What is it?"
"How much notice do I need to give before I want to leave?"
Surprise painted itself across Ron's face. /And that, at least, does not change./ He set down his fork and stared at his plate for a minute before asking, "Why? Are you wanting to leave already?" From the expression on his face, he hadn't even considered the possibility of Draco's leaving right away. Draco couldn't say he was astonished at the reaction - he was a bit surprised at himself for bringing the subject up. But still...
"If the diaries are mine, I would like to leave as soon as possible," Draco said quietly, striving to make sure Flitwick wasn't going to overhear them - or that Harry, sitting on Flitwick's other side, wouldn't, for that matter. "There are things I need to take care of at home." /Like what? Terrorizing the house elves? Watching the grass grow? I thought we were past running, Draco./
/I'm not bloody *running*/ he snarled. /I'm going home./
"Just a day," Ron replied, brow creased slightly. He looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not to be genuinely angry with Draco for skipping out so soon. "Mostly it's just a matter of paperwork - your Apparating license has been revoked, but I was able to arrange a portkey in Hogsmeade. I'll just need a day to make sure it's set up properly. But after that... we can leave whenever you want to. There's no rush - it's not like there's a lot for an Auror to do nowadays, except go galloping off whenever Fudge thinks some bush wizard in the Orinoco is getting it into his head to play Dark Lord."
"You really don't like being an Auror, do you?" Draco asked, surprised at himself for asking the question - and having the insight to read the signs in Ron's voice to generate it.
Ron shook his head. "I don't mind the Auror part at all," he said, "but I hate dealing with Fudge and all the paper-pushers... Too many idiots in government for me. How they got there is anyone's guess."
"Oh, I think I know," Draco said quietly. He poked at a bit of watermelon with his fork. "I'd imagine that it's how the... the Death Eaters worked as well - too many idiots, like you said."
"Are you saying you were an idiot?" Weasley's hazel eyes were entirely too bright and his smile too devilish.
"Yeah," Draco muttered, not looking at him. "I think I was."
'Power attracts those who are weak on many levels,' Severus had written at some point during the beginning of the second year, when Death Eaters had begun to mass in earnest. 'I for myself, God help me, could not stay away from the promise of revenge on those who had more power and respect than I did during school. Appetite and weakness is a dangerous combination - a weak man will give into his desire for power, respect, fear, money... anything and everything he desires, he will obtain no matter what or who he has to forsake. And I thought I was the strongest of all of them!' Even on the page the words held a remnant of hysterical self-condemnation. 'How utterly blind I was, Draco, and I wished very strongly that you would see what I did not see until it was too late. But over the years I have come to the conclusion that we see what we want, and keep seeing it until something happens to make us see what *is*.'
And Draco's happening had been this morning, daydreaming of Harry Potter with a limp and with a pain he'd never had in their schooldays, of the Harry Potter who sat near him *now.* And that was what *was*, not what Draco had secretly, desperately hoped for - and, in the end, it was so much better. He could not have this Harry, though, any more than he could have had the fiery and stubborn boy who had haunted his nights since seventh year, and it was so much easier to leave having just come to this realization, like severing a limb all at once instead of slowly incising through skin and flesh and bone.
"You're really set on going, are you?" The way Ron said it, so softly and unobtrusively, almost made Draco change his mind - there was entirely too much in Ron's tone that suggested Draco was making a big mistake in leaving Harry and whatever Draco had with him, and the strange sort of friendship - or call it accord, maybe - Ron offered him.
"I am," Draco said as firmly as he could manage. He swallowed a mouthful of scalding hot tea and almost spit it out but made himself swallow. The tears that came to his eyes could be blamed wholly on that, and for that he was grateful.
"Tomorrow," Ron said quietly, sounding somewhat disappointed. "I'll come for you when I get word that everything's set up. Okay?"
"Okay." Draco darted a sideways look at Harry, who did not seem to notice their conversation. "Thank you." /Thank you, Ron, for not asking questions./
* * *
Draco had gone to sleep that night unsure whether to be relieved or resigned; he settled on a mixture of both, as it was the only emotional cocktail that allowed him to fall asleep. It meant he kept his window shut without dithering about whether to close it or keep it open, and it meant that when he woke up the next morning it was with a sour sort of churning in his stomach and a faint sense of ill-ease, not the tormenting heat of yesterday. He slid out of bed and dressed, seeing by the clock that it was almost time to meet Ron for their trip to Hogsmeade, and his own trip home.
The early morning was brisk, cold, and completely silent - it was Sunday, after all, and most of the castle's inhabitants were still asleep. Ron was leaning, half-asleep, outside Draco's door when Draco opened it; the clanking and scraping of the door, though, startled him into full wakefulness and he glared reproachfully at Draco, who shrugged.
"Is everything ready?" Draco asked, gripping Severus' diary tightly and hoping that Ron didn't hear the strain in his voice.
"Yeah." Ron's expression was unreadable. "You got your stuff?"
Draco gestured to the small trunk floating behind him and nodded.
"Let's get a move on, then," Ron said. He turned on his heel and gestured for Draco to follow him. Draco trailed along, slightly behind and surprised that the other Aurors were nowhere to be found. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, or make some snide comment about faithful pets, when Ron said, "They're off on another assignment - Fudge is getting nervous again, I think. Something about bewitched guinea pigs in Sussex."
"Oh. Bewitched guinea pigs, you say?" The huge doors leading out to the school gardens yawned open for them. Draco stepped under the proscenium archway, glancing up reflexively at the profusion of twisted, carved figures and the runes graven deeply into the stone that helped ward the school from evil. He wondered if they really worked anymore - it had let Voldemort, Bartemius Crouch Jr., and *him* through their defenses.
Their walk to Hogsmeade took them along the same paths they had followed in former days, long and sloping with long views over distant moors, the inclination just enough to hurry footsteps down to the village and to make walking back tiresome and annoying. Draco remembered one of Goyle's more brilliant ideas - why not just stay in Hogsmeade for the rest of your life, then? He spun a brief picture of a small, snug flat overlooking the town square, maybe right over a baker's shop, or the herbalist's. Just... living there, season to season, with nothing to distinguish the days from one another except holidays and the occasional crowds of students.
Malfoy Manor loomed, though, a step closer with each step they took. Ron explained that there was a portkey waiting for them just outside Honeydukes, and awkwardly segued into, "We were a little surprised that you were leaving so soon."
The non sequitur and early morning had Draco reeling for a moment before he recovered enough to say, "Well, you said the diaries are mine and you don't really need to know what's in them, so I don't see why I should hang around any longer."
"Dumbledore would have wanted you to stay," Ron said. "Minerva wants you to. And, y'know, it's been sort of nice having you around."
"Is this the part where you confess your undying love for me?" Draco demanded, trying to keep his voice from rising. It became more difficult when he thought he heard Ron mumble something about not to *him*, but someone else. "Why do you *want* me around? An ex-Death Eater to gloat over? And nice? *Nice*? Weasley, I don't think I could have been nastier to you without being hexed to the other side of the world."
"Well, you *did* say 'thanks' twice," Ron pointed out. He had that cheerfully neutral expression on his face that said he refused to get drawn into a shouting match. "And you said it yourself - ex-Death Eater. Do you honestly think we would have asked you here if we'd had reports of you sacrificing small children or unicorns to conjure Voldemort's spirit from the dead?"
No, Draco couldn't honestly say that. Ever since Voldemort's death and the conclusion of his former compatriots' trials, he hadn't felt much of an urge to go back to the Dark Arts. He hadn't felt much of an urge to do anything. Even his two weeks away from the Manor, he'd not felt particularly stimulated outside of sparring with Ron, reading Severus' diaries, and talking/fighting/engaging in fantasy sex with Harry. "It doesn't mean I'm reformed, though," he muttered.
Ron kicked at an offending piece of grass but kept walking. A chill breeze picked up and whipped back his red hair; an absent hand smoothed at it before returning to straighten out the robes he'd obviously thrown on hastily. "You know, you're not half as bad-ass as you like to think you are, Malfoy," he said. "Once you admit that, maybe things'll be easier for you."
Draco had to admit that Ron had a point, but he decided he'd be damned if he let Ron know it. Still... he shuddered mentally at the implications of Ron's words. If he wasn't bad, evil, malicious, nefarious, hostile, conniving, pick the modifier... what was he? He wasn't *anything.* Ever since he could remember, that was how other people defined him, even his friends, who said that Draco was simply good at being bad. If he wasn't all those things, what was he?
/Nothing,/ the small voice sighed from a recess in his gray matter. /Nothing./
They were coming up on Hogsmeade now, and the little village was blanketed in the half-light of early morning. A few people moved in the small gardens outside their front doors, but most houses still had the still, silent look to them that said their inhabitants were asleep. Draco remembered one of the last times he had been to the village when it had been still and quiet as well, but that had been because Hogsmeade had been evacuated. He'd been one of the first Death Eaters to come through the village, and the boarded-up windows and unnatural desolation had disturbed him even then.
"Okay..." Ron's voice broke into Draco's reverie. "It should be around here somewhere..." He had turned into a side alley just after passing the sign for Honeydukes, and had begun to poke around a small pile of junk. Draco half-wanted to ask if that was really sanitary, but kept quiet. A moment later, Ron produced a tiny, truly repellent and virulently pink rubber sandal and held it out for Draco's inspection. "Voila!"
"Very nice."
"It's set to go off in a couple minutes," Ron said, checking his watch, "so step on up."
An uneasy thrill shot through Draco's stomach as he unlocked his trunk and placed the diary in it. He closed the lid and stepped up to put one hand on the flip-flop, keeping the other hand on his trunk. The couple of minutes dragged on interminably, during which Draco wondered an easy dozen times if the portkey had malfunctioned. Maybe... maybe that wasn't wholly a bad thing. He opened his mouth to say so, and to suggest that maybe they go back to the school, when he felt the familiar pull behind his navel and Hogsmeade vanished in a whirl of light and sound.
The bleak environs of Malfoy Manor resolved back around them, and Draco stared up at the looming, hostile facade of the manor house with sudden misgiving. It seemed terribly alien all of a sudden, not at all the home he had grown up in. It was like someone else's home. /Maybe it is./
"Well, this is where I leave you," Ron said with a sort of forced lightness. The expression in his hazel eyes was pained, although he managed a bright, winning smile. "Thank you for coming, Draco. I'm sorry if Severus' diaries didn't work out as you hoped."
Apology from a Gryffindor in former days would have been too much to be borne, but Draco accepted it with a shrug and a nod. "It did, in a way."
"Good." Ron glanced up at the columned walkway to the house and nervously turned the sandal over in his hands. "I need to be getting back. Owl me sometime. We'd love to hear from you."
"You'd love to hear from me?"
"What can I say? I'm a sucker for punishment." Ron grinned and inclined his head in a strange sort of half-bow before taking the Portkey in both hands. "See ya."
With a sudden pop Ron vanished and Draco was alone. Very alone, and feeling very small under the towering expanse of his own house. From a great distance he heard one of the house-elves ask if he should take Draco's trunk and if the Master was alright - he left so quickly, Blinker didn't know what to do with himself, sir, but the house was in perfect order, it was, and there was some mail that had come while he was gone.
"It is the Chartreuses, sir, they is wanting to know about the Gringotts account sir has inherited... and the Goyleses too, they has been leaving letters for Blinker since you left Master-sir..."
Numb, Draco followed Blinker inside, brushing off the house-elf's chatter with grunts and monosyllables. He stood for a long moment in the empty echoing foyer, staring up at the huge ancestral portraits that glowered down on him in silent disapproval. Just after his initial incarceration, he had re-charmed them to remove their voices, so the portrait of Malacoda Malfoy ranted on soundlessly, although the old dame had apparently worked herself into quite a state. Her husband, Marius Malfoy, kept his mouth shut, but he was frowning bitterly. /What *will* the family ghosts say?/ That seemed to be the major thrust of Malacoda's argument as she gestured violently at him.
It was almost impossible to think that there was still a whole day to get through - and a day after that, and a day after that. /Forever and forever and forever.../
Draco wavered, indecisive for a moment, before he recalled that Blinker had said there was mail for him. No... no mail. He didn't want to read whatever it was the Goyles would be sending him. Usually it was pleas for money or a good attorney. Unfortunately for them, his assets were frozen and handled through a complex chain of command in the Ministry Department of Fiscal Services. Unfortunately for him, assuming that he actually cared about the money - but he had quickly learned to ignore what amounted to his newfound poverty.
Might as well go to his room, then... The huge grandfather clock said it was only seven-thirty. He could sleep for a few hours, then - he was still a night owl and preferred waking up when the morning was edging toward noon. Maybe he'd sleep more, as talking to Ron usually proved emotionally draining and right now Draco felt *very* drained indeed.
Glad that he had fixed upon a decision, Draco let his body automatically take him up the winding marble staircase and through the side door that led to the family apartments. All the portraits along the way bellowed soundlessly at him; the only sound in the place was the heavy plodding of his footsteps on the succession of checkered marble tile and mahogany and fine rugs.
His bedroom was, of course, unchanged, exactly as it had been since fifth year when his mother had gone into a fit of redecorating. It was mostly blue tones (black and gray were just too... too cliché, Narcissa Malfoy had said), not necessarily somber, but not cheering either. Draco had never really noticed. It was just a room, but in the way that rooms had, it had grown on him to the point that, even after his parents' deaths should have moved him to the master suites, he stayed here. The bed was indented in the proper places and everything, the small statuettes and paintings, the gilding and brocade, were exactly where they were supposed to be. He wondered if his old, tattered stuffed pegasus was still hidden in the back of his sock drawer, but didn't bother to find out.
Sighing a bit, he pulled off his robes, felt unexpected catches where the fine material had begun to unravel. Well, Blinker and the other two house-elves were dying of boredom with only him to wait on - they'd fall over themselves repairing his clothes. Draco wadded up the robes and flung them in the general direction of his clothes hamper.
Only the robes never got there. They connected with something invisible and slid to the floor.
Draco was vaguely aware of a strangled yell jolting out of his throat, but all his concentration was fixed on the overwhelming, horrifying thought that he didn't have his wand - his hand had automatically gone to where he kept it, in an inside pocket of his jacket, but as inevitably happened, he remembered that his wand had been snapped in front of a silent, staring gathering of Ministry officials. He stumbled back until he hit the dresser, felt the brass handles digging into his back, and wanted to keep going.
/It's Voldemort, it's the Aurors... Oh, God.../ his mind rambled on in incoherent disbelief. His wand was snapped, gone. He was going to die. /Finally./
/No... no, I don't want to die. Not yet./
The air shimmered and rustled before him, and in one fluid motion, the invisibility cloak covering the intruder was flung off and the Harry Potter himself stared dead at Draco, who was cornered and trapped and disbelieving.
+Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus+
(Vergil)
CHAPTER FOUR
Draco woke up in the morning with the covers twisted around his legs and, a thundering headache, and a very bad temper. Muttering into his pillow, he tried to extricate himself from his sheets, failed utterly, and collapsed back down to think unwillingly of the dream that had plagued him all last night: Harry had shown up, and Voldemort was there, one moment demanding that Draco kill him - but then in the next second, Voldemort turned into Ron who told him he wasn't going to shove Harry down Draco's knickers for a million Galleons - and then Ron turned into Snape, who actually *did* pick him up and try to stuff him up Harry's robes, shouting "Necessity, Draco! Necessity, boy - that's all there is!"
In addition to the covers issue and his headache, Draco had woken up with Severus' voice ringing in his ears and an uncomfortable erection between his legs. He lay there, trying to banish his arousal through sheer force of will, concentrating on anything but being stuck under the stifling heat of Harry's robes and hearing dream-Harry asking him if he was having trouble breathing. He purposely did not think of the fact that Harry was one room over, barricaded away from him by a host of Aurors and warding spells, to be sure, but only one small room away...
/This is not working./
Sighing, Draco resigned himself to having to remedy the problem himself - /Necessity,/ Severus murmured sarcastically - but as he groped for the requisite mental images to stoke his passion, he found nothing but pale, insufficient memory. He played over the private reel of footage in his mind, of Harry in a variety of positions, doing things that were probably illegal in the wizarding world, or at least in Britain, beautiful with his pale skin and black hair and green eyes that peered lazily up at Draco as perfect, imaginary lips closed, hot and incendiary, over his erection.
And strangely, as Draco rubbed himself feverishly against his mattress, those images were inadequate. Worse than that, his private fantasies had skewed so far from the reality that he found he couldn't take any pleasure in them. /That's the *point* of a fantasy/ he thought, annoyed and a bit worried at the lucidity he managed when jerking off. /It's not supposed to be the real thing./
But he had the real thing one room away... Draco concentrated on the Harry he knew now, chastened a bit by the effects of time, more softly spoken and generally softer, but with unexpected edges and the determination that never left him. He pictured Harry with his painful limp and the pride that refused to use a cane, that instead found refuge in the form of another animal - and it occurred to him that Harry's choice of a hawk for his animal form was to compensate for something he had lost irrevocably in that accident: the chance to fly as he had once been able to, riding the wind currents as if he'd been born to them, the chance to fly and seek, gifted with eyes that could find anything.
He thought of those penetrating looks Harry had given him, the uncanny feeling he had that Harry had somehow managed to pierce his skin and drag out his thoughts with talons, as if he were being disemboweled. He thought of those green, green eyes that, despite the years and all that had happened, had *not* changed.
Draco rolled over, hand moving in earnest now, his entire body alive and throbbing. Excitement stirred in his gut, the anticipation of release curling tightly within him and spiraling through his veins. Compared to this, this exultation, the sense of Harry so clear in him, previous sessions shaded to insignificance. That those had satisfied him could not be doubted - they *had* -- but they were nothing compared to now, with fire burning in him and Harry's name on his lips, his body arching up into his own hand with an abandon of which he hadn't known he was capable, release seizing him and taking away everything, thought and pain and memory, together - and leaving - leaving -
He slumped back down, spent and trembling, hand slack against his thigh. He stared up at nothing.
/What?/ Nothing?
A sigh shook his body, and he had the thought that he should do something instead of just lie there naked, but Draco found he couldn't do it. Drying semen stuck uncomfortably to his skin, but the annoyance was minor and easily overlooked; his muscles had become absolutely loose, his bones had gone to water. There were things to do, like go to breakfast and deal with another day, and read Severus' diary, but they all required far too much effort to be worthwhile. There was... there was... /Nothing,/ Draco thought abstractly. /Nothing at all./
He felt free, bizarrely enough, in contrast to the uncounted private sessions he had conducted in his rooms with either himself or the individual he'd managed to entice into bed with him. Those times had always meant a gradual return to reality after the spasm of passion that came and went too soon - the hollowness of masturbation that came with waking up to the painful fact that the object of his fantasies was manifestly absent, and the sickening realization that the person in the bed with him was simply... simply not Harry, and usually out for power or gain, or the right to say he had royally fucked Draco Malfoy.
Strange how one could not recognize those feelings for what they were, or be completely happy in a time when they should not have been. He could clearly remember smiling many times as he climaxed, either alone or with his partner - but those times faded to tatters and rags. /Ignorance is bliss,/ he decided. /Severus was right. Nothing is what it appears to be./
Power, orgasms... it was all the same. Severus had realized the futility in chasing after the power offered by Voldemort and had gone his own way. Draco never had - he'd been blind, so willingly and absolutely blind, to flit along in Voldemort's shadow and take a body where he found it. From his present position, flat on his back with the knotwork of his bed's canopy above him, Draco was free to see the past for what it was.
/Shit./ Compelled to move and not liking what he saw, Draco slid off the bed and pulled on his robe. Mechanically, he moved through his bath and dressing, trying not to think of anything. /Nothing,/ a small voice in his mind taunted. /It all meant absolutely *nothing*./ Resolutely ignoring the voice's harassment, Draco stepped to the door and poked his head out, wondering why Ron wasn't howling at him to get a move on for breakfast.
Lavender was standing there instead, arms crossed over her chest. She spun when she heard the door open and glared at Draco in such a way as to suggest that the next time he startled her, she would respond with a curse of the unforgivable nature, rather than the "Goddammit, Malfoy!" she managed to produce.
"He already has," Draco informed her in a low voice. "Everything. I don't suppose I could get some breakfast?"
It took a moment for Lavender to recover, but she regained herself admirably. "Ron'll be here in a minute - the git still sleeps in on Saturdays, believe it or not." She rolled her eyes. "I think he rigged it on purpose that I got stuck babysitting you for the morning shift."
A not-so-subtle reminder that he was still under watch, and that she couldn't understand why Ron insisted on giving an ex-Death Eater the benefit of his good opinion and trusting that he wouldn't try anything nefarious. Draco felt a surge of irritation at Ron's Gryffindor-esque naiveté again. /Nothing,/ the little voice reminded him. /Nothing really matters anymore./
Draco resigned himself to waiting for Ron, who turned up fifteen minutes later, looking absurdly happy about something. It didn't grate at Draco quite the way he expected it to, and he asked - in a remarkably civil tone of voice, he thought - what Weasley was smiling about.
"It's a bloody wonderful day," Ron enthused as they wandered down the hall. Draco could smell the awful scent of eggs and ham, and he made a mental note to stick to the fruit and bread. "Finally got the last of your paperwork cleared away last night - the diaries are yours, and I think Fudge is saying good riddance to them. Thank God for it, I say."
"Thanks, Ron."
Unexpectedly, Ron laughed, and it was his old trademark laugh: open and unaffected and unreserved. "I never thought I'd live to see the day when you'd be thanking me for something," he said, swiping at a fake tear. "I almost thought you were going to start cursing and insulting me, like the last two times I did something nice for you."
"Yeah... well." Draco let the sentence trail off; his response to Ron's offer of amnesty and his offer of the diary *had* been met by strong language. /And 'strong language' is putting it mildly,/ he thought, wincing at his previous behavior. /Nothing,/ the voice replied serenely. /All nothing./ "I have been a bit of a bastard."
"Just a bit," Ron agreed in a tone so neutral Draco was forced to glare at him. It earned him a sideways and thoroughly unrepentant grin, which was in many ways exactly what Draco had expected.
/Wanking is cathartic,/ he mused to himself as they sat down to breakfast and he steadfastly avoided the ham and Flitwick's nervous tittering. He felt absolutely liberated from the torment of the past few weeks - of the past few years, even - and able to look at things anew. /People have changed,/ he thought for the thousandth time since his arrival had forced him to deal with a newly confident Ron Weasley and a very different Harry Potter (and even an Auror Lavender Brown, although that was still hard to credit.) But there was a huge difference between *recognizing* change and *accepting* it.
They had changed. *He* had, in some fundamental way, although he could not identify it.
He turned to Ron, who was plowing through his scrambled eggs. "Ron?"
"Mmph... yes?" Ron ended up speaking past a mouthful of food. He swallowed thickly, coughed, and shook his head. "I mean, yes? What is it?"
"How much notice do I need to give before I want to leave?"
Surprise painted itself across Ron's face. /And that, at least, does not change./ He set down his fork and stared at his plate for a minute before asking, "Why? Are you wanting to leave already?" From the expression on his face, he hadn't even considered the possibility of Draco's leaving right away. Draco couldn't say he was astonished at the reaction - he was a bit surprised at himself for bringing the subject up. But still...
"If the diaries are mine, I would like to leave as soon as possible," Draco said quietly, striving to make sure Flitwick wasn't going to overhear them - or that Harry, sitting on Flitwick's other side, wouldn't, for that matter. "There are things I need to take care of at home." /Like what? Terrorizing the house elves? Watching the grass grow? I thought we were past running, Draco./
/I'm not bloody *running*/ he snarled. /I'm going home./
"Just a day," Ron replied, brow creased slightly. He looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not to be genuinely angry with Draco for skipping out so soon. "Mostly it's just a matter of paperwork - your Apparating license has been revoked, but I was able to arrange a portkey in Hogsmeade. I'll just need a day to make sure it's set up properly. But after that... we can leave whenever you want to. There's no rush - it's not like there's a lot for an Auror to do nowadays, except go galloping off whenever Fudge thinks some bush wizard in the Orinoco is getting it into his head to play Dark Lord."
"You really don't like being an Auror, do you?" Draco asked, surprised at himself for asking the question - and having the insight to read the signs in Ron's voice to generate it.
Ron shook his head. "I don't mind the Auror part at all," he said, "but I hate dealing with Fudge and all the paper-pushers... Too many idiots in government for me. How they got there is anyone's guess."
"Oh, I think I know," Draco said quietly. He poked at a bit of watermelon with his fork. "I'd imagine that it's how the... the Death Eaters worked as well - too many idiots, like you said."
"Are you saying you were an idiot?" Weasley's hazel eyes were entirely too bright and his smile too devilish.
"Yeah," Draco muttered, not looking at him. "I think I was."
'Power attracts those who are weak on many levels,' Severus had written at some point during the beginning of the second year, when Death Eaters had begun to mass in earnest. 'I for myself, God help me, could not stay away from the promise of revenge on those who had more power and respect than I did during school. Appetite and weakness is a dangerous combination - a weak man will give into his desire for power, respect, fear, money... anything and everything he desires, he will obtain no matter what or who he has to forsake. And I thought I was the strongest of all of them!' Even on the page the words held a remnant of hysterical self-condemnation. 'How utterly blind I was, Draco, and I wished very strongly that you would see what I did not see until it was too late. But over the years I have come to the conclusion that we see what we want, and keep seeing it until something happens to make us see what *is*.'
And Draco's happening had been this morning, daydreaming of Harry Potter with a limp and with a pain he'd never had in their schooldays, of the Harry Potter who sat near him *now.* And that was what *was*, not what Draco had secretly, desperately hoped for - and, in the end, it was so much better. He could not have this Harry, though, any more than he could have had the fiery and stubborn boy who had haunted his nights since seventh year, and it was so much easier to leave having just come to this realization, like severing a limb all at once instead of slowly incising through skin and flesh and bone.
"You're really set on going, are you?" The way Ron said it, so softly and unobtrusively, almost made Draco change his mind - there was entirely too much in Ron's tone that suggested Draco was making a big mistake in leaving Harry and whatever Draco had with him, and the strange sort of friendship - or call it accord, maybe - Ron offered him.
"I am," Draco said as firmly as he could manage. He swallowed a mouthful of scalding hot tea and almost spit it out but made himself swallow. The tears that came to his eyes could be blamed wholly on that, and for that he was grateful.
"Tomorrow," Ron said quietly, sounding somewhat disappointed. "I'll come for you when I get word that everything's set up. Okay?"
"Okay." Draco darted a sideways look at Harry, who did not seem to notice their conversation. "Thank you." /Thank you, Ron, for not asking questions./
* * *
Draco had gone to sleep that night unsure whether to be relieved or resigned; he settled on a mixture of both, as it was the only emotional cocktail that allowed him to fall asleep. It meant he kept his window shut without dithering about whether to close it or keep it open, and it meant that when he woke up the next morning it was with a sour sort of churning in his stomach and a faint sense of ill-ease, not the tormenting heat of yesterday. He slid out of bed and dressed, seeing by the clock that it was almost time to meet Ron for their trip to Hogsmeade, and his own trip home.
The early morning was brisk, cold, and completely silent - it was Sunday, after all, and most of the castle's inhabitants were still asleep. Ron was leaning, half-asleep, outside Draco's door when Draco opened it; the clanking and scraping of the door, though, startled him into full wakefulness and he glared reproachfully at Draco, who shrugged.
"Is everything ready?" Draco asked, gripping Severus' diary tightly and hoping that Ron didn't hear the strain in his voice.
"Yeah." Ron's expression was unreadable. "You got your stuff?"
Draco gestured to the small trunk floating behind him and nodded.
"Let's get a move on, then," Ron said. He turned on his heel and gestured for Draco to follow him. Draco trailed along, slightly behind and surprised that the other Aurors were nowhere to be found. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, or make some snide comment about faithful pets, when Ron said, "They're off on another assignment - Fudge is getting nervous again, I think. Something about bewitched guinea pigs in Sussex."
"Oh. Bewitched guinea pigs, you say?" The huge doors leading out to the school gardens yawned open for them. Draco stepped under the proscenium archway, glancing up reflexively at the profusion of twisted, carved figures and the runes graven deeply into the stone that helped ward the school from evil. He wondered if they really worked anymore - it had let Voldemort, Bartemius Crouch Jr., and *him* through their defenses.
Their walk to Hogsmeade took them along the same paths they had followed in former days, long and sloping with long views over distant moors, the inclination just enough to hurry footsteps down to the village and to make walking back tiresome and annoying. Draco remembered one of Goyle's more brilliant ideas - why not just stay in Hogsmeade for the rest of your life, then? He spun a brief picture of a small, snug flat overlooking the town square, maybe right over a baker's shop, or the herbalist's. Just... living there, season to season, with nothing to distinguish the days from one another except holidays and the occasional crowds of students.
Malfoy Manor loomed, though, a step closer with each step they took. Ron explained that there was a portkey waiting for them just outside Honeydukes, and awkwardly segued into, "We were a little surprised that you were leaving so soon."
The non sequitur and early morning had Draco reeling for a moment before he recovered enough to say, "Well, you said the diaries are mine and you don't really need to know what's in them, so I don't see why I should hang around any longer."
"Dumbledore would have wanted you to stay," Ron said. "Minerva wants you to. And, y'know, it's been sort of nice having you around."
"Is this the part where you confess your undying love for me?" Draco demanded, trying to keep his voice from rising. It became more difficult when he thought he heard Ron mumble something about not to *him*, but someone else. "Why do you *want* me around? An ex-Death Eater to gloat over? And nice? *Nice*? Weasley, I don't think I could have been nastier to you without being hexed to the other side of the world."
"Well, you *did* say 'thanks' twice," Ron pointed out. He had that cheerfully neutral expression on his face that said he refused to get drawn into a shouting match. "And you said it yourself - ex-Death Eater. Do you honestly think we would have asked you here if we'd had reports of you sacrificing small children or unicorns to conjure Voldemort's spirit from the dead?"
No, Draco couldn't honestly say that. Ever since Voldemort's death and the conclusion of his former compatriots' trials, he hadn't felt much of an urge to go back to the Dark Arts. He hadn't felt much of an urge to do anything. Even his two weeks away from the Manor, he'd not felt particularly stimulated outside of sparring with Ron, reading Severus' diaries, and talking/fighting/engaging in fantasy sex with Harry. "It doesn't mean I'm reformed, though," he muttered.
Ron kicked at an offending piece of grass but kept walking. A chill breeze picked up and whipped back his red hair; an absent hand smoothed at it before returning to straighten out the robes he'd obviously thrown on hastily. "You know, you're not half as bad-ass as you like to think you are, Malfoy," he said. "Once you admit that, maybe things'll be easier for you."
Draco had to admit that Ron had a point, but he decided he'd be damned if he let Ron know it. Still... he shuddered mentally at the implications of Ron's words. If he wasn't bad, evil, malicious, nefarious, hostile, conniving, pick the modifier... what was he? He wasn't *anything.* Ever since he could remember, that was how other people defined him, even his friends, who said that Draco was simply good at being bad. If he wasn't all those things, what was he?
/Nothing,/ the small voice sighed from a recess in his gray matter. /Nothing./
They were coming up on Hogsmeade now, and the little village was blanketed in the half-light of early morning. A few people moved in the small gardens outside their front doors, but most houses still had the still, silent look to them that said their inhabitants were asleep. Draco remembered one of the last times he had been to the village when it had been still and quiet as well, but that had been because Hogsmeade had been evacuated. He'd been one of the first Death Eaters to come through the village, and the boarded-up windows and unnatural desolation had disturbed him even then.
"Okay..." Ron's voice broke into Draco's reverie. "It should be around here somewhere..." He had turned into a side alley just after passing the sign for Honeydukes, and had begun to poke around a small pile of junk. Draco half-wanted to ask if that was really sanitary, but kept quiet. A moment later, Ron produced a tiny, truly repellent and virulently pink rubber sandal and held it out for Draco's inspection. "Voila!"
"Very nice."
"It's set to go off in a couple minutes," Ron said, checking his watch, "so step on up."
An uneasy thrill shot through Draco's stomach as he unlocked his trunk and placed the diary in it. He closed the lid and stepped up to put one hand on the flip-flop, keeping the other hand on his trunk. The couple of minutes dragged on interminably, during which Draco wondered an easy dozen times if the portkey had malfunctioned. Maybe... maybe that wasn't wholly a bad thing. He opened his mouth to say so, and to suggest that maybe they go back to the school, when he felt the familiar pull behind his navel and Hogsmeade vanished in a whirl of light and sound.
The bleak environs of Malfoy Manor resolved back around them, and Draco stared up at the looming, hostile facade of the manor house with sudden misgiving. It seemed terribly alien all of a sudden, not at all the home he had grown up in. It was like someone else's home. /Maybe it is./
"Well, this is where I leave you," Ron said with a sort of forced lightness. The expression in his hazel eyes was pained, although he managed a bright, winning smile. "Thank you for coming, Draco. I'm sorry if Severus' diaries didn't work out as you hoped."
Apology from a Gryffindor in former days would have been too much to be borne, but Draco accepted it with a shrug and a nod. "It did, in a way."
"Good." Ron glanced up at the columned walkway to the house and nervously turned the sandal over in his hands. "I need to be getting back. Owl me sometime. We'd love to hear from you."
"You'd love to hear from me?"
"What can I say? I'm a sucker for punishment." Ron grinned and inclined his head in a strange sort of half-bow before taking the Portkey in both hands. "See ya."
With a sudden pop Ron vanished and Draco was alone. Very alone, and feeling very small under the towering expanse of his own house. From a great distance he heard one of the house-elves ask if he should take Draco's trunk and if the Master was alright - he left so quickly, Blinker didn't know what to do with himself, sir, but the house was in perfect order, it was, and there was some mail that had come while he was gone.
"It is the Chartreuses, sir, they is wanting to know about the Gringotts account sir has inherited... and the Goyleses too, they has been leaving letters for Blinker since you left Master-sir..."
Numb, Draco followed Blinker inside, brushing off the house-elf's chatter with grunts and monosyllables. He stood for a long moment in the empty echoing foyer, staring up at the huge ancestral portraits that glowered down on him in silent disapproval. Just after his initial incarceration, he had re-charmed them to remove their voices, so the portrait of Malacoda Malfoy ranted on soundlessly, although the old dame had apparently worked herself into quite a state. Her husband, Marius Malfoy, kept his mouth shut, but he was frowning bitterly. /What *will* the family ghosts say?/ That seemed to be the major thrust of Malacoda's argument as she gestured violently at him.
It was almost impossible to think that there was still a whole day to get through - and a day after that, and a day after that. /Forever and forever and forever.../
Draco wavered, indecisive for a moment, before he recalled that Blinker had said there was mail for him. No... no mail. He didn't want to read whatever it was the Goyles would be sending him. Usually it was pleas for money or a good attorney. Unfortunately for them, his assets were frozen and handled through a complex chain of command in the Ministry Department of Fiscal Services. Unfortunately for him, assuming that he actually cared about the money - but he had quickly learned to ignore what amounted to his newfound poverty.
Might as well go to his room, then... The huge grandfather clock said it was only seven-thirty. He could sleep for a few hours, then - he was still a night owl and preferred waking up when the morning was edging toward noon. Maybe he'd sleep more, as talking to Ron usually proved emotionally draining and right now Draco felt *very* drained indeed.
Glad that he had fixed upon a decision, Draco let his body automatically take him up the winding marble staircase and through the side door that led to the family apartments. All the portraits along the way bellowed soundlessly at him; the only sound in the place was the heavy plodding of his footsteps on the succession of checkered marble tile and mahogany and fine rugs.
His bedroom was, of course, unchanged, exactly as it had been since fifth year when his mother had gone into a fit of redecorating. It was mostly blue tones (black and gray were just too... too cliché, Narcissa Malfoy had said), not necessarily somber, but not cheering either. Draco had never really noticed. It was just a room, but in the way that rooms had, it had grown on him to the point that, even after his parents' deaths should have moved him to the master suites, he stayed here. The bed was indented in the proper places and everything, the small statuettes and paintings, the gilding and brocade, were exactly where they were supposed to be. He wondered if his old, tattered stuffed pegasus was still hidden in the back of his sock drawer, but didn't bother to find out.
Sighing a bit, he pulled off his robes, felt unexpected catches where the fine material had begun to unravel. Well, Blinker and the other two house-elves were dying of boredom with only him to wait on - they'd fall over themselves repairing his clothes. Draco wadded up the robes and flung them in the general direction of his clothes hamper.
Only the robes never got there. They connected with something invisible and slid to the floor.
Draco was vaguely aware of a strangled yell jolting out of his throat, but all his concentration was fixed on the overwhelming, horrifying thought that he didn't have his wand - his hand had automatically gone to where he kept it, in an inside pocket of his jacket, but as inevitably happened, he remembered that his wand had been snapped in front of a silent, staring gathering of Ministry officials. He stumbled back until he hit the dresser, felt the brass handles digging into his back, and wanted to keep going.
/It's Voldemort, it's the Aurors... Oh, God.../ his mind rambled on in incoherent disbelief. His wand was snapped, gone. He was going to die. /Finally./
/No... no, I don't want to die. Not yet./
The air shimmered and rustled before him, and in one fluid motion, the invisibility cloak covering the intruder was flung off and the Harry Potter himself stared dead at Draco, who was cornered and trapped and disbelieving.