As an early warning: this story is going to contain plenty of angst. This story only contains angst... and romance. And maybe a little bit of humor- but it's all overshadowed by angst. Just so you know. Draco/Harry, Harry/Draco. Don't you love slash? ^__^ And to think, it's kinda multiple Harry-Draco... purely for the angst factor. LOL
Chapter 2: The New Research
Shamera
You know I'd die just to hold you, stay with you
Somehow I'll show you that you are my night sky
I've always been right behind you
Now I'll always be right beside you...
-Evanescence, "You"
"This is insane." Hermione was tempted to tear at her short hair before everyone else, but knew that if she lost her cool- it would only be a matter of time before everyone became hopeless. But even so, she was tempted. She was frustrated enough, after all. All this research… and not a thing that could be found.
It would be nice if they knew where to start.
"Calm down." A soothing hand rested on her shoulder, the voice calm enough that she relaxed just a bit.
Glancing through her bangs at the person who came to stand next to her, Hermione allowed herself a little smile. Here was a reason that she had to continue on, even if it's only for a belief. Harry's reappearance was like a miracle, and gave many people more hope that not everything was forsaken.
"You're working yourself too hard." Harry sounded worried, and Hermione had to shake her head.
"I'm not." She protested. "It's just that no matter how hard I work, I can't seem to come up with anything."
"Do you want me to help you?"
Hermione hesitated. On one hand, she wanted to say yes. Somehow, having Harry around calmed her nerves, just like back in Hogwarts. It seemed more like studying and researching for reports or tests rather then being in a life or death situation. But on the other hand…
"Shouldn't you be spending time with Draco?"
Harry gave a quirk of the lips, and shook his head. "We're not attached at the hip, 'Mione. We do need our away times as well." His eyes held a strange emotion. "I'd very much like good memories, thank you. And being confined together for a long time makes the both of us pissy."
Hermione giggled. "I get it. You're the people who are desperately in love, but can't stand each other."
"That's about it." Harry smiled. "So, you want me to do anything here? Run errands? Find people to do something?"
Hermione allowed herself a small, relieved sigh. It would be so much easier with Harry around… even if it's just to relieve her troubled mind. The two of them knew each other explicitly, meaning that Harry would usually know what she needed before she asked for it.
"It would be nice if you could tell me where to start searching," She mused aloud.
Harry frowned. "I thought you've been working on this for a long time."
She shrugged. "I have. All of us have. But we're usually spread out into different groups, some of us researching on old magical items that might help, some searching for charms, potions, inventions, and whatnots. With all of that, we're too spread out to actually find anything."
"Why don't you try researching on magic?" He suggested.
Hermione scowled. "Oh, sure. We're only ALL researching on magic."
Harry shook his head. "No, I meant magic itself. What is it? What caused it? What created it? Maybe if we can find a way to stop magic, we might find a way to dispel the curse."
"I don't think that will work. Don't you remember magical theory, Harry? Magic is innate. Every living being has a portion of magic in them."
"Then why is it that we have muggles? Why is there a separation between magical and ordinary creatures? Why are some people more powerful than others?"
"Because some of us are more attuned to- wait. Harry. You know this already."
Harry raised a hand to pacify Hermione's glare. "Yes. I remember the endless studying you made us do on this subject. But I just think that we're looking too hard, that's all. It's a feeling. Voldemort shouldn't be able to cast a curse this powerful."
"Oh, Harry. He was incensed at us. Emotions only add to power, remember?"
"But why is that?" Harry pressed. "Why is it that our emotions would make us stronger? It is some chemical that mixes together to amplify whatever power we have?"
Now Hermione looked slightly disturbed. "Are you talking about… science? Chemistry, no less?"
"Magic is supposed the 'unexplained'." Harry tried to say, his reasoning logical only to himself at the moment. "Because everything else can be explained, no matter how small they have to look. To cells and atoms and nuclei and neurons, everything can be explained in the muggle world." He was on a roll now, and smiled as he held up a finger. "Except… for magic. Muggles might not know that it exists, but they classify the unexplained as 'magic'. The paranormal. Something that can't be defined in the limited terms that they have."
"What are you getting at?" Hermione asked, now genuinely curious about what Harry had in mind. She watched as the teenager pulled up a chair next to her and sat down on it, a look of determination in his face.
"I think that we're searching too hard for a counter-curse. What if the answer is small? Tiny, even? I don't think that Voldemort, or anyone else for that matter, has the power to cast a curse that would destroy the whole of the wizarding world. The society is too old and too stable to fall to one curse. What if the answer is in magic itself? You said so yourself that magic is innate. That means that the answer to all of this might be lying inside ourselves."
Hermione was beginning to understand a hint of what Harry was going on about, but still didn't get the full picture. "You want to know what magic is."
"Yes."
"To explain the unexplained…"
"I have a feeling, Hermione. That in order to find something, we have to look deeper than how we're looking now. Magic exists in everyone, and to have a curse that terms no one to ever be able to use magic again means that the curse is all somewhere in us. I don't think this is one curse that we're trying to counter… I think it's thousands."
"But there's no way that Voldemort could have been able to cast thousands of curses before he died!"
"He didn't have to. He set one curse that would spread… almost like a virus, I'd reckon. That's why the people who were cursed directly are all dying at different times… their reactions to this curse is either later, or them are more immune to it."
Hermione shook her head disbelievingly. "You're talking about a magical curse like it's a muggle disease…"
"What if it is something like that?"
"Harry- you do remember that You-know-who hated everything muggle."
"Hermione- he was half muggle."
"Still! His goal was to *purge*" Hermione's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "the wizarding world of muggle-borns and even the people who loved muggle ideas."
"He was a miserable old coot! If he wanted to purge the wizarding world, he's have to commit suicide himself."
Hermione stood firm in her belief, "He is not going to create a curse that acts like anything muggle."
Harry sighed at the stony look on his best friend's face, knowing that Hermione would be hard to convince. He just had a hunch that there was something to do with the magic that had been contaminated by the Dark Lord, and it was gut instinct that told him this could help people.
And by Merlin, if he could erase the hollow look in Draco's eyes, he would. He wasn't going to let the one he cherished above all else to die without the hardest fight he could give.
"Think about it, Hermione." Harry insisted. "That's exactly what he knows we'll think. We would never resort to muggle techniques to help ourselves because it can't be anything muggle… why? Only because Voldemort hated all things muggle… we're going to rule out possibilities because of a stupid bias like that?"
"We don't have the people to spare on this…"
"Oh, that's a horrible excuse, Hermione." Harry scoffed. "I have a feeling about it. Trust me… please?"
Hermione looked to be about to protest, but then fell silent, contemplating the pros and cons of going with that research.
Harry watched her think for a moment before taking her hands in his, and saying sincerely, "You said that you wanted a place to start. I'm giving you a place to start- from the very beginning. The essence of magic. Since when did I ever lead you astray?"
Hermione glared weakly, knowing full well that she would break down to Harry's pleading.
"The last time you said you had a 'feeling', I ended up locked in the storage room of the astronomy tower with Ron, a pencil, and a self-analysis book. With our wands in the Gryffindor common room, I might add."
Harry only grinned lopsidedly. "I got you to admit your feelings to each other, didn't I?"
To Harry Potter, there was no such thing as fate and destiny. He saw it as an excuse to blame some higher, senseless being for the mistakes that a person themselves would make. For example, he could have said that he was fated to grow up the way he did, that everything that happened to him wasn't because of circumstance, and it wasn't because he had a sob story for a life, but because of fate. That he was destined to live the life he had lived because everything came to a pivotal moment that would affect the rest of mankind.
But he didn't believe that.
Some would say that it was horrible for him to say he didn't believe in soul mates, either. He didn't believe in the love = happiness forevermore and all that crap that teenaged girls liked to sprout when their eyes glaze over and they coo over the first cute male that they see.
In fact, if someone got to look at the way Harry thought the world worked, they might label him as downright cynical. No trust whatsoever in the beauty of life and its mysteries, even if he were able to wield a strong magic. He might have been the quiet one, and he might have been the one who smiled encouragingly to those who needed the support, and the one who's been declared the hero of the wizarding world once again, but one could honestly say that Harry Potter believed mankind chose their own futures.
Harry believed that if a person worked hard for something, they deserved something back. Nothing so fancy as karma, but more like a just reward that doesn't involve good or bad. Although he believed in the idea that you deserve what you get, he believed in hard work and dedication. Nothing existed without those two. Nothing good and lasting, that is.
To gain something positive in your life (and this included love), a person had to work hard for it. It doesn't just appear out of nowhere and make the world a beautiful, shining place. A person had to see the world as a beautiful place before they can appreciate the aesthetics of nature. And while he understood that falling in love was something that could not be controlled, staying in love was something that needed work.
After all, just because you fell in love with someone doesn't mean that you'll automatically have a happily ever after. It could be that you can't stand each other, can't have a conversation without trying to kill each other, or can't live with each other because you're so different… or too similar.
Harry understood that it was difficult to make a relationship work, whether it be with someone who's the total opposite of you, or someone who you understand more than yourself because they're so much like you. A relationship took patience, took understanding, took copious amounts of love and care and forgiveness.
Hermione had once read to him that most people seek their opposite in a relationship because they cannot stand his/her self. If they find a person similar to themselves, they will be attracted, but eventually see within their significant other the faults that they too possess and hate. And soon all they can see in their partner is their own faults, and they will start to hate the other… eventually ending up hating themselves.
It made Harry glad that he and Draco had nothing alike at all.
But still, a relationship was hard work. And it was work that he had gladly done in order to stay with the blonde Slytherin. Numerous amounts of people tried to tear them away from each other, break them up. They had never become to close to succeeding, only managing to make the two boys come even closer to each other, having a common enemy that they could fight against. The two teenaged boys had soon discovered that if they were to break up, it wouldn't be because of the public, but because they could not stand each other. They couldn't go a few hours without shouting at each other, getting into a fight.
It took months before they went through an entire date without arguments.
No, Harry did not believe in true love. But he understood that without Draco, he would never love anything again.
Looking into the sky here wasn't the same as looking into the sky in the other world… where the clouds were scarce and happy, the sky bright and joyful to know that it was another beautiful day. Here, things were somehow more dull, even though Harry understood that it shouldn't be that way. Just because there was a bitter war that had been fought here didn't make the world any less beautiful.
Taking another second to glance up at the blueness of the sky, Harry allowed a melancholy expression to cross his face for just a second.
He had given everything up… the peace that he had somehow found by chance in another reality, just so he could return to Draco. He figured that he couldn't have everything… that he had to chose between one or the other- love or peace?
In the end, of course, he had chosen love. Because he remembered the times when any other person would have crumbled under the strain… remembered day long arguments and weeks of sulking after that. He remembered kisses and bitter tears, always present even through a haze of distance and forgetfulness.
They had worked too hard for this relationship, they couldn't lose now.
The desolate feeling made Harry want to scream, shout to the disgustingly beautiful sky about how unfair it was, that they worked so hard only to have everything torn away from them. But he couldn't. He refused to. He wasn't that weak.
Arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him back taunt against another person.
"I don't remember you making a habit of staring out into nowhere." A voice appeared on his neck, the breath making Harry shiver slightly. The arms around him tightened at the shiver, and Harry wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and pretend that the moment could last forever. That this was it… this was everything he ever wanted.
"It's a new habit I've developed." Harry whispered, his eyes half-lidded behind his glasses. He took his gaze from the sky only to stare at the frozen ground below, wondering slightly at the half-crushed snow, and the ugliness that lay under the visage of the clear sky above. He couldn't help the surge of emotion that welled up in him, knowing that he needed to get the question out. "Why did this happen?"
There was silence behind him for a moment, and Harry could feel Draco's lashes close against his neck.
"Because life isn't perfect… and there's no such thing as 'happily ever after'…"
Harry turned, stepping out of Draco's arms, feeling extremely cold now. He saw Draco's eyes open again, and there was an almost tangible sadness there. "Not even if we wished for it with all our hearts? We always promised each other…" Harry's words trailed off.
"We always promised each other…" Draco continued for him. "'After this… if we survive…'" Draco's piercing grey eyes were moist. "I always started to say that to you, but never got to finish…"
Knowing exactly what he was going to say, Harry tried his best to shush the other boy, so that the words would never have to be spoken. So that the horrible truth that lay underneath the calmness and tranquility of the imminent journey beyond would never have to be mentioned- not while there was still time for the present.
"No, Harry. I couldn't bear the thought that I never told you this… especially when you disappeared." Draco caught Harry's hands in his own, his thumb smoothing over the calloused skin. Harry was silent, his green eyes narrowed to keep in his emotions. Draco only smiled slightly and brushed their cheeks together. "I wanted to ask you… after the war, after everything… if we both survived the war and the final battle…" He took a deep breath. "I wanted to ask you if you would spend the rest of your life with me."
Harry drew in his breath sharply, the tears finally winning and spilling over his cheeks to touch Draco's. But there was moisture there as well, and now neither of them could tell whose tears belong to who. It was their common sorrow… the same heart that spilled the same tears.
"Maybe I was just too sure of myself back then… or not sure enough. I didn't have the guts to ask you, but I knew what your answer would be. I knew how happy you would be." Draco's voice cracked, and he wrapped his arms around the stunned Gryffindor boy. "But I couldn't give you that heartache if I had died."
"Then why are you asking now?" Harry's voice was barely above a whisper, and he found that the tears just wouldn't stop once they had control. He only closed his eyes and leaned closer, wrapping his own arms around Draco's waist.
"Because I have to tell you how much I love you." Was Draco's answer. "When you disappeared, and everyone thought you had died… the first thing I could think of was that: I never told him I wanted to grow old with him."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and leaned into Draco until he was sure he couldn't be any closer to the other boy. The wetness had reached his neck by now, the salty substance irritating his skin.
"I… then realized how selfish I was, because I knew… that even though we had promised each other a life together, and only I had survived… I would still want reassurance that you would say yes."
"Then yes." Harry drew away from Draco just enough that they could look each other in the eyes. "That's my answer. More than anything, yes."
Harry raised a hand to hold over Draco's cheek, eyes probing those grey pools.
"I love you. I… I just can't live without you."
Draco leaned into the hand, "Don't say that, Harry. Not now."
"I wouldn't know how to live without you." Harry said bluntly, honestly. His green eyes held Draco's firmly, "We've fought for so long… fought against each other, against Voldemort… against fate and destiny, against space and everything else… just for the right to be together. Please fight… fight for me? Don't give up, don't ever give in, not even in the last moment."
Draco let out a bark of laughter, not sounding happy at all. But his own hands came up to hold Harry's hand firmly against his face, and he murmured into the palm, "How can I not fight? I'll always fight, if only for another second with you…"
Eyes softening, Harry leaned back into Draco's open arms.
I hope people liked this chapter... most of it was too sentimental for me to understand very well... in fact, more than half of the last scene was written a few months ago. It has emotional significance, but that's about it. ^^;; This chapter is to Tess, Kalariona, H, mandraco, Jordan, smilez, Shattered Dreams, lollipozz, Illusoire, Silver Angel, Duvessa Snape, Otaku freak, Lily Evans Potter Black Lupin, silva star, and Fate's Child. ^_^ LOL! I didn't know the alternateuniverse!Draco sounded like a sweet, clueless guy. ^_~ I'll be sure to tell him that. XD
Next
Back
Home