The silence was heavy in the room, the tension thick. The Weasleys were shocked. Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley couldn't believe that Harry spoke to them in that tone. It had never happened before, they couldn't understand. What he was doing with Draco Malfoy? Why was he angry with them? What happened all the time he wasn't in England? Why didn't he seem happy to see them again? It wasn't supposed to be like that, he was supposed to go away to get his mind off it, and come back happier, but not change. What happened to Harry not being able to control his magic? Who was scared, lost without their help? The frail, naive Harry they knew couldn't have disappeared. It just wasn't possible.
The other Weasley's present were equally shocked, Mr. Weasley could not decide whether he was happy that Harry had finally taken his life into his own hands, or whether he should take the side of his wife, daughter and youngest son. Fred and George, on the other hand, were just about to get out the popcorn and watch the festivities begin, after all, they'd always been on Harry's side, there was no reason to change sides now. They saw it as perfectly normal for the young man to finally want to live the way he wanted to live. For taking the time to leave to find himself, for the first time Harry was doing the things he wanted to do without anyone convincing him that this was what he had to and wanted to do. It was a big change, and could - would - affect any relationship he had with the rest of their family, but nobody could blame him, and if their parents, brothers and sisters, and Hermione ended up not seeing him again, even a little, it would be all their fault, but they didn't mean to let so little ruin everything. It didn't matter what the others said.
Harry, on the other hand, looked at them impassively, waiting for them to decide whether he wanted to continue this conversation, which he knew wasn't going to end the way they wanted it to, or whether they were going to leave. The two suited him, he had prepared himself for this confrontation, knew how it could end, he was ready. He wasn't the same anymore. Draco, always at his side, had cast a spell of silence over the room, because no matter what, he knew the voices weren't going to stay at a respectable volume. He sighed and went to sit in the chair closest to the fireplace, which was lit. If it were up to him, this conversation wouldn't matter, but he knew it was important to Harry, so it was important to him too.
Harry moved closer to sit on his lap, an arm around his neck, Draco put his arm around his waist, and put his hand on his belly. The green-eyed young man sighed and relaxed a little in the embrace. - His eyes remained cold, resting on the people in front of him. - He smiled a little as he saw the look on the twins' faces, he didn't expect anything less from them, the only ones he trusted so that all this conversation wouldn't change anything in their relationship.
« Whenever you want, » he said suddenly, « I'm tired and I'd like to go to bed, we're leaving soon, and although we haven't - that I haven't - brought much stuff, I'd like to rest. »
Draco pinched his waist, and Harry gave him a look, a small smile full of affection on his lips, before turning to the other people in front of them. Hermione was the first to regain the use of speech.
« Harry, when did everything change? » she asked.
« Why should it all change? » He retorted, his voice impassive.
« You're not the same as you were before. » Ron murmured.
« You wanted me to stay the same? The war's over, I don't have to worry about what people think anymore. I would have thought you, of all people, would understand that. »
« But... You've been gone for five years, Harry, without a word from you. You didn't tell us where you were going, if you were all right. Not even why you left. » Said Hermione.
« Because I didn't know where I was going, that I needed to leave without having someone on my back all the time telling me what to do, what to wear, what to eat. How to live my stupid life without giving me the choice of saying anything for five years, Harry, without any news of you. Didn't tell us where you were going, if you were all right. Not even why you left. » Said Hermione.
« Because I didn't know where I was going, that I needed to leave without having someone on my back all the time telling me what to do, what to wear, what to eat. How to live my stupid life without giving me the choice. »Harry replied, his voice a little higher.
Hermione, Ron and the others looked at him with wide eyes. Harry couldn't understand that they had done all this for his own good. Because he wasn't capable of making any decisions.
« Harry, we didn't do this to take control of your life. We did it for your own good, only that, » began Mrs. Weasley, « you weren't able to make decisions for yourself, we made the right choices for you. »
« They were definitely good choices, the best choices, and the proof is that Harry was all for it and stayed with you all the way. » Said Draco sarcastically...
The Weasleys and Hermione watched Harry, waiting for him to come to their defense. But Harry was as impassive as ever, not reacting for a second to Draco's remark.
« Harry, are you gonna let this... That filthy vermin talk to us like that? » Ron asked, clearly shocked.
« Why shouldn't I? I mean, I certainly wouldn't have phrased it the way Draco did, given that the words don't come to him subtly. It's a thing of the past, but either way he's right. » Harry replied, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
« I don't understand, » said Hermione, « why did you leave us and come back like that? »
« Hermione, » sighed Harry, « one day you will have to understand that not everything is understandable, life is not understandable, books don't hold all the knowledge. You don't have to understand anything for this one to be real, you know? »
« But... But you were supposed to marry Ginny, have kids, and we were all gonna live next door to each other. You were supposed to be Auror. Not be with... with him. Living we-don't-know-where. For the love of Merlin, Harry, why can't you understand that? »
Harry massaged his temples, the conversation went around in circles and led nowhere. They didn't want to understand, yet everything was simple, or so he thought.
« Because we're not kids anymore, Hermione, I haven't had a crush on Ginny for years, long before I saw Draco for the first time shortly after I left, » Harry says dryly, « and Ginny can't get over the fact that her hero isn't her hero or what she thought I was. »
« Why are you saying that like there's nothing going on between us? » Ginny whispered.
« Because there isn't, Ginny. There was nothing between us, we were scared, we were at war, I didn't know what to do, and they didn't tell me anything. You were convinced I was someone you knew when I wasn't. Nothing had time to begin, nothing will ever begin. It's time to move on and find someone you love for who he is and not for what you think he is. Just like I did. » Says Harry a little more nicely.
« And for you, moving on, including... Him? » Spit it out, Ron.
Harry raised an eyebrow, something he had apparently taken from Draco, and looked Ron straight in the eye, the emotionless emerald green having darkened dangerously at Ron's words. He didn't answer, the tension had risen a notch - yes, it was possible. - Draco knew that look, he had seen it so many times over the last few years, he shook his head lightly, a small smile on his lips, and with a fluid movement of his wand levitated a cup of tea towards him.
« It's going to be a while, » he says amused, to everyone's shock. Once again.
It's been a month. A whole month since he'd been gone, since they left them with nothing but a bag on their backs and the bare necessities. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, simple as that. But he was suffocating, couldn't take it anymore. He had to leave. And that's what he did, with no destination in mind, he took his things and left. At first he felt guilty for not having even left them a note to tell them he was leaving, for he didn't know how long. He didn't know why. But it was his choice, he remembered to himself, he needed to be alone, to get to know himself without anyone trying to interfere.
He had held so much anger, hatred and resentment these last few years, and not just against Voldemort, but against everyone around him, and those who knew him only from the newspaper, who thought they had a right to his life and to him just because some stupid prophecy had decided that he should either die trying to kill a lunatic, or defeat him and become a hero he didn't want to be. His magic was barely held back, his anger could be unleashed at any moment.
He had lost so much in that war. So much more than he'd won. He was never asked his opinion, if he even agreed to win this war. We didn't tell him, hell, we didn't even train him. He was tired of it and had to leave before he started another war. So that's what he did. And today he was in some kind of desert. Maybe North Africa, he thought. Maybe. The Sahara Desert, maybe. He was alone. It was hot. And he didn't know where he was going. But he was at his best, and happier than he'd ever been. Because even though he was lost in a part of the world he didn't know, with no civilisation or anything, he'd decided it himself and that alone was great.
He had been walking for hours without having stopped, and he thought he was beginning to hallucinate, because if not, how could he see someone so pale, with hair so blond and eyes so grey, staring at him, in the middle of the desert. He started laughing hysterically.
« Could we know what you're laughing at, Potter? » Asked the hallucination curtly.
« I didn't know a hallucination could talk. » Said Harry after he'd - finally - stopped laughing.
« They don't talk, but I'm not one of them. » Retorqua Draco-Hallucination.
« What would you be doing in a desert if you weren't a hallucination? » Harry asked himself.
Draco looked at Harry like he was crazy, then took some water, and threw it in his face.
« Okay, okay, I get it, not a hallucination, got it loud and clear. » He said, choking, a little.
He looked at the blonde for a while, then looked at the blonde's "camp" and decided it would be a great idea to stay here, so he sat down, normally, and looked at Draco, waiting for Draco to do the same. Which he did, still not understanding what was going on.
« So, you're in the desert. Why are you in the desert? » Asked Harry naturally.
« Because I like landscapes, » replied Draco sarcastically, « because I'm looking for rare potion ingredients, and nobody wants me in the UK. »
« Why wouldn't anyone want you? » Harry seemed genuinely shocked, which bothered Draco enormously... More than the "civilized" conversation they shared...
« Maybe because I'm not in Azkaban, when everyone thinks this should be my new home, that I'm just a Death Eater and/or son of Lucius Malfoy. Honestly, for lots of reasons Potter. »
« Yeah, people are idiots. » Mumbled Harry.
Draco looked first, a hint of interrogation in his gray eyes. But though he was dying to know the answers to his questions, he didn't ask them. He had pride, and he was tired of being alone. So for the first time in his life, he kept his mouth shut. But still, what was Potter doing here all alone?
« What are you doing here all alone, Potter? » Yep, a filter, that's right.
Harry stared into the void for a long time, and Draco thought he wasn't going to answer. It was frustrating, but he shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't going to force him to say things he didn't want to say. He knew what it was like to have to keep things hidden. And it wasn't easy getting them out, or even talking to someone you thought was your enemy for years.
« I was tired of suffocating. » Harry finally replied so softly that Draco almost didn't hear him, « I'm tired of being told what to do, how to live my life. Tired of not letting me get over the loss of people I loved. Tired of things being kept from me. I'm tired of being acclaimed for killing, for spilling blood. I'm tired of people thinking I owed something to everyone else when I didn't. Tired of not having the chance to find myself because people, even those close to me, had already made me a personality and I "couldn't afford to make them think it was all fake", that would have made me a liar. » He continued, « Honestly, I was barely told that I was a Wizard when the very same day I was told that I'm famous, that I'm rich, and that everyone expects me to destroy a guy who's got it in his head that killing anything he doesn't like is perfectly normal. I had to leave. Without them. »
Draco looked at Harry with his eyes wide open. He'd always more or less thought Harry was all that was said of him, but not all of him. He knew there was more behind every article, every rumor, every smile they showed. He'd seen him fight, seen him fight Voldemort himself, seen him with his own father. But he never thought it affected the other so much.
On two different sides of the same war, they had so much in common, so much pain in them, so much anger, so much resentment that neither of them had the right to show. They had things to do, whether they wanted to or not. They had had personalities drawn for them, whether true or false. They had lived through so much. And they didn't even realize it until now. In a Desert. When it was all over.
Both of them were silent, each in their own thoughts.
« You know, » Harry finally said, « I never really hated you, honestly I have so many people to hate that you're not even in the top ten. But even though I really thought of you as an arrogant, shallow, mean-spirited kid for no reason, I quickly realized that, like a lot of people, you had to do this. I saw, Draco, with my own eyes what the war could do to you. And you were by far one of the bravest people I've ever come across. Totally despicable, but brave nonetheless. »
That day, they talked for hours. With no one around to tell them how to behave, how to talk, or what to do. They spoke freely. They travelled through the Desert together. A friendship was born that day. However, Draco wanted to go to Australia afterwards, Harry wanted to go to China, to learn all kinds of relaxation techniques, to learn to finally master his magic.
But deep down, they knew they'd see each other again. And soon.
And yes, they had. Harry blinked quickly, returning to the present... With a dreamy smile on his lips, he turned his eyes to Draco, who was drinking his second cup of tea. The blond man looked up at his husband, and looked at him with tender eyes, without the mask that so many people had seen him wear for years. Draco was as beautiful as ever, even with the years. His hair too was longer - though still less than Lucius'. - and his eyes, more expressive, were still a deep gray.
« You know I thought you were a hallucination for most of our first conversation? » Says Harry.
« I have no trouble believing it, strangely enough. » Replied Draco.
The Weasley family and Hermione watched the exchange and didn't understand a word of it. Harry had been lost in thought for half an hour, and only Draco seemed to find it normal. Nothing to worry about in there. No. Nope. Absolutely not.
« Harry, please, » pleaded Hermione, « come back with us. We don't know what's happened over the last few years, but you're clearly not yourself anymore. Come with us for a while. You'll see that everything you're going through right now is not what you want, okay? » "Ron nodded his head, and by his side, Ginny did the same.
« Hermione, for the last time, I don't... »
« Daddy? » Cut him off a little sleepy voice.
All turned their heads towards the newcomer. A little boy, who couldn't have been more than two/three years old, stood on the threshold of the door, rubbing his eyes with these little hands, wearing sky-blue pyjamas with brooms as a pattern.
The Waesleys were shocked, and once again, completely lost. Draco growled slightly, of course it wasn't going to be easy, their son could never fall asleep if it wasn't in HIS bed, in THEIR house. Harry insisted that he had inherited this from him, Draco would deny it until his death. Harry just watched the scene between his husband and son, amused, his heart full of warmth.
There was so much unsaid. Questions in the air. The approaching storm would be decisive. But little Gabriel didn't know that. All he wanted was a glass of milk.