Chapter Sixteen of 'The Descent of Magic'- Blaming Sessions
Chapter Fifteen.
Title: The Descent of Magic (16/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Issues of disability, angst, epilogue-compliant.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny and Draco/Astoria
Summary: Harry Potter, retired Auror, is also a budding magical theorist who likes a quiet life. When he discovers what seems to be a possible reason that so many pure-blood families are losing their magic and having Squib children, he keeps it quiet, because he knows it would only cause a storm of controversy. But an equally budding acquaintance with Draco Malfoy might change his mind.
Author's Notes: The title of the fic and a few details of Harry's life are taken from the story of Darwin, who was also reluctant to publicize the details of his evolutionary theory, knowing the controversy that would result. Both Harry and Draco are older in this story and have had their epilogue marriages, so avoid if that's not something you like. Chapter lengths will be variable, and this will probably be somewhere around 18 or 20 chapters.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Sixteen-Blaming Sessions
“You’re sure that this is going to be comfortable?”
Harry fell into the chair and grinned up at the hovering Hermione. “Yes. Of course. Why not?” He extended his leg in front of him, along the padded stool that Hermione had conjured, and stretched luxuriously. His muscles throbbed for a moment, his knee seemed to lock, and then the components that were freezing up melted back into fluidity. Harry shook his leg out and groaned.
“That doesn’t sound comfortable,” Hermione said, watching him.
Harry opened his eyes and shook his head. “Compared to what it would have felt like before? It’s wonderful.”
Hermione bit her lip and danced anxiously in place. “I just want you to feel as good as you can,” she whispered.
Harry patted her hand. “And I appreciate that,” he said, “but Draco’s potion really is working.”
“A shame that you couldn’t tell Draco that.”
Harry looked up. Draco was climbing the steps to the platform that Neville, along with a few of the other Hogwarts professors, had built for them in front of the school gates. His face was pale, his lips pinched, and his hands swung in fists at his side. He stalked directly over to stand in front of Harry and glare at him, in a way that Harry knew meant he was more focused on Harry’s leg than the speeches they were to give today.
And that was a problem.
Harry clenched his hands on the arms of the chair and dragged himself to his feet, nodding to Hermione. “Would you go and make sure that there are enough chairs for everyone?” he asked. “People would be more comfortable sitting on the grass than on the streets in front of my house, but I’d still like most of them to have a place to sit.”
Hermione raised her eyebrows in a way that said she found his dodge unworthy of someone like him, but turned away and walked towards the edge of the platform, dropping easily to the ground. It wasn’t that high up, really, just high enough that Harry needed stairs or a ramp to get up.
And Draco, too, he noticed with interest as he limped towards the edge of the platform. Or did he think it wasn’t dignified for someone his age to run towards the platform and take a flying leap onto it?
“I did try to firecall you,” Harry told him. “The elves said that you were in the lab and mustn’t be disturbed. And I owled you.”
“You only tried once,” Draco said, glaring at Harry’s leg in a way that said he found it easier to look at that than at Harry’s face. “And you could have mentioned it when you were kneeling in front of the fireplace to talk to me and I didn’t think about that until later.”
Harry sighed. “Sorry. I had the stupid idea that you’d prefer to figure it out yourself from seeing those clues. When you didn’t, I thought you hadn’t noticed, and then your owl told me you had and I confirmed it. But why does it make you so angry?” he added, because Draco still strode along past the chairs on the platform with his jaw locked and his eyes set stubbornly straight ahead. “I gave you all the details I could.”
Draco spun to face him and leaned in. Harry hoped, for the audience already filtering amongst the chairs, that it would just look like they were having an intense debate about how to present their research, and not a row. A row would undermine their stability in the eyes of most of those watching them.
“I wanted to see it from the beginning,” Draco said, and Harry could hear the sound of his jaw grinding, as though it was a millstone. “I wanted to touch it and estimate how much pain it would bring you. Instead, you keep handing me these excuses. Why not open your Floo in the days between the last time we spoke and sending me the owl?”
“It was,” Harry said, blinking. “Unless I did something wrong with the spells right after I talked to you. That’s happened before. I don’t realize it’s closed because a lot more people visit me or owl me than try to firecall me.”
Draco snorted bitterly, his mouth closed, and turned his back. “I wanted to examine the progress of your knee,” he told the sky. “It’s a lost cause now. I won’t know exactly what the bone looked like, or the damage, when it began to heal.”
“You can’t use a reverse Tempus Charm?” Harry asked. “That was what we did sometimes when we didn’t know how a corpse had got a wound. It can’t show you who inflicted the damage, because people are too complicated to show, but it turns back time and shows you the interaction of objects,” he added, as Draco pivoted slowly to face him.
“Then why didn’t you use it to look at the damage the warlocks inflicted on your knee in the first place?” Draco asked, his voice low.
Harry smiled grimly. “They used their wands, not any objects. They were careful of that. And I…couldn’t look at the images at first, the ones the Healers managed to pull up.” He swallowed and turned his head away, shuddering as he closed his eyes. The memories were waiting there, vivid in their black and red colors if he wasn’t careful. But he was, and bent himself to ignoring them. “They were too grotesque.”
“You couldn’t face something?”
Harry glanced back at Draco and smiled. “This serenity that you see on my face?” he asked, gesturing to his body. “It was hard-won. It took me a year to accept what had happened to me, another six months to start working towards cheerfulness instead of despair all the time. And no, I couldn’t face the images. But some of the Healers might still have them on record in Pensieves. They didn’t help them, but you’re brilliant enough to figure out from them what the knee looked like three days ago, I think.”
*
Draco hated the way he would brace for one particular kind of disagreement with Potter and Potter would then turn around and say something complimentary or stupidly sweet and leave Draco feeling like a cad for wanting to disagree.
He hated it so much that he glared at Potter and said, “Fine. I’m going to take you up on that offer. And the reverse Tempus Charm, in a few days.”
Instead of paling the way he would have if he had made an offer he never intended to confirm, Potter smiled and said, “Good. Now. We agreed that you should present the majority of the notes, because she would make them sound abrasive and I don’t understand all the relevant theory. What are you going to start with?”
Draco stared at him some more, and then shook his head and decided to move forwards. From now on, he would present a confident front. It was particularly necessary with his son, and perhaps Astoria, among the people watching him. He would let Potter and Granger do what they wanted as long as it didn’t interfere with him. That should serve to show them that he was cooperating.
“I’m going to start with the laws that you discovered about house-elves, and how they affected family size when they were legal,” he said coolly. “That was the proof that I found hardest to accept, and does show that we can do certain things to affect the birth of children in a positive way.”
Potter watched him thoughtfully, then nodded. “Good. Then-”
“You’re walking.”
The stunned voice came from near their feet, off the platform. Potter turned, and Draco turned a moment after him. He could recognize the tone in the voice, if not the voice itself. He didn’t want to deal with any more Weasley prejudice at the moment, and he also, oddly enough, didn’t want that for Potter. He had too much work to do with soothing Granger’s irritation as it was.
The boy who stood there was perhaps a few years younger than Scorpius, and with a pointy face that Draco was more used to seeing reflected in family portraits than the real world. His hair was red, of course, and his eyes brown and tragic. He had his arms folded, his face set in a sulky cast that he seemed to think was the same thing as real masculinity or power.
“Hugo,” Potter said quietly. Draco connected the name in his mind to the Weasley family tree he had spent hours staring at when first researching Potter’s theory. Granger and the original Weasel’s son. “I hoped that you would be pleased by that. Isn’t it what you wanted from me?”
Draco learned far more than he wanted to about Potter, and about his relationship with this young idiot, from the tone in Potter’s voice when he spoke those words. Draco shifted his weight to the side, ready to spring if needed, ready to speak if needed. It was obvious that words from this Weasley would only tear wounds open in Potter, at a moment when they needed his mind on the upcoming meeting.
“You could have told me,” Hugo said, and his face was turning incandescent. Draco curled his lip, not caring who watched him and might carry tales of a breach between him and Potter. Someone with red hair would never wear anger gracefully. “You could have said that you were, rather than just making me think you’d given up. You never used to give up! You were the one I trusted the most!” Now he was shouting at Potter, his neck muscles bulging out in a way that made Draco watch hopefully for an attack of apoplexy. It seemed it would not happen, however, because in a moment the red shade faded and the boy stepped back and laughed, not seeming to notice that he hadn’t left enough time for Potter to answer.
“I should have known,” he said. “You have time for everything else except me. Mum and Dad probably knew, and this git, and Al and Lily, but not me.” And then he turned his back after that, to Draco, incomprehensible speech and stomped away with his shoulders bristling with indignation.
Draco turned his head and raised his eyebrows. Potter wasn’t watching him, though, instead staring sadly after the brat, and Draco found himself unduly upset that his attempt at silent communication had been ignored.
“Would you care to tell me what that was?” he asked, pricking his words with ice to catch Potter’s attention.
Potter blinked and seemed to come to life again, facing Draco but leaning one hand on the back of a chair as though tired-though he hadn’t shown any signs of weariness before now. The other hand came down to rub at his knee. Draco caught his wrist and stared at him. Potter blinked back.
“Are you truly in pain?” Draco asked. “Or have you convinced yourself you are because of the ministration of our resident arse?”
Potter blinked again, and then smiled. It wasn’t the smiles Draco was used to seeing redefine the universe around him, but it was pleasant nonetheless, pleasant enough to make him smile back.
“It’s what he says,” Potter murmured. “I was his hero, the one who could do no wrong. Then I was wounded, and I didn’t get up and go charging right back into Auror life. And I also didn’t accept the experimental treatment that might have cost me my leg and my magic. He couldn’t forgive me for that.”
Draco stared at him. Then he said, “Compared to that, my disagreements with my wife and son sound like the height of wit and maturity.”
Potter’s laughter spilled out, and he transferred his hold on the back of the chair to Draco’s shoulder instead. “They do, don’t they?” he asked, shaking his head. “This is the way that Hugo is. I had hoped he would be happy when he saw me up and about, but…I should have realized he would find some way to twist it to fit his reality, where he can blame me.”
His voice was sinking again, the smile dying. Draco shook his shoulder. “Yes, you should have, and you should stop worrying about him and letting him affect your mood. Here comes our audience.” People were walking up the road from Hogsmeade, Apparating into the designated points outside the gates, and sweeping out of the school with a series of small cheers for the diversion, and plenty of chatter.
“You’re right,” Potter said. “Like about so many things.” He nodded to Draco, and stepped towards the central chair on the platform. Draco followed him, hands full of notes and mind full of memories.
*
Harry sat back in the chair and watched as Draco explained the theory, beginning with the laws that had influenced the way that the Ministry and most wizards behaved towards house-elves, and passing on to the other ways that someone could influence their family’s standing with the magic that had gifted them all, wizards and creatures, by such means as arranging treaties with centaurs or helping merfolk move to another lake. The examples were having the effect Draco’d hoped for, Harry thought. People were more inclined to listen when they thought it wasn’t hopeless, and that there wasn’t a certain change they would have to make or nothing. House-elves should still be treated properly, but they could ease the pure-bloods into it.
Harry snorted, and was sure that his expression resembled the mixture of bitter and sour on Hermione’s face. They shouldn’t have to compromise house-elves’ safety and good treatment this far. People should just do the right thing.
But there was a difference between what people should do and what would actually work. And Harry wanted this to work more than he wanted to prove some obscure point of principle. He sat back, and listened.
Draco had finished with the initial rush of questions, and was looking over the audience now while they gathered the breath or the thoughts for another round. And then a blond head rose into view in the front row, and its owner stood there, staring up at their platform with a still face that made Harry’s stomach curl.
Scorpius. He hadn’t been there a moment ago, or Harry would have seen him. Perhaps he’d been wearing a glamour or a Disillusionment Charm.
“I have a question,” Scorpius said, his voice pitched to reach all the crowd. Harry saw Draco pale a little, but he didn’t look away.
“What is that?” Draco’s voice sounded calm and normal, the same voice that he’d used to address everyone else. Harry had to admit that sometimes, pure-blood training in control of emotions might be useful after all. It certainly sounded as though Draco didn’t care that this was his son, or notice.
“Why should we believe that you are doing what you say you are?” Scorpius folded his arms and swept all of them with the same gaze-except Hermione, whose eyes he couldn’t quite meet. “Only one of you has a reputation as a magical researcher and a fighter for the rights of magical creatures. You know about Potions, and Mr. Potter knows about Dark magic and defensive countermeasures. But that doesn’t mean that he’s right, if his research is the initial reason you started looking at this. You could be wrong. Why do you think that we should change our whole way of life based on the opinions of one person who’s never done work in this area before?”
There was a pause, and murmurs spread. There weren’t as many of them as Scorpius might have hoped, Harry thought, because he had waited until some people were convinced by the evidence before speaking. But some members of the audience would seize on this excuse to turn against the theory, and of course the papers would want to play the conflict between family members up.
For the length of that pause, Harry thought Draco would simply stand there with his eyes fixed on his son’s, unable to move. But he smiled slightly now, and shook his head.
“Many of you know my family,” he said, pitching his voice to the audience rather than Scorpius, which Harry thought a wise choice. “Many of you know the training that my father put me through, making me memorize and recite pure-blood genealogies, because many of you will have suffered the same thing. I consider myself an expert in pure-blood history as well as Potions. I recognize the importance of this theory and the many things it explains which cannot be ignored as coincidence.
“More than that, however, many of you will remember Mr. Potter’s brilliant leaps of intuition that solved the problems he faced in Hogwarts and during his final confrontation with the Dark Lord. He didn’t know that he could survive the Killing Curse a second time, but he risked it, and it turned out he was right.” Harry stared at Draco, but he had to admit that was a brilliant reimaging of his final walk through the Forbidden Forest that wouldn’t have occurred to him, personally. “He’s trying, now, to bring another of those leaps to life.
“And the self-admitted expert in magical theory and magical creature rights agrees with us.” Draco turned and extended his hand towards Hermione. “I think that’s worth something.”
The moment paused again, and then surged past, as other people stood to ask other questions. Scorpius was the one standing pale and silent now, eyes on his father’s, and then he turned his back and stormed away.
Few people watched him go.
Draco was one of them, Harry noticed, but he didn’t spoil everything by going after him, either.
And that made something ignite deep in Harry’s stomach, something that made him want to stand up and walk over, to just be near Draco.
And that made him think.
Chapter Seventeen.
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