FIC: All the Answers - Chapter 12
It’s late, but at least it’s here! Like I said last time, don’t expect the chapters to be longer just because chapter 11 was. That was a one-time deal! This is actually one of the shorter, though not the shortest, chapters yet. Still, I hope it’s worth the wait!
Title: All the Answers
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Word Count: 4400
Disclaimer: It's not mine. Really. J.K. Rowling's the brilliant mind behind HP.
Notes: Post-HBP, so yes, SPOILERS! Many, many thanks to my lovely betas, smutella and impish_nymph! Ladies, you're both fantastic!
Summary: Since when has conquering evil ever been easy?
--> All chapters can be found here. <--
previous chapter
~~Chapter 12~~
“Belgium?”
“I knew she wouldn’t go for it.”
“Shut up, Malfoy.”
“Belgium, Harry?” Hermione repeated, an incredulous look on her face. “Belgium?!”
Harry looked sheepish. “It’s the only lead we’ve got?” he offered tentatively.
Hermione sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I suppose you’re right, but I don’t - BELGIUM?”
“Yes, Hermione, Belgium,” Ron cut in, rolling his eyes. “Snape even gave us a potion to help us get there and back.”
“What potion?” Hermione asked sharply, whipping her head around to face Ron. “I absolutely refuse to let you drink an unknown potion without-”
“Slughorn okayed it,” Harry said. “It’s the real deal. We can’t ignore this.”
“Well… I mean, I know you’re right, of course,” Hermione said, her brow still furrowed. “It just sounds very suspicious to me.”
“It sounds suspicious to the rest of us, too, Granger,” Draco said snidely. “Don’t think you’re the only one who thinks it’s all complete bollocks.”
“Malfoy didn’t even let Harry touch the vial at first,” Ron said, smirking a bit. “Completely blew our cover, the daft git.”
Draco lifted his chin a bit. “It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“He’s right.” Harry nodded. “At least we can move back to Grimmauld Place now.”
Hermione blinked. “Well, you hadn’t mentioned that part yet!” She caught Ron staring at her out of the corner of her eye, and when she turned to glance at him questioningly, he grinned at her.
“Keep it in your pants, Weasley,” Draco said dryly, rolling his eyes.
Ron sent him a rude gesture that had Hermione scolding him immediately.
“Anyway,” Harry cut in, “Hermione, we were hoping you’d be able to…uh, help us out and…”
“And plan everything for you?” Hermione finished, arching her eyebrows. “Take care of all the preparations?”
“Er…” Harry grinned sheepishly. “Yeah. That.”
Hermione let out a longsuffering sigh, but she smiled. “I think I can take care of all that.”
“Great!” Harry exclaimed. “Snape said it would be best if we split up. We can cover more ground that way. So I guess I’ll be with Ron and-”
“What?” Draco said sharply.
Ron followed up with a hesitant, “Harry…”
Harry paused, glancing back and forth between Ron, Draco, and Hermione, who was looking apologetic, and saw immediately where this was headed. And for some inexplicable reason, he panicked. He managed to withhold from groaning out loud, but his shoulders slouched against his will.
There was no way. He wouldn’t do it - no, couldn’t do it. He would not be left alone with Draco Malfoy in some secluded forest in the middle of nowhere for two whole weeks.
“Well, I guess I can be with Hermione, then, and Ron and Malfoy-”
“Harry,” Ron said again, a bit louder this time.
“Be serious, Potter,” Draco said. He looked vaguely amused.
Harry glanced between the three of them again. This couldn’t be happening. Desperate now, he caught Hermione’s eyes and sent her a pleading look.
She merely shrugged. “Sorry, Harry.”
Damn.
Harry gave Draco a nervous look. Draco countered with a smirk. Harry frowned, pursing his lips.
“Look, I’m not going to be the one stuck with Malfoy!”
* * *
“I can’t believe I’m the one who got stuck with you.”
“Oh, cheer up, Potter,” Draco said, as they trailed behind Ron and Hermione. It was nearly a week later, and they were making their way to the Apparating point beyond the wards of the Burrow.
“I just - why does it have to be me?” Harry said petulantly.
“You can’t honestly have expected this to turn out any different,” Draco said, glancing skyward. “You know Granger and I would have spent the entire time trying to outwit each other, and Weasley and I would have done nothing but argued. One of us probably would have come back missing a few limbs.” He paused for a second, and then as an afterthought added, “Actually, it’s just as likely that one of us wouldn’t have come back at all…”
“I don’t see why I have to be the one to put up with you all the time, is all,” Harry muttered. He adjusted the straps of the backpack on his shoulders, and sped up a little to try and pass Draco.
“Please,” Draco said to Harry’s retreating back. “You know you love it.”
Harry spun around to face Draco, but continued walking backwards as he spoke. “Love it?” he repeated, an incredulous look on his face. “Love what?”
“Putting up with me, as you so called it,” Draco replied, smirking. “You like having me around. It keeps you from being a third wheel, for one.” He glanced up ahead to where Ron and Hermione were walking. Harry twisted to look over his shoulder, and tried to ignore his friends’ clasped hands swinging between them.
“I’m not a third wheel,” Harry said resolutely, turning back to face Draco. Upon finding Draco’s face suddenly only inches from his own, he yelped and tried to back away, only to trip himself and make a spectacular fall onto his rump.
“Of course you’re not, Potter,” Draco said, bending over to thrust his hand into Harry’s face. “But you do like me. You’re just afraid to admit it because you’re still clinging to the belief that you hate me. It’s safer that way, right?” He arched an eyebrow, smirking.
Harry blinked, staring at Draco’s outstretched hand and then at his face. He swallowed nervously, and when he grasped Draco’s hand and allowed the other boy to pull him up, he wondered vaguely why his palms suddenly felt so sweaty.
“Alright there, Harry?” Ron called back to them from the top of the hill.
Harry jerked his hand away from Draco’s, realizing with a start that they were just standing there staring at each other. “Fine, Ron,” he called back, wiping his palm against his trousers. He turned away from Draco, muttering out of the side of his mouth, “And I do hate you. And if it’s not hate, it’s at least very strong dislike.”
“Sure, Potter, sure. Whatever you say.”
Harry could almost hear the grin in his words. He clenched his teeth and blamed the afternoon sun for suddenly making him feel so hot.
“Okay, are we ready?” Hermione asked once they were all gathered at the Apparating point.
“No,” Harry mumbled under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Er. Nothing. Carry on.”
Hermione looked doubtful, but she continued anyway. “Alright, here’s the potion,” she said, taking a familiar looking vial out of her bag. “Everybody knows where we’re going?”
“I hope so,” Ron said, accepting the vial from Hermione. “Wouldn’t want to end up in China or something. Cheers, then.” He brought the potion to his mouth, took a deep breath, and then took a quick sip before he could change his mind.
“Feel any different?” Harry asked after a few seconds.
“Um… Not really,” Ron admitted. “Still, that’s a relief, yeah? Doesn’t seem to be harmful.”
“It could have a delayed reaction,” Draco said helpfully.
“Shut it, Malfoy,” Harry said offhandedly.
Draco shrugged. “I’m only saying…”
They passed the vial around, each taking tentative sips, and once it was back to Hermione she sealed it and put it back into her bag.
“Well,” she said, taking Ron’s hand and grasping it firmly. “We’ll see you over there. Be careful!” Ron gave Harry a two-fingered salute, and then with a loud crack, both of them Disapparated. Harry moved to do the same, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Potter, wait,” Draco said quickly, looking a bit pale. “I don’t… I mean, I still haven’t - um - can you…?” He paused, exhaling harshly through his nose, and then said, “Look, I still don’t like Apparating much and I’m not - I’m not sure if…”
Harry rolled his eyes, sighing. “You want to do side-along?”
Draco pursed his lips. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he mumbled, glancing away.
“It’s fine,” Harry said shortly. He held out his arm, and Draco hooked his own arm around it tentatively.
“Going to be my escort for the evening?” Draco said sarcastically, though the slight tremor in his voice gave away his nervousness. Harry tensed, but Draco didn’t seem to notice. “You know where we’re going, right? You remember it? We’re not going to end up splinched over the Channel or something, are we?”
“Yes, I remember it,” Harry said sharply. Draco’s comment had made his stomach do some sort of queasy flip-flop, and now he felt weirdly uncomfortable having the other boy hanging off his arm. “Though it’ll help if you concentrate on it, too.”
“Will do,” Draco said, squeezing his eyes shut. Harry stared at him for a moment, feeling perplexed, and then jerked his gaze away and brought the forest they were headed to the front of his mind.
“Here we go,” he said softly, and then he spun.
* * *
There was no other way to describe it. The first couple of days of their Quest To Find The Cave were just plain…awkward. There were awkward attempts at conversation, awkward lulls in the awkward attempts at conversation, and, when they’d exhausted their supply of common interests (really, there was only so much one could discuss about Quidditch, and it didn’t help that it was rather a sore subject on Draco’s part), there were long stretches of awkward silence between the two of them.
Why things were suddenly so uncomfortable between him and Draco, Harry had no idea. They’d been bunking together since the middle of summer, after all, so this shouldn’t have been anything different for them. Harry figured it was because he was used to having other people around. Sleeping in the same room as someone was all well and good, but having no one else to communicate with for the remaining hours of the day quickly became taxing, as he was reminded all too often why he and Draco had never been the least bit friendly towards each other in school.
This didn’t, of course, explain the weeks during the summer when it had just been Harry and Draco rooming together, awkwardness-free, at the Dursleys. But it was easy for Harry to just remind himself that he had still hated the boy at the time, despite the whole trying-to-offer-Malfoy-protection thing.
Not that he didn’t hate Draco now. Because he did. There was still dislike present, at least. Extreme dislike.
“This is so stupid,” Draco grumbled for the ninth time that day. They were setting up camp for their third night in Belgium.
“Which part?” Harry asked, because even though they’d had this conversation at least ten times in the past three days, the heavy silence they’d been enduring for the past two-and-a-half hours was seriously starting to grate on his nerves.
“All of it,” Draco spat as he tried to hammer the stake of the tent they were sharing into the ground. “At the moment, the ‘using as little magic as possible’ thing. Whose idea was that, anyway?”
Harry sighed, and even though he knew Draco already knew the answer, he replied anyway. “Hermione said we don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves. We’re using enough magic as it is with the tracking spells, but if there’s a sudden burst of magical activity in such a secluded area like this, someone’s definitely going to be sent to check it out.”
“Well, it’s stupid.”
Harry couldn’t exactly disagree. Each day they spent in Belgium made the whole ordeal seem even more ridiculous. All this trouble for a Horcrux that might not even exist…
“It’s also stupid that we have to tromp through these bloody woods all fucking day long. It’s so obvious we’re not going to find anything. A cave in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium? Such a load of bollocks. We’re not going to find any caves out here.”
If Harry ever became bored enough to do the math, he was sure he would find that one-third of their conversations was spent on awkward exchanges, one-third was spent not actually talking at all, and the final third was spent listening to Draco rant about the stupidity of their so-called mission.
Unfortunately for Harry, the more Draco ranted, the more Harry believed him. And with this reluctant belief came the doubt that they’d ever find anything at all.
“We could be spending our time doing much more important things,” Draco said. He stood up and wiped his arm across his brow, giving their newly erected tent a quick glance over before he went and plopped down onto the ground beside Harry. Harry jolted when Draco’s knee bumped into his thigh, and he not-so-discreetly scooted a couple of inches away.
Draco furrowed his brow at him, and Harry said, “Just making room for you,” by way of explanation. Draco rolled his eyes and turned to stare into the fire Harry had managed to start.
And there was that awkward silence again.
This was what confused Harry. He was certain this shouldn’t feel awkward, just sitting here next to Draco and not saying anything. If it were Ron, he would have been fine. Hell, if it had been Draco three weeks ago, he would have been fine. But for some reason, he now felt trapped. He felt like the air itself was pressing down on him, weighing on his shoulders, suffocating him, stealing his breath so that he couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything but sit there and not stare at Draco staring at the fire, and not watch the way the dancing flames left a strange pattern of shadows across Draco’s face.
His mouth was dry. He needed something to drink.
“Cheater,” Draco muttered when Harry Accio’d his water canteen over to where they were sitting.
“M’thirsty,” Harry said, drinking like he was a dehydrated man who had just emerged from a four-month misadventure in the Sahara Desert.
It was another thirty minutes before either of them spoke again, and Harry only broke the silence to distract himself from the way Draco’s shoulder was touching his. The other boy had leaned back on his hands and his legs were sprawled out in front of him, and even though Harry had inched away earlier, somehow Draco’s shoulder still managed to nudge his own and it stayed there. It didn’t seem to bother Draco. In fact, he looked perfectly peaceful. Maybe Harry was the only one who was feeling out of sorts. Maybe all this awkwardness was just a figment of his imagination.
Maybe there was something seriously wrong with him.
“So, what other important things could we be doing right now?” Harry blurted, wincing at how unusually loud his voice sounded.
Draco blinked, looking confused. “…I’m sorry?”
Harry cleared his throat before speaking again. “Earlier you said we could be spending our time doing much more important things. I was just wondering what they were.”
“Oh. Well, maybe not important things. Maybe just better things.” Draco scowled and slapped at a mosquito that had landed on his arm. “I hate nature,” he growled. “I’ve never been stuck outside for so long like this before.”
“Malfoy, it’s been three days,” Harry said flatly.
“Yes, exactly.”
“You were lost in the Forbidden Forest for nearly a month over the summer.”
Draco’s head whipped around and he gave Harry a sort of puzzled look, before his eyes widened a little. “Oh - oh yeah. There was…that,” he stuttered, and it might have been the firelight playing tricks on Harry’s eyes, but he was pretty sure that Draco’s cheeks had gone a bit pink.
“And at least you have a tent this time,” he pointed out. “And…company. So it can’t be too bad.”
Draco frowned. “These Muggle contraptions are pathetic. I still don’t see why we couldn’t have bought proper Wizard tents.”
Because they had let Hermione do the planning and had sent Harry to do the shopping, and neither of them had thought to get tents like Mr. Weasley had had at the Quidditch World Cup.
“Somehow I doubt Ron is complaining as much as you are,” Harry muttered, bringing his knees to his chest and folding his arms across the top of them.
“Gee, I wonder why?” Draco said sarcastically. Harry couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips, even as his mind recoiled in horror at the sudden mental images.
“Oh God,” he said, laughing and covering his face with his hand. “Stop! I don’t - I never wanted to think of Ron doing that. And especially not with Hermione!”
“Gross,” Draco said, scrunching up his nose. “My brain thanks you for that lovely visual, Potter, and it would like me to inform you that it is now scarred for life!” He picked up a random pebble from the ground and tossed it in Harry’s direction, scowling when the boy’s Quidditch instincts kicked in and he snatched the rock out of the air. “Show off,” Draco groused.
“Can’t beat pure talent,” Harry said, smirking.
Draco snorted. “Whatever,” he said. “Honestly, I was quite upset when I never received a huge box of chocolates and a carefully decorated thank-you note from you. I was the reason you even made the team, if you remember.”
“My apologies,” Harry said with a slight roll of his eyes. “I can’t believe I neglected to inform you of my gratitude. I’ll get you some treacle tart when we go back home.”
“Oh, that does sound good. Where from? I know of this bakery in Diagon Alley - though of course, it’s probably not open anymore and the prices were fairly steep…”
“I shop at this place called Mrs. Weasley’s Kitchen,” Harry deadpanned. “Very decent prices there.”
“Cheap,” Draco said, grinning a little. “That’s what you are: cheap. Lucky for the Weasley girl that you two never even made it to the six-month anniversary.”
“We barely made it to our one-month,” Harry said dryly.
“I’m not surprised,” Draco said. “Rooming with the likes of Finnigan, it’s a wonder you managed to snag a girl at all. You’d think something would have rubbed off on you.”
Harry laughed shortly, but his smile quickly faded and he hugged his knees to his chest a little tighter. Truthfully, he’d done his best to shove that new bit of information into the deep recesses of his mind so he wouldn’t ever have to think about it again. He wanted to be able to accept it, he wanted to be comfortable with it…but it wasn’t as if he was going to be rooming with Seamus again anytime soon, so really, why worry about it now?
Obviously, plans like that never really worked out. And if he was honest with himself, now that he was thinking about it, Harry would have to admit that he held some sort of morbid curiosity about the whole thing anyway. Mostly questions like Why? and What’s the point; the appeal? were what surfaced in his mind.
“It’s not like it’s contagious,” Harry said suddenly.
“What’s not?”
“Being like…that. It can’t be helped. It just…happens…right?”
“Fuck if I know,” Draco muttered. He seemed farther away from Harry all of a sudden, which Harry realized was because he was now sitting hunched over and cross-legged. Their shoulders were no longer touching.
“It’s weird, though,” Harry said, despite the fact that it couldn’t be more obvious that Draco was uncomfortable with this topic of conversation. He seemed to shrink even more into himself, hunching over more and resting his elbows on his knees.
“It is weird, yes,” Draco said woodenly.
“But Seamus seems happy.”
“If you can call slobbering all over dimwitted Hufflepuffs happy.”
“It could be worse.”
“Yeah?”
“He could have fallen for a Ravenclaw who defined happy as slobbering all over dimwitted Hufflepuffs.”
Draco snorted in surprise. “Oh-ho! Bitter much, Potter?”
Harry grinned, and mentally sent his apologies to Cedric. “Not really. Not anymore.”
Their conversation slowed and eventually faded into silence as the last flickering flames of the fire died out.
“Come on,” Draco said eventually, standing and stretching his arms so far above his head that his spine popped. “We have a long day of doing absolutely nothing useful ahead of us tomorrow. Best get to bed.”
* * *
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Harry said sullenly after they finished setting up camp the following night.
“Come again?”
“I’m not even sure this dark magic detector spell works-”
“No wait - I need to write this down. Parchment. Where’s some parchment?” Draco made a great show of digging through his backpack. “Parchment, quill, ink, haven’t we got any?”
“Come off it, Malfoy,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “I was being serious.”
“So was I!” Draco exclaimed. “You’re admitting I’m right about something. Clearly a written record of this momentous occasion needs to be taken down.”
“I didn’t admit you were right about anything,” Harry said gruffly. “I said I’m beginning to think you’re right.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There is a difference.”
“Huh. Alright then, Potter.” Draco moved to where Harry was and sat down cross-legged in front of him. “Let’s hear it.”
Harry sighed. “It’s just that… I can’t help feeling like the only thing we’re going to find out here is more trees. The tracking spells seem to be working well enough, but the rest of what Hermione found? Hell, we might as well just walk around with a Sneakoscope or something.”
“I doubt that would work,” Draco said dryly.
“Because everything else is?” Harry retorted. “Just - Merlin, I must’ve been mad to agree to this. Snape’s sent us on a wild goose chase, the arsehole.”
“And yet,” Draco started to say, leaning back on his hands, “we’re still going to keep looking, aren’t we?”
Harry shrugged. “It’s still the only lead we’ve got…”
“That’s always your excuse,” Draco said, looking away and chuckling darkly. “Yeah, the search is pointless and the spells Granger looked up are complete crap, but hey, we’ve got nothing else to do, so we might as well waste our time out here! Now as for myself? I think there’s a reason he sent us out here. And he practically told us what it was.”
“He did?” Harry asked, startled. “Wait, what? What the bloody hell are you going on about now?”
“Are you serious? It was so obvious, Potter!” When Harry continued to look blank, Draco rolled his eyes and continued, “Occlumency! Both Snape and the man who may or may not have been Dumbledore’s brother said it was important, and apparently you’re awful at it.” He leaned forward, putting his face right in front of Harry’s, and said, “Let me teach you Occlumency.”
Harry didn’t even need to think it over. “Hell no,” he said abruptly, shaking his head. “You think I’d make the same mistake twice? No way, if I’m going to learn Occlumency, I’m going to do it on my own.”
“It’s not something you can really do by yourself, though,” Draco said, frowning. “It’s really not even that difficult, but you definitely need someone to practice with.”
“I’ll wait till we get back, then, and practice with Ron.”
“What are you, daft? Weasley doesn’t know Legilimency!”
“And let me guess, you do?”
“Comes with the territory,” Draco said, making a flippant gesture. “Once you’ve got one, it’s easy to learn the other.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” Harry said, standing and brushing bits of grass from his trousers. “But I’ll still have to decline your offer.”
“Why?” Draco demanded. “We’ve got at least another week-and-a-half out here, the least we can do is make the time pass doing something useful. Something genuinely important, something that might very possibly help you defeat the Dark Lord!”
He made a convincing argument… Still… “I’ve had quite enough of people invading my mind, thanks. I’ll wait and get Aberforth to teach me...”
Draco stood abruptly, hands closing into fists at his sides. “Damn it, Potter!” he shouted. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
“What?” Harry said, startled.
“This isn’t about what happened the last time you tried to learn Occlumency. I’m not going to - you don’t - I wouldn’t… You trust Snape!” Draco finally spat. “You can say all you want how you don’t, how you’re starting to believe I’m right about this all being a huge waste of time, but that doesn’t change the fact that you still hope that we’re actually going to find a Horcrux out here! Because the truth, the truth is that you believe him one-hundred percent. You trust him!” Draco cried. “And he’s a Death Eater!”
Harry stiffened. “So what?” he said darkly. “What of it? So what if I trust Snape a little. So what if he’s a Death Eater. Dumbledore trusted Snape for sixteen years knowing he had the Dark Mark-”
“Then why don’t you trust me?!”
Harry faltered. “That’s…that’s different,” he said.
“It’s not,” Draco insisted. “You just want to believe that it is.” Draco frowned and crossed his arms. “I’m trying to help you, Potter.”
“No, you’re trying to get me choose between you. You want me to say I trust you more than I trust Snape.”
“Do you?”
Harry paused, catching Draco’s eyes and holding his gaze for a moment. He rubbed absently at his chest. “How do I know you won’t take advantage of it?” he finally asked hesitantly.
Draco smirked. “Well, I can’t promise that I won’t-”
“Malfoy!”
“Oh, calm down, Potter! I was only kidding.”
“You were not.”
“Well… I was kidding a little.”
Harry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he weighed the options in his mind. On the one hand, they really should continue looking for this cave and the Horcrux that probably was nowhere on this continent, because…well…just in case. But on the other hand, just in case was looking pretty farfetched right now. The entire thing was beginning to seem completely fruitless, and if he was going to be forced to spend two weeks alone with Malfoy, he might as well get something useful out of it - no matter how uncomfortable the idea of the other boy being in his head made him.
The other hand won.
“Alright, Malfoy,” Harry said softly, crossing his arms and meeting Draco’s eyes squarely. “Teach me Occlumency.”
It’s short, I know! But chapter 13 is over halfway done, so it shouldn’t be too long in coming!
Thank you for sticking with me!
~Maxine
next chapter
You can also read it at my website, or at Skyehawke.
Title: All the Answers
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Word Count: 4400
Disclaimer: It's not mine. Really. J.K. Rowling's the brilliant mind behind HP.
Notes: Post-HBP, so yes, SPOILERS! Many, many thanks to my lovely betas, smutella and impish_nymph! Ladies, you're both fantastic!
Summary: Since when has conquering evil ever been easy?
--> All chapters can be found here. <--
previous chapter
~~Chapter 12~~
“Belgium?”
“I knew she wouldn’t go for it.”
“Shut up, Malfoy.”
“Belgium, Harry?” Hermione repeated, an incredulous look on her face. “Belgium?!”
Harry looked sheepish. “It’s the only lead we’ve got?” he offered tentatively.
Hermione sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I suppose you’re right, but I don’t - BELGIUM?”
“Yes, Hermione, Belgium,” Ron cut in, rolling his eyes. “Snape even gave us a potion to help us get there and back.”
“What potion?” Hermione asked sharply, whipping her head around to face Ron. “I absolutely refuse to let you drink an unknown potion without-”
“Slughorn okayed it,” Harry said. “It’s the real deal. We can’t ignore this.”
“Well… I mean, I know you’re right, of course,” Hermione said, her brow still furrowed. “It just sounds very suspicious to me.”
“It sounds suspicious to the rest of us, too, Granger,” Draco said snidely. “Don’t think you’re the only one who thinks it’s all complete bollocks.”
“Malfoy didn’t even let Harry touch the vial at first,” Ron said, smirking a bit. “Completely blew our cover, the daft git.”
Draco lifted his chin a bit. “It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“He’s right.” Harry nodded. “At least we can move back to Grimmauld Place now.”
Hermione blinked. “Well, you hadn’t mentioned that part yet!” She caught Ron staring at her out of the corner of her eye, and when she turned to glance at him questioningly, he grinned at her.
“Keep it in your pants, Weasley,” Draco said dryly, rolling his eyes.
Ron sent him a rude gesture that had Hermione scolding him immediately.
“Anyway,” Harry cut in, “Hermione, we were hoping you’d be able to…uh, help us out and…”
“And plan everything for you?” Hermione finished, arching her eyebrows. “Take care of all the preparations?”
“Er…” Harry grinned sheepishly. “Yeah. That.”
Hermione let out a longsuffering sigh, but she smiled. “I think I can take care of all that.”
“Great!” Harry exclaimed. “Snape said it would be best if we split up. We can cover more ground that way. So I guess I’ll be with Ron and-”
“What?” Draco said sharply.
Ron followed up with a hesitant, “Harry…”
Harry paused, glancing back and forth between Ron, Draco, and Hermione, who was looking apologetic, and saw immediately where this was headed. And for some inexplicable reason, he panicked. He managed to withhold from groaning out loud, but his shoulders slouched against his will.
There was no way. He wouldn’t do it - no, couldn’t do it. He would not be left alone with Draco Malfoy in some secluded forest in the middle of nowhere for two whole weeks.
“Well, I guess I can be with Hermione, then, and Ron and Malfoy-”
“Harry,” Ron said again, a bit louder this time.
“Be serious, Potter,” Draco said. He looked vaguely amused.
Harry glanced between the three of them again. This couldn’t be happening. Desperate now, he caught Hermione’s eyes and sent her a pleading look.
She merely shrugged. “Sorry, Harry.”
Damn.
Harry gave Draco a nervous look. Draco countered with a smirk. Harry frowned, pursing his lips.
“Look, I’m not going to be the one stuck with Malfoy!”
* * *
“I can’t believe I’m the one who got stuck with you.”
“Oh, cheer up, Potter,” Draco said, as they trailed behind Ron and Hermione. It was nearly a week later, and they were making their way to the Apparating point beyond the wards of the Burrow.
“I just - why does it have to be me?” Harry said petulantly.
“You can’t honestly have expected this to turn out any different,” Draco said, glancing skyward. “You know Granger and I would have spent the entire time trying to outwit each other, and Weasley and I would have done nothing but argued. One of us probably would have come back missing a few limbs.” He paused for a second, and then as an afterthought added, “Actually, it’s just as likely that one of us wouldn’t have come back at all…”
“I don’t see why I have to be the one to put up with you all the time, is all,” Harry muttered. He adjusted the straps of the backpack on his shoulders, and sped up a little to try and pass Draco.
“Please,” Draco said to Harry’s retreating back. “You know you love it.”
Harry spun around to face Draco, but continued walking backwards as he spoke. “Love it?” he repeated, an incredulous look on his face. “Love what?”
“Putting up with me, as you so called it,” Draco replied, smirking. “You like having me around. It keeps you from being a third wheel, for one.” He glanced up ahead to where Ron and Hermione were walking. Harry twisted to look over his shoulder, and tried to ignore his friends’ clasped hands swinging between them.
“I’m not a third wheel,” Harry said resolutely, turning back to face Draco. Upon finding Draco’s face suddenly only inches from his own, he yelped and tried to back away, only to trip himself and make a spectacular fall onto his rump.
“Of course you’re not, Potter,” Draco said, bending over to thrust his hand into Harry’s face. “But you do like me. You’re just afraid to admit it because you’re still clinging to the belief that you hate me. It’s safer that way, right?” He arched an eyebrow, smirking.
Harry blinked, staring at Draco’s outstretched hand and then at his face. He swallowed nervously, and when he grasped Draco’s hand and allowed the other boy to pull him up, he wondered vaguely why his palms suddenly felt so sweaty.
“Alright there, Harry?” Ron called back to them from the top of the hill.
Harry jerked his hand away from Draco’s, realizing with a start that they were just standing there staring at each other. “Fine, Ron,” he called back, wiping his palm against his trousers. He turned away from Draco, muttering out of the side of his mouth, “And I do hate you. And if it’s not hate, it’s at least very strong dislike.”
“Sure, Potter, sure. Whatever you say.”
Harry could almost hear the grin in his words. He clenched his teeth and blamed the afternoon sun for suddenly making him feel so hot.
“Okay, are we ready?” Hermione asked once they were all gathered at the Apparating point.
“No,” Harry mumbled under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Er. Nothing. Carry on.”
Hermione looked doubtful, but she continued anyway. “Alright, here’s the potion,” she said, taking a familiar looking vial out of her bag. “Everybody knows where we’re going?”
“I hope so,” Ron said, accepting the vial from Hermione. “Wouldn’t want to end up in China or something. Cheers, then.” He brought the potion to his mouth, took a deep breath, and then took a quick sip before he could change his mind.
“Feel any different?” Harry asked after a few seconds.
“Um… Not really,” Ron admitted. “Still, that’s a relief, yeah? Doesn’t seem to be harmful.”
“It could have a delayed reaction,” Draco said helpfully.
“Shut it, Malfoy,” Harry said offhandedly.
Draco shrugged. “I’m only saying…”
They passed the vial around, each taking tentative sips, and once it was back to Hermione she sealed it and put it back into her bag.
“Well,” she said, taking Ron’s hand and grasping it firmly. “We’ll see you over there. Be careful!” Ron gave Harry a two-fingered salute, and then with a loud crack, both of them Disapparated. Harry moved to do the same, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Potter, wait,” Draco said quickly, looking a bit pale. “I don’t… I mean, I still haven’t - um - can you…?” He paused, exhaling harshly through his nose, and then said, “Look, I still don’t like Apparating much and I’m not - I’m not sure if…”
Harry rolled his eyes, sighing. “You want to do side-along?”
Draco pursed his lips. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he mumbled, glancing away.
“It’s fine,” Harry said shortly. He held out his arm, and Draco hooked his own arm around it tentatively.
“Going to be my escort for the evening?” Draco said sarcastically, though the slight tremor in his voice gave away his nervousness. Harry tensed, but Draco didn’t seem to notice. “You know where we’re going, right? You remember it? We’re not going to end up splinched over the Channel or something, are we?”
“Yes, I remember it,” Harry said sharply. Draco’s comment had made his stomach do some sort of queasy flip-flop, and now he felt weirdly uncomfortable having the other boy hanging off his arm. “Though it’ll help if you concentrate on it, too.”
“Will do,” Draco said, squeezing his eyes shut. Harry stared at him for a moment, feeling perplexed, and then jerked his gaze away and brought the forest they were headed to the front of his mind.
“Here we go,” he said softly, and then he spun.
* * *
There was no other way to describe it. The first couple of days of their Quest To Find The Cave were just plain…awkward. There were awkward attempts at conversation, awkward lulls in the awkward attempts at conversation, and, when they’d exhausted their supply of common interests (really, there was only so much one could discuss about Quidditch, and it didn’t help that it was rather a sore subject on Draco’s part), there were long stretches of awkward silence between the two of them.
Why things were suddenly so uncomfortable between him and Draco, Harry had no idea. They’d been bunking together since the middle of summer, after all, so this shouldn’t have been anything different for them. Harry figured it was because he was used to having other people around. Sleeping in the same room as someone was all well and good, but having no one else to communicate with for the remaining hours of the day quickly became taxing, as he was reminded all too often why he and Draco had never been the least bit friendly towards each other in school.
This didn’t, of course, explain the weeks during the summer when it had just been Harry and Draco rooming together, awkwardness-free, at the Dursleys. But it was easy for Harry to just remind himself that he had still hated the boy at the time, despite the whole trying-to-offer-Malfoy-protection thing.
Not that he didn’t hate Draco now. Because he did. There was still dislike present, at least. Extreme dislike.
“This is so stupid,” Draco grumbled for the ninth time that day. They were setting up camp for their third night in Belgium.
“Which part?” Harry asked, because even though they’d had this conversation at least ten times in the past three days, the heavy silence they’d been enduring for the past two-and-a-half hours was seriously starting to grate on his nerves.
“All of it,” Draco spat as he tried to hammer the stake of the tent they were sharing into the ground. “At the moment, the ‘using as little magic as possible’ thing. Whose idea was that, anyway?”
Harry sighed, and even though he knew Draco already knew the answer, he replied anyway. “Hermione said we don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves. We’re using enough magic as it is with the tracking spells, but if there’s a sudden burst of magical activity in such a secluded area like this, someone’s definitely going to be sent to check it out.”
“Well, it’s stupid.”
Harry couldn’t exactly disagree. Each day they spent in Belgium made the whole ordeal seem even more ridiculous. All this trouble for a Horcrux that might not even exist…
“It’s also stupid that we have to tromp through these bloody woods all fucking day long. It’s so obvious we’re not going to find anything. A cave in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium? Such a load of bollocks. We’re not going to find any caves out here.”
If Harry ever became bored enough to do the math, he was sure he would find that one-third of their conversations was spent on awkward exchanges, one-third was spent not actually talking at all, and the final third was spent listening to Draco rant about the stupidity of their so-called mission.
Unfortunately for Harry, the more Draco ranted, the more Harry believed him. And with this reluctant belief came the doubt that they’d ever find anything at all.
“We could be spending our time doing much more important things,” Draco said. He stood up and wiped his arm across his brow, giving their newly erected tent a quick glance over before he went and plopped down onto the ground beside Harry. Harry jolted when Draco’s knee bumped into his thigh, and he not-so-discreetly scooted a couple of inches away.
Draco furrowed his brow at him, and Harry said, “Just making room for you,” by way of explanation. Draco rolled his eyes and turned to stare into the fire Harry had managed to start.
And there was that awkward silence again.
This was what confused Harry. He was certain this shouldn’t feel awkward, just sitting here next to Draco and not saying anything. If it were Ron, he would have been fine. Hell, if it had been Draco three weeks ago, he would have been fine. But for some reason, he now felt trapped. He felt like the air itself was pressing down on him, weighing on his shoulders, suffocating him, stealing his breath so that he couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything but sit there and not stare at Draco staring at the fire, and not watch the way the dancing flames left a strange pattern of shadows across Draco’s face.
His mouth was dry. He needed something to drink.
“Cheater,” Draco muttered when Harry Accio’d his water canteen over to where they were sitting.
“M’thirsty,” Harry said, drinking like he was a dehydrated man who had just emerged from a four-month misadventure in the Sahara Desert.
It was another thirty minutes before either of them spoke again, and Harry only broke the silence to distract himself from the way Draco’s shoulder was touching his. The other boy had leaned back on his hands and his legs were sprawled out in front of him, and even though Harry had inched away earlier, somehow Draco’s shoulder still managed to nudge his own and it stayed there. It didn’t seem to bother Draco. In fact, he looked perfectly peaceful. Maybe Harry was the only one who was feeling out of sorts. Maybe all this awkwardness was just a figment of his imagination.
Maybe there was something seriously wrong with him.
“So, what other important things could we be doing right now?” Harry blurted, wincing at how unusually loud his voice sounded.
Draco blinked, looking confused. “…I’m sorry?”
Harry cleared his throat before speaking again. “Earlier you said we could be spending our time doing much more important things. I was just wondering what they were.”
“Oh. Well, maybe not important things. Maybe just better things.” Draco scowled and slapped at a mosquito that had landed on his arm. “I hate nature,” he growled. “I’ve never been stuck outside for so long like this before.”
“Malfoy, it’s been three days,” Harry said flatly.
“Yes, exactly.”
“You were lost in the Forbidden Forest for nearly a month over the summer.”
Draco’s head whipped around and he gave Harry a sort of puzzled look, before his eyes widened a little. “Oh - oh yeah. There was…that,” he stuttered, and it might have been the firelight playing tricks on Harry’s eyes, but he was pretty sure that Draco’s cheeks had gone a bit pink.
“And at least you have a tent this time,” he pointed out. “And…company. So it can’t be too bad.”
Draco frowned. “These Muggle contraptions are pathetic. I still don’t see why we couldn’t have bought proper Wizard tents.”
Because they had let Hermione do the planning and had sent Harry to do the shopping, and neither of them had thought to get tents like Mr. Weasley had had at the Quidditch World Cup.
“Somehow I doubt Ron is complaining as much as you are,” Harry muttered, bringing his knees to his chest and folding his arms across the top of them.
“Gee, I wonder why?” Draco said sarcastically. Harry couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips, even as his mind recoiled in horror at the sudden mental images.
“Oh God,” he said, laughing and covering his face with his hand. “Stop! I don’t - I never wanted to think of Ron doing that. And especially not with Hermione!”
“Gross,” Draco said, scrunching up his nose. “My brain thanks you for that lovely visual, Potter, and it would like me to inform you that it is now scarred for life!” He picked up a random pebble from the ground and tossed it in Harry’s direction, scowling when the boy’s Quidditch instincts kicked in and he snatched the rock out of the air. “Show off,” Draco groused.
“Can’t beat pure talent,” Harry said, smirking.
Draco snorted. “Whatever,” he said. “Honestly, I was quite upset when I never received a huge box of chocolates and a carefully decorated thank-you note from you. I was the reason you even made the team, if you remember.”
“My apologies,” Harry said with a slight roll of his eyes. “I can’t believe I neglected to inform you of my gratitude. I’ll get you some treacle tart when we go back home.”
“Oh, that does sound good. Where from? I know of this bakery in Diagon Alley - though of course, it’s probably not open anymore and the prices were fairly steep…”
“I shop at this place called Mrs. Weasley’s Kitchen,” Harry deadpanned. “Very decent prices there.”
“Cheap,” Draco said, grinning a little. “That’s what you are: cheap. Lucky for the Weasley girl that you two never even made it to the six-month anniversary.”
“We barely made it to our one-month,” Harry said dryly.
“I’m not surprised,” Draco said. “Rooming with the likes of Finnigan, it’s a wonder you managed to snag a girl at all. You’d think something would have rubbed off on you.”
Harry laughed shortly, but his smile quickly faded and he hugged his knees to his chest a little tighter. Truthfully, he’d done his best to shove that new bit of information into the deep recesses of his mind so he wouldn’t ever have to think about it again. He wanted to be able to accept it, he wanted to be comfortable with it…but it wasn’t as if he was going to be rooming with Seamus again anytime soon, so really, why worry about it now?
Obviously, plans like that never really worked out. And if he was honest with himself, now that he was thinking about it, Harry would have to admit that he held some sort of morbid curiosity about the whole thing anyway. Mostly questions like Why? and What’s the point; the appeal? were what surfaced in his mind.
“It’s not like it’s contagious,” Harry said suddenly.
“What’s not?”
“Being like…that. It can’t be helped. It just…happens…right?”
“Fuck if I know,” Draco muttered. He seemed farther away from Harry all of a sudden, which Harry realized was because he was now sitting hunched over and cross-legged. Their shoulders were no longer touching.
“It’s weird, though,” Harry said, despite the fact that it couldn’t be more obvious that Draco was uncomfortable with this topic of conversation. He seemed to shrink even more into himself, hunching over more and resting his elbows on his knees.
“It is weird, yes,” Draco said woodenly.
“But Seamus seems happy.”
“If you can call slobbering all over dimwitted Hufflepuffs happy.”
“It could be worse.”
“Yeah?”
“He could have fallen for a Ravenclaw who defined happy as slobbering all over dimwitted Hufflepuffs.”
Draco snorted in surprise. “Oh-ho! Bitter much, Potter?”
Harry grinned, and mentally sent his apologies to Cedric. “Not really. Not anymore.”
Their conversation slowed and eventually faded into silence as the last flickering flames of the fire died out.
“Come on,” Draco said eventually, standing and stretching his arms so far above his head that his spine popped. “We have a long day of doing absolutely nothing useful ahead of us tomorrow. Best get to bed.”
* * *
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Harry said sullenly after they finished setting up camp the following night.
“Come again?”
“I’m not even sure this dark magic detector spell works-”
“No wait - I need to write this down. Parchment. Where’s some parchment?” Draco made a great show of digging through his backpack. “Parchment, quill, ink, haven’t we got any?”
“Come off it, Malfoy,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “I was being serious.”
“So was I!” Draco exclaimed. “You’re admitting I’m right about something. Clearly a written record of this momentous occasion needs to be taken down.”
“I didn’t admit you were right about anything,” Harry said gruffly. “I said I’m beginning to think you’re right.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There is a difference.”
“Huh. Alright then, Potter.” Draco moved to where Harry was and sat down cross-legged in front of him. “Let’s hear it.”
Harry sighed. “It’s just that… I can’t help feeling like the only thing we’re going to find out here is more trees. The tracking spells seem to be working well enough, but the rest of what Hermione found? Hell, we might as well just walk around with a Sneakoscope or something.”
“I doubt that would work,” Draco said dryly.
“Because everything else is?” Harry retorted. “Just - Merlin, I must’ve been mad to agree to this. Snape’s sent us on a wild goose chase, the arsehole.”
“And yet,” Draco started to say, leaning back on his hands, “we’re still going to keep looking, aren’t we?”
Harry shrugged. “It’s still the only lead we’ve got…”
“That’s always your excuse,” Draco said, looking away and chuckling darkly. “Yeah, the search is pointless and the spells Granger looked up are complete crap, but hey, we’ve got nothing else to do, so we might as well waste our time out here! Now as for myself? I think there’s a reason he sent us out here. And he practically told us what it was.”
“He did?” Harry asked, startled. “Wait, what? What the bloody hell are you going on about now?”
“Are you serious? It was so obvious, Potter!” When Harry continued to look blank, Draco rolled his eyes and continued, “Occlumency! Both Snape and the man who may or may not have been Dumbledore’s brother said it was important, and apparently you’re awful at it.” He leaned forward, putting his face right in front of Harry’s, and said, “Let me teach you Occlumency.”
Harry didn’t even need to think it over. “Hell no,” he said abruptly, shaking his head. “You think I’d make the same mistake twice? No way, if I’m going to learn Occlumency, I’m going to do it on my own.”
“It’s not something you can really do by yourself, though,” Draco said, frowning. “It’s really not even that difficult, but you definitely need someone to practice with.”
“I’ll wait till we get back, then, and practice with Ron.”
“What are you, daft? Weasley doesn’t know Legilimency!”
“And let me guess, you do?”
“Comes with the territory,” Draco said, making a flippant gesture. “Once you’ve got one, it’s easy to learn the other.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” Harry said, standing and brushing bits of grass from his trousers. “But I’ll still have to decline your offer.”
“Why?” Draco demanded. “We’ve got at least another week-and-a-half out here, the least we can do is make the time pass doing something useful. Something genuinely important, something that might very possibly help you defeat the Dark Lord!”
He made a convincing argument… Still… “I’ve had quite enough of people invading my mind, thanks. I’ll wait and get Aberforth to teach me...”
Draco stood abruptly, hands closing into fists at his sides. “Damn it, Potter!” he shouted. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
“What?” Harry said, startled.
“This isn’t about what happened the last time you tried to learn Occlumency. I’m not going to - you don’t - I wouldn’t… You trust Snape!” Draco finally spat. “You can say all you want how you don’t, how you’re starting to believe I’m right about this all being a huge waste of time, but that doesn’t change the fact that you still hope that we’re actually going to find a Horcrux out here! Because the truth, the truth is that you believe him one-hundred percent. You trust him!” Draco cried. “And he’s a Death Eater!”
Harry stiffened. “So what?” he said darkly. “What of it? So what if I trust Snape a little. So what if he’s a Death Eater. Dumbledore trusted Snape for sixteen years knowing he had the Dark Mark-”
“Then why don’t you trust me?!”
Harry faltered. “That’s…that’s different,” he said.
“It’s not,” Draco insisted. “You just want to believe that it is.” Draco frowned and crossed his arms. “I’m trying to help you, Potter.”
“No, you’re trying to get me choose between you. You want me to say I trust you more than I trust Snape.”
“Do you?”
Harry paused, catching Draco’s eyes and holding his gaze for a moment. He rubbed absently at his chest. “How do I know you won’t take advantage of it?” he finally asked hesitantly.
Draco smirked. “Well, I can’t promise that I won’t-”
“Malfoy!”
“Oh, calm down, Potter! I was only kidding.”
“You were not.”
“Well… I was kidding a little.”
Harry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he weighed the options in his mind. On the one hand, they really should continue looking for this cave and the Horcrux that probably was nowhere on this continent, because…well…just in case. But on the other hand, just in case was looking pretty farfetched right now. The entire thing was beginning to seem completely fruitless, and if he was going to be forced to spend two weeks alone with Malfoy, he might as well get something useful out of it - no matter how uncomfortable the idea of the other boy being in his head made him.
The other hand won.
“Alright, Malfoy,” Harry said softly, crossing his arms and meeting Draco’s eyes squarely. “Teach me Occlumency.”
It’s short, I know! But chapter 13 is over halfway done, so it shouldn’t be too long in coming!
Thank you for sticking with me!
~Maxine
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You can also read it at my website, or at Skyehawke.