Learning to Live

Chapter 16: Itchy Mischief

Unable to get the nagging feeling out of his head that something was not right--he had, after all, nearly plummeted to his death before he could pull out a wand--Harry followed Draco through the halls without comment. Had it only been his imagination, or had there really been a crimson glow behind Draco's stony grey eyes? Did Harry have HD too? It would be the first time nobody had automatically suspected something was wrong with _him_. They turned left at the Entrance Hall, descending the stairs into the dungeons.

"Sheffield! No magic in the halls! Five points from Gryffindor!" Draco dealt out as they passed a second year trying to enchant a statue to sing a love song, presumably for the Ravenclaw girl giggling nearby.

"You'll never be able to guess what just happened," Harry said as they deposited their broomsticks in his own dungeon rooms.

Draco took the opportunity to gasp beatifically. "They finally answered my petition to have Gringott's renamed? Oh, I know, my father finally contributed enough Galleons to be canonised!"

"No," Harry groaned, sometimes really detesting Malfoy's particular brand of sarcasm. "Snape's letting me teach all his classes on Tuesday."

"Oh, yeah, I knew about that," Draco replied carelessly. "He's brewing this potion for natural Occlumency or something. Or it could just give you rabbit ears."

"Why rabbit ears?"

"When I was five years old, I snuck into his laboratory and started putting things together and drinking them. My mother..." Draco stopped, and distractedly straightened a photo on the wall. "I have the photographs still. I had those ears for a week, great white ones, and around Samhain, too. Snape said it was a very good Transfiguration potion for a five-year old." They headed upwards for Lynch's room.

"That would be, if there weren't any averse effects," smiled Harry. Draco did not return the expression.

"If you count all the nose-twitching and hopping around as normal for a five-year old Malfoy, then no, there weren't any averse effects," he informed Harry, as they climbed the staircases.

"I think you've still got a bit of nose-twitching there, actually," Harry said, grinning at Draco's scowl. "Well, hey, if you knew about it, why didn't you tell me? I've been trying to find out for days."

"I didn't know you wanted to know about my childhood so much, Harry," quipped Draco.

"You know I meant my teaching," Harry said with gritted teeth.

"I thought it might be a nice surprise for you. Ah, here we are," Draco said. He smiled as they reached Lynch's door, and knocked ("Just a minute, I'll be right there!"). He pointed his wand at his hand behind his back, conjuring up a bouquet of callas lilies. Harry gave him an inquiring smirk, but Draco brushed it off with a proud sort of sniff. "No sense in being impolite, especially if Darko decides to force from her a list of patients."

"Right," replied Harry with much scepticism. "What makes you think Darko has the leverage to do that?"

"He's got my father backing him, doesn't he?" was all Draco had to say to make his point clear. Draco wasn't above bribing, but this didn't feel very much like a bribe to Harry. Nor did the smile Draco gave Lynch when she opened the door. Was Draco being...romantic?

"Draco, Harry, great, you're early! Come in, come in!" she announced, ushering them into her room as if they were old guests. "No doubt you've given what we discovered last night much thought. I'm glad you could be here today; I would have thought your Auror business was going to take you the entire weekend in London."

"And miss this? Not a chance," murmured Draco, and his smile was too charming for Harry's taste. What business is it of yours, Harry chided himself, who Malfoy chooses to give romantic smiles to? Of course it wasn't. He didn't have any control over Malfoy's love life. Maybe Draco was just getting involved with Lynch for all the wrong reasons. "Here, I conjured these for you." Draco handed her the callas lilies with a small bow, and Harry had to stifle the urge to laugh outright.

"Oh why thank you, Draco! That's so sweet of you. I'll put them here on the table for us to admire before they disappear. Well then, since you're already on the sofa, we can begin. Harry, are you sure you want to stay for this?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes. Definitely. Absolutely," he affirmed. No telling what these two might do without him.

"Never again with the VeritaSomnium, if you please," Draco added. Well now, that was said almost pleasantly.

"We'll see," was all Lynch said. "Have you noticed anything strange in the way people behave towards you that might indicate your lost memory as a possible explanation for their actions?"

"Besides Harry falling off his broomstick this evening?" Draco said, snorting. "No."

"I thought you were a good flyer," Lynch protested, frowning at Harry. "Maybe you should get that Firebolt checked."

"My Firebolt's fine," Harry replied defencively, but he didn't want to mention what Draco had, rather, what he thought Draco had done. There was no telling what any of it meant yet.

"Well," Lynch sighed, waving aside the topic, "what sort of things do you think you would want to forget, Draco? Remember, whatever you tell myself and Harry will not travel outside this room."

Despite looking very doubtful of the fact, Draco mulled over the question for quite a while. So long, in fact, that Lynch had to ask, "Draco? Are you still considering?"

"A better question might be what sort of things might I really want to remember. Nevertheless...I'd probably prefer not knowing about things I've had to do after I learned all I could from the first time. Repetition's a bitch. Or...nothing else, really," Draco told her helplessly.

"I was informed--I won't say by who--that you were missing for two weeks and three days before the final battle?" Lynch asked. "Would you care to tell us what happened?"

"No." The answer was very swift and very abrupt, and gave a tone that definitely said stop-talking-now-or-be-devoured-by-hungry-Occamies.

"If you don't do this, Draco, you won't be helped. If you aren't willing to accept what happened and work your way through it you'll never get better. You'll only feel worse while you push it all down. Please, Draco." Lynch gave him what Harry could have sworn was a maiden-in-distress pleading look, and it worked. The two blonds stared at each other, neither opting to break down, but it was Lynch's feminine wiles that did it. For the one time in his life Harry wished he had enough feminine wiles to get Draco to listen to him on personal matters. "What happened to you?"

"I was tortured," Draco finally said with clenched teeth. Harry could feel the tension emanating off of him. A woman might have reached out and taken Draco's hand, or put an arm around and tried to reassure. Lynch did no such thing, and Harry simply didn't have the hormones for it.

"We know," Lynch said after a while, all traces of pleading gone. Her lips were in a tight line and she was very serious, her eyes set on the Auror sitting beside Harry. The former Slytherin wasn't meeting anyone's eyes. "It's good that you've admitted it, that you know it happened. I had to make you say it, Draco, because it was real, and you musn't deny it or push it down. Don't lock it away somewhere." She put her quill and parchment aside. "I think that'll be all for tonight. We'll focus on that a little more next time. Thank you for the flowers, Draco, they're lovely. Good night. You too, Harry."

Silently, Draco glided out of the room with Harry trailing beside him, not quite knowing what to say. He didn't seem angry, or sad, or particularly upset, but Draco was never easy to read, Harry had long learned. For someone so unwilling to share anything about himself, it had been a near-miracle that Draco had even buckled so quickly. Or did he just want to get it over with?

"Draco..." he started to say, as the one in question opened his office door soundlessly.

"I'm tired, Harry." The voice surprised him. It wasn't the usual careless drawl or fluid elegance. It sounded weak, as if it were faintly coming from deep within Draco. His pointed face was the same, but the eyes...the eyes weren't toneless, weren't blank, weren't stony. They seemed to crackle and flame, imploding from the lack of energy. "Good night." The door slipped closed in Harry's face.

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A long hall.

A sound.

Stone.

He runs, only his feet do not touch the ground, and it seems like he's flying. He is going very fast, past guards mysteriously knocked down, past doors opened, past wards unlocked, past everything that he might have been concerned about had he not this looming priority above him, this single target towards which he has been honed for so long it is startling to find he has kept himself. He knows who awaits, because he has had this dream before, and in every incarnation he is a boy. A mere child as always, facing a monster.

"Fate forbids us to duel, Harry." They both know it, this funny thing discovered years ago, a lifetime ago for Harry. The monster sneers and Harry does not see him as one, only a deluded and dangerous madman. So they are both on a level playing ground now, too similar to waste words. He draws the wand anyway, in futility, but this time, this time he lets the curse strike. It is horrible, the feel of his skin slicing up, his body rebelling against every piece of himself. Did Malfoy really feel this for almost a month?

Instead of progressing with what usually happens, the battle, the quick annihilation, his thoughts shift in the dream. These are not his memories, nor are they familiar or the sort of dreams he has.

A small boy, blond hair soft and nearly downy, stands in the centre of the carpet of his elegant drawing room floor. He seems no more than six. A larger, colder, more sophisticated version of him steps into the room, and those small grey eyes follow, lighting up with hope of being noticed. But his lips are quivering, as are his hands, and Harry doesn't understand what's happening. One glance from the father flings the child to the floor with a cry. The elegant voice that sounds is younger than Harry has ever known, but it is the same Lucius, the same light in young Draco's life.

"You are important, Draco, or will be. Remember that you are a Malfoy. Never forget it. In the end there will forever be just the honour of the Malfoy family."

"But Daddy--" Harry is surprised by how young, how defenceless Draco is. In his dream this is only a few years before they are about to meet at Hogwarts. The boy looks bewildered; it must come from being coddled by a governness through endless elegant lessons and then suddenly dropped into humiliation and punishment.

"Silence!" Lucius pulls out his wand, and directs it at Draco, whose small frame instantly falls on all fours in pain. Without thinking Harry throws a punch at the wizard for such abuse, knowing exactly what spell it is, but his hand passes through. It's only a dream, only a dream, even if it was real for Draco. If that's true, how does Harry know any of this happened? "Get up." Those small shaking limbs attempt the feat, but their failure only intensifies the pain. "In your life you will feel pain as you never felt before, and you cannot weaken as you are now. There will be...difficulties ahead. Do you know why you are special?"

"I am pure-blooded?" Draco looks like he will cry, and Harry knows, devastatingly, that he cannot help him in a dream. It seems like it is the first time he has ever felt pain, let alone from his own father.

"That is part of the reason. You are my son. My little dragon." The pain suddenly stops, Harry knows, and Draco collapses into a heap. With a strange gesture of tenderness Harry would never have attributed to Lucius, father picks son up, cradling his weeping son against his chest. The child, suffering before, is remarkably appeased by the patriarch's gentle touch. But it does not make Harry want a father, if that father would be Lucius.

"I do not want you hurt, Draco," Lucius murmurs, stroking his son's soft hair, watching it move like silk. "Even as of old, Muggles have been a threat. One of your ancestors made the error of trying to be kind to those pitiful beasts. Logically, he risked using magic, thinking he could trust them to keep quiet. He did not escape with his life, and we have never forgotten it. Other eccentric ancestors have befriended Mudbloods and half-bloods, only to be betrayed. Those same, self-righteous creatures we dared to call our acquaintances, even friends, in the past, never failed to foolishly try to share their magic with Muggles, with whom they feel, perhaps, an atavistic sympathy. They soon realised their foolish errors, when it was too late, both for us and for them. And the Muggles felt our wrath soon enough, as well. Malfoys forgive and behave, but we never forget. I don't expect you to understand it now, but you will, in time. You must always be on your guard, little Dragon Star." Lucius tenderly kissed Draco on the forehead, which seemed to comfort the boy greatly. "En garde. Or you will feel greater pain than you felt tonight. Do not run away from your governess. Do not take my broomstick outside the grounds again. And never, ever, on pain of death, play with those Muggle villagers again."

"Yes Father," says little Draco, snuggling against his father drowsily. An angelic smile is forming on his face. "I won't do it ever ag--"

"AAH!" The scream has not come from little Draco, and Harry knows it, because he has heard it before. His dream is shifting again. Stupid dream. Stupid scar. It is, of course, Voldemort's scream of rage, upon seeing himself in the Lockhouse. Their conversation was not so terrible, mostly about the world never being the same again. About Voldemort's final victory not over the world, but over Harry. This is Harry's own dream now. It doesn't make him feel very good, recognising Voldemort's scream of rage at seeing Harry again. In that vial, within the extra glass and magically guarded orb, Voldemort's spirit is raging. It wants to get out, to hurt Harry, so blind is its fury that even words don't come out very clearly. But what does come out makes Harry uneasy, and he has been dreaming about it ever since. Voldemort knows something he doesn't.

More screams ring through his head, and though Harry remembers everything Voldemort has ever said, and though he recognises the voice as Voldemort's, these are new. It is a stone hallway down which he senses he is walking, and he's in someone else's dream again. He wishes his subconscious would make up its mind, so to speak. It is not a pace which is his own. There is worry in the mind, and he looks around without turning his head, as if he were really taking a simple after-hours stroll at Hogwarts.

But behind every blue-grey shadow lurks a monster, between every white luminescence of partial window-stained moonlight is some daemon waiting. Pedestals erupt into flames as he passes, flickering against the walls. None distract him from the screams in his head, screams Harry has never heard before, but seem familiar to this person. And then, the Dark Lord's coherent whispers come. "Make sure it happens. You are mine." It's a voice Harry has known, unwillingly, all his life. More whispering, but he can't hear. Whoever he is, he's beginning to clutch his head, and Harry's scar erupts in pain. The wizard is really running now, blatantly, through the hallways.

His breaths are panicked and ragged, unable to overcome the fear chasing him. The portraits turn to watch his pointless retreat from his own mind. His confused steps bring him to a door in the dungeons, and he screams against the iron-bound wood, banging against it with his shoulder. His hand clutches his head, while his right clutches his left arm as he throws his screaming, suffering weight against the door in desperation. Harry's scar bursts into pain...

"SEVERUS!" Harry bolted wide awake in his bed, surprised to hear the scream ringing in his ears still. What a vivid dream. His own scar hurt horribly, and he rose to get himself some Headache Cure. Voldemort was probably stirring in his cell, but why did he feel so close? Next door, in Snape's rooms, whispers were heard. Someone whimpered, and Harry stopped in his movement. Surely Snape did not have a visitor at three o'clock in the morning? Someone hurt? A Slytherin student?

Then the banging began on his own door, the one that connected their rooms. "Potter!" The dream had, funnily enough, woken him, and so he opened the door with enough energy to harbour curiosity. What he saw made him sorely pressed to consider ever wanting to know what went on in Snape's rooms, in a sort of darkly comic way. His own scar throbbed with pain and he nearly buckled beneath the force of it. Lying on the dark green rug of Snape's drawing room (presumably) was the suffering body of Draco Malfoy beneath Snape, who had presumably kicked the door as he lay on top of him. He was in the same position the man in Harry's dream had been. The Dark Mark was bleeding enough to show through the silk of his shirt and drip through his thin fingers, and he pressed his blond head against the rug, as if meaning to drive it deep through into the stone beneath. His teeth were clenched--as were Harry's--and there was no need to understand that he was in a painful state where none could reach him. His body was twitching, jerking beneath Snape's grasp, folding in on itself, and Harry moved forward to help.

"Make sure he doesn't kill himself, Potter. I'll get some Draughts to try and help." Snape rose from where he was pinning Malfoy's prone figure to the ground, letting Harry take over. He looked strained--he was holding his Mark too, but it did not bleed against the grey cloth of his nightgown. His dark eyes flitted briefly to Harry's scar, and it was evident that he knew it must be hurting as well.

"Draco! Hold on!" Harry yelled, attempting to make himself heard. The blond gave another jerk of pain, and Harry felt it, and understood the writhing figure beneath him. Draco was fighting something in his mind, and had gone to Snape, naturally, for aid before it was too late. "Just hang on, Draco." He pressed more firmly against Draco, clamping his legs between his knees and holding him down by the shoulders. It would do no good to take his hands away from their respective positions--with or without pressure it would still hurt. He just had to make sure Draco didn't break any bones or hurt himself from his jerking.

"Voices..." Draco choked out, his own voice sounding as if it were being ground through a press. Being so close to him made Harry's scar burn even more, but he gritted his teeth again and made sure Draco didn't move, a difficult feat considering all the twitching he was doing. Harry was about to give up and sit down on his chest when Snape finally poked him in the side. Together, they poured a potion down Draco's throat, and watched as he relaxed.

"Thanks," said Harry, accepting a Headache Cure from Snape. "What happened?" But Harry felt as if he already knew.

Draco shook his head from his collapsed position on the floor, unwilling to answer anything. "The Dark Lord. His call. He said...he doesn't need us." He looked up suddenly to Snape. "This would not do well to get out to the public. We tell no one of this, Severus. No one." Snape exchanged a look with Harry that clearly said he didn't approve, but that he wasn't certain either about what to do, either. "Not even Dumbledore."

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"Lousy, troubled Malfoy..." muttered Harry as he stalked from his office to his dungeon classroom. It was Tuesday. There had been no more nasty dreams and no more pain on Draco's still-bleeding Mark, but Harry's scar continued itching all the way through. What was this? Fifth class? So far, no one had failed to prove him wrong on a potions detail. Then again, so what? He had his mind on Malfoy's problem, for one--there is only so many times one can apply a bandage to a Mark that refuses to stop bleeding--and what intense knowledge he did know about potions was probably going to save your life. Not this stupid Shrinking Solution. That was all bollocks as far as he was concerned.

"Meadowes, no talking while class is in session," Harry said, but he didn't take any points from Gryffindor. Let Snape see that he could take control of a class without removing points left and right. "Miss Jeunet, what's one of the prime ingredients in the potion we shall be studying today?"

"Wormwood, sir."

"Good, five points to Ravenclaw. Mister Dearborn, why?"

"It is fully used in the Draft of the Living Dead but in small quantities it can be a good relaxant and help achieve sleep for insomniacs."

"Five points to Gryffindor. Excellent, third years. You'll find the potion ingredients in your books, so follow along..." It wasn't difficult to explain the reasons for requiring each ingredient, and what too much or too little of each would do, not to mention the directions for stirring. He'd always wondered if Muggle chemistry was a bit of the same thing, but decided he was better off not finding out. Things only got complicated that way. "Mister Rhys, pay attention, or I'll confiscate that note and take points from Ravenclaw!" David Rhys shut up right away. You really didn't want to make a hero like that displeased, even if he didn't seem a particular expert in elementary potions. The professors and classes at Hogwarts had been set up as a sort of mass version of what had formerly been achieved by individual or small-scale apprenticeship. Given the circumstances, Harry Potter was holding up very well.

"If you have any doubts or questions, ask me, not your friend. I won't take points off for that," Harry told them as kindly as he could, considering his mood. He sat down and found it much more difficult to watch the class than Snape did, for some reason. Maybe he wasn't attuned to all the damage a third year student could possibly do. Was Chelsea Parker putting in more asphodel than was needed? Was Daniel Chao chopping his roots the wrong way?

"Sir?" Harry almost fell off his seat. A brown-haired boy--one who Draco didn't like--near the back of the classroom had just finished his potion, at no doubt shoddy quality but breakneck speed, and was apparently itching to speak to Harry.

"Yes, Mr Meadowes?" Harry asked, approaching his table. His potion didn't look too bad. Aside from the fact that it was a different colour. And the wrong soupy consistency when Harry spooned it with a ladle. And the fact that, if you listened hard enough, might have been humming something. "Something is...er...your potion..."

"Why do you hang around with Malfoy?" was the question. No Professor, no Sir, nothing. Last names only, if you please.

"That's Professor Malfoy, Tyler," Harry chided. Yes, this boy was always giving the Slytherins trouble, always insulting Malfoy whenever and in whatever fashion he could that didn't lose him points.

"Yeah, sure. Didn't you two hate each other? Why are you with that Death Eater?" Harry was very aware that the rest of the class had stopped whatever they were doing to listen. No doubt their potions had been stalled long enough to have not worked at all. He'd have to make his point, quickly first, then blame the whole thing on Meadowes so they'd all have to make it up, after classes were over, on their own time. No way was he going to allow Snape to blame this on him.

"That 'Death Eater' has probably saved your life and mine several times, Tyler. He's an Auror, or do you not read the paper?" He asked, enjoying this stern Auror teaching voice of his. It made for lovely attentive listeners.

"But how can you--" Meadows protested.

"I've worked with him, Meadowes. I know your attitude with Professor Malfoy, and I don't approve of it at all. If you think you're gonna to win any admirers or points by being rude to a good wizard who's given up a lot for the whole lot of you, you couldn't be more wrong! He's done just as much as anyone else in the effort. I'd like to think a Gryffindor nowadays doesn't swagger around being more self-righteous than anyone else. I would've expected more consideration about what this war has meant, and the people in it. Professor Malfoy would never let anybody come in harm's way, and if you don't believe the newspapers, then I think the Headmaster's word and my word should be good enough for anybody! Is that clear, Meadowes?"

"Yes sir," Meadowes replied quickly, having never seen Harry Potter ever riled up about anything. Harry had always wanted to be some version of Dumbledore or Lupin or a bit of his father, but he was always too serious about everything to pull it off. He supposed it came from being destined to kill someone before he was old enough to walk. All he managed was a serious sort of wry humour. In full serious mode, he really startled the class.

"Good," Harry said, but he remained suspicious. It wasn't just about making sure Malfoy's name was clean in this school. It was more about...something Harry had done. Something they all had done, that nobody could understand but Harry thought everyone should at least try to. "I think you'll need to restart your potion during your next free time, so if you'll just come down later today, that'd be fine. That goes for the rest of you who stopped entirely to listen. Extra points to the ones who make the potion successfully by the end of class." Suddenly, there was a scramble of chopping, slicing, and stirring, but Meadowes sat there, looking into his potion. Harry could tell he wasn't thinking about his work, and sat back with a smile.

He hadn't yelled or barked or made anyone nervous, as Snape might have done. All he did was make sure his students understood. It had been almost too easy. At the end of the second hour he noticed certain things were being crossed out on his chalkboard, and that certain things were being erased. His scar was itching terribly, and he was sure he recognised the handwriting.

"Professor Malfoy wishes Professor Potter a job well done" had been written, neatly, across the top where some of the first potions ingredients had been inscribed.

Harry stared.

An itching started at the back of his neck.

"As per your request at lunchtime, Prof. Malfoy would like to remind you to send your pyjamas, the ones with little golden Snitches on them, to the laundry." The chalkboard continued writing, but he daren't read it. Harry turned to the students that were snickering--the girls were noticeably whispering amongst themselves--and did the only thing he could. He turned red and scratched his scar, then simply couldn't stop. His nails scraped across his hair and his neck, but couldn't make the itching go away.

It wasn't the itching that annoyed him. Insulting his pyjamas--which were a present from old Dobby anyway--decidedly turned Harry in the direction of retaliation. Perhaps a visit to his old invested interests, Fred and George, would do the trick. A bit of a war was in order, Harry thought, and he tried to erase the writing. As the bell rang, the eraser began beating him about the head, chalk rising around him in soft white plumes.