Nied is Not Enough

Chapter 16

The end of term bustle, coupled with the upcoming Yule Ball, kept nearly everyone at their busiest. Harry took this as the chance to hide himself away in his office owing to the excuse of term parchments to mark. At least once or twice a day, Harry found someone knocking at his door, usually Ron or Hermione, wanting to know if he was okay. He snapped at them, claiming he was far too busy to be bothered.

He hadn't seen Draco since the night Morgan tore apart his room. As a matter of fact, he hadn't seen the child either. The morning following the mess, he knocked on Draco's door. Much to Harry's surprise he found Severus occupying Draco's rooms for the time being.

He hadn't slept all night; he was used to Draco either occupying his dreamscape or at least his bed. Draco had done neither. Harry had drowsily scuffled up the hallway to Draco's door and leaned against the frame with his forearm. His unshaven face was half-hidden by his nearly-scroungy mane of hair. Just as he was about to knock, the door opened, revealing a stern Severus Snape. Harry's eyes traveled up the length of the man, finally settling on his face. Severus gave no sign of any emotion as Harry dropped his head further, pushed himself away from the door frame and returned to his rooms.

He occupied his Sunday with staring into space, pacing his rooms, or drifting from unsettling sleep to partial wakefulness. He continued in the same manner for the following two weeks outside of classes. The students had become a burden: he piled on the reading assignments and parchments due before the end of term exams.

At first, he tried to get answers form Dumbledore and Snape, who had taken over Draco's potions class for the remainder of the term. The Headmaster simply returned Harry's questions with more riddles. Severus was quite tight-lipped, reminding Harry of the conversation they had in the hallway outside the hospital wing.

Harry found himself closing up; rebuilding all the walls he and Draco knocked down together. He couldn't believe Draco would break his trust like that. At the same time he felt guilt bubbling inside himself by trusting the man to begin with. How was it possible that a war-hardened and serious man could have allowed his long-time rival to break through the wards he had so meticulously placed around himself in such a short time? How was it possible that after thirteen years, Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, feared and respected Auror, Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts, fell under the spell of a Deatheater? In Harry's wounded mind, he decided that Draco had somehow convinced the child to take the Dark Lord's skull. He decided it was all a plan to bring Voldemort back. It was then that Harry Potter decided to never trust another living being.

*************

Atop the stairs in the DADA classroom in the dark confines of his office, Harry sighed as he finished marking the last of his exams. He could hear the shouts and merriment of the students in the hallways of the castle which pushed him back further into his own head.

As he stared vacantly ahead, he snapped the quill he had been using to mark exams into tiny little shards. One shard pierced the skin on his index finger. He looked at the tip of his finger blankly, noticing how the blood made a perfect sphere before rolling and spreading along the creases of his fingerprints and down into his palm. With the other index finger, he smeared the red liquid around his open palm.

Still looking uninterestedly at his hand, he noticed the tip of the heartstone peeking out from underneath a parchment roll. He let his eyes focus on the stone and closed his bloodied palm around it, squeezing it as though trying to shatter it.

"Harry, are you in there?" He heard a muffled yell through the solid wood door to his office. Instead of answering, he stared at the door.

"I'm coming in so don't hex me, mate." Ron peeked his head through the slit in the door he had opened.

"Go away, Ron. I'm busy." Harry growled at his mate.

Ron pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside. He saw the neat stacks of parchments and exams on Harry's desk were graded. "I see that," he said jokingly. "I, erm, wanted to tell you that there's a staff meeting before the Yule Ball tonight. We're expected to be there at seven-thirty."

Ron grew more and more uncomfortable as he looked at his friend. Harry looked much worse than he did on the train ride to Hogwarts. Ron noted how his hair looked dirty and unbrushed. The dark circles under his eyes were back and darker. He reminded Ron of Sirius the first time they met in the shrieking shack.

Harry stood and slammed his hands down on the desk, leaving a bloodied handprint. "I said I am busy, Ron." Each word was pointed and nearly cruel.

The red-head gave a quick start at the sound of Harry's hands hitting the desk. "Right, erm, well, see you at the meeting then." The door clicked quietly behind him.

Harry sunk back into his chair; a lump forming in his throat. He planted his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands. Before he knew what was happening, the door to his office flew open and slammed against the wall. The red-head had returned and was standing at his full height and breadth. Harry looked up at the mass of man that was Ronald Weasley, noticing the sheer size of him.

"Out with it, Harry. Now." His voice was crystal clear and quite demanding.

"I have nothing to say to you, Weasley. I have nothing to say to anyone." Harry's breathing had become shallower.

Ron strode to Harry's desk and stood opposite him. "How dare you take any of this out on me, Harry. I had nothing to do with Draco walking out of here."

Harry winced at the name. He hadn't uttered it, nor heard it since Draco left. "I thought I said I had nothing to say to you!" Harry was now standing leaning forward on his desk.

Ron took in a deep breath, planted his hands on the desk and leaned toward Harry. Their faces were inches apart. With a growling whisper, Ron said, "Well, Mr. Potter, I have a few things to say to you."

Harry had never been on the receiving end of one of Ron's lectures. The shock was apparent in his face. He sat down roughly in his chair behind the desk, and could do nothing but wait for the tirade to begin.

Ron stood and straightened his robes. He wiped a few beads of sweat that had gathered on his brow and took another deep breath. "Okay, Harry. I know you're upset about Draco leaving the school..."

Harry scoffed. "He didn't just leave the school, Ron."

The ex-Quidditch player simply held up his hand and continued. "But do you think it really had anything to do with you? Even if it did have something to do with you, why on earth would you close the rest of us out? We're your friends, Harry. Not just a group of blubbering idiots you work with."

He stood and began shouting at his friend. "You don't know why he left, Ron. I don't even know why he left. It's probably to go and revive Voldemort somewhere. Did you know that that kid stole his skull from my rooms?" Harry was furious at the implications Ron was making.

"Jesus Christ, Harry! He has been on our side since the war! He would never try and bring back the beast he helped you get rid of!" Ron couldn't believe that he was standing up for the ferret.

"You forget where he comes from. He. Is. A. Malfoy. Remember?"

Ron's face was reddening quickly. The frustration at his old chum growing. "I must know him better than you, then." As soon as the words left his lips, Ron knew what reaction he would get from Harry. He didn't much care, either.

Harry's wand was out of his holster and held steadily between the red-head's eyes. In a barely audible whisper, he spat, "Don't presume to tell me what I know."

Ron held his gaze steady. "I'll tell you what I know. I know that the whole bloody time I've known you, you've been searching for someone to hold onto like you've held on to Draco. I know that every time you get close to someone, you pull away because you are afraid to lose them. It's no one's fault you lost your parents or Sirius. You blamed yourself your whole life for that. You pushed me and Hermione away after You-Know-Who's defeat. You barely kept in touch with my mother, who considers you one of her sons!"

Harry's breaths were short and quick. He kept his wand pointed at Ron's head.

"You think you are alone in this world, Harry, but you're not! I am bloody sick and tired of always walking on eggshells around you because I don't want to hurt your feelings. Well, fuck your feelings, Potter! Do you think I haven't ever lost anyone? Think back, Harry! Two of my brothers were killed. It's not my fault. I have to keep living. You would rather let yourself die than feel anything. So kill me now if it will make you feel better. If it will make you feel at all." Ron was entirely serious.

Harry looked back and forth at his friends brown eyes which were almost pleading with Harry to do it. He wasn't alone. Harry felt his chest shudder with his breath and his vision became blurry. Ron wrapped his hand around Harry's wrist, bringing the wand away from his head. With the slightest tension, he pulled Harry toward him, and wrapped the smaller man with his arms. Harry immediately broke down, sobbing into his old friend's shoulder.

"Listen to me, Harry," Ron had his chin resting on top of the mess of black hair. "I'm not going to take his side, but I don't think his leaving really had anything to do with you. If you take a step back and really look at the situation...Harry, this isn't about you, mate." He could feel Harry stiffening in his arms. "And maybe you've just misplaced the skull...why you still have that thing is a bit beyond me...creepy, really..."

Harry pulled back and wiped his face with his hands. "How would you feel if...well...if Hermione just left you without telling you where she was going? Wouldn't you be upset? Wouldn't you think it had something to do with you?"

Ron walked over to a chair and flopped down in it. "First of all, Harry...no one can leave the great Ron Weasley."

Harry just rolled his eyes and let out a strained chuckle.

"Seriously, mate, I would be upset at first, yeah. Yeah I would. But after taking a step back, maybe talking to my friends, I could get a bigger picture of what's going on."

Harry began drawing little circles on his desktop with his finger. "So whadda' you think is going on, Ron?"

"Well, he took that kid with him, didn't he?"

Harry shrugged. "She's gone too, but I don't really know if she went with him or not." He couldn't quite look Ron in the eye so he kept making designs on the desktop.

"Okay. What struck you odd about the situation a few weeks a go when she terrorized your rooms and knocked out my soon-to-be-fiancée with a book?"

"She, erm, told Hermione that she hated me and that I killed her mother. Ron, I swear, I met that lady only once and that was at King's Cross Station at the beginning of term."

Ron nodded his head. "M'kay. So, what happened at the station?"

Harry sat back in his chair trying to sift through the memories. "Dobby and I were walking over the bridge and this little girl could see Dobby, which was strange because Dobby had made himself invisible. We went and spoke to the lady and the kid and the lady said the kid was blind. She could see Dobby, though. We went through the wall, I helped the kid see her mother, the kid saw her mum for the first time. Ummm...the kid asked if she looked like her mum, the lady said...no...you look just... like... your..." Harry's eyes lit up with realization, a flash of the hospital wing and the profiles of the two blondes, "...father."

Ron gave Harry the "I told you so" look. He laced his fingers together and rested his hands behind his head.

"Did you know that, Ron?" Harry asked incredulously.

Ron cleared his throat. "Not hard to pick up on, mate." He started ticking things off on his fingers. "The two look identical. The kid is a tremendous flyer. She's in Slytherin. Ummm, she's a troublemaker. And she doesn't like you." Ron smiled at his own wit for the last comment.

Harry still sat in bewilderment. "Why do you think he didn't say anything?"

"Who knows why a ferret does anything he does?" Ron had been pulling a string on the chair he was sitting on. The string began unraveling the arm of the chair. He wadded up the thread and shoved it inside the arm cover, smiling bashfully at Harry, who paid no attention to him anyway.

Ron stood and sniffed. "I better get going, mate. The meeting, don't forget, 7:30." He clapped Harry on the shoulder and before retreating from the office, turned and regarded Harry for a moment. "Don't worry so much. He'll come back. He might even do it sooner if you'd take a shower."

A grin was threatening to twitch at the corners of Harry's mouth, but he caught it and gave Ron a fake scowl. He watched his friend go and kicked himself for not seeing the situation more clearly before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All the students were gathered in the Great Hall for dinner; their belongings packed for winter holidays and their excitement growing for the ball later that evening. Professor Flitwick and some of the students had already decorated the Hall. Hanging from the ceiling, which was enchanted to look like a peaceful snowfall, were dark green Holly garlands. They met at the center of the hall and gracefully swooped to the corners where they hung down the walls and gathered on the floor. Each enchanted piece of snow sparkled against the rich green of the holly and the vivid red of the berries. The tables had been moved to edge the room and a stage was built where the staff table usually sat.

Running the length of each table were miniature magicked ice skaters which zipped around the plates of food. A grand tree, no doubt one that Hagrid drug up the hills from the forbidden forest, stood in the center of the room. Slightly curly ivory ribbons lay gracefully across the branches and gold stars and moons swayed from the tips.

Harry stood in the doorway for a moment watching the students and staff enjoy their meal. Everyone seemed to be glowing slightly, from either the reflection of candlelight off the magicked ice rinks or just the general excitement of the winter holidays. He looked down at himself, the black seeming to absorb any light which reached him. He ran a hand through his hair, realizing it had grown quite a bit since the beginning of term. It felt dirty, he noted, and wiped his hand off on his pants.

He watched the students smiling and laughing, remembering how he used to love the last meal before the holidays.

"They're not so far away, you know."

Harry turned his head from the hall and found the Headmaster behind him. He let his gaze drop to the floor for a moment before watching the students again. He thought for a moment that Dumbledore was speaking about Draco and the child.

"It doesn't take too much to find this, Harry. You've done it once already this term." His glasses had slipped down his nose even further than usual, but the twinkle in his eyes was even more noticeable than it had been all year. He reached a withering hand to his former student, placing it on his shoulder.

As Harry turned around, Dumbledore held out his other hand. Harry looked from the twinkling eyes to the old palm held out before him. A Christmas cracker sat innocently across the old mans' palm.

"This is a bit early, I know, but now seems the perfect time for a bit of cheer." Dumbledore stepped back away from the door and into the center of the entry hall. He motioned for Harry to follow, which he begrudgingly did.

"On the count of three. One...Two..."

Harry had to admit he was a little excited to be sharing a cracker with the Headmaster. He hadn't even seen one in probably eleven years or so. He wondered what kind of ridiculous hat would pop out of the cracker this time.

"...Three!"

The two men looked at each other and at the empty halves of cracker that each held in their hands. It hadn't done anything. No burst of confetti. No silly hat. No shower of streamers. Nothing.

Harry was dumbfounded. He looked inside his empty half and shook it a bit to see if something was stuck inside. It was empty.

Dumbledore was grinning like an idiot as Harry shook and shook his half of the cracker. "Well, it looks like we both assumed too much about such a thing. I guess it's when we don't expect it that the surprise comes."

Harry looked at the Headmaster, who was already retreating to the Great Hall. Harry stood in his own silent disappointment. He had worked himself up for the cracker and it hadn't exploded like it should have. As Dumbledore entered the Hall, Harry stared at his cracker again.

A great burst echoed through the entry hall and Harry stood in the center of a confetti storm. Streamers flew wildly about the space above him, catching in his hair and on his clothing. His heart had nearly stopped with the burst. He stood clutching at his chest and breathing quickly. A black fedora floated from the air above him and landed at his feet.

He began to laugh a little nervously, which quickly grew into full, nearly-maniacal laughter. He bent down and picked up the hat, placing it on his head. As he walked toward the dungeon's entrance, he shook his head back and forth. That crazy old nutter...

Dumbledore stood mostly hidden in the doorway to the Great Hall, smiling.

~~~~~~~~~

Harry tossed the fedora on one of the wall sconces in his sitting room. The meeting didn't actually start for another hour, so Harry decided to make use of Ron's advice and clean up a bit. He had given up trying to reach Draco through their subconscious link, but with the help of a hot shower, he might be able to at least sort through the recent events.

He cast a silencing spell on his rooms and strengthened the wards: he did not want to be interrupted. As he slid out of his clothes and into the shower, Draco and Morgan kept milling in his thoughts. He turned the water as hot as he could handle and let it slide over him.

It had only been in the past four months that he and Draco had become close. In those four months, he had gone from a man without emotion to...whatever he was now. He had learned that Draco not only was a traitor to Voldemort, but was instrumental in his downfall. Harry found that he bonded with Draco the night Voldemort fell; linked them indeterminably, through mind and spirit. He found himself relaxed and cheerful while around Draco. He could feel.

He couldn't figure out, however, why Draco would keep such a thing as being a father a secret from him. The more prominent question, Harry decided, was how he did it.

Harry charmed the stones in his shower to form a seat and he cast a warming charm on it. The water reddened his skin as it pounded against him. He changed the pressure to a mix between steam and hot mist and settled back against the stone bench. Harry thought back to their nights of exploring each other's memories. Cataloging his own memories was difficult enough, but to put into order someone else's...Bits of Draco's memories were clear enough. Harry held onto the night of Voldemort's fall as part of his own. The memory of Draco receiving the Dark Mark was as vivid as one of his own as well. Draco did have almost fourteen years of seeing into Harry's mind, and most likely had no problem blocking what parts of his memories he didn't want Harry to see.

Still, he had trusted Draco with some of his most intimate thoughts and memories, and he wondered what else Draco had kept from him.

"There's still plenty I don't know about you, Harry...Plenty..." he remembered the silkiness of the blonde's voice like he was hearing it. A chill ran up the length of his spine at the memory.

No other person Harry had ever encountered could drive him to such emotion as Draco. Harry thought about crushing his chair against the wall the night of the beginning of term feast. The things he would do to show up Malfoy. And then there was the Quidditch practice when he and Draco were chasing after the snitch and Harry was struck with the bludger...that kid had it out for Harry for a while now. Why did everything come back to her?

Harry rubbed his face roughly, feeling the scruff of whiskers against his fingertips. He conjured a razor and fogless mirror. With the sweep of his hand, the mirror hung in front of him as he scraped away at the weeks-worth of beard.

That woman...from the train station...how could she have know nothing of this world if Draco is that child's father? The muggle photograph...was that the same woman?

Harry continued scraping at the beard. He tried to remember the photo of Draco and the woman in front of the stone cottage. They both seemed apathetic in taking the photo. His thoughts wandered back to the night he saw the photo in Draco's rooms. It was the night Harry learned of the bond between the two of them. That first rush of certain attraction began in the center of his abdomen, spreading itself through his limbs like a heating charm. His chest gave a small tremble as the thought of touching Draco's skin passed through his mind.

He had just finished a pass with the razor as his memories raced. He stared into the fogless mirror; razor held steady for another pass when his eyes rolled slightly at the memory of Draco's mouth covering his own. Harry, not being the type to allow things to break his concentration, continued shaving while his memories and traitorous body focused on Draco. He tried to ignore his growing erection. His hand was slightly shaking on the next pass and he nicked himself on the jawline.

"Shit!"

The conjured razor was thrown down to the floor of the shower and clattered against the stones. Harry checked the small cut on his chin and healed it with the pass of his fingertips. With the sweep of his hand, the hot mist turned into a cold stream. He was not going to give in to his thoughts about Draco. As the chilled water slid across his skin, he pulled himself together again. No more, Harry. Just think about scrubbing floors or something...

His skin sufficiently cooled and his turncoat erection withered, he let the water return to a hot mist. Shaving was an easy task while thinking about the backbreaking work of scrubbing old stone floors: filthy, soapy water sloshing about, the monotonous scratch of a stiff-bristled brush moving back and forth against smooth stone, old Filch standing in the doorway, petting that damn creepy cat.

Harry stood and changed the mist to hot water again. He filled his hand with shampoo and began washing his hair. He thought more about floor scrubbing, but instead of Filch standing in the doorway, he put himself there, without Mrs. What's-her-face.

The suds in his hair were tingling his scalp, drawing out all the oils. He let the shampoo sit in his hair for a few minutes as he continued daydreaming. Yes, Filch was scrubbing the floor, his old bent back pushing at the scrub brush. Suddenly, Filch stood up and was pulling at his nasty shirt. Harry shuddered at the thought. Why on earth would he be daydreaming about that? When the shirt came up, Harry noticed a nicely sculpted back. Filch? The shirt came up higher and over head to reveal white blond hair, wet with sweat.

Harry leaned back into the stream of water, rinsing the shampoo from his hair. Trying to rinse the image of a shirtless Draco scrubbing the floor from behind his eyes. He closed his eyes and let the water run over his freshly shaven skin. There he was, in the doorway again, watching the blond push the brush back and forth across the stone floor.

He felt himself stir again; this time deciding to not fight against it. He rinsed the remaining shampoo from his body and sat in the stream of water. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes once more. His imaginary Draco was on the floor in front of him, shirtless and scrubbing.

Harry had to snicker a little: Draco. On the floor. Hands and knees. Manual labor. It was nice to see him that way, he had to admit. To make it even nicer, Harry decided that Draco should have some really tight jeans on. Wet tight jeans.

His fingertips found the underside of his erection, tracing the vein from the base up to the head, lightly outlining the glans.

"You missed a spot, Mr. Malfoy. Just over to the right a bit. There you go."

Draco stretched his arm to the right and began scrubbing with one hand. His arse was moving back and forth with each push of the brush.

Harry watched the motion in his mind while his fingertips aroused him further. He imagined kneeling behind Draco and wrapping one hand around the other man's hip and placing the other on his back.

"Just keep scrubbing, Malfoy."

The coarseness of the wet denim coupled with the smooth skin of Draco's back was driving Harry closer to the edge.

His hand moved in rhythm with the imagined scrubbing: Draco moving back and forth against him. His breath quickened as he slid his fingers across his own abdomen and up his chest, teasing each nipple in turn.

In his mind, Draco had somehow lost his pants and was kneeling naked in front of Harry. He thought about reaching around Draco and taking him into his hand; feeling the taut smooth skin under his own rough fingertips. He imagined Draco moan and buck slightly at the touch; whisper, "Harry..."

His own moan echoed through the steam of the shower. He felt slightly embarrassed, then quickly remembered the silencing spells he had placed.

This type of fantasy was quite new to Harry. He was used to nameless and faceless people in almost complete darkness; definitely not one whispering his name, making his own hips buck.

His rhythm was slow and deliberate as he imagined sliding his free hand down Draco's back and lightly teasing the cleft of his arse. Draco leaned forward on his elbows and lifted himself for Harry. His first impulse was to ram himself inside the Slytherin; make him as faceless as the others had been. Something kept him from doing it, even in his fantasy. Something...

He turned the blond over to lay on his back and carefully brought Draco's calves up to rest on his shoulders. Draco's eyes were pleading with him, his mouth slightly parted to let short breaths escape.

"Please, Harry..." he whispered again in Harry's mind, eliciting another moan from his throat.

Harry's rhythm sped up as he imagined pressing against Draco, the blond relaxing and allowing him inside. The thought was too much to handle and Harry released himself in the shower, nearly shouting Draco's name. He kept his eyes clamped shut as he slumped against the stone seat, his breath shuddering. He knew once he opened his eyes, the images of Draco would dissipate.

It didn't seem to matter that Draco had gone without a single word, at least for the few short moments Harry had thought about him in the shower. Slightly angry at himself for allowing himself such pleasure despite his frustration, he rinsed and readied himself for the meeting and Yule Ball following.