Chapter Three of 'Hephaestus'- Truth and Illusion
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Chapter Three-Truth and Illusion
The sparks flew and leaped around the forming pattern as they often did around the real forge when Grishnazk was working the metal. Harry was glad that he had the skill to lose himself in the process, to think fully about the changes taking place under his magic instead of about Draco.
The pattern, already tilted dangerously sideways, wobbled, and for a moment seemed to slump towards the ground like a disintegrating pudding. The light that haunted it darkened; the magic that looped and chained it to Harry weakened, and he felt his instinctive understanding of the labyrinth he had created slip away with the power.
No! He could lose all the time he liked to brooding when he wasn’t working, but there was no way that he would let his creations suffer because of his inability to put his infatuation with Draco in the past, where it belonged.
Harry stretched out a hand and made a sideways wrenching motion. The silver figure, something like a vastly ornamented musical note at the moment, tilted back upright. Harry began to sing again, envisioning his voice as anchors on either side of the single large circle at the bottom of the pattern, to balance and hold it where he willed. His magic rose and surged like the sea against which the pattern struggled.
He envisioned a subtle, slinking confusion moving into a Muggle’s mind, creating less havoc than a Memory Charm or the Repelling Charms that sometimes caused mental illness when cast by a careless wizard. He willed that image to emerge into his voice, and that in turn encouraged the metal to flourish up and down like glass, coiling and dipping like braided hair, brilliant with colors that molten silver normally never wore, scintillating bands of obsidian and amethyst.
Harry smiled a little, spared a corner of his mind to comment on how much more encrusted with gems and metals his metaphors had become since spending time with the dwarves, and then went on singing.
*
He didn’t appear to notice he had an audience.
Draco stood with one hand clutched around the doorway of the shed, as he could only imagine his son must have stood earlier-when Scorpius had disobeyed his orders and sneaked out here-and stared at Potter in awe.
He wasn’t working in the large shed this time, and when Draco allowed himself to think about how an ordinary person and not Potter would have reacted, he supposed he could see the sense of that. He wouldn’t want an audience for the anger and disappointment that too clearly played across his scarred features at being rejected yet again. The Harry Draco had known had been the same way; he would take his broom up to absurd heights or vanish into a corner of a forest he’d camped in during his year on the run with Granger and Weasley rather than face up to the cause of his discomfort.
But now he poured his frustrations and anger into creating art.
Draco ground his teeth together a moment later. It was not art. It was a profession, a career, the kind of thing Harry had always needed to support himself and engage his attention. He’d never appreciated the cultivated art of doing absolutely nothing. He and Draco had frequently argued about it, and Draco had prevailed enough that Harry hadn’t ever seriously trained as an Auror, but he had done something worse: he had gone into dangerous situations anyway, without the appropriate training.
He never once thought about me. He never understood that I might need him just as much as those hapless innocents he was so bloody set on protecting. And then that happened, and took him away from me forever.
But if Draco had to keep himself away from some dangerous admissions, there were others he had enough pride in himself to make. And the first was that he would not be thinking about Potter in such detail if the door was truly shut forever.
With his back turned, he could almost be handsome, Draco thought in despair. At least he didn’t wear clothes that would expose the scars seaming his bad leg and the lower half of his spine. Draco had found those as disgusting to look at as the ones on his face, if only because they had spoiled Potter’s walk in the way that the ones on his face had not impaired his hearing and his eyesight. They forced Draco to think of him as wounded, and not only deformed.
And then Potter made a little lunging jump to the side as a spark from the pattern he was making leaped at him and sizzled near his skin. The jump had a slide at the end that most people wouldn’t have noticed, but which couldn’t escape Draco’s observant eyes. Draco curled his lip. Yes, that spoke of a man used to living with a limp.
How could he-accommodate it? Why was he pretending that it couldn’t be changed? Why did he care so much and so fiercely about what other people might think of him if he covered up the visible scars with glamours and sought more expensive help than St. Mungo’s could offer?
There’s a good reason that Mother told me not to get involved with people like Potter, Draco thought darkly. It’s not their honor or their chivalry that’s in question. It’s their damn stubbornness. They sacrifice people to principles.
Draco would have helped Potter gladly, if his lover had been striving to become more normal. He would have helped gladly, because then it would be a sacrifice for him, and not some ideal that would never look at Potter with beseeching eyes or lie next to him in bed. Really, by refusing that, Potter had denied Draco an opportunity to prove his love, and forced him to act small, mean, and petty.
That’s it. I have to be free of this infatuation with him. I’ll have him to dinner in the Manor tonight, and I’ll use a Silencing Spell, if I have to, so that I can actually get my side of the story out. And I’ll make sure he listens to it. That’s all I need: some chance to make him realize how wrong he was.
And Draco slipped away, before Potter could notice him and become angry that his precious privacy had been invaded.
*
Harry gaped at Grishnazk, and left the towel hovering in the air to wipe at his temple by itself. “You’re joking,” he said.
The dwarf stared at him, his grip on the coil of copper wire he’d forged that afternoon tightening. “I do not joke,” he said. “Not about things like this. Not where they touch on the accuracy of your skill, or the purity of our materials, or what we will be able to accomplish in half an hour’s time.”
It was true-most dwarves had less of a sense of humor than Lucius Malfoy did-but Harry still couldn’t believe it. He shook his head. “Mistaken, then,” he said. “You’re mistaken. You must have misheard Draco when he spoke to you.”
Grishnazk gave his head a small toss and turned away, his left foot clumping as heavily along the ground as Harry’s wounded one did. “I thought you different from other wizards,” he said, “less willing to discount the evidence of your ears when you hear someone nonhuman speak the truth. In that, I was mistaken.”
“No, no, wait, I’m sorry.” Harry hastened around in front of him and knelt down to his eye level. The dwarf glared steadily at him, and Harry winced. He had forgotten how angry Grishnazk could get when his honor was touched, because most of the time now Harry was polite and sensible enough not to do any such thing. “I only meant that Draco Malfoy is so stubborn and proud I would rather believe it was a mistake in your hearing than believe that he’s unbent a bit.” He hesitated, then risked a joke of his own. “Him actually changing his mind could be a sign that the world is coming to an end.”
Slowly, Grishnazk’s grip on the coil of copper wire relaxed, though he never once ceased his steady stare at Harry.
“I heard aright,” he said, voice still sharp enough to score diamond. “And you heard my words. Draco Malfoy bids you to dinner in his new estate of Morningswood, the first guest to grace its halls. He bade me,” Grishnazk added, with a twitch of his beard, “remember the forms.” And he left with a fierce stiffness to his back that Harry knew would take some time to wear away.
Harry stood up to stare after him, and then winced as dragonfire seemed to eat his bad leg alive. He always did pay that price when he moved too quickly, though most of the time now he was also too sensible to do that.
This is my day for being stupid, then.
For long moments, Harry stood there and wondered if he should go. After all, Draco had made his feelings quite clear this afternoon. Harry didn’t think he could have any purpose to this invitation except to rub in the point a little more, and Harry didn’t feel like being an object lesson for Scorpius, or whatever it was that Draco planned for him. His days of willingly serving Draco Malfoy’s whims were over.
But if he didn’t go, then he would probably have to deal with a confrontation in the morning-and that would put him in a worse light in Scorpius’s eyes still. At least, if he went into Draco’s house on Draco’s invitation and Draco was the one who stormed and shouted at him, there was a chance that Scorpius, unusually intelligent for a two-year-old, would realize that his father was the one being stupid.
Harry went to cast Cleaning Charms on himself, wondering a bit why he cared so much for Scorpius’s good opinion. But the consideration was soon buried in another idea, much more amusing, which made him smile as he conjured a waterfall to crash over his head and burnish some of the sweat off the cracked and seamed skin of his face.
Draco would have to sit at a table and eat dinner with him-something he hadn’t done since Harry was tortured, because of the way it made him feel to see that “perfect” mouth opening in that “disgusting” face.
And he had inflicted it on himself.
Harry whistled beneath his breath as he scratched at a particularly sharp ridge above his right ear that stood out like a horn. Sometimes, there was much to be said for Draco Malfoy’s whims.
*
The dinner was less horrible than Draco expected, and since he had both a vivid imagination and a vivid memory, he was deeply surprised. Of course, from the beginning the present was covered with a sparkling haze of the past. That was probably affecting his honest reactions to Harry, Draco considered.
Harry had appeared calmly at the door of Morningswood, standing there as if he were invited to places as beautiful every day. And of course he stood in the middle of the corridor covered with intricate colored tiles that, looked at individually, meant nothing, but which blossomed into patterns of whirlwinds and whirlpools and spiderwebs when the viewer relaxed his eyes, and merely blinked once or twice.
It was always a conceit of Harry’s to pretend that he had no taste. Draco knew he did, though, because he had chosen Draco as his lover in the first place. And if he wanted ugliness, he could have stayed with the Weasley girl, but he had broken up with her a few months after they began dating.
Draco pushed that thought away from himself again, because he hated remembering how he had rejoiced when he read the story about Weasley in the gossip pages, and set himself to being as charming as possible. He had to keep Harry in the house long enough to hear his side of the story, after all.
So he spoke softly and politely when they sat down at the table, with Scorpius seated next to Draco, and kept his eyes away from Harry’s mouth. If he had to see Harry swallowing regularly, and the horrible contrast of normal flesh next to ruined flesh, then he would lose his composure. Scorpius, of course, stared, but Harry seemed determined to ignore that. Perhaps he knew that a child had to be forgiven his reactions, because he wouldn’t have learned as much of courtesy as an adult would have.
And perhaps he’s just waiting for a chance to infect Scorpius.
Draco forced the thought away as hard and fast as he could, because if it lingered in his mind, it would unduly influence his speech. He knew Harry’s scars weren’t contagious. Scorpius could touch them all day long-as he had already told Draco he had, causing Draco to wash his hands compulsively for the next hour-and never suffer any harm to his own radiant face.
But Harry was a living reminder that bad luck had always haunted the life of the Chosen One. Draco, by contrast, had lived in a calm, charmed world where nothing bad ever happened to anyone, at least not after the war was over and the Dark Lord defeated. He didn’t want Harry to bring bad luck down on Scorpius by fascinating him too much.
“I appreciate the invitation,” said Harry at last, laying his fork next to his plate. He remembered the manners Draco had taught him, heartbreakingly. Perhaps even more heartbreaking, Draco thought, was the fact that, just looking at Harry’s hands and chest, he could have imagined this man as someone he would share the rest of his life with. “But I know you. You never do things without at least two reasons, Draco. What’s the second one this time?”
“Why do you assume you know the first?” Draco braced himself and looked into Harry’s eyes. The skin around those eyes was crumpled.
They heated my flesh until it bent, Harry had told him, and then Greyback plunged his claws into it and pulled and jerked it up into these ridges and froze it again-
Draco chopped that thought off at the root. Nothing was further from his plans than to let pity change his mind.
“Because you’ve been polite and treated me to a good meal,” Harry said, his voice wry. “So I assumed you did want to see me. But what’s the second reason?”
Draco took a long swallow of the sweet wine he’d allowed himself to drink with dinner, after long and careful consideration of the drinks he couldn’t have because he might swallow too much of them and lose his head. This wine wasn’t his favorite; he was in no danger from it.
But that didn’t change the fact that he had to offer Potter an answer, and he didn’t have one.
At least, not one that won’t make me look weak.
“Daddy did want to see you,” said Scorpius, and leaned forwards. His eyes never left Harry. Draco wished he knew why. Scorpius was far too young to feel fascination for the same reasons Draco did, and in any case, Draco was raising him carefully, so that he would never succumb to the same weaknesses that had plagued Draco. “Because he misses you. He has a picture of you that he keeps in a cabinet. He locks the cabinet, but I stole the key.” He looked back at Draco. “Can I have sweets now?”
Draco reeled, and nearly dropped a hand to grip the side of his chair, before he remembered how that would look to Potter. He stole a glance back at the man sitting across the table.
“You have a picture of me?” Harry breathed.
“Yes,” said Scorpius. “And he told me stories about you, too, how you saved the world. You had the scar. And you saved the world,” he added contentedly, apparently liking the phrase. He poked Draco in the side. “Sweets, Daddy?”
*
Harry knew it was stupid. If Ron was here, he would bristle defensively and tell Harry in a loud voice that he had been right about ferrets once before, when Draco abandoned him, and he was right now. Hermione would shake her head tenderly and put a hand on his shoulder. Ginny would raise her eyebrows and ask what in the name of Merlin he thought he was doing.
But sweetness had flooded his mouth, and his heart hovered in the middle of it. He leaned forwards across the table himself, unable to take his eyes from Draco’s face.
Unable to stop hoping that, somewhere in the middle of that mass of prejudice and hatred and unwilling fascination with Harry as a walking horror show, lay the Draco he had remembered or imagined or made up.
“Before or after I was scarred?” he whispered.
Draco shook himself the way Crookshanks shook himself off after falling in the bath and wrapped his arms around his middle. “Before, of course,” he snapped. “Did you think I took any photographs of you after? Why in the world would I want them?”
Harry took a deep breath, quelling his instinctive reaction to lash out in defense. He’d become used to speaking before he could be spoken to in the first year after the torture. A sharp insult usually stopped the reporters from asking stupid questions, such as whether his leg hurt. Would I limp if it didn’t hurt, idiots?
But Draco had kept a photograph of him, and he had invited him to dinner tonight, when Harry would have said in the afternoon that Draco would do anything to keep Harry away from his precious child.
There was a chance. Maybe a small one, but Harry wouldn’t be the one to blow out the light of hope, especially when he’d played such a strong part in doing that the first time they separated. Draco would have to do it himself this time.
“What’s the second reason you invited me here?” he asked, and kept one hand braced on the table in front of him. If Draco showed the smallest sign of softening, of yielding, he would reach across the table and touch him. “Why? You could have ignored me. You could have ordered me off the property and called in one of my business partners to finish the work. You could have refused to hire me in the first place. I know you must have received recommendations for other Metal-Dancing companies. But you hired me. Why?”
Draco was shrinking against the back of his chair. His eyes stayed locked on Harry’s face, as if the sight he had once abhorred was consuming his will to live. His hands had clenched into fists in front of him. Harry froze in his chair. He remembered the time Draco had looked like this and had lashed out when Harry tried to touch his hair, and that had been over a relatively minor incident, when Narcissa had refused to allow Draco to borrow several of her house-elves to set up a party. No telling what he might do now.
But Harry no longer possessed enough will to halt his voice.
“Did you miss me at all?” he asked. “Not the way I look now, not the way I was when we broke up. I know that. But before? Did you miss me?”
“I believe, to do that,” said Draco, his voice low and cool, “to miss you, I would have had to be in love with you.”
“But you were, Daddy,” said Scorpius, utterly confident, looking up at him with a faintly puzzled expression. “Mummy told me. I asked, ‘Why didn’t you stay with Daddy?’ and she said, ‘Because he only loves Harry Potter.’ I remember. It was a Tuesday. I had treacle tart for dessert.” He looked wistful. “I want treacle tart now.”
With the mood he was in, Harry was willing to take even those words as a sign of encouragement. Draco had never liked treacle tart, but he had been willing to keep it around and serve it on occasion because he knew how much Harry adored it. It was a way for him to show affection without having to make gestures or speak words that he considered a sign of weakness. That he had kept it and served to his son-
Harry shook his head slightly, not wanting to get his hopes up too high, but unable to avoid it. He had existed on hope in the days after he was injured, hope that he would one day come to terms with himself, hope that he would one day overcome the crippling bitterness his parting from Draco had taught him. He couldn’t avoid saying now, “Draco, I’m not asking you to love me now, as I am. I just want to know that you did. And it sounds like you did.”
Draco pressed further against the back of his chair. For long moments, there was no sound in the room but his breathing, and a soft rustling of cloth. Scorpius, apparently despairing of his father’s ability to give him sweets, had begun to look under the chair and around the tablecloth, as if they would appear that way. Knowing how well-trained the Malfoy house-elves were, Harry thought it possible they would, the moment the elves noticed that Scorpius wanted them.
And then Draco lashed out in turn.
“I did love you,” he said, in a low, grating voice that sounded to Harry like someone trampling on bones. “You were the one who hated me, and the one who couldn’t even do a simple favor for me!”
Harry dropped his hand to his side again, and told himself that he deserved the pain that flared through his chest, the death of hope that assaulted him. He was the one who had asked a question he knew he wouldn’t get a satisfactory answer to. “It wasn’t a favor. What you wanted-“
“I did love you,” Draco repeated, his voice rising hysterically. “And you didn’t-Harry, you didn’t try. You could have kept looking for ways to heal your face and your leg. If St. Mungo’s didn’t help you, other people could. They would have helped the Boy-Who-Lived in all the countries in Europe. You had Malfoy money. You could have kept going. You could have-“
“The Healers at St. Mungo’s said it couldn’t be reversed!” Harry yelled, and leaped to his feet. His bad leg spasmed. He didn’t give a fuck at the moment. “That was what I told you. The Dark curses sank too deep. It’ll never be better, I’ll never look any different than I do right now-“
“Bollocks!” Draco screamed, and he was on his feet, too, furious tears shining in his eyes. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Draco cry. “You could have tried! For me, not for you! If you cared so bloody much, you could have! And you could have worn a glamour! You could have-“
Harry was sick of this, so sick, and his wandless magic reacted to the impatience and fury storming through him, in a way it normally only did when he was practicing metal-dancing. Then again, these were the emotions he had sunk often into metal-dancing in that first lonely, angry year, so perhaps it wasn’t such a shock that they would manifest now.
He snapped his fingers, and a glamour spread across his features, restoring them to what they had been when Draco first met him. Harry remembered that face well enough. Hermione and Ron still kept photographs of his old self-though they loved him enough to include new pictures of him as well-and Harry had spent months staring at them in heartsick yearning, before he convinced himself that living in the past wasn’t living at all.
So he stared at Draco, and Draco stared back at him, and the hunger in his eyes was so great it made Harry feel triumphant for a long moment.
And then bitter, and so tired.
“This isn’t me anymore,” he said softly. “Even if I hid all the scars with glamours, I’ll never be able to make love with my normal grace. I’ll never be able to ride a broom again. And you would always know, Draco. You think you would be content with illusion, but you wouldn’t. I know you. That’s how you found me out in the first place and we moved in together, remember? I was trying to pretend I just liked fucking you, not anything else, and you insisted that was stupid and you wanted more than pretense.”
“Harry,” Draco whispered. “It would have been enough, until we found a solution.”
“And there is no solution,” Harry said-almost snapped, but this was too important for Draco to hear. “That’s what I’m telling you. You would have got disgusted with me eventually and left me. And maybe that’s why I walked away when I did,” he added, feeling as if the words were being pulled out of him, slowly, the way Greyback had threatened to pull out his intestines. “Because I would rather you felt disgust at me for my ugliness than because of my cowardice.”
A wave of his hand banished the glamour, and he turned and walked out of the house.
At the moment, he badly needed Ginny.
*
Draco sat down and put his head in his hands.
For one moment, Harry, his beautiful Harry, had been standing across the table from him.
And Draco knew, then, that nothing had changed for his body or his soul, however much his perceptions had altered.
“Daddy,” said Scorpius, in the voice of someone reminding him of what was really important. “Treacle tart.”
Chapter 4.