Exploration and Alchemy II – 1

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          Part 1

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Draco awoke face down in the pillows with the warm weight of Neville’s hand on his back. He yawned and streched and shifted over slightly, feeling the hand slide down to rest at his hip, and found dark eyes watching him from a distance of inches, heavy-lidded and relaxed. Neville smiled slightly when Draco blinked at him but didn’t move further, and Draco settled his head deeper into the pillow, watching him back.

He felt – himself, oddly enough. Almost more than he had in months, since Neville had first broached the subject of his peculiar reactions. Definitely more than he had these last few days, since he’d gone off the potion he’d been taking since he was thirteen and just let the reaction overwhelm him for the first time in his life.

He didn’t feel agitated or rattled, or even euphoric. A bit tired for waking up in the afternoon, certainly, and understandably (if embarrassingly) sore in certain places, but surprisingly – normal. The anxious prickle under his skin seemed to’ve mostly faded off, and the strange bodily awareness that’d risen as the potion rebound started, causing every pertinent nerve ending to shout for attention as if he were an eager virgin, had apparently gone with it.

Neville seemed content to blink at him sleepily for the rest of the day, and Draco felt obscurely as if he should let him, if he wanted. It was little enough to grant, after the night and day they’d had. He also felt like getting dressed and doing something useful, though, preferably before the sun went down, and was a bit irritated by the sense of obligation.

Neville let go of him and rolled onto his back with a vast yawn. “You’re back, aren’t you?”

He was addressing the ceiling in a bland mutter, sounding not particularly relieved about it, so Draco rolled his shoulders, taking stock, and said, “Feels like a touch of hangover, maybe, without the headache.” Neville didn’t move, or answer, and after a minute Draco twisted up and swung his feet off his side of the bed. “Yes. I think so.”

“Good,” Neville said non-comittally, and rolled off the bed too, stretching himself into another jaw-cracking yawn. “I’m going to shower and get some clothes on and pretend I haven’t slept the day away. Some food, too – you feel like coming down, or should I have Mrs. H send the house elves up with something?”

Draco stretched, too, carelessly, listening to his shoulders pop loudly. Neville flinched slightly at the sound, even without looking around, and Draco smirked. So much for pretending his mind wasn’t still entirely on recent events, for the facade of disinterest. Neville really shouldn’t try to fake things, he was so consistently bad at it. 

His shoulders had done that ever since his father dislocated them both, if he moved suddenly. It always brought that squeamish little jump from – Draco stood suddenly, feeling disgusted, realizing he was watching Neville’s reaction clinically, criticising the response. A sudden urge to bait Neville wasn’t anything to indulge at the moment, he didn’t deserve – but Draco wasn’t in any mood to feel ashamed.

He shook off the flash of contempt as best he could, and blinked as he focused on the question, trying not to let a sneer into his voice. “You must be exhausted. You haven’t eaten since dinner, have you? And barely then, and you haven’t complained once. I think that’s something of a first-”

Neville rolled his eyes, gathering clothes and robes from closet and bureau. “Well, I plan on making up for it as soon as I’m decent.” He felt Draco watching him with a twitchy sort of bemusement, but didn’t say anything to tempt it. He wasn’t sure if it was teasing over his appetite or commentary on the sudden attack of modesty that would have him taking clothes in to change in the bathroom after his shower, but the calm clarity in Draco’s eyes was enough that he didn’t care.

He liked that look, even if Draco needed to work off some loss-of-control issues by poking at him for a bit. He never wanted to see the taint of the other again – the blank, lost expression that had clouded Draco’s eyes under the imperative of the arousal-induced – potion rebound induced – sneezing fits had made Neville feel sick.

They’d lost body-consciousness around one another in the field months before they’d gotten together, but even if Draco had been – better – in his reaction to an arousal-induced episode that morning, and even if he’d apparently moved on a bit with accepting it all and hadn’t seemed bothered by doing for himself, Neville figured the less provocation he provided for the more disconcerting reaction, the better.

Draco had lived with violently repressed honeymoon rhinitis for so many years, it was little surprise that he’d gotten tangled up about it when the potential side-effects of his potion drops made an abrupt detox the only smart option. Sneezing and becoming aroused hadn’t bothered him much, but becoming aroused and starting the loop from there had. Strange as Neville might find it, Draco had proven more than once that he found the sight of Neville’s body something to be extremely provoked about, so walking naked and wet around their rooms was something Neville was going to avoid for a bit.

He started out of the room, still yawning and trying to shake the cobwebs out of his head, and heard Draco take a couple of steps after him, and say his name in a rather strange voice, absent any hint of the almost-sneer.

Without even thinking about it, Neville gritted, “Don’t dare be an idiot, not before I’ve had my tea.” He kept going, and smiled to himself when Draco’s irritable, nonplused, “Fine,” was the only response. Neville didn’t want thanks, and he couldn’t stand an apology. Draco didn’t manage either well, anyway, so they might as well skip to him being annoyed. It was where any attempt by Draco at gratitude or contrition, in this mood, would eventually land them anyway.

Neville returned from a rather prolonged shower, that hadn’t done much for the nagging edge of headache settling in his temples, to find a table set up in front of the footboard, weighted down with steaming plates. Draco was looking very buttoned-down in sharply pressed robes, and it made Neville feel even blearier. He managed not to ask Draco why he’d forgotten to mention he had a board meeting, and settled for combing his hair and straightening his own rather more serviceable robes.

Draco never even looked up. He was sipping the filthy thick brew he liked for morning tea, despite the sunset light painting orange across the windows, and looking very composed, reading a fresh copy of the Prophet and picking lightly at a bit of smoked fish.

Neville finally shrugged to himself and took the other chair in silence. If Draco wanted to err on the side of excessive composure, or needed a little more time to pull himself together before he ventured past the bedroom, Neville couldn’t grudge him that, not after the night Draco’d had.

Even if there was rather less butter in the eggs and rather fewer sausages than he would’ve gotten if he’d showed his face downstairs himself. Left to their own devices, the kitchen elves delighted in accomodating him. Under Mrs. H’s direction they might get more sophisticated examples of the culinary arts, but there had come to be a distinct lack of anything cholesterol-inducing since she’d discovered Muggle ideas on nutrition.

At least he had his own pot of normal tea beside his place. The heat helped clear the fogginess hot water hadn’t shifted, although it made him sniffle a bit in a way he didn’t like. He’d been avoiding even the thought of what his unusual weariness might indicate for days, and he was going to keep avoiding it. It was just too little sleep, and then too much. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through a day without being drugged to the eyelids after some hex or other found a mark.

When Draco finally spoke it was with an almost drawling return to mundanity, and Neville just kept himself from smiling and followed his lead.

They wondered what others were doing under the white out, and whether the Prophet was really as clueless as the day’s articles suggested or whether Dumbledore’s information management was just managing better than usual. There was never any real news, there hadn’t been in years, but there were generally a few blatantly false reports of altercations, at least. Something to let the general populace believe the war was still quantifiable, still straight-forward enough to be pinned to a page with words.

Today, the story above the fold was on a cancelled Quidditch match, and little of even amusement value was in the other pages. They were still claiming the weather was natural.

“Well, they aren’t going to admit their – our side has buried four countries under ice on purpose, obviously. Or that anyone on the Dark Lord’s side has the power for something like this,” Draco finally remarked, disgustedly tossing the paper to the floor and poking sharply at the crumbs on his plate, making the fork tines squeak against the china.

He’d already said he was certain the Death Eaters wouldn’t be sleeping late and lingering over breakfast, be the whole island buried under a glacier. It frustrated Draco, even still, perhaps even more as time went on, just how far down the intelligence ladder he was. Neville wasn’t much better in the normal course of things, because of his choice to remain Draco’s partner on a collection team. It might have been different, outside the normal course of things, but there Neville never went. That was frustrating to Draco, too.

It was hard to blame him. Draco’d gone from one step away from the Dark Lord’s inner circle to somewhere on the farthest perimeter anyone could draw, when he’d changed sides. Right now, he was certain something was happening, that nothing so huge would’ve been accomplished without some express purpose.

It took real power to do weather-working, even on the most local scale, and he knew from information gleened while in the Dark Lord’s camp that no one on the Ministry side would make the sacrifices to raise the power needed. They couldn’t, and maintain the slightest pretext that they were the white hats.

There was no good possibility for what might be going on. But they might hear about whatever-it-was next month or next year or, most likely, Draco pointed out acidly, when Potter published his memoirs.

Neville tried to let most of the edged complaining wash past him, addressing himself to a rather tasteless omelette and merely making small noises of assent. Draco was back, all right, definitely in his normal – if not right – mind, and the man was restless. Neville at least had useful work he could put his hands to once he shifted himself, but Draco was sensing a real threat, and he was just in the mood to take some sort of action, and the most he had before him was another evening spent on the never-ending exploration of the Manor’s artefacts.

Since he probably wasn’t ready to attempt the dusty, musty nooks and crannies of the old house in his current state of… sensitivity, that left him with – well, ranting, actually. Possibly a bit of pacing in the portrait gallery, arguing blue murder with Malfoys past, if he got agitated enough to get over his sense of the ridiculous. It’d happened once or twice. Usually after a Scotch night.

Neville’d been in the inner circle himself, once, or close to it. He supposed the loss of that confidence burned him a lot less than it did Draco, though.  He’d chosen his current place, and he could alter that choice at any time, if he were fool enough to delude himself into thinking it would be to anyone’s good.

In the first year of the war, before he’d gotten himself so thoroughly blasted in the first coordinated attempt to take out MacNair and his “beast” army, Neville’d stood in on every meeting, stepped out in every first wave. Not one of the generals, as Harry and Hermione and even Ron had come to be, but one of the trusted, and that’d been small circle enough.

It’d been over a year after his injuries, after time and the war had moved on without him, that he’d re-enlisted at the lowest level. He’d been accepted, and then kicked up as far as he would allow, and spent a few months getting himself up to what was, for him, fighting form. One day, when he’d finally gotten into the rhythm of coordinating and working with the small strike teams, as he came back from a shower in that stinking dormitory full of incompetents and barely-adults, he’d found that Hermione had showed up herself at his locker door.

She hadn’t been trying for an entrance, standing there with her braided hair and her shoulder bag, looking for all the world like she was waiting for him to walk with her to the library, to review notes before their Newts. She’d smiled and squeezed his hand, said he was looking well, and asked why he hadn’t been in touch. He’d shrugged and said he thought they had enough to worry about.

They’d talked, a bit, walking through hallways where people scrambled out of her way and stared after her. She’d hugged him, before she left, said she was glad he was healed, and hadn’t made him spell it all out for her. She hadn’t made him say anything plainly, really. He’d had a lot of time to think, after that nearly-disastrous confrontation with the madman. A lot of days when he could do little except think.

Eighteen had died that day, a pitiful number for a real battle, but a staggering number in whatever kind of war they’d been fighting at the time. Two members of the original Order had been killed, six of the new generation, and he’d almost been the seventh. And because of him, two dead who might have lived, without him there to mistake their timing.

No, he was where he’d chosen to be, where he believed he could best serve. Hermione had made it clear he would continue to be, whenever his choice changed, or if it didn’t, and had Apparated out from under the heavy wards without a flicker of splinching. She’d done it artlessly, a woman whose time was more precious than her power, but nothing else could’ve made him so perfectly certain he’d done the right thing.

“Are you even listening to me?” Draco asked sharply, and Neville realized he hadn’t been, not even enough to keep up the appearance.

“Sorry. I’m not quite awake yet.” Draco narrowed his eyes, his lips tightening, and Neville was sick of it all suddenly, rather surprised at his own irritation.

Draco was busily re-constructing his self-possession, and that was all well and good, but Draco had always done that through sheer abrasiveness, and it’d be a lot easier if he had someone to react against other than Neville. Draco’d actually come on a bit since their school days, in more than the obvious ways, and wouldn’t take any pleasure in terrorizing the house elves. He had better sense, too, than to go looking for trouble with Mrs. H, since that was a short route to spiders in his soup and laundry starched to walk by itself.

With everyone else on the other side of tons of snow- Pity Seamus wasn’t going to be sticking his head through the fireplace anytime soon.

“I was thinking about what I need to finish today.” This whole thing had been something of a mire, and he understood what Draco was doing and why, understood it completely. But understanding wasn’t granting him patience today, and he wasn’t going to manage to sit passively and be sniped at for long. 

If he could extricate himself without getting in a real row, maybe Draco would find his own way to work off his frustration. Maybe he could go hex some of the frozen formal gardens that dotted the grounds to salted earth; there were a couple full of plants that made Neville nervous.

“Well, eat something first, then. I thought you hadn’t eaten all day. You’re just poking at-”

“Yeah, not up to the usual standard, is it? I wonder which of us irritated her this time,” Neville cut him off, trying to sound, to be, amused. It would’ve been Draco, of course. It almost always was, and Mrs. H wouldn’t punish the son of the House over the sins of the interloper, anyway, and the last several meals had been a bit off. She usually punished Neville’s linen on the rare times he put her nose out of joint.

“There’s nothing wrong with this – what’s the matter with you, anyway?” Draco cut himself off on the edge of a truly nasty tone, glaring down at his tea, but barely, barely.

Neville tossed his napkin across his plate, taking a deep breath. This self-censorship wasn’t going to last. Draco was going to say something inexcusably stupid and they were going to yell the roof off when he was guiltily unable to take it back. Neville could feel his own nerves fraying under the expectation, his patience wearing thin. Time to go, if he was going.

He was trying to think of some task specific enough for a plausible sudden escape, but not sounding so important Draco would hesitate to interrupt if he really needed to, when he realized Draco wasn’t actually sitting in front of him anymore.

And every alarm in the place was going off.

Neville leapt up, fumbling into the robe that had his wand in the pocket - thankfully past actually fumbling with his wand - and got to the top of the staircase in time to see which way Draco turned off the bottom of it. He got himself sorted out by the time he reached the second floor landing, and winced against the not-exactly-sound of the triggered wards, trying to figure out what was happening. It wasn’t the perimeter wards, none of them, nothing had struck the house or caught fire-

He got it about three seconds before he saw Draco reach the end of the gallery and keep going into the servants’ wing – and the small staircase that was the fastest way down to the kitchens from there. It was the Apparation wards that had been tripped, the sophisticated Malfoy defenses that drew anyone attempting to materialize within the house grounds into a small, heavily barred, heavily warded cell off the wine cellar.

It would’ve been safety enough, if anyone trying to get into the Malfoy house unannounced under the current circumstances, and actually making it that far, wouldn’t have to be either completely mad or very powerful. With “completely mad” as the soft option, Draco was rushing to reinforce the cell wards before whoever-it-was got their bearings enough to try them.

He hit the kitchens as Draco flung open the cellar door and bolted down the stairs to the lower level -

And returned, flying, in a flip that overturned the butcher’s block and a flash of green-tinged light, to lay still in a tangle of robes.

Neville gave himself time for one breath before stepping carefully over him, wand ready, craning to see down the darkened staircase, trying to stay out of the line of fire. He hadn’t heard a voice – silencing charms, or someone powerful enough to cast expelliarmus without voice? Of course someone powerful, someone who could Apparate out from under the wards, those wards. There hadn’t been time to break through them, not for anyone-

Then he did hear something from the stairwell, a harsh breath that sounded like – relief?

“Neville, oh hell, thank god.”

The door opened fully, and a young, hard-faced man was staring at him from the darkness, wild hair over wide, hot green eyes.

Neville almost dropped his wand. “Harry?”

.                              On to Part 2 
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