Close Enough

Ch 28 Potions Project

Over the course of the next few hours, Harry and Draco made great progress on the written portion of their project. In fact the pair nearly had the project completed by the time that they finished for the evening. During the time they worked; Cord came to say goodnight, Blaise and Justin returned to the dorm and went off to bed, and they both learned quite a bit about blood replenishing potions. All of the research complete, the only part of the project left was to choose one of the potions to brew and record the process and progress of doing so. Harry marveled at how easy he felt this project was, however the ease of the project was due mainly to the fact that some of the information would pertain to him.
During the time that they had spent reading, Draco couldn’t stop himself from stealing glances over at Harry. There was definitely something about the look of concentration as he read that made Harry look even more mature then usual. When Harry would find what he was looking for, or an interesting fact that should be used in the project, a faint line would form between his eyebrows as he wrote it down. Draco found it absolutely adorable how when Harry was skimming a list of ingredients or a table of contents, he would worry his bottom lip between his teeth. However the most fascinating thing happened when Harry went to pour more tea, nearly two hours after it had arrived.

“Harry, that tea is going to be stone cold.” Draco stated, looking skeptically at Harry wondering why he would be willing to drink cold tea. He watched as Harry poured his tea, added his two tablespoons of sugar, chuckling softly.
“There are many things that you don’t know about me, Draco.” Harry rested his hand over the top of the mug for a moment, when he removed it curls of steam were rising from the top of the cup. “You’ll find, that I’m full of surprises.” Harry said with a smile, before sipping his tea delicately.

At the time Draco hadn’t commented, he merely went back to work reading through the book in front of him. However now that he was watching Harry again as he packed away the books and papers for their project, Draco wished that he had said something, asked anything about it. He could feel the curiosity building up inside, like an overfilled balloon in his head that was going to burst at any moment without warning. When Harry had finished gathering everything together, Draco decided that he needed to ask about it, or he was going to die.
“Harry, can I ask you something?” Draco asked, his voice soft, and unsure. He and Harry were on okay terms, they had been on not ‘unfriendly’ terms for over a year. Yet, now Draco didn’t quite know how to expect Harry to react. With the whole bond issue, and the little ‘situation’ from earlier that morning, Draco wasn’t sure what type of response to expect to even the simplest question.
Harry sighed softly, turning in his chair to look at Draco, “Sure.”
“How did you do that thing with the tea earlier?” Draco blurted out. He had debated how to ask what he wanted to know, but decided that straight forward was probably the best way to go. “I mean, where did you learn it? How long have you been able to do things like that?” his voice was dripping with curiosity, his eyes were bright with interest. Harry seemed to consider his answer for a moment before he responded.
“Well I taught myself, I guess. And for…” Harry paused here thinking, “For about three years now.” Draco looked astonished.
“You taught yourself how to do wand less magic?” Draco’s mouth was a gape. “That’s not possible! That is supposed to be the hardest thing to learn, you’re supposed to need a special tutor and training to be able to use it.” Draco narrowed his eyes at Harry. “Are you seriously telling me that you taught yourself something that is supposed to take years to master, when you were fourteen?”
“Yes.” Harry nodded, a small half smile playing at his lips. “And I was Thirteen and a half to be exact.” Draco couldn’t believe it. There was no way it was possible that Harry had learned wand less magic on his own at thirteen! His mind was swimming, and he couldn’t contain all of the questions that were rushing around in his mind. Harry seemed to expect this, as he had sat back in his chair picking up his tea cup watching Draco carefully. “What is it that you want to know Draco. I won’t hide anything from you, I couldn’t if I tried. And it will be better if you just ask me, instead of assuming things. Bad things happen when people assume.” Draco considered this for about half a second before the questions spilled from his mouth.
“What sorts of things can you do with it?” Draco asked.
“Anything you can do with a wand and more. I don’t need spells, I just have to think about what I want to be, what I need, or what I need to change. Quite handy really.” Harry answered smiling over the brim of his tea cup, at the astounded look on Draco’s face.
“Does anyone else know?”
“Sev knows, but other than that, no.”
“Not even….” Draco couldn’t finish that sentence, but it seemed that there was no need because Harry answered him anyway.
“No, I never told them.” Harry’s voice was emotionless, and his eyes were hard. “It may have been before I knew what they were, but I still didn’t feel the need to tell them my deepest secret.”
“I see.” Draco nodded, then quickly changed the subject. “Was it as hard to learn as they say?”
“Umm.. No.” Harry paused for a second before continuing. “It just kind of happened.”
“What do you mean, it just kind of happened? how do you just kind of learn wand less magic??” Draco asked, leaning forward in his chair slightly.
“Well, it just kind of happened. I was looking for my potions homework, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I just remember thinking that I needed my homework, and it showed up.” Harry looked pointedly at Draco, “I didn’t know how I did it, I was late and had to run to make it to potions on time. The whole situation slipped my mind, until I was working on a painting and needed more green to finish the scales on a snake, I couldn’t remember where I had put it. I closed my eyes and thought about where it was, opened my eyes and just knew that all I needed to do was hold out my hand and I would have it.” As Harry spoke he turned slightly in his chair, looking off into space, by the end the story had full arm movements, concluding in one that Draco felt was a perfect imitation of someone reaching for a snitch. Harry tilted his head slightly to one side, his eyes unfocused, “It was amazing really, to just know that it would happen and then it did. More powerful than any other magic that I had done up until that point.” Harry looked back at Draco again, his eyes sparkling, “When I do it, I can feel the magic run through me, through my veins, in my very skin. It’s amazing. It’s like being one with all of the magic that exists in the world.” Harry stopped talking there, looking back into his tea cup, a small smile on his face.
“So you can naturally do wand less magic?” Harry nodded. “Do you even realize how powerful that makes you!?” even though this wasn’t actually a question Harry nodded again. “Even Merlin himself had to study to be able to do it, so did Dumbledore! And you can just do it?! Wow.” Draco relaxed back in his chair, completely blown away by the new information. A moment later, “Harry…” he paused waiting for Harry to look up at him, when he did he asked, “Harry, what is the biggest thing that you’ve done with it?” Why he thought to ask this, Draco didn’t know, somehow he felt he needed to know the answer. This was confirmed when he looked at Harry’s face as he asked the question. Harry’s eyes closed for a long moment, when they opened again they were hard and slightly narrowed. A frown creased Harry’s face before he answered, looking down at his tea cup again.
“Voldemort.” Harry answered so softly that Draco had to strain to hear it at all. For a moment Draco didn’t understand what Harry was saying, what that could mean. And what kind of answer is that. However after only a moment Draco figured it out, he used it to kill the snake faced bastard. Harry didn’t look at Draco as he stood, set down his tea cup, and picked up the stack of project materials. “I won’t give you more than that.” Harry turned to go.
Draco stood quickly, removed the materials from Harry’s arms and set them on the table before pulling the smaller young man into a tight embrace. To his surprise, Harry didn’t struggle, on the contrary he tightly gripped Draco’s sides and buried his face into the chest in front of him. Draco held Harry close to himself, enjoying the feeling, but very confused as to what made him do it. He could feel Harry breathing deeply, and something in Draco’s mind clicked, Harry needed to be close to him. Thinking back to the moments after he got Harry’s answer, he remembered feeling something in the back of his mind, something out of place. It was the bond telling him that Harry needed him, that Harry needed to be close in that moment.
After a few minutes, Harry pulled out of Draco’s arms slowly, Draco reluctantly letting him go. Harry flicked his gaze up to Draco’s face before picking up the books again. Once Harry had them securely in his arms, he walked close to Draco again. Just before he passed the taller young man, he went to his tip toes, ghosting a kiss on Draco’s cheek before he walked down the hall toward their room. Draco watched him go, his instincts screaming about wanting to claim Harry. But Draco merely raised a hand to his cheek, gently resting his fingertips where Harry had kissed him, a smile spreading across his face.