Epitome of a Soldier - What it is to be Necessary

Hi everyone :)

Ah, the lovely reviews :D Thank you all so much for your kind words and encouragements :) As always, I have replies for you all ^_^

momoko
I'm glad you liked it :)

Arcee1000
I've never really felt sorry for Draco in this story, but I can understand how others might ^_^;

snappy pants
Harry doesn't understand LURF at the moment. Give it time though, he'll get there :D

BlackVirgin17
Glad you're liking everything and that the lack of angst won't be an issue ^_^

Kuromei
Harry will get better, become more human, I think that's a given. The interesting things is how it all comes about ^_^ *hugs Kuromei-chan*

OddlyAppropriate
Wow, I got a squee from someone; awesome :D

thrnbrooke
Chapter four is here! Hope you didn't find the wait too long ^_^

Enough from me, on with the chapter.

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A week or so passed without event. Harry remained mostly in the study, keeping to himself while Severus and Draco did their own thing. Whenever the two Slytherins came back from their Death Eater meetings, the Boy-Who-Lived, if he came across them because he never actively sought them out, would leave them be after checking they weren't dead, returning to the study to continue his searches for the Horcruxes. Half way through the week, Harry got his third break-through in his search and located a forth Horcrux and had then waited until the end of that week to retrieve it.

Appearing in the living room of the safe house with a crack, Harry immediately turned towards the door that would lead him down into the basement where he knew Professor Snape would be waiting for him, ready to destroy Hufflepuff's Cup which was currently clasped in his bare right hand. He was fully aware of the fact that the cool metal was cursed and was currently busy burning his palms and fingers quite severely but he ignored it; it was more important to destroy the Horcrux rather than to deal with something as trivial as a personal injury. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the young man was greeted with the immediate sight of the Potions Master, sitting on a stool beside the cauldron which was already set up, reading a book.

"I have retrieved the Horcrux." Harry said by way of introducing his presence.

Snape instantly lifted his head before closing his book and stepping aside, allowing for better access to the cauldron. Harry stepped up to the black pot full of bubbling, clear liquid, picking up the lump of green crystal when he passed it. Holding the two objects above the cauldron, he made sure they were in the correct positions before dropping them into the potion. Instantly, the liquid began to turn green and thicken, just as it was supposed to.

"Was it hard to get?" Snape inquired for no apparent reason.

"Entering and exiting were challenging." Was Harry's simple reply as he turned to go. However, he hadn't taken more than a step when his right wrist was caught by Snape.

"What in Merlin's name happened to your hand?" He demanded, pulling the small teenager closer and inspecting the badly burnt palm and fingers. "I thought you said that getting in and then out was the only difficulty you had?"

"It was. The burns are the affect of a curse that was placed on the cup, no doubt to discourage it being tampered with. I had little other choice than to allow it to burn me." Harry explained in his usual monotone.

"But surely it must have been incredibly painful?" Snape asked, sounding somewhat pleading, as though he wanted, needed, the strange boy to admit that it had hurt him, that the severe burns on his hand were still hurting him.

"It was bearable. It was always going to be a possibility that I may suffer from a loss of sensation for some time after I was woken; that is most probably the reason why." The dark haired boy explained as he allowed himself to be led over to the stool Snape had been sitting on before.

"That doesn't mean that you won't be affected by the burns. I have some salve that will stop the blistering from becoming too severe." The Potions Master said as he glided quickly over to the cupboard at the side of the basement where he kept most of the potions they had in store. He quickly located the correct jar of salve and a roll of white bandages and picked them both up, bring them back over to where Harry had remained seated and unmoving. "Your hand will have to be wrapped in bandages as well, to protect it as the blisters start to heal."

Harry said nothing in reply to that but merely watched without expression as Snape scooped some of the salve out of the jar and began to apply it generously to his burnt hand, rubbing it in gently, so not to put too much pressure on the wounds and not to jog it unnecessarily despite the fact it was obvious the teenager was feeling no pain whatsoever. Silence stretched between them as Harry's right hand was tended to, completely coated in the salve before the bandage was reached for by the man. However, before he could start to wrap it around the hand, footsteps came running down the stairs. Snape lifted his eyes, while Harry remained staring down at his burnt hand neutrally, in time to see Draco reach the last step of the stone stairs.

"What's wrong?" Snape asked with a light frown, seeing the expression on the blond's face.

"Father's been sentenced to the Kiss!" Draco almost sobbed, holding up a letter he held in his right hand.

The man remained silent for a moment, apparently shocked into stillness, before he regained his composure and replied as he went back to tending the injured hand of the dark haired youth. "You always knew that was a possibility. Does the letter say when it's scheduled for?"

"Why are you even asking that!" The blond demanded tearfully. "We're not going to just let them do it to him are we? We can't just abandon him, Sev, we have to save him!"

"Your father was a Death Eater." Harry suddenly said in his usual quiet voice.

"What?" Draco demanded irritably, turning his eyes onto the form of the boy who was still staring down at his injured hand.

"Your father; he had the Dark Mark on his left forearm."

"So?"

"Then he was rightly convicted of serving Voldemort and therefore deserves his punishment, even if that punishment is his soul. You have no right to wish for him to be saved."

A truly hateful look creased Draco usually attractive face then. He marched straight up to Harry and, without warning, clenched his hand into a fist, brought it back and then swung forwards, punching the dark haired teenager firmly in the jaw. Harry accepted the blow without sound or reaction, not even flinching or closing his eyes at the pain, his head simply snapping to the side with the force of the impact.

"Draco!" Snape yelled, leaving Harry's hand and turning to look at his charge.

"How can you say that!" Draco shouted to the boy in front of him angrily, totally ignoring his guardian. "How can you be so cold and clinical? You don't care about anything, do you? All you ever do is research Horcruxes and then wander off to go and collect them, just as you're supposed to! Just as Dumbledore programmed you to do. You're nothing but a doll! You just do anything that anyone tells you without question or feeling! You're just an empty shell for people to do with what they want! You're completely dead inside and I hate you! I hate you more than anything!" And with that said, Draco turned and fled the room.

"Draco!" Snape called after him, taking a step forward to go after him but pausing to stop at the newly injured boy. Harry was still just sitting there, his usual stoic self, though his jaw was getting rather swollen. "I have a salve that will help..." He began to say.

"That will be unnecessary." The Boy-Who-Lived replied in a monotone as he stood and turned so he could begin to turn off the Bunsen burners with his uninjured left hand. "Draco Malfoy needs your assistance more than I do at this present moment."

Snape hesitated a second longer before finally giving into Harry's wishes, leaving the basement and heading up into the rest of the house. He went straight upstairs to Draco's bedroom. Trying the door knob, he was unsurprised to find it locked. So, he knocked on it several times none too gently. "Draco, open this door immediately."

"Why? So you can defend your precious doll, like you always do?" Draco's voice retorted from inside the bedroom.

"I have no need to defend him because he didn't do anything wrong; you're the one in the wrong here, Draco." He called through the door, partly telling the truth but also trying to provoke the young man to come to the door and open it so they could talk/yell face to face.

"I don't see how I can be in the wrong when I'm not the one who's cold, emotionless freak!"

"No, but you are an ignorant, spoiled little brat." Snape said and when he heard footsteps on the floorboards on the other side of the door, he knew that last comment had won him this first part of the confrontation.

In fact, seconds later, the door was flung open to reveal a hot-faced, messy-haired Draco looking completely furious. "Why you slimy, greasy, son of a God-damned..."

"Thank you for opening the door, Draco." Snape interrupted promptly as he stepped past the younger man and moved into the room, cutting the youth off before he could say something too bad. "Now, perhaps we can have a civil conversation face to face rather than a yelling match through a closed door."

"What's the point of even having the conversation?" Draco practically spat as he slammed his door shut again and stormed over to the desk beside his bedroom window. "All you're going to do is defend your's and Dumbledore's precious Golden Doll." He accused as he collapsed in the chair in front of the desk and sprawled himself across the desk-top.

"Draco," Snape began calmly, standing in the middle of the bedroom, looking at where the blond was slumped. "For just a second, imagine that the only physical contact you've ever had ended when you were sixteen months old. You haven't spoken or met anyone else since then, instead watching the events of the world pass by in a sort of dream. Then, one day, you're woken from a sixteen year long sleep before you're supposed to be and not even by the person you expect. The person you expect and the only person you know to even a slight degree is actually dead and that is the reason you've been woken early. You're thrust into this strange world of touch, sensation, and reaction which you recognise but don't truly understand because you've never experienced it. You struggle with all the new emotions you feel, all the new experiences despite the fact you've watched everyone do it for themselves your whole life, and all the new sensations which seem to be bombarding you every second of every day. All the while, you know that all this has happened to you for one reason and one reason only; so that you can locate and destroy the Dark Lord and his Horcruxes.

"Now you just try and tell me, having gone through all of that, you'd be acting like a perfectly well-adjusted human being."

Draco glared at the wall just below the window and directly in front of him for quite some time after that little speech, his mind going through everything he had just been told. True, he'd already guessed that Harry Potter had been asleep inside the green crystal for the majority of his life but he had never really considered what that involved and what it meant for the saviour of the Wizarding world. He couldn't even imagine what life must be like for the young, dark haired man. Experiencing nothing for so long and then feeling and having to actually live so suddenly and it all being so new and different from the still silence he was no doubt used to. And, to top it all off, the Boy-Who-Lived had to deal with Snape and himself. Neither of them probably made it much easier for the boy.

"That...That's really awful..." Draco murmured quietly, still staring at the wall.

"Indeed." Snape agreed.

"Why though? Why was it done? Why did he have to be locked away like that?"

"I don't know the details, those died with Dumbledore, but from what I understand, it was the safest option for him but also it was almost like a incubation period for his magic. Because he would never have the bursts of uncontrollable magic that young wizards and witches often have and because he would never perform a spell in his life, his power would be allowed to grow and multiply without disruption. Why do you think he is able to perform wandless magic without so much as thinking about it?"

"So his life was basically sacrificed just to defeat the Dark Lord?"

"It would appear that way." Snape said with a nod before back-tracking on himself and continuing with his earlier point. "Draco, young Mr Potter has enough to deal with without you hurling abuse at him, both physical and verbal. He doesn't have any real understanding of the bond between a father and son and therefore can only fully understand the clinical laws of justice. He no doubt didn't mean to be hurtful, he just didn't understand your side of it."

"Merlin, I'm such a prat!" The blond groaned in frustration. "Do you think he'll forgive me?"

"I don't think he has a concept of forgiveness." The man told the teenager who immediately turned, looking crest-fallen. "But having said that, I don't think he has a concept of blame either. Still, it would probably be best to apologise anyway."

"Yeah, right, of course." Draco agreed distractedly before standing and quickly hurrying out of the bedroom.

The blond retraced his steps to the basement quickly, taking the stairs two at a time. However, when he reached the closed door of the basement, he froze, his nerve suddenly leaving him. What was he going to say? How would he ever go about starting the conversation? He was so used to being a master of social interactions but with this strange young man who had barely lived really, he was stumped; he didn't know how he was supposed to act around the strange boy or how he should really talk to him. Especially if Severus was correct and the young saviour had no concept of blame or forgiveness. How was one to go about apologising to someone who didn't understand the significance or the worth of it?

With a determined frown, Draco steeled himself and reached for the door-knob. Without anymore hesitation, he pulled the door open, revealing the dimly-lit basement behind and, slowly, he began to make his way down the steps. When he reached the halfway point of the stairs, he saw that Harry was back to sitting on the stool in front of the cauldron which was now still and calm. His posture, as always, was perfect, his back and neck completely straight though his head was slightly tilted down so he could concentrating on bandaging his right hand.

"Would you like some help?" Draco asked tentatively, slowly leaving the last step of the short staircase. Admittedly the dark haired young man didn't appear to need any help but it was a good way to start the up-coming conversation.

"Your assistance is unnecessary." Came the monotone answer.

"Oh..." The blond murmured. A few seconds of awkward silence passed before he managed to build up his courage again. "I'm sorry I punched you, and for the things I said. I shouldn't have said what I did and I shouldn't have hit you."

"You were upset and I antagonised you; you reacted naturally."

"That still doesn't make what I said and did right." Draco disagreed, thinking at the back of his mind that Snape had been right about the boy's reaction to the situation. He glanced over to where the dark haired boy was clearly having a bit of trouble securing the bandage to his hand. "Here, let me tie that off for you." He offered as he moved over and took the injured hand in both of his. Harry neither moved nor spoke but allowed his hand to be pulled into the blond's grip. "I really am sorry for what I did, Harry..."

"What?" Harry interrupted suddenly, lifting his head finally, his eyes widening slightly in surprise.

"What, what?" Draco asked, also looking up, confused.

"You...Used my first name...Why?"

"What else am I supposed to call you?"

"You do not call Professor Snape by his name."

"Sure I do, I call him Sev, that's my name for him. It's an abbreviation of his first name. Can't really do the same for you what with your name being Harry. I have a friend at school who insists on calling me Drake but I really hate that." Draco chattered, obviously now completely at ease as he continued his task of tying off the length of bandage.

"A first name is for use between friends, yes? You said you hated me before."

Draco paused for a moment, keeping his head bowed so he didn't have to meet the green eyes he knew were staring straight and him, before he eventually continuing what he was doing with the bandage. "Yes I did, and I'm sorry for it. I didn't mean it. I don't hate you, not at all. In fact, I really admire you. Sev explained everything to me and...Well, I didn't know everything before, or at least I didn't understand it, but now I do and it can't be easy for you, suddenly being in the middle of all of this without expecting to be...Must be hard." The dark haired boy said nothing in reply to that and simply watched as Draco finished tying his bandage. With it done, the blond straightened up and offered Harry a genuine smile. "I'd better get out of your way I suppose since we're okay now. Sev will no doubt come back down to help once I go back up. I guess I'll see you later." Draco said before turning and walking towards the stone steps. The dark haired teenager never took his eyes off of him as he left and so was still watching as the Slytherin turned at the bottom of the stairs to look at him again. "I'm glad we're finally friends." The blond said with a smile before heading up the stairs leading back up to the rest of the house.

"Friends..." Harry echoed as Draco left him and he stared down at his bandaged hand in slight wonder.

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Friendship. An odd concept. What use was it? Love between a man and a woman could be explained as a method to ensure successful breeding. The love between a parent and a child could be explained as a method of ensuring that infants survive when they are too young to look after themselves. But friendship...He could see no use for it, he could gather no beneficial purpose of it, he didn't know why it existed.

Harry had seen friendship in his dreams. He had seen the teenagers of Hogwarts journey around in their pairs and groups, he was aware of the friendship which had been shared between James Potter and Sirius Black and others. It wasn't an uncommon relationship to share with someone and yet, to Harry, it made no sense. To him, a friendship included everything that love did but without the advantage of breeding, just all the negative parts. It weakened you, it distracted you from your goal, it made you act irrationally.

So if it was so useless, why had Draco Malfoy called them friends? And why did the fact the blond boy had make Harry feel so...Odd?

"Potter?" Snape's voice suddenly called, his voice travelling through the wood of the closed door of the study where Harry was currently staring out of the window. "Malfoy and I have been called to the Dark Lord."

A strange feeling swept through Harry at that, something he had never experienced before, and he quickly stood and moved out of the study without really thinking about it. He made his way through the short, narrow corridor which led into the living room, his pace hurried but never breaking into a run, and upon reaching the room where the front door was located, he stopped quickly at the bottom of the staircase and watched as the two Slytherin's adjusted their cloaks and masks. "When do you expect to return?" The dark haired teenager asked quietly.

"We should be no more than an hour." Snape told him briskly before he pulled something out of his pocket, Harry couldn't quite see what it was, and held it out to Malfoy. The blond took hold of it too and, seconds later, they had disappeared; it had obviously been a Portkey.

Once again, Harry was alone and still that odd feeling remained. It made his chest tighten and the rest of him felt incredibly restless. He didn't want the two men to leave to a place where they would definitely be in danger. But that made no logical sense as they had to go so that they wouldn't arouse suspicion and could continue with their valuable spy work. The logical side of Harry's mind pointed out why they had to go but another side, a side he didn't understand and had never really felt before, just wanted them to stay in the safe house, with him, where he knew it was safe or where he would be able to protect them both if the worst was to happen.

He didn't know why he was feeling that way or even what the feeling meant. As with so many thing in this new world of awareness, it was very odd.

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How long had he been sitting there, on the third step of the stairs, his eyes never leaving the front door? It was hard to remember given the fact he hadn't really been paying attention to the passage of time. It had long since grown dark outside though which told Harry one thing; it had been at least an hour since Snape and Malfoy had left. The question of where they were didn't stop swimming around his mind which was pointless; if he hadn't known the answer the first time he'd asked himself, why would he bother to ask the question another thirty times? Yet that didn't stop the question from yelling itself in his mind and forcing him to think about it and ponder it and want to know the answer. The little comfort he did have was that he was pretty sure that neither of the Death Eaters had been killed. If something had happened to arouse Voldemort of their treachery, no doubt Snape would've told him beforehand. Since he had been told nothing of the sort and he didn't think Voldemort would kill either Snape or Malfoy on a sudden accusation without a thorough investigation beforehand, he was pretty confident that they were both alive.

When the front door, directly in front of him, suddenly burst open, Harry didn't even flinch. He merely focussed his gaze calmly in time to see Snape, with Malfoy in his arms, collapse when he was barely two steps inside the house. The two Slytherins landed with a horrible thud and then made no more movement or gave any signs that either were conscious anymore.

For several long moments, Harry simply stared down at where they lay, himself and everything around him completely still. Then, finally, he stood and descended the two steps necessary and then continued on until he was at their sides. Kneeling next to them, he checked their pulses in turn, moving from Malfoy onto Snape when he found the weak, though steady, beating. Once he had done that, Harry stood back up and waved his hand towards the door which led down to the basement. The door opened but nothing more came as Harry waved his hand over Snape to lift him magically before he repeated the gesture in the Malfoy's direction. When both Death Eater's were off of the floor and out of the way of the front door, Harry gently rested his palm on the surface to slowly guide it shut before taking the injured men further into the living room. As he set Malfoy out on the two-seat sofa, a whole array of pots and vials and bottles came floating out of the basement and over to Harry. He left them hanging in mid-air as he settled the Potions Master on the three-seat sofa before then plucking the glass containers out of the air as he needed them.

Not knowing exactly what the two men had suffered and having no way to find out for sure while they were both still unconscious, Harry had to make the treatment very general. He made both the Death Eaters take a dose of a pain-numbing potion, a potion which would counter the after effects of the Cruciatus (he knew well that Voldemort favoured that spell and had undoubtably used it), as well as some Dreamless Sleep so that could properly rest and wouldn't wake up and insist on walking around before they had slept sufficiently. He checked them for any other injuries such as cuts or bruising or even broken bones but found nothing which was lucky as it would have been hard to apply any salve to them with his right hand completely covered in bandages (he had found quickly once his right hand had been taken out of action that he had very little control of his left hand). Finally, when he felt he had done as much as he could for the two Death Eaters, Harry conjured a couple of blankets which he lay over Snape and Malfoy who were hopefully now sleeping peacefully rather than being unconscious.

Silently, Harry gathered all the empty vials and bottles he had used and took them into the kitchen where the Potions Master would no doubt clean them in a way that he saw fit. He left the kitchen straight after that and walked through the living room again, without even looking at the sleeping men, heading straight to the study where he took up his usual position in the armchair beside the corner table. Then, as though nothing had happened at all, he picked up the latest book he was using and continued with it.