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This Enchanted Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3669 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Ten--Establishing Mental Bonds

            "You are sure that you wish to do this?"

            Harry smiled at Healer Estillo and leaned back in his chair. "I think I have to," he answered. "Facing the vision that Alexander sent me could help me move past my grief over Lionel and finally learn what parts of my past are simple projections of my mind and what parts aren't."

            Draco stared at him from the side. Healer Estillo did the same thing, but more gently. Harry ignored the way that Draco's eyes narrowed the longer he went on looking. He knew that his words probably sounded glib, but he couldn't help that. That was the truth, and other than the fact that Draco knew about his feelings for Lionel and Healer Estillo didn't, they were working from exactly the same base of knowledge.

            "I wish that I could feel you were doing it for your own healing and not for the sake of your job," Estillo said, tilting her head to the side as if the new angle would open up new views on Harry. "One is more important than the other."

            Harry sighed. "That's the kind of thing people say to me all the time, and I don't understand why," he murmured, deciding that he might as well be honest. "My job is part of my life. Some people seem to think that it isn't, that my 'life' only exists when I'm in the flat or talking to my friends. Or when I'm in a Healer's office, though that occurrence is pretty rare now," he added, hoping to draw a smile from Estillo. She just watched him. Harry shook his head. "This is all part of my life. My job is just the most important part, that's all. Solving this case will help me calm down and focus on the other parts, if you really think that I should."

            "That's why I am concerned," Healer Estillo said quietly. "You are putting your concentration on those other factors further and further off in the future. Why should I trust that you will concentrate on them at all when the future gets here?"

            Harry shrugged. "I have Draco in my life this time. And I can make an appointment with you for next week. And I'll be establishing the mental bond with Alexander here, under your supervision. That's all the guarantees that you can really ask for."

            Draco leaned forwards, with a faint smile on his face. Harry eyed him. He knew the context and contents of that smile, and neither could fool him now.

            "The mental bond is technically with me," Draco said. "I'm the one who'll follow you along on this mad venture and watch over your safety. You have to establish the bond with Alexander through other means."

            Harry sighed. "Yes, sorry. I was only making the point that it would occur under the Healer's supervision, so that she could monitor me and voice her concerns if she needs to."

            "And it'll occur with me."

            Harry didn't know if Healer Estillo had any idea why Draco whispered those words the way he did, with bright eyes and bright teeth and a huge smile on his face. He didn't care, though. Certain things were public for the Healer because they had to be, but Harry knew others would remain private. He stared back at Draco, and Draco finally snorted and glanced away as though that had been his own idea.

            "Both true," Healer Estillo said, with what probably seemed like an excess of diplomacy to her, given that they were both partners. "Now. Have you ever established a bond like this before, Auror Potter?"

            Harry shook his head, and faced her, glad that they were about to begin the technical instruction. Of course he trusted Draco not to blurt out secrets that Harry had confided to him, as much because Draco liked being the only one to know them as because Harry trusted him in general. But sometimes, he had the weird feeling that they were in a competition, that Draco was focused on yanking something away from him while Harry tried to hang onto it.

            And there are things that you won't trust him with because you don't want him to find out about them.

            Harry gritted his teeth and stared so hard at Healer Estillo that she paused in her instructions to ask him if he was all right. Harry nodded, and then tried to relax his mouth and the muscles in his neck. They would have only one real chance to do this right, and Harry was determined that any failure would not come from him.

*

            Draco tapped his wand against the heel of his palm and smiled into the air. He could feel Harry beside him, the shape of his body, how he shifted against the chair and repeated the words the Healer told him to repeat, and he listened to that more than the words. These were only the incantations that Harry would have to repeat. The words Draco would have to know were far simpler, and he had looked them up last night, after he left Harry's flat.

            It didn't matter how eager Harry was to talk to Alexander. Draco would be holding a leash on the entire interaction, and he would pull on it if he needed to and yank Harry out before he would allow him to go into danger.

            To do that might cost you his trust.

            Draco snorted through compressed lips. Better Harry's trust than his life. And at this point in their partnership, Draco was sure that they could build the trust back up. But how long would it take Harry to overcome injuries and Draco to overcome his rage at watching Harry put his life uselessly in danger yet again? Far longer.

            "You are well, Auror Malfoy?"

            Healer Estillo's voice never held any of the creeping contempt that some other people's did when they addressed him by his title. For that reason alone, Draco could have worked with her. He inclined his head. "Merely waiting for the moment when I need to speak my part of the incantation, Healer," he said.

            Estillo believed him and went back to instructing Harry. She had to regain Harry's attention, though, because Harry was staring at Draco. Draco met Harry's gaze and fluttered his eyelashes in a parody of innocence that made Harry start and flush and glance away.

            Well. Wasn't that interesting?

            Draco twirled his wand beneath his fingers and whistled under his breath, listening to more of Estillo's explanations now. They could be important to saving Harry's life and sanity, and that was what he was doing here: invading the mental bond, and Harry's conversation in vision with Alexander, in the first place to ensure that he came back alive.

            Draco felt the way he did before going into battle, at least if he had some notion of the battle. Alert and relaxed at the same time, ready to burst into motion the moment some enemy leaped at him.

            This was important to him in the way that nothing had been in a long time, unless he counted his expulsion from his family. He had stood his ground then and ignored the multiple temptations to turn his back on his Auror career, including the money his father could offer him, and he would do the same thing now.

            Only now the temptation was--what? To trust Harry too much? To not watch over his mind as he went to talk with Alexander? Draco suspected he would have a hard time defining their shape, even to himself.

            Well. It didn't much matter what they were, not as long as he could fight them. And he would fight them. He would do exactly what he was here to do, and no more: watch over Harry's conversation. He would gain the information about the case they needed and pull Harry out if he thought the conversation was too dangerous.

            And he would not go looking for extra secrets in Harry's mind.

            No matter the temptation.

*

            Having the Legilimency bond anchored in his mind was odd. Harry had the feeling of someone standing by his shoulder with a hand on it, now and then bending down to whisper in his ear. He had to keep himself from turning around as he closed his eyes and tried to think of the best way to contact Alexander.

            Well. He had already been in the vision twice, thanks to the globes, and the second time had seemed much more personal, but also false. Why not build that vision in his mind and see if Alexander would come into it?

            That was a suggestion Healer Estillo had given him, but Harry felt it was the first time it had made sense to him, sense on a level congruent with his bones and his blood. He forced himself to remember the lake and the grass around it from the first vision, and then the house from the second, and how Lionel had sat, and the way Alexander had made his eyes glow, and the tones of his voice...

            With a twisting sensation, he felt something wake up inside him. It could have been a memory of Lionel, it could have been a remnant of magic from the globes, but whatever it was, it catapulted him straight back into the second vision. Once again he sat in the bed and Lionel sat in the chair in front of him.

            The bond that linked his mind to Draco's was still there. Harry took a breath that he hoped Lionel-Alexander wouldn't read as one of relief, and turned to face Lionel.

            The dark eyes were had a glow of tears now. Harry winced, and forced himself to ignore that.

            "Why are you doing this?" he asked Alexander quietly. "Putting one man into a coma and giving others dreams, even intense dreams where you try to persuade them to stay here forever, doesn't make sense. Do you hate the twisted? Do you want to hunt them? Do you want them dead, or free? Tell me."

            Lionel paused, and then said, "I don't know what you're talking about." His mouth moved too stiffly, though, and his voice was the most unlike Lionel's that Harry had heard it be yet.

            "You do," Harry said, and leaned forwards. "And we know that you're targeting people who could be twisted. People who have wandless magic like you, people who could be seen as practicing the Dark Arts if more of the public realized the truth about them. I assume you don't think it's fair that the Socrates Aurors are treated so differently from the rest of the twisted? Is that true?"

            Alexander's eyebrows seemed to flatten out, and his eyes lightened, the color drifting towards brown. "You still have no idea what you're talking about," he said softly, and this time, his voice reminded Harry of a rattlesnake's hiss. "You assume that I want to kill or arrest someone, or see them all free. That's not true. The blood gave me understanding. It taught me what the twisted can do, and it taught me that they could be dangerous."

            Harry nodded. "So you do want to persuade us to stay here in dreams for the rest of our lives?" It was interesting, he thought, that Alexander still refused to refer to himself as a twisted.

            "You do not understand," Alexander said steadfastly. "You are not in danger of becoming a twisted, even though your partner is."

            Harry thought he felt a jerk of anger from the back of his mind, where the bond with Draco hovered. He gritted his teeth and hoped that the movement hadn't revealed Draco to Alexander. So far, his attempts to target Draco had failed. Harry hoped to keep it that way.

            "Whether one becomes a twisted has nothing to do with whether someone has the Dark Mark," he said. "You can't think that I'm better than Auror Malfoy just because I fought Voldemort."

            Alexander blinked. Then he laughed. The sound was childlike, and made Harry wonder what he had been like before he had drunk the undiluted blood.

            "That has nothing to do with it," he said. "You were a threat, and perhaps more than most, because your reputation would hide the madness that would otherwise make you hunted down. But now you are not."

            "I don't intend to stay here in the visions for the rest of my life," Harry said, and tried to keep his voice calm and gentle, so that Alexander would have no reason to attack him. "If you think that, then you don't understand that my life is more than Lionel. Yes, for a long time I felt I would die without him. I don't feel that way now."

            A bolt through the bond at the back of his mind. Harry had no idea why, unless Draco was simply glad to hear him announce that his life didn't revolve around Lionel. He tried to shrug the idea off. Draco didn't have any stake in the matter, either, no right to say that Harry should do certain things.

            He's your partner. He has that much of a stake.

            It didn't mean that he wanted more than that, though. Once again, Harry reminded himself to focus on the danger in front of him and not the one that might be standing in the back of his mind.

            "What makes a twisted?" Alexander snapped, and started to list the characteristics before Harry could respond. "Dark Arts ability. No Healing magic. A flaw--the wandless magic that seems to mark out so many of you. The symbol that's left behind on the sites that the twisted attacks. The companions that follow them slavishly or are called into being by the actions of the twisted."

            "Then you must know that there is a difference even there, between what the official list says and what reality proclaims," Harry murmured. "You are twisted, but you don't have the symbol. You could perhaps say that you don't have some of the other characteristics, either, because you didn't study the Dark Arts for long enough to be driven mad--"

            "I know all about potential twisted." Lionel's face looked fully like Alexander's now, and he bent forwards, flushing with something Harry thought he would probably characterize as righteous fury. "And I've stopped you. I've stopped you. You'll never be dangerous again, because you're stopped."

            Harry blinked. Then he clenched his hands. He had an idea what Alexander meant, although from the way Draco buzzed in the back of his head, he didn't think the realization had reached his partner yet.

            "Your first globe," he whispered. "I felt different when I woke up and cast my first spell after that. You took my ability to see visions of murders from me, didn't you? You plugged up my flaw."

            Alexander smiled, and this time, he looked like a satisfied parent. "Yes," he murmured. "You have no idea what you would have become if I hadn't removed the temptation. But you're safe now. You have to have a flaw to become a twisted. The flaw is what the blood gave me. And once your flaw is gone, you're not going to become a twisted no matter what happens. I haven't got to your partner yet, and the others who were touched by my globes didn't renew the contact or have as much as you, but you're healed. So is Retror. So will the others be."

            Harry shook his head. He felt as though something thick was in the middle of his throat, blocking his words and possibly his breathing.

            He should have seen it before. Of course, since Alexander hadn't tried to murder anyone, there hadn't been a particular need for his visions on this case, and so he might not have missed them until something happened that they should have warned him about.

            But he had felt cleaner, lighter, different in some way, when he cast that first spell after being unconscious. That had meant something. His flaw, Dark magic by definition, was gone.

            "What did you do to Retror?" he asked, because that was still information they needed and he thought he would need time to deal with the implication that someone could simply remove someone else's flaw without further contact than the brush of a globe.

            "His flaw was heightened senses," Alexander said calmly. "I could not remove the flaw without also removing his consciousness. It was very resistant. So he is now in a coma, and he will remain there until the flaw vanishes from his core. Keep him unconscious long enough, and it should happen."

            Harry shook his head. So Alexander was insane in his own way, and whether or not he killed people, still dangerous. "Are you listening to what you're saying? You're practically keeping him lifeless. He might die if he stays under long enough or the flaw never vanishes."

            "But he will not be a twisted," Alexander said. "So he cannot endanger himself or others by the use of the flaw. That is the price we must pay."

            The bond in the back of Harry's head was twanging urgently by now. He didn't know why; all he knew was that Draco hadn't made an attempt to yank him out of the vision yet, which he could have done if he wanted to. So Harry pursued the conversation. "And what are you going to do about your own flaw? I don't think the globes can neutralize you."

            Alexander smiled. "When I am done removing the flaws from every twisted in the world, then my last globe will take away my ability to produce new globes. I know and am looking forward to the end. Do not think you can persuade me to give up my activities before then. I am dangerous, yes, but I will end the danger when I am done."

            Harry hissed. "And what happens if the flaw is something that can help people? I prevented people from dying because of my visions! Or at least took revenge on their murderers for them."

            "It doesn't matter," Alexander said. "You are a twisted. The twisted always end up evil. I plan to keep my own flaw as long as I have to, and then dispose of it. You would continue down the path into darkness, and someday end up as a threat. So you must be stopped. And the same applies to your partner, and all the others who have flaws that could make them into twisted."

            "You'll never locate them all," Harry said quietly. "All the ones who have flaws and never use them, all the ones who have them and never realize it, all the ones who have them and never tell anyone else. And what happens after you're dead? What about the people who will be born then, and not know what twisted are because you've killed them all, and have no effective way to resist their flaws turning them evil?"

            Alexander's smile faltered. Then he said, "I cannot worry about the future. I can only worry about what happens in my own lifetime." But he stared into the corners as though his fears were rats creeping into them.

            Harry snorted. "You seemed pretty bloody concerned about the future a minute ago. What happens if some of the twisted you find are children? How can you identify them all, anyway?"

            "My globes will react--"

            "But someone with a flaw might not touch your globes. And now that the Unspeakables and the Aurors know about them, they can contain you." Harry bent forwards. "It doesn't matter if we get taken off the case, you know, or if the Socrates Corps is dissolved. They'll just hunt you down and kill you with someone else. You'll never succeed. The wizarding world is too big, and there are always other twisted out there, and you're one man."

            Alexander lunged at him, and a globe gleamed in his hand.

            Harry raised a hand in instinctive defense, though he wasn't sure what he would have done had Alexander actually hit him. Instead, the world seemed to dissolve around him in a swirl of colors like the ones inside the globes, and then he was flying through space in the reverse of the twisting sensation that had brought him here.

            Twisting. Twisted. I hope that Draco didn't hear that pun from my thoughts.

            He found himself landing back in Estillo's office before he was ready, and opening his eyes with a gasp. Draco bent over him, holding out his wand, although Harry could see Estillo rising to her feet, probably to cast some of the diagnostic charms Mind-Healers used. They discovered possessions and decided whether the mind was properly located in the body, among other things.

            "You're all right?" Draco's eyes were bright and intent, and his hands sped along above Harry's limbs even before his wand traced them with magic, his head tilted to the side as though he wanted to get all the glimpses of Harry, rather like Estillo before he went into the trance. "You're all right."

            Harry nodded. "I'm not wounded." Then he remembered what Alexander had already done to him, and scowled. "But the bastard took part of my magic away, and I want it back."

            "We have to discover how to recover it, clearly," Draco murmured, and then leaned back in his own chair to let Estillo get to Harry with her magic, but kept staring at Harry.

            "What?" Harry asked, scrubbing at his face and wondering if he had brought some traces back of Alexander after all.

            Draco shook his head, and then began repeating the substance of the conversation to Estillo, probably to fix the concepts in his own head better. Harry leaned back and turned his own thoughts in a new direction.

            The blue-eyed twisted. I wonder if he wants to stop Alexander. He wanted to stop Alto when she was making new twisted. Someone who wants to kill them off, or make them impossible, would probably catch his interest, as well.

            And how in the world am I going to get my flaw back?

*

            Draco was glad that he had learned to detach his brain from his words when he was making Auror reports, and say one thing while thinking about something else entirely different. It gave him the ability, now, to look at Harry and know the truth, while his mind bubbled and surged back and forth inside his skull, and his heart beat as though he was going to run out of the room.

            He had heard Harry's conversation with Alexander, and that was important. But he had also found something else, something he hadn't looked for; he had sensed the thought drifting by and drew it in while waiting for the conversation between Harry and Alexander to turn to answers.

            And the thought concerned him, and it was brightly-colored, and he could not help but read it.

            Harry was in love with him, at least as much as he had been in love with Vane. Or Draco thought so. Or Harry thought so, and had communicated the conviction of his thoughts to Draco.

            And Draco thrummed with silent excitement, endured the occasional puzzled glances that Harry gave him, and pondered what the hell he was going to do with his new knowledge.

*

            SP777: Well, this is maybe simpler than some other things could have been, right?

            And yes, Harry’s visions are important. Just maybe not in the way you might have been expecting.
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This Enchanted Life