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Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3831 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Twelve—A Thundering

            “Master Draco.”

            Draco stared at Kreacher, who had appeared in front of the bed but stood there with his back to him. Draco wondered if Kreacher was trying to arrange a heavy tray of food or something, and couldn’t spare the concentration to glance at him.

            But he started to suspect it was more than that when Kreacher kept his back turned. He did arrange a tray, but it was a small one and contained toast and tea and other kinds of food that you would feed an invalid. He floated it to Draco’s lap without looking at him and without coming over to arrange things neatly, fussily, the way he liked to do.

            “Kreacher?” Draco asked, then winced and touched his throat. It felt as though he’d been screaming. He recognized the effect as one of the things that sometimes happened when one used powerful necromantic magic, but he didn’t know if Kreacher knew that, too, and disapproved of him using it, or if something else had happened.

            “Where’s Harry?” he asked, sitting up and bending over his tray. The tea smelled delicious, but he had to sip it slowly, letting the scalding liquid travel down his half-burned throat without undue fuss.

            “Master Harry is being translating the bloody letters.” Kreacher answered sullenly, keeping his head bowed. He was cleaning a faucet that looked like it had come out of the bathroom, Draco saw, finally angling his body around enough to peer at Kreacher’s work. He had no doubt Kreacher could replace it just like he’d taken it out, but he was surprised that Kreacher was tending to that instead of his human charges.

            “And you didn’t go with him?” Draco asked, when the words caught up with his brain. He put down his teacup and frowned at Kreacher’s back. “He shouldn’t be alone when he’s doing that. We don’t know how the letters affect his mind, yet.”

            “Oh, Master Harry is being safe and fine,” Kreacher told the wall, and straightened up as though he wanted to throw the faucet handle he held. A moment later, he was bending over it again, scrubbing it more industriously than ever. “Just like Master Draco is being safe and fine when he be using dangerous Dark magic in a dangerous place!” His voice soared, and he finally whipped around to face Draco.

            Draco blinked when he realized that Kreacher’s eyes were full of tears, and drops of snot clung to his nose as he sniffled. “Kreacher, what’s the matter?” he asked helplessly. “I thought you wanted to come with us and be here.”

            “Kreacher did not wants to be coming here to see masters doom themselves!” Kreacher stamped his foot, and the walls shook. “Kreacher did not wants to be coming here to tend to corpses!” He pushed his hands through the mess on his face with a squelching noise, wavered, and burst out howling.

            “I didn’t do anything that would doom myself,” Draco said, deciding he could do the most with a soft, cold voice. He turned back to his meal. His tea had cooled, but he didn’t want to try a Warming Charm right now. There was a fragility to the bones in his hand that warned him off magic. “I used a spell that should show us something about the bones we found. I don’t know everything about the vision yet, but I will.”

            “Master Draco was usings death magic in a death magic room,” Kreacher said, not loud, but low enough that Draco thought he felt the walls shake. “Master Draco is beings a much more stupid master than Kreacher was being thinking!”

            He almost screamed the last words, and this time, Draco did wince. He lowered his tray and sat there, though, partially because he thought it was the best way to get Kreacher’s attention back and partially because he didn’t know what else he should do.

            “What do you mean by death magic, and a death magic room? That was a necromancy spell, but it’s not the same as doing actual necromancy.” Draco thought of trying to explain that remark further, but decided that he didn’t really need to, and he wasn’t going to try. If Kreacher had never seen Macgeorge in the full thrall of her gift, then he wouldn’t understand, anyway.

            “Death magic is death magic,” Kreacher said, in what was probably the most unhelpful thing that Draco had ever heard him say. “And a death magic room is a room of death magic.”

            Draco sighed and picked up the nearest piece of toast. “Why don’t you go and look after Harry? I’m fine here, and I’m not going to get up and go anywhere.”

            The dubious expression Kreacher gave Draco made him want to laugh, but also pissed him off. He took a long bite of toast, a long sip of tea, and leaned back on his pillow, turning his head away.

            Kreacher sniffed and vanished. Draco exhaled, keeping his eyes on the wall. First Harry had almost held him back from performing that spell, and now Kreacher thought it was a bad idea. But how else were they supposed to discover the truth about Ernhardt?

            And Draco refused to feel sorry for the bastard. He refused. He would learn what had happened, and perhaps there would be another name to track down through the Ministry archives—as there already was—but there would be no sympathy for Ernhardt. He had wrought too much havoc, and for what? Fear, and the chance to dominate. Not even as principled a stand as Draco’s parents were trying to make.

            Former parents, he had to remind himself, since they wouldn’t know.

            That ached more than he expected, but the ache was also already dulling.

*

            Harry bent over the corner of the wall and frowned at it. Was there a bloody letter there? It looked as if there once had been, but also as though someone had scrubbed it off. Harry rubbed his finger along the wall above it and shook his head. He wouldn’t get anything done by standing here, and Draco was better at reading the letters than he was. Harry had really come out to do it so that he would accomplish something other than just hanging around above Draco’s bed all day.

            “Master Harry is beings all right?”

            Harry started and turned around. He didn’t know why Kreacher’s voice startled him so much, when the sound of him popping in didn’t, but he had to catch his balance against the wall for a second. “Is Draco awake?” he asked. “I told you to leave him only if he was awake.”

            Kreacher sniffed and wiped at his face. It looked as though he had been crying, Harry thought, and that was so strange that he started to open his mouth to ask what had happened. But Kreacher spoke before he could. “Master Draco is beings awake, and is being eating, and is not seeing what he did wrong.”

            “That spell he cast?” Harry made his way down the corridor until he stood beside Kreacher, who stared fiercely at the bloody letter that looked as if it had been rubbed away. “I knew it was a bad one.”

            “It be weakening Master Draco,” Kreacher whispered fiercely. “It still be.”

            Harry blinked and stood up. He had thought the spell making Draco faint and lie in a coma-like sleep for a few hours was bad enough, but this was something new. No wonder Kreacher had looked so upset when Harry told him what had happened. “How do you know that?” Kreacher cast him a dire look that seemed to speak of all the years he’d been around Dark magic, and Harry winced and raised a hand. “Right, sorry. What I mean is, what is it doing to him? How can we stop it?”

            “It be hurting his throat,” Kreacher said, with a little sniff, as though he acknowledged Harry’s right to care about Draco after all. “And it be draining his magic. He be getting physically weaker.” He turned and faced Harry, his ears up. “Unless it be stopping.”

            “How do I stop it?” Harry thought he had already asked that question, but apparently not loudly enough for Kreacher, who cocked his head and looked at him with eyes that glittered as though they were made of black diamonds.

            “Yous must be casting a different kind of spell,” Kreacher whispered. “A healing spell that be combining with the death magic in Master Draco and be yanking it out.”

            Harry was about to say that he was pants at healing spells, but it was true that he wasn’t as bad as a true twisted, and he would do anything to save Draco. He nodded. “Fine. Teach me the spell, or show me the book where I can learn it.”

            Kreacher bowed and said, “Kreacher be bringing Master Harry the book. Master Harry is to be returning to Master Draco now.” And he vanished with what looked like an expression of relief on his face.

            Harry shook his head as he hurried back to Draco. He wondered why Kreacher hadn’t just brought the book earlier and shown him the spell and told him that Draco needed his help, but he supposed it was against a house-elf’s instincts or something. Or maybe Kreacher was prohibited from speaking to wizards that directly.

            Hermione would tell me that I know too little about house-elves, especially when I didn’t even realize Kreacher could follow us to Cuthbert’s Corner.

            Harry felt his heart squeeze. At the moment, he would give a great deal to hear Hermione tell him anything, even that he didn’t know enough about Kreacher and should make some effort to learn.

            But he knew when he became part of the Socrates Corps, let alone when he went on the run, that he couldn’t rely as much on his friends, because there were things he could never tell them. That was for later, when Harry would make sure they were part of the audience for the grand exposure at the Ministry.

            He buried those thoughts and stepped into the bedroom, where Draco lay shivering and curled under all the blankets he could find, and settled down at his side, waiting for the time when Kreacher would bring the book and he could start on the spell.

*



            This time, at least Draco wasn’t alone and wasn’t with a house-elf when he woke up, which was an improvement on the last time. He opened his eyes and turned his head slowly, though, feeling achy and hot and out of sorts.

            “Draco?” Harry’s voice was soft, and he leaned forwards to place one hand on Draco’s forehead. Draco turned his head, mouth gaping open despite himself, tongue reaching for Harry’s hand. Harry let him lick his palm, but his expression, what Draco could see of it, remained so worried that Draco knew he wouldn’t get the reaction he wanted. “Kreacher brought me a book and told me about a spell I should perform to release you from the effects of the necromancy. Do you want to do it now, or do you want to wait?”

            Kreacher’s voice rose, shrill, from the end of Draco’s bed. “Master Harry be performing it right now! Master Draco is getting worse!”

            “I don’t feel good,” Draco whispered, and pouted. That had sometimes got him what he wanted from his parents, and although Harry was a long way from either of them, Draco thought it was worth trying. “I want to wait and see how I feel tomorrow.” He turned over under the blankets, and shivered, then frowned. Why did he want the blankets when he felt as though the sun was shining on him? He kicked to get them off, but they didn’t come off. They must have been piled on top of him, he thought.

            “You have a fever,” Harry said quietly. “And what we can learn from the bones isn’t as important as saving you.”

            Draco turned over and blinked at him. “But that’s the usual effect of this kind of spell,” he said, proud of himself for getting that many words out all in a row without spluttering. “The spell can tell me more about the bones, but I have to pass through a fever first. To—enlightenment.” That word was unexpectedly difficult to remember, and he frowned and shook his head.

            “I don’t care if it’s the usual effect of this kind of spell.” Harry’s eyes glittered with such coldness that Draco found himself tempted to creep back under the blankets after all. “Nothing is more important than your life.”

            Draco swallowed, and took one hand out from under the blanket-cocoon, after a little trouble, to hang onto Harry’s. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I can’t remember the last time anyone said that to me—”

            Harry squeezed his wrist once and released it, his eyes alight with something that might have been good humor. “Good. You deserve to hear it more often, though. Now.” He took a step back and breathed a few times, then added, “It’s a healing spell, and you know I’m not good with those.”

            “Right,” Draco said, with a vigorous nod that a moment later he worried he shouldn’t have done, because it made his head hurt. He cradled it with one hand on his brow and shut his eyes. “Because you kept having to go to St. Mungo’s, and then they got you banned.”

            “There were other reasons, but yeah, that’s one of them.” Harry’s smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes. Draco wanted to reach out and smooth the furrow of worry from his brow, but Harry moved back from the bed before he could, and picked up an old, black leather book, with cracks in the binding all the way to the edge of the pages. When he flicked it open, Draco could see torn pages inside, too.

            “I’m going to do my best to cast the spell and not hurt you,” Harry continued softly, his eyes fastened on Draco as though he was the center of the universe. Draco had to admit that he liked the feeling, and he fell back in the bed, smiling, and decided that it wouldn’t be horrible to have someone care for him like that.

            If Harry could do it and cast the spell at the same time. Draco, anxious again, strained his neck, but Harry had circled around behind the bed, and Draco couldn’t see him anymore.

            Harry said nothing for long moments, but Draco knew he was there because of the sound of flipping pages. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Kreacher muttered something from the bottom of the bed, where he still hovered, but Draco didn’t have any attention to spare for him at the moment. He was too busy trying to reason out the incantation he could hear Harry practicing under his breath now.

            Then Harry walked around to the front of the bed again, and Draco opened his eyes so they could look each other in the face. Harry appeared worried enough to be holding his breath, but his face relaxed despite himself when he met Draco’s gaze.

            “It’ll be all right,” he said, and the words seemed to pass into Draco, to clean up some of his fever, and to be a safe anchor that he and the bed could both cling to. Draco found himself nodding without being sure what he’d agreed to.

            Harry fell back one pace, eyes on the book. Then he cleared his throat one more time and began, the sound light but piercing.

            “Animum eluo, mentem eluo, cordem eluo…”

            Draco didn’t think some of the words were being pronounced correctly, and Harry’s voice seemed to be speaking into his head at the same time as it was speaking outside it, saying, I’ve always been pants at healing spells.

            Draco tried to say that maybe they should wait, or Harry should summon Warren and Jenkins, or Kreacher should perform the spell. But there were barriers to all of that that he couldn’t remember, some reason no other solution could work, and his throat worked open and shut on the air without producing sound.

            Meanwhile, seemingly unaffected by the fact that he was also communicating with Draco on a telepathic level, Harry continued chanting.

            “Animum detergeo, mentem detergeo, cordem detergeo…”

            It was too hot. Draco kicked off the blankets on him, and even his eyes felt too hot where his eyelids were covering them, so he turned his head and opened them. That made the room spin for long seconds before it settled. Even when he thought he knew what he was seeing, he still wasn’t really sure.

            Harry stood there with the book balanced on one arm like some kind of evil hawk and his wand extended. A blue, shimmering arch of light was growing up between the book and his wand, and stretching towards the bed to encompass Draco. Other than the color, which was different, it looked like the mist that had formed the pictures Draco had summoned from the bones.

            And then he remembered what was wrong about what Harry was doing, and the reason he couldn’t be allowed to complete it. The bones had told them part of the story of Ernhardt, but they hadn’t taught him the whole thing. If Harry was allowed to cast this spell on Draco the way he wanted, then he would lose the ability to understand the pictures, and he would have to cast the spell all over again.

            Or, worse, leave the story unknown.

            “No, Harry,” he pleaded, hardly able to listen to the words leaving his mouth, because he had always hated begging. Even when he was a child and he knew he had to beg his parents to buy him something or get him something, he had always held out as long as he could. But now he had no parents, and no family, and only Harry to support and depend on.

            If Harry deserted him, if Harry didn’t listen to him, then what would he have left?

            “Harry, please don’t do this. Harry, please.” Draco knew his voice was rising to shrill levels, but so far, there was no sign that Harry was listening to him. The arch moved closer and closer to the bed, and soon it would stretch out and lay itself down over Draco like a net, and it would close up his throat, it would choke off his voice, it would—

            Choking, Draco lunged to the side of the bed, but strong, rubbery hands caught and held him. Draco turned his head and stared into Kreacher’s eyes. It looked as though Kreacher was crying, but he didn’t move from holding Draco still.

            “Master Draco be sick,” he whispered. “Master Harry be helping.”

            Draco could feel himself spinning, falling, tumbling down a long, dark tunnel that he had never thought he would fall down, not once he became Harry’s partner. He would always have someone who supported him, who loved him, there to count on, if only he listened to Harry and loved Harry.

            But instead, Harry had turned against him, and made the blackest fear in Draco’s heart come true.

            He threw his head back and screamed.

*

            Harry wanted to step back and fling the book down when he heard Draco start pleading. He wanted to run from the room, run to the bed, beg forgiveness, throw up.

            Maybe because he wanted so many conflicting things, he kept hold of the book and kept chanting almost by reflex, and the spell reached out and folded itself around Draco as Harry pronounced the last words.

            “Eluo! Detergeo!”

            The blue light meant that Harry couldn’t hear Draco’s voice anymore once the spell was wrapped around Draco’s head and shoulders, and the scream abruptly cut off. Harry flexed his hands and dropped the bloody book next to the bed. Then he ran around it to take Kreacher’s place, and Kreacher moved out of the way with a stern glance at him. Harry didn’t know whether the glance was meant to tell him not to disrupt the healing or not to hurt Draco further, and he didn’t care. He’d either done too much or not enough. It didn’t seem possible that things were going to come out all right.

            So he held onto Draco’s hands and watched the blue light washing over him in trembling but regular waves, starting at his feet and wavering up to his head. Soon, it began to concentrate on his throat, and a writhing little knot of cerulean snakes gathered there. Harry swallowed and tried not to hope, because that seemed like it would be a bad idea at this point.

            Something else began to rise out of Draco’s throat, piercing the skin. Harry opened his mouth, sure it was a bone, and then realized the dead white color wasn’t the only thing that marked the rising object. It was also transparent, and Draco had stopped screaming, his mouth frozen open. Harry grabbed his hands and began to murmur reassurance, uncaring whether Draco could hear him or not.

            “I’m here. I promise that I’ll never do anything like this to you again. I’ll always discuss this with you first. I won’t let you cast the spell in the first place, and then you won’t need healing like this. I won’t listen to Kreacher so blindly…”

            But Draco was beyond hearing him, and the blue light collected, and collected, and collected, until Harry almost lost the transparent thing swarming out of Draco in all the brilliance. Then there was a soundless explosion.

            Harry expected it to fling him against the wall, away from Draco, but instead he just felt it down his arms and in his heart, thick and so strong that he shuddered and screamed himself. And then it was gone, and the blue light was gone, and Draco lay breathing softly on the bed.

            Harry stood up, still holding Draco’s hands, and glanced at Kreacher. “Whatever was tormenting him is gone?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. “The spell?”

            Kreacher glanced back and forth from Harry to Draco as though he didn’t want to give the answer, and finally nodded. “The spell is being gone,” he said, and bowed, his ears drooping a little. “But Master Harry be hurting Master Draco a great deal to make it happen.”

            “I know,” Harry said, and bent over to kiss Draco. Even that didn’t wake him up, though he stirred a little and rolled over as though he would welcome Harry’s presence in his bed. “But I’ll make it up to him.”

            Kreacher sniffed. “Master Harry had better.”

            Kreacher can be a scary little bastard when he wants, Harry thought, but he doubted that anything would ever again be as scary as watching that transparent bone rising up from Draco’s throat. Or having to be the one who made it rise.

            He curled up on the bed next to Draco and leaned his head on Draco’s shoulder, closing his eyes. He supposed he should be up and doing things, tracking the bloody letters or trying to find out more about Ernhardt, but he’d had to damage his lover today. Everything else could wait.

*

            SP777: Draco would have hightailed it if he knew. Harry, maybe not, since at that point he was so involved in his grief for Lionel that everything else seemed to pale in comparison.

            And yes, Draco would kill for Harry. But yes, Harry gets on his nerves. Of course, the experience is mutual, really. ;)
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Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity